Bitter Wild

by Jennie Leigh

  Everyone jerked into action at the question. She turned around and swung the door closed with just a bit less force than her male companion had used earlier. Then she locked her gaze on Jack.

  “What’s your name?”

  Jack was used to asking the questions. He was also accustomed to being the one in charge. But the look on her face and the tone of her voice suggested that she didn’t exactly view him as any sort of authority figure. He bristled, but kept his expression neutral.

  “Special Agent Jack Hall.” He turned to Skip. “And this is my partner, Special Agent Skip Reynolds.”

  She shifted her gaze to Skip for a moment, then brought it back to Jack.

  “You’re the one in charge?”

  Jack nodded. “Yes.”

  She took a step toward him. “Do you have any idea what you’re asking for?”

  Jack held her gaze steadily. “I’m asking for help in tracking down a killer before he gets a chance to kill again.”

  “And what makes you think he isn’t dead already?”

  Jack frowned. “What?”

  She cocked her head to the side a bit as she looked up at him. “The woods he disappeared into aren’t a park. There are a dozen different ways to die out there, none of them pleasant.”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  She shot him an exasperated look. “Is there some reason why you think he might manage to survive?”

  Jack was rapidly growing tired of the woman’s attitude. She acted as though she thought he was an idiot and he didn’t like it. He narrowed his gaze a bit as he stared at her. “Well, first of all, he’s not exactly inexperienced when it comes to surviving in the woods. He was born and raised in the mountains of North Carolina. He’s managed to disappear into the woods there for months on end without anyone being able to find him. He’s not some city boy who ran screaming into the woods with nothing but the clothes on his back. He took all sorts of gear with him, as well as enough weapons and ammunition to wage a small war.” He leaned toward her a bit as he drove his point home. “Now, what you say may well be true and maybe, with any luck at all, you’re right and he’s dead. Then again, he might just be alive, and he may even manage to find his way out of those woods. If he does, you can be sure he’ll kill the first person he comes across. I, for one, am not willing to take that chance.”

  He let the implication hang in the air between them. She stared at him for a long while and he could see her weighing his words. Finally she seemed to come to a decision. She turned and met the sheriff’s gaze. “I’ll do it.”

  The moment the words left her mouth, the cowboy who’d accompanied her into the station reached out and caught her arm. “Casey, no!”

  Jack was too shocked to do anything more than stare at her as she turned to look up at the man who’d come to her side.

  “I have to do it, John. If he somehow managed to survive and killed someone else, I’d never be able to live with myself, knowing I might have been able to stop him and didn’t even try.”

  The man shook his head again, but Jack spoke up before he could say anything. It was an involuntary outburst, something that Jack couldn’t ever remember happening to him before. He didn’t speak off the top of his head. He never let his tongue outrun his brain. Maybe it was the lack of sleep or the stress from his frustration over not catching Jester sooner. Or maybe it was just stupidity. Whatever the reason, he blurted out the thought that had leapt into his head the moment the man called her name.

  “You’re Casey Nolan? But you’re a woman!”

  The instant the words were out of his mouth he wanted to snatch them back. He knew how asinine they sounded. First of all, any fool could see that she was very much a woman. Secondly, only a man with the common sense of a rock would dare to question a woman’s ability to do a job just because she was a woman. He wasn’t really doing that, he had just been expecting a man. Casey was a man’s name, wasn’t it? He opened his mouth to try to apologize as he saw her head slowly turn to face him. Her gaze locked on his and she took a couple of steps toward him, not stopping until she was directly in front of him. The sarcasm in her voice was thick enough to cut as she spoke.

  “Why Agent Hall, I’m so impressed by your skills of observation. What gave it away? The dress? Or was it the breasts?” Her sarcasm vanished as she shot him a withering glare. “Congratulations on figuring out what most men realize at first glance.”

