The Lonesome Lawmen Trilogy

by Pauline Baird Jones

  “Down here!” she called. “You all right?”

  “Fine. You stay there. I’ll come to you.”

  She was happy to stay put. The snow came up around her waist. She’d almost had to swim through it to get her stuff gathered and was now clinging to the side of a boulder like the tide might sweep her away. She was pretty sure she couldn’t swim uphill, but would have tried if he’d needed her.

  The chopper had dropped out of sight again, but even as the thought formed in her head, she saw it rise above the tree line and start in their direction.

  “Luke!”

  “I hear it. Can you get under cover?”

  She was only a few feet away from cover, but it was all deep-snow feet.

  “Yeah!” No time to get her skis on, but maybe…

  She maneuvered her skis around until they were parallel with the mountain and facing the trees. The chop-chop-chop sounded closer. Panic crawled through her head, but it seemed to sharpen her thinking. She worked her body onto the skis, turning them into a modified surfboard. A quick look over her shoulder. The chopper grew larger in the sky. They’d soon be close enough to see her. She grabbed her poles, tucked them under one arm, then dug her hands into the snow and slid forward. The chopper made a jog away from her, then swung back, flying directly toward her. She dug into the snow again and slid under the branches of a huge pine tree. As the branches brushed against her face, brief, painful flashes of memory sparked inside her head.

  Branches slapped at her, clawed at her as she tried to grab them…but she kept falling…

  “Amelia!” Luke’s call pulled her back to the present. “Are you hidden? They’re almost here!”

  “Yeah!” The roar of the chopper drowned out anything else she might have said. Through the deep green of the branches, she watched the chopper sweep in, make a wide turn, and come back, hovering like some huge, ugly bug. She buried her face in the snow, tried to burrow her body in, too. Cold closed around her until it was all she could feel. It crept inside and wrapped around her heart, slowing it to a steady thud. Ice wrapped around her from the inside out and the outside in, freezing her in place.

  The chopper hovered above, as if it could feel her fear. Out of the fog in her head, it reached for her. Or maybe it was hands that reached for her. Their touch hurt, the pain stabbing out from her eyes. A roar from the chopper popped her eyes open. The dark shadow it cast against the white of the snow moved persistently in her direction, kicking the snow into a mini-blizzard, preventing her from seeing who was in the chopper.

  They were going to find her.

  Amelia covered her ears, burrowing into the snow. Disjointed pictures in her head, like incomplete snapshots…

  Shouts…

  Shots…

  Falling…

  “Amelia?” Luke touched her shoulder, scattering the fragments of memory like waking from a dream. “They’ve moved off. I don’t think they know what they are looking for. Thought sure they’d see our tracks.”

  She lifted her face from the snow, inhaling great gulps of air. If felt like she’d surfaced from someplace deep and dark. She ripped off her goggles, feeling a sudden claustrophobia and blinked in the bright light.

  “Are you all right?” He’d had to slide under the tree on his stomach to reach her, his concerned face close to hers. He smelled good, like aftershave and pine and fresh air.

  “I should be asking you that. That was a pretty spectacular landing,” she said, trying for a light tone. Did pretty good at keeping it, too, except for those two little quavers when she lost control of her voice.

  “I’ve had better.” He grinned at her and touched the lump swelling on his right temple. “A couple more and we’ll match.”

  An indescribable feeling of warm delight filled her up, starting from her middle and moving out until even the tips of her fingers tingled. It erased the chill that had invaded her and freed her from her frozen thrall.

  If this is some kind of crush, she thought, I like it. Hardly aware of what she was doing but knowing she needed to do it, she leaned toward him. Her free hand curled around the sturdy column of his neck and she kissed him. That minatory voice in the fog gave a shocked squawk, but it couldn’t compete with the pure pleasure of her mouth against Luke’s.

  He tasted as good as he smelled, though his mouth was very cold. It warmed up fast. Real fast. Despite her lack of memory for any comparison, she was, nevertheless, convinced it was the best kiss she’d ever participated in.

