"Feehan, Christine - Lover Beware 03 - Brand, Fiona - After Midnight" - читать интересную книгу автора (Feehan Christine)

After Midnight 177
She'd spent the past seven years marking time, preparing for emptiness, and now it was finally here.
THE NOONDAY SUN poured down on Michael Rider's back, burning his already tanned skin to copper and sending a trickle of sweat down the deep groove of his spine as his calloused, long-fingered hands closed around the Glock 19. A magpie squawked, striking a discordant note and causing a ruckus in the large, gnarled branches of the towering, ancient magnolia that occupied one corner of his backyard, as he slotted an empty clip into the handgun.
As weapons went, there was nothing pretty about the Glock; it was matte black and made of composite materials that seemed to actively absorb light. Without its fully loaded magazine, the weapon weighed in at a lean one pound seven ounces. In plain English, that meant it was light enough to make carrying concealed a breeze.
Not that he'd be carrying concealed anymore, or going anywhere he was likely to need a weapon. He was finished with war, and the way he saw it, war was finished with him. He was thirty-three, and he'd spent more than a third of his life either training for battle or actively participating. In the last thirteen years, he'd pushed his luck to the limit and he had the scars to prove it. He'd picked up a knife wound in Afghanistan that had netted him seventeen stitches and a stint in a military hospital in Germany because the infection that had gone with the cut had come close to killing him. He'd collected a bullet wound from a shady situation in Timor that had never made the news, and just to round things off, he'd broken his leg when a jeep he'd been a passenger in had rolled during a training exercise. That time he'd been laid up for four months, with further downtime while he'd rehabilitated the wasted muscles and regained his fitness. The limp had faded, and he'd made it back into active service again, but his leg still ached on him occasionally-especially when it was going to rain. A sign of old age creeping up on him fast.
A wry smile curved his mouth, as he adjusted his comfortable sprawl on the verandah steps and tilted his head back, enjoying the sun on his face and the smell of freshly cut grass. He replaced the weapon with the others he'd pulled out to clean and inventory for a buyer who ran a gun shop in Win-

FIONA BRAND
slow. A month ago he'd viewed these weapons as necessary tools-now he kept seeing them as finance for fencing wire and fertilizer, or maybe even a start on the prime beef herd he aimed on breeding.
His dark gaze absently inventoried the down-at-heel corner of his farm he could see as he savoured the vision. His paddocks lush with blue-green grass; a herd of big, fat, lazy cows; some prime quarter horses just to make the place look pretty; and not a noxious weed in sight.
He grinned as he ran a soft cloth over the oiled parts of a Ruger. These days the only battles he intended to fight would be with the aforementioned weeds and a mortgage company.
With deft movements, he reassembled the weapon. The Ruger was-had been-his weapon of choice, and he'd carried it with him for more years than he cared to remember. He could break the rifle down and reassemble it blindfolded if he had to, and in the field he'd had to operate in pitch-blackness on more than one occasion.
Rising to his feet, he eased the stiffness from muscles unused to digging postholes and chopping firewood as he stepped off the verandah onto the lawn. With the ease of long practice, he lifted the Ruger to his shoulder, automatically bracing himself as he looked through the crosshairs of the telescopic sight. The twisted limbs of a distant puriri tree sprang into stark, ice-pure prominence; the magnification was disorienting, so that for a moment the gnarled bark and dark, glossy green foliage looked close enough to touch.
He drew in a breath and let it sift from between his teeth, then abruptly lowered the rifle.
Like the sidearms, the Ruger had to go. He'd rotated off a peacekeeping mission in Timor two weeks ago, and as soon as he'd hit New Zealand soil and read the letter that Marg Tayler-an old friend of his mother's-had sent, and which contained the one piece of information he'd been waiting on, he'd handed the SAS his resignation. He'd been in years longer than he'd ever wanted to be. He was a civilian now, and a horse and cattle breeder had no use for a sniper's weapon.
The sound of vehicles coming up his drive registered. Two police cruisers were partially visible through the thick border

