by Christa Wick
“I can decrease altitude,” Sutton answered and lowered the drone.
“Not seeing it,” Emerson said.
“Maybe here?” Madigan suggested, her body sliding against Sutton’s as she extended an arm and pointed at a gap between the heavy cover of pine trees. “Looks like something manmade in there, almost box shaped.”
Sutton’s fingers whispered over the controls. “Let me see if I can get another angle on it.”
The gap receded for a while as the drone lifted higher, circled around and dropped lower in a tight opening that let them see the trunks of the pines at the level of their lowest branches.
Gamble whistled. “See it now?”
A soft chorus of “yes” circled Sutton’s ATV as everyone spotted half a dozen or more canvas bundles secured to the trees. Sutton snapped some screenshots and marked the GPS location.
“That’s as close as I can get without risking the drone.”
“Getting close to fifty percent on the battery,” Madigan warned.
Ashley placed her hand on Sutton’s shoulder and offered a grateful squeeze. “Bring it back in. That’s enough for me to get a few more officers out, as well as support from the park’s rangers. We’ll retrieve the packs tomorrow and process them for prints and other trace evidence. Depending on what they contain, we’ll have a good idea of what’s being planned.”
“So we head back?” Walker asked, scanning the group’s faces before landing on Ashley’s.
Joining the others, she nodded her agreement.
“My butt’s vibrating,” Siobhan announced.
Walker spit out a cough while Gamble buried his face in his hands.
“I think she means her phone—but I’m not going in after it,” Emerson chuckled.
“You want me—” Walker’s question was cut off when his own phone rang. He turned it on. “Hey Mama, were you just calling Siobhan?”
His head bobbed in his cousin’s direction. “About ninety minutes. Yep, I’ll ask.”
Tilting the phone away from his mouth, he nodded at everyone. “It was a good day fishing with Honey Bee. Mama’s got twenty trout prepped to freeze or cook. Raise your hand if you want to finish the day with something hot, fresh from the lake and home cooked.”
“Me,” Siobhan announced, her hands remaining wrapped around the tablet as Sutton piloted the drone.
“Yep,” Sutton answered, lifting just a finger.
Madigan and Emerson exchanged looks. When he nodded, they both raised their hands.
“Any day Lindy Turk invites me to her table is a good day,” Gamble laughed.
Walker’s gaze landed on Ashley. Before she could frame her excuse for heading back to Billings as soon as possible, he lifted the phone and answered for all of them.
“Seven hungry souls, Mama. Need me to pick up anything? Okay, let me know if you change your mind. Love you, too.”
Ashley forced her gaze to the camera display, uncertain how she felt about Walker deciding for her. Not like his decision was binding. She could still head back to her mostly unfurnished apartment and eat a bowl of cereal while standing over the sink.
“Alright,” Sutton said, his gaze leaving the tablet as the drone came into view over the treetops and he could pilot without the camera. “Just need to get this landed and packed up.”
“Can I power this down?” Siobhan asked, jiggling the tablet at him.
Sutton nodded. She returned the device to her backpack.
“That’s a pretty cool toy,” she said.
“Don’t need a certification from the Federal Aviation Administration to pilot toys,” Sutton scowled. “You could have walked around for a week and never spotted those packs. Toys don’t keep you from wasting time.”
Siobhan blew a raspberry at her cousin then climbed onto the back of Walker’s ATV.
“It’ll be even handier when my thermal camera comes in.”
“Good for search and rescue,” Madigan agreed, returning to her ATV. “Too loud for surveillance.”
Catching Ashley’s gaze, she nodded at the driver seat.
“Trade positions?”
“Sounds good.” Ashley swung her left leg over the seat and pulled the helmet on just as the drone landed.
Walker carried the craft to Sutton. Once Sutton had it strapped in, all the drivers started their engines and rode back to the trailer and vehicles. After Madigan jumped off the back of the ATV, Walker guided Ashley into driving it up the ramp. Together, they lashed the four-wheeler in place and put the trailer’s gate up.
“I figured you would want to get the image downloads from Sutton before you contacted your boss…might as well get some food in you at the same time.”
Vibrating right along with the low rumble of his voice, Ashley wondered if that really was the sum total of Walker’s reasoning. Was she projecting feelings she’d rather not have onto him?
“Don’t know if you planned on heading back to Billings,” he continued, his voice dropping low enough to circle around her hips. “But Mama said you’re welcome to stay. There’s a washing machine and dryer right off the kitchen. Plenty of toiletries.”
Ashley didn’t answer right away even though staying would shave off three hours of driving between returning to Billings for the night and returning to the park in the morning. Not to mention, once she was home, she’d have to stay up to deal with her uniform.
“Plenty of ice packs, too,” he added with a discreet glance at her leg.
Ashley pulled out the keys to her Jeep and gave them a twirl. The last thing her career needed was romantic gossip swirling around her. She had grown up in a big city, but she knew well enough how small towns worked. A guy like Walker would be one of Willow Gap’s most eligible bachelors. Until he married some lucky woman, rumors would spring up whenever he seemed too friendly with a female, especially a chunky federal agent.
