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Mike treated the tire tracks leading to the mine as if they were a dusty goat trail in the Middle East filled with IEDs. Since the lass had obviously been alerted to his approach the day before, this time he intended to invoke the element of surprise. This was a mission just like any other and it was time he realized it. He must handle it no differently—just like he was in Syria slipping into an enemy camp and targeting his quarry. Somehow, he needed to get in Henrietta Anderson’s head and he couldn’t do that by reading her damned file.

Going bush, he climbed the hill across from Henri’s old Ford truck. If the condition of that heap of metal was any indication, she ought to pay more attention to what ICE had to offer—if she’d let him get a word in edgewise. Damn, he wasn’t a fan of tough women. Sure, Henri might be bonny with all the right female equipment, but Mike liked women who were a little flirty when they first met—who appreciated his, might as well say it, when they appreciated him for being a goddamned man.

But this wasn’t about a female piece of arse hiding on a Paiute reservation in the middle of nowhere. This was about a sniper, a Special Ops soldier who’d proven she had what it took to be in the field. And Mike wasn’t going back to Iceland without her.

Yesterday, he’d studied the satellite images before he chose his approach. Peppered with sagebrush, the place was desolate or some might call it pristine with no trees and little sign of human life. By the lack of tracks in the stills, it was clear few people frequented Henri’s mine intentionally or by accident. Besides, the barbed wire fence and no trespassing signs were a sure-fire deterrent for most of the locals.

The sun beat down like a blast from a welding torch. By the time Mike reached top of the hill over the mine, his face and arms were working up a burn. Stupid. He always wore a cap and long sleeves in arid climates, the same common sense should have prevailed in Utah.

Next time.

Stepping carefully to minimize his tracks, he circled the terrain on the hill. The first thing he found was Henri’s back door, the one she’d used to ambush him the day before. The ground was still streaked where she’d crawled to the edge of the cliff and watched him through her scope. Footprints surrounded the hole, covered with a bit of grill that had a big tumbleweed tied to it. Funny she hadn’t covered her tracks, though given the isolation of the mine, there was probably no point.

After Mike took a drink from his canteen, he slipped his torch onto his head, shouldered his rifle and climbed down. At the bottom of the shaft, he took a deep breath, relishing the reprieve from Utah’s torturous sun. It was a good ten degrees cooler down there and darker than a cup of Turkish coffee.

He stood for a moment and listened. Nothing honed his hearing like being sightless. A low hum came from below, carrying a slight vibration. It was a motor, no question. Whether it was from mining equipment or a generator, Mike couldn’t tell. Though it sounded like a field camp generator, he hadn’t spent any time in a mine before.

Rule number two of war? Don’t make or act upon assumptions unless you’re given no choice.

As he reached up to turn on his lamp, something rumbled beneath him, making the ground shake. He froze and listened. A hiss echoed in the distance, sounding like debris giving way. Silence followed. Mike smiled to himself. Henri was down there working. Was the lass a gold digger after all? But that didn’t make sense. If she was interested in money, she might have listened to Lindgren back in San Diego, or at least probed a bit when Mike met her yesterday.

He adjusted the light and started through the passageway, moving in a crouch to protect his head. Whoever carved out this tunnel wasn’t six-three, not even close. He came to a juncture with a shaft to the right leading downward. Blinding sunlight beamed in from the left, but beyond the mine’s entrance was a door. Wooden, it was paneled like an old house door, the frame fitting into the sandstone as if it belonged there.

A house door was an invitation to someone like Mike. The third rule of war? Know your enemy. Gather information in any way you can. Make use of spies.

Hell, Mike was a spy. A damned good one. And it didn’t take a sleuth to guess Anderson’s living quarters were behind the rickety portal.

He turned off his headlamp before he tried the knob. It wasn’t locked. No surprises there—the lass wasn’t exactly in the middle of metro US. Though a bit of paper sailed to the ground when he opened it. Henri must be suspicious enough to rig the slip to leave a sign if she had an intruder.

Mike picked it up and, after he stepped inside, replaced it while shutting the door. The hum he’d heard must have been a generator because the lights were on.

The place was like stepping into a Hobbit hole filled with Native American art, or perhaps a cave out of an Indiana Jones movie. The red-rock walls weren’t smooth. They’d been carved by a pickaxe and dynamite. But it was clean. The floor was stone as well but smoother and covered with woven Navaho rugs. There were old lanterns and relics on the wall. It reminded him of a prospector’s hovel, except for the recliner and television. Mike moved to the shelves of DVDs and read the spines. It was a mishmash of action-adventure, Disney, romance and westerns. Interestingly, the Pride and Prejudice jacket showed the most wear. Maybe, deep down, Anderson was a romantic. Right? Tough girl, soft heart?

