Maverick

by Joan Hohl

  “Tanner, honey!” Miss Sunshine exclaimed, moving into his arms when Tanner stood. “I haven’t seen you in ages. What have you been up to?”

  For some inexplicable reason, everything about the young woman annoyed Bri, from her cooing voice to the possessive way her arms curled around his neck. For a few seconds Bri was even more annoyed at the way Tanner smiled down at the small woman clinging to him. Her annoyance fled with his drawled response.

  “Well, Candy, I’m up to the same six feet four inches I was at the last time I saw you…‘ages’ ago. What has it been—all of a week or two?”

  Somehow Bri contained the laughter bubbling up inside her at his reply. And her name! Candy. It certainly fit, all right. She was arm candy for hungry males.

  The thought sobered Bri. Was Tanner one of the hungry males? She was so startled, so bothered by the very idea of Tanner being that predictable, she almost missed him setting the woman from him and turning to her. She quickly rose.

  “Brianna, I’d like you to meet Candy Saunders. She’s from back east, too—”

  “The Hamptons,” Candy was quick to arrogantly insert, rudely cutting Tanner off. All sweetness and light were gone, her eyes and smile calculating as she swept a dismissive glance over Bri.

  Looking bored, Tanner rolled his eyes at Bri, a wry smile twitching the corners of his mouth. “Candy of the Hamptons, meet Brianna Stewart of Pennsylvania.”

  Candy gave a delicate sniff, obviously not impressed. “How nice. Are you visiting someone here in Durango?” She arched one perfect bleached eyebrow. “One of Tanner’s friends, perhaps?”

  Bri didn’t know whether to laugh or slug the overbearing woman. She did neither, of course. Instead she answered drily, “No, I’m not visiting. I have business with Mr. Wolfe.”

  “Really?” Both eyebrows went up.

  “Yeah, really,” Tanner said, now sounding as bored as he looked. “If you’ll excuse us?” He indicated a table toward the back. “I think your friend is getting impatient for you to join him.”

  Candy turned back to him, instantly changing to Miss Sunshine again. “Yes, of course, darlin’,” she cooed, raising a small hand to lightly drag her dagger nails down his face. “Toodles,” she said, drawing her hand away and wiggling her scarlet-tipped fingers at him. “Call me.” Without so much as a glance at Bri, she sashayed away.

  “Toodles?” Battling another bubble of laughter sparked by the drama queen, Bri resumed her seat just as the server approached the table with their meals.

  “That’s Candy,” he said, shrugging.

  Yes, Bri mused, but did he like candy? Mentally dismissing the oddly disturbing idea, she asked, “A good friend of yours?” The question was out before she could stop herself. Dammit, she didn’t give a rip either way…did she?

  Tanner saved her from her self-condemnation. “No.” He shook his head, setting his long waves rippling, brushing his shoulders. “She’s a bit of an airhead, I’m afraid, and calls every man ‘darlin” in that cloyingly sweet voice.” He shrugged. “But she can be polite and even amusing at times.”

  “I see.” Bri hid a frown of dissatisfaction by lowering her head to inhale the aroma wafting from the steaming plate the server set in front of her.

  The food was delicious. The conversation, which didn’t include candy of any sort, ranged from favorite foods to favorite movies to general likes and dislikes. Bri relaxed, let her guard down.

  It was a mistake she rarely made.

  On leaving the restaurant, feeling mellow—too mellow—she soon realized she had been led down the conversational garden path, so to speak.

  “Where are you staying?” Tanner asked as they headed for their vehicles.

  “The Strater Hotel. It’s lovely.”

  “Yeah, a landmark, built in 1887.” His tone held a tiny note of the proud resident. “You know, Will Rogers stayed there. And Louis L’ Amour wrote several of his Western novels while he was staying there.”

  “He must have stayed a while,” she said, smiling at his instructive tone. “Or written very fast.”

  He grinned.

  Bri felt something inside go all squishy. Why did he have to have such a sexy grin? She swallowed a sigh of self-disgust—or was it longing?—and was relieved when they came to her rental SUV. “This one’s mine.”

