Texas Lightning

by A Caprice

  Chapter Two

  Chase scrubbed his hand down his face and groaned. The red numbers from the alarm clock in his dark hotel room burned his eyes. Four thirty. Why the hell had he agreed to start work at this ungodly hour?

  Oh, yeah. Because the delectable Ranger Andrea Sellers had suggested it.

  Her appearance had changed a lot in four years, but the fire in her eyes hadn’t dimmed one bit. Nor had her ability to lead him around by the tip of his nose — or a body part much lower. When she had suggested that they get an early start to beat the heat of the sun, he had readily agreed.

  In the darkness of early morning, that decision seemed like a serious lapse in judgment. Groaning, he untangled himself from the bed sheets and stood. Not bothering with a light switch, Chase lifted his hand, palm up, and felt tingles of energy streak down his arm and erupt from his hand, forming a glowing ball of electricity that hovered inches from his skin. With a casual flip to his hand, he tossed the ball up to hang just below the ceiling, the blue orb casting an eerie light throughout the room.

  Andrea, or Andie as her co-workers called her now, wanted to drive around the desert looking for possible new drug routes, so Chase dressed in jeans and a t-shirt instead of his professional wear.

  Pretending to be a Michigan State Police detective was one of the easier undercover roles he’d had since taking a job with the Anagogic Research Council. When he had been recruited to work for the paranormal organization, he’d been a detective for the Detroit P.D. Putting on the badge again didn’t stretch his acting skills and that was a good thing. His talents lay more as a blunt instrument rather than the sharp-edged finesse needed for undercover work.

  He emailed a status report to ARC’s headquarters in Geneva before heading out. Chase was meeting Andie and someone named Sam at a ranger satellite office outside of town.

  He grimaced.

  Sam.

  Chase didn’t like the sound of the name, and knew he would like the man even less. He especially didn’t like the conversation he’d heard when Andie had spoken on the phone across from him yesterday to set up this excursion. The way Andie’s voice had softened, how she gushed to the person on the other end of the line how much she was looking forward to seeing Sam again.

  That she loved him.

  Chase swerved across a lane, barely making his exit. It was a good thing the highway was empty at this time of morning or his distracted ass would have caused an accident. Which would have been Andie’s fault. Sort of.

  He followed the directions on his GPS and made his way to the sub-station he’d agreed to meet Andie at. It stood on a dusty lot of land out in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. Next to the small adobe brick building were several large sheds. The parking lot held a couple of cars and one truck with an attached horse trailer.

  He stepped out into the humid air and stretched. His per diem limited his rental car choices to mid-size vehicles, and his large frame didn’t appreciate being cooped up. One would think an international organization that saved the world from supernatural crime lords would treat its agents better.

  “It’s about time you got here.” The voice behind him had him spinning. He placed his arms on the roof of his car and squinted across the lot. A figure detached itself from the hood of a car and strode toward him.

  Andie entered into a pool of light cast from a streetlamp, her long legs eating up the distance between them. A warm feeling settled low in his gut as he remembered those legs wrapped around his waist. Her frame was lean and toned with subtle curves, but there was no mistaking she was all woman.

  He checked his watch. “I’m only six minutes late.”

  “Seeing as how we’re going to be as busy as a stump-tailed cow in fly time, every minute matters.” She reached the other side of his car and rested her arms on top too. “Grab your hat and let’s get going.”

  Chase locked his car and circled around it to her. “I don’t have a hat.”

  She sighed. “Of course you don’t.” She walked to her car, leaned in the back seat, and pulled out a battered baseball cap. “Here, you can wear this.”

  He took the blue cap and frowned. “The Cowboys? I don’t think so.”

  “Why not? They’re America’s team.” She walked away, ignoring his grumblings. She turned left around the station and headed for one of the outbuildings.

  Chase slapped the cap against his thigh. She had to be a Cowboys fan. He sent a silent apology up to the gods who created the marvel known as the Detroit Lions and followed after her, slipping the cap on his head. It didn’t fit. He took it off and focused on trying to expand the band at the back. “Are we heading to the garage? What are we taking? A jeep or an ATV?”

