“A princess,” he repeated numbly.

Lucas pulled his eyebrows into a scowl and swallowed his astonishment. “Well, now. I guess that explains a few things,” he said gruffly. “The tabloid photographer. The bodyguard. The kidnap attempt. The alias.”

She regarded him solemnly. “You said I’d cause you trouble and now you’re thinking you were right, aren’t you, Lucas?”

Her true identity would take a bit of digesting, but he knew that now was not the time to make an issue of her royal bloodlines. The look in her eyes told him she was worried about his reaction, that her feelings were hanging on her sleeve.

“I was thinking I’d never kissed a princess before today.” He pulled her gently into his arms. “And that I’d like very much to do it again.”

Happy New Year, Harlequin Intrigue Reader!

Harlequin Intrigue’s New Year’s Resolution is to bring you another twelve months of thrilling romantic suspense. Check out this month’s selections.

Debra Webb continues her ongoing COLBY AGENCY series with The Bodyguard’s Baby (#597). Nick Foster finally finds missing Laura Proctor alive and well—and a mother! Now with her child in the hands of a kidnapper and the baby’s paternity still in question, could Nick protect Laura and save the baby that might very well be his?

We’re happy to have author Laura Gordon back in the saddle again with Royal Protector (#598). When incognito princess Lexie Dale comes to a small Colorado ranch, danger and international intrigue follow her. As sheriff, Lucas Garrett has a duty to protect the princess from all harm for her country. But as a man, he wants Lexie for himself….

Our new ON THE EDGE program explores situations where fear and passion collide. In Woman Most Wanted (#599) by Harper Allen, FBI Agent Matt D’Angelo has a hard time believing Jenna Moon’s story. But under his twenty-four-hour-a-day protection, Matt can’t deny the attraction between them—or the fact that she is truly in danger. But now that he knows the truth, would anyone believe him?

In order to find Brooke Snowden’s identical twin’s attacker, she would have to become her. Living with her false identity gave Brooke new insights into her estranged sister’s life—and the man in it. Officer Jack Chessman vowed to protect Brooke while they sought a potential killer. But was Brooke merely playing a role with him, or was she falling in love with him—as he was with her? Don’t miss Alyssa Again (#600) by Sylvie Kurtz.

Wishing you a prosperous 2001 from all of us at Harlequin Intrigue!

Sincerely,

Denise O’Sullivan

Associate Senior Editor

Harlequin Intrigue

Royal Protector

Laura Gordon

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Laura Gordon is a western Colorado author with a penchant for romantic suspense. She is the author of eleven novels. Her greatest joy comes in creating characters who face extraordinary challenges and discover that the magic of their once-in-a-lifetime-love is worth the risk.

When not tied to her desk by deadlines, Laura likes nothing better than hiking the high-country trails of the magnificent mountains near her home. Readers may write Laura Gordon at P.O. Box 55192, Grand Junction, CO 81505.

Books by Laura Gordon

HARLEQUIN INTRIGUE

220—DOUBLE BLACK DIAMOND

255—SCARLET SEASON

282—DOMINOES

316—FULL MOON RISING

345—LETHAL LOVER

387—SPENCER’S SHADOW*

396—SPENCER’S BRIDE*

491—SPENCER’S SECRET*

501—A COWBOY’S HONOR

598—ROYAL PROTECTOR

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Lexie Dale— A lovely lady with a secret too deadly to keep.

Lucas Garrett—A lawman and a cowboy determined to protect his home, his family and the woman he loves.

Mo Garrett—With a heart of gold, her home was caught in the crossfire.

Hugh Miller—The victim of a seemingly senseless crime.

Simon Peterson—FBI agent with an attitude.

Tucker Oates—His penchant for gossip proved dangerous.

Will Garrett—Patriarch of a family in turmoil.

Paul Browning—His attention to detail could catch a killer.

Seth Rockwell—Dead witnesses tell no lies.

Inez Estes—This witness has a hot tip for the killer.

Lady Margaret Roche—A blueblood out of place in the West and loving every minute.

Fulton Bobek—The court jester or a man with a vendetta?

Eli Ferguson—A long, tall Texan with an attitude and a badge.

To Tracy.

A real-life princess of grace.

Acknowledgments:

Thanks to Officer Lonnie Chavez of the Grand Junction, Colorado, Police Department for cheerfully and carefully answering my many law enforcement and jurisdiction questions. Thanks, also, to Lynda Sue Cooper for pointing me in the right direction. Special thanks to Kay Bergstrom for her friendship and for always being her inimitable self.

And, finally, my most heartfelt thanks to my editor, Angela Catalano, without whose kindness and compassion this book could not have been written.

Contents

Prologue

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

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Epilogue

Prologue

With the ease of a practiced predator, the sniper moved into position above the trail. Looming pines and rust-colored boulders the size of compact cars afforded him cover, as well as an unobstructed view of his prey. Below, two riders, a man and a woman, came toward him, steadily moving closer to the dark fate he had planned for them.

As he’d been told, the woman rode ahead of her male companion by some fifty yards. She rode well, he couldn’t help noticing, with her pretty blond head held high and her slim body moving in perfect sync with the sleek bay mare. More importantly for his purposes, she rode relaxed, unaware of the danger waiting for her.

The sniper allowed himself a brief smile. So far, so good. Everything had gone according to plan, just the way he liked it. No surprises. But then, that was the advantage of a double-cross. The predator always knew what to expect when his victims willingly assisted in their own demise.

Like shooting fish in a barrel. He eased the butt of the rifle against his shoulder and peered through the scope, prepared to take the next crucial step toward a destiny that had been denied him for too long. With a less sophisticated weapon, the rifle’s report might have carried a half mile, echoing against the red canyon walls. But his silencer was state-of-the-art.

Confidently, he squeezed the trigger. The ensuing pop barely rated a twitch of one velvety ear from the white-tailed doe and her speckled fawn grazing nearby.

Even as the stricken man fell backward out of the saddle, the assassin knew his shot had found its mark. His victim would be dead before he hit the ground.

Chapter One

Lulled by the rhythmic motions of her well-trained mount and the pristine beauty of a perfect mountain afternoon, Lexie’s mind only half-registered the soft popping sound. But with the next heartbeat, her mind made the deadly connection and Lexie knew what she’d heard: a gunshot muffled by a silencer. Someone had fired on them!

“Hugh!” She called out to her companion as she jerked the reins to the right and wheeled around. As Lexie watched in horror, Hugh Miller fell backward in slow motion from the saddle.

Icy fingers of terror closed around her heart as she dug her heels into the mare’s sides and raced back to Hugh. Fighting her unbridled fear, she prayed he wasn’t dead.

Dismounting at a run, she flung herself to the earth beside him. He lay facedown, and she struggled to turn him over. The grass beneath his head was sticky and wet. Please don’t let him die! Please!

She rolled him over onto his back. His eyes stared blankly and Lexie gasped. Crimson blood poured from a wound directly in the center of his forehead.

“No!” she sobbed. But even as she denied the awful truth, she knew the worst had happened.

Again.

Stumbling, she rose to her feet and groped for her horse’s reins. Instinct told her to mount up and outrun the danger that made the skin at the back of her neck tingle. But it was too late.

By the time she saw the man wearing the black ski mask, he was already upon her. Numbed by the suddenness of the attack, her arms and legs, and even her mind, seemed temporarily paralyzed. With a hold that was viciously unbreakable, he held her from behind, pinning her arms against her sides. The cloth he pressed over her nose and mouth smothered her cries for help and choked off her airways.

As the acrid smell of some unknown chemical burned her nostrils and blazed a path to her lungs, stinging tears filled her eyes. Her heart convulsed in terror.

Oh God, I don’t want to die! Not like this.

With suddenly awakened resolve, Lexie fought for survival with a determination she hadn’t known she possessed. Kicking and jerking she battled against the faceless, nameless foe.

When her elbow connected with her attacker’s stomach, she heard the sound of his startled gasp and she seized the momentary advantage. Twisting with all her might, she tried again to drive her elbow into his midsection. But this time he anticipated the move and caught her arm and wrenched it painfully behind her back. Lexie’s heart sank as the slim opening for possible escape disappeared.

“Help me! Somebody, please help me!” Her pleas were hopelessly muffled as her tormentor pressed the chemically-soaked cloth even harder over her mouth and nose. The acrid-smelling fumes were rapidly working their lethal magic. Every cell in Lexie’s body screamed for oxygen.

Sprawled, facedown on the rocky ground beside Hugh Miller, she felt the weight of her attacker’s knee in the middle of her back. Helplessly pinned and suffocating, Lexie felt her tenuous hold on consciousness slipping.

She could do nothing as he tied her wrists and secured the gag even tighter across her nose and mouth. With what little strength she had left, Lexie arched her back and tried to free herself of her attacker’s crushing weight.

“Settle down,” a cold, hard voice hissed just behind her ear. “Just let it happen. It’ll all be over soon.”

Lexie’s head ached, and her heart beat frantically. The stark reality of her helplessness brought fresh tears to her eyes as she slipped nearer the edge of unconsciousness.

From a distance, she thought she heard someone calling her name. An engine raced. A dog barked. Obviously, the chemical’s vapors were not only stealing her strength, but robbing her ability to think straight.

When the world began to spin, she thought she might be sick. Her eyelids fluttered closed and, try as she might, she could not reopen them.

The ensuing darkness that closed over her brought with it a strange mix of stark fear and blessed relief. The worst was over, she told herself. She felt herself sinking slowly, slowly down into a place where there was no light and no sensation, except for the achingly familiar sound of a child crying out from the depths of her darkest memories.

ATTENTION ALL UNITS in the vicinity of mile marker 391 and Destiny Canyon Ranch Road. Reports of a shooting. One unconfirmed fatality. Other injuries reported, but also unconfirmed. Shooter’s identity unknown. Officers advised to approach the area with extreme caution.

Even before the dispatcher finished her call, Sheriff Lucas Garrett cranked the steering wheel hard to the left and sent the white SUV with the Bluff County sheriff’s seal emblazoned on the doors into a skidding U-turn.

With his free hand he reached for the handheld radio on the seat beside him. “Sylvia, this is Sheriff Garrett. I’m less than five minutes from the scene. Fill me in.”