  “I’m right behind you.” He moved his head, indicating the much larger, kick-ass SUV. “I’ve got some calls to make before I go for the food supplies and some loose ends to tie up tomorrow. Suppose I pick you up the day after tomorrow? I want to get an early start. Is five okay with you?”

  In that instant Bri became wary of his intentions. “You will be here, won’t you?”

  At once, his pleasant expression changed, his features growing taut. “Didn’t I just say I will?” His voice carried both anger and insult.

  “Yes.” Bri was not about to apologize. “But I want to be certain you won’t take a flit on me.”

  “A flit…” He shook his head. “What are you getting at? Do you believe—” As he paused, she pounced.

  “That you’re going to take off on your own, leave me cooling my heels here in Durango?” she finished for him. “Oh, yeah, Mr. Wolfe, that’s exactly what I think you might try. I guess I should have listened to your cousins. They warned me you were a loner, a maverick who went his own way alone.” He started to speak, but she charged on. “And that’s what you intend to do to me, isn’t it?”

  “Okay, I admit I prefer to do my hunting alone, as I always have. But I had agreed to your going with me, so why in hell did you get the idea that I was planning to take off without you?” Now Tanner sounded angry, and his features had hardened, turning the saint into the bounty hunter.

  Bri wasn’t impressed by either his voice or the hard look of him. At least she worked to appear unimpressed. In truth, she was shaken, trembling inside. But that was because she was just as angry.

  “Oh, couldn’t be because you now seem eager to get rid of me while you get your stuff together, now could it?” She didn’t wait for him to ditch the stunned, speechless look, but continued, “It might even have worked except for one minor detail. You forgot that I’m carrying the check.”

  “I didn’t forget a damned thing.”

  Whoa. If she had thought he was angry before, she was now seeing real anger. More like fury. And furious, Tanner Wolfe was downright frightening.

  “Good, because even if I’d have bought into your softening-up routine in the restaurant—” he again opened his mouth to interrupt but she held up her hand, keeping him still while she rushed breathlessly on “—and you skipped off on your own and brought in that bastard, you wouldn’t have gotten anything but the original ten thousand bounty.”

  “Finished?” His cold tone was chilling.

  The tremor inside Bri turned into an icy shiver she was hard-pressed to hide from him. “Yes.” How she had managed so calm a tone amazed her.

  “Feel better for having your little rant?” There was something new and dangerous in his voice that froze the icy shiver solid.

  Bri stiffened her spine and raised her chin to a defiant angle. “I was not ranting.”

  “Coulda fooled me,” he drawled. “And there was no softening-up in the restaurant. I guess I’m not too bright, because I thought we were having a nice time getting to know each other.” He gave her a quizzical look. “What made you think I was setting you up, anyway?”

  How did one explain a feeling, a sudden onslaught of intuition? she asked herself. A hard lesson learned from another man who’d been a pro at stringing along women?

  “I’m not quite sure myself,” she admitted. “When we were talking, I relaxed, and the next minute I began to feel suspicious.” She told herself the sudden feeling had nothing to do with how he had allowed that man-eater Candy to step into his embrace.

  At the back of her mind, another unsettling suspicion niggled at her. The suspicion that he might have been in a hurry to send her packing so he could go
back to the restaurant to indulge in some after-dinner candy. Then he would collect his stuff and head into the mountains without her.

  Bri brushed the suspicion off, not about to recognize it. There was no way she would voice it to Tanner. His heavy sigh dissolved her uncomfortable reverie.

  “Do you want to spend the next two nights with me?”

  Yes, she thought at once. “No,” she said in firm denial of her first response.

  “Then I suppose you’ll have to trust me.” He smiled quite like a chess player who had his opponent checkmated. “That is, if you still want to go with me.”

  “You know I want to go with you,” she snapped, angry at him, at herself for stepping so blindly into his game of strategy. “As long as you remember who holds the purse strings.”

  Tanner shook his head as if in pity for her. “I don’t forget details, Brianna, even when they are recited by a spoiled little rich girl.”

