State Of Emergency

“I parked in that shed behind your house and latched the door. Hope you don’t mind.”

Of course, she minded! She was not in the habit of harboring escaped criminals. His phony politeness didn’t fool her for one minute. Jordan Shane had not dropped by for a spot of tea. “What do you want from me?”

“I’m in need of medical attention. I’ve been shot.”

Even if she hadn’t seen the blood, Emily would have suspected serious injuries from the occasional tremors that shook his shoulders. His breathing was shallow. His complexion blanched white.

This was a far different Jordan Shane than the handsome benefactor who had visited her cabin a year ago. When he’d been here before, he had a deep Florida tan. Six weeks in the Pitkin County jail erased that healthy glow. He looked thinner but not at all frail. His features were sharpened, as if his ordeal had sliced close to the bone.

As she stared at him, her instinctive empathy emerged. It was an emotion more deeply ingrained than her fear or rage. For as long as she could remember, Emily had been driven to reach out to those who needed help and nurturing. She was a natural-born nurse. She truly believed in the motto of S.A.R.: “…That Others May Live.” In this case, however, her instincts were dead wrong. Jordan Shane was a dangerous man. “I can’t help you,” she said. “If I did, I’d be aiding and abetting a criminal.”

“Not if I force you,” he said, casually displaying the gun. “I didn’t come here to get you in trouble, Ms. Foster.”

“Then why? Of all the places in the world you could have run to, why did you come to me?”

“It was logical.” Jordan took a step away from her and leaned against the arm of the plaid sofa. He was light-headed, but he didn’t think his condition came from loss of blood. More than likely, he was disoriented by his own audacity. He’d never been the sort of man who acted without thinking, and now he was on the lam from the Pitkin County sheriff. At this very moment, a massive search effort would be getting underway.

“Logical? You came here because it was logical?” “That’s right.”

His mental process was a little fuzzy, almost as if today’s events had happened to someone else. He clearly remembered being left in a windowed room at Sardy Field in Aspen. He was being transported to Denver where his trial was slated to start on Monday. Another prisoner waited with him. With no explanation, Deputy Frank Kreiger had entered the room, removed their shackles and cuffs and left them alone again.

The other guy went to one of the windows, unfastened the latch and pushed it open. Fresh air washed inside, and Jordan was drawn toward the scent of freedom.

“I don’t understand your definition of logical.” He heard Emily speaking. Her voice echoed as if she were talking from the bottom of a deep well. “Would you explain?”

He truly didn’t know. Jordan hadn’t consciously decided to escape, but he was suddenly outside, ducked down and running alongside the hangar toward the tarmac.

Gunshots exploded. A stinging heat penetrated his left arm. He turned halfway around and heard a bullet whiz past his cheek. The other prisoner lay flat on the ground, awaiting recapture.

Jordan ran. He dodged and backtracked through the airport where he’d been dozens of times before. He found the employee parking area. After he hot-wired a late model Dodge, he drove away from Aspen. He had no clear escape route in mind but found himself on the road leading toward Cascadia. He remembered the directions to Emily’s cabin from when he came here to drop off the contribution. He also recalled that this location was remote with no troublesome neighbors.

He offered her a summary explanation. “I remembered that you were a former emergency room nurse, and I figured that you’d know how to deal with a gunshot wound.”

“I do.” Her green eyes narrowed. She was guarded, suspicious and wary. Perfectly normal reactions. She probably believed, like everyone else in Pitkin County, that he had murdered Lynette.

“Patch me up, Ms. Foster, and I’ll be on my way.”

“Please call me Emily,” she said with an admirable show of bravado. “After your armed assault, I think we should be on a first-name basis.”

The corner of his mouth twitched. It had been weeks since he’d smiled. “You have a sense of humor, Emily.”

“A sense of survival,” she corrected. “And I’d feel a whole lot more comfortable if you’d get rid of the gun.”

She held out her hand as if he’d be stupid enough to surrender his weapon. “I think not.”

“Don’t you trust me, Jordan?”

