Linda Howard: Prey

But still, for a giddy while, back when they’d first met, her stomach felt as if it had taken flight, her heart rate had soared, and despite all common sense she’d let herself get lost in anticipation. She could remember the exact moment when they’d been introduced-in the feed store, standing beside fifty-pound sacks of grain. She’d looked up into the strong face shadowed by the brim of his black hat, met those vivid blue eyes, and it felt as if the world had fallen away. She remembered the feel of his hard, warm hand wrapping around hers, the calluses on his palm, the steely strength held firmly in check so he didn’t crush her fingers. “Miss Powell,” he’d said briefly, his voice so hoarse she’d wondered if he had a cold or something. Then she’d noticed the scar on his throat, and knew that raspy tone was permanent.

“Call me Angie,” she’d said, and he’d given a curt nod.

Then someone else had called his name and he’d turned away, and though she’d lingered a little longer than necessary in getting her supplies, feeling as obvious and awkward as a fourteen-year-old trying to get a boy’s attention, she didn’t think he’d so much as glanced in her direction again. She had a million things to do to get ready for the guide trip she had booked for the next day, and there she was, wasting time, hoping he’d say something else to her.

Finally she’d given herself a mental shake and checked out. The feed had been loaded in the back of her pickup, and as she climbed into the cab he’d come out of the feed store. Angie hadn’t let herself pause; she’d cranked the engine and started to put the transmission in gear when he motioned for her to lower her window.

She pressed the button and the window slid down. Deliberately she kept her expression neutral, because she was a tad embarrassed at herself for dithering in the feed store the way she had. After her wedding fiasco, she’d made it a point to keep men at a distance, but a set of (very) broad shoulders and a pair of (very) blue eyes had all but blown her self-control to smithereens, whatever a smithereen was.

That blue gaze had pinned on her like a laser. “Have dinner with me tomorrow night,” he said abruptly, no lead-in, no chitchat, just a bald and blunt invitation.

Regret almost made her sick. Why tomorrow night? She was leaving early in the morning and wouldn’t be back for a week. Why couldn’t he have given her a decent lead time, at least a week? “I can’t,” she blurted, her refusal just as blunt as his invitation.

She didn’t have time to explain. He gave a curt dip of his head, turned around, and walked to his truck before she could get another word out.

And that was that. When she’d returned from the guide trip, tired, with another million things to do before yet another group of clients came in, she’d nevertheless raced into the house to check her answering machine, to see if he’d called during her absence. There had been a couple of calls, but his hadn’t been one of them. As days turned to weeks, and weeks to months, he still hadn’t called. Disappointed, after a while she’d stopped expecting him to.

During that time, she noticed her business falling off, and because the community was so small she inevitably heard about the people who were hiring Dare Callahan as their guide, and several of the names were ones she recognized as people she’d previously guided. He was stealing her business! Okay, not stealing, because it wasn’t as if he’d accessed her files and called those people; they’d have searched him out, not the other way around. Still, the end result was the same.

He had asked her out again, months after that first time, and by that time she was so angry she’d simply given him a clipped “No, thanks” and walked away. Go out with him? She’d rather stake him out over an anthill.

Yet no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t completely forget that moment of first meeting him, the sensation of being in free fall as every cell in her body seemed to be supercharged. She tried, but even though she kept her attention focused forward, on getting things done, she was always aware on some level of what might have been.

Nothing. That’s what might have been: exactly nothing. And she had to remember that. Regrets were a dime a dozen.

Harlan was pensive as he drove back along the narrow dirt road that snaked several miles from Angie’s place toward a blacktop. A couple of different things bothered him. He liked Dare Callahan, loved Angie the way you loved a kid you’d known most of her life, and it made him uncomfortable that he was stuck in this situation between them.

His professional loyalty was to Angie; she was the one who had signed the contract with him, she was the one paying his commission. He’d present her counteroffer to Dare, no problem; in fact, he was relieved she’d made a counteroffer at all, instead of turning Dare down flat, which was what he’d been afraid she would do. He didn’t butt in where it wasn’t his business, but what he’d seen yesterday in the parking lot below his office had made it plain the two weren’t on good terms. Watching them had been like watching two boxers in the ring, trash-talking before the swinging began.

He didn’t know what their problem was and in this part of the country people minded their own business. He’d never heard anything about a disagreement between them, but sometimes people just disliked each other and that was all there was to it. Angie kept more to herself now, after that problem at her wedding, than she had before it all happened, and Dare wasn’t a happy-go-lucky type, period. With the bristles they both toted around, it wasn’t a surprise they’d evidently managed to stick each other; more surprising was that no one had noticed it before now.

Another thing that was bothering him, which was silly because it wasn’t as if the situation was anything new, was Angie going off with two men she didn’t know. Never mind that one was a repeat customer; he sounded like a wimp, and wimps could be dangerous because they tended to go along with whoever was stronger, and not take a stand in a bad situation.

Realistically, Harlan knew this situation was nothing unusual, that Angie had been running the business for three years now and routinely guided people, mostly men, whom she didn’t know. But logic had nothing to do with a gut feeling, and his gut was suddenly uneasy. Maybe it was because this other situation had him feeling protective, but it was the same kind of gut feeling that would suddenly have him slowing down on a highway, without rhyme or reason, and five minutes later coming up on an accident, or a deer would leap across the road in front of him-things like that. His gut was uneasy now, and slowing down wouldn’t fix a damn thing.

He periodically checked his cell phone for service; sometimes he’d hit a service pocket that he hadn’t known was there, or the atmospherics would magically deliver service where five minutes before none had existed. Out here the coverage was sketchy, but in his experience people lived here for a reason, and one of them was the more relaxed pace of life. He didn’t feel the need to be in constant contact with the world, and neither did anyone else. If he moved closer to Noah-hell, when he moved closer to Noah and the family, he might as well stop playing with the idea and commit-he’d have to adjust to the barrage of information. Of course, he could always be the old coot who never turned on his cell phone unless he wanted to make a call, then promptly turned it off again. That worked for him.

He finally got service right before he got back to his office, which was normal. No point then in wasting any of his minutes, so he used the office landline. The answering machine picked up, but he’d have been surprised if Dare had actually answered, anyway; it wasn’t as if he spent his time in the house waiting for a call, and cell service was just as bad out at Dare’s place as it was everywhere else in the area, so he didn’t even bother trying that number. “Dare, it’s Harlan. I gave Angie your offer, and she’s made a counteroffer. Call me.”