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cold metal. Suddenly that small weapon was her lifeline and clutching it as she did offered a tremendous amount of reassurance. She wasn’t helpless and she’d be damned if anyone in this town saw her that way.
    The bright lights kicked on, blinding her and temporarily leaving her teetering as she experienced the sensation that she was losing her balance. Natasha had read how manipulation with lights often helped during interrogation. They were just lights, though, and if they were turned on, the person who did so was standing right by the driver’s side door. She raised her gun and aimed.
    “For Christ’s sake, put that thing down!” Trent barked.
    “Turn off your headlights.”
    “You prefer changing the tire in the dark?” There was that amused tone again.
    She couldn’t see a damned thing and listened carefully for any sound of him walking toward her.
    “I prefer to see who I’m talking to,” she informed him, tilting her head when she thought she heard boots crunch on the road. “Turn them off now,” she ordered.
    Once again she was engulfed in darkness. Or almost darkness. Trent flipped off the headlights but left his running lights on. He was standing with his car door serving as a shield, and his gun was drawn, too.
    Natasha blinked. Helen, the waitress, had told her Sheriff Oakley knew who killed the ranch hand at Trinity Ranch. Everyone knew. Apparently the news had gotten ahold of her father’s name. George King was wanted for murder. Helen hadn’t been able to tell her what proof the sheriff had. She’d planned on driving by Trinity Ranch, then returning to her room and finding the articles that supposedly had been published recently about her father. There was also at least one newscast, which she’d intended finding as well. Experience told her reporters often glamorized an unsolved crime, not only making it tougher for investigators to learn the truth but tipping off criminals as well, which sent them on the run. Even if the person was innocent, as she tended to believe her father was, being charged with murder was one hell of a good reason to go into hiding.
    “Why did you ask me to come up here?” she asked, reluctantly lowering her gun. It had given her an overwhelming rush of power when she’d held it in both hands and pointed it.
    “I need to find your father.”
    “Whom you’ve charged with murder,” she accused.
    Trent walked around the front of his Suburban, his boots crunching on the gravel along the side of the road. “Yup,” he agreed without hesitating.
    She wanted to point the gun at him again and demand he admit he knew her father didn’t kill anyone. Instead she stuffed it down the back of her pants and pulled her sweater over the barrel. “Obviously, you don’t know my father very well.”
    “You said you hadn’t seen him in a few years. Sounds like you might not know him that well, either.”
    “Then it seems rather pointless that I’m here,” she countered, putting her hands on her hips when he stopped in front of her.
    His green eyes pinned her where she stood, incredibly focused and way too sexy for his own good. “It’s easier to tell if a person is telling the truth when you talk to them in person.”
    “I’m here. In person,” she added, feeling her anger grow. She didn’t break eye contact, but Trent did.
    He walked around her, squatted in front of her flat tire, and began unscrewing the lug nuts. The glow of his running lights reflected off his black hair. Muscles bulged in his arms as he fought each one loose. After a moment, Natasha left him, marched around his Suburban, and opened his truck door. His hands clamped down on her when she reached inside.
    “Back out slowly,” he ordered, and at the same time removed her gun from under her sweater.
    Natasha spun around, or tried to. Trent grabbed her arm, pulled it up her back, and pushed her against the side of his truck.
    “You’re hurting me!” she wailed, twisting against him, but this