Dakota Marshal
Jenna Ryan
He brought danger to her doorstep…Shot and bleeding, cowboy cop turned U.S. Marshal Gabriel McBride had nowhere to go, no one else he trusted except the very woman who wanted nothing to do with him. Tracking a fugitive, he'd been ambushed by a hit man. A hit man he'd unwittingly brought straight to Alessandra Norris. It had been the risks he'd taken, the secrets he'd kept, that had broken them apart. And now Alessandra was right in the thick of them, fleeing into the Black Hills with a rifle scope aimed at her back and a rogue marshal at her side. But the gravest danger came from McBride himself–a man whom she'd never stopped loving….
No one could throw a kiss into sexual overdrive like McBride.
Images of the two of them skin-to-skin, rediscovering each other’s bodies, streaked through her mind. Though they were in a truck on the side of the road, she still wanted to strip away McBride’s clothes. Worse, she wanted him to tear off hers.
All that pent-up desire was unleashed from a single mind-blowing kiss that got more potent the longer it went on. She should end it before her sanity dissolved. But his hands were cupping her face, the back of her neck, holding her in place so he could ravish—yes, actually ravish—every inch of her mouth. And she was loving it.
Instead of going with wisdom, she matched him stroke for delicious stroke with her tongue. There was a smoky darkness, an element of danger in the way he touched her. It hinted at some never quite spoken vice she’d been warned by her father not to want or accept. And never to enjoy.
The memory of that warning rang through her mind when it was displaced by another sound—two echoing gunshots, fired directly at them.
Dakota Marshal
Jenna Ryan
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To Kathy, who makes it all work.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jenna started making up stories before she could read or write. Growing up, romance always had a strong appeal, but romantic suspense was the perfect fit. She tried out a number of different careers, including modeling, interior design and travel, but writing has always been her one true love. That and her longtime partner, Rod.
Inspired from book to book by her sister Kathy, she lives in a rural setting fifteen minutes from the city of Victoria, British Columbia. It’s taken a lot of years, but she’s finally slowed the frantic pace and adopted a West Coast mindset. Stay active, stay healthy, keep it simple. Enjoy the ride, enjoy the read. All of that works for her, but what she continues to enjoy most is writing stories she loves. She also loves reader feedback. Email her at jacquigoff@shaw.ca (mailto:jacquigoff@shaw.ca) or visit Jenna Ryan on Facebook.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Alessandra Norris—The Rapid City veterinarian’s life is peaceful, until her ex comes crashing back into it.
Gabriel McBride—As a U.S. marshal, he is accustomed to danger, but when a hit man’s bullet catches him off guard, the only person he can turn to is Alessandra.
Rory Simms—The escaped felon is unpredictable, desperate and deadly.
Casey Simms—The head of a powerful criminal family, she hired a hit man to take out McBride. But what else has she done?
Eddie Rickard—Alessandra saw the hit man on McBride’s tail. Now she’s a target, too.
Larry Dent—This small-town man wants to help, but can he be trusted?
Raven—The woman knows how to fight, but is she friend or foe?
Mystery Shooter—More than one person is out to get Alessandra and McBride.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter One
The bullet that knocked U.S. marshal Gabriel McBride into the giant boulder caught him just below the left shoulder. Close enough to his heart to be a problem—if he’d actually believed he had a heart. He felt the blood and—hell, yes—the pain, but no way was he going to fold up and die because some low-life hit man had gotten lucky.
He estimated the distance from the boulder to the road, waited until the next spectacular fork of lightning faded, then, using the darkness as a cover, ran for his truck.
Once inside, he drew a deep, grimacing breath and checked the wound. His jacket and shirt were soaked. With blood as much as rain, he suspected. Which rendered his next decision moot. He was approximately ten miles from Rapid City, South Dakota, shot and disinclined to call the people he should for help. That only left one option. Alessandra.
Fighting pain that speared white-hot through his arm and torso, he got the engine started. In spite of everything, a faint smile flitted across his lips. Alessandra would either cure him or kill him. Only she and God knew which way it would go.
Maybe he knew, too, but his thoughts were beginning to haze, so when he pictured his beyond beautiful veterinarian ex holding a scalpel, she wasn’t necessarily using it to dig a bullet from his body.
Swinging the truck off the road one-handed, McBride relied on his memory rather than the headlights to guide him through the murk. A vivid flash of lightning had him swearing and pivoting left. He’d almost slammed into one of the rocks that lined the mountain road.
Concentrate, he told himself, and not on scalpels or death. It was three miles to the highway, another six to Alessandra’s door. With luck, he’d spot his quarry on the way and find the strength to haul him in. Without it, big sister’s hit man would cut him off and finish the job he’d started.
Swiping his good forearm over his face, McBride let both hit man and quarry go, fought the dizziness that wanted to sweep in and consume him and focused on Alessandra.
If tonight was his last night on earth, he wanted to die with her in his head. As she had been since he’d wedged aside a mangled piece of metal on a crumpled northbound bus and encountered her stunning gold eyes.
“YOU COULD DO worse, much worse, than date my nephew.” Alessandra Norris’s assistant, Joan, tapped the veterinary clinic’s laptop. “By the way, how do you spell the dog’s last name?”
On her knees, Alessandra smiled. “You’re joking.” She gave the black-and-tan German shepherd a quick scratch behind the ears before palpating his kidneys. “You can spell Phoenix, but not Smith?”
“It’s been a long day.” Joan’s blue eyes rose to the fluttering overhead light. “Storm’s getting worse, and this pooch is as healthy as Rin Tin Tin in his prime. Why was his owner so insistent we check him out tonight?”
“Because he just bought the dog, and the two of them are heading south tomorrow.”
“Not in that rattly old truck they rolled up in, they’re not.”
“The truck’s borrowed. They’re going by bus.”
Her assistant’s eyebrows rose. “He’s taking a dog on a bus?”
“Hey, I didn’t make the plans.”
“You don’t ride buses, either.” Joan gave her a look. “My sister and I are taking our usual tour bus trip to Las Vegas this fall. It’s fun. You’d meet lots of interesting people. That’s people, Alessandra, not dogs. Every year we encourage you to come, and every year you say no.” She shook an accusing finger. “When you’ve got a phobia, you should march right up and spit in its eye.”
Alessandra listened to the dog’s heart. “Beat’s good.” Then she removed her stethoscope and scratched the animal’s chin. “I almost got killed riding a bus, Joan. You know that.”
“But you didn’t, and in the end, you wound up meeting your husband.”
“Soon to be ex-husband.”
“We’ll see.”
Standing, Alessandra stretched out her lower back muscles. “Is there some reason we’re having this conversation at ten o’clock at night, in the middle of a storm that’s going to knock the power out and probably screw up half of tomorrow’s appointments?”
“Tomorrow’s Saturday. You’re off. Doc Lang’ll be stuck with any post-storm problems. Now, I want a commitment. Either you agree to come to Las Vegas with me and Lottie, or, come September, you get yourself ready to meet my nephew. McBride’ll sign those divorce papers eventually. When he does, you’ll be footloose and fancy free.” Alessandra’s sixty-year-old assistant slitted a shrewd eye. “That’s what you want, isn’t it? To be done with what was so you can move on to what will be?”
Alessandra hooked the lead onto Phoenix’s collar. The dog had a flecked white mark in the shape of an arrow on his back. Her childhood dog, a brown lab, had had a mushroom-shaped mark that ran from its ears to the— Whoa! Where on earth had that memory come from? she wondered. Unless it was part of a much bigger memory involving a bus trip gone bad, a childhood home left behind and a future ex.
Shaking it off, she patted the German shepherd’s butt. “Are you this pushy with Dr. Lang?”
“I’ll be worse than pushy if he leaves his wife of fifty years.”
“McBride and I were together for less than a tenth of that time.”
“Your math’s off, Alessandra. You and McBride met seven years ago, back when he was a cop.”
“And the memories keep on coming.” Opening the door to the reception area, Alessandra raised her voice above the thunder outside. “Phoenix is in great shape, Mr. Smith.”
The dog’s owner, a beanpole with hollow cheeks and awkward hands, stood immediately. “Thanks again for seeing us, Doc. I hope you won’t have any trouble getting home in the storm.”