Despite the early summer air rushing through the open window, it chilled him to think of his family’s high-country ranch as a crime scene.

“It happened in the hills, Sheriff. Five miles out on Summit Trail.”

Immediately, an image of the narrow, winding trail that led to the summit of Mount Destiny formed in Lucas’s mind. He’d ridden that trail on horseback and hiked it on foot countless times, but it had never seemed ominous in any way until now.

“Who made the call?” he asked. “Was it Cal?” Or had it been his older sister, Maureen—or Mo, as everyone had always called her.

“No, sir. It was Virgil.”

Virgil Blackburn had been the foreman at Destiny Canyon Ranch for as long as Lucas could remember. “Did Virgil say what had happened? Do you have any idea who was…hurt?”

“No, sir,” Sylvia came back quickly. “He just said a man had been shot. Killed. And that a woman had been injured. He said he was calling from an extension in the barn. He hung up while I was dispatching emergency medical.”

“Try calling the house,” Lucas ordered.

“I already did, Sheriff. Right after Virgil hung up. But no one answered. I’ll try again and get back to you.”

Lucas thanked his dispatcher and with a mounting feeling of dread, he tossed the radio onto the seat beside him and tried to concentrate on his driving.

As the speedometer inched past ninety, his eyes remained riveted on the road. His thoughts, however, were firmly fixed on his family, on Pop and Cal and Mo. The loved ones who still resided on the ranch where he’d grown into manhood, where some of his sweetest memories lived on, as well.

Despite the lawman’s logic that told him not to jump to conclusions, Lucas couldn’t shake the words fatality and injuries from his mind.

Why hadn’t Cal made the call? Where was Mo? And why hadn’t anyone picked up the phone when Sylvia called back? Those questions and a dozen more, equally disconcerting, nagged him as he raced down the highway toward the unknown.

When he was within a mile of the ranch turnoff, he grabbed his radio again. “Unit 4, come in.”

Deputy Eli Ferguson responded immediately.

“What’s your location, Eli?” Lucas asked.

“Westbound at 376.”

“Any sign of an ambulance?”

“They’re right behind me, Lucas.” His usually calm west Texas twang sounded tight and tense. “I’ll stay with them and escort them all the way in.”

Eli signed off and two more deputies checked in. Lucas could hear the edge in his men’s voices. He knew they were all thinking the same thing: The call to Destiny Canyon Ranch could mean one of his own family members had been shot. A call that involved a loved one was every cop’s worst nightmare.

And Sheriff Lucas Garrett was no exception.

IN A CLOUD OF DUST, Lucas roared up in front of the sprawling ranch house where various members of the Garrett clan had lived for going on fifty years.

Cal was waiting at the edge of the yard, and Lucas couldn’t remember ever being more pleased to see anyone than he was to see the man who had always been more like a brother than a nephew. Like all the Garrett men, Cal was a big man, tall and broad-shouldered. He crossed the gravel driveway in four long strides and met Lucas as he was getting out of the SUV.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Cal said.

“Where’s Mo? Is she all right?”

“She’s inside.”

“What about Pop? Where is he? Are you sure Mo’s okay?” Lucas fired off his questions in rapid succession as he charged across the drive, with Cal close beside him.

“They’re fine. Everyone’s fine,” Cal said. At the gate that opened into the yard, he put a hand to Lucas’s shoulder. “Slow down and listen to me, will you? Everyone’s fine. The family wasn’t involved.”

Lucas stood staring at his nephew, almost afraid to allow himself the relief that flooded him. “Thank God.” He felt the gentle pressure as Cal squeezed his shoulder in agreement. “So, what did happen? Sylvia said a man had been shot.”

“He was one of Mo’s guests.” Cal pulled his battered straw Stetson from his head, ran a hand through his dark hair and sighed. “And he’s dead. Poor bastard never knew what hit him. The woman was riding with him. She was attacked and hogtied. Somebody tried to drug her, but she seems to be all right, now.”

Both men turned to see Eli Ferguson and the ambulance pulling into the drive. Cal motioned the paramedics through the gate and across the yard toward the front door.

“Tell us what you know, Cal,” Lucas said when Eli had joined them on the porch.

“They were about five miles out on Summit Trail, on their way back after spending the night camped out on the mountain.”

“Any sign of the shooter?”

Cal shook his head. “No. He was long gone by the time I got up there. I left a couple of my ranch hands to stay with the body until you could get here.” Cal went on to address Lucas’s concerns before he could voice them. “Don’t worry. They’re both armed and I told them to watch their backs and not to disturb any tracks that might still be there.”

“I’ll need horses for half a dozen men,” Lucas said. It wouldn’t be easy tracking the killer through the miles of National Forest that bordered the ranch, but it would be nearly impossible on foot.

Cal nodded. “No problem.”

Lucas started back toward his vehicle and both men followed. As he walked, he gave Deputy Ferguson his orders. “Stay here and get a preliminary statement from the woman. I’ll want to question her myself, later. But right now I need to get up on the mountain. Call the officer at the Mount Destiny ranger station and apprise him of the situation. Tell him to keep his eyes open and his back covered.”

Once Lucas got to the crime scene, he’d set a perimeter and establish a command post. Afterward, he’d send his deputies—six, not counting the man he planned to assign to guard duty at the ranch house—into the mountains to try to track the killer. If they were lucky, they’d pick up a trail before nightfall.

“Helluva deal,” Cal said as he followed Lucas back to his vehicle. “A man comes here for a vacation and gets shot out of the saddle in broad damn daylight.” He sighed and shook his head. “Who’d have thought something like this could happen here?”

“What can you tell me about the dead man, Cal?”

“Name’s Miller. Hugh Miller. He checked in on Tuesday after booking a cabin for a month.”

“What about his wife? Have you talked to her?”

“No. And she’s not his wife. Her name’s Lexie Dale. She checked in on Tuesday, as well, but she’s staying in her own separate cabin.”

“Miller’s significant other?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Cal said.

Lucas wasn’t surprised that his cousin had so little information about the couple. Cal had given Mo’s guest operation a wide berth from day one. As long as the tourists who stayed in the four small hunting cabins at the edge of the ranch property stayed clear of his cattle and his hay fields, Cal could almost tolerate them.

“There’s a good chance Mo knows more about both of them,” Cal said. “You know how she is.”

Lucas had to smile. Yes, he knew exactly how his older sister went out of her way to make each guest feel as if they were a member of the Garrett family. And when it came to singles, she could be a shameless matchmaker. Although never married, Mo considered herself an expert on relationships. If anyone could give Lucas the lowdown on the relationship between Hugh Miller and Lexie Dale, it was Mo.

“Cal, what do you make of this shooting?” Lucas asked as he pulled open the door and slid behind the wheel. “Do you think it could have been an accident?”

“Doubtful. There’s a bullet hole between the man’s eyes that looks damn deliberate to me.”

“Sounds like our shooter is better than a fair marksman.”

Cal frowned. “God only knows what he had planned for Miss Dale. She was unconscious when Mo found her.”

A single fact stuck in Lucas’s mind and chilled his blood. “Are you telling me Mo was there?”

Cal nodded. “And lucky for Miss Dale, she was. That worthless pup of Mo’s wandered off again this morning. She and Tucker Oates were driving around in the Jeep, looking for the dog when they heard somebody yelling for help.”

Cal and Lucas exchanged a resigned glance. Both of them wished Mo would be more cautious, but they knew she had a heart as big as all outdoors and would never turn her back on a stray of either the two-legged or four-legged variety.

“Then what?”

“The noise from the Jeep must have scared off the attacker,” Cal went on. “They found Hugh Miller dead at the side of the trail. Not far from his body, Lexie Dale was tied up and unconscious.”

“She was drugged?”

“Looks like whoever killed Hugh Miller meant to carry her off with him,” Cal said.

“And Mo interrupted him right in the middle of his crime.” His own sister could have easily become the killer’s next victim, Lucas thought grimly. If he’d needed further incentive to bring the killer in, he’d just found it.

He put the SUV in gear. “Did you see anything that might give us an idea who did it?”

“No. But, then, I didn’t do much looking around. I didn’t want to destroy any evidence.”

Lucas nodded and started to pull away when an afterthought struck him. “Tell Mo not to worry. If she needs me to help out with Pop, I’ll be around later.” It had been six months since Will Garrett’s stroke. During that time, the family had formed a protective circle around the ailing patriarch, hoping to make his recovery as peaceful and complete as possible.

Cal said he would deliver the message and Lucas gunned the engine and raced out of the ranch yard and past the stables toward the trail that wound seven miles to the summit of Mt. Destiny.

Despite the disturbing reality that a man had been murdered on Garrett property, Lucas experienced immeasurable relief knowing his family was safe. As he bumped along the trail headed for the crime scene, however, the reality of what had happened took shape in his lawman’s brain: A man had been shot to death and a woman attacked. A killer was still on the loose.

It was the kind of crime he might have expected on the city streets where he’d spent five years becoming the kind of lawman qualified to become Bluff County Sheriff.

At age thirty-two, with nearly ten years law enforcement experience under his belt, Lucas Garrett could hardly be called naive, and yet the crime that had taken place today—a seemingly cold-blooded and calculated murder and an attempted abduction—still shocked him. Not because of its brutality, but because it had happened here, on the land that had been his family’s home for a generation.

His family and this ranch meant the world to him. Weaned on high-country air and the Garrett heritage of hard work, self-respect and dedication to duty, Lucas took seriously his role as Will Garrett’s son. His place within the family defined him as surely as his badge, and protecting those closest to him was even more important than his career.

For a man like Lucas Garrett, the crime that had occurred this morning was almost a personal affront. Things like this just did not happen in Bluff County. Not on his watch, anyway. And sure as hell not on his own doorstep.

THREE HOURS LATER, the effects of the chemical that had rendered Lexie senseless seemed to have finally dissipated. Except for a small bruise over her eye and a metallic taste at the back of her throat that not even Mo Garrett’s coffee could dispel, Lexie felt almost human again.

Bit by bit, with Mo’s help, she’d been able to piece together the bizarre events of the afternoon, events that had cost a man his life and landed her flat on her back on a couch in the main house at the ranch where she’d rented a cabin for what she’d hoped would be a peaceful month-long vacation.

