Wild Ways
Naomi Horton
All ex-agent Rafe Blackhorse wanted was to capture the man he'd been hired to retrieve and head back to his secluded life in the mountains. Unfortunately, an unforseen shoot-out forced him to protect both his client's best interests and one very attractive computer specialist named Meg Kavanagh.Rafe soon realized that Meg was trouble with a capital T. An elusive killer was stalking her every move, and now Rafe's life was in danger, too. But all of Rafe's field training hadn't prepared him for a mission in which keeping his heart intact was going to be the biggest challenge of all…
“I didn’t come up here to seduce you, if that’s what you think,”
Meg insisted.
Rafe just looked at her for a long while. “You confuse the hell out of me, Specialist Mary Margaret Kavanagh, I’ll tell you that much for nothing.”
“You know,” she said quietly, “I swear I won’t tell anyone if you lose that chip on your shoulder for a few hours. As far as anyone else is concerned, your reputation as a five-star bastard will be unsullied.”
“I could still shoot you and stuff your body in a hole, Kavanagh.”
She smiled up at him and linked her arm with his. “But you won’t, ex-Super Agent Blackhorse. You’ll make me something to eat, and then you’ll tell me everything I want to know.”
“And why would I do that?”
“Because you’re starting to like me.”
Dear Reader,
It’s time to go wild with Intimate Moments. First, welcome historical star Ruth Langan back to contemporary times as she begins her new family-oriented trilogy. The Wildes of Wyoming—Chance is a slam-bang beginning that will leave you eager for the rest of the books in the miniseries. Then look for Wild Ways, the latest in Naomi Horton’s WILD HEARTS miniseries. The first book, Wild Blood, won a Romance Writers of America RITA Award for this talented author, and this book is every bit as terrific.
Stick around for the rest of our fabulous lineup, too. Merline Lovelace continues MEN OF THE BAR H with Mistaken Identity, full of suspense mixed with passion in that special recipe only Merline seems to know. Margaret Watson returns with Family on the Run, the story of a sham marriage that awakens surprisingly real emotions. Maggie Price’s On Dangerous Ground is a MEN IN BLUE title, and this book has a twist that will leave you breathless. Finally, welcome new author Nina Bruhns, whose dream of becoming a writer comes true this month with the publication of her first book, Catch Me If You Can.
You won’t want to miss a single page of excitement as only Intimate Moments can create it. And, of course, be sure to come back next month, when the passion and adventure continue in Silhouette Intimate Moments, where excitement and romance go hand in hand.
Enjoy!
Leslie J. Wainger
Executive Senior Editor
Wild Ways
Naomi Horton
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
NAOMI HORTON
was born in northern Alberta, where the winters are long and the libraries far apart. “When I’d run out of books,” she says, “I’d simply create my own—entire worlds filled with people, adventure and romance. I guess it’s not surprising that I’m still at it!” This RITA Award-winning author is an engineering technologist who presently lives in Nanaimo, British Columbia, with her collection of assorted pets.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Epilogue
Chapter 1
It was the kind of place he’d spent his entire life trying to avoid.
Small town bar, set back from the dusty street on a cracked surface of tarry asphalt tufted with weeds and dry grass and confetti sprinkles of broken glass. The windows were blank behind their jailhouse grillwork, as shuttered and private as a drug dealer’s eyes behind reflective designer shades.
Great. Rafe eyed the place unhappily from the car, feeling the sweat trickle between his shoulder blades and soak into the stained upholstery of the seat. He was going to kill Dawes, he decided thoughtfully as he cut the engine. Silence fell around him, broken only by the chainsaw buzz of some insect in the tall, dust-grayed grass by the curb.
That wasn’t the plan, of course. The plan had been to take Dawes and his blond girlfriend into custody and drive their sorry behinds back to Las Vegas and Tony Ruffio.
He’d known it had sounded too easy. Dawes had led him through three states and seven counties, in and out of towns no one had ever heard of, up hill and down hot, sunbaked dale, and he was by God going to pay for it. Okay, killing him was out. Tony had said he’d only pay for the recovery if the man were delivered into his hands alive and squirming. But there was nothing in the contract about dents and bruises.
Rafe flexed the fingers of his left hand, the network of scars webbing his knuckles bone-white in the harsh sunlight. Then he sighed. Hell, even that wasn’t an option. He didn’t have a lot of scruples left, but even he drew the line at punching out a little guy like Dawes.
Rafe looked at the bar again. Sighed again. And pushed open the car door and eased himself out into the heat-stunned afternoon. It was time.
The bar’s neon sign buzzed, its glow feeble under a layering of dust. The parking lot surface was soft and it seemed to suck at Rafe’s boots as he walked across it, the stink of hot asphalt hanging in the still air. The thought struck him that it was like walking across the foyer of hell, and he smiled at the irony. Even more ironic was the fact that he’d been born somewhere around here.
But that sure as hell wasn’t anything he wanted to think about.
He shook it off and forced his suddenly drifting mind back to the business at hand.
A brace of Harley-Davidsons sat to one side of the doorway, parked all in a row, as tidy and pristine and perfectly aligned as nuns in a choir.
That could mean trouble. He paused and did a quick check: Taurus PT 99 in the holster tucked under his left arm; Smith & Wesson in its leather, tucked discreetly into the small of his back; Walther double-action semiautomatic in his boot. The Taurus and the Smith & Wesson were licensed and legal as hell, the Walther a little thing he’d picked up while on a job in Oklahoma City a year back. It had fallen into his hands so tidily it had seemed ordained that he have it, so he hadn’t bothered turning it in. He’d had the boot holster specially designed and was so used to it now he rarely thought about it. Except for times like this.
He flexed his shoulders once to loosen them, then pulled open the door and stepped inside.
From caution borne of habit, he stepped quickly to one side until his eyes adapted to the dimness, scanning the shadows for threat or motion even before he could fully see what—or who—they contained. The cold air dried the sweat on his forehead and across his back almost instantly, and he shook his left arm out, feeling the muscles start to tighten.
Heads turned, as they do in a place like that. Incurious eyes met his, then drifted away, dismissing him as unimportant. It brought the usual rush of automatic anger, but he ignored it. To everyone in here, as in most places, he was just another Indian, the next best thing to invisible. Which was handy for a man in his line of work.
Two farmers sat at a table to his left, peaked caps set on the backs of their heads, faces lined and grizzled from decades of staring at the sky. A salesman of some kind sat at another round table, tie loosened and hanging askew, a pile of papers scattered across the table. Two lanky Native kids were playing pool at a table in back, jostling and showing off, and an old man sat at the bar, staring morosely into the half-empty glass in his hand.
Only the bikers seemed to take any notice of him. They sat around a table to his hard right, all of them big and watchful, their leathers cluttered with studs and chains and coded patches. They eyed him warily, but he gave his head an almost imperceptible shake and they relaxed again.
But no Dawes.
Which was just the way he’d planned it.
This time, this close to his prey, he wasn’t going to take a chance on losing them again. He’d almost caught them in Denver, and then again in Rapid City, but both times they’d taken off like startled hares before he’d gotten close enough to nab them. It was as though they had some kind of sixth sense, and he was tired of it. Tired of the hunt, the heat, all of it. So no more messing around. This time, he was going to set the trap and simply wait for them to walk into it, and in another two days he would be back on Bear Mountain, thirty grand richer, Reggie Dawes nothing more than an irritating memory.
Rafe chose a table not far from the door, far enough in shadow not to stand out, but not so far back it would look as though he was hiding. He eased himself into the gunfighter’s seat, back to the wall, and gave the room another swift, calculating look. Everything seemed normal enough. But in this line of work, you just never knew.
The bartender was drying glasses and stacking them on a tray. He looked across at Rafe and lifted an inquiring eyebrow, and Rafe gestured toward the half-empty pitcher of pale draft in front of the salesman. The bartender came across with a pitcher of beer and set it on the table, then dropped a glass in front of Rafe. He was built like a small building, all shoulders and broad, beefy chest and no neck to speak of. A toothpick poked from one corner of his mouth. “This all?”
Rivulets of sweat ran off the pitcher and formed a pool around it, and Rafe swallowed, throat suddenly parched. “Get me another one of those full of ice water,” he said tightly. “And another glass.”
“Ice water.” The bartender shifted the toothpick. “And another glass.”
“That’s right.”
“You expecting company?”
“Could be.” Rafe tossed a wrinkled five onto the wet tray. “And how about some peanuts or pretzels to go with that?”
The toothpick moved to the other side of the bartender’s mouth and he gave the table a swipe with the dirty wet rag, then moved off, as light as a dancer on small, tidy feet.
Ex-fighter, Rafe found himself thinking. Not someone you want on the other guy’s side in a brawl. There’d be heavy iron behind the bar, more than likely. Probably a sawed-off shotgun—something with minimal range but plenty of hitting power. And a baseball bat or ax handle. He looked like the kind of guy who would favor seasoned ash over raw firepower any day.
The pitcher of ice water arrived a minute or two later, frosted with condensation. The bartender set a glass beside the first one, then dropped a basket of pretzels in front of Rafe. “Knock yourself out, sport.”
Dawes came in about thirty minutes later. He and the woman stood just inside the door for a moment or two and darted uneasy glances around the dim room, as frightened as mice. Rafe propped himself up on his elbows and unsteadily poured beer into the glass in front of him, managing to spill as much onto the table as he got into the glass. His feigned drunkenness had the effect he wanted. Dawes’s gaze lingered for a scant few seconds before moving on, and Rafe felt the muscles across his shoulders relax.
It was Dawes, no doubt about that. Rafe had stared at the man’s picture every night for two weeks, burning it into his memory, and now that he actually had the man almost within his grasp, he had to fight from walking across and grabbing him by the scruff of his scrawny neck and shaking him until his teeth rattled.
And the woman had to be Honey Divine.
Which was kind of an understatement, Rafe decided with awe.
He realized he was staring and hastily looked away. But then he also realized there wasn’t a man in the place who wasn’t staring at her. Even the drunk at the bar was paying attention, rheumy old eyes aglitter.
She was gorgeous, in a white-trash kind of way. Not the type of woman Rafe normally paid much attention to, but you would have to be a dead man not to notice her. She’d piled her hair onto the top of her head in a butter-blond haystack, probably in an attempt to get cool, and it teetered there precariously, trailing tendrils and wisps she kept brushing back from her cheeks. Her skin was that pale porcelain that seems to glow from some kind of inner light, although she’d managed to dim most of that glow with a thick layer of makeup she had no earthly use for.
Impressive little body, too, clad in electric-blue spandex tights and a long, loose-knit white pullover that kept slipping off first one creamy shoulder, then the other. Although the nightclub poster advertising her as Honey Divine, club singer extraordinaire, had hinted at considerably more than God had given her, without the glittering rhinestone-spangled evening gown, she looked small and tidy and compact, the awe-inspiring cleavage undoubtedly still back in Las Vegas with the costume that had created it.
Rafe had to smile. He’d kind of looked forward to seeing the real thing. Too bad they weren’t.
He felt a little pang of disappointment and nearly smiled again, trying not to stare as she followed Dawes toward a table halfway down the room. Every head in the place swiveled as she clattered past on four-inch heels, and he could have sworn he heard a faint, collective sigh as she sat down and the sweater slipped off her shoulder again. She seemed used to it and simply tugged it up again, apparently oblivious to the hormonal havoc she’d left in her wake.
He’d give them five minutes, Rafe decided. Time to order a drink and relax and shake off any last nervousness. Then, as soon as they were off guard and unlikely to bolt for the nearest door, he would make his move.
This was a really bad idea.
Meg gave the dim interior of the bar another uneasy look, trying not to panic completely. The whole idea had been crazy to start with, she would admit that, but it had been going fairly well until now. And now…well, now things had completely gotten away from her, and she had absolutely no idea what to do next.
Problem was, she’d done such a good job of convincing Reggie that she knew what she was doing that she’d managed to convince herself, as well. She’d forgotten she was a complete fraud. That she had no training, no backup, no idea of how to pull this off.
“Reggie.” Meg took a deep breath. “This is crazy. Tony’s man is out there somewhere looking for us. For all we know he could be pulling into the parking lot right now. We should quit while we’re ahead and get on a plane and back to Washington before—”
“Not without the disk.” Reggie darted an uneasy look around the bar. He looked like a scared gerbil, hair slicked down, Adam’s apple bobbing with nervousness, shoulders hunched. “The information on that computer disk is the best bargaining chip I have, Meg. You told me that yourself.”
