Sweet Talking Lawman (18 page)

“Almost,” she sighed.
 “It’s been…what?  Almost six years?”

Rafe stopped.  “Mesa,
are you telling me there hasn’t been another man in your life?”

Her hands reached down and
pulled his buttocks toward her, her hips rising to push around him.  “Just
you,” she whimpered.  “Never anyone else.”

He groaned coarsely. 
“It’s so good, baby.”  He pulled out and pushed back in and she realized
how close she was to another explosion of epic proportions.  Rafe
straightened his arms and lifted his upper torso off her so she wasn’t being
held down by his weight.  He pulled out again and pushed back again, his
hardness rubbing seductively against the tiny nub of sensitivity that brought
her the most pleasure and Mesa gasped.

“Oh, sweet mercy,” her head
rolled from side to side.

Her muscles convulsed again,
tightening around him as he drove into her hard and fast, again and again, and
when her body bucked uncontrollably beneath him, he shuddered with his own
explosion.  For a few precious seconds they were both frozen in a haze of
pure rapture.

He collapsed against her and
shifted his upper body to the side slightly so he wasn’t lying completely on
her, but didn’t withdraw from her as the two of them lay panting.

“You okay?” he finally
managed to ask.

She nodded and he was
satisfied to feel her answer.

A little later he moved
slightly and groaned.  “I need to go get rid of the evidence,” he whispered
against her ear.  “Don’t move.  I’ll be right back.”

He wasn’t gone long and when
he came back she was able to watch him walk toward her from the door that he
pulled shut behind him.  His muscles were long and smooth, the bronze
color striking in the subdued light from the lamp that still burned.  His
eyes held hers and she knew she’d never seen a more beautiful man and never
would.  Rafe was her idea of physical perfection.

He stretched out on the bed
beside her, pulling her close against him, their naked bodies reacting
immediately to each other.  It was enough to take her breathe away again.

“I thought I was too old to
be ready again so quick,” he whispered after he’d located another condom and
slipped inside her.  It was slower in arriving, but the climax was no less
powerful or enduring when it came and when it was over, he carried her down the
hall into the bathroom.  Standing her on the floor, he grinned.  “The
first time I saw you as a woman, was in this room,” he said.

She nodded.  “Life was
never the same after that.  It was probably the first time I was glad to
know I was a woman.  As you backed out, before you shut the door, I saw
desire in your eyes and just knowing you liked what you saw was one of the best
moments of my life.”

He slipped his arms around
her, pulling her shoulders back against his chest.  “Maybe we should have
made love in this room that night.  I wonder what would have happened.”

She giggled.  “You’d
have gone to jail for molesting a minor and Uci would have scalped us both,
alive.”

He turned her around for a
quick kiss before moving past her to turn on the water and adjust the
temperature.  Grinning at her, he beckoned her to him.  “We might as
well see what we missed.”

Mesa didn’t think two people
could really make love, standing in a shower, but Rafe showed her just how easy
it was and left her glowing with satisfaction.  Then they soaped each
other all over and were soon snuggled back between the sheets in Rafe’s bed.

“I should go,” she finally
said, not wanting to leave, but not wanting Uci to walk in on them when she
came home.

“No,” he argued.  “I
want you here when I wake up in the mornin’.”  His arms tightened around
her as if to hold her, but she knew if she insisted, he’d let her go.

She sighed.  “I can’t
move in here, Rafe.  You know that.”

He nodded.  “Yeah, Uci
would whip both our asses.”

A girlish laugh reminded him
of Raale and he rolled onto his back, pulling her up over him, her lower body
angled to the side.  “How’s this goin’ to work, Mesa?” he finally asked. 
“You know that this is not just a one-time thing.  I don’t think I’ll ever
get enough of you.”

“I don’t know Rafe.  I’m
open to suggestions.”  She traced the grooves in one of his cheeks
idly.  “With you, it seems I’m open for a lot of things.”

He laughed softly, turned his
head and caught her finger between his teeth, his eyes sparkling with mischief
as his tongue toyed with the tip of it.  “I have a lot of things to
suggest,” he teased as he released her finger.  “You’re a very inspirin’
woman.”

He pulled her head down and
took her lips in a long drugging kiss.  “Damn,” he whispered, “I can’t get
enough of—.”  The sound of a galloping horse stopped him.  He reached
for his cell phone on the table beside the bed.  “This better be good,
John,” he growled into it as he opened the connection.  He was silent for
a minute, watching Mesa’s face.  Then he nodded, “alright.  I’ll be
there a.s.a.p.”  He put the phone back on the table.  “I gotta
go.  There’s a burglar alarm going off downtown and Montgomery is headed
out to a traffic accident on the road to the rez.”

She nodded and slipped off
him and then off the bed.  She began pulling her own clothes on and was
dressed by the time he was tucking his uniform shirt tail down into his
jeans.  “Wait,” he said as she started for the door.  “We can go out
together.”  He lifted his gun belt and fastened it on and grabbed his hat.

Spur was waiting patiently at
the bottom of the stairs and fell in beside Rafe as the two humans walked
through the door and outside.