So much for that fantasy, she thought.

While the paramedics were checking her out, tending to her minor cuts and bruises, a deputy sheriff had taken her statement and then asked Lexie to remain where she was until the sheriff could interview her himself. He also informed her that she was not to leave the main house, where uniformed deputies had been placed on guard.

Lexie had listened politely to the deputy and assured him of her cooperation. But even as she’d given her statement, Lexie knew talking to the local authorities was a waste of everyone’s time.

What happened this morning went way beyond anything the Bluff County sheriff’s department had the resources or the ability to handle—not that she didn’t wish they could. If only it could be so easy….

But Lexie knew better than to even hope. Nothing in her life had ever been that easy, that simple. Or even normal, for that matter. And now, in light of this latest tragedy, it seemed it never would.

If a killer had found her here, in this remote corner of the Colorado Rockies, then there was no safety anywhere. No normalcy. No hope for the peaceful anonymity she’d tried so long to attain. After all her efforts to prove her father wrong, in the end it seemed that maybe he was right. Maybe a simple day-to-day existence really was impossible for someone born to a family whose mere existence made headlines.

As it had countless times over the course of her twenty-eight years, the unfairness of her situation frustrated and angered her. If she lived to be one hundred and two she’d never understand why an accident of birth should hold such power over one’s life. Or why the lives of everyone with whom she came in contact seemed to be so negatively impacted. It all seemed so unfair—unfair and obscene—to think a man’s life counted for nothing.

Once the wheels of her father’s publicity machine started grinding, the events of today would no longer be a matter of who had been murdered this afternoon on that mountain trail, but why. The humanity of Hugh Miller would be lost in the gears of political damage control, sensationalism and spin.

Shuddering at the thought of the turmoil the next few days and weeks would inevitably bring, Lexie realized the time had come to get herself together and make some decisions. And the most immediate decision had to do with how she was going to handle the local sheriff, what she would and would not tell him about what she suspected was the motive for Miller’s murder and the attempt to abduct her. It had been a kidnapping attempt. Of that, she was certain.

But before she could decide anything, she had to get to a phone. And fast. If news of Hugh Miller’s murder reached her father secondhand there would be hell to pay. Of course, there would be hell to pay, anyway, she thought grimly.

For as far back as she could remember, her longing for independence and her determination to live her own life her way had put her at direct odds with her powerful father. An incident like this would only refuel that conflict and reinforce her father’s position that she should be brought back immediately into the family fold, under his control. And coming as it had on the heels of the debacle at Marycrest Prep, Lexie didn’t know if she had the strength to stand up to him again.

Although she dreaded making the call and facing the inevitable confrontation, Lexie knew she couldn’t put it off any longer. With a resigned sigh, she swung her legs over the edge of the couch and sat up. Immediately a wave of dizziness pushed her back down.

The middle-aged woman in the chair across from Lexie set aside the book she’d been reading. A frown pulled her pale mouth downward.

“I wouldn’t try to get up too fast, Lexie. You know what the paramedics said, that the effects of the drug might still be working their way out of your system.” She refilled a water glass from the pitcher on the table beside her and handed it to the grateful Lexie.

“You know, I still think it would have been a good idea to let the paramedics take you to the hospital to be thoroughly checked out.”

There was no way Lexie could tell Mo Garrett that in all probability she would be examined by the world’s foremost physicians some time in the next twenty-four hours. A woman like Mo would, no doubt, find that claim incredible. Everything about Lexie’s hostess and unlikely rescuer, from the silver-gray braid that hung down the middle of her back to her well-worn moccasins and faded blue jeans, reflected her utter lack of pretense.

“The paramedics said my vital signs were normal,” Lexie reminded Mo. “And I am feeling much better. Really,” she reiterated, hoping to make up for the lack of conviction in her voice.

The older woman tipped her head to one side and studied Lexie skeptically. “Well…maybe so. But I’ll still feel better once Doc Rogers gets here.” Mo rose from her chair to pace across the room and stand peering out one of the two large bay windows that dominated the west wall. “He ought to have arrived by now. I left the message with his secretary an hour ago.”

“I’m surprised he makes house calls,” Lexie said.

“Doc Rogers spends more time running around than in his office. He not only has a general practice, but he’s the county coroner. I guess he got tied up at the crime scene.”

Lexie filed away that piece of information. She needed to be careful what she said around the doctor. It bothered her that she had to watch her every word. But such was the reality of her life—a life she’d spent shunning the spotlight and yet despite all her precautions, all the scheming and planning, here she was center stage again.

Would it ever be any different? she wondered miserably. Or was she doomed to a life of unsuccessfully playing a game of hide-and-seek with first one pursuer and then another?

A sudden realization of the self-pitying nature of her thoughts brought Lexie up short. A horrible tragedy had occurred. A man was dead. A life had been lost for the sake of preserving hers.

Again.

Knowing she’d caused another man’s death brought guilt crashing down on her from all sides. If only she hadn’t insisted on spending the night on the mountain. If only she hadn’t come to Colorado, in the first place. If only she’d recognized the disaster brewing at Marycrest Prep.

If only Hugh Miller hadn’t died.

Before the depressing thoughts could overwhelm her, she forced herself to deal with the next unpleasant task. “I wonder if it would be possible to use your phone?”

“Of course,” Mo said. “But are you sure you’re up to it? You’re still awfully pale.”

Lexie saw Mo’s gaze taking in her disheveled appearance and she ran a hand through her tangled, shoulder-length hair. “I must look a mess.”

Mo’s smile was genuine. “Honey, on our best day there aren’t many of us who look as good as you do now.”

Lexie dismissed the compliment with a quick, “Thanks. And now, if you could just direct me to the phone…” She started to rise again and was surprised and distressed to find her knees still rubbery.

As if sensing her distress, Mo moved back to the couch and sat down beside her. “Listen, honey. Why don’t I make that call for you. Is it your family? Your mom and dad?”

The older woman’s kindness touched Lexie. From the moment of her arrival everyone at Destiny Canyon Ranch had treated her like…well, like royalty. And no one had been more thoughtful and welcoming than Mo Garrett, herself.

“It’s just my father,” Lexie explained. “My mother died when I was very young.” That bit of personal information slipped out unexpectedly, leaving Lexie to wonder why she’d revealed even that much about herself to someone who was, for all intents, still a virtual stranger.

“Anyway,” she went on quickly, “I think it would be better if I talked to my father myself.” And that, Lexie thought ruefully, was the understatement of the year.

“There’s a phone in the hallway, and one on the wall in the kitchen. My niece, Jolie, has been after me to buy one of those cordless things, but I just haven’t seen the need—until now, that is. Guess we must seem pretty old-fashioned to you. I suppose everyone in Atlanta has a cordless phone.”

With an inward groan, Lexie recalled making up the address in Atlanta when she’d called to make her reservations. The lie had been fabricated on impulse. At the time, she’d just wanted to cover her tracks. Obviously, she hadn’t covered them well enough.

Looking back, she realized the lie hadn’t really been necessary. Even if Boston’s social news story of the year had somehow made it this far west, she doubted Mo Garrett would have been interested enough to read it.

The lie about coming from Atlanta now seemed silly, especially when in only a matter of hours all her lies would be revealed. Besides, the truth about her fictitious Atlanta address would be a minor aside when compared to the truth about her identity, and the awful truth behind why Hugh Miller had been murdered.

Suddenly, Lexie felt utterly heartsick and desperately alone. In an uncharacteristic and unexpected surge of unchecked emotion, a tear slipped from the corner of her eye and trickled down her cheek.

“Are you sure I can’t make that call for you?” Mo asked again.

Lexie shook her head and swiped at the pools of moisture gathering in her eyes. “Thanks, but no. I think it would be better if he heard about what has happened from me.” With her emotions so close to the surface, she wondered if she had the strength to deal with the inevitable confrontation that would follow. Wouldn’t it be better to wait until she felt stronger, more in control?

Besides, how could she give her father an accurate report of her physical condition before a real doctor had examined her? Upon further assessment of the situation, it seemed to Lexie not only preferable, but prudent to delay the conversation.

“You know, maybe you’re right. Maybe I should wait to call my father until after the doctor checks me out.”

Mo’s smile was understanding. “Any father would want to know if something like this had happened to his daughter. But I have a feeling that whenever you call, he’ll just be so relieved to know you’re safe it won’t matter that you’ve waited to contact him.”

“You don’t know my father,” Lexie muttered almost to herself.

“No. But I’m sure your well-being is all he cares about.”

There was no way Lexie could respond to Mo’s observation. It would be nice to think that every father had only his children’s best interests at heart, but in her own case, Lexie knew better. In fact, she’d never had any illusions about her place on her father’s list of priorities.

Of course he cared about her personal safety, but the precious family name, an unblemished public image and positive public perception mattered more. Far more. And that was precisely why the call to him could wait, she told herself resolutely.

With a sigh, Lexie leaned back against the butter-soft leather cushions and closed her eyes. She figured she must have dozed off, because she felt disoriented when she heard footsteps and Mo talking in a low voice to whomever had entered the room.

“Of course, I’m all right,” Mo was saying. “It was all over by the time I got there.”

Lexie opened her eyes.

“Lexie, honey,” Mo said in a gentle voice she might have used to awaken a sleeping child. “This is my brother, Lucas.”

The tall, broad-shouldered cowboy standing beside Mo nodded in her direction. “Miss Dale.”

The whiteness of his western-cut shirt was a dramatic contrast to hair so dark the sun streaming through the window behind him picked up blue highlights. His long legs were encased in dark blue denim. His boots were black, like the Stetson he held in one large, tanned hand.

“Lucas is the sheriff of Bluff County,” Mo said.

Lexie realized she was staring hard and inappropriately long, but for the life of her she felt powerless to look away. She’d been in the company of some of the most attractive and eligible bachelors in the world, but if she’d ever set eyes on a more arrestingly handsome man, she couldn’t remember when.

And it wasn’t merely his impressive physique or the aura of strength that seemed to surround him that captured Lexie’s attention. Nor was it the rich darkness of his hair or the strong outline of his chiseled profile that held her full attention and made her forget for that moment why he was here.

