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[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] low voice broke the silence, the sound of it stroking her like a caress. "I wondered if I would ever see you again." "How-why-" Shaken by the memories and feelings he had awakened, Cat paused a beat to regroup. Automatically she shifted the packages in her arms, holding them in front of her, using them as a barrier to break the force of his presence. "What are you doing here?" Even to her own ears, her voice sounded remarkably calm and level, considering the chaos going on inside. He stood before her, exhibiting that same quiet competence and latent strength, his steady gaze absorbing every nuance of her expression. "There was an opening in the sheriff's office. I took it." His smile lengthened a little. "It's a far cry from Fort Worth." She looked at the badge he wore, and the name below it Logan Echohawk. How had he found out she was here? Did he know about Quint? These and a hundred other questions raced through her mind, bringing Cat to the edge of panic. She had rebuilt her life, her reputation; people had begun to respect her again. Now-fear licked through her. "Fort Worth was a long time ago." She was deliberately curt, determined to have him know that she wanted nothing further to do with him. "Good day." She walked off, resisting the urge to run, conscious of his gaze following her. The faint jingle of bells reached her, and the tingling sensation of being watched left her. Cat dragged in a shaky breath of relief, but even as she did, she knew this wouldn't be her last encounter with him. Blue Moon was too small and the area too sparsely populated. With an effort, Logan dragged his gaze away from her, still struggling with the riptide of feelings the sight of her had unleashed, each one as potent and fresh as it had been that night. The desire was there to go after her, but he didn't-just as he hadn't stopped her that night in Fort Worth when she slipped out of the hotel room. Instead he swung his attention to the two men coming out of the store, his gaze centering on the shorter of the two brothers, watching the flare of recognition and the instant thinning of his lips. "I see the bus got in a few minutes early. And here I planned to be on hand to meet you when you got off, Lath." Ignoring that, Lath swaggered two steps closer. "Well, well, well, if it Page 74 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html isn't Agent Echohawk." His glance flicked to the deputy's badge pinned to his shirtfront. "My mistake, it isn't Agent anymore, is it? Looks like you took a couple steps down." "I decided I wanted a bit more peace and quiet in my life." His smile was as cool and unrevealing as his level gaze. Lath grinned. "Yeah, I heard you got shot up pretty bad last year. I don't wonder that you decided to take early retirement. There's nothing like taking a couple of bullets to make you lose your stomach for the wild side of the street." "You're free to think that if you want, but I wouldn't take any bets on it." Humor slid into the hard angles of his face, a humor that held some acid and some iron. He glanced at the plastic sack Lath carried, marking the telltale bulge of a six-pack. "I hope you're planning on drinking that beer after you get home. There's a law against driving under the influence." "Rollie and me wouldn't think of driving and drinking," Lath declared with a great show of innocence. "We're reformed citizens. We won't be breaking out any beer until we get home." "See that you don't," Logan said and walked past them into the store. The woman at the cash register looked up and brightened visibly. "Hi, Logan." "Mary." He responded with an absent nod and crossed to the tobacco counter. "How's business?" "Tuesdays are always slow," she said with a shrug. "If you're looking for Emmett, he's over in the garage, probably jawing with Bill Ruskin." "No, just stopped by to pick up some pipe tobacco." He carried a tin of it to the register, his glance straying out the glass storefront to the two men climbing into an old pickup. "Did those two give you any trouble?" he asked, but his thoughts were already traveling along another track. "Not really." She rang up the purchase. "The older one ragged Emmett a bit for cutting off his mother's credit, asked him to reconsider opening it, but that's about all." "The brunette who was in here earlier, who is she?" He handed her a ten-dollar bill and waited for his change. "The brunette?" Her frown disappeared with the dawn of understanding. "Oh, you mean Cat Calder." "Cat," he repeated, thinking that it hadn't been that far from the truth when she called herself Maggie the Cat. "Cathleen, actually, but everyone calls her Cat. Her father owns the Triple C," she said, then laughed at herself "Look at me explaining that to you, like you haven't been here long enough to have heard all about the Calders and their ranch." "Hard not to," Logan agreed. The ranch was the largest in the state, practically a country all by itself. In a community as small as this, the ranch and its owners were popular topics of conversation. Truthfully, he hadn't paid a lot of attention to it beyond garnering the simple facts that Calder was a widower with a son and a daughter. It had never crossed his mind that the daughter might be the woman who had haunted him all these years. He tried to remember some of the things that had been said about her, then pushed such thoughts away. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |