Her Hero
in Hiding
Rachel Lee

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Copyright

About the Author

RACHEL LEE was hooked on writing by the age of twelve, and practiced her craft as she moved from place to place all over the United States. This New York Times bestselling author now resides in Florida and has the joy of writing full time.

Her bestselling CONARD COUNTY mini-series (see www.conardcounty.com) has won the hearts of readers worldwide and it’s no wonder, given her own approach to life and love. As she says, “Life is the biggest romantic adventure of all—and if you’re open and aware, the most marvelous things are just waiting to be discovered.”

Dear Reader,

It is so sad to me that a subject I first picked up in Lost Warriors years ago is once again relevant, and probably more so than ever. The struggles our soldiers face when they return home are enormous. Some may never be able to find peace. And, of course, domestic abuse continues as a plague.

I write to tell a good story, not to preach. Part of that storytelling for me must involve the exploration of the human heart. It is how we find each other, thus finding shelter amid life’s storms, that endlessly fascinates me. How do two people cross a long, uncertain bridge to the point of trust where love can blossom? Each of us finds his or her own way to that place and the paths are varied. The journey to the oasis we call love is endlessly fascinating, endlessly touching.

Most of us have sorrow or pain in our past. Finding comfort and love is probably one of the most important journeys we take. For only a heart filled with love has love to give. I hope you enjoy this tale of two devastatingly wounded hearts as they strive for peace and happiness.

Hugs,

Rachel

To all the heroes in hiding from pasts they struggle to make peace with.

Chapter 1

Snow flurries began to blow before Clint Ardmore left Conard City with his truckload of supplies. By the time he reached the county road leading to his ranch, it became apparent that winter was arriving. Big flakes whipped about in the wind, threatening a whiteout later when the temperatures dropped enough to make the snow nearly as fine as sand. As it was, the flakes reflected his low beams sufficiently to make the already dark afternoon seem darker.

Winter pleased him. He liked the cold, the snow, the isolation it brought to his ranch. Not even the most determined salesman or missionary would try to make it up the road to his house, and the neighbors to whom he leased his land for their own stock were undoubtedly pulling the last of them in. Soon his ranch would become exactly what he wanted it to be—a hermitage he left only out of necessity.

At least that was his cheerful expectation until he caught sight of a gray figure staggering alongside the road.

Hell, no one ought to be out here on foot. Cussing under his breath, he jammed on his brakes and pulled over. The snow was only just beginning to stick, so he didn’t skid. Some drunk, no doubt, lost in the middle of nowhere. But whatever this person was doing out here, there was no way he could be left to wander alone in this weather. From here to the nearest ranch—his—it was another ten miles.

Clint climbed out and slammed the truck door. The wind had taken on a nasty bite, presaging a deadly night for unprotected humans.

Still cussing—he possessed quite an amazing vocabulary of cuss words in several languages—he stomped back toward the staggering figure in gray. The snow continued to swirl, thick enough to be almost foglike. He really needed this, he thought. Now he would have to drive back to town in this damn storm to make sure this idiot didn’t freeze to death out here.

It wasn’t until he was only a few steps away that he realized the idiot was a woman and, worse, a woman dressed only in a gray sweatshirt and pants. And when she lifted her head at his approach, he saw a shiner that would have looked appropriate on a boxer, not on a tiny woman with straggly blond hair and blue eyes the size of saucers.

At least they became saucer-size when they saw him.

Well, he could kind of understand that. He was a large man, well over six feet, and years in Special Ops had given him a need to stay in shape that wouldn’t quit even though he’d left the military well behind him. Then there was his face. The faces on Mt. Rushmore looked less stony.

Too bad.

“Hey, lady!” he called. “You’re going to freeze!”

She staggered another step, then turned and started to run. Only she couldn’t quite run, because her feet didn’t seem to be cooperating, and moments later she tumbled facedown on the shoulder.

At once he raced to her side and squatted. “Lady …”

“Go away!” she cried. “Get away from me!”

“I won’t hurt you,” he said, making his voice as gentle as when he talked to his horses. Not exactly second nature, but he knew how.

“No! No! Get away from me.”

Another time, another place, he might have been happy to oblige. But not out here. Not even on a sunny day. Not when she had a black eye like that, which might mean a bad concussion.

“Easy,” he said quietly. “Easy. I won’t hurt you, I swear. But you’ll freeze out here.”

Then he reached out to help her up and realized he might as well have tried to lift an angry mountain lion. She started fighting the instant she felt his hands, kicking and swinging and trying to scratch him.

Experience came to his aid. Keeping his hold as gentle as he could, keeping her back to his chest to minimize the damage to himself, he lifted her. “Shh,” he said soothingly near her ear. “Shh. I’m just going to take you to a doctor.”

“No! No!” She wriggled wildly. “He’ll find me! He’ll find me!” There was no mistaking the terror and desperation in her voice.

“All right, then,” he agreed gently, all the while wondering why he was making such an insane promise. “All right. But how about you come home with me and get warm? You’ll freeze out here.”

“I don’t care! He’ll find me!”

“Nobody’s going to find you at my place, I swear. I promise you’ll be safe….”

He kept murmuring soothingly, taking care to keep his grip without hurting her. She fought a little longer, but she didn’t have a whole lot of strength left, and soon enough she began to sag.

He shifted her a bit, so his hold was more comfortable, then swung her up and began carrying her toward his truck. A car drove by, slowing down, but he barely glanced at it before it sped up. He didn’t recognize it, so it didn’t belong to the only other rancher on this road before it dead-ended. He felt a fleeting suspicion, but dismissed it. If someone were following her in a car, he would certainly have caught her long since. Probably someone visiting. Not that he cared.

“No doctor,” she said again, but her blue eyes had begun to look hazy.

“No doctor,” he agreed. “Just a warm fire and some food.”

Then she said something that tore at his heart. Her huge blue eyes focused on his face, and she said, “You’re not him.”

Then she passed out.

Kay Young returned to woozy consciousness to find she was lying on a soft sofa beneath a heap of quilts near a cheerfully burning fire. Dimly she realized it felt odd to be warm, because she had been cold for so long, so very long. But she no longer felt frozen to the bone.

When she tried to move, however, everything hurt, from her head to her feet, and she groaned. The pounding in her head alone nauseated her, and the world around her spun.

At once she heard a sound; then a stranger with a hard, harsh face was squatting beside her. “Shh,” he said softly. “You’re safe here. I promise. Shh. You might have a concussion.”

“I have to go,” she said weakly, struggling against pain, a swimming world and the quilts. “He’ll find me. I can’t let him find me.” Run! The word shrieked in her brain, burned into every cell. Escape! Flee!

“Easy, lady,” he said quietly. “Easy. You’re hurt. No one’s going to find you here. No one.”

“He will,” she said desperately, terror clutching at her insides with bony, knifing fingers. “He always finds me.”

“Easy,” he said again. “There’s a blizzard outside. No one’s getting here tonight, not even the doctor. I know because I tried.”

“Doctor? I don’t need a doctor! I’ve got to get away.”

“There’s nowhere to go tonight,” he said levelly. “Nowhere. And if I thought you could stand, I’d take you to a window and show you.”