It could happen.

In the center of the room were a rustic table and two chairs. Beyond that, a hob for cooking and rows of pictures on the wall.

The photographs interested Mike the most. The largest was a black and white of an old Native American man standing at the mine entrance with a pick in his hand. He had to be the grandfather who’d bequeathed her the mine. The frame was made from dozens of tiny colorful beads in zigzag patterns. Moving along, there was a picture of Henri in uniform receiving her Medal of Honor, another of her a bit younger, wearing traditional buckskin dress and standing with a group of other Native American dancers. Anderson stood out. She was taller and fairer, and by far the prettiest, in fact, something seemed off, as if she didn’t fit in and the others resented her.

Is that why she lives in isolation? She doesn’t fit in with her clan...er...tribe?

The rest of the pictures were either of Henri or her grandfather and most of them appeared to be taken near the mine. There were no photos of Aunt Chenoa, no sign of Henri’s deceased mother, and definitely no photo of her father.

Mike moved to the bedroom. It was stark, but what drew his attention were the books on the nightstand—one on prospecting and a thriller.

He picked up the prospecting book and leafed through the dog-eared pages. So, the lass did want to find gold. A piece of paper fell to the floor. Mike picked it up and sat on the bed, unfolding a map of the mine which included the escape route he’d used to get inside. Down the shaft where he hadn’t been there was an X with the notation “small vein here”.

His reading was interrupted when the hair stood up on the back of his neck. He froze. He didn’t even breathe. Years of living on the edge had taught him to always trust his gut and, right now, his internal hazard meter hit the red zone.

In a nanosecond, Mike’s heart rate spiked. He hadn’t heard footsteps. He hadn’t heard the door open, but never in his life would he mistake the sound of a rifle bolt moving a bullet into its chamber. He looked up in time to meet Henri’s eyeball glaring through her Win Mag’s scope.

Springing to his feet, Mike faced her.

“Do you make a habit of breaking and entering?” she asked, using a tone that clearly said she wasn’t about to take shite—the same tone she’d used yesterday.

With his next blink, he took it all in. She’d been working, all right. She was covered in powdery dust. Jeez, she looked like she’d been buried in it—all five-feet ten of pure, solid woman staring at him along her deadly sights. Only her eyes were swiped clean, as dark and shiny as wet slate. Given other circumstances, he wouldn’t mind spending a candlelight dinner staring into browns as hypnotic as hers. But he wasn’t there for fun.

Mike glanced to the open door behind the woman, his mind calculating his odds of escape given her finger caressing the rifle’s trigger. “Ah...”

“Put the map back in the book and set it down.” Her braid slipped around her shoulder as she spoke—a thick rope at least three-feet long and caked with dirt. Whatever happened down there, she’d been in the wars.

He did as she asked while watching her out of the corner of his eye. If she wanted to shoot him, he’d already be dead. He had no doubt she could do it. A trained killer, she was like a panther ready to pounce, daring him to make the first errant move. The thought of taking her on made him hard. God save him, the woman was a freaking Amazon sprung from the dust of hell and ready for battle. Mike bit back a grin—now was no time to tell Anderson how sexy she looked dirt and all.

“You couldn’t leave me alone, could you?” she demanded, the harshness of her voice snapping him from his wee fantasy.

“No’ until you hear me out.” He inclined his head toward the gun slung over his shoulder and gave her a challenging squint—one that usually worked with the ladies. “I thought you might enjoy a bit of target practice.”

“Yeah, with you as the target.” She slid her foot back. “Now you’re going to walk out of here nice and slow.”

Jesus Christ, terrorists were easier to crack than this bird. But the more she talked the more he relished the chase. He even took a step toward her, watching that trigger finger for a twitch. “Come, lass. I’m no’ here to rifle through your gear. I just want a word.”

“You’ve already had a lot more than one, and I’m not interested in anything you have to say.”

He shook his head. “I dunna give up easily.”

She made a pretense of inching up her Win Mag and peering through her scope. “Then you’re going to die.”

“Bloody hell.” Mike headed for the door, but when she shifted her rifle as he passed, his instincts kicked in. The wildcat had a loaded gun in her hands and had just threatened him. Mike might be trained to take a lot of shite, but when it came right down to it, self-preservation trumped kissing the arse of a woman who refused to allow him the courtesy of listening to what he’d flown 6500 miles to say.

Moving with the speed of an asp, he reached back and pushed the muzzle away. Her eyes flashed wide as he twisted the Win Mag until it broke from her grasp.

