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I smiled as we continued down the mountain.

My ankle still hurt. Papá was still dead. Marcela’s men were somewhere behind us, and we had no idea how long it would take to reach Lachlan’s people.

None of that had changed.

But something between Lachlan and me had.

Even though he was protective, bossy, and determined to put himself between me and anything he considered dangerous, he understood that protecting me did not include protecting me from being a woman.

That part belonged to me.

Chapter twenty-six

The coolness of morning had burned away beneath the trees, and the mountain seemed determined to stretch downhill forever. We had been walking for hours, sometimes following narrow paths and sometimes cutting across rougher ground when a trail left us too exposed or seemed likely to draw searchers.

My ankle had held up better than I expected. The strip of towel he’d wrapped around it gave the joint enough support to keep me moving, although the ache had steadily worsened.

Neither of us mentioned it.

We found a cluster of ripe bananas near the edge of an untended plot and took a bunch before settling beneath the shade of a broad tree. Under ordinary circumstances, stealing someone’s fruit might have bothered me. After escaping a cartel compound with armed men somewhere behind us, my standards had become considerably more flexible.

The ripe bananas tasted ridiculously good—sweet, soft, and filling after everything we’d survived on since leaving the compound.

Lachlan sat beside me with his back against the trunk, one knee bent and the other stretched out. The bruises across his chest and ribs had darkened since morning, but he still moved as though pain were nothing more than an inconvenience.

After a few minutes, he glanced through the trees toward the lower slopes. “We should keep moving. We’re getting into more open farmland, and I’d rather find somewhere to disappear before dark than be caught out where anyone can spot us.”

I nodded. “Probably wise.”

Lachlan pushed himself to his feet, then held out a hand to me.

“Come on, Mouse.”

I slipped my hand into his, and he pulled me up.

The moment I put weight on my right foot, a sharper pain bit through my ankle. I shifted instinctively onto the other leg.

Of course he noticed.

“Ankle hurting?”

“It stiffened while we were sitting. I just need to walk it out, but I’m fine.”

His gaze stayed on me for another second, but he let it go, and we started downhill again.

We’d gone perhaps twenty yards, and despite my best effort to walk normally, the limp was getting harder to hide.

“You’re limping worse.”

“I’m aware.” I all but groaned.

“At least you admit it.”

Lachlan tipped his head slightly to one side, his mouth curving as his eyes moved over my face. It was such a strangely sweet expression on him that warmth spread through my chest before I could stop it. He reached up and brushed his thumb once over my cheekbone, the touch unexpectedly tender from a man who so rarely let anything he felt show.

“I know you can walk, Mouse. You’ve been doing it all day. That doesn’t mean I’m going to pretend I can’t see that every step is hurting you.”

His hand dropped from my face to one of the pistols tucked into his waistband. “Give me the pack for a second.”