by Lisa Jackson
“Is there a reason we ended up with a room with only one bed?” she asked. The heater had kicked in and she took off her jacket.
He sent her a look that turned her knees to water. “A good one. It’s all they had. Two units available, each with one double bed.” She lifted a skeptical eyebrow. “What? You think I’m cheap?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Maybe you think I planned to seduce you.”
She didn’t move for a second, then tossed her head. “I just wanted to know, that’s all.”
“You can have the bed. I’ll camp out by the door.”
“Are you serious? You don’t have to—”
“I would, anyway,” he said, his voice firm.
She let it drop. She knew arguing with him wouldn’t do any good. “Fine.” Running her hands through her hair, she felt suddenly grimy and tired. “Look, if you don’t mind, I think I’ll clean up.”
“Fair enough.”
She grabbed the nylon tote bag before heading into the bathroom. It was cramped, the linoleum cracked, the single bulb bare, the shower stained by years of rust. She turned on the water and thought of the bubble bath she’d envisioned at the cabin. With a half smile, she decided that she’d have to wait for that kind of luxury.
Silently Sloan cursed the fates that seemed against him. The storm wasn’t letting up; the weather service predicted another six inches by morning and highway crews weren’t able to keep up with the cold white powder that wouldn’t stop falling. Great. Just great.
He checked the chamber of the old shotgun, then unloaded it. He didn’t like guns, had seen his share of destruction and death caused by handguns and semiautomatic rifles. He’d only been with the Los Angeles Police Department a few years—six to be exact—but in that time, he’d witnessed the ease of killing by gunshots.
Even Jane. And Tony. Hot pain seared through his soul and he closed his eyes. He had to quit thinking of them. For years he’d buried their memories deep in a private part. of him and rarely let them surface, but ever since chasing down Casey, thoughts of his wife and son had preyed on his mind. He didn’t understand why these long-suppressed images were troubling him now or why Casey McKee made him remember the happiest years of his life as a husband and father. He was just tired and worried. That was it. Thoughts of family life had nothing to do with Casey.
He heard the water start to run in the shower and he imagined her stripping off her clothes and stepping into the steamy spray. In his mind’s eye he saw the hot water running through her hair, past her shoulders and along the cleft of her spine. Drops clung to her chin and drizzled over her breasts... “Quit it!” he growled, furious at the direction of his thoughts.
He’d never been a ladies’ man, never dated more than one woman at a time, and when he’d married Jane, he’d intended to be her husband for the rest of his life. He’d never wanted another woman, couldn’t imagine ever cheating on her. Then suddenly, senselessly, she was gone, and he’d been left with his vows of forever still etched into his heart.
He wasn’t a foolish man and knew that he couldn’t live without a woman indefinitely, but he’d promised himself never to become emotionally attached to a woman again. Every time one got a little too close, he backed off.
And no one had ever touched him the way Jane had. With her, their physical relationship had been more than sex. A playful kiss, a secret laugh, a soft touch... Hell, he still missed that.
For years he’d been convinced no other woman would ever break through the emotional barrier he’d so carefully built, but now, as he cast a look at the peeling paint of the bathroom door, he wondered if the feisty little woman standing naked in the hot shower could break through his defenses.
But that was crazy. He barely knew her. She was a spoiled, rich brat who didn’t have enough brains to figure out that Barry White was the enemy before jumping into his truck.
He double-checked the locks and windows, though he didn’t really believe that anyone could have tracked them here. He’d been careful, and most likely, Barry White’s accomplice, whoever the hell he was, was in Rimrock, waiting to hear from him.
He heard the squeal of ancient pipes, then silence as the water quit running. He glanced at the bed and wondered how many days he’d be forced to spend alone with her. “Get a grip, Redhawk,” he muttered under his breath. He couldn’t allow himself to think of her as a woman. She was Jenner McKee’s baby sister. She was a wealthy woman who could buy and sell him countless times over. And she was a job—his ticket to a hundred thousand dollars. He could think of her as any of these—but not as a woman.
