Free Seduced by His Target by Gail Barrett Page A

finally surrendered to exhaustion and slept. And even now, when she should be plotting an escape plan, when they’d nearly reached the town of Buena Fortuna, where Henry’s journey would come to a deadly end, that blasted kiss kept derailing her thoughts. His intriguing scent, the rough insistence of his mouth, the glorious feel of his steel-hard muscles pressed against her... The memories kept inundating her senses, making it impossible to concentrate.
    She doubted it had meant anything important to him. He’d probably suffered a fleeting lapse, succumbing to a heat-of-the-moment impulse prompted by their argument. But the question that really plagued her was why she’d kissed him back.
    Twisting in the saddle, she aimed a quick glance back his way. He sat astride his horse, one lean hand gripping the reins, the other holding Henry in place. He looked like a Wild West outlaw with those inscrutable black eyes, the stubble coating his rugged jaw, the hard angles of his lethal frame.
    The thing that really perplexed her was that she didn’t usually go for men like him. Aside from the glaring fact that he was a criminal, that he was consorting with men who intended to kill her, he was too overtly masculine for her tastes. She preferred less physical, more cerebral men.
    But maybe the kidnapping had peeled away her defenses. Maybe her instincts had taken over, and she’d clung to him out of a primitive, survival-of-the-fittest type of need.
    She rolled her eyes. He was fit, all right—the most virile man she’d ever seen.
    Regardless, she couldn’t deny that his kiss had set off a delirium of sensual awareness—which only compounded her doubts. Could she really have responded that way to a terrorist? Even given the abnormal situation, could a criminal cause that insane need? And if he wasn’t a terrorist, then who was he? Why had he rescued her, twice? And what job did he have to do? Did he mean delivering her to her father...or something else?
    She turned back to the trail with a sigh. At this point, it didn’t matter. She had to forget the kiss, forget the hormones tossing her equilibrium on end, and focus on helping Henry escape—before they reached Buena Fortuna and his time ran out.
    A moment later, they reached a ridge, and Manzoor brought his horse to a stop. Nadine followed suit and dismounted while the men headed to a grassy space to pray. With a groan, she stretched her legs, then joined Henry at a boulder overlooking the valley below.
    “How are you doing?” she asked him.
    His faded blue eyes met hers. “Better. My head still hurts, but the altitude sickness is gone. At least I’m not gasping for breath every time I walk a couple of feet.”
    “Your color’s good. Your lips aren’t blue anymore.” Which meant his blood oxygen was probably close to normal again. The lower altitude had definitely helped.
    But he still looked exhausted with those dark circles rimming his bloodshot eyes. And he had to avoid sudden movements or he’d make his concussion worse. Frowning, she settled beside him on the rock, her anxiety kicking up even more. Because the real question was, if his life hung in the balance, could he find the strength to run?
    “It looks like we’re almost to a town,” Henry said, gesturing toward the valley with his canteen.
    “It’s called Buena Fortuna.” Worried, she turned her gaze to the town below. “The men said we were heading there.”
    The small town lay at the bottom of the cordillera along a tributary of the river they’d been following all day. The slopes closest to the town were bare. Mud slides had washed away the deforested topsoil, leaving ugly brown scabs covering the hills.
    The town itself was a frontier settlement, a jumping-off place for people heading into the jungle, a small trading hub where farmers hauled their coca paste and sold it to the drug cartel. The mountainous coca-growing region lay to its west. Brazil was to the east, Colombia to the north. Just