She drew a shaky breath. “Well?” She held out her hand for the knife.
“I’m not giving up my only weapon just yet.”
She dropped her hand. “You have a better suggestion?”
He looked toward the Chimney Tops again. “I’m considering a few possibilities.”
“Is one of them to crouch down and use these boulders to block them from seeing us retreat up the path, back the way you came? We might be able to get pretty far up the trail before they realize we’re gone.”
“That’s a good suggestion, except for one problem.” He shrugged out of his backpack and unzipped the top. “The trail straightens out after that next curve, with no cover of any kind for about three hundred yards. It’s also unstable. There’s a lot of debris but nothing sizable enough to hide us from view. The odds of us making it that far before those guys work up the courage to storm our little hideout are too low to make it worth the risk.” He pulled out a length of white nylon rope and the knife he’d mentioned earlier.
She was about to argue with him, but the rope made her pause. “What’s the rope for?”
“So we don’t die.”
It took several seconds for her to realize he wasn’t going to expand on his cryptic answer. Instead, he shoved the knife into a leather holder and tucked it into his backpack. After slipping the pack onto his shoulders, he connected some extra straps on the pack that he hadn’t bothered to fasten earlier. One went over his chest. Two more attached the pack to his belt loops with metal clips. She thought they might be called carabiners, like she’d used when Tracy had badgered her into going on a zip-lining trip in Pigeon Forge to celebrate Jody’s new, second job at Campbell Investigations.
“What are you doing?” she tried again.
He picked up the length of rope that he’d cut. His fingers fairly flew as he tied knots and created loops.
She watched him with growing frustration. The gunmen could be creeping up on them this very minute. So why was he tying knots? She hated being kept in the dark. Her life was on the line just as much as his.
And Tracy’s.
He pulled on one of the loops as if testing it, then let out a few more inches, making it larger.
“Are you going to tie them up or try to lasso them or what?” she snapped, unable to hide her frustration any longer.
For the first time since he’d appeared on the trail with a goofy, dumb-as-a-rock grin, he gave her a genuine smile. It lit up his eyes and made him look years younger than the thirty-one or -two that she’d assumed him to be. Maybe he was only in his late twenties?
“Lasso them? Can’t say that’s ever been part of my law enforcement training. Might be a good skill to learn, though.”
He continued to work the rope through the metal clips. “Hypothetical. We figure out a way to get Owen or Tattoo Guy to stand up and give us a clear target. You do a Wonder Woman move and take him out. That leaves the second thug with two pistols, and potentially other weapons we don’t even know about. We’re left without even a knife to defend ourselves. What would we do then?”
“Maybe I do another Wonder Woman move and lasso the second guy.”
His lips twitched as if he was trying not to laugh. He looped the rope through one of the backpack’s metal clips.
She curled her fingers against her thighs. It was either that or shake him. She closed her eyes for a moment and drew deep, calming breaths. Their lives were on the line and this man was pushing all her buttons. What she needed to do was calm down and think. There had to be something they could do instead of just waiting here playing with a rope. She opened her eyes again, then frowned. “What are you doing?”
He swept the ground between them clear of debris, scattering several broken pieces of branches and twigs, then motioned for her to move toward him. Exasperated, but curious enough to see if he actually had some kind of plan, she scooted toward him on her knees. He closed the distance and slid the rope through one of the belt loops on her shorts.
“McKenzie. What are—”
“Give me a minute.”
She blew out an irritated breath and held her hands out of the way as he threaded the rope through all the loops on her shorts. When he was done, he tied the end of the rope to another metal loop on his backpack, effectively anchoring them to each other, with just a few feet in between.
“McKenzie?”
He tilted her chin up so she was looking into his eyes. “Is your name really Jody?”
She swallowed, her whole body flushing with heat when she realized just how close her breasts were to his chest, her lips to his. “Y...yes. Jody Vanessa Ingram.” She hated that her voice came out a breathy whisper.
“Pretty name.”
“Vanessa was my biological mom’s name.” Why had she said that? It didn’t matter one bit under the circumstances.
He smiled. “Well, Jody Vanessa. We’re about to explore one of those possibilities I mentioned earlier. And I think it’s time you called me Adam. Don’t you?”
His deep voice and cool blue eyes seemed to cast a spell on her. She couldn’t think with him this close, could barely even breathe.
“Come on out from behind that rock and we won’t kill you,” Owen shouted. “All we want to do is talk.”
She blinked. The spell was broken. Thank goodness. “McKenzie... I mean, Adam. What’s the plan here? Why did you—”
He tugged the rope, pulling them even closer together. “This is where that trust part comes into play.”
She licked her suddenly dry lips. “I’m not sure what you—”
He grabbed one of the short, broken pieces of branch that he’d swept out of the way earlier and tossed it over the top of the boulder.
Boom! The stick exploded into sawdust.
Jody ducked down, even though she was already behind the boulder.
Adam winced but didn’t duck. “They’re better shots than I’d hoped. This is going to be close.”
“Close? What are you—”
He grabbed her around the waist.
She read the truth in his eyes and suddenly realized what he was going to do. The rope. The fact that he’d tied the two of them together. Him staring out at the Chimney Tops and telling her she needed to trust him. Her stomach lurched, and she pushed against his chest, to no avail. He didn’t budge and the rope wouldn’t have let her move very far anyway. “No. No, no, no. Please. I can’t do this. I’m too scared. I can’t.”
Sympathy filled his gaze. He brushed a featherlight caress down the side of her face. “Then I’ll just have to do it for both of us.” He grabbed two more sticks and threw them high into the air. Shots rang out. He yanked her forward, clasping her tightly against his chest as he raced in a crouch behind the boulders toward where the trail disappeared over the edge of the mountain.
“No!” she cried, desperately pushing against him. “Please!”
The gunmen shouted.
Adam yanked her forward. She screamed as they tumbled over the cliff.
They hit the ground hard, a tangle of arms and legs flopping end over end. Jody’s head snapped against Adam’s chest. Blood filled her mouth. She was too busy trying to grab a tree, a root, anything to stop their out-of-control roll down the steep