fear draining out of her as she reached up to shoo away the warm nose nibbling at her wig. The horse tossed its head and whinnied.
“Shh,” she said, turning to peer around the side of the barn.
She found two worn leather boots she immediately recognized. The rifle, however, was new.
“Get up nice and easy,” Garrett Skye said, his voice as cold as the steel barrel nine inches from her nose.
As distasteful as Annie found carrying a gun, looking up the barrel of one was worse. Way worse.
Scooping the camera from the icy mud, she gained her feet. Up close and without the distancing lens of the camera, the man was big, muscular, powerful and scary. His chiseled good looks were a mere distraction compared to the focused intent in his eyes. There was no appealing warmth or humor in those irises now. There probably never had been.
“Who are you?” he said, his voice deep, softer than she’d expected, and scary. Everything about him was scary. Rip up his clothes a little, tie a bandana around his head and a knife between his teeth and, presto, Rambo in the flesh.
Annie thought frantically. She hadn’t had a chance to pull out her dad’s gun. Perhaps Skye would overlook it. She babbled, “Is this your place? I’m so sorry to be intrusive, my car broke down on the main road and yours was the nearest driveway. I’m in Poplar Gulch taking pictures of forgotten ranch towns. This place is perfect. Uh, I love your horse. What’s its name?”
“Your car broke down?” he said, narrowing his eyes.
“Yes. It’s old and—”
“So you didn’t follow me out here?”
“Follow you? No. Of course not.”
He stared at her for another second or two and then shook his head. “Sorry, not buying it. I’ll take your gun.”
“I don’t have a gun, Mr. Miller, isn’t it?”
“You know damn good and well my name isn’t Miller and of course you have a gun. Get your hands up. Who sent you here? Klugg?”
“Klugg who?” she muttered.
“I said, get your hands up.”
She put her hands up in the air, the camera clenched tight in her right fist, the strap dangling down her arm. With a few swift impersonal strokes he frisked her with his free hand, finding the gun and her cell phone with no trouble. The picture of his truck taken a week or so before rolled out with them.
Even if she could think of a way to explain carrying a gun, there was no way to make this look like an accident now, not with that picture waiting to be unfolded. Icy calm spread through her fear-soaked body. She grew quiet, watchful, waiting…
Flipping the gun open, he spun the chamber and a couple of bullets popped out. “No gun, huh?” he quipped, sparing her an uneasy glance. He closed the chamber with his thumb and stuck the gun in his pocket before unfolding the photograph.
In the moment it took him to do this, he was marginally distracted. Annie threw the camera at his face and without waiting for his reaction, took off around the far side of the barn, expecting to hear the sharp retort of his rifle….
But it was his voice that followed her. Loud, angry, ordering her to stop. Sure. The horse whinnied his opinion of the mayhem.
Annie veered toward the truck, hoping Skye was in the habit of leaving his keys in the ignition. He wasn’t. Leaping the two feet onto the broad front porch of his house, she tore open the front door and locked it behind her. The small kitchen hosted a back door. As she touched the knob, she heard the tinkle of broken glass coming from the front. Skye would be inside within seconds. She ran outside, circling by the barn again. He’d see her if she took off down the road and there wasn’t a doubt in her mind that he could run faster, even with a limp, than she could.
And bullets ran faster than either of them.
That left the horse. She ducked into the barn, faltering for a second as her eyes fought to adjust to the shadows, almost tripping over the bales of hay Skye had apparently unloaded just inside the door. She ran toward the only light, the open half door through which the horse had spotted her. There was no purpose hiding in a dark corner—he’d find her. She could see no handy weapon and doubted she’d be able to throw a pitchfork hard enough to stop him anyway.
She’d take the horse and ride it down the mountain and escape that way. Good Lord, what was she thinking?
She was thinking she didn’t want to die.
She approached the animal as slowly as her panic and pounding heart allowed. The big brown horse eyed her suspiciously as she opened his stall door. He was a lot bigger than he’d looked from the outside when the business half of him had been obscured by the lower half of the door. She didn’t have time to get to know him or even saddle him. Any minute now, Garrett Skye would erupt through that door wielding his rifle—
She stretched out a hand to touch the horse’s glistening neck, surprised at his warmth. He was wearing a halter but his head was a long way from his back even when he twisted around and looked her eyeball to eyeball. She half expected him to ask her what the hell she thought she was doing. She grabbed a handful of fetlock and bounced on her feet to build the momentum to swing herself atop.
As she launched herself upward, Skye limped his way through the barn door, his rifle held at his side. For a second, Annie imagined Skye’s shocked expression when she proceeded to gallop the brown horse right over the top of him.
The horse rose up partly on his hind legs, twisted around and thudded back to the earth. Annie went flying as her tenuous grip failed.
Her last conscious thought was irritation with herself, not the horse. Then she hit the wall and slid to the floor, the world eclipsed to a single black dot and then to nothing….
Chapter Two
Setting the rifle aside, Garrett put a steady hand on Scio’s nose. “It’s okay, fella,” he whispered as he ran a hand along the horse’s quivering flesh. He carefully led the nervous animal out of the stall so he wouldn’t trample their intruder. He put him in an adjoining stall and closed the gate.
His mind moved faster than his body as he returned to the woman. He had to assume she had called in Klugg’s men or the police, depending on which side of the law she worked. If it was the police they’d already be here. That left Klugg and that meant he had three or four hours to get as far away from here as possible. Besides the horse, everything of any importance was already packed in a duffel bag and stowed behind the bench seat in Ben’s truck. If there was one thing Garrett knew how to do it was cut his losses and move on. He’d drive to the nearest big city and abandon the truck there, as per his long planned escape route.
First things first. What in the world did he do with the woman in Scio’s stall?
She wasn’t very big and she wasn’t very old, maybe mid-twenties. Her black glasses had come loose and he plucked them from the stable floor. He peered through the lenses—no correction—and tossed them aside.
Balancing on the balls of his feet, he squatted beside her, his right leg aching with the movement. He