  Casey watched as he flushed a deep shade of red. She got the feeling that it wasn’t as much embarrassment as anger, though. Maybe she’d laid the sarcasm on a little thick, but she knew good and well that he was very aware of her gender. She’d recognized the look on his face as their gazes had met earlier. He’d noticed she was a woman, and he’d liked what he saw. She shoved away the teasing little voice in her head that said she’d done her share of noticing him as well. He was hard not to notice. He stood at least six feet, four inches tall and had the sort of shoulders any woman would have fantasized about leaning on. He wasn’t bulky, though. Judging from the length of arm she could see below the rolled up sleeves of his shirt, he was lean like a swimmer. Strong, but not overly muscular. In spite of his clearly chauvinistic tendencies, she felt something in the pit of her stomach flutter in appreciation for his physical attributes.

  His partner cleared his throat and took a step forward. “Ms. Nolan, I’m certain my partner meant no disrespect. It’s just that we were both expecting a man. Right or wrong, that’s the way we were thinking. However, the sheriff says you are the best and frankly, that’s all we care about. We’d appreciate any help you can give us.”

  He was obviously the diplomat of the two. He seemed to be sincere, but Casey had trouble settling her feathers once they’d been ruffled. It didn’t help that she had a whole host of doubts of her own about doing the job. She was nervous and that made her edgy. She tended to get combative when she was anxious. She shook her head.

  “I’m not committing myself to anything until I’m certain you understand exactly what this manhunt is going to involve.”

  Normally, Jack let Skip do the talking if he knew he was in danger of alienating a witness or someone else they needed to solve a case. Today, though, he just couldn’t seem to keep his mouth shut.

  “We’re professionals; we’ve been trained to track violent fugitives.”

  Her amber gaze locked on him once more, and he saw something flash in her eyes. “Is it the fact that I’m a woman that’s making it so hard for you to hear what I’m saying, or are you just an idiot? Your fugitive may be violent. He may even be downright evil, but I promise you that however bad he is, he’s nothing compared to the mountains. First there’s the wild life. It’s everywhere, and it isn’t locked away in a nice strong cage like you’ve seen at the zoo. It can step right out from behind a tree and take your head off before you even know it’s there. Then there’s the fact that trails are virtually unheard of out there. This isn’t a resort area. There are no cute little wooden signs pointing the way to the next water fountain and restroom. Out there, one step off the beaten path can have you wandering around in circles for days or walking right off the edge of a cliff. As if that isn’t enough, there’s the weather to contend with. It can turn on a dime and go from blue skies and sun to a blizzard within a matter of minutes.” She lifted her hand and waved it toward him. “Whatever training you’ve had isn’t going to mean anything out there. I have no intention of leading you out there just to have to haul your body back out because you did something stupid and got yourself killed.”

  She started to turn away, but Jack reached out and caught her wrist, pulling her back around to face him. She had a hell of a lot of nerve calling him an idiot and implying that he would need to be watched over like a toddler. He could damn well handle himself just fine. He opened his mouth to tell her so, but froze when a low growl sounded to his right. He glanced down as a second growl rumbled from the dog. Its teeth were barred and its fur was raised all the way down it
s back. It wasn’t making an idle threat. Jack found himself wondering if he could draw his weapon before the animal got to his throat. He kept his gaze locked on the dog, but saw Casey make a motion with her left hand. An instant later the dog took a step back and dropped to its haunches. Jack finally looked at her when she pulled her wrist out of his grip.

  Casey was furious. He’d had no right to grab her like that.

  “If you ever touch me again, Agent Hall, I won’t stop him.”

  Jack didn’t like being threatened. “Lady, if that dog so much as looks at me funny, I’ll blow his head off.”

  He was surprised by the hard look that came into her eyes. He was even more surprised when she took a step forward and stabbed him in the chest with a finger.

  “You do and I guarantee they’ll never find your body.”

  Jack blinked. She’d just threatened him over a dog! Before he could figure out what to say, she spun away from him and glared at the sheriff.

  “If you want my help, Stan, you better make this idiot understand how it will work. Otherwise, you can all go straight to hell!”

  She turned on her heel then and jerked open the office door. Jack’s first instinct was to follow her. He took a step forward, intending to do exactly that before she and that wild animal of hers could get too far away. He was stopped by the man she’d come into the station with. He stepped in front of Jack, blocking his path. He wasn’t a little guy. As Jack met his gaze, the pair stood virtually eye to eye. The man looked at Jack as if he thought he was something a little lower than cow shit on the bottom of his boot.