  Andie cocked her head and shot him a smirk. Her dirty-blonde hair hung loose around her shoulders today and contrasted nicely with her tanned, olive-hued skin. Her strikingly pale blue eyes caught the security light on the outbuilding and sparkled. “We’re going to be going over rough country. A vehicle just won’t cut it.”

  He drew his eyebrows down. “If a vehicle won’t cut it, what…” His voice trailed off as she slid open a wood door, and he caught his first glimpse inside the shed. “Horses.” He couldn’t keep the dismay out of his voice.

  “Oh, good. You recognize them at least. That’s a step in the right direction.” She led him into the building and to an open stall where a tawny colored horse stood, already saddled. Andie approached the beast and scratched its nose.

  “I hate to break it to you, but the last time I rode a horse was in summer camp in high school. I was fifty pounds lighter, and the horse still had a hell of a time carrying me.”

  “I thought of that, Detective.” She stepped back from the horse, and it nickered and shook its head. “I’ll be right back, sweetie,” she said to the animal. To Chase, she said, “Follow me.” They walked down a couple of stalls and then she pointed to the left. “Detective, meet Sam.”

  Chase stepped forward and the animal in the stall came into view around the wall. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” he murmured. The horse, if the mammoth beast still qualified for that moniker, was a dark chocolaty-brown with a white stripe running down its long nose. Its shoulders stood above Andie’s head, and she wasn’t a short woman. Chase looked into its deep brown eyes. “What is it?”

  She rubbed her long fingers along the pink at the bottom of the animal’s nose.

  Chase shifted. She was a very tactile person, he remembered. Always touching things, touching him. He’d thought she’d had magic in those fingers.

  “He is a Shire horse,” Andie said. “He’s strong enough to hold you and a real sweetheart if you’re a nervous rider.”

  “And his name is Sam?” A weight lifted from his shoulders that he didn’t even know he carried. She loved Sam the horse.

  She cocked her head to one side. “Yes.”

  “A Shire horse named Sam…wise?”

  She shot him a delighted grin. “His owner is a former ranger, and a big Tolkien fan. He thinks Samwise is the hero of Lord of the Rings, not Frodo. He lets us use the big guy when needed.” She unlatched the gate and led Sam down the walk and outside. She went back inside and emerged moments later with her normal-sized horse. A white cowboy hat hung off the saddle horn. She plucked it off and slapped it on her head before swinging up onto the animal, as graceful as a dancer.

  She looked down at him as the horse beneath her shifted under its new load. “There’s a raised platform over there if you need help getting on Sam.”

  He looked over to the wooden box she jutted her chin at. His shoulders bunched. Like hell he’d need the kiddie step. He unwrapped the reins and let the stirrups down from where they lay tucked up on the saddle. Gripping the horn with his right hand like Andie had done and digging his left into the horse’s mane at its nape, he jammed his work boot in the iron and heaved his body up. He expected the horse to let out a groan of protest, but Sam stood there placidly and waited for Chase to adjust his
seat.

  Andie walked her horse next to his. “Is the stirrup length all right? Do you want me to make any adjustments?”

  He stood in the stirrups then settled back down. “No, I’m good.”

  “Then let’s head out.”

  She made a clicking sound, and her horse started out to the desert behind the building. Sam automatically fell into step behind them. They rode in silence for most of the early morning, Andie picking a way known only to her, and Chase following her lead. They wended their way down into a canyon, cliff walls rising higher behind them. The light grew brighter, illuminating the dusty landscape. A few cactus plants littered the terrain along with some scraggly looking bushes.

  Mostly it was a bunch of dirt and rocks.

  “So this is Texas, huh?”

  She whipped her head around. “You got something you want to say, city boy?”

  He nudged Sam in the sides and moved the horse next to hers. “I didn’t mean any offense. You have to admit it’s not the prettiest of scenery.”

