outside of town. Not that it mattered. One of the things her father had taught her was how to read a map.
Federal officers investigating leads did not need appointments to visit federal land. Sheriff Axel Trace should have known that, but it wasn’t her job to tell him what he should know.
Newbie. New car smell. First field assignment.
Rylee lowered her chin and stepped on the gas.
Sheriff Trace responded to the call from the Kowa Nation one hour later, passing the border patrol checkpoint just off their rez and knowing that would only further ruffle feathers. Likely, this was also the work of Rylee Hockings.
Homeland Security Agent Hockings didn’t look like trouble, as she sat small and sullen in the seat beside the desk of the Kowa Mohawk Reservation’s acting chief of police. But having already met her, he could not help but take in the moment. Having ignored his advice and dismissed him like the help, there was a certain satisfaction in seeing her in wrist restraints.
He didn’t know the exact point when his moment to gloat changed into a completely different kind of study, but he now noticed that Rylee Hockings had a heart-shaped face, lips the color of the flesh of a ripe watermelon and large, expressive brown eyes with elegant arching brows that were the brown of dry pine needles. Her straight, fine blond hair fell forward, making her flushed cheeks seem even pinker. Their eyes met, and her brow descended. Her lids cinched as she squinted at him with open hostility.
Axel could not resist smiling. “The next time I ask you if you’d like an escort, maybe don’t flip me the bird.”
“I didn’t flip you off.” Her reply was a bark, like a dog that might be either frightened or angry but either way sent clear signs for him to back off.
“No, I believe you said that when you wanted the help of a sheriff who was dumb enough to lock his keys in his cruiser, you’d ask for it.”
He glanced at her wrists, secured with a wide plastic zip tie and hammering up and down on the knees of her navy slacks as if sending him a message in Morse code. He wondered why federal agents always advertised their profession with the same outfits. A blazer, dress shirt and slacks with a practical heel was just not what folks wore up here.
“I didn’t say dumb enough. I said careless enough.”
He glanced to the acting chief of police, Sorrel Vasta, who said, “Potato, Pa-tot-o.”
“I also mentioned that the Kowa tribe does not do drop-in visits,” said Axel.
“Especially from feds,” added Vasta. He folded his arms across his chest, which just showed off how very thin and young he really was.
“This,” said Agent Hockings, “is federal land. As a federal officer, I do not need permission—”
“You are a trespasser on the Mohawk Nation. We are within our rights to—”
Whatever rights Vasta might have been about to delineate were cut short by the blast of a shotgun.
Hockings threw herself from the chair to the floor as Vasta ducked behind the metal desk. Axel dropped, landing beside Hockings, pressed shoulder to shoulder.
“Shots fired,” she called, reaching for her empty holster with her joined hands and then swearing under her breath.
“Who are you yelling to exactly?” Axel asked. “We all heard it.”
She pressed those pink lips together and scowled, then she scrambled along the floor, undulating in a way that made his hairs stand up and electricity shiver over his skin. He hadn’t felt that drumbeat of sexual awareness since that day in high school when Tonya Sawyer wore a turquoise lace bra under a T-shirt that was as transparent as a bridal veil. She’d been sent home, of course, to change, but it hadn’t mattered. Images like that stuck in the memory like a bug on a fly strip. He had a feeling that the sight of Hockings’s rippling across the floor like a wave was going to stick just like that turquoise bra.
“Out of the way,” Hockings said, her thigh brushing his shoulder.
The electricity now scrambled his brain as the current shot up and then down to finally settle, like a buzzing transformer, in his groin. High school all over again.
Vasta squatted at the window and peeked out. The only thing he held was the venetian blinds. His gun remained on his hip. He glanced back at Axel and cocked his head.
Axel realized his own mouth was hanging open as if Agent Hockings had slapped him, which she would have, if she knew what he had been thinking.
“They shot her car. Peppered the side,” said Vasta.
Her head popped up like a carnival target from behind the desk.
“Who did?” Her perfect blond hair was now mussed. Axel resisted the urge to lay the strands back in order. Was her hair silky or soft like angora?
“I dunno, but they are long gone,” said Vasta. “Even took the shell.”
“How do you know that?” She reached his side.
“Shells are green and red, mostly. Easy to spot on the snow.”
Agent Hockings moved to the opposite side of the window. “There is a whole group of people out there. Witnesses.”
Axel’s laugh gleaned another scowl from Hockings. Vasta’s mouth quirked but then fell back to reveal no hint of humor when Hockings turned from Axel to him.
Now Axel was scowling. Vasta was making him look bad, or perhaps he was doing that all on his own.
Axel reached the pair who now stood flanking the window like bookends. He pressed his arm to hers, muscling her out of the way in order to get a glimpse outside. Her athletic frame brought her head to his shoulder, and he was only five foot ten. She was what Mrs. Shubert, the librarian of the Kinsley Public Library, would have called petite. Mrs. Shubert had also been petite and was as mighty as a superhero in Axel’s mind. He knew not to judge ferocity in inches.
“Or,” said Hockings, “you could see if any of the spectators have a shotgun in their hand or shell casing in their pocket.”
“Illegal search,” said Vasta. “And none of them have a shotgun any longer. So, here’s what’s going to happen. Sheriff Trace is going to escort you out in restraints and put you in the back of his unit. Then he’s going to drive you outta here. If you are smart, you will keep your head down and look ashamed, because you should be.”
“I will not.”
“Then they will likely break every window in Axel’s cruiser and possibly turn it over with you both inside.”
Hockings stiffened as her eyes went wide with shock. The brown of her irises, he now saw, were flecked with copper. She looked to him, as if asking if Vasta were pulling her leg.
He hoped his expression said that the acting chief of police was not.
