by Katie Ruggle
“Are you eighty?” Grace asked before Hugh closed the door. “Because sometimes you sound like you’re eighty.”
Sarah turned back to Otto. “I love you, and I’d like to go to Vegas and marry you and live in Monroe forever, and let’s leave right now before it snows again and more people with guns and bombs and helicopters try to kill us, okay?”
He didn’t smile his slow smile that time. Instead, it was a full-out, beaming grin. “I like that plan.” When he leaned down and kissed her, Sarah could still feel his smile, and it was the best feeling in the world.
Epilogue
Courtney Young pressed the button on the blender with a short, angry jab. Yet another cook had quit, forcing her to fend for herself. When she’d married her wealthy husband, she’d thought she’d never have to cook for herself again. She couldn’t even go to a juice bar, since the doctor had warned her not to wear makeup until the latest cosmetic surgery had healed. It had been years since she’d left the house without makeup, and she wasn’t about to humiliate herself like that for a smoothie.
She lifted her manicured finger off the button and the grinding sound stopped, leaving just the cable news anchor’s voice filling the kitchen. “…scene taken right out of an action movie, this tiny mountain town was…”
Courtney picked up the remote with an annoyed huff. Why would they think anyone would be interested in what was happening in some “tiny mountain town”? Turning toward the TV mounted on the wall, she lifted the remote, her finger on the power button.
Shock left her motionless, her arm outstretched. The news camera panned over the small town’s main street as the voice-over continued. A woman in a waitress uniform stood outside a drab-looking VFW, smiling up at a uniformed police officer. She glanced over at the camera and froze for a brief moment before ducking her head and rushing inside the building. The cop glared at the camera.
Courtney’s gaze remained fixed on the television long after the story was over and the anchor had moved on to a Supreme Court decision. Finally, she turned off the TV and carefully placed the remote on the counter. Picking up her cell phone, she found the number of the latest in a long string of private investigators.
Tapping the number, she held the phone to her ear and gave the tiniest smile.
“Time’s up, Juliet.”
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Rocky Mountain K9 Unit series
Through the Fire
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The match flipped end over end, the spinning flame creating a small pocket of light in the dim house. It landed in a pool of lighter fluid, and flames rippled outward with such speed that Alex took a startled step back, away from the quickly spreading fire. Arson was one of the few crimes she’d never had to commit, but the lure was understandable. The dancing flames were mesmerizing, and the potential damage significant. Lighting a fire was a powerful feeling—one she could get addicted to.
A little reluctant to leave and not see the end result of that one lit match, she slowly opened the back door, never looking away from the growing fire as it licked around the blanket-wrapped corpse.
“Sorry, sweetie.” A flicker of guilt sparked and died just as quickly. “It was nothing personal. You just had what I needed.” She patted the messenger bag looped over her shoulder. This moment had been a long time coming. She’d sacrificed so much to get here, and she was finally, finally close to getting her revenge. “I’ll make a much better Elena Dahl than you ever would, anyway.”
With a final glance back, Alex stepped outside, blinking at the bright early-morning light reflecting off the snow. She walked with confidence, cutting through the secluded back yard. Long ago, she’d discovered that acting like she was supposed to be somewhere was the easiest way to get away with anything. The coming weeks would be the ultimate test of that.
This time it almost didn’t matter—there was no one in this godforsaken semi–ghost town to see her slip away from the gradually growing light and into the waiting tree line. A deep satisfaction flowed through her, and she smiled. This was it. She was in the final stretch of her plan, and she could almost taste victory. Finally.
She quickly caught herself. It wasn’t time for congratulations yet. First, she had to become Elena Dahl. The rest would come with time and patience.
Silently, she made her way through the snowy forest toward her new home.
Chapter 1
Kit hated being late.
The thought of being late to her very first day of work was especially horrifying, and her muscles tensed as she shot another glance at her SUV’s dashboard clock. She only had seventeen—sixteen, she mentally corrected as the digital numbers changed—minutes to find her new house, unhitch the rental trailer containing all her worldly possessions, and get to the police station on time. She swore under her breath as the pickup in front of her slowed to inch around a curve.
It wasn’t looking promising.
Justice shifted in the back seat, giving a low groan as he settled into a new position. Flicking a look at the bloodhound in her rearview mirror, Kit couldn’t keep from smiling. With his long ears and floppy jowls, Justice always looked adorably rumpled.
Quickly turning her attention back to the twisting road, she saw the achingly slow truck’s signal light begin to flash.
“Hallelujah,” she muttered, easing to a crawl as the pickup turned. For the past twenty miles, she’d been stuck behind the wheezing old vehicle, which had only sped up from its painfully slow pace whenever a passing lane appeared. She’d left the Denver hotel before five that morning, assuming that would give her plenty of time to get to work before seven, but she hadn’t anticipated congested traffic on the snow-glazed roads.
At least the turtle-like speed allowed her to take in the views. This was only her second time in Colorado; the first was when she’d come to Monroe for her interview in late summer. The scenery was beautiful in a terrifying way, with shoulder-less roads edged by sheer drops and hairpin turns slicked with ice. A thick layer of snow covered everything except the road, piled off to the sides in dramatic, towering walls that narrowed the highway into claustrophobic corridors. The feeling surprised her. She figured being in such a small wilderness town would seem open and freeing, but the mountains and snow piles and even the twists and turns in the road pressed in on her, heavy and oddly menacing.