“I grew up in Indiana. This is just a summer shower. Good luck in the Southwest.”
Leaving him to settle the bill with Joan, Alessandra returned to the examining room.
Gusting wind drove the rain in sheets against the windows and walls. Not a fit night for man or beast, she thought. Then she busied herself with anything and everything that would help stop her mind from drifting back seven years. Not enough, unfortunately. McBride’s face had a way of sneaking in even when her guard was up. But tonight Joan hadn’t merely damaged that guard; in typical jackhammer fashion, she’d punched right through it.
Smith and his dog were rattling off when she closed the lab door and returned to the reception room. “Go home, Joan.” She held up a computer disk. “I need to look at some back files before I leave.”
Joan shed her pink smock. “Workaholism’s the first sign, you know.”
“Of what?”
“Boredom, depression, withdrawal, take your pick. Make up or break up, I say.” She fluffed her short platinum curls. “Personally, if I’d nabbed myself a looker like McBride, I’d have stuck.”
“Your ex-husband drove a big rig. Mine’s a cop turned U.S. marshal. Believe me when I tell you there’s a difference.”
“And there we end it.” Tugging on her rain gear, Joan pointed at the ceiling. “Those lights are hanging on by their fingernails. You’d best work fast.”
She intended to, Alessandra thought when a buckshot blast of wind and rain blew in with her assistant’s departure. One mile away, in the rancher she’d scrimped and saved to purchase, was a claw-foot tub, a bottle of wine and a retrospective movie, all with her name on them.
Sliding the disk into her computer, she wondered if it was a sad comment on the state of her life that the highlight of a mid-August Friday night involved bubbles, pinot grigio and Cary Grant. Joan would say yes, but then Joan hadn’t lived in the crazed nightmare that was Gabriel McBride’s cop-dominated world for four-plus complicated years.
A rumbling peal of thunder shook the floor and walls. The lights and Alessandra’s computer screen flickered. She poured a cup of coffee, eyed the ceiling, then turned her attention to the subject of bovine anatomy.
She hadn’t done anything wrong, she was sure of it. The calf that had lost its life to a massive infection had been, essentially if not literally, dead before the breeder had called her.
Unless she’d missed something…
The breeder, furious and threatening, insisted she had. What could an outsider possibly know about prize bulls?
By “outsider” he meant “female.” But it didn’t matter to her, since the breeder’s opinion of Dr. Stuart Lang, who’d been practicing medicine in South Dakota for the past forty years, was equally low. Glancing at scanned copies of the letters she’d received from the breeder shortly after the calf’s death, Alessandra sighed. If words could kill, she’d be dead several times over by now.
Thirty minutes later, with the lights flickering and rain still lashing the windows, she closed the file and rocked her head from side to side.
Phone threats, written threats, Joan’s threat—blind date or bus trip—a dead calf and a feeling of guilt that wouldn’t subside… All in all, she’d had better weeks. Which made her plans for that night even more appealing.
She needed moments of solitude, sometimes craved them. Her father, a staunch Mennonite farmer, hadn’t understood why. Neither had he understood or approved of her desire to leave the comfort of a close-knit community and board a bus for Chicago. What could college there offer her but headaches and problems? Better to stay in Holcombe, Indiana, marry the boy next door and turn two small farms into one.
She’d looked at Toby next door, then at the application in her hand. Not that Toby wasn’t sweet, but Northwestern had easily outpaced him. She’d wanted to save animals, not farm them.
She’d also wanted—and gotten—an adventure.
A bus ride gone bad had bled into a hero’s rescue, a marriage, a separation, a chance meeting with an aging vet and, finally, a pending lawsuit.
Taking a last sip of coffee, Alessandra wondered how Toby and the farm thing would have worked out. She’d probably be hiding chickens from her hubby’s ax. Better the lawsuit, she decided.
The smoke detectors gave a long screech and a second later the lights died.
The clinic had an emergency generator, but since there were no animals in residence and Alessandra knew the layout well enough to locate her purse and trench coat, she didn’t bother starting it up. Instead, she collected her things and let herself out the back door.
Wind snatched at her hair and coat like claws. Her car would start, it would. Although she probably shouldn’t have let a seventeen-year-old delivery boy tune it up as payment for a full sheet of lab work on his aging retriever.
Dr. Lang called her a soft touch. Joan used a less flattering term, but one look into the dog’s big brown eyes and Alessandra had caved.
Since an umbrella was pointless, she made her way across the pitted parking lot. She’d almost reached her car when a hand clamped onto her arm and swung her around in a rough half circle.
A fork of lightning illuminated the surly face of the calf breeder. He was big, bald and built like a bulldog. His eyes were flinty and he had no neck. The fingers that dug into her skin like talons tightened when she tried to shake him off.
Fear tickled her throat. Swallowing it, she met his glare. “Let go, Hawley.”
“You set the law on me.”
“I talked to the sheriff.”
Lightning flashed again. His lips thinned. “You told him I threatened you.”
“You did.”
“I called you up, told you you’d pay for what you’d done. And, by God, you will.” He took a menacing step closer, sank his fingers in deeper. “You don’t know squat about farm animals. Hell, you couldn’t wrestle a colt from its mama’s belly if your life depended on it.”
She wouldn’t back down, would not give him the satisfaction of reacting to the vicious gleam in his eyes. “I think I could probably do a lot of things under those circumstances.”
His scowl became a sneer, and he yanked her toward him.
“You talk a good game, Dr. Norris, but deep down I reckon you’re really a spineless little city girl who should have stayed in Chicago.” Another jerk, another fruitless attempt to free herself. Fear didn’t so much tickle now as grip her insides.
He bared his teeth in a leer. “Maybe I can think of a fair payment, after all.”
She caught the whisper of movement in her peripheral vision while she was lining up a determined left to his barely visible Adam’s apple. A hand descended on her shoulder, and a voice emerged from the darkness next to her.
“I think that’s enough manhandling for one night, pal.”
Shock kept Alessandra’s fist balled as she snapped her head around to regard the profile of none other than Gabriel McBride.
His expression remained amiable, but the hand that reached out to yank the breeder’s startled fingers away did so with no small amount of force.
Alessandra felt rather than saw Frank Hawley’s sputtering outrage.
“Who the hell are you?”
“Who’s not important. What is…” McBride’s slight movement had the breeder sliding his eyes downward. Lightning illuminated both the Glock and the badge at the waistband of McBride’s jeans.
“You’re a cop?”
“Close enough to haul you in for attempting to harm the lady beside me.”
“That lady’s a killer,” Hawley spat.
“Makes two of us. You’ve got five seconds to disappear. On six, you’re coming with me.”
Hawley showed his teeth again, this time in a snarl. He raised a finger, started to jab it, then curled it back and swung away.
McBride watched and waited through the next thunderbolt before asking, “What the hell did you do to the guy, Alessandra?”
She pushed his arm away. “Nothing. Let go of me.”
“You’re welcome.”
Sighing, she sidestepped him. “Thank you. Now, will you please tell me what you’re doing in South Dakota?”
The smallest of smiles touched his mouth. “Got a bit of a problem, darlin’.”
He took one step back and, before she could reach for him, dropped like a stone to the rain-soaked ground.
Chapter Two
“No hospitals, Alessandra. No cops. Say it.”
McBride was hanging on to consciousness by a fine thread. Experience told Alessandra that thread wouldn’t be allowed to snap until she made the required promise.
He held and shook her wrist. “I need you to say it.”
There was no decision, really. If she didn’t agree, he wouldn’t let her help him. If she didn’t help him, he’d die.
“Yes, all right, no cops.”
“Or hospitals.”
“I heard you, McBride.” She attempted to lever him up. “I can’t carry you, though. You’ll have to help me.”
Alessandra used all her strength to get him to his feet and into the clinic—and all her will not to go against her word. He’d been a cop once. Now he was hiding from them. Every shred of common sense she possessed told her to do what was necessary, then walk away. She also knew she wouldn’t listen to it. She never did.
And so the nightmare would begin.
