Runaway Heart

by Saranne Dawson

  “You’re the kind of lawman who must be every criminal’s nightmare.”

  “That’s exactly what I aim to be, ma’am,” Zach said, but even his brave smile couldn’t lessen the gravity of their situation.

  “How are we going to get out of this?”

  “We’re not far from the road here, and just a few miles from a gas station with a phone booth.”

  “You’ve really planned for everything,” she said in admiration.

  “Be Prepared isn’t just a Boy Scout motto.”

  C.Z. leaned over to kiss him on the cheek and Zach drew her into his arms. Their lips met in a lingering kiss. Desire sizzled along her nerve endings.

  With a sigh of regret he released her. “Even if we weren’t both well past the age of making out in the back seat, I plan on taking you to my bed when this is all over.”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Saranne Dawson is a human services administrator who lives deep in the woods of central Pennsylvania. Her hobbies include walking, sewing, gardening, reading mysteries—and spending time with her grandson, Zachary.

  Books by Saranne Dawson

  HARLEQUIN INTRIGUE

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  356—EXPOSÉ

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  Runaway Heart

  Saranne Dawson

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  C. Z. Morrison—A psychologist who leaves her well-ordered life and leaps into the unknown with Zach Hollis.

  Zach Hollis—A respected sheriff who’s now on the run.

  Harvey Summers—A well-liked local politician, and Zach’s former boss, who is claiming that Zach tried to murder him. Could he really be guilty of murder himself?

  Dan Colby—Formerly Zach’s deputy and now in charge. Is he a guilty man as well—or just a moral coward caught up in events beyond his control?

  Mary Williams—C.Z.’s former neighbor and a county commissioner. Has she been living with a terrible secret, and will she now be willing to risk her reputation to help Zach?

  Sam Gittings—Zach’s attorney and an old sweetheart of C.Z.’s. He lives with the certainty that he failed to save an innocent man from prison.

  Edgar Wallace—aka “Davy Crockett”—a recluse who may hold the key to proving Zach’s innocence—if they can find him and persuade him to talk.

  Prologue

  Detective Zach Hollis leaned across the rose-colored Formica tabletop, and for just a moment, C.Z. was afraid she might drown in those eyes. She thought of a deep pond reflecting the pale blue of a winter sky, cold but compelling, with a hint of something else lurking within their depths.

  “This is a small town. Everyone knows who the drunks are. What you do is round them all up and lean on them—hard! Check every one of their alibis and push them until they give up some more names. Drunks hang around with other drunks. It reassures them that they’re okay. Believe me, someone knows—or has guessed.”

  Despite her intention not to be intimidated by those eyes or by his aggressive maleness, C.Z. drew back slightly, then compensated for that with an assertive tone.

  “You’re right, Detective Hollis, this is a small town. And that’s why he can’t do that. This isn’t New York City. People take things personally up here, and my father has to live and work here. His ability to do his job depends on the goodwill of the citizens. He can’t just lean on innocent people, no matter how reprehensible their personal habits might be, in order to find one criminal. Your methods won’t work up here.”

  His wide mouth curved in a parody of a smile. “My methods would bring to justice a drunk who killed eight children.”

  She winced and tore her gaze away from his. Her father had shown her the news articles—and the photographs, the twisted, burned wreckage of the school bus that had been forced off the road and over an embankment.

  C.Z. shared his rage—even admired him for it. But she continued to believe that his city methods wouldn’t work here. Then she saw, with considerable relief, that her father was returning.

  “I LIKE HIM,” her father said as his gaze followed the departing Zach Hollis. “He’s single, too.”

  C.Z. stared at him, shocked at that last comment Her mother was forever pointing out likely son-in-law candidates—but her father? He’d never done that before.

  “He thinks you should round up every drunk in the area and grill them until they confess,” she said dismissively. She was trying to avoid responding to his comment about liking Zach Hollis because she didn’t know what she thought about him.

  “I know. He already told me that.”

  “He says that someone knows—or at least suspects—who the pickup driver was.”

  “He’s right about that, too. The only thing he’s wrong about is the methodology. I’m doing just what he said, but in my own way.”

  He paused, then went on in a softer tone. “You could do a whole lot worse, you know. Hollis is a good man. I’ve gotten to know him pretty well the past couple of years, since he built his cabin up here. He’s got all the right stuff, brains, a strong sense of justice and integrity.”

  “I don’t believe I’m hearing this from you! You sound like Mom!”

  “I sound like a father who wants the best for his daughter—and Zach Hollis is the best.”

  Chapter One

  Those eyes! Was it worse to see them in her dreams—or to face them across the flimsy barrier of her battered desk? C. Z. Morrison had about five seconds to consider that question before the door to her office opened and he walked in.

