She simply waited, hand outstretched.
With a heavy sigh, I sidestepped Bud until my stirrup knocked into the grill of my truck. With more force than necessary, I tore the folded paper from her hold.
Reins still in hand, I unfolded it and read what was written.
Clock is ticking.
“What fucking clock?” I asked, lowering the note to rest my hands on the horn of my saddle.
She eyed her fingernails with rapt attention, giving the impression she’d painted those as well while her ass made a permanent indent on my hood. “I have a deadline for each target I’m assigned. It’s not explicitly said with each photo Ireceive, but it was implied when I took my first job. One week, or I’m in trouble.”
I mentally counted how long it’d been since my trailer was given a bullet hole. “It’s barely been, what, five days?”
She laid her palm flat on the truck. “I never take longer than seventy-two hours, unless they really want the torture drawn out.” She shrugged. “I’m an overachiever.”
Torture?What the fuck did this woman do in her free time to be able to dole out pain like it was double-scoop day at an ice cream shop?
“And this is my problem why? I’m not the one in trouble.”
She slid her ass off the truck, hopping down with barely more than a slight whoosh of her breath spilling from her lips. “You will be if you’re not dead by day seven. Andnotby my hand. So get to it.” She patted a hand on my thigh before turning and heading for her car.
Without a single rational thought flowing through my mind, I nudged Bud. He sped on instinct, knowing exactly what I wanted from him without me even having to click my tongue.
We rounded Grace, stopping directly in front of her. She paused, crossing her arms. Her brows rose in question—and attitude.
“How’d you get this note?” I asked, looking down at her—which was a mistake, because the way those eyes of hers turned up at me was way too fucking suggestive for me to handle right now.
“It was on my front porch,” she answered.
“You don’t have cameras?”
She stared at me blankly for a minute before saying, “You really think I’d have cameras at my own house when I kill people for a living? That’s, like, asking for the FBI to hack my feed and catch me coming home bloody.”
The thought of her covered head to toe in red had my balls aching.
Fuck.
I shifted in the saddle. “Have you received notes before?”
She dropped her arms to her sides, then seemed to remember she’d recently done her nails, because she instantly raised her hands and checked the paint. “No.” Her head angled down farther. “You got dust on my toes!”
I didn’t care to look. She was on a ranch in open-toed heels and thought dirt wouldn’t stick to wet paint?
Her smarts were subjective, then.
She eyed my horse, a sense of fear lingering behind her obvious curiosity.
“You can pet him,” I told her, reading her thoughts.
Her gaze shot up to mine. “Pet him?”
I dipped my chin. “On the nose, if you want. But his favorite spot is under his jaw.”
Potentially still-wet nails forgotten, she lifted her hand. So slowly it nearly killed me, she reached forward. Bud had no patience and lifted his nose, nudging her palm. The act moved her entire arm, but she held her ground, not so much as stumbling back.
In the eyes of a beast probably fifteen times her size, she was brave.
Her fingers moved, itching his muzzle. His eyes became hooded as he lowered his head more, leaning into her touch.