HE DIDN’T KNOW where he was because everything had gone black and weird. He felt like he was being dragged over a wet, rocky mountain. Water splashed onto his face, and the whole left side of his body felt numb. Until he took a wrong turn and ran straight into a red-hot knife.
He heard Alessandra’s voice. It sounded far away. She wanted him to help her.
Help her with what?
The darkness was split by twin headlights on a twilight road.
The pavement was old, chewed up. The guardrail, where it existed, tilted into the canyon below.
He thought he was driving south, but direction didn’t matter, because suddenly there was a sea of lights, red and flashing. He braked behind one of several ambulances.
A biker watched from the sidelines. “Bus went through the guardrail,” he said, pointing. “Took the turn too sharp and started to roll.”
Now McBride heard screams and saw people, wild-eyed and bleeding, as rescue workers assisted or carried them out of the canyon.
One of them, a man with a heavy accent, was hysterical. A woman sitting close to him had been impaled by a long piece of glass. He’d never seen anyone die before.
Lucky guy, McBride thought.
He identified himself to the officers on scene, then, without waiting to be asked, started down.
More people were being stretchered upward, among them the driver. They didn’t know how many passengers might still be on board, but figured the bus wasn’t going to remain much longer on the ledge where it had landed.
McBride agreed. The thing was rocking like a drunk ready to topple.
He skidded down the treacherous slope, spotted a firefighter spraying foam on the undercarriage so flying sparks wouldn’t ignite the fuel tanks.
“There’s at least two more inside,” the man shouted. “I can’t get them out and stop this sucker from blowing at the same time.”
Nodding, McBride switched direction. He spied a man, facedown in a patch of scrub. Blood had pooled around his head. He wasn’t breathing.
But somebody was. Fists pounded on one of the rear panels.
The only way in was through the front. He had to crawl over the impaled woman and, nearby, an older female who’d been crushed by a row of seats.
The pounding stopped. He muscled a chunk of twisted metal aside, was about to call out, when a woman’s face appeared.
She was bruised, filthy and looked to be no more than eighteen years old. He noted both relief and suspicion in her eyes.
“I’m a cop,” he said, because right then he knew he didn’t look like one. “Detective McBride, Chicago P.D.” The few lights still working illuminated the most amazing pair of gold eyes he’d ever seen. “Is there anyone else?”
“There was. Now there’s only me.”
He motioned for her to give him her hands. “We need to get out of here before the tanks blow or this bus goes for a second roll.”
Once free of the wreck, he kept her ahead of him on the upward climb. She had a truly spectacular butt and mile-long legs to go with it. Her hair was dark, her features nothing short of extraordinary. She was headed for Chicago to become a vet.
Now how did he know that…?
A paramedic and a cop, both about to descend, met them at the top. The paramedic took the woman aside. The cop, a friend, began strapping on gear.
“Figured it was you down there. Anyone left?”
McBride hoisted himself over the edge. “Not alive.”
The cop continued to harness up. “It’s a mess, all right. Like you. Why the beard and long hair?”
“Undercover case screwed up. I needed to get out of Chicago.”
The woman hissed as the paramedic cleaned one of her cuts. “I guess I’m lucky your case didn’t work out.”
A smile crossed McBride’s lips. Through a thickening haze, he bent to kiss her. “Maybe we’re both lucky, Alessandra.”
She grinned, though her features were cloudy now. “You’re slipping, McBride. I didn’t tell you my name…”
The memory skidded to a halt. Wait a minute. She hadn’t said that. And he hadn’t kissed her. Not there. Not then.
Oh, he’d kissed her all right and more, much more, but that was later, when he couldn’t get her out of his head—and after he’d discovered she was twenty rather than eighteen.
Then his life had tanked and landed both of them in hell.
Pain sliced through him like a lightning bolt. It shattered all the images in his mind—the bus, the sobs, the screams, the sirens, everything. Except for Alessandra’s eyes.
MCBRIDE WAS, WITHOUT question, the most stubborn man Alessandra had ever met. Fortunately, he was also the most resilient. The moment she removed the bullet, which had come dangerously close to nicking a major artery, he’d fallen into a deep, healing sleep. She could almost see his red blood cells multiplying.
The generator outside growled noisily, but with the rainstorm disinclined to move on, she barely noticed it.
“Since when do you listen to Keith Urban?”
McBride’s question came as no real surprise given his exceptional recuperative powers. But the clarity had her raising a brow as she emerged from the lab.
She had two scalpels in her hand and didn’t put either of them down. “Joan left her iPod in the dock. I wanted music. How do you feel?”
“Like a man whose been shot, probed with a sharp instrument and left to die in a cowboy bar.”
“So, well on the way to recovery, then.” She held up one of the scalpels. “No double vision?”
“Not much vision at all.” He squinted at the ceiling bulbs. “Is the power off?”
“It went out right before you arrived and subsequently fainted.”
He half smiled. “I’ll let that go, Alessandra, because I do, in fact, see two scalpels. I also heard your voice while I was floating around in the black fog of our distant past.”
“Yes, you were reliving it fairly accurately until you got to the kissing part.”
“Call it wishful thinking.”
Alessandra looked at him and sobered. “Not that I want to be any more deeply involved than I am, but are you planning to tell me what you’re doing here, minus a great deal of blood and with a hole in your chest where a bullet used to be?”
“Just another day on the job, darlin’.” Wincing, he worked his way onto his right elbow.
She sighed. “You know you shouldn’t do that, right?”
“I know a lot of things, Alessandra, some of them not particularly pleasant.”
“Like the name of the person—possibly a cop, though I seriously hope not—who shot you? No hospitals, McBride? No police?”
“The shooter’s name is Eddie. He’s not a cop, but he is a pro, a dog with a bone, so to speak. And I’m the bone.”
“So, nothing new in your world. Except that this time the bad guy did a little more damage than usual and is, in some twisted way, connected to the police.”
He pushed up higher. “Your cynicism’s showing.”
“Removing bullets from people tends to bring it out.” She struggled with mounting frustration. “Why is this Eddie after you? Or were you after him and somehow the scenario shifted?”
“The details aren’t important. I’ll explain the cop thing later. I was doing my job, Alessandra. I have no idea what you were doing with that no-neck jackass in the parking lot.”
She could have told him it didn’t matter, let him sleep for another few hours, then given him a prescription and suggested he return to Chicago to sort out his police-related problems. Her conscience would be clear, and the status quo would be restored.
However, whether or not he would have acted on it, Hawley had a mean streak, and he was as tough as the bull who’d sired the now-dead calf. McBride had gotten rid of him. That rated an explanation.
Setting both scalpels aside, she released her hair from its long ponytail and boosted herself onto a table. “Frank Hawley wants to make his fortune breeding bulls. He just doesn’t want to spend a cent more than is necessary to keep them healthy. His farm’s like a puppy mill for cattle. One of his calves got sick. He waited too long to call. The rest—well, you heard him. He thinks I’m a killer.” Seeing him hoisting himself up, she hopped down and poked a firm finger into his chest. “The more you move, the more likely you are to reopen that wound.”
“I know.” Ignoring her warning, he swung his legs down and sat up, gripping the side of the cot. “What time is it?”
“It’s 4:00 a.m.”
“And the power’s still out?”
“We’re a little off the grid out here. Ergo, the big, noisy generator.”
He moved a tentative shoulder, hissed in a soft breath and stood. “I have to get out of here.”
“You realize that’s suicide, right?”
“Give me some bandages, Alessandra, and whatever else you think I’ll need to keep me on my feet. Then go home, and pretend none of this ever happened.”
Irritation momentarily crowded out concern. “You never change, do you, McBride? You crash in, scare the hell out of me, tell me not to worry and then disappear.”
He managed a weak smile. “That’s why you left me. Which goes to show how smart you are. Or how stupid I am. One way or the other, you don’t want to get mixed up in this.”
Her answering smile had more of a bite, but she simply said, “I’ll pack a medi-kit.” Then she went into the back room.
He’d broken her heart once. She wasn’t up for a repeat performance. Let some other female fall for his sexy, outlaw-cop charm. He was a good guy who read like a bad guy, and okay, yes, maybe he could still take her breath away with a look, but he didn’t have to know that.