“Hell, no.” She was a law-abiding citizen who would turn him over to the cops in two blinks of an eyelash. “Let’s get this over with.”

Though he suspected the gunshot had resulted in nothing more serious than a painful flesh wound, he wanted her professional opinion. The bullet slice across his cheek was more worrisome—partly because it wouldn’t stop bleeding and partly because the wound was inches away from a fatal shot to his skull.

He pointed toward the kitchen where he had assembled her medical supplies. During the half hour he’d been alone in her house, he’d made friends with the dog and conducted a fairly thorough search of this cosy two-bedroom cabin. She had no television, no VCR and no computer. Her bookshelves were crammed with hardback reference works and an eclectic selection of paperback fiction, including a lot of science fiction and medical thrillers. She had a decent sound system and an extensive collection of blues and classical CDs.

Though most of her furniture was worn around the edges, nothing looked shabby. She decorated with warm, bright colors—a patchwork quilt on her bed, dozens of framed prints on the walls and flowers. Emily had captured the outdoor sunlight with glass vases of wildflowers and a golden arrangement of aspen branches on the kitchen table.

When they entered the kitchen, she assumed the brisk attitude of a nurse. “Take off your shirt.”

His left arm was stiff, but he managed the buttons while still keeping a grip on the gun. Underneath he wore a white cotton T-shirt.

“Take off both shirts.” She stood at the sink with her arms folded beneath her breasts. “I see that you gathered up a lot of bandages and brought them to the table. You shouldn’t have rifled through my things, Jordan.”

“You should’ve kept your front door locked.”

“I hardly ever lock up when I leave.” She shrugged. “There are too many other ways to break into the cabin. If someone intends to rob me, I might as well save myself the trouble of fixing a broken window.”

“Generous,” he said.

“Besides, I’ve been hoping that my ferocious watchdog would be a deterrent to crime.”

“He’s a good little fella. What’s his name?”

“Pookie.”

“Well, there’s your problem,” Jordan said. “If you want him to be a watchdog, you’ve got to name him Spike or Killer.”

“For your information, Pookie comes from pukka which is a term of nobility and respect in India.”

“Why not name him Ghandi? Here, Ghandi.”

“Moof, snoofle, moof.” The dog jumped up, ignoring the gun, and licked Jordan’s bare forearm.

“Weird bark,” he said.

“No worse than his bite.”

As he looked down at the loose-limbed golden retriever puppy, Jordan felt the corners of his mouth curving upward. Another smile.

Slowly, it was beginning to dawn on him that he was free. After six weeks of jail time, he was out in the world again, unshackled, unfettered. Freedom meant he had options, choices, the opportunity to do more than to declare his innocence over and over until the words sounded hollow and empty.

“Your T-shirt,” Emily said. “Take it off and come over here to the sink.”

He did as instructed. Though he wasn’t sure how far he could trust Emily, Jordan believed she’d do a good job of nursing. From the first time he saw her, giving a lecture on mountain safety, he’d been impressed by her professionalism. He remembered sitting at the Aspen Ski Patrol meeting with Lynette at his side. Their marriage had already begun to fall apart, but Jordan had been making an effort to share in her interests. Still, midway through the meeting, he’d become fascinated by Emily Foster. Her curly, maize-colored hair and the vivacious color in her cheeks contrasted his wife’s cool beauty. As a married man, Jordan would never do anything but look, but he certainly had taken in an eyeful. Being in Emily’s presence made him feel like springtime after the winter chill of his ice princess wife. Poor Lynette! She hadn’t deserved a bloody death. It wasn’t right that her killer would go unpunished.

“Ouch!” He reacted as Emily washed his wound with stinging antiseptic.

“Betadine antiseptic to prevent infection,” she said. “It’s a neat exit wound. The bullet burned right through without hitting the bone. You’re lucky.”

“I guess.” Although getting shot in the first place didn’t seem much like a stroke of good fortune, he had reason to hope. His improbable escape gave him a second chance, and he needed to make use of this opportunity.