Amanda's Child Read online

  After giving the signal two times, he pivoted and started back to the cabin at a trot, increasing his speed when he heard one of the choppers swoop low.

  Behind him, the ground where he’d been standing exploded in a cloud of dust as automatic-weapons fire plowed into the hard-packed soil.

  God, he hoped the shooter was one of Logan’s men. Or had the SOB somehow convinced Randolph Security that he had to be stopped at any cost?

  Reaching the cabin, he slammed the door shut. The choppers were still in the air.

  “Stay up there another couple of minutes, buddy,’’ he muttered as he opened the valves under the stove’s propane burners. Then, thinking it was too bad he couldn’t leave a suicide note, he began sloshing gasoline around the cabin, the fumes and his headache an unfortunate combination.

  After climbing halfway down the ladder, he grabbed the old-fashioned kitchen matches and struck one against the wood floor. Praying that the Randolph men didn’t land within the next few minutes, he tossed the burning match into a pool of gasoline.

  The liquid burst into flame immediately, tongues of fire spreading across the floor. As one arrowed toward him, he slammed the door shut and bolted down the ladder.

  Ignoring the pounding in his head, he hit the ground running and took off down the tunnel toward what he hoped was the beam of Amanda’s flashlight.

  The tunnel ran in a straight line, and he judged he was several hundred feet from the cabin when the propane tank detonated with an unearthly boom. The whole tunnel seemed to heave and shake, and a shower of dirt started raining onto his head.

  Amanda screamed and turned.

  “Go on!’’ he gasped through panting breaths as he kept plowing forward. Before they could clear the shower of debris, it turned into a torrent. His forward progress slowed, then stopped. Helplessly he watched the ceiling rain down around him, until his vision and his air supply were choked off. Within seconds he was buried under a mound of dirt as the roof of the tunnel collapsed.

  Though he wanted to scream, he kept his mouth clamped firmly shut as he tried to pull himself free. But the heavy earth held him fast.

  Dimly in the distance, he heard someone calling his name. Not Hunter this time. It was Amanda, her voice high and frantic. He’d seen her right ahead of him. Now she sounded as if she were in the other end of a bad phone connection from Mars.

  “Matt,’’ she gasped. “Matt. Answer me, for God’s sake.’’

  It was impossible to respond, impossible to breathe as he clawed desperately with his fingers at the debris entombing him as surely as the mounded earth over a fresh grave. For endless moments he kept at the frantic digging. But finally his movements slowed. His lungs burned, and his head began to pound.

  Not much time left.

  Goodbye, Amanda, he silently called to her. Goodbye. I’m sorry. The syllables blurred in his head as his brain cells screamed for oxygen.

  He could still hear her calling to him. But the voice was far in the distance now, a million miles from where he stood, trapped under the weight of the mountain above him.

  His body felt like lead, and he would have sunk to his knees, but the earth pressing around him held him upright, even as the terrible pressure seemed to crush his lungs.

  Then he felt the dirt moving, saw dancing specks of yellow light before his eyes.

  Blinking, he stared at the illusion, entranced, as slender fingers brushed against the skin of his face and whisked away the dirt from his nose and mouth. He coughed, then sucked in a strangled breath, expelling it in a rush so that he could gasp in another.

  “Matt, oh God, Matt,’’ she cried out as she alternately clawed at the debris and pulled at his shoulders, trying to free him from the trap he’d made when he set off the propane.

  He still felt like a mummy, but somehow he freed his hand, and began to dig. He suspected Amanda was doing most of the work. His movements were too slow and disorganized. But finally he pulled his legs free and tumbled from his prison, almost falling on top of Amanda.

  He lay there panting for several seconds, icy shudders gripping his body. But he knew he couldn’t afford the luxury of resting yet—not when the ceiling above them both might be just as unstable as the part that had come down on top of him. Gritting his teeth, he forced himself up.

  “Come on,’’ he gasped, taking her hand and tugging her away from the dirt fall.

