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Authors: Cheyenne McCray

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BOOK: Clay: Armed and Dangerous
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Her heart thundered even as she reminded herself it wasn’t much of a fight after that.
Levi had snatched the little bastard off her and thrown him down. Reggie, proving
he was stupid on top of being an asshole, got up, and then Levi really took him down.
Punched him so hard Reggie probably heard little birdies tweeting in his brain for
a month or two. The jerk lost a tooth, got his jaw broken, and had to eat soup through
a straw for a long, long time.

Levi never should have been charged for hitting the creep. Everything got sorted out
soon enough, though, and Rylie had felt even safer when Reggie pulled up stakes and
left town after graduation.

Safe. Until now.

Rylie glanced around again, trying to squash the frantic worry making her muscles
go tense. She hadn’t imagined that smell, and she’d never known anybody but Reggie
to blow that much money on cologne that turned to skunk oil the second he slathered
it on in the morning.

She sniffed the air again and smelled nothing. The woods seemed as quiet and empty
as ever, except—

Rylie’s skin prickled all over, and her breath caught.

She felt eyes on her, somebody watching.

“Get a grip,” she whispered to herself, but Sass snorted and danced. “Whoa, girl.
Easy there.”

The horse tugged her head against Rylie’s grip, wanting rein to run, wanting to charge
straight home, back to the safety of the barn and the ranch house and the hands, and
somewhere on his own rounds, Levi.

This was stupid. She had a bad case of the shivers, and now she’d given them to Sass.
Rylie got pissed at herself, which helped the panic until bushes rustled in the distance.

Enough. Enough!

She gave Sass the rein the horse wanted, and the Appaloosa whirled and bolted back
the way they had come. Rylie ducked low to miss branches and gripped the horse hard
with her calves. She kept one hand in Sass’s mane and the other tight on the reins
and her saddle horn. She refused to let the horse run wild, made her control the gallop—but
she let Sass run. Wanted her to run.

They broke into open ground a minute or so later. Hot air blasted into Rylie’s face,
and sunlight flowed across her face, her eyes, turning the entire world yellow. She
couldn’t smell Reggie anymore, didn’t feel that sense of being stared at, but her
heart was pounding harder than Sass’s hooves and she couldn’t slow it down.

Another few seconds and she got enough sanity back to bring Sass to a trot before
the mare worked up a lather. It was too hot for this kind of crap. What kind of idiot
was she being?

The barn came into view, and Rylie felt twice as stupid for flipping out over nothing.
She pulled Sass back again, bringing the horse to a fast walk. Somebody was riding
out to meet her, and he was coming so hard his Stetson blew off and bounced across
the grass. He didn’t even slow down.

Levi.
She could tell by the set of his shoulders and the way he controlled his horse. Nobody
could ride like her brother.

It’s okay,
the teenage part of her brain babbled. Levi is here.
Everything will be fine now.

“Dammit.” Rylie reined Sass and swung down from her saddle, ground-tying the mare
by dropping the leather straps to the dusty trail. She let out a big breath, almost
as big as the horse’s long, exasperated blow Sass gave her. “I do not need Levi or
any other man to feel safe. I can take care of myself.”

And she could. She’d been doing just that since she was out of high school. So why
did she feel sixteen again, vulnerable and pinned, helpless against whatever was about
to happen?

Levi reached her, reined, and dismounted in one fluid motion. “Ry, what the hell?
You were riding like the devil himself was on your ass.”

“I— Never mind.” She tried to focus on Levi’s blond hair, how it was mussed and hanging
in his face, making him look like a kid again. “I just got spooked.”

Levi frowned and looked twice as worried. “You don’t spook.” He glanced in the direction
she’d come from. “What’s back there?” Rylie rolled her eyes at her own idiocy and
tried to show Levi she was okay by smiling. It probably came off tense, so she added,
“Nothing. Really. I thought I smelled some cheap cologne. It reminded me of Reggie,
that’s all.”

Levi’s face darkened to a deep maroon that made Rylie’s nerves jitter. Levi had control
of his awful temper now that he was older, of the bad anger genes their non-sainted
father had given him. Special Forces and his work with the U.S. Marshals had taught
him to manage the constant waves of rage that had driven their father to drinking
and womanizing. Still, every now and then, Rylie could see shadows of the demons Levi
battled, and she couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if he ever turned all
that rage loose.

When Levi spoke again, his voice was low and grating. “Reggie Parker’s still in Las
Vegas.”

Rylie’s jitters shifted to surprise. She put a hand on her hip and stared into her
brother’s bluer than blue eyes. “You’re keeping tabs on him? How? You don’t work for
the Marshals anymore.”

“I have friends. They’ll let me know if he’s on the move—at least as soon as they
know.”

Rylie had no doubt Levi would be checking in with his buddies the instant he had a
moment alone. Her big brother. He still had her back, no matter what. She approached
him, tentative because he was glaring over her shoulder, studying the area behind
her.

“It’s probably nothing. Just a bad memory, or maybe Guerrero trying to give me the
willies since I yelled at him on his own home turf.”

Okay, that didn’t help. Levi turned impossibly redder in the face. “You did what?”

“Did I forget to mention that?” Rylie heard the goofy nervousness in her own laugh
and hated it. She’d never show this side of her to anybody but Levi. “I called him
Francis. And accused him of being a crime lord, an asshole, and—oh, yeah—a bad crime
lord since he claimed not to know what was happening to the trucks in Douglas.”

For a few seconds, Levi tried to talk, but he just kept opening and closing his mouth.
Then he just shook his head and stared at the cloudless sky. “There just aren’t any
words to describe you when you get on a roll.”

“I can think of one. ‘Bitch’ would do nicely. Ask Guerrero. I’m sure he’d agree.”
Rylie patted her brother on the arm. “Come on. I only got half the boundary checked.
Go with me to do the other half.”

Levi walked straight to his horse and mounted, muttering, “Damn straight. I’m thinking
I need to keep a much closer eye on you.”

***

Clay tossed the manila folder onto his cluttered wooden desk and settled back in his
chair. A frown creased his face as he stared out the glass window of his office and
into the busy control room of the county sheriff’s department.

He was having a hell of a time getting his mind on the job. He disliked the paperwork
end of being sheriff, preferring fieldwork, so he delegated what office duties he
could, but sometimes, there was nothing for it, especially when he had nothing but
greenhorns and goof-offs in the office with him. The papers just had to be filled
out.

Papers about truck thefts and interrupted truck thefts.

Thoughts of what he wanted to do with Rylie Thorn sure beat the heck out of signing
dozens of documents or trying to catch a gang of thieves.

He remembered how she’d come storming into his office, her eyes blazing and how she’d
laid into Deputy Quinn, then later, into Francisco Guerrero, as if the man couldn’t
snap his manicured fingers and have her throat slit on the spot. She’d looked so damn
fiery and sexy that Clay had just stood and watched her carry on for at least a minute
or two.

“Sheriff?” Quinn’s voice cut into Clay’s thoughts, forcing him back to the truck thefts
at hand.

He glanced from his desktop to the dark-haired deputy who stood in the open doorway
of his office. “Yeah?”

Quinn stepped into the room and hooked his thumbs in his front pockets. The armpits
of his tan uniform were sweat-soaked, and perspiration coated the man’s upper lip.
“Another ranch got hit last night. They knocked out the man on guard and got three
trucks.”

“Damn.” Clay slammed his hand on his desk and stood so abruptly he knocked his chair
over, its thump like an exclamation point to his frustration. “This has been going
on for two months. And that’s two months too long.”

“Uh-huh.” Quinn’s gaze dropped to the manila folder on Clay’s desk. “What’s your opinion
on the Guerrero connection now that you’ve had a chance to think it over?”

Clay reached for the file and flipped it open. “Plenty likely, but no evidence against
him or any of his known associates. Luke Denver, the MacKenna foreman, found some
holes in his fence, his and Wade Larson’s.” Clay ran his finger down the page. “No
vehicle tracks, no human tracks. Makes sense that they’d go out the way they came
in and beat it for the border, especially if Guerrero was behind the operation, but
since our contacts and informants are pretty sure they aren’t crossing near here with
the trucks... well, with Guerrero’s auto dealerships, I suppose they could zip the
vehicles straight to a local chop shop.”

Stroking his hand over his mustache, Clay thought out loud, “I can go talk to Guerrero
again. Doubt I’ll get anything fresh or new. This may not even be his game.”

