The Lawman's Last Stand

Sometimes he wished he didn’t have to go back at all. But wishes weren’t horses, and sooner or later he had to leave. Most likely sooner. “I just wanted to stay for Eric and Mariah’s party.”

The party to which he would never have accepted the invitation if Mariah hadn’t let it slip that Gigi would be there. He wished the best for Eric and Mariah in their marriage and new life together, but he felt out of place at social events like that—family gatherings. Having grown up in a county youth home after being abandoned as an infant, family was a mystery to him.

Almost as much of a mystery as Gigi McCowan.

He went to the party hoping for a chance to prove that the electricity that had crackled between him and Gigi on the mountain had been a fluke. Nothing more than nerves on edge.

After all, he’d just busted a drug operation and nearly gotten himself killed. He’d been hurt, and high on adrenaline. He’d told himself it wouldn’t be like that when they met again.

But it had been. He’d clinked his wineglass against hers in a toast to Eric and Mariah, they’d locked eyes, and the energy had coursed between them. It had built more slowly—less like a lightning strike and more like a bank of circuits, their breakers thrown on one at a time—but it hadn’t stopped until the power to light a city flowed freely between them.

She had to be the source of the energy. Lord knows, his soul was dead as an old battery.

She recharged him.

Then Eric had called her over, given her something, and she’d left, in a hurry. Left Shane standing there with the burgundy he’d been drinking burning a path to his gullet and all his lusty imaginings about taking her out of there himself, taking her home, ending on a cold gust of wind and a slamming door.

And he didn’t know why.

Unsettled, he dabbed at her forehead with the cotton ball.

“Ow.” She swiped her hand out. “Give me that.”

“Fine. You finish your forehead,” he said, handing her the antiseptic and cotton ball. “I want to see that knee.”

Rebellion charged through her eyes before resignation set in. Slowly she slipped one leg out of the slit in the front of the robe. His irritation dissolved in a wave of masculine appreciation. He cupped one hand behind her calf and slid the other down to her ankle for support. Her leg was slender, firm and smooth to the touch. Very attractive.

He flexed her knee gently, carefully supporting her lower leg. “That hurt?”

She shook her head.

Even more carefully, he leveraged her lower leg sideways. Her stifled gasp stopped him.

“I’m sure it’s just bruised,” she said tightly.

“Uh-huh.” It was more than that, and he knew it. He suspected she’d wrenched it pretty good, but he didn’t press the issue. At least it didn’t seem to be swelling. He set her heel on the floor and rested his palm on her good knee.

She lowered her head. “I’m sure it will be fine.”

“I’m sure it will be, too. If you stay off it tonight.”

Before she could protest, he scooped her off of the toilet seat and into his arms. She planted her palms against his chest and pushed. “What are you doing?”

“Helping you stay off that leg.”

He paused in the hallway. A turn to the left, and he could settle her in his big bed, instead of the sleeper sofa he’d made up while she changed. But she was bound to argue. And having her in his bed for the night while he tossed and turned on the sleeper might be more temptation than he was ready for.

He turned to the right, toward the great room. Hell, it was the nineties. She could sleep on the couch.

When he deposited her carefully on the cushions, he didn’t have to turn to know what had gathered her attention over his shoulder. The entire east wall of the great room was glass.

He straightened, following her gaze to the midnight void. “The view is a lot nicer during the day,” he explained self-consciously. Not everyone appreciated sitting on the edge of the world the way he did, especially at night.

She looked down into the dark valley below. “It’s beautiful, even in the dark. It’s like the whole world doesn’t exist. Never existed,” she whispered. “But it’s so…lonely.”

“Yeah, well. I guess growing up in a home with thirty other kids taught me to appreciate solitude.”

She smiled wanly, pale in the near darkness. “I know what you mean.”

“Grow up a ward of the state, too, did you?” He wouldn’t have believed her if she’d said yes. She didn’t have the look about her. She hadn’t always been alone.

“No,” she confirmed. “Boarding schools.”

“Ah, the life of the privileged.”

“Privileged, maybe. But also crowded.”

She surprised him, finding that small common ground between them despite their obviously different backgrounds.

