Something of a paranormal nature? Because nothing she could think of that belonged in the natural world really matched the facts.
She shook those thoughts off. She dealt in the real world! “Someone rescued me from the bear and brought me here,” she muttered, more to herself than to Fletcher.
“So maybe it was somebody really good at covering their tracks or they took the time to go back and cover them?”
Marlee flicked a sharp glance at him. “Who around here would be that good?”
He shrugged. “Some of the injuns, maybe.”
Marlee’s heart hit her ribcage and began to pound as the image instantly arose in her mind of the Native American who’d been arrested the night before—the one who’d been staring at her so hard. Had she completely misread that? Was it because he was wondering if she would recognize him?
“That still wouldn’t explain the bear.”
“Maybe if I find the person or persons responsible for bringing me here I’ll find out how that was done—and why.”
“Why bring you here? The park entrance is in another direction entirely.”
“Lost?”
Fletcher sent her a sardonic look. “They’re that good at covering their tracks, but they have a shit sense of direction?”
Anger flickered through her.
“Anyway, the investigators said this wasn’t the crime scene. You were dumped here … after.”
Marlee realized the guy was really starting to annoy the shit out of her and it didn’t look like she was going to pick up anything from the site or remember anything she hadn’t already.
“I don’t suppose you remember being in a cave?”
Marlee sent him another sharp look. The question prompted a vague memory, but she certainly wasn’t sure she’d been in one. “What makes you ask that?”
He gestured toward a rocky hill in the distance. “It’s about eight to ten miles from here, but it isn’t any more farfetched than any of the other ‘what ifs’.”
Marlee shook her head. “That’s really stretching it. A very strong man might have carried me this far, but over there and back?”
Except it wasn’t the same man who’d brought her to this spot, she remembered abruptly.
It was a different man. At least, she’d always believed it was, a third man, because she knew there had been two men with her from the time she came around after the bear attack.
Two very strong, very fit men?
Gabriel and the man from the bar popped into her mind instantly, but she couldn’t think of anything to put the two men together other than the fact that she’d noticed both, had had an extraordinary reaction to both, and the Native had been with a blond haired man that had reminded her of Gabriel—who had also affected her.
She shook those thoughts off. Very likely the reaction to the blond in the bar was entirely because she’d mistaken him for Gabriel. Quite possibly, she could dismiss her reaction to the Native man for a similar reason—he reminded her of the dancer.
The acute chemical reaction? Maybe it wasn’t them so much as it was the change in her hormones because of her pregnancy? Or maybe it was a combination of the two that had given her an extraordinary kick?
Either way, the theory that one or even two very fit, very strong men had carried her so far was almost as unbelievable as the alien theory or the big foot theory!
Frowning thoughtfully, she lifted her head and studied the hill, thinking about Fletcher’s suggestion that she might have been taken to a cave. Could they have taken her to a cave?
She could remember something hard and really cold beneath her when they’d undressed her. She was pretty sure it had been rock, although she hadn’t thought about that at the time.
She’d been convinced she was in a hospital even though she’d wondered why there were no bright lights.
In fact, it had seemed really dark, now that she thought about it. Even if there were caves in the hill Fletcher had pointed out, though, it was a really long way off.
Turning slowly, she scanned for any other outcropping of rock that might suggest the possibility of a cave but the other hills, or mountains, she could see were even further away.
“You remembered something?”
The question prompted an instantaneous alarm in Marlee. She didn’t know why he was so interested, but she abruptly had the sense that his intention hadn’t been to help her out any of the time. She didn’t know what his motives were, but she didn’t think it was either plain out curiosity or any sympathy for her cause. He seemed too … eager to pump her for information.
“Unfortunately, no,” she said finally, releasing a tired sigh. “I guess I’m ready to go back now.”
She was uneasy until they reached his truck again, but some of the tension and some of her suspicions were laid to rest by that, at least. He kept glancing at her assessingly as they drove back and finally asked her what she did remember about the incident. Shrugging, she repeated what she’d told the investigators—and nothing more.
“I’m wondering,” she added, “if it’s possible I just … blacked out when I saw the bear. I remember screaming when I saw it and I remember falling. I thought it had hit me but shock plays tricks with the mind. If I just fainted after I screamed, maybe these guys came running up and scared the bear away long enough to grab me and run. That would explain why they didn’t take me back to the park pavilion. They would’ve been panicked themselves—which could also explain how they managed to carry me so far. Adrenalin can make people do some amazing things. Maybe they even saw a second bear that had been drawn by the bellows of the bear I stumbled on and that explains the dead bear?”
Fletcher was silent for several moments. “They?” he prompted. “I thought you said it was ‘a’ man?”
Irritation flickered through her. “There might have been two. I don’t know why that popped into my mind, but it’s possible.”
She was glad when he dropped her off and left. She was inclined to wonder how much she could trust her instincts given her erratic behavior of late, but there was something about him that just didn’t sit right.
