“HELP ME.”

When she opens her door to a wounded, handcuffed stranger, Laney Jefferson is terrified…until she recognizes her unexpected visitor. Thirteen years ago, Logan Randal was there for her when she desperately needed a friend. Now the wrongfully convicted lawman needs the widow’s help. On the run from the law and guided only by Laney’s unswerving faith in Logan’s innocence, their mutual attraction begins to break down the barriers around Laney’s heart. But the real culprit is much closer than they imagine…a cunning enemy determined to keep the past—and the truth—buried forever.

Heroes for Hire: Seeking the truth—at any cost

“It’s as easy as you want it to be, Laney.”

Logan stood behind her, looking out over the pastures and orchards that made up the farm. All of it overgrown and snow-covered now, but he remembered the years that he and Laney had worked the fields together, given tours of the orchards, pretended that the beauty on the outside of the house matched what was inside.

He’d done it for her.

There’d been so many times when he’d thought about running, but he’d stuck it out because he couldn’t imagine leaving Laney.

Now, leaving her was all he could think about.

“I’d like to borrow one of your dad’s old cars. Is that okay with you?”

“Do you think any of them will be working after all this time?” She turned, her arm brushing his.

He stepped away, his pulse racing.

No way would he let himself think about what that meant.

Not when there was so much riding on his ability to walk away.

SHIRLEE McCOY

has always loved making up stories. As a child, she daydreamed elaborate tales in which she was the heroine—gutsy, strong and invincible. Though she soon grew out of her superhero fantasies, her love for storytelling never diminished. She knew early that she wanted to write inspirational fiction, and she began writing her first novel when she was a teenager. Still, it wasn’t until her third son was born that she truly began pursuing her dream of being published. Three years later, she sold her first book. Now a busy mother of five, Shirlee is a homeschooling mom by day and an inspirational author by night. She and her husband and children live in the Pacific Northwest and share their house with a dog, two cats and a bird. You can visit her website, www.shirleemccoy.com, or email her at shirlee@shirleemccoy.com.

Fugitive

Shirlee McCoy

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous fall.

—Psalms 55:22

In loving memory of Joanna Trigsted. Even the shortest of lives can make an impact on the world. You are proof of that. Dance on, little one!

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

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

EPILOGUE

DEAR READER

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

ONE

Just another step.

That’s all he had to take.

Another step. And another.

Wind howling.

Blood dripping on fresh white snow.

Fire behind. Darkness ahead. Only one way to go. Up.

Deputy Sheriff Logan Randal pushed through winter-dry foliage, moving as quickly as his handcuffed wrists would allow. Fifteen minutes and rescue units would be at the wreck. A little longer, and the state police would know he was missing.

Missing and presumed responsible.

For the wreck.

For the officer lying dead in the culvert where Logan had dragged him before he’d realized it was too late to help. And for Officer Camden Walker, who lay bleeding beside him, unconscious and shivering beneath the jacket Logan had wrangled off Camden’s deceased partner. If not for Walker, Logan would still be locked in the back of the burning police cruiser. Everything in him demanded that he go back and wait with the injured man until help arrived.

But, going back meant death. For Walker and for Logan.

A bullet slammed into the snow beside him, bits of earth and ice splattering his face. He ducked behind a towering pine, then kept moving through deep forest and blowing snow, praying the gunman’s aim would prove as terrible now as it had been when Logan exited the cruiser.

His foot caught on a snow-covered root, and he fell, hot white pain shooting through his head, blood still dripping from a gash on his temple. An inch closer, and the bullet that had grazed his head would have bored into his brain.

He’d be dead.

Get up. Keep moving away from the wreck. Give Walker a chance. Give yourself a chance.

The words chanted through his mind, a mantra that brought him to his feet, his orange prison jumpsuit too bright against the dark shadows of the woods and the whiteness of the snow.

Sirens screamed, the sound growing closer with every heartbeat, every breath.

Please, God, let them be close enough to chase the gunman away from Walker.

He didn’t need another life on his head, didn’t need someone else’s blood on his hands. Didn’t need anything but a chance to prove he was innocent. Not just of arranging the ambush that had freed him from prison, but of the crime a jury of eight had just convicted him of.

A half a million dollars’ worth of heroin missing from the evidence room. A hundred thousand dollars in an offshore bank account in Logan’s name. A paper trail of evidence that led straight to him.

Someone had worked hard to frame Logan for the crime.

Whoever it was had succeeded.

Apparently, that same person now wanted him dead.

But that wasn’t going to happen. No way did Logan plan to die a felon and a murderer. No doubt that was exactly what his enemy wanted. If he was caught by the police, he’d be tried for the murder of the fallen officer. If he was caught by the men in the SUV who’d run the cruiser off the road, he’d probably be killed and left to rot where no one would ever find him.

A lose-lose situation.

He had to escape. Had to prove his innocence. Had to get back the life he’d worked so hard for.

He shoved through snow-covered foliage, ducking under pine boughs, aiming up the mountain. The wind whipped through his jumpsuit, snow blasting against his face.

Sirens pierced the air, their endless shriek joining the wild howl of the wind. A fifteen-minute head start wasn’t much, but it was something, and in this weather, it might just be enough.

He struggled up the steeply inclined ridge, snow falling heavier and harder, the swirling white making him dizzy. Blood loss making him dizzier.

He looked back, saw a speck of orange fire in a gray world, flashes of red and blue reflecting on pure white ground. He was making progress, but to where? Miles of wilderness could hide him. It could also kill him.

He glanced around, searching for signs of civilization. He knew the area well, but that didn’t mean he could find his way to safety. This part of eastern Washington was sparsely populated, the mountains dotted with hunting cabins. If he could find a hunting trail, make his way to a cabin, he’d live through the night. If he couldn’t...

He refused the thought and kept slogging toward the top of the ridge, breath panting, body shaking with cold. The sirens faded, the wind’s howl the only sound in the deepening storm.

The handcuffs weighed him down, the freezing metal only adding to the cold bite of the wind. He was shivering convulsively, and he knew what that meant. He had to get to shelter, and he had to do it fast.

His feet were frozen logs, catching on every hidden rock and jutting root. He caught himself once, twice, fell the third time, going down hard. Winded, he lay where he’d fallen, the snow more comfortable than it should have been, the cold not so cold anymore.

He forced himself up, disoriented, not sure which direction he’d been heading or where he’d come from. Trees to the left, the right, up ahead...

He squinted, sure he saw a glimmer of light through the trees, distant but beckoning.

God, please let it be more than a hallucination.

He moved toward it, the trees blocking, then revealing, then blocking his view again.

Still there.

All he had to do was keep walking.

