ROCKY MOUNTAIN REVENGE

by CINDI MEYERS

  She straightened. “You will not.”

  “Yes, I will. At least until we find out who was asking about you at your gym yesterday.”

  “Jake, you cannot stay at my house. What will people think?”

  “Since when do you care what people think?” The woman he’d known before had made a point of flaunting public opinion.

  “Since I moved to a small town where everyone knows me. I’m a schoolteacher, for God’s sake. I have a reputation to protect.”

  “And me spending the night with you is going to ruin that reputation? You’re a grown woman.”

  “This isn’t New York. Some people here still care about morality.”

  “So you’re telling me nobody here sleeps with anybody else unless they’re lawfully married?”

  “I’m sure they do, but they’re discreet about it.”

  “So we’ll be discreet. Besides, I never said I was going to sleep with you—unless that’s what you want.”

  The color rose in her cheeks. “It doesn’t matter what we’re actually doing. It’s what they think we’re doing.”

  “But I’m the long-lost boyfriend come back to beg forgiveness,” he said. “Doesn’t everyone love a lover?”

  “No. You can’t stay with me.”

  “Fine. Then you come stay with me. At the hotel.”

  “That’s even worse. Sneaking off to a hotel together.”

  He laughed. “We’re just a sordid pair. Honestly, I think you’re making something out of nothing.”

  “You don’t live here. I do. And I don’t want to do anything to call attention to myself.”

  “Too late for that. I’m here. And this other mysterious stranger is here, asking about you. What are people going to say about that? The new teacher’s gotten very popular all of a sudden.”

  “Just go away, Jake. Please? I’ll handle this on my own.”

  “No.”

  “You don’t think I can handle this?”

  “I’m not going to leave you. Not until I know you’re safe.”

  “I’ll call the Marshals office in Denver. They’ll send someone to babysit me for a while.”

  “Another strange man come to town to hang out with the teacher. Won’t that set people talking?”

  She made a face. “Maybe they’ll send a woman. I’ll tell people she’s my sister.”

  “Then tell them I’m your brother.”

  “As if anyone would believe that.”

  “Why not? Siblings don’t have to look alike.”

  “You don’t act like any brother.”

  “Maybe not like your brother. What’s Sam Junior up to these days?”

  “I have no idea. As far as I know, he thinks I’m dead.”

  “Sammy was what, twenty-four when I saw him last? He’d just had a baby with that woman—what was her name?”

  “Stacy. She was the daughter of some guy who owed my father a favor. It was practically an arranged marriage. I don’t think she was very happy.”

  He didn’t remember much about the girl, or her husband, for that matter. “Sammy Junior was in law school, wasn’t he?”

  “Yes. I imagine he has his license by now.”

  “I guess a lawyer is a handy thing to have in the family when you spend so much time breaking the law.”

  She stood. “I think it’s time for you to go now.”

  “I’ll be over later tonight,” he said.

  “No!”

  “I’ll park my car a couple blocks away—near that mechanic, with all the cars in the yard. And I’ll leave early, before anyone is up.”

  “I won’t let you in.”

  She turned away, but he grabbed her wrist and leaned closer, his voice low but insistent. “I can’t leave you alone, not with some man neither of us knows asking about you. At least let me protect you until your handler from the Marshals office shows up.”

  Her eyes told him she hated being in this position—hated having to depend on anyone, but especially him. But she’d always been more intelligent than most people he knew; she could be reckless, but she was never foolish. “All right,” she said, and pulled out of his grasp. “But only until the marshal gets here. And you’ll sleep on the sofa.”

  By the time Anne reached her house, she was jittery with nerves and fear and anger. Jake—she couldn’t think of him by any name but Jake—had no right to come here like this. After all he’d done, he owed her peace and an illusion of safety.

  But of course her safety was an illusion. It always had been. No matter how many promises the Marshals made to her, she’d never really believed they could protect her from her father.

