“Bronco?” Emma’s voice brought him back to the present and the kitchen covered in Tallulah’s post-it notes. “You okay? Did you slip into remote viewing mode?”
He shook his head to clear the memories and tried to seal the hole that had been ripped in his heart. An aching void that had never been filled, because his other half was gone, swept up by hate. “No. Just thinking about those relatives and wondering what happened to them.” He shrugged. “Nothing to worry about, I’m sure they’re long gone now.”
“Grab your cat and let’s go.”
Gaucho, who was lounging in a spot of sun on the kitchen floor next to the pug, raised his head and glared at Bronco. You dare to interrupt my nap?
“I’d love to leave you here with your new playmate, but you know the drill.”
Looking more like a truculent teen than a bobcat, Gaucho slouched over to his partner and turned his head.
“Oh, so it’s gonna be like that, is it?” Bronco sighed. “We’ll be back in a little while, then you and Franny can play, snore and eat together, until our mission is clear.”
The cat shook his head and began to stroll toward the door, dragging his leash behind him.
Lucius chuckled, “See you later, pardner. We’ll leave the lights on and have a nice dinner in the works by the time you get back.”
Pocketing the room key, Bronco wished they had a better sense of where they were going and what they were doing. Emma was right. He needed a good night’s rest and a quiet space for his remote viewing, minus distractions—like the very provocative Ms. Emma Horserider and her searing kisses.
****
Emma plastered a grin on her face to cover the turmoil beneath, bid farewell to Lucius, and jogged for the truck at a pace her old drill sergeant would have approved. What was I thinking? She tried to convince herself that the kiss had merely been a test, like they did on TV at night for the emergency broadcasting system. But she knew she was lying—to him and herself. From the moment she set eyes on Bronco, she’d been drawn to him, a bedazzled moth to his sizzling flame. While his rugged good looks were a large part of the attraction, something more pulsed beneath those muscles and tattoos. Like the waves on a moonlit lake, darkness rose and fell in his eyes, turning them from bright blue to granite gray when it overcame him. She wanted to tell him his secrets were safe with her, no matter how bad they were. What had happened to him? How had he chosen this dangerous line of work—or had it chosen him?
Gaucho folded onto Bronco’s lap and resumed his napping. A short time into the ride, Bronco’s head fell back onto the headrest, and he too began to snore lightly. Emma drove on autopilot, the undulating green hills hypnotic and soothing.
Where had that earlier intense erotic vision come from? Definitely seared into her brain, when she closed her eyes the afterimage appeared, haunting her with its intensity and power to arouse her. Were Bronco’s remote viewing ability and her animal telepathy creating a subconscious link at the primal level? Would it happen again? Her biological clock was ringing its alarm loud and clear—but the timing? It wasn’t just bad, it was dangerous. She had to keep that man out of her head and her life. When the assignment was over, he’d get on his bike and ride away, just like every other romantic interest she’d ever had. No use getting involved with a man who didn’t understand her or her identity and heritage. She was her own woman, not some man’s appendage. Taking a deep cleansing breath, she envisioned a bullet-proof Plexiglas barrier around her thoughts—and her heart.
When the truck ran over a pothole on her street, Bronco jerked awake and looked around in confusion. “Did I fall asleep?”
“If you call snoring for the last hour sleeping, then yes, you did. Even Gaucho passed out.” She nosed the truck up to the curb. “Are you going to be okay to drive back to the hotel? Or do you need me to get someone to put the bike in a van and take you back?”
Shaking his head, Bronco said, “Nah, give me a cup of coffee and I’ll be ready to get out of your hair.”
“You’re exhausted. Bert would never forgive me if I let you become road kill. A waste of tax dollars.”
He yawned and scratched Gaucho’s head. “Okay, you convinced me. I’d still love a cup of coffee.”
“You got it. Come on in, I’ll give Jimmy’s mother a call.”
“Two-toes?”
