“You didn’t have to leave.”
“How could I stay?” She sagged in his embrace and ducked her face against his chest. “Don’t you get it? It was my fault. I lay on that hill tonight, far above the action, with just one job. One friggin’ job. Take out the bad guy. Well, I screwed up, and Gabe paid the price. I know it. The team knows it.”
“That’s bull. In one night your car got vandalized, a sniper took a shot at you, and you missed a shot. There are no coincidences. If you blame anyone, it should be me. Everything started with my investigation and the article I wrote about you.”
She shrugged him off, shaking her head. “Protecting them was my responsibility. You asked me if I was ready. I honestly thought I could handle it.” She lifted her chin and met his gaze. “I made a mistake. I was wrong. Now Gabe might die.”
“He won’t die. You said it yourself, he’s strong. He’s a fighter. So come inside with the family.”
“I can’t.” She clutched at his shirt. “I want you to know I’d trade everything to have Gabe safe and well. For you and your family. I’m so sorry.”
She was so set on being alone, so determined to take all the blame. He framed her face with his hands and stared into her tired eyes. “You belong in there. With the people who care about Gabe.”
“A sniper who misses can’t be part of the team. They can’t be counted on.”
“I don’t think you made a mistake. I think someone sabotaged your weapon.”
“It doesn’t matter. The weak link gets you killed. It’s my job to be perfect.”
“No one is perfect. And a team is supposed to watch each other’s back.” He kneaded her shoulders and rubbed the knotted muscles. “No one can do it alone. No one expects perfection. Gabe didn’t expect it. He told me not to let you blame yourself.”
“Well, I do. My team does. I’ve failed them.”
“Are you telling me none of them ever came up short?”
“It’s not the same. I have one responsibility. How can they ever trust me again?” She bowed her head. “It’s over, Luke. My career, my place on the team. My whole identity.”
He lifted one hand and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I can’t tell you there won’t be fallout with your team, but don’t give in. Where’s that fighter I know is in you?”
“You don’t know me.” She shoved against him to escape his embrace.
“You’re wrong about that.”
His lips swooped down and fastened to hers, hard and demanding. Butter rum burst between them. The taste flooded him with memories of Saturday mornings nestled in warm covers, losing himself in Jasmine’s passionate touch, making the world fade to nothingness.
God, he wanted that for her right now.
She softened against him, and the chaos of emotions engulfed his senses. He pressed his body closer, where, for just a moment, he lost himself. Present, past, future, they all faded away in the sweetness of her lips. Nothing existed but her mouth. Her hands roamed his back, eliciting a rumble of pleasure in his chest.
Struggling to control the primal need burning inside him, he raised his mouth and stared at the woman who’d just melted in his arms. He wanted to unbraid her hair and tangle his fingertips through those silken strands. He longed to feel her legs wrapped around him and her breasts pressed against his chest with nothing between them but heat and desire. She could make him forget like no one ever had.
Now was not the time or the place, but he would have her again. And soon. He didn’t want to give up touching her, so he let his hands roam down her arms, down past her waist to the soft curve of her hips. Her eyes blinked open, soft with desire, and he pushed back a wisp of hair.
She swayed against him, shaking her head. “Oh, God. I can’t do this,” she choked. “I won’t be like her. I swore I would never be like her.”
Her words didn’t make sense, but the panic in her voice, the torment in her eyes tore through him. “Who?”
“My mother,” Jasmine said. “I used to hide in the dark, forgotten, while she entertained them. A man, any man, meant more to her than I did. She only remembered me once they left.”
She pushed away from him, her cheeks drawn, her body stiff, and he let her go. The fight within her died right in front of him. He wanted to shake the passion back into her, but her small revelation stopped him. He could only imagine the horrors she’d faced, and he could do nothing to protect her from the past.
“Look at me, Luke. My teammate is helpless, maybe dying. It’s my fault, and all I can think about is escaping into your arms. I’m no better than she was.” Jasmine shook her head slowly. “I may not know who I am anymore, but if I become like her, I really am nothing.”