He had her there, Meg thought unhappily. Of course, she’d told him a lot of things. “And if your friend can’t make it? If Tony’s men found him first?”
“He’ll make it,” Reggie said stubbornly.
“Presuming you can trust him. Presuming he hasn’t—”
“Charlie Oakes is a brother to me,” Reggie reminded her, as he had about twelve times in the past hour. “I’d trust him with my life.”
“You are trusting him with your life.” Meg gave the bar another uneasy look. “Worse, you’re trusting him with mine.”
“This was your idea.” Reggie gave her a baleful look.
“No,” Meg said very reasonably, “this is not my idea. My idea was to fly to Washington and turn you over to the Feds and let them get the disk from Charlie Oakes. This—” she waved her hand to take in the entire bar “—is your idea.”
Reggie just hunched his shoulders a little closer to his ears. “He’ll be here. I told him to meet us here at two-thirty, and it’s only ten after. We have plenty of time.”
Plenty of time to get ourselves killed, Meg thought gloomily. How in God’s name had she ever talked herself into this crazy plan in the first place? Maybe O’Dell was right. Maybe she wasn’t cut out for this kind of work. Maybe she should just—
“I just wish I knew if Honey was okay,” he fretted. “Maybe I should call her just to—”
“No!” Meg winced and lowered her voice. “Reggie, just one phone call could be enough to jeopardize her life. She’s safe with my brother—the guy’s a cop, for crying out loud. One of Chicago’s finest. No one will get close to her, I promise you that.” The promise sounded thin to Meg’s ears, and she prayed she wasn’t lying.
When she’d thought up this lunatic scheme, she’d never given Reggie’s pretty young wife much thought. Hadn’t given Reggie much thought, for that matter. But now, after two weeks, he was more than just a name on a computer screen. He was flesh and blood, and he was scared. And he trusted her. That was the hardest part.
“You said if I gave O’Dell enough information to bring down not just Tony and the Vegas setup, but Gus Stepino’s entire Atlantic City operation, he’d give me whatever I wanted. That he’d put Honey and me into witness protection and get us new lives. Maybe even hire me. You said—”
“I said maybe on the job,” Meg muttered, squirming a little. What had she been thinking, telling him something like that? She’d been frantic to get him to go with her, to believe her, to trust her…and she’d told him whatever he’d wanted to hear. “Reggie, I just said maybe on the job, remember. I’m not sure, with your record and all, that…well, that my boss can hire you.”
Another lie. Spence O’Dell could hire anyone he damn well pleased, running his mysterious agency seemingly unencumbered by rules or other government meddling. The fact that Reggie had a history of—and a record for—fraud and embezzlement and an assortment of other vagaries didn’t come into it at all. Heaven knows, O’Dell had worse working for him.
Her, for instance.
Just the thought nearly made her laugh out loud.
“Twelve more minutes,” she said firmly. “If he’s not here by two-thirty-two on the dot, we’re leaving.” To her surprise, he nodded glumly, seemingly impressed by the take-charge authority in her voice.
She looked around the bar again, wondering if the man Tony had sent after them was already here, watching them like a fox watching chickens. The bikers in the far corner had worried her at first, but they seemed oblivious to everyone around them, and she decided finally that they wouldn’t be Tony’s style. The harried-looking salesman didn’t look like much of a threat. He was trying to eat a roast beef sandwich and drink beer and work a calculator and fill in a bunch of forms at the same time, dripping mustard on whatever he was working on. She gave the two farmers a long, hard look, but they didn’t look like hired assassins. Nor did the two Native kids playing pool amid much hooting and laughter and good-natured jostling. That left the bartender—who didn’t look like someone she’d want to tangle with at the best of times—and the man asleep at the table in the back.
Her heart had nearly stopped when she’d spotted him back there in the shadows. He was tall and wide-shouldered and looked like someone who knew trouble on a first name basis, unmistakably Native with strong, clean-cut features and black hair cut almost severely short. It was his worn leather jacket that had worried her. It was all wrong in this heat and she’d eyed it suspiciously, wondering what kind of weaponry it hid.
But he’d paid no attention to them, and after a couple of minutes she realized he was too drunk to be a threat to anyone except himself. He was lying across the table, head in a puddle of spilled beer, arms thrown out as though to keep the table from spinning off into space. And for half an instant she almost envied him his complete lack of concern about present, past or future. Especially the future.
Hers seemed to be getting shorter by the minute.
Trying not to fidget, she looked at her watch. “Five more minutes, Reggie.”
“He’ll be here,” he said stubbornly. “You said you’d do this my way if I agreed to come back to Washington with you, remember?”
“And I told you if you didn’t come back with me voluntarily, you’d come back in handcuffs.” Meg gave him a look she hoped was hard and unforgiving. “My people gave you five thousand dollars on the understanding that you’d bring us the information. And you disappeared, Reggie. With the money. My boss is not a happy man.”
“I told you I was coming in,” he muttered, not quite meeting her eyes. “But I had to make sure Honey was safe first. I—”
“You were making a run for it,” Meg said shortly. “You had two tickets for Rome in your pocket, Reggie. Not one. Two. I haven’t told O’Dell that, because if he finds out you tried to run out on him, he’ll kill you himself and save Tony the trouble. I’m giving you the deal of your life, and you know it.” Meg gave him her best government-agent glare, not seeing the need to tell him that she hadn’t told O’Dell about the tickets because O’Dell didn’t know she was here. Didn’t know Reggie was here, either. Didn’t know about any of it, in fact.
O’Dell thought she was on vacation. In England. Sightseeing. O’Dell did not know she was sitting in a smoky bar in the middle of God Knew Where, North Dakota—or maybe it was South Dakota, she was so turned around—with Reggie Dawes more or less in custody, waiting for delivery of a computer disk containing enough information to bring down one of the best-connected mobs on the Eastern Seaboard.
O’Dell was going to kill her.
If one of Tony’s people didn’t get to her first. If Gus Stepino—Tony’s none-too-patient boss in Atlantic City—hadn’t found out what was going on and killed her before that. She was going to have to start handing out numbers, she thought a little wildly.
The thought made her swallow hard. “Okay, Reggie. Time’s up. We—”
“Excuse me, miss, but you wouldn’t happen to have a sister in La Jolla, would you?”
Meg blinked. The salesman had appeared beside the table with no warning at all and was smiling down at her. It was a pleasant, open smile, set in a pleasant, open face, and he had sandy hair and freckles and his eyes were an unremarkable—but pleasant—shade of blue.
“I…what?” She stared up at him, wondering what on earth he was talking about. “La Jolla?”
“Sounds like a bad pickup line, I know,” he said with an ingenuous grin, “but I swear you look just like a girl I used to date when I lived in—”
“Hey, anybody gotta match?”
How the man in the leather jacket had gotten from his table to theirs so quickly and silently when he was so drunk, Meg had no idea, but here he was, grinning benignly and a little vaguely at them all. He took an unsteady side step, as though the floor had moved under his feet, and lurched into the salesman, who stepped away with an exclamation of disgust.
“I don’t smoke,” the salesman said sharply. “Go on back to your table and stop bothering people.”
“Not botherin’ anyone,” the other man said in a soft slur, grinning down at Meg. “I jus’ wanna smoke.” He held out a cigarette. “Wanna cig’rette?”
“No, thank you,” Meg said quietly. “I don’t smoke.”
He looked perplexed. “Y’don’t? How come?”
Meg had to smile. “Can’t afford matches.”
He looked at her for a moment, then gave a snort of laughter.
“Buzz off!” The salesman knocked the man’s hand and the proffered cigarette away from Meg. “She doesn’t want a cigarette, and she doesn’t want to be bothered by some drunk.”
“Not botherin’ her,” the man said with mild indignation.
“Look, you, I’m going to—”
“He’s not bothering me,” Meg said a bit sharply, wishing the drunk would wander off and sit down again before the salesman did something stupid. He was making noises like a hero, trying to protect her from some imagined danger, and she felt the old impatience rise. Fought it down as she tried to see past both men to the door beyond. She was starting to feel trapped, unable to see anything, her view of the door blocked by broad shoulders. Reggie felt it, too, and was shifting uneasily in his chair, as though getting ready to bolt.
“See?” The drunk smiled broadly at the salesman. “She says I’m not botherin’ her.”
“But maybe you should sit down,” Meg said gently. “You don’t look too…steady.”
The grin widened, jaunty and irreverent and utterly charming. “A li’l drunk’s all.”
In spite of herself, Meg had to laugh. “Yeah, I can see that.” The bartender had come around from behind his bar and was standing there, poised and ready, watching them intently. Meg shook her head very slightly and he relaxed after a heartbeat, then went back behind the bar, still watchful.
“Look, chief,” the salesman said congenially, “take this and buy yourself some beer, all right?” He tucked a crumpled ten-dollar bill into the man’s shirt pocket.
“Hey.” The man plucked the money out of his pocket and gazed at it wonderingly, staggering a little to one side.
“Now, as I was saying,” the salesman continued smoothly, turning back toward Meg, “you look just like this girl I used to know. Let me give you my card and I’ll—” He started reaching inside his jacket, and in that moment, all hell broke loose.
Meg didn’t even see what started it. One instant she was just sitting there, and the next the salesman went flying off to one side, the gun in his hand spinning away. Meg just gaped at it uncomprehendingly as it arced through the air in a perfect parabola, and she found herself wondering where on earth it had come from and why she felt so calm and why Reggie was shouting at her to get down, get down, get down…
In the end, she didn’t have a choice. A large hand fit itself around the back of her neck and shoved, and the next thing she knew she was flat on her belly in a puddle of what she prayed was spilled beer, the wind knocked completely out of her. The big round table followed, landing on its side with a crash that nearly deafened her, wooden chairs and beer glasses and pretzels cascading across the floor. People were shouting and then she heard shots—two, one right after the other—and she gulped for air, blinded by tendrils of hair as the wig slipped, groping for her small handbag.
All wrong, she thought dizzily, this was going all wrong. She was supposed to be the one with the gun. She was supposed to be protecting Reggie, supposed to be—
Another two shots. Wood splintered right above her head and she sucked in a startled breath. Reggie…oh, God, where was Reggie…?
Frantic and completely disoriented, she started to sit up, desperate to find her handbag and the gun, desperate to—
“Stay—down!” Another hand, or perhaps it was the same one, landed between her shoulder blades and shoved her flat, making her wheeze, and then someone was firing right above her head. It was heavy firepower and she could tell by the way the shots were spaced that whoever was using it was an expert, and then a beer glass lying just to her left exploded into shards and she recoiled with a yelp as broken glass sprayed around her.
Another shot, this one even closer, and suddenly something massive and heavy landed across her, driving the rest of her breath out of her in a gasp. She could smell leather and beer and cigarettes as the man’s jacket fell open around her, wrapping her in his heat, and she tried to suck in her breath to scream for Reggie.
More shouts, crashes. A shotgun blast roared to her left, deafeningly close, and then, abruptly, there was utter silence. She could hear someone swearing a little distance away, and the rasp of someone’s breathing against her ear. And slowly, she started to collect her wits.
Whoever was lying on top of her was heavy, all solid muscle and meat pressed a little too intimately against the full length of her body. She could feel his heart hammering against her back and wondered dizzily what on earth he was scared about, considering he was the one with the gun and she was the one lying flat on her face on a bar floor, unarmed and dazed, not having a clue what was happening.
“Reggie?” Her voice was just a wheezy squeak. She turned her head, but the blasted wig had tumbled down over her eyes and she couldn’t see a thing.
“I’m okay.” Reggie sounded shocked and scared. “I’m okay.”
“All right, you jokers,” someone bellowed above them. “Onto your feet, all of you! This is my bar, by God, and no one comes in here and starts shooting it up, understand me?”
“Meg? Miss Kavanagh? A-are you all right?”
“Yeah.” At least she thought she was, Meg decided dimly. She was completely paralyzed, but nothing hurt outrageously and she didn’t seem to be gushing blood all over the place. Of course, it was a little hard to tell, with this behemoth on top of her. She gave her head a slight shake, and the wig tipped even more precariously.
