Training Rain Read online

  Reloading distracted her from the silence that followed. It was the loudest of her life.

  A low whistle broke in and she waited for Jess’ blond head to appear from behind the turned-over ATV. He gave an all-clear signal of three short whistles. Rain did not approach the scene, though part of her knew she should. There would be time enough to explore what she had done.

  As soon as Jess joined her, they moved quickly to the edge of the tree line. In front of them was more than a thousand feet of open ground. At the far end of the clearing a large herd of buffalo dug at the frozen ground looking for bits of grass to feed on.

  The ATV came into sight in a gully between the buffalo and their position.

  Her heart had only begun to stop racing from the last encounter. Now it beat again with renewed excitement.

  “Rain, could you make those animals stampede?”

  “What? Why would we want that? Have you lost your mind?” Her thoughts raced. How could they get across this field before the enemy got within firing range?

  “Can you do it?”

  “Yes. Probably.” It would only take making the animals understand that they were in danger and needed to run.

  “Do you think they would come this way?”

  Trees surrounded them. The only open field was the most likely path for the beasts plus she could make them think the danger was behind them. “It’s the most likely path.”

  The ATV climbed the ridge.

  “Good. Do it now.”

  She had a dozen questions, but she trusted Jess. She sent the emotion as strongly as she could, to as many of the buffalo as she could at one time. Only a second later tons of animal flesh careened across the land in their direction. Yas stood between her legs and she stayed behind a large tree. Jess took position close by and they watched their pursuers trying to turn away from the pounding hooves. The driver took a hard left, running smack into a large male bison. The vehicle stopped dead in its tracks while the animal stumbled and fell. It huffed a few times, got up and continued on at a slightly slower pace.

  Rain sent out an apology to the Great Spirit for causing the beast pain.

  One man ran out into the snow. He tried to make it to the trees. He actually managed to dodge one set of pounding hooves before falling victim to the next. Rain shut her eyes against the sight of his broken body tumbling unnaturally around the ground.

  Jess reached for her hand. “Come on. They’re going to be busy for a little while. We can make our way along the tree line. It’s only five miles to where I left a car. We can make that distance.”

  “Can’t we call for help?”

  “I’ll call Josh once we can get a cell signal. The park has towers but we have to get to higher ground. No one would get here before we are either on the road or caught anyway. There’s no one in this area. We’re on our own.”

  “Yes, I suppose we are.” She expected to feel anxiety, but a sense of calm at knowing Jess was there washed over her. He would die to keep her safe and she knew she would do the same. Strange.

  Rain wished she had time to examine these new feelings, but they were running again. Yas stayed at her heels and did none of the playful running ahead he had enjoyed during the training exercise. The dog had good instincts. He knew this was no game.

  After two or three miles, Yas turned and growled. Rain stopped and lifted her weapon, looking for trouble.

  “What is it?” Jess asked. He had run farther, not immediately realizing she and the dog had stopped.

  “I’m not sure.”

  Someone jumped her from the left side. She’d seen her attacker only an instant before the weight of his body collapsed on her. Her backpack thudded next to her. She heard Jess’ voice calling her name. She felt the branches and leaves of the underbrush scratching her cheek as it slammed into the ground.

  Gunfire cracked the air. She didn’t know who was shooting. She heard tree limbs breaking. The snow on the treetops crashed down around her.

  “If you move I’ll kill you.”

  Staying perfectly still, she calculated how far away the knife in her pack was to her hand and if she could get to it before the enemy noticed.

  Another man rushed through the leaves and snow. Yas growled and a man screamed. The man holding her down let up, maybe to help his friend. Rain took her chance, grabbed the hunting knife from the pocket on the side of her pack and slashed up and back while twisting her body.

  She felt the blade cut through fabric and down to flesh. The hard metal of a gun barrel pressed against her forehead.

  “Fucking bitch.” She’d turned far enough to see her attacker’s face. He was in his mid-thirties. Brown hair poked out from under his ski cap and his expression twisted with hatred and pain. Blood dripped from a long gash in his arm and stood out against the white of his BDUs.

