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“A helluva lot more than you know. In case you haven’t noticed, Angie and I don’t exactly get along. She won’t appreciate seeing me.”
“I had noticed,” Harlan admitted. “And if she sees you she won’t be happy. But I’d rather she be unhappy than raped or dead.”
“You really think something like that might happen?”
“Normally I don’t even think about it. This time, though, I’ve just got a bad feeling in my gut.”
“Shit,” said Dare, but it wasn’t a dismissal of Harlan’s instincts. If anything, it was an acknowledgment from someone who had been in a lot of tense situations and tight places; cops and soldiers learned to pay attention to their guts, more so than the general population. Harlan didn’t think he was psychic or anything like that, but he did think that people had an animalistic sixth sense that could warn them of impending danger, if they’d only listen to it. Maybe Angie had picked up some of the same sense of danger and would be extra cautious, which might be all that was needed, but maybe she was too preoccupied with her situation to notice some details.
“I’ll think about it,” Dare finally said grudgingly. “But if I do go up there and she shoots my ass, I’m holding you responsible.”
Fuck this. Angie Powell wasn’t his problem. She was a pain in his ass, but she wasn’t his problem.
Dare made a habit—no, a religion—of not taking on other people’s shit if he could find a way around it, and he was no goddamn babysitter. Harlan was just being an old woman, worrying about Angie because his gut told him something wasn’t right. More than likely he just felt overprotective because she was his dead best friend’s daughter, he’d watched her grow up, and all that other psychological crap, so he’d worked himself into a fit of guilt. He was discounting that Angie had chosen to be a guide, knowing damn well that taking men she didn’t know out for days or even weeks at a time would be part of the deal. She was a smart, tough cookie; she’d have thought of all that, and taken precautions.
But Angie was going through a tough time, selling out and moving, so probably Harlan was just feeling extra protective. That explained it as well as anything else.
Dare snorted as he went through to the kitchen and snagged a bottle of water out of the refrigerator. He could just imagine what would happen if he showed up at her campsite, checking up on the little lady like some Old West throwback. Angie Powell would kick his ass if he even hinted that she wasn’t capable of taking care of herself. Well, she’d try.
In spite of his sour mood, a smile twitched at his mouth. She pissed him off with those drop-dead looks she gave him, she got on his last nerve without even trying, but the mental picture of her coming after him with both fists swinging lifted his mood. For one thing, he’d win any tussle with her. For a second thing, the tussling would be fun. For a few seconds he enjoyed the scenario, imagining that almost-skinny body wiggling against him, that world-class ass right there where he could get his hands on it—yeah, right before the part where she head-butted him and broke his nose, which was way more likely than the ass-grabbing part, though if he kept his mind on the fight and his hands where they were supposed to be, she’d never be able to get near his nose, or his balls, or any other vulnerable part. He’d have to decide ahead of time if getting his hands on her ass was worth a knee in the balls.
His dick twitched a Hell, yeah! Dare snorted again. Stupid fucker … literally.
Spend a week up in the high country trying to stay hidden and watch over Angie Powell at the same time? What, did Harlan think he lived in a vacuum and didn’t have his own shit to take care of?
Some of that shit was in a pile on the kitchen table, waiting for him. God, he hated paperwork. He loved what he did, but he fucking hated the nit-picking shit that went with it, the stack of crumpled receipts that he swore to God multiplied during the night. Maybe he should hire someone to do the books for him. He was making enough money now—though if he bought Angie’s place, that extra money would disappear. Things would be tight for a while, but if he could make all his plans work …
Damn it, if she got killed on this guide job, all of those plans would evaporate. The property would be tied up for however long it took the estate to be settled. He didn’t know who her relatives were, if she had a will, anything about that side of her life. If he wanted that land, she needed to be alive.
Damn it.
He growled as he took his bottle of water to the table and sat down. He picked up his calendar and flipped through it. Yeah, everything there was duplicated on his computer, but he preferred to keep the names of clients and the dates of their scheduled hunts written down on paper. It was nice to have a computer backup, but he didn’t quite trust that the info would always be there when he needed it. Power outages, computer viruses, the blue screen of death … yeah, paper and pen were better.
