The Maverick

But what if he’d been wrong about her? What if he’d been wrong to believe in secondhand gossip instead of the heart-and-guts proof of their actual relationship?

No. There was evidence, the kind she couldn’t hide.

Luke coughed. “I hear you’ve got a kid.”

The car shot dangerously fast around one of the switchback curves. She slammed her foot on the brake, sending the back end fishtailing into the soft shoulder.

“Take it easy,” Luke said just before he was flung across the seat. By the time he’d awkwardly righted himself, pushing up with hands cuffed behind his back, she’d gotten the car under control and was proceeding as if he hadn’t spoken.

“A boy,” he said.

Her fingers clenched on the wheel. “Let’s keep this strictly business.”

“Not possible. You and I will never be strictly business.”

“Fourteen years without contact certainly indicates otherwise.”

“Fourteen years without contact only means that we both went cold turkey. Now that I’m back…”

Dear Reader,

After writing thirteen books for Harlequin, I’m thrilled to be making my Superromance debut this month with The Maverick. It’s a reunion story, it’s a bad boy (and girl!) story, it’s even a secret baby story…although this time the “baby” happens to be a moody thirteen-year-old named Joe. Telling Luke and Sophie’s story was, by turns, a fun, emotional, exciting and even wrenching experience.

Thanks must go to The TIBS and John, my online buddy group, who provided support, sharpened my wits, listened to my gripes, answered my stupid questions at 2:00 a.m. and made me laugh every single day. And especially to you, the reader, for welcoming me to the wonderful world of Superromance by reading this book.

Please let me know how you like it! You may write to me in care of Harlequin, or via e-mail by going to www.eHarlequin.com or www.superauthors.com.

Cheers,

Carrie Alexander

The Maverick

Carrie Alexander

For the scholar and the woodsman, my mom and dad, who

taught me the love of books and the benefits of hard work.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER ONE

THE SILVER-AND-BLACK MOTORCYCLE zipped through downtown Treetop, Wyoming, at fifteen miles above the speed limit. Deputy Sophie Ryan was so startled she flinched, spilling her coffee and dropping her car keys. From Sophie’s vantage point in the parking lot of the True Brew coffeehouse, she shouldn’t have been able to recognize the driver.

Yet she was afraid that she had.

Maverick. The name flashed through her like lightning—as shocking and electric as the man himself.

The presence of Luke Salinger in Treetop—after fourteen years!—was too much to accept all at once. Sophie didn’t want him here. She truly didn’t. But there was no denying that she was transfixed by the possibility. Steaming latte soaked the front of her police uniform, and she was too stunned to feel it.

Squeezing the half-empty foam cup, she stared blankly after the speeding motorcycle. Even though Range Street had returned to its usual early-morning tranquility, the air seemed to reverberate with the bike’s annoying buzz and hot blue exhaust fumes. Sophie shuddered. Every self-protective sense that she’d honed in the years since Luke’s departure went on red alert.

Her mind raced. Try as she might, she couldn’t convince herself that some other member of the defunct Mustangs motorcycle gang had chosen to take a joyride through town for old time’s sake.

For one thing, it was only quarter to eight. That let out the likeliest candidate, Damon “Demon” Bradshaw, who rarely rolled out of bed to open his run-down bike shop before noon.

The motorcycle in question had been black and chrome, sleek, stylish, fast. Snake Carson’s bike was a big, ugly chopper that sounded like a dump truck. And ever since Skooch Haas had found religion he’d sooner wear a dress to bible school than break the speed limit.

While the driver had been little more than a blur, Sophie’s observation of details was keen. She’d seen enough to identify dark wavy hair, whipped by the wind since it was a little too long to be reputable, a possible Mustangs tattoo on the left biceps, and a long, lean body clad in denim and brown leather. Which meant she could also eliminate Punch Fiorelli, who’d gained fifty pounds in the past decade, and Bronc Lemmons, who was in the hospital, sick and bald as a colicky baby from his second round of chemotherapy.

Sophie took a shaky breath. Other than the deceased and the incarcerated, that left one member of the Mustangs unaccounted for. And he happened to be the only man on earth for whom she’d never been able to rationalize—or completely stifle—her tangled, tumultuous feelings.

