Alice Sharpe - Bodyguard Father

She drew only a cursory glance from two women as she stepped out of the alley and snapped a few random pictures of the hay bales in the back of Skye’s truck to reinforce her cover story as an out-of-town photographer writing a book on forgotten ranching towns. She paused. Dare she risk frisking the glove box?

A brisk “Good morning” from a passing pedestrian sent Annie’s heart leaping into her throat. She settled on taking a few photos of the mail scattered on the front seat while moving past the truck.

She continued walking to the next block where she’d parked her father’s white sedan. The weatherman had predicted snow. Annie wanted to be out of Poplar Gulch and headed home to Reno by the time it fell. All she needed now was a physical address for Skye.

She’d just set the camera on the seat beside her when movement in the side mirror drew her attention. Skye limped back across the street, the newspaper tucked beneath his arm, a small plastic grocery bag swinging from the fingers of his left hand. He opened the driver’s door, tossed in his purchases and climbed in after them.

She started her own engine, a blast of cold air coming from the heater vent making her shiver. Skye made a U-turn and headed east. Annie waited a few moments before making the same turn and following at a distance. Golden strands of hay floated out of the back of the truck.

Within minutes, it had started to rain, drops icy enough to make patterns on her windshield. With no vehicle between her and the truck, Annie lowered her visor and stayed as far back as possible. Skye had been on the run for almost four months, surely he’d be feeling pretty comfortable by now. On the other hand, the man was former military, former bodyguard and a wanted killer. Plus, he apparently knew a thing or two about explosives.

He drove for a couple of miles before taking a sharp left onto a dirt road that appeared to lead up a heavily forested hillside. Annie drove past the road, making note of the mailbox on which the name B. Miller was printed, pulling off a quarter mile farther along, parking well off the shoulder. Miller. She recognized the name from her father’s files. He was connected to Skye in some way. An old army buddy, that was it.

Another tidbit of information floated into her mind. Miller was a professor at Davis University, currently out of the country on a sabbatical. She’d bet big money Garrett Skye was using his old buddy’s mountain retreat as a hideout!

Excited, she clicked on her cell phone, relieved when it picked up a signal, disappointed when the client didn’t answer. She waited through Shelby Parker’s recorded message and left one of her own, embellishing it a little here and there to make it sound better, making sure Parker understood Annie was working with her father. No reason to mention the fact he had died before he could complete this job. No point in admitting she was his proxy.

As she clicked off the phone it dawned on her she should have made sure Skye was living here before alerting the client. She turned off the cell phone and tucked it and her father’s nasty-looking black gun in her pockets. She looped the camera strap around her neck. She stuck her purse under the seat and got out of the car, locking it behind her.

The walk in, which she had assumed would be relatively short, turned out to be more than a mile straight up. It seemed to grow colder with each foot she climbed. The rain was still halfhearted, but it had the icy punch of coming trouble.

The road ended so abruptly she stumbled into the open. Quickly dodging behind a gaggle of leafless, wispy trees, she took in the old house across from what appeared to be an even older barn. Tucked between them sat the rusty blue truck, its bed now empty.

Annie took the camera from around her neck. Snapping pictures of anything that didn’t move, her bare fingers growing increasingly numb as the temperature continued to plummet, she made her way to the back of the barn where she discovered a two-tiered door, the top of which was open.

She knelt with her head below the door opening, catching her breath, nerves firing up and down her spine. A moment later, a blast of hot air came from above. Annie jumped an inch off the ground, grabbing her wig with one hand while fumbling for the gun with the other. The camera tumbled to the ground in the process. Before she could extract the gun from her pocket, she looked up and came eyeball to muzzle with a big brown horse.

She swallowed what felt like her heart. “Easy does it,” she whispered, fear draining out of her as she reached up to shoo away the warm nose nibbling at her wig. The horse tossed its head and whinnied.

“Shh,” she said, turning to peer around the side of the barn.

She found two worn leather boots she immediately recognized. The rifle, however, was new.

“Get up nice and easy,” Garrett Skye said, his voice as cold as the steel barrel nine inches from her nose.

As distasteful as Annie found carrying a gun, looking up the barrel of one was worse. Way worse.

Scooping the camera from the icy mud, she gained her feet. Up close and without the distancing lens of the camera, the man was big, muscular, powerful and scary. His chiseled good looks were a mere distraction compared to the focused intent in his eyes. There was no appealing warmth or humor in those irises now. There probably never had been.

“Who are you?” he said, his voice deep, softer than she’d expected, and scary. Everything about him was scary. Rip up his clothes a little, tie a bandana around his head and a knife between his teeth and, presto, Rambo in the flesh.

Annie thought frantically. She hadn’t had a chance to pull out her dad’s gun. Perhaps Skye would overlook it. She babbled, “Is this your place? I’m so sorry to be intrusive, my car broke down on the main road and yours was the nearest driveway. I’m in Poplar Gulch taking pictures of forgotten ranch towns. This place is perfect. Uh, I love your horse. What’s its name?”

“Your car broke down?” he said, narrowing his eyes.

“Yes. It’s old and—”

“So you didn’t follow me out here?”

“Follow you? No. Of course not.”

He stared at her for another second or two and then shook his head. “Sorry, not buying it. I’ll take your gun.”

“I don’t have a gun, Mr. Miller, isn’t it?”

“You know damn good and well my name isn’t Miller and of course you have a gun. Get your hands up. Who sent you here? Klugg?”

“Klugg who?” she muttered.

“I said, get your hands up.”

She put her hands up in the air, the camera clenched tight in her right fist, the strap dangling down her arm. With a few swift impersonal strokes he frisked her with his free hand, finding the gun and her cell phone with no trouble. The picture of his truck taken a week or so before rolled out with them.

Even if she could think of a way to explain carrying a gun, there was no way to make this look like an accident now, not with that picture waiting to be unfolded. Icy calm spread through her fear-soaked body. She grew quiet, watchful, waiting…

Flipping the gun open, he spun the chamber and a couple of bullets popped out. “No gun, huh?” he quipped, sparing her an uneasy glance. He closed the chamber with his thumb and stuck the gun in his pocket before unfolding the photograph.

In the moment it took him to do this, he was marginally distracted. Annie threw the camera at his face and without waiting for his reaction, took off around the far side of the barn, expecting to hear the sharp retort of his rifle….

But it was his voice that followed her. Loud, angry, ordering her to stop. Sure. The horse whinnied his opinion of the mayhem.

Annie veered toward the truck, hoping Skye was in the habit of leaving his keys in the ignition. He wasn’t. Leaping the two feet onto the broad front porch of his house, she tore open the front door and locked it behind her. The small kitchen hosted a back door. As she touched the knob, she heard the tinkle of broken glass coming from the front. Skye would be inside within seconds. She ran outside, circling by the barn again. He’d see her if she took off down the road and there wasn’t a doubt in her mind that he could run faster, even with a limp, than she could.