Read Online On Thin Ice by Anne Stuart - Free Book Online Page A

was of no use to us. He lost us the man and the gringa. Better to leave him here.”
    MacGowan levered himself off her body, slowly, and Beth felt a sudden panic. What the hell was he planning to do? She reached out a hand to stop him but he was already gone, circling around the clearing, and she let her face drop against the dirt with a silent groan.
    The men kept arguing, only half of the words intelligible to her untrained ears, and she wanted to cover her head with her arms to shut everything out. She could smell death in the thick, hot air, and she wanted to gag. She closed her eyes and breathed through her mouth, slow, deep breaths, as she tried to shut out what lay in the clearing.
    A moment later there was an explosion of sound, gunfire, and she jerked her head up to see MacGowan on the ground with the older man, locked in a furious struggle. Carlos had been knocked back against a tree, and he was lying there, dazed, as the third man circled the combatants, trying to take a shot.
    MacGowan’s leg shot out, sweeping the other man, and he went down, hard. MacGowan surged up, leaving the older man unconscious or maybe dead, and leaped onto the second, catching the man’s head in his hands and giving it a quick, vicious jerk. She didn’t need the sound of crunching bones to know he’d broken his neck, killing him instantly.
    He rose, looking down at the first man, reaching for the gun in his dead hand, when Carlos came at him, his machete raised high, too quick for MacGowan to stop him.
    “No!” Beth screamed, moving on instinct, slamming into Carlos, knocking him off balance before he could hack into MacGowan’s exposed back. Carlos caught her against his skinny body, bringing the machete up to her throat, so tight she could feel it begin to bite into her skin, as MacGowan turned around, the dead soldier’s gun in his hand.
    “Let her go, hermano,” he said in rough Spanish. “You can’t win.”
    “I’m not your brother,” Carlos spat. “And I think it’s you who are the one who can’t win.”
    “Don’t make me kill you. You’re just a kid.” MacGowan’s voice was unutterably weary.
    “You shoot me, I go over the falls, and I take her with me. You want to risk that?” Carlos taunted him.
    MacGowan shrugged. And pulled the trigger.
    Beth felt the recoil of his body before the explosion of sound in her ear, deafening her. The machete dropped, but his grip on her held, and a moment later he sank back, falling into thin air, dragging her with him.
     
     
    “Shit,” MacGowan said wearily, kicking off the poor remnants of his boots and dropping the gun beside the dead body. And a moment later he dove after her, his body slicing through the heavy rush of water.
    It was bitter cold, melted ice from the peaks of the Andes, and the shock took his breath away. He cursed himself all the way down. The force of landing wrong would probably kill her, if she managed to avoid the stone sides of the canyon. The water was so cold she’d go numb in short order and be unable to swim. He was doing this for nothing. Some quixotic gesture that if he’d stopped for a moment to think about it, he would have stayed where he was, mopping up after Froelich.
    His body cleaved the water neatly, lessening the shock, though immersion in the icy river was hard enough. He surfaced, looking around him for a body floating face down.
    There was one, but it was Carlos, half of his head blown away by the gun he’d taken off the dead rebel. Stupid piece – a nine millimeter was more than enough fire power. He turned in the water, but there was no sign of her, and he dove under, looking for her. She was more than likely dead, but since he’d already done such a damned fool thing he may as well carry through to the end.
    He saw her, drifting through the water like a ghost, her long hair loose and flowing behind her, and he kicked out, heading toward her, grabbing her dead arm to drag her body to the surface. Only to find her