Wild Ways

Blackhorse shrugged amiably. “I get paid to retrieve things, Irish. Sometimes those things are people. I’m good at what I do. But if people discover that I failed to retrieve Reggie Dawes here and take him back to the people who hired me, my reputation takes a hit. Not only do I lose my money for this job, people are going to think twice about hiring me in the future. This is an assignment to you, Agent Kavanagh. But it’s my livelihood.”

Meg looked at him curiously. “So I was right. You’re not a cop.”

He shrugged again. “Sheriff Haney didn’t strike me as the kind of man who’d take to my line of work all that well.”

“That line of work being a low-rent bounty hunter.”

Something dark flickered across his high-boned features and his eyes narrowed slightly. In the unshaded glare of the fallen lamp, his features were blade-sharp and hard, as uncompromising as stone. And he was big, she found herself thinking uneasily, remembering the solid weight of him on top of her that afternoon. There wasn’t an inch of him that wasn’t muscle or bone, and he moved like a cat. If push came to shove, there was going to be very little she could do to stop him from taking Reggie.

She took a deep breath and released it slowly, trying to think her way through this. She was very aware of Reggie sitting behind her, looking more miserable and frightened by the passing minute, and thought of her promise to him to keep him safe. Thought of his wife, Honey, and the trust in her eyes when Meg had convinced her to go into hiding. I’ll take care of Reggie, she’d promised. Trust me, and I’ll keep your husband safe….

“If you take Reg back to Vegas, Ruffio will kill him, you know that.”

“Ruffio just hired me to find Reggie and bring him back,” Blackhorse said evenly. “Why is none of my business. I’m not getting paid to ask questions.”

“This isn’t a retrieval, it’s murder,” Meg said angrily. “That thug in the bar this afternoon was trying to kill Reg. He would have killed you, too, if you’d gotten in his way. Are these the kind of people you work for now, Mr. Blackhorse?” She looked at him searchingly, seeing nothing but emptiness and cold in his dark eyes. “What happened to you, anyway? How did you go from being one of O’Dell’s top agents to…to this.”

Again there was a flicker of something deep in his eyes. “You don’t want to go there, Kavanagh,” he said very softly, the chill in the words trailing frost through his voice. “I’m here doing a job, just like you.”

“Not like me. I’m paid by the Agency to bring people to justice. Or, as in Reggie’s case, to protect him from those people who don’t want justice done. From what I can see, you’re a bottom feeder. One step down from that gun-for-hire that came after us in the bar. At least he was honest about what he does. You kill people and can’t even admit it.”

She thought for one split second that he was going to come at her. Every muscle in his lean body seemed to coil and go taut, and the emptiness in his eyes vanished under the heat of raw anger. Then he seemed to catch himself and he eased his weight back and away from her, breathing quickly, teeth bared slightly.

A little surprised she was still alive, Meg took a couple of backward steps, her hand on the comforting bulk of the Beretta. “Reggie, we’re leaving. Now.” She swallowed. “Mr. Blackhorse, I may not be a very good field agent yet, but I’ve got good instincts about people. You’re no killer.”

“Willing to bet your life on that, Irish?” he asked softly.

“Yes.” Meg swallowed again, the sound loud in the stillness. “If you were, I’d be dead and you’d be halfway back to Vegas with Reggie by now. I don’t know what happened to you, but you must have been a good man once or O’Dell would never have hired you. I’m gambling that there’s still enough of that man left somewhere that I can walk out of here with Reggie, and you’re going to let us go.”

“Pretty big gamble.”

For some reason, Meg found herself smiling. “After I deliver Reggie to Washington and get back to Virginia, I’ll make sure O’Dell knows you were instrumental in bringing him back in one piece. After all, you probably saved my life in that bar this afternoon. There could be a reward in it, if I can pull the right strings. That’ll make up in part for what you lost by not fulfilling your deal with Ruffio.”

“Presuming you’re going to get out of here alive….” Rafe made it sound as close to a threat as he could manage, but his heart wasn’t in it anymore. He was weary of taunting her, weary of the sparring and banter.

He was tired and his left shoulder was aching and his knees hurt and he felt old and worn down. Kavanagh’s barbed little shots had hit closer to home than he cared to admit, and the spots she’d taken aim at with such uncanny accuracy hurt, too, as though her words had been dipped in poison.

He wanted to get away from her, he realized. Back up to Bear Mountain, where no one ever bothered him. Away from her and those unnervingly clear aquamarine eyes that seemed to see too much.

He had his mouth half open to tell her to take Reggie and get the hell out before he changed his mind and shot both of them just on principle when he heard it. It wasn’t even a noise as much as the suggestion of a noise. A scuff, maybe, like that of a rubber-soled shoe on concrete.

