Undercover in Conard County

by Rachel Lee

  “Lazy hunters,” said someone else.

  Then a bunch of them looked at Kel. “You doing the five-star thing?”

  Kel shook his head. “I’m just getting started. Anybody I guide is going to hunt pretty much the way you do.”

  Well, thought Desi as the crowd dissipated, that had seemed to satisfy at least some of them.

  Except for the guy who had said the high licenses fees were the reason for illegal outfitters. Looking over Kel’s shoulder as she started drinking a second coffee, she saw the guy looking at him. She couldn’t imagine why he was interested but he was the one who’d brought up the illicit operations. Most people didn’t think about them unless they made the news being arrested.

  Odd. But then she shrugged it off. She’d heard a lot of opinions in her life, and a lot of people had said odd things. Matt announced he was headed for the restroom and departed.

  As Desi faced the bar and stared down at her cup, she kept her voice low and said, “I’m going to need Lefty to tell me where that camp is. The north side of Thunder Mountain is a huge area, but it does sound like something I need to check out.”

  “I agree. It’s not impossible, but it seems like a bad time of year to be camping for fun and pleasure. Something about hunting season.”

  She laughed, and glanced at him. He was smiling, and strangely enough that made her feel happy. “I’m going to try to have a word with Lefty, see if he can give me a better location.”

  He surprised her by reaching over to cover her hand with his. “Be careful how you do it. Not every vibe in this bar is friendly.”

  Her eyes widened. “You feel that?”

  “I never ignore it when I do.”

  She looked down at her cup and saucer. “Then maybe I should just ask for a flyover, checking for heat signatures. A camp ought to stand out easily, compared to the animals and small groups of hunters.”

  “Maybe.”

  She eased her hand from beneath his. “We need to go.”

  He nodded but before she could start to slide off her stool, Lefty slipped in beside her, between her and Matt’s stools. “Hey,” he said, and ordered a longneck. As he waited he pushed a small paper coaster to her with an almost invisible flicking movement of one finger. She covered it casually with her hand.

  “Lefty?” she said.

  “I’ve grown up with most of these people,” he said quietly smiling like they were having a casual conversation. “Doesn’t mean I trust them all. My number’s on there if you want to call me.”

  “Thanks.”

  He grabbed his beer, saluted her with the bottle and returned to his corner of the bar.

  “Ready?” Kel asked.

  Desi closed her hand around the small piece of paper, crumpling it in her palm. “As ever. Early meeting.”

  She and Kel were just walking out when Matt returned. “Already?” he said.

  Desi smiled. “I got work in the morning, Matt.”

  “So do I. I’ll stumble through it.” Then he laughed and mounted his stool again as they walked out.

  Chapter 12

  “I guess Lefty was getting some bad vibes, too,” Desi remarked as they drove back to the station.

  “So it would seem. What did he give you?”

  “I’ll look when we get back. I wouldn’t think he’d have been so covert about giving me his phone number.”

  Kel surprised her with a laugh. “Covert. That’s the last thing I expected to see in that bar.”

  She had to laugh, too. “I’m not used to a lot of cloak-and-dagger.”

  “How soon do you think we can get a plane up there to look?”

  “I don’t know. Considering that the camp was mentioned in front of a lot of people, it might move quickly...if your vibes were any indication.”

  “Like you said, Lefty seemed to have them, too. I’d like to know why.”

  She wheeled into the parking lot and brought the vehicle to a halt. She sat for a minute, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel before she finally switched off the ignition and released her seat belt. “Let’s go inside, Kel.”

  The wind hadn’t died any and was batting the truck hard enough to make it rock just a little. Hard enough that when she climbed out she had to lean to keep her footing. The night was no less beautiful, but she decided that mostly clear sky or not, it’d be wise to check the weather forecast tonight rather than wait for morning.

  Upstairs she pulled the coaster out of her pocket and unfolded it on the bar. Kel leaned in to look over her shoulder. “Just a phone number,” he said after a moment. “That’s odd. I expected something else.”

  “Me, too,” she agreed. Man, he was close, and he was making her thoughts scatter like leaves in the wind out there. She turned the paper over and saw what looked like coordinates. “Now, that could be useful.”

  “GPS,” he remarked. “It can either make life easier or make it a hell of a lot harder.”

  “Yeah.” At least he moved away to toss his jacket over the back of a chair, giving her room to breathe. His closeness had made her chest tighten with a miserable combination of fear and hope. She wanted him, but she was terrified of it.

  Leaning over, she picked up the landline phone and punched in Lefty’s number. To her relief, he was out of the bar.

  “Lefty, it’s Desi Jenks. Thanks for the coordinates. They’re for this camp you saw, right?”

  “Close to it,” he answered. “You know the GPS isn’t perfect up there. And they could have already moved. Anyway, as soon as I saw them I didn’t feel right about it. Me and my buddies just avoided it. But it was right below the tree line, fairly good concealment from above. Camouflaged tents, maybe three horses and two dogs. We moved the other way and ran into a couple of tree stands.”

  “Tree stands?”