The calendar was a map of his success. At first glance, it was a mess of chicken scratching. Maybe his penmanship wasn’t great, but he could decipher it and that was all that mattered. Notes were scrawled in the margins of the notebook-sized organizing calendar, plans and names were scratched out here and there, and in some places other names were added in. He didn’t get many cancellations, but it happened. Sometimes there were other clients on standby, regulars waiting to take the place of the ones who’d backed out for one reason or another—regulars who would prefer to wait for him than to sign on with someone else. He was proud of that, that for some hunters it was Dare Callahan or no one.
The calendar told him exactly what he’d known it would: He didn’t have anythi
ng scheduled for the next ten days. There was no one on standby, either; the end of the busy season was coming up fast. The last few months had been so busy, Dare wouldn’t mind taking a short break. It wasn’t like he didn’t have other things to do. The camps could always use maintenance, and he was always behind on his paperwork, witness the mound of receipts right in front of him now. He wasn’t exactly a nester, but he needed to take care of a pile of laundry before he ran out of clothes, and he needed to lay in some more firewood for winter, and stock up on supplies. He was careful not to let himself run low on anything, but it never hurt to be prepared to hunker down for a good long while during a Montana winter. For a few minutes Dare sat there, thinking of all the things he needed to get accomplished in the next ten days.
He tapped the end of his pen against the tabletop. Flipped through the calendar with no particular purpose. Took a sip of water. Ground his teeth.
He tossed the calendar to the table, sending a few receipts dancing and flying. One fell to the floor, but Dare ignored it. Damn Harlan to hell. Why couldn’t he have kept his fucking gut instincts to himself? He’d planted a seed of worry that Dare couldn’t shake.
No way in hell was he going to tail Angie and her clients like some kind of unwanted bodyguard … or stalker. If nothing else, that was a good way to get shot. Antsy tourists with itchy trigger fingers might easily mistake him for game, from a distance. And if he wore an orange vest, as he should this time of year, it would be damn tough to remain out of sight.
He didn’t think Angie would shoot him on purpose—maybe—if she caught him tailing her, but he wasn’t her favorite person, so she probably wouldn’t shed a tear over his body, either. Once again he tried to convince himself that this was not his business, but a little voice in the back of his head whispered that since he’d made an offer on her place, he’d made it his business. Well, shit.
He drank some more water, then capped the bottle and pushed it aside. Water wasn’t doing it for him right now, and he was out of beer—another item on his list of things to get. The coffeepot still held a couple of inches of cold coffee. He eyed the coffee, thinking it would probably taste like shit, but what the hell. Shoving away from the table, he grabbed his morning coffee cup from the dishwasher—why mess up another one—and filled it, then put it in the microwave and set the timer for two minutes.
While it heated, he scowled at the floor. Why was he even thinking what he was thinking? Angie had made it clear she thought it was his fault that she had to sell, and that she hated his guts because of it. She’d hate him even more now that he’d made the offer on her property, because she’d think he was taking advantage of her situation. The last thing she’d want was him tagging along on a job to make sure she was safe, even if he had the time or the inclination, which he didn’t. Mostly. That last word sneaked into his brain and made his scowl deeper.
The microwave dinged. He opened the door and stuck his finger in the coffee to see if the brew was hot enough, then quickly jerked it out. Shit, yeah. He dumped in enough sugar to disguise the crappy taste, stirred, then leaned back against the counter and took a sip. Not bad. Not bad at all. Why couldn’t he just enjoy a cup of coffee and the fact that business was good? For the most part, life was good. He didn’t need to take on Angie’s problems.
Why did he let her get under his skin this way? In all his thirty-seven years, he’d never met another woman as annoying as she was. She was stubborn as an old goat, and she’d made it abundantly clear that she wouldn’t piss on him if he was on fire. No ass in the world, no matter how fine, was worth the kind of aggravation she’d caused him. Like it or not, though, she was definitely under his skin, lodged there like a tick.
What was wrong with him? In a matter of moments he’d mentally compared her to both an old goat and a tick, and yet here he was, still stewing over Harlan’s words and, damn it all, still worrying about a woman who wouldn’t give him the time of day.
If Harlan had expressed the same concerns about anyone else in town, Dare wouldn’t have given them a second thought. Angie was an adult. She’d be armed. Surely she vetted her clients before taking them on. She knew the territory as well as … no, better than anyone else, except him. She had such a pissy attitude, he should be more concerned about her clients’ safety than he was about hers.
