Uncertain, she decided to wait another fifteen minutes, just to make sure.
At first she thought the droning was part of the wind. Then the ghostly lights appeared on the road below her, insubstantial in the sifting sand. The vehicle stopped, cut the engine, its lights picking out a glint of metal, a blocky shape. Her truck.
A truck door opened. He must be searching the truck for her. After a while, she heard the clank of the door again. Maybe he’d give up now, go away.
The engine didn’t start. Instead, the headlights suddenly blinked out.
He was going to wait for her.
Her gun was there. Her truck. She would have taken a chance and driven on the rims, just to get out of here.
That was what the killer was counting on, and why she must turn her back on the only haven she knew.
Shivering from the adrenaline rush, Dakota put two dunes between herself and the road—at least she thought she did. In this storm, it was hard to tell.
Too exhausted to move or think, she finally sat down in the lee of a dune and tried to make herself as small as possible. She’d wait the storm out, then walk for it. She would not go back to the truck.
THIRTY-NINE
Clay was tired. It was a good kind of tired, because he’d managed to save the colt’s life.
He reached his cabin around midnight, poured himself a well-earned drink, and sat on the couch. The wind rushed around outside, making him restless. Dakota should have been here by now. He called her cabin and got the answering machine.
He hoped Rita had given her the message. You never could tell what Rita would do. He called her, but there was no answer there either.
Pinching the bridge of his nose, he closed his eyes. In another minute, he was asleep.
Dakota dozed, drifted, awaking to calm. The sandstorm had abated, and she could get her bearings.
Where she was, was the middle of nowhere. She felt like a castaway set adrift in the ocean, each swell larger than the last. Huddled against the desert cold, she felt lost and alone.
The moon grinned above her, its clotted-cream smile malevolent with false promises. The sand shivered off the dunes, but she could see now. Dawn was the faintest blush above the Sacramento Mountains.
At least she’d survived the night.
Damn, it was cold. She thought of the truck heater. It wouldn’t hurt just to sneak up the last dune and look over . . .
Except that that was what the killer wanted her to do.
Dakota trudged onward, her mind lingering on the heater. Up one dune and down the other, hoping to connect with the road at some other point. She planned to watch the road from the top of a dune and wait for the first tourist to come by.
She paused to get her bearings, staring back at the growing rust-red stain above the Sacramento Mountains.
That was when she spotted the rectangular speck. It was too perfect to be other than man-made. Reversing direction, she trotted toward it. Soon, the speck turned into a metal roof, surrounded by a tall chain-link fence topped by concertina wire. As she approached, the top third came into view.
She jogged faster, her legs pumping as the heavy sand sucked at them.
When she reached the top of the next dune, she could see the whole thing.
The shed wasn’t much bigger than an outhouse, built of gray cinder block. A sign on the gate read: US ARMY—
UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL KEEP OUT.
Beside the gate, two soldiers in army camouflage sat in an olive-green truck.
When the phone rang. Clay hurtled out of sleep. He glanced at the clock. Eight thirty! He should have been at the track three hours ago.
He must have been so tired last night, he’d forgotten to set the alarm.
Cursing, he grabbed the phone.
“I didn’t see you at the track,” Rita said. “What’s going on?”
“I slept in. Have you seen Dakota?”
“No.”
“You gave her my message? To come by here?”
“Of course I did! Maybe it was late when she got back and went home instead. She had a flat tire at the wolf rally.”
“You didn’t help her?”
“What do I know about flat tires?” Rita’s voice took on a sulky tone. “There was someone there already.”
“Did you know him?”
“No. So?”
Clay kept a rein on his temper. He didn’t want to say what he thought of her.
“I’m sure she’ll turn up.” Rita dismissed Dakota’s plight with an audible yawn. “Did Lucy return the truck?”
“I don’t know.” He glanced out the window. “Yes.”
“Do you know she’s been hanging around with Eddie Dejarlais? He must be twenty-one at least, and I hear he’s—”
A knock shook the screen door. Dakota raised her hand to knock again, looking as if she’d been sleeping in a cactus. “Dakota’s here now,” he spoke quickly into the phone. “I’ll talk to you later.”
“Clay! This is impor—”
He hung up and unlatched the door. “What happened?”
Dakota’s face was an odd color of gray. “Someone tried to kill me,” she said.
The phone rang immediately. He tried to ignore it, but the shrill bleating cut through his brain like a buzz saw. He picked up the receiver, staring at Dakota, still trying to digest what he’d just heard.
Rita’s voice. “Clay, I—”
He slammed the phone down, jerked the cord out of the wall.
Dakota stared at him in shock.
“I’m sorry,” he said, wanting to comfort her. But the way she stood, her arms folded over her chest, made him stay where he was. She looked as fragile as crystal. Illogically, he feared that one touch might shatter her into fragments. “Sit down,” he said, standing back for her to enter. “Let me get you some coffee.”
She made it to the couch on legs that looked as if they’d give out any minute. Shivering like a china cup in a saucer.
Hurriedly, he put on the coffee and grabbed a blanket from the bed, draped her with it. He didn’t know what to do after that, so he sat down opposite her, reached for her hands. They were cold. “What happened?”