“It’s just different from what we’re used to,” she told Justice, needing to hear a reassuring voice, even if it was her own. Her SUV topped a rise, and Monroe appeared before her, nestled in a valley and looking cozy enough to be the centerpiece of a snow globe. The sight of the adorable hamlet settled her nerves a little. How could anything bad ever happen in such a picture-perfect postcard of a place? Working here was going to be relaxing to the point of boredom. “This’ll be good—much better than Wisconsin. We just have to get used to it. Right, Justice?”
Justice grunted, and Kit chose to take that as agreement.
Just as she passed a small sign reading Welcome to Monroe, elevation 7,888 feet, her GPS spoke up, telling her to turn right in half a mile. She obeyed, swinging her SUV wide so the trailer didn’t cut the turn and catch on a curb. She shouldn’t have worried. There was no curb. There was barely a street. Under the layer of packed snow, the road was painfully narrow and either gravel or so worn that most of the asphalt had given up, leaving only a potholed mess. She felt a pang for the townhome she’d left behind.
“Stop it,” she ordered before she could jump into a full-fledged pity party. “This will be better. Justice will have a yard, and there won’t be any shared walls, so you won’t have to listen to the neighbors fighting over who put the empty milk carton back in the fridge. You’re going to love it here.”
As she rounded a bend in the road, the house came into vi
ew. She pulled up in front of the cedar-sided cabin and let out a long, relieved breath. It was perfect. She’d seen pictures, but photos could hide a lot of flaws. Tidy and well-maintained, the small house looked exactly as she’d hoped it would. The drive and walkway to the front porch had even been cleared. There were a few other homes around, but they were definitely far enough away that she wouldn’t hear any neighbors arguing unless they made a point of being heard.
“See, Justice? There’s that big fenced yard I was telling you about.”
Her relief didn’t last long when she caught another glimpse of the clock. Even if she was extremely speedy, she was definitely going to be late to her first day. She muttered various creative swear words under her breath as she pulled her SUV and the trailer past the end of the narrow driveway.
As she started backing up, turning the trailer into the drive, she noticed another vehicle in the street behind her and quickly slammed on her brakes. Craning her head out of her open window, Kit spotted a dark-haired, bearded man behind the wheel of an elderly pickup. Her swearing was less muffled that time. It was hard enough backing such a small, wiggly trailer without an audience—an audience most likely impatient for her to get out of the way so he could squeeze past her SUV and get wherever he was going. If she rushed, she’d just end up sending the trailer cockeyed and getting it stuck in her new yard.
She looked at the snow mounded on either side of the skinny road. There was no way the pickup could go around, not without getting caught in the four-foot drifts. With a resigned sigh, she started backing up again. The pickup was far enough away that she wasn’t in any danger of hitting him with the trailer. The only danger was humiliation if it took her a half hour to get it into the driveway.
Turning the steering wheel, she watched as the back of the trailer lined up with the driveway entrance. Slowly, she started backing it in.
“It couldn’t be this easy, could it?” she asked Justice, hope blooming in her chest, marveling at the way the trailer was obediently rolling up the lane. Even as she spoke, the trailer turned too far, leaving it cockeyed and headed for the snowbank. Kit hit the brake before she got the trailer stuck in the drifts lining her new yard. “Of course it can’t. This is my life, after all. Everything has to be as embarrassingly painful as possible.”
With a sigh, she shifted her SUV into Park and got out, heading for the driver’s side of the waiting pickup. Might as well get this over with. The man rolled down his window as she neared, and Kit did a stutter-step when she got her first up-close view.
He was the most beautiful person she’d ever seen.
Taking his features one by one, he wouldn’t sound that attractive—short, dark brown hair, matching beard, hazel eyes—but there was something about him that knocked her sideways. He was rugged yet refined, with sharp cheekbones, full mouth, and a strong jaw and chin evident even underneath the beard. His lashes were long and lush enough to make pageant contestants weep. His model-like beauty was only emphasized by the contrasting mountain roughness of his untrimmed beard and utilitarian clothes, making him look like an actor playing the role of a backwoods lumberjack.
He was startlingly attractive—and unexpectedly intimidating.
Kit blinked a few times to reorient herself and remember what she was going to say. Years of working with cops and other first responders had inured her to burly, masculine men…at least that’s what she’d thought. This guy had taken her off guard, however. His unbelievably gorgeous face and silent regard were giving her a flashback to high school, and all the long-forgotten insecurities of a flat-chested, dorky teen tried to elbow their way back into her brain. She nipped those feelings in the bud. There was no way she was going to let anyone make her relive the misery of her teen years.
That thought and a sharp, cold gust of wind snapped her back to reality, and she realized she’d just been standing there staring for much too long. She held back a groan. What a way to make an impression on one of her new neighbors.
Get it together, Jernigan.
