“Then he would’ve asked for another raise next year.”
“Which he would have deserved. Frankly, Mr. Whitlow, I don’t know where I’m going to find another stable hand like Rafe. He was a good man. He was reliable and intelligent and—”
“He was obviously overqualified. I wish him luck at his next endeavor. We don’t need to hire rocket scientists, for God’s sake. And how reliable do you need a man to be, to shovel—”
“Mucking out the stalls is only a small part of the job description,” Becca countered hotly. She took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down again. She’d never won a shouting match with her boss, and she wasn’t likely to start winning that way now. “Mr. Whitlow, I don’t know how you expect the Lazy Eight to gain the reputation of being a high-class dude ranch if you insist on paying your staff slave wages.”
“Slave wages for slave labor,” Whitlow commented.
“My point exactly,” Becca said, but he just blew cigarette smoke out the window.
“Don’t forget about that opera thing in Santa Fe next week,” he commanded as, with a soft buzz, his window began to shut. “I’m counting on you to be there. And for heaven’s sake, dress like a woman. None of those pantsuits that you wore last time.”
“Mr. Whitlow—”
But the window closed tightly. She had been dismissed. Silver sidled to the right as the limo pulled away and Becca swore pungently.
Slave wages for slave labor, indeed. Except Whitlow had it wrong. He believed he was paying his staff low wages for low-priority, bottom-of-the-barrel, physical-labor jobs. But the truth was, without those jobs done and done well, the entire ranch suffered. And if the owner insisted on paying low, the quality of work he’d get in return would also be low. Or the workers would leave—like Rafe McKinnon had, and Tom Morgan last week, and Bob Sharp earlier in the month.
It seemed all Becca did these days was office work. Far too often, she found herself sitting inside, behind her desk, doing phone interviews to fill all-too-frequently-vacated staff positions.
She’d taken this job at the Lazy Eight Ranch because it was an opportunity to use her management skills and put in most of her hours out-of-doors.
She loved riding, loved the hot New Mexico sun, loved the way the storm clouds raced across the plains, loved the reds and browns and muted greens of the mountains. She loved the Lazy Eight Ranch.
But working for Justin Whitlow was the pits. And who said a woman couldn’t look feminine in a pair of pants, anyway? What did he expect her to wear to schmooze with his friends and business associates? Something extremely low-cut, with sequins? As if she could even afford such a thing on her pitiful salary.
Yes, she loved it here, but if things didn’t change, it was only a matter of time before she walked, too.
The night was moonless, but he lay quietly on his stomach, taking the time for his eyes to get fully used to the dark again, and in particular the dark here, just inside of the high-security fence.
He breathed with the sounds of the night—crickets and bullfrogs and the trees whispering overhead in the gentle wind.
He could see the house on the hill, and he silently crept closer on his knees and elbows, staying low, staying invisible.
He stopped, smelling the cigarette before he saw the red glow of light. The man was alone. Far enough away from the house.
He silently lifted his rifle, double-checking it before he sighted along the sniper’s scope. He brought the night-vision setting up a notch so he could really look at the target. And the man with the cigarette was the target. Not the gardener out for a late-night stroll. Not the chef hunting for the perfect variety of wild mushrooms. No, he recognized this man’s face from the photos he’d seen. He gently squeezed the trigger and…
Boom.
The muffled sound of the gunshot still managed to pierce his eardrums, set his teeth on edge, stab through his brain.
Eyes wide open, he sat up, instantly aware that he’d been dreaming. The only noise in the dimly lit room was his ragged breathing.
But the room was unfamiliar, and he felt a new wave of panic. Where in hell was he now?
Wherever it was, it was a far cry from the church shelter he’d woken up in yesterday morning.
His gaze swept across the impersonal furnishings, the cheesy oil paintings on the wall, and it came to him. Motel room. Yes, he’d checked in to this place yesterday morning, after leaving the shelter. His head had been pounding, and he’d wanted only to fall into bed and sleep.
