When Lightning Strikes

"Shit," he said again.

Lainie frowned, making a mental note to work harder on Killian's dialogue. All he ever said was shit and shut up. Neither of which was particularly pleasant?even for a villain.

She tried to give him a disdainful look, but it was hard to look disdainful when you were thumping along in a saddle like a sack of rocks. "I hope you aren't attempting to convey information to me in some limited prehistoric code."

He glanced over at her, his thick, winged black eyebrows drawn into an imposing frown. "Why the hell would I want to talk to you?"

"I can't imagine. By all means, keep yelling 'shit' at the ground."

"The black is limping."

"The black what?"

His gaze raked her. It was a look so full of contempt that she felt suddenly chilled. "My horse."

"Boy, that was a stretch."

"What?"

"Naming your horse. What'd it take you?ten, twelve days to come up with that one?"

"Shut up."

37

She sighed. "I've got to work harder on your dialogue. You sound like something out of Quest for Fire."

Ignoring her, he brought the black to a halt and dismounted. Bending over, he gently lifted the stallion's foreleg.

Lainie peered down at the hoof. "We've been running for an hour. He's probably just tired."

Killian threw her a disgusted look. He pulled a hoof-pick out of his saddlebag and began picking rocks and dirt from the horse's hoof. "Uh-huh."

Lainie glanced around. They were in the middle of a long stretch of plain flanked by sheer taupe canyon walls. To their right, a muddy, slow-moving river wound in and out of colorful cottonwood stands. A grass of sorts?it looked like the first greening growth of a Chia Pet?dotted the sandy brown soil. Overhead, the sky was an endless robin's-egg blue uncluttered by clouds.

It wasn't at all as she'd envisioned it. The heat was stronger, more invasive, and the land had a raw, tormented beauty she hadn't anticipated. Here beside this ageless tower of stone, she felt very small and insignificant and ... alone.

The moment's vulnerability pissed her off. She straightened her shoulders and brushed the hair from her eyes. Her expensive salon mousse was starting to wilt. Beside her, Killian removed his saddle from the black's broad back.

"What are you doing?" she demanded.

He gave her another scornful look. "Dancing."

Chalk one up for the he-man. "Let me rephrase that. Why are you doing that?"

"He's lame."

Lainie got a sick feeling in her stomach. "You're not going to shoot him, are you?"

This time he didn't even glance her way. "I'd rather shoot you." He threw the saddle behind him. It landed at the base of a short pine tree. Wordlessly he reached for his reins and tied the horse to the same tree.

Then he turned and walked toward her. He moved with a feline, predatory grace, his hips gliding in a thoroughly masculine way. The thudding heat of his footsteps seemed threatening in the desert's quiet.

She realized suddenly what it meant to be larger than life. She'd created this man, invented him from the vast resources of her own imagination, and part of him was what she'd envisioned, but part of him was .. . more.

She watched him, noticing the deep furrows that lined his forehead and the network of lines that pulled at the flesh around his eyes. He seemed older than was possible?he should have been twenty-eight, with a face lined only by hours beneath a hot sun. But t

he man moving toward her was at least forty, maybe forty-five, with a face that had been ravaged by life's cruelties. There was a restless hunger in him she'd never once imagined, a raw masculinity that somehow frightened her.