Casey finally felt warm. In a soft flannel shirt, sweater and jeans, her hair still damp but clean, every crevice in her body washed for the first time in a week, she stepped out of the bathroom and found Sloan sitting in a chair by the door, his boots propped on another chair, the shotgun angled across his legs.
He glanced up at her as she folded a knee beneath her and sat on the edge of the bed. Self-conscious, she leaned against one of the pillows, then tossed the other to him. “You don’t have to stay over there,” she said. “If you want to sleep in the bed-”
“Don’t worry about it.” He didn’t crack a smile. “Go to sleep.”
“But—”
“I’m getting paid for this, remember. When I get tired, I’ll roll out the sleeping bag.”
“You’re sure?”
“Wouldn’t have it any other way,” he said, but the twist of his lips suggested differently. Sighing, she climbed gratefully under the covers and watched as he set down the shotgun and reached into his duffel bag. “I think you’d better use this,” he said as he withdrew a tube of antiseptic cream and tossed it onto the bed.
“I think I’m okay—”
“Let me be the judge of that.” He stepped into the bathroom, ran the water for a while and came back into the room, drying his hands.
“Really, Sloan...” she protested, though she had no sound reasoning to argue with. He was just being safe and she was defying him because she was tired of being told what to do.
But he wasn’t about to be discouraged. He sat on the edge of the bed and uncapped the tube. Reluctantly she showed him her hands, which he took in his and surveyed with the cool professionalism of a doctor. Gently he applied the cream to her cuts and the burns on her wrists. “Doesn’t look like any infection,” he said gruffly, though still examining her fingers.
“I told you.”
While still holding her hand, he stared straight into her eyes and her heart did a strange little flip. His gaze was black and intense as he reached into the front pocket of his jeans and extracted a ring. The room seemed suddenly close. “I think this is yours.” He placed the turquoise-and-silver ring in her hand. “White sent it to your family.”
“Oh... thanks.”
“I wouldn’t wear it yet. Not until you’re completely healed.”
“No...I won’t.”
With one last look at her fingers and wrists, he seemed satisfied and walked back to his chair by the door. She told herself that he was just being thorough, that nothing had happened between them, but she couldn’t stop her heart from pounding in double time.
“So tell me about your friend in Spokane.”
“Clarisse?” she said around a yawn.
He nodded.
“We were best friends in college when she started going out with Ray. She thought he was wonderful, but I didn’t like him right off the bat. He seemed too stuck on himself. Kind of a dandy. A rich dandy. And critical. Jeez, he was critical. Of Clarisse’s hair, her clothes, her grades, even her car. He seemed to enjoy picking on her, though he kept telling her it was just to help her, you know, that whole self-improvement thing through constructive criticism. B.S., if you ask me.” She shook her head. “Anyway, Clarisse thought he was perfect and she tried to please him. I quit trying to change her mind about him when they got engaged because it was too late. I was in her wedding party, and then they ended up
moving back to Spokane, where they had a couple of kids and I kind of lost touch with her. She quit calling and answering my letters and it got to where we were only jotting a quick note on the bottom of Christmas cards.”
“But she called you,” he prodded as she sank back on the pillows, “when she was in trouble.”
“Yeah.”
“And you wired her a lot of money.”
“She needed help,” Casey said a little defensively.
“What about her family?”
“I didn’t ask. They don’t have a lot of money, though, and they also thought Ray was a great catch.” She snorted in disgust, then yawned as weariness settled over her.
“The FBI thinks she was in on the kidnapping.”
“No way.” She bit her lip thoughtfully. “I had a lot of time to think this past week, but I decided Clarisse doesn’t know a thing about it. Barry bragged about tampering with my car—”
“He did. We found scratches on your distributor cap.”
“Scratches? That’s it? Just scratches?”
“Looks that way. So the car ran for a while and then just stopped, right?”
“Yeah. I braked for a curve and everything went dead.”
“So Barry, he follows you and offers you a ride and you think he’ll take you back to the Rocking M.”
