Never Let Go Read Free Page A

long, harsh breath shattered inside his lungs. "You hid those feeling's well," he said gruffly. "You'd make a great actress ... or a great prostitute."
    "Step back," Valdivia said one more time. "People have a way of walking into the jungle here and never returning. I would hate for you to have such a fate, Señor."
    Rucker snatched the man's pristine white lapels into his fist. "Don't threaten me—"
    "Stop it!" Dinah interjected. She pried Rucker's fingers off her companion's coat. "Get away from us, Rucker. Leave me alone. Do I have to put it cruelly? All right. You were an embarrassing redneck, but I stayed with you because I had a certain amount of prestige as the wife of a well-known writer—even If all you write are simplemlnded books of southern humor."
    She continued rapidly, her voice rising. "I left without a word because I was pregnant—and I knew that if you found out you'd never let me go."
    Rucker stared at her with horror. "We have a baby and you didn't tell me?"
    "There's no baby. I ... fixed the problem."
    Her words numbed him and left nothing—not anger, not shock, not grief. He was dying. It might be years before he stopped breathing, but he could feel himself dying now.
    "I came here to find out what happened to you," he said finally. "To see if you were really alive." He paused. When had everything gotten so quiet, and so cold? Or was it just the emptiness growing inside him? "Now I'm not sure you ever existed."
    "As far as you're concerned, I didn't."
    She stared straight ahead, no longer acknowledging his presence. The bodyguards blocked him as Valdivia guided her past. Rucker's gaze followed her until she disappeared in the crowd, and then he remained still, staring at nothing, aware of nothing until Jeopard's sympathetic grip on his arm forced him to walk away.
    ***
    March had been steamy in Surador, but here in Alabama, wintertime had not yielded to spring and drizzling rain accompanied near-freezing temperatures. Dinah shivered by the window of her Montgomery hotel room. The night absorbed her with its bleakness. She quicklty pulled the curtains closed, then, moving woodenly, began to strip off her clothes.
    Why had Valdivia detoured to this small southern city? They'd arrived a week ago: the mission was barely begun, and she had hoped to be headed back to Surador by now. Who were they hiding from?
    She thought he enjoyed torturing her this way, keeping her within a few hours' drive of her old life, her old home, and the husband she had so nearly destroyed.
    Dinah stepped into a hot shower and leaned against the tiled wall, her shoulders hunched and her face buried in her hands. She sobbed loudly, glad for the freedom to let anguish draw hard shudders through her body. She could only cry like this in the shower; Valdivia's room was next door, and the walls were thin. Any hint of weakness on her part only strengthened his position.
    Here in the shower she could call Rucker's name and say that she loved him. Here she could promise that everything would be all right someday. Here she could grieve over the devastation she'd seen in his eyes.
    After nearly an hour she forced herself to leave the shower's private haven. Valdivia would be coming by with dinner soon. Probably more hamburgers. His craving for American junk food would have been funny, under different circumstances.
    Dinah wrapped her dark hair in a towel. She reluctantly donned a lacy black robe and black bedroom shoes that resembled ballet slippers. Valdivia chose all her clothes, so there was nothing else to wear. This sexy outfit was one more way in which he tested her resistance to intimacy. He was unwilling to force her because he sensed that it would make her less cooperative.
    And as long as he needed her cooperation, she had a chance.
    She was startled by the sound of running feet in the hallway outside. Dinah jumped when someone slammed against her door. A heavy fist pounded it.
    "Let me in!" Valdivia ordered.
    He kept a key to