This hadn’t been in the plan. Not a shoot-out in a Dakota bar with some unknown assailant. Not being pinned to the floor under about a ton of human male—who, by the way, didn’t seem to be in any kind of hurry to get off her. Not completely losing control of things like this…
She rammed her elbow into the nearest part of the behemoth’s anatomy and was rewarded by a grunt of pain. “Get off me, damn it! I’m a government agent and you’re under arrest!”
This wasn’t going according to plan, Rafe thought irritably as the slender female form under him gave another wriggle. Under different circumstances it wouldn’t have been that unpleasant, but it wasn’t doing much at the moment but distracting him. And he was getting the hell beat out of him, into the bargain. She had the sharpest elbows he’d ever encountered in his life, and seemed to have no qualms about using them enthusiastically. Plus, she kept yelling something about arresting him, which didn’t make a lot of sense considering he was on top and had the gun.
She gave another muffled threat of some kind or another, but he ignored it, swearing through clenched teeth as she buried her elbow into his solar plexus. He wasn’t getting paid enough for this, he thought wearily. No way was he getting paid enough.
“Okay, you jokers—I said on your feet! And keep those hands and guns where I can see ’em, ’cause this here shotgun can make an awful big hole in a man.”
Rafe sighed. Maybe he was losing his touch. Maybe it was time to find a new line of work, because nothing about this whole case had come even close to going the way he’d planned it.
“Okay, okay,” he growled, planting both hands flat on the floor where the bartender could see them. “Where’s the guy who was shooting at me?”
“Down,” the bartender said succinctly. “Bleeding all over my floor. You going to pay to have that cleaned up?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll pay, I’ll pay.” Rafe swore under his breath again. “I’m going to get up now, so keep your finger off that damn trigger.”
“Just don’t give me no reason to do otherwise,” the bartender rumbled. “Come up slow. That skinny little runt down there beside you have a gun?”
“N-no,” Reggie stammered. “I—I’m an accountant.”
Rafe didn’t see where that made a difference, but it seemed to satisfy the bartender, who motioned Reggie up with the barrel of the shotgun. Honey Divine was still wriggling and swearing underneath him, and Rafe eased himself off her gingerly, wondering how long it would take the bruises on his ribs to fade.
The bartender was watching him intently, and Rafe got up slowly, hands well outstretched, giving the man no reason to feel threatened. “I’m a cop,” he lied. “ID in my hip pocket.”
The bartender gestured with the shotgun. “Get it out. Slow.”
Rafe reached behind him and under the jacket slowly. The Taurus brushed his fingertips but he left it there, easing his wallet from his jeans pocket instead. He held it up, then flipped it open and tossed it onto the nearest upright table. The bartender picked it up, read it, looked at the ID picture and then at Rafe, then nodded after a moment and lowered the shotgun. “Nevada? You’re a long way from home.”
“Special assignment,” Rafe lied without missing a beat. According to that forged ID he was with the sheriff’s department.
“And this guy?” The gun barrel gestured toward the salesman. He was sitting on the floor looking rumpled and sullen, clutching his upper arm with his hand. Blood trickled through his fingers.
“No damn idea,” Rafe replied quite honestly. He gave the man a long, hard look, running the bland features through a mental mug book. Nothing. Whoever the guy was, he was new to the equation.
The bartender grunted. “So he just started shooting at you for no reason at all, is that what you’re saying?”
“He wasn’t shooting at me, he was shooting at him.” Rafe nodded toward Reggie, who was still sitting on the floor looking shaken and pale.
“And you decided to do your civic duty and stop it.”
The bartender sounded skeptical and bored with the whole thing, and Rafe sighed again, deciding it was time for a bit of embroidery. “I was sent here to bring this man back to Nevada.” He gave Reggie another nod. “There’s a warrant out on him. Fraud and embezzlement.”
The bartender grunted again. “What did he do?”
“Scammed a whole lot of little old ladies out of their life savings.”
Reggie gave an indignant yelp of protest.
“Which doesn’t explain why someone was trying to kill him.”
“If someone scammed your old granny out of her life savings, wouldn’t you be out for blood?” It sounded so plausible, Rafe almost believed it himself.
“That’s absolutely preposterous!” Honey Divine had managed to catch her breath finally and was sitting flat on her bottom on the floor, glaring through tangles of hair, one shoulder distractingly bare. She pulled the sweater up impatiently, then shoved the mound of blond hair out of her eyes. “Mr. Dawes has done no such thing!”
The bartender lifted an eyebrow. “And you are…?”
“Special Agent Mary Margaret Kavanagh,” she enunciated very clearly into the expectant silence. Her hair had tipped over one eye again and she gave it a shove, then swore with unladylike exasperation and reached up and pulled it off entirely.
“He scalped her!” The drunk at the bar—who apparently hadn’t moved throughout the entire melee—stared at her in stupefaction. “The Indian scalped her!”
Rafe gave the man an evil glare that made him recoil, and the bartender just snapped, “Shut up, Claude,” without even turning around. But even he seemed taken aback at the sight of a woman sitting on his barroom floor with her hair in her hand. “Special…what?”
She gave her head a shake and her own hair—masses of it, tangled and as red as a fire engine—tumbled around her face. Then she got to her feet, teetering a trifle unsteadily on those four-inch heels, retrieved her small handbag and rummaged through it. “Special Agent Kavanagh,” she repeated impatiently. “And Mr. Dawes is in my custody.” She found what she was looking for and pulled it out, walking across to hand it to the bartender. “You can call the number there on my ID and confirm it.”
Rafe looked at her, narrow-eyed. “If you’re FBI, lady, I’m Clark Kent.”
“I’m not FBI,” she said crisply. “I’m with a special agency that specializes in—” She stopped and glared at him. “Who did you say you were?”
Rafe paused very slightly, selecting and rejecting a dozen explanations in the space of a heartbeat, trying to fix on the one that would get him out of here with the least amount of trouble and explanation. Government agent. Just his damn luck. What the hell else could go wrong today?
“His ID makes him for a Nevada cop,” the bartender spoke up.
“I doubt that.” She looked at Rafe evenly. “I’d be very surprised if you’re in law enforcement, Mr….?”
Again, he thought it through. “Blackhorse,” he replied after a moment, deciding this much truth couldn’t get him into too much trouble. “Rafe Blackhorse.”
“And you’re obviously not drunk.”
Rafe managed a tight smile. “Wallpaper.”
“Excuse me?”
“People see a drunk Indian, they don’t see him at all. He blends into the scenery, like wallpaper. It makes for good…camouflage.”
“That’s very cynical, Mr. Blackhorse.”
Rafe smiled coolly. “Just experience, Agent Kavanagh.”
Her eyes narrowed very slightly. “You’re the man who’s been following us.”
Reggie Dawes made a gurgling sound.
“That’s right,” Rafe said after a split second, deciding to stick to the truth as far as he could. It was hard to concentrate, with those aquamarine eyes locked on his, but he forced himself to hold her gaze. “I’m taking Dawes back to Nevada.”
Another gurgle from Dawes.
The woman simply smiled. “I don’t know what the Nevada sheriff’s department wants with Mr. Dawes, but they’ll have to take it up with the Justice Department.”
“Tony sent him,” Dawes piped up from somewhere behind Rafe. “And this guy over here…this guy’s from Atlantic City.”
Special Agent Mary Margaret Kavanagh said a word that Rafe was pretty sure wasn’t in any special agent manual. She stepped by him and walked across to where Dawes was peering down at the salesman from a safe distance.
“His name’s Pags Pagliano, and he’s muscle for the Atlantic City operation.”
“One of Gus Stepino’s men?”
Dawes nodded, Adam’s apple bobbing wildly. He was pale and damp, and he swallowed audibly. “Th-that means he got tired of waiting for Tony to take care of it and sent his own guy after me.”
“Terrific.” Kavanagh did not look happy.
And Rafe had to sympathize. If Stepino’s men got Dawes first, he was out a cool thirty grand.
“We’re leaving,” she said abruptly. “Now.”
“Not with Dawes, you’re not,” Rafe told her flatly.
Kavanagh looked around at him coolly and opened her mouth to reply when Dawes stepped in front of her. “W-what about Charlie?”
The salesman—Pagliano—snorted. “Don’t hold your breath waiting for him to turn up, Reggie.”
“You killed him?” Dawes’s voice ended on a squeak.
Pagliano just smiled a feral little smile. “Your best friend sold you out. Three grand, Reggie. That’s all you’re worth, can you believe it?” The smile widened. “Gus would have paid ten times that, but Charlie’s such a moron he only asked for three.” He gave another snort and shook his head in disgust. “Moron.”
Dawes looked sick. “I don’t believe you. Charlie wouldn’t do that.”
“How do you think I found you so quick? You think I stumbled into this little rat hole out here in Nowhere, North Dakota, by accident?” His tone made it clear he didn’t think Charlie Oakes was the only moron of his acquaintance.
Kavanagh had gone a shade or two paler herself, and Rafe wondered how long she’d been on the job. First solo case, maybe. Which could mean she would be easy to bluff, if he played his cards right. But it could also mean she might not bluff at all, too worried about getting it right, about making points with her boss, to risk messing up. He swore, using another word or two that wouldn’t show up in any government manual.
“Well, Agent Kavanagh,” he said carelessly, “I’ll leave Pagliano in your capable hands while I get Dawes back to—”
“Not on your life.” She turned those amazing aquamarine eyes onto him again. “I don’t know who you are, Mr. Blackhorse, but I doubt very much you have ever worked for Nevada law enforcement. And you’re not taking Reggie Dawes anywhere.”
“You don’t think he’s a cop?” The bartender swung the barrel of the shotgun almost casually toward Rafe.
“I’d be very surprised, but I’ll let your sheriff sort it out. Tell him we’ll be in contact.”
The bartender blinked. “Where are you going to be?”
“En route to Washington.” She shoved her ID back into her handbag, then pulled out a business card and a pen and started writing something on the back of the card. “When the sheriff gets here, have him call this man at this number. He’ll verify everything I’ve told you and will arrange for someone to come out and collect Pagliano. He can deal with Mr. Blackhorse then. And call an ambulance for Mr. Pagliano, will you? I’d like him alive when we try him for attempted murder.”
Rafe managed not to swear out loud. So much for wondering what else could go wrong. “Look, honey, this isn’t—”
“Special Agent Kavanagh,” she said crisply. “Honey Divine is Mr. Dawes’s wife.”
“That’s not what—” He caught himself. Just about the last thing he needed right now was a lecture on political correctness.
“Hold it!” The bartender’s voice rattled a nearby tray of glasses. “Nobody’s goin’ nowhere till Sheriff Haney gets here. I’ll let him figure out which of you’s telling the truth and which ain’t.”
“Oh, for—” Kavanagh caught herself, eyes glittering with subdued anger. “All right. Fine. Have it your way.”
Rafe eased his breath out on a long, weary sigh, thinking of his thirty thousand dollars winging its way south even as he was standing there. It had sounded like easy money—once.
Chapter 2
It took pretty much the whole day and a multitude of lengthy phone calls to convince Sheriff Dobbes Haney that she wasn’t kidnapping Reggie, that the Beretta in her handbag was registered, and that she wasn’t wanted on a half-dozen warrants for who knows what kind of mayhem. And that Special Agent Mary Margaret Kavanagh was, indeed, exactly who she said she was. He didn’t seem happy about it. And after the last phone call, this one to Virginia, during which he seemed to do more listening than talking, he was even less so. But he did finally tell her she was free to go about her business. Suggesting—strongly—that she do whatever it was Special Agents from unspecified offices in Virginia do outside his jurisdiction.
That was fine by Meg. She couldn’t get far enough away fast enough.
But by then it had been almost eight o’clock, too late to do anything but drive to the nearest town big enough to have an airport of any size and wait for the earliest flight eastbound.
Which was why she was sitting in a cheap motel room at a little after midnight, listening to Reggie brush his teeth in the bathroom between their connecting rooms and wondering what in heaven’s name she was doing with her life.
Maybe her sister was right, and this obsession about finding Bobby’s killer was getting out of hand. She could be married right now. Was supposed to be married right now. Living in Marblehead in a big overwrought Tudor, discussing lawns with the landscaping people and wallpaper with the interior decorator and choosing names for their first child. If she’d married six months ago, as planned, this would be a suite at a luxurious hotel, not a ratty room in the Dewdrop Inn. And the man brushing his teeth in the bathroom wouldn’t be a skinny little accountant for the mob, but Royce Bennett Packard of Packard Industries.