  “Wait,’’ she insisted, snatching up her pack and the light before allowing him to pull her farther down the tunnel, stumbling through the debris that littered the floor. Finally the surface below his feet felt clear and the roof above him looked solid. But he staggered on for several dozen more yards before stopping to brace his shoulders against the wall and drag in great lungfuls of air.

  “Matt, are you all right?’’ she asked, her breath coming in little gasps.

  “Yeah. I don’t know whether to thank you for getting me out of there or tell you you were a damn fool to get so close to the cave-in.’’

  “Just thank me—politely.’’

  He wasn’t feeling polite when he reached for her and hugged her against his chest.

  “I was so scared,’’ she whispered as her hands moved over his cheekbones, his hair, his lips, brushing away the dirt.

  “Sweetheart, you look like you’ve been in a mud fight,’’ he muttered, studying her in the flashlight beam as he combed loose dirt from her golden hair.

  “Do you think you’d win any prizes for looks?’’

  “No,’’ he answered, although at that moment, he didn’t give a damn about his appearance. All he knew was that he felt as if he had truly come back from the dead. And his resurrection was a miracle worked by Amanda’s delicate hands.

  His fingers skimmed her face. “Did anybody ever tell you you’re too brave for your own good?’’

  “Nobody ever told me I was brave,’’ she whispered.

  “Did they tell you you were beautiful—even covered with dirt?’’

  Wordlessly she shook her head.

  His body was still icy cold. Feeling the warmth radiating from her, he pulled her closer, holding her with all the strength he still possessed.

  He’d thought he simply needed warmth. As soon as he had her in his arms, he realized he needed far more.

  “God, you feel so good,’’ he rasped, moving his hands over her, touching every place that he could reach.

  His gaze dropped to her mouth. It was slightly parted, and maybe she intended to say something. But he took the trembling of her bottom lip as an invitation.

  Without giving himself time to think, he lowered his head, the soft impact of his mouth on hers sending a jolt of sensation through his body. At that first wisp of contact, he was lost.

  He’d been operating on some lawless plane of existence since he’d heard the conversation between Roy Logan and Al Hewitt. Ed Stanton’s cracking him over the head had pushed him into a world where impulse control was forgotten behavior.

  Greedily he angled his head so that he could plunder her sweetness, tasting her in great gulps that only drove him to seek more and yet more.

  Ruled utterly by his own needs, he shifted their positions, pinning her against the wall, pressing his body against hers as he turned his head first one way and then the other, so that he could feast on her nectar from every angle.

  Dimly, in some hidden recess of his mind, he knew that he had no right to stake a claim on her. Yet he was as helpless to stop himself as he’d been last night when he’d kissed her in the car. As helpless as he’d been when he’d lain in bed this morning holding her.

  He felt driven by madness, by urgency that welled from some unexplored place within his soul. As his mouth plundered hers, his hands stroked up and down her arms, her back, before he shifted away so that he could cup the wonderful fullness of her breasts.

  When his fingers brushed her nipples, she made a high sound of pleasure, arching into the caress and offering him more, offering him anything he wanted.

>   He wanted to feel her naked flesh against his, the length of her body pressed to his. Reaching behind her, under her shirt, he unhooked the catch of her bra, pushed it out of the way and caught her breasts in his hands, cupping their ripe weight as his long fingers stroked over the stiff peaks. The feel of her aroused body drove him almost to the point of madness.

  When he cupped her bottom and lifted her against the throbbing shaft of his erection, he felt her twine her arms around his neck to hold herself in place.

  He wanted her with a need that shook him to the very core. But as he pictured himself lowering her to the floor, some dim sense of reality returned. Lifting his head, he saw they were in a tunnel that had partially collapsed. The rest of it could come down on them at any minute.

  Swearing, he set her onto her feet, then took a step back, his breath coming in ragged gasps and his hands clenched at his sides so that he wouldn’t reach for her again.