  “Mister, there’s one thing you need to understand and quick. If you ever put your hands on her like that again, you won’t have to worry about what Chance will do to you because I’ll kick your ass from here all the way back to where ever the hell you came from.”

  He held Jack’s gaze for a moment, then turned and walked out of the room. Jack was so furious he couldn’t even speak. After the man slammed the door behind himself, Skip released a long sigh.

  “Do you think you could possibly have made them any madder?”

  Jack spun around the glare at him.

  “Me? What about them? They both just threatened me.”

  The sheriff spoke up. “They put you in your place and frankly, you deserved it. You stepped over the line when you grabbed her like that.” He held Jack’s gaze for a moment. “Don’t tell me you can’t see the truth of what I’m saying.”

  Jack clenched his teeth. Damn the man, he was right. He’d let his temper get the better of him and acted completely inappropriately. He still wasn’t quite willing to shoulder all the blame alone, though.

  “Okay, I had no right to touch her, but she’s got one hell of a bad attitude.”

  “She doesn’t have a bad attitude, she’s just trying to make sure no one gets hurt in this thing. You need to take a step back and try to see this from her angle. You’re asking her to go into the mountains to track down a man who’s already killed ten people. That’s a daunting task for even an experienced tracker. But you’re also asking her to do it with a bunch of clueless city boys right on her heels.” He sent them an apologetic look. “Nothing personal, but you guys are going to fit in out there just about like a coyote in the middle of a bunch of poodles. She’s right about the danger involved. You can get hurt or killed real quick if you’re not damned careful. She’s seen it too many times. We all have.”

  “We’re not complete idiots, you know.”

  The sheriff shrugged. “I don’t know and neither does she. That’s the point. And there’s one other thing that I ought to point out since things have gone the way they have. Casey’s the best there is. She’s respected by everyone in this part of the state, which puts you all in a bit of bind.”

  Jack frowned as Skip spoke up. “How so?”

  “Well, let’s just say that if word gets around that Casey refused to work with you there won’t be a single person anywhere around here that will even think about trying to do the job. If you want to go after your fugitive, you better find a way to make her happy. Otherwise you’re going to find yourselves without even one volunteer to help you, in which case going anywhere near those woods would be outright suicide.” He gave them a nod for emphasis, then turned and strode over to the door. “I suggest you take a couple minutes to cool off, then find Casey and convince her that you won’t have a problem letting her handle this thing her way. Otherwise, you might as well just head on home.”

  He pulled the door open and stepped out of the office, closing the door on his way out. Jack released a string of less than complimentary opinions about small-towns, then stopped and ran his hands through his hair. He heard what he thought might be amusement in his partner’s voice.

  “I guess she managed to push all the right buttons, huh?”

  Jack shot Skip a glare. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Skip shrugged. “This is just the first time I’ve ever seen you lose control. It’s not like you to put your foot in your mouth once, much less repeatedly. I figure it has to be the woman who got you so worked up.”

  “She ticked me off, that’s all.”

  Skip nodded. “I’d say the feeling was mutual.” He paused for a few seconds as all the amusement faded from his face. “Think you can smooth things over?”

  Jack didn’t want to smooth anything over. He wanted to stalk out of the office and find the woman so he could put her in her place. The sheriff had made it clear that she was the best person for the job. Worse, he’d also said that no one else would help them if she walked out the door. If that was true, that meant she was holding all the power. Or she thought she was. Jack could burst that bubble right quick, though. As far as he saw it, her refusal to help could easily be considered a hindrance to the investigation. Hell, he might even be able to threaten her with a charge of accessory if Jester managed to get out of the woods and kill someone else. The trouble was, Jack suspected that she wouldn’t react well to any threats he might make. In fact, he was willing to bet that if he tried to strong-arm her into cooperating it would just blow up in his face. He took a deep breath and nodded in answer to his partner’s question.

