Free Dangerous Curves by Karen Anders Page A

more honed. I’ll watch your back. It’s a great view.”
    “Me Tarzan, you Jane?”
    He chuckled as she started down a steep incline, cautiously placing her sandaled feet. All she needed right now was to twist her ankle. They would surely catch them then.
    Rio had climbed a lot of rocks and mountains with nothing but a resin bag and some water. She’d negotiated some of the most dangerous jungles in the Southern Hemisphere, so this trek felt familiar to her.
    The trouble was she had to worry about Max. In the past, she’d often worked alone. She slowly and methodically moved down to the base of the incline and encountered a stream. Part of the water sound she’d heard. She waded across the stream to get to the waterfall.
    She stepped in the muck in the bottom. It oozed up over the tops of her sandals and lodged between her toes, yet the water felt refreshing on her overheated body. When she hit the other side of the stream, Rio continued along, picking her way until they reached a trail of hard-packed dirt. She followed it toward the rushing water and descended down to the base of the falls.
    Rio looked around, a shiver working along her spine. They would be hunted by Fuentes’s men without impunity. No law enforcement to help them out.
    Max tripped on a root half-buried in the ground and Rio’s hand shot out to steady him. Something inside her clenched and released at the feel of his warm skin beneath her palm. Damn, she had wanted to avoid this…this feeling of caring deeply for another person. And now that she cared what happened to Max, she cared how he would feel if he found out she’d been lying to him. He would feel totally betrayed now because they had gotten close, at least physically. But her heart twisted inside her thinking that he would look at her differently. She shifted at the uncomfortable feeling, dreading the look that would come into his eyes. She shook off the feelings, thinking she was going soft. Soon she’d be back on the job fighting bad guys and she was glad of it. At least that endeavor was black and white.
    When he stepped into the moonlight, Rio saw the gash on his temple better and her heart tumbled over in her chest. “You’re bleeding,” she said, her voice husky.
    He looked down at her as she pushed wet hair off his forehead to better see the cut, his bright blue eyes penetrating her soul and making her hurt.
    He reached up but she nudged his hand away. “I have a first-aid kit in my backpack. Don’t touch it.”
    “Yes, ma’am,” he said, giving her a sideways, amused look.
    Rio ignored it. She worked at getting herself and her emotions under control. This was a temporary assignment that had clearly turned into something else—both with Max and Fuentes. She didn’t know what Eduardo Fuentes wanted with her, but she wasn’t going to be bound and gagged and deal with him on his terms. The next time time they met face-to-face, it would be on her terms. That was nonnegotiable.
    She unzipped the backpack and pulled out the first-aid kit. She moved back to him with the kit and opened it.
    “We’re in deep shit here,” he said quietly.
    “I know,” Rio replied, taking a gauze square and soaking it with antiseptic. “I can’t trust anyone, not even local law enforcement. I’m truly on my own.”
    He hissed when she pressed the wet pad to his gash. “Damn, that hurts.”
    Rio bent forward and blew on it to minimize the sting.
    “You’re not alone in this, Rio. I’m here and I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
    She went still on the outside, but inside things werehappening. Like her heart hitting her rib cage and her stomach fluttering and her blood taking off in a wild race through her system.
    “Max, you should really make your way to the hotel and then get back to L.A. The men after me consider you expendable. I won’t have you dead because of me.” She went to unwrap the butterfly Band-Aid, her hands shaking.
    He reached out to grasp her hands, but