Escape from Cabriz

“Do what?” Zachary retorted, all innocence. A stream flowed a few yards ahead, shining like a silver ribbon in the night.

“Why do you always make me out to be so damn naive? I happen to have a degree in journalism, you know, and I’ve been all over the world on professional assignments!”

While the horses drank, Zachary turned to Kristin, his nose less than an inch from hers. “Some assignments—you took pictures of embassy parties and wrote cutesy articles to go along with them. And as for this little adventure, you came halfway around the globe to marry a prince who already has half a dozen wives, in a country that’s been teetering on the edge of disaster for ten years, and then you have the gall to stand there and ask me why I think you’re naive?”

Kristin stepped back, strung, and would have fallen if Zachary hadn’t been so quick to reach out and steady her. She blinked, unable to refute the charge that her job with Savoir Faire had amounted to little more than writing the occasional society column. “I didn’t know about the wives.”

Zachary let her go. “In fifteen minutes,” he said, “you’ll have convinced yourself there were never any wives. Well, you have it your way, your ladyship. You’ve always arranged the world to suit your perceptions, anyhow. Why should this be any different?”

“You’re being cruel, Zachary. I’m not trying to deny that I made a mistake.”

“A mistake? Sweetheart, you’ve made a dozen. Why did you think all those women were hanging around? Did you have them pegged as members of the palace sewing circle?”

Kristin’s eyes brimmed with tears and she whirled to walk away, but Zachary reached out and caught hold of her arm, turning her back to face him with surprising gentleness.

“Kristin, I’m sorry,” he said softly. Unwillingly.

Kristin bit down hard on her lower lip.

Zachary touched her cheek, brushed away a tear with the edge of his thumb. “Don’t cry, princess.”

When Kristin didn’t respond, he released her and turned back to the horses. She walked a little way upstream and knelt down to splash clear, icy water onto her face.

It restored her a little, and when she joined Zachary in the clearing she was almost her old self. He tied the horses where they could graze, then knelt beside her and took a bedroll from her backpack.

“It’s going to get cold tonight,” he said as he zipped his sleeping bag and Kristin’s together.

Kristin’s eyes widened. “You mean we’re sleeping in the same bag?”

Zachary gave her one of his impatient looks. “It’s not like we’ve never shared a bed,” he pointed out.

Kristin’s mind filled with sweet, fiery and completely unwanted memories at the prospect. “But we’re not—we were involved then.”

“Relax, your ladyship. I don’t intend to touch you.”

Chilled, not only by the night wind but by the timbre of Zachary’s voice, Kristin shivered. “I’m hungry,” she said.

He reached for one of the backpacks again. “I’ll get you something. Take your clothes off and get into the sleeping bag.”

Kristin had been unlacing one of her clunky hiking boots, but she stopped cold. “You expect me to strip? In your dreams, Zachary Harmon.”

Holding a package of something in one hand, he turned his broad and singularly imperious back. “Get undressed,” he reiterated. “If you don’t, your clothes will draw moisture and you’ll end up with pneumonia.”

Kristin studied his back, trying to decide whether he was telling the truth or not. “If you’re lying to me—”

He turned to face her, tossed the small package into her lap and took off his hat. The moonlight shimmered in his rumpled brown hair. “I’ve never lied to you in my life,” he said. And he unzipped his jacket and laid it aside, then pulled his shirt out of his jeans and began to unbutton it.

Kristin’s cheeks felt as though they’d caught fire, and she dropped her eyes. “All right,” she said. “I’ll take off my clothes. But you have to look the other way until I tell you it’s okay.”

He turned away in a leisurely fashion, and Kristin heard a slight clinking sound as he unfastened his belt buckle. “Were you this shy with the prince?”

Kristin wasn’t about to dignify that question with an answer. She took off her hiking boots and socks, then the odd, rough-spun pajamas. Beneath them she was naked, and she practically dived into the double sleeping bag, pulling the top up to her chin and huddling as far as she could to one side.

She squeezed her eyes tightly shut when Zachary slid into the bag beside her, but she could feel the heat of his body, and she was awash in memories of other nights.

“I thought you were hungry,” Zachary remarked.

She opened her eyes and felt around on top of the sleeping bag for the packet he’d given her earlier. “I am,” she said. The stars seemed to crowd around the moon, determined to outshine it.

Instead of the packet she found rock-hard thigh, which she released instantly.

Zachary laughed. “Here,” he said, dangling the packet in front of her face.

Kristin snatched it out of his hand and sat up so rapidly that the sleeping bag nearly slipped down to reveal her bare breasts. She held on to her virtue with one hand and used her teeth to tear open the little bag.

