by Gayle Wilson
She reached up to push a strand of hair off his forehead, smiling into his eyes as she did. And despite the time they’d spent together during the past few days—or maybe because of it—her throat went dry in expectation.
“Because that’s exactly what we’re doing?” Michael suggested.
“And all those perfectly good beds back at the ranch going to waste.”
While he’d staked the horses, she had spread out the blanket he’d carried behind his saddle on a flat, granite boulder. The rock, pleasantly warm from the sun, was partially shaded now. She had already been lying on top of it when Michael joined her.
“Too many people. Here…” He shrugged, not bothering to state the obvious.
“And I always feel as if Colleen disapproves of our spending time together.”
Nicki had been unable to resist making that observation despite her determination not to talk about his sister. Especially not out here. This was the one place where she didn’t feel as if Colleen were watching and judging everything they did.
She had tried to be patient, knowing that when Michael’s former colleagues finished their inquiries, there would be a positive resolution of the questions Colleen had raised about her past. And for her that couldn’t come too soon.
Even if they didn’t talk about it, however, his sister’s disapproval seemed to hover around them like a fog. If there had been anywhere else half as safe, she would have urged Michael to leave the ranch with her. As it was, she said as little as possible about the media stories Colleen had relayed to him, knowing that eventually she would be vindicated.
“It’s not you,” he said, dismissing her concern with an easy assurance. “Colleen’s worried about the Langworthy mess. This is the first high-profile case her team’s been asked to handle, and the investigation appears to be going nowhere. At least it seems that way to her. The longer that baby is missing, the more tense Colleen is going to become. It isn’t personal, believe me.”
If only I could, Nicki thought.
“Besides, looking after you is my job,” he continued, leaning down to drop a kiss on the tip of her nose. “She’s not going to question the amount of time we spend together.”
Nicki wondered if he really didn’t sense what she did in Colleen’s attitude or if he were only trying to keep the peace. Then, as his lips fastened over hers, she gladly put the problem from her mind. His sister might be Michael’s boss, but despite that, Nicki knew him well enough by now to know that he would do whatever he thought best in this situation.
In any situation, she amended. Michael didn’t seem overly concerned about maintaining the chain of command. Maybe that was the one advantage to be found in this kind of nepotism.
She put her hand on the back of his neck, threading her fingers through the dark hair that curled over his collar. After all, there was no reason to waste a perfectly good morning worrying about something she couldn’t change. Especially not when there were so many more pleasant things to occupy it.
His fingers had found the top button of the shirt she wore, working to slip it out of its hole. While he unfastened the rest, not hurrying over the task, his lips and tongue explored the sensitive skin along her throat.
When all the buttons had been undone, he tried to tug the tail of the shirt out of the waistband of her borrowed jeans. Unfortunately, they fit so well that proved impossible.
“Wait,” she said.
With the intention of taking off both the shirt and her bra, she put her hand against his chest, pushing him back a little so she could sit up. Just as she moved, something hit her in the back of the shoulder.
The blow was powerful and unexpected. Her first thought was that she’d been struck by a rattler, although she hadn’t heard the infamous warning. A fraction of a second later, she recognized a very different sound. The unmistakable report of a high-powered rifle echoed off the rocks.
In the same instant her mind made that identification, Michael rolled off the blanket and the rock, carrying her with him. The drop to the ground was jarring, although he had used his own body to cushion her fall. As soon as they landed, he reversed the direction of the roll, taking them back into the shadow of the boulder, using the rock to shield them from the shooter.
Instinctively, she raised her head, trying to locate whoever had fired at them. Michael’s hand between her shoulder blades forced her back to the ground.
“Stay down,” he hissed. The Glock, carried in a holster in the small of his back, was already in the other hand.
She watched as he visually searched the ridge that lay to their left. Working from the trajectory of the bullet that had struck her, he must believe that was the vantage point from which the gunman had fired.
The glimpse she’d caught before Michael had shoved her down revealed a forbidding landscape of irregular outcroppings and scrub vegetation. And a hundred places where a would-be assassin might hide.
Would-be assassin. When the words formed in her brain, she knew that what she had anticipated with such dread all those months on the Half Spur had finally come to pass. The man who had tried to kill her in Washington had found her.
“It’s him,” she whispered.
Despite Michael’s warning, she raised her head a few inches to look up at him. Breaking his concentration on the ridge, he turned toward her. He didn’t bother to deny what she said.
“What do we do?” she asked, trying to examine the injury by feel.
Although she could move the arm, the wound was beginning to hurt—a deep burn, like someone had directed a blowtorch at her flesh. And there was a lot of blood, she realized, looking down on the gory fingers with which she’d just touched the place the bullet had struck her shoulder.
“Let me look at that,” Michael said, pushing her back down—gently this time—so he could examine the wound.
She couldn’t see his face, but his silence was frightening. After a second or two of prodding, against which she had to lock her teeth in her bottom lip, he began to take off his shirt.