Meg closed her eyes and tried to conjure up the image of Royce brushing his teeth, to no avail. Did Royce brush his teeth? She imagined he must, they were such perfect teeth. Like everything about Royce—the country club tan, the health club physique, the gentleman’s club portfolio. Not a hair, a molar or an investment out of place.
She wondered, very idly, what he would have thought if he’d seen her today. Not just the spandex and the wig and the four-inch heels—those would have rendered him speechless on the spot. But the rest of it: her lying flat on her belly on a barroom floor in the middle of a gunfight, a fifteen-round semiautomatic Beretta pistol in her handbag and a hundred and eighty pounds of good-looking Nevada cop on top of her.
Not pleased, she decided. Royce’s vision of the future Mrs. Packard did not include guns, bullets or cops of any variety.
And then, to her annoyance, she found herself thinking about that good-looking Nevada cop. If that’s what he was—the cop part, not the good-looking part. As skeptical as she was about the first, the second was beyond argument.
The last she’d seen of Rafe Blackhorse, Haney had told him to park himself in a chair and wait, and Blackhorse had done just that. He’d apparently spent the afternoon asleep in a wooden chair that he’d tipped back against the wall in the booking room, long legs stretched out, booted feet resting comfortably on a desk, ankles crossed, looking as relaxed as a cat.
“Miss Kavanagh?”
Meg looked up as Reggie poked his head hesitantly into her room.
“My pajamas are in my other suitcase, and it’s in the car.”
“Forget it, Reggie. You’re not setting foot outside this motel until tomorrow morning.”
He managed to look both contrite and indignant. “But I always sleep in pajamas.”
“Well, you’re not sleeping in pajamas tonight.”
“But—”
“Reggie, we nearly got killed this afternoon because of you, so I’m not feeling as generous as I could be, all right? No pajamas.”
“It’s not my fault we nearly got killed,” he said prissily. “You are supposed to be protecting me, after all. It was up to you to—”
“All right!” Meg threw her hands up to stop him. “All right, I’ll get your pajamas!” She got to her feet and grabbed the car keys from the nightstand, then paused and turned back to the bed and dug the Beretta from under the pillow. She tucked it into the back waistband of her jeans and headed for the door, jabbing her finger at Reggie as she walked by him. “You sit down and stay out of trouble. I’ve told the manager if he puts through any calls from either of these rooms without my go-ahead, I’ll have his head on a plate. So don’t even think about trying to contact Honey. And I’ll be just outside, so there’s no point in trying to make a run for it.”
He looked hurt. “I wouldn’t do that.”
“In a pig’s eye you wouldn’t,” she replied uncharitably. “I wish you’d get it into your head that Spence O’Dell is your only hope of getting out of this alive, Reggie. But if you make another run for it, he’ll let Stepino kill you just on principle and make his case some other way.”
Leaving him standing there to mull this over, she turned off the lights both inside and outside the room, then pulled open the door and stepped out into the cold North Dakota night. She closed the door behind her and stepped well away from it, tucking herself into the shadows under the open stairway to the second story. There were a handful of cars in the parking lot and she scanned the dimly lit area for movement.
She’d been careful when she’d found this place, doubling back a couple of times, keeping Reggie out of sight when she’d registered and telling the manager she was traveling with her senile old aunt, which explained the no-phone rule. She’d taken every precaution in the book, but she was still jumpy as she eyed the parked cars.
Pagliano had almost gotten them that afternoon because she’d been careless. That wouldn’t happen again, but Pagliano wouldn’t be the only hired gun out here on Reggie’s trail. Gus Stepino obviously figured that Tony Ruffio and his hired gun weren’t up to the job and was taking care of it himself. So odds were there were others out here hunting for Dawes, all working independently, all stone killers, all very, very good at what they did.
She, on the other hand, had the requisite month of generic agency training under her belt, plus another month of field agent training done on the sly and without O’Dell’s knowledge. Had this been an authorized assignment, she would be out here with no less than six months of special training behind her, and she sure wouldn’t be alone. She would be with at least two others, relegated to fetching coffee and standing guard while learning everything she could.
If she didn’t get herself or anyone else killed after a few of those jobs, and if O’Dell was in an expansive mood, she might then be assigned as second agent on a case, working closely with a mentor who would be testing her every step of the way, watching for weakness, for flaws, for anything that could be a problem. And after maybe a year of that, if she was very good and very lucky and was still alive and still interested, she might get assigned a solo job.
Might, because regardless of how good she was, she was still a woman. And O’Dell didn’t like women field agents.
There had been two in twenty years. Now there were none. And O’Dell made no bones about the fact that he intended to keep it that way.
Which was why she was out there half trained and without a clue, determined to prove she could handle the job if it killed her.
Bad choice of words. Meg shook her head and gave the parking lot another searching look, then walked across to her rental, wishing she had eyes in the back of her head. No wonder Bobby used to be so darned jumpy when he was home. Now and again she had walked up on him without warning and he’d nearly leapt out of his own skin, hand going instinctively to where his gun would be had their father allowed them in the house. Now Bobby was dead, and she was the one leaping at shadows. Little wonder everyone wished she would marry Royce Packard and concentrate on charity luncheons and babies.
She unlocked the trunk of the car and raised the lid. Reggie’s suitcase had slid toward the back and she couldn’t reach it without practically crawling in after it. She rested one knee on the bumper and leaned way forward, balanced precariously on her belly and one braced arm, wondering for the umpty-millionth time why everyone in her family had inherited their father’s height except her. Bobby used to say it was because she was the youngest and by the time she was born, all the tall genes had been used up. And Maureen always said—
“That’s one hell of a tantalizing view, Special Agent Mary Margaret Kavanagh. But if I were one of Stepino’s men, you’d be as dead as last night’s halibut.”
For his pains, Rafe damn near lost her.
One instant she was teetering over the lip of the car trunk, rounded little bottom upthrust and perfectly showcased by the loving caress of soft denim and moonlight. And in the next, she’d shot off sideways, moving faster than he’d ever seen a woman move.
He caught her, but not without effort, and he swore savagely at himself as he fought her up against the side of the car, where she couldn’t turn on him. Mistakes like that could get a man real dead, and he didn’t like what it said about his concentration. This whole job had been a series of mistakes from beginning to end, and if he ever got Dawes to Las Vegas and got his thirty grand, he was going to call it quits for a while, because he was by God losing his touch.
Kavanagh was struggling like a tiger, but he had the advantage of surprise, weight and height, and she wasn’t getting very far. He’d wedged her against the side of the car where she had no room to fight, and had shoved one foot between hers and forced her legs apart. He’d pressed his forearm diagonally across her chest, holding her against the car, and had wrapped his hand around her throat so she was instinctively focused on prying his fingers away from her windpipe instead of trying to claw his eyes out, which he suspected would be her first choice if he gave her time to think about it.
She was panting for breath and he could feel her heart pounding against his arm, the pulse in her throat racing under his fingers. “I’m not here to hurt you,” he told her quietly. “Quit fighting and I’ll let you go.”
The moonlight made her eyes glitter and he nearly smiled at the ferocious anger in them. “You’re outgunned, honey. Give it up. I caught you fair and square.”
She gave another furious wriggle and he just leaned against her slightly, rocking his left thigh against her pelvis so she was pinned against the car. He smiled down into her eyes. “You’re the most fun I’ve had standing up in a long time, Irish. Keep wiggling around like that and we could be well on our way to a second date before we’ve even traded phone numbers.”
She went as still as stone. And as pliant. Every inch of her—and there weren’t that many—was nearly vibrating with outrage, and again he found himself nearly overwhelmed with the urge to laugh.
“Let. Go. Of. Me.” The words held raw fury, but she had stopped wiggling around, to his faint regret. She was standing very still now, eyes snapping with rage, all fear long gone. “If you don’t let me go, you’re going to spend the rest of your eternal life in the worst, rat-infested prison in—”
“Where’s your gun?” he interrupted calmly.
She stopped in midthreat. “What?”
“Gun. Beretta, if I overheard Haney right. Where is it?”
“Inside.”
But she said it a bit too quickly, and he just smiled down at her tolerantly. “I don’t think so, Irish.” Slowly, he ran his free hand down her flank, fingertips brushing hot, bare flesh where her sweatshirt had ridden up. It made his belly tighten and he smiled as he moved his hand down her stomach and thigh, back up again.
She wasn’t hiding anything in those jeans but a well-placed dimple or two, he was already sure of that. He settled his hand on her bare waist, wondering if he wasn’t perhaps enjoying this just a little too much, and ran the flat of his palm up and around her rib cage. Her skin was hot velvet and she started to fight, then thought better of it and went still again, small chin set with anger.
The gun was in the small of her back, the metal warm to his touch, and he eased it free of her waistband. “Okay,” he told her agreeably as he eased his weight away from her. “I’m going to let you go, and I don’t want you doing anything reckless. I don’t want to hurt you, but I’m sure not going to stand here and let you try to rip out my eyeballs, either.”
She smiled malevolently. “It wasn’t your eyeballs I was thinking of ripping out, Mr. Blackhorse.”
In spite of himself, he gave a snort of laughter. “You’ve got brass ones, lady, I’ll give you that much. But I’ll still break your arm if you try anything stupid.”
He could see her thinking it over, testing the threat for truth, anger and resentment warring with good sense. He held her there a moment or two longer, until he could tell by her eyes that good sense was winning, then he released her abruptly and stepped well back, bracing himself.
There was a heartbeat of time when Meg actually contemplated going for him. But she took a deep, ragged breath of cold air instead and forced herself to stay where she was, her desire to maim him for life counterbalanced by an equally strong desire to stay alive. There was something about the cool watchfulness in those dark eyes that made her think his threat to break her arm wasn’t entirely idle.
So she satisfied herself with swearing at him instead, calling him a couple of choice things, not surprised when he didn’t turn a hair. By the look of him, he’d been called worse over the years. She tugged her sweatshirt down and combed her hair back with her fingers, praying he couldn’t see how badly her hands were shaking. “Was there a point to this exercise, or is being obnoxious something you do for fun?”
To her annoyance, he just grinned lazily. “Well, I can’t say it hasn’t been fun.” The grin widened suggestively and he let his gaze rove from hair to ankle and slowly back up again. Then his eyes met hers, cool again. “But, yeah, there’s a point. I want Dawes.”
Meg just stared at him. Then she snorted. “Yeah, well, I want world peace and a cure for cancer, Mr. Blackhorse, but I don’t see them happening tonight, either. Reggie Dawes is in my custody. If you want him, you’re going to have to take your turn. You can put in a request with my boss and maybe in fifty years—when we’re through with him—you can take him back to wherever it is you’re from.”
“Nevada.”
“Whatever.” She put her hand out. “My weapon, please.”
His smile was pleasant. “I don’t think so. Not until I have Dawes.”
“You’re not getting Dawes.”
“Yep.” He shoved her Beretta into his belt. “I am.” Then he turned and walked toward the motel room door.
Short of bringing him down with a volley of bad language, there was nothing Meg could do but scramble after him. He turned the knob and shoved the door open, and Meg found herself holding her breath, but Reggie was nowhere to be seen and the connecting door between the rooms was closed. Blackhorse stepped inside and Meg came in on his heels, not giving him a chance to lock her out.
Think! Damn it, no agent of O’Dell’s would just stand by and let this happen. Then again, no agent of O’Dell’s would have been caught as easily as she’d been, either.
“Where were you hiding?” she asked very casually, her mind going like a windmill. “Just for future reference.”
“Halfway up the stairs,” he said just as casually, giving the room a quick but thorough glance. “You’re new at this secret agent stuff, aren’t you?”
“What makes you think that?” Her voice was sharper than she’d intended.
“No other explanation for why you’re still alive.”
“I stayed one step ahead of you for a week,” she said with annoyance. “So I can’t be that bad.”
“I didn’t say you were bad.” His gaze held hers momentarily. “Just inexperienced. You looked around you out there, but you never looked up. I was right above you the whole time. If I’d been on Stepino’s payroll, I’d have taken you out with one shot to the head.”
Meg swallowed, knowing he was right but resenting the fact that he took it so matter-of-factly. I am inexperienced, she felt like shouting at him. So give me a break! Let me take Reggie back to the people who want him so my boss will let me be one of his agents and I can find out who killed my brother!
Did any of O’Dell’s agents get what they wanted by bursting into tears when things got tough?
The thought almost made her laugh. O’Dell’s agents, to a man, were walking advertisements for testosterone and macho heroics. Bullets and balls, the old agency joke went.
