Freefall by Jill Sorenson Page B

pebbles scraping beneath booted feet.
    They weren’t alone.

CHAPTER EIGHT
    J AVIER DIDN ’ T KNOW what to do with Faith.
    His decision to bail overboard and feign injury had been made in haste. He assumed that the authorities were looking for him. They might have been trying to contact Ron with a warning on his radio. Ron probably wouldn’t have been stupid enough to confront him, but nervous people did crazy things.
    Javier’s larger concern was Gonzales. After seeing his boss’s helicopter, every instinct told him it was time to run.
    What he hadn’t anticipated was Faith volunteering to hike with him. He would have preferred Caleb. The guy had proven himself to be less of a puto than he appeared, but Javier would’ve had no problem cracking his skull with a rock.
    He couldn’t do that to Faith. He was reluctant to pull his gun and scare her off. She might get hurt or lost, alone in the wilderness.
    Her sister, the park ranger, complicated matters. He wouldn’t shoot a woman by choice, but neither would he surrender without a fight. Being captured meant certain death, whether he was convicted here or deported to a Venezuelan prison. No one who betrayed Gonzales’s crew was safe behind bars.
    Ahead of him, Faith paused to adjust her pack. They’d both changed into warmer clothes after the clouds rolled in. Her snug sweatpants had hearts on the back pockets. She was a hot little piece, but being sexy didn’t make her dumb. Sooner or later, she’d figure out that he was the man her sister had been tracking.
    She was already tired, and they’d only gone five miles. She couldn’t hike for a damn. And she was wary of him. Since watching him pop his shoulder back in, she’d cut out all of the cutesy flirting and naughty innuendoes.
    They were headed toward Moraine Lake, which was still his best bet for escape, but their progress was slow. His shoulder socket ached. He hadn’t dislocated it on purpose since he was a teenager. Right now he was feeling every one of his twenty-nine years.
    The helicopter reappeared suddenly. They were walking through a canyon, close to the riverbed, so the sound of the approaching craft was muted. An open meadow stretched out before them, peaceful and deadly.
    Javier almost didn’t have a chance to stop Faith from running headfirst into danger. He grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her the opposite direction, into the dense forest. Flattening her back against a tree, he trapped her there, pressing his forearm against her collarbone. Before she could speak, he crushed his hand over her mouth.
    He didn’t expect her to cooperate, so the sharp teeth biting into his palm wasn’t a complete surprise. Ignoring the pain, he kept her as still as possible, his heart thumping a wild tattoo against hers.
    As soon as the helicopter passed, he relaxed his grip.
    “What the hell?” she spat.
    He glanced at the crescent mark on his palm. No blood, but it would bruise. “You bite hard.”
    “Why did you do that?”
    “I thought you were going to wave the helicopter down.”
    “I was, jackass. We need help.”
    “No, we don’t. My shoulder doesn’t even hurt that much.”
    “Great,” she said, shrugging out of the heavy backpack. “You can carry this.”
    He accepted the challenge without complaint, moving the strap gingerly over his left arm. “Those guys might have been drug smugglers.”
    She studied the empty meadow, a pulse fluttering in her throat.
    “I’m sorry I grabbed you like that. I just...had a bad feeling about it.”
    Her gaze returned to his, quiet and assessing. No, she wasn’t dumb. There was a hint of distrust in her eyes. As long as he continued to protect her, she’d probably stick by him. Her only other choice was to hike alone.
    Even if she wanted to take off, he couldn’t let her wander through the woods by herself. Not when she could be intercepted by the enemy. Gonzales wasn’t just looking for the cargo at this point. They were searching for Javier,