Hostage to Thunder Horse

The man frowned. “The U.S., of course.” No of course about it. She’d been racing across the country for two days, never on a straight route, always varying her direction, hoping to shake the man following her. If the man currently holding her captive was one of the people after her, they could be practically anywhere. She took a deep breath before asking her next questions. “Who are you? Who do you work for?”

“Uh-uh.” He shook his head. “You’ve been asking all the questions. It’s my turn. Who are you?” His deep, resonant voice filled the inside of the cave with its ruggedness.

Katya hesitated. His avoidance of her question didn’t set her mind at ease. She didn’t know who she was dealing with and trusted no one with her identity. Especially after what had happened in Minneapolis. She’d been on the road ever since, until she’d been forced to ditch her car and steal a snowmobile. “Am I still in the Badlands?”

“Yes, ma’am. The Badlands of North Dakota, to be exact.”

“My name is Kat,” she said tentatively. At least she wasn’t lying. Kat was only part of her name, but people she’d gone to school with in Minneapolis had used it as her nickname. “Kat Evans.” Evans was an out-and-out lie. Hard lessons had taught her not to give out truth until she knew where she stood. Especially with the colossal accusation of terrorism hanging over her. Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection, the FBI and every law enforcement agency would be on the lookout for her.

She squirmed against his body, extremely aware of her bare skin rubbing against his bare skin. He was completely naked and she was practically naked herself, except for her bra and panties. “Oh, my!” She tried to scoot away from him, hampered by the close confines of the bag they both occupied. A waft of icy air scraped across her body and she found herself pressing against his skin to re-create the warmth she’d felt a moment before.

“Sorry. You weren’t awake for me to ask permission. In these temps, skin to skin is best to bring up body temperature the fastest. Yours was bordering on death.”

After straining for a minute to keep from leaning into his chest, she gave up and let her cheek rest against the hard muscles of his smooth chest. “Well, then, I guess I should thank you for saving my life.”

He chuckled. “Please, don’t strain yourself with your gratitude.”

With nowhere else to put her hands, she rested them against his chest, her fingers smoothing over the hard planes, liking his laughter and the contours of his muscles way too much. “Point made. I am grateful you did not leave me out there to die.” She settled into the warmth of his arms, awkward about their nakedness, but too cold to climb out of the bag.

“You’re welcome.” He rested his chin on the top of her hair, a position both comforting and intimate. “Nothing like waking up in the dark with a stranger, huh?”

“Precisely.”

“What were you doing out by the river on foot?”

She swallowed, hating that she had to lie to the man who’d saved her from freezing to death, but she had no other choice. “I was out snowmobiling and my snowmobile broke down.”

The man stiffened. “What about the others in your party? Most tours stick together.”

“I got separated. I drove around for a couple hours…trying to find them. That is when my machine quit on me.” Her words came out in a rush as the lie grew bigger. What if he didn’t believe her? What if he was the man who’d been after her and he was just fishing for more information? She couldn’t let on that she was Katya Ivanov, just in case he really didn’t know. Surely the entire United States had been alerted to a possible terrorist at large.

“I didn’t see a snowmobile.” His voice had hardened, as though he didn’t really believe or trust her.

“I followed the river to see if I could find help. I suppose the snowmobile is a mile or so downstream from where you found me.” She had hoped to hide it among the boulders, but had to abandon the heavy machine where it had come to a grinding and permanent halt, in order to save herself from a shooter’s aim.

“The closest town to us is Medora and I don’t recall anyone there offering snowmobile tours.”

“It was a special tour out of…” she grasped for the name of a larger town in North Dakota. “Bismarck!” she said in a rush. How much bigger could the lie grow? And would she be able to remember all the details?

“Still, most tours wouldn’t leave a rider behind.”

“I am sure the weather cut them short on searching for me. I will bet they notified the authorities as soon as they got back. Assuming they did not get stranded too.” Kat couldn’t look into his eyes. Lying didn’t come naturally to her, one reason she could never be a good politician. The question was: Did this man believe any of the lies she had just dished out?

