“Jack?” His clothes were wet and cold beneath her palm. Good Lord, he was soaked to the skin. Cautiously, she rolled him on to his back.
His body was long and lean and looked as out of place on her kitchen floor as a bearskin rug might have. Even unconscious, his muscles were as hard as steel. But he didn’t seem quite as dangerous with his eyes closed. Oddly, Landis felt relieved that she didn’t have to look into those eyes. The last thing she needed was to get ensnared in that compelling gaze of his.
“Damn you, LaCroix,” she muttered.
His breaths came slow and regular. She pressed a finger to his throat and found his pulse steady and strong. She didn’t see much fresh blood, but he was wet and muddy, so it was difficult to tell how badly he was bleeding.
Crossing to the counter, she opened a drawer, yanked out a clean dish towel and wet it beneath the faucet. She didn’t possess a shred of medical expertise but knew enough about first aid to know he should be kept warm and comfortable.
At least until the police arrived.
The thought wasn’t a pleasant one. Why had he come to her for help? Why not one of his cop friends? Surely one of them had kept in touch throughout the pandemonium of the last year, hadn’t they? But Landis knew how cops felt about cop killers. Jack might have been one of their own for the better part of twelve years, but they’d branded him a traitor. He was smart enough to know there wasn’t a soul on the force he could trust.
So he’d come to her.
Dismayed by the implications, she folded the towel and pressed it against his forehead, trying not to notice how pale he was. “How could you do something so incredibly stupid?” she murmured.
He couldn’t have put her in a worse situation. His very presence threatened everything that was important to her, everything she believed in. She refused to compromise her reputation, her career, or her family for the likes of a man who didn’t deserve her compassion.
Pulling in a calming breath, she rose. The only thing she could do was drive down to her neighbor’s cabin and call the sheriff. Dread swirled through her as she imagined a swarm of cops converging on her tidy cabin. Jack would be taken into custody. She would be asked to come down to the sheriff’s office to make a statement. Eventually, the media would catch wind of Jack’s capture.
Then all hell would break loose.
Shuddering at the scenario her overactive mind had drawn, Landis considered her options—all of which boiled down to one. She had to call the sheriff. Jack was a murderer. An escaped convict. He belonged in prison. As the saying went, he’d made his bed and now he must lie in it. She refused to accept responsibility for his woes.
A brightly colored afghan lay folded across the back of the sofa. Landis dashed to it and snapped it open. Kneeling beside Jack, she draped it over him, tucking the ends beneath his arms and legs. As she straightened, he thrashed and called out her name with such clarity that for an instant she thought he’d regained consciousness.
She stared at him, the memories pounding through her like fists. Ironically, it had been Evan who’d introduced them. In spite of her self-imposed rule never to date cops, she’d fallen for the strikingly handsome vice detective with the magnetic eyes and captivating smile. He’d swept her off her feet and into a breathtaking relationship. Level-headed Landis had been so caught up in the intensity, she didn’t even realize it when she lost her heart. Jack wouldn’t have it any other way. He was all or nothing, and she had definitely given him her all.
But even back then she’d known he skirted that dark edge. He’d always unnerved her with his rule breaking and disdain for authority. Jack LaCroix wasn’t for the faint of heart. He existed in a world of gray. A world where he could stretch the rules and turn wrong into right if it suited him. Landis’s world was black and white. She followed the rules, embraced them. Still, for a year she’d loved him with every fiber of her being…
Shaken by the memories twisting through her, she turned away, aware that her heart was beating too fast. How could she have been so wrong about him?
Knowing there was nothing she could do for him except, perhaps, keep him from self-destructing, she reached for her coat. Just as her fingers closed around it, Jack’s voice rang out. She froze at the sound of her name and turned, half-expecting to see him sitting up, hitting her with that devastating smile. But he wasn’t sitting up. He wasn’t smiling. His eyes were closed. A sheen of sweat coated his forehead. His face was contorted in pain.
Alarmed, she walked over to him, straining to hear as he mumbled something unintelligible. His voice was soft and deep and achingly familiar. Her heart stuttered as she recognized a single, profound word—innocent.
In all her years of working in the court system, she’d never heard such despair. It wrenched painfully at her conscience. Was it the voice of a desperate killer? she wondered. Or was she hearing the voice of an innocent man wrongly accused of a horrific crime? The questions haunted her, the implications taunting her with terrible possibilities. Telling herself she could sort out her feelings later, Landis threw on her coat and headed for the door.
Twenty minutes later, Landis sat in the Jeep in her driveway and waited for the sheriff’s department deputy to arrive. She told herself it was the cold that had her shaking uncontrollably, but the heater wasn’t helping. Relief billowed through her when she saw the flashing lights of the sheriff’s Tahoe. By the time the deputy climbed out, she’d already reached his vehicle.
“Evenin’.” The man was the size of a grizzly, wore cowboy boots and a Stetson the size of a Volkswagen. “You called about a prowler?”
“He was here when I got home from work about an hour ago. It looks like he broke a pane and came in through the back door. He’s either injured or suffering from exposure because he fainted on my kitchen floor.”
The deputy cocked his head. “Fainted?”
Realizing she was talking too fast, she took a deep breath and silently counted to three. “I think he’s been—” Landis broke off when the deputy withdrew a pistol the size of a cannon.
“Is he still inside?” he asked.
She stared at the gun, not wanting to imagine what a bullet would do to human flesh. “Yes,” she answered, steeling herself against the sense of foreboding that welled up inside her. If the deputy knew he was going in to arrest infamous cop killer Jack LaCroix, would he be more apt to use deadly force?
“Is he armed?” he asked.
“I don’t think so.” She prayed Jack gave himself up easily. She didn’t want to see him hurt. She didn’t want to see anyone hurt.
“Have a seat in your vehicle, Ms. McAllister, while I take a look.” Pistol in hand, the deputy jogged toward the cabin.
Landis watched him disappear inside, then walked back to the Jeep and climbed inside. It only took a couple of minutes for her to realize she couldn’t just sit there and do nothing. She was too keyed up, and the deputy was taking too long. Oh, dear God, she’d never be able to live with herself if either of them got hurt….
Cursing Jack, she climbed out of the Jeep and began to pace, keeping her eyes trained on the front door of the cabin. Were they negotiating the terms of Jack’s surrender? Or were they in the midst of a standoff?
The path she was wearing in the snow grew as she paced—much
