Naked Edge (30 page)

FIVE MINUTES LATER, Gabe sat at the table in his boxer briefs, watching as Kat, wearing that same old T-shirt of his she'd worn this morning, made them a dinner of buffalo steaks, roasted potatoes, and salad. Where she came by this sudden burst of energy when he could barely think and would rather be dozing in his bed with her still in his arms was beyond him. He supposed it was one of the great mysteries of life--how having a good orgasm knocked a man out, but reenergized a woman and left her ravenous.

Maybe it was an evolutionary thing that had enabled women to fatten up for pregnancy and produce healthier offspring back in the day when life was hard and food scarce. He could kind of see that. A cave woman has sex with a cave man, and while he's lying on the mammoth skin in a postcoital stupor, she raids his cave for leftovers. Still, Gabe supposed human males had it easy. If he were a male black widow or praying mantis, Kat would be munching on him right now, not carrot sticks.

Not that he and Kat had mated. Not that they'd actually had sex. They'd done nothing more than get each other off like a couple of high school kids. And yet it had satisfied him in a way that three years of hard-core fucking hadn't. Later, when his brain was working again, this would probably scare the shit out of him, but for now he wanted to savor the moment.

He watched Kat sprinkle salt and pepper on the rib eyes. Then she bent down to slide them in the oven to broil, and his gaze shifted to the curve of her ass and her cute lavender panties. And some of his drowsiness lifted.

She shut the oven, then stood and turned to him, half-eaten carrot stick in hand. "Do you like onions in your salad?"

Despite what had happened today, she seemed relaxed, almost happy, the ordeal she'd been through temporarily forgotten. Some macho part of him found this more than a little gratifying. Distracted by the sweetness of her face, he barely heard himself answer. "Uh-huh."

It was a good thing she hadn't just asked him if he liked rat turds in his salad.

You're in over your head, buddy!

Yeah, he was. But at the moment that didn't seem so bad.

KAT DABBED HER lips with the napkin, then leaned back in her chair, her belly full, her body replete. "That was delicious. Thank you."

Gabe gave her a lazy grin. "You're the cook. Thank yourself."

Something in the way he looked at her made it hard for her to think. Or maybe it was the fact that he was still half naked. Or the sight of his hand--the same hand that had made her come twice this evening--resting against the table.

That's it, honey. Ride my hand!

Heat flooded her cheeks, and she found herself struggling to remember the thread of their conversation. "It ... It was your food we ate, so ..."

His eyes narrowed. "You're blushing."

She sat up straight, pressed her hands to her cheeks and looked away. "No, I'm not. It's just warm. I ... I should start the dishes."

Feeling embarrassed that he had noticed, she stood, grabbed their plates, and carried them to the sink. She had just turned on the water to rinse them when she felt Gabe come up behind her. His hands settled against the countertop on either side of her, his lips nuzzling the sensitive skin beneath her ear, his breath hot on her skin.

"You were blushing." His voice was deep and dark as midnight. "It couldn't have been the topic of conversation, so it must have been something you were thinking. What were you thinking, my sweet little Kat? Hmm? Tell me."

"I ..." Kat sank back against him, tilting her head to make more room for his kisses as he traced the curve of her neck down to her shoulder. "I ... wasn't blushing."

He chuckled. "You're such a bad liar. I think you were thinking about--"

In the other room, his cell phone rang, the jarring sound giving Kat a mini adrenaline surge, her pulse pounding.

"Damn." He pressed a kiss against her hair, then strode off to answer it.

And with her next breath, everything she'd been trying so hard to forget came crashing in on her. The bone fragment. Bullets flying. Looting at Mesa Butte. Grandpa Red Crow's death.

One little Indian . . . dead.

"Rossiter."

Not wanting to eavesdrop but unable to shake the feeling that this call in some way had to do with Mesa Butte, she turned off the water, reached for a towel, and walked slowly toward the living room.

"Go ahead," she heard Gabe say, the gentleness that had been in his voice moments ago now gone.

She stepped into the hallway, her heart beating faster.

"Were they able to ID it?" he asked.

And she knew he was talking about the bone.

Her stomach fell.

She took another step.

"Was he able to say where it came from? Where would anyone get a hold of something like that?" A pause. "Really? Son of a bitch!"

She reached the end of the hallway and found Gabe standing with his back to the fireplace, cell phone to his ear, his face grave.

"She's handling it pretty well. Yeah. Thanks, man. I'll be in touch." He hung up, then turned and saw her. His gaze met hers, his eyes troubled. "That was Julian. There were no fingerprints on the bone besides yours. Forensics identified it. Like I thought, it's human--and at least three hundred years old. The soil traces he recovered from it are a dead match for the soil in the trenches at Mesa Butte."

THE COYOTE CAME from behind her. Yipping and howling, it ran circles around her in the darkness. She shouted at it, told it to leave her alone, but her voice disappeared in the wind. She tried to kick it, tried to run, but her legs wouldn't move.

Then the coyote froze beside her, bared its teeth, growled, the fur on its neck and back raised. But it wasn't growling at her. It was growling at something else--something that moved in the shadows, something that stood just beyond the circle of firelight, something that was coming nearer.

A skinwalker.

She screamed.

"Kat, honey, wake up! It's okay. I've got you."

She heard Gabe's voice and found herself in his arms, in tears, shaking, drenched in cold sweat. She buried her face against his chest, his embrace a refuge. He whispered reassurances, stroked her hair, held her. But it was a long time before she was able to fall asleep again.

CHAPTER 20

IT WAS THE second morning in a row that Gabe had awoken in his own bed to find himself holding a woman in his arms. The same woman.

