Cowboy to the Max. Rita Herron

chocolate eyes brimming with sudden tears. “I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to…”

       What the hell? Were those real tears? Or was she a consummate actress?

       For a moment, he studied her, searching for the cold-hearted vixen who had seduced him with her lies, then drugged him and hung him out to dry.

       But the woman in front of him looked small, vulnerable, even innocent, as if she wouldn’t hurt a fly. And she was still so damn beautiful that he felt as if he’d been punched in the chest just like he had the first time he’d seen her in that seedy bar fending off the hands of the jerks who thought her waitress services included servicing them.

       She also looked terrified.

       She should be, dammit.

      Sure, she’s terrified. She’s finally been caught at her own game.

       Hardening himself, he moved off of her, careful to keep his gun trained on her as he stowed hers in his jacket pocket.

       “You know I’ve spent five years in a maximum security prison for a murder I didn’t commit, all because of you,” Carter said in an icy voice. “You drugged me that night, didn’t you?”

       She clutched her small-boned hands in her lap, twisting them in the knots of her Navajo print skirt, her face pale and pinched.

       “Didn’t you?” Carter growled.

       Her labored breath rattled out, then she looked up at him and gave a small nod.

       Her confirmation made his chest seize with much-needed relief that he wasn’t crazy, that he hadn’t gone on some drunken rage, killed that man and blacked out and forgotten it.

       On the heels of that relief, fury flooded him.

       So he had been right. She’d used him.

       His hand tightened around the handle of the gun as the memory of waking with all that blood on his hands suffused him. The dingy hotel room, the furniture ripped apart, the tattered clothes strewn about as if an animal had ripped at them.

       The jagged hole in the man’s chest, the knife in his hand… “Why?”

       Another deep breath, and she averted her eyes. “I’m sorry, Carter. I’m so sorry.”

       “I don’t want an apology,” he bellowed. “I want the damn truth. Why did you do it? Did someone pay you?” He paced in front of her, waving the weapon, his boots hammering the cheap linoleum. “Did you and the killer plan this, then you picked me out of the bar?” He whirled back around to face her, jabbing his chest with his thumb. “Why, Sadie? Why me? Was I just the biggest fool in the room, or was it because I was falling all over you?”

      SADIE WILLED HERSELF to be strong.

       Carter had every reason to hate her. But she was terrified he’d unleash five years of rage and kill her.

       And as much as she despised herself for what she’d done, she didn’t want to die. “You don’t understand,” she whispered.

       He glared at her with condemning eyes, eyes so cold that he could practically kill with them. His face was rugged, jaw unshaven, the scars he’d gained in jail deeper and puckered.

       But beneath the rage, she sensed a wealth of pain, pain she had helped cause by her betrayal.

       Where had he been the last few days? Hiding out in ditches? Barns?

       All because of her.

       The memory of the night they’d made love flashed back. He’d been a bad-boy hellion back then, full of anger, the strong-and-silent type; maybe that was what had attracted her. In bed, he’d been physically demanding, too, had made her body ache with want and desire and need. Yet he’d also been gentle and loving, determined to please her as much as he’d wanted pleasure for himself. And his sexual prowess had been overwhelming.

       The gentleness was gone now, though, replaced by a steely intent to exact revenge.

       “I asked you—why me?” Carter demanded.

       She startled at the sound of his booming voice, then forced herself to look up at him. She owed him an explanation.

       If it endangered her, then so be it. She was tired of being on the run and smothered by guilt.

       “I don’t know,” Sadie said, clenching her skirt in her hands. “Maybe because you and Dyer had a run-in two nights before.”

       Carter narrowed his eyes. “We did?”

       “You don’t remember?” She sighed. “You and he were both drinking, playing pool. It was nothing, just a bar brawl, but I guess the incident made you a patsy.”

       Carter scrubbed his hand over his beard stubble. “Who were you working with?” Carter asked gruffly.

       Sadie’s heart thumped with shock. “You have it all wrong,” she said, suddenly realizing that Carter thought she had conspired in the murder he’d been arrested for. “I didn’t kill that man or have anything to do with it.”

       Disbelief slashed fierce lines around his chiseled mouth. “You expect me to buy that story? You seduced me, drugged me, then set me up.”

       “No,” Sadie protested, although her protests sounded weak, even to her own ears. The truth was, she had helped set him up, even though she hadn’t realized it at the time.

       He stalked toward her, then jammed the gun in her face again. He was so close she smelled his anger, felt his breath brush her cheek. “Don’t lie to me. You owe me the truth, so spill it or you’re dead.”

       Sadie shook her head, her stomach churning. “You’re not a killer, Carter. You won’t—”

       He cocked the trigger. “If you don’t think I’m a killer, why the hell didn’t you stand up for me in court and say that? Why did you let them lock me up?”

       “Because I was scared.” Sadie’s hand rose to her neck, then unconsciously to the scar on her chest. It ached, the burning sensation triggered by the memory of the man digging a knife in her chest.

       Carter’s look flattened. “Scared? Scared of what?”

       Sadie closed her eyes, willing the memories away, but they consumed her anyway. The big man’s beefy hands around her neck, choking her. His rancid breath on her face. His gruff, steely voice rasping threats in her ear.

       Suddenly Carter jerked her head back, and her eyes flew open. “Tell me what happened,” he growled. “Who set me up?”

       Sadie wheezed a breath. “I don’t know his name,” she whispered. “Just that he broke into my house after you left me in bed that first night we made love.”

       “The night before the murder?”

       She nodded. “He had a knife, he…”

       Carter’s eyes flickered over her, cold, icy pits of hell. “He what?”

       “He put it to my throat. He almost strangled me, then he threatened to kill my mother and me if I didn’t do what he said.” Her breathing grew ragged. “He knew where I lived, that my mother was sick, and he was going to make her suffer....”

       Carter’s eyes narrowed to slits as her voice broke, then he swallowed hard, making the vein in his neck bulge. “What exactly did he tell you to do?”

       Sadie’s heart wrenched. “To slip you a roofie when you came in again.” Her voice cracked, tears clogging her throat. “I didn’t want to do it, Carter, but I was terrified.”

       A heartbeat of silence stretched between them, the tension palpable. “Did he tell you why he wanted me drugged?”

       “No.” Sadie shook her head in denial. “I swear, I had no idea what he was up to. I…thought he planned to rob you or something. It never occurred to me that he was planning a murder.”