Storm Force. Meredith Fletcher

sir,” Kate said.

      “And you, you little pipsqueak!” Mathis roared, throwing a big finger at Tyler. “What are you doing with that camera?”

      “Figured they might have an anesthesiologists’ convention sometime in the near future,” Tyler said. “Thought maybe I could send them footage of you blowin’ up Little Bunny Foofoo with a thirty-ought-six. I’m bettin’ they’ll find it real entertainin’.”

      Kate really didn’t want Tyler baiting Mathis, but she knew she couldn’t divide her attention.

      “Shut that camera off!” Mathis yelled. “Or I’m going to come out there and beat you to a pulp!”

      “An’ that’s assault,” Tyler added in that smartass tone he had down so cold. “My, my. Your legal difficulties do continue to multiply.”

      “Dr. Mathis,” Kate said calmly, “we can do this with the sheriff’s office in attendance, or we can do it without them. I’m amenable to doing it without them because they could want to arrest you.”

      Mathis cursed, then he reached out, obviously intending to grab Kate by the face and shove her back from the door. Kate grabbed Mathis’s wrist and yanked, swiveling her hip to put her weight into the effort and pull the man out into the yard. She stuck her foot out in front of him and tripped him.

      Caught off-balance, Mathis fell, landing hard on the ground and rolling. “Now you’ve done it, bitch!” He pushed himself to his feet and doubled his big hands into fists. “I tried to be nice to you, but you wouldn’t have it that way. Hell no. You want to be some tightass ice princess? Well, now we’ll see who’s laughing. I didn’t come out here to get made fun of by some backwoods hillbilly.”

      He came at her swinging. There was no finesse to his effort. He was just brute strength focused on hate and powered by rage.

      “Dr. Mathis,” Kate said, putting her right hand on the Asp at her hip, “I’m asking you to cease and desist. Before someone gets hurt.”

      “You’re the only one who’s going to get hurt.”

      Kate knew there was no use talking to him. Either Mathis was too drunk or too full of himself to listen. She took two steps back, dodging punches at her head.

      “Dr. Mathis,” she said, “this is your final warning.”

      “I’ll give you a final warning!” he roared, punching again.

      Pulling the Asp from her hip holster, Kate pressed the stud and extended it to the full twenty-six inches. She kept it hidden by her leg. When Mathis reached for her again, still roaring with rage, she whipped the Asp around and hit him in the elbow, not enough to break anything, but enough to numb the limb. She darted to the side and hit him again, this time in the right calf, temporarily crippling him. Still moving, she walked behind him and hit him in his left thigh, numbing that leg as well.

      Mathis fell.

      Kate wasn’t even breathing hard. She left Mathis lying on the ground, cursing and moaning in pain. Inside the house, worried that one of the doctor’s buddies would try for a rifle and throw the whole situation ballistic, she looked at the men.

      They stood staring at her in open-mouthed astonishment. Even Tyler looked astonished, but he kept the video rolling.

      “You can’t do that,” one of Mathis’s buddies said.

      “It’s done,” Kate said. “It’s over. Grab your belongings and get out.” She walked back out of the cabin on trembling legs. Don’t throw up, she told herself.

      “You know,” Tyler was saying to Mathis, “I take a lot of crap about workin’ for a woman. Ever’day, it seems like somebody’s got some smartass thing to say about it. In fact, as I recall, you seemed to have taken some shots at me over it this mornin’, while you were out there shootin’ holes in deer an’ birds an’ anything you spotted. But you know, workin’ for a woman just kind of takes on a whole new complexion when you see her kick somebody’s ass. I mean, who’d expect it?” He grinned. “I didn’t. I know you didn’t. I can tell by that bug-eyed look of surprise on your pasty face. As you can see, I just kind of developed a whole new appreciation for my boss.” He looked over at Kate. “Want me to call the sheriff’s office now?”

      Kate nodded, afraid to talk because she didn’t trust her voice and didn’t want to sound confused or mad or scared. Actually, she was all of those things. She glanced at her watch. More than that, she was definitely going to be late picking up Steven and Hannah now.

      Chapter 3

      Late! Kate hated to be late. She glanced at her watch as she strode through the Miami International Airport to Traveler’s Aid. She fought back an unaccustomed sense of panic. Sheriff Bannock had sent a deputy around to collect Dr. Darrel Mathis, but it had taken more time than Kate had counted on.

      All around her, people were coming and going, moving like cattle through the increased security measures. They stripped off their shoes and subjected themselves to almost invasive security measures. And a few that got singled out for one infringement or another did get subjected to invasive security measures.

      Forty-eight minutes late. If Bryce knows…Kate stopped herself. He can’t know.

      Feeling panicked, Kate stopped at the car-rental desk and asked directions to Traveler’s Aid. The young woman behind the desk pointed at the sign that Kate had missed. She thanked the woman and walked over to the aid center.

      Steven and Hannah sat in chairs against the wall. Steven wore a perfectly tailored dark suit and looked like a junior executive even at eight years old. He had his father’s dark hair—carefully styled, of course, not a hair out of place. But he had his mom’s dark-green eyes, which had irked Bryce because people always mentioned how much he looked like his mother after they saw Steven’s eyes.

      Hannah had long blond hair, the color a throwback to family on both sides that had added weight to the infidelity charges Bryce’s attorneys had trotted out to muddy the waters of the divorce. At five, Hannah was an angel. Sometimes, when Hannah was working with one of the animals Kate sometimes found out in the wild and nursed back to health, Kate would just sit and watch her daughter, wondering how anyone like Hannah could ever come into the world without some kind of special fanfare. She wore a beautiful dress that would have bankrupted Kate’s account nearly any day of the year. There was no doubt that she had more of them packed away in the suitcase Bryce had sent.

      Steven looked bored and irritated. It was the same expression Kate remembered seeing on his father’s face far too often. He glanced up at the clock on the wall, then compared it to his watch. He shook his head and mumbled.

      But Hannah was talking animatedly with the woman behind the help desk. She was young and black, her hair cut short and elegantly styled. She wasn’t old enough to have children of her own, Kate thought, but from the way she reacted to Hannah, the way she really listened to her, she must have had younger brothers and sisters.

      “My mom does all kinds of things like that,” Hannah was saying. “Sometimes, when people get lost in the Everglades—in the swamps and stuff—she goes out and gets them. She fights snakes and wrestles alligators—”

      “She doesn’t wrestle alligators,” Steven interrupted angrily.

      “Does too,” Hannah said, putting her hands on her hips even though she was sitting down.

      “She’s never wrestled alligators,” Steven said. “You’re confusing her with the guy on television.”

      “Does too,” Hannah said. Whenever she got into an argument with Steven, she generally stayed with one tack because it drove her brother completely crazy.

      Kate knocked on the door.

      Steven and Hannah swiveled their heads toward her. The young receptionist looked up and said, “Can I help you?”

      “I’m—” Kate began,