by Julie Miller
He hadn’t wanted it to come to this. Flint had been halfway to drunk by the time Boone had found him and explained the evidence KCPD had against him. The man had broken down into tears of guilt and regret and penance—or so Boone had believed. He’d let him go to the john to wash his face. The next thing he’d heard instead of running water was the sound of an ATV motor, tearing off across the countryside. Boone had driven his truck as far as the landscape would let him, and then followed on foot. The chase had ended here.
He’d been worried Flint wouldn’t surrender.
Now he was beginning to worry about something even worse.
“Kate! You come back to me.” Boone smeared the blood off his cheek. He pulled off his hat and tossed it into the grass at his feet, giving himself a slimmer profile, making himself a harder target to hit. He flexed his fingers around the grip of his Glock, mentally preparing himself for where this showdown might be headed. “If anything happens to her, Flint, you are not leaving here alive.”
“It’s okay, Boone.” How could Kate sound so sweet and calm when his heart was tied up like a branding calf inside his chest? “Flint and I are just talking. Right? Tell me more about that night.”
“I went to Kansas City to see her. Janie said she was in trouble and so I went.” Flint’s throat grew froggy from tears and drink. “I got us a motel room so we could have some privacy. She was all messed up, like she’d been in a fight.” Tears burned beneath Boone’s own eyelids at all the sad mistakes that had led to such a tragedy that night. “I thought that boyfriend—Max or whatever she called him—had hurt her. I got so mad. I wanted to go after him. But she came out of the room after me. To stop me. She said she loved him. That it would break her heart if I hurt him. She told me she wanted to call him for help, but she couldn’t because he had a wife. She was defending him to me!” Boone didn’t have to see Flint to understand the rage building inside him. “She called me for help. I thought he’d done that to her. Yet she kept going on and on—Max, Max, Max.”
“You fought?”
Boone heard a sorrowful gasp, like the last breath of a dying animal. It was Flint. “I didn’t mean to. But I pushed—she fell. She hit her head on the hitch of my truck. The one she’d made for me. There was so much blood. She was gone.”
“And afterward?”
“I kept the necklace because it always meant so much to her.”
Boone risked another peek around the tree. He swiped the tears from his vision. Kate was right there, close enough for Flint to touch her. Move, woman, he begged, silently creeping toward them. Give me a clear shot.
“I took her body back to that alley where I’d picked her up. Left the rose with her like that guy had.” One step. Another step. “I loved her.” Flint shook his head. “I killed her.”
“Put the gun down, Flint,” Kate asked quietly. “There are cops all around you. Please put the gun down.”
“Kate, get down!” Boone shouted, moving out of the trees, raising his gun.
And then the nightmare happened.
Drunk and unsteady, but strong and desperate enough to react to the threat, Flint grabbed Kate, hugged her and the bulletproof vest in front of him and put the gun to her head.
Kate screamed. Boone charged forward until he didn’t dare take another step.
If Flint had pointed the gun at him, he wouldn’t have hesitated to shoot. But he had Kate.
“Don’t make me do this, Flint. It’s suicide.”
His deputy smiled. “Don’t you think I know that, boss?”
“Damn it, Flint. You could have surrendered.”
“And live with knowin’ what I did to Janie? And to you?”
Kate thought there was still a chance to reach him. “Flint, please.”
“No, ma’am. No more.” Flint turned the gun to his own head.
“Flint, no,” Kate gasped.
“You’re right. He won’t shoot to save me.” He moved the gun back to her temple. “But he’ll save you.”
“Don’t make me,” Boone begged. “Let her go.”
“Can’t do that, boss.”
Montgomery shouted from his position. “Cowboy, you got a plan?”
“Yes.” Boone’s gun never wavered. He looked straight into Kate’s beautiful eyes. “I love you.”
“I love you,” she answered without hesitation, and something warm and perfect and too good to lose blossomed inside him.
“I’ll do it, boss.” Flint ground the gun into her temple, forcing her head to the side.
“Yeah, Doc. But do you trust me?”
Boone waited. He aimed. He held his breath.
“Yes.”
Boone pulled the trigger. He hit Flint in the middle of his forehead and the man who’d killed his sister, who’d threatened the woman he loved, who’d lied, crumpled to the ground. Dead.
* * *
BOONE LACED HIS FINGERS TOGETHER with Kate’s and walked her to the barn to introduce her to Big Jim and the other horses. She might not know how to ride yet, but she sure had an affinity for petting foreheads and combing manes and holding carrots out in the flat of her hand for long tongues and soft muzzles to gobble up.
A week had passed since Flint Larson’s funeral. A lifetime had passed, it seemed, since he’d nearly lost her to a pair of dangerous young men. One, she’d used her skills of talking and listening and thinking on her feet to escape from. The other, he’d used his more instinctive abilities to escape the promise of death. Thank God she’d finally decided to take him at his word and trusted him to take that shot.
