Tough Enough

by Jayne Ann Krentz

  She snapped on a light and began sorting through the mess from Max’s desk.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” he asked, obviously feeling he had to fill in as her protector now that Max was gone. Did he also feel protective toward Maggie or did he have something more romantic in mind? The thought didn’t bother her as much as it had at first.

  “Oh, I’m as well as can be expected,” Denver said, looking around the ransacked room. She knew if she mentioned what had happened, he’d come out. And as much as she liked him, she didn’t know what to say to him. He was so quiet, so different from Max, who would have entertained her while the two of them cleaned up this mess.

  She hung up, anxious to get busy. She felt a sudden chill as the side door flew open behind her. An arm locked around her neck and pulled her backward. She fought for breath as the pressure against her throat increased, cutting off her air. A hint of a man’s cologne drifted across her senses; the familiarity of it stunned her. Her head pounded as she ripped at the arm around her throat with her fingers. Panic seized her as black spots danced before her eyes. She felt the darkness coming up for her and realized he planned to kill her. She kicked frantically behind her, connecting with a shin, and got a loud curse.

  Then the lights went out. Literally.

  “Get out!” She heard a man yell from down the hallway, the voice muffled as if behind a mask. “Now.”

  Her attacker let go, shoving her forward. She stumbled into Max’s desk and hurriedly groped for the pistol in her purse. She could hear her attacker stumbling down the dark hall. She pulled out the gun, planning to go after him, when a wave of cold air hit her, then a body. The body hurled her to the floor. The pistol went flying.

  “Stay down. And keep quiet,” the man on top of her commanded.

  Denver moaned as she recognized the voice. “Great timing, Garrison.” The cologne scent was gone, along with the man who wore it.

  “I knew you couldn’t keep quiet,” J.D. growled, rolling off her. In the other room, the front door slammed. “Stay here!”

  She heard J.D. run down the hall toward the living room. He knocked over something large, swore loudly as it rumbled to the floor, then a door opened again, followed by silence.

  Denver felt around for the pistol and, not finding it, got to her feet and made her way to the dark living room. The front door stood open, cold air rushing in; snow had begun to fall, making the day even darker. She tried the light switch, then when it didn’t come on, felt around on top of the fireplace mantel for a flashlight.

  “J.D.?” Denver called as she stepped outside into the storm. “J.D.?”

  A car engine cranked over, its headlights cutting a swath of light through the snowflakes. Denver could make out two shadowy figures wrestling in the snow near the edge of the road. J.D. and … another man. Denver ran back to the cabin, grabbed the poker from the fireplace and ran toward the two, screaming at the top of her lungs.

  The sight of her, or maybe it was just the sound of her, made them both look up. One man stumbled to his feet and ran toward the waiting car. The other kneeled in the road, an arm over his face as the car turned around, roaring away in a tidal wave of ice shards and chunks of frozen obsidian sand. As the car’s taillights died away in the pine trees, J.D. slowly got to his feet.

  “Are you all right?” Denver called out.

  “I thought I told you to stay where you were,” he snarled as he started back toward the house.

  “And miss seeing you get killed?”

  J.D. pushed Denver through the open doorway and slammed the door behind them. Denver flicked the beam of her flashlight over him. He took it from her hand, along with the poker she still carried, and laid both on the hearth.

  “Did you get a look at him?” she asked.

  “No.” She heard him snap the light switch. “How about you? Did you recognize him or the car?”

  “Just his cologne.” She could hear J.D. stumbling over things in the living room. She told herself that anyone could buy the same designer cologne Pete wore, anyone with money, but it didn’t help ease the sick feeling in her stomach.

  “Where’s the breaker box?” J.D. asked as if he hadn’t heard her. He seemed to be running on straight anger and she wasn’t sure how much of it was aimed at her.

  She took the flashlight from the hearth. “In the laundry room. I’ll get it.”

  J.D. followed her into the multipurpose room. Denver held the flashlight on the electrical box behind the wall calendar near the door, while J.D. flipped the breakers. The lights came on.

