The Maverick. Carrie Alexander

nudged his. “Spread ’em.”

      Luke knew the stance. The command amused him, coming from Sophie’s baby-doll lips. Without even trying, he remembered the taste of her mouth, the velvet stroke of her tongue. The clarity of the memory was agonizing. Shouldn’t he have forgotten by now?

      “What is this?” Punch blustered. “C’mon, you can’t—”

      Luke chuckled mirthlessly. “Deputy Sophie’s arresting me, Punch. Don’t interrupt a woman at work.”

      Sophie gave him an abrupt shove between the shoulder blades. “Funny guy,” she said, and started patting him down. She was efficient about it, but the effect her hands had on him as they ran over his body was anything but professional. Through his swift arousal, he felt her fingers slip into his back pocket. A small sound followed—the snick of his knife opening.

      He looked over his shoulder. Sophie’s left hand tightened on the back of his belt as she held out the knife, the silver blade flashing in the sunshine. She hesitated for a moment, saying nothing, her eyes accusing him.

      The corners of his mouth twitched at the thought of her considering him a dangerous character. “A trinket,” he said with a shrug.

      She pocketed the knife. Gave him another shove. “I called in your license, Mr. Salinger. There are no outstanding out-of-state warrants on you.” The back of her hands ran lightly over his legs, down, then up the insides, skimming across his thighs. After an infinitesimal hesitation, she cupped his crotch, her fingers skimming for a weapon. The intimate touch lasted for only a split second, but in that one tick of a moment his response leapt at the speed of light. Fire shot to his groin, producing a slight twitch, a thickening rush of desire. She gave a small gasp and pulled her hand away, her cheeks flaring as pink as the cotton candy he’d once fed her at the county fair.

      “Yeah, aside from the one nasty breaking and entering charge, I’ve been a very good boy.” His voice was rough, mocking, certain that Sophie’s reaction to his old arrest would be as cold as a bucket of ice water. He needed to douse the fire between them right now. Or, heaven help him, jail would seem like a reasonable alternative.

      “You’re not getting off so easy this time,” she snapped with frigid precision. He silently complied when she jerked his arms behind his back and clamped a hard metal bracelet around his wrist. “You forget. There’s more than one charge. Add vandalism, arson and evading arrest and you’re looking at a nice stay in the state pen, Mr. Salinger.”

      “Neither the Salingers nor the Lucases do hard time,” he pointed out with fake good humor, which seemed to make her even colder and angrier. “When push comes to shove, they bribe the judge.”

      She yanked at his wrist and clicked the other handcuff into place. “Judge Cobb retired. We’ll see if Judge Entwhistle is as lenient.”

      “Aw, Soph—handcuffs? Do you really need handcuffs?” Punch spread his upturned palms. “This is Maverick—you remember Maverick. Hell, you and him used to be—”

      “Old news,” Sophie said. “If Mr. Salinger didn’t want to be arrested he shouldn’t have come back to a town where there are charges against him on the books. I’m just doing my job.”

      “Man, when did you get to be such a hard-ass?” Punch complained. “Shucks, girl, you used to ride with the Mustangs! We don’t turn on one of our own.”

      “All that was a long time ago,” Sophie said. She stole a quick look at Luke. “Things have changed.”

      Not as much as either of them might have wanted. He thought of the fleeting touch of her hand between his legs. And his instantaneous reaction.

      “Everything’s changed,” she added under her breath.

      In the shadow of the hat brim, her eyes were large and liquid, betraying a modicum of shyness despite her position of authority. There was still a beguiling air of innocent femininity about her.

      Only the appearance of it, Luke reminded himself, trying again to be ruthless.

      He scowled, unable to reconcile his memories of the teenage Sophie with both the woman she was now and all that he’d been told of her since he’d skipped town. Fourteen years was too immense a span to leap when doubts were nipping at his heels.

      One question was clanging inside his head. What if he’d been wrong about her?

      Sophie read him his rights in a flattened, disaffected voice, then hustled him into the patrol car. Punch gave her a hard time, sputtering and complaining, looking ready to carry out his nickname. The burly Italian calmed down some when Luke asked him to look after the motorcycle, but he continued to glower at Sophie, muttering under his breath. She unconcernedly went about her job, slamming shut the back door and climbing behind the wheel. She swept off her hat, started the car and reached for the radio all at the same time, and was soon reporting her progress to the dispatcher as she spun the steering wheel one-handed. The tires squealed. She trod on the gas, aiming the car straight down the mountain.

      Luke watched the scenery for a while, silent as a stone while he tried to work out the ramifications of his arrest on his unsuspecting family. Tough to concentrate on what would be a replay of the same old recriminations and accusations when Sophie was sitting a few feet away. His gaze kept straying to the curve of her fragile neck, framed by a crisp collar and the wild corkscrew curls that had come loose from her hair clip. She held her shoulders and head with a stiff military precision—no more broody teenage slouch. And she’d filled out some, was stronger and more substantial than the reed of a girl she’d been the last time he’d seen her. She’d become physically confident, he decided. Brisk and competent, certain enough of herself to handle a job that called for a typically male brand of aggression.

      Little Sophie Ryan had truly become a cop, just as Heath had claimed. Luke shook his head in amazement, even though it might not be such a strange career choice when he considered her final gesture toward him.

      He wasn’t especially worried about the old charges she’d arrested him for. In fact, he’d assumed that his grandmother had smoothed that over years ago. Not out of a particular concern for him, but to protect the precious family name. For all the affection between them, he’d never been as valuable to Mary Lucas as the family’s history, longevity and status, which she’d preserve at all costs.

      Roughly fourteen years ago, he and a few of the Mustangs had broken into a lawyer’s office in Treetop. For Luke, the mission had justified the means. He’d been too narrowly focused to foresee how quickly the break-in would escalate into a free-for-all, particularly when his liquored-up friends were involved. Demon and Snake had started trashing the place—supposedly to cover their tracks. Luke had grabbed what he’d come for and hustled them out as quickly as he could. Too quickly, it had turned out, because he’d overlooked the lighted lamp that had fallen off the desk onto a sheaf of upended files. They’d been long gone before the fire had started.

      Being young and stupid was no defense. He was guilty. No one would believe it now, but back then, as rebellious as he’d been, he’d intended to turn himself in after learning about the fire. All he’d wanted was to see Sophie first. To tell her that it would be okay, that she should stay strong and wait for him even if he was sent to jail.

      He remembered driving to her dad’s dumpy trailer on what had turned out to be his last night in town. The crisp autumn air had been tinged with the scent of snow, and there had been a wildly romantic notion of inviting Sophie to run away with him floating around inside his head. The patrol car parked in the Ryan’s weed-choked driveway had stopped him like a brick wall.

      First he thought that Sophie was merely being questioned. But the snatches of conversation he’d caught through the thin aluminum sides of the trailer seemed to tell a different tale. By all appearances, Luke’s girlfriend—loyal little Sophie—was ratting him out.

      He’d let impulse take over, leaving Treetop in a fury so hot it had shriveled his breaking heart into a coal. That had always been his way—covering pain with burning anger. Learning the art of icy detachment had taken years.