  “Matt?’’ she asked, swaying as she lifted her eyes toward him, her expression dazed.

  “Amanda, sweetheart,’’ he managed to say, dragging in a steadying breath of air. “We can’t. Not here. Not like this.’’

  She blinked, looked around at their grim surroundings, as if she’d just realized where they were.

  The lost look on her face made him want to pull her back into his arms; instead he wedged his hands into his pockets. “We have to get out of here,’’ he said, struggling to make his voice sound normal.

  “Of course,’’ she agreed, pivoting away from him as she lifted her arms to refasten her bra.

  The sight of her standing there looking embarrassed and alone pierced his heart.

  “I’m sorry,’’ he apologized. “I think your friend Ed knocked the sense right out of my head.’’

  “What are you trying to tell me?’’

  He raked a shaky hand through his hair. “I’m trying to say I’m sorry for taking liberties I had no right to take.’’

  She made a sound that might have been meant as a laugh. “I guess this is the story of my life,’’ she muttered under her breath.

  Maybe he hadn’t been meant to catch the words, but his hearing was excellent.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?’’

  Her face contorted. “Never mind. I should learn to keep my mouth shut.’’

  Turning her back to him, she started down the tunnel. In two strides he closed the distance between them. When she kept moving away, his arm shot out and caught her. “Wait a minute. You can’t say something like that and then drop it!’’

  “Let go of me!’’

  His hand fell away from her.

  She faced him and squared her shoulder. “I can do anything I want. Just the way you can do anything you want—or don’t want. You only kissed me like that because you got buried under a ton of dirt and you wanted to celebrate your escape from death. So you grabbed the first woman you encountered!’’

  “Dammit.’’ Frustrated, he made another grab for her, but she danced out of his reach.

  “If you’re saying you think I don’t want you, you’re very mistaken.’’

  “Not me. Any woman would do.’’

  “Not any woman. You.’’

  “And your reaction has nothing to do with my digging you out of that cave-in?’’

  He sighed, feeling as if they were playing a game of chess and she’d just said “Checkmate.’’

  “I won’t deny that.’’

  When her face took on a look of mock satisfaction, he went on quickly. “That doesn’t change the rest of what I feel for you.’’

  She snorted. “You don’t even know me.’’

  “I know you better than you think.’’ He glared down at her. “But I’m not about to prove something to either one of us by making love to you covered with dirt on the floor of a tunnel when the roof could collapse on us or Logan’s goons could come running in here with machine guns.’’

  “Machine guns?’’ she gasped.

  “Yeah,’’ he answered, relieved that he’d gotten her off a subject he couldn’t handle at the moment—and onto one he could. “When I went outside to stop the chopper from landing, somebody started shooting at me.’’

  “Oh, God.’’ Her hands had been hanging at her sides. They jerked upward. “Your friends?’’

  “I hope it was Logan’s men. But whoever it was, we have to get away from here. Come on.’’

  When she didn’t move, he reached for her hand and started slowly down the tunnel, still unsteady on his feet.

  TIM FRANCETTI SHUFFLED through his notes on Colin Logan.

  This morning, while he was in the middle of collecting information on Matt Forester, Roy Logan had changed the assignment.

  At least, he assumed it was Logan who had given the orders to switch his attention from Forester back to Colin and get the files in order. The message had been on his answering machine when he’d arrived at the office. But when he’d tried to call Logan to confirm the change in plans, he’d been told that the ranch owner was unavailable.

  Scowling, he looked down at a paragraph that he hadn’t yet typed, trying to decipher his hastily scribbled notes.

  He’d already turned in some damn fine preliminary reports to Mr. Logan, some of it based on hard facts, some of it extrapolation from an assessment of various situations. But there were still parts of the report that he needed to type up—and names and dates he had to confirm.

  Sighing, he went back to the material on Colin’s business dealings that he’d obtained from a source in Los Angeles. The younger Logan had wanted to prove he was his father’s equal. But money hadn’t been his only goal. He’d been looking for excitement, for kicks, as well.

