Black Rock Guardian

by Jenna Kernan

  She worked up his arm, noting again the stylized W of inked feathers as she wiped the body art clean. Lower on that arm was the familiar tattoo of the US Marines Corps. As a former army captain, she had her prejudices against his branch of the armed services. But he had her respect because he’d served in Iraq and earned a rank equal to hers in half the time.

  “Why didn’t you stay?” she said, fingering the tattoo.

  “In the marines?” He blew out a breath. “Needed at home.”

  “Your mother had remarried. Kee was in his residency. Colt was in the service. How where you needed?”

  “Discharged.”

  “What?”

  “Colt was discharged.”

  Oh, now she understood. Colt’s records indicated that he had been in Walter Reed with PTSD after capture by Afghanistan insurgents.

  “You left the service to bring Colt home?”

  He nodded.

  Again, an honorable thing to do.

  “And you dove through a window for Kee.” She shook her head, not wanting to change her assumptions, even when faced with new information. “And you fought Chino for me.”

  “Didn’t do it for you,” he said, and looked away, turning his attention to Hemi, who poked at his free hand until he rested it on his dog’s square head. Hemi pressed her jaw to Ty’s leg and looked up at him with soulful eyes.

  “No?” she asked, moving to his back.

  Ty glanced over his shoulder at her. “If you’re blown, I’d have to do a lot more than bash Chino in the head.”

  “You’d have to leave.”

  “Only I can’t because if they find out who and what you are, it’s not just me. It’s my whole family. You understand? It’s why I didn’t want this deal.”

  And she thought he’d been reluctant because he didn’t want to risk his own neck or because it would endanger his pals. Now she understood that those men weren’t his friends. They were using him and Ty was trapped. Ty had plenty of skin in this game. She was going for accolades and position. He was trying to keep his family safe. Beth wondered if she’d be able to get him free.

  “I do understand,” she said.

  Ty was getting under her skin. She was starting to admire him, and that was just bad all around. He was her informant, and his help allowed her access to members of the Wolf Posse. Any relationship between them was impossible.

  Still, she brushed his loose straight black hair away, exposing the nape of his neck. She didn’t need to touch his hair but took advantage of the excuse. He did not object as she washed the juncture of his neck and shoulder, around the compression bandage and down his back. She took her time, smiling as she watched his skin pucker.

  It was the last week in October and fall had arrived in the mountains, turning the leaves yellow. But it was warm in his upstairs apartment. Still, he shivered at her touch.

  “You going to kiss me or just tease me?” he asked.

  She dropped the dishcloth into the basin as irritation flared. He’d called her bluff.

  “Is that what you want?” she asked.

  She threaded her damp fingers in his hair.

  “What I want you can’t give me,” he said.

  “What’s that?”

  “A way out that doesn’t get me or anyone I love killed.”

  “I’ll keep you safe,” she purred.

  “Beth, you are the exact opposite of safe,” he said.

  The temptation was nearly irresistible. He reached with one hand and captured her behind the neck, drawing her in for a kiss.

  “You going to stop me or kiss me again?” he asked. Was that hope in his voice, the slight strain and breathlessness?

  She pressed her free hand to his chest, feeling his heartbeat pounding too fast and too hard.

  “The last kiss was business.”

  He held her gaze. “Keep telling yourself that.”

  “I can control myself if you can.”

  His smile was all challenge. Beth’s hands slid around his neck until she splayed them at the base of his skull, tilting his head back and angling it to receive her kiss. He offered no resistance as her mouth moved over his. This time their kiss was a slow sensual exploration. The heat was there, burning like a wildfire, just over the ridge, the smoke visible as the flames approached. His tongue slid against hers, and her breathing and pulse went haywire.

  She was in trouble. Beth recognized that a moment before she closed her eyes and gave herself over to his sensual assault.

  Hemi scrambled to her feet, toenails scraping on the tile. She growled, hackles going up. Beth drew away and reached for her pistol. The sound of an engine reached them and then silence.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Kee,” said Ty, guessing at the identity of their guest.

  Beth moved to the side of the kitchen window, peering out at the wide driveway, weapon drawn. There was a dark pickup truck parked there. The cab light flicked on and the driver disembarked.

  “How do you know?”

  “I rebuilt that engine and haven’t had a chance to fix the hole in his muffler. Blue 2004 RAM pickup, right?”

  That looked right, she thought, eyes on the man standing beside his truck. He was the right size and build for Dr. Kee Redhorse.

  The visitor turned back to his truck and withdrew a nylon bag. He looped the wide strap over his shoulder.

  “Medical bag,” she said. The man looked up toward the house, illuminated now by both the cab light and the automatic sensor spotlight that tripped upon his arrival.

  It was Kee Redhorse. He waved and headed for the stairs. Beth tucked away her sidearm. “Remember, I’m your new girl.”

  “New? You sound like I have a lot of them.”

  “Don’t you?” A man as handsome as Ty could have many.

  “I’m selective.”

  Ty’s phone rang and he lifted the mobile from his back pocket. Beth saw the caller ID. It was his younger brother, Jake Redhorse, the tribal police officer.