  The phone was ringing when she unlocked the door. She fastened the locks behind her and went to answer it. “How was coffee?” Maggie spoke with a musical lilt, her joy at having the scoop on Anne’s love life—or so she thought—barely contained.

  “Coffee was...tense.” The Marshals had drilled into her that sticking as close to the truth as possible was the best way to keep from getting caught in a lie.

  “I take it the two of you didn’t part as friends.”

  “You could say that.” She and Jake had grown so close in the weeks they’d spent together, but their final night had been all chaos and confusion. One moment they’d been dancing, her head cradled on his chest, wondering how soon they could make their excuses and head upstairs to bed. Nights in Jake’s arms were heaven to her then. The next moment her world exploded in a hail of bullets and blood. Jake lay shattered on the dance floor, the front of her dress red with his blood. Her screams echoed over the music as two men she didn’t recognize dragged her backward out of the room.

  Later, still wearing the bloodied dress, huddled over a cup of bitter, cooling coffee in some gray-walled interrogation room, the agents had told her their version of the truth—that Jake West was really Jacob Westmoreland, accountant turned undercover FBI agent, assigned to infiltrate her family and bring down her father.

  She hadn’t hated him immediately. Hatred had come later, when the weight of his lies had settled on her. He’d told her he loved her. He’d said he wanted to protect her. He wanted them to get married, to live happily ever after. And all that time she hadn’t even known his real name. How could anything else he’d said be true if his very identity had been a falsehood? He’d used her to betray her family. As much as she’d come to despise her father, she’d despised Jake almost as much.

  “Are you going to tell me what happened?” Maggie asked. “’Cause if I want to talk to myself, I can do that without holding a phone to my ear.”

  Maggie must have been talking while Anne took her trip down memory lane. “Nothing happened,” she said. “He said he was sorry. I said I was sorry, too. End of story.”

  “Uh-huh.” Maggie sounded skeptical. “How long is he staying in town?”

  “I don’t know. Another day or two. We don’t have plans.” As soon as she got off the phone with Maggie, she’d need to call the number her WitSec handlers had given her. Denver was only five hours away—they could have someone here tomorrow, surely.

  “He was really good-looking,” Maggie said. “And I think he still has a thing for you. You have to admit, coming so far to say he was sorry took guts. Maybe you’ll get together again while he’s here.”

  “Maggie.” Anne said her name as a warning.

  Maggie laughed. “I know. I’m an incurable romantic. All right, I’ll shut up about it. What are you doing tonight?”

  “The usual. Schoolwork. Maybe some TV.”

  “Have a good night. See you tomorrow.”

  “Goodbye.” Anne replaced the phone in the cradle and started to the kitchen to make tea. She was only halfway across the room when a knock on the door made her jump. She glanced out the window; the sky w
as a gray smudge against the black-and-white shadows of mountains, the day rendered in charcoal by the disappearing sun. Jake had said he would come by after dark—maybe a city boy used to all those lights thought this was dark enough.

  She strode to the door and took a deep breath, bracing herself, then checked the peephole. She registered a man, about Jake’s height, huddled in the shadows. Apparently, the bulb in her porch light had burned out. As long as Jake was here, she’d ask him to replace it. She threw back the chain, turned the dead bolt and jerked open the door.

  A burly, dark-haired man shoved her back into the room and slammed the door behind him. He looked her up and down, his face expressionless. “Long time, no see, Elizabeth.”

  Chapter Five

  Jake parked the rental car amid the jumble of vehicles at the auto-repair shop and began walking the few blocks toward Anne’s house. The old joke about small towns rolling up the sidewalk when the sun set must be true; no one else was out and the only traffic was the occasional car on the central thoroughfare that connected with the state highway. Here on the side streets, it was as silent as a tomb. A quarter moon and the occasional glow from a porch light illuminated his path. The crunch of his footsteps on the unpaved shoulder of the road sounded too loud in the profound stillness.