* * *

Gusting wind rattled the cabin’s windows and howled beneath its eves, the sounds shivering along Laney Jefferson’s spine as she bent over the cold hearth and built a fire. Outside, fat snowflakes fell from the purple-blue sky and lay thick on the roof of the Jeep. It was stupid to have made this trip in the dead of winter, but putting it off wouldn’t have made it any more appealing. Besides, Valentine’s Day was just a week away, and she’d rather spend it cleaning out her parents’ house than spend it alone in Seattle.

Stopping at William’s cabin on the way to Green Bluff had made sense when she’d been planning the trip to her childhood home. Clean out the cabin, clean out her parents’ house, clean out the cobwebs of the past that seemed to be keeping her from moving into the future. She’d been praying about the trip since she’d gotten the letter from her father’s attorney saying that she’d inherited Mackey Manor and the hundred acres of farmland that went with it.

She’d wanted to turn her back on the legacy, wanted to go on pretending that her life had started the day she’d left Green Bluff and run to Seattle, but she’d had no peace about it.

She’d spent three months planning and plotting and trying to convince herself that she should return to the place she despised. Those months had made her realize just how easily she’d shoved aside her childhood and how tightly she’d been holding on to the dreams she’d built with William. Dreams that had died with him.

Move on.

That had become her mantra.

So, it had made perfect sense to take a two-week vacation in the middle of February, make the trip back across Washington, tying up the loose ends of her life as she went.

She wasn’t sure how much sense it made now that the storm of the century was blowing through the eastern part of the state.

She shoved paper under the fire log she’d brought from home, struck a match and tossed it in. If William had been around, he’d have taken care of that. He’d also have braved the wind and snow to grab logs from the back porch. He wasn’t, so Laney went herself, pulling her hood over her hair and walking out the back door. Frigid wind cut through her coat and chilled her to the bone as she lifted an armful of wood from the neat pile that William had left on the covered back porch the last time they’d been there.

Two and a half years ago.

Had it really been that long?

They’d been married less time than that. Just eighteen months, and she’d thought they would have forever. Instead, she’d been without William for longer than she’d been with him.

She walked back inside, the wind slamming the door closed behind her. She ignored it as she chose the driest log and set it on top of the burning kindling. It was easy enough to make a fire. She’d learned the skill years ago, but doing this herself, here where she and William had once bent close and worked together, it hurt more than she’d expected it to.

She nudged the log deeper into the fire. Sparks flew, wood crackled and something banged against the back door.

She jumped, whirling to face the door and whatever was outside it.

The wind.

It had to be.

But her racing pulse said different. So did the hair standing up on the back of her neck.

Bang!

The door shuddered, the weight of whatever was out there seeming to press in, demanding entry.

She grabbed the fireplace poker and walked to the door. “Who’s there?”

No one answered.

She hadn’t really expected anyone to because she couldn’t imagine that anyone was wandering through the mountains during a winter storm. A tree branch must have flown into the door.

Two tree branches?

The wind was certainly blowing hard enough to tear off pieces of old pine trees, and there were plenty of those around the cabin.

She opened the door, determined to prove it to herself.

A shadow lurched through the doorway, white and gray and strangely dead looking. She screamed, and screamed again as the figure stumbled into her, knocking her to the ground.

Breathless, she twisted, fighting against deadweight and icy cold, then realizing suddenly that she was fighting herself. That her attacker was limp and heavy and motionless. She shoved him sideways and scrambled out from beneath him, her breath panting.

The poker! Where was it?

She snatched it from the ground, backing away, her heart pounding wildly in her ears.

Go! Now! Before he gets up!

She reached blindly, grabbing her purse from the hook near the front door, snatching her coat from the rocking chair and never taking her eyes off the motionless man.

The dead man?

Snow blew across his prone body, the back door banging against his legs and feet as the wind tried to push it shut. No response from him. Not even a twitch. Facedown, features hidden, everything about him still and silent.

She took a step closer, afraid he was dead.

Dark hair. Orange jumpsuit that looked crisp and frozen rather than wet. It had to be prison issue, which meant he had to be a prisoner. An escaped one. The state prison was twenty miles away. Had he walked that far?

Did it matter?

She needed to get out before he got up. Run before he recovered enough to take a hostage.

She turned her back to him, her hands shaking as she unlocked the front door. She’d head down the mountain, find a spot where she could get a cell phone signal and call the police.

“Help me.”

Two words. Raw and hot and rasping.

She wanted to ignore them.

She couldn’t.

She pressed her back to the door and kept her hand on the knob. “I’ll call for help as soon as I get far enough down the mountain to get a signal. You’ll be okay until the rescue crew gets here.”

“Don’t.” He raised his head, his eyes midnight-blue in his gray-white face. Dark lashes wet from melting snow. Blood seeping down his face.

His very familiar face.

“Logan?” It couldn’t be.

She knelt beside him, her hand shaking as she touched his cheek and brushed hair from his forehead, looking for the thin white scar near his hairline.

There. Just like she’d known it would be.

“What happened?” she whispered.

His eyes drifted closed, and he didn’t respond.

She grabbed a blanket from the trunk at the end of the bed, her throat aching with all the memories she’d shoved out of her mind and done her very best to forget.

“You have to get up. I need to close the door, and you’ve got to warm up.” She slid her arm around his shoulders, tried to nudge him into motion. He felt different. Thirteen years had built muscle and weight on his lean frame, made the twenty-year-old kid that he’d been into a man.

A wanted man.

She shuddered, the cold wetness of his jumpsuit seeping into her sweater and jeans as she tried to maneuver him out of the doorway. He rolled onto his back, his hand capturing hers so unexpectedly that her heart jumped. Cuffs clanked, the frigid metal burning against her arm, Logan’s grip tight and hard as he pulled her closer.

“Laney?” he rasped, his breath hot against her cheek.

“Yes.”

“Go.”

“What?”

“Leave. Now.” He released his hold, grabbed the edges of the blanket with dead-white hands and turned onto his side, closing her out in a way he’d never done when she’d been a little girl desperate for someone to believe in.

“Your hands may be frostbitten. We need to get—”

He snatched her wrist and yanked her so close she could see every fleck of silver in his eyes. He had blood on his cheek, frozen against his grayish skin, and blood on the front of his jumpsuit. “We don’t need to do anything. You need to go.”

His words were slurred, his body stiff as he released his grip and struggled to his feet.

She didn’t touch him this time. Didn’t try to help as he shuffled to the fireplace and dropped down in front of it.

Thirteen years was a long time.

He could have become anyone or anything in those years.

But she still couldn’t leave him.

She owed him too much.

She set the teakettle on the propane stove and took coffee from the box of supplies she’d left on the table.

“Did you hear me? I want you to leave,” he said, his back to Laney, the blanket shrouding his head and covering his shoulders. Melted snow pooled around him, tinged pink with blood.

“You’re bleeding.”

“Not your problem.” He didn’t move, didn’t glance her way.

