Page 6 of Rescued By the Operative

“I’m just a neighbor, sweetheart. Didn’t mean any harm by that. Heck, like I said, I was just trying to install a drain for that eastern patch between our properties by the creek that always floods, so my cattle don’t have to stand around in freezing cold mud half the year.”

The woman’s eyes rake over my body. A glimmer of something sparkles in her eyes, but I have no idea why.

Her lips begin to curve upward. Maybe she likes me and she’s actually believing my lie.

On top of that, I’m disarming her with my chatter, proving that I’m harmless. My older brother, Wylie, loves to remind me what a dope I can be sometimes. And I’ve never had that much game with women. But whatever I’m doing seems to be working on her.

I need to take this opportunity to push past her and get the hell out of here before someone more dangerous than her discovers me and shoots me on sight.

I try to reach for my pickaxe, but that turns out to be a dire miscalculation.

The woman knows martial arts.

One second, I’m upright, and the next, I’m on my stomach with her knee pressing into my spine. “Let’s get one thing straight. I don’t put up with liars. Got it?”

“Got it,” I wheeze.

“I’m going to ask you again. Where did you come from?”

Grunting against the pain in my back where her knee is planted, I gesture toward the wall. “Literally next door.”

“I know about Sterling Ranch. You’re pretty far away from the field, don’t you think? Your story is really cute, but I’m not buying it.”

“This is what I’m noticing,” I wheeze. “You don’t talk like one of them.”

She sighs exasperatedly. “Guess I’ll call the cops and let them handle you.”

I wheeze a laugh. “I would love to talk to the cops, sweetheart. And I’m sure they’d love to ask about all those unregistered firearms in that cabinet over there.”

This is a shot in the dark, so to speak.

She considers her options for a long minute.

“Fine. I’m gonna let you up. But first, do you have any weapons on you?”

“Just the pickaxe,” I say, pointing across the room to where it skidded when I fell.

“I’m gonna frisk you and make sure. No funny business.”

I remain perfectly still while this woman holsters her pistol, then pats me down. Not gonna lie, I kind of enjoy the way her hands nudge me everywhere—my hips, my chest, inside my boots. Not to mention every pocket. What I don’t love is when she makes me roll onto my back and checks the front pockets of my jeans. All I can do is pray she doesn’t notice the gigantic erection.

I wonder why she didn’t threaten to call one of her holy men with guns to question me? Why wouldn’t she turn me over to one of those controlling nutjobs that are probably in charge of her?

Yet another piece of evidence supporting my hypothesis that she is not from this cult.

“Get on your feet and don’t think about touching that pickaxe,” she says, her hand resting on the holster of her gun at her hip.

I stand, and she points to the gaping hole in the wall.

“Show me more of this drain you’re building.”

“Happy to,” I tell her. What else can I do?

I pick up the headlamp that fell off when I fell through the wall and turn it on, then step through the hole. I turn to her.

“Can I have my pickaxe now?”

“I don’t think so.”