She frowned and clicked on her own flashlight, keeping it aimed low at her feet as she moved slowly forward. Ruth wouldn’t be rummaging around in the tack room at this time of the night. Not with a flashlight. Ruth had recently broken her ankle; even with her cane and walking cast, she had trouble getting around.
Just as those thoughts took hold—and their possible significance—Josie reached the tack room door. It hung open only a few inches, just enough that she could see a shadow moving around behind it and hear the thump of saddles being dropped to the floor.
But it was another sound that made her freeze.
This one behind her. The stable door she’d just come through opened with a rush of cool night air.
Startled, she swung around, banging the flashlight into a post with a resounding thud. The flashlight went out.
From inside the tack room, something fell or was dropped. The narrow beam of light blinked off, pitching the stables into a dense, silent dark.
She could feel the presence of the person who’d just entered the stables but couldn’t see him. And she knew someone was still in the dark tack room, closer by. She held her breath, afraid to move.
Suddenly the tack room door flew open and a large, solid body hit her, sending her sprawling to the floor, knocking the air from her lungs. Whoever it was bolted for the nearby back door. A little of the yard light spilled in as a man-sized figure ran out, the door banging behind him.
Before she could get to her feet, someone tripped over her. She heard a loud male curse, then the sound of his body hitting the dirt. He quickly scrambled to his feet and ran toward the back door of the stables. The back door banged open again.
Before it could bang closed, the sound of a car engine roared to life, followed by another male curse. Then the sound of boot heels, slowly working their way back to her as the door banged shut again.
She was on all fours when the stable lights flashed on. She looked up to see a large cowboy silhouetted against the bright light, his Stetson shadowing his face.
“What the hell?” the cowboy cursed.
She didn’t need to see his face. She knew that body and that voice. Had heard that tone used in connection with her on numerous occasions.
Inwardly groaning, she hoisted herself to her feet, and dusting her backside, blinked as her eyes adjusted to the bright light. If anything, this close, he looked more handsome. Dark from his thick black hair to his eyes. His Spanish blood, although two generations removed, still fired passionately in his eyes. Unfortunately, that passion was almost always anger. “Hello, Jackson.”
CLAY STARED IN STUNNED disbelief. He couldn’t have been more shocked to see anyone. Hadn’t he thought he’d seen her a couple hundred times over the past two years? Each time gave him a start. A jolt of pure electric shock that jump-started his heart and made it take off like an escaped con at the sound of a bloodhound.
“Josie.” Even to his ears it sounded like a curse. He stared at her, assaulted with too many thoughts, too many memories and feelings.
Josie O’Malley. After all this time—and looking just as she had the last time he’d seen her. No, he realized as he studied her. She’d changed, although he couldn’t put his finger on exactly how.
Her pale blond hair was still short and unruly, as if she’d just run her fingers through it. Her eyes were still that unbelievable blue. Clear as a Texas summer sky but unreadable as if the cool veneer masked a well of secrets. No doubt they did.
And she still had that defiant look, of course. She’d always been a spitfire. Rebellious, head-strong and willful as a wild mustang. Her father had actually thought Clay could do something with her. It had proved an impossible task. One he’d failed at miserably.
She was still slim and small, about five six in boots, but rounded. Actually more rounded than he remembered.
“What the hell are you doing here, Josie?” he demanded.
“What am I doing here?” she snapped, crossing her arms over the breasts he’d just been staring at. “What are you doing here is more to the point.”
He jerked his gaze away, trying to make sense of this. But after one glance at the rear door of the stables, he narrowed his eyes at her again, seeing things a whole lot clearer. “You tripped me.”
“Excuse me?” She hadn’t lost her Texas twang—or her temper. Her blue eyes fired like forged steel. That was definitely something time hadn’t changed.
Her first instinct was to tell him it wasn’t any of his business. “I happen to work here.”
“Work here?” he repeated, and glanced down the line of stalls.
She knew what he was thinking. That she shoveled manure—just as she had in his stables. What did she care what he thought? It made her more angry, though, that she did care.
“You work strange hours,” he commented. “Or are you going to tell me that you just happened to be down here in the middle of the night, didn’t bother to turn on the lights and just happened to be on the floor to trip me?”
She gritted her teeth, reminded of just how irritating this man could be. She bit off each word. “I saw a light and someone come in here so I walked down to check. I was just about to find out who when you came in and scared whoever it was away.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Whoever it was knocked me down and then you tripped over me,” she continued, daring him to interrupt. “But that doesn’t explain what you’re doing here.” What was he doing here? In Montana? But more important, on the ranch where she worked?
“I’m looking for someone.”
She stared at him, her heart pounding. “Anyone in particular?”
“A thief,” he said grudgingly. “I’ve been following him for the past four days. Unofficially, of course.”
For a moment she’d thought he’d come to see her—even though she knew from watching him in town it wasn’t true. When was she going to quit kidding herself when it came to this man?
“He led me from Texas to this stable.”
She didn’t like the sound of this. “Why would you follow a petty thief all the way from Texas?” She glanced toward the tack room. To this particular stable?
He frowned. “Petty? I don’t think several million in jewels is petty, do you?”
Her heart looped in her chest. Hadn’t she feared that the past had come looking for her? Worse yet, in the form of Clay Jackson, the one man she had reason to fear the most.
Did he just imagine the surprise that flashed in her eyes? The worry? God knows, he’d read more in her expression than he should have in the past.
She didn’t answer. If anything, she seemed to be doing her best to look innocent. It was a look she’d perfected, but he knew her too well to fall for it.
“Actually, you know him,” he said. Maybe had stayed in contact with him. “An old friend of yours.”
It was hard to tell if she really did pale under the harsh light in the stable. Maybe he just wanted to see guilt in her eyes. Suspected it. Expected it. The same way he suspected she’d purposely tripped him to allow the thief to get away. After growing up next door to her, he’d have said he knew Josie O’Malley better than anyone.
But two years ago, she’d made him realize that he didn’t know her as well as he’d thought.
“An old friend of mine?” she asked innocently.
Yes, he definitely glimpsed a crack in her composure. He smiled at her, but there was no humor behind it. Something hot tore at his insides. “You remember Raymond Degas,”