County.
But it sure as hell had waltzed into town with Alex Preston. She’d managed to not only turn his professional world upside down, but his personal life as well.
After calling information and requesting the number for the hotel, Mitch selected the option so the number would be automatically dialed. His voice rusty with sleep, the desk clerk offered his practiced welcome greeting, then transferred the call to Ashton’s room.
He answered on the first ring.
So, Mitch wasn’t the only one who couldn’t sleep. The thought only irritated him all the more. “This is Hayden. I’ve found Alex.”
“Is she all right?”
As had been the case from the start, the anticipation in the other man’s voice was a good deal more than professional concern. His relationship with Alex clearly went much deeper. That shouldn’t bother Mitch, but somehow it did.
“She’s fine.”
“And what does that mean?” Ashton snapped. “The last time you told me she was fine, she’d lost part of her memory. Where is she?”
Mitch struggled to control the unwarranted fury that rocketed inside him. “I said she’s fine. She’s sleeping.”
“Where the hell is she?”
“Here,” Mitch ground out. “At my house.”
The brief silence on the other end of the line spoke volumes. “Why is she at your house?” Ashton’s tone was guarded this time, almost accusing.
“She said she figured it was the last place anyone would look.” Mitch massaged his stubbled jaw in an attempt to stop the muscle jerking there.
“Give me directions,” Ashton ordered, “I’ll be right there.”
“No. I told you she’s sleeping.”
More silence.
“You can see her in the morning,” Mitch offered.
“I don’t know what you think you’re up to Hayden, but you’d better think long and hard before you step too far over that line. I won’t tolerate you coming between me and my client.”
Mitch shrugged off his shoulder holster and tossed it onto the bed behind him. “I’m getting tired of your threats, Ashton.” He gritted his teeth to hold back the rest of what he wanted to say. This was Mitch’s county. He didn’t need any big-city know-it-all telling him how to take care of his business.
“You can’t stop me from seeing her, you know that.”
“I have no intention of trying to stop you,” Mitch pointed out. “Be at my office at nine in the morning. You can see her then.”
That tense silence again. “I’ll be there at eight,” Ashton countered hotly, “and if you ask her just one question outside my presence I swear you’ll regret it.”
“I wouldn’t dream of questioning her without you,” Mitch assured him. “See you at nine.” He hung up the receiver before Ashton could protest.
One thing was crystal clear, Mitch decided as he climbed into bed with his usual sleeping companion, his weapon, he had to get his head together before morning. Whatever it was that had allowed Alex to get so deeply under his skin in such a short time, he had to find a way to ignore it. Because if Mitch was half as easy to read where Alex was concerned as Ashton was, the hotshot lawyer already knew too much.
ALEX SLOWLY OPENED her eyes and stared at the ceiling of her room. Something was different, but she couldn’t be sure what. A dull ache throbbed deep in her skull, making focused concentration impossible. She stretched and sore muscles screamed in protest. The memory of a fist slamming into her stomach, of steel fingers gripping her throat and shoving her hard ricocheted through her mind. The ache in her skull exploded into fierce pain. She groaned and sat up, resting her head in her hands.
It took her a few seconds to realize the fierce agony wasn’t real, only remembered from an event that hovered behind an impenetrable wall that wouldn’t allow her to recall the last six days of her life. When she’d finally convinced herself it wasn’t real, the dull ache was all that remained.
How had she lost that whole block of time? Why couldn’t she remember? The concept seemed completely foreign to her. She should simply be able to retrieve those lost hours like so much data on a floppy disk. But she couldn’t. The flash of memory she’d just experienced was only the second little frame of recall she’d had since waking up in the hospital the day before yesterday.
The neurologist had said that it could be all or nothing, and would likely come in spurts. There was no way to speculate how much she would recall, and no reliable means to speed up her recovery.
Frowning, Alex returned to the problem at hand. Where was she? The image of Mitch Hayden offering her clean clothes at the bathroom door zoomed into vivid 3-D focus. She was at his house. That’s right. She’d come here because she knew no one would look for her here…she’d be safe. Something else she couldn’t remember nagged at her, making her a little less sure of the safe part, but she couldn’t grasp it. She hadn’t actually left the hospital with this destination in mind, she’d just wound up here and then the notion that no one would look for her at this particular location had gelled. He was the sheriff, after all, why would anyone look for her at his house?
Gingerly, she touched the bandage on her forehead. The image of fire blasting from the muzzle of a handgun aimed at her face seized her. She gasped with remembered terror and hugged her arms around her middle. She squeezed her eyes shut and rocked back and forth to calm herself. Her heart pounded so hard her chest hurt. He was going to kill her. He would never let her live knowing what she surely knew—his identity. Alex didn’t know how she knew it was a he, she just did. She was as certain of it as she was that he would try to kill her before she remembered. He had to…
“Good morning.”
Alex snapped her eyes open at the sound of a deep male voice. Mitch Hayden’s slow southern drawl to be exact. He stood in the doorway, propped against the frame. As she watched, he straightened and moved toward the bed. She grappled for the composure that usually came so easily for her. Whoever had worked her over had definitely scrambled her thinking. She was in the middle of a huge identity crisis that involved murder and mayhem and all she could do at the moment was notice how good the sheriff looked. Flashes of memory from last night kept popping into her head. His shirt hanging open, revealing a magnificent chest. His scent, something male and musky, when he’d held her so close as she broke down in his arms. Something about him drew her. It didn’t make sense.
“Good morning,” she returned as calmly as her churning emotions would allow when he paused a few feet away. Feeling vulnerable in her current position, she climbed out of bed and straightened her borrowed clothes, then combed her fingers through her hair in an attempt to pull herself together on the outside at least. “I appreciate you not taking me back to the hospital last night.”
“You don’t need to thank me,” he said quietly, those Artic-blue eyes clocking her every move. “It wasn’t a favor to you. I had my reasons.”
She was his prime suspect. How could she forget? Alex folded her arms over her chest and for a long moment studied the handsome sheriff who appeared hell-bent