Dakota swallowed. “There was a sandstorm at the Monument. I was driving back after . . . I had a flat tire . . .”
He silently damned Rita to hell.
“A man helped me change the tire—”
“What man?” he demanded, wincing at his overreaction.
She shook her head. “It wasn’t him. He helped me. I was following him out and we got separated . . . the truck stalled and someone ran into me. I thought I caused the accident, I didn’t know if the driver was hurt, I couldn’t very well just leave them there.” She trailed off helplessly.
“Don’t blame yourself.”
She continued on as if she didn’t hear him. She told him how she’d gotten out, called to the vehicle behind her, the eerie sound of the engine idling. “Something just told me to get out of the way. If I hadn’t . . .” She shuddered. “I could have been shot.”
“Jesus,” he muttered. In that instant, he crossed the space between them without conscious knowledge, and she was in his arms, the blanket accordioned between them, and she pressed her face into his shoulder and he held her as close as he dared, as if she were a bird whose life lay in his hand, a fragile, beating heart.
He was surprised when she shifted against his chest and her arms came up around his neck. She pulled him down to meet her lips.
Dakota didn’t think. It was pure instinct, this need to assimilate him into herself, to mold him to her body, to hold on for dear life to his strength. She kissed him savagely, with a bruising intensity that came from some feral place deep within. In an instant, like a brushfire consuming a single stalk of dry grass, he caught her fury. His response was swift and violent. He crushed her to him, his mouth drinking her in, his hands sliding along her body as he sought handholds. His restless, strong, plundering hands. One palm cupped her spine and she arch
ed her back up to meet him, her breasts brushing the hardness of his chest, and she felt a carnival thrill as his hand slid down further, over her jean-clad hip, up and over the long hill of her thigh, delving gently inward. His tongue was forceful, demanding, and she forgot her terror in a frenzy of desire. Her fingers twined in his hair, sifted through the dark feathers—she’d dreamed of doing it for so long—and then she felt him rise above her, caging her between one arm and the couch back, the palm of his other hand finding her center, describing deliciously sinful, lazy circles through the soft fabric of her old jeans. She closed her eyes, letting the ecstasy pool and ripple from his touch, an aching want so deep she thought she’d pass out. She writhed underneath him as the waves of pleasure mounted, and his breath was ragged, short, as their lips fastened and came apart, and all the while he was punishing her with his tongue, his palm clamped down with warm pressure on her sex, his fingers coaxing her open like a flower to the sun. She wished the barrier of clothing between them would magically disappear.
“Oh God,” he muttered against her hair, “I can’t believe . . .”
She shushed him with a kiss, reaching up to undo his belt.
The buckle wouldn’t give. “Let me,” he said. His strong fingers expertly tugged the belt over the prong.
While he was busy with his belt, his hand had left her aching, and she couldn’t stand the lack of contact. She raised her hips and her body slid along his length, hitching lightly on the jutting heat of him, and she heard him groan, felt the quiver that ran through his body. She heard the snap of his jeans, felt the wellspring of his passion meet the palm of her hand. Above, he shifted slightly, poised with arms on either side of her head, and rocked against her, eliciting a frisson of desire, “You like that?” he asked, his eyes gleaming like the devil.
“I love that,” she moaned.
For answer he lowered his head and kissed her softy, tousling her lips lazily before sitting back on his haunches. She couldn’t keep her eyes off him.
“Let’s get these things off you,” he muttered, pulling off first her shoes, then her socks, and then reaching for the zipper to her jeans. She moaned as he gently pulled the tab and the material parted, revealing the silk and lace. “Clay . . .”
“What?” He looked so innocent, but she recognized the teasing depths in his midnight eyes.
“Hurry . . .”
“You got it, sweetheart.” He leaned down and kissed the silky smoothness of her belly above the panties, then hooked his fingers over the waistband of her jeans. He pulled gently and they glided down her legs. He discarded them on the floor. The panties followed. She held her arms over her head as he pulled her shirt up and off, and unsnapped her bra. He kissed one breast and then the other, nuzzling her gently, drawing out the anticipation until she thought she would go mad, and just then he pushed up on his palms, his strong, muscular arms like pillars on either side of her shoulders. He poised above her, gently lowering himself so that his chest brushed against hers, tantalizingly, inch by inch, careful to keep from crushing her. Once more he rocked forward and back, first merely grazing her, then nudging, finally cradling himself between her hipbones, until she couldn’t stand his teasing anymore. “Please!”
“McAllister, your problem is, you never can wait.”
“I’ve waited ten years for this.”
“Me,” he gasped, “. . . too.”
He groaned as he took her, and she held him tightly, amazed at the way he filled her, every nook and cranny, their bodies like silk and iron. They melded together, each giving the best to the other, until the lazy rhythm gave way to frenzy, and the building passion, the pounding fury of it, threatened to maroon her on an island where there was no time, no mind, only pleasure.
He gripped her shoulders, driving into her with his tongue and with his sex, hard and deep and totally encompassing, and when his spasm came it shook them both, setting off a chain reaction that took her far and away above the world, and her love for him sang in her ears, filled her with light, brought tears to her eyes.