Inside were roasted peanuts, and Kristin gobbled them down, thinking sadly of the spicy, scrumptious meals that were served at the palace.

When she was finished she lay down again. “I wish I could floss.”

“Thank you for sharing that,” Zachary replied in a sleepy voice.

She resisted a fundamental urge to nestle close to him, not for love but for protection. Her voice was small. “Zachary?”

“Hmm?”

“Are there wild animals in the woods?”

“Umm-hmm.”

“Suppose they come after us? I mean, since we don’t have a fire or anything—”

Zachary yawned. “Between the two of us, princess, we ought to be able fend off a squirrel attack. Now quit talking and go to sleep—tomorrow’s going to be a hard day.”

Kristin wriggled farther inside the bag. It was made of some kind of space-age material; although it was thin and light, she was perfectly warm. The ground was a little hard, though. “What do you suppose Jascha’s doing right now?”

“Planning our executions. Go to sleep, Kristin.”

She closed her eyes, but sleep was elusive. Every sound in the woods seemed to be magnified. “I left my camera at the palace,” she said with real despair.

Zachary rolled onto his side, turning his back to her. She saw the familiar mole between his shoulder blades and barely resisted the urge to touch it with the tip of one finger.

“Next time I carry you out of a prince’s bedroom,” he said between yawns, “I’ll give you a chance to pack a few things first.”

The urge to touch Zachary’s mole was replaced by one to give him a kidney punch. “I had taken some very important pictures,” she told him, struggling to keep her voice even.

His reply was a theatrical snore.

Kristin rolled onto her stomach in a vain effort to get comfortable, and burrowed down deep into the bag. She fully intended to cry, feeling she had every right after the day she’d put in, but she was too tired. In five seconds she was asleep.

She awakened hours later, in the depths of the night, to find herself cuddled close to Zachary, enfolded in his strong arms. For just a few moments she thought she was back in their apartment, that their breakup had never taken place.

She sighed softly and ran one hand along his muscular thigh; he stirred in his sleep and spread one hand over her bottom, fitting her against him. The size and power of him jolted her back to reality and she jerked away, reaching blindly for her clothes, ready to spend the night sitting bolt upright if it came to that.

But Zachary caught hold of her wrist and stayed her efforts. “You’re not going anywhere,” he said clearly.

Kristin knew she couldn’t fight him; her strength didn’t begin to compare with his. If he were to imprison her under his weight and take her, there wouldn’t be a thing she could do to stop him.

She was horrified when a thrill of pure lust moved through her, leaving her to shudder in its wake. The words came out of her mouth before she could stop them. “Make love to me, Zachary.”

His reply was like a slap in the face. “Not in a million years, princess. I don’t travel in your social circles.”

Kristin didn’t know who she hated more—Zachary for cutting her to emotional ribbons or herself for inviting the intolerable, crushing pain of his rejection. To make her humiliation complete, she began to cry.

“Oh, damn,” she sobbed miserably. “Damn!”

To her utter surprise, Zachary took her into his arms and held her close. “Go ahead and cry,” he said raggedly, his lips moving against her temple. “If anybody’s earned the right, it’s you.”

“I’m not crying because you wouldn’t make love to me!” Kristin wailed, clinging to her pride even in the depths of indignity. “Don’t you dare think that I am!”

He chuckled and laid a light kiss on her hair. “Whatever you say, princess.”

She cried until her grief was spent, her head resting on Zachary’s shoulder. Then she hiccuped. “Is there somebody—are you—?”

“No,” Zachary answered. “I’m not involved with any particular woman.” He patted her bare bottom lightly.

She swallowed. She didn’t know why it was important to tell Zachary, but it was. “I never slept with Jascha,” she said softly. “In fact, there was never anybody but you.”

He didn’t reply, and Kristin couldn’t decide whether he didn’t believe her or he’d fallen asleep again. And she was afraid to find out.

Pure exhaustion rendered her unconscious in the next few moments, and she awakened, hours later, to find herself alone in the sleeping bag. Zachary was up and dressed, and he tossed her another packet the moment she sat up.

“Here’s your breakfast,” he said cheerfully.

Kristin looked at the packaged food with a baleful expression. “What is it?”

“Dried fruit. Keep your chin up, princess. Tonight we sleep in a cabin, with a real fire on the hearth.” He threw Kristin her clothes and calmly led the horses toward the stream.

3

Kristin held on grimly as her horse plodded along behind Zachary’s, scaling hillsides so steep that only scrub brush grew there. She would have given her passport for a cup of hot coffee and a powdered sugar doughnut. If she’d still had her passport—it was back at the palace, with her camera and journal and other personal possessions.

