To pilot Clifford Wells and his wife, D.J. And to horse transporter Carl Webster.
Contents
Prologue
The photograph didn’t do her justice.
He studied the woman hiding behind the too-big lab coat and glasses. Innocent and unsuspecting, she was standing before the building nestled into the Rocky Mountain foothills, shading her eyes against the brilliant Colorado sun as if she were looking for someone.
Him?
He imagined her letting go of her too-obvious inhibitions, letting down her hair and begging him to thread his fingers through the honey-blond strands. He could almost see her throwing back her head and arching her long, elegant throat in invitation.
He chuckled…merely a way to amuse himself while waiting. Nothing got in the way of business—neither the job he was being paid for or his own agenda.
He ran a forefinger over the photograph. “The subject is in view.”
“She doesn’t see you watching her, does she?” came the hollow voice through his headset.
Keeping himself from turning off the cell phone clipped to his belt in irritated response, he clenched his jaw and said, “I’m invisible.”
“Invisible” being one of his specialties, the reason he had been hired.
At the moment, he was camouflaged behind the handicapped card dangling from his rearview mirror. Physically fit people avoided looking at those with disabilities, as if the condition were contagious. And the card was his invitation to a parking spot right near the entrance of the National Center for Aquatic Research, where British scientist C. J. Birch worked.
For the moment, anyway.
“What is she doing?”
Other than taking a candy bar from her pocket and breaking off a chunk of chocolate?
“Leaving the premises, I assume.”
“Well, don’t let her get away!”
Watching the chocolate disappear into her full, unpainted mouth made him stir in his seat.
He could take her here. Now. Right from under the noses of the unsuspecting employees who threaded the grounds. But that might call attention to himself, the last thing he wanted.
Besides, he had a personal debt to collect and this situation would give him the opportunity for which he’d been waiting.
Two men, also in lab coats, exited the building and stopped to talk to the woman. Had she been waiting for them? It seemed so when they all started for the parking lot together.
“She won’t get away from me,” he murmured more to himself than to his contact. “She’s not alone now, but I’ll find the right moment to get to her and soon.”
“How soon—”
“I’ll let you know when I have her.”
Ripping the headset from his ears, he turned off the cell phone and cut the connection before the impatient man could make any more ridiculous demands.
He turned the key in the ignition. The engine hummed to life and his vehicle quietly slid from its spot to stalk her.
The woman was walking with the men and yet not, he noticed. She kept to one side of the pair and left a gap that bespoke volumes about her comfort zone with the opposite sex. An incentive—like any predator, he enjoyed playing with his prey before consuming it.
He was a professional, hired but not hurting for money, not needing the work. What he needed—demanded—was stimulation. Excitement. A challenge. Something clever to add to the mystique of his reputation.
He never duplicated a job.
Never failed, either.
Never.
Chapter One
“Gran told me you’re originally from South Dakota, not Montana. How come you didn’t say so? What about your family?” Jewel McMurty asked in her rapid-fire style. “You don’t have a wife and kids, do you?”
The twelve-year-old’s bright green eyes pinned Frank Connolly as he washed the dust from a chestnut quarter horse named Sierra Sunrise, who’d topped his racing career at more than a million dollars in winnings. Now the lucky devil would be standing at stud, getting his chance with a different vixen or two on a daily basis.
“Just a brother. He’s the one with the wife and kids. And his own ranch.”
“So why aren’t you there?”
“Got a job to do.” Ostensibly to work with the horses on Lonesome Pony, though his real job as a Montana Confidential agent was equally vital and a lot
