Mackenzie's Magic by Linda Howard Page A

amateurs! He silently cursed. Pleasure was behind him; if he stood up now, he would be looking straight down the barrel, caught between the shooter and the target. He couldn’t do anything but wait for the next shot to hit the beautiful, friendly stallion, who had evidently caught their scent and pulled free so he could join the party.
    Dean realized Mac’s predicament and stepped from concealment, pistol braced in both hands. "FBI! Drop your weapons on the ground— now. "
    Mac surged upward, bracing his arms across the hood of the truck. He saw Randy Yu, his hands already reaching upward as his pistol thudded to the ground. You could always trust a professional to know how to do things. But Joan Stonicher was startled by Mac’s sudden movement, and she wheeled toward him, her eyes wide with panic and rage. She froze, the pistol in her hand and her finger on the trigger.
    "Ease off, lady," Mac said softly. "Don’t do anything stupid. If I don’t get you, my partner will. Just take your finger off the trigger and let the gun drop. That’s all you have to do, and we’ll all be okay."
    She didn’t move. From the excellent viewpoint he had, Mac could see her finger trembling.
    "Do as he says," Randy Yu said wearily. The two agents had them caught in an excellent cross field. There was nothing they could do, and no sense in making things worse.
    Pleasure had shied at the noise of the shot, neighing his alarm, but his life had been too secure for him to panic. He trotted closer, his scooped nostrils flaring as he examined their familiar scents, searching for the special one he could detect. He came straight for Mac.
    Joan’s eyes left Mac and fastened on the horse. He saw the exact instant when her control shattered, saw her pupils contract and her hand jerk.
    A shrill whistle shattered the air a split second before the shot.
    A lot of things happened simultaneously. Dean shouted. Randy Yu dropped to the ground, his hands covering his head. Pleasure screamed in pain, rearing. Joan’s hand jerked again, back toward Mac.
    And there was another whistle, this one earsplitting.
    Maris stepped from behind a tree, her black eyes glittering with rage. The pistol was in her hand, trained on Joan. Joan wheeled back toward this new threat, and without hesitation Mac fired.

Chapter 9
    H e was mad enough to murder her, Maris thought.
    She was still so enraged herself that it didn’t matter. Fury burned through her. It was all she could do to keep from dismantling Joan Stonicher on the spot, and only the knowledge that Pleasure needed her kept her even remotely under control.
    The woods were swarming with people, with medics and deputies and highway patrol officers, with onlookers, even some reporters already there. Pleasure was accustomed to crowds, but he’d never before been shot, and pain and shock were making him unruly. He’d wheeled at Maris’s whistle, and his lightning reflexes had saved his life; Joan’s bullet had gouged a deep furrow in his chest, tearing the muscle at an angle but not penetrating any internal organs. Now it took all of Maris’s skill to keep him calm so she could stop the bleeding; he kept moving restlessly in circles, bumping her, trying to pay attention to her softly crooning voice but distracted by the pain.
    Her head was throbbing, both from Pleasure’s skittishness and from her own desperate run through the woods. She’d heard him moving through the trees, and in a flash she’d known exactly what had happened, what he would do. How he’d gotten free didn’t matter; he had heard and smelled them, and pranced happily to greet them, sure of his welcome. She’d known he would catch her scent on MacNeil’s clothes and go straight to him. It had been a toss-up which of them would be shot first, MacNeil or Pleasure. All she could do was try to get there in time to draw the horse’s attention, as well as everyone else’s.
    For one awful, hellish moment, when Pleasure screamed and she saw Joan