One-Click Buy: September 2010 Harlequin Blaze

by Lori Wilde

  “I’m not sure I understand,” he said slowly.

  She had to move. But she couldn’t pace in a room that felt as if it’d shrunk in half, so she had to settle for twisting her fingers together. There had to be a good way to explain and still keep what was looking like a dream come true.

  “I really wanted the Pownter deal,” she told him. “It was, for me at least, a once-in-a-lifetime shot. I wasn’t willing to just let it go. Especially not when you…”

  “When I bailed on the entire project?”

  She nodded. “Right. Well, I took a chance and met with Charlene. Actually with her full board. I talked to them, convinced them to accept Trifecta under a slightly different contract than they’d originally offered.”

  His proud smile warmed her through and through.

  “You faced that entire board and pitched a new deal? That’s excellent. I’ll bet you were incredible. They must have been eating out of your hand.”

  Her shoulders straightened just a little and she gave him an excited smile. “I wouldn’t say that, but they were definitely receptive. There are a few changes to the deal, though. I don’t know if they’re changes you’ll be okay with.”

  He lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss, heated and damp, against the palm of her hand. She could feel the tingles all the way to her toes.

  “I’ll do anything, Drucilla. For you. For us. And—” he grinned a little over the finger he was nibbling on “—to tell you the truth, I’d rather commit to the Pownter Institute than Blackstone.”

  Dru gave him a feeble smile and searched deeper for the right words. It was hard, though, with him playing sexy sucking games with her fingers.

  “Alex, I love that you were willing to try to change Trifecta’s deal for me. I love even more that you’d be willing to take on a two-year contract to prove that you’re serious about sticking around. But—”

  “No,” he interrupted. “No buts.”

  “But,” she insisted, “this new contract was negotiated with the idea that you were off the team. I was able to convince Charlene that I was good enough, strong enough, to lead the project. She’s willing to take a risk on me. The same deal as she originally offered Trifecta, but with me, just me—” she took a deep breath before continuing “—in charge.”

  He went still. Her fingers tensed.

  “I still want you on the team, if you’re willing to work with me,” she said quickly. “Your input and participation would be invaluable. Even if you weren’t, you know, the leader of record.”

  “I’d be working under you?” he clarified.

  She nodded, braced for his reaction.

  Then he laughed. A slow chuckle at first, then a deep guffaw. She stared, baffled. How was that funny?

  “Well, I do like it when you’re on top,” he told her with a wicked look in his dark eyes.

  Her sigh came out as a giggle as she smiled up at him.

  “I love how enthusiastic you are about the potential work,” she teased.

  He stopped grinning and gave her a long, serious look, as if he was trying to find the right way to tell her something. She held her breath, staring up at him.

  “You’re using the word love an awful lot today,” he commented with an inscrutable look.

  “Not to scare you,” she blurted. Regretfully, she pulled her fingers from his to grip his arms in case he decided to storm out. “I wasn’t trying to…”

  “I know,” he said, wrapping his now-free hands around her waist and pulling her tighter against his body. She sighed in pleasure at the wonderful feeling of him pressed against her again. “Actually, I like hearing it. It’s not a word I’m overly familiar with, though.”

  What was he getting at? Dru wished desperately that she’d skipped breakfast, since the wild dance of nerves going on in her belly was making her a little queasy.

  “It’s not an emotion I’m used to, either,” he admitted, confirming the direction he was heading and scaring the hell out of her. Dru was torn between running from her deepest desire and pushing him to hurry along the confession.

  Push, she decided, going for broke. She wanted the confession.

  With that in mind, she leaned in closer to his body and, releasing his arms, curved her palms over his cheeks. She gave him her sexiest—albeit a little shaky and nauseous—smile and stood on her tiptoes to kiss him.

  Before she could reach his lips, though, he put his hands on her shoulders to halt the forward momentum.

  “So you nailed the deal on your own?” he clarified, staring at her.

  Dru nodded. Weren’t they supposed to be tossing around that scary L word?

  Nervous again, she folded her lips together and waited to see if his L word was strong enough, real enough, for her reality.

  “And you don’t need me to advance your career?”

  She shook her head so quickly, her hair whipped at both their faces.

  “But I’m welcome to hang around, continue to colead the team and participate in the project?”

  Dru’s stomach sank, tears welling in her eyes even though she wasn’t sure why. She gave a tiny nod and held her breath.

  Alex heaved a deep sigh and closed his eyes, letting his head fall back for a moment.

  “This actually creates a problem,” he said after a few seconds.

  “What kind of…? How…? What do you mean a problem?” she finally blurted out.

  “I figured I’d swoop in here and save your career,” he told her. “That you’d be so grateful, you’d overlook my asinine behavior and welcome me back with open arms.”

  She gave a relieved laugh, only tinged a bit with hysteria.

  “I figured the project, and the mandatory two-year commitment, would serve as some sort of testament. But instead, you’ve eliminated my easy, waltz-in-and-be-a-hero-while-taking-minimal-responsibility commitment.”

