Lady Killer

It slipped into his mind while his guard was down, while he lay relaxed and spent, with her head gently rising and falling with the movement of his chest and her tears cooling on his skin. And once it was there, it seemed pointless to try and deny it. It didn’t even seem as frightening as he’d always thought it would be. In fact, acknowledging it was an almost giddy relief, like finding unexpected rapport with someone he’d been dreading to meet.

The fact that she’d cried didn’t surprise him. It wasn’t the first time a woman had cried in his arms after making love. What did surprise him was the way he felt, which was not like crying, of course-because he didn’t do that sort of thing, at least not very often-but rather so full of feelings he didn’t know what to do with that his chest hurt. For a moment he wondered if telling her how he felt would help, but decided it would probably only make things worse. After all, she had enough on her emotional plate right now, the last thing she needed was to have to deal with the burden of some stranger falling in love with her.

Then he thought about what she’d said about him being beautiful, and the fact that she’d seemed utterly sincere when she’d said it. That she could think such a thing about someone-he had no illusions about this-as flat- out ugly as he was just about took his breath away.

Of course, she was beautiful to him-okay, obviously, she was beautiful to anybody who wasn’t completely blind-but beautiful to him in ways that couldn’t be captured on film or a digital memory chip. Was it possible she saw something similar when she looked at him?

Could she? What the hell does it mean?

A strange shimmering sensation had begun to dance beneath his skin, raising goose bumps just about everywhere, when Brooke stirred and lifted her head to say groggily, “What time izzit?”

He lifted his arm and peered at his watch. “Hmm…’bout three. Why?” Then, before she could answer, he thought, Daniel! and went rigid. “Oh, hell. I forgot. What time does-”

“About three-thirty.” She stretched languidly and kissed his chest. “Don’t worry. Plenty of time. We could even take a shower.” She looked up at him from under her lashes, and her smile was impish.

“Brazen hussy,” he growled, giving her bottom a gentle pat. “Tempting…but you’re forgetting something.” He shifted her off to one side and sat up, then turned to look at her and smiled. He couldn’t help it, given the way she looked lying naked on her side, propped on one elbow, with her head slightly tilted and her hair feathered across one flushed and tanned cheek, lips still swollen from his kisses…The camera in his mind went click.

He said gently, “There’s a cougar cage sitting in the back of your pickup, remember? Are you sure you want to try and explain that to Daniel?” She lay back with a groan and put an arm over her face. He laid his hand on her flat stomach and stroked downward, chuckling when she gasped and squirmed. “Come on, sweetheart-upsy-daisy. Let’s do this. If the three of you managed to get that thing up there, I think you and I can probably get it down. Especially since we have gravity on our side.”

He leaned over and kissed her, then gathered up his clothes and left her. And deep in his heart, he was grateful for the distraction that had made it possible for him to avoid answering the question that had popped into his mind just before she asked him the time.

It turned out not to be too difficult a job, with the help of the ramp and roller bars she used to transport cages full of goats and alpacas in and out of her truck.

“When you’re a woman alone, you learn to find ways of doing things that don’t rely on brute strength,” Brooke told him after they’d wrestled the cougar’s cage back through the compound gate. She dusted her hands and paused to catch her breath. “Of course,” she added, smiling at him, “I never say no to brute strength when it’s offered.”

“Just out of curiosity,” Tony said when they were back on the outside of the compound and Brooke was locking the gate in the chain-link fence. “Where were you going to take her? Do you have any idea how big a wild mountain lion’s range is?”

“I do, actually.” As she so often did, she laced her fingers through the chain-link and gazed beyond it, to where the cougar now lay relaxed in the shade of the oak tree, seemingly without a care in the world. He saw Brooke’s eyes squint a little and knew it wasn’t from the brightness of the sun. “The truth is, I didn’t know exactly where I was going to take her.” Her voice roughened. “Just knew I had to try and save her from Lonnie. Somehow.”

She threw him a look, and the wistful longing in it kicked at his heart. “It was my big dream. I wanted to turn this place into a refuge for big cats. We’re crowding them off the planet, you know. I have the room. The part you see here, the house, barn, pens and pasture-that’s only about five acres. I have another twenty over there.” She made a sweep with her arm. “That’s all mine. I could do it-thanks to my parents’ will, I have the money-but I don’t suppose it’s possible now. Not after this. Especially if I go to-” She swallowed convulsively, and it hit him suddenly- not a little kick, but a wallop that took his breath away-what she was facing and how terrified she must be.

He said gruffly, before he could stop himself, “Look, don’t give up. And don’t do anything stupid, okay? Holt and I-please, just give us a little more time.”

“Holt.” She turned to look at him, still holding on to the chain-link fence with one hand. “That would be…”

“The guy I’ve been sharing a room with-yeah. He’s-”

“Obviously not a traveling salesman.” She said it with a hint of a smile on her lips, but no humor at all in her eyes.

Tony felt a sickening dropping sensation in his stomach. He knew it was finally here-the moment he’d been dreading, the moment he’d known would have to come. And he knew it was going to be worse than he’d imagined, even before she said the words, in a voice that chilled him to his core.

“So, who is he, Tony? And while we’re at it, who are you? And why are you really here?”

Chapter 10

The amazing thing, Brooke thought, was that she felt nothing. Except for a strange quivering in her stomach, she was numb. She remembered she’d experienced much the same sensation the day they’d come to arrest her for murder, so she understood that this was some kind of shock, and that it would wear off eventually, and when it did, the pain would bury her. She could only hope she’d be alone when it happened.

In the meantime, in the calm and unreal world she lived in now, she watched Tony’s face, and it seemed to flicker and shimmer like the images on an old-time movie screen.

“I’m exactly who I told you I am,” he said in a voice that seemed unnaturally calm. Then he paused, and his eyes flared golden for an instant before he closed them. “As for why I’m here…”

“Who’s Holt?”

He let the breath out with a hissing sound. “A private investigator.”

“A private investigator.” The shivering inside her was spreading through her body, and she wrapped her arms across herself in a futile effort to contain it. “So, who’s he investigating? Me?”

“Not exactly…”

“Who hired him? Was it you?”

“No! Brooke, listen to-” He reached for her, and she threw up her arms to fend him off and stepped back, violently cringed away from him.

“So, what then? Let me guess. He hired you to come out here and spy on me, right? Who put him up to it, the sheriff? The state’s attorney?” Now her voice had begun to shake. The shell was cracking. She gathered its remnants around her as best she could and whispered desperately, “You better tell me, Tony. Right now. Who, dammit?”

“It’s nothing like that. It’s got nothing to do with Duncan, or what happened here the day he was killed. It’s-” He ran his hand over his scalp, something she’d never seen him do before, and his face contorted with what looked like pain. “Look, it’s complicated. Can we go someplace-”

“No. I want you to tell me now.”

“Brooke-”

“Now, Tony.”

He reached for her again but pulled his hand back before it touched her and jammed it into his pocket instead.