He’d paid in cash and signed the registration M. Man.
Heavy curtains were pulled across the windows, letting in only a tiny sliver of bright morning light. Hands still shaking from his dream, he pushed the covers off, aware that the sheets were soaked with his own sweat. His head still felt tender, but no longer as if the slightest movement would make him want to scream.
He could remember, almost word for word, the brief conversation he’d had with the man at the motel’s front desk. He remembered the aromatic smell of coffee in the motel lobby. He remembered the clerk’s name—Ron—worn on a badge on his chest. He remembered how endlessly long it had taken Ron to find the key to room 246. He remembered pulling himself up the stairs, one step at a time, driven by the knowledge that soothing darkness and a soft bed were within reach.
He could remember that dream he’d just had, too, and he didn’t want to think about what it might mean.
He stood up, aware that the movement jarred him only slightly, and crossed to the air conditioner, turning it to a higher setting. The fan motor kicked in with a louder hum, and coolness hit him in a wave of canned air.
Slowly, deliberately, he sat back down on the edge of the bed.
He could remember the shelter. He could see Jarell’s smiling face, hear the sound of his cheerful voice. Hey, Mission Man. Hey, Mish!
He closed his eyes and relaxed his shoulders, waiting for memories of being brought into the shelter, waiting for memories of what had happened that night.
But there was nothing there.
There was only…emptiness. Nothingness. As if before he’d been brought to the First Avenue Shelter, he hadn’t existed.
He could feel a new sheen of perspiration covering his body despite the cooler setting of the air conditioner. He’d slept off whatever had ailed him—whether it was the result of alcohol or some other controlled substance or simply the blow he’d received to his head. In fact, he’d slept solidly for more than twenty-four hours.
So why the hell couldn’t he remember his own damned name?
Hey, Mission Man. Hey, Mish!
He stood up, staggering slightly in his haste to get to the mirror that covered the wall in front of a double set of sinks. He flipped on the light and…
He remembered the face that looked back at him. He remembered it—but only from the bathroom mirror at the shelter. Before that, there was…
Nothing.
“Mish.” He spoke aloud the nickname Jarell had given him. The word sent a small ripple of recognition through him again, as it had yesterday morning. But what kind of name was Mish? Was it possible that he remembered—very faintly—Jarell calling him that when he was first brought into the shelter?
Mish. He gazed into the unfamiliar swirl of green and brown that were his own eyes. What kind of name was Mish? Well, right now, it was the only name he’d got.
Mish splashed cold water on his face, then cupped his hand under the faucet and drank deeply.
What was he supposed to do now? Go to the police?
No, that was out of the question. He couldn’t do that. He wouldn’t be able to explain the .22 and that huge wad of money he was carrying in his boot. He knew—he didn’t know how he knew, but he did—that he couldn’t tell the police, couldn’t tell anyone anything. He couldn’t let anyone know why he was here.
Not that he could have, even if he’d wanted to. He didn’t know why he was here.
So what was he supposed to do?
&n
bsp; Check himself into a hospital? He turned his head, gingerly parting his hair to look at the gash on his head. Without yesterday’s fog of pain clouding his eyes, he knew with a chilling certainty that the wound on his head had been the result of a bullet’s glancing blow. He’d been shot, nearly killed.
No, he couldn’t go to a hospital, either—they’d be forced to report his injury to the police.
He dried his face and hands on a small white towel and went back into the main part of the motel room. His boots were on the floor near the bed, where he’d left them last night. He picked up the right one, dumping its contents onto the rumpled sheets. He turned on the light and sat down, picking up the .22.
It fit perfectly, familiarly into his hand. He couldn’t remember his own name, but somehow he knew he’d be able to use this weapon with deadly accuracy if the need ever arose. This weapon, and any other, as well. He remembered his dream, and he set it back down on the bed.
He pulled the rubber band off the fold of money, and the piece of white paper that was fastened along with it slipped free. It was fax paper; the slippery, shiny kind that was hard to read. He picked it up and angled it toward the light.
