LITMIR.BIZ

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the ranch owner to Boone Fowler, and his stomach clenched.

      He’d been trying not to dwell on that part of the assignment. The last time he’d seen the militia leader, Riley had been Fowler’s prisoner. Thank God he’d been in disguise. And working under an assumed name—Craig O’Riley. When they’d captured him, his hair had been long and dyed dark. Then his captors had shaved his head with a dull razor. Lucky for him, his hair was thick enough to hide the scars.

      Not that he was vain enough to worry about some razor nicks on his skull spoiling his appearance. But they could have interfered with one of his biggest assets as a bounty hunter—his ability to fool his quarry into thinking he was someone else.

      Among the men of Big Sky, he was known as the chameleon. For him, changing his appearance was as natural to him as changing his shirt.

      Ironically, this time, he was going as himself, with sun-streaked brown hair, hazel eyes and a confident bearing he wasn’t exactly feeling. But that last part was even more important than the physical attributes. He had to convince Boone Fowler that they were equals—not former prisoner and captor. Because if Fowler cottoned on to his real identity, he was a dead man.

      The stakes were too high for failure. And not just the personal stakes. Since their captivity, Big Sky had discovered that Fowler’s militia wasn’t working alone. It seemed they were tied to a terrorist movement bent on influencing American policy on Lukinburg. And the terrorists were probably in league with the former King Aleksandr Petrov—who wanted to keep his ass on the throne.

      So Riley’s ultimate goal was to find out what Boone Fowler was up to, then contact Big Sky so they could scoop up him and his men and collect their bounty.

      Nothing much, he thought with a laugh.

      But first he had to convince Courtney Rogers to hire him so he could find out what side she was really on.

      As he drove through the snow, a shape loomed above and slightly ahead of him. Uncertain of what he was seeing, he slowed.

      When he drew closer, the shape resolved itself into a bridge.

      The snow poured down from the sky like someone was up there emptying buckets of the stuff. But the bridge presented a man-made roof.

      Once he drove into the shelter of the span, he saw something interesting—a set of skid marks on the sheltered blacktop. Obviously a vehicle had come shooting into the underpass, with the driver barely in control.

      Then what?

      Inching forward, he followed the trail. It emerged from the overhang and into the swirl of snow. The white stuff had almost obliterated the tire tracks on the other side, but he could follow their path as they skidded toward the right.

      When he projected the trajectory to its logical conclusion, he saw a green pickup truck that had taken a header into a field.

      So, had somebody rescued the driver? Or was he still inside?

      Riley slowed, then pulled onto the shoulder and ahead of the vehicle.

      When he climbed out, the first thing he saw was that the windshield of the truck was crazed. Maybe a rock had spun up from the road—causing a one-car accident.

      Shivering in a sudden blast of cold, he was glad to be wearing a heavy shearling coat, a Western hat, boots and gloves.

      The snow was up to his boot tops, making the shoulder surface slippery, and he walked carefully as he started back the way he’d come—his eyes trained on the truck.

      He’d been thinking nobody was inside. Now he revised his assumption since he saw no footprints around the driver’s door and the windows were fogged. He couldn’t see much, but he did detect the vague outline of a figure behind the wheel.

      He cupped his hands around his mouth as he approached. “You okay?”

      Nobody answered, so he reached for the handle and pulled the door open.

      Several impressions registered at once. The person inside the cab was small. A small man—no, a woman.

      Her features, what he could see of them, were definitely feminine. Large camel-colored eyes. A delicate nose. Nicely shaped lips. A bit of reddish-brown hair poking from below her wool ski cap.

      She was wearing a man’s heavy coat and a wool scarf. For further protection against the cold, she had wrapped a blanket around her legs. But the blanket wasn’t the main detail that smacked him in the face.

      The woman held an old-fashioned, long-barreled revolver in her right hand, and it was pointed directly at his chest.

      The weapon might be old, but it looked to be in excellent shape.

      “Get away from me, you bastard,” she ordered in a shaky voice, “or I’ll kill you.”

      Chapter Two

      Riley raised his hands to shoulder level, gloved palms outward, thinking he was in deep swamp water now. Make that freezing swamp water.

      He hadn’t expected an attack when he opened the door. So he hadn’t drawn his own weapon. It was a SIG-Sauer P-226—not the standard issue with Western wear. But he’d figured that enough guys carried them around here that he could get away with it.

      “Put away the six-shooter. I came to help you.”

      “Sure,” she answered. “That’s why you shot at me.” Her words were slurred, her face was pale, and he knew in that dangerous moment that she was suffering from hypothermia. She wasn’t thinking clearly, and she could shoot him if he blinked—or if he took a step back. On the other hand, if he stood here with snow swirling around him and tried to keep talking to her, she could drift dangerously close to death.

      “Let me help you,” he said calmly.

      “Get away.” Just the effort to talk seemed to be draining her remaining energy.

      “Don’t do anything foolish,” he answered, edging closer. When the pistol wavered, he made his move, diving for her gun hand, pointing the weapon toward the floor even as he wrestled the gun away from her.

      She had the strength of desperation, and she wasn’t willing to give up easily. As she fought him, he kept imagining disaster—one or the other of them with a gaping bullet wound turning the snow crimson.

      It felt like centuries as he fought her for the gun, trying to keep either one of them from getting hurt. Probably it was only seconds.

      She moaned as he twisted the weapon from her grasp. To hide it from sight, he set it on the ground below the truck.

      “Oh, sugar.” She said it like a curse, and he found the combination of vehemence and ladylike language oddly endearing.

      “It’s all right. Everything’s going to be all right,” he murmured as he cupped one gloved hand over her shoulder.

      Tears welled in her eyes, yet he saw her struggling for control. In the next moment, he found that letting his guard down was a big mistake.

      Still on the offensive, she made her gloved hands into small fists, pounding against his chest and shoulders.

      “Hey, cut it out,” he growled. “There’s only so far I’m willing to carry chivalry.”

      The situation was still deteriorating, and he couldn’t help wondering which one of them was going to end up getting hurt.

      Luckily, the hypothermia had sapped the little wildcat’s strength, and he was able to lean into the cab and wrap his arms around her, drawing her close.

      “Honey?” she said.

      Before he could answer, she whispered, “You came back to help me.” Whoever her honey was, he had a calming effect on the woman.

      She let her head drop to his shoulder, and he cradled her against his body, thinking she felt delicate and feminine under the heavy coat she wore. Holding her was no hardship.

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