Duty To Protect

“Well, as you can see, there’s no one here.” The dressing room door slammed. A key turned in the lock.

“I need to check the back of your trailer.”

“Looks to me like you’ve got a few hundred other vehicles to check,” the cowboy shot back, his voice laced with derision. “And you’d better get moving—I see at least three with headlights on that are gonna be leaving anytime.”

“If she stowed away in your rig, you’d better be ready to watch your back, cowboy,” the man growled, his voice so close to the trailer that Emma’s heart skipped a beat. “I thought I saw something moving over here. I’m only trying to save you trouble.”

Emma heard a pause, then a series of four drop-down feed doors along the side of the trailer squealed open and slammed shut, one by one.

“There. Are you satisfied?”

“No. She’s got to be here somewhere.” A set of footsteps crunched in the snow as the voice moved away.

Someone else—likely the cowboy—headed forward to the pickup. A truck door opened, then closed.

Emma crawled forward into a dim pool of light coming through the foot-square window in the dressing room door and felt through her purse, then ran her fingertips along the seams. Underneath the zipper, she found it—a small, silver disk.

All of her careful efforts had been for nothing, because she’d had a tracking device planted on her all along.

Sickened, she waited until all was silent, and then she stood and surreptitiously slid the window open to throw the device over a bank of snow.

It might not be the only device they’d planted, but finding it was a start.

She would stay hidden in here, but she’d have the rifle in her hands and ready if the wrong person opened that door. And once she was far enough away from here, then she would slip away the first chance she had.

From outside she heard the familiar whoosh of the Greyhound as it rolled back toward the highway, paused, and lumbered away. Now the pickup engine roared to life. An overhead light in the dressing room compartment came on, and through a sliver of space in the back wall, she could see the lights were on in the interior of the horse compartment, as well.

A vibration shook through the trailer, and suddenly it was moving. Unfolding more of the blankets to create a warm nest, she tucked one around herself to guard against the chilled air.

It was cold in here. She had no idea where she was headed, or if she could trust the cowboy at the wheel. But if she’d stayed at the truck stop, she might have been found, and she had no illusions about where that would’ve led. At least now, she had at least a little more time to live.

She started to pray.

Jake Kincaid turned up the truck radio and scanned through the stations. Every frequency coming in loud and clear was focused on one thing: blizzard warnings—the last thing he wanted to deal with after three days on the road.

He flicked a glance in the side mirrors and saw only a wall of white billowing up behind his rig. Now and then another vehicle seemed to come out of nowhere, its headlights suddenly slicing through the heavy snowfall. Ahead, he could only see a couple dozen yards of snow-covered asphalt. Western Nebraska and the eastern edge of Colorado were being hit hard, but the worst of it had passed Denver. If he could just make it to the metropolitan area tonight, he’d be home free.

The Early Spring Color Breed Bonanza Sale was tomorrow, and the two horses in back were consigned. He’d been glad to have a load to help pay for the westward trip home, after hauling one of his champion roping geldings to its buyer in Illinois, but now the weather was giving him second thoughts.

The truck bucked through a drift and the trailer jerked and swayed. Between the narrow, high snowdrifts blowing across the highway like ribs on a skeleton, glare ice now stretched as far ahead as he could see, and the number of cars and trucks in the ditches on either side of the freeway was increasing with every mile. Sensing his tension, the golden lab on the seat next to him uncurled herself to sit upright.

He stroked her soft coat. “Looks like we’d better take this next rest stop, Maisie.”

She whined and licked his cheek, thumping her tail against the upholstery.

He felt the vehicle lose traction, start to slide sideways, then the tires caught and straightened out. He slowed to a crawl, put on his flashers and eased off on the next ramp. The rest stop was already packed with semis and passenger cars, but at the end of the parking area he found one last double-long spot for a truck and trailer to pull in at an angle.

Maisie hopped out as soon as he opened the door and went to do her business in front of the bumper, then followed close at his heels when he went back to check on the horses. He’d just started to open the back gate of the trailer when the dog burst into a ferocious round of barking.