  She dropped the knife. A big pile of snow fell near her left leg. He twisted toward the danger. Rain grabbed the knife, swung her arm up and sank the tip deep into his neck.

  He turned back with wide eyes before falling on his side and going still as death took him.

  Pushing his leg off her, she scrambled away just as Jess trotted over with Yas.

  She looked at the spots of snow clumps all around them. “Are you making the snow come down from the treetops?”

  “You needed a distraction and I was not going to get to you in time.”

  Amazing. “And the dead oak that fell at the perfect moment?”

  He shrugged. “Telekinesis can be quite handy at times. It’s not just for party tricks, you know.”

  He pulled her into a tight hug. “You did great.”

  She looked down at the man who had tried to kill her. She didn’t feel the sense of remorse she’d expected. A part of Rain wished it hadn’t been necessary to take a life, but her sense of logic told her there had been no options.

  Jess handed her a towel out of his pack. “You’d better wipe as much of that blood off you, cher.”

  Until that moment she hadn’t realized the wetness on her face was the other man’s blood. She wiped her cheek and used the snow in an attempt to get most of the blood off her white jacket. It would never all come out.

  Twenty yards away another man lay dead with his throat ripped out. She looked down at Yas. The dog’s big eyes stared sadly up at her and the small amount of white fur around his mouth was stained a dark red. Rain knelt down and cleaned him up as well, all the while petting him and telling him what a good dog he was. Somehow she knew the dog had saved her life. She could never have defeated two attackers.

  The men must have abandoned their ATV and tracked them through the thick woods on foot. Another lay dead with a bullet hole in the center of his chest. Empty eyes stared back at her as she passed.

  They reached the park road without any other signs of pursuit. Maybe the enemy had given up or maybe they had killed them all. Either way, she was glad to be out of the woods, though without the tree cover the snow was deep.

  Yas gave a low growl just before she heard the sound of an engine coming up the road. They dove off the road and into a ditch before the plow blade of the truck came into view. She felt and heard Jess release his breath and relax.

  “Park ranger.” He stood up and walked to the road waving.

  Rain and Yas followed toward what she now saw was a white truck with a green stripe down the sides. It clearly had a National Forestry symbol on the door. The driver was alone, male and though he stopped as soon as he saw them, he didn’t immediately get out of the truck.

  Jess stopped about fifteen feet from the vehicle’s front bumper and the two men watched each other for a long moment. It was the first time Rain had ever wished she had the ability to read human thoughts or emotions.

  She came up next to Jess and waved to the ranger.

  A moment later, he opened the car door and stepped out, putting his brimmed hat on. Likely in his late forties, he was graying though still appeared fit. He was nearly as tall as Jess and had a holstered handgu
n strapped to his belt. His hand rested on the hilt. His blue eyes were creased with a spider web of time and his thin lips were drawn in a line. He looked briefly at the pillar of smoke drifting up above the trees. It still poured from the cabin a few miles away. He wore no coat, maybe because he was in the car. On his breast pocket a gold pin read “Ranger Roger Bailey”. “Morning. You folks shouldn’t be up here this time of year.”

  Rain waited only a beat to see what Jess would say. He just watched the ranger.

  Rain patted Yas’ head. “I know, sir. We lost my dog up here a couple of months ago and this is the first chance we had to come back. I know it was against the rules to come into the park when it’s closed, but I just had to see if I could find him.”

  The ranger looked at Yas as the dog licked Rain’s hand and leaned against her leg. “Is that blood on you, ma’am?”

  Jess clutched his arm and shoulder where Rain had stitched him up. “I had a little mishap with a hunting knife, ranger. It took a few stitches.”

  The ranger seemed to be giving the excuse some thought. “You two know anything about an explosion? I heard it all the way back at the station.”

  Jess finally spoke up. “We heard it too and thought it would be a good time to get moving out of here. I left my car back at the lot. Any chance you’d give us a ride, Ranger Bailey?”