  They both eased back at the same time, and Amelia felt the world rush into the warm space they’d created between them. The voice expressed shock at her unladylike behavior, but what did that matter when his brown eyes were close enough for her to see gold flecks in the brown? He smiled and his gloved hand trembled just a bit as he reached out and tucked a strand of her hair back into her hood.

  “Who are you, Amelia?” he asked, his voice husky.

  She rolled onto her back, staring up through the branches at the sky. It was so deeply blue, the branches so green, her chest felt tight with pleasure. Did she often look at the sky or was she seeing it for the first time? She was scared, no question about that, but despite it, she felt a wonderful sense of anticipation—as if she’d been set loose in a world full of possibilities. That minatory voice in the fog was fading more and more with each passing moment. She felt alive, all her nerve endings singing like they’d just woke up from a long sleep. What defined a person? What gave them their identity? Who they were or who they’d been?

  “What are you thinking?” Luke asked.

  Amelia looked at him, found his eyes kind and curious. “That I’m happy to be alive. That I liked kissing you.” He looked worried, making the sky slightly less blue. “Is there someone else?”

  He shook his head. “Not since my wife died. It’s just that—”

  “What?”

  “You’re so young.”

  “We don’t know how old I am,” she pointed out. “I could just be well preserved.”

  He chuckled, but his eyes were still serious. “What if you’re committed to someone?”

  Amelia looked away from him. “It had occurred to me.”

  “And?”

  She shrugged. She didn’t know how to explain to him that all the feelings she could remember were about trying to get away from, not back to whatever her life had been. If she were committed to someone, wouldn’t some part of her know it?

  “The truth is, Amelia, you don’t know who you are or what you want. And I’m not a man who can take things lightly.”

  Amelia looked at him then. “Are you telling me that you’re a man who wants to commit?” Even with no memory, she knew that was rare.

  His grin was wry. “Something like that.” He sat up with a slight groan. “We’d better come up with a plan before our friends in the chopper come back.”

  Amelia watched him gather their gear together, her thoughts spinning inexorably to one, inescapable conclusion—Luke Kirby was a very nice guy. The fates had been kind to drop her in his lap. She must remember to thank them.

  * * * *

  Grady turned from the window. Instead of the snowy wasteland, he saw Paris. London. Cannes. Madrid. The world. It would all be his if the phone would just ring…

  It did. The summons shrill and welcome. It didn’t come by cell or radio, but on the land line.

  “Turn on your scrambler,” Larry said. His voice sounded resigned and discouraged in Grady’s ear.

  Without comment, Grady activated the scrambler, then listened while Larry updated him. When he was done, he knew Larry expected him to chew him a new butt hole, but there wasn’t time for that. Not if he was going to save his world. He had the prototype of SHEILD in his possession already. His men from that job had arrived as the storm left. He fingered the supple, mesh-like fabric, amazed that it could stop anything, let alone a bullet. He’d have to conduct a test before he’d believe it, but in the meantime…

  “I’m sending you some h
elp,” he said. “I want that highway covered tighter than a hooker’s ass. Also the towns on either side. No telling which direction they’ll head. You said there was blood? Put someone on the hospitals between Estes Park and Denver and have everyone use their police scanners. Monitor all activity. Also, get back to that cabin and get me the license plate number on the truck. If we miss them on the highway, they’ll eventually head for Denver. If we have to, we’ll take them before they get home. We can’t let her get back to Kincaid. Our only chance is to take her on the road.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “Be sorry later. Get me Prudence Knight. And get rid of whoever she’s with. We can’t afford to leave witnesses behind.”

  He hung up. Now was not the time to give into the rage and frustration trying to crawl out of his gut. This was his time, his big chance. She would be found. She would be found or people would die.

  * * * *

  “Feeling better?” Luke asked.

