Garrett could almost feel his daughter’s arms wrapped around his own neck.

He watched as Annie put her down. The image of his little girl waving goodbye as the door closed burned itself into his head.

When he met Annie back at her house, the first thing out of her mouth was, “Your Megan is absolutely adorable. She’s just wonderful.”

“How was she?” he asked. “I mean, did she seem…happy?”

“She seemed good, Garrett. Happy, affectionate.”

He nodded, looking over her shoulder, swallowing the sudden lump in his throat. Annie touched his chin and he met her gaze. “She squealed and hugged herself when she thought of you,” she added.

He smiled slowly, a bittersweet, tear-at-the-heart kind of smile. He had a lot to make up to his little girl. How had every good intention he had turned out to be wrong?

He had to get Megan back. There was absolutely no other option.

Bodyguard Father
Alice Sharpe

www.millsandboon.co.uk

This book is dedicated to Elisabeth Naughton and

Lisa Pulliman, roommates extraordinaire

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Alice Sharpe met her husband-to-be on a cold, foggy beach in Northern California. One year later they were married. Their union has survived the rearing of two children, a handful of earthquakes registering over 6.5, numerous cats and a few special dogs, the latest of which is a yellow Lab named Annie Rose. Alice and her husband now live in a small rural town in Oregon, where she devotes the majority of her time to pursuing her second love, writing.

Alice loves to hear from readers. You can write her at P.O. Box 755, Brownsville, OR 97327. SASE for reply is appreciated.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Garrett Skye —Accused of killing the woman he was paid to protect, he’s on the run. His goals: recover from the wound sustained in his escape, regain custody of his three-year-old daughter and disappear forever.

Anastasia (Annie) Ryder —This cookie-baking preschool teacher turns down her private detective father’s last attempt at reconciliation. Can she atone for her behavior by completing his last case: finding Garrett Skye?

Megan Skye —This three-year-old charmer is the center of Garrett’s heart. He’ll do anything to protect her….

Shelby Greason —She hired Annie’s father to bring her mother’s killer to justice.

Robert Greason —Still grief stricken by his wife’s death, he’s now receiving death threats of his own.

“Curly” and “Moe” —Two thugs with deadly intent.

Rocko Klugg —Awaiting a new trial, everyone knows he’s a murderer and that he wanted Elaine Greason dead. But what is he looking for now and how far will he go to get it?

Jasmine Carrabas —Klugg’s girlfriend. This slick beauty has a scary mean streak.

Randy Larson (Red Thunder) —Have his dreams corrupted him?

Tiffany Boothe Skye —Garrett’s ex. Her interest in being a mother is less than her interest in a new man. How far will she go to destroy Garrett’s credibility?

Ellen Boothe —Tiffany’s mother, Megan’s reluctant babysitter.

Brady Skye —Garrett’s older brother is a lawman in Oregon. Will he help or hinder his brother’s efforts to clear his name?

Lara Skye —Brady’s beloved wife, the sister Annie never had.

Contents

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

Epilogue

Chapter One

Annie Ryder was ready to call it quits. Two days of lurking around in the cold, snapping pictures of old buildings, old streets and old ranchers had left her stiff and grumpy. Plus, the unfamiliar black-framed glasses rested heavy on the bridge of her nose while the thick brown wig atop her head itched to the point of distraction.

Oh, who was she trying to fool? Or, worse, impress? “You can’t impress a dead man,” she mumbled to herself.

A badly tuned engine jerked her from her thoughts. She peered down the street in time to spot a beat-up blue truck approaching. She didn’t need to consult the photograph in her pocket to know at long last this was the truck—and hopefully the driver—she’d been waiting for. Round bumpers, dented hood, broken antenna, a faded Forty-Niners bumper sticker, California plates. This was it.

Hallelujah…

Lifting the camera, she flexed numb fingers. “Stop at the grocery store,” she whispered as she watched the truck ramble down the road.

For a second, she thought it would pass by and her stomach twisted into a knot that just as quickly unraveled as the truck pulled to the curb no more than ten feet from where she stood concealed in an alley. The driver got out of the truck and without locking his door or glancing back at Annie’s location, limped across the road toward the grocery store on the corner. He wore faded blue jeans and a black jacket. Worn leather cowboy boots looked like the real deal.

He reached into his left pocket, emerged with an old fashioned gold watch that he snapped open, glanced at and snapped shut. He dug a few coins from his other pocket.

Annie raised the camera and peered through the lens, zooming in on his face. She found the chiseled features she’d appreciated in his photo, more obvious now that he’d shaved off the mustache he’d worn before. His hair was darker and scruffier though without the facial hair; he looked younger than his thirty-three years.

Garrett Skye, at last.

She zeroed in on his eyes and for a second, he seemed to look right at her. Her breath caught in alarm, but that quickly evaporated. He had amazing deep-brown eyes, warm and sensual, even when viewed through a lens. Eyes that reminded her of the old “windows of the soul” malarkey, eyes that brimmed with self-awareness, eyes that skated on the razor-thin edge of magic.

She lowered the camera a fraction of an inch and stared back at him, unable to move. His gaze should strike fear in the bottom of her heart. It didn’t.

This was nuts. Those beautiful eyes belonged to a man who killed without remorse. No doubt his last victim had thought she saw humanity in those deep, dark irises, too. Well, that woman was dead now, thanks to him, so get a grip!

His gaze shifted. Obviously, he was just looking around, being cautious. He slid a few coins into the paper machine and snagged a copy. Annie quickly snapped the first of a dozen photos before he disappeared into the store.

She hurriedly reinvented what she’d seen through the camera lens. Not warmth, not beauty. Cockiness, smugness, vanity, that’s what she’d seen. He thought he was safe. He hadn’t counted on the dead woman’s grown daughter having deep pockets and a vengeful nature. He hadn’t counted on Annie’s late father’s detective skills.

And he hadn’t counted on her, Annie Ryder, intrepid pre-school teacher/unofficial private eye.

Her job was simple: verify Garrett Skye’s presence, learn what name he was using, get an address in Poplar Gulch, tell the client.

She drew only a cursory glance from two women as she stepped out of the alley and snapped a few random pictures of the hay bales in the back of Skye’s truck to reinforce her cover story as an out-of-town photographer writing a book on forgotten ranching towns. She paused. Dare she risk frisking the glove box?

A brisk “Good morning” from a passing pedestrian sent Annie’s heart leaping into her throat. She settled on taking a few photos of the mail scattered on the front seat while moving past the truck.

She continued walking to the next block where she’d parked her father’s white sedan. The weatherman had predicted snow. Annie wanted to be out of Poplar Gulch and headed home to Reno by the time it fell. All she needed now was a physical address for Skye.

She’d just set the camera on the seat beside her when movement in the side mirror drew her attention. Skye limped back across the street, the newspaper tucked beneath his arm, a small plastic grocery bag swinging from the fingers of his left hand. He opened the driver’s door, tossed in his purchases and climbed in after them.

She started her own engine, a blast of cold air coming from the heater vent making her shiver. Skye made a U-turn and headed east. Annie waited a few moments before making the same turn and following at a distance. Golden strands of hay floated out of the back of the truck.

Within minutes, it had started to rain, drops icy enough to make patterns on her windshield. With no vehicle between her and the truck, Annie lowered her visor and stayed as far back as possible. Skye had been on the run for almost four months, surely he’d be feeling pretty comfortable by now. On the other hand, the man was former military, former bodyguard and a wanted killer. Plus, he apparently knew a thing or two about explosives.

He drove for a couple of miles before taking a sharp left onto a dirt road that appeared to lead up a heavily forested hillside. Annie drove past the road, making note of the mailbox on which the name B. Miller was printed, pulling off a quarter mile farther along, parking well off the shoulder. Miller. She recognized the name from her father’s files. He was connected to Skye in some way. An old army buddy, that was it.