He tossed the rifle on the bed, ducking as she spun and threw a roundhouse kick aimed at his head. The gun over his shoulder clattered to the floor. Before he could counter her attack, she nailed him in the ribs with a spinning side kick while her thick braid whipped around and dragged across his face. A world karate champion, taking a solid hit only served to hone Mike’s senses. Gaining his balance, he went on the offensive throwing rapid fire strikes, hard enough to stun, but not a one hard enough to cause any serious damage. Henri wasn’t dazed. She attacked like a badger, blocking, jabbing, all the while as Mike backed her to the wall.

And he didn’t let up. He had a mission to accomplish and if the woman wanted to play rough, so be it. Anderson had no idea with whom she was messing. Mike blocked her every kick, her every sucker punch. Sweat beaded on her forehead and turned the dust to mud.

She shrieked like a cat when he trapped her against the wall with his body, staring into those enormous, brown eyes now looking as tasty as melted dark chocolate. She squirmed against him, full breasts pushing into his chest. He blinked, but not before he pinned her with a choke hold. The woman could fight better than most men. Because of that, Mike knew better than to give her inch. Not yet, anyway.

“All I want is a bit of your time,” he growled, ignoring the rock-solid erection below his belt while Henri panted, her breasts crushing into his chest with her every inhale. Christ, he’d worked with women before. Beautiful women, and he’d always been able to control the ole cannon before. Now was no different. That’s right. He didn’t like hard-arsed women—ah—even if they had eyes that could melt a heart of granite.

“Why?” she asked in a sultry tone she hadn’t used before, tipping up her fine-boned chin. “So you can fill me with the same bullshit as that Dutch suit?”

“He’s an Icelander.”

She squirmed against him. “Whatever.”

Damn. Too much heavy-breathing woman was addling his mind. He needed to back off. Fast. “Look, let’s do some target practice. No pressure.”

“Oh, yeah? I’m lethal. I could kill you with my eyes closed. In fact, I might enjoy it.”

He chuckled. Och aye, he knew exactly the enjoyment she was talking about. The rush. It was what every field agent lived for—what made her ideal for the job. “That’s what makes it fun.”

“Why would you trust me?” she asked, wriggling against him. Hell, she just might do him in right there—death by hotness.

“Because you were brave enough to win the Medal of Honor.”

Henri’s pupils dilated, then her lips formed a thin line. “They stripped it from me.”

“But they gave it back.”

“I was framed and they didn’t believe me.”

“No question.” If only he could release her, but it would be stupid to give her an inch until she offered something to show she was bending. At least she’d stopped talking about killing him. Regardless, he still couldn’t back down now. No chance. What he said in the next thirty seconds was critical to this op. I’m not going to lose. “You were mistreated, you got the raw end of the deal. I’d be out for blood if I were you. I wouldn’t trust me either...not yet, at least.”

Her body relaxed a bit—good sign. “So, are you going to keep me in a choke hold all day?”

The corner of his mouth inched up. “Are you going to attack again?”

“Mmmm-aybe.” She swallowed, shifting those damned hips and brushing him where she shouldn’t. Not that he was giving her any room to move. If she realized what she’d done, she didn’t let on. The woman just narrowed her gaze and snorted. “I’m not interested in anything you have to offer.” This time, Henri’s conviction didn’t sound quite as determined as it had the day before.

Grinding his teeth against his ill-timed male response to having a lean woman’s body crushed against his, Mike decided it was time to go in for the kill. “Tell you what. Let’s just shoot few rounds—no pressure. I’m booked into the Hilton Garden Inn for a fortnight.”

“Fortnight.” She rolled her eyes, but the hard-ass routine was gone, thank God. “You Scots and your weird words.”

He released his grip. “The same can be said for you Yanks.”

Stretching her neck, she wriggled her body again. Mike cleared his throat and stepped back. Her gaze meandered downward. A wee pink tongue slipped out the corner of her mouth. She’d noticed.

So, she is human.

Mike took another step away. Damn, of course she’d noticed. His cock behaved like a bloody teenaged appendage. So, shoot him. He was a man. Besides, she’d felt too good pressed flush against him with nowhere to go. Had the circumstances been different, he could have used a dozen different moves to coax the woman to her back, especially with the bed right behind them. But this was business. And she wasn’t interested. And he bloody well better not be. This Delta Force sniper had proven herself to be a walking fighting machine not to mention she was covered in dust—which was now smudged down the front of his clothes. He cleared his throat. “I guess mining work is pretty dirty.”

