Manhunt in the Wild West Read Free

and pale, and he didn’t look like he smiled much. And those eyes…up close they were even more magnetic than she’d thought them from afar, ice blue and arresting, and holding a level of intensity that reached inside her and grabbed on, kindling a curl of heat in her belly.
    He looked more like a grown-up than most of the thirty-somethings she knew. He looked like a leader, like someone who would take charge of any situation.
    “We’re just the transporters,” he said, his voice a rough rasp that slid along her nerve endings and left tiny shivers behind. “We’re running late, so it’d be best if you signed off on the delivery so we can be on our way.” Something moved in his expression, there and gone so quickly she almost missed it, but leaving the impression that his words were more an order than a suggestion.
    Nerves fired through her, warning that something wasn’t right.
    Not liking the feeling, or the strange effect the guard had on her, Chelsea backpedaled a step. But she stuck to operating procedures, saying, “I’m not signing anything if there’s blood on the bags. You have no idea what killed these men. For all we know, it could be an infectious agent.” She gestured for Jerry to step away from the gurney, and reached for her cell phone. “Leave everything right where it is. I’m calling my boss.”
    This is so not what Sara needs right now, she thought, but protocol was protocol, and if the medical staff at the ARX Supermax had been so sloppy as to allow the bodies to be shipped without the bags being disinfected first, who knew what other safety precaution they might’ve skipped?
    “Wait,” the blue-eyed guard said, holding up a hand. At that same moment, the guard behind him spun and grabbed for something on his belt. A gun.
    Chelsea’s eyes locked on the weapon, and she froze.
    Jerry’s head jerked up and his mouth went slack, his eyes locking on the other guard. “Hey, aren’t you—”
    The man shot him where he stood.
    Jerry jerked spasmodically as blood bloomed in the center of his forehead. Then he went limp and fell, his eyes glazing as he dropped, his mouth open in an “O” of surprise.
    To Chelsea, the world seemed to slow down, his body collapsing at half-speed. She sucked in a breath to scream, but before she could make a sound, something slammed into her temple, dazing her.
    She staggered, only just beginning to realize that the guards weren’t guards at all. They were convicts wearing the clothing of the guards who were no doubt filling the body bags in the van. Somehow the prisoners had played dead and then pulled a switch en route.
    Heart drumming as her consciousness dimmed, Chelsea fumbled for her phone, and watched it spin out of her grasp and clatter to the ground, which pitched and heaved beneath her. The blue-eyed guard caught her as she fell, supporting her in his strong, steady arms, in a grip that shouldn’t have felt as good as it did.
    The last thing she comprehended before she passed out was a piercing sense of disappointment that somehow existed alongside the terror. Of course he was trouble; she’d never been truly attracted to any other kind of man. Sara had even joked one time that Chelsea’s taste in men was going to be the death of her.
    What if she’d been right?

Chapter Two
    Jonah Fairfax hadn’t touched a woman in nearly nine months, and this was not how he’d pictured ending the drought.
    When Fax had imagined his reintroduction to feminine companionship from the sterile gloom of his six-by-ten cell, he’d figured on candlelight, good food and soft music, and either a paid escort or a sympathetic friend of a friend. Or, hell, even his handler and sometimes lover, who called herself Jane Doe even in bed.
    The woman’s identity hadn’t been particularly important to his sexual fantasy. What had mattered were the trappings of civilization, the colors and smells, and the textures of real life.
    However, that fantasy most definitely hadn’t