She wanted someone more stable next time, not a brooding, gray-eyed rebel who seldom had less than a three-day growth of stubble on his face, disliked the thought of scissors touching his hair and hated rules almost as much as he did the people who’d so carelessly brought him into the world.
Well, damn, she thought, exasperated, now she’d gone and dumped sympathy on top of righteous indignation. She really needed to speed his departure along.
She stuffed gauze, sterile tape and antibiotics that could be used on animals or humans into a makeshift medical pack, added rubbing alcohol, electrolyte water and iodine for good measure, then zipped it closed and swung the bag onto her shoulder.
Through the window she noticed a shadow pass by outside. Apparently McBride truly did want to be gone, and quick. She was more than happy to facilitate that desire. She opened the side door, intending to offer some comment in line with her mood, when a weak beam of light from the porch slanted across the shadow’s face. It was not McBride.
Quickly she eased the door shut, not making a sound. Then she turned. “McBride!” She doubted he could hear her urgent whisper. Still holding the medi-pack, she ran for the lab. And plowed right into his chest.
He steadied her with his good hand as he glanced over her shoulder. “Is someone out there?”
“A guy with a gun. A big one.”
“Did he see you?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe.”
McBride stuffed the Glock he’d evidently retrieved into his waistband. “Can you describe him?”
“Long hair, ratty beard, nose ring.” She let him nudge her to a less visible exit. “Eddie?”
“Yeah.” He kept his eyes moving. “Bastard. I drove in ten different directions before coming here. I thought I’d lost him.” With a glance out the window and another behind them, he positioned her next to the door. “Stay right here, Alessandra. Don’t move.”
He drew his gun, pointed it up. Alessandra’s muscles knotted.
The moment McBride left, she went for the medicine cupboard, unlocked it and pulled out the .45 Dr. Lang kept there. She had to go through his desk for the bullets. Grabbing her purse, she doused the scattering of overhead lights, shoved everything into a backpack, then froze when she caught a faint creak of hinges behind her.
Instinct told her it wasn’t McBride. Careful not to make any sound, she ran back to the door, took a quick look into the rain and slipped out onto the wraparound porch.
She saw McBride’s black truck—barely—in a far corner of the lot. A light appeared, then vanished, in one of the examination rooms. Eddie must be working his way through the building. With an eye on the window, Alessandra inched carefully along the wall. “I’m going to kill you if Eddie doesn’t,” she whispered to the absent McBride.
She saw something a split second before a hand snaked around her neck and covered her mouth.
“Not a sound, sweet thing,” a man’s Southern-accented voice whispered in her ear. “I need to know where that slippery badass I shot and I reckon you helped has gotten to.”
She should have loaded Dr. Lang’s gun. That was Alessandra’s first and pretty much only thought. Instead, a greaseball with bad aftershave had his gun pressed into her neck and was dragging her around the porch.
“Sorry to say, I’m gonna have to do you, but not until the badass is as dead as my cheating ex-wife.” He inclined his head again, and she heard the grin in his voice. “I upped my rate when I heard McBride was the target. Come on now, you can tell old Eddie, how bad’s he shot up? One to ten. Use your fingers.”
She held up two, ordered herself to move with him, to keep breathing, to think.
“Is that all?” He sounded pissed off, but only for a moment. Then the grin returned. “Or could it be you’re lying to buy time?”
Although his breath smelled of beer, he didn’t sound drunk. He continued to haul her sideways. Alessandra waited, counted.
“C’mon, McBride,” the hit man growled through his teeth. “I got the girl. Play hero, and…” The rest came out as a shocked curse.
He hadn’t noticed the single step down to his right. Off balance, he let her go as he stumbled, then slammed into the clapboard wall.
Alessandra didn’t hesitate. She scrambled from the porch.
“You come back here!” Still off balance, Eddie fired. Unsure if she’d been hit, Alessandra ran for the corner of the building.
She heard a thud. Two more shots whizzed past.
“Get to my truck,” McBride shouted.
Looking back, the only thing Alessandra saw was a blur of rain and motion.
Another bullet discharged. Eddie swore again in a wheeze, and got off two more shots.
A hand gripped her arm. “Inside,” McBride ordered. He shoved her through the driver’s side door. “Stay down.”
She knelt on the floor in front of the passenger seat and tried to determine if either of them had been injured.
Once in the truck, McBride fishtailed out of the lot one-handed, his eyes on the rearview mirror. “Man, he’s packing four semiautomatics.”
Was that some sort of twisted admiration in his voice?
“How can you possibly—” She broke off when she glimpsed his shoulder. “You’re bleeding.”
“I know. He got me in my bad arm when I tackled him.” He swung the truck down a narrow road.
Bracing for the potholes, Alessandra stole a brief look out the back window before climbing up into her seat. “You need to stop and let me restitch that wound.”
“Not until we put some miles between us and Eddie.”
“McBride, you can’t ignore the laws of medicine forever. Lose enough blood, and you will die.”
His eyes were still fixed more on the mirror rather than the road in front of them. “I’ll do that a lot faster if we don’t lose him.”
Twisting around, Alessandra risked another glance, saw nothing and stared at his profile. “Who is that guy, and why does he want you dead?”
“Us dead,” McBride corrected. “And I’m really sorry about that part.”
“So am I.” However, since she knew he meant it, she breathed through her irritation. “Talk to me, McBride. Who sent a hit man after you and why?”
“Long story short, I was dispatched to apprehend an escaped felon by the name of Rory Simms. Rory’s sister is one of those crime lords the FBI would love to have under lock and tossed key, but unlike Rory, Casey’s smart enough not to get caught standing over a corpse, holding a smoking gun. That’s murder one. Rory’s in for twenty-five minimum. But big sister was afraid he’d go a little crazy inside, say things he shouldn’t about the family business, so she engineered an escape. Now Rory’s on the run, I’m on his ass and big sister’s hit man’s on mine.”
“And the no-cops, no-hospitals thing is just you not wanting to be removed from the case?”
He regarded her shrewd face. “Would you go with that if I said yes?”
“Not even if I was twelve years old and you looked like Captain Jack.”
Which he kind of almost did, but that was absolutely not the point.
She looked again, did a double take. Were those headlights bouncing far in the distance? She turned around as the tires slammed through a series of ruts. “Do you know where you’re going?”
McBride narrowly avoided a low tree branch. “At this moment, no. Overall, yes. Rory’s heading south. That means we are, too.” The apologetic tone returned. “I didn’t plan for you to be involved in this, Alessandra, but you can identify Eddie, so you are. I’d love to call in, get information, request backup, but I can’t. The last time I did—right before I got shot—I let my boss and only my boss know where I was heading. And yet Eddie, who’d been chasing me until that time, suddenly wound up ahead of me.”
“You think someone in your home office leaked the information to him?”
“To him or Casey.”
“Unless Rory called Casey or Eddie himself and told one or both of them where he’d be.”
“That’d be the logical explanation,” McBride agreed. When he hitched his injured shoulder, she noticed the bloodstain was spreading. “Problem is, I have a strong feeling Rory’s not following Casey’s orders. Which could be another reason Eddie’s been dispatched—to take little brother to a place where he and Casey can have a nice long chat.”
“And you know all this because?”
He flashed her a quick smile. “That’s classified information.”
“Meaning, you have a source within Casey’s organization.”
“And you thought being a cop’s wife had no benefits.” His smile widened slightly. “My X source is a guy I’ve known since I was a rookie and he was a street dealer. Casey’s screwed him over a few times, so he came to me with a deal. I’ve held up my end, now he’s holding up his. X overheard part of Casey’s conversation with Eddie. He knew the assignment to track Rory was mine. He called me.”
“Honest to God, McBride, I feel almost ridiculously cloak and dagger right now. Okay, you’re convinced there’s a leak in your office, but every police department in every state doesn’t report to the Chicago division of the U.S. marshals.” Hesitating, she slid him a sideways look. “Do they?”
“They do if one of the deputy marshals goes down. Gunshot wounds have to be reported, Alessandra, by hospitals and police. That puts information on the computer, makes it accessible to anyone who cares to find it.”
“Specifically, a turncoat marshal.”
“For one. My gut tells me there’s somebody on the take in the Chicago P.D., as well, probably in Homicide.”
