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He lifted his eyebrows in amusement. “You don’t like scrambling up tall ladders, do you?”
“Not so much. Come on. I have the light strands untangled and laid out on the back step.” She headed for the main house, hearing the aluminum rails of the ladder clank together behind her. “We can have it done before dark.”
Just because she loved Christmas and the sweet memories it evoked for her didn’t mean that everyone did. She could respect that. Still, she wondered what event in the young life of the battle-scarred bodyguard had given birth to his hostility.
Mac felled the closed ladder, hooked it with his arm and followed her. He remembered the Christmas lights being on at the Clareborn house that December evening when he and his father had driven down the lane to Firehill with their beat-up horse trailer hitched to his dad’s Ford pickup, and their last best hope of a horse, Smooth Sailing, in the back. Of unloading the colt in front of the Clareborn barn.
His life had gone downhill from there.
Tension knotted the muscles between his shoulder blades as he willed the memory to expire and leaned the ladder up against the back of the house.
Emma put several coils of lights on her arm. “The hooks are still in place, and the extension cord plug-in is right there.” She pointed to the receptacle and unwound a section of the colored lights, then handed him the plug.
Mac took it and climbed up the ladder, dragging the strand with him as Emma uncoiled it from her arm.
By the time they reached the midsection of the house, they had their tandem working system in sync, and he was beginning to get in the mood that went with the physical labor of decorating. It helped, too, that Emma smiled up at him every time she started another row of lights.
Putting another plug into the end of a strand, she reeled off a length of the brightly colored lights, and handed them to him.
Mac took them and started back up the ladder, one hand on the rung, the other grasping the strand.
The initial sound of a single bulb popping just above his head was inconsequential.
Pop! The spray of shattering glass riveted his attention on the bullet hole drilled into the siding on the house.
The next shot splintered the wood a foot above Emma’s head.
“Get down!” He lunged for her, kicking away from the ladder and forcing it in the opposite direction.
It scraped down the side of the house and clanked onto the grass.
Snagging her with his left arm, he pulled her to the ground in a tangle of Christmas lights and cord.
Covering her body with his own, he scanned the dense bank of trees and brush a hundred yards from the side of the house, spotting the shape of someone buried deep in the protective foliage.
He drew his weapon, but he didn’t have a clear shot. “Do you have your cell?”
“No.” His was sitting on the counter in the tack room. Another bullet drilled into the siding halfway between the ground and the overhead eave.
They were pinned down.
Emma struggled to make sense of the situation as she sucked a couple of breaths into her lungs, feeling the weight of Mac’s body pressing her into the grass.
Someone was taking shots at them? Someone wanted them dead? Fear pushed chills through her body. She closed her eyes, listening to the whisper of Mac’s breath against her hair. Honing in on the sound to prevent herself from being caught up in the wave of panic swelling inside of her.
Mac would keep her safe, he would protect her, with his life if necessary.
“I’m going to return fire as a diversion. When I do, I want you to stay low and head for the back door. Get inside and call 911.”
“Okay.” She felt his weight shift off her. She scrambled out from underneath him, hearing the decisive crack of gunfire behind her as she half crawled, half ran and ducked around the corner of the house, up the steps and safely through the back door.
She charged the length of the hallway and burst out into the living room, almost colliding with her dad in his wheelchair.
“I called … the sheriff. Who’s outside?”
“I don’t know who’s shooting, but Mac’s still out there.”
Worry locked her in place as she knelt next to her father, straining to hear what was going on.
No more shots. Silence. Blessed silence. Worry ground over her nerves as she considered the implications.
Either the shooter had been hit, or—
Emma crawled into the dining room, where a window faced the west side of the house.
Her hand shook as she pulled open the drape an inch and stared out on the side yard.
Dusk was settling over Firehill, but in the fading light she saw Mac dart across the driveway leading back to the barn and take cover next to the trunk of an oak tree on the edge of the brushy thicket.
A measure of relief flooded her insides. He hadn’t been shot tonight. But he had been shot at some point. Realization surrounded her thoughts as she pulled back from the window and crumpled on the floor to wait for help to arrive.
The horrible scar on Mac’s beautiful face was a gunshot wound. He said he’d worked for the Secret Service. The scenario fit. He’d dived to protect another human being with his own body and had taken a bullet for that person, just like he would have taken a bullet for her ten minutes ago.
She swallowed and closed her eyes, trying to imagine the pain he had endured, but it was inconceivable.
In the distance she could hear the shrill wail of a siren. Emma opened her eyes and stood up, seeing the strobe of the police car’s lights reflecting against the drapes.
“Emma.” Her father called.
“Yes.” She moved into the living room. Concern brushed her nerves, as she stared at her dad, at the stricken look on his face and the piece of paper in his hand.
“Give this to … Wilkes. It’s why … I called him.”
Reaching out she took the paper and stared at the string of text that had been cut from a secondary source and strung together word by word to form a sentence.
Don’t race your horse or next time I won’t miss.
“Where did you get this, Dad?”
“It came in the mail … this afternoon. Sam brought it in just before she left … for the day. I opened it … twenty minutes ago, and called the sheriff. It’s a threat against … Navigator.”