“Quiet,” he shouted over the keening wind.

She barked even louder, her attention riveted on the dressing room door at the front of the trailer. If she wanted her dog food that bad, she must think she was really starving. “Okay, okay.”

He reached down to ruffle her coat, then went to the backseat of the truck for a bottle of water and her two bowls. She growled when he reached for the door of the dressing room.

“What, did we pick up a mouse at the last barn?” He unlocked the door and reached inside to flip on the lights, which had gone out when he turned off the truck ignition, and scanned the insides, hoping it wasn’t something larger than a mouse. The last thing he needed was to find that a barn cat had hitched a ride away from that last horse farm. Especially if it was a favorite of the trainer’s children.

But it wasn’t a barn cat staring at him from the far corner with wide hazel eyes, tousled auburn hair peeking from beneath a knitted hat, and pale skin turning blue with cold. It was a woman huddled in a pile of horse blankets, her teeth chattering and hands trembling.

And she had his rifle pointed straight at his chest.

TWO

Jake took a slow step back and raised his hands, palms up, as he assessed the situation.

The woman staring back at him appeared slender, late-twenties. Caucasian. Probably not more than a hundred-twenty pounds. Delicate bone structure and pretty in an upscale way. In other words, the last person he’d ever expect to find in his horse trailer in a pile of pungent horse blankets, in the middle of nowhere…during a blizzard.

She looked more like the type to be heading to Starbucks, rather than a woman who might be on the run from murder charges, but his ten years in law enforcement had taught him more than he’d ever wanted to know about how looks could be deceiving.

After his ex-wife proved it all over again, he’d become one very jaded man.

“Tell me you’re not the woman that guy was looking for back in Ogallala,” he said on a long sigh. “I really don’t have time for this.”

She raised the rifle, ready to sight her target—his chest—and gave him the answer he wanted. “I’m not.”

A gust of wind-driven snow slammed against him and swirled into the dressing room of the trailer. “Let me rephrase that. Who are you, and why are you in my trailer?”

She was clearly cold, exhausted and desperate, her wild tangle of hair and the intensity in her eyes suggesting that she just might pull the trigger if he pushed her too far.

She visibly shivered, and the barrel of his rifle wobbled. “I…I hid in here when you stopped last.”

“In Sterling?” Not likely. He’d padlocked the dressing room door back in Ogallala. She couldn’t have gained access after that.

Apparently she realized her error. “I…I must’ve fallen asleep. I don’t remember Sterling.”

“Why don’t you come on out of there and we can talk about it.”

She shook her head.

“You look cold and my dog and I are standing out in a blizzard. My pickup is warmer.” When she didn’t respond, he shrugged. “I’ll tell you what. If you want to thaw, come to my truck. If not, this door is open and you can skedaddle. Far as I’m concerned, this just isn’t worth dying over.”

“Wh-where are we?”

“Nowhere close to where I need to be. This here is a freeway rest stop, so there are lots of other vehicles for you to choose from. Tell someone a story about how your car is in a ditch somewhere. If you don’t go pointing that rifle at them, they might think you’re a nice girl and offer you a ride.”

She huddled farther back into the pile of horse blankets, her eyes huge in her pale face. She looked scared to death. “I—I can’t.”

“Maisie and I are going to go get warm.” He touched the brim of his hat. “You’re welcome to join me. If you don’t, I’ll just have to trust that you won’t haul off my saddles or my rifle when you leave.”

He opened the door of the truck and let Maisie into the front seat, then slid behind the wheel and glanced at the clock. Five minutes. Ten. The woman still hadn’t shown up. “What do you think, old girl? Should we see if she’s still back there?”

The dog gave him a reproving look.

A moment later, he heard a soft knock on the passenger side. “Maisie, back.”

The dog jumped into the backseat as the front door squealed open and the woman climbed in, the rifle still in her hands and a big leather purse slung on her shoulder. Her lips were blue and her teeth were chattering so loudly that he could hear them across the seat.

He nudged the heater up a notch. “Glad you could make it.”

She huddled into the corner, as far from him as she could get.