She brushed off her jeans, making clouds of red powder billow around her. “Yeah, it’s kinda like fending off heavy fire from a foxhole in Afghanistan.”

“Been there.”

“So,” she said, retrieving her rifle from the bed. “We shoot a few rounds and then you’ll leave me alone?”

Mike retrieved his gun from the floor. “That’s the deal. At least today.” He mightn’t have convinced her to join ICE but, in his book, he’d just earned a victory, and that was far more than he’d accomplished yesterday.

The fourth rule of war? Success will be achieved only through one blood-shedding battle at a time.

***

Henri didn’t know why she’d agreed to target practice—aside from being locked in a choke hold by a man who looked like a descendant of Eric the Bloodaxe, a Viking who pillaged Scotland in the Middle Ages. Rose had to be at least 6’3” and as solid as a mountain of granite. And his crystal-blue eyes were too damned disarming. How was a girl supposed to fight a guy who attacked like a linebacker with Chris Pine eyes?

On top of all that, maybe she’d backed down because she needed a diversion from nearly being buried in the mine right before she walked in on Rose. Not only was she shaken down to her boots from the cave-in, she’d been covered in rocks and dirt clear up to her waist. Another foot and she wouldn’t have had such an easy time clawing herself out. And she’d bet her savings the intelligence consultant wouldn’t have ventured down the mine shaft to lend a hand. Worse, God only knew how long it would take to shovel out the debris just to get back where she’d started that morning.

She was already mad, then finding Rose looking at Grandfather’s map had set her blood to boiling. Henri should have shot him, not agree to shoot with him.

Maybe she’d gone along with it because she needed him to stop pressing that delicious male body against hers. Yeah, she might be angry, she might be resentful, but she was still a woman. Rose had scared the shit out of her—not because he was in her pad, but because of her own startling, nothing-short-of sizzling response. After two years in the pen and three months in isolation at the mine, Henri was no longer used to big, muscular, masculine bodies being in such close proximity. No longer used to breathing in spicy male scent. No longer impervious to sparring with hot, brawny dudes. Christ, her knees had even wobbled. And, oh, how the man could fight. He was a pro all the way. Made being a member of Delta Force look like being a Boy Scout. She’d given him everything she had and he’d just toyed with her. He’d backed her against the wall and pinned her there with...God! He had muscles where no one else on the planet had sinew.

And she wasn’t about to let herself think about sex or the rock-hard piece of anatomy that made men so...

No!

Mike Rose had needed to get the heck off her just so she could think.

In truth, Henri should be madder than a mama bear defending her cubs from a hunter. Come to think of it, now the oxygen was once again flowing to her brain, she was good and pissed. How dare this arrogant, Scottish bastard break into her pad and poke around as if he had a warrant? As if he had a right to look at her personal effects?

After they’d climbed to the top of the ridge above the mine, Rose pointed to a Joshua tree about four hundred meters out. “Let’s start with that spindly old thing. It looks like something out of Dr. Seuss.”

“The Joshua tree or the leaves?” she asked, cocking her head and looking at it critically, fairly certain that Rose’s eyesight wasn’t as sharp. Grandfather had named her Soaring-Eagle for a reason, which had everything to do with her 20/7.5 vision.

The Scot gave her a sideways glance. “I’ll take the clump on the right.”

“Suit yourself.” She swung an exaggerated gesture with her palm. “This was your idea. You go first.”

He winked with a cocky grin, raising the Remington to his shoulder. “This isn’t a Win Mag, but the best I could do without putting in a special order at the local store.”

Snorting, she crossed her arms. “Now you’re making excuses.”

“Bloody, smartarse Yank,” he mumbled under his breath.

Yeah, try to charm me with your brogue, dude.

The problem? No matter how much she wanted to resist, he was too damned charming and she suspected he knew it. What guy who looked like Rose didn’t? That’s why they were all bad news.

Henri watched him fire off four solid rounds, each one hitting its mark and devastating the poor Joshua tree’s branch. A yucca unique to the Mohave, Henri wasn’t overly excited about damaging a gift from Mother Earth. Regardless, Rose proved that, if nothing else, he was an adequate marksman who’d be an asset in a Delta Force shit-storm.

He turned to her with a grin, making her stomach spring into calisthenics. Caught off guard, she snapped her gaze to the ground. Jeez, she couldn’t take those damned electric-blue eyes. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

She flicked her hand at his face. “Like that—grinning as if you’re planning to seduce me into doing whatever it is you want me to do.”

“That could be arranged, lass.” Dammit if his smile didn’t get bigger, the ass. But then he snorted and shook his head like the hot guy routine was all a joke. “Go on. Let’s see what you’ve got, ace.”