Shaking it off, she went into her cabin and cleaned up and changed clothes. By the time she had, her mind had switched from the trip into the park to the incident the night before again and she decided it might be worth it to take the risk of sticking her nose into that investigation. It not only didn’t sit right with her that the man might be facing charges he shouldn’t, but she’d begun to wonder if she would have the same reaction to him as she’d had the first time.
Grabbing her purse and keys, she headed into town and parked near the police department. She sat in her car for several minutes after she’d parked, questioning the wisdom of her decision and finally took the keys out of the ignition. Girding herself, she got out and went in to ask about the prisoners brought in the night before from the bar. The desk sergeant looked her over speculatively. “You here to post bail for somebody?”
Marlee’s discomfort increased. “No. I was at the bar. I gave one the deputies a statement last night. I was just mostly curious about the incident … wondering what charges were filed and against whom.”
Suspicion flickered in his eyes. “You were with one of the men that were arrested?”
Her lips tightened. “Like I said—I was a witness. I’m just passing through, but I figured I should see if there were charges filed and if I’d need to testify.”
That sounded good!
The man studied her a few moments longer and finally shrugged. “We turned over two of them to the reservation PD last night. The others have been released.”
Two? It wasn’t hard to guess who one of them was, but his companion certainly hadn’t looked like he came off any reservation.
Nodding, she left, but she sat in her car for a good fifteen minutes debating whether to drive up to the reservation or not before she finally started the car and headed to the reservation.
She mentally kicked herself most of the way. I
t was late. Very likely she was only going to discover when she got there that the guy—guys had already been released, but it seemed to her that every step she’d taken since she’d arrived had only led to more questions, not answers.
Not that she was convinced the men were in any way connected to her pet mystery, but it was damned curious that the cop she’d talked to had indicated two men had been picked up when she knew damned well the blond could not be a Native American.
Who else would it be but the blond guy that was with him, though? Maybe it was just a case of her only having eyes for the cool drink of water, but she didn’t think her circumstances, or even the attraction, were enough to completely annihilate her training. She hadn’t noticed one single Native American in that bar besides her hunk, and she was convinced there hadn’t been another one.
Besides, she couldn’t shake Fletcher’s suggestion that the local Native population was the place to look for someone who could move through the forest without leaving a trail. Seen in that light, her reaction might have been more than attraction. It might have been recognition. As flimsy as the theory was that she’d come up with, she wanted to know whether to discard it and work on something else or not.
Chapter Six
It was dusk before Marlee finally found her way to the reservation police station. She didn’t hesitate or question her reasoning as she had before. She parked her car next to the single SUV in front marked as reservation police and got out.
The door opened directly into the main office, she discovered, and appeared to be completely empty except for a single Native American male seated at a desk near the front door and facing it. He glanced up when she came in, seemed to do a double take and then studied her assessingly as she approached the desk.
The look unnerved her when it shouldn’t have, but she supposed her awareness of her precarious position with the government was enough to send uncomfortable vibes through her.
“Can I help you?”
His voice didn’t send unpleasant vibes through her—far from it. To her horror, she felt her nipples prickle and stand erect. My god! What the hell was up with her body?
She cleared her throat. “Actually, I thought I might help. I was in the tavern last night when the brawl broke out there. The arresting officers seemed inclined to charge a Native American man with starting the fight and I know he didn’t. I just wanted to be sure that was on the record. When I went down to talk to them they told me he’d been transferred here—actually two men.”
Something flickered in his eyes. He leaned back in his chair. “A bar fight, you say?”
“In the tavern in Odessa.”
His draw brows rose. “I don’t know anything about it, ma’am.”
Uneasiness flickered through her. She frowned. “I was told that the reservation police picked up two of the men,” she said slowly. “You don’t have them here? Is there another reservation around here?”
He shrugged. “This is the closest.”
“But you don’t know anything about any prisoners being transferred here?” she persisted.
He hesitated. “I only came on duty about an hour ago.”
As an excuse for his ignorance that rang completely false. Not that she was disputing the time he’d come on the job, but he seemed to be the only officer on duty. She lifted her head and glanced around. “Is there anyone else here that might know?”
He sat forward. “What was the name?”
She blinked at him.
“The prisoner?”
She felt her face heat. “I don’t know his name.”
“What did he look like?”
Irritation flickered through her. First he tells her he has no idea at all and now he wanted a description? Just how many had been transferred, she wondered? “He was tall. I’d say probably six two. He looked pretty solid so maybe around 220 and he had long, black hair— swarthy skin.”
“Brown eyes?” he guessed, a trace of sarcasm in his voice.
The suggestion prompted a flare of anger. Before she could give voice to it, it hit her that the man’s eyes hadn’t been brown at all. They’d been gold—like Gabriel’s eyes—like this man’s eyes.