  She caught sight of J.D.’s face. “My God.” She stared at him, the ransacked room and the assailant quickly forgotten. “J.D., you’re hurt.”

  Gingerly he touched his left eye with his fingers. “Just a lucky punch, that’s all. I’m fine.” But Denver was already running warm water in the laundry tub. She reached into the overhead cabinet and took out a washcloth.

  “Come here,” she said, motioning for him to sit down on a footstool. She touched the washcloth gently to his face. “What about these cuts?”

  “It was just a little gravel,” he mumbled. “Ouch.”

  “Hold still.” Her fingers found a bump on the side of his head, probably where she’d hit him with the lamp. The tears came without warning. Denver bit her lip and tried to step away from him. “I’ll get some antiseptic for those cuts.”

  He caught her hand and pulled her into his arms. She clung to him, feeling his strength, his warmth, the steady beat of his heart against her breast. He hugged her tightly against him as if he needed her in his arms as much as she needed to be there.

  “You could have been killed,” she whispered.

  “I’m all right, Denny.” He cradled her head with one hand, her back with the other. “I’m fine.”

  She brushed at her tears, pulling back a little to look at him, but didn’t move from his arms. “What do you think they wanted?”

  “I wish I knew because you won’t be safe until we do,” he said, pushing back a strand of her long hair from her face. His gaze shifted to her neck. “Oh, Denny, your throat.”

  She touched it gingerly with trembling fingers. “I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t come along when you did.”

  He pulled her against him, cradling her in his arms, rocking her. “It’s all right, baby. It’s all right now.”

  The room seemed to shrink, pressing them even closer. Denver fought for breath as J.D. held her. She could feel his heart pick up a beat next to hers, feel his breath against her cheek become ragged. Warning signals began to go off in her head. Dangerous territory! Red alert! Except she couldn’t move.

  He pulled back a little; his look flamed her cheeks and sent her temperature skyrocketing. She watched his gaze touch her lips as tenderly as a kiss. And as he stole up to her eyes again, she felt her heartbeat go from a two-step to a cowboy jitterbug.

  “I should get the antiseptic,” she whispered, but didn’t move.

  The phone rang. She stared at it, not wanting to leave his arms but knowing if she didn’t—

  “You get the phone. I’ll get the antiseptic,” J.D. said, his voice thick with emotion.

  Reluctantly she stepped from his arms; he didn’t seem any more anxious to let her go than she was to leave. As she answered the phone, she put the washcloth to her face and fought to quiet her thundering pulse. She heard J.D. draw in a ragged breath. “Hello?” she said. Silence. Then a click.

  “Who was it?” J.D. asked behind her.

  She shook her head as she ran more cold water over the cloth and put it to her still burning cheeks. “They hung up.”

  “Probably just a wrong number.”

  Under normal circumstances, Denver would have agreed. But before her caller had hung up, she’d heard the distinct opening of a phone-booth door. She couldn’t shake off the feeling that whoever it was had been calling from just up the road—and that that person had just tried to kill her.

  She flu
ng the washcloth over the tub and took the antiseptic from J.D.’s hand. He didn’t even flinch as she touched it to his scrapes and scratches. Instead, he kept his gaze on her face.

  “Thanks,” he said softly. He was so near her she could feel the heat of his body.

  “I guess I’d better start putting this place back together.” She put the antiseptic away, then knelt to pick up the pistol. After stuffing it back into her purse, she stepped past J.D. He threw her completely off guard.

  “What were these, Denny?” he asked. He was holding several long strips of exposed film. A couple of the cassettes still hung from the ends of the film.

  “Just some promo shots I was doing for a free-lance project.”

  “Doesn’t it seem odd that the burglar destroyed them?”

  All she could think about was that she’d have to reshoot them.

  “What else have you been working on that someone might find interesting?” J.D. prodded.

  Denver shrugged. “I’ve got some shots of celebs for the free-lance writers I work with. Montana’s hot right now, you know. Lots of movie stars and TV moguls moving here.”

