The mountain air was reminiscent of Christmas, cold and fresh, a hint of crushed pine with a heavy twist of horse and leather. Snow fell lightly. Large cotton-puffs sank slowly down to earth, like down-feathers after a pillow fight.
It was beautiful, but didn’t change the fact she was miserable.
Despite the gloves Sarah Sullivan had given her, her hands were numb and she couldn’t feel the reins with her fingers. Luckily, Morven followed Nat’s stallion like the biddable mare she was.
No match for the weather, Elizabeth’s trousers were damp where the snow had melted against the mare’s dark coat, and her thighs were rubbed red-raw. The tip of her nose was frozen, lips chapped and cracked. And her butt ached, not just a small ache, but deep spasms in muscles that had been awakened after more than a decade of dormancy.
“Can I ride, huh?”
“Say something?” Nat reined his horse aside and took a long look at her. The hot, vivid, wild-fire of his eyes pierced her like a knife.
Elizabeth managed to hold his gaze and shook her head. Unfortunately, despite the bruises, Nat Sullivan had a handsome face. In fact, the yellow and purple wounds made him better looking, less perfect, more human, sexier. She held back a shudder. Noticed the way weak sunlight stroked the dark blond hair that showed below his cowboy hat, highlighting flaxen streaks. His jaw looked carved out of stone. Strong sculpted cheekbones. Deep grooves bracketing a wide mouth.
And for some reason when he frowned at her the way he was doing now, she simply couldn’t put a coherent sentence together. She didn’t know if it was fear or exhaustion that affected her, so she kept her mouth shut. Elizabeth willed her lips to curl upwards, but they were frozen in place and might crack if she tried too hard. Frozen, inside and out.
“Just one more pasture to check, then we can head back. Can’t afford to leave any sick animals out in this weather,” Nat said.
She nodded, wishing desperately she hadn’t come. The man seemed impervious to the cold, but then he wore chaps and a thick sheepskin coat.
She tried to concentrate on the scenery. The Flathead Range stretched as far as the eye could see, over the Continental Divide and into the eastern Rockies. Magnificent; nature at its most beautiful and most unforgiving. Big pines and Douglas firs were draped with heavy stoles of snow, their lower branches bowed sharply under their burden. The whole world was silent. A hard silence that amplified any noise they made, like wearing high-heels in church.
Not a creature stirred, not a soul moved.
Except them.
The horses kicked up plumes of white snow as they carefully picked their way through the trees. Morven’s breath came out with small puffs of steam that condensed and drifted away on the breeze. Elizabeth sniffed and wiped her nose, listening to her saddle creak, a gentle rhythmic sound that reminded her of those early riding lessons and lost childhood dreams.
The world was monochrome, the sky pewter, the jagged mountains a deeper shade of slate. She had no idea where she was or how far they’d ridden. They’d been out for hours and she was completely disoriented with a man who amounted to a total stranger.
Under normal circumstances she could take care of herself.
But she’d learned to expect the unexpected.
Numb fingers gathered the reins in one hand and she rapidly opened and closed the other hand to try and warm it. She switched hands, determined not to succumb to the harshness of the elements.
Her sidearm was still in the Jeep.
Dumb.
Not that Nat Sullivan seemed like a threat—not the way DeLattio had from the first moment she’d felt him watching her. Like a cat watched a mouse before it dug in its claws. Her heartbeat accelerated. Breath tightened in her throat as images burned through her mind. Christmas lights. Music. Champagne. Whirling darkness until she’d woken up tied to her own bed.
She jerked as Nat pulled to a halt at the edge of a pasture. Cattle huddled together beneath a sturdy wooden shelter, tucked into the far edge of the meadow. They munched down on bags of hay that had been strung out for them.
“Stay put,” Nat said, nodded towards a thick belt of yellow pine, “it’ll be more sheltered here.”
“I’m okay,” Elizabeth said and smiled to try to prove it.
Nat looked at her as if for the first time. His eyes pinned her where she sat, stripped away the layers of expression and flesh, bone and bitter determination.