  His voice was loud and animated enough for her to be able to hear him clearly.

  “Where are you?” asked Jake.

  “Home. Why? What’s up?”

  “Nothing. Just on a call.”

  “Where?” Two vertical lines etched Ty’s forehead.

  Jake did not answer.

  “I’ve got to go.”

  “Jake?” Ty’s voice held a warning as his scowl deepened and he rose to his feet, holding both the phone and the compression bandage. “Jake?” he barked, and then stared at the phone, which indicated the call had ended. Ty swore at the same time Kee knocked on Ty’s kitchen door.

  Beth moved to admit Dr. Redhorse, but now she was frowning, too. It seemed clear that Officer Redhorse thought his brother might be somewhere he was not supposed to be. But where?

  “Responding to the fight at the roadhouse?” she asked as she turned the knob, admitting Kee.

  “They’d never call the police after a simple fight like that. Chino wasn’t even unconscious.”

  “You kicked him kind of hard.”

  Ty smiled as if savoring the memory. Beth frowned and opened his kitchen door to Ty’s brother.

  Kee looked from Ty to her. Ty’s older brother was shorter and his build was leaner than Ty’s and his brow was thicker. Their jawlines matched but not their noses because Kee’s was longer. Kee dressed like a professional in loafers, Dockers and a blazer worn over a collared button-down shirt. Ty sat topless in jeans and biker boots with a bloody shirt pressed to his injury.

  “Kee, this is Beth. She’s a new friend of mine.”

  Kee offered her a nod but then hurried toward his brother.

  “Girlfriend, according to Ma,” he said to Ty.

  “She called you?”

  “I don’t think you were even out of the drive
.”

  Kee rummaged in his medical bag, which opened at the top like an oversize nylon cooler.

  “Let’s see,” he said, and Ty lifted the sticky T-shirt to reveal the clotting blood and gaping wound.

  “You tore out my stitches.” Kee sounded put out.

  “How did he do that?” Kee asked Beth.

  She glanced to Ty, who shook his head.

  “I’m not his keeper,” she said.

  “He needs one,” said Kee.

  Kee readied his supplies, taking out bottles and packets. Very quickly, he wiped down the injured flesh with a yellow-brown wash that Beth knew was a Betadine solution.

  “You want Novocain?” he asked Ty.

  “No. That stuff hurts worse than the stitches.”

  Kee shrugged and then, grim-faced, pulled together the ragged torn flesh and sutured the wound. When he finished he bandaged his shoulder and gave Ty a prescription for antibiotics. “Take some acetaminophen.”

  Ty rose as Kee packed up. “Some what?”

  “Tylenol.” Kee handed over several square sample packets of pills.

  Ty walked Kee to the door and down the stairs, preceded by Hemi. Beth watched them speaking beside Kee’s truck for several minutes before Kee left. She heard the noise caused by the hole in the muffler as he pulled out.

  When Ty returned to the kitchen, she had the basin cleaned and set to dry in the empty dish rack. “You remembered our agreement includes telling no one who I am.”

  Ty pinched each side of his nose and then dropped his arm to his side. “Why would I do anything to drag my brother into the mess he’s just gotten clear of?”

  Kee Redhorse had been one of two prime suspects in the abduction cases. It turned out to be the work of his mentor, Hector Hauser, and his administrative assistant and mistress, Betty Mills. Hector had left a mess, which included a community whose trust was shaken, a wife with three grown daughters overshadowed by the shame of their father’s actions and a tribe still trying to find the four women who were still missing. Elsie Weaver was the first taken, last November, though the two recovered kidnap victims had never seen her. Kacey Doka had escaped and reported that she had been held with Marta Garcia, Brenda Espinoza and Maggie Kesselman.

  Beth knew that finding those surrogates would be the break she needed to get a promotion and her ticket out of the Oklahoma office forever. Ty had been right about why they picked her. It had been her good luck that they’d needed a woman with membership in an Apache tribe. It might have taken her five or six more years to make the kind of case that had been handed to her.

  Now if she could just ignore the crackle of fire between herself and Ty Redhorse, she might get through this with a commendation, promotion and transfer orders.

  Sleeping with Ty was tempting, but she wasn’t going to jeopardize all that she had worked for to have him. No man was worth that. He seemed to know she would be watching, because he turned to look up at her and cast her a wicked smile that made her breath catch just as it would in the instant between when you realize you have triggered a trip wire and the moment it explodes.

  He stood without his shirt, the elastic of his white underwear pressed against the flat skin of his stomach.

  “I’m going to grab a shirt.” He thumbed toward the hall. “You ready to turn in?”

  * * *

  TY FELT MANY things at that moment, his shoulder throbbing from the stitches, his skin tingling from where Beth had washed him, the restriction of his jeans against the erection that he hoped she didn’t notice and the dryness in his throat when he thought of sleeping with her. Most of all he felt his heart jumping around in his chest as if on a trampoline.

  “I only have the one bedroom,” he said.

  She thumbed toward his lopsided couch. “I’ll take that.”

  He frowned. That would be better, easier for him, surely. But she was supposed to be his girl.

  “I’ve never had a woman over here who slept on the couch,” he said.

  She smiled. “First time for everything.”

  He shook his head. She didn’t understand.

  “I’ll wager you never had an FBI field agent sleep over, either,” she joked.

  “Exactly. My girlfriend, my real girlfriend, would sleep in my bedroom. A narc would sleep on that.” He pointed to the sofa.

  “Who’s going to see me?” she asked.

  He shrugged and instantly regretted it. “Anyone who comes up those stairs.”

  Beth glanced to the curtainless front door and frowned. The line between her eyebrows and the slight thrust of her bottom lip, paired with the look of concentration, made his skin itch. Were those goose bumps? He glanced at the hairs lifting up on his forearms and then rubbed them back down.

  “That happen a lot? Folks at your door?” she asked, still facing the door.

  “Folks break down. They show up here. Sometimes it’s the posse. I never know.”

  “So why don’t you have a curtain?”

  “Never needed that kind of privacy before. Nothing to hide means no reason to break in.”

  Why did his body act as if he was about to perform a bungee jump instead of fall into bed? She wasn’t going to sleep with him. He knew it. His brain knew it. His body was irrationally hopeful.

  She turned to him, meeting him with those sage green eyes. “Can’t we tack up a curtain?”

  “Go ahead.” He turned toward the hallway. “Just never did that before.”

  She had a hand on the back of her neck now and was frowning at the door.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “It’s the small stuff that gives away undercover operations, tips off the criminals. Like an unfamiliar car or an uncharacteristic unease in a colleague. Somebody sweating that shouldn’t be.”

  “Or a curtain?” he asked.

  “Yes. Or a darn curtain.” She lowered her chin. “Your bed’s big enough for two.”

  She’d seen it, he was sure, because he’d given her ample time to snoop around his place.

  “I’ve always thought so.”

  She met his teasing smile with a glare. Agent Hoosay was not happy.

  “I’ll sleep on the floor,” she said.

  “Hemi sleeps on the floor. Or at least she starts on the floor.”

  He motioned to the room, then followed her as she carried her duffel down the hall that had his bathroom, small bedroom and linen closet on one side and his bedroom on the other. He waited behind her as she stood in the doorway. He knew what she saw. The queen-sized bed pushed up between the window on the back wall with a small table and lamp on one side. A reading chair with floor lamp and, opposite, the dresser drawers.

  Beth’s hands went to her hips. “Great.”

  Hemi nudged past her, dragging her living-room dog bed in her jaws. She laid it by the side of the bed where the other end table would have been. Then she abandoned her bed and claimed her spot in the center of Ty’s.

  “Fabulous,” said Beth.

  Hemi could act as a living barrier between them. In the past, when Ty had company, Hemi stayed in the living room, but tonight, he thought her presence was just the reminder Ty needed to stay on his own side of the bed.

  “You take window side,” said Beth, as if it was her bedroom.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Beth retrieved her duffel bag and headed to the bathroom across the hall. He heard the sound of water running in the sink and wondered if she’d know where to find the fresh towels. When the shower clicked on he sat on the bed beside Hemi and pictured Beth naked, with rivulets of hot water gliding over her taut, slim body. Hemi laid her head on his thigh and sighed. Ty felt the same way.

  The door across the hall finally opened and steam billowed into the hall. It brought to him hot, wet air with the earthy scent of ginger and the fragrance of orchids.
/>   She stepped into view. Hemi lifted her head and stared with Ty. If he had a tail it would have been thumping, as well. Beth wore a loose-fitting pink T-shirt with a scooped neck and black cotton yoga pants that stretched over her hips and her long legs, ending below the knee. From there on it was all rich golden-brown skin and slender feet. Her toes curled at his inspection, gripping the floorboards in the hall. Her toenails were painted an unexpected shocking hot pink. The color was so different from the cool, confident agent and hinted at a whimsy he had not seen. He lifted his gaze to meet hers. Her eyes held challenge.

  “You don’t like pink?” she asked.

  “I love pink, especially on you.”

  She smiled. “Your turn. I set the shower temperature to cold.”

  So much for hoping she didn’t notice his excitement. His mouth twisted downward and he wiped his sweating palms on the cotton covering his thighs. The movement made his shoulder twinge and he flinched.

  Her expression changed to one of concern. The look made his heart twist. This was what it would be like to have a woman like this care what happened to him. So many choices he’d made in his life had led him here, to this place and time. He knew a confident, self-sufficient woman like Beth would not be interested in him or would be interested for all the wrong reasons. But that look almost seemed as if she cared.

  “Do you need help removing that bandage?”

  “I’ll manage. Can’t get it wet for a day or two anyway.”

  “Did you take anything for the pain?” she asked.

  “Not yet.” He didn’t say that his favored medication was in the bathroom.

  “It’s in there, isn’t it? The BC Powder?” she asked, thumbing back toward the hall. Her movement made it clear that she wore nothing beneath that T-shirt.