  “I heard.”

  “And there’s some film I was getting ready to soup for a travel brochure I’ve contracted to do.” She grumbled under her breath as she picked up more strips of exposed film dangling out of film cassettes. “I guess I’ll have to shoot these again, too.”

  “Nothing more?” J.D. asked.

  “Just Max’s birthday party. That’s it.”

  “Max’s birthday?” he asked, taking the film from her. “Do you think any shots can be saved?”

  “Not of the film that’s out of the cassettes. If there’s any shots still inside … maybe.”

  “Let’s take a look,” J.D. said, hitting the light.

  “Sorry there isn’t more,” she said later as she hung up the processed film to dry. Only a few photos in three of the rolls had survived.

  “That’s all right. It was a long shot anyway, but it just seems strange that they’d destroy your film.” There were several pictures of the buffalo jump near Three Forks and a nice scenic landscape of Big Sky with Lone Mountain Peak. On the other roll, three shots of Max’s birthday party had turned out.

  “Damn,” Denver said, holding the frames up to the light. “These are the last photos of Max and most of them are ruined.”

  “Can we put these on your light table?” J.D. asked.

  “What are we looking for?” Denver asked as she spread out the negatives.

  J.D. picked up the loupe and bent over to study them.

  “See anything?” she asked.

  He handed her the loupe. “Here, take a look. At the back of the room by the fireplace.”

  Denver bent over the negatives. “I think we’d better blow this up.”

  A few minutes later, she held up the photograph from Max’s birthday for J.D. to see. It was a wide-angle shot of the entire party; the photo as well as the cabin overflowed with people. But now she could see the two people at the rear clearly. Pete Williams was having a very serious conversation with Cal Dalton.

  “It almost looks like Pete and Cal are arguing,” J.D. said.

  “I wonder what they have to argue about? I didn’t even know they knew each other.” Her gaze skimmed the rest of the photo. “Oh, my God, look,” she said, pointing to the right-hand side of the picture.

  “Max is just washing up some dishes,” J.D. said, sounding confused.

  Denver shook her head. “See how he’s carefully wrapping up that glass in a towel?” Her gaze met J.D.’s. “I’ve helped him collect evidence before to send to the crime lab in Missoula. He’s getting someone’s fingerprints from the party.”

  J.D. stared at her. “Why would Max run a fingerprint check on anyone at the party?”

  “I know it doesn’t make any sense. We knew everyone who attended the party.” She shivered. “But it would mean that even two weeks ago he suspected someone close to him.”

  “Come on,” J.D. said, taking her hand, “I’m going to build a fire so you can warm up.” He pulled a chair up to the fire for her and began pulling kindling and old newspapers out of the wood box. “Why would Max take one of the guest’s fingerprints? It’s not like most people’s fingerprints are on file somewhere, right?”

  “Unless the person had been arrested before or worked in a high-security job that required them,” Denver agreed, sitting forward. “Or Max might have needed the prints to compare to some he’d picked up at a crime scene.”

  While J.D. got the fire going, Denver went to the phone. He listened while she called the crime lab in Missoula.

  “They received a fingerprint request from Max,” she said after she hung up. “But they can’t give me any other information. They did say that their findings have been mailed.” She picked up one of her framed photographs from the floor. “Another dead end unless we can dig them up at Max’s office.”

  “You were very lucky this time, Denny,” J.D. said as he joined her and hung the photo back on the wall. “Whoever tried to strangle you obviously meant business.”

  “Speaking of luck, you must have gotten my message right after I called.”

  “You called me?” He sounded pleased to hear that.

  She had stooped down to pick up a stack of spilled magazines; now she looked over at him. “If you didn’t get my message, how did you—”

  “Just luck.” He smiled that all-too-familiar sexy smile of his. She wished he wouldn’t do that when she was feeling vulnerable, then realized that around him she was always vulnerable.

  “There seems to be a lot of luck going around,” she said quietly.