But even as she tried once more to push away the quilts, she remembered something else—this man had been gentle when he’d found her beside the road, even when she had kicked and clawed. He hadn’t hurt her. Not like her ex-boyfriend.

Terror receded just a bit. She looked at him, really looked at him, and though his face might have been granite, she detected signs of true concern there. True kindness.

The terror eased another notch, and she let her head sag on the pillow. “He always finds me,” she whispered.

“Not here. Not tonight. That much I can guarantee.”

And she believed him. Oh, God, she believed him. “Thank you,” she murmured finally.

“I heated up some broth. Let’s see if you can hold a little bit of it down. Do you feel sick to your stomach?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe a couple of crackers first, then. After that we can try broth. I’ll be right back.”

She watched him straighten, amazed at his sheer size. Everything about him looked as if it might have been carved out of the nearby mountains. As he walked away from her, other things began to penetrate. She was in a warm room, a cozy room, with walls that looked like a log cabin. The furnishings were sparse but colorful, and they looked comfortable. The fire blazed merrily in a stone fireplace.

Nothing, absolutely nothing, about this place seemed in any way related to her tormentor or her experience since … since when? She didn’t even know how long she had been in hell, how long ago she had begun to fear men. All men. Everything in her head was a jumble.

Oh God. She allowed her eyes to close, let her aching body relax at last. Oh God. Maybe she had truly escaped.

Maybe.

“Crackers?”

Her savior had returned with a small plate holding a dozen soda crackers. Only then did she realize, nauseated or not, that she was famished. Moving gingerly, she pushed herself up against the arm of the couch. He didn’t try to touch her, not even to help. That seemed like a good sign.

She held the plate on her lap and nibbled at a cracker.

“I’m Clint Ardmore,” he said.

“Kay Young,” she answered, surprised at how weak she sounded. “May I have some water?”

“I can’t believe I forgot that.” He hopped up immediately from the roughly hewn coffee table on which he’d been sitting. “Would you prefer something carbonated? Maybe ginger ale or club soda?”

“Ginger ale, please.”

He vanished once again, returning a minute later with a tall glass of soda. “I didn’t put ice in it,” he said. “I figured you need to warm up, and this is already chilled from the fridge.”

“That’s great. Thanks.” She sipped it with relief, feeling it wet her mouth and burn a little. Her stomach liked it, and soon she was eating another cracker.

“Is it settling?”

“Very well.” More ginger ale, another cracker. Somehow he no longer seemed frightening. But how could she be frightened of a man who was practically hovering in concern, a man who had given her his name without asking hers?

“You have one hell of a shiner,” he said.

She looked at him. Again that granite face reflected genuine concern.

“He hit me,” she said simply. Hard. Multiple times. But she didn’t add all that.

“I could have guessed that,” he said. “I should call the sheriff.”

“No!” Panic erupted again, and he grabbed the soda from her hand right before she spilled it. “No! He’ll kill me if he finds me!”

“Easy. Easy. Okay. No sheriff for now. Nothing tonight. Nobody can move in this storm anyway. You just rest. We can talk about everything tomorrow.”

Tomorrow. For the first time in what felt like an eternity, she dared to believe there would be one. “I’m sorry,” she said finally, staring at the crackers that still rested in her lap.

“No need. I can tell you’ve been through hell. Just take it easy. You’re safe now.”

And she believed him. For now, anyway. She looked at him gratefully as her panic subsided, then resumed eating.

“I’m still dizzy,” she remarked. “On and off.”

“That sounds like a concussion. You might be dizzy for a while.”

It was then she noticed that her sweatshirt had turned dark green. Another shiver of panic. “What happened to my clothes?” Her gaze darted to his face, and for a moment the world turned into a carousel before settling again.

He frowned. “You don’t remember?”

“Remember what?”

“Your clothes were wet from the snow. I helped you change into one of my sweat suits. You said it was okay.”

Something far from pleasant started dancing along nerves that were already on the edge of shrieking from pain and terror. “I don’t remember.”

He swore. “Well, that settles it. You’re seeing a doctor tomorrow. If you won’t go to him, I’ll get him to come to you. This sounds like a really bad concussion.”

“He might find me,” she said again, plunging back into the nightmare. “He said he was going to kill me!”

“No one will find you. I’ll figure out something.”

“Oh God, oh God.” And then she started to cry.

A fine freaking kettle of fish, Clint thought as he banged around in his kitchen, slamming pots a little harder than necessary as he tried to decide what the hell he was going to cook for himself, because he hadn’t eaten all day. A terrified, injured woman in his living room, crying her eyes out, looking for all the world as if she’d been beaten and maybe tortured, who couldn’t even remember letting him help her into dry clothes, who wouldn’t let him take her to a doctor, not that he could anyway in the midst of this blizzard….

And all he wanted was his peace and solitude. He had a book to write, a deadline to meet, and he’d had enough of the real world to last him a lifetime. Enough so that it had stuck firmly in his craw and simply wouldn’t be dislodged. And now the real world had landed on his doorstep, invaded his solitude and brought all its problems with it.

But what the hell was he supposed to do? A day, he promised himself. Two at most. He would convince her to talk to the sheriff, to see the doctor, and he would send her safely on her way to wherever she was from, where she would have family and friends and others who were far better suited to helping her through this than a crusty hermit like himself.

Finally he gave up all thought of creating some culinary masterpiece, his one indulgence, and settled instead on cocoa and some cinnamon rolls he’d bought earlier. He made enough for two in case she thought she could eat.

What kind of man would treat a woman that way and leave her so terrified? But he knew. He really didn’t need to ask the question, because he’d known men like that. One of the things that lodged in his craw. He’d worked with them. They would get all messed up on the job, then take it home with them and treat their wives and girlfriends, and sometimes even their kids, like enemy combatants. He knew them too well. And he wished he didn’t. So what if they were a minority?

At least he had the sense to realize that his training and experience had made him unfit for society. But God almighty, now he had that waif in the next room depending on him, and all that stuff about honor and duty and protecting the defenseless was rising up like the opening curtain on another nightmare.

Another cuss word escaped him under his breath. He stacked everything on a tray and carried it into the other room.

Kay was lying on the couch, her eyes closed, so still she might have been dead. His heart nearly stopped. He knew the dangers of concussion all too well.

“Kay?”

He set the tray on the coffee table and felt concern clamp his chest in a vise. “Kay?” he repeated.

No answer. Did he dare touch her? If she was unconscious, she would never know, but if she woke with a stranger touching her, he might set off her panic again.

“Kay!” Loudly. A command.

Then, to his infinite relief, her eyes fluttered open. “Kay,” he repeated, more quietly.

Slowly, very slowly, her gaze tracked to his face. “Mmm?” she asked drowsily.

“I brought cinnamon buns and cocoa. Do you want to eat something more?”

“I … yes.” She tried to push herself up a little more, then squeezed her eyes shut. “The world keeps moving.”

“It’ll stop. Just wait a few seconds before you open your eyes again.”

She followed his suggestion, and when she looked at him again, her gaze remained steady.

“Cocoa?” he asked. “Or a bun? Or should I get the chicken broth?”

She hesitated, then said, “Cocoa sounds better.”