  For a man who’d spent all his life in the city, the silence felt vaguely threatening. He studied the shadows the trees and buildings cast, anticipating an ambush, but nothing moved.

  He kept one hand wrapped around the gun in his coat pocket as he walked. Maybe he was being overly cautious and he and Anne had nothing to fear in this sleepy little town. But who was the man who’d been asking for her at the gym? Jake wouldn’t leave her alone until he found out. He’d failed at protecting her from her father and his thugs before; he wouldn’t let them near her again.

  He approached the house from the back, though he doubted any of her neighbors were watching. He kept to the shadows along the side of the house, moving quickly toward the back steps. Maybe they should have agreed on some kind of signal, so she’d be sure it was him when he arrived. As he turned the corner toward the back of the house he froze, heart pounding.

  The back door to Anne’s house was open—not wide open, but cracked a few inches, sending a shaft of bright light onto a patch of trampled snow at the bottom of the steps. Jake drew the gun and sidestepped toward the door, keeping to the deepest shadows against the wall of the house. When he was sure the coast was clear, he took the steps two at a time, moving silently, and paused on the small landing at the top, holding his breath, listening.

  “You don’t remember me, do you?” The man’s voice was nasal, the words clipped and staccato.

  Anne’s answer was unintelligible, but the terror in her voice made the hair on the back of Jake’s neck stand on end. He nudged the door open a little wider with the toe of one shoe and leaned in.

  “I worked for your father, but you never noticed me. You were too high and mighty to pay attention to the help.”

  Jake heard a scraping sound, as if someone had shoved a chair out of the way. He decided they were in the living room, just beyond the kitchen. Was it just Anne and this man, or had the intruder brought along help?

  Jake slipped silently into the kitchen, keeping close to the wall, out of sight of the doorway between the kitchen and living room. “You deserve to die for what you did to your father,” the man said.

  “No!” Anne cried out and Jake rushed forward. He burst into the room and saw Anne struggling with a burly, dark-haired man. He aimed his pistol, but there was no way he could get off a clean shot without risking hitting Anne instead.

  Anne’s attacker wrapped one arm across her chest and pulled her against him, crushing her rib cage, lifting her off the ground. She writhed in his arms, kicking out. The man still didn’t know Jake was in the room. That gave him a slim advantage, but he didn’t yet see how to use it.

  Anne kicked out, knocking over a table, on which sat a lamp. The glass base of the lamp shattered, and then the lightbulb exploded with a shower of sparks. Anne wailed—whether in pain or frustration, Jake didn’t know, but the sound enraged him. He aimed the gun again, determined to get off a good shot.

  Anne beat her fists against her assailant, who held her with one hand now while he groped in his jacket pocket, probably for a weapon. If he drew a gun, Jake would have to fire, and pray Anne was not in the way.

  But just then, Anne leaned over and bit her attacker on the hand, hard enough to draw blood.

  The man howled and released her, and Anne whirled and landed a solid punch on his chin. Her attacker reeled back, but in the same moment he drew a gun from his coat. It was the last move he ever made, as Jake shot him, twice, the impact of the bullets sending him sprawling across the back of the sofa.

  Anne screamed, then stood frozen, her hands to her mouth, her face the same bleached ivory color as the wall behind her. “Is there anyone else?” Jake asked.

  She shook her head, still staring at the dead man draped across her sofa. Jake pocketed his gun and dragged the man onto the floor and laid him out on his back. He was a burly man in his forties, dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt and wearing a new-looking ski jacket, hiking boots and a knit cap. Anyone seeing him on the streets would have taken him for a local, or a visiting tourist.

  Except most tourists didn’t carry a Glock. Jake checked the weapon; it hadn’t been fired. He slipped it into his other coat pocket and took out the man’s wallet. “Robert Smith,” he read the name on the driver’s license.

