d="uba63ae66-e805-5feb-a4b9-9290586e3121">
“How did you know my name?” she demanded.
He stood, forcing himself to relax, or at least to look as if he didn’t have all these turbulent emotions fighting it out in his gut. “Hello, Abby,” he said softly. “I’m Michael Dance.”
“I don’t know a Michael Dance,” she said.
“No, you probably don’t remember me. It’s been a while. Five years.”
She searched his face, panic behind her eyes. He wanted to reach out, to reassure her. But he remained frozen, immobile. “You knew me in Afghanistan?” she asked. “I don’t remember.”
“There’s no reason you should,” he said. “The last time I saw you, you were pretty out of it. Technically, you were dead—for a while, at least.”
He’d been the one to bring her back to life, massaging her heart and breathing into her ravaged mouth until her heart beat again and she sucked in oxygen on her own. He’d saved her life, and in that moment forged a connection he’d never been quite able to sever.
The Guardian
Cindi Myers
CINDI MYERS is an author of more than fifty novels. When she’s not crafting new romance plots, she enjoys skiing, gardening, cooking, crafting and daydreaming. A lover of small-town life, she lives with her husband and two spoiled dogs in the Colorado mountains.
MILLS & BOON
Before you start reading, why not sign up?
Thank you for downloading this Mills & Boon book. If you want to hear about exclusive discounts, special offers and competitions, sign up to our email newsletter today!
Or simply visit
Mills & Boon emails are completely free to receive and you can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any email we send you.
For Katie
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Abby Stewart was not lost. Maybe she’d wandered a little off her planned route, but she wasn’t lost.
She was a scientist and a decorated war veteran. She had GPS and maps and a good sense of direction. So she couldn’t be lost. But standing in the middle of nowhere in the Colorado wilderness did have her a little disoriented, she could admit. The problem was, the terrain around Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park tended to all look the same after a while: thousands of acres of rugged, roadless wilderness covered in piñon forests, and scrubby desert set against a backdrop of spectacular mountain views. People did get lost out here every year.
But Abby wasn’t one of them, she reminded herself again. She took a deep breath and consulted her handheld GPS. There was the shallow draw she’d just passed, and to the west were the foothills of the Cimarron Mountains. And there was her location now. The display showed she’d hiked three miles from her car. All she had to do was head northeast and she’d eventually make it back to her parking spot and the red dirt two-track she’d driven in on. Feeling more reassured, she returned the GPS unit to her backpack and scanned the landscape around her. To a casual observer, the place probably looked pretty desolate—a high plateau of scrubby grass, cactus and stunted juniper. But to Abby, who was on her way to earning a master’s degree in environmental science, the Black Canyon of the Gunnison was a treasure trove of more than eight hundred plant species, including the handful she was focusing on in her research.
Her anxiety over temporarily losing her bearings vanished as she focused on a gray-green clump of vegetation in the shadow of a misshapen piñon. She bent over, peering closer, and a surge of triumph filled her. Yes! A terrific specimen of Lomatium concinnum—desert parsley to the layman. Number four on the list of species she needed to collect for her research. She knelt and slipped off her pack and quickly took out a digital camera, small trowel and collecting bag.
Intent on photographing the parsley in place, then carefully digging it up, leaving as much of the root system intact as possible, she missed the sounds of approaching footsteps until they were almost on her. A branch crackled and she started, heart pounding. She peered into the dense underbrush in front of her, in the direction of the sound, and heard a shuffling noise—the muffled swish of fabric rubbing against the brush. Whoever this was wasn’t trying to be particularly quiet, but what were they doing out here, literally in the middle of nowhere?
In the week Abby had been camped in the area she’d seen fewer than a dozen other people since checking in at the park ranger station, and all of those had been in the campground or along the paved road. Here in the backcountry she’d imagined herself completely alone.
Stealthily, she slid the Sig Sauer from the holster at her side. She’d told the few friends who’d asked about the gun that she carried it to deal with snakes and other wildlife she might encounter in the backcountry, but the truth was, ever since her stint in Afghanistan, she felt safer armed when she went out alone. Flashes of unsettling memories crowded her mind as she drew the weapon; suddenly, she was back in Kandahar, stalking insurgents who’d just wiped out half her patrol group. As a woman, she’d often been tasked with going into the homes of locals to question the women there with the aid of an interpreter. Every time she stepped into one of those