Pushing the tray to one side, he sat on the low table and faced her, passing her a mug. She cradled it in both hands, though he couldn’t tell whether she was seeking the warmth or worried it might spin away. Then she sipped, and her expression told him it was okay. He didn’t need to run for a bucket. The cocoa would stay down.

Relieved, he reached for his own mug. “So what happened?” he asked finally.

“My … boyfriend.”

His ire rose. “Your boyfriend did this to you?”

“My ex. Yes.” She sighed and closed her eyes a moment. Her hands trembled, and he almost reached to take the mug from her.

“I can’t remember much,” she offered hesitantly. “It’s all mixed up.”

“That’s okay.” He tried to sound reassuring. “Concussions do that.” And trauma, but he didn’t add that. What was the point? Words wouldn’t change her situation.

“Thank you,” she said finally.

“For what? I haven’t done much.”

The corners of her mouth quivered, a sight that distressed him. Crying women were not his forte.

“For saving me,” she said simply. “Thank you for saving me.”

That was when he knew his troubles were just beginning.

Chapter 2

Wrapped around the mug of cocoa, Kay’s fingers began to warm. At first they burned and tingled painfully, but then they began to feel normal again. She sipped the hot cocoa gratefully and glanced at the man who had retreated to the easy chair on the other side of the coffee table. Somehow that retreat made him seem even safer.

“Where am I?” she asked finally.

“On my ranch,” he replied. “About twenty-five miles outside of Conard City, Wyoming.”

“Wyoming?” The thought shocked her. How had she come to be so far from home? Had she really been trapped for that long? “I live in Texas!”

His face seemed to stiffen a bit, but she wasn’t a hundred percent sure. Reading him was like reading runes—apparently you had to know the language. “That’s a long way,” he said finally. “You want to tell me what happened?”

“I can’t … right now.” Her mind recoiled from the memories, unwilling to remember the nightmare. “I can’t,” she said again, her heart accelerating.

“That’s okay,” he said soothingly. “I don’t need to know. It can wait.”

That was a pretty generous statement coming from a man who had picked her up off the roadside and welcomed her into his home. She felt she had to offer him something. “I ran,” she said finally. “We were at a rest stop and he thought I was unconscious, and when he went inside, I ran. I ran …” Her voice trailed off, and she closed her eyes.

“You ran a helluva distance,” he said. “The nearest rest stop I can think of is about nine miles from where I found you.”

“I run marathons,” she said simply.

A soft oath escaped him. She looked at him then, and there was no mistaking the anger on his face. She wanted to shrink and hide, but there was no place to go, not now.

But moments later his face settled back into impassivity. Of course, he wasn’t mad at her, she thought. Not like him. This was a different man, one who was trying to help her. He had been nothing but kind.

“So you’re from Texas,” he said presently. “I spent some time there, years ago, mostly in Killeen.”

She started. “Really? That’s where I’m from.”

“Small world sometimes.”

“Or very big.” Her words seemed to hang on the air. She wasn’t quite sure what she’d meant, except that maybe now the world seemed more threatening than it had before Kevin. Into her small world, evil had come, a kind of evil she had once thought would never intersect with her life.

“Yeah,” he said presently, “it can be.”

As if he understood. Perhaps he did.

“I … tried to get away from him,” she offered. God, it was so hard to speak of it. “He kept following. I moved three times, and he found me every time, and now …” Her voice broke. She couldn’t continue.

“You’re away from him now.”

“Yes. Now.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “But for how long?”

For a long time there was no sound but the crackling fire and keening wind. Then he asked, “You moved three times? Different towns?”

“Different states.”

He swore. She jerked her head back, feeling the inescapable stab of fear, then relaxed when he didn’t move a muscle.

“That’s bad,” he said quietly.

“You can’t hide anymore,” she said. “Not anymore. Not with the Internet.”

“So it seems. And restraining orders might as well be written on toilet paper.”

“You can’t get one when you move to a new state. The judge asks where your proof is that he’ll follow you. So the last time I didn’t even try.”

He shook his head. “By the time the restraining order is broken, you’re already in too much trouble for it to do you much good.”

“Yeah. I’ve learned that the hard way.” She bit her lip, still clinging to the cocoa mug as if it were a lifeline. “That’s why I don’t want to let anyone know where I am. He’ll find me. He always does.”

He nodded but didn’t say anything. She watched his stony face, trying to read something there, but couldn’t. He was a man, and she ought to be frightened because Kevin had indelibly taught her that no matter how nice a guy might seem at first, he could turn into a monster.

But Clint Ardmore didn’t know her yet. She was new to him, so regardless of what kind of man he might be, it was still too early to have to fear him. And she would be gone before it reached that point.

At least that was what she needed to believe.

“Okay,” he said at last. “I won’t even call the sheriff. At least not tonight. We can talk more about it when you’re feeling a bit better.”

She hated that he sounded grudging, but there was no way she could ignore his concession, even if he didn’t want to make it. “Thank you.”

“As to this concussion … I’m no doctor, but there’s one thing I know for sure. I can’t let you sleep too long or too deeply tonight, so you’d better make up your mind that I’m going to be waking you often. And if that means shaking you, I will shake you.”

She didn’t want to be touched. Not by anyone. Fear clogged her throat, even though she understood the sense of what he was saying. “I … only if you have to.”

“Only if I can’t wake you by banging a pot next to your ear.” Then he surprised her by lifting one corner of his mouth in an almost-smile. “Can you live with that?”

“I think so.”

“Don’t worry about attacking me,” he added, the smile deepening enough to seem almost real. “You already tried that and didn’t even put a scratch on me. So if you wake up frightened and strike out, it’s okay.”

That was meant to calm her? Yet in some odd way it did. “I don’t remember attacking you.”

“Most likely not. You were pretty out of it, between the concussion and hypothermia. But yeah, you tried to defend yourself even when you were weaker than a newborn kitten.”

He seemed to like that she’d defended herself, although she couldn’t imagine why. It did, however, make her feel better about herself. Even totally out of it, she’d put up a fight.

“Anyway,” he went on, “the blizzard alone should be enough protection for tonight. But I’ll make sure everything’s locked up tight. Don’t usually have to bother, but.” He left the thought unfinished and shrugged.

“Thank you.” It would make her feel safer. “And thank you for your hospitality.”

Now he looked distinctly uncomfortable. “I wouldn’t have left a stray cat out there tonight. Would have been inhuman.”

Now how did he mean that? She wished she could peer behind the emotionless facade of his face and get an inkling of how this man thought.

No, maybe not. Maybe she didn’t really want to know what went on inside him. Tomorrow she would be gone, as soon as the blizzard let up enough and.

“Oh my God!” The words escaped her before she could stop them.

“What?”

“I just realized. How am I going to get out of here?”

“I’ll take you to a bus or something when the roads clear.”

“No, you don’t understand! He took my purse. I don’t have any ID, no credit card, no money! Oh, God, I’m trapped!”

Just as she started to spiral into fresh panic, he stopped her with one word of command.

“No.”

She gaped at him. “What?”

“I said no. Don’t do it. Don’t wind yourself up. I can help you out with all of that. Trust me, you’ll be on your way again as soon as possible.”

From something in the way he said it, she believed him. He didn’t want her here any more than she wanted to be here.

It was a weird kind of hope, but it was a hope she had to cling to.

