Bailey barked. “State Trooper needing backup to handle one sissy DEA agent. That’ll be the day.”
Shane grinned wider, tapping out a few commands on the keyboard.
A chair scraped back and Bailey’s footsteps echoed across the wood floor. Shane looked up, and raised his hand to his mouth, coughing to cover his laugh. The kid had put on his hat.
“If you’re going to be here a few minutes, would you mind catching the phone if it rings?” Bailey asked. “Think I could use a cup of that slimy diner coffee myself.”
“Sure. You go ahead. I’ll keep an eye on things.”
The deputy left. All the better. Shane could do what he needed with Bailey here, but it was best if he wasn’t. Accessing people’s private information for personal reasons wasn’t strictly legal, but Shane had questions that needed answering.
He didn’t know why Gigi’s reaction last night bothered him so much. He’d been rejected before. It wasn’t like he was any great prize. He was leaving town today, anyway. Even if he weren’t, it wasn’t like they had any future. It wasn’t like he was dreaming of blond-haired babies with wild blue eyes. Shane wasn’t family material. Never had been, he guessed.
But Gigi had responded to him—hell she’d electrified and incited him—at least at first. Until she’d remembered what she was doing. Or who she was doing. A cop.
He’d lain in bed after he’d left her, thinking about her. His nose had wrinkled, catching a scent eight years in the DEA had taught him never to ignore. He smelled trouble—a wispy tendril, like the first curl of smoke from kindling—but trouble nonetheless. He just wasn’t sure what kind.
From here, thanks to the wonders of the Internet, he had access to every database available to law enforcement, as well as a few that weren’t supposed to be available to anyone, law enforcement or not, courtesy of many hours in the computer lab at Arizona State. He’d worked the night shift to put himself through school, and in those long stretches before dawn, he’d learned a great deal about computer systems that wasn’t in the textbooks. In half an hour, maybe less, he’d know everything there was to know about Gigi McCowan. Then he could head back to Phoenix.
His fingers laced together, he cracked his knuckles and set to work. Sixty-five minutes later he sighed, rolled his head around his shoulders and admitted he’d been wrong.
Hunched over the flickering screen, he pinched the bridge of his nose, then scanned the text again to be sure he’d read it right. “Well I’ll be damned.” He definitely wouldn’t be going back to Phoenix today.
He didn’t know who the woman who’d spent last night in his cabin was, but he did know one thing—
She wasn’t Gigi McCowan.
Gigi took one last look around as she waited for John Lane to dig out his paperwork. Her pickup truck was still strapped to his wrecker in the drive.
She spun slowly, her gaze skimming over the junkyard to the mountains beyond, trying to memorize everything from the piney smell of the mountain air to the calls of birds in the treetops. She had to memorize it, because soon memories would be all she had left of Utah.
She took a deep breath and turned, hearing Mr. Lane walk up behind her.
“You’re sure you want to do this? Trade your pickup for my old Jeep?” John Lane asked. “Damage on your truck doesn’t look too bad. I can have her good as new in a day or two, and it’s bound to be worth twice what my heap is worth.”
She put on a false smile. She loved her old pickup. It was worn in all the right places. But she couldn’t afford to wait a day, much less two, for him to fix it. “I’ve been thinking I need something that eats a little less gas,” she said. “And after that ice storm last night, four-wheel drive sounds pretty good, too.”
“All right then.” He handed her the keys and title.
“You’ll be sure to take the rest of the veterinary supplies out of the back and give them to Mariah Morgan out at the Double M?” She’d already taken the few supplies she might find useful and boxed them up in the back of the Jeep. The remaining supplies weren’t much to offer Mariah in the way of goodbye, but they were all she had to give. Besides, it would be a shame to let them go to waste.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Nodding, she turned to survey her new vehicle.
Once, the Jeep had probably been fire-engine red. Now it had faded to the color of weak tomato soup. But the motor sounded fine and it had a full tank of gas. It would do.
The road blurred in front of her as she headed south, out of town. She tried not to think about never coming back here. She’d always known she would have to leave one day. She just hadn’t thought it would be in a run-down Jeep with nothing except her survival bag and the clothes—dirty clothes at that—on her back.
She wished she could have risked stopping by the house, just for a minute. Besides her clothes, she’d like to have picked up the few prizes she’d gathered on her frequent mountain hikes—a pine cone as big as her forearm, a smooth, round stone with grain in it in the shape of a peace sign, and a walking stick. Not much to show for twenty-eight years of living, but it was all she had.
Used to have. Even those few treasures were gone now. It was time to move on to a new life.
Except she liked this life.
Her eyes stinging, she pulled into a small rest stop fifteen miles outside of town. In the women’s room, she pinned her hair back and slipped on the wig from her emergency bag. Dark contacts came next, coloring her eyes from blue to brown. She studied her new image in the cracked mirror over the sink. Not bad for two minutes’ work. She didn’t look anything like herself.
That random thought almost brought her tears back. She couldn’t help but feel she’d finally given up the last vestiges of her true self. There was nothing left of the person she used to be. But that couldn’t be helped.
A new life was better than no life at all. Better than death.
Squaring her shoulders, she slung her pack over her back and stepped out of the washroom.
And stumbled into a broad male chest.
Shane.
He steadied her elbow, setting her back on her feet. Her hand brushed the fine, crisp hair of his forearm as she pulled away. The sensation shot up her arm like a jolt of static electricity.
His head tipped a fraction, and she felt his gaze peruse her slowly, even if she couldn’t see it behind his reflective sunglasses. She burned under his scrutiny, from the tips of her ears to the ends of her curling toes.
Shane.
He straightened, his jaw set perfectly square, and stood with his hands behind his back, his feet shoulder width. He looked very tall. Very disciplined.
Very cop.
“This is a new look for you, Doc,” he said, reaching out to finger her shoulder-length fake hair. He let the wig go and folded his sunglasses into his shirt pocket.
Being