“Maverick,” she said through her teeth, remembering with a spurt of pain a time when he’d left her scared, alone and, as she’d soon learned, pregnant. She clenched her fist. The last of the coffee gushed from the cup in a hot brown waterfall.

Luke Salinger was back in Treetop, and the town would likely be the worse for it.

There was no question that Sophie’s stable life had just been turned upside down.

It was a minute before she came back to herself with a snap. Briskly she brushed at her stained uniform shirt, disgusted with her stricken reaction. One glimpse of Luke “Maverick” Salinger and her composure had cracked like the flimsy foam cup, releasing such a torrent of memory she’d been rendered mute and motionless. She would have to do better than that if she hoped to protect her family and hard-won reputation from the resurrection of the old scandal.

Nor could she continue to stand idly by while Luke flouted the speed limit. She was the only sheriff’s deputy on patrol this morning, and, speeding ticket aside, there were those fourteen-year-old charges of arson, vandalism and B & E still lingering on the books….

It was up to Sophie to apprehend Luke Salinger. She reached for her fallen keys. How ironic.

Kelsey Carson stepped out of the side door of the True Brew, her cheeks pink and glossy from the steam of the espresso machine. “Whoa. That was so cool,” she said. Her butter-blond ponytail swung as she scanned the empty street. “Who was he? I saw him zoom by from the kitchen window. Sweeet!”

Sophie straightened, keys in hand. Her law enforcement training demanded she give an impromptu lecture reminding the teenager that breaking the speed limit was dangerous, not cool. As she spoke, she couldn’t help remembering the days when she’d been as pretend-tough, rebellious and impressionable as sixteen-year-old Kelsey. She’d thought that Luke was as sweet as apple pie à la mode, and ten times as cool.

Kelsey wasn’t listening anyway. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. But who is that guy?”

Sophie grimaced. “I’m not sure, but I do know that he just broke the law.”

“Hmm.” Kelsey slid her hands into the pockets of her droopy camouflage pants and turned a measuring stare on Sophie. The gold ring that pierced her eyebrow winked in the sunshine. “He seemed familiar. Made me think of the photos of you and my dad and the rest of the Mustangs. From the old days.”

Sophie stiffened. If even Kelsey—who’d been a toddler at the time—could recognize the marauding motorcyclist for what he was, it wouldn’t be long before news of Maverick’s return hit Treetop like an earthquake. Old rumors would rumble. Under the pressure, Sophie’s good reputation would crack wide open. By the end of the day, the gossips would be in cataclysmic ecstasy.

“But he was too buff.” Kelsey frowned. “No way was he my dad’s age.”

“Well, don’t forget I’m nearly your dad’s age,” Sophie said, and Kelsey looked at her with blank incomprehension, making her feel every day of her thirty-one years. “Okay, I’ve got to go.” She handed the teenager the mangled cup.

Kelsey’s eyes sharpened. “Are you gonna arrest him?”

“We’ll see.” Sophie moved brusquely to her patrol car. She gunned the engine, the back tires spitting pebbles and dirt as the car sped out of the lot. From somewhere behind came Kelsey’s excited whoop as she ran back into the coffeehouse to spill the beans.

“Nuts.” Sophie buckled her seat belt one-handed, squinting into the sunshine splashed across the blacktop at the eastern end of Range Street. “Real smooth, Deputy Ryan.” She snatched her sunglasses off the visor, keeping to the speed limit until she reached the outskirts of town, where she stepped up the pace. The motorcycle was long gone, but it wouldn’t take much of an investigation to turn it up. She knew how Luke thought.

Or so she’d once believed.

Don’t think about it. She sandbagged the rush of returning images. You’re on the job. No time for Memory Lane.

She was fairly certain that if he’d just arrived in Treetop he wouldn’t head directly out to the family ranch, where his older brother, sister-in-law and grandmother, Mary Lucas—the matriarch who presided over the conjoined Lucas and Salinger families—still lived. Luke’s mother had died the year before he left; his father, Stephen Salinger, handled the family finances out of Laramie, the state’s capital city. After all this time, Luke’s welcome home might be as turbulent as Sophie’s churning emotions.