“No need to decide out here,” he said, waving goodbye to Emerson and Madigan as they headed toward the main house in their government sedan.
“Right,” Ashley agreed with a grateful smile. “I can’t promise anything until I talk with Moske.”
Chapter Seven
Standing in the hall outside his older brother’s office, Walker tried not to eavesdrop on Ashley’s conversation with her supervisor. With the door closed, he shouldn’t hear anything, but the conversation appeared to be heated.
Hearing the phone slam down, he slowly counted to ten then knocked.
“Come in,” she growled.
He opened the door to find her cheeks flushed, a soft glow of perspiration telling him she was more than a little hot under the collar after her conversation with Phil Moske.
Just like everything else about Ashley Callahan, even her sweat was sexy. He just wished he was the one making her shine like that.
“Sorry if I just snapped,” she said, a tremor running through her shoulders. “Moske won’t let me go out at first light—says he’ll coordinate with the rangers about going in with me and I don’t get any other service agents yet.”
Slamming the lid on her laptop, she shook her head.
“And the lab didn’t come up with anything from the samples I took at the fox den. I need to take the carcass back to Billings.”
He nodded. “No harm getting something to eat before you go, right?”
She looked at him, the gray gaze sharpening for a second before she took a deep breath and practically drooled on Adler’s desk.
“It really smelled good…great, actually. I swear I can still smell it.”
Walker tilted his head toward the hall. “I’ll show you the shortcut.”
Grinning, Ashley stood and shoved her laptop in its case. He moved toward the door as she took her first step away from the office chair.
“Whoa,” he shouted, seeing all the blood drain from her face.
Without a word, Ashley started to fold. Walker jumped forward, catching her under the arms and lifting. He turned to deposit her on the couch. She cried out as he
twisted.
“What should I do?” he asked, worried that the next move would hurt her even more.
“Just give me a second,” she wheezed, her arms wrapped around his neck and her weight fully shifted to her right leg.
Hyperventilating, her chest pushed a hard, fast rhythm against Walker’s. His hands pressed at her back, one low down, the other centered between her shoulder blades to help her stay balanced on the one leg.
“You can’t drive to Billings tonight,” he warned. “You need that leg seen to.”
She shook her head. “Moske was adamant and I’ve only been working with him a couple of months. If I say I can’t because of my leg, I’ll be riding a desk until a medical review clears me—or kicks me out of the service.”
“Fine,” he snorted. “But first I’m getting you over to the couch and fetching you some food and a fresh ice pack. Can you move?”
He hoped to high heaven she could. Holding her like he was produced uncomfortable effects. He was breathing almost as fast as Ashley and his heart wanted to rip through his chest. It wasn’t the strain of holding her up. He had a man’s muscles, not some metrosexual’s. It was worry twisting him up inside.
“Yes.” Gripping his shoulder with one hand and the back of a visitor’s chair with the other, Ashley made it to the love seat against the wall and sat down. She looked up at him, eyes shimmering with pain. “Thank you.”
A small grin began to crack at the edge of her mouth.
“You know, I thought you were a bit of a jerk at first…when you almost dropped a tree on me.”
He smiled back. “It was a less-than-auspicious first meeting.”
“I’ll say.”
When she looked at him like that, her face lighting up as humor pushed the pain into the background, he wanted to pull her hair down, knot his fingers in it and kiss her until she said to hell with getting back to Billings and stayed with him.
Instead, he took a rough swallow and nodded at the hall.
“Back in three minutes…three-point-five if I have to fight Siobhan for any fish or cornbread.”
Walker left the room in quick, long strides, eager to get back to Ashley. Having an idea as he grabbed a plate in the kitchen and began to load it up with food, he pulled out his phone and typed in a quick text message. He hit send, grabbed a drink and an ice pack and made his excuses to his mother and the rest of the day’s riders.
“Here,” he said, returning to the office and pulling a side table over to the love seat.
Ashley glanced at her watch. “Looks like Siobhan was amenable because that was two minutes and fifty-two seconds.”
Walker waited until she took her first bite and needed to chew it.
“I had an idea, so hear me out.”
The smoky gray gaze darkened with suspicion, but she nodded.
“I know I can’t drive your Jeep.”
She rolled her eyes in confirmation.
“But you really can’t either, it’s a stick shift and it’s not safe for you or anyone you pass on the road.”
Closing her eyes, she nodded again. It had come up that Walker’s mother was a widow, which led to talk of the wreck that had taken his father and sister’s life. He appreciated how she had the innate decency not to argue with him on whether it was safe for her to drive.
“But I figure,” he continued. “that it’s okay to put the Jeep up on a hauler. I’ll drive you, the fox and your vehicle to Billings tonight.”
Ashley swallowed as he finished. The food must have gone down wrong because she started to cough. She took a sip of lemonade, but that didn’t help. Perching on the arm of the love seat, he patted her on the back until the harsh barking ceased.
His hand lingered in case the coughing fit wasn’t over. Fingers resting lightly near the base of her neck, his palm soaked up the heat that poured from the small depression between Ashley’s shoulder blades.
She put the food and drink aside, the muscles around her eyes stretching her gaze wide as she looked up at him, the lush bottom lip beginning to tremble.