He tapped the insulated coffee mug in the center divider. “It’s cold now, but you could pretend.”

“Y-you said you stopped in Sterling. Are you going to Montana?”

“Eventually.”

She looked up at him in alarm. “Eventually?”

“Why, are you heading for someplace special?”

She didn’t answer. Pulling off her thin leather gloves, she blew on her hands and rubbed them together.

“Maybe we could start with a name. That oughta be easy. I’m Jake Kincaid. And you are…”

“Emma,” she whispered after a long silence. “Emma…White.”

If that was her name, he’d eat his Stetson, but at least it was a start. “Okay, Emma White. How come you stowed away in my trailer? All you had to do was ask for a ride.”

Her answering laugh was bitter. “And you would have picked up some stranger, just like that, and risk being robbed. Or worse.”

Raising an eyebrow, he dropped his gaze to the rifle in her hands. “Looks like that might be happening anyway.”

She stared at the weapon as if it had turned into a rattler, then she leaned it against her door. “No.”

“That man in Ogallala said he was looking for a woman wanted for murder. Despite your first answer, I’m guessing he was hunting for you. Am I wrong?”

After a long silence, she finally nodded. “If that was who I think it was, he told you a flat-out lie. If he caught me, I’d be the one who was dead.”

“He said the authorities were after you too, lady.”

She shivered. “If you think they’re all good people, you’re naive.” She stared pensively through the windshield at the swirling snow, as if debating about what to say. “That was…um…my ex-boyfriend.”

“Now, why would you be chasing off in weather like this, if you weren’t on the run from some serious charges? Seems to me you’d want to pick a nicer day. And maybe it would have been easier to just tell him to get lost.”

She flicked a quick, pained glance at him, not quite meeting his eyes, then she looked away. “I know you can’t relate. But tell me what you’d do, if you were a woman and an abusive man was threatening to tear you apart. Randy is a big guy, and when he starts drinking, he gets violent. Once, he even kicked in the door of my apartment. I always tried to stay out of his way. But it never worked in the past, and this time he came after me with a gun.”

Jake cocked an eyebrow. “How did you get mixed up with someone like that?”

She shuddered. “It was the biggest mistake of my life. Believe me.”

“Why didn’t you leave a long time ago?” He’d been involved in far too many domestic calls when he’d worked as a deputy in western Wyoming. He knew the answer already—leaving could be as dangerous as sticking around. But something just didn’t ring true in this woman’s voice.

“I tried once. He swore he’d track me down and kill me if I tried to leave town.” She visibly shuddered. “And this time he was so out of control that I knew he’d do it if I stayed. I had to run.”

“Did he hurt you?”

“Not yet. I…hitchhiked as far as that truck stop, and when I saw he’d caught up with me, I knew my only choice was to run, or die. So I hid in your trailer.”

Jake had no doubt that she was frightened, but not for the reasons she gave. He could see she was lying in the way she fidgeted and avoided meeting his eyes. Mentally reviewing what she’d just said, he rested a wrist on the top of the steering wheel and studied the falling snow.

“Sooo…if I make a phone call and check out your story, my sources will back you up?”

“I don’t know.” She slumped against the seat, her voice weary.

“What about previous assault charges against him? Would I find some of those?”

Her gaze darted to his, then skated away again. “I never dared. It’s a small town, and Randy’s brother is a cop. Even if I’d called 9-1-1 and had him arrested, Randy would’ve been back on my doorstep in no time, and I don’t even want to know what would’ve happened then.”

“Restraining orders?”

“Like I said, I was afraid to take the first step. With him, a court order would be like waving a red cape in front of a bull.” She sighed heavily. “For all I know, Randy and his brother have trumped up charges against me, just to make sure that someone, somewhere, will arrest me and send me back home.”

If her words hadn’t sounded so rehearsed, he might have believed her. Than again, maybe it was a situation she’d been mulling over for a long time. “So you’re telling me that you don’t want me calling the cops.”

“Look, I know you don’t know me. I’m really sorry about pointing a gun at you, but I’m honestly a nice person, and all I’m asking is that you not do that. If you can just give me a ride to the next town, I can start making my way to Montana.”