“So, where is the little guy?”
“He’s not here,” Meg said instantly, praying that Reggie was listening from the other room and had the sense to hide. “I’m not as inexperienced as you seem to think I am. Reggie’s in a safe place. Sorry to have led you on this wild-goose chase, but that was the point.” She smiled ingenuously, praying he took the bait.
And for a moment she thought he might. He glanced around the room again, frowning now, looking undecided. Then he shook his head. “No, I don’t think so, Special Agent Mary Margaret Kavanagh—that’s a hell of a mouthful, by the way. Mind if I just call you Irish for short?”
He was prowling now, peering in the closet, behind the drapes, glancing around at her now and again as though not entirely sure she wasn’t going to haul out a Mack Ten and start blasting away at him. Meg watched him silently, heart hammering against her ribs as she strolled casually toward the table where her handbag lay.
“You wouldn’t let the little weasel out of your sight, for one thing,” Blackhorse was saying. “And for another, I was on your tail ten minutes after you left Haney’s office, and you came straight here.”
“You weren’t on my tail.”
He just shrugged. “You were good, I’ll give you credit. Better than most, in fact. If you don’t get yourself killed before you get some experience under your belt, you’ll be pretty damn good.”
“I am pretty damn good.”
“You’re not bad.” He smiled as he said it, swinging his head around to look at her. His gaze drifted to her handbag, maybe three feet away now. “You wouldn’t have another gun in that thing, would you?”
Meg let her eyes widen with innocence. “Of course not.”
He laughed. “I’ll tell you one thing for nothing, Irish—you can’t lie for spit. That’s something you’re going to have to work on if you want to be successful at this secret agent business.”
“Will you stop calling me a secret agent!” Trying to distract him from the handbag, she strode across the room angrily. “I’m a government agent! Law enforcement of sorts. Or at least a lot closer to it than you are.”
“Uh-huh.” He didn’t seem impressed. “Well, let’s see what you’ve got in here.” Still keeping an eye on her, he grabbed her bag and upended it over the bed. A variety of things spilled across the faded bedspread, but the thing both of them looked at for a silent moment was the small, satin-blue Targa semiautomatic pistol.
Rafe smiled. He looked at Kavanagh, but she just gazed back at him stonily, and he wondered what other armament she had stashed throughout the room. He took a couple of steps backward and rapped on the connecting door. “Come out of there, Dawes.” Silence answered him and he hammered his fist against it. “I said come out, Dawes.”
“He’s halfway to Canada by now,” Kavanagh said impatiently. “Once he knew you were here, he’d have been out the door and gone.”
Rafe ignored her and tested the knob on the connecting door. It turned easily and he pushed the door open gingerly. The other room was pitch-dark, drapes drawn, lights off. The back of his neck prickled and he gave the door a shove with the toe of his boot. “Dawes? I know you’re in there, so stop playing games and—”
He sensed more than actually saw something move in the darkness, something coming straight at him, and he recoiled instinctively. The suitcase flew by him, inches from his face, and Rafe swore and dropped like a stone, grabbing for the Beretta even as his mind took in two separate images: Reggie Dawes taking aim with another suitcase, and Kavanagh diving for the gun on the bed.
He took Dawes out first, ducking under the suitcase that came cartwheeling through the doorway and grabbing the little guy by the front of his T-shirt. Dawes gave a squeak of terror as Rafe pulled him into Kavanagh’s room, then shoved him ferociously. Dawes hit the wall with a thump and slowly slid to the floor, eyes glazed, down for the count. And in the same motion, using the momentum to spin him around, Rafe had the Beretta out and aimed.
And found himself staring into the barrel of the Targa. She’d landed on the bed on her shoulder and had rolled onto the floor, snatching up the small gun as she did so. And now she was kneeling between the bed and the wall, looking a little pale, as though unnerved by her own wild heroics. But unnerved or not, her hands were rock-steady. That damned pistol was aimed square at his chest, and it didn’t waver so much as a hair.
“Okay.” He blew out a tight breath and straightened very slowly, the Beretta trained on her. “This could get interesting.”
“Put the gun down.”
He very nearly laughed. “I was going to say the same thing.”
“I’m not playing around here!”
Rafe let his smile fade deliberately. “Honey, neither am I.” He let her think about it. “I know you think you’re doing the right thing, Irish, but you’re way out of your league here. Put the gun down, come out from behind there, and we’ll talk.”
She gave him a searing look, but did get to her feet and walk around the end of the bed, her weapon still aimed at his chest. “I won’t ask you again to put that gun down.”
He smiled coolly. “You haven’t got the stones to kill a man in cold blood, Irish. I’ll bet you’ve never even fired that thing at anything but a paper target.” It was a wild guess, but he could tell the instant the words were out of his mouth that he was right.
Faint apprehension flickered across her face, gone in an instant under steely determination. “There has to be a first time.”
“Do you have any idea what it’s like to kill a man, Irish?” he asked softly. “Ever seen what a bullet can do to a human body at this range?” He dared to take a step closer to her. “Know what it’s like to look in a man’s eyes and watch the life leak out of him?”
“One more step, and we’ll both get the lesson of a lifetime.”
Rafe smiled again. “You’re not going to pull that trigger, sweetheart, and we both know it. No way you’re going to kill me.”
Her eyes narrowed very slightly and Rafe’s heart stopped.
Then she took a deep, unsteady breath. “Well, maybe not.” She looked at him thoughtfully. Then, without shifting her gaze from his, she dropped her aim with unnerving swiftness to a point about eight inches below his belt buckle. “But I bet I can hurt you bad enough that you’d wish I had.”
Rafe felt his belly constrict and had to fight to keep from dropping his hand protectively over his groin.
The apprehension in her eyes had turned cool. “Put the weapon down, Mr. Blackhorse. If you’re the legitimate cop you’d have me believe, you’re not going to shoot me, either.”
“And if I’m not?” He said it belligerently, wishing—not for the first time today—that he’d never left Bear Mountain. No amount of money was worth this kind of aggravation.
Kavanagh lifted one delicate eyebrow and smiled. “Then, Mr. Blackhorse, I’d say the question isn’t whether or not you’re going to kill me, but whether you can kill me quickly enough to keep my finger from pulling this trigger as I’m going down and doing you a very painful and extremely inopportune injury.”
Rafe nearly winced. He was tempted to just walk across and grab the Targa out of her hands and have done with it. Odds were she wouldn’t shoot, but then again…if that gun went off—even accidentally—the damage would be a hell of a lot more than just inopportune.
Swearing under his breath, he swung the Beretta away from her. He cleared the chamber and released the clip, and tossed both onto the table nearby.
She didn’t lower her own weapon so much as an inch. “Take the other weapon out of the holster under your left arm and put it on the table as well, please.”
Rafe thought of arguing with her, then just did as she asked, staring at her challengingly as the Taurus landed on the table beside the Beretta.
“Thank you.” She smiled a disarmingly sweet smile. “Now take the other gun out and put it on the table with the others, please.”
“Other gun?”
“The Smith & Wesson, Mr. Blackhorse. It’s in the waistband of your jeans in the small of your back, and I’d like it on the table.”
Rafe’s teeth grated together and he balked for a moment, then swore savagely and wrenched the weapon from his jeans and put it on the growing pile of hardware. He held his arms out to either side, forcing himself to smile. “Anything else you’d like me to take off?”
“I guess that would depend on whether or not you have anything else I’d be interested in seeing.”
He let the smile widen and dropped one hand to his belt buckle. “Guess there’s one way to find out.”
She smiled tolerantly. “Don’t think a threat to drop your jeans is going to get me so flustered you can get this gun away from me, Mr. Blackhorse. I have five brothers, and I can assure you that I’m immune to adolescent male humor.”
Rafe was half tempted to call her bluff but then had the distinct feeling that all he would accomplish was making himself look like twelve kinds of a fool. This day had gone badly enough already without winding up standing there with his jeans around his ankles and a gun pointed at the part of his anatomy nearest and dearest to him.
He contemplated a half-dozen options, discarding all of them as too risky. Which was pretty ridiculous, considering he wasn’t up against a handful of Navy Seals or a squad of Green Berets but one small, very inexperienced government agent. He remembered what she’d felt like in his hands out by the car, all soft curves and satin skin and lithe muscle. Easy prey. He should have taken her out by now. Should be halfway back to Las Vegas with Reggie Dawes. Money in the bank. He eased his weight onto his left foot, trying to make it look casual.
Reggie moaned just then and she looked at him with concern. “Reg, are you all right?”
And, in the end, it was just that easy. Distracted, she let her attention waver for just that critical instant, and that was all it took. Rafe pivoted on his left foot and brought his right up high and fast, knocking the gun cleanly out of her hand, then swung around to grab her by the wrist before she could go after it. She responded faster than he’d anticipated and he nearly got a karate chop across the face for his trouble, but he blocked the blow awkwardly.
“Damn you!”
She sounded more astonished than dangerous, and Rafe had to grin. “That’s lesson number two, Irish. When you’ve got your gun on a man, never take your eyes off him.”
“A mistake I won’t make twice,” she said through gritted teeth.
Rafe’s eyes narrowed as he watched her trying to decide what to do next. Oddly, he found himself hoping she wouldn’t try anything, because if they kept this up long enough he was going to hurt her without even meaning to, and that seemed like a shame. “If I was serious about taking you out, sweetheart, you wouldn’t get a second chance. Just what agency are you working for, anyway?”
“Does it matter?” She gave her head a toss to get a tangle of hair out of her eyes, scanning the room, looking for the advantage he had no intention of letting her have.
“Whoever it is, they have no damn business sending you out solo before you’re ready. Or are they trying to get you killed? Is that it? You tick someone off who wants a little payback?”
“Miss Kavanagh?” Reggie sat up just then, blinking blearily and rubbing the back of his head. “Miss Kavanagh, did you hit me?”
“Reggie, are you okay?” Kavanagh hurried across and knelt beside him. “Do you know where you are, Reg? Do you know who you are?”
“Of course I know who I am,” he replied indignantly.
“You’re not bleeding or anything.”
“It hurts,” he muttered petulantly, giving Rafe an affronted look as he rubbed the back of his skull. “I could have brain damage.”
“Somehow,” Rafe drawled, “I find that hard to believe.” He walked across to the bed, still keeping an eye on Kavanagh.
“Come on, Reg, sit over here. I’ll get you a glass of water.” She helped him up and into one of the chairs. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“He’s fine,” Rafe put in impatiently. The pile of things he’d dumped out of her purse still lay in a mound on the bed, and he rifled through it until he found what he was looking for.
“Hey!” Kavanagh turned just in time to see what he was doing and took an indignant step toward him. “You have no right—”
“Lady, not five minutes ago you were threatening to shoot off body parts I’ve become very fond of. I think I have a right to know just who the hell you are.” Rafe flipped open the slim leather identification wallet. The picture was hers, and he had to smile. Typical first-year operative photo ID. They all had the same overly serious expression, trying to look blasé and tough as nails at the same time and winding up looking like kids playing cops and robbers.
Then he saw the agency name on the plasticized card and felt his heart stop for one long, disbelieving moment.
He blinked, not quite trusting his eyes, and moved closer to the reading lamp on the table by the bed, turning the gold shield to catch the light. But there was no mistake.
He remembered to start breathing after a moment or two, too many emotions racing through him to make sense, mind spinning. Remembered the last time he’d seen this same gold shield. Remembered lying in the dust, blinded by the sun, knuckles bruised, jaw half-broken where—
“I’ll be damned,” he finally breathed, straightening to his full height and looking across the room at her. “And just how the hell is old Spence O’Dell, anyway?”
She blinked. “You know O’Dell?”
Rafe’s laugh was tight. “Oh, yeah, I know O’Dell.” He took a deep breath, the tangle of emotions surging through him separating out into strands now, each as bright as hot gold. Rage so strong it burned. Disappointment. Betrayal. And, brightest, hottest, of all, the hurt of memories he didn’t want to remember. He saw Stephanie’s face then, just a flicker really, a searing ghost image of laughing eyes and dark swirling hair, the remembered scent of her perfume. He shut his eyes tight and fought it down and away, back into the vault beneath his heart where he kept her memory stored, safe from prying.
When he opened his eyes again, Kavanagh was still standing there, an odd expression on her face. “I know you.” She was looking at him intently, her eyes scanning his face. “You were an agent once. You used to be one of O’Dell’s men.”
