Read Against the Wind for Free Online

away with anger and frustration, and for a moment he wondered what it would be like to make her pulses pound from something else. And how that pounding pulse would feel beneath his mouth.
    Damn, he was getting horny in his old age. He’d have to settle for keeping her furious with him. As long as she was enraged she wouldn’t be able to think clearly. Strong emotion always clouded people’s judgment. He looked ather. “Come on, Allison,” he said again. “Only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noonday sun.”
    Maddy blinked rapidly in the sudden darkness of the cool, shadowy stillness of the hacienda, temporarily blinded by the change from bright sunlight. Jake wasn’t similarly afflicted, and she had no choice but to follow along, hoping he wasn’t going to lead her into a stone wall. Gradually she became accustomed to the dimness, the cracked plaster walls surrounding them as he led her down a long hallway, a flight of stairs, and around a corner. The hacienda was a tall building, consisting of at least four floors, and they must be in the basement. Jake came to an abrupt stop, and Maddy barreled into him.
    The adobe walls would have had more give in them. Her lighter body jarred against his, and he absorbed the blow without flinching, without even turning. The long fingers that had been a manacle around her wrist released her, and absently she rubbed the mark his hand had made, aware that for all his manhandling, the rifle in her rib had pained her far more.
    “Ladies and gentlemen,
señors y señoras,”
Jake said in his gravelly voice that might or might not have held an element of mockery, “allow me to present Miss Allison Henderson. She’ll be giving us the pleasure of her company for the next few days. Come forward, Allison, and meet your fellow hostages. Though the rest of us are hostages to fortune.”
    There were seven of them seated around a long, rough table, clearly at the end of a rather spartan meal. Three women and four men eyed her out of wary, distrustful faces, no one saying a word.
    “Who is this?” A red-faced man in his mid-fifties spoke first, his voice querulous and bearing the traces of anupbringing in the southern part of the United States. He was wearing a cotton suit that had once been white, but was now dingy gray and spattered with the remnants of other, more sumptuous meals. “You know as well as I do, Murphy, that there is barely enough food to go around. What are you doing bringing in another mouth to feed? And you, young lady, what the hell are you doing in a country that’s being torn apart by revolution? This is a poor choice for a vacation spot, Miss … Henderson, was it?”
    She could tell by his voice that he was ever so slightly drunk. The smaller, darker man next to him managed a weary smile. “Doc doesn’t mean to be unwelcoming, Miss Henderson,” he said slowly. Another American, she realized, despite the darkness of his complexion. “But we’ve had a difficult time of it the last few months, and this is hardly a pleasant place to be.”
    Jake moved forward then, grabbing a chair and swinging it around to straddle it, his expression distant and watchful. “You may as well have a seat, Allison,” he said. “You’re going to be here for a while. If you behave yourself I may even see if there’s a scrap of food left from lunch.”
    “My name isn’t Allison,” she shot back, ignoring the sudden shaft of longing the word food swept through her. There was plenty of stuff in the back of her car, but she’d been too nervous that morning to do more than nibble on a chocolate bar. Suddenly she was famished.
    Jake only smiled faintly. “Let me introduce you to our happy family. Going clockwise around the table, we have Dr. Henry Milsom, late of North Carolina, Samuel’s physician.” The doctor gave her no more than a cursory nod. “Then we have Richard Feldman, late of parts unknown. The two ladies are Miss Mary Margaret Gallagerand Sister Margaret Mary