Lost in what could have happened, it took Kendall a moment to realize Wyatt was watching her, his expression wary, guarded. What? Was he worried she was going to jump him again? “Are we working as a team or do we each take one man?” she asked quickly.
Wyatt stared at her, then he shook his head, appearing bemused. “You sure you’re up to getting the belts off them?”
With a emphatic nod, Kendall walked to the closest henchman. “It’s probably faster if we both do a man. Do you want me to take the big guy?”
“Yeah, why don’t you. I already have his belt open, you just need to remove it.”
Kendall nodded and knelt beside the body. After one short glance, she didn’t look at his face again. She didn’t know his name, but she’d seen him around the post. Maybe she should feel remorse over his death, but she didn’t. If the choice was Wyatt’s life or others’, she’d always pick her friend. Always. But seeing these two men made her wonder how many people were part of the smuggling ring. Would there be someone she knew, someone she considered a friend involved in this mess?
Shaking her head sadly, Kendall reached for the nylon-webbed belt. The ammo pouch was held on with two clips, and she pulled the tab to unhook one, then the other. Once she had the pouch off, she went to the man’s other side and pulled the belt out from underneath his body. Then, sitting cross-legged on the floor, she adjusted it until it would fit her. After checking to ensure the two clips were full, she reattached the ammo pouch. Satisfied that everything was to her liking, she stood, strapped it around her waist, and slid the weapon into the holster.
Wyatt was waiting nearby when she finished, but then the other guy was similar to him in build, and she doubted he’d needed to adjust the size of his belt. “We need to get that water and get out of here,” he said. “Are you set, darlin’?”
This time the endearment made her uncomfortable. Before, she’d been able to write it off, but now, because of their kiss—because his hand had caressed her bare breast—the name felt, well, intimate. She couldn’t stop her cheeks from heating, and Kendall had no doubt he’d seen it. Wyatt was too damn observant. “Yeah, I’m ready, Marsh.” She forced herself to meet his eyes.
“Okay, stay behind me.” He sounded irritated.
Kendall nodded. She guessed the tenuousness of their position was why he wasn’t questioning her, but she knew that wouldn’t last. At some point, he was going to insist they talk about it. Before then, she was going to have to come up with some plausible excuse for her behavior—one that wouldn’t jeopardize their friendship. She couldn’t lose him.
As she stepped into the room, the first thing she noted was the beauty of the stone fountain. It was plain compared to the often elaborate fountains centered in the various plazas of the Old City, but the simplicity gave it charm. The marble was a blush-brown and the middle had something that resembled an ancient Grecian column. Water flowed from the top and soundlessly cascaded down into the basin.
Gazing farther around the room, she saw a man’s body and gasped. He looked as if he’d just died moments earlier, but if what Wyatt had told her about the time of death being impossible to pin down was right, it meant the Old City preserved bodies. In that case, he could have been dead a long time. She didn’t like it. It had to indicate this room was booby trapped.
Grimly, she studied the area more intently, looking for some sign of what had killed the man. That was when she noticed that the thieves had brought a couple of collapsible camp stools with them to make their stakeout more comfortable. They were positioned near the door, almost unseeable from the hallway.
“Looks like we hit the mother lode,” Wyatt told her. He had a big grin on his face, and she found herself mesmerized for a moment before she could glance away. She knew he’d read the blank look on her face when he gestured toward two canteens.
Wyatt picked them up. “Nearly empty,” he reported. “Those men must have been here for a while. We can fill them along with your bottle, and put them on the belts.” Stuffing one under his arm, Wyatt bent down again, and checked out the tiny rucksack tucked between the two chairs. “The food’s gone,” he reported when he straightened. “Hand me your bottle.”
“Maybe we should wait and get water somewhere else. I don’t want you to get hurt.” She cast a quick glance toward the body. “If we found one fountain, there must be more.”
“There’ll probably be some sort of snare around those too,” he said, easily following her train of thought. “It’s not going to be any safer somewhere else, and it’s critical we have water.”
Reluctantly, Kendall handed him her bottle. He was right. “What do you want me to do?”