Casey nodded, her insides growing cold as she remembered the numbing fear when she realized that she’d been trapped. “I didn’t see the gun until I got inside. He pulled it from behind the seat, then handcuffed me inside the car. Nothing I could say or threaten would change his mind. He drove for hours. I tried to trick him and tell him I had to go to the bathroom or that someone was expecting me, but he just laughed and told me to go in the truck and whoever was waiting for me was going to wait a long time.”
She saw Sloan’s expression turn hard and his hands curl over the stock of the shotgun in a death grip. “Sounds like I should have let him freeze up there.”
“Then you’d be charged with murder and we’d never find who he was working with.”
“Bastard.” Sloan’s eyes narrowed. “Let’s just hope he’s the coward I think he is and cuts a deal with the D.A. and spills his guts.”
“He won’t.”
“Why not?”
“He’s too scared,” she said, remembering Barry’s nervous twitch just under his eye and the way he would jump every time there was a noise outside the cabin. “And it wasn’t only being afraid of being caught. Whoever he’s working with scares him spitless.”
Sloan smiled. “Maybe we can work that to our advantage.”
“How?”
“I’m not sure yet. Go on, go to sleep and I’ll think about it.” He settled a little farther onto the small of his back and crossed his ankles, the leather of his boots creaking in protest. Casey snapped off the bedside lamp. She knew she couldn’t sleep a wink, not with Sloan in the room, yet she closed her eyes, let out a sigh and drifted away.
Sloan, satisfied that she was asleep, turned on the television and kept the sound down low. The news was depressing as hell and the weather report set his teeth on edge. Though this blizzard would soon end, there would only be a short break—a day at the most—and then the next storm, an Arctic blast racing down from Canada, would take up where this one left off. More snow. More subzero temperatures. More treacherous roads.
More nights trapped alone with the most intriguing woman he’d met in a long, long while. The next few days were going to be torture. He glanced over his shoulder and saw her sleeping, her hair spread around her face in a mahogany cloud, her lips parted in unknowing invitation.
Yep, sheer torture.
Chapter Five
She knew she was making a mistake. Kissing this man, this stranger, could only spell trouble, but then she was in trouble already, running from some danger, some inner fear that she couldn’t quite name. He took her into his arms and his mouth settled eagerly over hers, dispelling the cool touch of snowflakes on her skin. His hands were big and broad, his skin bronzed as if he had a tan. Impervious to the cold, he stood bare chested, his black hair touching the back of his neck, his eyes as dark as obsidian.
Inside she melted. Despite the snow that drifted beneath her feet and clung to her hair, she was white-hot, burning with an inner fever, and she wanted him to touch her in the most forbidden of places. Her breasts began to ache and when he reached beneath her sweater—
“Wake up!”
Casey started and the dream began to fade quickly. She was in bed—a strange bed. She blinked and found herself staring into the same intense black eyes she’d seen in her dream. “Wha...?” she asked, then remembered yesterday. Her face flushed with color as her dream still lingered in her mind’s eye and her skin still tingled with the imagined feel of his touch. “Is something wrong?”
He paced from the bed to the window and she noticed the way the faded denim of his jeans stretched tightly over his buttocks. Quickly she drew her gaze to the other side of the room. “There’s a break in the weather and the road’s being plowed and sanded,” Sloan said. “But it won’t last long. Another storm’s due in a few hours, so we’d better get moving if we want to get closer to Rimrock.”
That was all the incentive she needed. She threw off the bed co and headed to the bathroom. “Just give me a minu She splashed cold water over her face, combed her hair and added just a touch of makeup.
Within minutes they’d loaded the truck and were on the highway, snow crunching beneath the pickup’s tires. There were patches of blue in the sky, but clouds, dark and threatening, were beginning to roll in from the north. While she’d been sleeping, Sloan had gone to the restaurant, where he’d bought a bag of doughnuts for the trip and had the thermos filled with coffee.
As he drove, Casey poured the coffee and handed him a glazed doughnut, which he somehow managed to eat while concentrating on the road ahead. She wasn’t really hungry and picked at a maple bar while she sipped her drink.