After Midnight 179
of overgrown shrubs that edged the drive as they pulled to a halt on the gravel just metres away.
A car door slammed as the bulky, sweating figure of Sergeant Tucker climbed out of the first car. Tucker was in his late fifties, balding and solidly built. He had run the small police station the entire time Michael had lived here and was as local as anyone could get, having been born in Tayler's Creek. Tucker was followed by three other uniforms, one of whom Michael recognized as the only other local cop, a young rookie called Zane Parker.
The rusted hinges of his white picket gate creaked as Tucker pushed it wide.
Zane followed behind, pushing the trailing branch of a climbing rose away from his face. "Shit, he's armed."
Michael heard the unmistakable sound of rounds being chambered in automatics, then the two unfamiliar cops appeared.
Michael eyed the four cops fanning out around him, and cursed beneath his breath. Tucker and Parker weren't armed, but the other two were. He remained completely still, the Ruger held loosely in one hand. "It's not loaded."
"Put the weapon down. Now." Tucker's voice was hollow, as if he was having trouble breathing, but Michael wasn't about to argue; he knew the drill, and respected it. The rules of engagement that he'd played to for the past thirteen years had been greyer and more savage than those ever confronted by civilian policing, but they shared rules in common. Number one was that anyone with a gun, loaded or not, was a threat.
Slowly, he went down on his haunches and laid the Ruger on the ground. Damned if he'd drop it and damage any part of it. The weapon was a Rolls Royce model, and worth upwards of five thousand dollars on the collectors' circuit. The fact that the gun had seen active service in the SAS would make it worth even more, and right now every cent he could squeeze out of these weapons would count. He needed all the money he could put together to get his farm operational.
Parker eased forward, crabbing sideways as if Michael were a wild animal, before darting in to snatch up the gun.
Tucker swore. "That's evidence, Parker."
Parker dropped the gun, and Michael winced. Seconds later

180 FIONA BRAND
Parker pulled on thin latex gloves, picked up the gun, and retreated in the direction of the cruisers.
Parker's fumbling aside, the two officers keeping him pinned with their guns were colder, more controlled. Michael didn't recognize either of them, which meant they were probably backup from Winslow, the closest city to Tayler's Creek.
The two city cops were rock steady, and there was nothing sloppy about the way they maintained their weapons in the ready-to-fire position, so that if they needed to pull the trigger, a fractional movement of the finger was all that was required. To keep up that level of battle readiness required intense concentration and hours of weapons training, because after only a few seconds it was easy to let your focus slip, and the gun waver.
Michael eyed Tucker coldly, already knowing what Tucker must be hauling him in for, but asking anyway. "What am I wanted for?"
Tucker's face was red and sheened with sweat. A pulse pumped at the side of his jaw. "Murder. And rape."

Chapter
JANE LET OUT a breath, bent down, and eyeballed Jess. "You're supposed to be a guard dog."
Jess panted happily and dropped on her back, signaling it was time for a rub.
"Oh, great. And before that, you were supposed to be a sheepdog."
Obligingly, Jane rubbed Jess's belly, then threw the stick until Jess lost interest and flopped down beneath a shady tree.
On the way back to the barn, Jane checked the level of the water troughs. It had been so dry lately that she'd had to pump water from the bore just behind the barn every day just to keep the sheep in water. She hesitated as her hand settled on the latch of the pump shed door, apprehension pooling in the pit of her stomach at the prospect of walking into the small, dark building. Irritably, she shook off the jumpy, spooked feeling, gripped the door handle, and wrenched. The door held stubbornly, jarring the muscles of her upper arm, then came open with a rending creak, sending her staggering back a half step.
Hot air blasted out at her. The tiny shed was like an oven, dark and stifling, the corrugated iron crackling and pinging in

182 FIONA BRAND
the noonday heat. Too hot for birds and mice. Definitely too hot for an intruder.
"There, nothing," she muttered as her eyes adjusted to the dimness. "There's no one on this farm but me-and enough animals to start a zoo."
Crouching down, Jane rotated the valve that controlled the flow to the troughs, and primed the pump. By the time she'd started the motor and waited for it to settle into a steady rhythm, she was wet with perspiration and all she wanted was a cold drink and a shower. As she strolled around the side of the barn and headed for the house, she decided that she was too hot, too thirsty, and too tired to care if anyone tried to sneak up on her.