Besides, she reminded herself, she’d always found a way to run before. Always. She just needed to wait to gather her strength and lose the mental fog that seemed to be slowing her brain.

She finally ate one of the rolls he offered, and even downed another cup of cocoa. The heat from the fire began to penetrate enough that she threw back the quilt and lay there in the oversized green sweats he had put her into. “My toes are burning.”

He looked at her feet. “I’m not surprised. They were getting close to frostbite. But they look a healthy pink now.”

She hadn’t even considered all the horrible dangers when she had taken her chance to flee the car wearing nothing but her grey sweats and running shoes into a cold Wyoming afternoon. With absolutely no thought of what she should do or where she should turn, she had fled. She hadn’t even risked trying to hide at the rest stop in the hopes that someone else would drive in and she could seek help.

“I guess running like that wasn’t my smartest move.”

“I don’t know, but from what little you’ve told me, it may have been your only move.”

“It seemed like it.” Then she stole another glance at him. “I couldn’t have made it much farther, could I?”

“I don’t know. Willpower can sometimes accomplish near miracles. I’m glad we’ll never have to find out, though.”

At least not this time, she thought miserably. Kevin had grown bigger than life in her mind, more like a nightmare monster than a mere man. “You know what I can’t understand?”

“What’s that?”

“Why he keeps coming after me. Why can’t he just let me go? I go as far away as I can get, and he still comes looking. I just don’t get it!”

He shook his head. “I’m no psychologist. I don’t get why he abused you in the first place.”

“I can understand that better than him tracking me like this. I mean, he has a temper. He blows up. At first I was even able to forgive him. But …” She shook her head. “I don’t get it.”

He suddenly leaned forward, almost like a striking snake, and she shrank back instinctively.

“Don’t ever,” he said, “ever, forgive someone who hits you. Ever.”

She blinked, wondering what the hell was behind that, but then he leaned back and reached for his own mug as if he hadn’t just vented that moment of passion. “Creeps like him,” Clint said quietly, “once they cross that line, they just keep on crossing it like it was never there.”

That much made sense. She nodded. “I guess you’re right.”

“I know I’m right.” His gray eyes seemed to burn. “You can’t erase the lines and then draw them again. The lines get blurred, and it almost never works. Especially if they get a taste for power or inflicting fear.”

She felt her mouth sag open a little and quickly closed it. They were definitely having a discussion about something that reached far beyond Kevin, but she couldn’t imagine what it was.

He rose quickly, mug in hand. “Want more?”

“I’m fine, thanks.”

He headed swiftly for the kitchen, as if he wanted to get away from the whole conversation.

Not that she could blame him. She didn’t exactly like it herself.

She lay there, mug in her hands, staring into the dancing fire, wondering more about her rescuer than she should. He seemed like a troubled man, and that made her uneasy.

But, she reminded herself again, she would be out of here as soon as she could manage after the storm passed.

In a day or so she would never have to see Clint Ardmore again. There was absolutely no point in trying to figure him out, not when she was going to shake him off her heels like the dust along the road of what was evidently going to become a permanent flight.

God. She wanted to weep, but the tears wouldn’t come. Just as well. She didn’t want to annoy her rescuer. But how the dickens was she ever going to get out of this mess? The one and only time she’d managed to get Kevin charged and thrown into jail, he’d gotten out in less than two years.

Apparently it was a far worse crime to kick your dog than beat your girlfriend. And it was a lot harder to prove domestic abuse, too. The second time she’d gone to the cops, Kevin had denied he was even in town. Since he lived four states away and hadn’t done anything stupid, like buy gas with a credit card or rent a hotel room, the prosecutor had shrugged and dismissed the charge for lack of proof that tied Kevin to the assault. There were so many more important cases to pursue, after all.

The wind hammered the windows, making them rattle behind the curtains, and she looked around uneasily. Kevin had to know she had taken off running. He might have wondered if she had been picked up along the road, maybe by a long-distance trucker, but he probably wouldn’t have wondered for long. The roads had been deserted, maybe because of the approaching storm, and the stop had been a brief one, brief enough that she had heard him shouting her name in the distance as she hid in a thicket of trees before dashing off again.

No, he wouldn’t know which way she’d gone, but he’d probably figured out pretty quickly that she wasn’t running along the highway. That would have been the first thing he checked.

So he might stay in the area, looking for her.

Regardless, she couldn’t afford to have her name turn up in a police blotter or anywhere else he could find it by means of the Internet.

So what now?

The question loomed darkly, without answers. Finally she pushed it away, promising herself she would think about it in the morning, after the throbbing in her head eased and her thoughts cleared.

Because right now even she could tell she was far from being at her best.

A male voice called her name sharply, and she started. “What?”

She looked around and saw Clint sitting on the coffee table again. The mug was no longer in her hands.

“You’ve been sleeping about half an hour,” he said.

“I didn’t even realize I’d dozed off.”

He nodded. “You’re exhausted. But we still have to watch out for that concussion. Sorry, but I’m going to make this a long night for you.”

“I understand.” She did. Moving carefully, she tried to sit up, but the room tilted and spun so much that she had to close her eyes.

“Do you need something?”

“The bathroom. But I’m dizzy.”

“Let me help you. Keep your eyes closed.”

She expected him to take her arm, help her to her feet and guide her. But instead he lifted her from the couch like a doll and carried her. She definitely did not like that. She hated being reminded that he was so much stronger than she was. It was all she could do not to fight him as fear grabbed her anew.

But then he let her feet slide to the floor and steadied her with an arm around her waist.

“Wait a minute,” he said, “then open your eyes.”

She did as he suggested, and when she opened her eyes the room appeared stable. It was a small bathroom, just the essentials, with little extra room.

“This is the most dangerous room in the house,” he reminded her. “Don’t move quickly, don’t turn or tip your head, and hang on to something every time you move. If you get dizzy, just holler. I’ll be right outside the door.”

“Thanks.”

With care and extreme caution, she managed to take care of her needs, but when it came time to walk to the door, she felt unsteady enough to call out.

“Clint?”

He entered swiftly, offering immediate support. “Let me carry you,” he said this time. “The sweatpants could trip you.”

So it hadn’t just been an exercise of male dominance when he had lifted her before. Relieved, she didn’t argue, and this time she felt no fear when he picked her up. He laid her back on the sofa as if she were fragile enough to shatter.

“How’s your head?”

“Still aching,” she admitted.

“I’m sorry I can’t give you aspirin. But with a concussion, that could be dangerous. And I don’t have anything else.”

“That’s all right. It’s reminding me I’m still alive.”

Something flickered across his face, so quickly that she couldn’t quite read it. She suspected that stoniness would make him a difficult man to deal with. At least with Kevin she had always known just what kind of trouble was on the horizon, even if she couldn’t stop it or escape it.

“Can I get you anything?” he asked. “Food? Soup? A drink?”

“I’m really thirsty,” she admitted. “Would you mind? Ginger ale?”

“Not a problem.”

She let her head rest against the pillow, listening to the hammering storm outside. The thick log walls protected them from most of it, but through the closed windows she could hear the keening of the wind, and sometimes the glass rattled before the strength of it. Not even Kevin, she assured herself, could be out looking for her in this. Thank God.

