Scarlet Vows. Dani Sinclair

agree with me.”

      Annoyance changed to concern. Drew stared at the man who had been his best friend and chief rival since grade school. As owners of the local newspaper, Carey’s family was almost as prominent as the Pierce family. Drew figured he knew Carey about as well as anyone. Carey had been a ladies’ man since conception, so Drew had to concede it was unusual for him to disappear when there was a beauty like Nancy on the scene. Especially when Carey had been competing with Drew for her attention ever since they’d met.

      “Do you want to go home?” he asked his friend.

      “No, no. I’m fine now. Besides, I promised to teach this lovely lady how to shoot. I want her to see for herself that I wasn’t bragging last night. Out-shooting Drew is really as easy as I claimed,” he told her archly.

      But his tone was falsely hearty. Drew frowned. Before he could pull his friend aside to find out what was wrong, his attention centered on a woman with a mass of red-gold hair spilling over delicate shoulders. The woman stood with her back to him, talking intently to a man he didn’t recognize. The graceful curve of her back and the tantalizing flare of slim hips encased in well-worn jeans anchored his attention.

      He willed her to turn around. His stomach knotted as he waited for a glimpse of her face. Instead, she laid a hand on the man’s bare arm. He in turn smiled intimately down at her. Drew took an unconscious step toward her.

      The man’s baseball cap masked his features, but Drew glimpsed silver-streaked hair poking from beneath his cap. The man looked to be in his fifties. What was Brianna doing with a man old enough to be her father? Hadn’t she learned anything from what had happened to his sister?

      Carey nudged him in the ribs. “What do you think, Drew?”

      “What?” Momentarily diverted, his gaze whipped back to his companions.

      “Fat chance,” Zach responded to some comment Drew hadn’t heard.

      Carey’s features lit in familiar challenge. “You want to take me on as well, Zach?”

      “No way. I just want to watch the fun.”

      Irritated at the interruption, Drew turned back toward the woman, certain it was Brie. But the couple was strolling away, deep in conversation. The man’s arm lay possessively across her shoulders as he bent his head close to hers in an intimate way. Drew clenched his jaw.

      “Come on, we’re up,” Zach said.

      As the couple faded into the crowd he reluctantly joined the others. Target shooting was the last thing Drew wanted to do—especially now. His reaction to seeing Brie was surprising. He’d known the possibility existed when he returned home to run for mayor, but he hadn’t been prepared for the wild surge of emotions that bubbled inside him at the sight of a stranger’s arm on her shoulders.

      Maybe it hadn’t been her.

      Who was he trying to kid? Four years or forty, he suspected she would always incite emotions so elemental they gripped him like a vise. Brianna Dudley was the only female who had ever had the power to scramble his brains. How had he managed to forget that about her?

      Edgy and out of sorts, he followed the others onto the range absently, lost in memories he’d put aside a long time ago. He jerked back to the present when he saw they’d been assigned to the last four stands on the end closest to the woods.

      The firing range itself was built into a bowl-shaped depression surrounded by dense woods on three sides. He stared at the trees. The disquiet he’d been feeling all morning intensified. While a credible shot, Drew hadn’t been able to summon up any enthusiasm for this tournament. Instead, his desire to leave was strong enough to surprise him.

      “Something wrong, Drew?” Nancy asked as Carey took the stand beside him.

      “No.”

      Carey eyed him strangely. Zach frowned. “Come on, Nancy, you’re between me and Carey,” he told her. “I’ll help you get set.”

      “Oh, no, I’ll help her,” Carey said smoothly. “After all, I promised to show her how it was done.”

      Drew tuned them out. He gazed at the target down-range. It had been almost four years since he’d seen Brie, yet she could still set his pulses racing from a distance. How crazy was that?

      He sought another focus for his wandering attention. The brooding string of trees on the hill offered nothing helpful. He was here to compete. Inattention on a firing range was dangerous and stupid.

      The call went out that the line was live. As people began firing their practice shots, the scent of cordite filled his nostrils. Blue clouds of smoke already hung in the heavy air. Shots thundered in his ears despite the requisite protective headgear. Sweat gathered at his hairline, beginning a lazy trickle down his face. He checked and loaded his weapon.

      Drew lined up his sights and fired, wishing he were elsewhere—preferably an air-conditioned elsewhere, but Nancy had mapped out an entire program of places he needed to go over the next few days even though the real campaigning wouldn’t begin until after the July Fourth festivities. With his father’s blessing, Nancy had met with the float committee to discuss Drew’s role on the family float. She’d scheduled him to give the short speech before the picnic, a job his grandfather and father generally handled, and she’d lined up a press interview immediately afterward.

      His family had been right. She was good at her job. She’d done her homework on Moriah’s Landing and she’d planned a solid strategy for getting his name in front of the community.

      She was extremely attractive, and more than once he’d caught a hint of sensual awareness slumbering in her serious gaze. He gave her points for the subtle way she made her interest in deepening their relationship clear without coming on to him. They had a lot in common. Drew genuinely liked Nancy. She’d make a good political partner, but as tempting as she was, Drew hesitated to change their status. Resisting his family’s attempts at matchmaking had become a habit. He knew his father and grandfather had decided Nancy was an ideal choice for more than his campaign manager.

      Drew watched as she took careful aim at her target. Her first two shots went wide. The next shot hit the black outline on the outermost fringe. Carey had talked her into competing in the novice category even though she’s said she’d never done any shooting before.

      Because he was concentrating on Nancy, he never saw the figure pelting down the steep dirt incline until he turned back to take aim at his own target. He released the trigger instantly.

      She ran like a puppet on a string—or someone at the tail end of their stamina. Her long, dark hair tangled around her face, hiding her features.

      Drew yelled for everyone to hold their fire. But at the opposite end of the range, someone was shooting what sounded like a cannon. His voice had no hope of carrying over that sound.

      Drew didn’t stop to think. He sprinted toward the woman.

      She stumbled and fell, taking his heart down with her. In seconds she was up again, but staggering.

      A barrage of bullets passed so close Drew could practically feel the displaced air. The woman jerked to an abrupt stop. She twisted to look behind her, her features contorted by a mask of sheer panic. She took a faltering step and went down again. This time she made no move to rise.

      He reached her, crouching over her still form. Red blossomed on her dirt-stained, cotton-print blouse. The deep, dark color spread rapidly across her chest. He sought for the pulse in her neck. Weak. Thready. He could hear each ragged breath she took. The shallow bursts sounded as if each one might be her last.

      Her head lolled to the side, giving him a clear glimpse of the red furrow that had plowed its way along the side of her skull, disappearing beneath her tangled hair. Without moving her, he couldn’t tell if the bullet had entered her head or not, but she was still alive.

      The sudden silence was almost as deafening as the noise had been. Drew raised his face to yell for an ambulance.

      Pressed