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He didn’t. Or, sure, they might be looking, but probably in all the wrong directions. The ransom note hadn’t suggested the men who’d taken her had much going on between their ears. He was starting to think that snatching her had been opportunistic, that the pair of them had spotted her and figured they could make some easy money.

But anything was possible…including his real concern.

Running into Bright Star.

No reason to tell her that, though. Not yet.

“You know the old saying,” he said. “Better safe than sorry.”

“Thanks,” she said. “For fixing me up.” She nodded at t

he scrubs. “And for the clothes.”

“Nothing to thank me for.” He got to his feet and tried not to wince. His leg hurt. It had been hurting for hours.

“You okay?”

“Of course I’m okay.”

“You don’t have to snarl at me, Lieutenant. I just thought—”

“Let me do the thinking for both of us, Ms. Wilde. We’ll be better off.”

Her eyes flashed. “It’s Bellini. If you’re so good at thinking, how come you can’t get my name straight?”

Hell. She had a right to be pissed off. He’d all but taken her head off, and it wasn’t her fault his damn leg was giving him trouble. Quickly, he turned away, picked up the rifle and slung it over his shoulder. Then he dug the coiled paracord out of the backpack, measured out an appropriate length and cut it off with his knife.

“Sorry I barked at you,” he said briskly as he looped the canteens and the pot over the improvised carry strap, then hung it over his other shoulder. “But I want to get us organized before sunset.”

“Is that as close as you can come to an apology, Lieutenant?”

He swung toward her. “Do you ever give an inch?”

“No,” she said, chin up, her hands on her hips. “Not if I can help it.”

Amazing. She was bruised, battered, undoubtedly scared and hungry, and she was still ready to take on the world.

“Okay. You want it to be an apology? It was an apology. Right now, I’m going to see if I can find us some water.”

She scrambled to her feet. “I’ll go with you.”

“It’ll be faster if I go alone.” The look on her face made him soften his tone. “I don’t want you to do any more walking tonight. You’ll be safe here and I’ll be back in five minutes, I promise.”

She nodded, but she was nervous about being alone. He couldn’t blame her.

Still, he couldn’t see taking her with him.

She was holding up well—better, really, than he’d expected—but he’d just seen her assortment of bruises and bites. The more rest she got now, the better their chances of reaching the river ASAP tomorrow.

The obvious choice was to leave her with a weapon, but handing over a pistol to someone who knew nothing about pistols would be incredibly dangerous.

The knife, then. It was sharp, equally dangerous in untrained hands, but it was the preferable option.

Quickly, he opened his belt, started to slip off the sheathed SOG-TAC…

“Are you going to give that to me?”

“Yes. Just keep it sheathed unless you absolutely—”