  “I followed you out of town,” he confessed with a shrug and a sheepish grin. “I just thought—”

  “That I might need help again.” She laughed and shook her head at him in amazement. “You do know me, don’t you.” He knew her in a way no other man ever had; he’d seen into her heart and she’d invited him in. She quickly looked away from those knowing gray eyes of his.

  “You said you recognized the guy’s cologne?”

  Denver picked up a couch cushion and put it back in place. So he had heard her. She hugged herself but couldn’t shake off the cold chill as she looked over at him. His gaze was so filled with compassion she thought she would cry if she kept looking at him.

  “It was the kind Pete wears,” she said, realizing J.D. had probably recognized it, too.

  “That’s what I thought.”

  She waited for him to say, I told you so. He didn’t. “Thanks for coming to my rescue.”

  His laugh was low, directly behind her. “A knight in armor I’m not, Denny. In fact …” His fingers touched her shoulder and his voice dropped.

  “You were doing fine without me,” she said, realizing she could mean both the fight in the driveway or his life in California.

  “Don’t kid yourself. I needed you.”

  Her body stirred beneath the warm touch of his fingers. His voice found its way to her heart and chipped away at the wall of ice she kept trying to build against him. Slowly she turned and looked up into his eyes. His gaze softened. How had she ever forgotten the depth of emotion in those eyes?

  “You’re scared to death it’s Pete, aren’t you?” He caressed her face, tracing his fingers along her cheek.

  “Pete’s been my best friend for years.”

  His fingers stopped short of her lips. “He’s asked you to marry him?”

  She nodded reluctantly.

  He pulled his hand away. “Have you given him an answer yet?”

  How could she tell J.D. that he’d been the only man who’d ever interested her let alone had a chance with her heart? “Yes. I can’t marry Pete when I gave my heart to another man years ago—” The words caught in her throat.

  “Denny,” he said, his voice low and soft.

  How many times had she wondered if J.D. ever regretted leaving West Yellowstone—and her? He looked as if all he wanted to do
was kiss her, as if his lips wanted nothing more than to touch hers. But then he stepped back over to the fire.

  “I’m never going to hurt you again,” he said, making her wonder if he was telling her—or reminding himself. He tossed another log onto the fire. “We’d probably better have a look upstairs to see how much damage was done.”

  She stood, staring at his strong, muscular back, his slim hips, wanting him in ways she’d never even imagined at sixteen. Then she followed him upstairs.

  Her intruder had obviously started his search upstairs. Clothing hung out of dresser drawers; closet doors stood open, their insides tumbled about. With J.D.’s help, she quickly put things away. Then she saw her old cloth doll on the floor. Denver picked it up; she held it against her chest fighting tears of joy to see that it hadn’t been damaged.

  “At least they didn’t destroy the house as badly as they did Max’s office,” she said, unable to let go of Hominy. She touched the doll’s worn face, thinking of Max. And her parents. She couldn’t remember if it had been Max or her parents who’d given her Hominy. She thought she remembered her mother giving her the doll on her birthday but she couldn’t be sure. Maybe she just wished her mother had given it to her. She had so little left of that life.

  “You think this all ties in with Max’s death?” she asked.

  “It seems likely, don’t you think?” J.D. replied, watching her. “Come on, let’s clean up the other bedroom.”

  When they finished the bedroom, J.D. led the way back downstairs. Denver picked up a throw pillow and replaced it. When she turned, she caught the expression on J.D.’s face.

  “What is it?” she asked. Her legs turned wobbly under her and she gripped the back of a chair J.D. had righted. “You’re scaring me.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to,” he said, going to her. He led her over to the hearth and sat down beside her.

  “Tell me what’s wrong,” she pleaded. “You didn’t just come out here tonight because you were worried about me, did you?”

  He shook his head. “Look around this room, Denny. Look at the bruises on your neck. You have to be straight with me if you want me to help you find Max’s killer.” Firelight caught in his eyes, making them bright as winter moonlight on new snow.