The Lawman's Last Stand

“I never saw him.”

That didn’t sound right. If she hadn’t seen the shooter, why had she been put in protective custody? He would’ve liked to ask, but they were running out of time. If that guy was lucky enough to get his car back on the road in one piece, he could be on them any minute.

Besides, she looked like she was at the end of her rope. This wasn’t the time for an in-depth interrogation. He needed to get her someplace safe. Someplace she could unwind without worrying about a blue Mercedes. Then he would coax some more answers out of her.

“Whether you saw him or not doesn’t matter,” he said. “Someone thinks you know something. And he’s willing to kill you and anyone else who gets in his way because of it.”

“So what am I supposed to do? Go back to New York? I might as well paint a big, red target on my back.”

He paused a moment, trying to decide how best to present his plan. He decided straight out was the only way. “I have a friend in the Justice Department—”

“No!”

“This friend is straight as an arrow, you can trust—”

She jumped up, hands on her hips and defiance swirling like a cloud around her. “No. I’m not putting my life in anyone else’s hands. Not again.”

She crossed her arms over her chest as if to stop the shaking in her body. She wasn’t going to trust anyone on his say-so; hell, she didn’t even trust him. Someone had really worked a number on her. He planned to find out who, and then work a few numbers of his own on him for putting her through this.

For now though, he focused on calm. She needed his reassurance, not his rage. “Nothing will go wrong this time. I promise. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Her head snapped up. “I don’t want you involved. You don’t know what kind of trouble you’re getting yourself into.”

A bemused grin tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Honey, I’m DEA. I live for trouble.”

Her lips pressed into a grim line. She never laughed at his jokes.

“I can take care of myself,” he reassured her.

She looked a little queasy, as if she didn’t quite believe him. “You’re doing a great job of it so far, getting yourself shot.” She eyed him narrowly. “Again.”

He feigned a mortal wound to the chest, then smiled. “I do seem to attract bullets, don’t I?”

“You think this is funny?”

“No. I don’t think it’s funny at all. But I do think we have to get out of here. So what do you say? If we hit the road now, we can be in Phoenix by dark.”

She paused, considering. “Do I have a choice?”

He absorbed the petulant look on her face, the way her toe jabbed at the dirt. If anyone was just stubborn enough to survive this, it was Gigi. “Yeah.” He stood and stepped forward until he was toe to toe with her, chest to chest. “You can go easy, or you can go hard. Which is it going to be?”

In place of an answer, she huffed and flounced around to the back of the Jeep, then rattled in her pack again. He sure hoped she didn’t have a gun in there. If she did, he figured he was dead meat. He watched her a minute, but she just fussed with bottles and medical supplies.

He turned away. “You’ve got exactly one minute to come up with your answer,” he called over his shoulder.

“You allergic to anything, Hightower?” she asked.

“No.”

“You sure? Penicillin, aspirin, nothing?”

“I’m sure, why do you as—” He quit the question, the answer in her hand as she walked toward him. “Oh, no. Don’t even think about it.”

“What’s wrong, Mr. I-live-for-trouble DEA? Afraid of a little needle?”

“A little needle, no. But that thing…”

“Sorry. I’m a horse doctor, remember? This is the smallest I have.”

He scooted backward across the seat as she got closer. “You could knit a sweater with that needle.”

“Quit whining.”

“I’m not whining.” He sulked a moment, then shrugged off his jacket not able to stand her mocking stare any longer.

“Sorry,” she said, glee ringing in her voice. “Penicillin needs to go in deep muscle.” She tapped the syringe and pushed the plunger, squirting a drop of liquid out the end of the needle. Looking down at him, she smiled evilly. “Drop ’em, Hightower.”

He scooted an inch farther back on the seat. “No way.”

“You don’t want that wound to get infected while we’re in Phoenix, do you?”

A mild infection didn’t sound too bad, compared to that needle. How much antibiotic did it take to kill a few little germs, anyway?

Suddenly he realized what she’d said. She didn’t want him to get an infection, “in Phoenix.” She’d agreed to his plan.

“Well, what’s it going to be?”

He eyed the needle again. “Do I have a choice?”

“Sure.” She tapped air bubbles to the top of the syringe again. The morning sun glistened off her rosy cheeks and mussed hair, giving her a sleepy look. Like he imagined she’d look when he rolled over in bed in the morning after a long night of lovemaking and found her looking at him.

“You can go easy, or you can go hard,” she said. “Which is it going to be?”

Fixing his stare on her seductively arched brow and wicked grin, he reached slowly for his belt buckle.

Oh, he would go hard, all right. All the way to Phoenix, if she kept looking at him like that.

Gigi woke unpleasantly, her mind full of dark images—two men whispering in a stable late at night, a faceless man in a midnight-blue sedan, and Shane, standing in a doorway, shadows and firelight dancing with the doubt and desire etched across his face.

Are you afraid of me? The memory of his words taunted her.

No, she would have told him, if she’d been honest. I’m afraid of me. Afraid she’d fall for those trust-me eyes. Afraid she’d find them looking up at her dull and lifeless one day because of it.

“Did you have a nice nap?”

Those words weren’t echoes in her mind; they were real. She opened her eyes, feeling like someone had hung ten-pound weights on her eyelids, and found the very eyes she’d been dreaming about staring at her from the driver’s seat.

She pulled herself closer to the door, wiping her face with the back of her hand. “How long have I been out?”