Heart of Gold - By Tami Hoag Page 0,15

could let a slip of a woman get the drop on him? Or was it just this particular woman, an annoying little voice asked him. He was acting like a green rookie, and it was all Faith Kincaid’s fault. He scowled at her.

Suddenly realizing she had his pistol in her hand, she grimaced at it as if it were a slimy dead fish and offered it back to him, holding it pinched between her thumb and forefinger. “Here. Take this awful thing and put it away,” she said in her sternest motherly tone. For added oomph she shook her finger at him. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself, pulling a gun on poor Mr. Fitz. He’s no killer.”

Shane holstered the pistol, an ominous frown pulling his black brows low over his eyes. Lord, she made him feel as if he were ten all over again, in trouble for throwing spit wads in school. “How was I supposed to know that? No one bothered to tell me there was a Mr. Fitz.”

Alaina stepped between them, defusing the situation with an introduction as the telephone rang in the background. “Mr. Callan, this is Faith’s caretaker, Jack Fitz. Mr. Fitz, this is Agent Callan. The government sent him to keep an eye on Faith because of that trial business.”

Mr. Fitz snorted like an infuriated billy goat, his whiskered chin set at a defiant angle. “That better be all ye keep on her, ye big rascal.”

Shane rolled his eyes and heaved a much-put-upon sigh. Half under his breath he said, “This place is unbelievable.”

“Feel free to go back to Washington to report that,” Faith said. She was still seething. She’d had it with him upsetting her household and her nervous system. A quiet life was all she wanted. “You’re not welcome here, Mr. Callan. You’re not wanted, and you’re not needed.”

“You’ve made that first part abundantly clear, Ms. Kincaid,” he said, his voice low and silky as he leaned over her.

Faith met his cool, intense stare with one of her own. Shane’s look was that of a man who could have stared down the devil himself. Perhaps he had. And underlying the anger that snapped between them like a live wire she could feel a pull, an attraction she neither wanted nor welcomed. A strange tingling raced over her skin as the moment stretched out between them.

“Faith,” Jayne called, breaking the tension. “Telephone.”

Almost weak with relief, Faith turned away from the confrontation. Her knees wobbled a bit as she crossed the room to take the receiver from Jayne.

“Hello, this is Faith Kincaid.”

“How would you like to be dead, Mrs. Gerrard?” a man’s voice questioned very softly.

Blinding, instantaneous fear lodged in Faith’s throat. She felt as if she had suddenly been encased in ice, and yet her palms were sweating as she clutched the receiver to her ear. The only thing she could think to say was ridiculous, but she said it anyway, her voice shot through with trembling threads of panic. “Who is this?”

“A friend,” the man answered, but there was nothing friendly in his voice; it held all the silky menace of a viper, dark and evil. “A friend who thinks it would be better if you didn’t testify, because I’d hate to have to kill you.”

For a long moment Faith listened to the silence after the soft click on the other end of the line. Finally she hung up and turned slowly to face the other people in the room. If she had felt weak before the call, she felt faint now, and she knew she had turned as white as the kitchen appliances. She was certain no one could feel as cold and terrified as she did and still have a red blood cell left in her body.

Everyone in the room stared at her, their faces grim with worry. They seemed miles away, even though they were in the same room.

She didn’t turn to her friends. Her gaze went directly, instinctively to Shane Callan and locked on him desperately, as if she could somehow draw strength from merely looking at him. Faith didn’t question her reaction; fear had stripped away the ability to question and reason.

Managing to draw a shaky breath into her lungs, she said, “It would seem I was a bit hasty in saying you aren’t needed here.”

THREE

HE COULDN’T SLEEP. No matter how hard he tried, no matter how detached he claimed to be, he couldn’t blank the image from his mind. Every time he closed his eyes