“Lazy Eight Ranch,” he read. Again, the name was totally unfamiliar to him. There was an address and directions to some kind of spread up in the northern part of the state. From what he could tell from the directions, it was about four hours outside of Santa Fe. The words were all typed, except for a note scrawled across the bottom in big round handwriting. “Looking forward to meeting you.” It was signed, “Rebecca Keyes.”
Mish opened the bedside-table drawer, looking for a telephone book. But the only thing inside was a Gideons Bible. He picked up the phone and dialed the front desk.
“Yeah, is there a train station or a bus depot in town?” he asked when the desk clerk came on the line.
“Greyhound’s just down the street.”
“Can you give me the phone number?”
He silently repeated the number the clerk gave him, hung up, then dialed the phone.
He was going to Santa Fe.
Chapter 2
Becca was out front, helping Belinda and Dwayne welcome a van load of guests, when she first spotted him.
He would have been very easy to miss—the solitary figure of a man walking slowly along the road. Yet even from this distance, she could tell that he was different. He didn’t have the nonchalant swagger of the cowboys that worked the nearby ranches. He didn’t carry the bags and sacks of crafts and jewelry that many of the local Native Americans took into Santa Fe to sell. He had only one small bag, efficiently tucked under one arm.
He turned into the Lazy Eight’s long drive, as somehow Becca had known he would.
As he drew closer, she could see he wasn’t wearing the Western gear that was the standard outfit of the Southwest. He had on the blue jeans, but he wore a new-looking T-shirt instead of a long-sleeved Western-cut button-down shirt. His arms were deeply tanned, as if he spent quite a bit of time outside.
His black boots weren’t the kind a real cowboy would wear, and he wore a baseball cap instead of a Stetson on his head.
From a distance, he’d looked tall and imposing. Up close, he merely looked imposing. It was odd, really. He had to be at least an inch or so shorter than six feet, and he was slender, almost slight. Yet there was a power about him, a quiet strength that seemed to radiate from him.
It may have been in the set of his shoulders or the angle of his chin. Or it may have been something in his dark eyes that made her want to step back a bit and keep her distance. His gaze swept across the drive, over the van and the luggage and the guests, over the ranch house, over the corral where Silver was waiting impatiently for another chance to stretch his legs, over Belinda and Dwayne, over her. With one quick flick of his eyes, he seemed to take her in, to memorize, appraise, and then dismiss.
Becca tried to look away, but she couldn’t.
He was impossibly, harshly handsome—provided, of course, that a woman went for the dark and dangerous type. His face was slightly weathered, with high cheekbones that even Johnny Depp would’ve been jealous of. His lips were gracefully shaped, if perhaps a shade too thin, too grimly set. His dark hair was longer than she’d first thought, worn fastened back at the nape of his neck. His face was smooth-shaven, but he had a scar on his chin that added to his aura of danger. And those eyes…
Becca watched as he approached Belinda. He spoke softly—too softly for Becca to hear his words—as he drew a piece of paper from his pocket.
Belinda turned and pointed directly at Becca. He turned, too, and once again those eyes were on her, coolly appraising.
He started toward her.
Becca came down the ranch office steps, meeting him halfway, pushing her beatup Stetson further back on her short brown curls. “Can I help you?”
“You’re Rebecca Keyes.” His voice was soft and accentless. His words weren’t a question, but she answered him anyway.
“That’s right.” His eyes weren’t dark brown as she’d first thought. They were hazel—an almost otherworldly mix of green and brown and yellow and blue. She was staring. She knew she was staring, but she couldn’t seem to stop.
“You sent me this fax?”
This time it was a question. Becca forced her gaze away from his face and looked down at the paper he held in his hands. It was indeed fax paper. She recognized the standard directions to the ranch, caught sight of the messy scribble of her handwriting at the bottom. “You must be Casey Parker.”
He repeated the name slowly. “Casey Parker.”