She kept a close eye on the spreading bloodstain. “You’ve got names in mind, haven’t you?”
Although the smile that had been hovering on his lips grew a little, there was no humor in it. “Yeah, I’ve got names in mind. Doesn’t do me any good here and now, but it will when Rory’s back in prison and I’m back in Chicago.”
She searched the heavily treed road behind them for anything resembling a tail. “This uncharacteristic optimism is a treat, McBride. If I hadn’t just dodged flying bullets, I’d actually applaud it.” Something glimmered, and she looked more closely out the rear window. “Those are definitely headlights.”
McBride’s gaze slid to the rearview mirror. “They definitely are.” He gave her unfastened seat belt a flick. “Buckle up and hold tight, darlin’.” His eyes glittered with anticipation as he geared down. “This ride’s gonna get wild.”
Chapter Three
Surreal was the best description Alessandra could come up with for the next sixty minutes of her life. Somewhere between where they’d been and where they wound up, the rain stopped, the clouds broke apart and shafts of light began to filter through the trees.
By the time her mind slowed enough for her to register her surroundings, they were well into the mountains near what had probably once been a logging camp.
The moment McBride halted, she slid from the truck. Thick stands of pine and spruce towered over them. The fallen trees, now moss covered and decayed, were more likely the remnants of a windstorm than a timber man’s ax. She let her head fall back and, finally, some of her tension ebbed.
“Please tell me we lost that creep, because five more minutes of those ruts and my brain will be permanently scrambled.” He didn’t answer. Rubbing her backside, Alessandra turned. McBride was still in his seat with his head resting on the back. His eyes were closed. She climbed back into the cab to shake him. “McBride. Are you conscious?”
“Enough to tell you there’s only a fifty-fifty chance we lost him.” He spoke but didn’t open his eyes or move.
“That’s better than your odds of surviving if you don’t let me restitch that gunshot wound.”
“Nag, nag, nag.”
Alessandra refused to be alarmed by his pallor. Leaning over, she opened his shirt. The bandage covering the gunshot wound was soaked through. “Out of the truck, McBride.”
A half smile grazed his lips. “Forest floor works better for you, huh?”
Straddling him, she caught his hair and pulled until his eyes finally cracked open. “I see a lot of clouds in there, pal.”
“Yeah, but what are you feeling?”
Part of her wanted to laugh. Only McBride would be thinking about sex under these conditions.
“Apparently your sick mind hasn’t changed since the last time I saw you.” She pushed the door open. “How can you be hard when you’re bleeding to death?”
His eyes closed, but the vague smile remained. “From where I’m sitting, best answer I can give you is, ‘Duh.’”
“Great. I’m on the run with a crazy man.” He was going to black out, she just knew it. She hopped off. “Time to get down and dirty.”
She supported him by his good arm as he tumbled from the cab. An old gray blanket from the back served as a cot. Once he’d dropped onto it, Alessandra rolled up her sleeves and reached for the medi-pack.
“No sign of Eddie?” he asked in a slur.
“No sign, no sound, no need.” Partly because he deserved it, but mostly in an effort to startle him awake, she gave the rubber tubing in her hand a snap, smiled, then bent down until her lips grazed his ear. “Let the bloodbath begin.”
MCBRIDE SURFACED to shadows that were thick and air that was heavy with the prospect of yet another rainstorm. His limbs weighed fifty pounds apiece, and he swore someone was using a blunt ax on the back of his skull. Still, he managed to get his eyes open and make the connection between his brain and his vocal cords.
“Where am I?”
Alessandra didn’t seem the least bit surprised by the sudden question. “You’re propped up against a fallen tree in the Black Hills of South Dakota, and, by some miracle, still alive.” Sitting cross-legged in front of him, she folded a bunch of strange-looking leaves into a cloth and tied a string around it.
“Why don’t I trust that serene expression on your face?”
“Relax. If I wanted you dead, you’d have passed on before sunset.” She gave the string a hard tug.
Alarm bells began to clang in his head. “What’s that?”
“A medicinal poultice. We use them on horses after they’ve been gelded.” The glitter deepened. “I say ‘we,’ but I really mean I use them. Dr. Lang believes in the more traditional forms of pain management, his favorites being those that are introduced rectally.”
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“Only for the past thirty seconds. Until then, I was calling you a bastard in every colorful way I could think of.”
He used his good hand to push himself away from the trunk. “You’re father’d be pissed.”
“No, he’d just straighten his shoulders, look stoically upward and blame my mother for influencing me. Then he’d sag and blame himself for giving in to temptation once and marrying her. I’m a sort of by-product of his lust. I don’t think he’s ever quite figured out where I fit into his straightforward, methodical world.”
It was a tragedy, to McBride’s mind, that Alessandra’s mother had died of an aortic aneurysm mere days after her only child’s eleventh birthday. Sadder still was the fact that she’d apparently really loved Alessandra’s father. Why else would any sane woman endure twelve years of marriage to a man who lived, worked and would ultimately die by an archaic set of rules that were more of his own making than those of the religious order to which he belonged?
Alessandra’s grandmother, her father’s own mother, called him a tight-ass. Not in those particular words, but that was the gist. She’d liked her son’s beautiful Bahamian-born wife and had, McBride knew, run interference for her granddaughter up to and including his and Alessandra’s wedding day—which was an entirely different memory.
As if she’d been following his thoughts, Alessandra’s lips curved. “You can puzzle it out for the rest of your life but you’ll never understand him.” She threw McBride the poultice and stood in a single graceful motion. “Sun’s set, you need rest and I want a shower. I’m also hungry. All I found in your truck were nacho chips, candy bars and some energy drinks.”
“Never know when you’ll need a quick buzz.”
“Mmm, I found the whiskey bottle, too.”
“Buzzes come in many forms, Alessandra. You’re right, though, we need to get out of here.” The pain had less of a rapier-sharp edge after he worked his way into a crouch. He tucked the poultice in his shirt pocket. “Can you drive a loaded 4x4?”
He knew she was watching him for signs of disorientation. He must have passed the test, because she began folding the blanket. “On good roads, yes. On a wilderness obstacle course, we’ll find out.”
He could go with that. “Do you know where we are?”
“More or less.” She caught his arm when he stood and the rapier took a nasty swipe at him. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance you’d consider returning to Rapid City.”
He slanted her a dark look that brought a fleeting smile to her lips.
“Figured as much. In that case… Can you walk?”
Like a man who’d taken several pulls from that whiskey bottle. And her touching him didn’t make him any steadier. Her father’s thoughts for her mother were Puritanical compared to the ones currently flying through McBride’s head. He knew and vividly remembered every inch of her butt, her legs, her breasts and, God help him, her hands. She’d learned lightning fast how to drive him straight to the edge and over.
When the pain sheared through him again, he welcomed it. “Keys are in the ignition, Alessandra. If you’re sure you’ve got your bearings, we need to head southwest.”
“That’s the direction Rory’s taking, huh?”
Fat drops of rain began to fall from the bruised clouds above. “Rory’s heading for a border.” Although climbing into his truck was roughly equivalent to scaling Mount Rushmore during an ice storm, McBride persevered. “He’s zigzagging, wants me to believe he’s going to Canada, but my money’s on Mexico.”
She stopped pushing to peer around his arm. “Are you serious? You expect me to go to Mexico?”
“Did I mention I was sorry?”
“Did I mention I put some of Dr. Lang’s suppositories in that medi-pack?”
He managed to chuckle rather than wince. “Give me a viable short-term destination, Alessandra.”
She sent him a last biting stare, then swung on her heel to point. “Bodene’s about fifty miles southwest of here. Spruce Creek’s thirty, but in a slightly different direction. Joan’s rustic Dead Lake cabin’s our best bet. It’s a twisty twenty-mile drive from this old camp.”
“Sounds good,” he said. “Secluded.” Ghoulish, too, but hopefully not portentous.
Rain began to pelt the roof and windshield. In the driver’s seat, Alessandra tied back her hair in a long ponytail. Now how in hell could something so simple strike him as so damn sexy?
Once again, she seemed to know what he was thinking. Her lips twitched when she shoved the truck in gear. “Eyes forward, McBride. We’re off to Dead Lake, and Eddie’s nowhere to be seen.”
