The Lawman's Last Stand

Why she had to leave.

In a way, leaving Utah would be a relief. Her life here was a lie. A necessary one, but still a deception. The more she came to care about this place and its people, her friends, the harder the deception became. And the worst lie of all was the lie she had told to herself. That she was safe here. That they wouldn’t find her, this time. What a fool she’d been.

Feeling the thrum of fear strike up a new beat in her breast, she put the news article back in her handbag, set the handbag on the floor, and picked up her survival pack. She hadn’t been without the bag since she’d left New York, three years ago. The bag was her safety net.

Whether he knew it or not, tonight it was Shane’s safety net as well. If the man after her somehow did manage to find her, he wouldn’t hesitate to kill one unsuspecting DEA agent. He’d killed federal agents before.

Guilt struck a sour chord in her head. She really didn’t believe anyone would find her in the next few hours, but she still should have told him. Her silence—her very presence—put him at risk.

Glancing down the darkened hallway, she thought about telling him now. But he was probably long asleep, and she couldn’t knock on his door in the middle of the night wearing nothing but her bare feet and a soft flannel bathrobe that smelled like him. Not after that kiss.

Not after the way she’d treated him after the kiss. She had no right to ask him for anything, least of all to watch over and protect her. Besides, he was a cop. He would ask questions she couldn’t answer. So tonight, like every night, she would watch over and protect herself.

And she would protect him, too.

Digging past the assorted getaway paraphernalia in her backpack, Gigi wrapped her hand around a solid shape folded inside a cotton T-shirt.

She’d never loaded the gun before. Didn’t want to do it now. But she had no choice. By letting him bring her here, she’d taken Shane’s life in her hands. She had to be prepared to defend it.

With the pistol on her lap, she unzipped an outer pocket of the pack and pulled out the ammunition. Carefully, just like she’d been shown in New York, she inserted the shells.

By sheer will, she kept her hands from trembling. All she had to do was make it to morning, she told herself. Then she would leave Utah forever. Because she’d stayed too long. Because she’d let a cop get too close.

And because somewhere out there, a cold-blooded killer was looking for her.

Chapter 2

After a chilly morning at his cabin—one due more to the frosty demeanor of his houseguest than the unusually cool spring weather—Shane dropped Gigi off at John Lane’s scrap yard. She’d called John not thirty seconds after sunrise, the moment the ice on the roads began to melt, and talked the tow truck driver into going after her truck. Then she’d banged around the kitchen under the pretense of making coffee until Shane couldn’t stand the noise and got up to see what the racket was about. She’d seemed so desperate to leave that Shane had joked that if she was in such a hurry, she needn’t have bothered to wait for him to take her to town. She could have just stolen his truck and driven herself.

Gigi hadn’t laughed.

Shaking his head, he pushed his way through the door to the Washington County Sheriff’s Office with one hand, carrying a cup of coffee from the diner in the other.

Bailey Henrickson, the young state trooper sent to keep an eye on things until a new sheriff was appointed, greeted him. “Hey, Agent Hightower.”

“Hey yourself.”

He hurried past Bailey, hiding his grin. Shane couldn’t help it. He liked Bailey. The kid seemed to be a fair enough lawman, but his ears were just too damned big for his head. Especially when he put on his smoky hat and it pushed them out to the side.

Keeping his head lowered, Shane sat at the desk in the corner. The one with the computer. He felt Bailey watching him, but he didn’t look up.

“Something I can help you with?” Bailey finally asked.

“Nope.”

A minute, maybe two passed while the PC booted up.

“Something you need?” Bailey said.

“Just a little information.”

He heard the kid shuffle some papers. “You know, you aren’t officially supposed to be using that equipment anymore. You’re supposed to be headed back to Phoenix and the almighty DEA today.” He grinned. “You can leave the sheriff’s badge and the keys to the Blazer with me.”

Shane smiled into his coffee cup. “You kicking me out, Trooper?”

The paper shuffling stopped. “Well, no sir. But…”

“Good. Because I’ll be done before you could call for backup.”

“Ha!” Bailey barked. “State Trooper needing backup to handle one sissy DEA agent. That’ll be the day.”

Shane grinned wider, tapping out a few commands on the keyboard.

A chair scraped back and Bailey’s footsteps echoed across the wood floor. Shane looked up, and raised his hand to his mouth, coughing to cover his laugh. The kid had put on his hat.

“If you’re going to be here a few minutes, would you mind catching the phone if it rings?” Bailey asked. “Think I could use a cup of that slimy diner coffee myself.”

“Sure. You go ahead. I’ll keep an eye on things.”

The deputy left. All the better. Shane could do what he needed with Bailey here, but it was best if he wasn’t. Accessing people’s private information for personal reasons wasn’t strictly legal, but Shane had questions that needed answering.

He didn’t know why Gigi’s reaction last night bothered him so much. He’d been rejected before. It wasn’t like he was any great prize. He was leaving town today, anyway. Even if he weren’t, it wasn’t like they had any future. It wasn’t like he was dreaming of blond-haired babies with wild blue eyes. Shane wasn’t family material. Never had been, he guessed.

But Gigi had responded to him—hell she’d electrified and incited him—at least at first. Until she’d remembered what she was doing. Or who she was doing. A cop.

He’d lain in bed after he’d left her, thinking about her. His nose had wrinkled, catching a scent eight years in the DEA had taught him never to ignore. He smelled trouble—a wispy tendril, like the first curl of smoke from kindling—but trouble nonetheless. He just wasn’t sure what kind.

From here, thanks to the wonders of the Internet, he had access to every database available to law enforcement, as well as a few that weren’t supposed to be available to anyone, law enforcement or not, courtesy of many hours in the computer lab at Arizona State. He’d worked the night shift to put himself through school, and in those long stretches before dawn, he’d learned a great deal about computer systems that wasn’t in the textbooks. In half an hour, maybe less, he’d know everything there was to know about Gigi McCowan. Then he could head back to Phoenix.

His fingers laced together, he cracked his knuckles and set to work. Sixty-five minutes later he sighed, rolled his head around his shoulders and admitted he’d been wrong.

Hunched over the flickering screen, he pinched the bridge of his nose, then scanned the text again to be sure he’d read it right. “Well I’ll be damned.” He definitely wouldn’t be going back to Phoenix today.

He didn’t know who the woman who’d spent last night in his cabin was, but he did know one thing—

She wasn’t Gigi McCowan.

Gigi took one last look around as she waited for John Lane to dig out his paperwork. Her pickup truck was still strapped to his wrecker in the drive.

She spun slowly, her gaze skimming over the junkyard to the mountains beyond, trying to memorize everything from the piney smell of the mountain air to the calls of birds in the treetops. She had to memorize it, because soon memories would be all she had left of Utah.

She took a deep breath and turned, hearing Mr. Lane walk up behind her.

“You’re sure you want to do this? Trade your pickup for my old Jeep?” John Lane asked. “Damage on your truck doesn’t look too bad. I can have her good as new in a day or two, and it’s bound to be worth twice what my heap is worth.”

She put on a false smile. She loved her old pickup. It was worn in all the right places. But she couldn’t afford to wait a day, much less two, for him to fix it. “I’ve been thinking I need something that eats a little less gas,” she said. “And after that ice storm last night, four-wheel drive sounds pretty good, too.”

“All right then.” He handed her the keys and title.