From the hidden lookout above the hospital, a hand reached out and ripped a branch from the tree. Hatred seethed through every pore. Luke Montgomery had kissed the bitch.
A red haze clouded blurry vision. No. No. No. This wasn’t right. He was ruining everything. Jane Sanford was supposed to be humiliated, abandoned, and alone. Her team didn’t want her around anymore. The cop had said so.
Whitened fingers balled against camouflage pants. The slut was just like her mother.
Montgomery was like all men. He couldn’t wait to get into her pants. He’d been warned, but he’d fallen into the Jezebel’s arms. Well, he’d regret that mistake. The ones he cared for most—his family—would forfeit the ultimate price. They would be destroyed.
A satisfied smile twisted determined lips. Soon, Jane and Montgomery would both pay. In blood.
The August moon hung above the sheriff’s office, suspended like a fading spotlight in the early morning sky. Night and day, past and present, trading shifts.
As Luke steered his SUV down the block, he banged his hand on the steering wheel. Gabe was in a medically induced coma and holding his own, but Jasmine had vanished. Run off like before, like Samantha had.
Samantha. He hadn’t thought about Joy’s mother in quite a while. Not until recently. The affair had started out so much like his and Jasmine’s. They’d connected. Too fast.
They’d liked each other, had fun together, and then she’d turned serious. She’d wanted him to give up his foreign travel. Stay home. Find a life in Denver, near his family. She hadn’t understood why a war across the world was so important to him, and he couldn’t explain. He hadn’t wanted to explain those darkest parts of his soul. He’d left her, promised to return, and been captured by a group of insurgents. For several months even his family hadn’t known if he was alive or dead. When he came home, Samantha was already gone. He hadn’t looked for her, though; he’d been relieved. He hadn’t wanted to hurt her, but he hadn’t known that by not following her, he’d lost a child he didn’t know existed.
Well, no more letting go. Not anymore. He shouldn’t have let Jasmine leave the parking lot. Not in her state. He’d hoped a few hours of rest would snap her back to herself. Had she gone to her apartment? Of course not. Stubborn woman. He’d been searching for hours. She hadn’t been at any of her usual hangouts either: the gym, running in Apex Park, or even the corner convenience store that stocked butter rum Life Savers for her. The cop shop was the only place left to look. She had to be here.
He’d been mulling over the situation all night. He’d contacted his researcher to take the search on Jasmine one step further. He’d even authorized travel to New Mexico to hand search the archives.
She’d lied about her past, that much was clear, but he also knew a fundamental truth about Jasmine. She wouldn’t have sacrificed her team—or Gabe—for anyone or anything. The miss last night had devastated her. She hadn’t tanked the shot.
Hell, he was violating his own rules by not having proof, but at heart she was a protector like him. He and Jasmine were alike in so many ways. They fought with all the strength they had for right and the innocent.
He also understood something today that he hadn’t considered two years ago. He’d terrified her with his blind resolve to ferret out the truth a
bout Derek. She’d recognized he wouldn’t quit searching if he’d gleaned she was hiding her own dark secrets. Well, the thing she’d hated most about him was about to come in handy.
He pulled into the parking lot. Nothing mattered except finding out who was doing this to her. And why. Had Jasmine been the target? Had Gabe? Was this about the corruption investigation…or something else? Too many loose ends.
Luke didn’t like it when pieces didn’t fit. Hadn’t liked it when he commanded his Ranger unit. He didn’t like it as a journalist either. Trouble tended to follow.
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the flick of a cigarette lighter. A cop out for a smoke? Close to the parking lot’s exit, the tall, broad-shouldered figure, face obscured by a ball cap and an overcoat, stood hunched near an old red Pinto.
Something about the man’s stance and the Pinto bothered Luke, but he couldn’t quite place the car. Had he seen it before? He maneuvered the SUV into a parking space, but his Ranger instincts revved into overdrive. What was he missing?