  Shuffling through the folder, he pulled out the confidential information on Colin’s extracurricular activities at the Highton Fertility Clinic. True to form, the young man had applied to be a sperm donor on a dare from one of his wild friends.

  Tim opened another folder, detailing Colin’s business dealings with Roy’s brother Bud. Then he shifted to a different sheet of paper. There were five brothers in the Logan family. Three were strictly legitimate. One owned a hardware store in Boise. One had a dairy farm in Canada. And one sold sports equipment in L.A. The three of them had broken off relations long ago with Roy and Bud—who had even fewer scruples than Roy, if that were possible.

  Which left Tim with a lot more digging to do before he could turn in a complete report.

  He glanced at his watch and felt a trickle of sweat run down his armpit. Roy was waiting for whatever information he had, and he’d better start entering his notes in the computer.

  BESIDE HIM MATT HEARD Amanda clear her throat. “Are you going to tell me what happened in the cabin? I mean, did Logan’s men attack?’’

  “No. I opened the valves on the propane tank. Then I set the place on fire with the gasoline for the generator.’’

  “Why? I mean, why start a fire? Why blow the cabin up?’’ Turning, she looked back down the tunnel where the pile of dirt blocked any chance of going back the way they’d come.

  He gave a harsh laugh. “If they really think I’m crazy, maybe they’ll figure I blew the cabin up and took you with me. And if they have their doubts, it’s going to be a while before they can look for our escape hatch. Too bad I didn’t figure on the explosion doing a number on the tunnel roof.’’ He turned to her, his expression fierce. “You saved my life, but—’’

  “You have some objection to that?’’ she snapped.

  “If more of the ceiling had come down, you would have been buried, too.’’

  “I make my own decisions. I wasn’t going to leave you there.’’

  “I appreciate that. But you’ve got to remember you’re making decisions for the baby, too,’’ he said, hitting on an important point that he’d forgotten earlier.

  She winced, and he pressed his fingers over hers. “So next time when it’s a choice between the baby or me, you have to pick the baby.’’

  She
turned to face him, a raft of expressions crossing her features. She looked stunned and abashed, as if she’d forgotten in her panic to save him that she might be endangering her child.

  “I wasn’t thinking about that,’’ she said in a low voice, then pulled her hand away and sped up, almost running down the tunnel.

  When he saw a glimmer of daylight ahead of them, he caught up and grabbed her arm, holding her back. “Wait,’’ he whispered, switching off the light.

  “We’re almost there.’’

  “And Roy could be waiting for us.’’

  She turned her face toward him, gave her head a wry shake. “I wasn’t thinking about that, either.’’

  “He knows about the tunnel—unless somebody else dug it before he built this cabin. How long has he owned this land?’’

  “Forever,’’ she answered.

  “Let me slip ahead and have a look. You stay here.’’

  She didn’t give him an argument as he made his way quietly down the passage toward the patch of sunlight at the end, keeping his shoulders near the wall and his footsteps light.

  Near the entrance, he waited for his eyes to adjust to the brightness, then inched toward the opening, stopping when he saw the front end of a Jeep. Leaning against the passenger door was a hard-faced man smoking a cigarette and cradling a machine gun under his right arm. It was Al Hewitt.

  Chapter Six

  The moment Amanda saw Matt’s face, she knew they were in trouble. Mouthing silent curses, he came toward her, his footsteps quiet and his shoulders tense.

  “Hewitt’s out there,’’ he told her. “The good news is that it looks like he’s alone. The bad news is that he’s got a machine gun. And the pistol I took from him last night is buried under a pile of dirt.’’

  She felt the blood drain from her face, drain from her brain. But she forced herself to keep some semblance of rationality. They’d escaped the cabin. They’d escaped the dirt slide. And now the way was blocked by one of Logan’s goons. “What are we going to do?’’