“But,” he added firmly, “don’t forget to call, or I’ll come charging down, ready or not. Now go change, and don’t be afraid to rub that liniment on liberally. We’ve got another two full days of riding.”

When she returned ten minutes later, dressed in tennis shoes, jeans, a long-sleeved shirt, and a hooded sweatshirt, he was squatting down in front of a small fire. Two forked sticks had been thrust into the ground on either side of it, and an iron kettle hung suspended over the flames from a cross bar between them. He was slicing something into the pot with a hunting knife.

He looked up. “Hungry?”

The pot was steaming slightly and giving off a delightful aroma. “Yes,” she admitted, realizing that famished would be a better word. “What is it?”

“Stew.”

Nicole sat down gingerly next to the fire and leaned back on one elbow, feeling the weariness and yet strangely content for the moment to forget the harsh realities of the situation. She was a hostage, he a fugitive. But sitting here in a shaded mountain glen, with the delicious aroma of food tickling her nose, it was hard to believe that.

A few minutes later Eric sipped a spoonful of the stew, murmured his approval, and then served them with a flourish. Cricket was first and had gulped her portion down before Eric could even finish getting Nicole’s in the plate. To her surprise, once he had served her, he walked over to the spring, bent down for a moment, and came back, a bunch of small pink flowers in his hand. He bowed slightly as he handed it to her, ignoring her astonished look. “I know you’d rather be dining somewhere else tonight, so I hope this will make up for it a little.”

Too surprised for words, Nicole reached out and took the flowers. Then suddenly, she was angry—at him and at herself. “Is this supposed to make me glad I’m here?”

His expression had been friendly, offering a temporary truce. Slowly that faded. “Look, Nicole, I just wanted you to know that I—well, I don’t like this any better than you, and I—”

“You don’t like this any better than I!” she cried. “How dare you stand there and make a condescendingly stupid statement like that? You break into my home in the middle of the night at the point of a gun, you nearly kill my fiancé, you threaten his life and mine, you drag me up into the mountains against my will, then you have the unmitigated gall to stand there and say you don’t like it any more than I.” She flung the flowers into the flames. “Your arrogance is incredible, Mr. Lloyd. You think one tiny bunch of flowers makes all of that all right?”