Pulling the Trigger

by Julie Miller

  “You were born of this place, Joanna. You spent a year with me on this mountain. Yes, you went to Yale, went to Quantico, went to D.C. But you came back when we needed…when your people needed you.” He touched the corners of her mouth, nudging it into a smile again. “And the warrior name fits. As I recall, you were the one doing the ass-kicking up at the caves above Cougar Fork.”

  That earned him a genuine laugh. “That’s only because you don’t like guns.”

  “That’s because you’re fighting for something—the safety of the people on this mission. Justice. Truth. You’re a warrior goddess who has returned to help us fight our enemies again.”

  Her smile didn’t need one dot of makeup to turn his head. “Warrior goddess. I like that a lot better than Superwoman.”

  “It fits.” Ethan dipped his head, and when her gaze locked on to his and she didn’t pull away, he pressed a kiss to that smile. Joanna’s lips were wet and cool with the rain. But after that first tentative contact, they softened and warmed, and parted to welcome him.

  He’d have thought a shared conversation, a long walk and a gentle kiss would take him back in time to when he and Joanna first became lovers. But as her fingers curled up beneath his collar and latched on to his neck, as his hands found her hips and pulled her trim curves into the harder lines of his body, as her husky moan matched a similarly needy sound in his throat, Ethan discovered he was firmly rooted in this moment. With this particular woman. The old memories were there, yes, but he was making new ones tonight. He tasted the heat inside Joanna’s mouth. Their wet clothes sparked a delicious friction and left little to the imagination as she rubbed against him, stretching up on tiptoe to alter and deepen the angle of the kiss.

  And Ethan obliged the unspoken request. He was a mature man now, one who’d seen the miracles of life and the worst of death and whose character had been shaped by both. The hunger he felt for this woman went far deeper than the lustful innocence of his youth. His blood surged, his heart opened. He needed this connection to be whole again. He found solace in her acceptance, healing in her desire for him. He widened his stance and pulled her into the throbbing response of his body. He cupped the nape of her neck, cradling her head as he plunged his tongue inside her mouth, mimicking all the sweet, sensual things he wanted to do with the rest of her strong, beautiful body.

  Ethan wasn’t recapturing a sweet moment from the past. He was laying claim to everything he wanted for his future.

  If only the woman was willing.

  If only she could see a future with him.

  A guilty conscience made one hell of a chaperone. He had promises to keep. One, he’d made to Joanna a long time ago—the other, just last night. And neither of them involved throwing her down in a muddy field and making love to her.

  “Joanna.” He skimmed his lips along her jaw and nuzzled the soft skin beneath her ear. He needed to pull back, to curb the eager wants of his body, to guard his heart before he screwed up the rest of his life by falling in love all over again with a woman determined to leave him. “We need to stop.”

  “We should.” But her lips brushed against his neck, sending a shiver of desire straight down to his groin. His fingers tightened their grip in her hair. “It’s been so long since I’ve wanted…anyone. I’m not afraid when you touch me. I…want…you to touch me.”

  Ah, sweet mercy. He was fighting to be a good guy here. He nuzzled the wet silk of her hair. She smelled of earth and rain and everything he’d ever wanted.

  But he needed to pull it back. They had a job to do. People were counting on them. She was counting on him to help her accomplish this crazy-ass mission to bring in Sherman Watts and square off against him in an interview room.

  That was what she’d asked of him.

  And that was what he’d give her.

  “I can’t, baby. Not right now. I shouldn’t.” Reaching down beneath the soles of his boots, Ethan called on a will more powerful than his own to unwind her arms from his neck and pull his lips from the smooth caramel cream of her skin. He cupped her shoulders and put a good six inches of space between them. The rain would cool their clothes and the sensitized skin beneath soon enough. Until the wet and chill and discomfort could steal the moment back, Ethan rested his forehead against hers, savoring the warm breeze of her ragged breaths caressing his cheek, closing his eyes to imprint this precious, tentative connection to Joanna in his mind forever.

