“Yes, sir, boss.”
Amal resheathed the dagger.
Jacob moved silently behind the posse of men as they headed straight for the line of dense foliage in the distance. Behind him the man on horseback followed, and Jacob knew the rifle was continually trained on him.
But he was biding his time. He had good information—he now knew how to find Mr. Stryker even without tracks, and he’d use his knowledge when it would serve him best.
Chapter 7
Dalilah came awake slowly, surfacing from some dark and terrible nightmare. Her head was spinning, images slicing through her brain. Automatic gunfire. Blood. Massacred bodies strewn under tables. Broken glass. Being carried on the back of a brutish man into the black African night. An awful dream...then her eyes jolted open.
Faint, gray light filtered into her field of vision. She turned her head slowly. Branches dripped onto the drab, olive-green canopy above her head. She was covered by an unzipped sleeping bag, warm, and she could smell mud, foliage like hay. The sound of a churning river filled her brain.
Panic licked suddenly through her and Dalilah tried to push herself into a sitting position on the front seat of the jeep before remembering her arm was broken. Gingerly, she edged fully up on the front seat. Through the dirty windshield the brown river swirled with yellow foam. The scent coming from wet, burned trees across the river was strong. Her heart started to pound. It wasn’t a dream.
The nightmare was real.
She held dead still, trying to orient herself, recall the sequence of events that had brought her here. But her arm hurt and her brain was fuzzy. Carefully she moved her head, neck stiff, taking further register of her surroundings.
She was alone in the front seat. Rain had stopped. The jeep was parked under a cathedral-like canopy of tall trees with lime-colored bark, leaves moving like silvery fish in a warm breeze that stirred up cooler pockets of air; the sensation of both warm and cold against her face felt strange.
Her heart beat faster, something akin to dread licking into her belly as she wondered where Brandt was, and then she recalled his kiss, the taste of him. Her own hot well of desire.
Oh, God.
She inhaled deeply, spun round in full-blown panic now, then sucked air in sharply as she saw him standing in the shadows, silent, rifle cradled in his arm. He was watching her, his pale eyes glacial-cool slits against darkly tanned skin, his features hard in this cruel light of dawn. Had she imagined it all in the night—the compassion in his touch, the warmth, the ferocity and tenderness of desire?
“How’re you feeling?” His Afrikaans accent sounded as gruff as he looked this morning.
Dalilah brushed a tangle of knotted hair back off her forehead. “Terrible, thanks.”
She disentangled herself from the sleeping bag as he started toward the jeep.
“Do you need to stretch your legs, or can you wait?”
She took his question as euphemism for bathroom break. “I can wait.”
“Good, because we need to get moving—I already let you sleep too long.”
He climbed into the jeep beside her, and the weight of the vehicle shifted. He secured the rifle on the dash and folded down the spattered windshield.
Brandt started the ignition and the diesel engine purred to life. He began to reverse from their spot beneath the trees. Swinging the wheel around, he checked the GPS and set a course directly perpendicular from the river. Dalilah saw him glance at his watch. Tension whispered through her.
Sharp grass stalks clicked and rustled under the carriage as they negotiated the space between trees and already temperatures were increasing. Dalilah glanced at Brandt’s profile, taking her first proper study of him in the unforgiving light of dawn.
He had a fighter’s face. The bridge of his nose had a bump, as if it had been broken more than once, and he had a fine scar across his jaw. He was not handsome, but arresting—there was something mesmerizing about the broad strokes and aggression of his features. This was a man who wouldn’t shy away from confrontation, who’d physically stand up for what he believed, or wanted.
His mouth was also powerful—wide, well-defined lips, the lines bracketing them etched deep. She liked the character in his face, a rugged map of his past experience. The memory of the taste of him, the sensation of the feather-soft brush of those powerful lips against hers filled her mind and Dalilah swallowed, her gaze lowering to his strong neck muscles that flared into broad shoulders which she knew from experience were strong and hard like iron. Dalilah glanced at his hands on the wheel. Firm, sure. Big. Knuckles also scarred.
She knew the palms of those hands were rough, and his fingers callused, but that his touch could be as gentle as he was dexterous. This was a physical man who spent a lot of his life outdoors, a man shaped, most likely, by wilderness, the sun, the space and freedom. And violence.