  “Texas is over two hundred and fifty thousand square miles. This desert just represents one bit of it. And for people who look closely enough, even the desert has its beauty.” She prodded her horse to move faster but Sam kept pace.

  “You took offense.” He sighed. “I told you it wasn’t meant as an insult. It was just a comment.”

  “Be that as it may—”

  “Is it so hard to understand that some people wonder why others would want to settle in such an…unforgiving land?”

  The rigid set to her shoulders relaxed slightly. “It can be a hard land. But as my grandpappy use to say, ‘A whistling woman and a crowing hen never come to a very good end.’”

  A burst of laughter erupted from his mouth. These folksy sayings were an intriguing new aspect to her personality, one that he was beginning to find charming. He didn’t remember her ever mentioning a “grandpappy” in their time together before, but perhaps family relations were best left out of bedroom conversations. “What does that even mean?”

  She nudged up the brim of her hat with her index finger. “It means that you need to be who you are. For some people, this land suits them just fine.”

  Chase could only meet her pale blue gaze for a moment before dropping his eyes. Being true to himself was the reason he hadn’t contacted this woman after their affair four years ago, the reason he had given her a fake number.

  He had just decided to work for ARC and knew that living a life with a secret job wouldn’t be fair to any woman. The Anagogic Research Council might have come out of the shadows a year ago when it was incorporated as a nonprofit foundation researching possible paranormal activity, but that was a bluff to hide its true purpose. The cadre of supernatural operatives on its payroll were still firmly in the closet. The world still didn’t know that people with supernatural powers existed.

  No, any relationships he could have would be limited to women in his sphere, with secret powers of their own. The only problem was that no woman in the past four years had turned his gears a tenth of how much the women riding next to him had.

  He had told himself that what he remembered wasn’t true. That time was inflating his memory of their days together, making her an impossible ideal for other women to compare to.

  Their calves brushed together before Andie took her horse a step away from his. Heat danced up his leg at the contact, and he shifted in the saddle. He had been half-hard ever since she’d kicked that damn chair at him yesterday.

  Damn it. In truth, his memory of her hadn’t done her justice. He peered at her from the corner of his eye. Her profile displayed her adorable turned-up nose and lush lips. True, her chin was tilted in a mulish manner, but even that he found sexy as hell. She held herself like a general about to ride into battle, and he would be happy to be under her command.

  She hadn’t mentioned that weekend yet, where they had given up the last few days of a cyber-crimes seminar to lock themselves in his hotel room. His room service bill had been huge, but worth every penny.

  Could she have forgotten him? Something about the stubborn press of her lips and the angry flash in her eyes told him she hadn’t, that she was just ignoring their past like he was.

  He clenched his jaw and tried to stem the tide of rising irritation. A little recognition of their past would be appreciated. A yearning sigh, a longing look. After all, it had been an incredible weekend.

  He scrubbed his hand across his jaw. He was being an absolute hypocrite. She was letting him off easy, and he should be happy that she was just giving him the cold shoulder.

  Maybe he should bring up the topic. He had a few more days here. There really wasn’t any reason they couldn’t enjoy one another. Another couple days of heaven before going back to his real life, one that couldn’t include the sassy Texan.

  “Andie—”

  She threw out a hand. “Look.”

  He followed the line of her finger but didn’t see anything in the dirt she pointed at. “What? Is there a snake or something?” His horse shifted beneath him.

  She rolled her eyes and tugged at the brim of her hat. “No, the path. This is an old trail used by coyotes. I don’t mean the four-legged kind, either.” With a creak of leather, she swung out of the saddle and dropped easily to the ground. She wrapped a hand in the reins and sauntered over to the invisible path she had indicated, then dropped to a squat.

  Chase tumbled from his saddle a little less gracefully, thankful her back was turned. He lifted the baseball cap and ran his hand through his hair before resettling it back down. Leading Sam next to Andie’s mount, he squatted next to her and peered over her shoulder. He still just saw dirt and rock, nothing resembling a trail. “What do you see that I don’t?”