But what was she going to do when it passed? With no identification or money, or even her debit card, how could she start running again? Fear and grief grabbed her in as tight a grip as the throbbing headache, and for a few seconds she couldn’t even draw a breath. Never before had he trapped her quite this effectively. Always before she’d been able to gather enough resources to run again.

Well, she would find a way, she promised herself. She always had before.

“You’re going to be all right.”

She moved her eyes slowly until she could see Clint standing beside her, holding out a tall glass of ginger ale. For a moment he seemed to swim, then the world stabilized again. “Thanks.” She reached out and took the glass, and only then realized that she needed to sit up straighter to drink.

Clint apparently saw the problem at the same instant she realized it. He took the glass back and bent to help her sit up against the pillow. “I guess I must be tired,” he said. “Missing the obvious.”

“Do you never miss the obvious?”

“I miss very little.” An edge in his tone warned her away, though from what she didn’t know. Silently, she accepted the glass back.

He rounded the coffee table and sat in the easy chair on the other side. A book lay open on the end table, and he picked it up to start reading again. Apparently he didn’t feel like conversing.

Which ordinarily would have been fine, but Kay discovered her own thoughts scared her. She didn’t want to be alone inside her own head. But how could you converse with a man who was doing a passable imitation of a brick wall?

A native caution when dealing with men kept her silent. She didn’t want to irritate this man. From his size and strength, he could present an even bigger threat than Kevin, even though he hadn’t done a thing to indicate he might be that kind of person.

She sipped her ginger ale, and a sigh escaped her. At once he spoke.

“Are you all right?”

“Just unhappy with my thoughts.”

“I can understand.”

Maybe he could. She dared to look at him again and found he had set the book aside.

“I guess I should apologize,” he said finally, his tone level, his face unchanging. “I’ve been a hermit for a while. By choice. I seem to have lost the social graces.”

“I’m not asking for social graces,” she said truthfully. “You’ve been very kind to a stranger. I don’t want to intrude more than necessary. It’s just that my thoughts keep running in circles. Unhappy circles.”

“You’ve certainly got enough to be unhappy about.”

It might have been a question, a suggestion or an end to the subject. From what she had seen of him so far, she guessed it was probably a signal to end the discussion. So she took another sip of ginger ale and focused her attention on the fire. She could take a hint. In fact, she was probably hyper-alert to hints, thanks to Kevin.

But Clint surprised her by not returning to his book. “I suggest you plan to stay here for a couple of days.” The invitation sounded grudging, and she looked askance at him.

“Why? You said you’re a hermit by choice.”

“Maybe so, but it seems to me you need some time, some safe time, to make plans and figure out your next move. You can’t just run out of here the instant the storm ends. And I can provide the safety you need.”

He said the last with such calm confidence that she wondered who the hell he was. Or what he had been before becoming a hermit. Not even the most sympathetic cop had ever promised her that much. No, they had been full of warnings and advice, most of which included getting as far away as possible as fast as possible.

“Kevin,” she said finally, “is like a bomb. There’s no telling when he’ll go off, and anyone in the vicinity is probably at risk.”

“I’ve dealt with bombs, and I’ve dealt with worse than Kevin.” A frown dragged at the corners of his mouth but didn’t quite form. “Trust me, I can keep you safe.”

“The cops couldn’t keep me safe.”

“They couldn’t be there round the clock,” he said flatly. “And cops don’t have my training.”

She hesitated, then just blurted it out. “Who are you? What are you?”

His gaze grew distant, as if he could see through the walls and well past the blizzard beyond. A shiver ran through her. “I was special ops for nearly twenty years. And I was good at it. Very good.”

She didn’t know how to respond to that. Should she congratulate him? Admire him? But no. Something in that rigid face told a very different story. “I don’t want you to have to go back to that. To relive it.”

At that the facade cracked, and he looked startled. Then the stone returned. “Sometimes,” he said after a moment, “you don’t have a choice.”

Chapter 3

The night passed without further conversation. Either weariness or the concussion, or a combination of both, kept causing her to nod off. Every half hour or so, he woke her, then let her fall back to sleep.

Then, finally, she knew it had to be morning because she awoke to the smell of frying bacon. The aroma made her mouth water, and she realized she was ravenous. When she pushed herself cautiously upright, she was delighted to realize the room no longer spun. The crazy carousel was gone.

Her head still ached, but not as badly, and most of the pain she felt now was in her cheek and around her black eye. There were aches and pains from running in the cold, from the other blows Kevin had heaped on her, but nothing she couldn’t ignore.

Moving carefully, pulling the legs of the sweatpants up as she walked, she made her way to the bathroom and freshened up a bit. Then, upon returning to the living room, she pulled one of the heavy curtains back and looked out on the still-raging blizzard.

It was early yet, still dark outside, but even so, she could tell visibility probably didn’t extend much past the porch railing she could barely see, buried as it was in snowy drifts and further concealed by wildly blowing snow. Even after the storm passed, just getting out the front door would probably prove to be a challenge.

“Good morning.”

Startled, she almost jumped but managed to remember her unsteadiness in time. Gripping the window frame, she turned to see Clint standing in the doorway of his kitchen. “Good morning.”

He gave a half-smile. “Glad to see you can get around. Are you hungry?”

“That bacon smells wonderful.”

“I thought it might. Do you want eggs and toast with it?”

“Please. Eggs any way you like.”

“Can do.”

He turned and vanished back into the kitchen. “Coffee?” she heard him call.

“Please. Black.”

Apparently she wasn’t quite back up to snuff. Realizing she had begun to feel shaky, she made her way back to the sofa and sat. At least now she could sit upright. Last night’s ginger ale still sat on the coffee table. It had gone flat, but that didn’t keep her from drinking it down in one long draft. Heavens, she was thirsty.

Clint returned just long enough to set a mug of steaming coffee in front of her, then vanished back into the kitchen. He’d added a couple of logs to the fire, and the flames leapt high again, making the room toasty. The fire also cast enough light that she didn’t feel any desire to turn on one of the lamps.

It was like being in a warm, cozy cave, she thought. Surrounded by thick walls, safe from predators. But as she’d learned all too painfully, safety was an illusion, one that, in her life, rarely lasted for long.

There was a wooden table with three chairs in one corner of the room, and it was there Clint served their breakfast. He waited for her to get there on her own, watching her as if measuring her steadiness, but not intervening. She didn’t want to admit, even to herself, how ready she was to sag into the chair by the time she got there. It wasn’t that far, but never before in her life had she felt so weak.

Of course, she hadn’t eaten much for days.

Clint apparently believed breakfast should be the day’s biggest meal. She found herself looking at platters heaped high with toast, bacon and scrambled eggs.

“That’s enough for an army,” she remarked in surprise.

“I think you’re hungrier than you realize,” he responded.

“I think I’m going to prove you right.” She was famished, in fact. Except for the cocoa and soda last night, and the crackers and little bit of cinnamon roll, she hadn’t eaten in days. Whatever Kevin had intended to do with her, feeding her hadn’t been part of it. Three days, she figured. Three days since he’d kidnapped her from Killeen. But that was just a guess, since she’d been stuck in his trunk a lot of the time.

“Want to tell me what happened?” Clint asked.