“So really, who are you?” he asked, answering her question. “Kat Evans isn’t right. You speak English too proper to have been born in America, and I detect an accent.”

She stiffened against him. Like it or not, she couldn’t tell him the truth. Not until she unraveled the mess her life had become. “I am from…Russia. And as long as we’re stuck in this bag, can we leave it at Kat Evans?”

“Why? Are you wanted for murder or peddling drugs to children?”

“No. Nothing like that. I would just rather not talk about it.”

“Running from an abusive husband? In which case, I’d offer a separate sleeping bag, but I don’t have one.”

“No. No husband.” She stared across the cave’s interior, wishing he would stop asking. “Is that a horse over there?”

“Consider him our chaperone. Bear is very good at keeping secrets. The stories he could tell, but won’t, would shock you.”

Katya laughed, although a little breathlessly. “I feel much safer, knowing he is here guarding my virtue.” And he gave her a good diversion from the stranger’s questions and naked body.

“Damn right.” The man nodded toward Bear. “Don’t tell her about the mare you stole from that stallion, boy. She wouldn’t understand.”

“I get it. You are trying to make me relax.”

“You’re brilliant as well as beautiful.” His hand brushed against her hip. “Is it working?”

Katya’s breath caught in her throat. The way his work-roughened fingers slid across her tender skin, aroused new sensations, making her body more alert, more sensitized to his nearness. “Somewhat,” she lied, again. “I have never lain naked with a stranger before.”

“That makes two of us. I usually get to know the women I sleep with before we climb into a sleeping bag together.” His voice lost all hint of humor. “Short of freezing to death in a blizzard, we didn’t have much choice.”

A shiver wracked her body and she pressed closer to him, absorbing his warmth, her skin tingling everywhere it touched his. “Good choice.” She inhaled the earthy scent of leather and male, noting the smoothness of his chest, not a hair on it. His nearness sparked a charge of electric current in her that made her want to explore more of his incredibly sexy body.

When was the last time she’d felt this drawn to a man? Never. The closest she had come was when she had been in lust with a politician’s son back when she was nineteen. A time when all was right with her world and her country.

With her future a black hole of uncertainty and danger, how could she be this attracted to a stranger?

In the rock-solid confines of the cave, with the warm glow of a flashlight chasing away the severe darkness, Katya felt safe for the first time since she’d been on the run. Safe enough to think of something or someone other than simple survival.

With her body heating rapidly, Katya fought for something to break the tension and silence. “Is the weather still bad outside?”

“Listen…” He held his breath and cocked his head to one side. “Wankatanka, the Great Spirit, is angry.”

Katya listened, concentrating on the silence. At first she heard nothing, then a thin, lonely wail whistled through the cavern, carried on a blast of frigid air that had found its way into their cocoon. Katya tugged at the edges of the bag, pulling it tighter around her shoulders, her face pressing close to the man’s chest. “I suppose it’s still bad out there.” She snuggled closer, the lonely sound of the wind emphasizing the chill still present in her body. His warmth enveloped her and made her feel safe and nervous at the same time. “You still haven’t told me your name.”

“Maddox.” His hand spread across her hip, his arm tightening, drawing her closer to his heat. “Maddox Thunder Horse. You’re trespassing on the Thunder Horse Ranch.”

“Maddox.” She tipped her head up to stare into eyes as black as the cave when it had been the darkest. “Pleasure to meet you. Please accept my sincere apologies for the trespass.” Her lips curled upward on the corners. “Thunder Horse is a different kind of last name.”

“I’m a member of the Lakota Nation. My father’s people were known for their strong horses.”

“You are a Native American? Is the ranch on a reservation?”

“No, my father’s father purchased the ranch from a retiring rancher fifty years ago. Since then, the Thunder Horses have added to the acreage.”

As he spoke, his hand smoothed back and forth over her hip, climbing up to her waist and back to her hip, cupping her bottom.

The more he touched her, the hotter she got, her breath coming in short gasps as if she could not quite catch it. With nothing but her bra and panties between her and the large man holding her in his arms, all manner of wicked thoughts filled Katya’s head. Her father would be appalled. “Do you have to do that?”

“What?”