Royal Protector

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

“How far?”

“Maybe fifty yards.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Except for the murderer,” she said grimly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I suppose so.”

“What was your relationship to Hugh Miller?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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