  “I’ll do what I have to.”

  “Yeah, but can you make her believe you mean it?”

  “She’ll believe me.”

  He moved over to the door and pulled it open. He was going to apologize to her. He wouldn’t like it, but he’d do it just the same. He’d even mean it, to an extent. He had stepped over the line when he grabbed her. And maybe threatening to kill her dog was just a little excessive. Jack wasn’t quite sure why he’d gotten so angry with her. He’d made a fool of himself and he knew it. Maybe he was so furious because she rubbed that mistake in his face. Whatever the reason for his loss of temper, he intended to make sure it never happened again. Anger was an emotion and emotions got in the way of clear thinking. He didn’t want anything getting in the way while he was on Russell Jester’s trail. He wasn’t anxious to get himself killed any time soon.

  Casey pushed her heavy hair away from her face, then stopped and stared at her trembling hands. They were shaking so badly that it was clearly visible. Her stomach felt like it was twisted into a knot and she was afraid that she’d burst into tears at any moment, or possibly start retching. God in heaven, what had she done? Chance made a low whine as he laid his big head on her lap. She buried her hands in his thick fur and spoke out loud.

  “What was I thinking?”

  The expression on the dog’s face seemed to answer that he didn’t know. She stared deep into his eyes and wondered, not for the first time, if he did somehow understand her words. Or maybe he could read her thoughts. She bent over and he lifted his head to touch her cheek with his warm tongue.

  “I’m not ready for this.”

  She felt the tears she was struggling to hold at bay start to gather in her eyes. The pain that sliced through her was almost physical. It was a mingling of old sorrow and guilt with
new pain and fear. She closed her eyes and instantly saw memories she knew were best left buried. She opened her eyes again and stared down at her best friend.

  “I don’t have any choice, Chance. I’ve got to do this. For Millie and for myself.”

  She would have sworn the dog looked pleased at her words. She let go of him, then pushed to her feet and walked out of the bathroom stall she’d run into after leaving Stan’s office. She met her own gaze in the foggy mirror over the sink. She was amazed to see that the worry she felt barely showed on her face. But it was there in her eyes. Nothing could wipe it away completely. She lifted her hands and swiped at the moisture clinging to her lower lashes. She was strong. Everyone said so. And she knew that Stan was right. If everything the FBI agents and Stan had told her about the fugitive was true, he wasn’t going to be easy to track. They needed someone leading the search who knew the mountains as well as the animals that lived in them. Ego aside, Casey knew she was that person.

  She spoke to her reflection. “Okay, so you’re scared. So what? You’ve been scared before and you did what you had to do. This isn’t any different.”

  That wasn’t strictly true, though she wasn’t going to argue with herself about it. Essentially, this was a matter of survival. Hers and any unfortunate person who might have the bad luck to run into Russell Jester. Someone had to find him and make sure he didn’t hurt anyone else. If she didn’t at least try, she’d never be able to look herself in the eye again. She took a deep breath and tightened her hands into fists at her sides. She’d run from the past long enough. Now it was time to face her fear.

  Jack followed the sheriff’s nod toward the restrooms. They were located in a narrow hall at the rear of the station house. Jack wasn’t sure if he was glad or not that they were out of view of the rest of the building. On the one hand, it meant he didn’t have to contend with an audience while he tried to appease the anger of Casey Nolan. On the other hand, it also meant he could linger outside the door while he dreaded the confrontation. Damn the woman for getting under his skin so quickly! How the hell had it happened? He was afraid he knew the answer to that particular question. The moment he first saw her he was attracted to her. He saw her as a man sees a woman he would like to take to his bed. When he realized she wasn’t alone, he came to two quick conclusions. First, and obviously correct, she was taken. The man she’d called John had made it pretty clear that she was his. Even if he hadn’t acted possessive of her, Jack figured the way they touched said it all. They were familiar with each other. Too familiar to be anything but very close. Jack didn’t like the idea of sharing a woman with anyone. And he didn’t have such a fragile ego that it had to be stroked by stealing women from other men. So he instantly labeled her as off limits. That didn’t stop him from wanting her, though.