“Why?” she rasped.
Forcing a sudden lump back down his throat, Walker shrugged. “Because I almost dropped a tree on you.”
Ashley shook her head. She wasn’t buying his lie. Maybe it was time to tell her the truth.
Or at least show it to her.
Wrapping one hand along the curve of Ashley’s jaw, Walker sighed and lowered his mouth to hers. He didn’t know which scared him more—the idea that Ashley might take offense or that she would kiss him back.
She kissed him back.
She really, really kissed him back, her fingers curling around the front of his shirt and pulling him onto the love seat, his body crammed into the space between her and the armrest because she couldn’t move with her injured leg.
Ashley returned the kiss with her lips parting and her head tilting back, her warm fingertips skimming up to trace the sensitive flesh of his Adam’s apple before they threaded and locked behind his neck. She kissed him with her chest taking up a new rhythm of short, desperate breaths that molded their bodies closer together each time she inhaled.
Regaining control, Walker bit softly at her lip before moving to her chin. He murmured sweet nothings in the shape of faint coos from the back of his throat.
Slowly, the heat and urgency faded. He didn’t want it to fade, but it had to. There wasn’t anything they could do then and there, Ashley’s leg injured and them sitting on his brother’s couch, two doors down from where his niece had her playroom.
“I guess we have that figured out,” he whispered against her neck.
She laughed, the sound low but a little harsh. “Really? Because I’m more confused than ever.”
“You know I want you,” he answered.
“Do I?”
“Ash,” he rasped, pressing a gentle kiss at the corner of her jaw. “I’m not stopping because I want to. You’re hurting and you’ve got to be bordering on exhaustion. When we kiss like that again, I want to know you’ve got a clear head. I want us to be where we can act on our passion.”
She squirmed but didn’t pull away.
“You telling me you’re clearheaded right now?”
Walker chuckled. She had a point. The way his body was responding, his hormones had to be in a riot. He could barely see straight, his head all dizzied up from kissing Ashley.
“The only thing I’m clear headed on,” he answered, “is that I want to do everything right with you. That means getting you safely back to Billings and your leg mended enough you don’t want to pass out the next time you put weight on it.”
Sighing, she buried her face against his chest.
Chapter Eight
Sitting in the back seat of a quad cab truck outside her apartment, Ashley watched as her Jeep backed into a parking space. The anxious buzz swarming inside her head from the moment the vehicle was loaded onto a hauler at the ranch finally receded, then vanished completely as her gaze lingered over Walker’s long, supple frame unfolding from the Jeep. Moving toward the truck, he passed beneath the security lights, looking dangerous with the collar on his jacket flipped up against the wind, the shadows deepening the strong lines of his face.
Remembering how she had kissed him in at the ranch, Ashley’s cheeks grew hot and sore as she fought down a schoolgirl’s grin.
Finished securing the hauler’s tie downs, Royce Hammond jumped into the front passenger seat. Staring at Walker had erased the stable manager’s presence. Memory refreshed, Ashley jerked, her legs and torso protectively moving toward one another. The pain was instant, but more like someone sticking sewing needles into the injured leg than the hot slice of a butcher’s knife that made her collapse into Walker’s arms at the ranch house.
She drew a silent breath and waited until she could talk without groaning or wincing in discomfort.
Breathe in, breathe out, smile...
Ashley threaded her hand between the two front seats.
“Thank you
for the assist today.”
Taking a moment to stifle a yawn, Royce nodded then shook her hand.
“Don’t get much use out of the hauler this time of year,” he answered. “Good to stay in practice.”
“You know,” she chuckled. “Every local I run into in Montana makes it sound like I’m doing them a favor when they’re the ones helping me.”
Looking over his shoulder, Royce cracked a smile.
“I guess I never looked at it that way. Just how people do things around Willow Gap.”
Catching Walker’s approach from the corner of her eye, Ashley opened her door then carefully swiveled to get her left leg out over the big truck’s rail step. Getting into the cab had been murder, but, no matter how good a kisser Walker Turk was, she wasn’t about to be lifted up into the truck in front of two FBI agents, one local sheriff and a deputy trainee.
Standing straight, he held his arm out as a brace. She gripped it, her other hand holding onto the frame of the door, and put her left foot down first.
A ragged puff of air escaped her, but she didn’t cry out or start to fold to the ground. Hopefully, by morning, she would be back to nothing worse than a limp.
Walker waited until Ashley stepped to the side of the truck before he reached in and grabbed her bags.
“Back in a few minutes,” he told Royce.
Ashley had already invited both men into the apartment before they hit the road for the return drive, but Royce had passed up the offer after a glance at his watch.
While good manners dictated Ashley extend the offer, she was glad Royce had declined. She wanted a minute alone with Walker.
She unlocked the apartment door and entered, turning the lights on with a quick flip of the switch. Without checking to see if Walker followed her in, she made straight for the freezer and a large bag of frozen peas.
Walker chuckled. “Daddy always said they were cheaper than ice packs.”
“They stay cold about as long, too,” she replied.
He wiggled his shoulders, her laptop bag and field case swinging lightly.