The Maverick

Sophie averted her gaze. Branded. By God, she was not branded. It wasn’t as if she’d been pining after Luke like some wimpy dishrag of a woman. She’d dated plenty of other men. Or enough, anyway. Only once had she come close to marriage—and that had been ten years ago when she’d been feeling guilty for depriving her son of a father figure.

So, yeah, she’d admit to a certain reluctance to trust men. Which was normal, given her reality. They’d been hard, the lessons that Luke—and others—had taught her. She’d struggled. She’d fought. And she’d survived.

She certainly did not need a man to complete her. Luke Salinger least of all.

Almost entirely on her own, she’d worked her way up from a string of low-paying jobs to a two-year stint as one of the Thunderhead’s waitresses, then on to her law enforcement training and the job with the Treetop Sheriff’s Department. She’d also raised a fine son—no thanks to anyone named Salinger.

At that, speculation on how Luke’s brother, Heath, would react to Luke’s return made a shudder run through her body. Trouble was brewing, sure as shootin’.

At least she was dry-eyed now. Dry-eyed and loaded for bear, as her father would say. She gave Ellen a tight smile and swept out of the restaurant, jamming her sunglasses back in place. Within the day, Luke would be locked up where he belonged and the whole town could gossip to their heart’s content about the welcome that Sophie Ryan had given him.

Reluctantly, self-consciously, she touched her backside before climbing into the car. Branded? Branded, her…her…her foot!

Demon Bradshaw’s business, a grungy motorcycle shop, was Sophie’s next stop, half a mile farther down the state highway that bypassed the small but bustling town of Treetop. She didn’t even have to get out of the car. One turn around the swaybacked shack that housed the shop and the sorry excuse for a log cabin out back was enough to see that neither Demon nor his old lady had stirred. Demon’s Harley was parked near the porch, the only thing at the Bradshaw place that was well cared for. Earlier that morning one of Sophie’s fellow deputies had passed the word that there’d been a major kegger at the Jackpine Lake campground last night. It was safe to assume that Treetop’s diehard partyers were still in bed, sleeping another one off.

Sophie knew where to go next. If Maverick and Punch were on an “auld lang syne” bike ride, they’d surely take the switchback, a blacktop county road that snaked upward in a series of sweet curves, rising in elevation until it reached a summit that offered one of the best views in the state. From an altitude of eight thousand feet, the town of Treetop would be a doll’s village nestled in the valley below, most of it screened by the brushy evergreens that crowded the hillsides. Luke would get a grand overview of the valley, the river, and, in the far distance, the rangelands of the family ranch he’d chosen to abandon.

If he cared enough to revisit what he’d abandoned, that was.

Sophie blinked again behind her dark lenses. It was natural to get a little emotional about Luke’s return. He’d been her first love. Her greatest love, to be completely honest. That didn’t mean she had to forgive and forget.

She’d tried to forgive him for leaving her, especially once she’d matured enough to understand that he’d been nearly as young, reckless and shortsighted as she. But she’d never been able to forget—not what he’d meant to her, nor what he’d done to her.

“And I won’t forget,” she whispered, going on automatic as she steered the car around the curves of a road she still knew better than the back of Luke’s hand.

Luke’s hand. A vivid memory flared—the day that Luke, then only eighteen, had first let her drive his motorcycle, his hands covering hers on the grips as their bodies pressed close, the bike’s speed and power vibrating through every inch of her as they climbed the scenic switchback.

She’d been sixteen and fresh out of a foster home, living with her neglectful father again, acting out her anger and rebellion, although deep inside what she’d really craved was to find a place for herself that felt safe. Luke had seemed like a god to her then—smart, handsome, filled with the kind of heat and energy and passion that lit up everything and everyone near him. He’d illuminated her drab life, chased away the shadows.

Hovering at the fringes of the ragtag band of rowdy young men who’d formed the Mustangs, she’d begun to crave Luke even more than safety. And eventually he’d regarded her with something other than a casual friendship. During her seventeenth summer, his nineteenth, they’d fallen head over heels in love. He’d shown her all his secret places in the countryside, warmed her with his fervent dreams of their future. On a star-filled night they’d made love at a hidden mountain lake, and she’d finally understood what it meant to be loved, cherished…and safe. In Luke’s arms, she’d finally felt safe.

Ah, the folly and blind passion of youth.

Despite her attempt at sarcasm, Sophie saw the fawn-colored hills through a haze of tears. She flipped off her glasses and swiped at her eyes. It would be such a relief to put the past out of her mind forever, but she couldn’t let herself do it. She needed to remember—to remember everything. That was what would give her the strength to keep Joey safe and close.

Another irony: Safety was once again what Sophie valued most.

But this time she wouldn’t let Luke divert her purpose.

The resolution sounded reasonable enough. But when she rounded another of the switchbacks and sighted two motorcycles not far ahead, her unruly heart gave an instinctive lurch of recognition. Perhaps even of pleasure.

Maverick’s back.

She took up the radio mike and called in her position. She switched on the siren. The lead motorcycle— Luke’s—sped up for just a moment, then gradually slowed. Punch had already pulled over and was taking off his helmet as Sophie slowed to park on the shoulder, fifty feet back. Ordinarily, she’d play it cautious when confronting two bikers, but these were guys she knew. One she trusted. She stepped out and called to Punch, telling him to move away from his bike and wait by her car. It wasn’t a by-the-book procedure, but she didn’t have to worry about turning her back on Punch. It was the long slow walk over to Luke’s bike that she dreaded, suffering his intense stare.

