Undercover Hunter. Rachel Lee

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СКАЧАТЬ didn’t care for men. It was one thing to have a fling with one, another to work with one. In a single instant she’d seen the resistance in Cade Bankston’s eyes when he’d heard they were to be partnered, and that had been all she’d needed. He was a macho meathead who couldn’t accept that women were as capable as men. Like that pinheaded CO who had turned her life into a living hell because he didn’t think a woman was qualified to command an MP unit. That freaking martinet had wanted every i dotted, and it damn well better be dotted clearly enough. But he wasn’t the only one. There’d been the CO in Afghanistan who’d warned her that if she filed a rape charge her career was over. And the series of them who had been infuriated when she insisted on investigating the rapes of other soldiers. There’d also been too many men working for her who didn’t get why they should take orders from her. And then there’d been the guy who had forced her out.

      They hadn’t all been bad, but enough of them had that DeeJay had a real burn on for men. A guy got one chance with her. Bankston had torched his.

      Still, she had to work with him. She wasn’t ready to nuke any bridges on this job. There was a killer to catch, although she still didn’t understand what lamebrain had come up with the idea that they had to pretend to be married. Wouldn’t it have been enough that they were working together on a travel story?

      She looked down at the thin gold band on her ring finger, courtesy of an evidence locker somewhere, and wished she could fling it out the window.

      She glanced occasionally at Bankston, taking in his square jaw and chiseled face from the side. His hair was a light brown, a little wavy, and he had a pair of aquamarine eyes that she would have admired in any other setting. He probably believed he set women’s hearts aflutter, and maybe he did. For a guy who must be pushing toward forty, he took good care of himself.

      All she knew about him, though, was that he had a lot of experience and had been with the criminal investigation unit for most of that time. She’d heard that he’d once been a beat cop in a major metro area, but she didn’t have any idea which one. It wasn’t a whole lot to go on.

      She did know, however, that he didn’t want to be working with her, and she didn’t want him any closer than the job required. When they’d received the news that they were pairing up for this, she’d seen it clear as anything in his eyes. If he’d been a mule, he’d have dug in his heels and brayed. She had to give him some credit for taking an order he didn’t like, but she wouldn’t give him any more than that.

      Nor did she feel as if she needed to prove herself to him. She’d proved herself countless times in a much tougher organization, and she’d learned the hard way that conciliatory women were considered weak, and tough ones were called bitches. She preferred being a bitch. At least no one tried to take advantage of her that way.

      Stifling a sigh, she wished this drive would come to an end. Looking out the window, with the mountains still purple in the distance, had begun to bore her. She wasn’t used to sitting still for so long.

      She glanced again at Cade and decided that maybe she should back off him a little. She’d made her position clear repeatedly over the past few days, but they still had to work together. The question was how much she needed to back off. Except for their disagreement about who would drive, he’d done his share of backing off. And she’d let him drive only because he’d made the logical argument that he knew this country and these roads. It had been clear at that point that he wasn’t insisting because he thought the man should always drive.

      Okay, give him back a point, but after that expression when they’d been told they were working together, he still had a lot of points to earn.

      “I guess that you don’t know much about the sheriff we’re working with, unless someone gave you a dossier,” he said, disturbing the endless silence between them, a silence filled with the humming of the car engine and tires on the road.

      “Not a thing,” she admitted reluctantly, wondering if she had been deliberately left out of some loop. Men often tried that with her.

      “He’s good,” Cade said. “Not your average elected official whose chief accomplishment has been kissing babies.”

      Despite herself, she almost wanted to laugh. Even as an MP she’d had to deal with that kind of local law enforcement occasionally.

      “He’s former DEA,” Cade went on. “Undercover operative until a car bomb nearly killed him and wiped out his entire family. He still carries the scars.”

      DeeJay swore quietly. She knew a lot of stories of car bombs all too well. Some of them had involved families.

      “Yeah,” Cade answered, apparently hearing her. “Anyway, long story short. He came here to heal, got hired as a crime-scene investigator, and years ago when the old sheriff retired, he was elected. Folks still call him the new sheriff.”

      “Of course.” That didn’t surprise her at all.

      “His name is Gage Dalton. Runs a tight ship. His predecessor, Nate Tate, was sheriff for forty years and still sticks his finger in the pie. Let him. There’s no one and nothing he doesn’t know about this county.”

      “Except who the killer is.”

      “Obviously.”

      DeeJay hesitated. Then, offering a slender olive branch, she said, “Sounds like a couple of good men to have on our side.”

      “The best. The deputies are good, too. Nate started a trend of inviting his old military pals to come this way. He was Special Forces. Anyway, they joke sometimes that they have more Special Forces types in Conard County than most military bases. Makes for an interesting and sometimes useful mix.”

      He was trying to tell her to be careful of stepping on toes, she realized. Trying to warn her that she’d be meeting men with backgrounds similar to hers and who shouldn’t be casually dismissed. Or wisely dismissed. While she resented the implication that she made a habit of stepping on toes, she’d certainly been stepping on his since their first meeting. Since she couldn’t just come out and say that she only stepped on toes she meant to break, she decided to take it as a good omen that he was trying to fill her in. Much as it killed her, she said, “Thank you.”

      “The sheriff knows we’re both coming. It’ll be up to him to decide who to trust with that information, but from what little I know of him, I doubt he’ll trust very many. They’re already working the case, though, and as you know we’re here by invitation.”

      “Got it. Been there, done that before.”

      “I guess you have.”

      She hesitated, then asked, “You read my jacket?”

      “That stuff’s private. What I know about you is exactly nothing.”

      That wasn’t good, she thought. They were partnered and both of them had to have some basis for trusting each other’s instincts, as far as the investigation went. They didn’t have to like each other, just to develop a professional trust. Partners could succeed no other way. But she still had a burr.

      “You didn’t want to partner with a woman,” she said.

      “No.” He didn’t varnish it. “Nothing to do with you personally. Bad experience once.”

      “I could say the same about working with men, only more than once.”

СКАЧАТЬ