Countdown. Lindsay McKenna

He knew only that he was staring at her like a slavering wolf—a totally improper reaction to a fellow marine. Desperately gathering his strewn feelings, ignoring the blood pumping through him in response to her single, luminous look, Joe tore his gaze from hers. He was close enough now to read the nametag above the pocket of her feminine uniform: Yellow Horse. With a groan, he slowed considerably, his senses rebelling with anger and frustration.

      Annie Yellow Horse wasn’t anything like the image he’d invented in his mind. Captain Ramsey had spoken of her so often and in such glowing terms that Joe had automatically begun to dislike her. No one could be that good, he’d thought, as Ramsey extolled her capabilities as a tracker to heaven and back. After that kind of buildup, she had no right to look so young—and so damned beautiful! His gaze locked aggressively on hers, and he saw that her eyes were filled with curiosity and compassion.

      If he’d expected some hardened woman corporal, he certainly didn’t see one. Joe watched her slowly rise, tension evident in her tall, lithe body. He wanted to hate her. He certainly didn’t need to play baby-sitter to some world-famous tracker coming into his section. Not right now.

      Joe halted and tried to collect himself. His heart was pounding, and a strange emotion seemed to be radiating outward from it, touching him softly, subtly, throughout his body. What the hell was going on? Was Yellow Horse more than just a tracker? More than just a woman? As he drilled a merciless look into her eyes, he realized he barely needed to look down, so she must be at least five foot nine. Compressing his lips, he continued to glare at her.

      “Yellow Horse?” he snarled. Joe hated himself for behaving this way, but he had to take his anger out on someone, and she was the one making his life even more complicated.

      Annie felt buffeted by the marine’s snarl, but she held her ground, tightened her jaw and deliberately hardened her own eyes. “I am. And who are you?” she flung back in a low, husky tone. She saw surprise in the sergeant’s icy blue gaze. He was trying to tower over her, but because only three inches in height separated them, he couldn’t do it, so he placed his hands imperiously on his hips to bluff her. Annie had been in the Marine Corps for six years, and she knew her place in it as a corporal. This man might be trying to threaten her with his stance, but he was only one grade above her—and he had no right to try to intimidate her this way.

      Joe scowled heavily. He’d seen her eyes go hard—seen her luscious mouth thin with displeasure. And she hadn’t taken a step back from him—hadn’t so much as batted an eyelash. She’d held her ground and, bitterly, he had to respect her for it. “I’m your new boss, Yellow Horse. I’m Sergeant Donnally. I was sent over to baby-sit you. Captain Ramsey couldn’t make it, so you’ve got me instead.” His glance flicked to the personnel file she held tensely in her left hand. “That your orders?”

      “Yes,” Annie snapped back, “it is.”

      “Give them to me.” Joe felt a little chagrined at his own rudeness. Momentarily, he saw confusion dart through Annie’s beautiful eyes—the most alluring feature of her face. Her fingers accidentally grazed his as she handed over the folder, and Joe nearly jerked the file out of her grasp. He pretended to look at the paperwork, but it was a ruse. His heart was hammering so hard that he wondered wildly if this was some sort of early heart-attack warning.

      As he paged through the papers in her file, Joe could feel her silent appraisal. Well, let her look, he thought, it wasn’t going to do her any good. Yellow Horse meant nothing but trouble to him, arriving at a time when the office situation was still tentative and volatile. They had so many morale problems—the legacy of Jacobs, their recently departed captain—and Joe didn’t want to try to integrate a new member on top of it all. Especially since, as a corporal, Yellow Horse would be looking to him for help and direction.

      “Everything seems to be in order,” Joe said gruffly. He glanced over—and instantly drowned in her eyes, which had again lost their hardness. He felt himself being pulled into their gold-flecked, cinnamon depths, framed by thick, black lashes. Why did she have to be so desirable? Disgusted with himself and his response to her, he added in a low snarl, “Come with me.”

      “Wait!” Annie tilted her head. The sergeant was obviously furious—with her?

      “I don’t have all day. What is it?”

      She tried to let his irritability slide off her. “Sergeant Donnally, is something wrong?”

      He gave her a sarcastic look. “Everything’s wrong, Corporal.”

      “How so?”

      Restraining his building anger, Joe drilled her with a venomous look that he hoped would put a stop to her questions. “Corporal,” he announced brusquely, “you work for me. You’re in my section. When I want you to know something, I’ll be the first to tell you. If I don’t want to talk to you about certain things, that’s the way it’ll be. Do we understand each other?”

      Annie held his glare and felt ice pour through her veins. “I’ve had six years in the corps, Sergeant, and I’ve just taken my test to become a sergeant. In two months, I’ll know if I’ll be an E-5 like you. I feel a lot of resentment coming from you toward me. If there’s a problem, perhaps we should work it out here and now. I don’t want to start a new assignment with someone hating my guts.”

      Joe recoiled inwardly. Annie’s soft exterior concealed a steel backbone, he realized. The look in her eyes was no longer lustrous and inviting, it was pointed and fearless. Although part of him respected her for it, a greater part disliked her for her courage. His lips lifted away from his teeth, and he put his face inches from hers, his breathing strangled as he spoke. “Corporal, you work for me. Got that? Until you get that sergeant’s stripe, you’ll do as I say. I’m not the kind of marine who communicates a whole lot, so you’re just going to have to put up with it.” His mouth twisted slightly. “Unless you want a transfer—which wouldn’t bother me at all.”

      Annie swayed and caught herself, inwardly shaken by Donnally’s anger. His blue eyes narrowed with such a fierce light that she knew this man was a hunter and dangerous, with a brutal side that could hurt her emotionally. “I’ve got it, Sergeant,” she whispered tightly. But even as he pulled away and straightened, Annie knew she was in trouble. Great. Her boss hated her just for being here.

      Joe tried desperately to contain his ugly, unraveling feelings. What was wrong with him? He never snarled at his people like this! Thoroughly irritated with himself, he spun on his heel. “Follow me,” he snapped.

      Stalking down the passageway, he tried to figure out what had happened. Yes, he was angry with Captain Ramsey for pulling him off far more important work at the brig office to come and pick up Yellow Horse. Further, he disagreed strongly with his boss about needing a world-class tracker here at Reed: no prisoners had escaped in the two years he’d been here. His conscience smarted. He’d seen his fury hurt Annie. Damn! Now he was thinking of her as Annie! Use her last name and keep it impersonal, he angrily instructed himself.

      Scrambling internally, Joe didn’t want to admit that she’d surprised him—not only with her looks, but with her courage in standing up to his blistering “welcome.” Perhaps her Navajo lineage gave her a special kind of bravery, he mused. Not many marines stood toe-to-toe with him when it came down to a confrontation. Joe was a scrapper, and he was street smart. He’d grown up tough in a gang in the barrio of National City, near San Diego, and he knew how to fight—with his fists and his mouth. Although he looked like his Hispanic and Yaqui Indian mother, his father was of Irish ancestry, so except for his blue eyes, his name, Donnally, didn’t fit Joe’s otherwise dark looks.

      As he pushed open the door, the California heat and bright sunlight struck him full force. Settling the garrison cap on his head, he glanced over his shoulder to see if Yellow Horse was coming. Disgruntled to find her near his left shoulder, he was shocked that he hadn’t heard her at all. Hell! Usually he heard everything—his awareness of his surroundings was, by necessity, sharply honed. That supersensitivity to his environment had saved his life numerous times growing up in the gangs, who fought with deadly knives and pistols. Bitterness