  But Zach Hollis did not simply walk into a room. Instead, he instantly made it his own. Never mind the fact that this was her office. Never mind the fact that she was a prison psychologist and he was an inmate.

  Her training made her adept at reading body language, but it had not prepared her for the immediate and powerful impact one body could have on another. Nothing could have prepared her for that, not three years ago, and not now.

  He smiled with his eyes as he settled himself into the chair on the other side of her desk. Three years ago, she’d suspected that he knew full well the impact of those eyes, ice blue, the color of a winter sky that when glimpsed from the comfort of indoors seemed to promise warmth, only to withdraw that promise when one stepped outside. Now, her suspicion had hardened to a certainty, but it didn’t lessen the impact.

  “So, Dr. Morrison,” he drawled, with just the faintest emphasis on her title, “have you convinced Sheckler that all he really needs to do is to get in touch with his inner child and he won’t beat his wife anymore?”

  Robert Sheckler was the inmate who’d just left, and she had no illusions at all where he was concerned, though of course she couldn’t tell Zach Hollis that.

  He put up a hand as though to ward off her next words. He had large, strong hands, the backs dusted with black hairs. She noticed them because she noticed everything about him.

  “I know, I know,” he said in his rough voice that carried a hint of the Bronx. “Professional ethics and all that. Just don’t recommend him for parole.”

  He settled himself more comfortably in the chair, his long legs stretched out before him, powerful thigh muscles straining at the ugly dun-colored prison twill. Then he folded his arms across his chest, all six foot two inches of him appearing to be totally at ease. She wondered if he was. It was only one of many things she wondered about where Zach Hollis was concerned.

  “How are you feeling, Mr. Hollis?” she asked, wincing inw
ardly at her cool, professional tone, certain he heard it for what it was—self-defense. “Are you adjusting?”

  He shook his head with exaggerated slowness, his eyes never leaving hers. “Adjusting to a place like this means giving up your self-respect—and I won’t do that. I’m not adjusting, I’m surviving. There’s a difference.”

  “How are you getting along with the others?” she asked. She knew how difficult life behind bars could be for a cop. A former cop, she reminded herself, though it was impossible to see him as anything else—even here.

  His broad shoulders moved slightly. “They pretty much avoid me. I spend more time in the gym than I need to—just to make sure they know what they’d be dealing with.”

  C.Z. thought they’d have to be fools not to know that, gym or not. At thirty-seven, Zach Hollis was in his prime, with no sign of incipient middle-age flabbiness. But she was sure that wasn’t the only reason the other prisoners avoided him. She’d never before met a man who exuded such a strong sense of…what? Personal authority? Primitive maleness? Invincibility?

  There were many men here, including many of the corrections officers, who tried to be what Zach Hollis was. On them, it came off as mere macho bravado. With Zach Hollis, it was genuine. And she guessed the others knew that.

  “Do you have visitors?” she asked. She’d been curious enough to have wanted to check on it, but like everything else in the rigid prison bureaucracy, it was very difficult.

  He shook his head. “My folks retired to Florida, and my sister is too upset about my being here without actually having to see me.”

  “But what about friends?” Surely there must be a woman somewhere. That was the real reason she’d wanted to check the visitor records.

  “My friends are all cops, and it wouldn’t help their careers to be visiting me.”

  “It isn’t good for you to be cut off like that,” she said, hiding her irrational relief at his failure to mention a lover.

  Once again, he shrugged. “When I was in the army, we were trained to find ways to exist on our own—in case we were on a mission behind enemy lines or in case we got captured and held hostage.”

  “What did they teach you?” she asked curiously. She already knew from his record about his specialized military training.

  “Mostly, they taught us not to dwell on the current situation—not to count the hours or days or whatever. Also, we weren’t to think about the past—only about the future. Make plans and more plans, for after we got out or got released.”

  “And is that what you do now?”

  He nodded. “I read a lot. The library here’s not bad. And I think about how I can get at the truth when I get out of here—without risking getting myself sent back, of course.”

  “But isn’t that thinking about the past?” she asked. She doubted that those who’d taught him had had revenge in mind.

  He stared at her in silence for a moment, and she felt that telltale heat rising in her. She even imagined he could feel it, as well, or see it. So she couldn’t look away. To do so would be a clear admission of the effect he had on her. It seemed all their sessions had been spent with her trying to find ways to make the essential eye contact with him—without letting him see too deeply into her. She was probably failing miserably.

  “I’m a cop,” he said finally. “And the only way I can ever be a cop again is to clear my name.” He shrugged again. “But I’d want to do that, anyway, because I didn’t try to kill Harvey Summers.”

  “Yes, I can understand that,” she said. She only knew what she read about the case from Zach’s file—and she knew there was more.

  “Can you?” he challenged. “Has anyone ever questioned your honesty—your personal integrity?”