  “I’m sure that list could stretch as long as the Rio Grande, city boy,” she murmured.

  Chase smothered the growl that started in his chest. He was getting awfully tired of her goading.

  “Look at this bush,” she said. He looked at the scraggly little plant hardly deserving of the name bush. “Do you see how on the north side all the branches are either broken off or pressed down to the ground?” He nodded, able to see the damage to the plant when she pointed it out.

  She stood, putting a hand to her lower back. “And ten feet to the left is a little garbage dump, a dead giveaway out here in the desert.”

  He looked briefly over at the small pile of empty plastic water bottles then back down to where she kneaded her back.

  “You hurt?” he asked.

  “No, I just slept wrong. It’s…hey, stop that!”

  “Relax.” Chase dug his fingers a little more deeply into the knotted muscle. “You’re really tense, and it can’t feel good riding a horse with a sore back.”

  “I’m not complaining,” she said, but her voice was softer now, the steel edge to it slowly being sheathed.

  “No, you wouldn’t.” His hand covered most of her lower back, and the heat from her skin, even through her western shirt, warmed his fingers. He shifted closer, her side pressing into his abdomen. “Why don’t you tell me about this trail while I work this knot out. I can’t have a partner who’s incapacitated, after all.”

  “Right, the trail.” She cleared her throat. “It’s in ranger territory; that’s why I knew to look for it.”

  “Is this state-owned land?”

  “No, the feds own this bit of Texas, along with about fifty percent of the rest of the land in the west. Along the border it’s broken into quadrants. ICE and the Department for Homeland Security are responsible for most of it, but they can’t cover the entire border. It’s too big. So they farm out some of the work to state agencies.”

  Her mouth and eyes tightened in a flinch when his fingers massaged a particularly sensitive spot then relaxed. She let out a blissful sigh and his hand stilled.

  Chase remembered that sound, that little smile dancing around her lips. Both had featured heavily in his fant
asies over the years. His blood pooled low and he forgot just what it was they were doing out there.

  “This trail has been abandoned for a year and a half,” she continued, obviously not as affected as he, “but we always check it out when we’re nearby to see if any recent crossings have occurred.” She looked up at him, then squinted when the early morning sun streamed into her eyes.

  Chase shifted so his body shaded her face. A gust of wind whipped her honey hair around her neck, held it there like a scarf. He brought his hand up and eased the silken strands back over her shoulder, then trailed his fingertips up and down her long neck.

  Her pulse fluttered under his touch, and he took a step closer. Damn, she was beautiful. No other woman in these past years had come close to the fire and grit this woman possessed in spades. Every other one-night stand or half-assed relationship he’d had was a poor substitute to the spitfire standing in front of him.

  He nudged the brim of her cowboy hat up, and she stopped breathing. A smile danced around his lips as he leaned down. He liked that he didn’t have so far to go. Andie was tall enough to fit just right against his body, as he remembered well, and her whipcord strength eased his worries about hurting her with his large frame.

  He paused an inch from her mouth, enjoying the anticipatory tingle in his lips, the sweet fragrance of her skin that was a mixture of soap, woman, and a little bit of horse. He loosed a quiet chuckle, knowing she wouldn’t appreciate that last ingredient, even though her scent was uniquely her own and sexy as hell.

  And just like that, the moment was gone.

  Her muscles tensed beneath his fingers and she pushed his chest, giving herself some space. Her breath released in a huff, and she glared at him as she pulled her hat firmly down on her head. Without a word she stepped around Chase and led her horse on the path toward an outcropping of boulders.

  Chase followed with Sam and caught up to her just as she circled around the boulders and stopped dead.

  A ragged line of twenty or so men stood not fifteen feet away. They had obviously stopped their march, as surprised to see Chase and Andie as they were to see the band of immigrants. To a man, they all wore large backpacks and haggard expressions on their faces.