Sheri WhiteFeather - Apache Nights

Kyle’s gaze stormed hers, as fierce as a silent war cry.

Joyce struggled to contain her emotions, to stop herself from tasting every inch of him. “Then get off me.”

“I don’t want to.” He traced her top, running his fingers along the neckline. He moved lower, righting her clothes, respecting her in a way she’d never imagined. “And you don’t want me to, either.”

Like a heart-pounding fool, she let him stay there, body to body, breath to breath. Even so, she fought the urge to put her arms around him, to hold him. She’d known him for eight months, almost long enough to have a baby.

That alone scared the death out of her. Her biological clock wouldn’t stop ticking.

“We’re in trouble.”

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lives in Southern California and enjoys ethnic dining, attending powwows and visiting art galleries and vintage clothing stores near the beach. Since her one true passion is writing, she is thrilled to be part of the Silhouette Desire line. When she isn’t writing, she often reads until the wee hours of the morning.

Sheri’s husband, a member of the Muscogee Creek Nation, inspires many of her stories. They have a son, a daughter and a trio of cats—domestic and wild. She loves to hear from her readers. You may write to her at: P.O. Box 17146, Anaheim, California 92817. Visit her Web site at www.SheriWhiteFeather.com.

To the readers who noticed Kyle in Always Look Twice and asked if I was going to write his story, this book is for you.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Where in the hell was he?

Joyce Riggs waited at the locked gate in front of Kyle Prescott’s obscure seven-acre dwelling, with an irate rottweiler snarling at her through the chain-link fence.

The guard dog fit Kyle to a T, but so did the other pooch, a miniature dachshund, keeping the rotten rotty company.

How many people would pair a rottweiler and an itty-bitty wiener dog together in the same yard?

And speaking of the yard…

Scattered car parts. Old lawn furniture. Playground equipment. Wagon wheels. A cast-iron stove.

She blinked, deciding it was impossible to itemize everything. Kyle was, after all, a junk dealer. Or at least that was his legitimate profession, his cover, the work he claimed on his income tax returns.

She knew he was a militant who trained other militants, a Native American activist who kept the authorities guessing. And to make matters worse, she had a crush on him, an irritating attraction that had been nipping at her heels since they’d both decided nearly eight months ago that they despised each other.

She blew out a rough breath and did her damnedest to ignore the salivating rotty. But it wasn’t easy. The domineering beast was getting angrier by the second. The wiener dog, on the other hand, was grinning at her like a sweet little goon.

Finally a banging sound caught her attention. The snap of a heavy wooden door, no doubt. Both dogs reacted, and like a muscle-bound mirage, Kyle appeared in the distance, descending the porch steps of his ancient home.

He lived in an isolated section of the high desert where Charles Manson and his merry band of murderers had been rumored to spend time, a place that still seemed like Helter Skelter to the average fear-abiding citizen.

Kyle moved closer, and Joyce squinted at him, wishing he didn’t make her pulse flip and flutter.

It took a while, but he reached the gate, emphasizing his long, lazy strides. And then he smirked, giving her a roguish, Rhett Butler-type look. The rottweiler was still baring his fangs, growling in the name of his gorgeous master. She could tell the dog was male. She could see his I’m-a-boy testes.

Fiddle-dee-dee, she thought. Supposedly Kyle had quite a pair, too. Not to mention the body part that went with them. She’d heard he was hung like a Trojan horse.

Not that she cared.

“Detective Riggs,” he said. “What a surprise.”

“I called and told you to expect me.”

“And I told you not to bother.”

“Aren’t you the least bit curious why I’m here?” she baited.

He angled his head. As usual, his razor-sharp shoulder length hair was held in place with a cloth headband, reminiscent of the Geronimo era in Apache history. At six-four, he was a tall, dark half-blood, a man who carried his heritage like a nineteenth-century rifle.

He wore a blue T-shirt, button-fly jeans and knee-high moccasins. He was thirty-six, the same age as Joyce, but they didn’t have anything in common, nothing but an unyielding attraction.

He shifted his stance, and the sandy soil settled around his feet. “If this is official police business then you’ll have to get a warrant.”

“Why?” The October wind snapped like a whip, stinging her face. “Did you kill someone?”

His smirk faded. Kyle was a highly decorated Desert Storm soldier, a full-blown war hero. He didn’t take death lightly. But neither did she. Joyce was a homicide detective.

For an instant, they simply stared at each other, trapped in a challenging moment. Then she glanced at the rottweiler. He remained on teeth-gnashing alert. “Will you call off that damn dog?”

The smile returned, the crisscross pattern on the fence distorting Kyle’s handsome features. “He doesn’t like cops.”

“I doubt he likes anyone.”

“He likes Olivia.”

Trust Kyle to bring up his former lover. Olivia was a mutual friend, a psychic who assisted the LAPD and the FBI and every other law enforcement agency Kyle claimed to hate.

But Olivia was also a beautiful, strong-willed woman who trained with Kyle in his private compound, something Joyce was hoping to do.

Especially now, while she was desperate to piece her shattered emotions back together.

“I’m willing to pay you,” she said.

That caught his attention. He gave the dog a subtle command, and it stopped snarling. He’d spoken in what sounded like a foreign language. Not anything Joyce recognized. Most likely, he’d trained his rotty to respond to Apache.

“Pay me for what?” he asked.

“For your sessions. Hand to hand combat. War games. Everything you offer here.”

“I don’t train cops.”

“Then I’ll be your first.”

He gave her a suspicious glare. “Why?”

“Because I’m going through a tough time, some personal issues I can’t seem to resolve.” She didn’t like revealing herself to him, but she wasn’t going to unearth every little detail. Joyce’s biological clock was ready to explode, something she couldn’t begin to understand, something that was spinning out of control. “I need to blow off some steam. Get physical. Take my mind off my problems.”

“Then go to the police range and fire your gun. Do whatever your kind do.”