  “Yes, thank you.” Amelia leaned back with a sigh, pushing the empty bowl away from her. The tortilla soup had been hot and spicy, sending tendrils of warmth down into the chilliest spots of her aching anatomy. Anyone who said downhill was easy had never tried what they’d just done. Amelia had thought she’d identified all the muscles in her body, but this trip had found new ones. It was amazing that a body could hurt like this and still function. And the aches were mild compared to the fire in her wounded arm. She suspected it had started bleeding again. It was hard to be sure, but the creeping warmth in the midst of that fire sure felt like it.

  When they’d reached this little town clinging to the edge of the highway, she’d wanted to weep with relief, but she was too tired. Amelia hadn’t known she had it in her. Of course, she hadn’t known she didn’t have it in her either, which made it impossible for her to quit.

  As tired as she was, her surroundings fascinated her. Luke had chosen a dark corner booth of the little restaurant for them, providing them with a view of all the tables and anyone entering or leaving. He’d done it for safety, but it was also entertaining. Couples had flowed in and out, some so familiar with the place they could ask for the usual. The others, strangers who looked at the plastic menus and flinched.

  Some teenagers had boiled in and surrounded the juke box. Amelia didn’t know who was singing, but she liked the song about the bug or the windshield. She knew which one she was right now. That song was followed by one about feeling lucky. She could feel her spirits lifting, despite the aches and pains her body persisted in reporting to her brain. Her feet started tapping, but a look at Luke convinced her he wasn’t open to trying out the tiny square of dance floor in front of the fireplace with the moose rack over it. And after the other night she didn’t blame him. She hadn’t exactly demonstrated a talent for music, let alone an ability to dance.

  The demands of her stomach satisfied, Amelia felt a pleasant lethargy stealing through her aching body. It went up and down and around, then added lead weights to her upper eye lids. Her eyes were dry and tired from the strain of seeing past glare to the trees and rocks dotting the mountainside. A yawn forced its way up her throat. When she tried to cover her mouth, her muscles protested painfully.

  “Sorry.”

  “Fresh air makes me sleepy, too.” Luke was quiet, a frown creasing the area between his dark, slashing brows. Amelia wanted to kiss him again, but she didn’t think she could move. Or that he’d let her. “Why don’t you stay here while I try to scare up some wheels? I’d like to reach Denver before dark.”

  Amelia nodded. Not moving was good. Sleeping would be even better. But when he was gone, she found that she couldn’t sleep without him there. She felt too exposed, too vulnerable, even in her corner of the murky room where the only light came from an odd looking, three dimensional picture of a waterfall, which was between a mounted bear head and a velvet painting of dogs playing poker.

  She had no idea what the guys after her looked like, so every time anyone came into the room, her adrenaline would spike, until whoever it was settled at a table away from her. It was a small town, she decided, maybe she could find Luke, but once outside on the street, a sign caught her attention.

  Carol’s Cut and Curl.

  Had she always yearned for a haircut? She touched the thick braid of hair hidden by the hat she’d borrowed. The weight of it dragged her down and increased the throbbing on all three sides of her cranium.

  Made her more identifiable, too.

  If only she had some money…

  Then she noticed a smaller notation in the corner of the window.

  “We Pay Cash for Your Long Hair.”

  EIGHT

  Bryn refused to meet Dewey until dinner, legitimately citing piles of work to plow through, but now she regretted her attempt to not appear eager, when she was the one in torment. To make matters worse, she’d told him to stay home and work his way through the dummy corporations and find the actual person who’d bought the tranquilizer that killed the guard.

  It wasn’t a good use of his time. He’d probably finished it in an hour and was now playing some shoot ’em up computer game on the government’s time. The other day she’d found him deep in it with a kid from Japan and a lawyer in New Orleans. When it became apparent the kid was whipping both their butts, Dewey had logged off with that half-impish, half-sheepish smile that turned her heart into something foreign in her chest. She didn’t like thinking about it much, but when she did, she couldn’t get away from knowing it was a soft, squishy feeling, almost…tender. She hadn’t felt like this since sixth grade when she got her first kiss. Even now it grossed her out to think she’d swapped spit with a kid who grew up to be a mortician.