It was his eyes. Those blue, blue eyes, the color of a priceless gemstone, with the same stunning clarity and fascinating depth. The kind of eyes that could look right through a woman or touch the deepest corner of her heart.

“I read the statement you gave my deputy, Miss Dale, and I’d like to clarify a few details, if you don’t mind.” His voice was deep, rough-edged and strangely appealing. It was the kind of voice that left no question who was in charge.

“All right,” she said uncertainly. She tried to tell herself her slightly breathless state was a remnant of the ordeal she’d endured this afternoon on the mountain. But deep down, she sensed it had more to do with her unexpected reaction to Mo Garrett’s blue-eyed brother.

Chapter Two

“I’ll try to keep this brief, Miss Dale. I know you’ve been through a lot already, today.”

Sheriff Garrett seemed not only thoughtful, but competent and articulate, qualities Lexie hadn’t expected to find in a small-town sheriff.

“Ready?” he asked.

She took a deep breath as he settled his tall, athletic frame into the winged chair opposite hers and she reminded herself that all she had to do was repeat what she’d told Deputy Ferguson. If she kept her answers short and to the point, perhaps she could get through this interview with her anonymity intact. Now was not the time to allow a case of simple chemistry to muddle her thinking.

With a bit a luck and just the right verbal maneuvering, she could keep the handsome lawman from delving too deeply into Hugh Miller’s murder, at least until the proper authorities arrived to take control of the situation.

“Just start at the beginning, Miss Dale,” he said. “Tell me exactly what happened, all that you remember.”

“As I told your deputy, everything happened so quickly. One minute I was riding along, enjoying the afternoon and the next thing I knew Hugh had been shot. I was attacked by a man wearing a black ski mask.” She added, “I’m sorry. There isn’t much more to tell.”

His smile was understanding. “It isn’t unusual for the victim of a violent crime to want to forget the incident. But later, sometimes hours or even days afterward, important details come to mind. I know it’s the last thing you want to do, Miss Dale, but I need you to try to remember those details now.”

For some reason, she didn’t want him calling her by the name she’d assumed for her trip to Colorado. Her lie felt somehow more indicting coming from his lips. “It’s just Lexie,” she said.

He smiled again. “All right, Lexie it is. And please, feel free to call me Lucas.”

But at the moment, she couldn’t have said his name if she’d tried. Her mouth had gone too dry to speak. There was just something about the man, a compelling mix of gentleness and strength that affected her in ways she couldn’t begin to explain.

“Perhaps you remember more than you realize. Was there anything unusual about his clothing? Did he wear a wristwatch? Maybe you noticed a tattoo?”

“I think he was dressed all in black. There wasn’t anything odd, except for the ski mask.”

“Did you hear the gunfire?”

“There was only one shot,” she said.

“It must have echoed in the canyon.”

“No,” she said. “There was only a popping noise. He must have used a silencer.”

When he made a note, Lexie wondered if she was saying too much. Of course, she wanted the killer to be apprehended, but to encourage this investigation was futile.

“Maybe there was something unusual in the way he talked,” Lucas suggested. “You told Deputy Ferguson he spoke to you.”

Lexie shook her head. She didn’t want to think about the attack, the physical violation. She didn’t want to remember the hissing sound of her attacker’s voice in her ear.

“Do you have any idea why someone would want to harm you, Lexie?”

The sudden change in the direction of his questioning caught her off guard. Darn it! Why hadn’t she called her father when she’d had the chance? If she’d discussed the situation with him or one of his advisors she would have been better prepared to answer loaded questions.

When she realized he was still waiting for her reply, she pushed a hand through her hair self-consciously and swallowed the panicky feeling she knew would be her undoing. Giving her statement to Deputy Ferguson was one thing. Holding up under Lucas Garrett’s blue-eyed scrutiny was proving to be quite another.

“You know, on second thought, I’m not really sure I’m up to this, yet.” Her gaze shifted to Mo as she entered the room carrying a coffeepot and mugs on a tray.

“I promise, this won’t take long,” Lucas said before his sister could come to Lexie’s rescue for the second time today.

“But I didn’t see anything,” Lexie reiterated. “I told your deputy and now I’m telling you.”

“But you were there.”

She shuddered and wrapped her arms around herself, recalling the sight of a stricken Hugh Miller falling from the saddle, remembering the feel of the attacker’s rough touch on her skin.

“I know it’s difficult. But it’s important. We need your help to catch this guy.”

Despite her resolve to stall and postpone, Lexie felt drawn to Lucas’s sympathetic coaxing. And once she started talking, it only took a few minutes to recount the events of the attack.

As she spoke, she relived the attack that had come out of nowhere, the arms grabbing her from behind, the smell of the chemical-soaked rag and her subsequent descent into oblivion. “I barely remember your sister helping me into the Jeep,” she finished.

“She was out cold when Tucker and I found her,” Mo put in. “And other than poor Mr. Miller, there wasn’t a sign of anyone else around.”

Lucas’s expression turned grim and Lexie guessed he was imagining how close his sister had come to becoming a third victim. “There must have been something,” he said. “The killer didn’t hike down that trail. He must have had a vehicle or a horse.”

“Or maybe he planned to use our horses to make his escape,” Lexie said. As soon as she spoke, she realized that she was taking a more active part in this investigation than she’d intended.

“But he left those horses behind.” Lucas considered for a moment. “Seems to me, Lexie, there was a reason for drugging you and tying your wrists. Can you think of why he might have done that?”

Abduction. Kidnapping. But that was a line of questioning she knew better than to pursue. “I wouldn’t even try to second-guess a motive.”

Something else occurred to her. “Your men have been on the trail investigating this afternoon. Surely you’ve found clues indicating whether the killer was on horseback or in a car.”

His eyebrows raised, acknowledging her intelligent assumption. “We found tire tracks.”

Her correct deduction pleased her, and she permitted herself another question. “Where?”

“Just around the bend in the trail. About a hundred yards from where we found Hugh Miller’s body.”

“I didn’t see a vehicle,” she said. “And I didn’t hear an engine starting up.”

“Let’s go back to last night, Lexie,” he said. “You spent the night on the mountain. On your way up the trail, did you see anyone else? Another rider? Hikers? Someone in a vehicle, maybe?”

Lexie shook her head. “No. No one.”

“What about this morning? Did you see anyone on your way down the trail?”

“No.”

“When did you realize Hugh Miller had been shot?”

Lexie hesitated. “I— I’m not sure.”

“Was it when you heard gunfire?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s talk about that muffled pop,” he said, consulting his notes. “How did you know it was a silenced gunshot?”

“I’m familiar with firearms,” she said defensively. This interrogation was veering onto potentially dangerous ground. “My older brother owns an extensive weapons collection.”

She was impressed that Lucas had picked up on that bit of information. Unfortunately, this interview was largely meaningless. Very soon the entire investigation would be removed from the local sheriff’s auspices and taken over by a higher authority. The FBI, probably. Or maybe the Federal Marshal’s office. She didn’t know exactly how these things were handled. But she did know her father, knew he’d demand a full-scale investigation by the country’s top law enforcement officials be launched.

She also knew he’d insist the local authorities, which in this case meant Sheriff Lucas Garrett, be removed from the case before the ink had a chance to dry on her statement.

Lexie poured herself a cup of coffee and lifted the mug to her lips. Too bad Lucas Garrett wouldn’t have the chance to finish this investigation. He seemed intelligent, thorough and highly motivated to solve the crime.

He added sugar to his own coffee before asking, “How many gunshots were there?”

“I told you before. Only one.”

“Are you sure about that?”

Lexie nodded.

“But you didn’t see a gun or the shooter?”

“I told you, I didn’t see anything.”

“Were you and Hugh Miller riding side by side?” he asked.

“Single file,” she said. “He was way behind me.”

“How far?”

“Maybe fifty yards.”

“And when you realized he was shot, what did you do?”

“I rode back to see if I could help him.”

As she visualized those moments, she realized that her instinct to help Hugh had probably saved her from abduction. The kidnapper had obviously been waiting for her. His vehicle was parked just beyond the bend in the road.

If she’d gone forward, she would have run right into him. In fact, that had probably been his plan. If she’d stayed frozen in one place, he would only have to carry her limp, drugged body twenty or thirty yards.

But she had returned to help Hugh. When the kidnapper finally overwhelmed her, they were probably over a hundred yards from his getaway car—too far to drag her body before Mo and Tucker Oates approached.

“What is it?” Lucas asked. “What do you remember?”

Though her deduction offered a significant understanding of the murder and kidnap attempt, she didn’t believe it was wise to share her thoughts with him. As soon as she mentioned kidnapping, she might as well print her real name in banner letters. “It’s nothing,” she said. “I was just thinking about Mr. Miller….”

“This is important, Lexie. You’re the sole witness to a murder, the last person to see the victim alive.”

“Except for the murderer,” she said grimly.

“Of course.” His eyes narrowed slightly, but the subtle change in his demeanor was not lost on Lexie. The man was keenly tuned in to her every nuance. Lucas Garrett might only be a local sheriff in a remote and sparsely populated Colorado county, but every instinct told Lexie there was nothing second rate about his investigative skills. He was astute, intuitive and intelligent, an intriguing combination she found deeply attractive. But also dangerous.

She knew she wasn’t yet strong enough to match wits with him. Exhaustion crept over her. Her hand shook when she placed her mug on the pine coffee table in front of her.

“She’s not up to this, Lucas,” Mo said. “Surely you can see that. Why don’t you come back later, after she’s seen Doc Rogers.”

“Maybe you’re right.” He rose from the chair. “We’ll talk again tomorrow morning.”

Though Lexie had been hoping this interrogation would end, she felt suddenly abandoned.

Lucas moved to the doorway, but stopped and turned to face her once more. “Could you handle one last question, Lexie?”

“I suppose so.”

“What was your relationship to Hugh Miller?”

His stare was unwavering, and she felt pinned where she sat. Be careful, an inner voice warned. Remember what’s at stake. A careless word here, a misquote there and faster than you could say tabloid, the family name would be dragged through every mud hole from here to Paris and back again.

