The Lawman's Last Stand

by Vickie Taylor

  “Then try again.” He straightened her elbows. “Now squeeze,” he said. “Gently.”

  Her body jerked as she fingered the trigger.

  “You’ve got to relax,” he said. “You’re way too tense.”

  She tried again, but did no better. Her face was drawn, her cheeks pale.

  “What are you thinking about when you fire?”

  Her eyes grew round. Her lips quivered. “I—I can’t help it.” She lowered the gun, desperation swimming in her liquid eyes. “I see Uncle Ben, when he gets shot.”

  Shane’s gut twisted. He took a step back. “Uncle Ben? One of the men you saw murdered was your uncle?”

  “No. Not really. Just a friend of the family. But he liked for me to call him Uncle.”

  He exhaled a long breath. An uncle, but not by blood. Still, it must have been devastating to watch someone she cared for die. No wonder she didn’t like guns.

  Dammit, what was he doing teaching her to shoot? She was a veterinarian. She mended little animals and wayward DEA agents. She was a healer, not a killer. Suddenly he didn’t ever want to see a gun in her hands again.

  “That’s enough for today,” he said.

  She grabbed his elbow. “No!”

  He turned, curious. She’d set her jaw in a stubborn jut. “I have to learn to do this.”

  “Not today, you don’t.”

  He took a step away.

  “If you won’t help me then I’ll figure it out on my own.” She lifted the weapon and pulled the trigger again, as roughly as before.

  He should leave. Walk away from her while he still could.

  As if distance mattered. No matter how far away from her he got, she’d be with him, in his mind. He’d look at the wispy clouds and be reminded of the fine tendril curls at the edges of her face. A bird would call its mate and he’d imagine her singing his name. She’d bored her way into his body somewhere south of his brain, and he couldn’t get her out.

  He paused, unsure what to do next. He’d like to think, in typical male hormonal fashion, that she’d never need to defend herself, or him. That he’d always be there to protect her. But realistically, he knew better.

  Eight years in the DEA had taught him that in the end, survival came down to one thing: kill or be killed.

  Gigi deserved a chance to live.

  Steeling himself against the unpleasantness, he stepped up close behind Gigi. So close that he felt her heart thunder against his chest and the tightening of her buttocks against his groin.

  “Do you really want to learn?” he asked with his hand wrapped loosely around her middle, holding her to him.

  “Yes.”

  “Then relax.”

  He felt her shoulders loosen, no more.

  “Relax,” he soothed, splaying his hand across her middle and urging her to rest against him.

  Gradually her body molded to his. “Close your eyes.”

  “Is this a new technique?” she asked nervously. “Marksmanship for the blind?”

  “Do you want to learn how to do this or not?”

  She complied and he molded his hands around hers on the gun, feeling the steel warm to her touch.

  He settled her more firmly against him until the back of her thighs rested against the front of his and his hips cradled her bottom. Closing his own eyes against the exploding sensations set off by the friction between them, he circled his arms around her chest and hunched his chin over her shoulder.

  “Now promise me one thing,” he said.

  “What?”

  “You won’t ever pick up this gun unless it’s to defend yourself.”

  “What do you mean? Why?”

  “Don’t ever do it for me,” he said, covering his embarrassing swell of sentimentality with impatience. “I can take care of myself, I don’t want you to try to protect me.”

  “What’s wrong,” she joked nervously, turning her head so that her cheek bumped his chin. “Afraid I’ll miss and hit you instead?”

  “No. I’m afraid you won’t miss and you’ll have to live with killing someone. Now promise.”

  Her pause lasted less than a heartbeat. “No.”

  He let go of her hands, and the gun. “Dammit, Gigi. I don’t want you to kill because of me.”

  “And I don’t want you to die because of me. Can you promise me that you won’t?”

  He couldn’t make that promise, because he would die for her. He would step in front of another bullet or a speeding car or a madman with an ax, whatever it took to keep her safe.

