Lone Rider. B.J. Daniels

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СКАЧАТЬ knowing that she had a meeting with the auditor first thing Monday morning made him suspicious that neither of those was the case.

      Bo Hamilton grew up rich and insulated. This was probably the first real adversity she’d ever had in her life—and her way of handling it had been to run. That didn’t surprise him at all given their past. As he rode, he became more angry with her. How could she leave her employees to face the mess at the foundation? It would be all he could do not to turn her over his knee when he found her. Instead he would take her back to face the consequences.

      He hated to think what this might do to his sister. Em had a problem with trusting the wrong people. Hadn’t he feared that Bo Hamilton would let her down, just as she had him? Worse, when he’d heard about the work Bo had been doing at the foundation, he’d wanted to believe she might really have changed, grown up, no longer acted on impulse. But if she’d ridden up into the mountains to hide... He’d wring her neck when he found her. And he would find her.

      “Are you crazy?” his best friend Brody McTavish had exclaimed a few hours earlier when Jace visited to tell him where he was going. Brody had shoved back his Western straw hat to gaze at him with amused blue eyes. “You’re doing this for your sister?” He’d laughed good-naturedly and with a shake of his head had turned back to mucking out his barn.

      “This has nothing to do with Bo Hamilton other than the fact that I have to find her and make this right.”

      “Make this right? Or rewrite the past? Jace—” Brody turned to look at him, his face suddenly serious. “What if she took the money? What if she rode up into those mountains to meet someone, and they are miles from here by now?”

      “There is only one way to find out. Would you mind watering and feeding my animals while I’m away? I should be back by tomorrow afternoon at the latest.”

      “You know you can count on me,” Brody had said. “But be careful. That family seems to attract trouble like bald tires pick up nails.”

      Jace had chuckled and given his friend a slap on the back. “Thanks for your help and your advice.”

      “Went in one ear and out the other, didn’t it?” Brody sighed. “You just can’t seem to get over her, can you? But I’m not going to tell you this is a fool’s errand if there ever was one. Just don’t make me have to come looking for you, too. There’s a storm coming and we both know what that means in the Crazies.”

      Now, as Jace rode higher up into the mountains following the trail Bo Hamilton had left behind, he breathed in the fresh smell of the pine trees and told himself he knew what he was doing. It was the same thing he’d been doing since his parents had died, leaving a teenager with an already wild and out-of-control kid sister to raise. He was trying to save Emily.

      A breeze groaned high in the treetops. Nearby he could hear the rush of water in a small creek. He tried to concentrate on the wildness of the country, the beauty and the incredible views. He loved riding into the Crazies, loved the cool air under the heavy pine boughs, the quiet broken only by the sounds of nature, the isolation. The mountains released a calm in him that he could find in no other place.

      That had been something he and Bo shared.

      He shoved that thought away, anxious to hear the sound of another horse. Another person. Today he was the hunter. He wondered how Bo Hamilton would react when she realized she was his prey.

      Mostly he hoped to hell he wasn’t making a huge mistake, since he really had no idea what he was going to find up here.

       CHAPTER FOUR

      ALEX ROSS COULDN’T HELP worrying about the young woman who’d come into Big Timber Java coffee shop this afternoon. Normally she had a smile for him, her blue eyes bright as stars and her laugh...well, he’d fallen for her laugh the first time he’d heard it—even before he’d connected the laugh with the tattooed, pierced young woman.

      Not that he hadn’t been surprised when he’d finally put the laugh with the face of the young woman now mulling over her coffee. She was nothing like he’d expected and certainly not his type. That’s why he’d never talked to her, even though he’d wanted to since the first day he’d heard her laugh.

      Now, though, unable to stop himself, he quickly picked up a dishrag from behind the counter and headed for her table.

      “Usually all it takes is coffee to put a smile on your face,” he said as he pretended to clean her table. “It looks as if you’ve barely touched yours today, so maybe that’s the problem.” He wondered if he could sound any more lame.

      She looked up at him, startled as if she’d been deep in thought. He wondered what she’d been thinking about. Probably a man—maybe the same one who often came in with her on her coffee break. Or maybe the one he’d seen sitting across the street in his car watching her the past couple of days. A jealous boyfriend?

      As she blinked those big blue eyes at him, she gave him a wan smile instead of her usual dazzling pierced lip grin, the one that made his day the few times she’d turned it on him. Not that she’d ever really seen him, he suspected. To her, he was just the barista behind the counter.

      “You work here,” she said as if finally realizing who he was.

      “The apron was the dead giveaway, right?”

      She looked embarrassed. “Sorry. My mind was a million miles away. I recognize you now. I haven’t seen you that much behind the counter. You must work here part-time.”

      He smiled at that. Actually he owned the place and another five like them across the state. “Alex Ross. Part-time barista. That’s me.”

      “Emily Calder.”

      “Pleased to meet you, Ms. Calder. How about I get you another coffee?” He took the disposable cup of cold coffee in front of her. “The usual?”

      She quirked one pierced dark eyebrow. “You know what I drink?” Her smile was brighter and the worry in her eyes a little less noticeable.

      He rattled off her usual. “One Montana Mocha Grande with an extra shot of espresso, topped with whipped cream, a drizzle of caramel and a little shaved chocolate.”

      She laughed. “Do you know all your customers’ favorites?”

      Only the ones who made his day. He grinned. “I just happened to remember yours.”

      * * *

      BO’S SCREAM ECHOED across the narrow ravine, the dense pines seeming to smother the sound.

      The man laughed as he held her tighter. “Ain’t no one around gonna hear ya so you might as well shut your trap.”

      She screamed again as his fingers dug into her side.

      “Keep that up, though, and I’m gonna cut ya good,” he said next to her ear.

      She felt the dull blade press into her throat, the scream dying on her lips. She could smell his rank unwashed body, his breath nasty. He slowly turned her as if to get a good look at her. His fingers bit into the flesh of her arm as he held her with one hand and brandished the knife with the other.

      “I’ll СКАЧАТЬ