Boneyard Ridge by Paula Graves Read Free Book Online

much damage you did to my handiwork.” He didn’t wait for her to make a move. He just wrapped his arm around her, lifting her half off her feet, and started walking toward the cave.
    He hadn’t given her much choice but to stumble along beside him. Considering the flaring anger he could practically see swirling around her like a big red cloud, he was grateful she didn’t show any signs of fighting him as he hauled her into the cave.
    He should have known he wasn’t going to get away with the caveman act for long. The second he let her go and turned to set the rucksack down on the floor of the cave, she sucker punched him right in the kidney.
    Pain exploded through his side, shooting off shrapnel of pure agony to tear through his gut and groin. Doubling over, he wheeled to fend off her next blow, but it never came. When the stars cleared from his vision, he found himself staring into her crumpled face.
    The damn woman was crying.
    Before he could process the unexpected sight, she’d regained control, her expression returning to a cool, neutral mask as she dashed away the tears from her eyes as if they were mere raindrops that had slithered down from her damp hair.
    “Think you could answer a question directly now?” she asked in a regal tone that sent ice flooding his veins.
    There was the princess he knew.
    “You gonna sucker punch me again if I don’t?”
    Her mask slipped, just a bit, a hint of a wry smile hovering over the corners of her lips. The rain had washed away her carefully applied makeup, leaving her bedraggled and natural, but she still looked utterly royal and in control. “If necessary.”
    He rubbed his back over the site of her blow. The skin was tender, but the worst of the pain had ebbed to a dull ache. “You went for the kidney.”
    “Shameful of me.” She didn’t sound particularly regretful, but he’d seen that moment of breakdown, no matter how quickly she’d managed to don the icy mask again.
    “I was working with them. But I wasn’t one of them.” He hadn’t meant to tell her even that much, but the second he opened his mouth, the words had spilled in a rush.
    Her eyes narrowing, she nodded toward the backpack he’d dropped when she hit him. “Did you put the flashlight in there?”
    “Yeah.”
    She bent to pick up the pack, grunting a little as she encountered the unexpected weight. “How long did you pack for?”
    “A few days. More if we can get to a place where we can do some laundry.”
    She located the flashlight he’d tucked in one of the pack’s outer pockets and flicked on the switch. Light knifed through the darkness, piercing Hunter right in the eyes.
    “You planned to kidnap me.” It wasn’t a question, and her tone was oddly neutral, as if she were merely a disinterested observer trying to make sense of a situation she’d stumbled upon.
    “I knew I’d have to get you away from that parking lot, yes.”
    “Because of the gunmen.”
    He hadn’t really been sure exactly how they planned to kill her. Guns had seemed a reasonable option, since most of the men in the cell owned them. A whole carload of them shooting off their guns and making a lot of noise hadn’t exactly been what he’d been expecting, though. The concept of stealth apparently didn’t factor into how the BRI conducted their business.
    Calling themselves an “infantry,” he thought with a grimace. They weren’t fit to lick the boots of the real warriors they claimed to emulate.
    She must have seen the grimace. “You weren’t expecting the gunmen?”
    “I wasn’t sure what to expect. I only knew that whatever they had planned was happening this evening, and I had to get you out of there.”
    She looked at him for a long, silent moment, then walked slowly over to the stone bench and sat. It was a little high and narrow to make a proper bench, forcing her to perch more than sit. She looked bone-tired and disheartened, and one of her feet, the one that had lost whatever crazy bandage