  “You’re right. Bad timing. Job to do.” Too sarcastic. Too tough. That was Agent Rhodes talking.

  “Listen to me, Nüa-rü.” He opened his eyes to absorb the natural beauty of her long dark lashes resting against her cheeks. His own pulse beat like a war drum in his ears, drowning out his brain’s attempts to send a message of control to his hormones. “I want to be with you the way the earth wants to see some sunshine tomorrow. But I have to make sure we’re in a safe place for the night.” A vague notion of the wind shifting or the barometric pressure dropping—of some change in the world outside this cooling embrace crept across his senses.

  “And I want to look for Ben a little longer tonight. I—”

  Her eyes popped open and looked straight up into his. She heard it, too. “Is that the river?”

  “Is that thunder?” they asked in unison.

  They separated, turned, searched.

  The percussive noise was steady, mechanical—and growing louder by the second.

  “Ethan, helicopter!” Joanna pointed to the blinking lights in the northern sky, coming in across the meadow and picking up altitude to clear the bluffs across the river. She waved her arms and shouted. “Hey! Down here!” She turned and gave him a smile. “They must be looking for us. Where’s my flashlight?” She ran toward the oncoming bird, fumbling to get her light switched on while she was moving. “Base camp must have gotten at least some of Ben’s last radio call and sent it in to pick us up. Get your light. Hurry!”

  “Joanna, wait.” Ethan jogged after her, feeling less sure about a rescue. Martinez had been adamant about grounding the official helicopter until it was safe enough to fly. “Joanna!”

  “Hey! Come back!”

  But it whipped past overhead without any indication that the pilot or passengers had seen them.

  She was breathing hard from her run by the time he caught up to her. “So much for a rescue. Maybe it was one of those tourist helicopters that flies guests around to show them the scenery. Do they still do that here?”

  “Yeah. But not at night. I don’t think they were looking for us or the scenery.”

  Joanna turned, letting him read the thought processes on her face. She’d figured it out, too. “He was flying at night without using a spotlight. He wasn’t looking for anything.”

  Ethan braced his hands on his hips and nodded agreement. “That’s something else we’ll have to report when we reach base camp. Somebody violated the sheriff’s no-fly order. If Watts saw that, too, he’ll go even deeper into hiding.”

  “Unless Watts has a friend with a helicopter who’d give him a ride out of the country?”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Me, too. Although the trace I found at the shooter’s position on top of the cave bluff…”

  “What?”

  “It made me think that Watts wasn’t the man shooting at us. That someone else is on the mountain.”

  “Like who?”

  “Maybe that shoe print Miguel Acevedo found does belong to Boyd Perkins.”

  A hit man on the mountain with them? Ethan scanned the limited horizon, automatically sizing up the places where a man could hide—or where a couple could safely escape for the night. That was a dangerous complication this already messed-up search didn’t need. They needed to get moving. “Did you see a similar print up top?”

  Joanna shook her head. “It was all rock. It’s just that what I saw there wasn’t what I would have expected from Watts. But then maybe he’s trying to throw us off his trail again. Besides, if Boyd Perkins was here, he’d be going aft
er Watts to keep him from talking, not shooting at us, right?”

  Ethan wrapped his hand around Joanna’s elbow and pulled her into step beside him to get them off the open field and back to the relative safety of the trees and rocks. “I suppose that makes logical sense.”

  All of a sudden, Joanna planted her feet and twisted her arm from Ethan’s grasp. “Wait a minute. The helicopter—you don’t think…?”

  “What? That Perkins flew in, found where Watts was hiding and killed him?” He started walking again. “I doubt it. Watts thinks like a rat. My guess is he’s holed up somewhere nice and tight for the night.”

  She hurried to catch him. “So what’s our next step? Keep looking for Ben?”

  “I say we wait and give one last look for him in the morning. The storm will have passed by then, and we’ll have the light so we can move quickly and efficiently. Maybe allow ourselves an hour to search. Then we’ll need to head on down to base camp to make our report—at least get close enough so we can use a cell phone to call in his disappearance.”