“There’s a first aid kit in my Jeep. I’ll—”

“You don’t seem to get it, Laney. Being around me is dangerous. You need to leave while you still can.”

She took another blanket from the chest and threw it over his shoulders. “Here. Coffee will be ready in a minute.”

Suddenly, he was up, looming over her. Cold, cold expression and fiery eyes, a stranger lurking behind an old friend’s face. She shivered and tried to step back, but he held her in place with his eyes and the sheer force of his will.

“I’m a felon, Laney. Tried and convicted. You want to spend the night in this cabin with me? You want to risk that?”

“I—”

“Drive off this mountain and forget you ever saw me.” He dropped back down in front of the fire, shivering beneath the blanket. Closed in and closed up and absolutely committed to chasing Laney away.

The small part of her, the remnant of the scared kid she’d been when she’d run from Green Bluff, wanted to give him what he wanted. The other part, the bigger part, refused to. He’d helped her all those years ago. If not for Logan, she’d never have gotten her college degree, become an interior designer, met William and married him. Without Logan, the Laney she was now wouldn’t exist.

She took the keys from her purse and stepped out into the blowing snow, heading for the Jeep and the first aid kit she kept there. No matter what Logan had become, no matter who, she’d make sure he was warm and dry and safe because, once upon a time, he’d done exactly the same for her.

TWO

Cold.

Hot.

Logan wasn’t sure which he was, but he was shaking violently, his teeth knocking together.

He shouldn’t have sent Laney away. She had a Jeep, a way off the mountain. All he had were frozen fingers and leaden feet, but he couldn’t pull her into his troubles. Couldn’t risk her life in an effort to save his own.

Laney. Grown up and confident, her soft green eyes looking straight into his. It had been thirteen years since he’d handed her two thousand dollars and a bus ticket to Seattle, but he’d have known her anywhere. Her pretty face and solemn eyes. Her white-blond hair that had only darkened a little as she’d grown older. He’d seen her in the window of her parents’ oversize home the day that he’d arrived at Mildred and Josiah Mackey’s place. He’d been nearly fifteen and in so much trouble that a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere was the only place that would have him. He hadn’t been interested in the tiny little blonde with her perfect hair and perfect life. Until he’d realized that nothing about Laney’s life was perfect. Then, he’d wanted nothing more than to free her from the prison in which she lived.

He wrapped the blanket tightly around his shoulders, the memories more vivid than they should have been. Hypothermia?

Probably.

He’d warm up, though. Find some way to rid himself of the cuffs. He wasn’t foolish enough to think he had unlimited time. The police were already on the hunt. So were the men who’d run the cruiser off the road. He had to warm up quickly and get moving again. And come up with a plan to prove his innocence.

He grabbed a mug from a cupboard and poured hot water from the whistling teakettle into it, his hands burning as he wrapped them around the ceramic.

“Logan?” Laney’s voice came from far away, and he realized he’d closed his eyes and was leaning against the counter, the mug still cradled in his hands. He blinked, trying to bring her into focus.

No perfect hair now.

Curls escaped her long braid, falling against smooth, pale cheeks. She looked scared. She should be.

He straightened, setting the cup on the counter. “I told you to leave.”

“You have a pretty deep cut. You’re going to need stitches.” She ignored the comment and dabbed his temple with an alcohol-soaked cotton ball.

He smelled the fumes but felt nothing.

Not a good sign.

“What do you suggest? A trip to the nearest hospital?” He motioned toward his prison uniform, the cuffs on his wrists clanking.

“I see you haven’t outgrown your sarcasm.” She dabbed at the cut again, swiping a fresh cotton ball down his cheek.

“I’m afraid your parents were never quite able to beat it out of me,” he responded and regretted it immediately. He had outgrown sarcasm and his need for revenge. He had become what he’d always wanted to be, part of a community that he had loved, doing a job that he’d loved. Even, for a while, married to a woman that he’d loved.

An image of Amanda flashed through his mind.

Broken glass and her broken body and his own helplessness.

He pushed the memory away.

“I should be able to butterfly the wound closed, but you’re probably going to have a scar.” Laney rifled through a large first aid kit, her fingers long and delicate, the knuckles of her right hand scarred.

It would be so easy for those hands to break, so easy for the light in her eyes to be snuffed out.

“Laney, I want you to leave.” He bit the words out, forcing himself to move away. The cuffs on his wrists felt heavy and cold. His body also felt heavy and cold, but he had to get her out of his life.

“I can’t.”

“You don’t have a choice.”

“Weren’t you the one who once told me I had a million choices?” She pulled butterfly bandages from the kit. “Sit down so I can do this.”

“I could be a murderer. A serial killer planning to make you my next victim,” he spit out because it was all he had left, his last push to get her out of the cabin and to safety.

“In your current condition, I doubt you could make an ant your next victim.” She pressed the bandage to his temple, her eyes cool and calm, her hand shaking.

She didn’t know that he’d been a deputy sheriff for five years and had worked on the Green Bluff police force for five years before that. Didn’t know that he had been falsely accused and convicted of drug trafficking.

What she didn’t know, he could use against her.

For her?

It didn’t matter.

All that mattered was keeping her safe.

He’d failed Amanda. And she’d died because of it.

He wouldn’t fail Laney.

He yanked her hand down, then moved so close he could smell melting snow mixed with flowers in her hair. “Don’t make the mistake of believing that, Laney.”

“I don’t believe you’re a murderer. I don’t believe you’d hurt me.”

“Then believe you’re in trouble if you’re caught with me.”

“Caught by the police?” Her gaze dropped to his jumpsuit.

“It’s not just the police I’m worried about.”

“Then who?”

“It’s a long story.” Too long to tell when danger was breathing down both their necks. Logan felt the clock ticking, trouble drawing near.

“We have time. The storm won’t break for hours.”

“How far are we from the main road?”

“Five miles.” She repacked the first aid kit, putting everything back exactly where it belonged. Neat and tidy. Just the way her parents had trained her to be. He’d hated that about her when they’d met. Her perfection against his rough edges. Her pristine dresses against his worn and dirty clothes.

Now, she wore faded jeans and a soft sweater, the fabric hugging her slender curves.

“Are there other cabins nearby?”

“No. My husband bought a hundred and fifty acres from a logging company fifteen years ago. This is the only place around.”

Not what he’d wanted to hear.

If this really was the only place around, anyone hunting him would know exactly where to look. He needed to get the cuffs off his wrists, get out of his prison orange and put on a few layers of clothing. Then, he needed to get going while he still could.

“Does your husband keep clothes up here? I’m not exactly dressed for the weather. I can pay him for everything I borrow.”

“My husband passed away two years ago.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Me, too.” She opened a trunk at the end of a queen-size bed and pulled out a pile of clothes. “You can use whatever you need.”

“Thanks. Now, I just need to find a way to put them on.” He lifted his cuffed wrists.