Another tidbit of information floated into her mind. Miller was a professor at Davis University, currently out of the country on a sabbatical. She’d bet big money Garrett Skye was using his old buddy’s mountain retreat as a hideout!

Excited, she clicked on her cell phone, relieved when it picked up a signal, disappointed when the client didn’t answer. She waited through Shelby Parker’s recorded message and left one of her own, embellishing it a little here and there to make it sound better, making sure Parker understood Annie was working with her father. No reason to mention the fact he had died before he could complete this job. No point in admitting she was his proxy.

As she clicked off the phone it dawned on her she should have made sure Skye was living here before alerting the client. She turned off the cell phone and tucked it and her father’s nasty-looking black gun in her pockets. She looped the camera strap around her neck. She stuck her purse under the seat and got out of the car, locking it behind her.

The walk in, which she had assumed would be relatively short, turned out to be more than a mile straight up. It seemed to grow colder with each foot she climbed. The rain was still halfhearted, but it had the icy punch of coming trouble.

The road ended so abruptly she stumbled into the open. Quickly dodging behind a gaggle of leafless, wispy trees, she took in the old house across from what appeared to be an even older barn. Tucked between them sat the rusty blue truck, its bed now empty.

Annie took the camera from around her neck. Snapping pictures of anything that didn’t move, her bare fingers growing increasingly numb as the temperature continued to plummet, she made her way to the back of the barn where she discovered a two-tiered door, the top of which was open.

She knelt with her head below the door opening, catching her breath, nerves firing up and down her spine. A moment later, a blast of hot air came from above. Annie jumped an inch off the ground, grabbing her wig with one hand while fumbling for the gun with the other. The camera tumbled to the ground in the process. Before she could extract the gun from her pocket, she looked up and came eyeball to muzzle with a big brown horse.

She swallowed what felt like her heart. “Easy does it,” she whispered, fear draining out of her as she reached up to shoo away the warm nose nibbling at her wig. The horse tossed its head and whinnied.

“Shh,” she said, turning to peer around the side of the barn.

She found two worn leather boots she immediately recognized. The rifle, however, was new.

“Get up nice and easy,” Garrett Skye said, his voice as cold as the steel barrel nine inches from her nose.

As distasteful as Annie found carrying a gun, looking up the barrel of one was worse. Way worse.

Scooping the camera from the icy mud, she gained her feet. Up close and without the distancing lens of the camera, the man was big, muscular, powerful and scary. His chiseled good looks were a mere distraction compared to the focused intent in his eyes. There was no appealing warmth or humor in those irises now. There probably never had been.

“Who are you?” he said, his voice deep, softer than she’d expected, and scary. Everything about him was scary. Rip up his clothes a little, tie a bandana around his head and a knife between his teeth and, presto, Rambo in the flesh.

Annie thought frantically. She hadn’t had a chance to pull out her dad’s gun. Perhaps Skye would overlook it. She babbled, “Is this your place? I’m so sorry to be intrusive, my car broke down on the main road and yours was the nearest driveway. I’m in Poplar Gulch taking pictures of forgotten ranch towns. This place is perfect. Uh, I love your horse. What’s its name?”

“Your car broke down?” he said, narrowing his eyes.

“Yes. It’s old and—”

“So you didn’t follow me out here?”

“Follow you? No. Of course not.”

He stared at her for another second or two and then shook his head. “Sorry, not buying it. I’ll take your gun.”

“I don’t have a gun, Mr. Miller, isn’t it?”

“You know damn good and well my name isn’t Miller and of course you have a gun. Get your hands up. Who sent you here? Klugg?”

“Klugg who?” she muttered.

“I said, get your hands up.”

She put her hands up in the air, the camera clenched tight in her right fist, the strap dangling down her arm. With a few swift impersonal strokes he frisked her with his free hand, finding the gun and her cell phone with no trouble. The picture of his truck taken a week or so before rolled out with them.

Even if she could think of a way to explain carrying a gun, there was no way to make this look like an accident now, not with that picture waiting to be unfolded. Icy calm spread through her fear-soaked body. She grew quiet, watchful, waiting…

Flipping the gun open, he spun the chamber and a couple of bullets popped out. “No gun, huh?” he quipped, sparing her an uneasy glance. He closed the chamber with his thumb and stuck the gun in his pocket before unfolding the photograph.

In the moment it took him to do this, he was marginally distracted. Annie threw the camera at his face and without waiting for his reaction, took off around the far side of the barn, expecting to hear the sharp retort of his rifle….

But it was his voice that followed her. Loud, angry, ordering her to stop. Sure. The horse whinnied his opinion of the mayhem.

Annie veered toward the truck, hoping Skye was in the habit of leaving his keys in the ignition. He wasn’t. Leaping the two feet onto the broad front porch of his house, she tore open the front door and locked it behind her. The small kitchen hosted a back door. As she touched the knob, she heard the tinkle of broken glass coming from the front. Skye would be inside within seconds. She ran outside, circling by the barn again. He’d see her if she took off down the road and there wasn’t a doubt in her mind that he could run faster, even with a limp, than she could.

And bullets ran faster than either of them.

That left the horse. She ducked into the barn, faltering for a second as her eyes fought to adjust to the shadows, almost tripping over the bales of hay Skye had apparently unloaded just inside the door. She ran toward the only light, the open half door through which the horse had spotted her. There was no purpose hiding in a dark corner—he’d find her. She could see no handy weapon and doubted she’d be able to throw a pitchfork hard enough to stop him anyway.

She’d take the horse and ride it down the mountain and escape that way. Good Lord, what was she thinking?

She was thinking she didn’t want to die.

She approached the animal as slowly as her panic and pounding heart allowed. The big brown horse eyed her suspiciously as she opened his stall door. He was a lot bigger than he’d looked from the outside when the business half of him had been obscured by the lower half of the door. She didn’t have time to get to know him or even saddle him. Any minute now, Garrett Skye would erupt through that door wielding his rifle—

She stretched out a hand to touch the horse’s glistening neck, surprised at his warmth. He was wearing a halter but his head was a long way from his back even when he twisted around and looked her eyeball to eyeball. She half expected him to ask her what the hell she thought she was doing. She grabbed a handful of fetlock and bounced on her feet to build the momentum to swing herself atop.

As she launched herself upward, Skye limped his way through the barn door, his rifle held at his side. For a second, Annie imagined Skye’s shocked expression when she proceeded to gallop the brown horse right over the top of him.

The horse rose up partly on his hind legs, twisted around and thudded back to the earth. Annie went flying as her tenuous grip failed.

Her last conscious thought was irritation with herself, not the horse. Then she hit the wall and slid to the floor, the world eclipsed to a single black dot and then to nothing….

Chapter Two

Setting the rifle aside, Garrett put a steady hand on Scio’s nose. “It’s okay, fella,” he whispered as he ran a hand along the horse’s quivering flesh. He carefully led the nervous animal out of the stall so he wouldn’t trample their intruder. He put him in an adjoining stall and closed the gate.

His mind moved faster than his body as he returned to the woman. He had to assume she had called in Klugg’s men or the police, depending on which side of the law she worked. If it was the police they’d already be here. That left Klugg and that meant he had three or four hours to get as far away from here as possible. Besides the horse, everything of any importance was already packed in a duffel bag and stowed behind the bench seat in Ben’s truck. If there was one thing Garrett knew how to do it was cut his losses and move on. He’d drive to the nearest big city and abandon the truck there, as per his long planned escape route.

First things first. What in the world did he do with the woman in Scio’s stall?

