Wilderness. Barbara J. Hancock

preparedness. Tess shivered. Then she cut another link and then another.

      Finally, the chains slipped to the floorboard in a gleaming puddle around his feet. Tess looked at the shining pool and braced herself. She held her breath and thought about moonlight and swing sets and chasing fireflies in the dark. Deep in her mind her most treasured memories echoed with Lily’s childhood laughter.

      She drew in a quick breath when a warm hand touched her face, but she didn’t flinch. She didn’t try to pull away when his calloused fingers cupped under her chin.

      Loosened from his bonds, he had come away from the wall slightly to sit on his heels. She knelt between his knees with the bolt cutters in her hands, evidence of her bravery or her stupidity, only the next few seconds would tell.

      Tess let her head fall back to look up at his face. He still cupped her chin, but lightly. His fingers brushed her skin as soft as a caress. She struggled to remember what she was supposed to do now. In this moment, confronted by the powerful man she had been sent to save, Tess wondered if she had fooled herself. Was she really up for this?

      He leaned to bring his face closer to hers. She breathed lightly, trying not to panic.

      Don’t be prey. Don’t be prey.

      He smiled as he took in her reactions. It was a grim, barely there curve of his sculpted lips, but it was a smile nonetheless. His fingers tightened, but only slightly, holding her in place as if she wasn’t too scared to move.

      “My savior,” he breathed, and it was a sigh even while it was a tease.

      He saw her fear, was amused by it, and he was still grateful. The appreciation shone in his eyes. His chocolate-colored eyes, she noted, now that he had tilted forward, slightly away from the shadowed wall.

      “May you never live to regret it.”

      Tess’s heart leapt with those words, or maybe in reaction to his movement, because the last was murmured right against her lips before he jumped away quicker than her eyes could follow.

      One minute, she felt the heated brush of his lips on hers, the next, he was at the rear of the truck ripping open the sliding door.

      It was over quickly, but that didn’t make the blood less red or the screams any less gut-wrenching.

      Tess was thrown against the wall of the truck’s interior when it lurched sideways and surged into the ditch. The blow to her head left her dizzy, but it didn’t knock her out.

      Mores the pity.

      She crawled out the steel door Masterson had torn apart with his hands and she fell to the ground.

      It was weak to lay there in the tall grass by the side of the road, but she allowed herself to do it for several long moments. She could have told herself it was to catch her breath and regain her equilibrium. She could have laid there even longer as spots swam before her eyes.

      Tess didn’t.

      She knew why she didn’t want to get up on shaky legs and walk around to the cab of the truck. Knew why a tight knot of dread had settled in the pit of her stomach.

      In the aftermath of cutting the chains, surviving the crash and hearing the screams, it seemed surreal that birds sang in nearby trees and the verdant odor of crushed grass should fill her nostrils. It would have been easy to pretend she didn’t have to move, but Tess had learned life wasn’t easy a long time ago.

      She pushed herself up from the ground and forced herself to look around.

      He was gone.

      And the two men who had captured him would never turn over another innocent for torture.

      Tess vomited in the bushes.

      Again, knowing something had to be done and witnessing it…two very different things.

      She was bruised and battered. She was pretty sure her nightmares (and possibly even her dreams) were refueled for the next six months, and Lily was still gone too soon.

      Tess limped her way to the rendezvous point haunted by Masterson’s dark eyes and his even darker words.