He lay against her, his breath slowing. Still careful to keep his weight on his arms. “McAllister?” he muttered.
“Yeah, Pearce?”
“Damn, but if I don’t want to marry you all over again.”
The second time they made love, it was gentle, like the light rain that tapped on the roof. This time they explored each other, remembered old haunts, sampled the sweetness of a leisurely stroll down memory lane. The horses were forgotten. Their responsibilities were forgotten. And most of all, for the first time in a long while, Dakota felt absolutely secure.
Later, still lingering in the warm glow of their lovemaking, Dakota and Clay drove to the Otero County Sheriff’s Office in Alamogordo. Dakota’s truck had been towed in. The back window was gone, a tire shot through, and four bullet holes peppered the tailgate. Dakota couldn’t believe she’d survived. If she hadn’t jumped when she did . . .
Sitting in Detective Pete Molino’s office, she had to pluck her thoughts back from that precipice and pay attention to his questions.
“You believe the person who made an attempt on your life also killed your father?”
She glanced at Clay, who squeezed her hand. “I think so. It doesn’t make much sense, otherwise.”
“Why do you think someone would want to shoot you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Someone just killed a valuable stallion of hers,” Clay said.
Molino’s salt-and-pepper eyebrows knitted together in a V. “What has that got to do with it?”
“I’ve been getting threats for months.” Dakota told him about the photograph of the mangled truck, the broodmares’ manes and tails. The attempt on Shameless’s life.
“But you think the person responsible for this has been arrested.”
Dakota nodded, feeling a headache coming on. She didn’t know what to think anymore.
Molino picked up the phone, leaned back in his swivel chair, and placed his feet on the desk, “Is this the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s office?” He identified himself. “I understand you have a man in custody named Jerry Tanner? He was charged with the murder of—What?” His coffee-brown eyes sought Dakota’s, but she could tell he wasn’t really seeing her. “When was this? No, that’s all right.” He set the phone down.
“What is it?” Dakota asked.
“Tanner was released last week.”
Clay stood up. “What?”
“The county attorney felt there was insufficient evidence to convict.”
Little more than a shadow in the gathering dusk, the intruder walked up the steps to the cabin and peered through the darkened window.
Empty. The cabin was empty. It was hard to see the inside, but some objects materialized in the gloom: the stove, the maple rocker, the fireplace.
A car drove by. For a moment, it looked like it would turn in here.
The vintage Coca-Cola chest hummed by the back door. The figure followed the deck around to the back, boots clumping on floorboards that rang hollow above the rushing night.
Open the lid, plunge a hand into the chill water and pull out a bottle with the lumps of ice still clinging to it. Drink the sweetness, let the bubbles congregate on the tongue, silvery needles of delight. Drowning in the sensation, the animal pleasure, the figure walked back and forth along the deck.
The Rio Ruidoso trickled over rocks down below, familiar-sounding, comforting. Cold damp air rose from the river. Somewhere there was a rustling sound. Had to be a bird. Birds were the only animal that didn’t bother to hide their noise.
Inside, the phone rang. It rang a long time before the answering machine picked up.
She’d come home and gone out again. If things had worked out, she might never have come home at all.
Luck had been with her. This time.
Somewhere, a siren pierced the stillness. An ambulance?
If she was scared enough, if she gave up and went back to LA now, everything would be fin
e. But that didn’t look like it was going to happen.
Not after this morning.
The Coke had lost its edge, started to cloy. The familiar void returned, along with the bone-deep knowledge that something was wrong. The “something wrong” remained out of reach, just at the edge of conscious thought, like a huge, spreading ink blot. It was never gone for long.
Fuck it. Pitching the half-full bottle over the railing, the dark figure walked back to the front of the cabin.
The bedspring croak of a cricket shivered in the air. It was cold after the rain. Rubbing arms against an inner chill, the intruder walked back down the steps and melted into the darkness.
FORTY
Dakota had to get away by herself and think about what had happened. The following morning, after supervising Shameless’s gallop, she went off for a ride on Tyke, taking one of the forest trails. The feel of a responsive horse under her and the flickering pine shadows soothed her frayed nerves. On a sunny day like this, it was hard to believe that someone had just tried to kill her.
But someone had. What was she going to do about it? Wait for him—or her—to try again? But there weren’t any options, when it came right down to it. The only thing she could do was watch her back. Literally.
Suddenly uneasy, Dakota glanced over her shoulder and touched her gun, which rested in a zippered carrying case slung over the pommel. She didn’t like carrying it—didn’t like the idea that she needed a gun to survive—but Dakota wasn’t about to be caught flat-footed again.
A rustle in the tall grass.
Dakota froze. She strained her eyes, peering into the barred shadows of the pines. Maybe I shouldn’t have come out here. Clay wouldn’t want her riding out here alone. You could bet the farm on that. She was vulnerable, riding a splashy paint horse that made an easy target.
But she’d needed to think, and she did her best thinking on horseback. Dakota nudged Tyke’s sides and he moved forward again.
Dark Horse Page 27