“Yes, but her name is Marjorie Longjaw.” After placing the call and getting the woman to agree to pick Bronco up after dinner, she opened the door and was greeted by an eye-watering stench. “Taláashiile, your name fits you just right. You have butter for brains! That skunk doesn’t want to play with you.” The yellow lab mix wagged her tail and pranced. “I’m not kidding around. You must love that tomato and vinegar bath.”
At that the dog in question curled her lips and whined. “Outside. All of you.” The pack trooped out the back door, and the German Shepard mix named Bishké, or Dog, cast a long sad look over his shoulder. “I know it’s not your fault, Bishké, but you all stink now.”
Gaucho sniffed and sneezed, and Bronco coughed. “Wow. Nice welcome home.”
“Happens about once a month. She never learns.” Emma opened windows and turned on a ceiling fan. “I’ll put a pot of coffee on. I can use a cup, too.” She rummaged in the cabinets, pulling out mugs. “Milk and sugar?”
He nodded, sat in a kitchen chair, and winced.
“Oh, dear. You’re still saddle-sore, aren’t you?”
“You could say that.” He rolled his eyes. “I love my bike, but—”
“Hold that thought.” She had something in her garden that would help, assuming the skunk hadn’t sprayed the plant with his noxious fumes. Her fenced in back yard was part raised bed planters, part dog park, and completely her making. One side of her yard was lined with railroad ties and rebar boxes filled with loam. Protected from grazing deer, yarrow, sage, basil, bee balm, parsley, rosemary, dill, and other plants grew in profusion. She pulled some yarrow, or chipmunk tail, out and brought it into the house, placing the long green stems with lacy leaves into a pot of boiling water.
“What’s that smell?”
“Yarrow. It’s good on burns and sores. It will help your raw skin.” An image of applying compresses to his cute butt flashed into her mind. She pushed it away. She assumed a clinical tone. “I’ll pack up a container of the solution and some washcloths for you to take with you. After you take a shower”—Lord that was an image!—“apply wet compresses soaked in the yarrow tea to the affected areas. It will help.”
He crinkled his nose. “You’re saying the stuff that smells like cabbage is going to help my butt?”
“Yes.” She leaned on the edge of the sink to support her weak knees. His butt. Good grief. She had to get the man out of her house, but in the meantime. “Back in a bit. I need to take care of something. Enjoy your coffee.”
Emma strode into her bedroom, closed the door, threw herself on her bed, and screamed into her pillow. So much for her mental Plexiglas wall to keep her romantic thoughts at bay. What she needed was some distance. Or an armed perimeter. If her grandmother were here right now, Emma knew she’d be pushing Bronco into the bedroom, slamming the door shut, locking it and throwing away the key.
She could almost hear her saying. “He’s a good man. Why are you running away from him? Don’t you want children? You’re not getting any younger.” Emma bit her lips to keep from yelling back at the memories of her elder worrying about whether she’d ever find true love. Her grandmother had gone to her grave disappointed. No little ones to dandle on her knees. Was she really bullheaded in her independence?
The phone rang, and Emma rolled over. A county office phone number showed on the caller ID.
“Hello?”
“Emma, this is Tommy. There’s a motorcycle parked outside, and the neighbors are telling me a strange man, covered in tattoos is in your house. Is everything okay?”
“I’m fine,” she said through clenched teeth. “He’s a friend of my brother’s. In for a visi
t.”
“Seems pretty suspicious to me—and a lot of other folks, too,” he said in his little whiney voice. “I’m outside your door, happy to send him on his way if you need me to get rid of him.”
She stifled a moan. A high school classmate, Tommy Otterlegs, of all people, was the one her grandmother had favored and had kept pushing her to date. An ambitious bantam rooster of a man, he now worked as a sheriff’s deputy and had at one time tried to railroad Lucius into prison for attempted homicide. That hadn’t gone well for Tommy. Not that it kept him from still being a persistent suitor and nuisance. The short-legged man showed up at the most inopportune times, like now, sticking his nose into her business, as if he had a right to be there. Well, fine, she’d let him in. Get it over with, or he’d just pester her to death. “Be right there. Don’t mind the skunk smell.”
She strode past Bronco who nursed his coffee. Gaucho was spread across the rag rug like he lived there, playing with a dog toy. “One of our local constabulary has decided to stop in.”