She wasn’t very big and she wasn’t very old, maybe mid-twenties. Her black glasses had come loose and he plucked them from the stable floor. He peered through the lenses—no correction—and tossed them aside.

Balancing on the balls of his feet, he squatted beside her, his right leg aching with the movement. He was reassured to find a pulse fluttering in her throat. All he needed was another dead woman on his hands.

The thick brown hair sat kind of lopsided on her head. As he watched, it slid to the ground and lay there like a dead squirrel, revealing finely textured lustrous auburn hair pinned atop her head, held with a bunch of little pink-and-yellow butterfly clips. The kind his kid wore. They looked sweet on Megan. On a grown woman they made a disconcerting statement he wouldn’t even try to figure out.

What in the world should he do with her? Man, he should have shot her when she threw the damn camera at him, but he didn’t shoot unarmed people in the back.

Not even hired hit men.

Is that what she was? She hadn’t had her gun ready, she hadn’t planned an escape and she was wearing little butterflies in her hair. He patted her down, ignoring the tantalizing bumps and curves under her clothing, and came away empty-handed. But he was also pretty sure nothing was broken or bleeding and that was a relief.

Also, no identification, just one car key dangling on a ring. As far as he was concerned, that fit the profile of a pro, and a hardened one at that. Of course there was her phone to take a look at, but first he needed to figure out what to do with her.

He lifted one of her eyelids with his thumb and she groaned. He fetched a coil of rope from a hook on the wall and, using his pocketknife, sliced it into lengths. He tied her hands together in front of her, then her ankles. No need for a gag; there was no one on this hill to hear her except Scio and himself. With a sigh, he unceremoniously flopped her over his shoulder and carried her back into the cabin. He dumped her in a big chair by the fire before stoking the dying embers and tossing on another log. Standing with his back to the comforting warmth, he ignored the pain in his leg and stared at her.

In the quick trip between the barn and the house, she’d collected a few of the predicted snowflakes on her silky hair. They melted as he watched. It had been a long time since he’d been close to a woman. A long time. He’d almost forgotten the yielding softness of a female body, the fragrance of perfumed hair. This woman looked deceptively sweet and innocent. Dark lashes against pale cheeks, lips slightly parted and faintly peach-colored. In another time and place, he would have enjoyed just looking at her.

He turned away abruptly and left the cabin, closing the door behind him. He’d broken a pane of glass in the top of the door to get inside when he chased her. He’d have to repair that before he left Ben’s cabin.

First he veered toward the barn, where he retrieved the camera she’d thrown at him. Then he went into the barn to reassure the horse and reclaim his rifle. As he made his way down the hill, snowflakes gathering on his bare head and shoulders, he reviewed the last several pictures she’d taken—the driveway, the barn and house, Ben’s junk mail, several of him in front of Naughton’s Stop and Shop.

She was after him, all right.

When he dug for the car key he’d confiscated, he came across the photo of his truck, the one he’d found in her pocket when he searched for her gun. It took him a moment to figure out where the picture had been taken. The broken antenna placed it within the last month. He was sitting alone in the cab, staring out the driver’s-side window. He wore an old green hat he’d found in the barn.

He’d worn that hat only once and that had been during a quick trip to Reno to catch a glimpse of Megan. Back around her birthday in early December. His daughter’s smile had warmed his heart for the past several days, but if it meant he’d put her in danger, the cost had been too high and he swore at himself.

He knew why his intruder hadn’t trailed him back from Reno that day. There’d been a terrible road accident right behind him, one involving a semi and two cars. Though he’d sailed away from it, the traffic behind had come to a dead halt.

He wadded up the picture and stuffed it back in his pocket. Life had gotten so damn complicated. In the past, he would have kept running right out of the country if need be. The problem would have gone away because he would have reinvented himself somewhere else. No ties meant mobility.

But now there was Megan to consider.

He finally reached the road. No sign of the car. She must have driven past and parked it up around the bend. His leg was killing him and he swore softly. Why hadn’t she just driven up the damn hill?

A quarter of a mile later, he rounded a turn to find an older white sedan with Nevada license plates. Using her keys, he unlocked the car and slid behind the wheel. The car was registered to someone named Jack Ryder. A hasty search of the glove box revealed a few folded maps. He felt under the seat and came out with a woman’s woven handbag. It held little more than a small zipped wallet. The driver’s license showed his visitor’s face. Her name was Anastasia Ryder. So, was she Jack Ryder’s wife? She had a credit card, a library card and grocery store discount card. No private-eye license. A few receipts fell out of a side pocket. She had purchased new shoes and two different wigs three days before in Reno.

He also found a plastic bag half full of what looked like homemade oatmeal cookies and a key attached to a green oval labeled Shut Eye Inn, rm. 7, the sole motel in town.

Remembering the cell phone he confiscated, he dug it from a pocket, turned it on and scrolled through the outgoing calls. None to a local number. The last one she made was to an area code he didn’t recognize, but that wasn’t surprising. There were hundreds of new area codes now thanks to the proliferation of cell phones. The call had been made an hour before he caught Anastasia Ryder behind Scio’s barn. He pushed the call button. The phone was answered by a recording.

A woman’s voice. Name of Shelby Parker. He didn’t recognize her voice but her name rang a distant bell. No, he couldn’t remember where he’d heard it before. Was she connected to Rocko Klugg?

He flipped the phone closed and rubbed his jaw with cold fingers, trying to figure things out. At least Anastasia hadn’t called the police. And if her appearance was connected to Klugg, it would take hours for his henchmen to get here.

In the end, did it matter who Anastasia Ryder worked for? She carried a gun and a picture of him taken outside his ex-wife’s house. She’d taken photos of everything connected to him. Obviously, someone had employed Ms. Ryder to track him down and she had.

Driving her car, he made a U-turn on the empty road and drove back up his driveway, his leg screaming in protest as he hit every rut in the dirt road. The weather had grown even colder, the road icier. As he neared the top, his tires fell into well-worn grooves. If not for them, he’d skid all over the place. He flipped on the windshield wipers as snow started to fly.

And then he saw it. His truck, aimed right at him, barreling down the hillside, his prisoner at the wheel. He’d left the damn keys on a hook by the door!

For an instant, he met Anastasia Ryder’s green-eyed gaze as he slammed on the brakes, sending pain shooting up his right leg. He yanked the wheel to the left but she kept coming, the truck’s momentum overriding its aging brakes, sending it into a death skid aimed right at him.

The truck hit the car starting at the front right fender and grinding its way down the body, crushing the doors with a horrible metal on metal sound until it imbedded itself into what had once been the trunk. The car stopped abruptly thanks to a tree and that jarring conclusion saved him an uncomfortable trip down the hillside. It also released the air bag and he sank into it instead of slamming against the steering wheel.

Shaking inside, Garrett took inventory. Besides his leg, remarkably, everything else seemed to be in working order. He fought off the air bag, took the keys from the ignition and dumped them in Annie’s purse. After wrenching open his door, he slipped and slid his way around the car.

Ben’s truck was history. Radiator pushed inward, hood buckled, steam hissing, windshield shattered…it wasn’t going anywhere again. Damn, neither was the car. The two locked vehicles made a dandy roadblock.

How did Anastasia Ryder get untied? Stupid question, he knew how. He hadn’t tied her tight enough, he hadn’t wanted to break her soft skin. He hadn’t wanted to yank her arms behind her, he hadn’t wanted to hurt her.

And in payment of this gentle treatment, she crashed his getaway truck.

He pulled open the truck door, dreading what he would find. Anastasia had been thrown or had thrown herself flat onto the bench seat and she sat up slowly, her lovely face splattered with her own blood, hair tumbling across her forehead and down her shoulders. Tiny cubes of safety glass sparkled in her hair like ice crystals.

