Run Wild by Shelly Thacker Page A

their labored breathing filled the silence around them, the only sound for a long time.
    When she could finally catch her breath, she slowly sat up, biting her lower lip to stop a groan. She leaned against the closest tree trunk. The rough bark dug into her suntanned arm but she didn’t care. Eyes closed, she mopped at the perspiration that trickled down her face, her neck, using a corner of her ruined silk skirt. She raked her hopelessly tangled hair back from her face, tried to comb her fingers through it, gave up.
    Opening her eyes, she looked warily at her companion. He still lay on his side in the leaves, eyes closed, features pale and strained. His shoulder was bleeding. Badly. The makeshift bandage he had fashioned from his sleeve was woefully inadequate. Blood stained the back of his shirt red.
    As if he felt her regard, he opened his eyes and looked up at her. When their gazes met, her heart thudded harder against her ribs.
    Stretched out on the forest floor, with his disheveled black hair and glittering green eyes and bloodied shoulder, he looked like he belonged here in this wild place. Fit in with the other untamed things. A wounded predator. Dark and fierce... and capable of all sorts of unpredictable behavior.
    Please, God, help me.
    His gaze skimmed downward, coming to rest on her legs. He was still breathing harshly. “Come here.”
    Sam stiffened. His voice sounded weaker than before, but she wasn’t taking any chances. Shifting her eyes quickly left and right, she sought some weapon she might use to protect herself. A rock. A branch. Anything.
    “I said come here,” he repeated impatiently.
    When she didn’t comply, he reached out and grabbed her foot.
    “What are you doing?” She tried to wriggle out of his grasp. “Unhand me!”
    “Gladly,” he said tiredly—yet he hung on to her, pushing himself up on one elbow. Snagging her ruined slipper with his other hand, he flipped it off her foot. “I’d like nothing better than to unhand you, unchain you, and be
done
with you.”
    Instead of attacking her, he attacked the shackle around her leg.
    Sam gave up her struggle, even though she knew she could kick her way free. One blow to his wounded shoulder and he would let her loose. But he was already in a foul mood and she didn’t want to make it worse.
    Besides, she realized what he was trying to do. He pulled at the shackle, trying to slide it off over her foot.
    Which just might work.
    “Maybe if we had some kind of...” Glancing around, she took a handful of slimy mud from beneath the leaves and smeared it over her skin.
    “Come on,” he muttered under his breath, pushing the cuff, turning it, swearing at it. “Come on.”
    Sam tried to help but he clearly didn’t want her help. Holding her bare foot with one hand and the iron cuff with the other, he turned both at different angles, trying to coax the cuff past her ankle bone.
    “It’s too tight and it’s bolted on,” she said finally, exasperated at being manhandled. “It’s not going to come off.”
    With a short, expressive oath, he released her. Lowering himself back down into the leaves, he tossed the muddy slipper into her lap. “Perfect,” he growled. “Of all the lady thieves on the run in England, I have to get myself shackled to the one with big feet.”
    Sam scuttled backward, as far away from him as the chain would allow. Which wasn’t nearly far enough. “I’ll thank you to keep your opinions to yourself.”
    Her tone was frosty, but she feared that even her haughtiest drawing-room airs couldn’t conceal the fact that her cheeks felt hot. Scalding. She rubbed at her ankle, wiping away the mud and the unexpected warmth that lingered from the touch of his callused fingers on her bare skin.
    Grabbing her slipper, she put it back on. Her foot and her ankle ached with soreness, felt cool from the gooey muck. She couldn’t understand why they also... tingled.
    She decided that the unfamiliar sensation must come from the