Bronco quirked a brow. “Because…?”
“Indian telegraph.” She yanked open the front door, and the cocky little man sauntered in wrinkling his nose. “Tommy Otterlegs, meet Bronco Winchester. Bronco this is Tommy.”
The bobcat leaped to his feet and growled, a low, angry thrum ending in a hiss. He did not like this man, not one bit.
“It’s okay, Gaucho.” Bronco petted the cat’s head. “He’s harmless.”
Tommy bristled and put his thumbs in his belt loops. His index fingers pointed at his crotch. “You got a permit for that wild animal?”
Every freaking time she had a male caller the little snot had to show up and posture like a tiny cave man.
“Of course I do.” Bronco reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet which was secured to his pants on a chain. “Here you go. Federal and state.”
Tommy inspected the document as if examining it for forgery. “Where’d you get this thing?”
The cat hissed.
“His name is Gaucho, and he was an orphan. I bottle raised him.” Bronco tossed Emma a puzzled look and shrugged, as if to say, What’s his problem?
The little man frowned and handed the paperwork back to Bronco. “I’ll be on my way, but just so you know—” he glared at Bronco—“I’ve got my eyes on you. You better keep that cat under control.”
Bronco stood and stretched, towering a good foot over Tommy. “I’ll take that into consideration, Officer Otterlegs.”
Tommy flushed and blustered, “Deputy Sheriff Otterlegs.”
Bronco nodded. “You got it.”
Emma stood with the door open. “Good night, Tommy.”
As he strutted past her, he whispered, “Keep your phone handy. I don’t like the looks of this guy.”
“Point taken.” She slammed the door behind him. She didn’t like the looks of Bronco either. No, she loved the looks of the sex-up-against-the-wall biker man and that was just the start of her problems. Emma had to get him out of her house before she did something she regretted.
As if in answer to her thoughts, a horn honked outside.
“I think that’s my ride.” He scrambled for the door. “Hate to leave you with the stink, but—”
She laughed. “Sure you do.”
She’d have more luck de-scenting that skunk than she would getting him to stay after the assignment was over.
He grinned and gave her a two-fingered salute. “See you back at the hotel.”
As the white van pulled away from the curb, Emma closed the door and leaned against it with a sigh. Oh, my aching ovaries.
Chapter Six
Bronco did not enjoy the ride to the Hotel LaBelle with Marjorie Longjaw as much as he had the one with Emma. For one thing, Mrs. Longjaw had earned her name. From the minute he climbed into the van, the extremely nice, incredibly kind, and exceedingly excitable mother of Jimmy Two-toes maintained a non-stop stream of chatter peppered with questions that she didn’t let him answer. He’d met a lot of talkative people in his life, but this woman’s hot air was off the charts with wind gusts up to one-hundred miles per hour.
“Oh, so nice to meet you. My son, Jimmy, he has a motorcycle, too, and he just loves it. Scares me sometimes, but he’s my only son, had him when I was thirty-five and family is everything, you know.” She took a breath, then kept going, “What about you, how do you know Emma?”
He opened his mouth to respond, but she talked over him.
“Oh, that’s right, Emma told me you know her brother. We’re all very proud of him. His work is important, but he never forgets his family and his people. You know, I can’t tell you how many times he’s bailed Jimmy out of scrapes.” She shook her head. “That boy. Anyhow, if Bert ever decided to move home permanently, give up that big job in Washington, he could run for office, be Mayor of Billings, he’s that well-known, you know? He’s quite the fisherman, too. Wins the big trout tournament every time he enters. We call him the fish whisperer.”
Bronco decided nodding was his best option in this one-sided conversation. Bert was so close-mouthed—except when it came to work related things—he was pleased to find out more about Bert’s virtues, like his boss’s love of fishing. Fish whisperer. He chuckled and tucked that little tidbit away in his mental file folder for use on a later date.
“Emma, on the other hand,” Marjorie rattled on, as she glanced in the rear-view mirror to change lanes, “she’s too shy to be mayor, you know.”
