Wild Ways. Naomi Horton

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      He flexed his shoulders once to loosen them, then pulled open the door and stepped inside.

      From caution borne of habit, he stepped quickly to one side until his eyes adapted to the dimness, scanning the shadows for threat or motion even before he could fully see what—or who—they contained. The cold air dried the sweat on his forehead and across his back almost instantly, and he shook his left arm out, feeling the muscles start to tighten.

      Heads turned, as they do in a place like that. Incurious eyes met his, then drifted away, dismissing him as unimportant. It brought the usual rush of automatic anger, but he ignored it. To everyone in here, as in most places, he was just another Indian, the next best thing to invisible. Which was handy for a man in his line of work.

      Two farmers sat at a table to his left, peaked caps set on the backs of their heads, faces lined and grizzled from decades of staring at the sky. A salesman of some kind sat at another round table, tie loosened and hanging askew, a pile of papers scattered across the table. Two lanky Native kids were playing pool at a table in back, jostling and showing off, and an old man sat at the bar, staring morosely into the half-empty glass in his hand.

      Only the bikers seemed to take any notice of him. They sat around a table to his hard right, all of them big and watchful, their leathers cluttered with studs and chains and coded patches. They eyed him warily, but he gave his head an almost imperceptible shake and they relaxed again.

      But no Dawes.

      Which was just the way he’d planned it.

      This time, this close to his prey, he wasn’t going to take a chance on losing them again. He’d almost caught them in Denver, and then again in Rapid City, but both times they’d taken off like startled hares before he’d gotten close enough to nab them. It was as though they had some kind of sixth sense, and he was tired of it. Tired of the hunt, the heat, all of it. So no more messing around. This time, he was going to set the trap and simply wait for them to walk into it, and in another two days he would be back on Bear Mountain, thirty grand richer, Reggie Dawes nothing more than an irritating memory.

      Rafe chose a table not far from the door, far enough in shadow not to stand out, but not so far back it would look as though he was hiding. He eased himself into the gunfighter’s seat, back to the wall, and gave the room another swift, calculating look. Everything seemed normal enough. But in this line of work, you just never knew.

      The bartender was drying glasses and stacking them on a tray. He looked across at Rafe and lifted an inquiring eyebrow, and Rafe gestured toward the half-empty pitcher of pale draft in front of the salesman. The bartender came across with a pitcher of beer and set it on the table, then dropped a glass in front of Rafe. He was built like a small building, all shoulders and broad, beefy chest and no neck to speak of. A toothpick poked from one corner of his mouth. “This all?”

      Rivulets of sweat ran off the pitcher and formed a pool around it, and Rafe swallowed, throat suddenly parched. “Get me another one of those full of ice water,” he said tightly. “And another glass.”

      “Ice water.” The bartender shifted the toothpick. “And another glass.”

      “That’s right.”

      “You expecting company?”

      “Could be.” Rafe tossed a wrinkled five onto the wet tray. “And how about some peanuts or pretzels to go with that?”

      The toothpick moved to the other side of the bartender’s mouth and he gave the table a swipe with the dirty wet rag, then moved off, as light as a dancer on small, tidy feet.

      Ex-fighter, Rafe found himself thinking. Not someone you want on the other guy’s side in a brawl. There’d be heavy iron behind the bar, more than likely. Probably a sawed-off shotgun—something with minimal range but plenty of hitting power. And a baseball bat or ax handle. He looked like the kind of guy who would favor seasoned ash over raw firepower any day.

      The pitcher of ice water arrived a minute or two later, frosted with condensation. The bartender set a glass beside the first one, then dropped a basket of pretzels in front of Rafe. “Knock yourself out, sport.”

      Dawes came in about thirty minutes later. He and the woman stood just inside the door for a moment or two and darted uneasy glances around the dim room, as frightened as mice. Rafe propped himself up on his elbows and unsteadily poured beer into the glass in front of him, managing to spill as much onto the table as he got into the glass. His feigned drunkenness had the effect he wanted. Dawes’s gaze lingered for a scant few seconds before moving on, and Rafe felt the muscles across his shoulders relax.

      It was Dawes, no doubt about that. Rafe had stared at the man’s picture every night for two weeks, burning it into his memory, and now that he actually had the man almost within his grasp, he had to fight from walking across and grabbing him by the scruff of his scrawny neck and shaking him until his teeth rattled.

      And the woman had to be Honey Divine.

      Which was kind of an understatement, Rafe decided with awe.

      He realized he was staring and hastily looked away. But then he also realized there wasn’t a man in the place who wasn’t staring at her. Even the drunk at the bar was paying attention, rheumy old eyes aglitter.

      She was gorgeous, in a white-trash kind of way. Not the type of woman Rafe normally paid much attention to, but you would have to be a dead man not to notice her. She’d piled her hair onto the top of her head in a butter-blond haystack, probably in an attempt to get cool, and it teetered there precariously, trailing tendrils and wisps she kept brushing back from her cheeks. Her skin was that pale porcelain that seems to glow from some kind of inner light, although she’d managed to dim most of that glow with a thick layer of makeup she had no earthly use for.

      Impressive little body, too, clad in electric-blue spandex tights and a long, loose-knit white pullover that kept slipping off first one creamy shoulder, then the other. Although the nightclub poster advertising her as Honey Divine, club singer extraordinaire, had hinted at considerably more than God had given her, without the glittering rhinestone-spangled evening gown, she looked small and tidy and compact, the awe-inspiring cleavage undoubtedly still back in Las Vegas with the costume that had created it.

      Rafe had to smile. He’d kind of looked forward to seeing the real thing. Too bad they weren’t.

      He felt a little pang of disappointment and nearly smiled again, trying not to stare as she followed Dawes toward a table halfway down the room. Every head in the place swiveled as she clattered past on four-inch heels, and he could have sworn he heard a faint, collective sigh as she sat down and the sweater slipped off her shoulder again. She seemed used to it and simply tugged it up again, apparently oblivious to the hormonal havoc she’d left in her wake.

      He’d give them five minutes, Rafe decided. Time to order a drink and relax and shake off any last nervousness. Then, as soon as they were off guard and unlikely to bolt for the nearest door, he would make his move.

      This was a really bad idea.

      Meg gave the dim interior of the bar another uneasy look, trying not to panic completely. The whole idea had been crazy to start with, she would admit that, but it had been going fairly well until now. And now…well, now things had completely gotten away from her, and she had absolutely no idea what to do next.

      Problem was, she’d done such a good job of convincing Reggie that she knew what she was doing that she’d managed to convince СКАЧАТЬ