“What town?”

“Deer Lodge.”

“You have relatives there?”

She hesitated, then shook her head.

“You aren’t sure, or you just don’t know them?” He thought a moment. “Or maybe you have someone there on a semipermanent basis?”

“What?”

“Temporary housing at the Montana State Prison?”

“No! I…I’m just going to start over, that’s all. And that’s all you need to know about me.”

“So if I drop you off at the next town, what then? Do you have money for a bus ticket, or are you going to stow away in the next horse trailer you see?”

She drew herself up. “I’ll be fine.”

“Right. Do you have any money? Credit or debit cards?”

Again, the flicker in her gaze. “I’m set. And I’m not your responsibility, so don’t worry about it.”

And that was the kicker in this whole, strange and unexpected deal. Responsibility.

He’d felt the weight of the world on his shoulders when he’d worked in law enforcement…and one case in particular still haunted him. He and the rest of the department had put in sixteen-hour days, trying to solve a serial rapist case that had terrified women throughout the county. In the meantime, four more women were attacked…including his sister’s best friend.

Could he blithely ignore the possibility that this woman was in real danger? The thought cut through him like a switchblade between the ribs.

He sighed heavily. When he arose this morning at four-thirty, he’d had no idea just how complicated his life was going to become. “You can’t just go hitchhiking into some remote part of the country. I don’t believe you do have the money for another bus ticket, and whoever he really is, there’s no denying that someone is trying to hunt you down. So lady, give me your driver’s license. If you check out okay, I’ve got a proposition for you.”

Emma’s heartbeat faltered as she stared back at him.

She’d always been a terrible liar and hated needing to skate around the truth, even though she’d been living a lie throughout most of her life in WITSEC. Jake had probably seen through every one of the whoppers she’d just told.

An abusive ex-boyfriend? Named Randy?

All of it was straight out of a novel she’d just read, and now she was going to be caught up in a web of those lies, trying to keep things straight, unless she managed to part company with this guy…and soon.

If he had a proposition, she could only imagine that it spelled trouble. Still, to flee instead of calmly letting him check her license would set off alarm bells in his mind and lead to more trouble than she was already in. Please, God, help me out, here.

“License?” Jake repeated. “Or is it conveniently missing?”

“O-of course not.” She bent over her purse and pawed through the contents, delaying the inevitable.

No one upstairs ever seemed to listen to her prayers, but during the twenty-four hours since she’d fled her home, Emma had found herself saying a lot of them, and now she mentally recited yet another as she pulled out her wallet and handed over her freshly minted driver’s license. “I’m sure everything is in order.”

She hoped. During her ten years in the WITSEC program she’d had plenty of new identities come and go, but this was the first time she’d created one on her own.

She’d paid a thousand dollars to a guy with the unlikely name of Lance Mendez for her new identification, but whether or not good customer service and guarantees were part of the business model used by furtive men on street corners wasn’t hard to guess.

“Lance” had been recommended by a man she’d approached outside a seedy bar on the lower south side of Chicago, the day after her father’s murder. She’d never been so terrified in her life, driving into that unfamiliar neighborhood.

But she’d never been so desperate, either, and knowing that her dad’s killer would have her in his sights next, her choice had been simple. Die, or disappear.

Now, she tried to look bored as the cowboy studied her, then shot another glance at her driver’s license. “Can you take off that hat?”

She’d worn the cheap knitted hat with a floppy brim in public since cutting her long blond hair short and dying it auburn several days ago, afraid her father’s killer might be stalking her. She’d wanted to hide the new color until she could reveal a totally different persona when she surfaced a thousand miles away.

She took a quick, furtive glance out the truck windows, then slowly dragged it off and ran her fingers through her hair to fluff the flattened curls. She jerked it back on a moment later.

“Traveling kinda light, aren’t you, ma’am?”

“I didn’t exactly have time to pack well,” she murmured, forcing herself to meet his eyes.