The movement was awkward because of the necessity of staying low, but he managed. He folded the fabric into a small, tight square and laid it against her back, pressing it down firmly. She gasped in response, and the pressure immediately eased.
“Put your hand over it,” he ordered, guiding her bloodstained fingers to the pad he’d fashioned. “And press hard. We need to control the bleeding.”
She had known that’s what he was trying to do, but hearing him put it into words increased the knot of fear growing in her stomach. Because if they couldn’t stop it—
She closed her eyes, trying not to think about any of the “what-ifs.” She wasn’t successful. They were effectively pinned down. Any attempt to move away from the boulder would make them highly visible targets to the man on the ridge.
And no one on the Royal Flush knew where they were. They hadn’t mentioned when they could be expected back, so it was unlikely anyone would be worried about their disappearance for hours.
Despite Nicki’s impression that Colleen wasn’t pleased about the time they were spending together, Michael’s sister had made no overt effort to do anything about it. Which meant she wasn’t going to come looking for her brother and his guest. Nor would she send anyone else.
Pressing the pad against the wound, she raised her eyes to find that Michael was no longer looking at the ridge. He had turned instead toward the horses, which were staked to their left and the gunman’s right, near the bottom of the incline from which he’d fired.
Estimating the distance they’d have to cross to reach them? Or evaluating the possibilities for cover if they decided to make a run for it?
Whatever he was looking for, what he was finding couldn’t be encouraging, she decided, scanning the expanse that lay between them and their mounts. Michael’s rifle, in the saddle holster on the paint, might as well be on the moon.
“Michael?”
“We wait. From the way he set this up, I don’t think this is
his normal method of operation.”
It wasn’t, she thought. Not based on their one encounter. He must prefer dark, deserted streets and cold steel.
“Meaning what?”
There was a small hesitation before he answered.
“In a situation like this, whoever makes the first move is the one who blinked. We stay here, we keep our heads down, and we force him to come to us.”
Instinctively, she applied more pressure to her injury, wincing against the pain, remembering that they hadn’t bothered to take the water they’d brought off the horses. Like the rifle, it was tantalizingly close and yet so damn far out of reach.
Heat wasn’t yet a problem, but eventually it would be. As would blood loss and dehydration. It seemed the only thing they could hope for right now was that their assailant was not any better prepared for a game of chicken than they were.
Chapter Eighteen
She had lost all sense of time. It seemed as if they had been hiding in the narrow shelter provided by the boulder for an eternity, although the position of the sun indicated that it was only midafternoon.
Michael had succeeded in drawing the assassin’s fire a couple of times in order to check his position. That didn’t seem to have changed. Apparently he wasn’t ready to blink, and she wasn’t sure how much longer she could wait for that. She was conscious of a creeping lethargy that frightened her because she was afraid she knew the cause.
“Nicki?”
She opened her eyes, shutting them quickly against the painful glare of the sun, which was directly overhead. Michael was leaning against the boulder, holding her head in his lap. With his left hand positioned beneath her shoulder he’d been keeping pressure on the wound. In the right he held the Glock.
“I need to talk to you,” he said.
She put her hand up to shield her eyes, surprised at how much energy that simple gesture took. “What is it?”
“I don’t think we can wait any longer. I’m going to leave you the Glock.”
He had shown her how to use it during their first excursion. In case of an emergency, he’d said as he set up the targets. Although she had grown up around weapons, she had never before fired a handgun. He’d stood behind her, critically assessing her skills, until he was satisfied that she could hit the broad side of a barn.
“You’re going after him?” she asked, struggling to prop on one elbow.
“I don’t think we have any choice.”
Because of her. Because of the injury. Given how rocky she felt, she couldn’t argue with his assessment. Still, she didn’t want him to leave her here alone. She fought off that childish cowardice and nodded her understanding.
“Okay,” she said.
“You’ll be fine. Just stay here and stay down. When I come for you, I’ll call out your name. I’ll give you plenty of warning. Anybody who approaches and doesn’t do that, shoot them. You’ll hear them coming.”
“You need the gun,” she said, realizing only now that if he left the Glock with her, he’d be facing her enemy unarmed.
“I’m going to get the rifle.”
She turned her head, looking toward the horses. They seemed even farther away than they had the last time she’d looked.
By the time she’d completed that assessment, he had already started to move. Still keeping low, he had gotten his feet under him, one hand on the ground, like a sprinter preparing to leave the blocks.
It was all happening far faster than she was prepared for. She put her hand, the one holding the Glock, over his forearm.
“Wait.”
Although she could tell this was an unwanted hindrance, he obeyed. The turquoise eyes, which had also been focused on their distant mounts, returned to hers.
She could see a calm determination within them, but no fear. Of course, he had probably faced this situation dozens of times in the past. He had probably made his peace with the thought of death long before now.
She hadn’t. Not her own. Not his.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“I’m going to kill him.”