They’d shared their darkest secrets, some incredible passion, and their hearts. She wasn’t afraid to get her shoes muddy or tell him to get his filthy boots out of the kitchen.
But Boone’s world wasn’t perfect. Not yet.
He pulled her to the ladder leading up to the loft and kissed her hand. “Have you ever had a roll in the hay, Dr. Kate?”
“Can’t say as I have.”
“It beats a hot bubble bath or a long ride on a horse.”
She put her foot on the first rung of the ladder, looked over her shoulder and smiled. “Well, it’s been a very long, very stressful week. And I think we both need to...decompress.”
Boone palmed her butt to hurry her on up the ladder and climbed up behind her. “I like the way you think, Doc.”
She liked the quilt he’d spread out over the hay, and the wine and cheese-and-crackers, and condom he’d already set into place, too. “Hmm...this country living has more going for it than I’d ever suspected.”
Boone uncorked the wine and picked up the two glasses to pour a little something to set the mood. “We can class it up like you city sophisticates if we have to.”
And then he nearly dropped the glasses when he felt her arms sliding around him from behind. “I’m not thirsty, Boone.” She flicked his hat off into the hay and brushed her lips against the back of his neck. “I’m not hungry, either.”
He set down the wine and goblet, then turned to gather her in his arms. “I’m starving,” he confessed before claiming her mouth with his.
The talking stopped as greedy hands and hungry kisses took over. Boots dropped. Coats and belts and clothes disappeared. Kate’s hands skimmed his body, sending shivers through him. She coaxed his nipples to attention, teased their painful tightness with the swirl of her tongue. She drew her nails along his spine and squeezed his butt as he laved her beautiful breasts and sucked the pink tips into pebbled flowers. She wound a firm hand around his swollen manhood and urged him toward her welcoming heat.
He laid her back across the quilt. The crinkle of hay strands breaking beneath them, along with her sweet, moaning gasps, made music in the air. The exotic scent of jasmine in her hair erased the pungent smells of the barn, filling his head with Kate and her giving hands and heart.
When he couldn’t stand another moment of being incomplete, Boone entered Kate in a swift, deep thrust. She wound her legs around his hips, hugged her arms around his sh
oulders, threaded her fingers into his hair. Those sweet green eyes looked up into his for a moment before she tipped her head back and cried out his name. Boone buried his face against her throat and held on as his body tensed at the brink of satisfaction. And then her hands clutched at his back and he toppled over with the roar of his release. He couldn’t imagine anything more perfect than being with Kate Kilpatrick.
Now she was in his arms, snuggling close as the autumn air cooled their bare skin. And those sexy hands were trailing leisurely lines up and down his chest and abdomen.
Boone caught her hand and stilled it over his heart before she made him forget why they’d needed to decompress in the first place. “You’re not gettin’ rid of me, Doc. You know that, right?”
“I’m not trying to.” She pushed herself up on one elbow, her kiss-stung mouth marred by a serious frown. “But your job is here. Mine’s in Kansas City. I’m not quitting that task force until the Rose Red Rapist is off the streets and the women in Kansas City are safe again.”
“I don’t want you to quit.”
“You live on a ranch and I live in a house that’s too big for me—”
“And we both have some emotional healing left to do. I know.” He lifted his head and kissed her until that frown eased into a hopeful smile. “We’ve talked about this before, Doc. We’ve both been married to people who were with us every day, and yet they didn’t stay.”
“So how are we going to make us work?” She gently touched the cut healing on his cheek. “Because I really want us to work.”
“I want us to work, too.” He brushed a fingertip across the fading bruise on her cheek. “Whether I go to K.C. and whip those city cops into shape or you come here to Grangeport and give it some uptown class, I want to be with you.”
“Well...” He saw the wheels turning inside her head, knew that woman was thinking of something that could change his world. Again.
Boone let his head fall back to the quilt with a resigned sigh. “What?”
“Maybe if you just promise me that we’ll keep working on this relationship, I’ll believe it. It doesn’t have to be perfect right now. But we’ll figure it out so that one day soon it will be.”
Boone smiled and pulled her down on top of him. “Whatever we do, Doc—we do it together. I promise.”
Epilogue
The man turned off the television and laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
Everything in him tensed as the woman walked up behind his chair. He hated when she did that. She knew him so well in so many ways that he couldn’t do without her. Yet every now and then he got the idea that he didn’t know her as well as he should.
He gestured to the chair across from him, inviting her to sit. Picking up some papers from his desk, he sorted through them, making sure they were in order.
“Well?” she prompted.