He didn’t turn to look as she moved away from her vehicle. Did he know it was her? Had Punch already told him about her? Her stomach was alive with the flutter of a hundred wings—moths to the flame. Although she couldn’t forget the searing pain of getting burned by Luke, she had no control over her fickle impulses either. The memory of what it had been like to have his arms around her was flooding back, drowning her resolve to be tough and mean and ultra-professional.

Damn you, Maverick, she thought, no longer certain that she meant it.

Her footsteps on the blacktop sounded like gunshots in the clear mountain air. Wind whistled through the twisted pines, catching at the curly wisps of her uncontrollable hair. Although Luke didn’t turn, she recognized the rearing-mustang tattoo on his tanned left biceps. It matched her own tattoo—the one that only Luke knew about.

Sophie licked her lips, her police training kicking in as her hand went automatically to the holstered sidearm hanging from her gun belt. As if a gun could protect her from the lethal Salinger charm!

“Sir,” she said. Her voice grated like pebbles under a boot heel; she swallowed and tried again. “Sir, I want you to step off the bike. I need to see your license, proof of insurance and regis—registra—tion…”

Her voice faded. Her vision blurred, her ears buzzed. Luke had swung his leg over the motorcycle and stood. He was taller than she remembered, more formidable. The shocking reality of his presence slammed into her with all the force of a runaway boulder tipped off the grandest of the Tetons. She could not believe that he was here. After all these years, he was standing right in front of her.

Then he turned to face her, and he was not at all the Luke Salinger she remembered.

CHAPTER TWO

IT’S THE EYES. Sophie’s stomach dropped. Such flat steel-blue eyes couldn’t belong to Luke Salinger. There was no fire, no spirit, no passion—only the cold-blooded stare, appraising her without a spark of recognition.

A silent cry ripped loose from the bonds of her tight control. What had happened to Maverick? Where was the man she’d once loved with all her heart?

Gone away, grown up, never coming back.

Her shock bottomed out. She realized that she’d been staring for too long and licked her dry lips. “Luke Salinger,” she said with no inflection and just a faint tremor.

He nodded.

Sophie felt disconnected from reality, as though she were weightless, as insubstantial as smoke. Yet Luke was the mystery here. She remembered a time when purpose had burned in his eyes, lighting them like a neon sign, charging himself and her and all the rest of the Mustangs with such an excess of energy that trouble was bound to follow.

The spark was gone. He was deadened.

Miserable but trying not to show it, she swiped her hand across her pants before extending her palm. “I need to see your license, registration and proof of insurance.”

He removed a flattened billfold from his back pocket and slipped the driver’s license from its plastic sleeve. Taking the card, she examined it carefully, her eyes flickering between Luke’s watchful gaze and the name and photo on the ID. The license had been issued in California. She read the address. Los Angeles? It wasn’t easy to imagine the Luke she used to know putting up with the plastic superficiality she imagined ran rampant on the coast. But then, this man was a stranger to her. For all she knew, the Luke who’d despised the greed of conspicuous consumption had become a status-conscious spendthrift who shopped Rodeo Drive and ate goat-cheese pizzas at a hundred bucks a pop.

Except that he didn’t look soft and pampered. He was tough, rugged, stringent.

Physically, he’d changed, but not by much. Although he hadn’t thickened the way most men did by their mid-thirties, he’d…hardened. The muscles in his arms and legs and the broad chest beneath an expensive but battered brown leather vest and white sleeveless T-shirt appeared to be as hard as iron. Forged in fire, she thought, glancing briefly into his face. Aside from the shock of his unrecognizable expression, he was as handsome as ever. Only now his skin was tanned and weathered, drawn tight over strong cheekbones and jaw. Not a single strand of gray had sprouted among the dark hair barely restrained by a blue bandanna.

The Luke Salinger she remembered had been more boy than man. That was no longer the case. But the old attraction trickling through her veins was terribly familiar.

Sophie cleared her throat, desperate to distract herself. “Please move away from the bike. Stop. Wait there for just a moment, please.” She stared at her feet as they turned and walked her back toward the patrol car without any conscience decision from her addled brain. Luke’s indifference flummoxed her. Even after fourteen years, was it possible for him to have completely forgotten her? The one thing Luke had never been was lukewarm.

Punch Fiorelli had been watching them, frowning. “Uh, say, Sophie?” Sheepishly he scrubbed a hand across his big, firm belly. “We weren’t going much past the speed limit. You wouldn’t give tickets to two old Mustangs, now, wouldja, honey?”

She said, “You’re in the clear, Punch,” and slumped behind the wheel of the black-and-tan patrol car, boneless as a jellyfish. It was a minute before she gathered herself together and examined the license with a more objective eye. Hesitating to call it in to the dispatcher, she tapped the laminated card against the steering wheel, watching through the windshield as Punch approached Luke and began talking, gesturing at her car. Luke shrugged, nodded. Punch slapped him hard between the shoulder blades, a slap that would have made most men flinch.

Luke didn’t waver. He was looking in Sophie’s direction. Between the distance and the glare of sunshine on the glass, he shouldn’t have been able to see her face very well. But she knew with a panicky certainty that he did see her. He saw inside her, to her dreams and fears and secrets. And he…

He didn’t care.

Her last shreds of hope, already as brown and brittle as fallen leaves, disintegrated into crumbled bits of nothing. Whatever had happened to change Luke into a stranger, it was clear now that his return had come too late for both of them.

Sophie closed her hand around his license and other papers and reached for the radio mike, intending to have him run through the computer for additional outstanding warrants. He’d changed immeasurably. It was possible that he was a fugitive wanted in six states other than Wyoming.