She licked her lips, swallowed and looked away, suddenly scared by what he might see. A moment later she heard him head off. He turned the gray, opened the gate without dismounting, and cantered across the pasture. Morven nosed around the thicket that edged the fence-line, looking for anything edible to chew. Embarrassment and awkwardness forced doubts through her mind, but nothing she wasn’t used to. The poor little rich girl, always left behind for the holidays because her family was dead.
At least working for the FBI had given her a reason to live. A purpose.
Determined to cut off self-pity before it overwhelmed her, she watched Nat Sullivan. Noted the graceful way he rode the gray, making even a trot look smooth. The gentle touches of reins against the horse’s neck, subtle shifts of his long legs that guided the horse around obstacles and those big broad shoulders that looked big enough to carry the world.
He was handsome. But Andrew DeLattio had been handsome too.
She lifted her chin against the frigid wind, ignored the hair that danced across her cheeks. It would have bothered most people, but she welcomed the veil.
Nat Sullivan probably thought she was a bad-tempered bitch; she’d been so surly.
An old tin bath sat just outside the shelter and she watched him smash the ice in the trough. Then he dismounted and went inside the lean-to, disappearing from view.
Shivers started, wracked her body. She curled up as tight as she could over the pommel and tucked her hands under her armpits in an effort to maintain warmth. Huddling into her jacket, she tried to imagine a desert island where the sun was hot enough to feel the UV burn.
Time drifted.
She wrenched her head up as the grind of the gate warned her Nat was back. He looked at her from beneath the rim of his snow-covered cowboy hat.
“Everything okay?” His blue eyes assessed her and seemed to find her wanting.
Elizabeth straightened her spine. Felt each vertebrae realign.
“Of course,” she lied.
Nat snorted. One side of his mouth kicked up into a wry smile and Elizabeth realized he knew exactly how ‘okay’ she was feeling.
The sonofabitch was waiting for her to crack. Her eyes narrowed into twin beads of annoyance.
Nat leaned over the horn of his ornately carved saddle, his voice soft and warm. “Just one more field to check—”
“What?” The word cannonballed out of her mouth before she could stop it.
He laughed and she watched open-mouthed as he tried to hide it, to turn it into a cough behind his leather-clad fist.
“Sorry, just kidding, couldn’t resist.” His mouth turned rueful, blue eyes softened. “You look colder than an ice-cube in the Arctic. You should have said something—I’d have taken you home.”
Angry heat spiked through her system and Elizabeth didn’t know whether to hit him or thank him.
“We’re heading back now. Got about a ten minute ride back to the ranch house from here.”
“What?” Elizabeth repeated, stupidly.
“Ten minute ride.” He looked at her closely, not missing a thing. “Think you can make it?”
Elizabeth nodded. She didn’t trust herself to speak. Sometimes she thought if she opened her mouth and started talking, she wouldn’t be able to stop until all the blackness and bitterness spilled out like tar. She kicked-on the horse after Nat, who already led the way.
Ten minutes. She just had to survive another ten minutes. Morven brushed past a branch that whipped back and dumped its load of snow straight into her lap.
Damn.
Frant
ically she brushed at the snow, stood up in the stirrups, holding onto the raised pommel. She did not want a frozen crotch.
Next thing she knew she lay flat on her back on the ground, looking up at the snowflakes that drifted out of the gray sky. Great white dots that got bigger and bigger, brighter and whiter as they got closer.
For a blessed moment she could hear nothing, feel nothing, taste nothing.
Then her head reeled and white pain exploded inside her brain. Iron flooded her mouth. Her eyes were blinded and dazzled. She wanted to retch, but she couldn’t move.
She’d ridden straight into the branch of a huge cedar. Her vision cleared slowly, dot by dot. She watched suspended from reality as Nat turned back towards her, a look of resigned panic on his face. His mouth moved, but she couldn’t make out what he said over the ringing in her ears.
He bent over her, gently kneading her limbs. His lips moved soundlessly as she waited for the fear to overtake her, to strangle reason and paralyze her with dread. She couldn’t explain the cheated feeling that seeped through her when it didn’t happen.
“Can you hear me?” He squatted on one knee beside her. No longer touching, but carefully watching.
