Desert Ice Daddy by Marton, Dana (pocket ebook reader .TXT) 📕

He shoved them along to his pickup at the covered loading dock. As he opened the door, he nodded toward the one Akeem and she had driven here.

“And what in hell happened to Pete? Would you mind telling me that?”

She thought furiously, trying to come up with an answer that wouldn’t make Jake overly mad. Their lives depended on his goodwill. And she might have hesitated too long, because he turned from that car, shaking his head.

“Never mind. I don’t the hell care.”

She was pretty relieved to hear that.

“Could you please cut the rope? I would like to hold Christopher.” She turned to him as he was about to lift them up into the cab.

I’d like to hold my son before we die, was what she was thinking, and maybe it had shown on her face and reached some deep-down smidgen of conscience, because after a moment, Jake untied the rope.

“Thank you.” Hope rose. If she could appeal to that remnant of conscience…

But Jake’s eyes had gone cold and hard again already. “Get in.”

She did so, helping Christopher, holding him at last, which was the best feeling in the whole world just then.

But as soon as she was up, Jake took the rope and tied her feet together. “You try anything, I just as soon shoot you. Just so we understand each other.” He walked to the driver’s side.

She said nothing, just held Christopher, who snuggled against her, burying his little head in the crook of her neck. With a child’s instincts, he knew they were in trouble and remained silent.

When they got to the first gate, Jake gave her the key to the padlock instead of getting out himself, keeping the gun pointed at her son. He didn’t have to say anything.

She got out, hopped over to the gate with painstaking care not to fall on her face, opened the lock and hopped back in. When they reached the second gate, past the guardhouse, he gave her another key.

“Make sure you lock the first gate up,” he said.

She did that, opened the second gate, waited for the pickup to pull through, locked that padlock and hopped to the car, but didn’t get in.

“Let him go,” she said instead.

Jake just laughed. “Any more brilliant ideas? Full of jokes today, aren’t we?”

“Do you really want the death of a kid on your hands? Do you know what the jury is going to give you for that? Let him go.”

“I’ll let you go together when I have the money.” His tone turned mocking. “You’re just gonna walk on out of here.”

She wasn’t willing to bet her son’s life on that. “Let him go now. I’ll catch up with him. If you don’t let him go, how can I believe that you’re going to set us free once you have the money? And if I think you’re going to kill us either way, do you think I’m really going to lead you to those millions?”

She hated to be discussing this in front of Christopher, but she had no other choice. Either she saved his life now, or neither of them were going to live long enough to worry about how traumatized he became from being kidnapped. When this was over, she was going to spend as much time and effort as was necessary to make him feel safe again.

“You have nothing to gain by killing him. He’s a four-year-old child. He talks about you every night before bed, you know. How Jake did this and Jake did that. Do you know that he thinks you’re the best horseman on the ranch? Do you know that when Flint asked him last week what he wanted to be when he grew up, he said, ‘Jake?’”

She was telling the truth. Christopher was in love with horses and quick to hero-worship any man who worked with them. “He thinks the world of you. How can you do this to him?”

But as carefully as she watched, nothing in the man’s eyes softened. Which didn’t mean that she was going to give up. Not while there was still breath in her body. Of that he could be sure.

“This one is going to haunt you, Jake. How are you going to enjoy all that money?”

“You leave that to me.” He glared at her, then shrugged at last and mumbled something about coyotes, then jerked his head toward Hell’s Porch as he looked at Christopher and nodded to the open passenger-side door. “Scram.”

Christopher wouldn’t move an inch, of course. He was just a little kid, out in the middle of nowhere in the dark, scared to death. Not that he didn’t have every right to be. But now he had been given a chance. Getting him to move was up to her.

She lifted him from the cab. “See that?” She pointed the way she’d come with Akeem. “Flint is there, waiting. You have to walk to him. I’ll be right behind you.”

God bless his heart, he really looked, peered hard into the darkness.

“I don’t see him, Mom.”

“Maybe you have to walk a little. Go on. Be a good boy. Go to your uncle Flint.” She gave him a hug she never wanted to end, and a kiss on both cheeks, taking in his sweet, smudged little face, knowing chances were good this was the last time she would see him. “I love you, honey.” Then she pushed him forward a little.

Akeem would come. Akeem could track. Akeem would find him.

“Are you sure?” He searched the darkness.

“Of course I am,” she said when she was anything but. “You are such a big boy. You’re not afraid of the dark, are you?”

That had him taking the first step. He wanted to be a big boy so badly. Being surrounded by cowboys all day long had him itching to be wearing chaps and working the horses with them.

She held her breath as he took another step, and another.

Since he wasn’t going the way the pickup’s headlights were pointing, his small form was growing less