CHAPTER 14: BONE AND PINE

 Guillermo 

The heavy wooden door shut behind me, and the freezing mountain air hit my face like a blow. But my skin was still warm where her fingers had touched my arm.

“Please be careful.”

Three words. Just three words, but they were enough to make a man who had spent two years in hell feel like his heart was beating again.

She hated me. She feared the cage I had built around her. She had pushed me away when I kissed her, and she had put up every wall she could between us. But when I reached for the iron latch, her first thought hadn't been to let the forest swallow me. It had been to tell me to stay alive.

I stood beside the cedar post for a few seconds without making a sound, my right hand resting against the damp wood while my thumb moved over the rough surface.

My mind was full of her. The way her lips had met mine for one short second before her fear took over. The way she looked at me, not with indifference, but with something I still couldn't understand.

For seven hundred and thirty days, I had lived with memories of her. I had slept in an empty bed in Guadalajara while her scent slowly faded from the sheets, hunting down every bastard who had dared to put her name on a hit list. I had turned Jalisco into a graveyard just to earn the chance to stand in front of her again. Now that I had her back in my sight, no force on this earth was going to drag me away from her.

If Severo thought he could put a bullet in my chest and leave Xitllali defenseless in these mountains, he was wrong. The only reason I was holding back from burning this valley to the ground was because I refused to let her get caught in the crossfire.

Fifty yards down the eastern slope, past the line of wild ferns, a dry pine branch snapped under the heel of a heavy boot.

The warmth in my blood turned instantly to ice.

The husband who wanted to hold her disappeared. El Crotalo took his place.

I checked my belt out of instinct. Nothing. My custom pistol was resting on the wooden table inside, completely empty, its single engraved bullet was already fired back at the flower shop.

I had brought only that one weapon because I didn't want to scare her, and I never expected Severo's scouts to follow me.

Out here, I had no tactical vest, no loaded gun, and no convoy behind me. Just my boots, my bare hands, and a shoulder that burned with every beat of my heart.

I lowered myself and slipped into the fog, using the thick cedar trees for cover. The mud softened the sound of my boots.

Ten paces ahead, the scout came out of the mist. He moved carefully, wearing a dark rain poncho and holding a short rifle across his chest. Severo's man. He was following the shallow boot prints Xitllali and I had left in the mud the night before.

He was alone. Severo was spreading his men out to cover more ground, and this one was walking straight toward the cabin.

Toward Xitllali.

Something dark and protective tightened inside me. At that moment, I didn't care about anything. All I could think about was the man walking toward the cabin where my wife was waiting.

I waited behind a moss-covered cedar tree until his side came into view.

The moment his heel cleared the tree, I moved.

My left arm went around his throat, locking him in a tight choke before he even realized I was there. His rifle dropped into the mud. He fought hard, driving his elbow into my left side and hitting close to my shoulder.

Sharp pain shot through me, making my vision blur for a second. I gritted my teeth and held on, keeping my arm tight around his neck. I pushed my hip forward and knocked him off balance until his back hit the damp stone side of the ridge.

His legs kicked against the wet pine needles. His hands grabbed at my wrist, trying to pull my arm away, but I didn't let go.

I kept the pressure steady until his movements slowed and his body finally went limp in my arms.

I let him slide into the mud. I didn't kill him. A dead scout would bring an immediate search team, but an unconscious body hidden under fallen pine branches could buy us hours of silence.

I pulled his tactical knife from his belt, cut his radio cable, and unzipped the leather bag  hanging across his shoulder. Inside were two wax-paper packages of dried beef cecina, a thick round of smoked cheese, two apples, and a small water bottle filled with clean water.

I grabbed the bag and headed straight back up the trail toward the cabin, my lungs burning with every step.

When I lifted the iron latch and stepped back inside, Xitllali was standing a few feet from the fireplace, gripping a thick wooden stick in both hands like a weapon.

She lowered it slightly when she saw me, but her eyes went straight to my shoulder.

“Guillermo!” she gasped, taking two quick steps toward me. “What happened? You're bleeding again!”

I glanced down and looked at it. Fresh blood was soaking through the fabric over my shoulder

“I'm okay. It's not a problem,” I said roughly, setting the bag on the wooden table.

“Don't give me that!” she snapped, her voice tight with anger as she set the wooden stick against the wall. She grabbed a damp cloth from a bowl of water. “You went out there without a weapon! What were you even thinking?”

“I had to make sure the ridge was clear.”

“And you thought doing that alone while you're already injured was a good idea?” she demanded, stepping closer to me.

“Sit down,” she ordered.

“Xitllali, I'm fine.”

“Sit.”

I knew better than to argue with the fire in her eyes. I pulled out the wooden stool and sat down while she crouched in front of me, pressing the damp cloth gently against my injured shoulder and the torn fabric around it.

Her hands were steady, but I could see the small tremble in her fingers and the worry on her face.

Being this close to her was difficult. I could see the tiny flecks of gold in her eyes and the slight tremble of her lower lip. She was trying hard to hide her worry behind anger, but I could see it anyway.

“There was a scout on the lower ridge,” I explained quietly, watching her as she cleaned the blood from my shoulder. “He won't wake up for a couple of hours. But he won't be the last one.”

“You could have been shot,” she whispered. She didn't look up at me. She just kept cleaning my bleeding shoulder. “You're already injured, Guillermo.”

“I don't care about getting shot, Xitllali,” I murmured. “I care that you're safe.”

Her hands stopped against my shirt for a moment. She swallowed hard and looked away before stepping back toward the table where I had placed the bag.