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as the trail switched back across the face of the mountain.
    Half an hour later they reined in their horses under a massive ponderosa pine and dismounted.
    Mariah’s legs were shaking as she got them underneath her and took a look around. Breathtaking vistas spread out in front of her everywhere she turned.
    “What do you think?” Baylor asked, tying the horses to a low-hanging limb.
    “It’s beautiful.” Already her artist’s eye was honing in on all the possible angles she could use in her work. “I could stay up here for days and have some thing new to capture on every one of them.”
    “I knew you’d like it.” He untied the double-pouched saddlebag, pulled it off the back of the saddle and tossed it over his shoulder. “Come on, there’s a place to relax just up the trail.”
    Mariah tagged along behind him, staring at his broad shoulders as they moved beneath his denim shirt. Every ounce of control she possessed seemed to drain away, and desire, intense and volatile, throbbed in her veins.
    She swallowed, focusing on the trail ahead of them as it opened into a small meadow flanked by dense timber. A gushing creek roared from out of the mountainside, then slowed and meandered across the meadow before dumping into a pond.
    A well-traveled path wound through the heart of the clearing, flanked by knee-deep bear grass, ending next to a sandy beach on the banks of the pond.
    “This is perfect.” She attempted to move past him, determined to sort out all the unfamiliar emotions tangled up inside of her, but he reached out and caught her hand, pulling her toward him.
    A jolt of electricity coursed through her as theymade contact. Gazing up into his face, she knew he’d felt it, too.
    “Mariah…I…” What the hell was he thinking? Baylor wondered as he stared at her lips, then back into her eyes. He was a man on fire. He’d wanted to kiss her all morning and hadn’t been able to shake the desire. He’d even tried to remind himself she was a cop, out for blood, and still it hadn’t done the trick.
    He pulled off his cowboy hat, gave it a toss and dropped the saddlebags as he lowered his mouth to hers. She didn’t resist. Instead, her arms came up around his neck.
    Mariah’s head swam. Every nerve in her body attuned itself to the feel of Baylor’s body pressed against hers.
    She opened her mouth for him, tasting him as he deepened the kiss, exploring her with his tongue in a slow, sensual rhythm. An ache manifested itself deep and low in her belly. A primal need that begged for satisfaction as he lowered her to the soft meadow grass.
    Fire ignited in her veins, consuming all reasonable thought in its flame. She wasn’t a cop, he wasn’t her suspect. They were a man and a woman, locked in the heat of desire. Lost in their own private heaven. Oblivious to the world around them.
    The first bullet whizzed past Baylor’s right ear and bored into the ground next to his head, sending up a spray of dirt.
    Somewhere in the timberline on the other side of the meadow, the gunshot echoed back.
    Drunk on desire, Baylor rocked back, staring down at her. Reality jolted him into action. Someone was shooting at them.
    He rolled them both hard to the left, took her hand and dragged her to her feet.
    “Run!” he yelled.
    Ping.
    Another bullet zinged past, hitting the ground inches behind them.
    Baylor aimed for the trees two hundred feet in front of them, caution driving him as he tried to pick the safest place to go off trail. The meadow was riddled with boarded-over vertical mine shafts; one wrong step and…
    Before the thought had time to solidify, the earth gave under his feet.
    In a last desperate attempt to save Mariah, he yanked hard, sending her flying past him, but the cavernous hole was too big.
    It swallowed them whole and they fell through the rotting boards into darkness.
    Mariah hit the bottom of the pit with a thud. The air pushed from her lungs as she slammed into the ground. Pain shot through her