“We might be able to pick the lock.” She leaned over the cuffs, her hands on his wrists as she studied the lock. Warm fingers on cold flesh. Flowers and slow waltzes in the moonlight. It had been a long time since he’d thought of any of those things. In the three years since Amanda’s death, he’d mostly stayed out of the dating game. A few dinners set up by friends. A lunch here or there. Nothing that had stuck because he hadn’t wanted anything to.

He stepped back, pulling his wrists from Laney’s hands.

“Do you have a tool chest in your car?”

“A small one, but I doubt there’s anything in there that’ll take these off. I think I’ll have better luck in the shop. William kept tons of tools in it.” She shrugged into her coat, dragging her braid over the collar.

“Where’s the shop?”

“Out back. I’ll just be a minute.” She opened the back door and frigid wind blew in, spraying snow across the wood floor and plastering the wet jumpsuit to Logan’s frozen skin. He pulled the blankets closer, gritting his teeth. The last thing he wanted was to walk out that door and follow Laney into the cold, but he couldn’t stay in the cabin while she went herself.

He walked onto the back porch, the wind biting into his throbbing, thawing flesh. He would be frozen again before they were done, but if he was able to ditch the cuffs and the jumpsuit, it would be worth it.

“You should stay in the cabin,” Laney said as she picked her way down snow-covered stairs.

“I don’t think so.”

“You’re nearly thawed, Logan. Do you really want to freeze again?”

No.

But he didn’t want her out in the storm by herself either. He didn’t trust that the men who’d shot at him had run when the police showed up. Hidden? Yes. Disappeared from the picture? No way. No one went to as much trouble as they had to fail, and Logan had a feeling that the only way for them to succeed was for him to be dead, his body buried somewhere in the wilderness.

He followed Laney across the clearing. If a shop existed, it was well hidden by the night and by the storm. Snow blew into Logan’s eyes, the raging wind snatching every breath before it formed. He glanced back and saw the vague outline of the cabin and light spilling out from its windows. How far would they have to go before they lost sight of both? In a storm like this, not far.

“This isn’t a good idea, Laney.” He snagged her coat, nearly bumping into her back when she stopped. “If we go much farther, we may not be able to find our way back.”

“We’re already here. William kept the workshop locked, but there’s a spare key.” She brushed snow from a birdhouse nailed to the side of a large building, her fingers sliding under it. It seemed to take forever, but she finally pulled out a key.

Logan crowded into the shop behind her, catching a whiff of wood chips and sawdust and summer flowers.

“There’s a light here somewhere.” Fabric rustled as Laney moved, and a light went on, spilling into the cavernous room.

She hadn’t been exaggerating when she’d said her husband had tools. Logan figured there were a couple of tons of tools in the building. Table saws. Band saws. Lathes. A plainer. Rows of shelves that housed chisels and sanders. Handsaws hung from the far wall. Antique and new, side by side. Everything orderly and neat.

Obviously, William had loved his tools.

“I think we can drill through the lock mechanism to open the cuffs,” Laney said, her voice tight and her movements stiff as she walked to one of the shelves and lifted an electric drill. Was it the shop or the situation that had her tense?

“You don’t have to help me, Laney. It would be better if you didn’t,” he said gently because he wanted her to take the out he was offering, to run before anyone knew that they’d ever been together.

“You never told me why.” She grabbed a drill from a tool chest, patted a worktable. “Put your hands here.”

“Why what?” he asked, placing his hands palm down on smooth wood.

“Why it’s so dangerous for us to be together. Why you think someone other than the police is after you.” She aimed the drill straight into the cuff lock, her hands steady. If she was nervous, it didn’t show, and he couldn’t help thinking how different she was from the scared and anxious girl he used to know.

“The police cruiser that was taking me to state prison was run off the road. The driver was shot and killed. Another officer was wounded. Whoever was responsible took a shot at me.”

“Why would someone help you escape and then kill you?”

“That’s a good question, and I don’t have an answer.” But he would. All he needed was time and a place to hunker down and plan.

“Why were you on your way to state prison?” The drill whined and protested, a few sparks flying as she pressed down.

“I was convicted of trafficking in illegal narcotics.”

“Were you guilty?” Laney asked—because she had to know and because she couldn’t believe that the teenager who had been so adamantly opposed to drugs had turned into a man who sold them.

“No.” Logan’s answer was short, his hands pressed hard to the table that William had fashioned out of thick oak slabs. Laney had been there with him the weekend he’d finished it. She had smiled as he’d caressed the golden wood and imagined out loud all of the things he could create on it.

The thought of selling his cabin and shop and everything in them made her stomach churn.

Her hand slipped, the drill sliding from the lock and digging into the wood.

“Careful.” Logan grabbed her hand, holding it steady for a moment.

“Sorry.” She pressed the drill in again and focused her attention on forcing the lock open. It took three tries, but the lock finally popped. Not a pretty job, but done. “You’re free.”

“Thanks.” Logan slid out of the cuffs, rubbing the raw red welts on his wrists. He was still shivering, but he had some color in his face.

Good.

Not so good that she’d just freed a convict from handcuffs. She might believe Logan’s story, but a jury hadn’t.

“We should go back to the cabin.” She put the drill back exactly where William had always kept it, then ran her finger over the ding it had made in the table.

For some reason, tears burned behind her eyes.

Not grief. She’d cried a million tears in the weeks after William died. Maybe it was just sadness over all the dreams she’d never live with him.

“You okay?” Logan lifted her hand from the wood and ran his thumb across her knuckles. Even hurt and cold, he seemed larger than life, his dark blue gaze so intense that she had to look away.

“Fine. I just think we should get back and start planning how we’re going to get off the mountain.”

“We’re not going to get me off. I’m going to do it. You’re going to pretend that you never saw me.” He tugged her outside and back into the cabin, slamming the door against the bitter cold. The fire had nearly died, and Laney shrugged out of her coat, shivering a little as she piled logs on the embers and stoked them to life.

Logan didn’t speak as he grabbed the pile of clothes she’d pulled out for him. He didn’t say a word as he walked into the small bathroom and closed the door.

She wondered if he’d return, or if he’d climb out the bathroom window and disappear into the storm.

Would she go after him if he did?

She’d been raised to follow the rules, to strive for perfection. Nothing short of that had ever been acceptable. As an adult, she’d tried to move past the need for flawless living. She’d tried to concentrate on what God wanted from her rather than what people wanted. She’d let her hair be messy sometimes, allowed herself to dress in jeans and sweaters.

Still, she’d never skirted the law, and in helping Logan she’d done more than that. She’d broken it.

The bathroom door opened, and he walked out, William’s flannel shirt hanging open over a black T-shirt. His faded jeans hung low on Logan’s leaner hips. William had been shorter, a little broader and a lot older. On him, the clothes had looked comfortable and easy.

On Logan...