“Stand guard,” he told her. “The odds are slim that we’ll have company while we’re here, but I don’t want to be trapped unaware if someone does show up.”
“Got it,” she said, but her focus was more on Wyatt’s rear end than the doorway to the room.
As she watched, her hand throbbed as some kind of energy swirled along the new grooves on her fingers and palm. Kendall made a fist, trying to stop the sensation. Instead, it seemed to intensify with each step Wyatt took toward the fountain. “Stop!”
He obeyed instantly. “What’s wrong?”
“Don’t move,” she told him. “Whatever you do, don’t move.”
Chapter Thirteen
Kendall wasn’t sure why she’d connected the tingle in her hand to Wyatt’s progress, but she knew she was right—the intensity hadn’t increased since he’d stopped moving. She turned her arm so she could see her palm. The paisleys had become much more pronounced, the grooves going deeper and elongating until some joined up with other swirls. She pondered over that for a moment, but she couldn’t take the time now to think about it.
Letting her eyes go out of focus, Kendall lifted her gaze from her hand to the chamber. They were faint, but there were energy lines all through the room, intertwined with the intricacy of a spider web. And Wyatt stood right in the middle of them.
“Bug?”
She blinked and the web disappeared. “Just hang on, okay?”
Slowly, she allowed her vision to blur again, and studied the things. “Here’s the situation, Wy,” she told him when she thought she understood. “This room is riddled with energy lines. You’re on the brink of the really heavy ones, and I think they’ll trigger a trap. The fountain is like a hub that they come out of, but they’re more dispersed farther from the center. The thing is, though, that they filled in behind you.”
“What do you mean, energy lines?”
She shook her head, not sure what words to use. “They’re lines and they glow faintly. I don’t know how else to explain them, but they’re real and they’re dangerous.”
The question was what kind of snare were they linked to—a mind trap or something physical like those spikes? He couldn’t go forward, but he couldn’t back up either since the lines had thickened behind him. How did she get Wyatt out of this mess?
“I can’t see anything,” he told her.
“They’re there!” Did he think she was making this up?
“Darlin’, I wasn’t calling you a liar. I’m telling you that I can’t see them. I need you to guide me clear.”
“Sorry.” Kendall dragged her left hand through her hair, embarrassed by her touchiness. “I’ll try, but it might take a while to come up with a good way to get you out. You’re surrounded, and every direction is heavy with them now.”
From the start, he’d been worried that the smugglers would be watching for them by the water, so Kendall knew there wasn’t time to waste. Wyatt had taken out two of the henchmen, but that didn’t mean someone else wouldn’t show up to relieve those guys.
The threads were almost nonexistent where she stood, and Kendall shifted to her left, hoping that a new angle would give her a different perspective. As she moved, she noticed something—the web around her disappeared. Freezing in place, she considered that. Maybe because they were so scant in this area, they were geared to disintegrate for anyone. After all, the two smugglers had been parked here for a while and hadn’t set anything off. Except she didn’t think that was the case.
Cautiously, Kendall eased forward, holding her hand out in front of her. The lines vanished, giving her a foot of clearance to her front and sides—and she’d bet behind her too.
“Any progress?” Wyatt asked.
“I’m on to something. Give me a couple more minutes to test it out, okay?”
After receiving Wyatt’s agreement, she edged into the more densely lined area of the web. Same thing happened. Somehow, the strands reacted differently to her. Kendall didn’t go any faster, and she carefully monitored her situation with every step she took, but she made her way closer to him.
“What are you doing?” Wyatt didn’t move, but the snap in his voice suggested he had a good idea that she was near.
“Relax,” Kendall told him. “I’m not doing anything stupid. The web collapses for me. It’s allowing me enough clearance. If I wrap my arms around you, it should encompass both of us.”
“It might not work with me in the mix.”
“It’ll work,” she insisted.
Auric fields.
The words flashed through her brain, and she understood the message. Her energy should mingle with Wyatt’s, and as they overlapped, the web would react as if his aura were hers. Of course, she didn’t tell him this. While he claimed to be open-minded, she’d been ridiculed too many times for her beliefs to just casually toss the information out there and hope it was something he’d accept.
