Too Sexy for his Stetson (2 page)

“That’s some mighty big talk for such a little lady.” The grin that tilted the corner of his mouth irritated more than intimidated her.

“A little lady with a big gun that could put a crease just about anywhere I choose.” She lowered the barrel of the rifle and set her aim in the vicinity of his zipper. “That’d smart a whole lot more.
Absolutely
guaranteed.”

It warmed her heart when he came to his senses and reined in his smile.

“You’ll be having a little conversation with Lieutenant Deputy Beringer when he arrives in town,” she added.

“Beringer?” The name caught his attention. “Isn’t he one of the old boys who works out of Boise?”

Too bad such a cute cowboy had obviously been tangling with the law from one end of Idaho to the other. “He’s joining the Little Chute team. I take it you’ve crossed paths with him before?”

“You could say that. I imagine you’re good friends with Deputy Beringer?”

“Very good friends.” She stretched the truth and glanced at the still blank screen on her phone before stuffing it back into her pocket.

Okay, think, Wilcox.
How the hell was she going to make contact with the department and get this guy back to town? A good deputy always has a backup plan.

The unmistakable rumble of a vehicle pummeling over bedrock interrupted the silence. Dear God, hopefully, it was someone who could assist. A measure of relief pulsed through her veins, and the knot in her stomach relaxed. At this point, she’d be willing to commandeer the help of just about anyone who showed up.

Two seconds later, a bullet pinged and ricocheted off the log siding of the cabin. Her solar plexus clenched, and she ducked. Holy cripes! Now she needed a backup plan for the backup plan.

“Get down,” she yelled while flinging herself to the ground.

The man in the Stetson followed her lead, his pumped chest filling her view as he crashed to the ground several feet away. Another shot exploded, brain–rattlingly close to her head. Like a combat soldier hunkered on her knees and elbows, she squiggled through bone–dry dirt and moved closer to the burglar.

High–octane adrenaline shot through her bloodstream as smoking cartridges continued to carve up the cabin’s rough–hewn logs. Rifle positioned against her body, prone on her stomach, she arched her back. She steadied herself on her elbows, and aimed, firing repeatedly. Shell casings rained down. The air reeked with the stench of gunpowder.

In reply, another round of rapid gunfire exploded from the opposition.

“Stay down, minimize the target,” she ordered. Suspected burglar or not, she was responsible for this yahoo.

“You think?” He managed to zip his jeans, keep his Stetson from getting shot full of holes, and crawl next to her, wedging his body against hers. Hot body.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got you covered,” she said. He was probably scared out of his mind.

He pressed closer, maneuvered, and somehow placed himself between her and the opposition. “We’re not hanging around here like a couple of sitting ducks.” He rose to a crouch. “On three, unload five or six rounds at those SOBs, and then we’re out of here. Up that hill.” He pointed to the rise beyond the cabin. “Zigzag.”

Brandy touched her finger to the trigger and pressed it repeatedly.

“Go!” he yelled.

The minute she jumped up, the man in the snakeskin boots snatched her arm and pushed her in front of him. His warm hand pressed against her back as he urged her toward the sharply rising slope. If they made it up the hill without sprouting holes in their circulatory systems, they could disappear into the woods.

Toeing her hiking boots into the rocky incline, she pushed for all she was worth, jogging uphill, and closed in on the ridge.

“Excuse me, ma’am.” His big hand flattened on her butt and boosted her over the top of the embankment.

Chin first, she landed in dried leaves. He thudded down next to her, then pushed up, pulling her to her feet. Embraced by tree shadows, Brandy jerked her head around to look down at the cabin. Four men. Dark green SUV. Make that six men, counting the two who’d just pulled up in a familiar truck and who were at the very moment scrambling out of
her
rusty Ford, which she’d left parked along the road.

“They’ve got my truck!” Her jaw snapped shut. Damn, that truck was the first vehicle she’d ever owned. While she lamented her loss, her detainee grabbed her arm and took off, charging deeper into the woods.

In the span of twenty minutes, she’d encountered more action than she’d seen during her entire first month of field training. She should have been scared, but she wasn’t. Instead, the adrenaline pumping through her system charged her with energy. Harnessing the energy, she forged along the footpath through dense thicket, Stetson Man at her side. Rounds of ammunition bombarded the pristine wilderness around them.

“Keep going,” he ordered.

Excuse me, who’s in charge?
For a split second, she entertained the idea of setting him straight.

Ping.
A bullet grazed tree bark inches from her chest.
Damn.
She ducked, and her companion, with his hand tethered to hers, plunged off the path into the trees and poured on the steam. Sprinting. Stumbling over rocks. Skidding on spree.

He–Who–Thought–He–Was–in–Charge suddenly stopped. Brandy plowed into him. As she glanced around, he leapt over the edge of the narrow pathway, tugging her along. They rolled down a brush–covered slope and hit a narrow ledge. And bounced off.

Falling, sliding, somersaulting. The world spun as she tumbled head–over–heels, making the acquaintance of every rock in her path. Cinders bit the exposed skin between the hem of her T–shirt and the waistband of her jeans, and dry twigs grabbed her hair and snarled in her curls.

At last she came to an abrupt stop at the bottom of the gulch. Atop a mass of steel–hard man. Breathless, nose–to–nose with the handsome suspected thief, she faced off with him. Her heart thumped like a coyote on speed in contrast to his, which held a controlled, steady beat. His hot skin seared her. That would be the hot skin of his rock solid chest, against which her breasts were intimately pressed.

“You’re still under arrest.”

“Shush.” Index finger to his lips, he shook his head.

They lay motionless for untold minutes until the sound of angry shouts and tromping footsteps on the trail above subsided. With her legs straddling his hips, she gripped his shoulders and muscled her upper body away. “Were those guys after you?”

His cool, sexy gaze slid over her sweat–drenched torso as though she were the winner of a wet T–shirt contest. Mentally rolling her eyes, she pulled the damp fabric away from her chest and scowled.

“Could be,” he drawled.

Her inner cop took charge. With a quick sideways glance, she scanned the surrounding brush and spotted her rifle. Ten feet away. Slowly, she levered herself to a standing position and backed toward the Remington.

Engrossed with examining an ugly scratch that ran horizontally across his washboards, he made no attempt to stop her or go for the firearm.

“So, Deputy, who do
you
think those guys were?”

“I thought you said they were after you.”

“I said they could be after me. That was just a supposition.”

“They were probably Neo Nazi Freedom Fighters. Those guys have been flexing their muscles around town. Hassled some hikers in this vicinity earlier this week.”

The NNFF faction had been high priority on the sheriff department’s watch list for months. A splinter from the extremists of the 1980s, the white supremacists were believed to be holed up in a compound hidden somewhere in the 1800 square miles of Little Chute County’s forest reserve. “They just crossed the line, which will spark the interest of the Feds. So, any reason they’d be after you?”

He shrugged. “I have the right to remain silent, remember?” He pushed off the ground and started to walk away, his thigh muscles bunching against denim that hugged his legs like snakeskin still attached to the snake.

“Hey, where do you think you’re going?” He wasn’t off the hook for suspected B and E. She had no intention of letting him get away. Although, anyone at odds with the NNFF couldn’t be all bad.

Ignoring her, he ambled toward a patch of fern.

Brandy steadied her rifle.

He retrieved his Stetson and moseyed back. “Do you have a plan for getting back to town, Deputy? Do you even know which way the road is from here?”

She glanced around at the mass of trees and foliage.

Tall pine loomed in every direction. Not a landmark in sight.

Clamping his Stetson on his head, covering his damp hair, he sidled closer. So close she could feel flash fire radiating off his skin as he towered over her, his bare chest hovering inches from her nose. She tilted her head to look into his face. The heady scent of pine saturated the air. Or did the fragrance emanate from the man?

Mr. Too Sexy took a lingering second to pluck a dried leaf from her hair and another moment to twirl one of her errant curls around his thumb. The beat of her pulse throbbed against her windpipe and constricted her voice.

“No plan?” He tugged at the lock of hair still entrapped by his fingers. “That’s what I thought. Follow me.”

How could she possibly be turned on by a suspected burglar? A burst of irritation pumped up her resolve. She gestured with her rifle. “You bet I’ll follow you.”

Ten minutes later, the roar of water beating over rock told her they were edging in on Quicksilver Falls. They couldn’t have strayed more than a mile off course. That would put them just south of the Shoshone River—somewhere.

Maybe a quarter of a mile from the rapids.

Definitely upstream from the falls. She was almost sure.

Wherever they were, they couldn’t be
that
far from the road and the trailhead where she’d left her truck. Which obviously wouldn’t be there because the NNFF boys, or whoever the gunslingers were, had snatched it.

She scurried along after the suspect, no longer having the heart to hold him at gunpoint. Stride for stride, she kept up with him, half–jogging to match the pace his long legs set. They hiked steadily until they worked their way up and out of the gulch and hooked up with the trail. Finally, through a break in the trees, she caught a glimpse of the road. A whiff of newly paved blacktop assaulted her nose. Civilization.

But they could hardly walk along the highway, exposing themselves, with the NNFF gang gunning for them. It would take hours on foot to hoof it into town. Yet, the man in the Stetson forged on, trekking toward the road.

Through the foliage, Brandy noted a vehicle parked on the gravel shoulder. “Hey, hold it. We’re not out of the proverbial woods yet.”

With long–gaited strides, her suspect continued on.

“You wouldn’t be planning to take off without me, would you?” She slammed in a new clip and leveled the rifle, targeting his back.

Ka–chink.

The sound had a way of grabbing a man’s attention. He froze for a second. But this guy had more grit than some. He walked to the driver’s side of the vehicle before turning to face her and tipped his Stetson back.

“Not hardly.” He smiled and slowly swiped his forearm across his brow then reached into his pocket and pulled out a set of keys. “I thought I’d offer you a ride into town so you could get busy writing up your report.” He offered his hand. “Blade Beringer at your service, Ma’am. Lieutenant Deputy Sheriff Beringer.”

As in her new boss and field training supervisor.

Wilcox, you are so screwed.

CHAPTER TWO

“S
hit,” Brandy mumbled as she jerked the clip from her Remington.

At least Beringer had the grace not to laugh when she climbed into his car and slammed her butt onto the passenger seat.

With her arms crossed over her chest, she tried to ignore the man who could make or break her career and who would, over the next five freaking–long months, be her boss and field training officer. He could have identified himself rather than letting her prove she was greener than the Coeur d’Alene forest and about as smart as a pile of Idaho granite. The first thing she should have done when encountering a B and E was ask for the suspect’s ID.

And double shit, because now that she knew he wasn’t some perverted felon—
damn, he was hot
. All that lean, mean muscle and charisma stoked fire in the pit of her stomach.

She gritted her teeth. Determined not to steal a glance at his profile, she reminded herself there was no room in her life for distractions. Not now, not when she could almost taste the elusive tang of revenge. She had to stay focused. And a guy like the sexy man in the Stetson next to her could wreak havoc with a woman’s concentration.

“Sorry,” he said. “I just wanted to see how you handled yourself. Should have identified myself sooner, but you kind of came on like gangbusters.”

“You led me on.”

“Innovative technique you employed for detaining a suspect.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t let the suspect get away, did I?”

“What red–blooded male would have wanted to get away?”

“Implying?”

He raised his hands in defense. “Implying that whatever gets the job done… More power to you and all the redneck women of the world.”

His smile said he was impressed. But for all she knew, he could be a chauvinistic jerk. And she wasn’t looking forward to his sharing the details of her attempted arrest with the entire Little Chute County Sheriff’s Department.

In an attempt to sound professional and change the subject, she asked, “So, Lieutenant, how much do you know about the Neo Nazi Freedom Fighters?”

“Looks like they keep life interesting around here.”

“They’ve been hanging around northern Idaho for decades. In recent years, they’ve been fairly low–key. But a couple of months ago, they started making noises. Friday, they hassled a group of hikers near that cabin—the one
you were breaking into
.”

“I was checking out the scene of the incident. Who knows what I may have found if I hadn’t been detained.”