1 Chapter 1

“Be vewwy, vewwy quiet, we’re hunting—” Ethan broke off as a shotgun, held in a pair of unusually beefy hands, swung toward him and took up position about 3 inches from his left nostril. “Joke, okay?” He swallowed, and tried to ignore the chill tap-dancing down his spine. “Sense of humour failure, much?”

Logan, his heavy black brows casting his dark eyes in even darker shadow, very noticeably didn’t move the gun away. “Joking like that is what gets a guy killed, out in the bush.” His voice, with its American twang, was a low rumble which reminded Ethan equally of Clint Eastwood at his meanest and the roaring of the lions in the local zoo. Ethan had always liked to lie in bed and listen to them of a summer’s evening. Apparently Logan had spent so long in the company of dangerous animals he’d started to sound like one. Not to mention, behave like one.

Ethan found himself wondering what it would be like to lie in bed listening to Logan. If he’d been asked to describe his companion’s physical appearance, the word “lion” would probably not have sprung to mind. “Bear,” on the other hand—that would do nicely. Around six foot six tall, heavily muscled and with impossibly broad shoulders, Logan seemed to lumber, rather than walk. He was not so much hirsute as full-on furry, and if he happened to fancy a snack, Ethan could all too easily imagine him scooping up live salmon in those great paws of his and swallowing them whole. Talking of swallowing things whole…Ah. The barrel of the shotgun was still glaring coldly in Ethan’s general direction. It probably wasn’t the time to get distracted.

Judging discretion to be the better part of valour, particularly when he was almost a foot shorter and around a hundred pounds lighter than the other guy, Ethan put his hands up in mock surrender and smiled ingratiatingly. “We’re not in the bush, though, are we? This is Parkhurst Forest on the Isle of Wight, not the African Serengeti. On a global scale, it barely qualifies as a shrubbery.” He paused significantly. “And right now, I’m thinking it’s more likely to be that gun of yours that gets me killed. Do you think you could point it somewhere else?”

“You call this a gun?” Logan’s lip curled around his cigar. “My three-year-old daughter has toys that could outshoot this piece of shit. The gun laws in this country are crazy. How the hell is a man supposed to protect himself and his family?”

Damn. Logan had a daughter. That probably meant he had sex with girls. Or at least, agirl. Well, had done once, at least, unless it was some test-tube, turkey-baster baby…Ethan wrenched his thoughts to more immediate matters. “You’re seriously telling me you think that giving a gun to every nut-job who can come up with the money makes a country safer?”

Logan took the stub of his cigar out of his mouth, glared at it for a moment, then ground it out beneath one size-fourteen heel. “You got a nuclear deterrent, don’t you?”

“Not personally, no.”

“But you get my drift, right?” All credit to Logan, for a big guy who was trying to get a point across, he used minimal looming.

Actually, Ethan wouldn’t have minded a bit more looming. Possibly even some menacing, as long as the shotgun wasn’t involved. There was a difference, in his opinion, between hey, that’s kinky, do it againand shit,call the police NOW, and the use of shotguns was so far on the other side of the line it had probably fallen off the edge of the island.

“I suppose so,” Ethan conceded. “But—oh, I don’t know. Do we really need all the firepower in this particular instance? This isn’t the full might of communist Russia we’re up against. Wouldn’t a carrot on a stick do just as well?”

“This ain’t some fluffy bunny we’re up against, kid,” Logan snarled. “This is your worst nightmare come to life. This is the Jackalope.” The capital J was clearly audible, and remained hanging in the air between them for a moment like the trail left by a sparkler on Bonfire Night.

Ethan laughed. “Hey, if it was my worst nightmare, I’d be naked and up in front of my old maths class, with Mr Frogmore beating me with a blackboard rubber for being too thick to understand calculus.”

Logan’s surly expression seemed to soften as he nodded his dark, shaggy head at Ethan. “Yeah, I heard all about the kind of shit that goes on in your English schools. Wouldn’t be allowed to happen in the US of A, that’s for sure.”

“Uh, I didn’t—oh, never mind.” Ethan unclipped his lens cap. “Listen, why don’t I get a couple of shots before we get into it? You want to get into hunter pose? Aim that gun of yours at something that’s not me?”

“You can put that thing away. I’ll pose for pictures when I got the jackalope. Not before. You think I want you snapping pictures, flashing your little light-bulbs and scaring away anything in a half mile range?” He strode off into the forest, and Ethan scurried to keep up with his long stride.