He didn’t like that, either, when she made even small demands like that from him. His nostrils flared as he forced himself to maintain an even rhythm of breathing. Maintaining his anonymity often required a great deal of patience and pretending he didn’t care about things as deeply as he did.
He nodded toward the television. “I was watching the latest report from KCPD and their Rose Red Rapist task force.”
“And that’s funny?”
No, he supposed a woman wouldn’t find anything amusing about a rapist who’d attacked with impunity for some time now. “It’s funny that they’re not making any progress on their investigation. They’ve solved two crimes in the past week, and neither is the one they were investigating.”
She stood and took the papers from him. “You’re worried, aren’t you?”
“About the task force?” Irritated by the presumption, he stood. He would not let a woman—any woman—think she was superior to him. “Why should I care about what the police are doing?”
She set the papers down—in the wrong pile. His heart thudded in his chest.
As if she could hear the pounding sound against his ribs, she rested her palm against his chest, and made a shushing, soothing sound.
Don’t believe her, the voice inside his head warned him. She’s a woman. How can you trust a woman?
How could he not trust this one?
“I know your secrets,” she said. His hands curled into fists at his sides. She took care of him in so many ways, knew him so well. He needed her. And that, perhaps, was why he hated her so much. “And I won’t let anyone else hurt you. Ever again.”
* * * * *
Look for the next exciting book in Julie Miller’s
The Precinct: Task Force miniseries
Coming in 2013
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Chapter One
The knock at the door surprised Zane Chisholm. He’d just spent the warm summer day in the saddle rounding up cattle. All he wanted to do was kick off his boots and hit the hay early. The last thing he wanted was company.
But whoever was knocking didn’t sound as if they were planning to go away anytime soon. Living at the end of a dirt road, he didn’t get uninvited company—other than one of his five brothers. So that narrows it down, he thought as he went to the window and peered out through the curtains.
The car parked outside was a compact, lime-green with Montana State University plates. Definitely not one of his brothers, he thought with a grin. Chisholm men wouldn’t be caught dead driving such a “girlie” car. Especially a lime-green one.
Even more odd was the young, willowy blonde pounding on his door. She must be lost and needing directions. Or she was selling something.
His curiosity piqued, he went to answer her persistent knock. As the door swung open, he saw that her eyes were blue and set wide in a classically gorgeous face. She wore a slinky red dress that fell over her body like water. The woman was a stunner.
She smiled warmly. “Hi.”
“Hi.” He waited, wondering what she wanted, and enjoying the view in the meantime.
Her smile slipped a little as she took in his worn jeans, his even more worn cowboy boots and the dirty Western shirt with a torn sleeve and a missing button.
“I wasn’t expecting company,” he said when he saw her apparent disappointment in his attire.
“Oh?” She looked confused now. “Did I get the night wrong? You’re Zane Chisholm and this is Friday, right?”
“Right.” He frowned. “Did we have a date or something?” He knew he’d never seen this woman before. No red-blooded American male would forget a woman like this.
She reached into her sparkly shoulder bag and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. “Your last email,” she said, handing it to him.
He took the paper, unfolded it and saw his email address. It appeared he had been corresponding with this woman for the past two days.
“If you forgot—”
“No,” he said quickly. �
��Please, come in and let’s see if we can sort this out.”
She stepped in but looked tentative, as if not so sure about him.
“Why don’t you start with how we met,” he said as he offered her a seat.
She sat on the edge of the couch. “The Evans rural internet dating service.”
“Arlene’s matchmaking business?” he asked in surprise. Arlene Evans, who was now Arlene Monroe, had started the business a few years ago to bring rural couples together.
“We’ve been visiting by email until you...”
“Asked you out,” he finished for her.
“Are you saying someone else has been using your email?”
“It sure looks that way, since I never signed up with Arlene’s matchmaking service. But,” he added quickly when he saw how upset she was, “I wouldn’t be surprised if Arlene is behind this. It wouldn’t be the first time she took it upon herself to play matchmaker.” Either that or his brothers were behind it as a joke, though that seemed unlikely. This beautiful woman was no joke.
She looked down at her hands in her lap. “I’m so embarrassed.” She quickly rose to her feet. “I should go.”
“No, wait,” he said, unable to shake the feeling that maybe this had been fate and that he would be making the biggest mistake of his life if he let this woman walk out now.
“You know, it wouldn’t take me long to jump in the shower and change if you’re still up for a date,” he said with a grin.
She hesitated. “Really? I mean, you don’t have to—”
“I want to. But you have the advantage over me. I don’t know your name.”
She smiled shyly. “Courtney Baxter.” She held out her hand. As he shook it, Zane thought, This night could change my life.
He had no idea how true that was going to be.
ISBN: 9781459235243
Copyright © 2012 by Julie Miller
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