Kat slept deeply, her head resting on his chest, her breasts pressing softly against his ribs, one of her legs tucked intimately between his, her peacefulness at odds with the salty tearstains on her cheeks and the dark circles beneath her eyes. She'd had a rough night, whatever she'd dreamed so terrifying that she'd actually screamed, waking Gabe from a dead sleep. He'd sat bolt upright and reached for his HK before he'd realized she was just having a nightmare. It had taken most of an hour for her trembling to subside.

He needed to take a leak, but he didn't want to wake her. And so he watched her sleep, something he hadn't done since ...

What kind of game are you playing with her, Rossiter?

Hell if he knew.

He didn't want to hurt her, did not want to hurt her, but that's exactly what he'd do in the end. She had feelings for him. He'd seen it last night--that soft glow a woman got in her eyes when she thought she was in love. But he knew what she wanted from a man--a loving husband, a lifelong partner, a devoted father for her kids--and no matter what she believed, he was none of those things.

He'd given everything he had to Jill. He had nothing left to give.

And then he understood, as if somehow he'd worked it out in his sleep. The reason he hadn't yet pushed Kat away like all the other women he'd fucked is that he hadn't actually fucked her yet. Like any horn dog, he was busy chasing what he hadn't caught, all the kissing and even last night's mind-blowing hand job nothing more than foreplay. If he ever were to get inside her, the protectiveness he felt for her, this strange tenderness, would vanish. He'd come--and it would go. Then he'd have to watch that glow in her eyes turn to hurt and maybe even to hate.

That's why you need to keep your cock to yourself.

Yeah, right.

Who was he fooling? The only reason he hadn't fucked her yet is that she hadn't let him. If and when she did, he couldn't imagine himself being noble enough to refuse. Wasn't he already taking advantage of her vulnerability and using his sexual skill to move her slowly in that direction?

No.

Something in him rejected that idea. He was an asshole when it came to women, but he wasn't that much of an asshole. There had to be more to his need for her than scratching his insatiable sexual itch.

Like what, dickhead?

When no answer came to him--at least not one he was willing to consider--he knew he couldn't trust himself where she was concerned. It was time he put some distance between them. No matter how badly he wanted her, he needed to go back to keeping his hands to himself and sleeping on the couch.

He could forgive himself for a lot of things, but hurting Kat wasn't one of them.

WILLING HERSELF TO concentrate, Kat tried once again to read through a memo from the city's real estate department to Paul Martin, the city manager, discussing the proposed purchase price for Mesa Butte. The owners--a company called Mesa Butte Corporation--wanted three million dollars, but the city Realtor felt the land was worth at most half that amount and ...

The back door opened, and Gabe stepped in, his arms full of firewood, fresh, cold air rushing in behind him, a dusting of snowflakes on his shoulders and in his hair. He dropped the wood next to the fireplace, then walked back outside without sparing Kat a glance. It was as if he'd forgotten she was there.

You're being ridiculous, Kat.

He was probably just giving her space to work. Hadn't he told her that he didn't want to distract her? She ought to be grateful that he respected her enough to let her do her job. Except that . . . It felt more like he was trying to avoid her.

She couldn't put a finger on it. He hadn't done or said anything rude. All morning he'd been polite, making sure she was comfortable and had what she needed--coffee, a pen, enough light. But she might have been a stranger for all the warmth he'd shown her. Half the day was now gone, and they'd barely spoken. He hadn't once held her, hadn't kissed her, hadn't so much as touched her. It was as if the past two nights had never happened, as if she were a guest in his house--and nothing more.

She'd been telling herself all day that it didn't mean anything. He cared for her. She knew he did. He'd been there for her these past two weeks without fail. He'd watched over her, protected her, saved her life more than once and been injured in the process. He'd lost his job helping her do hers. He'd respected her sexual boundaries. And now, after years of working in the mountains, he'd chosen to stay cooped up indoors with her in order to keep her safe, when he could easily have washed his hands of the situation and let Chief Irving put her in a police safe house.

A man did not do those things for a woman if he didn't care about her, and what a man did mattered more than what he said--or didn't say.

Or so Kat told herself.

But the truth was that she'd fallen in love with a man who'd loved another woman and had lost her--a man who wasn't ready to love again. If only Kat knew what had happened, if only she knew how Jill had died, then she might understand what was going on inside him. She'd already guessed that Jill's death had something to do with rock climbing. Maybe Jill had fallen and Gabe blamed himself. Or maybe ...

Kat, listen to yourself!

What was she doing? Was she hoping for something that would never happen? Was she hoping for a kind of love from Gabe that he couldn't give?

You're right, Kat you've got no claim on me. I've made no promises, and we both know I never will.

She blinked back a surprise rush of tears, trying to ignore the growing ache in her chest. She needed to pull herself together. It was almost two in the afternoon, and she'd barely made headway through the stack of documents she and Gabe had copied at Martin's office yesterday. She had a job to do. People were depending on her. She couldn't let her emotions get in the way of her responsibilities.

The door opened, and Gabe stepped inside again. He dropped another armload of firewood. "Chief Irving's men are here. They're sitting across the street in a black Impala. I thought you'd want to know."

Before Kat could respond, he was gone again.

GABE STARED AT the map of Boulder and the five dots he'd drawn in red marker until his head ached. Someone had called Kat from pay phones at these seemingly random locations and threatened her life. But because none of the phones happened to be near any of the city's surveillance cameras, Gabe didn't know whose ass to kick.

He'd hoped that by looking at the locations on a map and noting the time of each call, he'd discover a pattern or find a common center point. No such luck. The phones were spread across town from Table Mesa to a North Boulder grocery store. The first two calls were made twenty minutes apart, but the others had been made at completely arbitrary intervals, forty-five minutes being the shortest and two hours being the longest. Gabe had lived his entire life in Boulder and knew the intervals had nothing to do with the distance between the pay phones.