Cowboy to the Max

Pebbles skittered behind her, then the sound of a garbage lid clanging reverberated through the air.

Anxiety knotted her stomach as she glanced over her shoulder. A homeless man was digging through the trash.

Relieved, she picked up her pace, although the wind lifted her hair and suddenly an eerie premonition skated up her spine.

Someone was watching her.

Adrenaline surged through her, and she ran the rest of the way to her car and jammed the key in the lock. Her hands shook as she opened the door and collapsed inside. She hit the lock, then cranked the engine and tore down the deserted street, her heart ticking double-time as she swung through the alley. She searched left and right, down each side street, over her back to make sure she wasn’t being followed. Then suddenly headlights beamed down on her as a truck appeared on her bumper.

Fear nearly choked her, but she forced herself to turn down another side street to throw him off. The truck moved on, and she breathed out in relief, then cut back through another street to her small apartment.

It was in the seedy side of town, but it was all she could afford, and as she climbed from her car, the smell of refuse and body odor assaulted her. Darting a quick glance around to check for predators, she rushed toward her apartment, a corner unit with sagging shutters, mud-streaked siding and unkempt shrubs and weeds shrouding it, casting it in darkness.

Her hand shook again as she jammed the keys in the lock. Then suddenly a hard, cold hand clamped around her mouth, and she felt the tip of a gun barrel at her temple.

“Hello, Sadie,” a gruff male voice murmured. “It’s time we talk.”

Chapter Two

Carter wrapped one hand around Sadie’s neck, trapping her in a chokehold as he pushed the gun to her head.

“Scream and I’ll shoot.”

Her body trembled against his, but he forced himself to ignore the guilt that niggled at him. He’d had plenty of fights with men, but he’d never hurt a woman before.

“Please, don’t kill me,” she whispered.

He shoved her inside the dark apartment, then slammed the door, needing cover in case someone was watching and called the cops.

A faint glow from a streetlight outside bled through the worn curtains across the room, and he pushed her toward it. “I’m going to release you, but if you scream or try to escape, I will hurt you.” He spoke low into her ear. “Do you understand?”

She nodded against him, her fear palpable in the way she dug her fingers into his arm where he gripped her neck.

Carter swung her around and pushed her down onto the threadbare sofa, then aimed the gun at her. The shallow light bathed her face, accentuating the terror in her big, dark eyes. Eyes that had once made him melt.

Eyes that had haunted him since with her cunning lies.

She slid a hand in her purse, and he realized she might be reaching for a weapon. Furious, he straddled her, pinning her down on the sofa as he jerked her purse open. She grunted in pain as his weight bore down on her.

He tried to ignore the feel of her soft, feminine curves beneath his. He hadn’t had sex in five years, and her sultry body had been the last one he’d pounded himself into.

Dammit, he wanted her again.

“Get off me,” Sadie said tightly.

His fingers connected with cold metal, and he removed a derringer from her purse then dangled it in front of her. “You going to shoot me, Sadie? Framing me for murder wasn’t bad enough?”

Emotions flickered across her heart-shaped face, those chocolate eyes brimming with sudden tears. “I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to…”

What the hell? Were those real tears? Or was she a consummate actress?

For a moment, he studied her, searching for the cold-hearted vixen who had seduced him with her lies, then drugged him and hung him out to dry.

But the woman in front of him looked small, vulnerable, even innocent, as if she wouldn’t hurt a fly. And she was still so damn beautiful that he felt as if he’d been punched in the chest just like he had the first time he’d seen her in that seedy bar fending off the hands of the jerks who thought her waitress services included servicing them.

She also looked terrified.

She should be, dammit.

Sure, she’s terrified. She’s finally been caught at her own game.

Hardening himself, he moved off of her, careful to keep his gun trained on her as he stowed hers in his jacket pocket.

“You know I’ve spent five years in a maximum security prison for a murder I didn’t commit, all because of you,” Carter said in an icy voice. “You drugged me that night, didn’t you?”

She clutched her small-boned hands in her lap, twisting them in the knots of her Navajo print skirt, her face pale and pinched.

“Didn’t you?” Carter growled.

Her labored breath rattled out, then she looked up at him and gave a small nod.

Her confirmation made his chest seize with much-needed relief that he wasn’t crazy, that he hadn’t gone on some drunken rage, killed that man and blacked out and forgotten it.

On the heels of that relief, fury flooded him.

So he had been right. She’d used him.

His hand tightened around the handle of the gun as the memory of waking with all that blood on his hands suffused him. The dingy hotel room, the furniture ripped apart, the tattered clothes strewn about as if an animal had ripped at them.

The jagged hole in the man’s chest, the knife in his hand… “Why?”

Another deep breath, and she averted her eyes. “I’m sorry, Carter. I’m so sorry.”

“I don’t want an apology,” he bellowed. “I want the damn truth. Why did you do it? Did someone pay you?” He paced in front of her, waving the weapon, his boots hammering the cheap linoleum. “Did you and the killer plan this, then you picked me out of the bar?” He whirled back around to face her, jabbing his chest with his thumb. “Why, Sadie? Why me? Was I just the biggest fool in the room, or was it because I was falling all over you?”

SADIE WILLED HERSELF to be strong.

Carter had every reason to hate her. But she was terrified he’d unleash five years of rage and kill her.

And as much as she despised herself for what she’d done, she didn’t want to die. “You don’t understand,” she whispered.

He glared at her with condemning eyes, eyes so cold that he could practically kill with them. His face was rugged, jaw unshaven, the scars he’d gained in jail deeper and puckered.

But beneath the rage, she sensed a wealth of pain, pain she had helped cause by her betrayal.

Where had he been the last few days? Hiding out in ditches? Barns?

All because of her.