He didn’t look the way he’d sounded during their telephone interview. She’d pictured a larger, older, beefier man. But no matter. She needed a hired hand, and all of his references had checked out.
“Do you have any ID?” Becca asked. She smiled to soften her words and explained. “It has more to do with filling out employee tax forms than verifying that you’re who you say you are.”
He shook his head. “I’m sorry, I don’t. My wallet was stolen night before last. I got into some kind of fight and…”
As if to prove his story, he took off his hat and she could see a long scrape above his right temple, disappearing into his wavy dark hair. He had a bruise on his cheekbone, too. She hadn’t noticed it at first—it was barely discernible underneath the suntanned darkness of his skin.
“I hope you don’t make a habit of getting into fights.”
He smiled. It was just a slight upward curve of his lips, yet it managed to soften his harsh features. “I hope not, too.”
“You’re a week early,” Becca told him, hoping her briskness would counteract the effect his quiet smile and strange words had had on her, “but that’s good, because another hand quit on me yesterday.”
He was silent, just standing there watching her with those eyes that seemed to see everything. For a moment, she was almost convinced he could see back in time, to yesterday morning’s disastrous conversation with Justin Whitlow, and back even further to Rafe McKinnon’s quiet resignation. For a moment, she was almost convinced he could see her anger and her frustration and her defeat.
“You do still want the job…?” she asked, suddenly afraid that he didn’t like what he saw. After all, bad things always came in threes.
He turned, squinting slightly at the blinding blueness of the summer sky. His gaze swept across the valley, and Becca was certain that unlike most people, this man saw, really saw the stark New Mexico countryside. She was sure that with his intense hazel eyes, he could see the terrible, almost painful beauty of the land.
“You own this place?” he asked in his quiet voice.
“I wish.” The words came out automatically and all too heartfelt. As his eyes flicked in her direction, she felt exposed—as if, with those two little words, she’d given too much of herself away.
But he just nodded, his lips curving very slightly in the beginnings of a smile.
“Who does own it?” he ask
ed. “I like to know the name of the man I’m working for.”
“The owner’s name is Justin Whitlow,” Becca told him. “He’s the one who pays your wages. But I’m the boss. You’ll be working for me.”
He nodded again, turning back to gaze out at the vista, but not before she saw a glimmer of amusement in his dark eyes. “I don’t have a problem with that,” he said quietly.
“Some men do.”
“I’m not some men.” He looked back at her again, and Becca knew without a doubt that his words were true. This quiet, slender man with the watchful hazel eyes wasn’t just “some men.”
But exactly what kind of man he was, she didn’t know for sure.
“Hey, babe, long time no see.” Lt. Lucky O’Donlon of U.S. Navy SEAL Team Ten’s Alpha Squad pulled Veronica Catalanotto into his arms and kissed her hello as he came into the kitchen of his captain’s house.
“Luke. Hi. Did Frankie let you in?” Ronnie’s smile was warm and she seemed genuinely glad to see him. And since she was one of the top ten most beautiful, nicest, smartest women he’d ever met, that welcoming smile was going to be good for quite a number of fantasy miles. But then she went and ruined it by smiling exactly the same way at Bobby and Wes, who had come in behind him.
“How was your trip, boys?” she asked in her extremely classy British accent.
Captain Joe Catalanotto’s wife always called the intensely dangerous and highly covert operations that Alpha Squad was sent out on “trips.” As if they’d been away sightseeing or visiting museums.
Wes rolled his eyes. “Oh, man, Ron, we came really close to being cluster—”
Bobby’s size extra-extra-large elbow went solidly into his swim buddy’s side.
“Fine,” Wes said quickly. “It was fine, Ronnie. As always. Thanks for asking, though.”
Veronica wasn’t fooled. Her smile had faded, making her eyes look enormous in her face. “Is everyone all right? I mean, of course I’ve already asked Joe, but I’m not sure he’d even tell me if someone had been hurt.”
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