She tilted her head back, saw that the sky had turned the color of charcoal.

“Aren’t we sort of out in the open?” she called after Zachary, mainly to make conversation. She was much too tired to be alarmed.

“Yes,” he answered, “so hurry it up.”

Resentment simmered in Kristin’s cheeks as she spurred the panting horse. After all, she hadn’t been the one to pick this route. If it had been up to her, they would have left the country in an airliner, or a helicopter at the very least. Before she could frame a retort, however, a blood-freezing ping rang in the air.

Zachary yelled something, and Kristin’s horse took off at a breakneck pace with no urging from her. She very nearly fell off, and in her mind she saw herself rolling end over end down the slope, backpack and all.

They gained a grassy plateau, with trees, and once he was certain Kristin was safe Zachary leaped off his horse and crept back to the edge of the slope with a formidable pistol grasped in one hand.

“Who are they?” Kristin asked, crawling up beside him as she’d seen soldiers and cowboys do in movies.

Zachary’s eyes were narrowed as he surveyed the apparently empty countryside. “Rebels,” he speculated with a shrug of one shoulder, “or maybe bandits.”

Kristin shivered. “You mean we have to worry about crooks, besides rebels and Jascha’s soldiers?”

“Stay back,” he growled, still scanning the wooded area at the base of the steep incline they’d just climbed.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Excuse me,” was the brusque response as he checked the chamber of the pistol and then produced more bullets from his jacket pocket and thrust them into place with a practiced thumb, “but I’m a little busy at the moment. Maybe we could chat later.”

Kristin was about to accuse him of being ridiculous when a second bullet struck the ground not half a dozen feet from where they lay. She scooted closer to Zachary. “I’m scared,” she whispered.

“Smart girl,” Zachary answered, drawing a bead on something at the edge of the woods. “The good news is, these guys are either lousy shots or they don’t want to hit us. We were vulnerable as ducks in a rain barrel while we were climbing the hillside.”

Just as Kristin was about to comment, he squeezed the trigger, and the explosion seemed deafening. She covered her ears with both hands and moved closer still to Zachary’s side. “Did you hit anything?” she asked, peering toward the trees.

“Probably not. I just want them to know we’re prepared to fight back—sometimes that’s enough.”

“Don’t you have binoculars or something?” Kristin queried, watching Zachary squint. She wished she had her camera.

“That would be a great idea, princess,” he answered with a long-suffering sigh. “Then they could pinpoint us by the reflection off the glass and blow us to little quivering pieces.”

Kristin shuddered. “You don’t need to be so graphic.”

“Start moving backward, toward the horses,” Zachary ordered. “And don’t stick that sweet little rear end of yours up in the air. You’re liable to get it shot off if you do.”

She obeyed, but only because it was a matter of life and death. “I suppose this means we can’t have a fire at lunchtime,” she lamented as she wriggled along the ground like an earthworm in reverse.

“It means we may not live till lunchtime,” Zachary replied.

When they were a good thirty feet away from the edge, he rose to a crouching position, one hand splayed on Kristin’s back to keep her down. When no shots were fired, he released her.

“Stay as low as you can until you get to the trees,” he said.

Kristin was trembling, but she did as she was told. Her clothes were covered with dirt now, and her hair was all atangle around her face. She thought with yearning of her makeup case, and her toothbrush, and a big bathtub filled with steaming, scented water.

Only moments had passed when they mounted their skittish horses, but they seemed like hours to Kristin.

“Ride ahead,” Zachary told her.

She knew he was protecting her, but it was little comfort. Surely there were easier, safer ways out of the country. “Are they gone?” she asked. “The people who were shooting at us, I mean?”

“Probably,” Zachary answered. But he was obviously on the alert.

At noon they stopped by a stream to water the horses and rest. Zachary produced two more packets of food, this time little pieces of dried meat.

Kristin sat on a log and gobbled down her share, too hungry to complain. “Do they have McDonald’s in Rhaos?” she asked as Zachary, having finished his meal, rummaged through his backpack.

He chucked. “Not yet,” he answered. “But I’m sure they’re working on it.” To her wonder and delight he brought out a new toothbrush, still in its box, and a little travel-size tube of toothpaste.

Kristin accepted them eagerly. “I don’t suppose you have soap?” she asked in a hopeful voice, kneeling by the clean stream, taking the brush from its package and dipping the bristles in the water.

He grinned. “It just so happens that I do. But you won’t need it until later.”