Emma and shy? In the same sentence? Now that was a shocker.
“I’ve known Emma ever since she was a little girl, hiding behind her grandmother’s skirts. Her great-grandmother was a powerful Medicine Woman and so was her grandmother. Lost her mother when she was just a little bit of a thing, but that’s another story. Anyway, being a grandmother’s grandchild, and all, everyone thought she’d be following in her grandmother’s ways, become another great Medicine Woman. Runs in families, you know. But she didn’t show a lot of interest in the herbs or healing ways.”
The cooler full of yarrow tea in the back of the van on his bike said otherwise, but he didn’t disagree. He grunted what he hoped was an “Oh really” sound.
“But, horses and dogs? You couldn’t keep her away from them.” She chuckled. “The dogs followed her wherever she went on the reservation. That girl was never alone, never afraid. She had her pack. And once she got her first horse? Well, let’s just say, she was all over the place.”
She sighed and turned on her blinker for the highway.
Oh, thank God, is that the sign for the turn off?
“That camping trip she took with her best friend her senior year in high school? I think that was a turning point in her life, you know. She joined the Marines right after graduation, after she healed up from the bear bites, and all.”
He finally got a word in edgewise. “Bear?”
“Oh yeah, we’ve got a lot of bears around here, black and Grizzly.” She nodded and for once on the entire trip, fell silent.
“How did Emma…?” He wanted to scream in frustration, but Gaucho shot him a warning growl from the back.
“Oh, so she and her best friend, Jessica, went out by the river, set up a teepee and were enjoying themselves—some say they were drinking, but I don’t believe that—anyway, a Grizzly bear shows up, sees them, and attacks Jessica.” She shook her head. “That Emma, who would have seen it coming, such a surprise.”
He ground his teeth in frustration. “What happened?”
“Well, the bear was gnawing on Jessica’s leg and according to Jessica, Emma went crazy, jumped on the bear’s back, stabbed its throat with her hunting knife. Got the bear off Jessica, but the crazed beast went after Emma with a vengeance. She got clawed up pretty bad. Jessica lost her leg.”
“How’d they get to the hospital?”
“Well, Emma must have been paying attention to her grandmother, after all. She tied a belt around Jessica’s leg, got both of them up into her grandmother’s p
ick-up truck—and drove the two of them back to the rez. EMTs rushed them to St. Vic’s.” As the sky turned from blue to gray, she nosed the van into the entryway to the LaBelle. “Well, here we are.”
Here we are, indeed. He didn’t just get a partner. He got a super heroine. Bronco stepped down from the van, and pulled the portable rear entry ramp down to the ground. Gaucho sat on the saddle of the bike, looking for all the world like an Egyptian statue of Bast waiting to be worshipped.
“Come on your highness.” Bronco unclipped the leash from the cat’s harness. “Go for a run, but don’t go far. Come back when it gets dark.”
Gaucho wasted no time leaping out of the back of the van and running into the long grasses while Bronco unloaded the bike and put the ramp back in the cargo space. As he walked the bike around the van and balanced it on the kickstand, he called to the driver, “Want some coffee? Lucius has a great machine.”
Marjorie leaned her head out the window. “Nah, gotta get to the store, grab a few things, you know, and then head home to ride herd on Jimmy and his homework.” She put the car in reverse and waved. “You take care, now.”
“Thank you for everything,” he shouted. As the van pulled out of the driveway, he said to himself in a normal tone of voice, “Especially the intel on my new partner.”
“That Marjorie.” Lucius’s voice made Bronco jump. “She’s a talker. Gave you all the deep dish on Emma, did she?”
“Couldn’t stop her if I’d wanted to.” Bronco shook his head. “The bear story. Is that true?”
“If you saw the scars on her back, you’d know it was.” Lucius glanced around. “Where’s your cat?”
Bronco closed his eyes and focused on finding his feline companion. He had a fat field mouse trapped under his paw. “Just grabbing a quick bite.”
“Speaking of which, time to put on the feed bag. The guests are in the bar, if you want to join them for a drink.”
Legacy of Evil Page 6
