Something Sinful This Way Comes [McQueen Was My Valley 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (6 page)

Nathan knew he was an adrenaline junkie, as BASE jumpers were termed. He had gone slacklining a few times, even five hundred feet aboveground, but nothing could compare to the free soaring, the completely weightless high of diving off the very edge of a cliff into an abyss. The flight might only last a minute, but it was a minute of such a pure and sheer endorphin rush that jumpers were in heaven for a week, maybe two. Before they had to do it all over again.

And it had been a month since Nathan had jumped. That had been out of a plane over the Sudan, and missiles were being fired at him, so theoretically, the high should have been greater and lasted longer. Not in that instance, though.

That seemed like years ago now. Nathan jogged even faster than usual out of mortification. What the hell had he
done
last night? He’d woken up naked in the dead quiet of the post-midnight desert, only to find that luscious Xandra’s ass glued to his pelvis. They were cuddling, spooning, and he couldn’t even recall how he’d gotten there.

He did recall taking the prescription sleeping pill while Xandra had been busy fussing with the wine bottle. The company’s doctor had given it to him after the events in the Sudan, and he’d taken it about four times before. He knew you were supposed to be in bed within fifteen minutes after taking it, but this was ridiculous.

Had he stripped off his own clothes and gotten into Xandra’s bed with no memory of it? Or had the vivacious woman peeled his clothes for him? That was unlikely, especially since she was still fully clothed when he woke to find himself cuddling her, a raging erection smashed to her silken ass. He even had an arm flung over her, as though he’d been fondling her beautiful uplifted tits.

Of course he’d immediately jumped out of bed, appalled with himself. Luckily Xandra hadn’t budged an inch. His first instinct was to grab his holster from where it was draped over a bedpost. Then he felt silly buckling it on while shirtless, so he stooped to swipe his jeans from the floor. That was when he noticed.

Xandra McQueen looked absolutely angelic as she slept.

Of course, he’d been swept away by her before—her curvaceous ass, her delightful lime scent, her plush lips. His cock had a mind of its own when he was around Xandra, stiffening and lengthening so that he had to tug the bottom hem of his windbreaker over his crotch. But watching her now, he was struck by how innocent and helpless she looked. Her hands were tucked under her cheek as though praying, her knees drawn up, her heeled pumps kicked off. Her orange toenail polish twinkled in the light coming in the tall windows. She looked…defenseless.

And he was her best bet for a protector.

Fuck, he was never taking those sleeping pills again. Even if they did allow him to go a few hours without being tormented by his partner’s death.

He was so mortified by what he’d potentially done while under the influence, he’d quickly tossed on a fresh black T-shirt—nearly the only type of shirt he owned—and jeans and literally ran out Xandra’s door. He’d been running ever since.

It was a thousand feet to the bottom of Prism Canyon to his left. He could easily jump from one of these cupcake towers that looked like red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting. As he turned one point to view a new slot canyon, a field of these mushroom-like pinnacles came into view. It made Nathan hungry that they looked like cupcakes, but he kept running. He had spied a steeple that was probably outside of Xandra McQueen’s jurisdiction, onto BLM land. It would be better to leap from something outside of Xandra’s property boundaries. On the one-in-sixty chance he died—an eventuality he didn’t much care about now one way or the other—he didn’t want her liability insurance rates hiked.

Around nine in the morning now, it was already seventy degrees, he could tell. He had chosen the absolute lightest windbreaker to cover his shoulder holster, as it was a habit to never even go to the bathroom unarmed. Yet he was so far beyond the limits of the Triple Play Lodge, hikers had probably never come out this far. Nobody would see his Glock and freak out. Nathan paused briefly to peel off the windbreaker and stuff it into the waistband of his running shorts.

What did I do to Xandra? How can I face her again?
His bag was still in her suite. Maybe he could convince Cass to let him into Xandra’s apartment later on, when Xandra was out and about in the lodge, to take his bag to his new cabin.
Ibn himar.
Son of a donkey
.
He liked to swear in the Arabic they used in the Sudan when he was angry.
What the fuck was I doing to that poor girl last night?
Yet, if he’d been doing something utterly heinous, he knew she would’ve left the room, not curled up in his arms like one of the three bears.

