for her cell phone, she looked uphill and saw a tall man in a cowboy hat with his arms raised over his head. This man had fired accurately through the smoke from a significant distance; obviously he was an excellent marksman. He was dangerous. She should have been scared but, for some reason, she wasn’t.
She gave herself a mental slap. Shape up, girl. Just because he had his hands up, he was far from harmless. She could see the rifle strapped across his back and the two holsters on his belt. She lifted her gun and pointed it at him.
“Don’t shoot,” he yelled.
The sound of his voice sliced through her defenses and turned her insides to jelly. “Wade?”
It couldn’t be. He was dead.
But that was her husband walking down the hill. She’d recognize his bowlegged gait anywhere.
He’d come back to her. Either that or she was dead, too. She must have been killed in this shoot-out, and her darling husband had come to greet her and escort her through the Pearly Gates. Their poor little Jenny was an orphan. She shook herself. No way. They couldn’t both be dead.
Ty stepped up beside her. “This is what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
“He’s still alive.”
“I’m afraid so.”
She slammed her Glock into the holster, dug in with her toes and started running up the hill. There was not one single instant of hesitation on her part. Maybe she didn’t know why he was back or where he’d been. But she didn’t care. He was back. Wade was alive!
For a year and twenty-one days, her heart had been frozen solid. With one sight of him, the glacier shattered, and a warm, gentle feeling spread through her. As she ran, she heard the sound of her own laughter. Not a fake ha-ha but a real, bubbling, delighted sound. As she got closer to him, the smoke seemed to disappear. The whole world was bathed in golden sunlight.
With a giant leap, she flung herself into his arms. The equipment on her utility belt and her armored vest got in the way, but she did her best to have full body contact. Clinging to him with all her strength, she wrapped both legs around him. He felt different, more muscular. He felt right.
Her lips joined with his. There was nothing shy about their kiss. No clumsy fumbling around. No misdirected pawing. When it came to sex, they had always been good together. His tongue plunged into her mouth, and she welcomed the taste of him.
Neither of them was fresh and clean, and she should have been grossed out. Instead, it was the opposite. She nuzzled the bare skin of his throat inside his collar and inhaled his musky, manly aroma. Wade had never worn cologne, and that was fine with her. She liked the way he smelled.
His lips tickled her ear as he whispered, “I missed you, Samantha, missed you so damn much.”
“Me, too.” She kissed him again. “Where were you?”
“It’s complicated.”
She pulled her head back and stared into his light brown eyes. After a year and twenty-one days, after letting her think he was dead, he needed a much better explanation. “Tell me about it.”
“There isn’t time. I shouldn’t have come down here, but I couldn’t be this close and not touch you. You’re an angel, so damn beautiful. But I’ve got to take off, can’t stay here.”
She wasn’t letting him run away after giving her a whisper of sweet talk and “it’s complicated.” She needed a hell of a lot more than that. She slid down his body and planted her boots on the ground. “Sit down, Wade.”
“I already told you. I can’t—”
“We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”
He frowned. “What?”
The hard way, it was. She stalked around him until she had the uphill position. From there, it was easy to shove his shoulder and hook his legs out from under him. As soon as his butt hit the dirt, she was on him. After taking away his rifle, she flipped him onto his belly and cuffed his hands behind his back.
“Wade Calloway, you’re under arrest.”
Wade should have known better than to think he could pop back into her life and erase the past with a hug and kiss. He needed to do more, a lot more. But what a kiss! Her lips were delicate soft pillows but her need was hard. Her tongue had tangled with his for an aggressive battle that drew him closer, deeper.
Remembering, he licked his lips. A single kiss from Samantha was better than a week in bed with most women.
He rolled to his back and sat up with his legs stretched out in front of him. After Samantha pulled both guns from his holsters, she stood a few feet away and gave him The Look.
An involuntary grin tugged at the corners of his mouth.
“What’s so funny?” she demanded with her arms folded across her chest.
Maybe he was still giddy from that amazing kiss, but The Look amused him. She meant for her scowl to be menacing, to strike terror into his heart. Instead, he saw a strong, sensible woman who was plenty ticked off but fair enough to hear him out.
“A question,” he said. “What are you charging me with?”
“Let’s start with attempted murder, two of them.” Her eyebrows pulled down, and her full lips thinned into a straight, angry line. “That was you, shooting from the trees.”
“Let’s call it self-defense,” he said. “More accurately, defense of you and Ty.”
Right on cue, his old pal tromped up the hill. “We could have handled it.”
“You’re welcome,” Wade said.
“Incorrigible,” Samantha growled. “The least you could do is pretend to be sorry. You have so much to apologize for, Wade. Not just to me but to all your friends, all the good people who showed up at your memorial service. Your sister couldn’t stop sobbing, and she claimed to be glad your parents were dead so they wouldn’t have to go through this tragedy. And then there’s Jenny.”
He watched The Look fade from her face, replaced by an empty gaze and vacant sadness that could never be fully expressed. When she spun on her boot heel and walked away from him, it was a knife in his heart.
She muttered, “I can’t stand to look at you.”
“Samantha, wait.” He heard the desperation in his voice. “I can explain everything.”
As she continued to put physical distance between them, she straightened her shoulders. “Ty, I’m going to contact Dispatch and tell them we need an ambulance, maybe two. Keep an eye on our suspect.”
Wade’s head dropped forward on his chest. Earning Samantha’s forgiveness was going to be harder than hell. It was one thing to say that he’d faked his death so she and Jenny would be safe, and another to prove it.
“You’re