“Not really.” But she knew she would tell him anyway. If the thoughts wouldn’t stop running around in her head, where could the harm be in speaking them out loud?

“Eat first,” he suggested. “That’s the most important thing.”

It was. With a shaking hand, she helped herself to healthy portions of eggs, toast and bacon. Hungry though she was, it still seemed difficult to focus on chewing and swallowing. The better she felt, the more the urge to flee grew in her. She had learned that when she held still, danger would find her.

And she could no longer believe it wouldn’t find her, regardless of what this man promised.

“So what do you do?” he asked. “For a living.”

“Whatever I can. Usually that’s waiting tables. It’s one of the easiest jobs to get when you’re new in a place.”

“Do you enjoy it?”

“Mostly. The money is good enough if you work in the right restaurant.”

“Do you have any savings?”

“Probably not anymore.” Her mood sank again, and she poked at the food on her plate with her fork.

“You know, you should call your bank and tell them your credit card or whatever was stolen on the day you were kidnapped.”

“No!” Panic gripped her heart in an icy fist. “Don’t you understand? He always finds me somehow. If I poke my head up, they’ll want to know where I am. They’ll want to know where to send another card. They’ll want me to sign things. Once that happens, he’ll find me.”

He sighed. “You’re right, I guess. Sorry, I’m still kind of an electronic Luddite. I keep forgetting that somehow everything is available if you just know how to look for it.”

“It seems like it. Almost twenty years ago, the post office stopped giving out forwarding addresses so stalkers couldn’t follow people who moved. Maybe that helped back then, but today you can get the address of anyone in the country for a few dollars. And if you have more than a few dollars, apparently you can find out a whole lot more. I’m not sure exactly how he does it, but once I’ve been in a place for a while, Kevin finds me. Three times now. How the hell do you hide?”

“Actually,” he said slowly, “you can hide. But it’ll involve a lot of changes. We can talk about it later.”

She offered to help with the dishes, but he declined, telling her it was better for her to rest. Twenty minutes later, he rejoined her in the living room.

“Do you need to shower?” he asked before he sat. “I can get you some more sweats.”

“Maybe later on the shower.” She needed one, but she wasn’t confident enough of her stability yet, and she sure didn’t want to have to ask this stranger for help with that.

“Sure. More coffee?”

He freshened her mug and got one of his own before settling into his easy chair. The storm outside kept right on ripping around them. He tilted his head to one side. “This isn’t going to blow over soon.”

“That’s okay,” she said. It gave her a few additional hours of safety before she would have to figure out how to move on again.

“I suppose it is.”

No, she realized, it wasn’t. Not for him. He was a self-confessed hermit, and now he was stuck with an invader until such time as he could reasonably boot her out the door.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“For what?”

“Imposing on you like this.”

“Oh, for the love of Pete!”

She shrank back against the pillows. He was an unknown, and she hadn’t meant to anger him. He could do almost anything to her.

But he remained firmly planted in the chair, though he looked disgusted, a change from his usually unrevealing attitude. “Look,” he said, “I know neither of us likes this situation. I prefer my solitude, and you’d sure as hell prefer not to have a lunatic ex-boyfriend trying to kill you, chasing you everywhere you go. But you know what? Sometimes we don’t have a choice. We just have to do what needs doing. And right now what needs doing is giving you the safety and space in which to recover. So what if it disturbs my sacred solitude?”

“I’m still sorry,” she said, weakly, not sure whether she was sorry for angering him or for the whole damn mess.

“Quit apologizing. You don’t have a thing to apologize for. I know I’m not exactly a warm, fuzzy kind of host, but if you think I resent the fact that you need help and I’m here to provide it, you’re wrong.”

“Okay.” She wanted to get away from this topic as quickly as possible.

But even though he could have dropped it there, he didn’t. Evidently he had plenty of thoughts on this subject.

“You have rights, and I have responsibilities,” he said flatly.

Now, that really did confuse her. “What rights?”

“You,” he said, “have a right to exist without terror. You have a right to expect the rest of us to step up and get you away from this guy, since he seems hell-bent on following you wherever you go. You have a right to expect help, and apparently you haven’t been getting it.”

“But you have rights, too.”

“Hell, yeah, but I can protect my own.”

“And you don’t have a responsibility to me.”

“Oh, yeah, I do.”

She tried to shake her head, but as soon as she did, she remembered her concussion as pain stabbed her head. “I’m nobody. You don’t owe me a thing.”

“You’re not nobody. You’re a human being, and that gives you certain rights in my book. And I’m a human being, and that’s enough to make me responsible to do what I can for you.”

Her mouth opened a little as she stared at him. She couldn’t remember anyone ever putting it like that before.

He leaned forward, putting his mug on the coffee table, then resting his elbows on his knees. “You want to know one of the reasons why I prefer my own company?”

She wasn’t sure she did, but he didn’t wait for her answer.

“Because too many people have forgotten their responsibilities. Too many people look the other way, or take the easy path. Anything but put themselves out for someone who needs help.”

“Not everyone is like that.”

“Of course not. But too many are, and I’m sick of them, frankly. All this talk of personal responsibility that people toss around overlooks a very important fact.”

“Which is?”

“That your personal responsibility doesn’t end at the tip of your own nose. Or at your own front door.”

She bit her lip, then ventured, “You’ve thought a lot about this.”

“I spend a lot of time thinking about responsibility. My own. Accepting it. Then deciding what it should have been all along.”

She longed to ask him what had put him on such a personal private quest, but didn’t dare. There was a darkness in this man that she could feel all the way across the room. It lurked in his gray eyes like a ghost. Maybe it was best not to know.

He picked up his mug again and sat back, sipping slowly while minutes ticked by.

“Any family?” he asked abruptly.

“Me?”

“You.”

“No. I oh, do you want to hear the whole story? It sounds like a cliché.”

“A lot of life is made up of clichés. Tell me whatever you don’t mind sharing.”

She looked down and realized her hands were twisting together. She forced herself to separate them and lay them flat. Then she shrugged a shoulder, ignoring the ache. Apparently Kevin had hit her there, too. Not that she remembered, there had been so many blows.

“My mother died of an overdose when I was four. Nobody knew who my dad was. So my grandmother took care of me until she died of a heart attack when I was thirteen. After that it was foster homes. Six of them. I don’t think I was easy to deal with. And there’s nobody else.”

“You made it through high school, though?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I did. I always wanted to go to college, but I had to take care of myself and kept putting it off and then … well, Kevin …” She bit her lip again, unable to meet his gaze.

“Tell me about Kevin. About the beginning.”

She hesitated, unable to imagine why he wanted all this information, but reluctant to tell him it was none of his business. He’d rescued her in the middle of a blizzard where she probably would have died except for him. That gave him a right to know, she supposed. Especially since he was still helping her.

“Kevin was okay at first. Really nice. It was a long time before I realized that I was tiptoeing around all the time because of his temper. It took me even longer to realize he couldn’t hold a job for more than a month or two, and finally I gave up even trying to tell him to look for work. So I did something stupid.”

“And that was?”

She drew a long breath. “I started skimming my paycheck.”

“You what?” He sounded utterly disbelieving. “How can you skim your own paycheck?”

