her head began to hurt, and it all came flooding sickeningly back as she lifted her fingers to gently touch the sore area by her temple, realising that she must have hit her head and been knocked out for a while.
Most definitely frightened of what she might find, she turned to look at Felipe. He was at the very least unconscious, sitting hunched over the steering wheel and slightly below her because of the drunken angle of the car.
Carefully, fearfully almost, she reached out and touched her fingers to his neck. She could feel living warmth there and a shimmer of a pulse. ‘Oh, thank God,’ she breathed out shakily. She closed her eyes and said it again. ‘Thank God.’
What now? Where are we? How badly placed are we regarding the ravine? What do I do?
It was then she realised that the car headlights were still burning. With the greatest of care she tried edging herself forward so she could peer out of the car windscreen. It was a miracle it hadn’t shattered, she supposed. Beyond it she could just make out in the lights good solid road and the ravine edge, way over to her right.
They must have keeled over into a ditch near the mountain, she realised. And it was such a relief to know it that she relaxed back in the seat with a sigh and took a few moments to let her heart-rate steady before she attempted to get out.
Felipe had locked the doors, she remembered. But surely there was something somewhere she could pull or push to make them unlock again? With shaky fingers scrambling over pitch black metal and leather, she managed to find something on the door that felt as if it would pull up, tugged it and heard the lock spring free.
Next she had to release the seat belt. Then came the tricky bit, opening the car door and keeping it open while she attempted to scramble out. Her dress snagged on something; she heard it rip and lost her shoes in the struggle. But eventually she landed in a heap on the hard road, then just sat slumped there while she got her breath back.
It was all so quiet, so eerie. She shivered, then suddenly couldn’t stop shivering—though she didn’t think it was because it was that cold up here.
Shock, she presumed. I’m probably shocked. And who wouldn’t be after the ordeal I’ve just had?
The last thought brought a smile to her lips. The smile made her feel better, and she scrambled up on her bare feet and began to take careful stock of the situation.
Felipe obviously needed help; that was her first consideration. But help was either ten miles or so down the mountain or five miles or so back the way they had come. Not much of a choice, really, she mused helplessly. Staying put seemed to make better sense. Someone should have missed her by now, surely?
Never mind merely someone, she then scolded herself. Luiz should have missed her!
It was then that she heard it. It was nothing more at the moment than a very distant growl. But it was a car engine, she recognised, fading in and out as it wound round the mountain.
In sheer relief she simply sank to the ground by the drunken car, folded her now aching head onto her knees and wrapped them in her trembling arms.
It had to be Luiz coming to find her. She didn’t even let herself think that it might be anyone else. In fact, that was the most stupid part of Felipe’s plan of abduction—to actually believe he could just drive away with her without having Luiz hard on his tail. Had he truly believed he would get as far as seduction? The crazy idiot. If she knew Luiz, the road off the mountain towards Los Aminos was probably blocked by now anyway. Felipe would have been stopped before he’d even got started.
The car was coming closer; she could hear the smooth, neat way it was being driven into the bends and corners—could even pick out the gear changes, the braking, the steady increase in speed then the smooth throttling back.
Yet he arrived round the final bend without warning. Odd that, she thought, as she lifted her head and just watched as he brought the strange car to a standstill perhaps ten feet away.
He didn’t get out of the car immediately, either. He just sat there with the headlights trained on her and, she presumed, looked at her looking at him.
Then his door came open. His feet scraped on gravel. And, finally, the full lean length of his body appeared. She couldn’t see his face—well, she could have done if she’d looked at it, but for some unaccountable reason she just didn’t want to.
He walked towards her. Stopped about two feet away and took a look around their remote surroundings. It was so quiet up here you could hear an ant move a leaf. The sky was a navy blue star-studded cloth and the mountains soared like giants standing on guard.
‘Where is he?’ was the first question he asked her, and he did it softly, with no inflexion whatsoever.
‘Unconscious,’ she replied. ‘In the car.’
Luiz nodded. That was all, no further questions. He didn’t even take a look at Felipe. With a flick of his fingers all the other doors flew open on the car he had been driving. Three men got out; one of them was Vito. They came towards them.
‘Deal with him,’ he said.
Caroline felt her blood turn cold. ‘No, Luiz,’ she protested, having visions of poor Felipe being thrown off the edge of the mountain. ‘He’s hurt. He needs help. I…’
Swooping down, he gathered her into his arms and straightened. He began striding back to the car he had arrived in, and Caroline had a ludicrous vision of herself in all her bridal finery, now ripped and soiled, with her pretty lace veil trailing on the dusty ground behind them.
It was only when they reached the open passenger door that she let herself dare look into Luiz’s face. What she saw there brought the first tears to her eyes since the whole ordeal had begun.
‘Don’t,’ she whispered unsteadily. ‘Don’t shut me out.’
He didn’t respond, just placed her in the car then walked round to climb in beside her. The engine fired and then they were moving, continuing down the mountain, because even she could see that it was too narrow here to turn the car around.
As they passed the drunken BMW she saw Vito heaving Felipe out of the car by using sheer brute strength. But he was gentle when he laid him out on the road to check him over. It was faintly reassuring to see that gentleness. Surely men like Vito would not be gentle with a man they were intending to tip over the edge of a mountain, she consoled herself.
A half-mile further on Luiz stopped the car where the road was a little wider and turned them back the way they had come. As they passed by the BMW again, she noticed that another car had pulled up behind it and that Felipe was on his own two feet, leaning weakly against it with his head in his hands, while the rest of the men were wrestling the BMW out of harm’s way.
‘They won’t hurt him, will they?’ she asked Luiz anxiously.
‘No,’ was all he said.
It was reassuring, short though it was. On a small sigh she began to shiver. Luiz instantly flicked the car heater on, but the shivering continued. She knew it was shock, not cold—Luiz probably knew it too.
‘Tell me what happened after that fool of a waiter let Felipe convince him he was me so he could lure you out to my car.’
‘When you start shouting and swearing, I might tell you,’ Caroline countered dully. ‘But not before.’
‘All right.’ His fingers tensed around the steering wheel. ‘Let’s just deal with your problem with my self-control first,’ he clipped. ‘You want to see the man dead?’ he gritted. ‘You want to see his head hanging from the castle wall? You want to see me drive you up this mountain the same way he brought you down it?’
‘No.’ She answered all of his questions at the same time.
‘Then tell me what happened after he got you into my car,’ he repeated flatly.
So, quietly and as flatly as him, she told him everything, even the way it had been her fault that the car