The Lawman's Last Stand

“Is not going anywhere tonight. You can call a tow in the morning.” He smiled, even white teeth flashing in the darkness. Gigi didn’t see what he found to be so happy about. “Guess you’ll have to bunk with me for the night.”

She caught her gasp before it escaped her throat.

“Figuratively speaking, of course,” he explained. “The roads are nasty and getting worse by the minute. I only live a few minutes from here. We have a lot better chance of getting to my place safely than we do of making it all the way to your house.”

Suspicion honed by three years on the run kicked in her stomach. “You know where I live?”

Surprise registered in his eyes. “It’s a small town.”

“And you’re a cop.”

“Something wrong with that?”

“No. It’s just—”

Her mind suddenly changed tack. She knew where he lived, too. A woman like her kept tabs on men like him. And even taking into account that they had both been coming from the same place tonight—their mutual friends Eric Randall and Mariah Morgan’s engagement party—Shane shouldn’t have been here, on this road.

“What are you doing this far east?” she asked.

He paused, looking as sheepish as a teenager caught fingering a beer in his dad’s fridge. “The roads are slick and you left Mariah’s in a hurry. I wanted to be sure you got home okay.”

“You were following me?”

The guilty look on his face quickly turned to stubbornness. “And it’s a lucky thing for you that I was.” He nudged her forward. “Now let’s go.”

Her panic surged. This couldn’t happen. She couldn’t be anywhere near him, much less spend the night with him. “I—I can’t. Really.”

“Why not?”

He turned those trust-me blues on her, and for a moment she considered telling him the truth. About New York. Her father. The man in the Mercedes. But that would be foolish. Shane was a cop, the last person she should confide in.

But what choice did she have with him out there somewhere?

She glanced into the woods, and then up the ravine toward the shoulder of the road.

Shane looked at her quizzically. “What are you gonna do, walk home?”

“Maybe I should wait with my truck. You could call a wrecker.”

Shane shook his head, disbelief settling on his face, and let go of her elbow long enough to poke at the welt on her forehead. “Just how hard did you hit your head, anyway?”

She brushed his hand away.

“Forget it, Doc. I’m not leaving you out here.”

One look at the square set of his jaw and she knew resistance was futile. He wouldn’t leave her here, alone. He was a cop, and he obviously took his job very seriously.

But then, so did the man who was after her.

She held her breath and listened. Other than the slow patter of sleet on rocks, all was quiet. No one was there. No one except Shane, whom she couldn’t afford to make suspicious with unreasonable protests.

Maybe his cabin was the safest place for her to be tonight. She couldn’t go home. The man in the Mercedes undoubtedly knew where she lived by now. But he wouldn’t know about Shane.

She hoped.

Her heartbeat gradually slowed. “I guess you’re right,” she said. “Thanks for the rescue.”

He smiled again. Gigi tried not to notice the dimple that dented his right cheek as he swept his arm grandly toward the hillside. “M’lady…”

She turned toward the open door of her truck. “I need my bag.”

Shane dodged around her and leaned across the seat. “I’ll get it.” He reached to the floorboard and pulled out her tapestry handbag.

“Thanks,” she said, taking it. “But I didn’t mean this one.” She tried to keep her voice light, not to arouse suspicion. “There’s an orange backpack, behind the seat.”

He looked at her, his blue eyes brimming with curiosity.

“Sometimes I’m out all night on emergency farm calls. I keep a few…essentials…in the truck.” She forced herself to smile. The things she carried in that bag were essential all right. To survival. Which is why she called it her survival bag. But she had to think of some other excuse for Shane. “Believe me, by morning you wouldn’t want me around if I didn’t. A woman’s got to have her stuff in the morning, you know?”

He retrieved the bag. “I’d want you around in the morning,” he said, his voice grown suddenly husky. “Stuff or no stuff.”

He passed her the bag, and their hands brushed in the exchange. She retreated, and her sore knee buckled.

He caught her before she realized she was falling. Giving her a look that dared her to protest, he helped her up the slope to the road, where blue and red lights strobed over the icy pavement. He was still driving the sheriff’s Blazer. No wonder the guy in the Mercedes had left. He must have made Shane as a cop right away.

He steadied her as she stepped up into the cab and then he walked toward the front of the truck. Her fear redoubled for a moment. She half expected to see the Mercedes come gunning out of the darkness.

Relax, she told herself, studying the sparkling ice on the road. Breathe. No one was gunning anywhere tonight. Not without hockey skates. She was safe.

Shane circled the hood of the vehicle, moving with the natural grace of an athlete, despite the slippery footing. Watching him, she had the same funny feeling in her chest that she’d had the first time they’d met. An acute awareness.

Safe, huh? Safe from the man in the Mercedes, maybe.

Shane Hightower was another matter altogether.

He climbed behind the wheel. With the vehicle’s interior lights on, he switched the heat on full and turned all the vents toward her.

As he worked the knobs, a few strands of damp hair fell across his forehead. The hair on the sides and back of his head was trimmed short. But on top, where the sun had bleached dark blond to shining gold, a longer, heavier layer swept to one side. Brushed back, the cut appeared very conservative, very law enforcement. But when those locks tumbled forward, like now, they gave him a much less civilized look. Rugged. Careless. And very sexy.

She wished she could reach up and push those troublesome locks back in place. It would be easier to remember he was a cop that way.

“Buckle up,” he said.

When she didn’t move, her attention still captured by a silly lock of hair, he reached across her and pulled the shoulder harness over her chest. Her nostrils flared at the sudden scent of damp leather and understated aftershave.

He pushed the metal buckle into the fitting. “There. All set.”

She waited until he’d straightened up to breathe again.