Her hands were still tied together, a cut rope dangled from the knot around one ankle. She’d apparently used his biggest kitchen knife to cut her feet free and brought it along as a possible weapon. It now stuck straight out from the dashboard, the tip imbedded in vinyl, the plastic handle still vibrating from the impact.

She bit her lip when her gaze followed his and she saw the knife.

“You’re lucky it didn’t imbed itself in something softer. Like your throat,” he said.

She nodded in a dazed kind of fashion.

“Can you move?”

She nodded again and sat perfectly still, blinking.

“I’ll help you,” he said.

More nodding. He brushed some of the glass away then reached inside and pulled on her jacket sleeve and her jeans. She slid closer to the edge of the seat until she slipped into his arms as though she belonged there. She looped her arms over his head and around his neck and for a second, he wondered if she knew how to choke a man with a rope. But instead of trying to strangle him, she looked into his eyes. The cold, miserable day receded, the pain ebbed, the clock stopped ticking.

“Thanks,” she said, lowering her gaze.

“If you’d stayed tied up this wouldn’t have happened,” he grumbled as he carried her away from the hissing, steaming mass of mangled metal. He set her on her feet, anxious to see just how injured she was. She swayed a little but caught herself.

“Can you walk?” he barked.

“Of course,” she said, shaking glass off her clothes, out of her hair. “I’m just a little…rattled,” she added, and proved it by trembling from the feet up.

“Stand here for a second,” he said as he handed her her handbag. “Don’t run away.”

He limped back to the truck and grabbed the rifle before pulling his duffel bag from behind the seat. He didn’t know how he was going to get out of here now that both vehicles were wrecked, but he knew he had to. Soon.

She still stood where he’d left her. What was he going to do with her? He couldn’t leave her here alone, could he? He pulled out his pocket watch and checked the time. The minutes kept ticking by.

As he approached, he saw the return of fear in her eyes. Why she should be afraid of him when it was she who had started this mess?

She believes you blew up Elaine Greason.

He moved a few steps toward the house and looked back at her. “Let’s go inside while I come up with plan B.”

She looked anxiously over his shoulder toward the cabin and back again, her gaze straying past the wreck. It appeared she longed to run down the hill screaming at the top of her lungs.

“The snow is beginning to stick,” he said.

“But—”

“Listen. I know you’re Anastasia Ryder, I know you have a husband named Jack, I know you came to find me and that you called someone named Shelby Parker once you followed me back to Ben’s place. I know all this. I know you’ve been stalking me and I know why. So let’s can the scared female act. Thanks to your little escape attempt, I have to figure out how I’m going to get out of here before the cops come. Or worse.”

As she walked toward him, she shrugged off her coat and shook off more glass. “Call me Annie,” she said.

THE FIRST THING Garrett Skye did was tape a square of thick cardboard over the broken pane in the door and sweep up the glass. He did this work efficiently and without fanfare as Annie stood by, still shaken up and disorientated. The stream of cold the hole had allowed to enter the cabin immediately stopped and along with it, some of Annie’s shivers.

Next, he produced a lethal-looking pocketknife and as Annie shrank away from the blade, cut the rope from around her wrists. As she rubbed the reddened skin, he disappeared into the kitchen, reappearing a few moments later with a small clean towel and a bowl of steaming water. He pointed at a chair and she sat down.

“I don’t have a lot of time but I can’t leave you here like this. I’m going to wipe the blood off your face. While I do that, you’re going to talk. Your last call, made minutes before you hiked up my driveway, was to Shelby Parker. Who exactly is she?”

“You looked at my cell phone.”

“Yes.”

What was the use of lying? She said, “Shelby Parker is Elaine Greason’s daughter.”

“Elaine’s daughter? The one who lives in Arizona?”

“That’s the one. She got tired of waiting for the police to find you.”

“So she hired you?”

Annie tried to look like a force to be reckoned with. “I’m sure she’s called the police by now. They’ll be here any minute.”

“You hope,” he said, dousing the cloth with water and moving it across her forehead. “Sure seems to be taking them a long time, though, doesn’t it?” he added as he wrung out the cloth. The water in the bowl turned pink. Annie’s stomach turned over. She wasn’t good with blood, especially her own.

She cried out as he dabbed at her chin. “There’s a piece of glass in there. Stay put.”

He found tweezers in a cabinet and brought them back to the table, where he deftly removed the glass. “I wonder why the sheriff hasn’t shown up?” he mused again as he tossed the glass chip into the waste basket.

She glanced out the big window in front. Snow. Nothing but snow. No cops running to the rescue.

He leaned back and looked at her. “I’ll tell you why. The sheriff’s office doesn’t know my true identity because you didn’t tell them. The whole town of Poplar Gulch thinks my name is Pete Jordan. They believe I’m a professor friend of Ben Miller’s, using his place to recover from knee surgery. I don’t talk a lot, but I’m friendly, ride Ben’s horse on occasion, and pay my bills with cash.”

“But—”

“Your cuts are minor.” He took the bowl and cloth back to the kitchen and returned with a box of bandages and a tube of ointment which he applied with a cotton-tipped stick. The bandages went on next. One near her temple and another on her left cheek. Two over the gash on her chin.

She looked at his face as he worked. He needed a shave. The dark stubble made him look raw, sexy, male. On second thought, perhaps he didn’t need a shave.

She took a steadying breath but all that accomplished was filling her nostrils with his woodsy scent. She was way too aware of him as a man, considering the fact he was a murderer. She’d read about those women who get all emotionally attached to vicious fiends and spend their life trotting back and forth to prison cells for conjugal visits. No, thanks.

“Why didn’t Parker tell you to contact the police when you found me?” he said. “Why contact her?”

Because that’s the way my dad organized it. She wasn’t going to tell him that. Let this guy think she had connections and experience. And a husband if he wanted. The bigger, the better.

He sat on his heels and directed a flashlight into her eyes. Wasn’t it obvious by now her eyes were fine?

“Don’t blink,” he said. “Anything hurt?”

“No.” She stared into his bottomless brown orbs, intrigued by the swirls of burnt sienna until she blinked rapidly and pushed his hand away. Had she really just sat there meekly and let him attend to her wounds, gazing into his eyes like a goof? Maybe she’d been in shock. If so, she was better now and she wanted a little elbow room. She said, “I’m good. Thanks.”

He switched off the flashlight and stood. Perching on the edge of the table, he said, “If Parker wants her mother’s alleged killer brought to justice, why direct her private eye to call her instead of the cops?”

“Alleged?” she said, sitting forward. “Didn’t you kill Elaine Greason?”

He stared at her. “Does it matter? You don’t care if I’m guilty or innocent, right? Just as long as you collect your money. You can’t be a bounty hunter because I was never bonded. Why don’t you have some kind of license or permit? You were carrying concealed. Is that lawful between Nevada and California?”

She ignored his questions because she didn’t really know what he was talking about. Was there a law against a concerned citizen tracking down a wanted killer? Her intention had never been to confront him.

He frowned at her, narrowing those rich, dark eyes in the process.

He said, “You took that picture of me in the truck when I went to see my daughter.”

She nodded as though she knew this was a fact. In truth, she had no idea when or where her father took the picture. But she did know Skye had left a little girl in Reno. In fact, that knowledge had tipped the scales in her mind when it came to looking for him. She had no patience for men who abandoned their children.

“So you know about Megan. You didn’t mention her to the Parker woman, did you?”

“Why would it matter?” she said. “The cops don’t want your daughter.”

“If it’s the cops she has in mind, no,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“Did you or didn’t you mention Megan on the phone?”

“I don’t remember,” Annie said. Had she?

