“No other light to dilute their appearance.” A small smile curled his lips. “It’s one reason I don’t mind the desert. Just me and that bright sky. No trees to obscure it. The colors are unlike anything else. This kind of landscape has a haunting beauty.”

She’d never thought about it before, never really noticed. But Axel had a point. Yes, they were in a dangerous situation, hiking toward freedom. But it didn’t look as if they’d been followed. They hadn’t seen any scavengers or snakes. Out here, she could pretend for a little while that they were the only two people in the world. She could fantasize for just a moment that Axel could be interested in her.

“Yeah, I can see that,” she murmured. “Did you grow up in the desert?”

“Nah. I’m originally from Tennessee. I joined the Army and shipped out to Afghanistan. I saw a lot of desert over there. You learn to appreciate it or you go insane.”

Mystery felt her gaze cling to him. She should probably stop staring and embarrassing herself, but she enjoyed the view of him too much. But he wasn’t just attractive. She really liked the way he rolled with the punches, accepted what was, and learned how to embrace the moment. Most of the men she knew, other than her dad, were creative folks with the artistic temperament to match. Very high-maintenance. Nothing seemed to faze Axel. He’d lost at least one friend today, yet that hadn’t sent him into a rage, a drinking binge, or a catatonic frenzy.

“I never gave it much thought, but I suppose you’re right.” She bit her lip and hesitated asking the next question on the tip of her tongue, but couldn’t help herself. “Is Axel really your name?”

“Nope. Troy.” He shrugged. “It’s a family name.”

“Do you like it?”

“No one has called me that since I was about nine, so I don’t really think about it. Once I started working on cars, my dad gave me the nickname and it stuck.”

“Troy doesn’t sound like you.” She frowned. “Sorry. That didn’t come out right.”

“No offense taken.” He scanned the empty horizon, seemingly always on alert. His sharp profile fascinated her. “What about you? Mystery is a very unusual name. Where did that come from?”

She grinned. “Well, besides the fact that celebrities always give their kids weird names, my mom told this story about how my father did three movies on location in different parts of the world shortly after they married. It wasn’t really planned that way, but he didn’t get to come home much. She joked that it was a mystery how she got pregnant, and it stuck.”

That made him laugh, a rich, deep rumble out of his chest. “I’m assuming she eventually figured it out.”

Mystery rolled her eyes. “I suspect.”

A few more minutes passed in silence. Axel’s hand swung right next to hers. Their knuckles brushed. She wished she had the courage and the right to tangle her fingers in his. Instead, she just watched him. He hovered protectively, constantly surveying her, their surroundings, the conditions. He made her feel secure. Nothing that had happened, nothing she’d said, nothing about her life freaked him out.

People made movies about men like him. Actors fought to play his character. But as soon as the director cut the scene, Axel didn’t head for his trailer, which he’d demanded to be stocked with a cool-mist humidifier, Casablanca lilies, and a case of Red Bull. He just kept right on being exactly who he was.

Mystery watched him—not the landscape—when she managed to stumble over a rock directly under her left toe. As she fell forward, Axel wrapped his strong arm around her middle. His other hand clamped around her wrist and dragged her upright, against his chest, so hard she felt every moment of his years of physical exertion.

Mystery dashed a glance over her shoulder, blinking up at him. “Thank you.”

He nodded. “You all right?”

Getting her feet back under her, she nodded. “Yeah.”

Though her breathing still felt a bit uneven. Then again, he had that effect on her.

“You’re tired. And you didn’t tell me.” He looked disapproving.

She eased out of his embrace. Not that she wanted to, but leaning on him didn’t help them or prove that she could stand on her own two feet.

Hoisting the backpack higher on her shoulders, she shook her head. “It’s just dark and I didn’t see the rock. We need to keep going, right?”

“I’ve also promised to bring you back healthy. Tomorrow will be more difficult. Let’s rest.”

But they had hours of cool darkness left. “No, I promised that I’d keep pace. I will.”

He sighed. “Now you’re just being a stubborn brat.”

Because she wanted to pull her weight? “This is me being resolved.”

“At the risk of your well-being. I’m not having it.”

Mystery wanted to ask him why he thought he was the boss of her, but she knew the answer. Without him, she’d very likely be dead. With a heavy breath, she shook her head. “Fine.”

“Good. I’ll scout for a good place to sleep.”

She looked around the expansive, open landscape. The moonlight put a silvery glow on everything, and it almost looked magical.

“What about over there?” She pointed to a small trail just off to her left. “That looks like a dried-up riverbed.”

He shook his head before she even stopped speaking, looking up to a cropping of rocks on the right. “See the grooves through the rock leading straight down into that gully? That’s the path from past flash floods. It runs off the stone and down to the low point.”

She scoffed. “I don’t see flash flooding being a big problem here.”

“It is,” he corrected. “In a good storm, it can rain six inches or more in an hour. All the water will race down the surrounding hills and collect right here in the old riverbed. People can wash away and drown like that in minutes.”

“In a place as dry as this, doesn’t the soil soak up all the water before it can flood the low spots?”

“This earth gets baked until it’s nearly as hard a concrete. Gravity rolls the water down. It happens really fast. If you’re asleep, you won’t see it coming. You’ll just be overcome by water and die.”

As serious as he sounded, she believed him. “Okay, where do we camp, then?”

“Up higher. Stand right here for a minute. Let me do a little climbing.” He dropped his pack and kept his rifle slung over his shoulder. Then, as if he hadn’t been walking in near-freezing temperatures for the last few hours, she watched Axel grip a rock, then put his foot on the one directly below and climb the side of a hill with the same ease he’d ascend a ladder.

He was so physical and capable. She couldn’t help but admire everything he was and had accomplished. He was probably in his mid-twenties, but had already served two tours on one of the most dangerous battlefields in the world. His mother had left. He lived away from his family. He’d lost a friend today. Nothing broke him. And Mystery admired his courage so much. She wanted to be that brave.

He disappeared up the rock face, then when he reached a ledge, he walked into some opening she couldn’t quite see.

A few moments later, he reappeared and bounded his way back to her side. “This will work. It’s high so that if the bastard who paid for your abduction sends a search party, we won’t be immediately visible. There’s a little bit of an overhang to protect us from the wind. We’ll still have to watch for things like scorpions and mountain lions, but we were going to have to be cautious about those wherever we stopped.”

Some protective rock sounded great, but . . . “How do you expect me to get up there?”

He crossed his arms over his chest as if this point was nonnegotiable. “You’re going to climb.”

Automatically, she shook her head. Yeah, she wanted to be brave, but she knew her limitations. That wasn’t happening. “I can’t. I’ve never climbed a rock like that in my life. I don’t know how, especially in the dark. Isn’t there something else closer to the ground?”