At her car, Rafe pulled Mesa
into his arms one more time.  “I hate to see you leave.  I wanted to
wake up next to you in the mornin’.  Maybe make love again.”  He
kissed her gently but thoroughly.  “Are you and Raale goin’ to church tomorrow…eh
later this morning?”

 She hesitated.

“Uci’s expectin’ me to meet
her there but now, I probably won’t make it,” he added.  “But I could meet
you and Raale at The Tepee for lunch.”

“I doubt we’ll go to
church.”  She looked at him.  “It would feel hypocritical after what
you and I did tonight.”

He hugged her tightly. 
“Yeah, there is that.”

She shrugged.  “Maybe we
can just meet you for lunch.”

He nodded and kissed her
again.  “Now go home, while I can still let you.”

The burglar alarm turned out
to be a false alarm because the owner’s daughter had left her cell phone inside
and didn’t know how to disarm the alarm when she returned to get it, but Rafe
had done no more than return to the office and sit down behind the desk to
write the report, when Montgomery called in from the traffic accident.

“Montgomery to
dispatch!  Shots fired, repeat, shots fired!  I need back-up ASAP!”

Rafe heard the adrenalin in
his deputy’s voice and hit the door running, Spur on his heels.  “Send
everybody you can find,” he called back over his shoulder to Mary Jernigan, the
aged night dispatcher.

Tires squalled as his SUV
tore out onto the road, his siren screaming into the night.  “I’m on my
way, John,” he spoke into his car radio.  “Ten minutes out.  Are you
okay?”

“No,” came the quick
reply.  “I’m hit in the leg, bleeding bad.  Pinned down behind my
car.  I think it’s Daryl Tall Tree and his wife, but I don’t know what the
hell happened.  I got here, saw him with a gun in his hand.  I
ordered him to drop it and raise his hands, and the bastard just started
shooting like crazy!”  He groaned.  “I can’t tell where he is.”

“See if you can get a
tourniquet on your leg to at least slow the bleedin’.  I’m comin’ as fast
as I can.”  Rafe was furious because his deputy was all alone.  He
tried to push his vehicle faster, but he already had the gas pedal down as far
as he could push it.

“John,” Levi’s voice came
through the radio.  “I’m three minutes from you, can you hear me?”

“Yeah,” John’s voice sounded
weak.  “He’s walking over this way.  I can hear his steps.”

Rafe’s hand pounded his
steering wheel.  “Damn, damn, damn!” he shouted.

Spur was pacing back and
forth across the back seat.  He sensed the urgency of the situation and
sensed Rafe’s frustration.  He whined.

“Yeah, I know, dawg,” Rafe
muttered.  “I know.”

“Here I come, John,” Levi’s
voice was almost a shout.  “Hang on.  If that bastard comes around
the side of your car, shoot him!  You hear me?”

Rafe waited for John’s reply
but heard only silence.

“John!”  Krystal’s voice
was on the radio.  “John David Montgomery, you’d damn well better answer
me.  Can you hear me?”  After a long second of silence, she repeated
her question.

Rafe heard the terror in her
voice and breathed a sigh of relief when Levi spoke again.

“I’m with John.  No sign
of Daryl’s car except tail lights fading in the distance when I got here. 
He must have run when he heard me coming.  John’s breathing, got a good
but not great pulse.  But, he can’t hear you Krystal.  I think he
passed out.”

“The ambulance is on the way,
but they have to come from Liberty.”  Mary had dispatched them as soon as
she heard John say he was hit.  “The EMT thinks they’ll be another fifteen
minutes.  He said get a tourniquet on that leg and apply direct pressure
to the wound,” she instructed.

“10-4,” Levi replied.

Rafe kept the accelerator of
his SUV to the floor and even though it took longer than he wanted, soon the
lights atop the distant patrol cars was flashing brightly, lighting the
night.  Then, it was only seconds before he slid his vehicle into a
skidding rest and both Spur and he were out as it rocked to a stop.  He
rushed to Levi’s side and dropped down onto one knee to see John’s eyes looking
back at him.

“Can you say a few words to
Krystal?” he asked.  “She’s on the way out here and is worried about you.”

John nodded and Rafe put the
hand held speaker to his deputy’s mouth.  “Krystal, baby, slow down. 
I’m gonna be alright.”

“Oh, John, are you
sure?  Sweetheart, I need you to be alright,” she was hyperventilating and
her voice reflected her fear.

“Yeah, just don’t crash
coming to me, okay?”  He paused for a minute.  “I love you sweetums.”

Her reply was something
between a sob and a laugh.  “I love you, too, snuggles.  I’m slowing
down, but I’ll be there before you know it.”

Rafe put the mike to his
mouth.  “I think Snuggles has talked enough for now, Sweetums.  Just
drive careful.  We’ll be here when you get here.”

“You can go to hell, Rafter
Storm Horse,” she snapped back at him, knowing that from this point forward,
she and John would be called Sweetums and Snuggles by everyone in the Sheriff’s
Department, if not half the county.  But without a doubt, it would be
teasing, reflecting affection from their coworkers, so then she added more
softly.  “Thanks, boss.”