At that moment Jasmine emerged from the station. She carried a rifle case in one hand. Simultaneously the man standing next to the Pinto dropped the half-smoked cigarette, snuffed it out with his heel, then picked up the butt and pocketed it, his movements quick and furtive.
Unless this guy was anal about littering, normal people didn’t usually tuck away their cigarette butts. Surveillance might. Or a predator who didn’t want to leave behind traceable DNA.
Jasmine crossed the parking lot, jumped into a beat-up pickup truck she must have scrounged from a junkyard by the looks of it, and, before Luke could react, tore onto the street. A second later, the man Luke had been watching ducked behind the tinted glass of the Pinto, and the old car lurched once then pulled out after her.
The guy was following her.
Luke floored the gas and raced after the red vehicle. He grabbed his cell phone and punched a number on his speed dial he’d never bothered to delete. It rang then went to voice mail.
“Damn you, Jasmine. Pick up.”
As the red Pinto weaved through traffic, always maintaining at least one car between him and Jasmine, Luke pressed on the accelerator to keep up. He squinted to read the small car’s license, but it was covered in mud. The guy knew what he was doing.
Luke redialed several times, but Jasmine still didn’t answer. Obviously unaware of the tail, she turned toward the outskirts of Golden then pulled on the road to the rifle range.
Her destination clear, the red Pinto slowed but didn’t stay with her. Luke gritted his teeth and debated whom to follow, but he had no real choice. He couldn’t let the unknown subject get away.
With a quick turn, he tailed the Pinto onto a side street, barren of traffic except for the two of them. Within minutes, the car whipped through another quick turn, then took a second left. Luke cursed. He’d been made. And the guy knew how to evade.
Luke swerved to make another sharp turn, but when the SUV straightened, the obviously suped-up Pinto had vanished. His muscles taut with urgency, Luke retraced the last several hundred yards, looking down side streets and alleys for any sign of the red vehicle.
Nothing.
He’d lost him! If the guy doubled back to Jasmine…she was alone.
Luke yanked his SUV around and flew toward the firing range. He would get to her in time. He had to.
Wind gusted between Jazz and the target, buffeting her clothes with sand. Her elbows pushed into the cold dirt as she lay belly down on the ground. She’d been up for over twenty-four hours, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but the truth. Fighting bone-numbing fatigue, she shifted her hips and tried to replicate her position from the night before.
Tower had cornered her at the crack of dawn for an official sit-down. His interview had been brutal. He’d relished every moment of having her in the chair across from him, knowing she couldn’t leave. He’d grilled her with question after question. About the weapon’s scope settings, its windage, its elevation, her own emotional state. The worst part was she’d asked herself those same questions over and over again since last night. Did he think she hadn’t wondered if she’d made a mistake? If she’d lost it?
She hated the doubts that crept into her mind, but she couldn’t stop them. She’d fought so long and so hard to find a place where she would be respected. She didn’t expect love or friendship or family. Those were out of reach, but she could hit a target. Better than anyone.
At least she had until last night.
Using the back-up weapon Sarge had given her, she’d know in the next few minutes if she’d lost everything. Could she take it if she missed again?
The tripod cradling the gun didn’t take the pressure off her triceps as she maintained position, attempting to mimic everything—the cramped muscles, the stiffness, the pressure—before taking the first shot.
Without looking at her watch, she knew it was time. She’d waited long enough. She clasped the stock, blinked the grit from her eyes, and focused. She didn’t need the cool air whipping through her shirt to tell her which way the breeze blew. Through the scope, at a forty-five-degree angle to the right, she could see the wind mirage, rolling like waves across her view.
Jazz held the gun into the optical illusion to compensate for the gusts of air. On a clear, still day the bullet would move to the right a bit. Centrifugal force would do that. In this weather, she had to make additional adjustments, but each move was like second nature.
The target should be easy. She’d made tougher shots more times than she could remember. Never had any shot felt as important.
Gazing at the concentric circles of the target, she focused on the ten ring, the bull’s-eye. Deep breath. Another, and another. Jazz exhaled slowly and, between heartbeats, squeezed the trigger.
