The Lawman's Last Stand

“An hour or so.”

“Sorry, I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

“That makes two of us.”

She wondered fleetingly what thoughts had held his sleep at bay last night, then when she felt his heavy-lidded gaze linger on her, she decided she didn’t want to know.

They drove up on an exit. Shane put on his blinker, and let the Jeep coast off the two-lane highway. His hair settled sexily over his eyes as the wind that had been whipping it around his head diminished with their speed. She really wished he’d brush that hair back, before she gave in to the impulse to do it herself.

“We need gas,” he said. His words cooled the heat of his stare, but did little to slow the clamoring beat of her heart. Lord, what was she thinking? She had to get away from him, before she did something neither one of them might live long enough to regret, like trusting him.

The convenience store with the pumps out front looked deserted. Shane handed her a twenty-dollar bill and pointed at the See Cashier Before Fueling sign. “You pay, I’ll pump.”

Gigi took the money, but didn’t move, holding her breath as he swung the door open and climbed out of the Jeep. The keys were in the ignition. This could be her best chance to escape before they got to Phoenix.

Shane pushed the door and it thunked closed behind him. Her heart lurched when he turned around and smiled at her, then dropped to the floor of her stomach when, never taking his eyes off her, he leaned into the Jeep and slid the keys out of the ignition.

For a moment she could have sworn he knew what she’d been thinking. A guilty flood of heat bloomed in her cheeks.

He jammed the keys in his pocket. “Why don’t you get us some drinks while you’re in there?” he said coolly, turning away to lift the handle on the gas pump. “You look a little hot.”

She made a face at his back.

Walking out of the store with a brown paper bag of cool drinks and a package of peanut butter cookies, she couldn’t believe her luck. A new-looking sedan pulled right up to the door. The driver, a well-dressed young woman, hopped out and left the engine running when she got out.

Gigi glanced out at the pumps. She could get away after all. Shane was nowhere in sight.

A different kind of adrenaline rush kicked her system into high gear. Where could Shane have gone? Had something happened to him while she was in the store? What if all the time she’d been inside plotting her escape, he’d been lying hurt—she wouldn’t let herself think it could be worse than that—out here somewhere?

Seconds ticked away. The young woman still hadn’t come out of the store, and there was still no sight of Shane.

Ugh. She hated herself. Her best chance to leave, and she couldn’t go. She couldn’t take off without knowing Shane was all right.

Hurriedly she reached into her pocketbook and dug around until she found a makeshift weapon. She considered going for the gun in the Jeep, but she wasn’t Police Woman. She couldn’t see herself running around a gas station brandishing a pistol.

All she could find was a metal fingernail file, but it had a long thin blade that would certainly hurt if it were jabbed somewhere strategic. With the file clutched in her fist, she crept to the corner of the convenience store and peaked around the corner.

Nothing.

She crept around the other side.

Bingo. Shane was there, but he wasn’t lying hurt. The cold chill of fear she felt turned to a hot blast of anger.

He was propped against the side of the painted cinder block building next to a phone booth, his long, jeans-clad legs crossed at the ankles, the fingers of one hand crammed into his pocket, looking like he didn’t have a care in the world.

He glanced over his shoulder, saw her and jutted his chin toward her to acknowledge her presence as he talked. Heat rushed up her neck as she marched to him. What was he doing? They’d called the deputy long ago, from the first gas station they’d come to.

He covered the receiver with his hand and opened his mouth to say something to her. Before he got a word out, she reached out and jabbed the hook on the phone down.

“Hey! What are you doing?”

“Who were you talking to?” Her throat was so tight she could hardly get the words out. Had he given her away already?

“What is wrong with you?”

“I told you, no warning anyone that we were coming. I don’t want a reception party waiting for me when I get there.”

He made a sound of disgust. “You are really paranoid.”

Her temper rose to a boil. “If I’m paranoid, it’s with good reason. I’ve been driven away from my home, forced to leave my friends and my job, chased, shot at—” The odd look on his face stopped her. “What are you staring at?”

He waved toward her hand. “That.”

Looking down, she remembered the pitiful weapon still clenched in her fist.

“What were you going to do, hold a nail file to my throat and force me to give up the keys?”

“Now who’s being paranoid?”

“Tell me that’s not what you were thinking a little while ago. You were going to take off with the Jeep and leave me stranded in the middle of nowhere.”

Damn him. He had known. And yet he’d said nothing. How did he do it? Stay so blasted calm, so indifferent? Years of practice, she decided. That, and not having any feelings to begin with.

She recognized that as a lie before she’d fully formed the coherent thought. He’d felt something last night, when he’d kissed her. And he’d made her feel it, too.

Double damn him.

He pried the metal file out of her hand. “How far did you think you’d get? If that guy in the Mercedes didn’t chase you down, I would.”

“You make it sound like I’m the criminal here.”

“I’m still not sure you aren’t.”

“I told you I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“And I’m trying real hard to believe it—so hard that I just helped you cross state lines. Do you know how much trouble that could get me in if you really are a fugitive?” He dragged the hair off his forehead with his fingers and sighed. “I really want to believe you’re an innocent victim in all this. But you aren’t making it easy.”

His argument threw her. He was risking his life and his career to help her without even knowing who she really was, with only her word as proof that she hadn’t done anything to deserve the trouble following her, and all she could think of was getting away from him.

Well, maybe that wasn’t quite all she could think of. She lowered her gaze to the file in her hand. He thought she carried it for him. In a way, she did.

To protect him.

The notion was foolish, she recognized. The only way to truly protect Shane was to get away from him.

But even that probably wouldn’t work. She couldn’t see him giving up that easily. If she escaped, no doubt he’d feel compelled to come after her. And that would put him in the path of a killer.

Gigi was cornered. Her only choice was to let him turn her over to his friend in the Justice Department. It was the only way he would leave her alone. The only way he would be safe.