by Linda Conrad
Gage was a professional private investigator and had access to internet search engines and other programs that her department couldn’t afford.
She went on explaining to Colt what she wanted from her brother-in-law. “I’m hoping we can use his police artist friend to draw a sketch of the murderer from the witness’s description.”
Lacie had lost touch with the witness, but she’d been doing some checking into the firefighter’s background. She had a gut feeling that was going to be a whole other story when she had the time to dig deeper. But meanwhile, she felt sure she wouldn’t have any trouble locating the witness when the time came for her to be questioned.
“He’ll do it,” Colt agreed. “Gage has already said he’d be glad to help us out any way he can. Would you want him to call the sketch artist tomorrow?”
As they rounded the corner of the barn, the first person she spotted at the party was the brother-in-law in question.
“Gage.” As she got closer and looked up into his expectant face, the thing that had been bothering her for days suddenly snapped into place. “Oh. My. God. That’s it!”
“What’s it?”
“I know where I saw the sketch of that witness’s face. You gave it to me.”
Gage’s eyebrows rose. “Huh?”
“Quick,” Lacie urged. “Do you have one of those age-enhanced renderings of your lost little sister on you?”
Gage dug in his pocket. “I carry one all the time. What’s going on?”
He unfolded the paper and handed it over.
When Lacie looked again at the sketch, she was almost speechless. “You are not going to believe this, but I spoke to this woman not more than forty-eight hours ago.”
Turning back to Colt, Lacie gazed into her husband’s dear face and saw traces of a truth she’d not fully taken note of at the time. “The murder witness. That young woman Hotshot firefighter—”
She touched Colt’s cheek. “Your family’s most distinctive features appear on her face, too. For instance, this dimple on only one side.” Moving her finger to trace his left eyebrow, Lacie added, “And the funny way your eyebrow peaks just so. She’s a dead ringer for you and your brothers—and this sketch. I’m pretty sure she’ll turn out to be your kidnapped little sister, Cami.”
*
Josh slowly came awake from the most erotic dream of his life. He would rather not have had to stop the dream. But no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn’t keep his eyes closed.
When gradually he became cognizant of his surroundings, he found himself lying in a bed, though unfortunately he was completely clothed. Looking down, he also discovered his body had become entangled with Nina’s. Legs intertwined. Hands and body parts that shouldn’t be touching were casually placed at precarious positions. Oh, man, just like in the dream.
Except that in reality a fully clothed Nina seemed to be sleeping soundly and peacefully. After a moment to clear his head, he remembered that he had fallen asleep as he’d been holding her and watching her sleep. But in his dream she had been wide-awake and doing things that he was sure she had never even imagined doing.
Lying back against the pillow, he stopped struggling with his conscience and relaxed long enough to enjoy the feel of her in his arms. Soon enough he would need to disentangle and move away. But for now he could just soak in the rush of sensation that touching her brought.
Turning his head to study her face, he found her breathing slow and steady. He remembered all of it now. After telling her story, she’d trusted him to just hold her while she slept. That made him proud. He’d taken care of her and was finding little ways to help her body heal.
But while he stayed this close to her reclining body, his own body had begun pulsing and sending need to his groin. His lust came roaring back to fight for his attention. Maybe she shouldn’t have trusted him quite so much. Within seconds he found himself struggling for control as that rush of heat blossomed, became darker and more intense. He wanted her and if he didn’t back away now, he would want even more to be buried inside her.
Move, he demanded of his sluggish body. As he slid a leg out from under one of hers, he thought back to their earlier conversation. About all the struggles and conflicts life had thrown at her and demanded of her. And a wave of tenderness washed over him.
Gently, he lifted her arm from across his shoulder and slid out of bed. When he was free, she stirred and whimpered but didn’t awaken from her sleep. Rolling over, she let out a deep sigh but then settled down and didn’t stir again.
As he stood above her, stretching to remove the kinks from his limbs, he began mentally flipping through his many new thoughts of her.
It made him wonder what the hell he’d been doing to really help her so far. He’d let his lust and some kind of savior complex push her to the limits of her emotional endurance. He’d made demands of her without fully knowing what that might mean. Now that he knew about her past—now what?
He still wanted her. In fact, he was having a devil of a time looking but not touching. He would give anything to ease back to bed, kiss her awake and caress her into arousal. If she awoke at this moment, with one look toward his groin she’d know right away how he felt on that score.
But something else was happening to him. Something new. Tender feelings, sentiments he couldn’t remember experiencing before, kept twisting him around.
His whole life had been wrapped up in becoming a physician, and he could scarcely recall being any other kind of person at all beyond that. But during those years of becoming a doctor he’d learned to bury all feelings while treating patients. Eventually, he’d learned to set aside every normal emotion when dealing with people. Somewhere along the line, he’d apparently forgotten how to truly care for another human being.
