LITMIR.BIZ

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you handle it right. You say, ‘Excuse me. I didn’t mean to do that.’ Try it now.”

      “Ex-excuse me. I didn’t mean to—to…” Jimmy Ray’s Adam’s apple bulged as he swallowed again.

      “Close enough. Nice seeing you again.” He stepped around the cowboy and left the bar. A glance down the street showed the lights were still on in Brown’s office. A closer glance showed just the front end of Juliet’s car on the next street over. It wasn’t attention grabbing, since there were other cars parked nearby. Of course, Maxwell Brown hadn’t seen any of those other cars parked outside his house a short while ago.

      He returned down the side street and through the alley, tapping on the window so she could unlock the door. He handed her a burger, Coke and napkins and unwrapped his own burger before speaking. “I ran into a friend of yours at the Saloon.”

      “Really? Who?”

      “Jimmy Ray.”

      “Jimmy—Oh, the cowboy.”

      “You say that as if it’s something special,” he teased. He could afford to tease because, in fact, she’d said it as if the other man was totally inconsequential. “Of course, being Texas born and bred, I imagine cowboys do carry some significance for you.”

      “Not in the least, though if you put on a pair of boots and a Stetson, I imagine it might raise my temperature a degree or two.”

      “I could do more than that, darlin’. In my apartment this evening you were steaming.”

      She blushed in the dim light and picked for a moment at her hamburger before asking, “You don’t think anyone could see…do you?”

      The window was set high enough that his hand underneath her skirt had been hidden from view. But anyone with any imagination whatsoever would have known what he’d been doing to her, where he’d been touching her, what she’d been feeling. The look on her face, the taut line of her body and the arch of her back had all but shouted pure sexual delight.

      “No,” he said quietly. “I’m sure no one saw a thing.”

      For the next hour, they talked, sat in silence and listened to music. Martin was about to suggest that they call it a night and head home when finally something happened. The lights went off in Maxwell Brown’s office, and a moment later he came out of the building and climbed into his car. If he turned toward home, they would let him go, Martin decided. If he didn’t, they would follow.

      When Brown turned the other way, Martin opened the door. “Let me drive, Juliet.” They switched places, then he pulled to the corner. As soon as the Lexus was out of sight, he turned.

      Once the road left town, it wound through valleys and over passes. Eventually, it reached the interstate, and from there it was easy going to anyplace in the country. Brown didn’t go that far, though. Only a couple of miles out of town, he turned into a broad driveway, slowed at the security gate, then went inside. Martin drove past, pulled to the side of the road and cut the engine and the lights. “Wait here—”

      “No way. I’m going with you.”

      “You’re not dressed for a nighttime walk through the woods.” Her skirt was full and would snag on bushes, and her shoes, while sensible flats, weren’t designed with hiking in mind.

      “I’ll be fine.”

      “That dress will reflect every bit of light in the sky.”

      She reached in back and came up with a black trench coat. Her smile was smug. “I like to be prepared. I don’t trust Colorado weather.”

      He wanted to argue with her, but he didn’t have time. If there was anything to see inside the fenced-in compound, he needed to get close enough. “You do what I say without question. Stay behind me. And if I tell you to run, you run like hell and don’t look back. Understand?”

      Her only response was to shrug into the coat, then climb out of the car. With the coat covering her to the ankles and its hood drawn tight around her face, she was less visible than he was, making him wish once more for a knitted black cap to cover his blond hair.

      What little light the moon gave disappeared as they moved deeper into the woods. They followed the concertina-topped fence, keeping to the shelter of the trees, around to the back of the compound. There, a drainage ditch that ran the length of the fence provided them cover. Martin found a good vantage point and eased onto his stomach, his feet braced on chunks of granite in the bottom. With a rustle of nylon, Juliet joined him.

      The back of the warehouse was brightly lit, and there was a good deal of activity going on. Three tractor-trailers marked Grand Springs Trucking were backed up to the loading dock, and another three sat off to one side, motors running, awaiting their turns. On the dock Brown stood out in his suit. Everyone around him wore jeans or work clothes.

      “How’s your neck?”

      Juliet’s whisper tickled his ear, but he didn’t twitch. “Itchy as hell,” he whispered back.

      “It’s not really unusual for deliveries to come in at night, is it?”

      “I don’t know. But do you think Brown comes out to personally oversee the unloading of every nighttime shipment?”

      “Probably not.” She wriggled around, then came up with a small rock that had been somewhere underneath her. She was about to toss it aside when Martin grabbed both it and her hand. With a weak smile, she gave him the rock, which he laid silently in front of them.

      As he watched the men work, he made up a mental wish list: electronic equipment for listening in on Brown’s conversation, binoculars for closer examination of the crates being unloaded, and a gun, a nice little SIG-Sauer. He felt damn near naked without the comfortingly familiar press of the pistol in the small of his back.

      He became still, his thoughts distracting him from the activity at the loading dock. He’d carried a gun. His subconscious must have been aware of that—after all, guns were the weapon of choice for killing, and he knew he’d killed—but it was still a disconcerting idea. A lot of people carried guns. Cops. Burglars. Thieves. Rapists. Murderers. Drug dealers.

      Maybe his business in Grand Springs had had something to do with Maxwell Brown. Maybe he’d been looking for work. Maybe he’d been checking out the competition.

      “Martin.”

      Maybe he had come here to make a deal…or a hit or—

      “Martin!” Juliet whispered his name and tugged his jacket even as she slid further down into the ditch. A big, burly guy was coming their way, and he didn’t look particularly friendly.

      Snapping out of whatever bleak possibilities he’d been contemplating, Martin moved quickly, silently, to the bottom of the ditch, pulling her with him. For a long time they lay motionless, listening as the footsteps came closer. Just when it seemed as if the man must be walking right up to the fence, a truck door opened, then closed. A moment later the engine rumbled to life, the gears ground and the truck pulled away.

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