The lessons that had been drilled into her since childhood came back like the words to a familiar nursery rhyme: Never relinquish control of an interview. Never let your emotions show or speak without thinking. Take your time. Set the pace. Remember, above all, that when you speak, you’re speaking for the family.

Coolly, she returned his gaze. “There was no relationship, Sheriff.”

“You checked in to cabin number one on Tuesday afternoon. Within hours, Miller checked in to cabin number two. Did you know each other before you came here?”

She was able to answer with absolute honesty. “I never met Hugh Miller until I came here.”

“You were riding together this morning. Last night, you spent the night together on the mountain.”

Those were the facts, and she knew how they must look to the outside observer. “It’s not what you’re thinking.”

“Then, why don’t you straighten me out?”

“Miller and I left separately for our ride. We both happened to be on Summit Trail at the same time, but we hardly spoke.” She confronted him directly, telling the truth. “We slept in separate tents. If you meant to infer that there was some sort of romantic relationship between us, you’d be dead wrong.”

“I could’ve told you that,” Mo put in. “Lexie and Mr. Miller were strangers. Anyone could see that.”

“I need to hear it from Lexie,” Lucas said to his sister.

“Well, excuse me for trying to be helpful.” She scowled at him.

“I know,” Lucas said. “But now’s not the time. I’ll be back later. We’ll talk more then.”

Mo gave her brother a curt nod even as he turned his attention back to Lexie. “A man has been killed, gunned down in cold blood. You, yourself, were attacked and drugged. Whoever perpetrated these crimes is still out there and it’s my job to apprehend him. And, like it or not, Lexie, you’re the one person who can give me the information I need to do it.”

Despite herself, Lexie felt bound by the intensity of words and the heat of his stare. She couldn’t have looked the other way if her life had depended upon it.

“Think about it,” he said. The front door closed behind him, but his admonition hung in the air, vibrating in the tense silence he’d left behind.

Think about it, he’d said. And Lexie knew with absolute certainty that from now until the next time she saw the tall, dark, blue-eyed sheriff she would think of little else.

IT WAS ALMOST MIDNIGHT by the time Lucas pulled up in front of his one-story log home and cut the engine. The smell of pine, sharp and strong, came from looming spruce trees at the edges of the yard. On his way to the door, Lucas exhaled a deep breath into the clear night air and did his best to release the tension that was a fact of life for every cop who took his job as seriously as he did.

Earlier, he’d stopped by the house to feed and water his horses. The four purebred Quarter horses that were his pride and joy would be fine for tonight. All that was left was to fix himself something to eat and find a way to turn off his brain so he could get some sleep.

As always, Rocky was waiting on the porch, his ears peaked forward, tail wagging and an expression that in human terms could only be described as a welcoming smile.

“I could have used your help today, old man,” Lucas said as he reached down to stroke the three-legged dog’s thick tawny coat. Tomorrow he planned to find out if Rocky could pick up the killer’s trail—something Lucas and his deputies had so far been unable to do. Other than a couple of dubious footprints and generic-looking tire tracks, they hadn’t found any sign of the killer or discovered one useful clue. Lucas had hoped to find a spent shell casing or some other evidence left behind by whomever had murdered Hugh Miller and attacked Lexie Dale.

“Lexie Dale,” Lucas grumbled her name aloud as he shoved open the front door, waited for Rocky to slip inside and then slammed it behind him harder than he’d intended.

The woman with the intriguing violet-blue eyes, honey blond hair and the face of an angel was nothing if not an unmitigated liar. And a lousy one at that, Lucas thought with a frown.

It was bad enough that she was a reluctant witness, but what made the situation especially troublesome for Lucas was the way the she’d gotten under his skin. For some unknown reason, she seemed to have a stranglehold on his imagination, a hold he couldn’t shake loose. There was just something about the beautiful and mysterious witness—or non-witness, as she insisted on remaining—that brought Lucas’s thoughts back to her, again and again. Even as he’d coordinated the investigation on the mountain tonight, he’d been distracted by thoughts of her. Even as he’d attempted to track a killer, he’d mentally replayed their conversation, memorizing not only her responses, but the classic contours of her face and the slightly breathless sound of her voice.

He couldn’t stop thinking about the way she’d looked at him, the way her eyes seemed to plead with him to accept her half-truths and evasions. Although he hadn’t really been tempted to ignore his common sense, logic and well-trained instincts, he had felt a measure of compassion for what seemed like her desperate need to convince him.

She was holding back information, he told himself as he opened the refrigerator and grabbed a beer. Although he didn’t know what kind of information, his gut told him that she might just hold the key to cracking the case wide open.

As a lawman, Lucas had been trained to rely on facts. He didn’t put much stock in things like ESP or the supernatural, but he had learned to listen to his instincts, the instincts that gave cops what some called a second pair of eyes. And that second sight, or whatever one called it, was telling him Lexie Dale was a woman in more trouble than she could handle.

Perhaps that was why he couldn’t seem to shut down his intense feelings of concern for her and why she seemed to bring out every protective instinct he possessed. Even now, frustrated as he was by the outcome of their interview, he still wondered if she was all right, worried that she might be in danger from whomever or whatever it was that had her scrambling to measure her every response.

But a reluctant witness was better than none at all, he reminded himself again as he twisted the top off the icy beer bottle.

As a cop, his strongest impulse was to drive back to the ranch, drag her out of bed and push her until she broke down and confessed to whatever it was she knew. But as a man, all he wanted to do was protect her, to comfort and console her and vanquish whatever it was that had her running so scared. But how did a man, even a county sheriff with twelve deputies under his direct command, go about protecting a woman who seemed intent on lying to him?

“It’s a helluva situation, Rocky,” Lucas muttered and pulled open the refrigerator again to withdraw the steak he’d left defrosting that morning on the top shelf.

Since when did he abide a liar, he asked himself, or give a damn what happened to one? He grabbed a skillet from the rack over head, slid it onto the stovetop and tossed the steak into it.

She was lying, he told himself as he slathered the T-bone with butter and leaned back against the edge of the countertop to sip his beer without tasting and listen to his dinner sizzling with deaf ears. But why? Who was she trying to protect? Hugh Miller? Her own or the dead man’s reputation? Maybe. Or was it possible she was protecting a murderer?

Lucas didn’t think so. In fact, he dismissed the idea even as it formed. After all, Lexie herself had been a victim of this afternoon’s violence.

But if she wasn’t protecting the perpetrator then that left only the victim. Hugh Miller. And if it was Miller she was protecting then that meant she knew a lot more about the dead man than she was telling. But what? What was so important a man had to be protected even to the grave?

And what about their relationship? It was obvious they’d come to Destiny Canyon Ranch together, despite the few hours gap between their check-in times. She’d been adamant about not knowing Miller before, and Lucas thought she was telling the truth. But he was also certain that Miller figured into her life. Were they business associates? It didn’t make sense for her to hide a logical connection like that.

Lucas kept coming back to one explanation: In spite of Lexie’s denials, she and Hugh Miller must have been lovers. That possibility caused an unwelcome and uncomfortable tightening sensation in his gut. A sensation that told him he had darn well better find a way to stop thinking about Lexie Dale as a woman and start thinking of her as just one more piece in the puzzle that would ultimately solve this case.

So what if Lexie Dale had been in love with Hugh Miller? Did it make a difference? Probably not, unless one of them was married. That would explain the attempted cover-up, and maybe even supply a suspect. Had Hugh Miller been the victim of a jealous wife? If so, Lucas doubted the wife herself had been the shooter. Not unless the woman was a trained markswoman with the stealth of a cougar.

No. Lucas did not seriously believe that Hugh Miller had been killed as the result of a jealous rage. Criminals driven by passion left obvious signs and this killer had left no such trail, not a scrap of evidence to suggest the kind of wild emotion that led to careless mistakes. In fact, by all appearances, it would seem Hugh Miller had been the victim of a professional hit. And that possibility opened the door to more scenarios than Lucas could even begin to sort out tonight.

The smell of scorching meat brought him up short from the growing mountain of questions for which he had no answers. At this point, all he had were the usual questions about the crime and the victim, the kind of questions that usually led to a motive, a suspect and ultimately to an arrest. Motive, means and opportunity, those were the building blocks of any case.

“Business as usual,” Lucas told himself.

But if that really was all there was to it, then why did this case seem anything but usual?

The answer was one Lucas didn’t want to consider, but couldn’t deny. The answer was Lexie Dale. Or more specifically, his own intense reaction to her.

He slid the charred steak onto a plate, grabbed a fork and knife and took his dinner and his unfinished beer into the living room where he sat in a chair by the window without eating for several minutes.

For tonight, he would concentrate on how best to next approach his reluctant witness. She had to have some idea why someone had tried to abduct her. Was she a runaway wife? A rich heiress? A woman plagued by a stalker? She must have some idea. Tomorrow he would push her harder for answers, especially some answers about her relationship with Hugh Miller. He’d already decided that the next time he questioned Lexie it would be at his office. The more formal setting would serve as a reminder to him to keep his bothersome attraction to the woman from interfering with his judgment. With a killer on the loose, he could hardly afford to let chemistry get in the way of his duty.

Tomorrow, armed with the facts from the background check on Hugh Miller that Deputy Ferguson was gathering even now, Lucas would have the kind of leverage he needed to force Lexie to fill in the blanks.

With his resolve restored and firmly in place, he finished his overdone steak, then leaned back in his chair and fell into the deep sleep of a man who’d put in a long, frustrating day.

A cold wet canine nose nudged Lucas awake hours later. “Hey, Rocky,” he mumbled as he stretched his back and frowned at the realization that he’d spent the night in his chair. “Thanks for the wake-up call, old man.”

It was still dark when Lucas opened the back door to let Rocky out, but the sun had turned the cloudless morning sky a pale white by the time he’d showered and dressed.

As he poured his first cup of coffee, he mentally ticked off the course the investigation would take today. The ongoing search for tracks or any kind of evidence around the murder scene would be his first priority. But of almost equal importance was his next conversation with Lexie Dale.

His mind was so fully focused on the subject of his rumination that when the phone rang, he almost expected to hear her voice.

“Sorry to bother you so early, Lucas,” Eli Ferguson apologized, “but I figured you’d want to have this information ASAP.”