No wonder Jake was suspicious. She smelled like a dirty horse blanket and hadn’t washed her face in a good twenty-four hours. Her suitcase was still on that bus, headed to who knows where. She’d fled Chicago without a brush, makeup or even the most basic toiletries in her purse.

Jake probably thought she appeared homeless, deranged and desperate; capable of any charges that had been trumped up to reel her back to Chicago. The murder of Todd Hlavicek, for instance, unless he was still lying on her kitchen floor.

Jake compared her against her license photo one more time, then grabbed a cell phone from the dashboard of the truck, scrolled through his contacts list and hit Send. “Megan. This is Jake. Right, it’s been a while.” He sighed. “No, not anytime soon. Probably never. Hey, I need a favor. Can you run a driver’s license for me?”

Emma jerked her hat back on and forced a smile, though an icy hand clamped around her stomach as Jake read off her license number and description. Lance had needed a photo of her for the driver’s license, so she’d gone to a drugstore passport photo booth right after dying her hair and cutting it short. Did the license look realistic enough? Would the number actually work, or was her false identity going to shatter, here and now?

The woman Jake called apparently put him on hold.

He moved the cell phone away from his face. “I’ve got Megan Peters on the line. She’s the new Pine County sheriff up in Montana, and an old friend of mine. Is she gonna find out things about you that you don’t want me to know?”

“Only if there are errors in the system.” Emma feigned a disinterested shrug, even though her insides were shaking.

The minutes dragged like hours. Weeks.

Then Jake sat up a little straighter and carried on a cursory conversation before ending the call and tossing his phone back onto the dash. A corner of his mouth tipped up in a faint smile. “Megan did a little research. The internet is just one amazing thing, isn’t it?

His folksy demeanor didn’t fool her for a minute. “And?”

“She checked the NCIS, NCIC and CODIS, and you weren’t listed in any of them.”

“What does all of that mean?”

“That you’ve got a ride to Montana, if you want it. Apparently—at this point—you’re not a fugitive, missing person, or someone of interest in the criminal databases. I fact, your name is unusually clean. No charges, ever. No convictions, no warrants, no moving violations. Not even a traffic ticket. No record of property ownership, for that matter. It’s as if you just dropped out of the sky.”

Throwing up her hands and shouting “Thank you, Lance!” probably wouldn’t be a good thing right now. She smiled. “I told you so.”

His lips thinned. “There’s still something that isn’t quite right about this, but I don’t want to leave a lone woman to fend for herself at this rest stop, so I can either drop you off at the next town, or drop you off when I go through Denver. Or, you can ride with me until I get back to Montana, and I can leave you off in Deer Lodge. Your choice.”

“Deer Lodge? Really? You’re heading that way?”

“It’s not my destination, but I can take a detour.”

Hope surged through her, then fizzled away. She didn’t even want to think about what he might expect in return. “I…I’d better get out at the next place there could be a bus stop.”

“If you’re short on cash, I can loan you hotel money. With the horse sale and all, it’ll take me a couple days to get up to Deer Lodge.”

She bit her lower lip. Did she dare trust him? Her heart said yes, but every cautious bone in her body was saying no, no, no. Yet what other option did she have? Her pursuers were probably watching the bus lines and airports. If she tried to catch a different ride, the vehicle she approached could be driven by the very people she was trying to avoid.

Given the money behind the Rodriguez drug cartel, there could be any number of people after her, now that the location of the house she and her family had shared had been discovered. And they could be men—or women—whom she might not be able to identify until it was too late.

“Believe me when I say that you’re safe with me. I have no designs on you at all. None,” he added, his mouth kicking up into a wry grin. “You aren’t my type.”

No surprise, there…but what should have felt like an insult just gave her a sense of relief.

He was tall and powerfully built, with a strong jaw and dimples that flashed when he grinned. Adding in the long dark lashes shading his melted chocolate eyes, he looked like he could be in magazine ads for Levi’s jeans or big, tough pickup trucks. His taste probably ran to curvaceous, surgically enhanced blondes with Botox lips and empty smiles.

If such a vacuous creature existed in the wilds of Montana, anyway.

“Then what’s in this for you?”