  “And Watts?”

  Ethan stopped, faced her, pinched her chin between his thumb and forefinger. “I said I’d find him for you. It may be delayed a day or so, but I intend to keep that promise. I’ll be back out here tomorrow after we handle Ben’s disappearance. I’ll pick up Watts’s trail again.”

  She closed her fingers around his wrist and pulled it from her chin. But instead of releasing him, she laced her fingers with his, letting him know that she was in this hunt with him for just as long as it took. “So we wait until daylight to resume our search. What are we going to do tonight?”

  Ethan tugged on her hand and headed back toward the natural bridge. He already had a plan. “We told HQ we’d be staying on the mountain tonight. I know a dry place where we can warm up and get some sleep.”

  “Can you find it at night?”

  “I could find it blindfolded if I had to.”

  SHERMAN WATTS STRAINED with the effort it took to keep the sapling bent at an angle while he tied it off. He pushed harder with his legs, tried to make his cold fingers work faster. One. More.

  There. He held his breath as he backed away. Nice work, Sherm. You always were good with your hands.

  “You know it.” The voice in his head was female. Familiar. Though strangely out of place. He shook his head to clear the phantoms from his mind, and wound up shaking the ball bearings back and forth inside his skull. “Son of a bitch.”

  Clutching the brim of his hat, he pulled it down on either side of his head, as though he could keep the raging headache from leaking out of his ears. He plopped down on his backside in the brush and closed his eyes, waiting for the world to stop spinning.

  He was in serious need of a drink and racing toward dehydration. He might have laughed at the ironic thought if his stomach wasn’t crawling with hunger and he could catch a decent breath.

  Where had he gone wrong? What mistake had he made that ended up with him hiking back down toward Marble Mountain and Towaoc? No way could he get back to his borrowed truck and Mesa Ridge or his uncle. The cops would have watches posted around anything remotely connected to him. He couldn’t even call his anonymous “friend” at the crime unit and beg a favor. Of course, he shouldn’t have needed to. His plan should have worked.

  He’d made it all the way up to Rising Sun Creek and had erected a lean-to. He was set to stay up there right until the first snows began to fall again. When he’d heard the blast and rock slide behind him, he knew he’d just cut off any easy access to his remote location. In fact, he’d been feeling so damn fine sure of himself that he’d opened his pack and pulled out his fishing tackle. He’d had to chunk up some of the ice near the bank to get water to drink, but in the deeper pools, he’d be able to find something small and tasty and fresh to grill over a fire.

  As far as he was concerned, life didn’t get any better than that. The law could just go hang their sorry selves if they thought they were going to mess up this gig for him. A man didn’t need thousands of dollars and the pressure of answering to any boss, or anyone, period, in order to be happy.

  Yeah, he’d toss a line in…

  Paradise had ended abruptly when the shooting started.

  Sherman dropped his pole, cursed as he watched the current catch it and take it downstream to get jammed in the ice and snapped in two. He’d scrambled back to the lean-to for his pack, had to dig all the way to the bottom of it to find his gun—broke his last new bottle of whiskey in the process.

  He’d thrown himself to the ground, crawled on his belly like a snake to the edge of his lookout position. But by the time he’d reached any kind of vantage point, the gunfire had stopped. “What the hell is goin’ on?”

  Must have been kids from the rez playing with their daddies’ guns—kids he’d like to take a stick to for messin’ up his…But then the shooting started again. Did the cops think they’d found something? Had they somehow gotten past the caves and picked up his trail again? Did they think they were going to corner him up here like a pack of huntin’ dogs surrounding their quarry?

  Sherman had lain there in the rain and the muck for a good forty-five minutes before he realized the cops weren’t coming. He’d laughed at his success, craved a drink to celebrate it.

  He sat up with the sobering thought that if the cops hadn’t been shooting at him, then he’d been royally screwed. What were the chances of someone else hiding out on Ute Mountain? Someone armed and dangerous and reckless enough to exchange gunfire with those pesky federal agents?