His gaze turned introspective for a second. Then he took a heavy-looking gold watch from his pocket. He’d looked at the watch in the parking lot of the store. She hadn’t noticed the cover design before, but she did now. The heavy embossing depicted a bridge arcing over a river. He popped it open, checked the time and repocketed the watch.

“Why is it so important?” she asked.

He stood abruptly and walked into the kitchen. His limp was better. When he returned, he carried a length of rope.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” she said, standing. “You are not going to tie me up again. I refuse.”

He spared her a cursory glance. “I’m going to bank the fire,” he said. “It should stay warm until morning. I’d leave you free to move around the cabin, but you’d just follow me.”

“What—”

He picked up the rifle from where it sat against the wall. It had been sitting there when he went to the kitchen and she hadn’t grabbed it and turned it on him. Merciful heavens, she had zero survival instincts. He pointed it at her. “Don’t let my friendly smile fool you, Annie. The last time I escaped I shot a man.”

“Randy Larson.”

“Right. And I liked Randy.” He gestured toward the big heavy chair by the fireplace. “Sit down.”

“And if I don’t?”

“I’ll shoot you.”

“You wouldn’t.”

He strode toward her, any semblance of a smile gone, grim determination settling in his eyes. She scrambled back until she more or less fell into the big chair. For a second she thought of fighting him but abandoned that thought as she caught another glimpse of the rifle. He stooped over her, pinning her to the chair with the sheer volume of his body.

“It’s for your own good,” he said, staring down into her eyes.

“Sure it is,” she said.

Setting the rifle aside, he once again tied a rope around her wrists. The knot wasn’t very tight. Then he knelt and secured her ankles. He used additional knots to secure her to the chair. The effort seemed halfhearted.

He stood when he was finished. “Maybe you should find a new line of work. Something a little less violent.”

“You wish,” she said.

He cracked a smile. Shaking his head, he took the duffel bag into the kitchen. She heard him opening and closing drawers before reappearing. He held a bottle of water.

“It’s too late to untie you and give you something to eat. I’ll help you take a drink.”

“So I’ll have to sit here without a bathroom? Thanks anyway.”

“You’ll get thirsty.”

“I’ll live. I got away once, I can do it again.”

“Suit yourself,” he said as he banked the fire by adjusting the flue and closing the glass door.

Damn. The rest of Shelby Parker’s money was about to saunter down the hill and there wasn’t a thing she could do about it.

Annie mentally apologized to her dead father and his living widow. Sorry about the loan sharks, sorry about being a failure, sorry, sorry, sorry.

Garrett snagged a thick jacket off a hook by the front door and shrugged it on over the leather jacket he still wore. Opening the duffel once again, he dropped in her wallet and cell phone, the camera and her father’s gun.

“Wait a second,” she protested. “Those things are mine.”

“There’s no phone in this cabin. I’ll borrow yours so I can call someone to come get Scio. I didn’t tie you very tight. You should be able to get out of the ropes in an hour or so. All I need is a head start.”

“There’s no need for ropes—”

“Sure there is. You have dollar signs in your eyes. If you’re still tied up in the morning when someone comes to get Scio, try hollering.”

“And the rest?”

“I’m doing you and the world a favor by disarming you.”

“You’re a thief as well as a killer,” she said.

A smile tipped his face from handsome to roguish. He once again knelt by the chair. This time he ran his fingers along her jaw. His touch did something to her, enflamed something inside she’d kept buried. She tried to twist her head away, but couldn’t and it wasn’t because ropes restrained her.

“Goodbye, Anastasia Ryder,” he whispered. His face came close to hers, his warm breath wafted over her skin. The next thing she knew, his lips had connected with hers. For a second she forgot where she was, who he was. Caught up in sensation, she became oblivious to reality.

The man was quite a kisser. Open mouth, warm and wet, gathering her into his passion against her will. Okay, not against her will. A dizzying pulse of sensations went straight to her head, and to her groin.

And then he was standing.

“I suggest you spend the night considering other things you could do with your life,” he said softly, firelight glowing on his skin.

“Because you’ve been so damn successful with yours?”

“Touché.” With a few backward steps he was at the door. He switched on a table lamp. “Do you want me to turn on the radio or the TV?”

“I want you to come over here and untie me, that’s what I want,” she said, struggling against the ropes.

“No can do,” he said, grabbing the rifle again. He opened the door and stepped out into the gathering dark. The door closed quietly behind him.

Watching his retreating form through the big window, she screamed his name as he disappeared into the snow.

Chapter Three

Why hadn’t Shelby Parker called the sheriff? Why wasn’t the place surrounded by floodlights and barking dogs and a SWAT team?

Thirty minutes of struggling accomplished nothing but rope burns. After forty-five minutes, not only had night stolen over the hillside and flooded the house with shadows but Annie’s wrists had finally slipped free of the ropes.

She quickly untied her ankles and, standing, began walking around the room trying to get the feeling back in her feet.

Despite the cold, dark night and the possibility of wildlife, she planned to walk down to the main road and hitch a ride to the sheriff’s station, where she would tell anyone who would listen about Garrett Skye. They could put out an APB. He’d be in jail by morning. He could try sweet-talking the deputies. Try kissing one of them. See how far it got him.

And then she was going to call Shelby Parker and demand the rest of her father’s money. After all, Skye’s location had been verified. It wasn’t her fault he got away.

Okay, it was her fault.

After that, she was going back to her quiet life and the little kids and polite parents who made up ninety-nine percent of the people she came into contact with. And judging from the flood of sexual energy Garrett Skye’s kiss had provoked, it was also time to find a new boyfriend.

Trouble was, she wasn’t good with men. Two boyfriends before, she’d had a fling with a divorced man who, as it turned out, wasn’t actually divorced, a revelation that had left her spoiled for men for a good year. The last boyfriend had had a gambling addiction he hid very well until Annie discovered him using her ATM card without permission.

And now an attraction to a felon. What was wrong with her?

What she needed to find was a nice man, not a dangerous one. Not a man who blew up women, not a man whose destiny seemed to be on a collision course with a life sentence in Nevada State Prison.

After a fruitless search for something sugary to eat, she settled on cold leftover spaghetti and meatballs out of Skye’s refrigerator. Then she searched the cabin for a warm coat. Hers was outside and covered with glass. As a bonus, she also found insulated gloves that almost fit. She took another big knife out of the kitchen drawer. Maybe there were coyotes out there. Maybe even more dangerous beasts roamed the hillside, the two-legged variety.

One more search to find a flashlight and new batteries, strap her small purse across her chest under her coat and she was ready to go. She opened the door. Cold wind slapped her in the face. Looking out at the two inches of new snow covering the rocky, unpredictable hillside and her determination drained. Her flashlight and warm coat were no match for that miserable driveway. She’d have to think of something else.

The horse. She’d take Scio. This time she’d have time to saddle him properly and talk to him in a soothing voice. He wouldn’t be afraid of her this time.

It had stopped snowing but only the faintest of moonlight made its way through the heavy cloud cover. Picking her way carefully, she made her way to the barn.

Scio wasn’t in his stall. He wasn’t in any of the stalls. Apparently, Garrett had taken him, which meant he wasn’t going to call someone to come get the horse. What if she hadn’t been able to get out of the ropes? How long would she have had to stay tied to that chair before someone came looking for her?

Another thought, even more uncomfortable. Why did it come as a surprise that Garrett Skye was untrustworthy? What in the world had she expected from a man like him?

She’d barely had a moment to consider her next move when she heard the sound of a motor. She ran to the barn door in time to see headlights sweep the tops of the trees.

At last! Shelby Parker must have finally retrieved her voice mail and called the sheriff. A car stopped on the other side of the wrecked vehicles still plugging the top of the driveway. Though giddy with relief, Annie waited for a moment to see who emerged from around the wreck. She wasn’t about to get herself into another out-of-the-frying-pan-into-the-fire scenario.

