Case File: Canyon Creek, Wyoming

by Graves, