Prologue
The photograph didn’t do her justice.
He studied the woman hiding behind the too-big lab coat and glasses. Innocent and unsuspecting, she was standing before the building nestled into the Rocky Mountain foothills, shading her eyes against the brilliant Colorado sun as if she were looking for someone.
Him?
He imagined her letting go of her too-obvious inhibitions, letting down her hair and begging him to thread his fingers through the honey-blond strands. He could almost see her throwing back her head and arching her long, elegant throat in invitation.
He chuckled…merely a way to amuse himself while waiting. Nothing got in the way of business—neither the job he was being paid for or his own agenda.
He ran a forefinger over the photograph. “The subject is in view.”
“She doesn’t see you watching her, does she?” came the hollow voice through his headset.
Keeping himself from turning off the cell phone clipped to his belt in irritated response, he clenched his jaw and said, “I’m invisible.”
“Invisible” being one of his specialties, the reason he had been hired.
At the moment, he was camouflaged behind the handicapped card dangling from his rearview mirror. Physically fit people avoided looking at those with disabilities, as if the condition were contagious. And the card was his invitation to a parking spot right near the entrance of the National Center for Aquatic Research, where British scientist C. J. Birch worked.
For the moment, anyway.
“What is she doing?”
Other than taking a candy bar from her pocket and breaking off a chunk of chocolate?
“Leaving the premises, I assume.”
“Well, don’t let her get away!”
Watching the chocolate disappear into her full, unpainted mouth made him stir in his seat.
He could take her here. Now. Right from under the noses of the unsuspecting employees who threaded the grounds. But that might call attention to himself, the last thing he wanted.
Besides, he had a personal debt to collect and this situation would give him the opportunity for which he’d been waiting.
Two men, also in lab coats, exited the building and stopped to talk to the woman. Had she been waiting for them? It seemed so when they all started for the parking lot together.
“She won’t get away from me,” he murmured more to himself than to his contact. “She’s not alone now, but I’ll find the right moment to get to her and soon.”
“How soon—”
“I’ll let you know when I have her.”
Ripping the headset from his ears, he turned off the cell phone and cut the connection before the impatient man could make any more ridiculous demands.
He turned the key in the ignition. The engine hummed to life and his vehicle quietly slid from its spot to stalk her.
The woman was walking with the men and yet not, he noticed. She kept to one side of the pair and left a gap that bespoke volumes about her comfort zone with the opposite sex. An incentive—like any predator, he enjoyed playing with his prey before consuming it.
He was a professional, hired but not hurting for money, not needing the work. What he needed—demanded—was stimulation. Excitement. A challenge. Something clever to add to the mystique of his reputation.
He never duplicated a job.
Never failed, either.
Never.
Chapter One
“Gran told me you’re originally from South Dakota, not Montana. How come you didn’t say so? What about your family?” Jewel McMurty asked in her rapid-fire style. “You don’t have a wife and kids, do you?”
The twelve-year-old’s bright green eyes pinned Frank Connolly as he washed the dust from a chestnut quarter horse named Sierra Sunrise, who’d topped his racing career at more than a million dollars in winnings. Now the lucky devil would be standing at stud, getting his chance with a different vixen or two on a daily basis.
“Just a brother. He’s the one with the wife and kids. And his own ranch.”
“So why aren’t you there?”
“Got a job to do.” Ostensibly to work with the horses on Lonesome Pony, though his real job as a Montana Confidential agent was equally vital and a lot more dangerous. He’d barely had time to stow his gear before he was put to work when he’d arrived several days before. “Which you’re keeping me from doing.”
Lonesome Pony. He knew all about being lonesome. Figured the girl did, too. Her parents were divorced, and she’d been bundled off to live with her grandparents for a while—no one her own age to hang with. Desperate for attention, she’d been following him around like a lost puppy ever since he’d arrived, and he hadn’t been hardhearted enough to discourage her. Like all kids, she had a million questions, mostly personal, mostly about the past he didn’t want to talk about. Damned if he’d be telling her his sob story. He didn’t want to think about Bosnia, no less share the nightmare with a kid.
He gave Jewel a playful squirt with the hose. While she shrieked with laughter, she stayed put.
“I can help, you know.”
“These boys think they’re hot stuff,”
Frank said, indicating the trio of stallions that had been delivered barely an hour before. “I wouldn’t want a little thing like you to get trampled.”
“Little?” All gangly limbs, she drew herself up as tall as she could and still missed the five-foot mark. “I’m nearly a woman!”
Thinking she’d be insulted if any laughter dared escape his lips, Frank bit the inside of his cheek. “You could do me a big favor, then.”
“What?” she asked, young voice ripe with suspicion.
“Take care of Silver over there.”
He indicated the pasture across from the main house, where an old gelding that had been sent over from a nearby spread stared out at the action he couldn’t join.
He looked lonesome, too.
“Yeah, I saw him come in this morning,” Jewel said. “Why is he all by himself? And how come he limps? What’s wrong with him?”
“He got hit by a truck on a ranch road a while back. This here’s gonna be his retirement range.”
“Hit by a truck?” Jewel’s expression went solemn. “He’s going to be okay, though, right?”
As okay as a thirty-year-old, badly injured horse could be, Frank thought.
What