  Bri simmered over his parting shot at her the rest of the day and all through the next, all the while she wandered around, checking out the shops closest to the hotel.

  She’d show him what a spoiled little rich girl could do.

  Three

  Damned if she wasn’t wearing killer heels.

  Tanner stared in amazement as he brought the SUV to a stop in front of her hotel. It was early, still dark, not so much as a hint of gray on the eastern horizon. But standing in the well-lit entranceway of the hotel, leaning indolently against the brass handrail, he spotted the incongruous heels at once.

  At any other time, the so-called shoes—consisting of two narrow straps across her toes and ribbons wound around her ankles, paper-thin soles and those slim, long, spiked heels—would have looked sexy. Worn with jeans and a field jacket over a green camp shirt, they looked ludicrous…and sexy.

  Brianna stood there waiting for him, her gear piled next to her left leg, the strap handle of a rifle carrier in her right hand by her side. To his chagrin, her gorgeous mass of auburn hair was tucked away inside a New York Yankees baseball cap. He felt plain, ordinary and underdressed in black jeans, a black leather jacket and sturdy boots. He also had pulled his hair away from his face, tied it with a leather thong at his nape.

  Stepping from the SUV, Tanner circled around the back to open the trunk lid. The hotel doorman stashed the gear next to Tanner’s. Before he could dip into a pocket to tip the man, Brianna handed him a couple bills and uttered a soft, “Thank you.”

  “Good morning,” Tanner said to her.

  “Mmm,” she hummed in reply, turning away to get into the front passenger seat.

  It would appear she was still ticked off at him. Tanner sighed and slid behind the wheel. Mentally shrugging, he drove away from the hotel, heading out of Durango.

  “I love your shoes,” he drawled. “I can just imagine you tromping around rough mountainous terrain in them.”

  She laughed. “I’d hoped you’d appreciate them.”

  “Oh, I do. They’re spectacular, and the color is perfect. Glittery gold straps go great with jeans, field jackets and caps.”

  “I thought so.” She laughed again when he flashed her a grin. “I’m sorry to have to disappoint you, but I won’t be wearing them to tromp around any rough terrain. I do have hiking boots with me.”

  “Aw, gee, that’s too bad,” he said. “I was looking forward to watching you try to keep up with me.” Now the quick look he sent her was glittery with teasing. “Then again, I’ll likely still be watching you try to keep up with me.”

  “In your dreams,” Brianna shot back. “What you’ll likely be watching is my back.”

  Tanner couldn’t help himself; he roared with laughter. She was so damned sure of herself, so boldly feisty. He also couldn’t help but admire her. On the spot, he decided it was probably because she reminded him of himself.

  “We’ll see,” he said, still chuckling.

  “Yes, I guess we will.” She grew quiet, gazing out through the windshield and side window at the landscape as it changed from mountainous to flatter, barren desert.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “Not far from Mesa Verde.”

  “Mesa Verde? I thought you said our quarry was headed deep into the San Juan Mountains.”

  “What I said was I had picked up a rumor that he was heading there.” He spared her a brief glance. “Before I go tearing into the mountains, I want to check out the rumor for myself.”

  “And who are you going to check out these rumors with—the ghosts of the Indians who lived there?” Her tone held more than a hint of sarcasm.

  “Clever,” he said, sighing. “Actually, I didn’t say we were going to Mesa Verde itself. The rumor I’d picked up was that he had been spotted around Mesa Verde before hightailing it to the mountains. I’m headed for a town where the rumor came from.”

  “Oh, okay.” Brianna was quiet for a moment—a short moment. “I wouldn’t mind stopping in Mesa Verde.”

  Stunned by her startling remark, Tanner nearly lost control of the vehicle. It went off the road, onto the rough shoulder, before he righted it.

  “You want to do what? Have a look-see at Mesa Verde?”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Brianna,” Tanner said between clenched teeth, “I thought we were out here to search for a rapist/killer, not go on a sightseeing jaunt.”

  “Well, of course we are,” she said, abrading his irritation with her reasonable tone. “I meant someday I’d like to explore the cliff dwellings.”