“Hi,” she said, trying to make her smile seem casually friendly despite her strange reaction. She had a trailer to park and a new job to start. There wasn’t time to get distracted by a guy, no matter how distressingly pretty he was. “This is probably going to take me a few minutes. Can you back up and get where you’re going a different way? Otherwise, I can drive around the block to let you get by.”
His glance moved from the trailer’s torqued position and back to her face. “I don’t understand the problem.”
She blinked. “Just what I said. It’ll probably be a few minutes before the road will be clear. I’ll need to pull forward to straighten the trailer before backing it into the driveway again.” That was assuming she’d manage to keep it straight on the second attempt, which she highly doubted, especially with Mr. Gorgeous Lumberjack sitting there watching her.
He looked at the trailer again. “Why did you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Turn the trailer like that? Why didn’t you just back it in straight?”
Great. Hot mountain man’s an ass.
Kit bit back a rude answer and sent the man a steady look. She had to give it to him—he had a great poker face. Even though she knew he was being sarcastic, there wasn’t anything in his posture or expression that gave him away. He even rumpled his forehead as if honestly puzzled by her ineptitude. What was next—a crack about women drivers? “I’m working on doing just that, but this small trailer’s a bit tricky. Just give me a few minutes, and I’ll be out of your way—unless you want to back up and use someone else’s driveway to turn around in.”
“What’s tricky about it?”
She took a silent breath, trying to hold on to her impassive expression. Being a cop for eight years should’ve allowed her to perfect the look, but her emotions always showed too easily. Honestly, she didn’t need some incredibly-hot-but-snarky jerk to mansplain as she prepared to humiliate herself in front of him…again. At least he didn’t seem to be in any hurry. He could sit there and mock her, but she wouldn’t have to waste time driving around the block to let him though. “Okay. I’m going to go give it another attempt. If you’re going to stay, just know that my ability to back a bumper-pull trailer is inversely proportional to the number of judge-y eyes staring at me.”
His head cocked, and his full mouth turned up at the corners in a smile so unexpectedly sweet that Kit couldn’t breathe for a solid four seconds. “Inversely proportional? You like math?”
The question threw her even more off balance. “Sure, I guess? I mean, I like it more than backing in this trailer.”
His smile widened, showing off white, mostly straight teeth. The front two overlapped a tiny bit, and she found that small flaw surprisingly endearing. “It’s the same thing.”
“What?” Still confused, she frowned at him. “No, it’s not.”
“Yes, it is. Everything is math.”
“Uh…okay.” Another gust of wind caught her, reminding her that she was still standing in the street, trying to figure out what this beautiful stranger was talking about, becoming later and later for work with every second that passed. She took a step away from the pickup and the odd, distractingly handsome lumberjack. “I guess I’m going to go do math, then.” She hitched her thumb toward the trailer. “Hopefully, I’ll remember enough high school algebra to get my trailer out of the way so you can get on with your day.”
“Not algebra.” The wrinkles in his forehead deepened as his smile changed, turning more quizzical than delighted.
“Right, of course. Geometry, then.” She headed back to her SUV, shaking her head slightly as she got into the driver’s seat, trying to brush off the strange encounter so they could get on with their lives. As she glanced in the side-view mirror, a movement caught her eye and she jumped.
The stranger had followed her, now standing right next to her back bumpe
r—and he was enormous. Adrenaline nipped at her, and Kit mentally scolded herself for letting down her guard. She’d turned her back on a stranger, even though she knew better than that. Just because a guy was hot didn’t mean he wasn’t a threat. As if sensing her tension, Justice sat up and peered out the window. When he caught sight of the stranger, his tail thumped against the seat. Ferocious, Justice was not.
Kit put a hand on the door latch, ready to get out of the car if the man came any closer, but he’d stopped. The tension in her muscles eased a tiny bit when he kept some distance between them, and she stuck her head out the window to give him a questioning look. Justice sniffed the air through the partially open window and then licked the glass with his broad tongue.
“I’ll help,” the mountain man said. “Otherwise, the trailer will end up stuck in the snow.”
She frowned, pretty sure he’d just insulted her. “Help how?”
“I’ll do the math, and you can drive. Together, problem solved.” He swept his arm to the side in a dramatic wave that erased her lingering tension, making it impossible to be intimidated. With his enormous bulk and shaggy beard, she hadn’t expected him to be so wonderfully dorky. He was like a nerdy, math-loving Sasquatch. Any lingering insecurities dredged up earlier were flushed away. She’d be willing to bet a lot of money that this guy hadn’t been one of the popular kids in high school either. No, this guy had been getting stuffed into lockers right alongside Kit.
She eyed his broad shoulders. At least, he’d been stuffed in lockers until he’d hit a growth spurt.
A smile tugged at her mouth as she lifted her hands in defeat and pulled forward, straightening the trailer before shifting into reverse again. After turning a circle on the seat, Justice lay down with a groan and closed his eyes.
“Turn the wheel eighteen degrees to the left,” the man called, and she darted a glance at him in the mirror. He didn’t look like he was joking. With a small shrug, she did as he suggested—or as close as she could manage. From his exasperated look, that wasn’t precise enough for him. “I said eighteen degrees, not twenty-six.”