  For the first time, she heard quiet rage in his voice. No, she corrected herself. Not for the first time. She’d heard it three years ago during that brief meeting, brief but unforgettable. She shook her head. “No, no one’s ever questioned that.”

  “Then you can’t know.”

  “I didn’t say I knew, I said I understood.”

  “Don’t play head games with me, C.Z.”

  It happened again, a moment when all that had gone before seemed only a pretense. Sometimes it was triggered by a look. Other times, it was a word or phrase laden with double meaning and all the more powerful for having been unintended. This time it was his sudden use of her first name.

  She met his gaze and held it, but just barely. The drab office faded away to nothingness. The air—the space between them—crackled with an impossible life, vibrated with a sensuality that found its way deep into her and whispered darkly of the forbidden.

  “I’m not doing that,” she said, her voice embarrassingly husky.

  This time, he smiled with his mouth as well as his eyes. He had a wonderful mouth, wide and perfectly shaped above a chin with a hint of a cleft.

  “No,” he said. “I don’t suppose you are. Or if you are, you aren’t doing anything I haven’t done myself—many times.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked uncertainly.

  “Half of police work is playing head games, with witnesses and suspects and then with juries, if you’re lucky enough to get a case to court. It often seemed to me we were just shrinks with guns.”

  “Oh,” she said, relieved. Her father had once said much the same thing. But she’d thought Zach had meant he was playing games with her. Of course, he might be. In all likelihood, he was. But she didn’t want to think about that, couldn’t think about it now, in his presence. She’d do that later, when she reviewed their session. She didn’t need to record these sessions with him, or even to take notes. All she had to do was hit the replay button in her mind and it all came back, every minute, every word, every nuance of speech and body language.

  Desperately trying to find her way beyond the moment, C.Z. asked, “Do you consider yourself to be a violent man?” She tried to sound as coolly professional as she could under the circumstances.

  He didn’t answer immediately, and she knew it wasn’t because he didn’t have an answer or because he was trying to come up with one that would please her—as so many of the others did. Instead, he was drawing a bracket around the moment just past, letting her know he’d been as aware of it as she had.

  “I don’t know,” he said finally. “I guess it depends on your definition of violent. I’m not violent in the destructive sense, like most of them are here. But I’m not afraid of violence, either, like most people are. I wouldn’t have been in Special Forces and I wouldn’t have become a cop if that were true.”

  “So you just accept violence as being normal.”

  “Don’t put words into my mouth, Dr. Morrison. I don’t accept it, but I’m not naive enough to believe that it can’t happen anytime and anywhere—or that I can change those who are violent by nature.”

  His last comment was a definite insult. Her contract with the prison was for a program that sought to intervene in the lives of inmates convicted of violent crimes. And it didn’t help at all that she knew he was probably right.

  “Why don’t we cut to the control freak part,” he said with an indulgent smile, as though encouraging her to speak.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Cops are notorious for being control freaks. Don’t you want to talk about that? You must be familiar with it, being the daughter of a cop.”

  “Actually, my parents split up when I was twelve, and my mother took me to Rochester.”

  “He was a good cop,” Zach said, and she knew he meant it.

  They were silent for a moment. She was thinking of that day three years ago when she’d been visiting her father and had met Zach. At the time, her father had been chief of police for Ondago County while Zach was a New York City detective who had a cabin in the area.

  A little more than a year after her father’s fatal hunting accident Zach had gotten his job. Her father had liked Zach, and she recalled thinking at the time he might have engineered that brief meeting
—or at least manufactured the phone call that had taken him away from the table for a while.

  “Sorry,” he said softly, breaking into her thoughts. “I didn’t mean to bring it all back.”

  She looked at him, startled by the gentleness in his voice, half certain she’d imagined it. But it was in his eyes, too—or maybe around his eyes, a subtle change that suggested this man was also capable of tenderness.

  C.Z. shook off the thought. She didn’t trust her judgment where Zach Hollis was concerned. Since taking this job, she’d felt danger many times with the men here, but the danger represented by Zach Hollis was of a very different kind.

  “You’re trying too hard, C.Z.”

  “Wh—what do you mean?”

  He shifted in his chair, making her more aware of his long, lean body. She tried desperately to concentrate on the regulation prison uniform covering that body.

  He didn’t answer directly. “It must be tough for you, dealing with the men here. I’m surprised they’d hire a woman for this job.”

  She very nearly sighed with relief. Knowingly or unknowingly, he was giving her a way out, shifting the conversation to a safer level.

  “I don’t think they knew I was a woman until it was too late. My résumé said C.Z., and I was hired by Jack Sanford, who contracted with the prison for this project. By the time they found out, it was too late for them to get rid of me without risking a discrimination lawsuit.”

  He grinned, too, and she felt the tension lessen to a sort of low hum that still vibrated through her but at least left her more or less able to function.