“I got a raise and didn’t tell him. I’d go to the bank and split the deposit, put the extra money into a savings account. I meant to save for school.”

“And you didn’t tell him.”

“No.”

He sighed. “That’s a warning sign in huge red letters. But I suppose he had you so intimidated by that point that you didn’t even recognize it.”

“Not really. I just did it. I didn’t exactly think about all the reasons I felt the need to. When I look back, I feel stupid.”

“No, don’t. You have no idea how many people, doing the best they can in whatever situation they’re in, look back later and think they were stupid. It’s never stupid. It’s the best you can do at the time.”

“Thanks. I still feel stupid.”

“So let me guess. He found out about the savings account.”

She nodded. “That was the first time he beat me.”

“And then he was oh so apologetic, swore he’d never do it again and took the money.”

“Yeah. Like I said, stupid.”

“Stop saying that. It’s amazing how manipulative these bastards can be. It’s like they’re born knowing how to get what they want. So okay, that was the first time the line got crossed. And it got worse, right?”

“Yeah. With time. Until finally he broke my arm and left my face such a mess I couldn’t go to work, and my boss actually came to the house. He took one look at me and dragged me to the hospital, then called the cops.”

“Ah, a responsible person arrives on the scene. Amazing.”

In spite of herself, she felt the unbruised side of her face lift in a slight smile. “My boss was a good man.”

“I agree. So Kevin went to jail?”

“That time.”

“But he got out.”

“Of course. Less than two years later.”

“I think I can pretty much write the rest of the story.” He sipped his coffee and closed his eyes for a moment. When they opened, they held an ice that should have frightened her, but somehow it didn’t. Maybe she was too tired, too battered. Maybe she just couldn’t rustle up any more terror.

“Take my word for it, Kay Young, as long as you are in this house, that man will not lay a finger on you.”

Deep inside she shivered, because she believed him, because she feared the kind of protection he was capable of providing. Special Ops? Yeah, he could protect her.

“I don’t want you to get into any trouble on my account,” she blurted.

He smiled, but not pleasantly.

“I won’t,” he said. “Trust me, I won’t.”

She dozed off again, and when she woke, she felt disoriented. Not because she didn’t recognize the cabin or the fireplace, or Clint sitting across the way in his chair reading. No, it was something even more basic than that.

Almost before she opened her eyes, she asked, “What time is it? What day is it?”

He looked up from his book. “It’s Friday, December twelfth and it’s just after one in the afternoon.”

“Five days!”

“Since he took you?”

“Yes.” She looked around, trying to center herself somehow. “What state did you say this was?”

“Wyoming. Conard County, Wyoming, to be more precise.”

She squeezed her eyes shut. “Sorry. It’s like things are jumbled.”

“That’s normal enough, I suppose. How’s your head feel?”

“The headache is almost gone.”

“Good. That’s probably why you’re trying to sort things out.”

“I didn’t know he had me so long.”

“No?”

“No. He kept me in the trunk a lot. He didn’t feed me. He hardly gave me any water.”

“He would be wise not to come near you while I’m around.”

She looked at him, amazed by the calm way he spoke, as if such threats were commonplace in his world. Not a ripple of emotion showed on his face. Oddly, while his obvious self-control was horrifying in a way, it also reassured her far more than a display of anger would have. Far more.

Outside, judging from the sound of the wind, the storm still raged. Hard to believe it had gone on so long. Hard to accept that she was trapped in more ways than one.

“I’ve got to figure out what to do.”

“Relax,” he said. “I’m already figuring it out.”

“Why should you do that?”

He shrugged. “Why not?”

“Because it’s my problem?”

“It’s mine now, too.”

She realized he meant it. That was no token statement. “I can figure it out.”

“You’ve been figuring it out for a few years now. Let somebody else help you for a change.” He closed his book and placed it on the coffee table. “I’m not trying to take over, it’s not my place. You can make all the decisions yourself. But I have a few suggestions.”

“Like what?”

“For starters, we call the sheriff.”

“No! Then I’ll be in the blotter. I’ll be in the newspaper, like last time I made a complaint. I don’t want him to know I’m still in the area!”

He waited a moment before speaking. When he did, his voice was so calm it seemed at odds with the situation. “Are you planning to run forever?”

She bit her lip so hard it hurt. “No,” she said finally, feeling her eyes sting. “No.”

“Then we need to deal with the problem. The sheriff here is a man I’d trust with my life, and I don’t say that about many people. If I tell him what’s going on, he’ll guard your secret with his life. Your name won’t be in any blotter or any report.”

“You’re sure?”

“Like I said, I’d trust him with my life. In fact, there are a few people hereabouts I can say that about. So trust me on this one.”

“And if I do?”

“Then we’re going to ask the sheriff to find Kevin. Find him and nail him good. It’s not just beating you up anymore, Kay. It’s kidnapping. Across state lines. That’s a federal crime, and that son of a bitch is going away for life.”

A spark of hope ignited in her, but then flickered out. “He has to be caught first.”

“Trust me, we’ll get him. One way or another.”

“But it’s just my word against his.” That hadn’t been enough before.

“Well, I think some photos of your face will make a point. And the other injuries he gave you.”

She touched her cheek lightly with her fingertips. “I must look awful.”

“You look like someone who was hit in the side of the head with something heavy. Like a tire iron.”

She almost gasped. “How did you know?”

“Did you look in the mirror when you went to the bathroom?”

“No.” No, she had avoided that like the plague. It was bad enough to endure the pain, but she’d been afraid to look for fear he’d ruined her face for good. How could she work as a waitress with a messed-up face?

“If we can’t get the sheriff out here soon, I’m going to ask you to let me take some pictures myself.”

“Why do we have to wait for the sheriff?”

“I think it’s more evidentiary if he does it. Well, actually, he’ll probably ask one of his female deputies to do it. From what I saw when I helped you change into those clothes yesterday, you were beaten all over.”

She covered her face with her hands, pierced by a shame she couldn’t explain. Why should she feel shame? But she did, and it was deep and burning. She felt hot tears begin to run, but no sobs accompanied them. She’d learned, a long time ago, to cry silently.

At least her stranger-savior didn’t evince any annoyance. He just let her cry. Later, when the tears dried and she dabbed at her face with the sleeves of the green sweatshirt, he rose, returning a minute later with a box of tissues and a fresh cup of coffee.

She took the tissues gratefully, dabbing her face, blowing her nose. “Sorry,” she said.

“No need.”

The coffee tasted as if it had been freshly brewed, and she sipped it with pleasure. She hadn’t really tasted anything before, had just been going through the motions, but now, for the first time in days, she discovered she could savor something simple. Something good. “You like it strong. So do I.” She gave him a smile with the half of her face that still felt mobile.

He acknowledged her words with a small nod. Evidently he didn’t run to social pleasantries.

“When are you going to call the sheriff?”

“As soon as you’re ready to give me identifying information.”

“What kind of information?”

“The car he was driving, what he looks like, his full name, where he kidnapped you from.”

“Okay.” She drew a deep breath. He was right; she couldn’t keep running. And this was as good a place as any to make her stand, if only because she seemed to have an ally.

An odd ally, one who apparently had chosen to stand beside her on principle and nothing else. But maybe that was the best kind of ally—one who expected nothing from her but merely felt her situation deserved his help.