She frowned, pouring still-warm water into a mug. “Warmer?”

“Much. And, now that I am, I really need you to leave. If this is the only cabin on the mountain—”

“It is.”

“Then eventually someone is going to show up here looking for me. I don’t want you here when it happens.”

“If I leave, how will you get off the mountain?”

“I’ll manage.”

“You can’t walk out. It’s too far.”

“Like I said, I’ll manage. Did your husband keep a handgun around?”

“In the lockbox on the top shelf of the closet,” she responded and then wished she hadn’t. She’d already broken the law. She was breaking it again by providing a felon with a firearm.

He grabbed the box and set it on the satiny wood of the little table William had crafted on their last visit to the cabin together.

“Do you know the combination?”

“Why do you need a gun?” she asked, unable to look away as Logan fiddled with the combination lock. With his dark hair almost dry and his chin shadowed with the beginning of a beard, he looked tough and dangerous.

“I’m not planning to kill a cop with it, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“I’m thinking that helping you get out of those cuffs was one thing. Giving you a weapon is something else. Unless you have a really good reason for wanting it, it’s probably better that it stays locked up.”

“It’s not a weapon—it’s a firearm. And I’m only planning to use it for protection.” He looked up from the box, his eyes blazing. Familiar eyes, and she couldn’t deny them, couldn’t turn away from the truth she saw there. She rattled off the combination, and he lifted the pistol, checking to see if it was loaded and then grabbing the ammunition that William had locked up with it.

“I’d better go,” she said because looking at him wearing William’s clothes and carrying William’s firearm made her chest tight and her stomach ache. She’d loved William. He’d been her best friend and confidant. Her cheerleader and supporter. With him, she’d had freedom from the chaos and drama that she’d grown up with.

The thing was, she’d loved Logan, too, all those years ago. Had loved him with the kind of love only a child who’d been desperate for affection could feel.

She didn’t want to leave him, but she didn’t know how she could stay when staying meant turmoil and trouble. She’d run from that thirteen years ago. And she’d lived more than a decade with peace and stability and order in her life.

“Be careful on the roads, and don’t stop for anything but a marked police cruiser,” Logan said as she opened the front door.

She nodded but couldn’t speak. Her eyes burned with tears, all the things Logan had done for her when she was young and hurting and scared crowding into her brain.

Don’t cry, Laney. Don’t give them that power over you.

Those were the first words he’d ever spoken to her. She’d shoved the memory so far back in her mind, she hadn’t known it was still there.

She walked outside, let the wind cool her hot face and burning eyes and tried to tell herself that she wasn’t abandoning the man who’d lived in her parents’ home for five years because he hadn’t wanted to abandon her.

She was doing the right thing. She had to believe that, had to trust that God’s plan would work itself out. He would protect Logan.

He didn’t need Laney’s help for that.

Still...

Thirteen years, and Logan was suddenly back in her life.

That had to mean something.

Didn’t it?

She slid behind the wheel of the Jeep, her gaze jumping to the cabin. She needed to drive away, but she couldn’t quite make herself start the engine.

The cabin door opened, and Logan appeared, silhouetted in the light. He walked to the car, his stride long and confident.

She unrolled the window as he approached.

“Did you change your mind about wanting a ride?” she asked, half hoping that he’d say he had. Half hoping that he wouldn’t.

“I need to toss this into the woods. Ten minutes, and it’ll be covered with snow.” He held up his prison uniform. “If anyone finds it, they’ll assume I’m hypothermic and out of my mind with it. I don’t want anyone knowing I was here. Not for a while, anyway.”

“Logan...”

She wasn’t sure what she planned to say, what she should say.

“Everything is going to be okay,” he cut in before she could gather her thoughts. “Now, go. Because the longer you sit there, the longer I’m going to be standing out here, and the colder we’re both going to get.”

He meant it.

She was absolutely sure that he’d stand there until she left. She nodded, rolled up the window and started the engine, her heart beating a heavy, hard rhythm as she pulled away.

THREE

Snow splattered against the Jeep’s windshield and Laney turned on the wipers, her hand shaking a little.

She had to do this.

Had to.

Because it was what Logan wanted, and because Laney’s trip back home was designed to help her close the door to the past. Not revisit it.

She frowned, her hands tight on the steering wheel, snow swirling as she inched down the long driveway. She’d given herself two weeks to clean out the cabin and her parents’ house. Two weeks to get them both on the market and return to her interior design job and to her clients.

She hadn’t expected it to be easy, but she had expected it to go smoothly. She’d planned everything out—called the lawyer who’d handled her father’s estate after he’d died and asked him to have the electricity turned back on at the farmhouse, contacted a real estate agent and a contractor, asked friends to water her plants while she was gone.

Yeah, she’d planned everything out, but she hadn’t planned on Logan.

Hadn’t planned on having to turn her back on a part of the past that was suddenly very much in the present.

She flipped on the heat, trying to drive away the chill in her bones.

A light flashed somewhere below. It was just a glimmer that she wasn’t even sure she’d seen, but her pulse jumped, adrenaline streaming through her blood.

Just keep going, keep driving.

She wanted to, but her foot had a mind of its own, pressing on the brake so that the Jeep eased to a stop.

She sat for a moment, peering into the storm, her body tense as she waited for some sign that there really was someone else on the mountain.

There! Another glimmer of light.

The police?

Someone worse?

She thought about Logan, completely unaware of the threat closing in on him.

Just. Keep. Going.

But she couldn’t.

He’d done too much for her all those years ago, and she couldn’t leave without warning him.

She put her car in reverse and backed toward the cabin, her heart racing with fear. Logan had warned her that trouble was coming. He’d told her to leave. Alone, though, trapped on the mountain with no transportation, he’d die.

She couldn’t let that happen.

No matter how terrified she was.

* * *

Danger.

Logan could feel it coming as he put on a coat that he’d found in the closet and shoved his feet into hiking boots that were a size too small. He tucked the gun into one pocket of the coat and extra ammo into the other, then searched the drawers and cupboards in the kitchen, grabbing matches and a slender paring knife. He shoved the first into his back pocket and tucked the other into his boot. This wasn’t his way, digging through other people’s things and searching for whatever he could put to use. He felt like the criminal the jury had said he was.

He doused the fire and turned off the lights.

He stood in the pitch blackness of the cabin and prayed that God would lead him down the mountain and to safety.

Headlights splashed across the front windows, and he knew that he needed to run. He wanted to run, but he felt weak, shaky, still disoriented, his body trying to thaw but still so cold that his teeth chattered.

Going outside to toss the jumpsuit had been risky, but he’d had to do it. For Laney’s sake. Maybe even for his own. He didn’t want there to be any link between the two of them.

He walked to the back door, his legs heavy, his mind sluggish. Another hour in the cold would probably kill him. He knew it, but he didn’t have much of a choice. Die trying to live, or give up and just die?