She swallowed, aware of a swiftly rising apprehension that had set her nerves on razor edge. Normally she was completely calm and levelheaded on duty, even in the few crisis situations she’d handled. It would be prudent to consider her emotional involvement in this particular case before charging forward like Colonel Custer at the Little Bighorn. The comparison was apt. Her history with Luke was nearly as devastating.

She cast a doubtful glance at the police radio, presently broadcasting the usual soothing static that meant there was nothing happening in Treetop that needed her attention. If she called into the station and requested aid—

Hell, no. Sophie tightened her fingers on the steering wheel, the highway smoothly unreeling beneath the patrol car’s tires. Sheriff Ed Warren would have a good belly laugh at her expense if it turned out that the renegade motorcyclist wasn’t Luke Salinger at all and she’d asked for backup to write a measly speeding citation. She got enough grief from her boss as it was without handing him further ammunition to question her competency.

Sophie gritted her teeth. She’d bring in Maverick on her own. Call it payoff.

The low-slung cedar roof of the Thunderhead Saloon caught her eye. She slammed on the brakes and spun the wheel, making a sloppy turn into the parking lot as the patrol car bumped on and off the crumbling curb. The saloon didn’t open till later, but the Thunderhead’s grill did a brisk morning business serving massive breakfasts of fried eggs, steak and short stacks to truckers and area ranchers. She’d likely find Punch—one of the former Mustangs—behind the griddle, flipping flapjacks and pinching the waitress’s bottoms. If he’d come this way, Luke might have stopped by to say hello.

Wagon wheels framed the walkway into the Thunderhead, the weathered spokes softened by the larkspur, oxeye daisies and purple asters that were among Theresa Fiorelli’s recent improvements to the family business. The interior was dark and masculine, but freshly scented with a lemony polish that had the wooden floors, walls and furnishings gleaming like the burnished hide of a bay quarter horse. More of Theresa’s handiwork. Before she’d swooped in with ideas about spiffy new decor, talent shows and karaoke nights, the business had been strictly utilitarian.

Sophie took off her sunglasses and went directly to the kitchen with a token wave at the bustling waitresses. Theresa was working the griddle, frowning in concentration as she poured precise dollops of batter in ruler-straight rows. She paused briefly to lift an eyebrow at Sophie. “Deputy.”

“Morning,” Sophie said, glancing around the immaculate kitchen. The stainless steel appliances shone like the chrome on Maverick’s bike. “Punch isn’t here?”

Theresa’s frown deepened. “You just missed him. Some hooligan in leather busted in—”

Sophie’s head snapped around.

“—and what with all the hollering and back-slapping you’d think this was a locker room.” Theresa wiped her hands on her apron, most of her attention focused on the problem of a malformed blueberry flapjack. She was a perfectionist who was still adjusting to her recent elevation from waitress to wife of the proprietor. “We’ve got six orders up and Punch decides to take a motorcycle ride, of all things.” The griddle sizzled as she scraped away the imperfect flapjack, pausing briefly to wave the gluey spatula at Sophie. “What is it with men, anyhow?”

“Darned if I know.” Sophie found herself grinning. “I live with two of ’em and don’t have a clue about how their brains work.”

“You tell it, sister,” said Ellen Molitor, a rangy, big-boned waitress with an incongruous snub nose. She dumped a tray full of dirty dishes near the sink with a clatter and ran a hand through her frazzled graying hair. The motion made the third button on her uniform blouse pop open. Ellen looked down into her meager cleavage and shrugged. “Tips,” she explained to Sophie with a wink. “They’re good for tips.” She chuckled. “Men, I mean.”

“Where’s your hair net?” Theresa’s voice was sharp.

“Lookee you.” Ellen grabbed an order of scrambled eggs and a slab of ham so big it hung off the edge of the plate and sashayed out of the kitchen, her flat behind swinging like a cow bell. “Miss Fancypants,” she shot over her shoulder.

Theresa sputtered.

“Which direction did they take?” Sophie asked hastily, not wanting to be caught up in kitchen politics. “Punch and Mav—er, this other guy?”

Biting her lip as she began carefully flipping the flapjacks, Theresa could do no more than bob her head in a vaguely easterly direction. When one of her perfect creations landed on another in a gloppy mess, Sophie slipped out of the kitchen before she took the blame.