  But that was his job. He was trained for it. Sworn to it.

  In a way, he guessed she was, too. Sworn to preserving life. Even his.

  “Don’t worry,” she whispered. “I don’t plan to kill for you.” She found his hands and guided them back to hers, onto the gun. “At least not tonight.”

  Shane’s breath shuddered in his chest, hearing her use the same words he’d used last night against him.

  He stretched his arms along the length of hers. The outside swell of her breasts brushed his biceps, soft and warm. He focused on the feel of the gun. The target.

  “Clear your mind. Think about something benign. A long stretch of fence. Nothing but desert all around. Feel the quiet, the calm. Picture the beer bottle on one of the fence posts.”

  Her shoulders dropped as her muscles softened.

  “Good. Now breathe in.” He inhaled with her. The scent of plain soap and springtime in the mountains nearly broke his concentration. “Hold it,” he urged, referring to the air in her lungs. “And…squeeze.”

  She curled her finger back smoothly.

  He felt her smile flood her whole body. “Better. Again.”

  They repeated the process three times. “Now open your eyes.” He pointed at the mirror across the room. “Use your reflection as the target.”

  She focused on her “target” and breathed in. Her lungs filled, pressing her more deeply into him. Her finger curled inward.

  He looked over her shoulder and her blue eyes shone back at him from the mirror, serious and compelling. Her closeness suddenly hit him like the concussion from a real gunshot. It blasted him back a step.

  This game was headed into dangerous territory.

  “You’ve just about got it,” he said. He pulled a penny from his pocket and set it on top of the square barrel, centered over the sighting channel.

  She looked at him curiously.

  “Keep practicing,” he said. “Until you can fire five times in a row without the penny falling off.”

  With that, he wheeled and walked away. On his way out the door he glanced over his shoulder and paused. “Gutsy,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Five-letter word for courageous.” He nodded toward the forgotten crossword puzzle. “Ends in y.”

  She nodded, and he closed the door behind him. He walked away, followed by the steady click, click, click of someone pulling the trigger of an unloaded gun.

  It was Wednesday night, and the prospect of spending another night in the same bed as Gigi without touching her was enough to give Shane the sweats. They’d settled into a comfortable companionship the past couple of days. Too comfortable. Keeping his distance was getting harder and harder.

  But she still didn’t trust him. She refused to talk about New York or the murder or her life before it had been turned upside down. Every time he turned the conversation toward anything she found remotely threatening, she shut down.

  He could find out what he needed to know, if he chose. Run her description and the few facts he had through NCIC and the New York police databases.

  But if he made those phone calls, he could tip off the original leak. And besides, he’d promised Gigi he wouldn’t. He never would have made that promise if he’d known he’d be strung out this long waiting for Margo to get back.

  But he had made it, and he wouldn’t break it.

  Unfortunately, that meant putting his libido on hold. No matter how attractive he found her. No m
atter how appealing her wit, her intelligence, her ever present energy, he couldn’t get any closer to her without knowing who she really was. He didn’t dare.

  So he’d retreated outside. Again.

  He sat on the landscape timber embankment behind La Casa’s pool shed with a fine sheen of sweat pasting his shirt to his back and tried to figure out how to get through one more day.

  One more night.

  Something knocked against the wood on the other side of the pool shed and Shane’s hand automatically rounded his back. His gun was in his hand before he caught a flash of black-and-white spots and heard the muffled whine.

  Drawing in a breath to restart his heart, he shoved the pistol back into his jeans.

  It was just the dog, the mutt someone had abandoned here.

  The pitiful creature was living under the pool shed. Shane had seen him the first time he’d come out to check the grounds. The dog wouldn’t come out from under the building, but crawled to the edge, so that his crusty nose and dirty paws stuck out. He stared at him warily from there, not retreating, but not coming any closer, as if he’d not quite judged him friend or foe yet.