  He hadn’t wasted any time pondering about who else might be on the mountain, or what his purpose might be. He wasn’t running from just the cops now.

  He was running from Boyd Perkins.

  Smart money would have bet on him to stick to the high ground because it was so much harder to reach. The chopper he’d heard flying overhead confirmed that as it headed toward the summit of Ute Mountain. That’s why he’d chosen this spot down in the gully at the base of Marble Mountain. Perkins wouldn’t think to look down here. The trees would warn him if anyone got too close. He could catch some shut-eye now before he made the long trek into Towaoc tomorrow. Once there, he could borrow some wheels and drive down to Mexico.

  Then the cops couldn’t harass him, Perkins couldn’t kill him, and he’d live happily ever after. Maybe he’d change his drink to tequila and live another fifty-eight years just fishing off the end of a boat. Nah. The money here in Kenner County had been good while it lasted, but he didn’t need it. It was a good plan.

  I don’t know anybody more resourceful than you, Sherm. The woman’s voice praised him, comforted him. The voice in his head probably should have freaked him out because that sweet, loving woman had abandoned him a long time ago.

  But he was tired. He was wet. He was cold.

  Lying down, he pulled his pack beneath his head, turning his nose to the tangy scent of sour mash that permeated the damp canvas. With his fingers resting on the gun tucked at the front of his belt, he curled up on the ground with his traps, his headache, his memories of Naomi Kuchu to keep him warm and fell asleep.

  Chapter Nine

  “I found some more dry fuel in the underbrush. Should be enough to keep the fire going through the night.” Ethan announced himself, tossing up an armload of dead tree branches he’d harvested before hoisting himself up and entering the cave again. The last time he’d climbed up without a word, a startled Joanna had whirled around, her Glock poised to blow a hole right in the middle of his chest.

  Several apologies and assurances later, he’d gotten a small fire started near the mouth of the raised cave. They’d shared an intimate dinner of energy bars and bottled water by the firelight, and then he’d excused himself to make one more check on the security of their camp farther downstream on the bluff side of the Silverton River.

  “The rain’s keeping everything quiet,” he said, pulling himself in and shoving the wood against the granite wall. “I think we should be
able to sleep for a good—”

  This time, Ethan was the startled one. He turned around and froze in his tracks.

  “I asked you to wait. Didn’t you hear?”

  How was a healthy man supposed to hear anything when every drop of blood in him was swimming straight south of his belt buckle?

  “Ethan?” Joanna stood beside a boulder where she’d laid out her vest and blouse and turtleneck to dry in front of the fire. The wet jeans she’d hurriedly tried to pull on were stuck between her knees and calves and slowly sliding back down toward her feet as she modestly crossed one arm over her breasts and the other over the plain white panties she wore. “You’re staring.”

  “It’s still the prettiest view on the whole mountain.” She might have blushed, but his gaze hadn’t made it up that far yet.

  Suddenly, his own soggy clothes felt sticky and hot. She’d spread out their hypothermia blankets on the dirt floor, and though he was sure there was nothing more to it than creating a place to sleep, his body read it as a blatant invitation. And his pulse was tapping out a definite RSVP.

  There was a lot to be said for the sexiness of basic underwear, especially when there were so many miles of taut golden skin stretched out in between. The firelight dappled her long, lean curves with a rosy warmth, and he was inspecting every inch of it, from the dimples beside her knees to her hollow little belly button and the nip of her waist to…

  “Do you mind turning around?”

  “Yeah.” He grinned like a schoolboy, ached like a man who’d been too long without the one woman who haunted his dreams.

  She muttered something and turned her back to him to battle with the wet denim again. Though, to his way of thinking, this view was just as enticing. “I remember when you used to be a gentleman about things like this.”

  And he remembered when she’d come flying apart in his arms, all breathless and wide-eyed with wonder, and had asked him when they could do it again.