“Were you in that car when it crashed?” he asked. “Do you know the driver?”
She smiled as if she had a secret. “You said you were a cop. Show me your badge.”
“My name is Jake Young. I don’t have a badge because I’m not—”
She whirled around, kicking his feet out from under him so fast that he didn’t have time to react. He landed on his backside, blinking up at the dark sky in shock. His flashlight rolled a few feet away, shining its light in a crazy arc. Before he could move, the little firebrand was on top of him holding the tip of a very large knife to his throat.
The last time anyone had gotten the drop on him had been...well, never. When the knife pricked his skin, his earlier amusement and distraction vanished in a flood of adrenaline and anger.
The hell with this.
He knocked the knife to the ground and rolled over in one swift movement, trapping her beneath him. Shackling both her wrists in one of his hands, he forced her arms above her head, using his body to pin her to the ground. But as soon as he felt her soft curves pressed to his and breathed in the flowery, feminine scent of her, he knew he’d made a tactical mistake. Especially when the breeze blew one of her silky curls against his face. She wasn’t the one who was trapped. He was, trapped in a sensual hell of his own making. He silently cursed himself a dozen ways to Sunday.
She just tried to shoot you. She’s not your potential next girlfriend. Get a grip.
“Let’s start the introductions over,” he growled, more angry with himself than her. “I’m Jake Young, from Lassiter and Young Private Investigations. And what I was trying to say earlier is that I don’t have a badge with me because I’m on leave from my police detective job in Saint Augustine. I don’t have jurisdiction around here. But that doesn’t change who you are—the woman who’s about to be arrested for attempted murder when I call the Collier County Sheriff’s Office.”
Her soft pink lips curved in an amused smile. “Oh, you think so, huh?”
“I know so.”
In answer, she wiggled beneath him and tugged her arms, trying to free them.
A cold sweat broke out on his brow at his body’s instant, unwelcome response to her sensual movements. He swore and shifted his weight, hoping she wouldn’t notice her effect on him.
“Who are you?” he repeated between clenched teeth.
“Let me go and I’ll tell you.”
“So you can shoot at me again, or kick my feet out from under me, or stab me? I don’t think so.”
She huffed out a breath. “You’re looking at this all wrong. I didn’t shoot at you. And the only reason I knocked you down and pulled my knife was because I thought that you’d tricked me when you yelled ‘police’ and then said you didn’t have a badge. What’s a girl to think? I’m vulnerable, in a secluded area, with a stranger I believed was pretending to be a police officer. I have a right, a duty, to do whatever I can to protect myself.”
He laughed without humor. “It’s a little late to pull the helpless female act. Now that’s a lie if I’ve ever heard one.”
She beamed up at him as if he’d given her a compliment.
“Your name,” he demanded.
“Like it really matters. My name is Faye Star.”
Faye Star? He let the name sink in as he studied her more closely. “Miss or Mrs.?”
Her sinfully luscious lips curved in a suggestive smile. But her eyes were like a road sign flashing a warning, danger ahead.
“For you, it’s definitely Miss,” she purred.
He ruthlessly tamped down the inappropriate tingle of awareness that shot straight to his groin.
“Miss Star, for the last time, why did you try to shoot me?”
Her brows drew down as if he’d insulted her. “If I was trying to shoot you, you’d be dead right now. Like I said, I wasn’t aiming at you.”
“Right. How stupid of me to think you were aiming at me since you shot out the window and hit the side of the car where I was standing just seconds before.”
“I shot exactly what I wanted to shoot.”
“The car?” He didn’t bother to mask the sarcasm in his tone.
“No, silly. The snake.” She rolled her head to the side, angling her chin in an effort to point. “Over there.”
He followed the direction she’d indicated. Lying under the driver’s door of the car was the longest, fattest snake Jake had ever seen. Its head had been blown clean off. And its enormous body was sliced in half.
The breath hitched in his throat. He blinked in shock, again.
“That’s a boa constrictor,” she said, “in case you don’t recognize it. It’s not native to these parts but there are plenty of the buggers around. People dump them in the swamp after their harmless pets grow too big and eat the family dog. It was hanging on a branch above the car and dropped down when you were looking through the window. I saved your life. This is the part where you’re supposed to apologize. And let go of my wrists. And get off me.”
He shook his head, grudgingly admiring her skill with a gun. He’d have been hard-pressed to make those two shots himself if the snake really had been falling as she’d said. He climbed to his feet, pulling her up with him.
“You could have shouted a warning instead of almost shooting me.”
“I told you, I always—”
“Hit what you aim at, yeah, got it. You still could have missed.”
Her eyes flashed green fire.
“I’m going to release you,” he said. “But be warned. If you go for your knife it won’t end well.”
She glanced longingly at the thick, six-inch blade lying on the ground a few feet away. Where she’d hidden the thing he didn’t even want to know.
She shrugged. “I’ll get it later.”
“Don’t count on it.” He let go of her wrists.
She frowned and tossed her long mane of hair out of her way, before crossing her arms beneath her generous breasts. “What are you doing out here?” she asked.
“Investigating the disappearance of the man who owns that car. And I’m the one asking questions. What are you doing out here? Since I don’t see any cuts or bruises, I’m going to assume you weren’t in that car when it crashed. But I didn’t notice any other vehicles parked beside the highway, either.”
“I live around here.”
“For some reason that doesn’t even surprise me. Where? In a tree house?”
Her eyes narrowed dangerously. “As a matter of fact, no.” She fluttered her fingers over her shoulder, the moonlight glinting on the half-dozen rings she wore. “A few miles that way.”
“Uh-huh. And you just happened to be wandering through the Everglades at ten o’clock at night.”
She shrugged. “I couldn’t sleep, so I went for a walk.”
At his skeptical look she added, “A long walk.”
“Of course you did.” He retrieved his gun from where it had fallen when she’d kicked his legs out from under him and pulled his cell phone out again.
“What are you doing?” Her voice sharpened as if in alarm.
He