Undercover Groom. Merline Lovelace

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СКАЧАТЬ we do...” Pam yelled.

      “Until we do, this is my operation. I’ll contact you if I need backup.”

      Pam sank back against the seat, her mouth a thin line of disapproval. Mase tipped her a quick farewell and ducked under the whirling blades. A moment later he took the keys of the mud-splashed Chevy Blazer he’d arranged to have delivered to the isolated landing site. The driver shouted quick directions to Crockett before hunching over and dashing to the chopper.

      Mase slid into the Blazer and slammed the door on the ear-rattling noise. A quick shake of his leg settled the cuff of his jeans over his scarred boot and the 9mm Glock subcompact it concealed. Smaller and lighter than a snub-nosed Special, the Glock carried a tactical high-velocity load that had helped him out of more than one tight situation.

      His face grim, Mase transferred the extra clip and boxes of spare bullets to the Blazer’s dash. From the report received just hours ago, it appeared Chloe wasn’t under duress. Despite his insistence on going in alone, Mase wasn’t taking any chances.

      While the helo’s engines revved up to full lift power, he pulled a red ball cap from his back pocket and tugged it low on his forehead. In well-worn jeans, a sturdy plaid shirt and blue sleeveless down vest, he’d fit right in with the other hunters and anglers who drove hundreds of miles to hunt game and fish the jewellike lakes that dotted the Black Hills. He had no idea if the sportsman’s cover was necessary, any more than he knew why Chloe had chosen Crockett to hide out in. But he intended to find out.

      Under the curved brim of the ball cap, Mase’s jaw locked tight. He was past feeling the cumulative effects of too little sleep, too many gallons of black coffee and the six kinds of hell he’d gone through since Chloe’s disappearance. Even now, despite confirmed reports that she was alive and safe, the mental image of her Mercedes nose down and abandoned in that ditch could still put a kink in his intestines.

      He drove the narrow two-lane road, remembering that fear, tasting its bitter residue once again. Now, however, a healthy dose of anger added its own flavor to the fear. At this point, Mase was almost as furious over the torment Chloe had put him and her family through as he was relieved to have found her.

      As the Blazer crested a hill dotted with tall pines and dropped down toward the half dozen weathered wooden buildings that comprised Crockett, he couldn’t decide whether to hustle her back to Minneapolis or haul her to the nearest motel and stake his claim the way he’d wanted to since the day she proposed to him. He was still debating the issue when he pulled up at the Crockett General Store and killed the Blazer’s engine.

      Mase climbed out, disappointment rising sharp in his throat. They’d tagged the wrong woman. Chloe couldn’t have stayed in this place for almost three weeks! Not his Chloe, anyway.

      Eyes narrowed behind his mirrored sunglasses, Mase returned the blank stare of the bleached cow skull mounted above the much-patched screen door. Those weren’t the only bones to grace the store. Entwined elk antlers twisted up and around its four wooden porch supports like prickly white ivy.

      Against the weathered wood, the antlers were a startling white. In contrast, the rusting South Dakota license plates framing the two front windows provided a riot of color, as did the wooden bins and baskets filled with fall produce that fought for porch space alongside a bagged-ice locker and a bait bucket set under a hand-lettered sign advertising worms and crawlers. The whole weathered wooden structure seemed to list a few degrees to the right, giving the distinct impression that a good wind could topple it over completely.

      Warily, Mase mounted the sagging front steps. The boards creaked a protest, but the bell above the door jangled a cheery welcome when he stepped inside. Tangy wood smoke from the cast iron stove in the center of the store caught at his senses along with the equally compelling aromas of fresh-brewed coffee, ripe apples and tobacco.

      Mase stopped just inside the threshold, sweeping the store with a searching glance. Enough light filtered through the dust-streaked windows to illuminate the nooks and crannies of the single room, crammed with every imaginable necessity from work boots to cereal to beeswax candles. If there was an order to the jumble of products and produce filling the floor-to-ceiling shelves, he couldn’t see it.

      Nor did he see anyone resembling Chloe. The tension coiling his body had just torqued up another few degrees when a woman called from a back room.

      “I’ll be right there.”

      Relief crashed through him. He would recognize his fiancée’s voice in his sleep. Soft and musical, with the rounded Minnesotan vowels that winters in Palm Springs and two years in Paris couldn’t erase, it was as much her signature as her silky blond hair and violet eyes.

      Still, Mase had to look twice before he recognized the creature who backed bottom-first into the room a few moments later. Bent double, she fishtailed a fifty-pound sack of rock salt along the wooden floor and added it to the others propped haphazardly against the far wall. Mase watched, stunned, as she straightened with a small grunt. Raising an arm, she swiped it across a forehead streaked with sweat and dust.

      The face was the same. Classic Chloe, all high cheekbones, creamy skin and full mouth. Her hair was silvery gold, glinting with warmth even scraped back in a no-nonsense ponytail instead of sweeping to her shoulders in its usual sleek fall. The clothes... Mase blinked, trying to remember the last time he’d seen his fiancée poured into thigh-hugging jeans and a thin yellow T-shirt that displayed a provocative patch of sweat between her firm breasts...or when she’d greeted him with such cool, distant politeness.

      “Do you want something?”

      He went still, thrown off balance for a moment as much by Chloe’s appearance as by her deliberate remoteness. His every sense alert to possible danger, he searched the store again. Why was she pretending not to know him?

      The possibilities he’d forced himself to consider during his long hunt for Chloe leaped instantly to life once again. Was she trying to warn him? Had someone forced her to stay in this remote town? Was she under duress? With a speed that made her start in surprise, Mase rounded the end of the counter and edged through the door behind her.

      “Hey, you can’t go in there!”

      Ignoring her startled protest, he did a quick visual of the storeroom. It held cardboard cartons stacked almost to the ceiling, several unused display cases and a jumble of seasonal sporting goods, but no imminent threat that Mase could determine. An open door in the opposite side wall led to a long, dim hallway and, presumably, the attached living quarters. Frowning, he spun around to confront a decidedly irate Chloe.

      She reached behind him and closed the storeroom door with a snap. “I don’t know what you’re looking for, but whatever it is, I’ll find it for you. If I can,” she tacked on in a low mutter.

      Slowly, Mase peeled off his sunglasses and stared down at her. If this was an act, it was a damned good one. If not... His gut twisted.

      Why would she pretend not to know him? What the hell was going on? He searched her face, her eyes, trying to find a hidden message.

      

      The woman who called herself Chloe Smith lifted her chin and matched the stranger stare for stare. In the almost three weeks she’d lived in Crockett, she’d learned to cope with the kind of looks he was laying on her. As Hannah had dryly pointed out, Chloe was the only nubile young female within fifty miles who didn’t come on the hoof. Word that she’d been hired to work the store while Hannah was laid up with multiple fractures to her left ankle had spread faster СКАЧАТЬ