Footsteps pounded on the front porch, and he pulled the gun, waited as the doorknob turned and aimed as the door flew open.

Someone raced into the cabin, whirled in the darkness, hair swinging in a long pale rope.

“Logan?” Laney called, her slender figure silhouetted against the gray night revealed by the open door.

“Do you know how close you just came to dying?” Logan growled, his legs weak from what had almost happened. If he hadn’t served as a police officer for a decade, he might have pulled the trigger before he realized who was on the other end of the barrel.

“You can lecture me later. I saw lights down the mountain. We have to get out of here.” She grabbed his hand and yanked him out into the storm.

He let her because sending her alone toward whatever was coming up the mountain felt like sending a lamb into a lion’s den.

“Are you sure you saw lights?”

“Yes. I’m not sure if they were on the road or in the woods, but they shouldn’t have been there. There’s nothing between here and the highway but trees.” She opened the door of her Jeep, motioned for him to climb in then ran to the driver’s side and slid behind the wheel. “Should I head down or up? The road goes both ways.”

“How far up are we talking? Can we get to the other side of the mountain or will we hit a dead end somewhere?”

“I don’t know. William and I never walked to the end of the road. The farthest we ever went was a couple of miles.”

“I think we’d better try it. Worst-case scenario, we’ll get out and walk down the other side of the mountain.”

He hoped it wouldn’t come to that, but he’d rather ride away from certain danger than into it.

“Okay.” Laney pulled away from the cabin, the Jeep crawling along the driveway, the headlights off. Snow lightened the road they turned onto, swirling down into a valley far below. The wind had died, and the trees were still and quiet. Nothing but the snow moved, and that made Logan nervous. The Jeep shimmying from side to side as Laney inched up the road made him nervous, too. If they tumbled off the side of the mountain, they wouldn’t have to worry about running out of road or running into trouble.

He shifted in his seat, searching the area behind them, probing the woods. A light pierced the darkness, too bright to be a flashlight, too still to be headlights. The cabin? Another light appeared. Windows illuminating the darkness. His heart jerked.

“Think we can go any faster?” he asked, and Laney tensed.

“What’s wrong?” Her voice was tight, her grip white-knuckled on the steering wheel.

“It looks like there’s someone at the cabin.”

“The police?”

“No.” There’d be flashing emergency lights, more motion and action.

“How much of a head start do you think we have?”

“If they’re on foot, plenty.”

“What if they’re not?”

“How about we just keep moving forward?”

“Funny. That’s why I came to the cabin this weekend. To move forward,” she said quietly, her voice shaking.

“Yeah?” He wanted to keep her focused on the conversation rather than her fear and the threat that was following them.

“My father left me the family property when he died. I’m supposed to be in Green Bluff tomorrow night so that I can clean out the house and get it ready to go on the market.”

“You’re selling your parents’ place?” The property had been sitting vacant for twelve years. Logan had driven past it several times a week when he was on the force. Every time, he’d thanked God that the Mackeys had gotten what they’d deserved and that Laney hadn’t had to suffer for their crimes.

“Like I said, I’m trying to move forward. Strange how I finally made the decision to let go of the past and one of the biggest parts of it is suddenly in my life again.” She laughed a little, but there was more sadness than humor in the sound.

“I’m sorry, Laney.”

“For what?”

“Coming back into your life.”

“It’s not like you planned it, Logan. It happened the same way as the first time you did. God worked it out. Who are either of us to say that it’s not for the best?”

She had a point, but that didn’t change the fact that Logan had endangered her or that every minute that they were together the danger grew.

They rounded a sharp curve, the car fishtailing and sliding toward the two-hundred-foot drop to their right. Laney wrangled the vehicle back into the middle of the road, her breath coming in short quick gasps.

“You doing okay?” he asked.

“This is crazy, Logan. We could be navigating switchbacks for hours, and in this kind of weather, it’s just not safe.”

“Want me to drive?” He’d driven in worse conditions, and he wasn’t as nervous as she seemed to be. At this point, that could only play in their favor.

“Yes.” The Jeep rolled to a stop, trees pressing in on one side, a gray expanse of nothing to the other, the road barely visible ahead.

“Hold on.” Logan grabbed Laney’s wrist before she could open the door. Her pulse throbbed rapidly beneath her skin, but her face was cool and composed.

“What?”

“I’ll come around. You can just slide over. No sense in both of us going out in the cold again.” He didn’t give her time to argue, just got out of the Jeep.

Snow crunched beneath Logan’s feet as he rounded the car, the scent of pine and the crisp winter air reminding him of home. It had been eight months since he’d been back there. Eight months since he’d hiked the bluff behind his house and inhaled the cold clean air.

He wanted to go home. He wanted it so badly, he could taste it. Every cell in his body yearned for it. Home was all he’d ever dreamed of when he was a kid. He hadn’t wanted fancy clothes or toys or things. He’d just wanted that safe landing place, that soft spot where nothing mattered but just being.

He slid behind the wheel, taking one last deep lungful of air and catching a faint whiff of something sharp and bitter.

Fire!

He was back outside almost before the thought could register, scanning the forest below, searching for a spot of color, a plume of smoke, something to prove what his gut was saying.

“Logan? What’s wrong?” Laney appeared at his elbow.

“Maybe nothing.” But in the distance a black cloud billowed up toward the blue-gray sky.

“It’s the cabin, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know.”

“What else could it be?” she asked, but he didn’t think she expected an answer.

“We’d better get moving.” He took her arm, leading her back to the Jeep and helping her inside.

She went without protest, pulling her knees to her chest and resting her chin against them. He wanted to take her back down the mountain before she got dragged any deeper into his troubles, but the fire would bring more emergency crews, more police presence, more of everything that Logan needed to avoid. If he turned around now, he and Laney would both be arrested.

Or worse.

Anyone could be waiting on the road behind them.

Hunted, herded toward something—that’s how Logan felt.

“I can still smell the fire,” Laney said as she shifted in her seat and looked out the back window. All Logan could smell was the subtle scent of flowers that floated in the air every time she moved.

“It may not be as bad as we think.” But Logan thought it might be worse. Someone had known that he’d been there. That same someone had set the fire. To keep him from returning to the cabin? To flush him out of hiding?

“How can it not be? It will take time for the fire crew to get to the cabin in this snow. By the time they do, all William’s hard work will be gone. He built the cabin two years before we got married. He did most of the work there himself. He loved that place.” The wistfulness in her words made Logan want to squeeze her hand, tell her again how sorry he was that he’d come back into her life.

“Did you love it?”

“I loved how happy he was when he was there. He always said he did his best work when he was in the middle of nowhere surrounded by God’s creation.”

“What kind of work did he do?”

“He refinished woodwork in old homes and built custom cabinets. He carved some really beautiful wood sculptures that he sold in art galleries in Seattle and San Diego.”