The sound of two vehicles pulling up outside distracted her before she could respond.
She turned toward the entrance as she heard the opening and closing of several doors, feeling her pulse leap as the thought instantly popped into her mind that she was about to have the confrontation she’d dreaded since she’d taken off. Wild scenarios of escape attempts raced through her mind and were discarded. As far as she could see, there was no place to run or to hide. Even as it popped into her mind to duck into the bathroom—because they surely had one—the door opened.
The shock that went through her rooted her to the spot and wiped her mind clean.
Gabriel halted briefly in surprise when his gaze met hers. After that brief hesitation, however, he sauntered toward her, his mouth curled into a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “I see you tracked me down.”
Marlee gaped at him blankly. Even as his comment sank in, however, giving rise to anger that was in direct proportion to the scare she’d just had, her gaze flickered to the men who’d followed him in and she felt another shock wave roll over her.
Her tall drink of water, wearing the uniform of the reservation police, and his blond companion were directly behind him.
“She came because of the fight Eli and John were involved in last night,” the man behind her said, breaking through her shock.
She’d turned instinctively to glance at him when he spoke and, despite her shock, she noted the speaking look he fixed on Gabriel. It prompted her to glance at Gabriel to gauge his reaction which was when she made a disturbing discovery. Of the four men that had followed Gabriel inside, all four had the same strange golden eyes as the man behind the desk.
What were the odds, she wondered vaguely?
Gabriel’s hand settling on her upper arm seemed to break the trance that had held her.
She surfaced sufficiently to realize she wasn’t the only one in the room that was tense. All of the men were.
“Thanks, Joshua. I’ll take it from here.” He transferred his attention to her. “Why don’t you come back to my office where we can talk.”
Marlee’s anger erupted abruptly. She didn’t know what the hell was going on, but she recalled Gabriel’s comment immediately. “Why don’t you kiss my ass?” she growled tightly.
She felt the jolt of surprise that went through him. “I don’t know what the hell gave you the idea that I was interested enough to track you down, but you over estimate your charm!”
There were several sounds of curbed amusement from the men behind him. It distracted her briefly and she met her dark haired hunk’s eyes. They were gleaming with amusement, she saw, which only irritated her more.
Gabriel flushed, but his grip on her arm tightened. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. Come on in and let’s talk.”
Marlee snatched at her arm, trying to break his grip. “I don’t need to talk. I only came because I thought he had been falsely charged,” she said tightly, glancing at the man behind him, who’d taken up a position propping up the door.
“I apologized,” Gabriel growled.
“Like hell!” Marlee snapped. “Let go of my arm, you conceited jackass!”
He released her arm but he didn’t move. “My office is that way,” he said grimly, lifting his arm and pointing.
Marlee stared at him assessingly for a long moment. “After you,” she conceded finally.
He studied her. The moment he turned away, however, she moved around him and headed for the door.
The man leaning against it with his arms folded merely stared at her. “Move!” she said tightly.
Amusement gleamed in his eyes. “I don’t think so.”
Marlee planted her hands on her hips and glared at him. “I said move!”
An arm slid around her waist and lifted her off her feet. She whipped
her head around and stared at Gabriel’s grim profile in total disbelief. “You do know that it’s a Federal offense to assault a Federal officer,” she gasped in outrage.
“One, this isn’t an assault,” Gabriel said grimly. “And two, you happen to be standing in the sovereign territory of the Blackfoot tribe.”
When he’d closed the door to his office behind them, he released her and leaned back against the door, folding his arms across his chest. Marlee whirled around to face him, still too angry to think straight. “I’m a federal agent, just the same. You can’t hold me here against my will! They’ll be looking for me,” she added for good measure.
His eyes narrowed. As a matter of fact the feds were looking for her, but he didn’t think it was the way she meant. He’d just spent the last several hours with his brothers trying to track her down and remove her from harm’s way because they were looking for her. He supposed he should’ve just been relieved to find her on the rez—and he was, but he was irritated as hell to have spent hours anxiously searching for her only to have her bite his head off when he finally did run her down. “Somehow I don’t think so—not the way you think, anyway. Do you want to be reasonable and talk?”
She did not feel like being reasonable! She was totally pissed off! His comment jolted her, however. He knew she was a federal agent! He also seemed to know that she was here on her own and no one, she hoped, knew where she was. How could he know that? “Why would you say that?” she asked, trying to wrestle her emotions into abeyance.
He lifted his dark blond brows questioningly.
“Don’t try to play dumb blond,” Marlee said testily. “You said you didn’t think anyone would be looking for me. You also seemed to know that I’m an agent, and I certainly don’t recall telling you.”
His eyes narrowed. After a moment, however, a look of supreme male satisfaction settled over his features. He snagged her around the waist and jerked her up against his frame before she realized his intention or even that he was close enough. “We were definitely communicating but you’re right, there wasn’t a lot of talking going on.”
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