“No problem, Eli. What’s up?”

“We still don’t have a positive ID on yesterday’s murder victim.”

Lucas frowned as he listened to his deputy explain.

“There’s no such address as the one listed on the Illinois driver’s license he was carrying, and there’s no record of anyone by the name of Hugh Miller residing in Cook County.”

“What about the vehicle registration in his car?”

“As bogus as the driver’s license,” Eli declared. “The registration lists the same information as the license and the plates don’t match the car’s make and model.”

“Stolen?”

“Maybe. But they could have been lifted from a junkyard. The plates were traced to a 1968 Chevy that was totaled and junked twenty years ago.”

“It seems reasonable to suspect the car is stolen, too.” Lucas frowned. A stolen car was one thing, but going to such lengths to create a false identity added a new and disturbing dimension to what was already a complex case.

“Probably,” Eli agreed. “But we can’t confirm that until we hear back from the Illinois State Police. I sent the prints off to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, but it could be two or three weeks before we hear back from them.”

Before he’d left for home last night, Lucas had directed Eli to over-night a set of Miller’s fingerprints to the CBI headquarters in Denver where they’d be compared to catalogued prints on file.

“Or longer,” Lucas grumbled more to himself than to his deputy. All his thoughts focused on Lexie Dale. The woman with the intriguing eyes that hinted at a heart full of secrets.

“Looks like we’re a long way from getting a positive identification,” Eli said.

“Maybe not as far as you think, Eli,” Lucas said before he hung up the phone, reached for his hat and his car keys and headed out the door. Maybe only as far as Destiny Canyon Ranch and one very beautiful witness.

Chapter Three

The hills that ringed the valley around the ranch house seemed to glow with reflected sunshine, but the beauty of the mountain sunrise was lost on Lucas. He was a man on a mission. Outside, the breeze blew cool, but inside the kitchen the air was warm and deliciously thick with the aroma of bacon, coffee and cinnamon.

Mo was standing at the stove with her back to Lucas when he walked in. In spite of the early hour, Tucker Oates was seated at the kitchen table, sipping coffee and poring over the pages of a tabloid newspaper, The Exposé.

“Morning, Lucas.” He tipped back in his chair and ran his hand over his grizzled jaw. “Since you hadn’t been around to interrogate me, I figured I’d stop by here and save you the trouble of tracking me down.”

“As if you’d be so hard to find,” Mo said sardonically.

“I get around.” Tucker hooked his thumbs through the red suspenders he always wore to keep his blue jeans attached to his scrawny frame. “You’d be surprised, Mo.”

“Huh! Like anything you could do would surprise me.”

“Wait and see.” Tucker chuckled to himself. “Someday you might just find out there’s more to old Tucker than you’ve ever allowed.”

Mo glanced at Lucas over her shoulder then wiped her hands on a dishtowel and reached for an earthenware coffee mug on the counter beside her.

“I figured you’d be by early,” she said as she filled the mug with steaming brew and held it out to him. “Cal should be down in a minute.”

Lucas eyed the pan of fresh, warm cinnamon rolls sitting on a trivet on the countertop.

“Help yourself,” Mo said. “I was just getting ready to put the eggs on. What’ll it be, one or two?”

“Thanks, but none for me. I just swung by to pick up Miss Dale.” He glanced out the window across the expanse of green meadow at the four guest cabins in the distance, situated on the southwest edge of the Garrett property. “I don’t suppose she’s made an appearance yet this morning?”

Mo shook her head. “Not yet, poor thing. I doubt she’s even awake. She was still on the phone, talking to her family when I turned in last night. Seemed real upset, too, not that it’s any wonder, given what she’s been through. I’m just glad I talked her into staying in the guest room last night.”

“She stayed here at the house?”

“I insisted on it!” Mo informed him. “She said she’d be fine in her cabin, but I wouldn’t hear of it, not with that maniac still on the loose! You haven’t caught him, have you?”

Lucas shook his head.

“Hmm. Well, then I’m glad I made her stay here. Although I don’t think she slept much. I got up to check on Pop around two this morning and noticed the light in her room was still on.”

Mo offered to warm up his coffee, but Lucas refused. “You could at least sit down and have a cinnamon roll while you’re waiting for her.”

Mo’s cinnamon rolls were legendary, but this morning Lucas wasn’t even tempted. It was all he could do to keep from charging up the stairs and dragging Lexie Dale out of bed. “Thanks, but I’ll grab something later in town.”

“I’ll have some of those cinnamon rolls,” Tucker volunteered.

“There’s another big surprise,” Mo said as she placed the pan in the middle of the long, pine table. “I’m surprised you manage to survive on what passes for food down at The Timbers. Why, sometimes I swear I can taste the grease just walking past the front door of that place.”

Cal walked into the kitchen and nodded a greeting toward Lucas and Tucker. “What’s wrong with The Timbers?” he asked as he reached for a mug and filled it with coffee.

“Yeah,” Tucker said as he swallowed a bite of cinnamon roll. “I’m healthy enough, and I eat most all my meals there.”

Mo snorted. “Well, I suppose the food at The Timbers is good enough for a man with beef jerky for taste buds and a brain the size of a pinto bean.”

“I’d be happy to make some other arrangement,” Tucker offered. “You know, Mo, I’ve always said you were the best cook in Bluff County.”

“Not in your wildest dreams.” She slammed a cast-iron skillet onto the stovetop and began cracking eggs into it. “You’re doggone lucky there’s a place like The Timbers for the likes of you. No woman in her right mind would agree to sign on to cook and clean up after you, old man.”

Tucker might have responded with a barb of his own, but his mouth was full. He polished off one cinnamon roll and reached for another.

“But it’s different for you, Lucas.” Mo seized a spatula and attacked the eggs with short quick movements that were almost vicious. “At thirty-two years old, in the prime of your life, you ought to be eating breakfast at home, at your own table, with your wife and kids around you. At your age, most men—”

“And speaking of breakfast,” Cal cut in. “I’m half starved.”

Mo muttered something unintelligible under her breath and turned back to her cooking.

Lucas drank his coffee and congratulated himself for resisting the urge to remind his sister that she, herself, had never seen fit to marry. More than a dozen years ago, she’d been engaged to the much-maligned Tucker Oates, but it turned out that they were better as bickering companions than as husband and wife. Theirs was a pure love-hate relationship. Below the surface, Mo and Tucker cared deeply for each other, always had, but they couldn’t be in the same room for more than five minutes before the verbal dueling began.

That wasn’t the kind of relationship Lucas wanted. He knew some might consider him too picky, but he still hadn’t met that special someone to whom he wanted to make a lifetime commitment. It wasn’t that he had anything against commitment, or marriage, for that matter. On the contrary. If anything, his estimation of the institution was probably unrealistically high. But that was to be expected, he supposed, having been raised by parents who shared the kind of relationship about which love songs were written.

“Well?” Tucker said. “Aren’t you going to interrogate me?”

Lucas had already heard Mo’s version, and he didn’t expect that Tucker had anything new to add. Still, it never hurt to be thorough. “All right. Tell me about yesterday afternoon, Tucker.”

“Mo’s new pup had run off, and she needed an extra pair of eyes to look for him. So, I volunteered for the job on account of I’m pretty good at finding things. We were driving up on Summit Trail when…”

He droned on. If there was one thing Tucker liked more than Mo’s cooking, it was telling a story. No one could spin a yarn like Tucker, with just the right twists and turns. The problem was figuring out where the truth stopped and Tucker’s embellishments started.

Half-heartedly, Lucas listened to the complicated tale of how Mo and Tucker found the body of Hugh Miller and rescued Lexie.

“We were almost back to the ranch,” Tucker said, “when I realized I’d seen her before.”

“Who?” If anyone else had been talking, Lucas would have been all over them with questions, but Tucker’s imagination was nearly as big as his appetite. “Are you saying that you’ve met Lexie before?”

“Well, it isn’t that I’ve met her—not in person, you understand. But she looks so darned familiar. I’d swear I’ve seen that gal’s face before. Didn’t I say so, Mo? Right after we found her?”

“You know I don’t listen to half of what you babble on about,” Mo replied.

“I said ‘That young lady is pretty enough to be a movie star.”’ He tapped the front page of The Exposé where banner headlines screamed about some starlet’s latest hairstyle and aliens landing in Central Park. “You all make fun of me for keeping up with the world news, but I’m beginning to think that’s where I’ve seen her, right here in these pages. If I could only remember when…” He began to flip back to the front page.

Lucas shook his head. He wasn’t in the mood for this kind of nonsense when there was a murderer at large. “You want me to believe that a woman who’s staying in one of Mo’s rental cabins is some sort of celebrity?”

“I’d bet good money on it, Lucas,” he said, coming to his feet. “I know I’ve seen a picture of that little gal somewhere.”

“Sure,” Cal put in. “And maybe she brought a couple of those Central Park aliens with her to Colorado.”

Mo chuckled appreciatively. “Or maybe she’s one of those miraculous women who’s a hundred and fifty years old but doesn’t look a day over twenty-five.”

“Go ahead and laugh,” Tucker said as he grabbed another cinnamon roll and headed for the kitchen door. “But you know what they say, fact is stranger than fiction, my friends. Just take ol’ Tucker’s word on that.”

Lucas gave little credence to Tucker’s declaration, but he had to admit that the idea that a rich and famous woman choosing Destiny Canyon as a vacation spot made more than a little sense. True, there were few amenities, certainly not the hot and cold running servants that a celebrity might require, but the remote mountain location would afford privacy.

If Lexie Dale was famous—or even infamous—maybe that would explain why she’d gone so far out of her way to find this place. And it might also explain the motive behind the abduction attempt. So, who was she? And how had she learned about Destiny Canyon Ranch in the first place?

The need to question her nagged at him even harder. He took a last swig of coffee. “Well, I’d better go talk to our guest and find out for myself if there’s any truth to what Tucker said.”

“You’re not going to wake that girl, are you?” Mo asked, her disapproval ringing in every word.

“Only if she’s still asleep,” he said.

Before Mo could stop him, Lucas strode out the kitchen door and across the pine-paneled great room, toward the wide, hardwood staircase.