Kavanagh heard it at the same instant. He could see her eyes widen as she fumbled for the Beretta. Common sense told him she was okay, to watch out for his own hide and let her take care of hers, but instinct propelled him across the room so he was between her and the doorway, his Taurus in a two-handed grip. Dawes had reacted with instincts of his own and was curled up on the floor between the bed and the wall, both arms wrapped around his head like a kid shutting out a nightmare.

“Will you get out of my way!” Kavanagh whispered furiously. “I can’t get a clean shot with you in the way!”

“Shut up and stay back,” he whispered just as furiously, shouldering her out of the way. “You’re not ready for this!”

“And who’s paying you to play Joe Hero? Get out of my—”

There was a knock at the door and Rafe heard her suck in a startled breath. Looking pale and frightened but grimly determined, her grip on the Beretta letter-perfect, she eased herself away from him and cat-footed across to take up a position against the wall beside the door. Rafe eased himself across to the other side, moving silently on the carpet, pausing to take a swift glance through the peephole in the door.

Two men that he could see, neither taking any particular pains to hide themselves. Rafe held up two fingers so Kavanagh could see them, then indicated that there might be others out of his line of sight. She nodded tightly.

“Agent Kavanagh?” The voice was muffled by the door, but clear. “Meg, it’s me, Matt Carlson. Adam Engler’s with me. O’Dell sent us to bring you and Dawes in.”

Meg’s breath left her in a huff and she closed her eyes for an instant, knees nearly buckling with relief, then she swung the Beretta down and reached for the doorknob. Her fingers just grazed it when Blackhorse came hurtling at her and knocked her back against the wall with a thud that nearly jarred her teeth loose.

“It’s okay,” she tried to wheeze. “I know them…they’re—”

There was a sharp voice outside the door, and in the next instant it exploded inward, the doorframe splintering right beside her, shards of wood flying like shrapnel. Something large catapulted into the room and hit the floor somewhere out of the line of Meg’s sight. Blackhorse swore and shoved her against the wall again just as someone else swung through the door, gun glinting in the unshaded lamplight.

“Government agents!” someone roared. “Nobody move!”

And for a moment, no one did. In the end, it was Meg who moved first. Still trying to get her breath back, her ribs feeling bruised where Blackhorse had slammed into her, she gazed at the tableaux of men and guns spread out in front of her.

It had been Matt Carlson who’d come bursting through the door first. He’d hit the carpet on one shoulder and had come up in perfect shooting stance, his weapon trained on Blackhorse’s belly, staring at the Taurus that was pointed right at him. Adam Engler had followed him in and had his weapon trained on Meg.

He recovered first. Swearing, he swung his Beretta around so he was covering Blackhorse. “Government agents! Put the gun down! Put it down!”

Blackhorse didn’t so much as blink. “I’ve got your partner covered,” he said coldly. “Try to take me out, he’s dead.”

“Put the weapon down! Put it down now.”

They might have stayed like that for another hour, bellowing threats and counter threats at each other like the well-trained government operatives they all were until someone either backed down—which was unlikely—or got shot. Which was likely, considering all the testosterone in the room.

It would have been funny, except for the very real possibility of someone getting hurt. Meg holstered her Beretta and said very gently, “Guys, it’s okay. I’m okay. This is Mr. Blackhorse, a…cop. Rafe, these are O’Dell’s men. Now will you all please put up your weapons before you hurt each other?”

Blackhorse’s eyes narrowed. “You sure you know them?”

“Positive. Mr. Engler brings me latte every Friday morning, and Mr. Carlson and I share a passion for crossword puzzles.”

“You’ll vouch for this guy?” Carlson sounded skeptical.

Meg paused, rubbing her sore ribs, tempted for one rash moment to deny it just to pay the man back for all the aggravation he’d given her. Then she sighed and nodded grudgingly. “Yeah. I’ll vouch for him.”

It took another moment or more, but finally all three of them relaxed slightly, trading hostile glares as they put up their weapons and holstered them, still prickly and watchful.

Blackhorse took two steps across to her, face like a thunder-cloud. He jabbed a finger into the air an inch from her face, making her blink. “Did you sleep through basic training, lady?” he bawled. “You never—and I mean never—open a door until you’ve verified who the hell’s on the other side.”

Meg bristled. “I knew who—”

“You knew squat! You thought you recognized another agent’s voice, but you didn’t verify it. He could have been out there at gunpoint. There could have been a dozen explanations—none of them innocent—and you and your man Dawes there could be dead right now!”

“Hey, fella, where the hell do you get off talking to her like that?” Carlson gave Blackhorse a shove, his face pugnacious.

Furious, Meg pushed past Carlson to glare up at Blackhorse. “Who do you think you are, anyway? You came here to take Reggie for yourself, and now you’re lecturing me on how to—”

“You obviously need someone lecturing you on how to stay alive, because—”