Jill Sorenson: Set The Dark On Fire

Jesse’s eyes followed Shay until she disappeared. When they returned to him, narrowing with animosity, Luke amended his impression of the local Lothario. Maybe Jesse was spoiling for a fight.

Shay had told him that Jesse lived above the auto shop down the street. What she’d left unsaid was the relationship between them. Jesse stared after her like she was his unclaimed possession.

“You want a booth, Jesse?” Betty asked, because he was just standing there.

Jesse mumbled something about not being hungry anymore and went outside. Leaning his back against the building, he took a pack of smokes out of his pocket, struck a match on the heel of his black motorcycle boot, and lit one up.

He looked just like James Dean.

Luke threw a couple of bills on the table and rose to his feet, walking outside to grant the younger man’s unspoken invitation.

Against the brick wall, Jesse continued to smoke, feigning indifference.

“Jesse Ryan?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m Sheriff Meza.”

His expressive eyebrows rose. “So?”

“Can you answer a few questions about Yesenia Montes?”

Those words seemed to penetrate his cool façade. “What about her?” he asked, meeting Luke’s gaze for the first time.

“Did you leave the Round-Up with her last night?”

Jesse opened his mouth to say no, but at that moment, Shay came through the double glass doors. Luke couldn’t have timed it better. Standing in front of them, she moistened her lips in a nervous, provocative gesture both of them were intensely aware of.

“Go wait in the truck,” he said. Although she didn’t appear pleased by his tone, she complied, so the gamble had paid off.

Jesse threw his cigarette butt on the ground and crushed it under his boot heel. He didn’t like the way Luke talked to Shay either, and Luke enjoyed needling him a bit more than he should have. He’d been a young, jealous fool himself, once upon a time, and knew from experience that it was always better to be the cause of envy than the source.

“I left with her,” Jesse muttered.

“Where did you go?”

“We walked to my place.” He indicated Tenaja Auto, a few doors down.

“What time?”

He shrugged, leaning his back against the brick siding. “A little after midnight, I guess. She bummed a cigarette. I went on up.” He paused for emphasis. “Alone.”

“Why didn’t she stay?”

“I didn’t invite her to.”

“Why not?”

He looked past Luke’s shoulder, to where Shay was sitting in the truck. “She wasn’t the one I wanted.”

Dark Canyon State Preserve, where Shay did her field research, was a mixed chaparral and live oak woodland a few miles west of Tenaja. Its northern border skirted the edge of the Los Coyotes Indian Reservation, the Anza-Borrego Desert stretched far and wide to the east, and to the south, there was only Mexico.

Mountain lions inhabited all of those areas. According to Mike Shepherd, the one they were after was on the preserve.

Dark Canyon was in the rain shadow of Palomar Mountain, so what few storm fronts rolled in from the coast rarely climbed past the summit. Tenaja Falls and its environs received more uninterrupted sunshine than the beach. The canyon was situated between the mountains and another low-lying ridge, so it also got plenty of shade, and Deep Creek ran through the center, so it had water, too. A break from the relentless heat and a little extra moisture gave the land a fresh, verdant look the rest of the area lacked.

It was a pleasant place to hike, picturesque and invigorating. Shay would have enjoyed herself if she were alone, unfettered by a job she didn’t want to do and a man she didn’t want to be with.

She set a grueling pace, wanting to test Luke’s city-boy limits and punish him for the way he’d looked at her in the diner.

Shay had grown up dirt poor, right here in Tenaja Falls. She may have a college degree and a career that supported her family, but she was only one step away from white trash, and she resented Luke Meza for making her feel like it.

Unfortunately, he didn’t have any difficulty keeping up with her. She was sweating like mad and dizzy from exertion, while he’d yet to utter a single complaint. Exercise and a good meal were the best cures for a hangover, in her opinion, and she felt better for having both, but she needed a break.

Conceding her defeat, she slowed to a stop, resting her back against a smooth sycamore. Taking small sips of water from her pack, she closed her eyes and concentrated on regulating her breathing.

When she was cooled down enough to speak, she focused her attention on him.

He was leaning against a tree, sweating as much as she was, if not more. The sight would have pleased her except that he also looked fit and virile and alarmingly sexy.

“Are you trying to kill me?” he panted.

She chuckled weakly. “You should have said something.”

He only shook his head, telling her he’d been too proud to do so. “Didn’t you hear me whimpering a mile back?”

Laughing, she let her eyes fall closed again, blocking out his appealing smile and dark visage. She found him very attractive, and that was a damned shame. It hadn’t escaped her notice that he considered Tenaja Falls a roadblock on his path to bigger and better things.

Shay, on the other hand, was here for the long haul. She was fond of the familial atmosphere and she loved this land like a mother. If Luke Meza thought she was small town, well, maybe he was right. However common, she was proud of her heritage, and however sordid, she wasn’t ashamed of her past.

Sighing, she adjusted her gun strap, which felt like it was burning a diagonal mark across her chest. His smile faded as his eyes followed her movements, reminding her that it wasn’t necessary for them to have similar interests.

They didn’t even have to like each other.

Shay wished she’d dressed with a little more care this morning, because it was hot. In mid-April, the weather was usually cool, especially in the higher elevations, but today a Santa Ana wind was blowing, bringing an increased fire hazard and warm, dry conditions.

Her sweatshirt had been abandoned in the truck, leaving her clad in a thin cotton tank top. The black lace push-up bra she was wearing underneath had gone great with the satin camisole from last night, but it was hardly appropriate for hiking.

The sheriff must have thought so, too, because he tore his gaze away from her chest. “How much farther?”

With trembling hands, she took the GPS tracker out of her pack to double-check Hamlet’s location. He was still near the top of the ridge, probably sleeping in a shady nook, awaiting sunset. “Only another half mile.”

She’d explained how the tracking system worked when they’d dropped by base headquarters, a small stucco building where she compiled research and studied wildlife data. It was there that she’d nursed an eight-week-old lion cub back to health after his mother had been killed by local ranchers. The cub had been reintroduced to the wild when they’d found a surrogate mother lion and added him to her litter.

To Shay’s amazement, Hamlet had not only lived, he’d thrived.

It had been a risky experiment, but a young lion couldn’t survive on his own until he was several years old, and prolonged contact with humans would only reduce his chances.

Shay had been careful not to treat him like a pet during the time they’d spent together. To do so would have been dangerous for both of them. But he’d been irresistibly cute! Maybe she’d spoken too softly, touched him too lovingly.

Had she done something to assuage his fear of humans? Did he remember her still?

Over the past five years, she’d seen Hamlet on a regular basis. After he’d survived into adulthood, Shay and her fellow research biologists had collared him with the GPS device. He’d been tracked and tranquilized for routine checkups. Just last year, she’d cleaned his teeth.