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His voice sounded like a killer’s voice…deep, low and raspy. She sneaked another look at him.
    He still looked dangerous.
    “You’re sure you know this man, Sheriff?”
    “Yes, ma’am.” Sheriff Pedersen grinned. “Breeds and trains horses on a big spread between here and Rupert. All kinds of horses, but mostly thoroughbreds and Arabians.”
    “I…ahm…I guess I owe you an apology, Mr. Cooper.” Julia tried to think of something logical to say. “I…I mistook you for someone else.”
    An embarrassing silence fell over the room.
    “Can’t believe you let someone get the drop on you, Coop.” The Sheriff chuckled. “’Specially a girl.”
    “Woman,” Julia murmured, refraining from rolling her eyes.
    “What? Oh, yeah, can’t call girls girls any more.” The Sheriff shook his head in sorrow at the ways of the modern world. He looked Julia up and down and cackled at Cooper. “I’ll bet you have a foot and ninety pounds on her, Coop. You must be getting soft.” He turned to Julia. “Coop used to be a SEAL, you know.”
    A seal?
    For a moment, Julia wondered whether a month of terror had shorted out her brain. What on earth did the Sheriff mean? A seal…?
    Oh. He meant a SEAL. A commando. Trained killer.
    So she hadn’t been so off the mark, after all.
    Julia absorbed this information as she looked at Sam Cooper, brainee. Splayed on the floor, he had looked dangerous. On his feet, he was terrifying, huge and menacing. Prime commando material, if she ever saw it. She observed him carefully, paying particular attention to his alarmingly large hands, and turned to the sheriff.
    “That may be,” she said politely. “But his flippers are gone now.”
    The Sheriff stared at her for a moment. He wheezed heavily once, then twice. It was only when he bent double, shoulders shaking, that Julia realized he was laughing.
    It was the last straw. The whole miserable day came crashing in on her. Herbert Davis and his less than reassuring news that killers might have come close to discovering where she was; the terror when she thought one of Santana’s hired killers had found her; her heroic last stand at the Alamo; the overwhelming relief when she’d discovered that she might live, after all.
    Then the Sheriff running to her rescue, only he didn’t rescue her at all. Actually, he could probably have her arrested for…for what? Assault with a deadly vegetable?
    And to top it all off, the Sheriff was doing this lousy imitation of Walter Brennan in Rio Bravo , except he had all his teeth and didn’t limp. Julia had hated Rio Bravo .
    Come to think of it, she’d hated The Alamo , too.
    “If you don’t mind , Sheriff,” she said coldly.
    Chuck Pedersen wheezed once more and wiped his eyes. “Flippers,” he said and wheezed again. He shook his head. “No, Miss…”
    Devaux , she thought. “Anderson,” she said.
    “Anderson, that’s right. Sorry. You just moved here, right?”
    “A little less than a month ago.” Twenty-seven days and twelve hours, but who’s counting?
    “So you don’t know everyone in the area yet. But old Coop, here, he used to be in the Navy, a SEAL, like I said. Crack troops. Coop did damned well, too, got hisself a medal, he did. Then his daddy died and he came back to run the Cooper spread.”
    Oh, God. Julia closed her eyes in pain for a moment. This was worse than she thought. It wasn’t bad enough that she’d assaulted one of the good citizens of Simpson. No, she’d clobbered a war hero . She opened her eyes and stole a look at Sam Cooper again.
    He still looked hard and dangerous.
    Gathering the few tattered shreds of dignity left, and pumping up her courage, she held out her hand to Sam Cooper, horse breeder/SEAL.
    She stared straight into black, expressionless eyes and shivered. “Please accept my apologies, Mr. Cooper.”
    After a moment, Sam Cooper took her hand. His was huge and hard and calloused. Julia held his hand and he held her eyes. Julia stared, then