For a brief second after the shot rang out she closed her eyes, unwilling to see another hit off target. Heart pounding, hands damp with sweat, she opened her eyes and stared through the scope. Dead center of the ten ring.
Thank God.
Something large and dark lifted from Jazz’s heart, and her arm sagged, letting the barrel drop a few inches. Unexpected tears burned in her eyes. Despite what she’d told Tower, until this very moment she hadn’t been certain. Not really.
Jazz cleared her mind and focused. She raised the barrel, sighted the target, and fired. Again and again and again.
After the last round hit, Jazz walked out the hundred yards and removed the target from its backstop. She held it up to the sun, but even with the paper flapping in the twenty-mile-an-hour wind, the tight pattern of holes streamed sunlight on her face. Twenty out of twenty, less than a centimeter off the ten ring’s center.
“Tower, you son-of-a-bitch. I haven’t lost it.”
She tacked up another target at 250 yards and strode back to her weapon, her steps quicker, her concentration more focused than it had been since the moment Gabe fell. She’d do it again, this time faster.
She pushed aside the sleep deprivation and lay prone in the dirt. The world around her disappeared; the wind faded to nothing. The past, the future were driven away by a single piece of steel flying through the air at 2,800 feet per second.
Twenty more shots; twenty perfect hits.
Jazz lowered her weapon, centered in her skill. The fault wasn’t her aim. Something else had happened. Sabotage, as Luke suspected? Soon she’d be able to tell him…wait a minute. Why did proving herself to Luke matter? Had Luke ensnared her emotions again? She couldn’t let that happen. She needed to show Sarge. She had to stay focused on discovering what happened to Gabe.
She stood and made her way down the range to the second target, then hunkered in front of it. The center ring holes had melded into one, just a few millimeters from the first target’s cluster. She whizzed through the calculations in her mind. Perhaps adjusting the grain of the full metal jacket would give her a bit more precision.
She pulled off her ear protectors just as a man’s shadow raced across the paper. Jazz
whirled to her feet, her body poised for combat.
Luke yanked her into his arms and hugged her tightly against him, his lips brushing her hair.
“Don’t you ever turn on your cell phone?”
She must’ve imagined the slight tremor in his voice and shaking in his body.
He grabbed her weapons and clasped her hand, dragging her into a run toward their vehicles. “We’ve got to get out of here. Fast.”
“Is it Gabe?” she breathed, terrified of the answer, struggling to balance the targets and keep up with his long stride.
“They think he’s gonna make it. But someone tailed you from the station. Red Pinto. Muddied license plate.”
Jazz stumbled slightly then righted herself. “Red Pinto?” she gasped. “I noticed a red Pinto on the street near my apartment before the truck was vandalized.”
“Then your buddy’s back. And he could be watching us.” Luke scanned their surroundings. “Pray to God he’s not the sniper. Move it.”
Luke couldn’t believe he’d been so careless. He could have lost Jasmine. If the guy in the red Pinto was the sniper, he could’ve taken them both out. They’d been exposed, sitting ducks. He should never have let her out of his sight.
His fingers drummed on the steering wheel. He could see Jasmine’s loaner truck not too far ahead of him, but he wanted her with him. Now. His hands itched to hold her. His lips missed the taste of her.
He’d known this would happen. He didn’t want to fall for her. He had too many questions; there were too many secrets between them. But his body didn’t care. One inhale of her clean fragrance, one touch of her smooth skin, one smile or sparkle in her hazel eyes, and he was a goner.
Until he found out who’d targeted her, though, he had to stay on mission. He couldn’t let his desire distract him.
Following her as they headed to the sheriff’s office, he searched for tails, particularly the red Pinto, but he saw nothing. He needed another lead. Unfortunately he only had one option. He snagged his phone and dialed a number he’d memorized but hoped he’d never have to use. “Come on, Grace. Pick up.”
In Her Sights Page 9