“Once.” Rafe bit the word off, almost daring her to say the rest.
“They…” She paused, as though trying to remember. “They talk about you. At the Agency. I thought…I thought you were dead. That’s why I never made the connection. Your name was familiar, but…” She gazed at him curiously. “I thought you were dead.”
“Not yet, no thanks to that bastard O’Dell.” Rafe took another deep breath, annoyed at how shaken he was. It made him feel vulnerable, as though he’d been caught out in the open with no cover.
O’Dell. He let his mind toy with the name deliberately. Was he behind this? The Feds would be watching Ruffio, that went without saying. He’d known that when he’d taken the job but had decided it was worth the risk. If he really admitted it, in fact, he’d counted on his history with the Agency to protect him from any real suspicion. But maybe he’d underestimated O’Dell. Maybe the man wanted revenge. There were stories about O’Dell. About how he didn’t like it when one of his trained agents ran amok. Maybe he’d been sitting back in the shadows all this time. Watching. Waiting for a chance to slip the noose around ex-Special Agent Rafe Blackhorse’s neck and tighten it….
Shrugging his shoulders to loosen them, he prowled across to the window and tugged aside the lime-green curtain. The parking lot was still, bathed in moonlight. The scattering of cars and pickup trucks glittered with dew, and nothing moved until a high-legged dog trotted into view, slat-sided and wary. It moved toward the garbage bin at the back of the lot, pausing now and again to lift its ugly muzzle and sniff the night. Then, apparently feeling safe, it started rummaging through the garbage scattered on the ground.
Not that the stray’s behavior meant O’Dell wasn’t out there. No one worked at the Agency for long without hearing the stories. They still wove epic tales about O’Dell’s three tours in Vietnam. Of how he could stay stone-still for hours at a time without so much as blinking, of how the Vietcong had called him The White Tiger because of the way he could slip ghostlike through jungle so thick you couldn’t see a foot in front of you and never disturb a leaf. The man was a legend. Staking out the Dewdrop Inn in the wilds of South Dakota—or North Dakota, or wherever the hell they were—wouldn’t be much of a challenge.
But, in spite of his suspicions, Rafe found himself relaxing slightly. Odds were that Kavanagh’s involvement in this was just coincidence. There was no reason he could think of for O’Dell to be stalking him. They’d pretty much written each other off two years ago. Had put Paid to any debt between them. Any friendship.
It gave him a cold, empty feeling, for some reason. More loss than anger. It was strange how feelings changed with time. Once, he couldn’t even think of O’Dell without being half blinded by rage. Now…hell, now he didn’t even give a damn. O’Dell’s memory had joined all the others, just one more in the collection of things he rarely thought of anymore. Part of a life he’d survived, barely, and had walked away from, as alien to the man he was now as kindness would be to that stray dog out there.
He shook off the thoughts impatiently, not liking the morose turn they were taking, and turned around to find Kavanagh standing not six feet from him, the Beretta in her hand pointed at his belly.
Chapter 3
“This game of musical guns is getting tiresome, Mr. Blackhorse. Can we just agree that neither one of us is going to shoot the other and enter into a dialogue that doesn’t include bullets and threats?”
Blackhorse seemed to consider it for a moment. Then to Meg’s relief he gave a snort of laughter and nodded, tipping his head back and rotating both shoulders to loosen them. “Hell, why not, Irish. I’m kind of interested in seeing where you’re going with this, anyway.”
She lowered the gun and shoved it into its holster. “The only place I’m going is Washington. With Reggie Dawes.”
Blackhorse gave another of those harsh, abrupt laughs. “And this is your idea of a ‘dialogue,’ Special Agent Kavanagh?”
Meg shrugged. The race of adrenaline had eased and she was feeling the aftermath now, her heartbeat a little unsteady as she walked across to the bed and picked up her purse. She started shoving her things back into it, trying not to think of what might have happened here tonight had Blackhorse been just about anyone else.
O’Dell was right: she wasn’t agent material. She would have been dead two or three times over had he been one of Ruffio’s men. Tomorrow, after she’d handed Dawes over to the Agency rep in Washington, she was putting in her resignation. Then she was going back to Boston and marrying Royce Packard and raising babies and busying herself with social luncheons and charity functions and being the perfect society wife, her brief foray into the dark world of secret agentry well behind her.
And Bobby? Well, Bobby’s death would stay the mystery it was. She should just be glad she hadn’t added her own to it, because her parents couldn’t go through that again. Burying one child was more than any family should suffer. Burying two—the second death as futile and meaningless as the first—was a cruelty she hadn’t even thought of when she’d started this stupid escapade. She’d done it because, of all her much-loved siblings, Bobby had been the closest. Had been her champion and her mentor and her best friend, and he was dead and she wanted to know why and now—
“Damn!” Meg clenched her teeth as her eyes filled with unexpected tears. “Damn, damn, damn!” She scythed her arm out and swept everything from the night table—water glass, clock radio, lamp and all—taking some small satisfaction as the lamp shade went flying across the room and the glass bounced off the wall, spraying cold water.
“Miss Kavanagh?” Reggie sounded tentative. “Are you all right?”
“Yes!” Meg drew a deep, calming breath, keeping her back to both men. She wiped her cheek surreptitiously with her fingers. “I’m fine, Reg.”
She turned around to find them both staring at her with matching expressions of astonishment.
It was Blackhorse who broke the tension first. He laughed—a real laugh this time, not his usual cynical bark—and then walked across to the table and started putting his weapons away. “You’re a real break in routine, Special Agent Mary Margaret Kavanagh, I’ll say that much for you. Either O’Dell’s mellowed since I last saw him, or you’re one of a kind.” He shoved the Smith & Wesson into the holster in the small of his back and gazed across the room at her, mouth tipped aside slightly in a bemused smile. “I wish I had time to hear your story, Irish.”
“No story, Mr. Blackhorse,” Meg replied wearily. “It’s been a long day, and I’m tired. And we still have a situation to resolve. I’m not giving you Reggie, and you say you aren’t leaving without him, so we obviously have a problem.”
Blackhorse shrugged amiably. “I get paid to retrieve things, Irish. Sometimes those things are people. I’m good at what I do. But if people discover that I failed to retrieve Reggie Dawes here and take him back to the people who hired me, my reputation takes a hit. Not only do I lose my money for this job, people are going to think twice about hiring me in the future. This is an assignment to you, Agent Kavanagh. But it’s my livelihood.”
Meg looked at him curiously. “So I was right. You’re not a cop.”
He shrugged again. “Sheriff Haney didn’t strike me as the kind of man who’d take to my line of work all that well.”
“That line of work being a low-rent bounty hunter.”
Something dark flickered across his high-boned features and his eyes narrowed slightly. In the unshaded glare of the fallen lamp, his features were blade-sharp and hard, as uncompromising as stone. And he was big, she found herself thinking uneasily, remembering the solid weight of him on top of her that afternoon. There wasn’t an inch of him that wasn’t muscle or bone, and he moved like a cat. If push came to shove, there was going to be very little she could do to stop him from taking Reggie.
She took a deep breath and released it slowly, trying to think her way through this. She was very aware of Reggie sitting behind her, looking more miserable and frightened by the passing minute, and thought of her promise to him to keep him safe. Thought of his wife, Honey, and the trust in her eyes when Meg had convinced her to go into hiding. I’ll take care of Reggie, she’d promised. Trust me, and I’ll keep your husband safe….
“If you take Reg back to Vegas, Ruffio will kill him, you know that.”
“Ruffio just hired me to find Reggie and bring him back,” Blackhorse said evenly. “Why is none of my business. I’m not getting paid to ask questions.”
“This isn’t a retrieval, it’s murder,” Meg said angrily. “That thug in the bar this afternoon was trying to kill Reg. He would have killed you, too, if you’d gotten in his way. Are these the kind of people you work for now, Mr. Blackhorse?” She looked at him searchingly, seeing nothing but emptiness and cold in his dark eyes. “What happened to you, anyway? How did you go from being one of O’Dell’s top agents to…to this.”
Again there was a flicker of something deep in his eyes. “You don’t want to go there, Kavanagh,” he said very softly, the chill in the words trailing frost through his voice. “I’m here doing a job, just like you.”
“Not like me. I’m paid by the Agency to bring people to justice. Or, as in Reggie’s case, to protect him from those people who don’t want justice done. From what I can see, you’re a bottom feeder. One step down from that gun-for-hire that came after us in the bar. At least he was honest about what he does. You kill people and can’t even admit it.”
She thought for one split second that he was going to come at her. Every muscle in his lean body seemed to coil and go taut, and the emptiness in his eyes vanished under the heat of raw anger. Then he seemed to catch himself and he eased his weight back and away from her, breathing quickly, teeth bared slightly.
A little surprised she was still alive, Meg took a couple of backward steps, her hand on the comforting bulk of the Beretta. “Reggie, we’re leaving. Now.” She swallowed. “Mr. Blackhorse, I may not be a very good field agent yet, but I’ve got good instincts about people. You’re no killer.”
“Willing to bet your life on that, Irish?” he asked softly.
“Yes.” Meg swallowed again, the sound loud in the stillness. “If you were, I’d be dead and you’d be halfway back to Vegas with Reggie by now. I don’t know what happened to you, but you must have been a good man once or O’Dell would never have hired you. I’m gambling that there’s still enough of that man left somewhere that I can walk out of here with Reggie, and you’re going to let us go.”
“Pretty big gamble.”
For some reason, Meg found herself smiling. “After I deliver Reggie to Washington and get back to Virginia, I’ll make sure O’Dell knows you were instrumental in bringing him back in one piece. After all, you probably saved my life in that bar this afternoon. There could be a reward in it, if I can pull the right strings. That’ll make up in part for what you lost by not fulfilling your deal with Ruffio.”
“Presuming you’re going to get out of here alive….” Rafe made it sound as close to a threat as he could manage, but his heart wasn’t in it anymore. He was weary of taunting her, weary of the sparring and banter.
He was tired and his left shoulder was aching and his knees hurt and he felt old and worn down. Kavanagh’s barbed little shots had hit closer to home than he cared to admit, and the spots she’d taken aim at with such uncanny accuracy hurt, too, as though her words had been dipped in poison.
He wanted to get away from her, he realized. Back up to Bear Mountain, where no one ever bothered him. Away from her and those unnervingly clear aquamarine eyes that seemed to see too much.
He had his mouth half open to tell her to take Reggie and get the hell out before he changed his mind and shot both of them just on principle when he heard it. It wasn’t even a noise as much as the suggestion of a noise. A scuff, maybe, like that of a rubber-soled shoe on concrete.
Kavanagh heard it at the same instant. He could see her eyes widen as she fumbled for the Beretta. Common sense told him she was okay, to watch out for his own hide and let her take care of hers, but instinct propelled him across the room so he was between her and the doorway, his Taurus in a two-handed grip. Dawes had reacted with instincts of his own and was curled up on the floor between the bed and the wall, both arms wrapped around his head like a kid shutting out a nightmare.
“Will you get out of my way!” Kavanagh whispered furiously. “I can’t get a clean shot with you in the way!”
“Shut up and stay back,” he whispered just as furiously, shouldering her out of the way. “You’re not ready for this!”
“And who’s paying you to play Joe Hero? Get out of my—”
There was a knock at the door and Rafe heard her suck in a startled breath. Looking pale and frightened but grimly determined, her grip on the Beretta letter-perfect, she eased herself away from him and cat-footed across to take up a position against the wall beside the door. Rafe eased himself across to the other side, moving silently on the carpet, pausing to take a swift glance through the peephole in the door.
Two men that he could see, neither taking any particular pains to hide themselves. Rafe held up two fingers so Kavanagh could see them, then indicated that there might be others out of his line of sight. She nodded tightly.
“Agent Kavanagh?” The voice was muffled by the door, but clear. “Meg, it’s me, Matt Carlson. Adam Engler’s with me. O’Dell sent us to bring you and Dawes in.”
Meg’s breath left her in a huff and she closed her eyes for an instant, knees nearly buckling with relief, then she swung the Beretta down and reached for the doorknob. Her fingers just grazed it when Blackhorse came hurtling at her and knocked her back against the wall with a thud that nearly jarred her teeth loose.