  That first day, Shane had sat quietly and talked to the dog. Since then, he’d made it a point to bring along a treat on his rounds—some scrap of junk food he’d purposely leave unfinished.

  In the beginning, he’d dropped the food near the edge of the shed and kept walking. Later, he’d set the food a few feet out and stopped to rest, watching for the poor thing to creep out of its hiding place, grab the morsel and run.

  By the second day, the dog—Shane called him Oliver, after Oliver Twist, begging for his gruel—ventured within a few inches of Shane’s foot to take his treat.

  Slowly, Shane pulled the pièce de résistance from his pocket—a quarter of a greasy cheeseburger he’d saved from the lunch he’d picked up at a joint down the road.

  “C’mon Oliver,” he called softly. “Good stuff tonight.”

  He heard the thumping again, and recognized it as the dog’s tail whacking the underside of the building. Gradually the dog’s black-and-white-and-brown—the brown was mostly dirt, and maybe a little dried blood—coat appeared. The mutt slunk toward Shane, his belly close to the ground and his tail tucked.

  Shane tore the burger into pieces and offered him a bite. Within inches of Shane’s hand the dog stopped and sniffed. He let loose a frustrated whine, dropping his nose to the ground. His eyes were dull and pleading.

  “Not this time. You want it, you have to come and get it.”

  The dog stretched his neck forward, pulled back, stretched forward again, snatched the burger, jumped back and swallowed the bite whole.

  Shane grinned in victory. “Gotcha!”

  They repeated the process three times. When the burger was gone, Shane wiped his hands on his jeans, then patted the dog’s fuzzy head. “I bet you’d tell me your name if you were able,” he said, thinking about Gigi. “Wouldn’t you?”

  The dog looked on, hopeful.

  “Sorry fella, no more treats. I’ve got another lost soul’s trust to earn. And I don’t think she’s going to fall for the hamburger trick.”

  Shane strode back to the hotel room, whistling, then stopped short outside the door to their room, instantly on alert. The curtains at the front window were pulled back. He hadn’t left them like that—the opening gave anyone who passed a clear view into the room. Changing his angle a few degrees, he could see Gigi in the middle of the room, her revolver extended in front of her, her brow furrowed in concentration.

  The warm night air suddenly chilled.

  He reached for his own weapon, moving closer to the door, balanced on the balls of his feet. Ready.

  He checked Gigi’s position again to be sure he wouldn’t hit her by mistake if it came to a firefight.

  Then he stopped, lowering his gun as the muscles of his arms suddenly turned to rubber.

  Her eyes were closed.

  Fascinated, he watched her through the window like some Peeping Tom. Her chest rose in an even breath, stretching the knit of her ribbed tank top. Shane couldn’t hear any sounds, but her lips formed an unmistakable shape as she pulled the trigger over and over. “Bam. Bam. Bam,” she was saying to herself.

  The penny sat rock steady on the barrel of the gun.

  She was practicing.

  Shane’s mouth went dry. He hated seeing a gun in her hands, but damn. The woman had verve! When she decided to do something, she tackled the task with the tenacity of a beaver with his sights on a hundred-year-old sequoia.

  And she had good hands, as he’d known she would. She guided the trigger back flawlessly again and again, the barrel of the pistol never wavering. His pulse pushed blood to his sex with every stroke.

  He wanted her. He wanted that concentration on him. Then he wanted to break that single-minded focus, driving her mad until she couldn’t think of anything but the sensations he created within her. For her.

  But before he took her body, he wanted her mind. He wanted her trust.

  Unclenching his fists, he took a cleansing breath and wiped the carnal images from his mind. Raising a knuckle, he rapped on the door. “Everything’s okay. Let me in.”

  A second later the door swung open. Gigi stood aside, her face slightly flushed and her eyes gleaming with excitement.

  She closed the door behind him and threw the dead bolt. “Watch,” she said.

  She raised her pistol and carefully placed the penny on the barrel. Then she faced her own image in the mirror. After she’d fired five perfect, imaginary shots, she flicked the barrel of the pistol up, and caught the penny in midair in her fist.