  “I’m sorry.” In truth, he wasn’t at all sorry. “I thought you wanted me to stop today to go crawling around the ruins, and we have no time to waste.”

  “But you wasted all day yesterday,” she protested.

  Tanner was on the sharp edge of impatience. “Brianna, I told you I had a lot to do yesterday. Besides having to make some phone calls to tie up a few loose ends, I had to get our food supplies, which I paid for.”

  She sighed. “Okay, explanation accepted.”

  “Big of you,” he drawled with a bite.

  “I know,” she said sweetly. “And, of course, I’ll reimburse you for the supplies.”

  “Damned straight you will, honey.” His voice had a hard edge he didn’t like. Get a grip, Wolfe, he warned himself, before you find yourself without a mission…and the company of the gorgeous but irritating Brianna. As he fully expected, she retaliated.

  “Don’t go all predator on me. I’m not one of your prey,” she shot back at him. “And don’t call me ‘honey.’”

  Predator? She thought of him as a predator? Tanner frowned, not sure whether he wanted to laugh or curse a blue streak. Hell, predators killed their prey, sometimes ate it. He worked hard not to kill his, even the ones who deserved it. And he sure as hell didn’t eat his prey, the mere thought revolting.

  On second thought, he mused, gliding a quick glance over her body, he wouldn’t mind taking a nip of Brianna’s satiny-looking skin. The mere thought of tasting her was enough to stir his body. Get your mind back to business, Wolfe, he warned himself, where it’s safe. This ultrasuperior, haughty, independent woman was not for tasting, not by him. Damned shame, too.

  “I’ll make a deal with you,” he said, shifting in his seat to relieve an uncomfortable ache in that sensitive area. “You don’t call me ‘predator,’ and I won’t call you ‘honey.’ Deal?”

  “Deal,” she said, shaking the hand he held out to her.

  “How about ‘sweetheart’?” he asked, not missing a beat.

  “Tanner Wolfe,” Brianna cried sternly, before she gave way to laughter. “You’re a…a…”

  “Devil?” he asked, grinning in delight at having made her laugh instead of berating him.

  She raised her hands in surrender. “I give up,” she said. “You win—for now.”

  “Looks like a draw to me,” he said as he slowed down. “Good timing, too. We’re here.”

  “So I see,” Brianna said, peering through the windshield as he
drove into the town. “This is it?”

  “Yeah, I know, not much to look at.”

  “A little larger than other towns I’ve driven through.” She sat forward, as far as the seat belt allowed, to get a better look at the old town.

  “Will we be here long enough for me to look for a coffee shop or diner? I need some caffeine.”

  He parked the SUV in front of a small café. “You want to go traipsing around in those?” He sent a pointed look at her shoes.

  Brianna shook her head. “Of course not.” She feigned shock. “I couldn’t walk around in public in heels and this attire,” she went on haughtily. “I’d never dream of committing such a fashion faux pas.”

  Was she serious? Tanner stared at her for a moment, then laughed.

  Brianna laughed with him. “I suppose it is time to change, isn’t it?” She flashed a megawatt smile.

  Tanner felt something strange inside, a sensation unlike anything he had ever felt before. It was as if there was something coming alive, unfolding deep within him, a current of soft warmth. It was weird. He had experienced heated desire many, many times. But this feeling was different. And it was directly related to the woman seated next to him. He had to swallow, moisten his throat and lips before he even attempted to reply.

  “Yes, I suppose it is.” He sighed, not even caring if she heard him mutter, “I’m gonna miss ’em.” Swinging open the door, he said in the most normal tone he could manage, “I shouldn’t be long. Wait for me inside.” Stepping out, he motioned to the place. “We might as well have lunch while we’re here. Then we won’t need to stop again.” He raised a brow. “Okay?”

  “Fine.” She nodded, quickly calling after him as he slammed the door and started away, “I’ll need to get in the back to get my boots.”

  He was lifting the trunk before she had finished. “Yeah, I know.”

  Releasing the seat belt, she turned to look at him. He grinned, lifting a Western hat and settling it on his head. “I needed this, too.”