  Dru opened her mouth, but didn’t know what to say. She closed it, then opened it again and offered, “I’m sorry?”

  “You should be.” He pulled her into his arms so fast, she squeaked. Laughter and joy twined together, filling her with happiness. “Now you’re going to have to pay, you know.”

  “How?” she asked as she wreathed her arms around his neck and snuggled closer with a happy sigh.

  “By loving me,” he said against her hair. “I’m talking long-term here, Drucilla. No fantasy stuff. Just you, me and reality.”

  She tilted her head back to smile up at him.

  “I do,” she said. “I love you today, I’ll love you tomorrow and all the tomorrows after.”

  Finally, his mouth met hers, their kiss a sweet affirmation to their professed feelings. The gentle, almost reverent glide of lips made Dru tremble inside.

  She pulled away just a little and gave him a naughty look.

  “But the deal is, we keep the fantasies. After all, I’m imagining you right now, naked on the desk.”

  “You’re the boss,” he agreed with that sexy, beach god smile she’d fallen so hard for. Then he gave her a wink and leaned down for a kiss.

  “No,” she said quietly.

  Alex blinked, but he didn’t say anything.

  “We’re partners,” she told him, a little giddy at the idea of being so wonderfully in love. “That means we’re both the boss.”

  Epilogue

  EXHILARATION SURGED through Drucilla’s body. Muscles tight, she filled her lungs with the warm evening air then gave a deep sigh of satisfaction.

  There was nothing like surfing at sunset. The colors of the sky, the feel of the cooling air as it whipped around her body while she flew over the water. Incredible. Simply incredible. Much like her life.

  “Are you ready?” Alex asked from his own board a few feet from hers. “You sure you want to take this on? These waves are bigger than you’re used to.”

  Dru’s joyful laughter bounced off the water and she shook her head, droplets spraying around her like a halo. “Oh, yeah, I can handle it.”

  S
he could handle anything.

  The wave built, its roar filling her ears. The diamond of her wedding ring glinted in the sun as she gripped the sides of the board. Her body tensed, not in dread but in wild anticipation. This was it. Time to give herself over to the pleasure of riding the waves. Second only to her favorite ride—Alex.

  A ride all her own.

  Patricia Potter

  THE LAWMAN

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  Colorado Territory

  January, 1866

  GUILT WEIGHED like an anvil on his heart.

  He should have insisted that Emma wait until he could accompany her from Kansas to Denver. He should have been with her.

  Now she was dead, and he was responsible.

  Just like before.

  “You know her, Marshal?”

  Jared Evans heard the question but didn’t answer. Instead he picked up the body of the young woman from the inside of the coach and carried her into the office he sometimes shared with Denver’s sheriff. He wanted her away from the prying eyes of curious onlookers.

  He gently laid her down on the bench and knelt beside her, choking off the growl that started deep in his chest.

  Emma. Pretty, smart Emma lay still, her dress stained with blood from a gunshot to the heart. She’d been all he had left of his wife, Sarah, who’d also died from an outlaw’s bullet three years earlier. Sisters.

  She looked so much like Sarah. The same soft, pretty features and golden hair and blue eyes.

  Jared hadn’t seen her since he’d returned after the war, only to find his wife, young daughter and brother dead, killed months earlier by Quantrill’s bloody murderers. Emma had taken him to the graves. Watched as he’d knelt down and howled in grief.

  Emma was engaged then, and he’d left to track down the men who’d killed his family….

  He closed his eyes. Sarah’s face replaced Emma’s in his mind’s eye.

  “Marshal?”

  He turned around.

  “You know her, Marshal?” The driver, who’d followed them inside, asked again.

  He nodded.

  “Wasn’t no need to kill her,” the driver said. “Wasn’t no need for anyone to git killed. I stopped. But one of them bushwhackers tried to kiss her after he took her purse, and she bit him. He just plain shot her, then turned the gun on me. I dropped when it hit my shoulder. Heard someone use the name Thornton.”

  Thornton. He knew the name. Knew it too damned well. He’d been chasing the Thornton gang for more than eight months. Confederates who didn’t know the damn war was over. Been robbing mostly military payrolls all over the territory. The jobs had been meticulously planned.

  No one had been killed until now.

  He touched Emma’s hair and closed her eyes. Rage and a terrible grief warred in his heart. For the second time in his life, he was too late to save someone close to his heart. “I’ll get them for you,” he said to her. “If it’s the last thing I ever do, every one of them will hang.”

  1

  Colorado, 1876

  SHOOT HIM!

  Samantha Blair’s fingers flexed as she watched the tall, lean man approach with an easy, graceful stride. The man she intended to stop at any cost.

  She had stepped off the crumbling porch of the saloon just seconds earlier and stood in the middle of the rutted street in a stance that was all challenge.

  Her long duster coat was confining and hot on this unusually warm day, but it disguised her sex. So did her loose shirt and worn pants. A hat covered her short hair, and she’d pulled the brim down over her forehead to cut the glare from the afternoon sun.