Which was, McBride reflected as he scanned the eerily silent clearing, the thing that concerned him most right now.
JOAN’S CABIN HAD a bathroom, a galley kitchen, a huge stone fireplace and a pull-out sofa that faced the hearth.
“Home sweet home.” Alessandra dropped her gear on a small window table. “It’s compact, but not all that different from my father’s house. There’s even a loft.” Humor invaded her tone. “No ladder.”
Overhead lights flared at the touch of a switch, as did the propane water heater.
“Quick trip into town for supplies, and I can have my long-awaited shower.”
McBride, who’d recovered even more rapidly than she’d anticipated, made a more purposeful circle of the room.
“There’s a lot of glass,” he noted. “And trees for cover.”
“There’s also a good chance we left Eddie in one of those potholes we slammed through last night.” She halted him by setting her palm on his chest. “The rain’s stopped, there’s a general store just over a mile from here and, honestly, given a choice at this moment, I’d rather die from a bullet than from starvation. We’ve seen, you’ve scoped, let’s go.”
“You’d make a lousy marshal, Alessandra.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” But she waited while he checked out the porch and small yard before returning to his truck.
“I’ll drive,” McBride told her. “Put on my leather jacket and hat, and try not to let anyone in town see your face. We go in and out, no hesitation. Basics only.”
Alessandra tipped back the brim of the hat he’d dropped on her head and frowned. “Have you been spending time with my father?”
“Better yours than mine. Which way?”
She indicated a narrow mud and gravel road. At his raised brow, she smiled. “I came here with Joan in June.”
“Did you go into the store?”
“Several times. The owner can’t see anything clearly that’s more than a foot in front of him.” She gauged his mood, then went for it. “How’s your father doing these days?”
He shrugged. “In jail, out of jail. Last I heard, he was being held in Panama. Something about flying an illegal substance across the border inside a shipment of Colombian coffee beans.”
Alessandra thought back. McBride’s dad had brought his fourth wife to their wedding. After the ceremony, he’d made a pass at her Bahamian aunt. As with most things, it hadn’t worked out for him. Angelica had given him a resounding slap while wife number four poured a drink over his head. And all of that before the photographs had been taken.
“Maybe time in a Panamanian jail will straighten him out,” she mused aloud.
“If you think that, you’ve been living in the animal world too long.” McBride indicated a weather-worn structure. “Is that the store?”
“That’s it. Dead Lake Feed, Seed and General Wares.”
“There’s only one vehicle out front.”
“The year-round population here is about fifteen. The in-out thing should be relatively simple.”
There was no one behind the counter when the cowbell jangled to announce their entry. Flies buzzed against torn window screens, and the refrigeration units, relics from the 1960s, made a loud humming noise.
Tugging McBride’s hat lower to cover her face, Alessandra picked up two large baskets and headed for the grocery section. She filled up, then picked out some personal stuff.
Her arms were already straining when she turned a corner and spied the clothes and underwear. Although her choices were limited, pretty much everything she needed was available. Except that she had to climb up to the top shelf to dig out the right sizes. She even snagged a pair of suede hiking boots and a sleeping bag.
On her way to the cash counter she found McBride with his hip perched on a dusty windowsill as he scanned the deserted road outside.
He turned his head, saw the overflowing baskets and grinned. “That’s your idea of in and out?”
“Why, yes, thank you, I’d love some help.” She handed him the heavier basket and shook her arm to get the circulation back. “Is there a cashier?”
“Not that I’ve seen. I could have loaded a pickup with stolen merchandise by now.”
“Mr. Singer?” She tapped the service bell. “You have customers.”
When no one approached, Alessandra peered over the counter to her left. And spotted a pair of feet.
“Damn. McBride!” Without waiting, she flipped up the pass-through.
The elderly storeowner lay facedown on the floor. She was searching for a pulse when the stockroom door burst open.
Alessandra glimpsed torn jeans and heard a snarling curse. Then her eyes snapped up, and she saw the gun.
ACTUALLY, IT WAS a rifle, and the thief nearly dropped it in his rush to escape.
Packs of cigarettes spilled from the inside of his zipped jacket. He hurdled Alessandra and the store owner, scrambled under the pass-through and took a swing at McBride.
She would have jumped up, but the owner’s bony fingers snared her wrist and held fast.
“Boy got hold of some funny mushrooms,” he whispered hoarsely. “His ma called me right before he barged in. She reckons he’s seeing pink elephants about now.”
Hearing a thwack, Alessandra raised her head. No surprise, the thief hadn’t gotten past McBride. “Don’t think so. Stars, maybe.” She returned her attention to the fallen man. “Are you hurt?”
“Winded.” With her help, he got slowly to his feet. “Thought it best to take a dive when the boy barreled in and knocked me aside… Oh, there we go, neat as you please.” He beamed at McBride, who was crouched next to the dazed youth. “Now, you put those smokes back where they belong, young man. I’ll take the rifle,” he said to McBride, who was currently holding it. “It’s just a BB, but that’s plenty dangerous when your bones are as brittle as mine.” Repositioning his glasses, he hobbled over to the counter. “These your baskets?”
The man’s store-bought smile widened when he realized how much merchandise he was looking at. “Seems this is my lucky night, after all.” He squinted at Alessandra. “You and your man fixing to camp a spell?”
“Yes—I mean, no.” She glanced at McBride but couldn’t read his expression in the dusky light. “Yes, we’re going to camp. But not here.” Inspiration struck. “We’re on our way to Canada.”
The old man sighed his disappointment. After he’d totaled the items, she understood why. “Nothing on special this week, huh?”
“Got a good price on hip waders.”
“We’ll pass.” McBride handed over the necessary cash.
“Stick to portabello mushrooms,” Alessandra advised the youth, who was slumped in a chair by the door waiting for his mother to arrive.
McBride practically airlifted her through the door and into his truck.
“I have a feeling you’re not happy.”
“Two people can identify us, Alessandra. That wasn’t the scenario I was going for.”
They bounced through a large dip and back onto the road. “Relax, McBride. The old man couldn’t begin to describe us, and all that kid saw was two— Damn.” She hissed out a frustrated breath. “I called you McBride back there, didn’t I?”
“That you did, darlin’.”
A 4x4 pulled out of a hidden road ahead of them. The driver wove from side to side for half a mile before finally veering into the parking lot of a ramshackle bar and grill.
“Wanna risk it?” McBride surprised her by asking.
She suspected he knew how she’d respond. “All those rusted-out pickups in the lot make the place look very Eddielike. Still, if he did follow us, maybe we’ll get lucky, and he’ll stop in, drink himself under the table and never make it to the general store.”
“Always a possibility.”
Out of nowhere, an indescribable sensation swept over her skin, as if a cold breeze had just passed over her grave.
Puzzled, she looked back toward the bar. No one was in the vicinity, only the rusty pickups and a tired-looking motorcycle. So why did she suddenly feel as if some evil entity was tracking their every move?
Chapter Four
One hot shower, one makeshift meal and one weird feeling later, Alessandra found herself pacing the cabin’s interior like a caged tiger. Time alone to think wasn’t necessarily a good thing, and she’d thought a lot in the five minutes it had taken McBride to shower.
He hadn’t shaved, though, she noticed when he emerged bare-chested and with his jeans only half-fastened.
“What?” Her unintentional stare had him looking down at himself. “Did I forget something?
No, but she needed to. It shouldn’t be legal for a man to be so sexy. Since she shouldn’t be thinking that way, she drew a deep breath and resumed her pacing. “You’re not bleeding.”
A smile played on his mouth. “You make that sound like a bad thing.”
“You should wear a bandage.”
Towel in hand, he held his arms out to the sides. “Say the word, Alessandra. I’ll even let you slip your poultice under the gauze just to show how much I trust you.”
Drumming up her own smile, she met his eyes. “You’re very brave, given the circumstances.”
“And your deteriorating mood,” he added.
“More like strained. It’s only been one day and, to this point, our separation’s been fairly amicable.”
He moved closer, his gaze fixed on hers with a smoky intensity that would have unnerved her if she hadn’t been prepared for the sexual punch.