Rubbing a hand across his jaw, Josh fought to balance his raging desires with the sensitive emotions he suddenly felt toward her. He had empathized with her when she’d told him how everyone in her world had taught her to fear. They’d terrorized her into believing she couldn’t trust a living soul. People who’d supposedly cared about her, and people who probably didn’t, all of them gave her seemingly valid reasons to fear exposing herself. Hiding was all she’d known.
He’d also felt a kinship of sorts to her as she’d explained how really isolated she’d been from others for most of her childhood.
They had that much in common. He’d been alone, too. All those years of not being able to go outside to play. Of having to remain quiet. And then those long months of lying in a hospital bed, in isolation so the body would not reject the brand-new heart.
But he’d had support. A family. And a history of people who’d cared about him. He couldn’t imagine what he would’ve done without knowing they were there.
He was beginning to see his lack of emotion toward his own family as the selfish side to him that he’d never realized he’d had. For so many years he and the family had been totally consumed over making him well. For his part, he’d allowed his fear of dying to take over his life and had totally forgotten to be appreciative and treat his family with the love they deserved.
All of a sudden, Nina made him realize it wouldn’t be the end of the earth if other people didn’t care more about him than themselves or if they stopped believing that he was special. He didn’t want the accolades anymore.
Those selfish emotions needed to be behind him. Now he felt real empathy for Nina. He hurt for the kind of life she’d been forced to lead.
Before she’d told the story of her life, he’d wanted to save her. Heal her. Make love with her.
And if he was truly honest with himself, those feelings had been purely selfish. He’d wanted her to admire his skills and to be concerned about his welfare. To love him.
As he began to come to terms with the fact that he cared about another person more than himself, his only desire was to give her a different kind of world to live in. And the kind of life he’d had but never valued. A life filled with love.
And family.
He did not believe for one moment the story that everyone in her immediate Texas family had been abusive. Someone had cared enough to want to bring her back. They’d come after her and supposedly contacted the FBI to find her, hadn’t they?
That seemed like a lot of trouble to go to just to abuse her again. No. She’d been acting on childish terror for so long she couldn’t think straight. He knew that part of the story had to be all nonsense. Someone had abused her, but he had a feeling it wasn’t her Texas family.
There was a lot more to this story than she knew.
He turned his head to the pile of their things he’d dumped in the corner. Somewhere in that mound of cases and packs was a laptop, and all he needed was a connection to the internet that this motel did not have in order to begin a search for her real past.
They couldn’t leave Texas at least until he had a chance to do a little research. He wanted to find the truth.
While still protecting her. The only way to ensure her safety would be for law enforcement to find the murderer. And they needed her witness testimony to do that.
Her safety and health must come above all else. He’d have to think of an excuse to give…
His thoughts were suddenly interrupted by the ring of his cell phone.
“What…?” Nina sat straight up in bed and blinked the sleep out of her eyes. “What’s going on? Who would be calling us?”
He smiled at her and answered the call. The woman from the rental car agency was on the other end. They talked for a few minutes while she explained that she’d found an alternate means of transportation. And that someone was on the way and would deliver it to the motel within fifteen minutes.
He wasn’t too crazy about her agency’s idea of transportation at first. But the more he considered it, the better he felt about the whole thing.
Hanging up, he turned to Nina. “Can you be ready in fifteen minutes? We have a new ride coming.”
He smiled as he said it, but he had feeling Nina wasn’t going to like this ride one little bit.
Chapter 6
“You cannot mean it.” Nina gazed up at a motor home, one of those gigantic over-the-road houses on wheels that seemed as long as one of the biggest triple tractor trailers. “You expect us to travel in this thing?”
“It’ll be great.” Josh beamed and put his arm around her shoulders.
“Seriously. How are we supposed to hide in a huge, splashy-looking vehicle like this? We’d be better off in a truck.”
Josh grinned and gave her shoulders a squeeze. “Maybe. On the other hand, who would ever think to look for us in one of these?”
He might have a point, but she didn’t have to like it. “Do you even know how to drive an RV? They have to be difficult to negotiate. Look at how big it is.”
“No problem. I can handle just about any method of transportation you can come up with. Over the road. On the water. Or in the air.” He was still grinning as he dragged her closer to the door. “The guy who delivered it gave me a rundown while he was here. We won’t have any trouble.”
She hung back, wondering how someone would park anything this big at an airport.
“Wait until you see inside.” Josh opened the door, and steps automatically lowered so she wouldn’t have to climb up to enter like in most trucks.
“It’s as big as a studio apartment.” He went on with his sales pitch. “If we get stuck on the road for another day, we won’t need to rent a motel room. Or stop to eat at a restaurant. We’ll be carrying everything we need along with us.”
She inched out from under his arm and put her hands on her hips. “But surely we won’t be out on the Texas roads for another day. I need to get back to training. We will find an open airport tonight, right?” She didn’t want to spend one more day in this state.
Josh turned his head so she couldn’t see his expression. “We need to talk about that. But why don’t we go aboard and check it out first?”
