Countdown

“Intuition?” Joe could only guess at what she was talking about.

“I guess….” Annie smiled at him and held his blue gaze, which was now openly curious. But she noticed something else in the depths of his eyes that surprised her: fear. What kind? She wanted to ask, but knew she didn’t dare. Joe would open up, if at all, on his time and terms, not hers. “Anyway, the few times I haven’t paid attention to that internal red-flag warning, I’ve nearly bought the farm.”

“Died?”

She gave him a wry look. “Listen, being a brig chaser automatically puts you in the line of fire, don’t you think?”

Frowning, Joe muttered, “If you follow regulations and always work with a partner, it’s safer.” But not foolproof, as he knew all too well.

“I always had a partner.” Annie laughed. “My partner is the other set of ears and eyes that can stop a bullet from nailing me.”

A chill worked its way through Joe. “Tracking prisoners isn’t some kind of lark,” he snapped irritably.

Taken aback, Annie blinked. Joe’s face was thundercloud dark with accusation. “Hey, wait a minute. I didn’t say it was a lark.”

“You act like it is. You laugh at nearly getting killed. That’s stupid.”

Working to hold on to her mounting anger, Annie said tightly, “I think we had better get back to our original topic: Garwood.”

“What about him?”

Reeling from his suddenly cold attitude, Annie snapped back, “He’s dangerous!”

Joe snorted. “Oh, sure.”

“You asked what I felt, and I’m telling you!”

Joe’s anger surged upward. Annie’s blazing eyes triggered all of the tamped-down fury and frustration that had simmered for the past two days since her arrival. “I don’t care how famous you are, Yellow Horse. To me, you’re just a brig chaser—like the rest of us. This crap about sensing stuff is for the birds. Saying Garwood’s dangerous is ridiculous. You can’t prove it.”

“Why…” Taking a deep breath, Annie stopped herself from saying anything else. Donnally was her superior. Her boss. Instantly, she clamped down on her anger. But what had stung him to make him attack her again? It seemed totally unjustified. Compressing her lips, but holding his furious gaze, she said tightly, “Let’s get back to work.”

“Yeah,” Joe rasped, struggling to calm his overflowing fears and anger. Why was his heart beating this way? As soon as Annie had mentioned being in danger, a hard, unrelenting pounding had started in his chest. Dammit! It seemed as if he had no control over this automatic, protective urge toward her. Annie was a marine. A brig chaser on top of that. If anyone knew how to protect herself, she did. But so had Jenny, something deep within him warned. And look what had happened to her.

Chapter Four

Annie could barely contain the thrill that raced through her as she discovered the horse whose hoof fit the plaster mold. It was a big, rangy bay gelding, and she grinned triumphantly as Joe came around to examine the match.

“I’ll be damned,” he muttered as he straightened, his respect for her surging in spite of himself. She looked so completely at home here in the paddock, he thought, with the smell of sweet hay drifting from a nearby barn and the hot sun bearing down on them.

Annie patted the horse’s neck. “Now we have to find out who this horse belongs to.”

“Probably the stables, with our luck,” Joe said unhappily. “Let’s go talk to Garwood.”

The stables manager had just returned from a ride and was once again standing on the porch as they approached. Annie didn’t like the smug look on Garwood’s heavily lined face. She decided to hang back a few feet and assess his response to what Joe would tell him.

“Our cast matches one of your horses in Paddock A,” Joe said as he came up next to Garwood.

“Really?” Garwood raised his eyebrows in surprise.

Annie felt tension around the manager—and saw it in a slight narrowing of his eyes upon Joe.

“A big bay gelding with four white socks,” Joe went on, holding the cast toward Garwood. “Who does he belong to?”

Garwood grinned a little. “The United States Marine Corps, Sergeant.”

Joe grimaced. “I was afraid of that.”

Annie spoke up. “May we look at the roster of people who rode the day Ms. Tyler was shot at?”

Garwood snapped a look in her direction, his eyebrows lowering. “What?”

“The horses are signed out when they’re ridden, aren’t they?”

“Yes, I suppose they are,” Garwood agreed irritably.

“We’d like to look at the logbook, then,” Joe said, giving Annie a glance that said, “Well done.” He hadn’t thought of that possibility. But then, he was unfamiliar with this business of horses and stables.

“You probably won’t find anything,” Garwood warned. “We don’t have people on trail rides sign the roster or be assigned to a specific horse. Only A- and B-grade riders have to sign out and choose which horse to ride.”

Annie followed Garwood into the office. “Is the bay an A or B horse?”

“No, just a trail horse.”

Disheartened by Garwood’s answer and puzzled by his vaguely amused attitude, Annie went over to the logbooks on Garwood’s secretary’s desk.

“You won’t find anything,” Garwood said again. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got work to do.”

Annie opened the logbook to the day of the shooting incident. She felt Joe moving nearer, and her heartbeat sped up. He had an incredible aura of power around him, she thought, like nothing she’d ever felt before. It wasn’t a violent presence, though; rather, it was a beckoning strength that tugged at all her senses, making her vibrantly aware that she was a woman. Confused by the signals she was receiving—her heart and body responding even as her wary mind warned her that Joe didn’t like her—Annie fought to ignore her rampant feelings.

Joe looked across her shoulder, more than just aware of Annie’s nearness. He couldn’t help but gaze at her parted lips as she leaned down to study the logbook. Softness. There was such inherent softness about her. And she was gentle. Like a lamb. Now, where had that notion come from? Joe chastised himself for letting his mind wander into forbidden territory.

“Find anything?” he asked roughly.

“No,” she admitted, disappointed. When Joe stepped back, Annie felt as if a cloud had suddenly blocked the sun. How could that be? As she turned and looked up into his blue eyes, she almost gasped aloud. For the first time, Joe’s eyes looked warm and inviting—and his intense gaze was pinned directly upon her. His pupils were large and black, encircled by only a thin crescent of blue. Annie’s pulse bounded, and she felt breathless beneath his heated inspection.

Joe fought himself. The wild, unbidden urge to reach out and run his fingers through Annie’s mussed black hair was nearly his undoing. Her eyes had turned golden, and the seconds strung between them melted like hot honey. Her face was upturned, its oval shape confirming her softness. She was all gentle curves—from the shape of her face to her high cheekbones, full lips and large, intelligent eyes. Annie’s was a primal beauty, born of a heritage of living close to the land. Joe felt a gnawing need to explore her—on all levels. She had refused to protect herself with the hard exterior that many women in the military adopted in order to survive the harsh male environment.

With a slight shake of his head, Joe took a step back—knowing that if he didn’t, he would reach out and touch that shining ebony hair. Shocked by the strength of his desire to know her, Joe stalked out of the office, the plaster cast in hand. As he walked toward where the HumVee was parked, he wondered if a medicine woman was the same thing as a witch. Had Annie cast a spell of some kind on him? Joe snorted to himself. Not that he believed in such things.

When they’d both clambered into the HumVee, Joe handed Annie their plaster clue. “Let’s go tell the captain what we found,” he said gruffly, refusing to look at her.

Annie murmured her assent, her heart still beating hard in her chest. For that one golden moment out of time, she had seen the intense hunger Joe held for her. It was as surprising as it was thrilling—and confusing. Grateful that Joe didn’t want to talk, she held the cast on her lap and said nothing on the way back to brig headquarters.

* * *

“Well done,” Captain Ramsey praised as Joe and Annie stood in an at-ease stance in front of his desk.

“It didn’t get us anywhere,” Joe noted.