Baby Dreams

And that was when she noticed he had his gun drawn.

Her heart leapt into her throat. Suddenly things seemed very serious indeed. “What are you doing?” she gasped, staring down the black muzzle of the weapon.

“Get out of the car, face it, and spread your arms out.”

She swallowed hard. He had a bad habit of repeating himself, but she wasn’t about to call him on it now. For one split second, she considered starting up her engine and driving off as though all this had never happened. But that gun was just too ominous. And the snow was just too heavy. And most of all, his face was just too hard and cold.

“Okay,” she said hoarsely. “Just a minute. I’m getting out.”

She put her hands up so he could see she had nothing in them. Wasn’t that what they always did on TV? Then she stepped out, her soft leather shoes sliding a bit on the sleetcovered blacktop. She looked at him questioningly, shivering with the cold, and he gestured for her to turn.

“Spread your arms,” he said softly, but his softer tone seemed even more chilling and she complied quickly, gasping again as he stepped up close behind her and reached out to pat down her sides.

“This is insane,” she said sharply, pulling away from his touch.

“Hold still,” he ordered, taking control of her by the back of the neck the way a cat might a kitten. “And listen carefully to your rights. You have the right to remain silent…”

She shook her head slowly as he went down the list he was obliged to give her. He was arresting her. This was surreal. It couldn’t be happening. She’d just been driving along, on her way to Denver to see old friends and have a jolly time celebrating her college roommate’s new baby. That all seemed innocent enough, didn’t it? Just exactly when had she stepped out of the real world and into this wonderland where everything was upside-down?

It was all so strange. There was a break in the wind, and snow was falling in tiny, glittering flakes, falling silently all around, hitting her face with small, frosty impacts and melting there. It had been years since she’d even seen snow, not since her college days in Northern California, when they’d all packed up the car and headed for the mountains to try out the ski lifts. It always made her marvel how the snow could change the landscape in such a short time and never make a sound. It was like magic—as though some wizard had waved a wand and transformed everything when no one was looking. An enchanted episode.

And so was this whole situation. Was this really happening? Was she in the middle of some off-the-wall nightmare?

“If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you.”

She sighed and began to shiver uncontrollably. No, she wasn’t dreaming. It was all crazy, but very real.

“This is a joke, right? You’re just trying to scare me.” She half turned so that she could see his face again, look into his eyes, search for a spark of humor. “Hey, I promise. No more speeding, honest. I’ll be a good girl from now on. In fact, I’ll stay away from driving altogether and get myself a chauffeur. How about that?”

He didn’t seem to hear her, his eyes as opaque as ever. “Do you have any questions? Have you understood these rights I’ve just read you?”

She shook her head, feeling silly, and gripped her arms tightly around herself. “I don’t understand anything at all.”

His mouth twisted and he gestured toward her. “Hold your hands out behind your back.”

“What?”

The handcuffs were on before she knew what was happening, and she was so shocked she couldn’t utter a word.

“Let’s go.”

She turned to look at him, aghast. “But why?” she asked weakly, too stunned to fight for the moment. “What have I done?”

“Armed robbery, for starters.” He pointed her toward his car, and she went along in a fog of disbelief, his hand guiding her. “That was in Utah. Arizona said something about kidnapping. Colorado mentioned bunco. And then there was the little matter of a shooting in Laughlin, Nevada. Remember that one?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head, dazed. “No!” she repeated more loudly. She stopped, eyes blazing as her spirit revived. She was no criminal. There was a mistake being made. He had to listen to reason. It was silly, really, in a perverted sort of way. Surely he would see the joke if she just explained. “No, this is crazy,” she told him, shaking her head. “I’ve never done any of those things. I’ve never even been to Laughlin.”

“Get in the car.” He held open a door to the back seat.

She stared in at the interior of the car. It looked grotesquely lonely. He couldn’t do this. Could he? She started shaking her head again, backing away. “No, I…”

Reaching out, he gave her an encouraging push that brooked no argument or hesitation. She got in awkwardly, her hands stretched out behind her.

“Okay, wise guy,” she muttered, anger beginning to rise in her. “Okay,” she said more forcefully, turning to look at him, her cheeks bright with the humiliation. “If you think you know so much about me, tell me this. Who do you think I am?”

