wiry, and chin scruff. And—bonus!—plenty of hard alcohol on his breath. “Hey there,” he said to her. “Thought you might like to dance to some Wicked Tinkers with us.”
She cut a quick glance his way. “No, thank you,” she said, as politely as it could be done.
“Hey, if you don’t know how, don’t worry about it. We can teach you all the moves you need.” He mimed a quick Highland step, and it held way too much thrust.
She gave him another glance, more deliberate this time. “I’m not into it, thanks.” This time, there was meaning in her glance at Ruger. He read it easily enough, for all that he didn’t yet even know her name. I’ll deal, it said.
“C’mon, honey,” the guy said. “You’ll make me look bad in front of the guys. Besides, you’ll like it. You just met this guy; I been waiting for the right moment all night.”
“You missed it.”
“Just a dance or two,” he said, getting bolder, a little more reckless—more desperate, with a glance back at his smirking buddies. “That’s what you came here for, isn’t it?”
Ruger clamped down the rumble in his chest.
I’ll deal. Her look was a warning… and a request.
Ruger closed one hand into a fist and stood down.
She spoke quietly but clearly, glancing over to the trio of women-witnesses, at that. “I don’t know you. I don’t want to talk to you. Please leave me alone now.”
Maybe the guy didn’t hear her; maybe he didn’t care. He took her arm, and not gently.
Oh, the little bear could move. Ruger saw it, but he doubted the guy did. A twist, a shift, the flat of her palm with just the right force in just the right place… the guy blinked at her from the floor.
“Oh!” she said, with a certain suspicious clarity and lack of emotion. “I’m so sorry! I was so startled when you grabbed me!”
The women smirked.
The guy’s friends threw aside their whisky tasters, bristling en masse—taking a step forward.
Ruger shifted. That was all it usually took—the movement. The distinct moment when they realized that he filled more space than they’d expected, that he moved with the easy power of his kind.
In the instant they hesitated, the lady bear spread her hands in a mollifying gesture. “No big deal, fellas. He startled me. Wouldn’t want to turn it into something noticeable, right?” She sent a significant glance at the security guard most definitely headed their way, a man in kilt and hose and arms that no doubt stood him in good stead when it came time for the caber toss. “After all, there’s still whisky to be tasted.”
That did it. They hauled their friend to his feet, brushed him off and dragged him away. One of the women offered a thumbs-up and said, loud enough to be heard over the distance between them, “He’s always an asshole at these things.”
“Could have been worse,” Ruger said, but his eyes were on the lady bear, and the lurking humor in her eye. Not for a moment discomfited; not for a moment concerned. “Someone could have gotten broken.”
They laughed and moved on, not quite taking him seriously. The lady bear did, eyeing him for a long moment, a smile in the corners of her dark eyes. “Mariska Banks,” she told him, and the humor took on a certain gleam. Invitation.
“Ruger James,” he said, and did the little whisky a grave injustice by tossing it back. “But you knew that.”
“My place?” she asked.
Sweet cinnamon bear, full of humor and fire and strength. “Anyplace you like,” he said, rumbling low.
She didn’t respond as she headed toward the parking lot, a ragged asphalt patch crammed full of cars in what had become true dusk. She looked over her shoulder, found him watching her, and smiled—and she didn’t wait. Not playing games, just a matter-of-fact check yes or no.
Ruger took a deep breath of the night air, found it scented with leftover heat and sage and creosote. It tasted like anticipation. The hair of his nape bristled, a tingle on his skin.
He followed her.
Through the musicians, past the collection of Celtic dog breeds on display, past the sheep and even a few Highland cattle. By the time they reached the parking lot, he’d caught up; by the time they walked to the unlit far end where Ruger had parked, evening had found its way into nightfall.
The guy’s friends probably thought they couldn’t be seen in the dark, with their semicircle blocking the way to Ruger’s short-bed Hemi. Sentinel night vision tinged the men blue, but left them crystal clear—along with the crowbar, the baseball bat and the tire iron.
“We thought about it,” one of them said as Ruger and Mariska stopped, backlit by the fair. “And we decided it was a big deal after all.”
Ruger exchanged a glance with Mariska. “This time,” he said, “we share.”
This time, someone got broken.
Mariska jammed her key in the lock of the small house, her brevis accommodations for this Tucson assignment. Like all Sentinel temp homes, it sat right where the city abruptly gave way to desert: a place where a bear—or wolf or javelina or big cat—could roam.
Ruger stood up close against her back, one arm reaching over her shoulder and propped against the stucco house, his breath stirring her hair and his presence stirring her body.
He’d fought with her. Beside her. He’d known her strength; he’d trusted her training. And he’d embraced it, not grown wary with it.
After a lifetime of feeling too bold, too strong, too much, Mariska quite suddenly didn’t quite feel alone anymore.
The brush of his body warmed her from the inside—a ruffled feeling that trilled down her nape and tickled along her skin, gathering heat low in her belly, tightening down along the backs of her thighs. Greedy and unabashed.
Because now she knew—it would end soon enough. She hadn’t intended it when she’d come here; she’d imagined herself needed—wanted—in the field beside him. She’d had only to meet him to understand how personally he’d take her presence—to sense the pride of him.
Maybe he’d understand. Maybe he’d see it had nothing to do with her respect for him—the famous Southwest healer of both brawn and compassion—and everything to do with what she wanted from life, and a little bit about what he deserved.
In any event, it hadn’t been hard this morning to convince Nick Carter to send her out as Ruger’s backup on the coming field op. He hadn’t been proven in the field since the Flagstaff ambush; they couldn’t risk him.
Not that they ever should have been asking so much of him in the first place.
And it was an opportunity—a chance she’d never been afforded on her home turf, where too many had seen her grow up and still thought of her as little Mariska.
The