She pulled her Win Mag off her shoulder. “Tell you what. Four leaves. Joshuas are fragile.”

“Leaves? From here? No one would be able to make them out, let alone shoot them.”

“Right.” She raised the gun to her shoulder and peered through the scope. This guy might have read her file, but he’d never been in combat with her.

The tips of Henri’s fingers tingled as she honed her senses. Before she ever took a shot, she became one with her rifle. As she breathed, her weapon breathed. The breeze, every gust of wind affected her the same as it did the steel molding into her grip. In Henri’s hands, her rifle was an extension of her arm; another appendage honed and trained for precision.

She flicked off the safety and pulled back the charging handle. Her heart fluttered with the sound of a sleek, hollow-point, copper cartridge slipping into the chamber ready to dance.

The caress of the trigger always brought the same shot of adrenalin. Time slowed. Her breathing became steady. Henri could even hear her heartbeat echo in the barrel. When she blinked, it happened at the pace of a desert tortoise. She eyed the first long, spiked leaf. Her finger closed in.

Crack, crack, crack, crack. Before she blinked, she shot through four leaves.

Lowering her rifle, she gave Rose a grin of her own.

His brow pinched, he looked at the Joshua then back at her. “Did you?”

“Can’t see worth shit, can you?”

“I don’t have a scope.”

Groaning, she rolled her eyes again. Guys never believed a chick could shoot until they had their faces shoved in the evidence. “Come.”

Henri led him to the tree and gestured to the frond Rose had obliterated. “Here’s your handiwork—managed to ravage the poor tree. Do you have any idea how long it takes a Joshua to grow? That one would have taken about sixty years to attain such spindly-old glory.” Not waiting for Rose’s response, she pointed to each of four leaves, elegantly pierced with individual bullet holes. “One, two, three, and four. And the tree will live.”

The man raked his fingers through his tangle of auburn hair. “Holy smokes.”

“Thanks.”

“I mean, I’ve never seen shooting like that and I’ve been around the block a few dozen times.”

She shrugged. “Yeah, well Fadli must be pretty impressive, especially if he made everyone think the ambassador’s murder was my work.”

“Too right, and that bastard’s still out there.”

Henri’s stomach squeezed. She didn’t want to admit it to Rose, but ever since Lindgren had visited her with the news, dreams had crept into her mind about facing the man responsible for sending her to the pen. She wanted to nail him. Bad. She just didn’t want to kiss anyone’s ass along the way.

Mike arched his eyebrow and gave her a look as if he knew what she was thinking. Before he said anything, he let a pause dangle in the air. The space between them swelled as if electrically charged, but Henri wasn’t about to be the first to move, to speak or even blink.

“Your talent is going to waste,” he said point blank without the sales pitch.

Her shoulders tensed. She’d expected more charm, more dancing around the issue. Rose just laid it out there. And Henri was not fool. Her life was going to waste—but, didn’t a girl deserve a chance to lay low and nurse her wounds for a while? “No one bothers me here.”

“I’ll give you that. And I’d wager your contact with the world is all but nil.”

She shifted back, refusing to allow any emotion to show on her face. But Rose was right. Isolating herself from the world had become her way of coping. Jeez, she hadn’t even seen a news headline in three months. Did she want to find Fadli and introduce him to the fires of hell? God, yes. But on her terms.

Was she ready to leave the mine and let an organized mob of military zealots tell her what to do?

No. Fucking. Way.

Mike sucked in a breath like he was about to say something, but Henri held up her palm and jumped in first. “I’ll tell you right now. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Even with Omar Fadli out there plotting his next target? Maybe he’ll hit the western US next—figure out a way to pin it on you.”

“Shut up.” She was still recovering from the last time that bastard had ruined her hopes, her entire military career, her life—even if she did dream of lodging a bullet between his eyes. “I like it here. I have everything I need. No one bothers me.”

The Scot gave a nod. “Aye, and by the looks of it, this place will always be here for you.” Glancing away, he casually slung the Remington over his shoulder. “I’ll tell you this. My organization isn’t the military. We’re a highly specialized, highly secretive group of experts. Every man and woman in the field runs his or her own op and none of us are subject to any country’s laws.” He started off but stopped and looked back. “You’ll have two months off a year to do your prospecting or whatever it is that recharges your engine.” He gave her a card that said Hilton Garden Inn with the number 322 hand-written on the back.

Henri took it, then stood motionless while she watched him walk away until he disappeared behind the hill.

Did she want to believe him?

Hell, the mine had just collapsed and nearly killed her in the process.

My life is a fucking mess.