Bodyguard Father. Alice Sharpe

now, not with that picture waiting to be unfolded. Icy calm spread through her fear-soaked body. She grew quiet, watchful, waiting…

      Flipping the gun open, he spun the chamber and a couple of bullets popped out. “No gun, huh?” he quipped, sparing her an uneasy glance. He closed the chamber with his thumb and stuck the gun in his pocket before unfolding the photograph.

      In the moment it took him to do this, he was marginally distracted. Annie threw the camera at his face and without waiting for his reaction, took off around the far side of the barn, expecting to hear the sharp retort of his rifle….

      But it was his voice that followed her. Loud, angry, ordering her to stop. Sure. The horse whinnied his opinion of the mayhem.

      Annie veered toward the truck, hoping Skye was in the habit of leaving his keys in the ignition. He wasn’t. Leaping the two feet onto the broad front porch of his house, she tore open the front door and locked it behind her. The small kitchen hosted a back door. As she touched the knob, she heard the tinkle of broken glass coming from the front. Skye would be inside within seconds. She ran outside, circling by the barn again. He’d see her if she took off down the road and there wasn’t a doubt in her mind that he could run faster, even with a limp, than she could.

      And bullets ran faster than either of them.

      That left the horse. She ducked into the barn, faltering for a second as her eyes fought to adjust to the shadows, almost tripping over the bales of hay Skye had apparently unloaded just inside the door. She ran toward the only light, the open half door through which the horse had spotted her. There was no purpose hiding in a dark corner—he’d find her. She could see no handy weapon and doubted she’d be able to throw a pitchfork hard enough to stop him anyway.

      She’d take the horse and ride it down the mountain and escape that way. Good Lord, what was she thinking?

      She was thinking she didn’t want to die.

      She approached the animal as slowly as her panic and pounding heart allowed. The big brown horse eyed her suspiciously as she opened his stall door. He was a lot bigger than he’d looked from the outside when the business half of him had been obscured by the lower half of the door. She didn’t have time to get to know him or even saddle him. Any minute now, Garrett Skye would erupt through that door wielding his rifle—

      She stretched out a hand to touch the horse’s glistening neck, surprised at his warmth. He was wearing a halter but his head was a long way from his back even when he twisted around and looked her eyeball to eyeball. She half expected him to ask her what the hell she thought she was doing. She grabbed a handful of fetlock and bounced on her feet to build the momentum to swing herself atop.

      As she launched herself upward, Skye limped his way through the barn door, his rifle held at his side. For a second, Annie imagined Skye’s shocked expression when she proceeded to gallop the brown horse right over the top of him.

      The horse rose up partly on his hind legs, twisted around and thudded back to the earth. Annie went flying as her tenuous grip failed.

      Her last conscious thought was irritation with herself, not the horse. Then she hit the wall and slid to the floor, the world eclipsed to a single black dot and then to nothing….

       Chapter Two

      Setting the rifle aside, Garrett put a steady hand on Scio’s nose. “It’s okay, fella,” he whispered as he ran a hand along the horse’s quivering flesh. He carefully led the nervous animal out of the stall so he wouldn’t trample their intruder. He put him in an adjoining stall and closed the gate.

      His mind moved faster than his body as he returned to the woman. He had to assume she had called in Klugg’s men or the police, depending on which side of the law she worked. If it was the police they’d already be here. That left Klugg and that meant he had three or four hours to get as far away from here as possible. Besides the horse, everything of any importance was already packed in a duffel bag and stowed behind the bench seat in Ben’s truck. If there was one thing Garrett knew how to do it was cut his losses and move on. He’d drive to the nearest big city and abandon the truck there, as per his long planned escape route.

      First things first. What in the world did he do with the woman in Scio’s stall?

      She wasn’t very big and she wasn’t very old, maybe mid-twenties. Her black glasses had come loose and he plucked them from the stable floor. He peered through the lenses—no correction—and tossed them aside.

      Balancing on the balls of his feet, he squatted beside her, his right leg aching with the movement. He was reassured to find a pulse fluttering in her throat. All he needed was another dead woman on his hands.

      The thick brown hair sat kind of lopsided on her head. As he watched, it slid to the ground and lay there like a dead squirrel, revealing finely textured lustrous auburn hair pinned atop her head, held with a bunch of little pink-and-yellow butterfly clips. The kind his kid wore. They looked sweet on Megan. On a grown woman they made a disconcerting statement he wouldn’t even try to figure out.

      What in the world should he do with her? Man, he should have shot her when she threw the damn camera at him, but he didn’t shoot unarmed people in the back.

      Not even hired hit men.

      Is that what she was? She hadn’t had her gun ready, she hadn’t planned an escape and she was wearing little butterflies in her hair. He patted her down, ignoring the tantalizing bumps and curves under her clothing, and came away empty-handed. But he was also pretty sure nothing was broken or bleeding and that was a relief.

      Also, no identification, just one car key dangling on a ring. As far as he was concerned, that fit the profile of a pro, and a hardened one at that. Of course there was her phone to take a look at, but first he needed to figure out what to do with her.

      He lifted one of her eyelids with his thumb and she groaned. He fetched a coil of rope from a hook on the wall and, using his pocketknife, sliced it into lengths. He tied her hands together in front of her, then her ankles. No need for a gag; there was no one on this hill to hear her except Scio and himself. With a sigh, he unceremoniously flopped her over his shoulder and carried her back into the cabin. He dumped her in a big chair by the fire before stoking the dying embers and tossing on another log. Standing with his back to the comforting warmth, he ignored the pain in his leg and stared at her.

      In the quick trip between the barn and the house, she’d collected a few of the predicted snowflakes on her silky hair. They melted as he watched. It had been a long time since he’d been close to a woman. A long time. He’d almost forgotten the yielding softness of a female body, the fragrance of perfumed hair. This woman looked deceptively sweet and innocent. Dark lashes against pale cheeks, lips slightly parted and faintly peach-colored. In another time and place, he would have enjoyed just looking at her.

      He turned away abruptly and left the cabin, closing the door behind him. He’d broken a pane of glass in the top of the door to get inside when he chased her. He’d have to repair that before he left Ben’s cabin.

      First he veered toward the barn, where he retrieved the camera she’d thrown at him. Then he went into the barn to reassure the horse and reclaim his rifle. As he made his way down the hill, snowflakes gathering on his bare head and shoulders, he reviewed the last several pictures she’d taken—the driveway, the barn and house, Ben’s junk mail, several of him in front of Naughton’s Stop and Shop.

      She was after him, all right.

      When he dug for the car key he’d confiscated, he came across the photo of his truck, the one he’d found in her pocket when he searched for her gun. It took him a moment to figure out where the picture had been taken. The broken antenna placed it within the last month. He was sitting alone in the cab, staring out the driver’s-side window. He wore an old green hat he’d found in the barn.

      He’d worn that hat only once and that had been during a quick trip to Reno to catch a glimpse of Megan. Back around her birthday in early December. His daughter’s smile