Read Online Beyond Sunrise by Candice Proctor - Free Book Online Page B

"You can't be serious." Jack Ryder let out a low, mean laugh. "When she's the only thing standing between me and a hangman's noose? Of course I'm serious."
    "You want a hostage?" The Englishman spread his arms wide in a gesture of surrender. "Take me. But let the woman go, Jack."
    The despicable fiend holding her laughed again in what struck India as an unnecessarily hearty—and heartless— manner. "Nice of you to offer, Simon. But you're not exactly dressed for a jungle trek."
    A muscle bunched along the Englishman's clenched jawline. "I never thought I'd see you hiding behind a woman."
    "Yeah?" The rollicking tone vanished, leaving in its place a cold, lethal timbre that sent a chill through India's veins. "Well, there was a time I thought I'd never see you killing women, which just goes to show how wrong one man can be about another."
    "I was only following orders, and you know it."
    A dangerously volatile hum of anger coursed through the man behind her. India knew a stab of raging panic, then felt him relax, his voice sounding unutterably sad and weary as he said, "Just get out of here, Simon."
    For a long, silent moment, the two men stared at each other. Simon Granger said, "I won't quit. You know that, Jack."
    "I know it."
    The Englishman turned to leave, and it was only by sheer force of will that India managed to hold herself still, her jaws clenched together to keep from crying out, No! Don't leave me here with him! She watched in sick, stomach-wrenching despair as Simon Granger maneuvered his way with rigid care down the slippery, narrow trail, his tall, naked white body flickering ghostlike through moss-covered tree trunks and vivid green creepers. Then an outcropping of rough volcanic boulders hid him from her sight, and she was alone in the jungle with a mad, machete-wielding Australian renegade and an unknown number of watching cannibals.

    Jack kept his grip on Miss McKnight's wrist, the weight of his arm across her rib cage holding her back pressed tightly to his chest, his machete at her neck. He waited until Simon had disappeared from sight and the only sounds to be heard were faint jungle whisperings and the labored breathing of the woman he held in his arms, her full breasts rising and falling with each intake of air. Then he let her go and stepped back warily.
    He wasn't sure what he expected her to do. Faint maybe, or fall into hysterics, or maybe even try to make a frightened run for it. He should have known better.
    She stood rigidly erect, her back still to him, one hand rubbing the wrist he'd held so tightly, the other hand coming up to touch fingertips to her neck. When she finally turned, it was to show him a pale but composed face. "So, Mr. Ryder," she said in that tart, Sunday-school teacher voice of hers. "What do we do now, given that a return to the Sea Hawk is obviously no longer an option?"
    Jack let out a soft laugh and drove his machete back into its scabbard. What now, indeed? When Simon and his bluejackets had appeared below them on the trail, Jack's only thought had been to get himself out of a tight situation alive and with as much of a chance of getting away as he could manage. It was only now, as he stared at the pith-helmeted woman who stood before him, her shoulders determinedly straight, her fine gray eyes flashing scorn and contempt, that the magnitude of what he'd let himself in for burst upon him.
    For the next two days, he was going to be tramping through a cannibal-infested jungle in the company of the most aggravating, sharp-tongued Amazon he had ever had the misfortune to encounter. And as if that weren't bad enough, he'd be willing to bet his machete that as soon as Simon and his men scrambled into new clothes and rearmed, they were going to be hot on Jack's trail. Simon would have been after him in any case, but it didn't help that to his already long list of crimes, Jack had just added the offense of kidnapping a popular lady travel writer.
    "What we do now," said Jack,