Probably wondering why on earth she hadn’t moved.
Crap.
She held herself very still while she regained her equilibrium. Found herself staring into eyes so blue they looked like you could dive right in.
“I’m okay,” she managed. Her voice came out croaky, like some geriatric smoker. She forced herself up onto her elbows and her stomach recoiled.
Nat leaned back on his haunches and gave her a slow look she couldn’t decipher.
“You ever been anything but okay, Miss Reed?”
Too observant. Too perceptive. Elizabeth swallowed and nodded once, briefly. Tears burned her eyes, but she forced them away. She couldn’t afford to be weak now, couldn’t cope with sympathy. She’d made mistakes and she dealt with them the only way she knew how.
Alone.
Struggling to her feet, she flailed in the deep snow. Nat held out his hand and she hesitated only briefly before reaching out and letting him pull her to her feet. He held her hand in his, gently, but firmly.
Touching him, even with gloves on, was like touching fire. Heat and energy scoured her down to her toes.
Uneasy, she jerked away and felt even more foolish than she had before. She busily swept snow off her clothes. Out of the corner of one eye she watched the cowboy. He stood about a foot away, hat tipped to the back of his head, regarding her critically. He grinned openly when she brushed the snow off her backside.
“You could ride up behind me, you know,” he said, “if you’re not feeling too good.”
She forced a smile. Everything she’d been through, everything she’d suffered over the last few months pressed against her mind and tried to shut down the pretense.
“I’m okay.” The response was automatic and she grimaced.
“Sure, you are.” He pulled his hat forward before turning away to fetch the horses.
And she fought the urge to cry.
Tears did no good.
He stood behind her as she tried to remount Morven. Not touching her, but waiting, as if to catch her if she fell. She could feel his eyes bore into her back and knew he was waiting to give her a leg-up. If only she said the word. If only she asked.
She clamped her lips together. She didn’t want to need anybody. Didn’t want anyone’s help. She especially didn’t want to have Nat Sullivan’s hands on her body reminding her of heaven and hell with one simple touch.
Her head thumped and she felt lightheaded.
On the third attempt she managed to haul herself into the saddle with more luck than grace. Relief shunted through her body with a huff and the smile she gave him was brilliant.
“Made it.”
Nat held Morven’s reins as if judging her competence. She raised her chin a fraction, combated the wooziness by concentrating on the jagged edge of the distant mountains.
“From the depths of hell,” he said finally.
FOUR
Boston, April 3rd
Like a switch being thrown, Marsh figured out Elizabeth had gotten herself a decoy.
He’d captured stills from surveillance footage taken in the days prior to Elizabeth’s disappearance, and run them through in-house image-recognition programs.
Someone had spent a day impersonating Elizabeth in her role as Juliette Morgan, before the decoy too had disappeared. It was simple, but clever. Agent Ward had gained herself twenty-four hours before every mobster from here to San Francisco realized she’d slipped the noose.
Now he had a lead. All he had to do was track down the decoy, Josephine Maxwell.
Sounded easy.
He sat behind his utilitarian wooden desk in his neat and tidy office in his division’s headquarters. Laid out in front of him was everything he needed to know about Josephine Maxwell, except her current whereabouts.
Eighteen years ago, a nine-year-old girl had been knifed in Queens. Badly knifed if the reports were to be believed, and the doctors hadn’t expected the child to live. They’d fingerprinted her routinely—to distinguish hers from those of her attacker on the knife that had pinned her to the ground. And because she was a runaway, her prints had gone into the system.
The phone rang, but he ignored it.
He’d met Josephine once, briefly. Recognized her from the surveillance photos only after he’d put the pieces together. She looked seventeen and acted twelve. She was tall, as Elizabeth was tall, but willow-slim like a wraith. She must have worn body padding under the flashy suit she wore in the photographs. Her lips looked soft and full, the top one larger than the bottom, another subtle difference between the two women.
Breathtaking.
Her eyes held the essence of her beauty. Bright blue, full of mystery. A woman with the face of a princess and the temper of an alley cat. She’d loathed him on sight, not a reaction he usually got from women. He placed both fists carefully on the table and stared at the file.