Car doors closed. The silhouette of two men backlit by headlights circled the wreck and met again on Annie’s side. She lifted a foot to step outside the barn.

And then one of them spoke. It wasn’t his words that halted her forward progress, it was the hushed, guttural sound of his voice.

“Looks like Skye had an accident.”

“Maybe he already bought the farm.”

A flashlight briefly flicked over the wreckage and then went out. “I don’t see a body, but the car has Nevada plates. I wonder where Ryder’s daughter is?”

“She’s no match for Skye,” the other said. “By now she’s probably dead and buried under a bush.”

Both of them chuckled.

Annie’s feet froze to the ground. Their chuckles were dry and sarcastic and cut through her like a polar wind. Plus, they knew about her. That meant they knew Shelby Parker, as Annie had told no one else she was coming here. But why weren’t they also looking for her dad? She’d tried to make her message sound like he was with her.

“Go around back, I’ll take the front,” one of the men said. “Remember, don’t shoot to kill, we want Skye alive.”

“What if the girl shows up?”

“If she gets in the way—”

Annie’s feet did an instant thaw as she shrank back inside the barn. Those men were not with the sheriff’s department. What in the world was going on?

She watched from her hidden position as one man slunk past her, stray shafts of moonlight clearly revealing the gun held down by his leg. Unsure what to do next, she all but stopped breathing.

Should she risk leaving the barn?

She couldn’t bring herself to step out into the open so she moved farther into the barn instead. All bravado abandoned her. What she wanted to do was find a dark corner and hunker down like a scared child. She should try to make a run for it. But the night sky was fickle, overcast one minute, moonlit the next. She kept seeing that gun and could almost feel the burning trail of a bullet piercing her spine, the sudden lack of feeling in her legs….

Thank heavens she wasn’t still tied up in the house.

She moved deeper inside until she backed into a ladder and then she climbed. The ladder emptied into the loft with an open hay door through which moonlight shone. The loft was full of straw and what looked like old tarps. She knew she couldn’t use the flashlight. Was the straw deep enough to burrow into? Wait, she had a kitchen knife. She could stab someone.

Before the other one shot her dead?

Caught in an agony of indecision, she approached the hay door, able to see only the night sky from her vantage point. The scene outside looked so peaceful. The moon high, clouds drifting in front of it, snow glittering on the tops of tree boughs.

There was a part of her that felt sure she could explain herself to those two men and hitch a ride out of here once they found Garrett had already left. There was a part of her that wanted this interminable day to be over, that couldn’t quite believe these men were the murderers they sounded like.

They move as though they’ve slithered through the dark a hundred times before. Use your head, Annie.

The voices, when they came again, sounded even closer. She moved toward the edge of the hay door in able to scan the ground. One of the men stood in the open doorway of the cabin, the other stood on the front porch. The cabin light illuminated them both. One was a huge, bald brute, the other shorter with straight dark hair and a twist to his mouth that seemed more sneer than smile. They both wore overcoats and polished shoes and looked as though they’d just stepped off a city sidewalk.

“He’s not in here,” the bald man said from the cabin door.

“He hasn’t been gone long, though. The fire’s still burning in the stove.”

A moment of silence, followed by, “Torch the house. That should cover our bases. I’ll check the barn.”

Annie ran to the ladder. She had to escape the barn right now. If they planned to burn down the house, the barn might be next. Her foot had touched the second rung when she heard one of them holler, “Skye? If you’re in there come on out. There’s no use hiding.” He stepped inside the barn, gun held out in front.

Had he heard her? She stood perfectly still, hoping the shadows hid her foot on the ladder.

“He’s not in the barn,” the man said, his voice softer as though he had turned away to speak.

The other thug moved into view. Thanks to the flaming piece of wood he held in one hand, Annie could see the top of his dark head through the open spaces on the ladder. Apparently he’d taken care of his arson job and brought the means to start another fire. As they continued talking, Annie slowly raised her bottom foot and shifted her weight on the ladder.

And once again fought the desire to announce herself and take her chances.

“Looks like he got away.”

“Burn this place down, too. It’s unlikely he left it, but you never know. Time we start back to Reno.”

“Without Skye? And what about the girl? There’ll be trouble—”

“We’ll stake out the Reno place tomorrow. We’d better get out of here before someone calls the fire department.”

Annie glanced to the hay door which now glowed with light given off by the flaming house next door. She glanced back at the men who both turned and walked out of the barn, one of them still carrying the makeshift torch. Maybe the plan was to let the house fire catch the barn. At the last moment, the flaming wood came sailing back into the barn where it landed against the new bales of hay Garrett had bought that morning. The bales instantly caught fire. Annie raced across the loft.

The men had stopped to look at the car/truck wreck at the top of the drive and she caught herself just in time at the hay door. “Go away,” she muttered, willing them with her desperation to get in their car and drive off before the fire caught the straw in the loft.

And as if hearing her, they threw one last look toward the cabin and barn, then circled the wreck and got in their car. Annie barely heard the slam of doors and the revving of the engine over the increasingly loud roar of the fire.

She raced back to the ladder to find it engulfed. She’d have to jump which would mean a broken leg. Could she crawl to safety with a broken leg? No. She couldn’t jump twenty feet. She needed a rope. She could shimmy down a rope. She had gloves to protect her hands. She began tossing hay, looking for a piece of rope while knowing it was unlikely one would be hidden under loose hay or old tarps. She’d lost the knife somewhere.

Smoke rose in the barn faster than the flames and she doubled over, coughing.

“Annie!”

She straightened up, listening.

The voice came again, louder this time. “Annie! Where are you?”

She ran across the loft to the hay door, shielding her face with her arm. “Up here!” she yelled. Was that Garrett’s voice? But he’d been gone so long….

“I see you,” he yelled.

Annie peered through the smoke. She finally made out a big bay horse and the man astride it. Her heart rate quadrupled as adrenaline pumped through her body.

“Jump,” Garrett called.

Jump? What, like the Lone Ranger from the top of a giant rock onto the willing back of his noble steed, Silver?

What’s your option? Jump now as a human being, wait another moment and jump as a shish kebab.

“Here I come,” she screamed, and taking a few steps back, dashed for the hay door and sailed into the night like a kid plunging into a cool lake on the hottest day of summer.

KEEPING SCIO CLOSE to the burning barn took all Garrett’s concentration. The horse was terrified of the flames and smoke and who could blame him?

Where was Annie? Why didn’t she jump?

He heard her yell something and looked up in time to see her flying through the night air, almost in slow motion, until she landed in his arms and Scio, as though sensing it was okay now to do what common sense had been urging him to do from the beginning, took off down the hill.

It was tense going for a few moments as the horse gave in to his panic, the woman slipped forward on the horse’s neck and Garrett fought to keep one hand on her and the other on the reins. It was dark down among the trees and the footing was uneven. He couldn’t see where they were going and was left to trust the horse’s ability to avoid trees and ditches.

They reached the bottom of the hill in record time. As the land flattened out, the horse began to slow down. Eventually, Garrett was able to pull Annie closer to his chest and wrap an arm around her waist. The awful feeling she was about to slip from his grasp to be trampled underfoot lessened. She held on to the saddle horn, though he saw during flashes of moonlight that she’d also grabbed a healthy handful of Scio’s mane and twisted it through her fingers.

He regained control of the horse before the highway. As the sound of thundering hoofbeats retreated, another noise filled the night air: sirens, in the distance, on their way. He looked through the trees, straining for a glimpse of the top of the mountain. A few feet farther on, they’d cleared all the trees and he was able to reign Scio in. They both turned in the saddle to look back.

