Beverly Bird - All The Way

“You knew that or you couldn’t have found me. Someone had to have told you I was leading this ride.”

“The desk clerk at the Connor suggested where I might find you. You have a few of his paying customers astride.”

“Yes.” It seemed safest to keep things simple until she could gauge his intent.

“I’m staying there.”

She forced herself to nod. “How nice.”

“I thought the Copper Rose might be a little…too close for comfort.”

“Well, don’t let me keep you.”

He made no move to go. She hadn’t expected him to. “Where’s Johnny Guenther? Back at the inn cleaning the toilets?”

“Don’t you dare disparage him!” Outrage hit her with enough force to take her breath away. “He did more for me than you ever did!”

It was cruel, and his eyes showed it. “I thought he might be the type who would jump to do your bidding. That’s what you wanted, right, Livie?”

She clamped her jaw hard, refusing to rise to the bait. “Right.”

“So where is he now?”

She was all out of lies. And there was no sense in them anymore, anyway. She’d devised them all to keep him away. “Flagstaff, I would imagine. We’re not together anymore. You knew that, too. From Delaware.”

He nodded. “Get up on your mare, Livie. Let’s ride a bit. We need to talk.”

“I have to catch up with my group.”

“Do it later.”

She brought her chin up. “No. You need to go.”

He was off his horse in a flash. She’d forgotten how he could move like that, as though he were part of the wind. Liv back-pedaled quickly enough that she almost stumbled. When he reached out to catch her, she jumped again. “Don’t touch me!”

“Scared you might still like it?”

Yes. “I got over you the day I knew you weren’t coming back.”

“Why would I bother? You were the only thing in Arizona worth seeing, and you closed the door.”

It cracked something inside her and she made a sound she despised, something low and throaty and pained. Liv turned away from him. “I’m leaving.”

“Fine. Then I’ll see you at the Copper Rose tonight.”

It stopped her in her tracks. “Don’t come there!”

“Why? Do you think I’ll figure out that that little girl is mine?”

Liv felt her knees fold. Hearing him say it aloud had her reaching quickly for the saddle horn to regain her balance. Her mare sensed her tension and skittered cautiously out of reach. Liv fisted her hands and turned back to Hunter.

She was many things, but she had never been a coward.

“I’m afraid that she’ll figure out she is.”

It stopped him like stone just as he began to approach her again. Liv wanted to see his eyes, had to know what she’d find there. But when he reached up and pulled off his ultradark sunglasses, all she saw in that dark, dangerous blue was betrayal.

“I could kill you for this.” He nearly snarled the words.

Things inside her went cold. It happened gradually, starting in her heart, then spreading out through her limbs. If he had loved her once—and that was a big if—then he clearly hated her now.

Liv told herself she didn’t care. Not anymore. “Cut me a break, Hunter. You’re the last man in the world likely to spend time shaking a rattle over a bassinet.”

“I never knew I had a bassinet worth rattling over.” He moved in her direction again.

Liv rounded to the other side of her horse. Fast. “Don’t you dare take another step toward me.”

“I want to choke you.”

There was enough of a vibration in his tone to tell her that he meant it. “Which is precisely why I want you to stay right over there.”

“I’m not leaving, Olivia. Not until we settle this.”

“You already left. Eight and a half years ago.”

“That was your choice. This time around, I’ll decide.”

It snatched the air right from her lungs. Liv looked into the dark-blue midnight of his eyes. Midnight was when all the most dangerous animals came out in the desert, she thought, the ones that could kill. “If you drag Vicky into this just to tell the world you had a part in it, I will hunt you down and destroy you.”

“Spoken like a mama protecting her cub.”

“I am.”

His grin was slow and cruel. “Damn, Livie, could it be that you’re capable of loving someone after all?”

Then he closed the distance between them. The mare skittered away, spooked. He brought his hand up to close it around Liv’s throat.

His palm was calloused as it had always been, the splay of his fingers broad, and that was the same, too. The thumb stroking under her right ear made something inside her convulse.

“I’m not Johnny Guenther, babe. I don’t know what you did to him or where he went, but I won’t let you snap your fingers and tell me where to go.”

“I’ve got a few good suggestions.” She couldn’t breathe.

“It’s too hot where you’re thinking. And even the devil won’t have me there.”

“He might be afraid of the competition.”

“With good cause.”

Liv slapped his hand away. “I’m not nineteen anymore. You don’t impress me, and you can’t touch me and make me crumble and forget everything I need.”

“We’ll see.”

She spun away from him to find her horse. This time she managed to get hold of her saddle horn. Liv swung into the saddle.

“Eight o’clock,” he said. “Tonight. We’ll finish this then. Meet me in the Spirit Room at the Connor Hotel. I’ll buy you a drink…for old time’s sake.”

Her gaze whipped to his face. “There really wasn’t anything worth commemorating, Hunter.”

“If you’re not there by eight-thirty, I’ll come looking for you.”

Liv didn’t acknowledge the threat with an answer. She put her heels to her mare and trotted past him, then she let the horse break into a canter when they reached the trail. But no matter how fast they moved, she couldn’t get past the fact that he looked much better in person than he ever had on TV—and so much more volatile.

God help me, she thought. I’m in trouble.

Hunter watched her go. That long dark hair of hers, all woven with gold, bounced against her back with the horse’s jog, just the way it had all those years ago. She wore a tight red tank top that told him she hadn’t put on a pound in eight years, except maybe in the right places. Her legs were still trim and lean and long, clasped in denim as her thighs gripped her mount.

What a shame that she could still make his mouth water, Hunter thought, because he had every intention of unraveling her lie, thread by thread, piece by piece, even if it hurt her.

“You’re sitting on that pony like you’ve got one of Dinny’s broom handles down the back of your shirt!” he shouted at her as she rode the horse in circles around him. “Loosen up!”

“I’m loose!” But then the horse broke into a faster gait and she squealed and grabbed the saddle horn.

She’d been afraid of horses from the first moment he’d met her, Hunter thought. Her father had been a college professor, her mother an artist. Though she’d been born and raised in Phoenix, Livie had never set foot near a horse until she landed on the Res.

He’d done his best to ease her out of her fear, if only for the sake of her survival. It had been a long distance from point to point back there in Navajo land. But Liv had always preferred to walk or stick her thumb out whenever she needed to go somewhere.

Now her new job demanded that she know how to manage a horse. She’d been hired by one of the major Flagstaff resorts to work in their stables and guide their group rides. She’d let her past speak for itself, implying that a girl from the high-country could gallop with the best of them. She needed the job, so she hadn’t bothered to mention that she preferred her heels planted solidly on the ground. She’d written him a frantic letter for help instead.