Stealing Thunder

by Patricia Rosemoor

  Staring in fascination, Tiernan said, “Doug Holloway sent me to see you.”

  Narrowing her gaze in return, Carrie said, “Huh, haven’t noticed you around before. Did they just hire you? Are you playing an army man or a civilian?”

  “I’m not one of the actors—”

  “Too bad.” She grabbed his chin with a ring-laden hand and turned his head from side to side. “Good bones. The camera would love you.”

  When she let go, he said, “I am needing your makeup skills…for a horse.”

  “A horse. Why?”

  “A couple of our horses came down with the flu yesterday. One of the horses already filmed is a Paint with a uniquely marked face. I don’t have another who could pass for him. Doug thought maybe you—”

  “Could make one horse look like another? Okay, let’s see what we have.”

  Tiernan led her to the pasture and pointed out Bandit, the horse most like the one that needed replacing. Carrie quickly sketched the horse’s markings.

  A few Lakota extras gathered round to watch.

  “That a special horse?” the one named Bear Heart asked.

  “Hopefully, he will pretend to be someone else.”

  “No different than any other male, eh?”

  Tiernan grinned at the old man who always seemed to have a sense of humor. “No woman involved, though. Except for her,” he said of Carrie.

  She then took him to the camera crew and asked for the video back up from the day before so she could see what the sick horse looked like.

  Peering over her shoulder, Tiernan watched Carrie make a quick sketch of the Paint’s face. She was careful to get the markings exactly right. Then she sketched the poll, neck, shoulder, chest and legs, as well. The detail in her sketches was meticulous.

  “Do you think you can make it work, then?” he asked.

  “You must be joking. This is child’s play for any decent make-up artist. We transform actors into someone they’re not. For example, I could make you up to look like…well, practically anyone here,” Carrie said, indicating the crew members of different ages, weights and races milling about. “Give me a little time to get what I need—someone got into my tent and made a mess of my things, so it may take me a while.”

  “You mean, they went through them?”

  “Everything was thrown around like someone had a temper tantrum. Anything like that happens again, I’m going to request a security guard!” She sucked in a big breath. “You bring the horse over to the makeup tent in an hour.”

  It would probably take half that long to get Bandit, halter him and lead him back here. Tiernan considered using restraints since horses often freaked at anything new being done to them, but he didn’t want to hobble Bandit or use a twitch or ear restraint, not when he had other methods of handling him.

  As he walked back to the pasture where he’d left the horse, Tiernan thought about the makeup tent. Who would have been in there messing around? Some kid?

  After rounding up Bandit, Tiernan clipped a lead to the halter and then hand-led the spirited horse to the gate, all the while touching him and tuning in, making the connection that would convince the horse that he was safe, not an easy task when working with a prey animal. Getting a jump on the Paint’s fight-or-flight instinct before it took hold was key. Tiernan could only imagine the horse’s response to what was about to happen to him.

  By the time they arrived at the makeup tent, and Tiernan secured Bandit’s lead to a nearby tree, he was confident that he and the beast had bonded.

  Carrie came out of the tent, carrying a box. “Ah, there you are. I’m ready. How’s our friend?”

  “As settled as I could manage.”

  Referring to her sketches, Carrie first lightly chalked in the new color design wherever needed on the Paint’s hide. All the while, Tiernan stood next to the horse, touching him with a steady hand, using their unspoken connection to keep the horse calm.

  Then Carrie slipped on an oven mitt and dipped it into a pan of brown dye. Patient until then, Bandit rolled his eyes and Tiernan sensed the immediate desire to flee.

  “Nah, nah,” he murmured, stroking the horse both physically and mentally until Bandit settled.

  “You have quite the control there,” Carrie said, using the dye on the mitt to create the basic shapes of the pattern on the horse’s hide.

  “’Tis a gift,” Tiernan said with a grin.

  Even so, Bandit’s flesh shuddered, and Tiernan concentrated, put thoughts of a pretty pasture on a lazy spring day into the horse’s mind. Bandit stilled just as Carrie took a soft cloth with some petroleum jelly and blended the color to make it look more natural. But a moment later, when she went at his face with a toothbrush with a squeeze of white paint from a tube, the horse sidestepped.

  “Easy now,” Tiernan murmured, rubbing the horse’s ear between two fingers just as the producer and director of the film walked by, hot in the middle of an argument.

  “Sorry, Jane, it’ll take too much time.”

  “You said we would do this my way, Max!”

  “I’ve rethought it and decided against it.”

  Bandit settled and let Carrie work in the white paint.

  “You promised!” Jane said.

  “Too costly. I already took a bath having to get another camera after one of ours mysteriously melted down.”

  Something had happened to one of the cameras? And this after the makeup tent had been messed with. Tiernan wondered if the camera meltdown was something that just happened…or was planned….

  “That’ll be covered by insurance,” Jane argued.

  “Look, I don’t have the insurance now, and I need the extra money for the mine scenes. Getting some of that equipment in when we shoot the gold scenes is going to be far more costly than what I was originally quoted. As will be the big cleanup after I blow the mine’s entrance as part of the act-two plot point.”