The burning house and barn crowned the hill as Ben Miller’s cabin and barn went up in smoke. An explosion followed by high flames announced the fire had spread to the car and the truck. The only thing to be thankful for was that rescue equipment was on the way and the fire wouldn’t engulf the whole hill.

He heard Annie groan. “Are you okay?”

She turned even farther until they were nose to nose. All he could see was the twinkle of ambient light reflected in her eyes. She smelled strongly of smoke.

“Am I okay?” she repeated. “I am so not okay it’s not funny.” And with that she turned back around and started coughing.

Once she’d stopped, he said, “What happened back there?”

“A couple of guys came to see you. They were annoyed you weren’t home so they burned down your house.”

“Shelby Parker’s men?”

“I think so. They knew about me.”

“The police—”

“Trust me, they didn’t call the police.”

He got off the horse, caught Annie as she slid to the ground, got back in the saddle and, lowering a hand, grabbed her arm and helped her swing up behind him. She tucked her hips as close to his as possible and wrapped her arms around him. As they continued on, her head rested against his back though her grip on his torso never loosened.

Scio’s hot breath created a cloud of vapor in the moonlight as his hoofs cracked through the icy snow. Garrett admitted to himself it felt good to have Annie plastered against his back. Too good. To ward off increasingly erotic thoughts, he concentrated on what he should do next.

The first thing was easy—get as far away from the hill as possible. But the horse had had a traumatic time of it and was now carrying two adults. Garrett didn’t dare ask Scio to do more than amble along.

Keeping off the road, they rode for another mile. As they were riding away from town, the sounds of sirens grew fainter. Garrett could think of only one place to go and that was Joanna’s. He could leave Scio with her and from there, Annie Ryder could call her husband for a ride back to Reno.

And he could disappear.

Never to see Megan again? He couldn’t bear to think about his little girl so he put her out of his mind.

Other than a few strings of twinkling Christmas lights around the windows, Joanna’s house was dark. The barn was dimly lit, however. He paused by the big bell she kept on a post outside her house and rang it. When no answering lights went on in the house, he gathered she was gone for the evening and allowed Scio to head for the barn.

Joanna’s horses greeted them with whinnies and curious tosses of their heads as they peered out of their stalls. Garrett rode to the center unsaddling area. He helped Annie dismount before getting off the horse himself. Annie stood right next to him for a moment, knees shaking, though whether it was from riding, fear or injury, he didn’t know.

“Are you hurt?” he asked her, thinking he needed to turn on brighter lights and make sure she wasn’t bleeding anywhere.

She looked up at him, eyes blazing, bandages still stuck to her sooty face in a trio of places. He expected a slap or a tirade or something equally hostile. Instead, she stood on her tiptoes, put both arms around his neck and pulled his head down closer to hers.

“Thank you for coming back for me. You saved my life,” she said, and with that, planted her lips on his. The wild kiss that followed chased away the fire and the night.

She was soft, she was feminine, she was small and she was fierce. When her tongue touched his, his hands slipped down to cup her rear. He almost lifted her off her feet.

Maybe it was what they’d been through together that day, maybe it was the odd circumstances of their getaway, maybe it was the fear of loss and the joy of not being dead. Whatever it was, he was ready to make good on that kiss and tote her off into the hay. Except…

He clasped both her wrists and pulled away. “Wait a second,” he said. “You’re married.”

“That didn’t seem to faze you earlier tonight,” she said with a few warm kisses against his throat.

“Earlier tonight I was never going to see you again.”

“I’m not married,” she said.

“But the car is registered to Jack Ryder.”

“My father. Recently deceased.”

“I’m sorry.”

She said, “You shouldn’t be. If he hadn’t died, you’d be riding back to Reno with two thugs, names unknown.”

He had no idea what her remark meant, but the wistful smile following it piqued his interest. He’d known she was pretty from the moment the bad wig slipped off her head, but standing here in the half light, her coppery hair shimmering, cheeks flushed, peachy lips curved just the tiniest bit, she looked breathtaking. Despite the smoke. Despite the bandages.

Once again he considered his options.

“Who’s Joanna?” she said.

“I need to hear about the thugs,” he answered, returning to the business at hand. There was no time for impulsive lovemaking with a stranger hired to get him. What was he thinking?

“Why did you come back for me?”

That question was a hard one to answer and best delayed. He said, “Joanna owns this place. She boards Scio for Ben Miller during the winter. Speaking of Scio, he’s had a hard night.”

“So have I,” she said, stepping back.

He released his grip on her delicate wrists.

“Why did you come back?” she asked again, head tilted, hair falling softly around her heart-shaped face, eyes inquisitive.

He thought for a moment, then walked away.

Chapter Four

“You said there were two thugs,” Garrett said an hour later.

They’d taken his duffel into the tack room and hunkered down to talk. They had a few granola bars, bottled water, a couple of apples he’d packed at the cabin, plus her cell phone, camera and her dad’s gun.

They’d rubbed down Scio after his walk. The big bay gelding, now locked into a stall, munched on hay, a blanket secured on his back. He looked cleaner, drier, and better fed than either one of them.

Annie stretched out her legs and took a bite of a Golden Delicious. Though the stall was plush by barn standards, it was still drafty and cold. What she wouldn’t give for a shower and realized with a start that she still had a room at the motel in Poplar Gulch. That meant clean clothes!

“Annie?”

“Sorry. Okay, two men drove up. They cracked a few jokes about the wreck at the top of the driveway then went looking for you. They said you’d probably killed me and buried me on the hill. And then they laughed.” It still made her tremble deep inside.

“What did they look like?”

Annie described them: one bald, one a smiling man with a single eyebrow.

“Sounds like they were distinctive,” Garrett said. “Do you know them?”

“No. Did they know about you? Did they know your name?”

“Yes.”

“Did anyone besides Shelby Parker know you intended to come to Ben Miller’s cabin?”

“Nope, and that means they know Shelby Parker, right? That means Shelby sent them instead of the police. Why?”

“I don’t know. I expected Klugg to try something like this, but what does Shelby Parker want with me?”

“Well, you did kill her mother.”

As soon as the words left her lips, Annie had one reaction followed by another. The first was a jolt of pure panic: she was munching on an apple while in the company of a killer.

The second reaction was just as strong. No, she wasn’t. This man wasn’t a killer, at least not in the cold-blooded way Annie suspected the two gangster-types who had burned down Ben Miller’s cabin might be.

“I didn’t kill her mother,” he said. “But I guess Shelby doesn’t know that. What I mean is why doesn’t she want me brought to justice? Why would she want me brought to her? To kill me herself? Isn’t that a little far-fetched? And wouldn’t she be concerned about your safety?”

“Beats me. Maybe someone tapped Shelby’s phone, maybe they heard she hired my father and were waiting to get a message that he’d found you.”

“I wouldn’t put anything past Klugg.”

“But they never mentioned the name Klugg, you know.”

He rubbed his temples.

“Who is this guy, anyway?”

“Klugg?” He finished off a granola bar, and brushed the crumbs from his fingers. “He used to be a boxer. He owns a string of health clubs now as well as a few gyms where people train. When two of his associates ended up dead, he was charged with hiring a hit man. Elaine was his attorney. He blamed her when he got a guilty conviction. First he fired her and then he started making threats.”

“What kind of threats?”

“The kind that make a person scared to go out in the dark. Someone followed her home one night, ramming her bumper, turning off their headlights and then there was a delivery of dead roses—stuff like that.”

“But you said Klugg was in jail.”

“Trust me, a guy like Klugg maintains connections on the outside. All he has to do is give orders.”

“Why would anyone think you’d kill Elaine Greason? What motive would you have had?”

He was silent for a moment, then took a deep breath. “I went to see Klugg in prison.”

“Then you know him?” She couldn’t keep the shock out of her voice.

