Colton's Lethal Reunion (Coltons of Mustang Valley)

m calling her name again. He needed to support her, not distract her.

Keeping himself covered by a half wall, a pillar attached to the overhang across her front door, he saw a black SUV pull away from the curb across the street and down one house. At the same time, Kerry darted out from behind the other pillar, gun drawn, and ran over to the body a few feet away.

He hadn’t seen Lavinia Alvin, had only heard her voice, but he knew that the woman who was lying there with her eyes wide-open, and bleeding from the chest and the throat, had been the ranger’s wife. Kerry’s finger was pressed to the other side of the woman’s neck.

“She’s gone,” she said, grabbing her phone and pushing a speed dial. “Come on,” she said, “give me your keys.”

He didn’t hesitate, just tossed them to her as they ran, and jumped into the passenger side of his own truck, whether or not she intended him to ride along.

She was armed. He wasn’t.

He also wasn’t sitting this one out.

“Chief, I’ve got a body outside my house,” Kerry was saying into the phone, her voice even but also filled with urgency, as she broke speed limits. “Lavinia Alvin, wife of Grant Alvin. She just gave me the goods on Odin Rogers. I’m after the shooter. There are two of them in a black SUV...” She rattled off the license plate number. “I’m in Rafe Colton’s truck. He’s with me. I’ll keep you posted.” She disconnected the call immediately.

“You didn’t wait for a response,” Rafe said, holding the grab handle above his seat as he watched her race down her street and on to the next. With a couple of quick turns she took a shortcut out to the boulevard and got there just in time to see the SUV speed past them. “Hold on,” Kerry said, and turned quickly to follow them.

As early as it was, there was little traffic out, for which Rafe was thankful. For their safety, but also for the citizens of Mustang Valley, who could be caught up in hell just for going about their daily lives.

He’d just heard a woman talking about her husband, about back surgery, grieving the second chance they’d almost had, and then seconds later had seen her lying dead on the ground, her blood draining out around her.

Not an everyday occurrence in his world.

The first time he’d ever been that close to a dead body, actually.

It could have been Kerry.

“They’re headed out to the mountain,” Kerry said. “They know we’re right behind them so we can assume that they have plans to get rid of us out there.”

He glanced over at her, hearing a different Kerry. A woman in complete control and capable of doing whatever it took to get her job done. She didn’t seem the least bit fazed by the dead body she’d left behind on her front walk.

Not the Kerry he’d known at all.

“I’m going to stay close, but not too close, just in case one of them tries to take a shot at us out here on the road. I’d appreciate it if you stayed down, so you won’t be a target.”

“I’m not getting down,” he said. “I’m going to watch your back.”

“You need to watch your own.”

“Are you kidding me?” he said, watching his side mirror to make certain there was no one coming up behind them. Odin had a crew. He could be planning an ambush greater than two against two. “We’re in this together, Kerry. A couple. Facing the challenge together.”

He knew he was slamming her. Right then and there. In the middle of what might lead to both their deaths, he was letting out the anger that had been slowly building inside him since he was five years old and had his life stripped away from him. She’d thought, all these years, that he hadn’t had her back? “It’s what I want to do and it’s damn well what I’m going to do,” he told her, adrenaline firing up his insides in a way all new to him.

She glanced his way, and then returned her focus fully to the road.

“Just be smart, and if I give you an order, you take it,” she said. “I’m trained at this, Rafe. I know things you do not.”

She knew a hell of a lot more than he did. About most things.

Too bad it took him thirty-six years to figure that out.

Grabbing the duffel that was still in his back seat—a guy never knew when he might need an extra toothbrush these days—he pulled out the tennis shoes he’d bought the other day. Took off his tie. Five-hundred-dollar pants paired with twenty-dollar tennis shoes didn’t matter at the moment.

“You’ve got your gun in here, right?” she asked next.

“It’s a hunting rifle.” On the floor behind them.

“Is it loaded?”