Ellen waylaid her near the door. “Maverick’s back, you know, Soph.” She squeezed the deputy’s arm. “I thought I should warn you.”

“I know.” Sophie felt the need to blink. “I already saw him.”

“He still looks good. Real good.”

Sophie blinked again. Must be something in her eye. “He was going too fast for me to tell.”

Ellen peered beneath the brim of Sophie’s taupe trooper hat. They’d once worked together, sharing bad tips, sore feet and tales of woe. “You’re not carrying a torch, are you, hon?”

“Of course not!”

“You can admit it if you are.” Ellen rested the tray on her hip and patted the younger woman’s arm. “We’ve all been there. Even when a man’s no good, it’s awful hard to let go.”

No matter how many times Sophie blinked, moisture continued to well in her eyes. Damn that Maverick, she thought, trying to use the biker-gang nickname as a sobering slap in the face. She had to stay tough and mean, not surrender to misbegotten sentimentality. Think of Joey. Think of what sort of trouble Luke’s return could cause for your son.

“It’s been fourteen years, Ellie. My relationship with Luke was over long ago.” Sophie closed her eyes and swallowed. “Frankly, I’d hoped never to see him again.”

“If it were me, I might be sorta—” Ellen gave her shoulders a little wiggle “—excited that he was back. I reckon that man’s brand lasts a long time. Even longer than fourteen years.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Sophie said, although she knew very well that some brands were permanent. Defiantly she thrust up her naked ring finger. “I’ve never been branded, so to speak.”

“I wasn’t necessarily speaking of wedding rings.” Ignoring a customer’s call for more coffee, Ellen bent slightly to search Sophie’s eyes. The waitress must have seen something Sophie hadn’t wanted to reveal, because she nodded knowingly and said, “Yep, there are brands that last a whole lot longer than church vows.” She snorted. “And since I’ve been divorced twice, who’d know better ’n me? All the same, if my first love came around to visit, I believe I might give it another try. First love goes the deepest, doesn’t it?”

Sophie averted her gaze. Branded. By God, she was not branded. It wasn’t as if she’d been pining after Luke like some wimpy dishrag of a woman. She’d dated plenty of other men. Or enough, anyway. Only once had she come close to marriage—and that had been ten years ago when she’d been feeling guilty for depriving her son of a father figure.

So, yeah, she’d admit to a certain reluctance to trust men. Which was normal, given her reality. They’d been hard, the lessons that Luke—and others—had taught her. She’d struggled. She’d fought. And she’d survived.

She certainly did not need a man to complete her. Luke Salinger least of all.

Almost entirely on her own, she’d worked her way up from a string of low-paying jobs to a two-year stint as one of the Thunderhead’s waitresses, then on to her law enforcement training and the job with the Treetop Sheriff’s Department. She’d also raised a fine son—no thanks to anyone named Salinger.

At that, speculation on how Luke’s brother, Heath, would react to Luke’s return made a shudder run through her body. Trouble was brewing, sure as shootin’.

At least she was dry-eyed now. Dry-eyed and loaded for bear, as her father would say. She gave Ellen a tight smile and swept out of the restaurant, jamming her sunglasses back in place. Within the day, Luke would be locked up where he belonged and the whole town could gossip to their heart’s content about the welcome that Sophie Ryan had given him.

Reluctantly, self-consciously, she touched her backside before climbing into the car. Branded? Branded, her…her…her foot!

Demon Bradshaw’s business, a grungy motorcycle shop, was Sophie’s next stop, half a mile farther down the state highway that bypassed the small but bustling town of Treetop. She didn’t even have to get out of the car. One turn around the swaybacked shack that housed the shop and the sorry excuse for a log cabin out back was enough to see that neither Demon nor his old lady had stirred. Demon’s Harley was parked near the porch, the only thing at the Bradshaw place that was well cared for. Earlier that morning one of Sophie’s fellow deputies had passed the word that there’d been a major kegger at the Jackpine Lake campground last night. It was safe to assume that Treetop’s diehard partyers were still in bed, sleeping another one off.