There was fear in his eyes as he worked to speak.
She put her arm across his shoulders. “Don’t worry, Mac and I won’t let anything happen to him.” Her reassurance seemed to calm him. She carried the note into the kitchen, where she pulled a large Ziploc bag out of a drawer and slipped the note inside before going back into the living room.
“Where’s the envelope it came in?”
“On the desk. No … return address.”
Moving to the rolltop, she found the plain white envelope next to the stack of mail and added it to the bag. “I’ll take this to the sheriff.”
Her dad nodded and she headed down the hall, flipped on the porch light and exited the back door, coming face-to-face with Mac and Sheriff Wilkes at the west corner of the house. They were deep in conversation.
Mac looked up as she approached. “Emma. Are you and your dad okay?”
“Yes.” She turned to face Wilkes. “Here’s the note we got in the mail this afternoon. My dad called you the moment he opened it.”
Wilkes reached out and took the plastic bag, holding it up where the porch light illuminated the crude message.
“It’s the second one today. Brad Nelson over at Cramer Stables received one this morning.”
“Derby prospect?” Mac asked, feeling a measure of concern enter his bloodstream.
“Yes. He plans to nominate his horse Whiskey Fever for a spot in the Kentucky Derby.”
“Were there any potshots taken at him?” Mac asked, knowing that if one of the gunshots had been a foot lower it would have hit Emma.
“No. But with any luck you scared him off and he won’t try this over at Cramer Stables. Did you by any chance get a look at him?”
“No. He took off the moment I put a slug in the tree. But Brad Nelson would be wise to get some security in place around his horse, just in case he tries this over there. Whoever is behind these attacks is serious. It’s only a matter of time before someone is seriously hurt, or worse.”
“I agree,” Wilkes said. “And a heads-up. Some of the surrounding farms have banded together and put up a reward for the capture of whoever is behind the threats and attacks against their horses.”
“Is that right?”
“Twenty-five thousand dollars and climbing. I’ll file my report and get this letter to the lab tonight after the forensics team takes a look at the scene for slugs or shell casings. I’ll drop by in the morning if they find anything.”
“Thanks, Sheriff. I’ve got to go check on the colt.”
Mac turned for the barn, anxious to make sure the horse was okay. One thing the evening’s events had made clear—Navigator wasn’t the only animal being targeted in the Bluegrass. But how did last night’s intruders and Mac’s subsequent stint trapped in a sleeping bag play into any of this?
The shuffle of footsteps behind him slowed his pace, and he was glad when Emma fell in next to him.
“Hey, where are you going? We can’t let a couple of stray bullets dissuade us. We’ve got Christmas lights to hang.”
He chuckled, pulled up short and turned to look at her in the last glimmer of Kentucky twilight.
“Do I look like the Grinch, Emma?”
“Um … maybe a little around the eyes.”
“I want to make sure the colt’s settled for the night, then I’ll help you finish the lights.”
“Okay.”
Mac headed for the barn again with Emma keeping stride next to him. Glancing across the paddock, he spotted several men standing in the doorway of the stud barn, looking into the deepening darkness.
“Do Victor Dago and his crew ever work their horses?”
“Yes. Every other day they get the practice track in the morning and I take the afternoon slot.”
He mulled her answer as they approached the barn entrance and the motion light clicked on. They entered the stable together and Emma flipped on the overhead lights.
Mack walked to Navigator’s stall and the horse immediately put his head over the gate for a scratch.
“He likes you, you know,” she said.
Mac stroked the bay’s forehead and glanced over at her where she leaned against the wall next to the gate.
“He’s a horse, Emma. They like anyone who takes care of them and slips in an occasional carrot. The finer details of an interpersonal relationship don’t exist.”
Navigator bobbed his head and snorted, blowing a fine mist of green moisture at him.
She busted out laughing as he wiped off the back of his hand and shook his head. “Navigator loves a challenge. Even if that challenge is to convince you he wants an interpersonal relationship.” She grinned, studying him intently in the glare of the lights.
“I figured it out tonight. I figured out how you got that scar.”
He watched her mood turn serious and contemplated the sudden direction the conversation was taking.
Emma took a step closer to him, staring at the deep furrow that cut along his left jawbone from ear to chin.
Her body went on autopilot as she raised her right arm and touched his face, stroking her hand along his jaw. He didn’t pull back, he didn’t flinch, he just met her unwavering stare with one of his own.
“You saved someone’s life and almost lost your own. That’s how you got this?”
“Yes.”
Her heart was pounding out of her chest by the time her palm reached his chin and she let her arm drop to her side.
“How long ago?”
“Six months.”
“Working for the Secret Service?”
“Yes.”
“Can you tell me what happened?”
“No.”
“Oh.” A myriad of questions flitted through her mind. Who, why, what, where, when and how, but her final summation ended with a level of surety she felt lock in place between them.
She trusted that he could protect her and her horse from just about anything, and he’d be willing to give his life if necessary.
Chapter Five (#ulink_95d59880-452b-55aa-9cb6-f98d0dd203e6)
“Mac Titus is ex-Secret Service. He’s out on medical leave after nearly having his face blown off by a bullet meant for a foreign dignitary visiting Louisville six months ago.”