“I like the view better at night, myself,” he admitted.

Her expression brightened as she angled her head up. “Look at all the stars.”

Yeah. Look at the stars, shining in her eyes, Shane thought. And he knew, with as much certainty as he knew his name that he’d make love to her some night, with the starlight glancing off her eyes like that.

But not tonight. Tonight he just wanted to make whatever had put the tension in her body and the raw, disturbing look on her face go away.

He cleared his throat, turning his attention to making her comfortable. He got her a blanket and pillow, then when she was settled, he rubbed his hands together. “How about a fire? It’s chilly in here.”

Soon he had a blaze building. He held his hands up to it, feeling the warmth of the flames on his palms. “How’s that?”

He sat on the edge of the couch, next to her thigh. Firelight danced across her cheeks, giving her fair skin a tone more like ruddy honey. She tossed her head and her short, blond curls gleamed, catching the flickering light.

She eased the blanket up to her chin and tucked her arms underneath. “It’s nice. Thanks.”

Her words were sincere enough, but that was no cozy tone of voice. “You’re welcome,” he said, wishing he knew what else to do for her. To help her relax.

Outside, the call of an owl mingled with the whisper of wind through the trees. Pupils dilating, her gaze flew to the window, and the sound, straining to see through the darkness.

Watching her reaction, he wondered if the edge on her nerves might be due to more than just the accident. She should have shaken off the effects of the wreck by now.

Three loud knocks sounded above them like footsteps. She jumped visibly beneath her cover.

“Easy. It’s just limbs on the roof. I’ve been meaning to cut those trees back.”

Still, worry lines creased her forehead. She breathed in shallow, silent gasps, and he felt the lack of oxygen as if it were his own. He hated the vulnerability marring her otherwise flawless features. “Do you want me to sit with you awhile?”

She jerked her head toward him. “No, that’s not necessary.”

Her wide eyes said differently. Unable to resist, he reached out and stroked a springy yellow curl back from her forehead, wishing he could brush away her fear as easily. She’d said she didn’t want him, but he couldn’t leave, not with her so out of sorts.

And himself so out of sorts, as well. Damn she was beautiful in the firelight. In any light.

Forgetting his manners, he searched the depths of her mysterious eyes. Searched beneath the surface of whatever was bothering her to see if she felt what he felt.

And he found it.

Buried deep, the answering call to his cry. A spark of attraction. He studied it with the same awe that early man must have studied fire. She turned her face up as if she might say something, and without thinking he lowered his mouth to hers.

Her lips were incredibly soft. Incredibly warm. He kept his touch light. It was meant to be a kiss of comfort. At least at first. But when her initial shock faded and she leaned into him with a soft sigh of acquiescence, comfort became need. Then need bordered on greed.

He touched his fingertips to the graceful arch of her cheek and slid his hand down, past her jaw, until his palm splayed around the fragile column of her neck. Holding her, he raised over her, slanted his head and probed at the entrance to her sweet mouth. He wanted to feel her, taste her. All of her. He’d wanted her from the moment she’d pushed her way through a dozen armed DEA agents and ordered him to sit still and shut up while she tended his wound and he hadn’t dared do anything but comply.

He surged against her, long-denied desire curling in his blood. Her lips parted, and for an instant he felt the moist slip of her tongue against his.

Then she reared back, pushing at his shoulders with fisted hands. “No!” Panic laced her eyes. She braced against the back corner of the couch and clutched the blanket to her chest with both hands.

He lurched to his feet and took two steps back. The sight of her fear soured his stomach until he had to turn and stalk away. That reaction hadn’t been caused by any accident. It was much too sudden, much too intense. Only one thing could have caused it.

Him.

Whatever had possessed him to kiss her? He’d known she didn’t want him. She’d proven it often enough since that day on the mountain. Her medical training had kicked in during the crisis, but afterward, every time he’d tried to get a word with her in town, she’d made a hasty escape.

If he turned north on a street corner, she turned south. If he walked in someplace, she walked out. Just like she’d left Mariah’s tonight almost as soon as he’d arrived.