“Wait until it gets dark,” she said desperately. She wanted to keep him with her, despite her growing doubt that she could last until nightfall. At least she wouldn’t die alone.
“Right now, we know where he is,” he said reasonably. “We won’t have any way to tell that in the darkness.”
“Michael.”
She hated the pleading quality in her voice, afraid it might weaken his resolve. Intellectually, she knew he was right. Emotionally…
What she was feeling must have been revealed in her face. He leaned toward her, looking into her eyes with the same intensity as the first afternoon they’d spent together in her bedroom.
“I can’t wait, Nicki. I have to do this now. Don’t make it any harder.”
She wanted to beg him not to go. She wanted to use her injury and her growing exhaustion to influence him against deserting her. Something in his eyes prevented her.
Since she’d met him, he had never asked for anything from her except her trust. She had to trust him now.
Deliberately she lifted her hand, freeing him. And then she nodded again.
He took one more quick survey of the gunman’s location on the ridge, as if he were fixing it in his mind. Then his body tensed visibly as he made ready to begin a run that seemed nothing short of suicidal.
Seconds ticked by, and yet he didn’t move. Just as she was about to question the delay, he turned his head again, his eyes locking with hers.
“I made a mistake in not telling my father how I felt. A mistake I never got a chance to rectify.”
He was talking about the ranch, she realized. The Royal Flush. He had never told his father how much it meant to him, and because of that, or so he believed, the property had been given to Colleen. Forever lost to him.
She nodded once more, uncertain why he was telling her this now. Knowing only that it was something he needed to say.
“I promised myself I wouldn’t ever do something that stupid again,” he said softly. “Not about anything that important.”
Her heart began to pound, driving blood through her ears in a deafening roar. Everything but his words faded from her consciousness, even the thought of the assassin on the ridge. Everything but the importance of what the man stooping beside her was saying.
“I love you, Nicki Carson. If we get out of this—”
He broke the sentence, leaning forward to put his mouth over hers instead. The kiss was hard, almost rough. And it was over before she had time to realize what it meant.
Then the coiled muscles of his body exploded into action. Dropping the weapon he’d handed her, she grabbed for him, frantic to keep him beside her. More so now than before.
The tips of her reaching fingers brushed the back of his shirt as he scrambled to his feet. They were still outstretched as he began his run toward the horses and the rifle. Still outstretched when the first shot stuck the ground in front of him, throwing up dirt at the tip of his boot in a miniature geyser.
As it hit, Michael changed directions without breaking stride, zigzagging across the expanse like a broken field runner. He was favoring the damaged leg, although it didn’t appear to slow him.
Nor did the shots that continued to rain down around him. Before he’d crossed half the distance, she had already decided there was no way the barrage of bullets could miss him. Not all of them. No way in hell.
Michael staggered, and then seemed to gather himself, continuing to move forward by sheer force of will. It was obvious, however, that something was wrong. Obvious from his inability to make those swift changes of direction. Obvious in the lessening of his speed although, as she had watched each endless second of it, the run seemed to be taking place in slow motion.
Michael. Dear God, Michael.
Then, as explosively as it had begun, it was over. He reached the horses, wrenched the rifle from the holster and in the same motion dropped to roll under the bell
y of the paint. Between the bullets thudding into the earth beside them and a man crawling around between their legs, the horses had become thoroughly spooked.
She couldn’t bear to watch, yet she couldn’t force her eyes away from what was happening. The possibility that they would step on him before he could reach safety was very real.
The animals milled as if they were maddened, rearing against their constraints. Between the confusion of hooves, she caught a glimpse of long, blue-jean clad legs.
When the dust began to clear, she could see Michael crouched down behind the gray. He must be talking to them, she realized, watching the horses’ frenzy ease. Surely if he had presence of mind to that, it must mean he wasn’t seriously injured.
Please, God, she prayed, don’t let him be hurt.
The rifle above him had gone silent. Since there was no longer a clear target, perhaps the gunman had decided to conserve ammunition.
Her attention had shifted to the ridge. Her eyes searched the irregular patterns of sunlight and shade cast by rocks and vegetation, trying to decide if any of them conformed to the shape of a man. Wherever he was hiding, he was well camouflaged.
Giving up, she turned her head to check on Michael. The horses were standing quietly now. Only the occasional stutter-step indicated their recent panic.
And there was no sign of the man who had been crouching on the other side of them only seconds before.
THE BULLET had grazed his thigh. Despite the heady rush of adrenaline as he’d made that run, he’d been aware of the gouge it had torn through fabric and flesh.
Maybe the thickness of the denim jeans had provided some protection, because, although it was bleeding sluggishly, everything seemed to be in working order. The blood not only wasn’t of the spurting variety, it wasn’t even close to the seepage from the wound on the back of Nicki’s shoulder.
He needed to take care of their assailant and then get her back to the ranch. In that order and as quickly as possible, he told himself as he crawled along the base of the ridge. He was holding the rifle in both hands, using his elbows and knees to propel his body across the rocky ground.