Kendall slowed even more as she neared him. She had to make sure the web came down; otherwise she might trigger the very thing she was trying to prevent. But nothing changed—the energy lines continued to vanish as she went forward.
She reached him, and before she could stop herself, Kendall ran her palm down his spine. He stiffened, but didn’t move or speak. With a sigh of frustration over her strange behavior, she pulled her hand back, closed the remaining distance, and wrapped her arms around his waist. Glancing to each side, she saw exactly what she’d hoped—the web was gone. “Are you braced?”
“Yeah, why?”
“I want to check behind us, but I need to use you as an anchor. I’m going to turn as far to the left as I can without letting go,” she explained. “Ready?”
“I’m set. Go ahead.”
Keeping her movement as smooth as possible, Kendall twisted. As she’d suspected, the foot of clearance extended to their rear. “We’re good behind us,” she informed him, slowly shifting forward once more, “but I was thinking. We need water, and we’ve come this far already. If my hugging you clears the web in front too, we could go to the fountain and fill the canteens.”
“Is it open in front?”
Clutching his middle, she went up on tiptoe, but Wyatt was eight inches taller than she was. Even balanced like this, she had a difficult time looking over his shoulder, and couldn’t get much of a view. “I don’t know. You’re too big,” she complained.
“So jump on my back, wrap your legs around my waist, and look over my head. Because of the canteens, I won’t be able to hold you up, but you’re athletic, so it shouldn’t be a problem. If the path is as open as you hope, we can go to the fountain like this.” He laughed. “Think of it as a piggyback ride.”
Now she was even more befuddled. “A what?”
“You know, when you were a little girl and your dad let you hop up on his back while he pretended to be a horse.”
Kendall went rigid. Her face was hot with mortification, but she was tired of pretending she’d had some normal life as she’d grown up. “I never met my dad,” she confessed. Before he could comment, she added, “And none of my mom’s boyfriends ever gave me a piggyback ride.” There. She’d said it.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “but don’t worry, Bug, I’ll help you make up for lost time. You can ride me whenever you like.”
She knew a double entendre when she heard one. Wyatt might have had laughter in his voice, but he wasn’t joking about the offer. It had to be because she’d kissed him in the hallway. Damn it, now he thought she wanted him. Okay, she
did
want him, but that didn’t mean she was going to give in to the need. No way was she going to be a friend who offered
benefits.
“Marsh, why don’t you be quiet?” she suggested. “You’re in a hell of a precarious position to be making risqué comments.”
Wyatt sounded solemn when he told her, “I’m not worried. If there’s one thing I know about you, it’s that you’re loyal. You’d never leave me enmeshed in a web of energy lines. I know it, and you know it. Now, why don’t you hop up and take a look in front of us. I want that water if we can get it safely, and we’ve dawdled enough.”
The idea of being predictable left her mildly unhappy, but he was right on both counts—she’d never abandon him, and they’d spent enough time here. “I’m going to use your shoulders to help me jump,” Kendall told him, and pushed her messenger bag behind her back before she put her hands on him. “Are you ready?”
After he nodded, Kendall leaped, and even though she’d never done this before, getting into position was as easy as he’d claimed. She hooked her ankles in front of him, and wrapped her arms around him to help them both stay balanced. Once she felt steady, she rested her chin on his head and looked around.
“Well?” he prompted.
“It worked. The web is down for about a foot in front of us. Walk slowly. I’ll keep a close eye on the lines, and if they’re not disappearing, I’ll tell you to stop.”
Wyatt nodded, and moving at glacial speed, he edged toward the blush-marble fountain. The web, though, continued to dissolve, and they reached the water without incident.
“I think,” he said, “our best option is to lower you to the ground again, and put you in front of me. I’ll hold on to you while you fill the canteens. Then we get the heck out of here.”
“Sounds good,” she agreed. Kendall slipped to the ground, but never gave up contact with Wyatt as she moved in front of him and quickly filled the canteens.
“Take as much water as you want,” Wyatt told her. “Then refill it and I’ll do the same. I don’t want to lower our supply of water before we have to, and we’ve got a large source right here.”