At the second-floor landing, he made a right and walked past the door to his father’s room to the guest room at the end of the hallway. He raised his hand to knock, when the door behind him opened slowly.

“Mo? Honey, is that you?”

Lucas turned around and walked back to where his father stood in the doorway. “Morning, Pop. How’re you feeling today?”

“Not too bad for the shape I’m in.”

The specialists had said Will wouldn’t make it through another Colorado winter, but Doc Rogers said he wouldn’t put it past Will Garrett to live a hundred years just to spite them. Lucas was less optimistic. Ever since his mother died five years ago, his father had been going downhill. Without the love of his life beside him, Will just didn’t seem to have the heart to go on.

“Lots of excitement around here yesterday,” Will said. “I suppose you’ve got your hands full with this homicide investigation.”

“Seems like,” Lucas confirmed. “But I don’t want you worrying about it, Pop. Everything’s going to be all right. I’m going to catch this guy before anyone else gets hurt.”

“I’m not worried,” Will said. “I know you’re going to do whatever it takes to bring him in. This county is lucky to have you on the case, son. I just hope that sweet little blonde is going to be all right.” He cocked his head in the direction of the guest room down the hall.

“Then, you’ve met Miss Dale?”

“Lexie?” Will smiled and for an instant, his eyes seemed less tired. “Oh yes. Last night, around midnight, I was coming back from the bathroom and stopped to rest a spell on the window seat. She asked if there was anything she could do to help me and I invited her to sit and chat a while.”

The small effort of standing seemed to weaken him. Though Lucas wanted to know what Lexie had said, his concern for his father took precedence. “Maybe you should lie back down, Pop.”

“No, son. I want to go downstairs. I’ve been aching all morning to get outside and sit on the porch for a spell. Your mother and I used to do that, you know. It was one of our favorite pastimes. After I retired, Rose and I had the time to sit and enjoy the view. Just looking out at the mountains and talking about all the things we’d done with you kids and the way we’d built this place…well, it was a sweet time, son. It truly was.”

Ten years ago, when Will had finally agreed to retire, Lucas had been fully immersed in his career in lawenforcement. Cal had not only had Lucas’s blessing, but a measure of gratitude, when he’d agreed to take over the reins of the Garrett ranch. Cal’s father, Duncan Garrett, had been Will and Rose’s first born son, the older brother Lucas had never known. Duncan’s life had already been lost in the jungles of Vietnam almost five years before Rose and Will Garrett’s late-in-life son, Lucas, was conceived.

After his father’s death and his mother’s subsequent abandonment, Cal and his younger sister, Jolie, were raised as Lucas’s siblings on the ranch. With three active young children to raise, Rose Garrett depended heavily on her older daughter, Maureen. Lucas sometimes marveled at the degree of dedication Mo had shown the family. But if the sister who was some twenty years his senior ever resented the years she’d spent tending her younger brother and two young cousins, she’d never shown it. In fact, if anything, it seemed the difference in their ages had given them a special closeness. Lucas adored his mother, but in Maureen he’d always felt he had a second mom, an older, wiser loved-one to whom he could come for kindly wisdom and counsel.

“If you can just help me down this last step…” Will said. Lucas offered his arm for support. Lucas waited until his father was comfortably situated on a porch chair with a blanket tucked around his legs, then he asked, “What did you and Lexie talk about, Pop?”

“Oh, a little of this and that. Mostly, we talked about her late grandfather, how she could always turn to him. How she still missed him. How she wished she had someone to talk to now for advice.”

“Did she ask for your advice, Pop?

“Well, yes. As a matter of fact, she did. Not outright, in so many words, understand. But I could tell she had a lot on her mind and was just itching to say it.”

Lucas shook his head. Was this the same woman who’d guarded her every comment during their interview yesterday?

“And did you give her advice, Pop?”

“Yes, I guess I did.” He seemed almost happy as he gazed across the front yard at the sunlit meadow. “She asked me if I thought it was worth the effort for a person to fight for what she wanted, even if it was something that didn’t seem like it would ever work out, even if other people disapproved and told her she was dead wrong.”

Lucas knew without asking how his father had answered Lexie’s question. Will Garrett had never run from a fight in his life. “You told her to stand her ground, of course.”

“Damn right, I did.” He nodded to himself. “You know, son, I like that little gal. And I can tell she’s got something heavy on her mind, something big, a problem she’s not sure she can handle on her own.” He met his son’s gaze. “Maybe you can find a way to help her, Lucas. I got the feeling she could use a friend about now.”

Lucas patted his father’s shoulder and smiled. “I’ll see what I can do, but right now I have to get going, Pop. I need to talk to Lexie.”

Will smiled. “You do that, son. You talk to her.” His smiled faded. “But don’t go pushing her too hard with all your official questions, you hear? She’s been through enough.”

Again, Lucas stopped short of making his father any promises where Lexie Dale was concerned.

When he returned to the house he reported to Mo that their father was on the porch, then he hurried up the stairs. What was it about Lexie that caused everybody in his family to want to protect her? First, Mo. Now, his father. Maybe Lexie Dale really was an alien, a supernatural being who’d cast an intergalactic spell over all of them.

He knocked twice on her door and waited. When he heard no movement on the other side, he knocked again. This time louder and with more authority. “Miss Dale. Lexie. It’s Lucas Garrett.” But still there was no answer, no sound at all on the other side of the door.

Finally, Lucas turned the knob and pushed the door open. The room was empty. The bed had been neatly made, almost as if it had never been slept in.

As a number of disturbing scenarios played through his mind, Lucas retraced his steps and pushed out the front door. On the porch, Mo was tending to their father, but Lucas didn’t stop to talk or inform them of where he was going.

As he strode across the meadow toward the cabin, he didn’t know whether to be relieved or concerned by the sight of Lexie’s rented SUV still parked where it had been yesterday in front of her cabin. If she’d walked out of his family’s house without a word to Mo, knowing his sister would be concerned by her unexpected absence, then Lexie Dale’s behavior could only be called rude and thoughtless.

But what if she hadn’t walked out, Lucas thought, what if she’d been taken by force? The thought propelled him even faster across the meadow. When he reached the cabin, he was surprised to see the door that opened into the small two-room cabin standing wide open.

“Lexie!” he called out as he crossed the small yard and walked up onto the porch.

There was no answer, but what he saw as he stood on the threshold stopped him cold. The interior of the cabin looked like a scene from a low-budget horror movie. The small, hand-hewn, knotty pine table and chairs had been overturned. The bedding had been ripped off the bed and the mattress pulled from its pine frame. Each of the six drawers had been pulled from the dresser in the corner and the contents dumped in a heap in the middle of the floor. The clothes strung all over the room were distinctly feminine. Lexie’s clothes. But where was Lexie?

Where was the deputy assigned to guard the cabin last night? Had Lexie’s change in venue pulled his attention away from the cabin? The questions came to Lucas in rapid succession, but there would be no answers, not until he found Lexie.

With his gun drawn, Lucas moved carefully into the room. When he’d made certain no one was waiting behind the door in ambush, he made his way toward the bathroom.

Past the open door, he saw her. Seated on the floor, surrounded by the chaos of the ransacked room, she seemed almost in a state of shock. The shower curtain sagged behind her, where it had been torn from the rod. All of her belongings had been ruined. Her cosmetics were everywhere, crushed underfoot on the floor, along with a tangle of jewelry and the remains of a broken hair dryer.

“Lexie!”

She turned and looked up at him, seemingly oblivious to the blood trickling from her left hand.

“What the hell happened here?” He moved into the small room and reached down to pull her to her feet. “My God, are you all right?”

She allowed him to pull her to her feet. “I— I’m fine. I just walked in and found it like this.”

“You’re bleeding.” She looked down at the broken pieces of a perfume bottle still in her hand.

“Here.” Carefully he took the jagged pieces from her and dropped them onto the floor. She stood without speaking as he wrapped her hand in the lone towel still hanging on a hook over the sink.

The look on her face was haunted and her eyes shone with unshed tears. Lucas put his arm around her and led her out of the cabin and onto the sun-drenched porch.

“What’s this all about, Lexie?” he asked her. “Why would someone want to do this to you?”

When she looked up at him, he found he had to steel himself against the abject vulnerability reflected on her face. “It—it’s hard to explain,” she began. “I— I can’t—”

“But you have to,” he said softly, firmly. “I can’t protect you unless I know what’s going on. I can’t help you until you trust me. Trust me, Lexie.”

She met his gaze with a look that told him she longed to do exactly that, to place her trust in him and damn the consequences that until this point had her scared silent.

She opened her mouth, but then closed it again without saying anything. The lawman in Lucas sensed she was ready to crack. If he pushed her now she might be able to give him the answers he needed to catch a killer.

But the man in him held back, momentarily overwhelmed by compassion for a woman who he sensed had already been through more than her share of pain. He remembered his father saying she needed a friend. Was it possible to be that friend and still do his duty?

“Come with me, Lexie,” he said quietly. “We’ll talk in town, at my office.”

She hesitated for a moment and looked back at the ravaged mess inside the cabin. “But what about—”

“I’ll have my men take over here, and see to your things.”

Then he put his arm around her and walked with her across the meadow and into his family’s home where he knew, at least for the moment, she’d be safe.

THEY’D SPOKEN LITTLE on the drive into town, and they remained separated by an uneasy silence while Lucas ushered Lexie past Sylvia’s desk and into his office. It wasn’t that he’d gone soft, he told himself as he directed her to the chair opposite his desk. He did not intend to let her off without another round of solid questioning. But she had been through another ordeal this morning and it seemed only right to give her a little time to recover from the shock of finding her possessions rifled. Besides, giving her time to mull over the seriousness of her situation just might convince her to cooperate.

“Make yourself comfortable,” he told her. “Can I get you something? Coffee? Tea? A lawyer?”

“I don’t need a lawyer. Not unless you’re planning to charge me with something.”

Lucas shook his head. “No. But I do need answers, Lexie. And I don’t intend to let up until I get them. If you’d feel better with counsel present, now’s the time to let me know.”

“I don’t need a lawyer,” she said calmly, in a voice that revealed none of the emotion he’d witnessed less than an hour ago inside the ransacked cabin. “There’s nothing more to say. I told you everything yesterday.”