In a moment of stark self-awareness, he realized that was why he’d followed her. He’d wanted to see her safely home, yes. But he’d also wanted to find out why she was avoiding him. Why she got such a trapped look in her eyes whenever he got close.

In the darkened doorway to the great room he stopped, his back still to her. The spit and hiss of the fire mingled with a barrage of curses heard only in his mind.

“Are you afraid of me?” he asked, his jaw tight.

“Of course not. You’re a cop.”

“You say it like it’s a dirty word.”

She didn’t respond for a long time. “I’m sorry. I’ve had a long day.”

An apology, or a hint for him to make himself scarce? He had no idea. Still wondering, he left the firelight behind and let the darkness of the hall devour him.

Long into the night, Gigi stared at the fire, dreading the moment the last ember would flicker out. Quietly she reached over the side of the couch and picked up her handbag, the tapestry one with horses galloping gaily across the side. From it she drew a folded square of newspaper. The golden glow of the fire shed light across the banner at the top of the page—Oil Exec Returns to Scene of Crime—For Wedding.

Eric had given her the clipping at the party just hours earlier. How quickly her life could change.

The story had run in the business section of a major Los Angeles newspaper. It described how Eric Randall—an oil executive and now Mariah’s fiancé—had helped the DEA— Shane—bring down a drug operation here. And how in the process Eric had fallen in love with Mariah and resigned from his position with the oil company to return to Utah to marry her.

But the article wasn’t what bothered Gigi. That right belonged to the accompanying picture. A photographer had caught all four of them—Eric, Mariah, Gigi and a wounded Shane unloading from the DEA helicopter that had carried them off the mountain. She’d never even seen the cameraman.

That was how they’d found her. It had to be.

Why she had to leave.

In a way, leaving Utah would be a relief. Her life here was a lie. A necessary one, but still a deception. The more she came to care about this place and its people, her friends, the harder the deception became. And the worst lie of all was the lie she had told to herself. That she was safe here. That they wouldn’t find her, this time. What a fool she’d been.

Feeling the thrum of fear strike up a new beat in her breast, she put the news article back in her handbag, set the handbag on the floor, and picked up her survival pack. She hadn’t been without the bag since she’d left New York, three years ago. The bag was her safety net.

Whether he knew it or not, tonight it was Shane’s safety net as well. If the man after her somehow did manage to find her, he wouldn’t hesitate to kill one unsuspecting DEA agent. He’d killed federal agents before.

Guilt struck a sour chord in her head. She really didn’t believe anyone would find her in the next few hours, but she still should have told him. Her silence—her very presence—put him at risk.

Glancing down the darkened hallway, she thought about telling him now. But he was probably long asleep, and she couldn’t knock on his door in the middle of the night wearing nothing but her bare feet and a soft flannel bathrobe that smelled like him. Not after that kiss.

Not after the way she’d treated him after the kiss. She had no right to ask him for anything, least of all to watch over and protect her. Besides, he was a cop. He would ask questions she couldn’t answer. So tonight, like every night, she would watch over and protect herself.

And she would protect him, too.

Digging past the assorted getaway paraphernalia in her backpack, Gigi wrapped her hand around a solid shape folded inside a cotton T-shirt.

She’d never loaded the gun before. Didn’t want to do it now. But she had no choice. By letting him bring her here, she’d taken Shane’s life in her hands. She had to be prepared to defend it.

With the pistol on her lap, she unzipped an outer pocket of the pack and pulled out the ammunition. Carefully, just like she’d been shown in New York, she inserted the shells.

By sheer will, she kept her hands from trembling. All she had to do was make it to morning, she told herself. Then she would leave Utah forever. Because she’d stayed too long. Because she’d let a cop get too close.

And because somewhere out there, a cold-blooded killer was looking for her.

Chapter 2

After a chilly morning at his cabin—one due more to the frosty demeanor of his houseguest than the unusually cool spring weather—Shane dropped Gigi off at John Lane’s scrap yard. She’d called John not thirty seconds after sunrise, the moment the ice on the roads began to melt, and talked the tow truck driver into going after her truck. Then she’d banged around the kitchen under the pretense of making coffee until Shane couldn’t stand the noise and got up to see what the racket was about. She’d seemed so desperate to leave that Shane had joked that if she was in such a hurry, she needn’t have bothered to wait for him to take her to town. She could have just stolen his truck and driven herself.

