painful?
She came around the hill, drawing even with the barn and paddocks once again. There were more men out there now. She slowed down to watch and recognized Lucas among them. He’d taken off the leather jacket and wore only his black T-shirt and jeans. The jacket had emphasized the breadth of his shoulders, but without it she could see the definition of his chest and flat belly. No doubt about it, Lucas Donlon was sex in cowboy boots. He pushed a black cowboy hat onto his head, and Kathryn rolled her eyes. A black cowboy hat? And at night? Wasn’t that pushing the stereotype just a little? Lucas strode out into the middle of the ring. A huge, black horse immediately loped across the paddock, stopping right in front of him and butting its head against his chest. A human would have been knocked back a few steps by the force of that greeting, but Lucas didn’t budge. He only laughed and returned the greeting with a nose rub for the horse.
Kathryn couldn’t help smiling as she watched, but the longer she watched, she noticed something else. There was a pattern to the men surrounding Lucas. They moved and shifted, but he was never isolated, never alone. These weren’t just random cowpokes watching the big man ride himself a horse, these were his bodyguards and, from what she saw, well-trained bodyguards. They were probably all vampires, too.
She saw Nicholas, the vampire who’d been introduced as Lucas’s lieutenant, lean over and say something to Lucas. The vampire lord looked up then, his gaze crossing the intervening paddock and field to where Kathryn sat in her SUV silently observing. His white teeth flashed in a grin, and he tipped his hat in her direction.
Kathryn felt foolish at having been caught, especially since she really hadn’t meant to linger so long. She quickly put the SUV in gear and hit the gas, breathing a sigh of relief when the road was quickly swallowed up by the first dense cluster of trees. She’d have to be careful with Donlon . She wasn’t stupid enough to deny her attraction to him, but she was smart enough not to do anything about it. Lucas Donlon was not the kind of person an ambitious FBI agent could afford to get involved with. He was part of a secretive society that ruled itself and ignored U.S. law whenever it suited them. No one had ever been able to pin a crime on any of the vamps, though they’d certainly tried. There’d been a case out in L.A. not too long ago. It had been quickly hushed up, but the word underground was that the LAPD had tried to arrest someone very high up in the vampire hierarchy on suspicion of multiple murders.
The operative word there was tried to arrest him, because the warrant had been voided less than forty-eight hours after it was issued. And the big vamp had been released with so many apologies from the higher-ups, it was embarrassing. Adding insult to injury, it had been the vamps who found the real killer, the very human real killer, and turned him over to the authorities.
But even in cases where a vampire actually had committed a crime, the perpetrator disappeared before human authorities could get to him. No one knew for sure if the vampire offenders were imprisoned or executed, or if they were just moved somewhere else, but they were never heard from again. She supposed that was justice of a sort. Not very satisfying for the human authorities, but it saved the taxpayers the cost of a trial, and the outcome was about the same. Maybe even better.
Kathryn slowed as she approached the stone arch with its low, decorative wall. The same gun-toting guards were there. One of them waved her on. She nodded her thanks and kept going, until she saw the gleam of the whitewashed picket fence. A left turn took her back onto the paved section of road, and then the rough two-track again, until, finally, she hit the highway. She checked the dash clock. There was plenty of time left tonight. She would go back to the motel and check out the witness statements
She came around the hill, drawing even with the barn and paddocks once again. There were more men out there now. She slowed down to watch and recognized Lucas among them. He’d taken off the leather jacket and wore only his black T-shirt and jeans. The jacket had emphasized the breadth of his shoulders, but without it she could see the definition of his chest and flat belly. No doubt about it, Lucas Donlon was sex in cowboy boots. He pushed a black cowboy hat onto his head, and Kathryn rolled her eyes. A black cowboy hat? And at night? Wasn’t that pushing the stereotype just a little? Lucas strode out into the middle of the ring. A huge, black horse immediately loped across the paddock, stopping right in front of him and butting its head against his chest. A human would have been knocked back a few steps by the force of that greeting, but Lucas didn’t budge. He only laughed and returned the greeting with a nose rub for the horse.
Kathryn couldn’t help smiling as she watched, but the longer she watched, she noticed something else. There was a pattern to the men surrounding Lucas. They moved and shifted, but he was never isolated, never alone. These weren’t just random cowpokes watching the big man ride himself a horse, these were his bodyguards and, from what she saw, well-trained bodyguards. They were probably all vampires, too.
She saw Nicholas, the vampire who’d been introduced as Lucas’s lieutenant, lean over and say something to Lucas. The vampire lord looked up then, his gaze crossing the intervening paddock and field to where Kathryn sat in her SUV silently observing. His white teeth flashed in a grin, and he tipped his hat in her direction.
Kathryn felt foolish at having been caught, especially since she really hadn’t meant to linger so long. She quickly put the SUV in gear and hit the gas, breathing a sigh of relief when the road was quickly swallowed up by the first dense cluster of trees. She’d have to be careful with Donlon . She wasn’t stupid enough to deny her attraction to him, but she was smart enough not to do anything about it. Lucas Donlon was not the kind of person an ambitious FBI agent could afford to get involved with. He was part of a secretive society that ruled itself and ignored U.S. law whenever it suited them. No one had ever been able to pin a crime on any of the vamps, though they’d certainly tried. There’d been a case out in L.A. not too long ago. It had been quickly hushed up, but the word underground was that the LAPD had tried to arrest someone very high up in the vampire hierarchy on suspicion of multiple murders.
The operative word there was tried to arrest him, because the warrant had been voided less than forty-eight hours after it was issued. And the big vamp had been released with so many apologies from the higher-ups, it was embarrassing. Adding insult to injury, it had been the vamps who found the real killer, the very human real killer, and turned him over to the authorities.
But even in cases where a vampire actually had committed a crime, the perpetrator disappeared before human authorities could get to him. No one knew for sure if the vampire offenders were imprisoned or executed, or if they were just moved somewhere else, but they were never heard from again. She supposed that was justice of a sort. Not very satisfying for the human authorities, but it saved the taxpayers the cost of a trial, and the outcome was about the same. Maybe even better.
Kathryn slowed as she approached the stone arch with its low, decorative wall. The same gun-toting guards were there. One of them waved her on. She nodded her thanks and kept going, until she saw the gleam of the whitewashed picket fence. A left turn took her back onto the paved section of road, and then the rough two-track again, until, finally, she hit the highway. She checked the dash clock. There was plenty of time left tonight. She would go back to the motel and check out the witness statements
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