Kristin was too busy brushing her teeth to comment. It felt glorious to have her mouth clean and fresh again. When she was finished, she put the toothbrush carefully back into its box and tucked it, along with the tube of paste, into the pocket of her jacket.

“Do you think those guys are still following us?” she asked.

Zachary shrugged. “I don’t know. They may have decided we weren’t worth the trouble.”

“So they probably weren’t soldiers.”

He shook his head. “No. Soldiers would have surrounded us—probably without firing a shot.”

Kristin shook off the horrifying thought. “How do you know they’re not going to do that, in an hour, or this afternoon, or tomorrow?”

“I don’t,” was the blunt reply.

When the horses had rested, eaten a little of the lush grass growing along the stream bank and had their fill of water, Zachary helped Kristin back into the saddle and they set out again. The two of them rode side by side, keeping to the edges of meadows and clearings. Thankfully, they didn’t encounter another hillside, but Kristin knew it was only a matter of time.

“I think it’s remarkable,” she said once in an effort to start some kind of civil interchange with Zachary, “that this part of the country is forested, while the southern section is practically all jungle.”

“It’s a weird place,” Zachary allowed, not so much as glancing in her direction. His eyes moved constantly in this direction and that, like those of a Secret Service agent protecting a high government official.

Not that Kristin thought he had any particular regard for her. He was just doing his job, that was all.

Near nightfall they came to a little hut nestled into the crook of a canyon. The place looked uninhabited, but there was wood piled along one tilting outside wall, and a crooked chimney jutted from the warped roof.

“How did you know about this place?” Kristin asked, getting down from the horse on her own even though she nearly stumbled under the weight of the backpack while doing it.

With a self-confident grin, Zachary unfastened her pack and lifted it away, setting her free. He was standing close, and Kristin felt as though her insides had suddenly been magnetized to his. Her mind gave the command to retreat, but her legs didn’t move. She simply stood there, looking up at Zachary and remembering all the times he’d turned her inside out, whether in bed or elsewhere.

He removed his own pack and tossed it aside, his wicked hazel eyes never leaving her face. There was an insolent confidence in his expression but, for the life of her, Kristin could neither move nor speak to thwart him. The old feelings had all come back in force, and it was as though no time at all had passed, as though no wounds had been dealt.

She knew that if he took her then and there, she wouldn’t have the strength to object.

It seemed the entire world had shifted to slow motion, with only Kristin’s rebellious heart beating a speedy rhythm. Zachary’s hands cupped the sides of her face, his thumbs moving gently over her skin. Then he lifted her chin.

She saw his mouth descending toward hers and gave a little whimper, but that was all the protest she could manage. Perhaps, she thought wildly, it had not been a protest at all, but eager submission.

Every subtle injury he’d done her was healed in those moments, at least temporarily, and Kristin would have given her soul to be part of him again.

Everything within Kristin focused on the sensation of his lips touching hers. She felt as if she were standing in a mud puddle, gripping an electric fence with both hands.

His tongue caressed, then parted her lips and boldly explored. Heat surged through her, and her clothes might have been aflame, she was so warm. Her hands ached to tear them off.

He lifted her, without breaking the kiss, and her legs automatically wrapped around his hips, clutching him tightly. This, too, was a part of the familiar pattern between them, one that could have stretched back over other lifetimes besides this one. She could feel the hard promise of his masculinity at the crux of her thighs.

Kristin was trembling when, without warning, Zachary tore his mouth from hers and set her roughly on her feet.

For a moment she was too dazed to react. She just stood there, bewildered, using all her energy to keep from swaying to one side. And when she did manage to speak, all that came out was one word. “Why—?”

He turned away. “I’ll take care of the horses,” he said, and then he caught hold of both sets of reins and strode off through a copse of trees, leaving Kristin to stare after him in confusion and hurt.

Automatically, her hands rose to her tangled hair. She probably looked a fright, but that didn’t explain why Zachary had rebuffed her. She’d felt his passion, burning hot enough to fuse with her own.

Not quite bold enough to brave the hut alone—it looked like the kind of place that would be filled with rats and spiders—Kristin busied herself with her pack instead. Searching through it she found, to her enormous relief, a sturdy comb, the promised soap and another set of clothes, besides packaged food, matches, her sleeping bag and a few first aid supplies.

By the time Zachary returned with the horses, she’d brought her wounded pride under control. She even managed to smile at him as though nothing had happened.

“I guess we’re going inside now,” she said cheerfully after he’d unsaddled the horses and tied them to separate stakes driven into the ground.

Zachary brushed off his hat and scratched his forehead. His rich brown hair was rumpled and damp with sweat; he needed a bath as badly as Kristin did. “You might have started the fire.”

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