  She couldn’t tell if the ranger believed them or not. He just nodded and they loaded into his truck. She and Yas got in the backseat while Jess sat in the passenger seat up front.

  “Where you folks from?” Bailey asked.

  “Nevada, just outside of Las Vegas,” Rain said.

  “Long way to come to find a dog.”

  “Yes sir. He’s a good dog though.”

  Jess smiled and used a thick Louisiana accent. “She wouldn’t give me a moment’s peace in the past few months. Had to burn another vacation to find that mutt. I’d much rather have gone somewhere warm.”

  Ranger Bailey smiled for the first time. His fingers seemed to loosen on the steering wheel. “We all do those kinds of things to keep our women happy, son.”

  “Yes sir. I suppose we do.”

  They arrived at the parking lot and found the small SUV completely plowed in.

  She heard a barely audible “shit” from the passenger seat.

  “Sorry about that. The plow driver probably thought your car was abandoned since the fall.”

  Jess shook his head. “Any chance you could drive us to a nearby airport? Maybe we can get a charter back to Billings.”

  With a nod, they were on the move again. Rain looked out the back window half expecting to see the ATV behind them, but the road was clear. An hour later they pulled into a small airfield, said goodbye to Ranger Bailey and headed toward the hanger door.

  It took a moment for her eyes to adjust from the brightness of the outside with the sun reflecting off the snow to the dimly lit hangar.

  “I’ve been waiting for the two of you,” a familiar voice said.

  How could that be? She blinked a few times to bring the cavernous room into focus. In the center of the concrete floor a very expensive-looking, though small, airplane was parked. In front of the stairs leading up to the open doors stood Will Starkey with a big smile on his face.

  Rain knew that Will was a sharpshooter, an assassin, but she could never equate the easygoing bear of a man with a cold, calculating killer.

  Jess stepped forward immediately and shook Will’s hand. Jess was a pretty big guy, but he was dwarfed by the gentle giant who pulled the smaller man into a hug. Jess laughed and patted Will’s back. “Good to see you. How did you get here so fast?”

  “Josh got a signal when the cabin detonator was triggered. We figured you two were either dead or in trouble. It stood to reason if you survived the explosion, you’d head for a way out of the area.” He shrugged and patted the side of his plane. “Josh would have come himself, but he’s in D.C. trying to deal with the Breckenridge situation.”

  “Joshua Lakeland, most powerful psychic in the world, reduced to a politician. Sounds a bit nuts to me,” Jess said.

  Rain kept quiet as she took it all in and tried to hide her surprise that they could have figured all of that out and sent transportation in such a short time.

  Will’s smile brightened. “He’ll do fine. We’d better get going. I’m assuming you blew the cabin for a reason and whoever it was, they’ll be looking for you.”

  “I think we took care of them all, but it might be a good idea to have a clean-up team go in to deal with the fallout when the rangers find bodies strewn through the park.”

  “I’ll radio Tessa and tell her the situation. Good to see you again, Rain.”

  “You too, Will. I’m a little surprised about how fast you got here.” Between the explosion, running and fighting it was near midday.

  “It’s not a long flight and Tessa had me in the air only minutes after the alarm went off telling her you’d blown up the cabin.”

  “I sure appreciate you coming.”

  Will’s cheeks reddened just a touch and he looked down at Yas. “I didn’t know you had a dog with you.”

  Rain had a jolt of panic about flying with Yas. Would Will be opposed to taking the dog?

  Jess answered before she had the chance to defend Yas. “He found us. Saved our lives today.”

  Will crouched down and patted his knee. Yas’ tail immediately went into wagging overdrive and he rushed forward to get a good pet and scratch behind the ear. Yas licked Will’s face and the big man laughed. “Looks as if you’re a regular part of the Alliance then, boy.”

  It was an extremely nice airplane. Luxury seating for eight in leather recliners. Will put on his headset and radioed about the situation before he ran a final check in the cockpit. Rain and Yas settled into the comfortable seats.