Nathan paused briefly, panting, to inspect the steeple he was considering as a launch point. He needed to analyze the jump from exit to landing. He thought he saw a potential diving board from down here, but of course, if he decided on this steeple, he’d have to climb it to assess it first. That was when he was startled by a horse tethered to a lone pine. He automatically reached for his Glock, cupping it in his left palm, fingering the trigger. He flexed at the knees, stalking the rider around the corner of a red velvet mushroom, silent as a cougar.

He lowered the weapon when a game warden came into view. The fellow, even behind his shades, didn’t seem surprised to see a commando aiming a pistol at him. He betrayed absolutely no emotion when he looked up at Nathan from where he stood, hands on hips, studying a deer carcass. Was this one of Xandra’s cattle ranch caballeros? But a gold badge glinted over his shirt pocket, his shirt neatly pressed with official patches over the sleeve creases.

“Damned poacher,” said the warden, with a twang not unlike Nathan’s own Texas drawl. His skin was creamy and tanned, as though he’d never worried about a single zit in his life. He looked Latino, or maybe part Navajo. He, too, wore a brace of forty-fives in hip holsters, as well as a radio, baton, and a stun gun on his belt, but he didn’t seem alarmed at Nathan’s appearance in the slightest. His soft brown hair feathered lightly in the breeze, ponytail held in place by an official ball cap. A pencil-thin moustache and a sparse soul patch and beard attested to his Native American heritage. This ranger could be a teenager and no one would ever know. Indians never seemed to age, and they never could grow decent facial hair. “Took just the antlers and left the carcass. I’ve been running into this guy’s handiwork a lot in the past couple weeks. This is the eleventh mule deer I’ve seen with his antlers missing. Antlers on this buck were big enough to place him in the trophy category.”

Nathan holstered his weapon, intrigued, going toward the carcass. “How do you know
I
am not the poacher?”

The game warden grinned. “You’re a forty-five Glock man. The way you hold your weapon shows you’ve had combat training.” He pulled a knife from his belt and squatted by the smelly deer carcass. Was he really about to dig the bullet from that maggot-riddled thing? “Besides, you came at me like a fellow corrections officer. If you were the poacher you would have been running in the opposite direction. And clumsily. Making a lot of noise, falling over things. This poacher is no slick operator. I’ll get him sooner or later.”

“You’ll catch him,” Nathan echoed, “on your
horse
?”

Yes, he was digging the bullet out of the deer’s shoulder. Dark blood pooled in the puddle he created, but he sloshed around in there nevertheless, making squishy sounds. “Horseback is the best way to get around these sandstone bluffs. You could use an ATV, but you’d forever have to ride around these little ravines and gorges. Horse can just ride through them.” The ranger withdrew his bullet and shook droplets of blood from it that stained the sandstone prettily. Standing, he dropped the bloody trophy in a plastic bag. “And what are
you
so paranoid of? Coming at me like that.” He walked back to his horse to place the evidence in a saddlebag, but behind the shades Nathan could feel his skeptical eye on him.

“Me? Well, like you said, I’m a corrections officer. On a vacation,” he made sure to add. “Constantly paranoid, we are.”

“Paranoia can be a helpful thing. Staying at the Triple Play?”

“Yeah. The rooms are all full due to that fishing competition, but a cabin’s coming free today. I think I’ll stay around, do some fly fishing.”

The ranger gave Nathan some fishing advice that made no sense whatsoever. Nathan had studied fishing reports to make his fishing claim sound reasonable, but really, the last time he’d gone fishing was with his stepfather when he was fourteen. So much had changed in the past twenty-six years with regards to gear, bait, and tackle. The anglers at the Triple Play looked like they were setting out on a moonwalk.

The ranger was saying, “Fishing’s been slow, but anglers have been having the most success with yellow-spotted black Panther Martins.”