Sophie knew where to go next. If Maverick and Punch were on an “auld lang syne” bike ride, they’d surely take the switchback, a blacktop county road that snaked upward in a series of sweet curves, rising in elevation until it reached a summit that offered one of the best views in the state. From an altitude of eight thousand feet, the town of Treetop would be a doll’s village nestled in the valley below, most of it screened by the brushy evergreens that crowded the hillsides. Luke would get a grand overview of the valley, the river, and, in the far distance, the rangelands of the family ranch he’d chosen to abandon.

If he cared enough to revisit what he’d abandoned, that was.

Sophie blinked again behind her dark lenses. It was natural to get a little emotional about Luke’s return. He’d been her first love. Her greatest love, to be completely honest. That didn’t mean she had to forgive and forget.

She’d tried to forgive him for leaving her, especially once she’d matured enough to understand that he’d been nearly as young, reckless and shortsighted as she. But she’d never been able to forget—not what he’d meant to her, nor what he’d done to her.

“And I won’t forget,” she whispered, going on automatic as she steered the car around the curves of a road she still knew better than the back of Luke’s hand.

Luke’s hand. A vivid memory flared—the day that Luke, then only eighteen, had first let her drive his motorcycle, his hands covering hers on the grips as their bodies pressed close, the bike’s speed and power vibrating through every inch of her as they climbed the scenic switchback.

She’d been sixteen and fresh out of a foster home, living with her neglectful father again, acting out her anger and rebellion, although deep inside what she’d really craved was to find a place for herself that felt safe. Luke had seemed like a god to her then—smart, handsome, filled with the kind of heat and energy and passion that lit up everything and everyone near him. He’d illuminated her drab life, chased away the shadows.

Hovering at the fringes of the ragtag band of rowdy young men who’d formed the Mustangs, she’d begun to crave Luke even more than safety. And eventually he’d regarded her with something other than a casual friendship. During her seventeenth summer, his nineteenth, they’d fallen head over heels in love. He’d shown her all his secret places in the countryside, warmed her with his fervent dreams of their future. On a star-filled night they’d made love at a hidden mountain lake, and she’d finally understood what it meant to be loved, cherished…and safe. In Luke’s arms, she’d finally felt safe.

Ah, the folly and blind passion of youth.

Despite her attempt at sarcasm, Sophie saw the fawn-colored hills through a haze of tears. She flipped off her glasses and swiped at her eyes. It would be such a relief to put the past out of her mind forever, but she couldn’t let herself do it. She needed to remember—to remember everything. That was what would give her the strength to keep Joey safe and close.

Another irony: Safety was once again what Sophie valued most.

But this time she wouldn’t let Luke divert her purpose.

The resolution sounded reasonable enough. But when she rounded another of the switchbacks and sighted two motorcycles not far ahead, her unruly heart gave an instinctive lurch of recognition. Perhaps even of pleasure.

Maverick’s back.

She took up the radio mike and called in her position. She switched on the siren. The lead motorcycle— Luke’s—sped up for just a moment, then gradually slowed. Punch had already pulled over and was taking off his helmet as Sophie slowed to park on the shoulder, fifty feet back. Ordinarily, she’d play it cautious when confronting two bikers, but these were guys she knew. One she trusted. She stepped out and called to Punch, telling him to move away from his bike and wait by her car. It wasn’t a by-the-book procedure, but she didn’t have to worry about turning her back on Punch. It was the long slow walk over to Luke’s bike that she dreaded, suffering his intense stare.

He didn’t turn to look as she moved away from her vehicle. Did he know it was her? Had Punch already told him about her? Her stomach was alive with the flutter of a hundred wings—moths to the flame. Although she couldn’t forget the searing pain of getting burned by Luke, she had no control over her fickle impulses either. The memory of what it had been like to have his arms around her was flooding back, drowning her resolve to be tough and mean and ultra-professional.

Damn you, Maverick, she thought, no longer certain that she meant it.

Her footsteps on the blacktop sounded like gunshots in the clear mountain air. Wind whistled through the twisted pines, catching at the curly wisps of her uncontrollable hair. Although Luke didn’t turn, she recognized the rearing-mustang tattoo on his tanned left biceps. It matched her own tattoo—the one that only Luke knew about.