Seeing that Levi had followed
the EMT’s orders, Rafe stood up and cast a quick glance around the area. 
The first thing he noticed was Spur off the far verge of the road, nosing
around a mound of something next to the fence.  “I hope to hell he ain’t
found a skunk or some rotten road-kill.”  He stalked toward the dog.

He had to cross the shallow
ditch and climb the bank to where he could now hear his dog whining
softly.  “What you got there, dawg?”

Looking down he realized that
Spur was nudging the body of a man.  Obviously, the dog hoped the human
would get up and play with him, but from the bullet hole just above the level
of his eyes, right smack in the middle of his forehead, Rafe knew that would
never happen.  He squatted down and looked closer at the man even as he
motioned the dog away.  “Get back.  The crime scene techs will be
really pissed when they find dog hair and slobber all over the victim.” 
The man looked familiar and it took a minute for Rafe to put a name to the
face, but then he realized it was Hal Cartwright, one of Mesa’s cowboys. 
He swore softly.  This was just freaking wonderful!  A murdered man
to add to the two attempted murders and all three victims were connected to the
Rocking H.  What the hell was going on?

Making sure Spur followed
him; Rafe returned to his SUV and called Mary at the office.  “You need to
call Liberty and get a CSI team and the coroner’s tech out here.  We’ve
got a dead body to deal with now, and no, it’s not John.”

He got his flashlight from
his vehicle and casting the light around, soon found the wrecked remains of a
motorcycle, not too far from Cartwright’s body.  Maybe the dead man and
Daryl Tall Tree had been in an accident.  The bike was pretty much
demolished, but why was there a bullet hole in Cartwright’s head?  Okay,
it didn’t take a genius to figure out that someone had pulled a trigger and put
it there, but why?  Daryl Tall Tree was a happy drunk, not prone to
violence.

Rafe checked again on John
and was glad that he was still alert and the bleeding appeared to have slowed
significantly.  In the distance they could hear the wailing of an
approaching emergency vehicle.  Rafe winked at John.  “I’m willin’ to
bet a month’s pay that it’s Krystal and not the ambulance.”

John managed to shake his
head negatively.  “No bet.  That’s my woman for sure.”

And he was right. 
Krystal’s hair was loose and didn’t look like she’d combed it, her face wore no
sign of make-up, but when she knelt beside him and leaned her face down to his,
John Montgomery knew she was the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen.  He
smiled.  “It’s alright, sweetums.  Just a leg wound.  I guess
Tall Tree heard Levi coming and left.”

She dropped her face to his
and kissed him soundly.  “Well, Daryl Tall Tree can run far and hide well,
but when I see him, I’m kicking his ass!”

The ambulance was arriving
and Rafe watched quietly as they loaded John inside.  Krystal jumped in
with him and then they left with sirens screaming through the night.

Rafe and Levi walked the area
trying to figure out exactly what had happened, but when the crime scene techs
arrived, Rafe pulled Levi aside.  “I’m goin’ to the rez and see if I can
locate Daryl.  He’s probably found someplace to sleep and I think I know
where that’ll be.  I need to get him and his wife down to the station and
find out what the hell happened here.”

“I suppose you want me to
wait with the crime scene techs?”  Levi sounded disappointed.

Rafe shook his head. 
“No.  Once they finish, there’s not much point in tryin’ to keep this site
secure, and they can do it while they’re here.  One of them can drive
Krystal’s patrol car back to town.  I want you to follow me to the rez and
when I find Daryl and his wife, you can bring her in.  I’ll wanna keep
them separated until we know what brought this on.  I’ve known Daryl for
years and so has John.  He’s always been a happy drunk and I’ve never
known him to carry a weapon.”  He shook his head negatively again. 
“This makes about as much sense as somebody tryin’ to kill Rance or Shirley.”

Levi lifted a quizzical
brow.  “So you’re sure somebody tried to kill Rance?”

Rafe nodded.  “Yesterday
I got to the Rocking H ahead of everyone else and Bob showed me where he found
Rance.  I used the metal detector over the horse’s remains and located a
bullet in one of the rear femurs.  Looks like it came from a 308.”

Levi swore softly. 
“Rance don’t have any enemies.  He’s one of the best liked people I’ve
ever met.”

“Yeah, and he’s one of the
most skilled horsemen I’ve ever known.  Having an accident like he had
just never felt right to me,” Rafe said.  “None of this makes any sense.”

“What about the dead
body?”  Levi didn’t want to second guess his boss, but he’d known Daryl
Tall Tree all their lives.  In fact, Daryl’s wife, Willow, was a distant
cousin of his.  He didn’t feel Willow or Daryl could be involved in a cold
blooded murder and Rafe had told him the dead guy was shot right between the
eyes.  “Do you have any idea who the dead man is?”

Rafe hesitated before nodding
affirmatively.  “Yeah, he works at the Rocking H.  I think his name
is Cartwright.  I guess I’ll have to go talk to Mesa after we locate Daryl
and Willow.  See if he has any family to notify.”