  Will asked, “Where do you want to go? Tessa told me on the radio just now, she doesn’t think going back to Nevada is a good idea. If they’re after you, best not to lead them back to the home base. I think we need to go somewhere we can make a stand. Maybe capture one of them and find out what he knows.”

  Jess slid into the seat next to Rain and wrapped his hand around hers. “Let’s go to my turf then. We can act as the bait and lure them in. Find out exactly what we’re dealing with. My first impression is that they followed me here and hadn’t intended to kill Rain.”

  Will brimmed with excitement. “New Orleans it is!”

  There was no doubt in her mind that he was excited over their destination. She’d never met anyone as enthusiastic as their pilot.

  Jess chuckled and closed his eyes.

  Chapter Six

  It wasn’t just the temperature difference as he stepped off the plane in New Orleans, it was the entire sensual feel of the bayou rolling over Jess. He was home. The air in southern Louisiana carried a certain scent just as the music lilted in just the perfect way. It was unique in all things.

  They’d stopped at his apartment in the French Quarter to clean up and change clothes before heading out onto the street. Will said he would do a sweep of the area, gave Jess a don’t-screw-this-up look and left. Jess couldn’t help wondering if Will’s expression was about the assignment or the woman.

  He heard the water running in the tub. The idea of Rain’s shapely body naked in his tub had him hard as a rock. In a very short time he’d become accustomed to her psi energy floating over his. Not in an invasive way, but it was there, caressing him and keeping him in a constant state of arousal. After twenty minutes he couldn’t take it anymore.

  Opening the bathroom door gave him a view of warm tan skin, bubbles and the swell of her breasts.

  He didn’t know if his presence would be welcomed, but her sultry expression boded well. “Didn’t you already take a shower?”

  “I’m still feeling a bit dirty,” he said.

  “I’ll bet you are.” She swirled the water and bubbles with her fingers, creating a small vortex and a view into the water beneath. He c
ould barely see anything, but his memory of her luscious flesh was more than enough stimulation.

  It had been good to get into clean clothes. That didn’t mean he was any more comfortable now that his cock pressed against the fly of his jeans, trying to get out. “The way I see it, cher, you have two choices. Either you come out of that tub right now or I’m coming in after you.”

  Her dark eyes continued their direct perusal and without warning, she stood up. Water ran down her body in a rush of suds that stuck to her in the most delicious places. He closed the gap between them, grabbing a towel as he went.

  Unable to look away, he also didn’t want to rush in and lose the moment. He stopped at the edge of the free-standing tub, wrapped the towel around her back. The white terrycloth was a stark contrast to her dark skin. Wrapping his arms around her, he lifted her from the water and set her lightly on the bath mat. The warm water seeped through his shirt as her tits pressed against him. As soon as her feet hit the ground, he lowered his hands, cupped her firm ass and pulled her in tight against his shaft. A low groan met with her sigh as her breath tickled his ear.

  Jess took a step back and she swayed in place but didn’t make a move to get close to him again. Her mouth parted as the pink of her tongue poked out, wetting her lips. He pushed wet strands of hair off her cheek, dried her shoulders, arms and chest. Allowing the towel to drift lower, he dried her ass while he lowered his head and suckled one perfect nipple.

  Rain arched into him and made a high-pitched sound that seemed to rumble up from deep inside. He gave the other breast the same attention while he dried her hips. Her fingers dug into his hair, tugging just enough to let him know she liked his attention, but not enough to cause pain.

  With a popping sound, he released her and dropped to his knees. Slowly he dried one thigh, leg and foot. Nudging her thighs apart, he dried the other. As the towel pressed between her legs, she moaned and wobbled on her feet. His cock jumped at the sound, while he steadied her with strong hands around her thighs.

  Her lids were half closed, but her gaze was riveted on him as he knelt in front of her. He ran his fingers along the folds of her freshly shaven pussy. Velvety soft and smooth, he leaned forward and pressed his lips against hers. Her hips thrust forward and his slid his tongue between those slick folds. A soft cry escaped her and she wavered on her feet once again. This time the edge of the tub saved her from total collapse.