  At some point, she’d realized that the men in her life weren’t going to take her seriously. Ever. They wanted to kiss her on the mouth, maybe feel her up if they could get away with it. She wanted more. She’d always wanted more. Maybe that’s why Phagan had made the inroads he had? He may or may not have been attracted by her body—who knew if he’d ever seen her in real time?—but he sparred with her brain. He teased her, drove her crazy, made her laugh, made her feel alive, right down to her toenails.

  And Dewey? What did he intend to tell her? He’d said he needed to talk to her about Phagan. Did he mean he was going to tell her who Phagan was? Or was it personal? And if he was going to finally talk, why now? Was it because he felt personal?

  She didn’t want him to tell her, she realized. It was sobering to have to admit it because she was supposed to want to catch Phagan. It had been her primary goal for four years. And as Phoebe liked to point out, all God’s children needed a goal.

  She pushed back her chair and paced over to the coffee machine, dispensing a cup of hot black liquid that she didn’t want. It didn’t help her escape realizing she didn’t want Phagan in jail. It wasn’t just that she’d miss hunting him. She’d miss…him.

  She added sugar and cream, just so she could stand there and think with her back to an office stuck in a middle-of-the day frenzy. So where did that leave her and Dewey—besides not on the plane to California that was now carrying Jake and Phoebe toward the fun in the sun that should have been hers. He wasn’t the handsome prince she’d imagined when she was little and still believed in Cinderella. He was kind of cute, in an annoying sort of way. He had nice eyes. And a nice mouth. And she liked the way his hair flopped on his forehead. It had sorely tried her self-control, not to smooth it back during the hours they worked together. Would his hair feel as soft as it looked?

  Even now, with him not even close, the pads of her fingers tingled at the thought of touching not just his hair, but his skin, his face, his mouth. She rubbed her own mouth, which had parted in anticipation and sighed.

  How could she feel this way about two men? Was she some kind of aberration?

  Before she could answer that, the agent at the desk next to her called her name. When she turned, still holding her tasted coffee cup, he held up the phone.

  Back at
her desk, she said, “Thanks,” then picked up the call. It was Matt.

  “We need to talk.”

  “You can come up—” Bryn began, but he cut her off.

  “It’s lunchtime and I didn’t get breakfast.”

  “I’ll be right down.” She hung up, opened a drawer, put in her worries and took out her purse. “I’ll be back in an hour,” she told the secretary.

  Soon she was seated across from Matt at a restaurant a short walk away. The crisp, cool air had filled her lungs and swept away the remnants of her anxious thoughts, leaving behind only the longing. It was nuts, wasn’t spring the time for a woman to have fancies? It was the freaking dead of winter.

  She ordered, then turned to Matt. “What’s up?”

  “Had to call in a few favors, but I got us a name of a possible target.” He took a sip of coffee then said, “Albert Gore, former vice president.”

  “What? He’s coming here? I thought he was teaching somewhere in the East?”

  “Fundraiser with some environmental types is on his agenda for this week. My source says some of those types have also planned a protest of Merryweather Biotech and a few other labs in the area who engage in animal testing.”

  “Really. Hang on a minute.” She rang Dewey’s number. When he answered she asked, “You find out who bought that tranq?”

  A pause. A sigh. “Yeah. Trail eventually lead to some guy named Merryweather. Hamilton Merryweather. CEO of—”

  “Merryweather Biotechnologies.”

  “You want me to run him through the big mill and see what else falls out or do you have psychic powers now?”

  “Run him. Thanks.” She hung up, trying not to smile about the brief contact. Time was, that kind of comment would have made her grind her teeth. She had changed.

  Matt had that look he got, the one that was expressionless but menacing. “Merryweather would be stupid to use his own employee.”