“You won’t get around me with smoldering looks, McBride. After four years of marriage and eighteen months apart, I’ve developed an immunity.”
“You make me sound like measles.”
“You’re a different kind of danger, but still not something I need in my life right now.”
He continued his unswerving advance. “What is it you want, Alessandra?”
She opted to take the loaded question at face value. “To go home.”
“That’s not possible. What else?”
“Stability.”
“If you wanted that, you’d have stayed in Indiana and married the boy next door.”
He was getting very close. Wisdom dictated she move away. She didn’t.
“Trying to skew my thoughts won’t work, either, McBride.”
Another faint smile appeared. “It’s not your thoughts I want to skew.”
Okay, this was getting out of hand. She had every right to be annoyed at him for sucking her into the crazed vortex of his life. Her friends and his insisted he had a death wish, and while Alessandra didn’t disagree, she saw it more as a burning need to prove that he was the antithesis of his father. Wherever the truth resided, however, now wasn’t the time to delve into it.
Hooking a wistful finger in the chain around her neck, she toyed with the delicate links. “You didn’t have to change your lifestyle or your goals for me. I told you that before we separated. I’m not a cop or a U.S. marshal, though I do applaud both professions. I used the wrong word when I said I was looking for stability. What I should have said was ‘sanity.’ You know the deal, McBride, a halfway normal life where I’d be met at the door after work by my pet, not by a homicidal junkie who’s been hiding out behind our trash cans for the better part of the day, looking for a way to extract his revenge on the person who offered his girlfriend a deal in exchange for information.”
“That was one incident.”
“What about the guy who jumped out at us in a restaurant parking lot? Or the nut case who called our home and told me not to try starting my car? What about the candies that arrived courtesy of a drug lord you’d helped to expose?”
“There was nothing but candies in that box.”
“It was the gift giver not the gift that was the point. For the first three years of our marriage you were undercover more than you weren’t. And nothing got better when you ditched your badge and joined the U.S. marshals.”
“You knew what you were getting into.”
“Not as well as I knew what I was getting out of.”
Averting his gaze from hers at last, he regarded the darkened window. “Your point.” When he looked at her again, still at dangerously close range, she saw genuine regret in his features. “I never meant to involve you in this. Rapid City’s where I happened to be when I got hit, and you were the only person I knew I could trust.”
Okay, that wasn’t fair. Before it could fully ignite, the spark fueling her temper fizzled and died, leaving in its wake a jumble of feelings she couldn’t begin to separate.
“You always were good—” She halted as his gaze traveled past her and suspicion replaced regret in his features.
She turned but saw nothing in the misshapen shadows beyond the glass. “Is someone there?”
“Probably not. Get the lights just in case.”
It wasn’t exactly a reassuring remark. But she went for the switch and plunged the cabin into darkness.
“Now what?” she asked twenty silent seconds later.
“Shh.”
He eased them both away from the window. Woodsy night sounds filtered in. Beyond that, everything had gone still and quiet.
Then a twig snapped in the nearby trees, and Alessandra’s senses went on high alert.
Swearing softly, McBride reached for his gun in the back of his waistband.
One of the boards on the porch creaked. There was a rush of movement, a thud of feet and finally a crash as a rock flew through the front window. A split second later, the door slammed open. Emitting an attack cry, a man charged in, hands raised and clutching a very large ax.
EDDIE NOTICED the broken window first, then the tire tracks in the mud. Coming, going, maybe coming again. There was no truck in the vicinity, and no sign of movement inside.
It wasn’t quite dawn. The sky was lightening but the shadows would hide him for another twenty minutes. Plenty of time to get the deed done.
He was savoring the moment when a light went on. The front door opened and a man stumbled out. He was tall and dark haired, but too gangly to be McBride.
The fury that rose was swiftly expelled. Eddie looked at his vehicle, then back at the stranger currently doing his business off the side porch.
A half-naked woman emerged, wobbled in one direction, then the other, until she finally collided with the man. They giggled and staggered back inside.
The light winked out.
Should he do them, anyway, just for being in this remote cabin at this time when he’d been looking for McBride and the pretty veterinarian?
A nasty grin split his face. No. Leaving a trail of corpses was never a good thing. But he had extra guns, and as long as they were too drunk to walk straight, he might as well have a little fun. He’d cover his face with a bandanna, his head with a hat and do the stick-’em-up thing from behind.
If they had any information at all, they’d talk. Then depending on his mood, the inclination of his trigger fingers and whether or not they did something stupid, they’d either live or they’d die.
As for McBride and the pretty vet? Eyes on the prize, Eddie-boy. Bang, bang, cha-ching.
IT AMAZED ALESSANDRA that anything could shock her. However, a second wild-eyed, weapon-wielding youth in one night was too extreme even for McBride’s world.
The young man, trailed by a girl in Daisy Dukes and flip-flops, blasted across the threshold with a Tarzan yell and more fear than aggression in his eyes. McBride disarmed him easily, knocking the ax from his sweaty hands and pinning him to the wall. Alessandra shook off her momentary trance and intercepted the girl as she made a beeline for McBride’s back.
It took fifteen noisy minutes to sort through the confusion. Apparently the college-aged youth was Joan’s nephew. He had his aunt’s permission to use the cabin during his cross-state camping trip. Unfortunately for all of them, tonight was the night he and his girlfriend had reached Dead Lake.
Alessandra knew that she and McBride could have stayed in the cabin until morning. She also knew they’d be endangering innocent lives if they did. So they left. And drove for more than three hours before McBride agreed to stop.
Having been raised on a farm, Alessandra didn’t consider herself a wilderness wimp. But sleeping in McBride’s truck, then attempting to eat breakfast while swarms of mosquitoes, horse and deerflies did the same, proved next to impossible.
Deet was the only answer, and Alessandra wanted the sticky repellant gone as soon as possible. That meant another shower, this one in a crappy public facility that boasted slime-coated floors and a weak spray of barely warm water. They didn’t get back on the road until mid-morning.
More correctly, on the back roads. It was one wooded cow path after another, roughly stitched together.
“You know,” she remarked with a quick hiss of pain for her abused backside, “unless he’s taking this same route, which is unlikely for an escaped felon, Rory Simms will be in Mexico before we get out of the Black Hills.”
McBride maneuvered around a two-foot gouge. “Rory’s a slow mover, Alessandra. He’s an even slower thinker. He’s also not good on his own, which is why I figure he’s heading this way.”
“Am I supposed to accept that as an explanation?”
“He’s making his way to his contacts.” McBride divided his attention between the road, his laptop and the on-board map. “People his sister might not know about.”
“Okay, obvious next question, if she doesn’t know about them, how do you?”
He didn’t quite avoid a missing chunk of road and as a result almost bounced Alessandra out of her seat. “You should tighten that strap.”
She sighed instead. “Answer the question, McBride.”
“Rory likes hookers. Some hookers accept money for services other than sex. My source inside Casey Simms’s organization got a line on Rory’s favorite prostitute. He paid, she talked, we scored.” “You hope.”
“Yeah, there’s that. But from the text I got last night, X thinks that no matter where Rory appears to be going, he’s really taking an indirect route toward one of his contacts. As far as our particular route is concerned, think Eddie and the more twists and turns, the better.”
“At the risk of sounding repetitive, if Rory’s using the interstate or even a semidecent highway, he’ll be there and gone before we reach the next mountain pass.”
“We’ll see,” McBride said.
Too bruised and tired to pursue it, Alessandra let the subject drop. Keep talking and she ran the risk of biting her tongue off.
Although her pride seldom allowed her to complain, neither the day nor the traveling conditions improved. They weren’t going in anything resembling a straight line. By late afternoon, she figured they could be anywhere from the Big Horns to the Rocky Mountains.
Fanning her face slowly with a service station map, she finally asked, “Where are we, McBride?”
“About twenty miles from Ben’s Creek. There’s a good chance Rory will be there.”
“And hopefully Eddie won’t.” She stopped fanning to cock her head. “Isn’t Ben’s Creek north of Rapid City?”
He smiled in profile. “Your point being?”