He urged her up the stairs. Reluctantly, she went inside and was surprised to find it really wasn’t that bad. She could even call it comfortable, and not a bit like the tiny, cramped trailers her team slept in while on the fire lines.
“All right with you?” Josh asked as she looked around.
“It’s okay. Kitchen and bathroom seem fine. Bigger than I’d thought. There’s only the one queen-size bed, but that shouldn’t be a problem since we will not be spending the night in Texas.”
Without acknowledging her last statement, Josh urged her to sit on the sofa that lined one wall behind the driver’s and passenger’s chairs. “I’m going outside to load in our things. Just get used to the place for a few minutes but try to stay out of sight.”
With that, he disappeared through the door and down the stairs. She worked to keep her temper in check. But the frustration nearly overwhelmed her. As much as she loved traveling with him, touching him, kissing him, and as much as she owed him for saving her life and maybe keeping her alive since leaving the hospital, she’d had enough of his runaround about leaving the state.
Not being able to use her body as a defense mechanism as usual must be messing with her brain. But a little danger shouldn’t cause her to totally lose her mind. Her everyday job was filled with danger, after all.
She decided to stop letting Josh call the shots. Yes, he’d been the one who’d received their orders from the Hotshot super and was acting as her temporary supervisor. But it was time she verified her actual status with the team commander.
Digging in her pocket, she came up with her cell phone. She hadn’t used it since she’d been in the fire tornado but had secretly plugged it in this morning at the motel. It might not be politically correct for her to go over the head of the Hotshot unit’s doctor, and checking out Josh’s orders could cause her trouble, but she was dying to get out of Texas. It was time to contact her unit’s superintendent and get a line on the best way to finally leave the state.
*
It didn’t take Josh long to stash their few meager belongings in the giant storage hatches located below the main carriage of the RV. Afterward, he lugged their overnight packs and the laptop up the stairs. He was more than a little pleased to see Nina still sitting where he’d left her.
But almost immediately, he could see that something was wrong. “What’s up? Are you feeling all right?”
Her gaze snapped up to meet his. “You told Superintendent Ralston to take me off the Hotshot team roster. That my rehab would take weeks. And meanwhile I couldn’t come back to California because I was needed in Texas. How could you?”
Ah, hell.
“Uh…” He turned his back and set their two packs on the dining table, using the few moments to pray for a brilliant answer.
Unfortunately nothing brilliant, or otherwise, came to him before he had to face the music. “You called Ralston.”
It wasn’t a question so she didn’t need to answer.
“It’s true I told him you’d need many weeks of rehab.” He stared at the laptop case in his hand and hoped for the best. “You know I’m right about that. Of all the Hotshots you’re the one who’s best able to judge your own body’s requirements. Tell me you really believe you could be cleared to go back to duty anytime soon.”
She frowned and crossed her arms over chest. But she didn’t say another word.
“I’m qualified as a medical rehabilitator and I’m willing to work with you.” That was the brilliant idea he hadn’t thought of soon enough. “It’s time you accepted the fact that you might not make it back to the team for this fire season. You came as close to dying as I’d ever want you to go and it will take time. But the sooner you start working your body the better your chances will be.”
Nina was still glaring at him.
“We should begin your training as soon as possible,” he hedged, still hoping she could see it his way. “Maybe even later this evening. What do you think?”
She finally opened her mouth to speak but her expression stay
ed hard and unyielding. “I think it would be much easier to begin rehab in California. Why did you say I was needed in Texas when you know how badly I want out of here?”
At last he stopped toying with the laptop and set it on the kitchen counter, then he went to her side and sat down. “We’ve already had a couple of conversations about this, if you recall. You didn’t just get injured in that fire. You saw a murderer—and he saw you. We can’t prove someone has been following us, but we both believe it. Don’t we?”
She nodded as he reached for her hand.
It was time for her to face the truth. “We can’t tackle a murderer on our own. You should contact the law and ask for help.”
“The law? Not the FBI—please. You know why I can’t go to them.” Her eyes filled with unshed tears.
He knew what she thought. That didn’t mean it was based on the truth.
But he soothed her feelings anyway as he let his finger draw circles on her palm. “No. The FBI wouldn’t handle a local murder. However, you could go to one of the two county sheriffs that came to interview you in the hospital. Or maybe to someone from the Texas Rangers. That’s one good reason why we need to remain in the state.”
A tear appeared at the edge of her eye and his heart clenched at the sight. He had to remind himself over and over that in the long run this was the best course for her to take.
“I know you’re afraid,” he said in the least threatening voice he could manage. “But we’ll be careful. I promise. And anyway, no one could possibly find us in this rig. Don’t you agree?”
She jerked her hand back out of his grip and stood. “We’ll see.”
Walking to the front of the carriage, she stared out the windshield. “It’s time to use some of your fabulous driving abilities, Doctor.” She nodded toward the steering wheel. “We’ve been sitting in this parking lot for far too long. We need to get moving.”
Well, it was a start. At least she was willing to risk traveling in the motor home. He’d need to keep working on the rest.