  “Then we can change—”

  “Jane, enough! I am the director.”

  The producer flushed with color and looked away.

  Tiernan hadn’t known they were going to blow up the mine entrance. He wondered how stable the mountain was in this area, and whether such a move would cause more problems than the director was even aware of.

  The producer and director passed Tiernan.

  Their emotions flared—desire, resentment, power. Realizing they were more than coworkers and had a serious relationship, he suddenly had a fleeting image of Ella in mind. Tiernan closed himself down and concentrated only on the horse as Carrie used hair spray to set the color.

  The last thing he wanted to think of was dealing with a relationship with someone he could love. Not when he could never have that for himself.

  WIND SWEPT AROUND the hills, whistling through the pines and pummeling the entrance to the abandoned mine…his favorite place to journey. This day, he would not travel alone. He wished his companion to see with unfettered vision, to experience with a truly open mind for the first time. He’d been cultivating her for this moment.

  He shook the drug from his leather pouch into the palm of his hand and offered it to her.

  Dutifully, she accepted the tablet and put it to her ripe lips. Her hair fluttered around her face as her gaze locked with his, and she tongued the drug as she would soon tongue him. Then she rolled the drug into that clever mouth and with a little moan that made his groin tighten, swallowed and smiled at him—not the pure smile of the innocent, but one artful and calculating. She licked her full lips, knelt before him and thrust forward firm breasts straining at her thin blouse.

  He’d tasted those breasts before, had suckled her until he’d been blinded by desire. “Strip,” he commanded, sitting and closing his eyes.

  He could see her in his mind.

  She gave him a calculating look, then sat and pulled off her boots and socks. Such beautiful feet, long with perfect toes and the nails painted a deep red that reminded him of blood. She slid a bare foot along his inner leg to hi
s groin and raised her knee so that he could see she wore nothing beneath her skirts. The sight made him catch his breath.

  She smiled and raised her hands to her shirt. Unbuttoning it took an agonizingly long time.

  “Hurry,” he urged, his mind already expanding for the journey.

  The sun hung low in the sky and dispatched shadows that careened from crag to crag around them until the very rocks awakened. Was she aware yet? Did she see the way the sun cast dying purple and chartreuse beams across the sky, behind the expanding clouds?

  Her eyes dilated and her breath grew ragged and for a moment, she seemed surprised. Then she purred and spread open the cotton shirt and fluttered closer to him to offer her perfect breasts. A gift he couldn’t refuse.

  He twirled his tongue around the turgid flesh and opened his trousers to release himself for her. Smoothing her skirts up over her waist, he slid over her….

  “Wait,” she whispered, tightening her thighs, denying him entrance.

  His senses were amplified and her voice echoed in his head as if the rising wind whirled through the tunnels of the mine. Desire slid through him like a molten volcano waiting to erupt.

  “You have something more exotic in mind?”

  “A trade. You can have whatever you want of me if you give me what I want in return.”

  He barked a laugh. Did she really think she could bargain with him? It amused him to let her think she could.

  “And what is it you want?”

  “To have what you have. I know what you found.”

  “You’re delusional…well, yes, of course you are.” He’d made certain of that with the drug. “Now, spread your legs like a good girl.”

  Her thighs didn’t open.

  Her eyes were slitted, her nostrils flaring. “I want what you have,” she said again. “If you’re smart, you’ll keep me happy.”

  Her words whirled through his mind with tornado velocity. “Threats?”

  His instant fury made the earth rumble under them and the tunnel walls shake. Who did she think she was? Did she think she could control him by withholding sex?

  “You need a lesson. I will teach you control.” And then he would be done with her. He captured her gaze with his and forced his will on her. “Now invite me in.”

  She had the good sense to look frightened and not try to thwart him again. Her legs fell open and he slid inside her. Her eyes opened wide with fright as he pushed himself to the hilt, then imagined himself continuing until he pierced her mind.

  Exhilaration pushed him over the edge. The rush of his pleasure was like a river, washing through her and over her, making her imagine she was drowning. She gasped, her full lips opening and closing, her hands clawing at his back, as she fought for air.

  He savored his work for a moment.

  Then he opened his eyes and gazed at her directly. They were still in the same positions as when the journey in their minds had begun. She still knelt before him, her skirts modestly down, her blouse buttoned. But it was her eyes that gave her away. They were wild and unfocused. She was searching for something she no longer could remember.

  Good. Then he was finished with her. He rose.

  As he left the mine, a vision came to him. A woman far more interesting and complicated. He would enjoy playing with Ella Thunder before seeing her die.

  Chapter Ten

  Tiernan arrived at refuge headquarters after a grueling day on set—no fun having a recalcitrant horse made up several times since exercise made Bandit sweat and the white makeup smudge. There would be a few more days of shooting for Bandit, but at least the subterfuge worked and the stand-in easily passed for the sick Paint.

  Tiernan parked the truck under a tree. Though he spotted Ella’s SUV already parked outside the house, he headed straight for the barn to check on the sick horses. Once done there, he would throw himself in the shower and get ready for the engagement party.