“No, I don’t know him. What happened was this—he demanded a visit from Elaine. She didn’t want anything more to do with him. I was supposed to tell Klugg to leave Elaine alone or she’d get a court order. I delivered the message. The man stared at me like I was a piece of dead meat. The cops decided that meeting was when Klugg hired me to take care of Elaine for him.”

“Then the motive they settled on was—”

“Money. I heard they found an envelope of unexplained cash in my apartment after I left. It appeared I had motive, opportunity and the know-how because I worked briefly with munitions in the army. I was like the poster boy for this murder. Add to that the fact I got into a gunfight with Randy Larson when he tried to detain me, and it doesn’t look so good.”

“No,” she said, “it doesn’t. If you didn’t kill Elaine Greason and Klugg did then he’s going to want your mouth permanently closed.”

“Exactly,” he said.

For Annie, the euphoria of escaping the fire was being quickly replaced by anxiety. What was she doing in a world of murder and arson and assassins? She was a preschool teacher!

She thought back to hiding in the barn, to lurking in the hay loft, and suppressed a shudder.

“Tell me what else those men said.”

“It sounded as though they were ready to shoot me if they saw me.”

“I’m sorry I left you tied up,” he said. “It’s a good thing you’re such a pro at getting free.”

“Why would Shelby agree to that? What have I ever done to her?” Besides lie about my father’s condition, Annie added to herself. But no one was supposed to know about that.

“You’re apparently the only one who knows she’s out to get rid of me,” Garrett said. “But again, if Klugg is intercepting her messages, she may not even have gotten the one you left. It might have gone directly to him. When you met with her, did she say anything to suggest she wasn’t acting alone?”

Since Annie had never actually spoken with the woman, she shook her head. She got up and walked over to Scio, offering him the rest of her apple, glad to be out from under Garrett’s scrutiny for a second.

The big horse daintily sniffed the apple before nibbling from it with huge teeth. Annie handed it over, glad to escape with all her fingers.

“Did those goons say what they were going to do next?” Garrett said.

She turned to face him, standing with her back to Scio’s stall. She tried hard not to think about the many times she’d avoided death that night, but the harrowing memories were stacking up like planes over a busy airport. “When they decided to burn the house and barn,” she said, “I got the feeling it was to get rid of something. Not someone, something. Oh, and they said they would try the Reno place tomorrow. They said they would stake it out.”

Garrett grew very still. “The Reno place?”

“What does it mean?” she asked, stepping closer.

“The only place I had in Reno was an apartment at the back of Greason’s property. Even if it was still mine, they wouldn’t go there.”

“But it’s not yours anymore?”

“Of course not. A man doesn’t pay the rent for a man he believes blew up his loving wife.”

“I guess not.”

“Plus, he saw me shoot poor Randy. Trust me, Greason isn’t losing sleep worrying about keeping a roof over my head. And if two goons show up and he figures they’re in any way connected to his wife’s murder, he’ll have the cops there so fast…”

“How about your daughter? She lives in Reno.”

“But they don’t know her name. My ex took her maiden name back and I didn’t advertise Megan’s existence.”

“Did you tell Elaine or her husband about Megan? Might they have mentioned her to Elaine’s daughter?”

“They both knew about Megan, of course. I doubt I ever mentioned her last name, though.”

“Maybe I mentioned Megan on that damn phone message to Shelby Parker and if it’s true they’re intercepting her messages—”

“But you said you didn’t.”

“I said I couldn’t remember,” she corrected.

“Think, Annie.”

Events had been racing along at such a pace that Annie hadn’t really concentrated on what she’d told Shelby Parker before this. She bit her lip and took a few steps back and forth. “I told Ms. Parker you were in Poplar Gulch. I mentioned the name Ben Miller because I’d seen it on the mailbox and remembered it from your file.”

“My file?”

“Well—”

“Never mind, that’s how the thugs knew where to come look for me. Did you tell Parker how you happened to know about Poplar Gulch in the first place? About the picture of me in Ben’s truck taken outside my ex-wife’s house?”

Annie stopped pacing as her heart dropped to her feet. She faced Garrett. “Oh, my gosh, I did say just about exactly that. But I didn’t say her name.”

“Still, they know I have a daughter and an ex-wife.”

“If I’ve hurt your little girl because I was too stupid to remember this before, I’ll never forgive myself. I’m so sorry—”

Garrett reached for the cell phone. As he waited for it to power up, indecision stole over his face.

“What is it?” Annie asked, sitting down beside him again.

“I don’t know who to call.” He took out his pocket watch and checked the time. “It’s almost midnight.”

“I forgot your ex-wife is a dancer at one of the casinos. She’ll be at work.”

He looked up with alarm. “What else do you know about me?”

“Mother dead, father and brother in Oregon, infant nephew—”

“What? Infant nephew? Brady has a kid?”

“Named Nathan. And a wife. Former name Lara Kirk.”

“Lara Kirk? As in the Riverport Kirk family?”

“I don’t know about that.”

“I wonder what else I missed.”

“Call Megan’s grandmother,” Annie said.

“You know about my ex-wife’s mother, too?”

“She’s a semi-invalid and watches Megan while your ex goes to work. Call her.”

“If I told her to take Megan away from Reno right now, she’d hang up on me.”

“Then call the police.”

“And tell them what?” He ran a hand through his thick, dark hair. “I’m a wanted man,” he said softly. “If Megan disappears into the system I’ll never get her back. But I can’t go to Reno—”

“Why not?”

“It might lead them to her.”

“But she needs you. I mean, apart from the fact she hasn’t seen you in months and to a little kid that’s a lifetime, there may be two really awful men on their way to her house. She needs you to protect her.”

He stared at the phone without answering.

Annie got to her feet. “What are you waiting for?”

“Listen here—”

“Are you going to leave your little girl to fend for herself until you get your life all straightened out?”

He glared at her a few more moments before saying, “If I don’t show up, Megan will be okay. The thugs will decide I’ve skipped and leave her alone. Once I show up, she’ll be in horrible danger. Just like you were tonight.”

“You’re walking away from your own daughter.”

“I don’t have a choice. It’s why I left Reno in the first place. Megan is safer without me hanging around. They may not even know she’s living under her mother’s name.”

“But they might. If my—if I can figure it out, so can they. How can you say she’s safer without her father? How can you be so selfish?”

She suddenly noticed he was standing, too. He took a step toward her, eyes murderous. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, I do,” she all but growled, her voice growing distressingly thick with emotion as her own past reared its ugly head in her mind. She took a deep breath. “I absolutely do know what I’m talking about. A little girl needs her father, no matter what. This isn’t just about you, it’s about her, too. Her mother stays out most nights and her grandmother resents babysitting and lives on painkillers, and her father is hiding—”

“How do you know all this? No, don’t tell me. You must be better at your job than I gave you credit for.”

“Megan needs you and you’re running away. Again.”

He stomped off a few feet toward Scio’s stall and stood staring at the horse, hands shoved in his coat pockets. Annie picked up the phone he’d left sitting on the hay. Maybe she could call a taxi to come get her. She’d have to wait until her fingers stopped trembling.

Garrett returned. He scooped up his duffel bag, took out a pencil and a piece of paper and started writing.

“What are you doing?”

He said, “Making a note for Joanna. Explaining there was a fire at Ben’s place, telling her I’m leaving. She boards Ben’s horse during the winter. I only had him for a few weeks.”

“Where are you going?” she asked as she saw him sign the name Pete Jordan to the note.

“To Reno.”

“How?”

“I’ll borrow Joanna’s hay truck. She keeps an extra key in a grain bag.” He scribbled something about taking the truck on the bottom of the note before sticking it through a nail located next to Scio’s stall.

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