“That explains the shop then.”

“Yes. I wonder if they’ll burn that, too.”

“There was only one smoke plume.”

“That’s something.” But it didn’t seem like enough. Not to Laney. Not yet. She rubbed her arms, trying to chase away the chill that flowed through her blood.

“How long were you and William married?” Logan asked, and she knew he was trying to distract her, get her mind off the burning cabin. She let him because thinking about all of William’s hard work burning to ashes made her eyes ache with tears she didn’t want to let fall.

“Just eighteen months. We were friends for three years before that.”

“Friends?” He kept his eyes on the road, but she could feel the weight of his judgment. As if being friends wasn’t enough to build a marriage on. That had been what her closest friends had told her. That building a life on liking someone wasn’t the same as building it on love.

“I loved William,” she said a little too sharply.

“I wasn’t questioning that.”

“Then what were you questioning?”

“Usually people say they were dating for a certain amount of time before they were married. Not that they were friends.”

“We dated for six months. That was enough.” She pressed her lips together, stopping more words from flowing. She didn’t need to defend her relationship with William. Didn’t need to explain it. She didn’t even think Logan was asking her to. Somehow, though, in the darkest part of her mind and in her deepest moments of sadness over William’s death, she’d always wondered if loving him more would have saved him.

“I can understand that. I dated my wife for two years. We married the day after we graduated from college. People we knew said we were crazy, but...we just knew it was right.”

“This must be hard on her. She’ll be frantic when she hears that you’re missing somewhere in the mountains in the middle of a snowstorm.”

“Amanda died three years ago.”

“I’m sorry.” Such a lame thing to say, the words so powerless and futile.

“Me, too.”

“Did she—”

“This might be the end of the road.” Logan cut her off, the car easing to a stop a few inches from a fallen tree. “Let me see if it can be moved.”

“I’ll help.”

“Wait until I figure out how big the tree is.” He jumped out, the engine still humming, the harsh scent of smoke filling the vehicle. Laney wrinkled her nose, trying not to think of the cabin burning but unable to think of anything else. All William’s hard work—the floors, the table, the cabinets—all of it gone.

She blinked back hot tears and got out of the car. It was silly to cry about things. They could be replaced. Besides, she hadn’t planned to keep the cabin. She’d planned to sell it, and she could still sell the land it sat on.

If they ever got off of the mountain.

She grabbed hold of the small pine tree that Logan was tugging toward the side of the road, her arm brushing his as they moved it out of the way. The air was tinged with smoke, the scent of it stinging her nose and eyes. She knew she shouldn’t look down the mountain, but she looked anyway, searching until she found the dark plume of smoke she’d seen earlier. This time she could see a splash of gold in the gray-black world.

Would there be anything left when the fire crews finally got the fire under control?

“You okay?” Logan slid an arm round her waist and pulled her close. He felt warm and solid, and she thought about the years when he’d been the only person she could count on, the only one who knew the truth about her life and her parents. She’d trusted him then, but she knew little about him now. Not where he’d lived before he went to prison, not who his wife had been or how she’d died. Not whether he had children, a career, the kind of life he’d spoken about when he was a troubled teenager with big dreams.

“I will be.” She turned her back on the burning cabin and the woods and got in the Jeep. She’d come here to say goodbye. This was as good a time as any to do it.

Goodbye to the past.

Hello to the future.

A fresh start. A clean break.

It’s what she’d been craving for months, but running toward it was so much more difficult than she’d thought it would be. Seeing the cabin burn was such an achingly painful thing that she wondered if she were really ready to move on.

Logan slid behind the steering wheel and offered a half smile that flashed the dimple in his right cheek, and Laney’s heart stirred, her mind yearning for the thing they’d had when they were kids. That solid connection, that deep knowledge of one another.

She turned away, staring out into the blowing snow as they started back up the mountain. The landscape hushed and still, the sky gray and heavy, they could have been anywhere, heading toward anything, but they were here, on William’s mountain, running for their lives together.

It was better than running alone.

She clung to that thought as they crested one final rise and then slowly made their way down the mountain toward the valley below.

FOUR

He had to get Laney to safety and leave her there before anyone knew that they’d been together. The pain in Logan’s head, the foggy shivery feel of warmth seeping back into his frozen body, even the risk to his life...none of it mattered as much as that.

Laney shifted in the seat, looking over her shoulder and back the way they’d come. He doubted there was much to see. Just the falling snow, the blue-black darkness and the billowing grayish smoke from the fire. They were almost down the mountain, and he could still see it, spreading across the night sky, relentless and unchanged.

Was the fire crew there? Were the police? Had anyone put his name together with Laney’s yet? It would happen. It was just a matter of time. When that happened, Laney would become a suspect, part of whatever plot the police thought Logan had hatched to stage his escape.

He couldn’t let that happen to her.

“How many people knew that you were on your way to Green Bluff, Laney?” he asked. The more people who knew her plans, the more likely the police could trace her movements. That could play to her advantage, or it could be the thing that brought her down.

“My clients. My coworkers. My friends. My neighbor, Mrs. Lawrence. She’s going to water my plants while I’m away.”

“Do they all know that you planned to stop at the cabin?”

“My close friends do. Mrs. Lawrence does. I left a detailed itinerary so that she’d know where to reach me if there were any problems at the house.”

So typical of the Laney he’d once known.

Making sure everything was perfectly in order.

“Call her and tell her that you’re on your way home.”

“What?”

“Tell her that the storm is too bad to continue. The pass is closed and you’re staying in a hotel until the roads are clear. Once they do, you’re going to return home.”

“But—”

“Make the call.” He tightened his grip on the steering wheel as the road widened in front of them. If the police were waiting at the entrance to the highway, no phone call would save her.

“And then what? You actually want me to go back home?”

“Yes.”

“Only if you go with me.”

“That will be the first place the police look once they realize that the cabin in the woods belonged to your husband and once they realize that you’re Elaine Mackey.”

“No one calls me Elaine. I changed my name legally when I turned eighteen. It’s Laney now. Laney Jefferson since I got married.”

“And you don’t think that the police will be able to figure that out?”

“So what if they do? You and I knew each other a long time ago, Logan. The only people who will even remember that are in Green Bluff, and I’m sure they haven’t thought about my family or you in years.”

He laughed at the absurdity of anyone in Green Bluff forgetting anything that had to do with the Mackeys or him. People in the small town had long memories.

“What?”

“No one in Green Bluff has forgotten you or your parents. No one has forgotten me either.”

“It’s been—”

“Eight months since I was arrested for stealing heroin from the evidence locker at work and selling it for a few million dollars and about five hours since I was sentenced to prison. I was the deputy sheriff of Green Bluff before that. I’m pretty sure that no one has forgotten me.”

