as they passed an old-time stagecoach, which the guests still got to ride in. Chickens meandered through its spoked wheels.
“She thinks she did. Beau. Stop.” The rambunctious dog quit jumping and took off after his sister.
“Tanya’s hiding something.”
She rounded on him, her patience wearing thin. “How do you know?” Overhead, an American flag hung from its rope in the still air. The fragrance of the newly planted petunias encircled them.
“I saw two glasses on her coffee table.”
“So?”
“She said we were her first visitors.”
Her mouth opened then closed. Brain cells, get moving, she ordered, but they just rolled in her skull, sluggish. He was too observant by half. “Tanya wouldn’t lie. She must have used both of them.”
“Is she a sloppy housekeeper?”
“No...”
“Food for thought.”
“Corn bread,” she blurted, not sure if she was doing the right thing, but suddenly needing to speak when the source of the cherry scent came back to her. “It’s Smiley’s favorite.”
Jack nodded slowly and a smile lightened his eyes to dark amber with gold flecks. “I appreciate that.”
“And her hair.” Was she really saying this about her friend?
“Go on.”
“It smelled like one of his cigars.” Her chest burned at her admission...but she couldn’t hold it back. There had to be reasonable explanations for this...
But another part of her worried. Was there a chance that she’d befriended the kind of people she’d come all this way to avoid...the sort of friends that brought out her old trouble-making self, the person she no longer was...or wanted to be?
“Can we get inside Tanya’s cabin?”
“This doesn’t feel right.”
“Her employee agreement gives—”
“Consent to search,” she finished for him.
“And my search warrant request is just waiting on official approval.”
“Larry and Diane won’t want a fuss made,” she protested, feeling defensive of her friends. “I’ll think of something when I drop by to see her later.”
Jack nodded slowly, then chucked her under her chin. “Thanks, partner.”
“I’m not your partner,” she called to him as he doubled back and headed for the trail behind Tanya’s house.
He turned and the gleam of amusement in his eyes got her heart thumping. “Right. Thanks, boss.” After a long look he turned and disappeared into the forest.
She stared after him far too long, then let out a breath.
Honestly.
Mooning after a cowboy who was all kinds of wrong for her...and dangerous. Had she learned nothing from her mistakes?
DANI HUNG HER hat on a hook, dropped into her office chair and powered up her computer. Exhaustion pressed on her eyelids until they drifted shut. She stretched out her legs, crossed her boots at the ankle and tipped her head back to rest on the cushion as she waited for the old-school dial-up connection.
What a crazy eighteen hours. When she’d pictured her first season as stable manager, she’d never imagined everything would go smoothly, but she hadn’t envisioned an undercover bounty hunter, a suspicious avalanche and friends who might be lying to her.
But haven’t you been deceiving them, too? came the sudden question, echoing in her brain, louder than if she’d actually heard it.
Her lungs expanded as she took in a deep, stress-management breath. It wasn’t the same thing. She hadn’t actually intended to commit a crime.
In a flash, she was twenty-one again, double-parked on a busy street in Oklahoma City, finished with her morning jumping competition, excited to see what mischief her boyfriend, Kevin, would coax her into today. Maybe they’d borrow that ATV they’d been eyeing the past few days and take it for a spin. The owners looked like they were away...
A loud bang on the passenger-side window jolted her out of her thoughts and Kevin’s face appeared in the window.
“Let me in!” he yelled like some wild carjacker, and she immediately unlocked the door and hit the gas pedal when he hollered, “Drive! Fast!”
She thought maybe he’d gotten in a fight. He had a quick temper and she’d seen how easily he got riled. She wouldn’t stick around for some offended mountain boy to stomp out and teach Kevin a few manners.
Her pulse raced as they blew through five intersections before he turned to her with a big grin and opened his duffel bag. At the stacks of cash spilling through the open zipper, she hit the brakes and got honked at by a car that swerved around her.
“Woooo-hooooo!” Kevin whooped. His eyes darted over her shoulder. “That’s fifty Gs. At least. We’re going to take a vacation. I’ll buy you something special, too. Promise.”
Her insides froze. Her outside, too, for that matter, her hands awkward on the steering wheel.
“What did you do?” she asked dumbly, her thoughts tumbling over each other as she resumed driving, her body on a tense sort of autopilot. Sure they liked raising hell, but this...?
She wasn’t that kind of person.
Later on, as she’d agonized over what to do, she’d seen a picture of herself on TV. A wanted woman with a misspelled name—in some ways anonymous. She’d vowed to turn herself in, but was stopped by a call from Kevin. After she’d dropped him off to meet his cousin, a bank employee who’d been Kevin’s accomplice, the two men had been apprehended.
“You won’t do me any good locked up,” he’d said after he explained that he hadn’t clarified the correct spelling of her name or given any details about her. “When I get out, I’ll need a place to go, someone to help me out, and that’s you.”
“I don’t want anything to do with you.”
“Well. You won’t have a choice because you’ll owe me.”
Muffled words sounded through the phone, as if he’d put a hand on it, and then his voice returned, sharp as a knife.
“Look, my time’s up. Just remember what I said,” he’d hissed. “You owe me.”
The line went dead before she could speak.
At the gargled shriek of her connecting hard drive, her eyes flew open, rocketing her