He was missing something.
From the age of six, Josephine Maxwell had been in the system, removed from an alcoholic father. But every time she was placed in foster care, she bided her time and escaped back to the slums.
Marsh had an address for Josephine’s father but had no idea if he was still there. Sighing, he rubbed his fingers through his short hair. He’d check it out.
The police report from the knife-attack contained a photograph of a thin, hollow-eyed girl. He chewed on the end of a pen as he stared at the photograph. She was an enigma, a sewer rat with the looks of a supermodel and the wits of a street fighter. A beautiful blonde, who was about as far removed from a bimbo as cat food was from truffles.
He brought his mind back to his current problem—how to find Elizabeth. Elizabeth was thorough, smart, and she’d had plenty of time to set things up. She was also as rich as Rockefeller and a creature of habit. She was doggedly loyal to those she cared about and liked having backup plans. They both did.
And she liked to nail the bad guys.
Andrew DeLattio had destroyed the girl he’d known, the girl Marsh had recruited for the FBI and turned into a damn good undercover operative. Unlike OCU’s surveillance, his team would have protected her.
He pressed his fingers to his temples and leaned back in his chair. Marsh would only find Elizabeth if she wanted him to. Josephine Maxwell, however, was another matter.
***
“We gonna lose her?” Cal asked.
“Not if I can help it.” Nat’s teeth were clenched so hard the words escaped in a hiss. He knelt in fresh hay next to a chestnut mare. Hands resting on her heaving flank, he tried to soothe her with gentle words of encouragement. The foal was breech. If he stretched his hand far enough inside the mare, he could just feel tiny hocks. A rare event in equine labor but not insurmountable.
But that wasn’t the real problem. The real problem was that Banner, the ten
-year-old Arab brood mare, was exhausted. She’d labored hard for close to sixteen hours and the foal hadn’t moved more than an inch. Nat had watched her from outside the loosebox for most of the day. Things had started okay, but as time crept on, he’d realized the mare was in trouble.
The lights were dimmed. A strip-light further up the center aisle of the stable block cast strong shadows.
Nat needed this foal. His fist curled over sweating palms as the mare bore down with another contraction. His pulse-rate accelerated until it was an unremitting roar in his ears. He needed this foal to live. He needed something to hope for.
When it had become obvious they were in for another freezing cold night in Montana, he’d turned on the heat. Spring hadn’t sprung in the Treasure State yet. He just prayed the utility company didn’t cut them off. They had a backup generator in the root cellar, but that only supplied the main house.
Most of their horses were kept in the horse-barn next door, but nursing and pregnant mares were cosseted here, in separate boxes with individual feeding regimes. The stable block was smaller than the horse-barn, built on concrete foundations that were easy to clean and maintain. Each of the twelve loose-boxes were floored with fresh hay and foam mats, more comfortable for the mares to stand on, they could be hosed down after mucking out.
Five years ago, it had been state-of-the-art.
His father had been building up the brood-stock and getting the facilities ready to turn the Triple H into a stud farm. It had been a dream they’d all shared. Now Jake Sullivan was dead and his medical bills had wiped out their finances. Paint peeled off the walls, the foam mats were ragged around the edges and the woodwork was in dire need of a coat of varnish. But there was no money for the little things.
“Veterinarian coming?” Cal stroked the mare’s sleek cheek, looked at Nat with sharp hazel eyes that had seen too much. Cal was more than just a hired hand; he and Nat had been friends since they were boys, through thick and thin.
Nat snorted. “Vet said he was pretty busy.”
Cal cursed a blue streak. Nat compressed his mouth into a thin line as he reined in his own temper. He’d phoned the vet five times and got nothing but the damned answering machine. It couldn’t be a coincidence. The vet wasn’t a local man. He was a newcomer from LA who’d just bought the practice in town. He had a penchant for shiny toys. Toys like the silver BMW Troy Strange had reputedly given him as a ‘thank you’ for saving his golden Labrador after it had chased a lone wolf up into the foothills. Damn dog was too stupid to live, but somehow the vet had saved it.
Crimes of Passion Page 34