Later, when the road finally straightened, he pointed to the cellular phone with his chin. “Maybe you want to call home.”
“I thought you were worried about being found out.”
“I think we’re safe.”
She didn’t wait, but dialed quickly and drummed her fingers impatiently on the window ledge until Jenner picked up the phone far away at the ranch in Oregon.
“Hi.”
“Casey! Where are you?”
“Heading home—I don’t know exactly where...” She cast a quick glance at Sloan, who shook his head sharply. “Did they arrest Barry White?”
Jenner let fly a string of blue words that made Casey wince. “...that low-life bastard, if I ever get my hands around his fat neck, I swear I’ll kill him myself.”
Casey couldn’t help but grin at the thought. God, how she missed her hotheaded brothers. “Don’t kill him before you find out who he’s working with.”
“Yeah, well, when I find out who that guy is—”
“I know, I know. He’s dead meat.”
“Beyond dead meat.”
“Maybe I should talk to Mom.”
“Okay, but first, just tell me this. White didn’t hurt you did he? ’Cause if I find out that slimebucket so much as touched you, I’ll cut off his—Well, I’ll take care of him.”
“I’m fine and don’t worry, Barry didn’t hurt me.” That was a little bit of a lie. Barry, though he hadn’t been horribly cruel, had probably scarred her psychologically for life. Except that she wouldn’t let him. Barry wouldn’t win.
“Thank God. Look, Mom’s climbing the walls to talk to you.”
“Then put her on.”
There was a slight hesitation, then Jenner said, “Case?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m glad you’re okay.” Her throat was suddenly thick and she blinked hard. Jenner wasn’t a compassionate man or a particularly kind man. His emotions usually ranged from stony silence to rage with not a whole lot in between.
“Me, too. I
miss you.”
He cleared his throat. “Yeah, well, here’s Mom.”
“Thank God you’re safe!” Virginia McKee’s voice sounded strained. “I’ve been so frightened, I can’t tell you. And your grandmother, Lord, I thought she might have a stroke.”
“I’m fine!” Grandma’s voice was distant, but strong and filled with McKee conviction. Casey smiled. Her grandmother, Mavis, had never really gotten along with her daughter-in-law, but they always banded together when facing a family crisis. “Virginia, you tell her I’m just fine.”
“Grandma says she’s okay:”
“I heard.”
“Anyway, you get home as quickly as you can.”
Casey slid a glance at Sloan. “We’re working on it.”
“Well, where are you?”
“In the mountains.”
“What mountains? There’re ranges all the way from here to Alaska.”
“I don’t know, but Sloan thinks we shouldn’t discuss it.”
“Why not? I’m your mother, for crying out loud.”
“I know, I know. Look, Mom, we’ll be home as soon as we can.” She caught Sloan motioning toward the phone with one hand. “I think Sloan wants to talk to Jenner. Would you put him on again?”
“Yes, well, all right.” Reluctance hung heavy in her words. “But you take care now, y’hear.”
“Promise.”
“Good. Here’s Jenner.”
Reluctantly Casey handed the phone to Sloan. He asked questions about Barry’s arrest, and the conversation became one-sided as Jenner explained how slowly the wheels of justice were turning in Rimrock.
Sloan finally cut the connection and glared at the road, once white but now sprinkled with gravel. “White’s still in Montana,” he said, frowning thoughtfully. “The FBI agent, Revere, flew up to Montana but hasn’t reported back to your family about White’s story. Good ol’ Barry will probably be extradited, but it might take a while.”
“Is that bad?”
Lifting a shoulder, Sloan shifted down for a sharp curve in the road. “Maybe, maybe not. At least he’s behind bars. I doubt if his partner will dare show his face up here, for fear he’ll be found out. But he’ll be plenty worried that Barry will rat on him. Jenner, he wants Barry back in Rimrock. He thinks he can somehow help intimidate the guy into confessing, but that’s not how it works. The Feds will break him if he’s gonna be broken. If not, Jenner might as well save his breath.”