Gigi hadn’t laughed.

Shaking his head, he pushed his way through the door to the Washington County Sheriff’s Office with one hand, carrying a cup of coffee from the diner in the other.

Bailey Henrickson, the young state trooper sent to keep an eye on things until a new sheriff was appointed, greeted him. “Hey, Agent Hightower.”

“Hey yourself.”

He hurried past Bailey, hiding his grin. Shane couldn’t help it. He liked Bailey. The kid seemed to be a fair enough lawman, but his ears were just too damned big for his head. Especially when he put on his smoky hat and it pushed them out to the side.

Keeping his head lowered, Shane sat at the desk in the corner. The one with the computer. He felt Bailey watching him, but he didn’t look up.

“Something I can help you with?” Bailey finally asked.

“Nope.”

A minute, maybe two passed while the PC booted up.

“Something you need?” Bailey said.

“Just a little information.”

He heard the kid shuffle some papers. “You know, you aren’t officially supposed to be using that equipment anymore. You’re supposed to be headed back to Phoenix and the almighty DEA today.” He grinned. “You can leave the sheriff’s badge and the keys to the Blazer with me.”

Shane smiled into his coffee cup. “You kicking me out, Trooper?”

The paper shuffling stopped. “Well, no sir. But…”

“Good. Because I’ll be done before you could call for backup.”

“Ha!” Bailey barked. “State Trooper needing backup to handle one sissy DEA agent. That’ll be the day.”

Shane grinned wider, tapping out a few commands on the keyboard.

A chair scraped back and Bailey’s footsteps echoed across the wood floor. Shane looked up, and raised his hand to his mouth, coughing to cover his laugh. The kid had put on his hat.

“If you’re going to be here a few minutes, would you mind catching the phone if it rings?” Bailey asked. “Think I could use a cup of that slimy diner coffee myself.”

“Sure. You go ahead. I’ll keep an eye on things.”

The deputy left. All the better. Shane could do what he needed with Bailey here, but it was best if he wasn’t. Accessing people’s private information for personal reasons wasn’t strictly legal, but Shane had questions that needed answering.

He didn’t know why Gigi’s reaction last night bothered him so much. He’d been rejected before. It wasn’t like he was any great prize. He was leaving town today, anyway. Even if he weren’t, it wasn’t like they had any future. It wasn’t like he was dreaming of blond-haired babies with wild blue eyes. Shane wasn’t family material. Never had been, he guessed.

But Gigi had responded to him—hell she’d electrified and incited him—at least at first. Until she’d remembered what she was doing. Or who she was doing. A cop.

He’d lain in bed after he’d left her, thinking about her. His nose had wrinkled, catching a scent eight years in the DEA had taught him never to ignore. He smelled trouble—a wispy tendril, like the first curl of smoke from kindling—but trouble nonetheless. He just wasn’t sure what kind.

From here, thanks to the wonders of the Internet, he had access to every database available to law enforcement, as well as a few that weren’t supposed to be available to anyone, law enforcement or not, courtesy of many hours in the computer lab at Arizona State. He’d worked the night shift to put himself through school, and in those long stretches before dawn, he’d learned a great deal about computer systems that wasn’t in the textbooks. In half an hour, maybe less, he’d know everything there was to know about Gigi McCowan. Then he could head back to Phoenix.

His fingers laced together, he cracked his knuckles and set to work. Sixty-five minutes later he sighed, rolled his head around his shoulders and admitted he’d been wrong.

Hunched over the flickering screen, he pinched the bridge of his nose, then scanned the text again to be sure he’d read it right. “Well I’ll be damned.” He definitely wouldn’t be going back to Phoenix today.

He didn’t know who the woman who’d spent last night in his cabin was, but he did know one thing—

She wasn’t Gigi McCowan.

Gigi took one last look around as she waited for John Lane to dig out his paperwork. Her pickup truck was still strapped to his wrecker in the drive.

