When Lightning Strikes

"That burn's gonna hurt like hell in the morning."

She glanced down at her arms and wrinkled her nose, then shrugged. "Cancer alert, cancer alert."

He stared at her, unable to think of a response. She was always doing that to him, throwing him off guard with her outrageous responses. "You should cover yourself back up."

"I was sweating like a pig."

He shook his head. "Jesus, lady, you talk like a cowboy."

She grinned and ran a hand through her sweaty hair. "You should have heard my mom. She could curse a blue streak."

"I'm sure she was a lovely woman. Now, put that sweater back on."

"There's been a mistake, obviously."

What the hell was she talking about now? "What mistake?"

"Two, actually. First, you apparently believe I give a crap what you think, and secondly, you are under the delusion that my skin can actually burn." She gave him a condescending smile. "Trust me, I can't burn ... not drunk as a skunk and passed out in my house on Bain-bridge."

His eyes narrowed. He reached for his gun and let his fingers curl lightly around its cold steel grip. He was just about to say something when a memory flashed through his mind. Unbidden, he saw her as she'd been this afternoon, terrified and vulnerable. As they'd stood on that ledge, facing each other, with the world dropped off away from them, he'd looked in her eyes and seen something that scared the hell out of him.

He refused?flat refused?to feel it again. And the best way to keep her at bay was to keep his mouth shut and his gun pointed at her. "I'm not gonna take care of

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you when you pass out from sunstroke, lady. So put that sweater back on."

She stared at him for a long time. Their gazes clashed hard. Her small, pointed chin edged upward. "I'll have you know this sports bra is perfectly acceptable where I come from. I wear it for aerobics."

"Uh-huh." He tightened his hold on the grip, edged the pistol from its holster. "A bra, huh?"

"Who the hell do you think you are ... Blackwell?"

He didn't say anything. It was better that way.

She stared at him for another few seconds, then heaved a sigh of obvious disgust. "Fine, I'll put the damn sweater back on, but it's going to be uncomfortable and you're going to hear about it."

"Now, why doesn't that surprise me?"

She untied the baggy sweater and flung it over her head. The bulky red material settled in folds on her thighs and gaped across that bra thing. She gave a false, sugary smile and relied her canteen onto the saddle. "Feel better, he-man?"

He started to respond, then stopped. A sound caught his ear. He frowned and turned toward it, his every sense focused on the noise, far away and indistinct, yet unmistakable. A chill slid down his back, mingled with the hot moisture of his sweat, and caused a shudder.

"The posse," he murmured.

"No shit, Sherlock. They're closer than ever. I was going to point it out before you had a cow about my shirt."

He stared at her for a second, slack-jawed. Had a cow?

She gave him a cocky smirk. "Were you going to speak?"

He wrenched his gaze away and stared into the distance. He could just make out the first tendrils of dust

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blurring the horizon. It was a sight he knew well, too well.

"Horses," he said tightly. "About ten."