  “That’s not his real name.” Anne’s voice was shaky, but surprisingly calm, considering she had a dead man laid out on her living room rug. “His name’s DiCello. Some of my father’s men called him Jell-O. He hated that.”

  “What’s this on his jacket?” He tugged at a laminated tag hanging from the zipper pull of the jacket. “It’s a lift ticket, from Telluride Ski Resort. Dated for yesterday.” Had Mr. DiCello decided to take in a day on the slopes before driving over to Rogers to do a little business with his boss’s estranged daughter?

  The loud jangling of the phone surprised a cry from Anne, who immediately put a hand to her mouth, as if to hold back further cries. Jake stared at the ringing instrument. Had someone heard the shots? “You’d better answer it.”

  She nodded and picked up the phone. “Hello?”

  She listened a moment, then forced a smile. “How sweet of you, Mrs. Cramer, but everything’s fine....Yes, I heard it, too. It must have been a car backfiring.”

  She hung up the phone and looked at him. “The neighbor lady, checking on me.”

  “You did great.” Better than great. She’d sounded perfectly calm and reasonable. As if thugs got shot up in her living room every night. “That was quite a punch you landed,” he said.

  She massaged the back of her hand—she’d likely have a bruise there tomorrow. “I’ve been taking boxing lessons. So I’d know how to defend myself. But it wouldn’t have saved me. Not if you hadn’t come along.”

  He moved toward her, intending to comfort her, but she stepped away from him, and hugged her arms tightly around her waist. He swallowed his disappointment. It didn’t matter if she hadn’t forgiven him; she still needed his help. “Your father’s found you. You have to leave.”

  “Maybe my father didn’t send him. Maybe he came on his own.”

  “Anne, look at me.”

  She met his gaze, and the anguish in her eyes cut him. He wanted to hold her close, to tell her again that he would protect her. But now wasn’t the time. “You don’t really believe this man, who you know works for your father, came here without your father’s knowledge, do you?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “Is there some place near here we can go that might be safe—just until we can make a plan?”

  She straig
htened, visibly pulling herself together. “There are some cabins in the mountains about fifteen miles from here. The area is remote, on National Forest land. In the summer, a few people live there, but in the winter they’re closed up. There’s a gate over the road, but I know the combination to the lock.”

  She hadn’t hesitated with her answer; she had all the details laid out. “You’ve been planning for something like this.”

  “I always knew I might have to leave. I didn’t want to, but...” Her voice died, and her gaze dropped to the man at their feet.

  “Pack a few things you’ll need and we’ll go. Now.”

  “What about him?”

  “I’ll drag him out back and hide the body under a pile of firewood. As cold as it is, it could be a long time before anyone finds him. If the police come looking for you, they might inadvertently lead your father to us.”

  “You think he’ll send someone else after me?”

  “You know he will.”

  She nodded. “Yes. What about the blood?”

  “I’ll clean it up. Now go.”

  Without another word, or a glance in his direction, she went into her bedroom and shut the door.

  Jake stared at that shut door; it wasn’t half as solid a barrier as the one she’d put around her heart. Fine. She could hate him all she wanted. Maybe he even deserved her hate. But that wouldn’t stop him from protecting her. And it wouldn’t stop him from finding the man who’d caused her so much pain, and making sure he could never hurt her again.

  * * *

  ANNE SHOVED UNDERWEAR, a change of clothes and a few cosmetics into an overnight bag. She added a phone charger and a box of ammunition. The thought of needing those bullets made her shake, but if forced, she would defend herself. She wouldn’t hide behind Jake; she wouldn’t trust her life to him alone.

  Her own father wanted her dead. She’d accepted the truth of this intellectually, but in her heart she’d nurtured a kernel of hope that he would never follow through on his threats.

  Tonight had destroyed that hope. If she let herself think too much about what had just happened, she might fall apart. So she clung to anger and nurtured that instead. A man had invaded her home—her sanctuary—and tried to destroy her. She wouldn’t let that happen again.