  “I don’t know many guys who’d haul them up there,” Lefty said. “Especially since game is moving downslope right now.”

  Desi hesitated. “So what were you doing up there?” she asked.

  Lefty laughed. “I go up there and hunt walking downhill. Works for me and besides I like the hiking part of hunting. Always have. But tree stands up there? You’d need someone to drive game toward you. Ballard and I thought they must be city slickers. Then I remembered that bighorn over at Madison’s place. Now, what the hell was one of them doing down so low?”

  Lefty let the question hang and Desi didn’t discuss her speculations with him. “Thanks, Lefty. I’ll get someone to look into it.”

  Before she hung up though, Lefty added something else.

  “Desi? There was a stranger in the bar tonight. We get ’em from time to time, but this one...he kept watching your friend. Thought you should know.”

  “Thanks, Lefty.” She bade him good-night. She looked at Kel. “Lefty says a stranger was watching you.”

  To her surprise, Kel smiled. “Then maybe this plan isn’t a complete bust.”

  She wished she felt as sanguine about it. Of course, Lefty could be wrong.

  Then, opening her laptop, she called up the weather. “Oh, heck,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Snow in the higher elevations overnight. That’s not gonna help an infrared scan from a plane. If the camp has moved, we might not find it without one, even with Lefty’s coordinates. Anyway, the storm’s no help.”

  “Not likely,” he agreed. “One thing for sure, if they haven’t moved yet, they’re not moving tonight or tomorrow, so we can relax.”

  And then he astonished her by moving in and taking her hand. “Sit with me, Desi? Because for some reason this feels like an awfully lonely night.”

  She felt startled, but not unpleasantly so. Part of her wanted to run before anything bad could happen, but an even stronger urge overwhelmed fear. She wante
d to know if sex could be good. All her friends thought so, and more times than she could count, she’d judged herself to be permanently damaged goods because of Joe.

  “I run,” she whispered. “I always run away.”

  “I’m not surprised.” His tone had grown amazingly gentle. “I’m not asking for anything you don’t feel comfortable with. I just want to feel close to someone right now.”

  She struggled to meet his gaze, afraid of what she might see there. Something critical? A heat she wasn’t ready for? “You feel lonely?”

  “Yeah.” He let the word drop into the room. “I rarely felt lonely before. Always surrounded by the people I worked with. Always busy, never a moment... But I feel lonesome tonight.”

  That reached her in ways no sexy words ever could have. She understood loneliness. She surrounded herself with walls of it on purpose. Nobody got too close, not even people she called friends. Always a distance, always feeling like an actor in her own life...except when it came to her job. She’d given her heart completely to her work, and she told herself that was all she needed.

  But sometimes... She let Kel take her hand and lead her to the couch.

  “Just sit with me,” he said. “We can talk. I’d like to hug you, but that’s not required. It’s up to you.”

  She felt a flutter of nervousness, but it struck her suddenly that this man had somehow pierced her defenses. Yes, she might still run, she might go crazy on him and act like he was Joe, but he made her want to take that risk.

  She hesitated a bit, glancing back at the phone, knowing it was just an excuse. It was late and there wasn’t another blessed thing she could do tonight.

  Except test her own boundaries.

  * * *

  When Desi sat beside him on the couch, Kel could feel the tension in her. She was practically humming with it. He was lonely, not a usual state of affairs for him. He wondered if the wind was getting to him, although he’d sat out many stiff winds in his life, and listened to the banshee wails of it. Or maybe going to the bar and feeling like a total outsider. Not that folks had been unfriendly, but it was clear they cared about Desi, they knew her, they felt obliged to keep her informed. Good job as a warden. Good job as a human being.

  He’d known that once. His unit had all been his best friends. His brothers and sisters. He supposed it wasn’t strange that sooner or later he would start missing that camaraderie. But it made him feel even more of an outsider now that he was unsure why his bosses had put him out here.

  Go there, do this was no longer sufficient. He was learning to need reasons, to want the bigger picture.

  There was Desi, too. She had become a constant ache somewhere inside him. He wanted her, but it was more than that. He wanted to be friends, real friends, the kind of friendship welded in fire. Well, that might happen soon enough if that camp on Thunder Mountain turned out to be important.

  Then she spoke, and he was disappointed that she was still thinking about the job.

  “I don’t know how soon I can get an overflight of that side of the mountain. And with the snow...”

  “So we go up there, you and me. We get eyes on it if we can and watch to see what they’re doing.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow,” he agreed.

  “Thanks. I’d rather not ask one of my wardens at the meeting in the morning.”

  He turned his head. “Why?”

  “Because I don’t want them in danger unless I can’t avoid it. They all have people who care about them.”

  It was true, and reminded him yet again of the gulf between him and the rest of the world. “I think you have lots of people who care about you.”

  “Maybe.” Then she shocked the breath out of him. “Do you want me? Sexually, I mean?”

  He’d been propositioned before, but never quite so baldly. Desi apparently didn’t know how to flirt, and there was nothing wrong with that, but he was touched by sorrow over how much she had missed because of one criminal man. “Of course I do. Can’t you tell?” Stupid question, one which he wished he could yank back out of the air.