She spun slowly, her gaze skimming over the junkyard to the mountains beyond, trying to memorize everything from the piney smell of the mountain air to the calls of birds in the treetops. She had to memorize it, because soon memories would be all she had left of Utah.

She took a deep breath and turned, hearing Mr. Lane walk up behind her.

“You’re sure you want to do this? Trade your pickup for my old Jeep?” John Lane asked. “Damage on your truck doesn’t look too bad. I can have her good as new in a day or two, and it’s bound to be worth twice what my heap is worth.”

She put on a false smile. She loved her old pickup. It was worn in all the right places. But she couldn’t afford to wait a day, much less two, for him to fix it. “I’ve been thinking I need something that eats a little less gas,” she said. “And after that ice storm last night, four-wheel drive sounds pretty good, too.”

“All right then.” He handed her the keys and title.

“You’ll be sure to take the rest of the veterinary supplies out of the back and give them to Mariah Morgan out at the Double M?” She’d already taken the few supplies she might find useful and boxed them up in the back of the Jeep. The remaining supplies weren’t much to offer Mariah in the way of goodbye, but they were all she had to give. Besides, it would be a shame to let them go to waste.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Nodding, she turned to survey her new vehicle.

Once, the Jeep had probably been fire-engine red. Now it had faded to the color of weak tomato soup. But the motor sounded fine and it had a full tank of gas. It would do.

The road blurred in front of her as she headed south, out of town. She tried not to think about never coming back here. She’d always known she would have to leave one day. She just hadn’t thought it would be in a run-down Jeep with nothing except her survival bag and the clothes—dirty clothes at that—on her back.

She wished she could have risked stopping by the house, just for a minute. Besides her clothes, she’d like to have picked up the few prizes she’d gathered on her frequent mountain hikes—a pine cone as big as her forearm, a smooth, round stone with grain in it in the shape of a peace sign, and a walking stick. Not much to show for twenty-eight years of living, but it was all she had.

Used to have. Even those few treasures were gone now. It was time to move on to a new life.

Except she liked this life.

Her eyes stinging, she pulled into a small rest stop fifteen miles outside of town. In the women’s room, she pinned her hair back and slipped on the wig from her emergency bag. Dark contacts came next, coloring her eyes from blue to brown. She studied her new image in the cracked mirror over the sink. Not bad for two minutes’ work. She didn’t look anything like herself.

That random thought almost brought her tears back. She couldn’t help but feel she’d finally given up the last vestiges of her true self. There was nothing left of the person she used to be. But that couldn’t be helped.

A new life was better than no life at all. Better than death.

Squaring her shoulders, she slung her pack over her back and stepped out of the washroom.

And stumbled into a broad male chest.

Shane.

He steadied her elbow, setting her back on her feet. Her hand brushed the fine, crisp hair of his forearm as she pulled away. The sensation shot up her arm like a jolt of static electricity.

His head tipped a fraction, and she felt his gaze peruse her slowly, even if she couldn’t see it behind his reflective sunglasses. She burned under his scrutiny, from the tips of her ears to the ends of her curling toes.

Shane.

He straightened, his jaw set perfectly square, and stood with his hands behind his back, his feet shoulder width. He looked very tall. Very disciplined.

Very cop.

“This is a new look for you, Doc,” he said, reaching out to finger her shoulder-length fake hair. He let the wig go and folded his sunglasses into his shirt pocket.

Being able to see his eyes heightened the effect of his gaze. She felt her face heat.

“A girl gets tired of same ole–same ole.” The quaver in her voice didn’t sound too convincing, even to her. She swallowed hard. “Did you need—I mean, is there something I can do for you?”

“You didn’t mention that you were leaving town today.”

“No, well, yes…it was sudden. My aunt is…sick.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Thank you.” She jangled her keys in her hand. “I hate to run like this, but I really should get going.”

Shane moved himself between her and the Jeep. “You know, all this time I thought you were avoiding me because you just didn’t like me.”

Her heart leaped. “Of course not. I mean, I haven’t been avoiding you. And I—” Her mouth suddenly felt like she’d been lost in a desert for days. “I like you.”

“Yeah, I figured that out last night when I kissed you. That’s what finally tipped me off.”