He flipped up a clipboard from the front seat and scanned it. “Billie Joe Calloway of Fort Worth, Texas,” he read off what he had clipped there. “Twenty-eight years old and good-looking. Five foot six with nice curves. Golden blond hair. Blue eyes. Driving a green Ford Mustang with California plates.” He dropped the clipboard and looked at her. “Now, doesn’t that sound familiar?” he asked her softly, his eyes as cold as an Arctic winter.

If it wasn’t so scary, the situation might have been funny. But right now it would be pretty hard to work up a real, honest laugh out of it.

“I’m thirty,” she said quickly. “And I’m not from Texas. Do you hear even one tiny hint of a Texas twang in. this voice?” But when you came right down to it, the rest fit her to a tee. “I’m not this Billie Joe person,” she said more strongly, glaring at him for emphasis. “You’ve got the wrong woman this time.”

She thought quickly. There had to be some way to prove it. Of all the times to lose her purse. “Oh, my car registration!”

He shrugged. “So you stole a car.”

“Oh, I see. No matter what I come up with, you’ll have a reason why it doesn’t apply.” She stared at him in exasperation. “You’re going to feel like such an idiot when you find out the truth.”

He shrugged again, seeming totally disinterested. “We’ll see,” he said as he swung into the driver’s seat.

“My car,” she protested, suddenly realizing they were going to drive off and leave it. “It’s just sitting there. Someone will take it.”

He turned and looked at her through the opening in the glass partition between the seats. “Don’t you get it?” he said, his voice soft but tough. “There is no one around, Miss Calloway. You took the wrong road, all right. You must have gone past three separate barriers to get this far. You were on a street to nowhere when I picked out your headlights and came on out here to see what was going on.” He started up his engine. “If you’d gone a mile farther, you’d have probably driven right off a cliff,” he added, sounding almost cheerful for once, “since you seem to have an opposite reaction to warning signs, or any other sort of rules or regulations.”

Cami turned slowly and looked back, squinting into the blurry white wilderness, dumbfounded. Was he right? She didn’t remember any barriers. So now she was supposed to consider him her savior instead of her enemy? It didn’t make any sense, but it served to keep her quiet as they rode down the mountain and turned onto a highway. She was thinking things over—and getting more and more puzzled all the time.

“My purse,” she murmured hopelessly at one point.

“The snow’s getting too deep to find it now,” he told her. “I’ll send someone out in the morning to look for it.”

She lapsed into silence again, overwhelmed by it all. She’d been in scrapes before. In fact, she’d been known by her friends as someone who seemed to attract trouble. She liked to think of it as trouble attracting her. And she usually had no problem in dealing with such things. But nothing in her background and experience had prepared her for this, and it was going to take some time to pull herself together and figure how to get out of this one.

“This is utterly outrageous,” she said, staring at his rock-hard profile. “You can’t just go around arresting people like this.”

“Sure I can,” he responded, glancing back at her. “It’s my job.”

Two (#ulink_d3ef0c44-7f0a-54ed-ab60-3a9877e7b76c)

Okay, so this was going to be a little more complicated than he’d thought. Rafe eased the car around the corner, wheels spinning in the snow, and avoided looking in the rearview mirror. With the storm coming in, he was probably going to be stuck with her for the night. Oh, well. It came with the job. And it had been so long since he’d arrested anyone, he’d almost forgotten how to do it.

“Here we are,” he said as the car slid to a stop beside the old adobe building. “Hold on a minute. I’ll get your door.”

He wasn’t being gallant, merely careful. With the rap sheet this lady carried in her background, he wasn’t going to take any chances. She was tougher than she looked—had to be, with the things she’d done lately. He held the door and watched her emerge awkwardly from the car, and then wished he hadn’t.

She had the longest damn legs he’d seen in some time. And what was she doing wearing a skirt up here in the mountains, anyway? Nobody wore skirts around here. And if she had to wear a skirt, why couldn’t she control it better? She didn’t have to let it hike halfway up like that.

He knew that was hardly fair. After all, she was still in handcuffs. Still, it made him feel better to complain, even silently. The way she moved did allow him to get a good look at some of the most beautiful legs he’d ever gawked at, but that wasn’t what he wanted to do—not at her. She was a suspect, for Pete’s sake. He wasn’t supposed to notice her legs, or anything else about her. It wasn’t professional. He swore at himself and looked away. No, this definitely was no cinch.

“We’ll go on in,” he told her, turning her and pointing her in the right direction. “We’ll get the proper forms filled out, and then we’ll call Santa Fe.” There was still a chance they would come on out and pick her up right away. It all depended on how badly they wanted her.