Nathan nodded as though knowledgeable. “I heard a large algae bloom precluded the use of spinners. You keeping that cigarette butt, too? Get prints off it?” He changed the subject admirably. It was true, though, that he may as well do some fly fishing while he was relaxing here in Utah. So some of this technical stuff might stand him in good stead.

“Right,” said the warden as he sealed the plastic pouch. He took his water canteen from a clip on his saddle and poured water over his dirty hands. “If I can get DNA material from his vehicle or freezer, I can make a match to this carcass. Listen. You’ll be here at the lodge for awhile? I’d appreciate your being my eyes and ears. What’s your name? Officer…”

“Nathan Horowitz. I sure can do that, Sergeant Longtree.” His nametag above his right pocket told Nathan that much. The badge over his other pocket said he was a Conservation Officer for Wildlife Resources for the state of Utah. “I hate those bastards probably as much as you do.”

Sergeant Longtree handed him a business card. A strange twinge of hope leaped in Nathan’s heart—was he already attracted to this game warden?—and he was disproportionately disappointed when he saw it only had a number for a Turn-in-a-Poacher hotline.

Longtree said, “This is the best way to contact a Department of Wildlife Resources officer. We nab more poachers with the help of the public than we do in weeks of our foot patrols. I was thinking of going to the lodge and interacting with some of those fishermen. They’re going to be spread out all around Lake Powell, right?”

“Oh, all over,” said Nathan, though he didn’t really know.

“I always enlist volunteers from sportsman groups to serve as eyes and ears. They have a stake in maintaining the species. This particular bastard’s specialty seems to be taking the racks from the bucks. I’ve noticed some untagged traps that might belong to the same rat bastard. Might just camp out next to one of the traps. If he doesn’t return within two days he’s in violation right there. They’re supposed to check even legal tagged traps every forty-eight hours so the critters don’t suffer. See this protein block?” Longtree pointed to a block that looked like compressed sawdust, maybe a foot square. “They lure the deer that way. It’s like cocaine to the deer, makes their antlers grow huge.”

“Too bad you have to spend the whole night sitting next to a trap,” Nathan mused. “Where’s your nearest office?”

Longtree waved in a northerly direction. “Regional office is in Price, but I’ve got a trailer in Moab.”

“Moab?” Nathan snorted. “That’s over an hour from Blanding to Moab.”

Longtree nodded. “And an hour from here to Blanding.”

“You don’t have a partner?”

He shook his head impassively. “Of course our department is the first to get cut. When I need to call for backup, there is none.”

Unbidden, Nathan’s heart flooded with empathy. He, too, was partnerless. He had no backup, either. No one to talk to. No one to create memories that could later be shared. He found himself saying, “You could at least spend one night at my cabin before you have to go waiting all night beside a trap.”
Well, that was plain stupid. I just lost one partner. Why do I want another one already?
Two distinct people were at war inside Nathan. The man who didn’t want to pursue women, and the jerk who had forced Xandra to snuggle her butt against his naked, and probably stiff, dick. The bitter man who had lost his partner in Africa, and the moron who now trolled for a new one.

While admiring his creamy nut-brown skin, his hairless forearms, his well-packed crotch.

Longtree looked thoughtful. “They have an express drop box at the lodge. I could ship this evidence to our lab. I might just take you up on that, Horowitz.” Longtree put a booted foot on a rock and leaned casually against his knee, now that they were seemingly friends. “Shit. This life is a bitch, but you got to love it. Couple days ago I was out at Sunburst Canyon when I heard a big uproar. People yelling, campfire, I assumed a bunch of kids partying, right?” Longtree exhaled with disgust. “Not a chance. I sneak on up, and there are these
adults
dressed up in furry costumes. Like, bunny rabbits and squirrels, right?”

“No,” Nathan said with disbelief.

“I kid you not. Full-on full-body costumes, like something you’d wear to a kid’s party, right? Only, they weren’t playing pin the tail on the donkey. Or maybe they were…in a way.”

“You’re shitting me.” Nathan broke into a wide grin. “Is that seriously a ‘thing’ that people do?”