“I remember what you said.” Lucas leaned back against the edge of his desk and folded his arms across his chest. “All right. Then let’s talk about today.”

She nodded uncertainly.

“Do you have any idea why someone would ransack your cabin?”

“No.”

“Any idea what they might have been looking for?”

Again, she responded with a flat, “No.”

“Who was Hugh Miller?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, who was he? We know that wasn’t his real name. And the address he gave Mo when he checked in was phony, too. Who was he, Lexie?”

When she didn’t reply immediately, he pressed her. “His prints have been sent to CBI and it’s only a matter of time before they match them with an identity. If you tell me now you’ll be saving everyone a lot of trouble.”

She rose and moved over to the window where she stood with her back to him. “I only knew him as Hugh Miller.”

“Where did he come from?”

“I don’t know. I can’t tell you anything more about the man.”

“Can’t or won’t?” It took some doing, but Lucas managed to keep his voice even. “Look, Lexie…whatever is keeping you from telling me the truth, it can’t be worse than the legal ramifications that could result from your stone-walling.”

She turned around to face him with an openly defiant expression. “There’s no point in threatening me, Sheriff.”

Lucas felt his control slip. An innocent witness afraid to come forward was one thing, but Lexie’s constant evasions were making him question just how innocent she really was. “Damn it! A man is dead. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

“I’m sorry,” she said softly. The note of desperation in her voice touched off an unwanted rush of protective instincts inside Lucas. She stood silently for several minutes, then sighed and turned to face him once more. “I know you’re trying to help, Lucas. But there’s no need. Every-thing…well, it’s just too late.”

“Too late for what, Lexie?”

She started for the door. “Could you please arrange for someone to drive me back to the ranch?”

Lucas covered the length of his office in three long strides. “What are you hiding, Lexie? Tell me.”

“Let me go.”

“Do you know why he was killed?”

“No!” Although he couldn’t yet begin to explain why, Lucas sensed a world of pain behind that single word.

“You never knew him as anyone but Hugh Miller?”

“That’s right.”

Well, at least that’s something, Lucas thought. “How about his family? Do you know how to contact them?”

“I don’t know anything about his family…or even if he had any.”

“Why was he here, Lexie? What did Hugh Miller have to do with you?”

A look of something close to panic flickered across her face and Lucas could feel her shutting down, again.

“Level with me, Lexie. I can help you, but you have to tell me the truth.”

“I can’t!” When she tried to push past him, he reached for her hand and held her where she stood.

“Let me go! You have no right to detain me.”

Her wrist felt warm and fragile. “I’m just trying to help you.”

She shook her head and pulled away from his grasp. “I know,” she said. “And I appreciate your position. But you don’t understand. Things are not what they appear. It’s out of your hands. Out of mine! There’s nothing anyone can do, now.”

“Tell me what that means, Lexie. Why is it too late? What are you involved in?” Even as he asked the questions, Lucas hoped against all reason that she was as innocent as she claimed to be.

“Please,” she nearly begged him. “Just take me back to the ranch.”

They stood close, so close the faint perfume that was her essence mingled with his every breath, so sweet and distinctly feminine, he could almost taste it.

“I only want the truth,” Lucas said. “And I’m not going to stop until I get it.”

She walked past him to the window and stood once more gazing out at the mountains in the distance.

He moved across the room to stand close behind her, so close it was hard not to touch. “Tell me what has you running so scared. I promise, I’ll do everything in my power to protect you, but you have to trust me.”

He watched her shoulders tense and he felt torn. He didn’t enjoy pressuring her, but he had a duty to bring in a killer.

And if there was a battle raging inside Lexie Dale, Lucas meant to come out the winner.

“Just tell me the truth,” he continued to urge in a low, even voice.

As the moments of taut silence stretched between them, Lucas sensed she wanted to give in. It took every bit of control he possessed, but he allowed her the time she needed to reach her decision. The vow he’d made to her was real. If there was a way to protect her, to help her out of whatever trouble had her scared silent, Lucas would find it. After all, as a cop it was his sworn duty to protect, even if the reaction she sparked inside him was anything but professional.

“Lexie?” he said finally.

She sighed. “There’s nothing anyone can do,” she said without turning around. Her words were tinged with a sadness Lucas could not ignore.

He placed his hands lightly on her shoulders and turned her gently around to face him. With the tip of his finger, he lifted her chin so that he could look directly into her face. The eyes that stared back at him seemed haunted and the expression on her face was one of uncertainty mixed with loneliness. Lucas felt his heart turn over at the sight of such aching vulnerability, and before either of them realized what was happening, he gathered her into the circle of his arms.

She didn’t resist, but seemed, instead, eager to lose herself within the shelter of his embrace. For the space of a few breathless heartbeats the grim circumstances that had caused their paths to cross ceased to exist.

When the phone rang, she pulled back, out of his arms. It rang a second time, before Lucas turned away and reached for it.

“It’s Ritter, with the Burea of Land Management,” Sylvia’s voice announced.

“Tell him I’ll get back to him.”

“He says he’s got to talk to you, Sheriff. One of their trucks was stolen.”

“Get the information and tell him I’ll send a deputy out to talk to him.”

“Want me to dispatch Burt?”

“Yes. Thanks, Sylvia.” As he spoke to his secretary his eyes searched Lexie’s face, looking for something—anything—that would solve the mystery that was increasingly surrounding her. “Oh, and, Sylvia, please hold all my calls until I let you know otherwise.”

He hung up the phone but didn’t make a move to close the distance between them. “Level with me, Lexie. Tell me what you know about the man who called himself Hugh Miller. Begin by telling me why he used a false identity.”

She blinked and some of the color left her face.

“You really didn’t know, did you?”

She shook her head. “The first time I saw him was here at the ranch.”

“But you weren’t surprised to meet him. Why, Lexie?”

She stared at him a long moment and Lucas sensed she was close to cracking. Finally, she sighed, moved back to her chair and sat down. “He was a paid bodyguard.”

Her admission wasn’t really all that surprising. Her obvious distress at having been forced to admit it, however, was. “How long had he been working for you?”

“He wasn’t working for me, exactly. My family hired him.” Unmistakable anger turned her eyes a darker shade of blue. “Or to be more precise, my father hired him. He made all the arrangements.”

“What made your father believe you needed the services of a bodyguard?” Lucas studied her face as he waited for her answer and imagined what he’d do to anyone who tried to harm even one hair on her lovely head.

“There was a kidnapping attempt—” She hesitated. “It was a long time ago. When I was a child.”

“Tell me about it.”

“I don’t…remember much. I was very young.”

“What do you remember?”

“Not much. My mother died years ago. And my father…well, it’s never been a subject he’s felt inclined to discuss.” Something about the way she said the word father made Lucas want to punch the man.

“I’ll want to talk to him. To your father.”

Her laugh was short, dry and completely without humor. “Oh, believe me, you will. In fact, he’s probably tried to reach me this morning at the ranch.”

Lucas reached for the phone again. “What’s his number?”

She leaned back in her chair. “I don’t have it with me, but even if I did, you wouldn’t be able to get through.”

“Why not?”

She sat forward in her chair. “Because it doesn’t work that way.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, there’s no way to get through to him. He’s a very…busy man. Lots of meetings. And he travels a lot, too. I wouldn’t know how or where to begin looking for him today.”

“But you spoke to him yesterday.”

She nodded. “Yes. That’s why I know he’s undoubtedly tried to reach me today.”

“If you don’t mind my saying, you seem less than happy by the prospect of talking to your father.”

She shrugged, but the indifference she seemed to want to portray was undermined by the distinct sadness in her eyes.

“Are you sure there’s no way to contact him, now? At his office or at home?”

She gave him a small smile. “Trust me on this one, Lucas. By the time you drive me back to the ranch, His— My father will have left a message instructing me exactly when and where to call.”

Lucas reached for his hat. “Then let’s go.”

She nodded and rose to walk ahead of him out of his office, with all the enthusiasm of a woman headed for the gallows.

Chapter Four

In the outer office, Deputy Eli Ferguson reclined in a chair with his long legs stretched out on the desktop in front of him. “Hey, Lucas,” he said and came to his feet.

“Am I glad to see you!”

Lucas was fortunate to have such a competent second-in-command. In spite of Eli’s few annoying affectations, like wearing his sunglasses indoors and sliding into a west Texas drawl that stretched a single sentence into a lengthy monologue, he was smart and a good leader. Lucas asked Lexie to wait in his office while he turned over the loose threads of the investigation to his deputy.

“I want four more men up on that trail, checking for anything we might have missed yesterday. Also, BLM just reported a stolen truck. It’s a long shot, but there could be a connection.”

“Could be our shooter needed the truck for his getaway. I’ll compare the cast we took of the tire prints on the trail with the BLM vehicles.”

“Put out an APB on that truck,” Lucas said.

The next task was more complicated. “Last night, someone ransacked Lexie’s rental cabin. Send two men over there to check for prints and take photos.”

Eli removed his sunglasses and glanced toward the office where Lexie was waiting. “Is she all right?”

“Mo insisted she stay in the guest room at the house.” His sister had been correct in assuming there was still a danger. “I don’t need to tell you that those cabins are within spitting distance of the ranch house. I sure as hell don’t like the idea of something like this happening so near Pop’s front door.”

“I’ll get a full report from the deputy who was supposed to be on patrol last night and have it on your desk by noon.”

Lucas nodded. “From now on until this thing is over, I want you to personally oversee the surveillance at Destiny Canyon Ranch.”

“Consider it done.” Eli slipped the sunglasses back onto the bridge of his nose. “There’ll be someone on the premises round-the-clock from now until we bring in the perpetrator. So, where are you headed, Lucas? Back up to the mountain?”

“Later,” Lucas replied and inclined his head toward Lexie. “Right now, my first priority is finding out how she fits into this thing.” His gut instincts told him that the answers they sought resided somewhere in Lexie Dale’s stubborn little head. If he could find a way around her fears, convince her he was not the enemy, there just might be a way to not only apprehend a murderer but keep Lexie safe, as well. “I need you to follow up on the loose ends, so I can be free to act on whatever information I manage to pry out of our witness.”

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