The Maverick. Carrie Alexander

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 СКАЧАТЬ