  “I’m not sure. How can I be sure? I thought, maybe...but I read a guy wrong once.”

  Ah. He raised his arm, wrapping it around her shoulders and drawing her close to his side. She didn’t resist, for which he was grateful. “I’ve been trying not to let it show. I didn’t want to frighten you. Funny thing is, I learned that no means no when I was two years old.”

  “I’ve got a lot of no signs, don’t I?” She almost sighed the words, then let her head fall against his shoulder.

  “Perfectly understandable.”

  “Is it? Maybe I need to get over the past. I usually keep people at a safe emotional distance. Nobody gets really close. But you did, and I don’t even know how. You affect my feelings. I care. So...”

  “So? What so? Caring doesn’t have to lead to sex. Would I like to make love to you? Most certainly. Do I need to in order to remain your friend? Most certainly not. I like you, Desi. I really do. I want to get to know you better. I admire the way you do your job. You have a great many good qualities. I’ve known you a short time, yet I have no doubt you’d have my back if I needed it. Or the back of anyone you know. I prize that. What more do I need from you? Not one damn thing.”

  “Oh, Kel,” she said quietly. “You’re so nice.”

  “No, I’m just honest. I’m not shining you on. I believe in honesty. Which is part of what is killing me about this assignment. But at least I could be honest with you and the sheriff. Still...”

  “That’s different.”

  “Is it?” He gave a short laugh. “I once read that the difference between a dope dealer and a DEA agent is that the agent lies. Now I’m wearing those shoes. I think the purpose is a good one. But I don’t like lying.”

  “I’m sure you don’t. I know I wouldn’t.”

  But he knew he needed to turn this conversation around. She’d made herself so vulnerable by asking him if he wanted her. He’d answered, but he suspected not in a way that would really convince her. If she wanted to be convinced, and he wasn’t sure about that either.

  He tightened his arm around her shoulders until she raised her face, then cupped her cheek with his hand. Her eyes drifted closed. Saying not a word, he ran his thumb over her sweet soft skin, tracing her cheekbone, the shell of her ear...oh, that made a shiver run through her. He felt himself swell a bit in response.

  “Kel?” she whispered.

  “Yeah?”

  “I want to get over this hang-up. Desperately. But what if I freak on you?”

  “Then we’ll deal with it. But somehow, I don’t think you will.”

  Her eyes opened to half-mast. “How can you know?”

  “Because we’ll go slow and you can stop me at any point where you get uneasy. I promise.”

  * * *

  The words were sweet to Desi’s ears. She could stop him if she got frightened. He promised. Even from their short acquaintance, she believed this man did not make promises lightly. But she didn’t know what to say, where to begin. She waited, poised on the cusp of trepidation and longing. Expectation and anxiety. Her whole body seemed to be quivering in anticipation, begging him to touch her, begging herself to let this continue.

  He leaned in and kissed her. A butterfly kiss, the merest brush of lips on hers. Soft and exquisite and it might as well have been a match. Yearning speared hotly along her nerve endings. Hardly aware of it, she twisted toward him, raising her hands to his powerful shoulders.

  But he just kept on kissing her lightly, as if he were in no rush, as if this gentle touch were all he wanted. It was certainly stoking the heat inside her.

  His tongue ran over her lips. She gasped as a new trickle of heat ran through her, and when she gasped his tongue took the invitation and fo
und hers.

  Nothing forceful, nothing demanding, an almost playful caress of his tongue against hers. Astonished with delight, she tried to reciprocate, doing as he did, and felt a surge of triumph when he moaned quietly. But the triumph quickly gave way to confidence as she realized she could do this. She wasn’t afraid, he wasn’t scaring her and this was nothing like Joe.

  Eagerness built in her like a growing storm. He forced nothing on her. Even his embrace was so gentle she knew she could escape if she wanted to. He made her feel safe.

  And in feeling safe, she could let herself soar. Joy and passion, so long forgotten, lifted her on its incredible wings.

  * * *

  Kel sensed the change in her, felt her relax into his embrace, loved it when she started returning his kiss. Life had taught him a great deal of self-control, and he exerted it now even though this woman threatened to topple it completely with her tentative responses, with her welcome. Her need, he realized, was at least as large as his own, but she needed more than great lovemaking. She needed balm for her soul.

  Few moments in his life had been imbued with such importance as this one. Matters of life and death, yes, but this was different, a chance to help someone heal. Hushed awe filled him, even as desire’s fire tried to take over.

  “You’re sweet,” he murmured, trying to stay centered on her and her needs. To hell with his own. He knew what a gift she was giving him. How much trust she was offering. Continuing to caress her check with his thumb, he kissed her again, a gentle exploration of the warm cavern of her mouth. Then he trailed his lips to the side, finding the shell of her ear with his tongue. With each touch, with each breath he exhaled, she shivered again.

  Her hands slipped from his shoulders to his back, as if she were trying to draw him closer. He refused to let her. Too soon. He wanted her to be so far into the experience that she forgot every last smidgeon of fear. He wanted her welcome to be unequivocal.