“What about Levi Thorn?”

Clay’s gaze shot up to meet Quinn’s blue eyes, which seemed unusually steady and focused.
“What about him?”

Quinn shrugged. “Blalock and I have been looking into the desperate-for-cash possibilities,
people in the area who are hard up for money. Levi’s been short on funds for a while.
The Thorn Ranch is in the red, so he has motive to earn a little money on the side.
And he seems to have a bunch of money all of a sudden even though all those trucks
just went missing from their spread. I hear he just about bought out Lowe’s yesterday—ordered
a huge bunch of lumber.”

Frowning, Clay closed the manila folder. “Anything else?”

“A lady friend of mine works at the bank in Douglas.” The deputy shifted and folded
his arms across his chest. “She said Thorn got himself a safety deposit box, and he
made a big deposit this morning. A good chunk of change. No way insurance paid off
that fast on the stolen Thorn trucks.”

With a sigh, Clay scrubbed his hand over his mustache. “Get a warrant for the box,
but keep it quiet. See what you can dig up—but don’t limit your investigation to him,
not just yet. Everybody in this area’s hurting. There’s any number of people who could
have gotten desperate enough to try to make a quick buck.” When the deputy left his
office, Clay righted his chair and sank into it. If Rylie’s brother ended up being
a suspect, that sure put a damper on things. Hell, Rylie could be involved for all
Clay knew—the Thorn Ranch was half hers, and he had an instinct she’d go to the mat
and even die fighting before she let that property go down the drain.

But his gut told him otherwise, and unless his lust for her was screwing with his
instinct, he was sure she was innocent. Levi Thorn, on the other hand, could very
well be in the mess well past the crown of his Stetson.

***

The sound of a truck driving up to the ranch house jerked Rylie’s heart into full
gear. She dodged into her bedroom, chiding herself for being excited about a date.
It had been years since she’d been nervous about going out, but there was something
about Clay that made her body tingle just thinking about the man.

Rylie smoothed her short jean skirt as she checked her reflection in the mirror. She
picked denim to commemorate what she was wearing when Clay first touched her, and
she’d chosen a hot pink strapless top that bared her flat belly and slender shoulders.

She pushed her blond hair behind her ears and put a touch of gloss on her lips. A
knock sounded at the door at the same time she spritzed on her vanilla musk cologne.
After grabbing her jean jacket, she hurried to the door, only to see Levi walking
in with Clay.

Her pulse skyrocketed at the sight of Clay, who was wearing a snug shirt that showed
his cut physique to perfection and tight Wranglers that molded his muscular thighs—and
that showed a promising bulge.

Levi frowned, took off his Stetson, and tossed it onto the hat rack, then ran his
fingers through his blond hair. “You didn’t tell me you had a date with the sheriff,
Ry.”

“Since when do I tell you about any of my dates?” She looked past Levi and smiled
at Clay. “Hey there.”

“Hey yourself.” Clay touched the brim of his Stetson and smiled at Rylie.

“I’m gonna grab myself some eats.” Levi nodded toward the kitchen, a tired, irritated
look in his eyes. “Catch you later.”

As Levi vanished into the kitchen, Clay murmured, “You look like spring come early.”

She returned his smile with a sassy toss of her head, letting her gaze rake over him.
Her voice was husky as she met his eyes. “I’d say you look like a real good reason
to come... early.”

A growl practically rumbled from his chest, and his green eyes darkened from crystal
to almost jade. “Let’s go.”

Rylie slipped on her jacket and headed out the front door as Clay held it open for
her. The cool night smelled clean and crisp, the sky clear with stars spattered across
its expanse.

“You’ve got a choice to make,” he said as they walked to the black truck parked out
front.

She paused in front of the passenger door and looked up at him. “I told you, yes.”

“This one’s not a simple yes or no.” He smiled and reached up to brush a strand of
hair behind her ear. “I’d like to take you to dinner. The choice is, we can go to
a nice place and hope for a quiet evening with no interruptions. Problem is, I can’t
seem to go out into public anymore without someone coming up and wanting to give me
their opinion on one thing or another. You need to know that it’s a real possibility.”

BOOK: Clay: Armed and Dangerous
9.59Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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