Taken and Tamed Read Online Free PDF Page B

two-lane lined with trees. They were heading deeper into the mountains, toward the sparsely populated western edge of North Carolina. Cass tried to tamp down her rising panic. The further they went, the lousier her chances of being rescued became.
    She remembered watching the extensive media coverage that part of the state received not long after she moved to Charlotte. One of the FBI’s ten most wanted fugitives, Atlanta’s Olympic bomber Eric Rudolph managed to hide out for five years in the heavily forested wilderness, despite a massive manhunt. He’d been captured by a stroke of luck. Bad luck for him. Hunger drove him to dumpster dive behind a small town grocery store late at night, where he got caught by a rookie cop who had no idea just how big a deal his arrest of a half-starved vagrant really was.
    All the resources of the Federal government hadn’t been enough to catch one of the country’s most famous criminals in the miles and miles of steep forest that lay ahead of them. And Zander didn’t look a man who would resort to dumpster diving. If she wanted to get out of this alive, Cass decided she’d have to rely on her own abilities.
    She tried again. “There’s not much to see out here. How about indulging me by doing the rest of that interview you promised while we drive?”
    Zander didn’t reply, watching the road carefully as he slowed down. Cass couldn’t see anything different about the landscape. She opened her mouth, about to try another way to connect with him, when he made a sharp right turn, this time onto an unmarked dirt two-track. The road, if you could call it that, didn’t look like it had been used in ages. It was steep and so narrow that underbrush scraped the sides of the car.
    “Okay. Now we can talk.”
    She looked out the window uneasily. The last thing she wanted to do now was talk. Cass gritted her teeth as the car jolted over a boulder poking out of the ground, uncovered by rain washing away the soil around it as it poured down the mountain. They rounded a curve and she choked back a cry. The path narrowed even further, one side hugging a jagged cliff face while the ground dropped off sharply inches from the tires on the other side. Responding to her poorly disguised terror, he slowed the car to a crawl.
    She tried for a casual tone. “I assume you know where you’re headed? ‘Cause it looks like we’re not going to be able to turn around any time soon.”
    Zander pointed out the window. “Up there.”
    Cass craned her neck. “I don’t see a damn thing except more trees.”
    “Exactly.”
    She realized she wouldn’t get anything useful out of him about their destination. She decided to appeal to whatever shred of moral decency propelled him into turning over evidence against Big Tony. “I’ve never talked to anyone who chose to enter the witness protection program. I can’t imagine how hard it would be to walk away from family and friends, knowing you won’t be seeing them for weeks or months, maybe even years.”
    “That choice probably isn’t on the table after today. Besides, leaving isn’t hard if you don’t have any family or friends.”
    “Come on.” She put a lilt of humor in her voice. “There must be a whole string of women who would pine away if you didn’t respond to their sexting.”
    “Any woman I got involved with wouldn’t dare sext me—unless I ordered her to.”
    There it was again. Hinting in that stern tone of voice that he would always be in complete control sexually set off a shiver of raw hunger deep in her belly. She steered away from dangerous territory.
    “What do you mean, that choice is off the table?”
    “My guess is, as far as the U.S. Marshals are concerned, once I pulled a gun on one of their agents, I became a wanted man again. Taking a hostage adds about twenty years to whatever sentence I faced before. This time if they find me, they’re not going to show up with a welcome home bouquet.” His voice didn’t betray any