Wild Ways. Naomi Horton

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СКАЧАТЬ things like this…

      She rammed her elbow into the nearest part of the behemoth’s anatomy and was rewarded by a grunt of pain. “Get off me, damn it! I’m a government agent and you’re under arrest!”

      This wasn’t going according to plan, Rafe thought irritably as the slender female form under him gave another wriggle. Under different circumstances it wouldn’t have been that unpleasant, but it wasn’t doing much at the moment but distracting him. And he was getting the hell beat out of him, into the bargain. She had the sharpest elbows he’d ever encountered in his life, and seemed to have no qualms about using them enthusiastically. Plus, she kept yelling something about arresting him, which didn’t make a lot of sense considering he was on top and had the gun.

      She gave another muffled threat of some kind or another, but he ignored it, swearing through clenched teeth as she buried her elbow into his solar plexus. He wasn’t getting paid enough for this, he thought wearily. No way was he getting paid enough.

      “Okay, you jokers—I said on your feet! And keep those hands and guns where I can see ’em, ’cause this here shotgun can make an awful big hole in a man.”

      Rafe sighed. Maybe he was losing his touch. Maybe it was time to find a new line of work, because nothing about this whole case had come even close to going the way he’d planned it.

      “Okay, okay,” he growled, planting both hands flat on the floor where the bartender could see them. “Where’s the guy who was shooting at me?”

      “Down,” the bartender said succinctly. “Bleeding all over my floor. You going to pay to have that cleaned up?”

      “Yeah, yeah, I’ll pay, I’ll pay.” Rafe swore under his breath again. “I’m going to get up now, so keep your finger off that damn trigger.”

      “Just don’t give me no reason to do otherwise,” the bartender rumbled. “Come up slow. That skinny little runt down there beside you have a gun?”

      “N-no,” Reggie stammered. “I—I’m an accountant.”

      Rafe didn’t see where that made a difference, but it seemed to satisfy the bartender, who motioned Reggie up with the barrel of the shotgun. Honey Divine was still wriggling and swearing underneath him, and Rafe eased himself off her gingerly, wondering how long it would take the bruises on his ribs to fade.

      The bartender was watching him intently, and Rafe got up slowly, hands well outstretched, giving the man no reason to feel threatened. “I’m a cop,” he lied. “ID in my hip pocket.”

      The bartender gestured with the shotgun. “Get it out. Slow.”

      Rafe reached behind him and under the jacket slowly. The Taurus brushed his fingertips but he left it there, easing his wallet from his jeans pocket instead. He held it up, then flipped it open and tossed it onto the nearest upright table. The bartender picked it up, read it, looked at the ID picture and then at Rafe, then nodded after a moment and lowered the shotgun. “Nevada? You’re a long way from home.”

      “Special assignment,” Rafe lied without missing a beat. According to that forged ID he was with the sheriff’s department.

      “And this guy?” The gun barrel gestured toward the salesman. He was sitting on the floor looking rumpled and sullen, clutching his upper arm with his hand. Blood trickled through his fingers.

      “No damn idea,” Rafe replied quite honestly. He gave the man a long, hard look, running the bland features through a mental mug book. Nothing. Whoever the guy was, he was new to the equation.

      The bartender grunted. “So he just started shooting at you for no reason at all, is that what you’re saying?”

      “He wasn’t shooting at me, he was shooting at him.” Rafe nodded toward Reggie, who was still sitting on the floor looking shaken and pale.

      “And you decided to do your civic duty and stop it.”

      The bartender sounded skeptical and bored with the whole thing, and Rafe sighed again, deciding it was time for a bit of embroidery. “I was sent here to bring this man back to Nevada.” He gave Reggie another nod. “There’s a warrant out on him. Fraud and embezzlement.”

      The bartender grunted again. “What did he do?”

      “Scammed a whole lot of little old ladies out of their life savings.”

      Reggie gave an indignant yelp of protest.

      “Which doesn’t explain why someone was trying to kill him.”

      “If someone scammed your old granny out of her life savings, wouldn’t you be out for blood?” It sounded so plausible, Rafe almost believed it himself.

      “That’s absolutely preposterous!” Honey Divine had managed to catch her breath finally and was sitting flat on her bottom on the floor, glaring through tangles of hair, one shoulder distractingly bare. She pulled the sweater up impatiently, then shoved the mound of blond hair out of her eyes. “Mr. Dawes has done no such thing!”

      The bartender lifted an eyebrow. “And you are…?”

      “Special Agent Mary Margaret Kavanagh,” she enunciated very clearly into the expectant silence. Her hair had tipped over one eye again and she gave it a shove, then swore with unladylike exasperation and reached up and pulled it off entirely.

      “He scalped her!” The drunk at the bar—who apparently hadn’t moved throughout the entire melee—stared at her in stupefaction. “The Indian scalped her!”

      Rafe gave the man an evil glare that made him recoil, and the bartender just snapped, “Shut up, Claude,” without even turning around. But even he seemed taken aback at the sight of a woman sitting on his barroom floor with her hair in her hand. “Special…what?”

      She gave her head a shake and her own hair—masses of it, tangled and as red as a fire engine—tumbled around her face. Then she got to her feet, teetering a trifle unsteadily on those four-inch heels, retrieved her small handbag and rummaged through it. “Special Agent Kavanagh,” she repeated impatiently. “And Mr. Dawes is in my custody.” She found what she was looking for and pulled it out, walking across to hand it to the bartender. “You can call the number there on my ID and confirm it.”

      Rafe looked at her, narrow-eyed. “If you’re FBI, lady, I’m Clark Kent.”

      “I’m not FBI,” she said crisply. “I’m with a special agency that specializes in—” She stopped and glared at him. “Who did you say you were?”

      Rafe paused very slightly, selecting and rejecting a dozen explanations in the space of a heartbeat, trying to fix on the one that would get him out of here with the least amount of trouble and explanation. Government agent. Just his damn luck. What the hell else could go wrong today?

      “His ID makes him for a Nevada cop,” the bartender spoke up.

      “I doubt that.” She looked at Rafe evenly. “I’d be very surprised if you’re in law enforcement, Mr….?”

      Again, he thought it through. “Blackhorse,” he replied after a moment, deciding this much truth couldn’t get him into too much trouble. “Rafe Blackhorse.”

      “And СКАЧАТЬ