Yes, that was best, she decided. That way there was no chance of the kind of messiness she’d run into with Kevin.

“I’ll give you whatever information you want.”

He nodded again and rose. “Just let me get a pad and pen.”

She waited, holding her mug in both hands, afraid to nurture even a spark of hope. For all she knew, she was about to sign her own death warrant.

But even death seemed preferable to living like this any longer.

Chapter 4

Clint got his cordless phone and returned to his easy chair, putting the pad on his lap. Kay had answered his questions, and he’d scribbled down the answers. It was time to call the sheriff, Gage Dalton, even though the roads for miles around were impassible.

He didn’t need the sheriff to protect Kay here at his house. He needed the sheriff to keep eyes out for Kevin.

He scanned the pad to refresh his memory of what she had told him before he dialed. His notes were even more abbreviated than his speech, but he had a good memory.

A memory that was suddenly jogged as he scanned the description of the car.

God! Reaching back to the moments when he had been carrying Kay to his truck, he remembered a car passing them and slowing down. He couldn’t be sure it exactly matched her description, because by then they’d been approaching whiteout conditions, but it came close enough to give him a minor adrenaline jolt.

If that had been Kevin, then there was now a chance he had a pretty good idea where Kay was. Because the road dead-ended, he would have had to backtrack, and he would have at least an idea that Clint had taken her to his ranch. And worse, if he’d scanned the license tag, it would be easy enough to find out exactly where Clint lived. So if Kevin checked around and found that Kay hadn’t gone to the police or into the hospital, he would be virtually certain that she was still with Clint.

In this storm he would be as immobilized as everyone else, but after the roads were cleared …

A thrum of anger started beating in time with his heart. He didn’t say anything to Kay, though. She was already skittish enough. So skittish he wanted her to hear every word he spoke to the sheriff so she would know he hadn’t betrayed her in any way.

But even as he punched in the non-emergency number, his mind was beginning to turn over plans for making his cabin safer.

“Conard County Sheriff’s Office,” said the froggy voice of the dispatcher. Rain or shine, blizzard or forest fire, Velma was always at the other end of the line.

“Hi, Velma, this is Clint Ardmore. I need to talk to Gage.”

“Well, honey, I’ll see what I can do, but as you can imagine, we’re trying to help folks who got themselves into a passel of trouble by not staying home in this crud.”

“Sounds to me like you didn’t stay home, either.”

Velma laughed, a sound similar to a braying donkey. “Honey, I only have to walk a couple of blocks. Gage is out somewhere with a crew, trying to pull a family out of a ditch. Say … Micah’s not too far from you. Want me to have him drop by?”

Micah Parish was another of the handful of local people that Clint would have trusted with his life. But he looked over at Kay and wondered if she would be able to take it. She was twisting her hands again, and biting her lip, looking ready to jump out of her skin.

On the other hand, now that he’d recalled that car, he couldn’t forget it.

“How,” he asked Velma, “can Micah get here?”

“He’s plowing his way in. You’re on the route.” All the deputies had plows on the fronts of their official vehicles exactly for times like this.

“Give me a sec, Velma.”

“Sure.”

He put his hand over the mouthpiece. “Kay? One of those guys I’d trust my life to?”

“Yes?”

“He’s going to be driving past here. Talking to him would be better than waiting for the sheriff. Apparently he’s pretty tied up with people who have storm trouble.”

Her hands tightened around each other until her knuckles turned white. “You’re sure?” she finally asked hesitantly.

“Well, if he comes here, you can make sure he doesn’t write anything down. Maybe that would make you feel better. And I can’t think of a better person to have my back.”

Finally she nodded. “Okay. Okay.” But she didn’t sound happy.

He took his hand from the mouthpiece. “Velma? Yeah, that would be great if Micah would stop by. I really need to talk to him.”

“Consider it done. I’ll call him now.”

“Thanks.”

When he disconnected, Clint put the handset on the table beside him. “It’ll be okay,” he said, feeling once again as if he was trying to calm a frightened horse. He’d calmed frightened men in battle, but this was a whole different thing, calling for a different kind of patience, a kind he wasn’t sure he had enough of.

He ran through an assortment of cuss words in his head, because he was sure if he said any of them aloud she would shrink away again, and as much as he had tried to harden himself over the years, seeing a woman shrink from him brought back enough memories to fill a dump truck and make him feel like an utter bastard.

The phone rang. It was Velma. “Micah is plowing his way up your road right now. He said to thank you for those reflector posts you put up last year.”

Clint gave a rare chuckle. He’d lined his driveway with the things after a blizzard almost as bad as this one, because his drive was long enough, and winding enough, to be impossible to find under heavy snow, and even more impossible to clear. “Tell him thanks for clearing the road for me.”

“You’ll just have to clear it again later,” Velma advised him. “The snow is going to stop soon, but the wind will keep up until tomorrow. Like holding a flood back with a broom.” On that positive note, she disconnected.

Clint looked at Kay again. She appeared to have sunk into unhappy recollection. “Micah will be here soon. He’s plowing his way to the door.”

He watched her eyes widen and fill with fear, and then gave her points for quickly getting a grip on her emotions. “Okay,” she said on a tight breath.

Nothing he could tell her would reassure her. She was running on an awful lot of trust right now, and as someone who’d learned to trust very few, he could understand that.

Micah arrived fifteen minutes later. They could hear the engine strain as he approached, pushing heavy snow out of the way. Then he left the vehicle idling. They heard the stomp of boots on the porch as he shook the snow off, and at the sound, Kay shrank visibly.

Clint stifled a sigh and went to get the door, letting Micah in with a cold blast of air and swirling snow. Micah was every bit as big as Clint, broad and well-muscled, but far more exotic looking thanks to his Cherokee heritage.

Clint had to force the door closed against the wind, then latched it firmly.

“Damn,” Micah said. “Somebody moved Antarctica up here.”

“It’s bad,” Clint agreed as they shook hands. “Coffee?

“Hot and black.”

But something else had to come first. “Come meet my guest.”

Micah’s black-as-night eyes slipped past him and found Kay, who sat up and was looking at him with evident terror.

“Well, hell,” Micah said. “Who the devil beat her up?”

* * *

Kay sat on the very edge of the couch, poised to run even though there was nowhere she could flee. Another man, another dangerous man, this one older but every bit as huge as Clint. She felt like a mouse facing two lions.

“Kay,” Clint said, “this is Deputy Micah Parish. Micah, Kay Young.”

“Howdy,” Micah said. Then he pulled off his jacket, revealing a tan deputy’s uniform and badge. He hung the coat on the peg by the door. “First the coffee. Then the talk. I’ve been on the road for three hours now, and the heater in the damn truck is barely working. Too much wind, I think. Engine’s not getting very warm.”

“Take a seat. I’ll be right back. Kay, you want more coffee?”

She managed a slight negative shake of her head as she tried to cope with the fact that after running from a man for three years, she was now dependent on two of them, both of them looking as if they could do a lot more damage with their bare hands than Kevin could do with a tire iron.

Micah stepped farther into the room and settled on the one remaining chair. He seemed to know that the easy chair was Clint’s preferred perch. He held his hands out to the fire for a minute, then turned toward her slowly. She shrank back.

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