  Sweat dampened her leather gloves as she stared across the forty feet that separated her from the man with a hard face and a star on his vest. His skin was deeply browned by the sun, his hair black and his eyes deep set. He looked like a hawk to her, dark and predatory. His grim expression did nothing to allay the impression of deadly competence. He moved with a grace that persisted even as he halted.

  She pushed her coat back on the right side. He stopped, stiffened when he saw the gun. The intent.

  The dry wind kicked up dust, and a hot sun bore down on her and the man who had hunted Mac, one of the three people in the world she loved, for years. She was a healer, not a killer. But now Mac was helpless. Critically wounded. Defenseless.

  Except for her.

  Mac didn’t know she was here. The sign over the saloon—one of only a few structures left in the small mining town of Gideon’s Hope after a disastrous fire—hung drunkenly by a chain, while the rest of the building looked as if it were about to fall in.

  In the distance she heard Dawg yowl, as if he knew something was terribly wrong. The old hound would be clawing at the door, desperate to come to her aid.

  “Go home,” the lanky man said in a soft drawl. “I don’t shoot kids.”

  She stiffened. “I’m not a kid,” she retorted. She’d hoped her height would offset the impression of youth. “I’ve killed before,” she added, willing him not to see the lie in her eyes. She hadn’t killed, but she was good with targets. Very good. And fast.

  She could do this, she reassured herself. She had to do it. She wouldn’t let doubt rock her. She didn’t want to kill the man. Blue blazes, she didn’t want to kill anyone. Just stop him. A bullet in the leg would do. Or arm.

  Always go for the heart or head. Hit anything else and your opponent will kill you.

  How many times had Mac told her that when he’d taught her to shoot? To protect herself. Don’t ever expect a gunman to give you an advantage. He won’t. And the marshal was a gunman. She knew his reputation. Had dreaded it for years.

  The lawman took a step toward her. “I don’t want trouble. I’m looking for an outlaw.”

  “There’s no outlaw here,” she said.

  His mouth curved into a half smile. “Then I’ll look and be on my way.”

  “We don’t like strangers, and we especially don’t like the law,” she said.

  “Who is we?” he asked, his voice controlled. No fear. But then he was a lawman, and there was something very sure, very competent in every small movement.

  “Don’t matter,” she replied, trying to keep her voice husky. Her heart pounded. Only the conviction that she alone stood between this man and Mac kept her from turning away.

  “It matters to me,” he said, taking another step.

  It was now or never. If he got past her, then he would go after Mac. Her hand moved to her side, just inches from her Colt.

  She had no choice. Mac was like a father to her. Now shattered by three bullet wounds, he lay unconscious in a room inside the saloon. She had to protect him. There was no one else. No one.

  “Look, I have no quarrel with you,” he tried again. “I don’t even know who the hell you are.”

  “We don’t like strangers,” Sam repeated. She tried to hide her abhorrence at what she was doing. The fear that turned her blood cold in the hot temperature.

  It’s for Mac.

  Archie was with Mac now. Archie, another of her “godfathers,” was the oldest of the three men who had loved her mother and taken over Sam’s care when her mother died. Now he needed glasses to see across the room. He would have tried to help if he knew what was happening. And he would have been killed.

  Only she stood between the marshal and Mac.

  She’d be damned—or dead—before she’d let this man take Mac to hang.

  She could hav
e ambushed him, but that went against everything Mac had told her. Only cowards ambushed.

  “Leave,” she tried again, hoping her desperation didn’t reveal itself in her voice. “There’s other guns aimed at you.” Even as she voiced the words, she knew he wouldn’t retreat. Knew his reputation as a ruthless hunter. Still, she had to try. Her heart pounded so hard she feared he could hear it even from a distance.

  “Can’t do that,” the intruder replied. His lips were twisted into a frown. She tried not to look at his holster. Mac said never look at the holster. Or the hand. Look at the eyes. They told you when your opponent was going to draw.

  The eyes. Not the face. Concentrate on the eyes. Dark with a glint of blue. Unblinking.

  “I’m a U.S. Marshal looking for Cal Thornton. He might be going by the name of MacDonald these days,” the lawman continued. “I don’t have a quarrel with anyone else.” His voice suddenly hardened as he added, “Unless they interfere.”

  “Don’t know no Thornton,” she said. “Or MacDonald, either. And that badge don’t mean nothing to me.”

  His gaze didn’t leave her face. “That old man in the livery said the owner of the horse there was in the saloon. Thornton rode that horse. There aren’t many pintos like it.”

  “He’s crazy. I won that horse in a wager.”

  “Then I’ll just take a look and move on.”

  “No,” she said flatly.

  Something about her answer made his lips twist into a smile.

  “Where is he, kid?”

  She realized with a sick feeling that she’d confirmed the fact that Mac was here. It didn’t make any difference, though. She’d seen him talk to old Burley, then start in the direction of the saloon without hesitation. If he’d ridden this far to find Mac, he wouldn’t be stopped by a denial. Only a bullet could do that.