  She turned to him, her eyes shining. “I think I’ve got the hang of it.”

  He closed his hand over the barrel of the gun, set it aside on the night table, and then, forcing a liquidity he didn’t feel into his limbs, stretched out on the bed, propping his hands behind his head. “So I see.”

  “I want to try it for real. With bullets.”

  “I doubt the motel manager would appreciate that.”

  She laughed. “Someday maybe we can get to a range.”

  He lifted a shoulder noncommittally. “Maybe.” He picked up the cards from the table by the bed. “In the meantime, how about practicing a different kind of dexterity? Care for a game of chance?”

  She eyed him suspiciously, excitement still pink on her cheeks. “I don’t think I want to play games with you, Shane Hightower.”

  “That’s too bad,” he said, letting a hint of dark desire slip through in his voice, “because I can think of lots of games I want to play with you.”

  He had her hooked; he could see it glinting in her eyes. “What’s the matter? Afraid I’ll take advantage of you?”

  She angled her chin, gave him that aloof look of hers. “I’m not the type that’s easily taken advantage of,” she said.

  “All the better.” He dealt the cards out in two piles, one in front of himself and one at the other end of the bed. “I do like a good challenge.”

  She lowered herself gingerly to the bed and picked up her set of cards. “What are we playing, gin rummy?”

  “Poker.”

  She glanced at the cache of cash tucked under the edge of the bed. “Planning to make off with my money?”

  “I don’t want your money.”

  “Then what are the stakes?”

  He fanned out the cards in his hand and studied them seriously, then looked up at her. “What do you say we play for something a little more…revealing?” He purposely misled her by raking a hot gaze over her body.

  She flushed, taking the bait. “I haven’t played strip poker since I was seventeen,” she said. “And I certainly don’t intend to play it now.”

  “Who said anything about stripping?” he asked innocently.

  “Then what did you have in mind?”

  “Ante is one honest answer to any question asked.”

  She considered a moment. “And what do I get if
I win?”

  “The same, of course.”

  “Humph. Hardly fair.”

  “Oh, come on,” he said smoothly. “Don’t tell me you’re not the least bit curious about me.”

  “So what if I am?”

  “Play a hand. You win, anything you want to know is fair game.”

  She spread her cards and glanced down. “Anything?”

  “Anything.”

  “One rule. Nothing about the case. Deal?”

  “Deal.”

  “You’re going to regret this.”

  Her eyes blazed with merriment. Just seeing that expression made anything he had to give up worthwhile. “Not a chance.”

  He was already making up the questions in his head. Categorizing, ordering and scripting, like he would any interrogation.

  Now all he had to do was win.

  Chapter 6

  Shane sized up Gigi over the top of his cards. She was nibbling her lower lip again—a good sign, he hoped.

  She tapped the back of her cards with one fingertip. “Why were you outside so long tonight?”

  “You want to ask a question, you have to win a hand.” He ignored the face she made at him. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

  “Pair of eights.” She slapped her cards down.

  Smiling—but not so broadly as to be misconstrued as gloating—he turned his hand over so she could see. “Pair of kings.”

  Gigi looked like a prisoner—albeit a nonrepentant one—headed for the gallows. “Can’t I take a dare instead?”

  “We’re not playing Truth or Dare.” He looked up sharply. “Just truth.”

  “So, what’s your question?”

  He took his time, thinking it over. A thousand things he’d like to know about her flitted through his mind. Like what kind of music she liked and whether she knew how to dance country-and-western. If she ate Thai food—he’d noticed a take-out place a few blocks away and thought he might pick some up tomorrow, instead of burgers, to cheer her up.

  And then there were the things he shouldn’t even want to know about, but did. Like whether her skin was the same milky gold all over, or if she had tan lines.

  In the end he settled for something safe. He didn’t want to scare her off after just one hand.