“It’s okay,” she tried to wheeze. “I know them…they’re—”
There was a sharp voice outside the door, and in the next instant it exploded inward, the doorframe splintering right beside her, shards of wood flying like shrapnel. Something large catapulted into the room and hit the floor somewhere out of the line of Meg’s sight. Blackhorse swore and shoved her against the wall again just as someone else swung through the door, gun glinting in the unshaded lamplight.
“Government agents!” someone roared. “Nobody move!”
And for a moment, no one did. In the end, it was Meg who moved first. Still trying to get her breath back, her ribs feeling bruised where Blackhorse had slammed into her, she gazed at the tableaux of men and guns spread out in front of her.
It had been Matt Carlson who’d come bursting through the door first. He’d hit the carpet on one shoulder and had come up in perfect shooting stance, his weapon trained on Blackhorse’s belly, staring at the Taurus that was pointed right at him. Adam Engler had followed him in and had his weapon trained on Meg.
He recovered first. Swearing, he swung his Beretta around so he was covering Blackhorse. “Government agents! Put the gun down! Put it down!”
Blackhorse didn’t so much as blink. “I’ve got your partner covered,” he said coldly. “Try to take me out, he’s dead.”
“Put the weapon down! Put it down now.”
They might have stayed like that for another hour, bellowing threats and counter threats at each other like the well-trained government operatives they all were until someone either backed down—which was unlikely—or got shot. Which was likely, considering all the testosterone in the room.
It would have been funny, except for the very real possibility of someone getting hurt. Meg holstered her Beretta and said very gently, “Guys, it’s okay. I’m okay. This is Mr. Blackhorse, a…cop. Rafe, these are O’Dell’s men. Now will you all please put up your weapons before you hurt each other?”
Blackhorse’s eyes narrowed. “You sure you know them?”
“Positive. Mr. Engler brings me latte every Friday morning, and Mr. Carlson and I share a passion for crossword puzzles.”
“You’ll vouch for this guy?” Carlson sounded skeptical.
Meg paused, rubbing her sore ribs, tempted for one rash moment to deny it just to pay the man back for all the aggravation he’d given her. Then she sighed and nodded grudgingly. “Yeah. I’ll vouch for him.”
It took another moment or more, but finally all three of them relaxed slightly, trading hostile glares as they put up their weapons and holstered them, still prickly and watchful.
Blackhorse took two steps across to her, face like a thunder-cloud. He jabbed a finger into the air an inch from her face, making her blink. “Did you sleep through basic training, lady?” he bawled. “You never—and I mean never—open a door until you’ve verified who the hell’s on the other side.”
Meg bristled. “I knew who—”
“You knew squat! You thought you recognized another agent’s voice, but you didn’t verify it. He could have been out there at gunpoint. There could have been a dozen explanations—none of them innocent—and you and your man Dawes there could be dead right now!”
“Hey, fella, where the hell do you get off talking to her like that?” Carlson gave Blackhorse a shove, his face pugnacious.
Furious, Meg pushed past Carlson to glare up at Blackhorse. “Who do you think you are, anyway? You came here to take Reggie for yourself, and now you’re lecturing me on how to—”
“You obviously need someone lecturing you on how to stay alive, because—”
“Hey! Back off!” Carlson pushed his way between them again. “One more word outta you, buddy, and—”
“You want to take this outside, pal?” Blackhorse loomed toward Carlson, his eyes hot with anger.
“Enough!” Meg’s shout cracked through the room like a pistol shot and everyone stared at her, startled into momentary silence. She ran both hands through her tangled hair, tempted to start pulling it out by the roots. “You guys sound just like my brothers! I’ve spent most of my life listening to them argue over who has the right to tell me what to do, and I stopped taking it from them and I’m sure not going to stand here and take it from you!” The last word was all but a shout and she caught herself and took a deep breath to calm down. “All of you back off, understand? Just…back off!”
“Hey, Meg,” Carlson said, clearly hurt. “I never meant anything by it. I was just—”
“Trying to take care of me, I know,” she said with forced patience. “Matt, what are you doing here? How did you know where I was?”
“We were in the air fifteen minutes after your call came in this afternoon,” Engler said, eyeing Blackhorse suspiciously. “We choppered in and met with Sheriff Haney—who is not a happy man, by the way. I strongly recommend you don’t go back there anytime soon.”
“I wasn’t planning on it,” Meg muttered. “Although it wasn’t me who shot up the bar.” This with a hostile look at Blackhorse.
“Anyway, we tracked you here.”
Meg’s heart sank. She’d been quite proud of the way she’d covered her tracks, but apparently she’d left a trail a mile wide. “How?” she asked wearily. “Where did I go wrong?”
Engler just looked at her. “The phone call, of course.”
“What phone call?” Meg wheeled around and looked at Reggie, who was trying to make himself invisible. “Reggie, what phone call?”
He shrugged, not meeting her eyes. “Well, um…when you went out to the car, I…um…found your cell phone, and…um…”
“He called your brother in Chicago, wanting to talk to Honey. Grady called the Agency, saying something didn’t sound right and wanting to know what we were doing about it.”
Meg winced.
Engler looked across at her. “Meg, what did you think you were doing, coming after Dawes yourself? O’Dell’s fit to be tied.”
She winced again. “He, uh…knows by now. I guess.”
Carlson laughed. “Oh, yeah, he knows. He doesn’t believe it, but he knows.” He laughed again. “I’ve seen O’Dell mad before, but I’ve never seen him like this. You have gone down in the annals of Agency history, Meg. I wouldn’t give two cents for your future, but they’ll be talking about you for decades. You’ve elevated the lowly computer gnome to new heights. Trouble is, now every gnome in the place will want to play field agent and the rest of us will be out of work.”
Meg flushed slightly. “Look, I…uh…”
“Gnome?” Blackhorse had been listening to all this intently, and he looked at her now, eyes narrowed. “You’re a gnome?”
“I am a Computer Information Retrieval Specialist,” she said a trifle defensively.
Blackhorse just stared at her, seemingly unable to comprehend what he was hearing.
“She’s one of the best,” Carlson said blithely. “Although after O’Dell’s finished with you, Meg, you’ll be lucky to have a job counting paper clips. Everyone thought you were on vacation, then we get this phone call from some hicksville sheriff in South Dakota—”
“North,” Engler put in. “North Dakota.”
“Whatever. This sheriff says he has someone in custody who claims to be one of our agents. That said agent was involved in a shootout in a bar involving a Nevada cop—” this with a distasteful glance at Blackhorse “—a thug called Pags Pagliano and a pipsqueak calling himself Reggie Dawes.” This elicited a huff of indignation from Reggie, but Carlson ignored it. “I happened to be closest to O’Dell’s office when the call was routed through to him.” He winced at the memory. “As I said, Engler and I were on a chopper fifteen minutes later and another team was dispatched to your brother’s place to pick up Honey.”
“Is she okay?” Reggie hovered in the background worriedly.
“She’s fine,” Meg snapped. “I told you, my brother’s a cop.”
“She’s fine,” Carlson echoed. He looked at Meg with a shake of his head. “O’Dell’s mighty peeved about that, too, Meg. You know how he hates it when we get civilians involved. You should have sent Honey to an Agency safe house instead of involving your own family.”
“There wasn’t time.”
“Not to mention the fact you didn’t have the authority,” Engler said calmly. “Seeing as you’re out here playing field agent games you haven’t been trained for, on an assignment that doesn’t exist.”
Meg flushed again. “The only way Reggie would come with me was if I could guarantee Honey’s safety. I knew sending her to stay with Grady was as good as putting her in any safe house. Maybe better.”
“Wait a minute.” Blackhorse held up his hand like a traffic cop. “Run that by me again? She’s out here on an assignment that doesn’t exist?”
Carlson gave him a dark look. “What police force did you say you were with? Nevada? Kind of out of your jurisdiction, wouldn’t you say?”
Blackhorse ignored him. “You’re saying you clowns let a gnome with no field training come out here and—”
“I took the training!”
“—handle this non-assignment all on her own, without adequate backup or—”
“She didn’t tell anybody what she was doing,” Carlson protested. “She was on vacation! It wasn’t until—” He caught himself abruptly. “Hey, don’t I know you? I know you from somewhere.”
Meg had her mouth open to tell Carlson exactly who Blackhorse was, then subsided, recalling the expression on Rafe’s face when he’d spoken about the Agency. Rafe gave her a quick look, seemingly surprised by her silence.
“Special Agent Rafe Blackhorse,” Engler said suddenly. He stared at Rafe in blank disbelief. “You’re dead!”
“You’re kidding!” Carlson took another look at Rafe, staring hard at him. “Well, I’ll be…it is you! But Engler’s right. You’re dead.”
“Do I look dead?” Rafe asked sourly.
Carlson flushed. “I was in the West Coast office when all that went down. I just heard that you—” He bit it off.
“Ate your gun,” Engler put in helpfully. “Guess the story wasn’t true, then, huh?”
“Guess not, Einstein.”
It gave Meg such a jolt that she simply stared at Rafe, trying to remember everything she’d heard about him. Suicide? Surely she would have remembered that. “I heard…” She frowned, struggling to haul the memory up from the depths of her mind. “I heard it was in the line of duty.”
“They always say that,” Carlson said. “O’Dell doesn’t like it when his agents off themselves. Figures it reflects badly on him. So unless you commit hari kari in front of the Lincoln Memorial at high noon with press and television, it’s kept pretty quiet.”
“You’ve been alive all this time,” Engler said quietly, as though not quite believing it. “Why all the secrecy?”
“It was a cover story of some sort, wasn’t it?” Carlson put in with sudden understanding. “And you’ve been working for O’Dell all this time. So that’s why you turned up here, helping Meg.” He grinned with relief.
Engler was still staring at Rafe. “That true? You still on the payroll?”
“Wish I’d known that beforehand, because I don’t mind telling you, I was a little scared of what we were going to find.” Carlson scrubbed his fingers through his short, brown hair. “Ruffio and Stepino have both got their soldiers out looking for Dawes. I was sure you were dead.”
“You’re hell bent on seeing someone dead, aren’t you?” Rafe muttered. “And I’m not working undercover. Agent Kavanagh and I just sort of ran into each other, is all. I quit the Agency cold two years ago.”
“But you were taking care of her.” Engler just stared at him.
Rafe glanced at Meg. His gaze held hers for a long moment. “She was taking care of herself just fine. I was ready to pull out when you guys showed up.”
“But…” Carlson looked from one to the other of them, clearly puzzled.
“Mr. Blackhorse is a…private investigator,” Meg put in smoothly, ignoring Rafe’s raised eyebrow. “He…um…became embroiled in the situation when Pagliano tried to kill Reggie this afternoon, and he kindly offered to…assist me.”
Reggie was looking shell-shocked. “I don’t understand any of this,” he whispered. “You mean she isn’t an agent at all?”
“She’s an Agency employee, just not a field agent,” Engler said with a disapproving look at Meg. “She had no authority to bring you in, and no business being out here without proper training.”
“I had the training,” Meg repeated heatedly. “Okay, so I didn’t complete it, exactly, but I didn’t need the underwater demolition stuff or the advanced military armament stuff or all that pilot or parachute training stuff, either. And, okay, I didn’t spend two years as an intern, playing second banana to the agent in charge. But I found Reggie when no one else could. And I convinced him to come in. And I was bringing him in just fine.”
“But…why?” Carlson shook his head. “That’s what I don’t understand, Meg. You’ve never said anything to me about wanting to be a field agent. And you know how O’Dell feels about women in the field.”
“I wanted to prove he’s wrong,” she said flatly. “The man’s twenty years behind the times! If I can prove I can do the job, he can’t keep me out. I’d been following Reggie’s case from the beginning, and when he disappeared with O’Dell’s money and no one was able to find him, I decided it was the perfect opportunity. It only took me a couple of days to track him down with our computers, and I…” She shrugged and looked at Reggie. “Reg, I’m sorry. I’ve been lying to you, but it really was for your own good.”
“So does this mean I’m not really in custody?”
“No!” Carlson and Engler exclaimed in unison, and Reggie sat down, looking gloomy.
“It was crazy,” Carlson muttered. “You could have been killed, Meg. Why not just put your application in and see if—” Abruptly, he stopped. Frowning, he blew his cheeks out, looking at her sadly. “Oh. Bobby.”
“My brother died in the field,” Meg said with quiet intensity, “and I want to know why.”
“Meg…” Engler lifted his hand, then let it fall to his side again. “Damn it, Meg, we’ve been over this a hundred times.”