“You never left?” She sounded surprised and a little appalled. She’d hated her life in Green Bluff. Hated the act that she’d put on for the people of the community. The only daughter of the founding father’s great-great grandson, and she’d had to be perfect, pretend that her family was perfect and hide the bruises and the pain. He’d watched her do it from the time she was eleven until he’d helped her escape. He understood why she’d seen nothing good in the community, but he’d found a home there, a place where he could be more than the child of a gang leader and a prostitute. More than a foster kid shuffled from home to home, trouble to trouble. He’d found roots in Green Bluff, and he’d made sure that they were planted deep.

“I didn’t see any reason to leave.” Even after he’d gathered enough evidence to have Laney’s parents thrown in jail for fraud, child abuse and neglect and to have her father arrested for and convicted of the murder of a fifteen-year-old foster child who had died and been buried on the Mackey property a few months before Logan arrived, Logan had known that Green Bluff would always be home.

“I guess I just figured that you’d moved away, maybe gone back to Los Angeles.”

“I spent fourteen years of my life in L.A., Laney, but that doesn’t mean there was anything there for me. Call your neighbor. Tell her exactly what we discussed, okay?”

“Fine.” She pulled out her cell phone and made the call, her voice cheerful and bright as she explained the change of plans. All those years of hiding the truth was paying off in a big way, but she didn’t seem happy as she hung up the phone.

“Good job.”

“I don’t like lying to someone I care about.”

“It’s not a lie if you follow through. Stay in a hotel tonight. Go back home tomorrow. You can fly to Green Bluff in a week or two.”

“I only have two weeks to clean out the house and get it on the market, then I have to go back to work. Besides, I told my father’s lawyer that I’d be there. He’s expecting me.”

“Will any of that matter if you get thrown in jail?” Up ahead, the road dumped out onto the highway. No flashing lights or police blockade.

“No, but...”

“What?”

“I wanted to get it over with. Going back there, seeing the place that I hated as a kid, it doesn’t fill me with warm fuzzy feelings.”

“Jail won’t fill you with them either.”

“I get the point, Logan. You don’t have to keep stressing it.” Laney leaned her head against the window, trying to ease the headache building behind her eyes. She hadn’t slept well the past few nights, lying awake into the early morning, telling herself that she could and would clean out her parents’ house.

Such a good plan.

Completely fallen apart now.

Maybe she could hire someone to clean it out, and she could supervise things from Seattle. That’s what she’d intended to do, but her father’s attorney had made it clear that he thought she should handle the job. Her legacy, he’d called it, and she couldn’t deny it. The Mackey house and the property it sat on had been in the family for more than a hundred years.

She’d be the last generation to have lived there.

She probably should feel better about it than she did.

“There’s a sign for food and lodging. We’ll pull off here and find a hotel. You can get a room for the night and go home in the morning.”

“Where will you be?”

“I’ll find a place.”

“I can book you a room, too.”

“How will you explain that to the police when they question you and the person who checked us both in?”

“I can check in and—”

“I don’t want you to worry about me, Laney. Okay? I can take care of myself. I’ve been doing it for a long time.”

A lot longer than most people. He didn’t say that, but Laney knew the truth. He’d entered foster care when he was seven, and he’d mostly raised himself from that point on. He’d told her stories about the people he’d lived with, the trouble he’d gotten into, the dreams he’d had of finally finding a family that would be a real family to him.

She hoped that he’d found that with his wife.

“Do you have children, Logan?” she asked.

“Amanda and I planned to, but it didn’t happen.”

“So, you’re alone?”

“I have friends and community. That’s my family.”

“Oh.” She didn’t know why hearing him say that made her throat clog and her eyes sting.

Maybe because when she’d allowed herself to think about Logan, she’d always imagined him with the big family that he’d once told her he wanted.

“Is there anyone you want me to contact for you? A girlfriend or—”

“I don’t want you to tell anyone you saw me. Not your best friend. Not a boyfriend. Not the police.” He pulled into the parking lot of a well-lit hotel and parked in a shadowy corner. “You’d better get in there. The sooner you check in, the sooner you can start making the story that you told into the truth.”

“Okay.” But she didn’t want to leave him running through the dark town, trying to find a safe place to hide. She dug through her purse, took some money from her wallet and pressed it into his hand. “Take this. You can use it to get a room somewhere else.”

“I can’t take your money.” He shoved it back at her.

“I took your money thirteen years ago. Two thousand dollars, Logan. Remember? Consider this a partial repayment of the debt.” She tucked the bills into the pocket of her husband’s flannel shirt.

“There was no debt. It was a gift.” He trapped her hand, his palm pressing hers against worn flannel. She felt his heart beating beneath the fabric, his warmth seeping into her palm.

“This is a gift, too, then. Take it, okay? Because I can’t stand thinking about you wandering around in this storm.” Her voice broke, and she looked away.

“Don’t cry.” He cupped her cheek so gently that she thought she might just do what he’d told her not to.

“I’m not.”

“Good.” He smiled and leaned across her to open the door. “Better go. The longer you sit here, the weaker your alibi gets.”

Alibi?

Was she really going to need one?

She hoped not.

Prayed not.

She’d spent so much of her life in trouble, dug in so deep that she couldn’t ever get out of it. Once she’d escaped, she’d promised herself that she’d never return. She’d been an upright citizen, an excellent college student. She filed her taxes on time, had never been pulled over for speeding.

Up until the past few hours, she’d never worried about seeing a police cruiser or an officer of the law. She’d always assumed that they were on the same side.

Not anymore.

She’d crossed a line, committed a felony. Probably more than one. If the police found out, she was in big trouble. It should matter a lot, but at that moment, all she cared about was making sure that Logan would be okay.

“Why don’t you take my car? You can drive—”

“How will you get home?”

“I’ll call a taxi.”

“And if I get caught with your Jeep?”

“You won’t.”

“There’s no guarantee of that, Laney. Just like there’s no guarantee that a police officer won’t pull into this parking lot and see us sitting here together. Go check into the hotel. Get a good night’s sleep. When you wake up, tell yourself this was all a dream.” He smiled and brushed a strand of hair behind her ear, his fingers calloused and hard.

She swallowed down further protest and climbed out of the Jeep. He was right. The best thing for both of them was to go it alone. With her cabin burning to the ground, the police would eventually track her down. If Logan were with her, they’d find him, too.

“Be careful,” she threw out before she closed the door.

He nodded, his eyes dark in the dim interior, his jaw shadowed with the beginning of a beard. So different than the teenager that he’d been, but somehow just the same, too.

She hurried across the parking lot, nearly running on the snow-slick pavement.

A car door closed behind her, the soft snap echoing through her head as she entered the hotel.

Logan heading out into the storm again.

If she thought about it too long, she might turn around and go with him, so she didn’t think. She just smiled at the night clerk and did her best to forget that she’d just left her best childhood friend to face his troubles alone.

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