“What happened to ‘we need to head southwest’? Never mind.” She waved him off. “Message from your X-man, indirect routes, et cetera. My brain’s running on empty at the moment. Are you sure about this source of yours?”
“Sure enough. I got an email update while you were texting your assistant about what we were doing at her cabin last night and why you won’t be coming into work tomorrow.”
She summoned a pleasant expression. “If I said I hate you, would you be kind and ditch me in Ben’s Creek?”
“I’ll take that to mean you want to stop. Next place we pass, I promise.”
True to his word, ten minutes later he pulled off the ancient two-lane highway that was probably only used by logging trucks now and into a dusty roadside clearing, complete with a tippy wooden shack, two gas pumps and a rear yard full of abandoned vehicles.
Alessandra took one look, stuck his hat on her head and shoved the door open. “I hate you, McBride. This place better have a washroom.”
To her relief, it had two. The man tearing a seat out of an ancient Oldsmobile took one look at her and stabbed a thumb at the shack. “Ellie’s my wife. Buy one of her blackberry pies, and she’ll let you use her private john.”
Alessandra thanked him, bought two pies and was immediately ushered into Ellie’s paying-customers-only washroom.
It smelled like pine cleaner and the toilet did flush—if she pulled really hard on the chain. The cold-water tap almost worked, as well. The mirror didn’t. A haze over the glass gave her face a tintype-photo look that would have made her laugh if she hadn’t glimpsed the remnants of an old bus through the window behind her. The thing had fallen on its side like a drunk elephant with its fire-blackened underside fully exposed.
For a motionless moment, Alessandra’s throat muscles seized, so badly that she couldn’t swallow. Voices swarmed in her head.
An elderly man: “I’m off to Chicago to visit my brother….”
A geek: “I’ll have this textbook read by the time we hit the city limits….”
A wispy woman from Arizona: “Excuse me, do you suffer from motion sickness…?”
A young marine: “I’m getting married in three months….”
Words and faces overlapped. She felt the floor moving, the bus skidding, rolling. She heard glass shatter, metal shriek, murmurs turn to screams.
With a huge effort, Alessandra tore her eyes from the mirror. But not until she saw another face that drifted in. McBride.
Sexy, smoke-gray eyes stared at her. “Don’t worry, I’m a cop. Give me your hand. I’ll get you out of here….”
“You all right, dear?” A rusty female voice shattered the spell.
Alessandra jolted back to the present. She breathed out, dried her hands and checked her reflection one last time. “I’m fine, thank you.”
When she opened the door, Ellie offered a toothy, yellow smile. “I thought maybe you’d passed out from the heat. We don’t get many customers here, us being so remote and all. When we do, I like to give them a special parting gift.”
Letting her smile grow bigger, she produced a knife from the pocket of her apron.
Chapter Five
The knife was the second thing McBride saw when he turned the corner inside the shack. The first was the startled expression on Alessandra’s face. He would have knocked the woman called Ellie through the paper-thin wall if Alessandra hadn’t glanced up and given her head a shake.
“It’s to cut the pies,” she told him quickly, and recaptured the woman’s attention with a smile. “Thank you, for the pies and the gift.”
Fifteen minutes later, and on the road yet again, McBride asked her, “You weren’t sure about that knife at first, were you?”
She examined the serrated blade. “No, and I put the blame for my mistrust squarely on your shoulders. I used to think people were basically nice and well meaning. Lately, I see everyone as a potential front for a hit man.” A sparkle in her eyes softened her words. “You are such a badass, McBride.”
“Had a chat with Eddie while he was holding you, huh?”
“Yes, and I relayed our entire conversation to you while you were bleeding all over that old logging camp. How’s your shoulder?”
“Poultice is helping.”
After she tucked the knife away, he felt her eyes slide in his direction. “Your way’s not working, is it?”
Damn. She knew him too well. Now it was time to either jump out of the truck or irritate her into silence by pretending not to know what she meant. He did neither.
“The dangerous cases just come to me, Alessandra. I don’t go looking for them.”
“Yes, you do. The more the danger, the more you like it. Because even though you balk at a by-the-book approach, you always get the job done. You were never meant to be married, or anything more than superficially involved with a woman. We made a mistake, an incredibly hot one for a while, but our marriage was wrong from the start. Death is your shadow, McBride. Except that one day the roles will be reversed. Death will be real, and you’ll be the shadow. I need you to sign the divorce papers.”
His stomach clenched, but beyond that, he didn’t react. Didn’t want to think about Alessandra as part of his past. He knew it was unfair to her, and really, if he’d been asked, he wouldn’t have been able to explain to anyone, least of all himself, why he rejected the thought of divorce so completely.
“McBride, look out!”
When she made a grab for the wheel, he swore. Directly in front of them, in the middle of the road, stood a white-tailed doe and two half-grown fawns. He swerved, hit the brakes and felt the truck begin to slide.
The back end struck something—not one of the deer, he hoped—fishtailed and slammed into a large spruce. Which was the only thing that kept them from falling into the creek bed some thirty feet below.
Several seconds passed before Alessandra released a slow breath. “If it’s any consolation, we missed the deer. Did we damage anything?”
“Only the outer edges of my pride.”
Her eyes danced a little. “So nothing important, then.”
“I’ll let you know in a minute.”
It didn’t take half that time to determine that the rear axle was bent. Not undrivable, but the work needed would cost more than just money.
With Alessandra’s help, McBride changed the flattened left tire and limped the truck the rest of the way to Ben’s Creek.
One of the things he’d always appreciated—and, yes, loved—about Alessandra was that she never bitched or berated. She did what she could, what she had to and left the rest to him.
The unpaved road widened, the terrain began to open up and the woods thinned as they approached the valley town of Ben’s Creek. Small houses dotted the landscape. He saw a kid with an iPod, train tracks bordered by weeds half as high as his truck and a small filling station with three men sitting in chairs beneath the overhang.
Alessandra regarded the unmoving trio. “Doesn’t look terribly promising, does it?”
“It’d look a lot better if they saw you.”
Unfastening her seat belt, she stretched her back muscles. “I figure it’ll take the better part of a day to repair that axle, McBride. Given the fact that it’s after eight now, getting dark and I have no intention of sleeping in your truck again, someone in this town is going to see me. Might as well be these guys.”
She had the door open before he could get his teeth unclenched. How the hell had she gotten more bewitching since their separation? More to the point, how was he supposed to fight the hunger gnawing in his belly and his groin?
Stuffing his gun in his waistband, McBride reached for his jacket, forced a lid down on the heat and followed her into the thankfully cool night air.
Every head on the porch went up at Alessandra’s approach. “Hello.” McBride heard the smile in her voice and allowed himself a vague one of his own. Just keep breathing, boys. The blood will start moving again in a minute.
The youngest of the men, seventy-five if he was a day, stood. “Hello back at you, ma’am. I’m Larry Dent. These are my brothers. Folks hereabouts call ’em Curly and Moe.”
“What did your parents call them?”
“Among other things, Curly and Moe. Our ma died watching the Stooges on TV.” His grin gave way to a shrewd once-over for McBride. “You together?”
Since he didn’t mean that in the traveling sense, McBride draped an arm across Alessandra’s shoulders. “Married six years. Is there a mechanic in town?”
“Repair shop’s mine,” the oldest and least mobile of the trio said. “Closed till morning, I’m afraid.”
If he was the mechanic, it probably wouldn’t matter.
“Engine trouble?” Larry asked. The question was directed at Alessandra.
She fell easily into the part. “If it was that, my husband could fix it, no problem. We went for a bit of a slide to avoid some wildlife and wound up damaging our back end.”
The owner, Moe, creaked toward the stairs. “Let’s have a look-see, Mr….?”
“Abbott,” Alessandra supplied.
She used her mother’s surname. Going with it, McBride added a cheerful, “Joseph Abbott. My wife’s Chastity. Her sister’s due to give birth any day now. We need to get to Pennsylvania as soon as possible.”
Alessandra watched old Moe descend the stairs. “We heard there was an accident on the main highway, so we took an alternate route this morning and pretty much stayed on it.”
“Surprised your truck’s not in worse shape, considering.” Old Moe finally reached solid ground. “Nice machine, though. Don’t see many like it ’round here.”
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