She lifted her chin slightly. “And like I’ve said a hundred times, Adam, I don’t believe that Bobby got sloppy. That he lost his edge and it got him killed. Something happened out there that night.”
“I was on Bobby’s team,” Engler reminded her gently. “Nothing happened that night that wasn’t in my report. And I’ve been over it and over it with you.”
“Except you weren’t with him the night it happened.” Meg looked at him evenly. “He was set up, Adam. I know that as certainly as I know you don’t want to believe it. Bobby was a good field agent. He told me that he suspected someone on the team was dirty and you’ve admitted he talked to you about it!”
“And I told him he was wrong,” Engler said gently. “Meg, your brother had been working deep under cover for almost six months. Things…happen to a man who’s been out of touch with the real world for that long. He’s so used to suspecting everyone he’s working with that he starts to see conspiracies and threats around every corner.”
“Bobby was the most grounded, real person I’ve ever known. He was not imagining things!”
“Meg, I don’t know what happened to Bobby that night, but it was no double cross. No one blew his cover. I’m sorry he’s dead—he was a good agent and a friend of mine. But O’Dell’s closed the case down because there’s no evidence to keep it open. Good men die stupid deaths, Meg. I’m sorry, but it happens.”
“Not to my brother, it didn’t,” she said with quiet intensity.
Engler started to say something, then thought better of it and subsided, frowning.
“He was double-crossed,” Meg said savagely. “By one of our agents. Then he was murdered to keep him quiet. O’Dell won’t investigate because he doesn’t believe me, but I darn well intend to find out who killed Bobby if it’s the last thing I ever do. And if O’Dell won’t make me a full field agent, then I’ll quit and do it on my own!”
Engler exchanged a quick look with Carlson, and Meg bit back an angry oath, knowing they were thinking the same thing everyone else at the Agency thought. Word had it that Bobby had slipped up and gotten himself and another agent killed, and that she couldn’t accept the truth. That she’d come up with this preposterous idea that it had been another agent who had double-crossed and ambushed Bobby and his partner. Conspiracy plot, they called it behind her back, smiling knowingly amongst themselves. Even O’Dell was tired of listening to her.
She shook her head angrily and stalked across to the bed, starting to shove her things willy-nilly into her small suitcase. “Reg, saddle up! We’re leaving.” She shot Engler a cool look. “I presume you two are here to escort Reg and me back to Washington.”
“Well, actually, Matt’s going to take Reg to Washington.” Engler managed to look mildly embarrassed. “My orders are to escort you back to Virginia ASAP. From this room to O’Dell’s office, no stops between.”
“I’m not going back to Virginia until I know Reg is safe. I gave my word.”
“No problem. There’s an Agency jet sitting on the tarmac out at the airport with its engines hot and two more agents aboard for backup. I’ll let you walk on and buckle him in, if you like.”
“How are you and I getting back?”
“Military chopper.” Engler smiled slightly. “O’Dell’s private stock. You’re getting the royal treatment.”
“O’Dell’s little joke, giving me the royal treatment to my own firing squad.” Meg mustered up a rough smile. She looked at Rafe for a moment, then walked across and held out her hand. “Well, Mr. Blackhorse, it’s been…instructional. I won’t say it’s been a pleasure, exactly, but I appreciate your help. And I’m sorry about your…arrangement with the other party. Give him my regrets, will you?”
To her surprise, Rafe actually smiled. His hand folded around hers, warm and incredibly gentle. “It has been a pleasure, Special Agent Mary Margaret Kavanagh. Like I said, you’re one of a kind.”
“CIR Specialist Mary Margaret Kavanagh,” Meg said with a sigh. “And I meant what I said about appreciating your help, even if it wasn’t exactly what you intended. I’ll keep all your advice in mind. In case I ever need it again. You ought to think about billing O’Dell for your in-field training services.”
His fingers tightened slightly, encasing hers in gentle warmth. “You take care of yourself, Agent Kavanagh.”
Then he drew his hand from hers slowly, letting his fingers linger on hers for a moment before releasing them completely.
She nodded again, then just smiled and gathered up her suitcase, glancing around the room to make sure she had everything. Carlson was helping Reggie get his things together in the other room, and she could hear them squabbling already.
She walked outside with Engler, taking a deep breath of night air.
“Hey. You. Engler.”
Rafe’s voice caught Engler just as he was opening the door of his rental car for Meg. He stiffened and Meg saw his hand move fractionally toward his weapon.
She looked around sharply. Rafe was just standing there, tall and calm-eyed in the moonlight, hands loose at his sides.
Engler turned slowly. “What?”
“Tell O’Dell she did just fine out here. Handled herself better than most men I’ve seen with twice the training.”
Engler looked as surprised as Meg felt. She stared at Rafe in amazement.
“She stayed one step ahead of me for almost a week, and when I did catch up to her, she drew down on me like an old-timer, cool as water. Tell him that.”
“Yeah, okay.” Engler looked at Meg with renewed respect. “I’ll tell him that.”
Rafe nodded, then touched his forehead in a lazy salute, his eyes holding Meg’s. “S’long, Irish.”
“I…yeah…” she stammered, feeling suddenly flustered for no reason. His gaze was as warmly intimate as a caress, as though they’d been sharing a lot more than barbed threats half the night, and she sensed more than saw Engler look at her curiously. “I, um…so…long.”
“Well, if that doesn’t beat everything.” Carlson had joined them in time to hear the whole exchange and was standing there with his mouth open, watching Rafe stride away. “Meg, you just got a five-star recommendation from a legend! Man, wait’ll O’Dell hears about this!”
Chapter 4
Mary Margaret Kavanagh was still on his mind three weeks later.
And Rafe was not happy about it.
It was irritating as hell to be thinking about her at all, for a start. But to have her on his mind here, up on Bear Mountain, really ticked him off.
Until now, he’d managed to keep the outside world from intruding up here. His fortress from reality, his sister had called it. She’d used a lot of phrases like that once, shouting them at him as though trying to pierce armorplate with words. But it wasn’t a fortress, just a quiet retreat from the clamor and clang of a world that seemed increasingly irrelevant.
Up here there was nothing but him and the sky and the wind and the mountain itself, its granite roots planted deep in the planet’s heart. It was silent, save for the moan of the wind and the occasional scream of an eagle, and as clean as bone, scoured by that ever-present wind.
Everything was reduced to its simplest form, all softness and artifice and weakness gone until only the core remained. Even the stunted trees had been stripped of nonessentials until they were more like polished stone than living things, gray and hard and elemental, all but unkillable. Tree-thing at its most fundamental level, like the rock and the sky.
Like him.
It had saved him, this mountain. Like the rocks and the twisted trees, he’d been scoured down to his most elemental self until all that was left was hard and pure. He’d come up here almost two years ago intending to kill himself. Eight months before, he’d drunk himself into a stupor and had stayed that way, trying to blot out the memories. But it had never worked. And finally, too exhausted by guilt and pain to go on, he’d decided to stop even trying.
He’d had some plan, he supposed, although he’d never been able to remember it. Later, he’d found the unloaded pistol where it had dropped from his bourbon-numbed fingers, so maybe that had been it. Whatever he’d planned, he’d managed to screw it up, too drunk to put thought into action. Instead, he’d fallen into a pile of boulders near the summit and had lain there for days, drifting in and out of consciousness, soaked by rain and heavy dew at night, burned dry by an unforgiving sun during the day.
He still had no idea how long he’d lain there. Long enough to kill most men, he suspected. Long enough to kill him had he not been so pickled in bourbon. He remembered licking dew from stone, the taste bitter in his mouth. Remembered waking once and seeing clumps of blueberries hanging just above him, growing where no blueberries grew. Knowing they were nothing more than a hallucination, he reached up with fingers that seemed unattached to his body and picked them and ate them, the juice as sweet as wine. Remembered finding apples. Like the blueberries, they were out of place and out of time—it was spring, not fall, and there wasn’t an apple tree for a hundred miles in any direction. But, hallucination or not, he ate them and they were sweet.
He remembered watching the slow spiral of an eagle as it hung in an updraft a hundred feet above him, giant wings unmoving. He talked to it; he remembered that, too. Babbling things he’d never spoken aloud before, shouting his rage to the sky. He remembered screaming threats to God and man alike. Remembered retching dryly for hour after hour, stomach cramping so painfully he could hardly breathe as the wind and sun worked eight months of cheap booze from his system. Remembered weeping finally, exhausted and empty and at the end.
He’d simply let go then, he remembered. Content to lie there and drift into a final sleep, relinquishing control to whatever forces had kept him alive that far. Something had been there, with him, at the end. Real but not real, just a presence half-seen, a Spirit Warrior keeping silent, still watch. And thus watched, he’d slept finally, slipping down into that kind of deep, dreamless renewing sleep that had eluded him for the better part of a year.
He’d awakened just before dawn, chilled to the bone, and had sat up slowly, sober for the first time in months. Everything was still, the crystalline air so pure and cold it hurt to breathe. The sky was the color of skim milk, still dotted by stars and streaked with peach in the east, and he had sat there, shivering uncontrollably, and had realized with surprise that he was alive. Purified inside and out by wind and rain and sun, as smoothed and polished and hard as an obsidian blade.
The sun had risen, warming him a little, and he’d gotten unsteadily to his feet, feeling as delicate and untethered as a cloud, and had stumbled light-headed and shivering down to the trailer. He had no idea where the key was—he’d locked it up after Stephanie had been killed and had never been back—so he just pried the door open and rummaged around until he found some clean, dry clothes. Then he’d gone up to the spring, stripped naked and dived into the icy water, coming up sputtering and breathless and shocked fully awake.
He’d gathered his old clothes up into a pile and burned them, then had cut his hair and burned that, too. He’d made it a ceremony of sorts, tossing a little tobacco into the flames to thank whatever spirits had held him back from dying, smiling at his own whimsy.
His pickup truck was still in a ditch about a mile down the trail where he’d run it into a tree. He’d winched it out, driven it up to the small meadow where the trailer was and cleaned it up, tossing out the empty bottles and then scrubbing out the stink of vomit and stale sweat and despair.
He’d started running the next day. It had nearly killed him at first. He would run twenty feet and stagger the next twenty, pouring with sweat and cursing with the pain as every muscle in his body knotted. But after a week or two the twenty feet stretched to fifty, then a hundred, and then he suddenly broke through and was running like a deer. He ran without thought or purpose those first few months, just pounding down the miles like someone trying to outrun his own demons, and maybe that was what he had been doing.
The healing started sometime during those months. His mind became as lean and healthy as his body, and soon he’d found himself thinking of the future again. Not long-range. Just a day or two at first. But, as with his physical endurance, that got stronger with time and practice, as well. Soon he was planning a whole week ahead, then the week stretched to a month, and somewhere along the line, without even realizing when it had happened, he was thinking in terms of years.
But until now, those thoughts had been solitary ones. Simple things, mostly, like what kind of water pump to buy when he realized the old one was finally beyond repair, and the best direction to angle the woodshed to keep the snow from blowing straight in, things like that. Now and again he would take on a retrieval job, adding his fee to the pile of fifty-dollar bills hidden behind the paneling in his bedroom closet, but mostly he stayed to himself up here.
There was always something to do. Repairing leaks in the trailer’s sunbaked hide alone was almost a full-time job, the generator needed regular tune-ups, and there were books to read and wood to chop. It was a simple life, physical and free of the complexities and confusions and complications of the outside world, and he liked it just fine that way.
Until Mary Margaret Kavanagh had starting turning up in his thoughts for no reason he could figure, and suddenly things weren’t the same at all.
Swearing under his breath, Rafe turned the key in the truck’s ignition. The engine caught instantly and he gunned it a few times, listening carefully. He’d spent the better part of the morning tuning it up and was finally pleased with the way it sounded, although there had been nothing much wrong with it in the first place. He’d blown out the fuel line, replaced a couple of hoses and put in new spark plugs, and short of stripping the thing down to basics and starting all over again, there wasn’t much more he could do.
Filling time. Trying not to think of her.
He refused to let his mind wrap itself around the syllables of her name. He’d been doing that a little too often, too. Her name was like a line of poetry or a bit of music he couldn’t get out of his head, and now and again he would realize he’d been running it over and over in his thoughts like some tribal chant, the rhythm of the words almost hypnotic.
Mary Margaret Kavanagh.
Hell of a mouthful. Maybe her parents had hoped she would grow into it.
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