  He’d insisted Ella come, too. She’d protested at first, said she didn’t belong, but then he’d claimed if she wouldn’t go, neither would he, because she needed to be protected. That had convinced her. Though he would probably be too tired to fully enjoy the event, he would enjoy her company despite his reservations and would appreciate catching up with family, especially a couple of first cousins he’d never met before because they’d never even been to Ireland.

  Kate was just about to leave the barn when she caught sight of him and waved him over. “Tiernan! You won’t believe it, but the horses are fine now—like they never were sick in the first place.” Her curly red hair was practically bristling as if she’d been spooked.

  He rushed past her and went from stall to stall and confirmed for himself that the horses looked perfectly normal. A couple were even munching away at their food. Amazed at the change in the horses, he rejoined Kate who still stood in the doorway, wearing a mask of confusion.

  “Perhaps we caught the problem just as it started,” Tiernan said. “Or perhaps it wasn’t as bad as it sounded.” And the horses’ coughs had sounded as serious as any he’d encountered before.

  They started for the house together.

  Kate said, “Okay, here’s the really weird part. I got the results from the lab. Nothing. No virus. No bacterial infection. Nothing. When I took those samples, those horses were completely healthy according to the tests.”

  A strange feeling shot through him. “’Tis odd, indeed.”

  “More than odd.”

  They stopped and stared at each other. Sensing Kate was blocking herself from what could be a logical explanation, Tiernan was the first to break the thick silence.

  “Perhaps the horses were never sick at all, simply made to appear sick.”

  “How? By magic?”

  He didn’t miss the irony in her tone. “I’m thinking sorcery.”

  “You mean…Lakota?”

  He nodded. “Executed by whoever left the raven’s track on the post.” Someone very good at shielding, because he hadn’t sensed anything abnormal the night before. Then, again, he hadn’t been looking for anything other than a way to help the horses. “Perhaps he thought making some of the horses seem sick would panic everyone and stop the production for a couple of days, putting the film behind schedule.”

  “Time is money,” Kate mused, starting off for the house again.

  “But you and Chase got the horses out in time before anyone even noticed.”

  “And the magic wore off?”

  “Something like that. Possibly the spell was specific to the horses staying in that pasture, the symptoms spreading from one to the other like a real virus, and when you removed the sick horses, you broke the spell.”

  “Not that it seemed broken last night.”

  Tiernan sighed. “Perhaps spells simply take time to wear off. I wouldn’t know since I’ve never encountered one of this sort before, but I’ve seen some unusual things.”

  “Someone else in the family might be familiar with this kind of thing,” Kate mused. “I mean, a bunch of McKennas will be at the ranch tonight.”

  “But you’re not going to tell them anything.”

  “Why not?”

  “And ruin your brother’s engagement party?”

  As they stepped into the empty reception area, Kate said, “Be reasonable! We might be able to stop whatever is going on, you know, if we combined all our psychic abilities—”

  “’Twould be a disaster, for certain! Too many cooks…” Someone was bound to get hurt. “Leave it alone, Kate. Leave it to me.”

  This was something he could manage without having McKenna backup. For the first time Tiernan could remember, he would be his own man. No one to answer to. He would get to the bottom of the mystery. For Ella.

  And for himself.

  ELLA WAS GLAD not to be left alone, but still she felt strange attending a party for someone she didn’t know.

  “Are you sure this is okay?” she asked when they left the truck. Her feet stopped, didn’t seem to want to move. “You
r bringing me—did you ask your cousin if it was okay?”

  “Rose and Charlie will be delighted to have your company. Why are you so nervous?”

  Was it that obvious? “It’s just that I don’t like intruding, McKenna,” she said lightly. “I don’t know anyone here.” And undoubtedly they’d be looked at as a couple, which made her doubly uncomfortable.

  “You know me, Thunder. I am not acquainted with half the people here, either, so you are doing me a great favor by accompanying me.” He slipped his fingers through hers and gave her a light tug. “Come on.”

  The touch shot a thrill through Ella. She followed Tiernan’s lead, taking a brick walkway past the big front porch and around to the back of the two-story house, painted white with green trim. Flowering bushes with white and yellow roses made a beautiful natural fence along the walkway and continued all the way into the backyard.

  Today, clean-shaven, hair slicked back from his roguish face, wearing tan trousers and a crisp white shirt open at the neck, Tiernan not only fit the groomed grounds but made Ella’s pulse rush a little faster. She rarely spent time in the company of such an attractive man. Not that they were on a date—Tiernan had made it clear that their being together was strictly for her safety—but she couldn’t help smiling.

  Tiernan’s relatives were gathered on the back patio. The smells that wafted from the big, brick barbeque made her stomach curl in anticipation. And the tables loaded with side dishes and desserts were equally enticing.

  The Farrells and McKennas made a big noisy group, everyone talking and laughing at the same time. Tables were set up for the party—two big picnic tables with benches and a couple smaller round tables with chairs. Several kids ran together, their hair different shades of red. Ella spotted three small girls who had to be triplets, barely school age. The other little kids were toddlers.

  “There you are, Tiernan, lad,” said a woman with fading and grayed red hair. She turned her shining smile on Ella. “And you must be Ella. I’m Rose.”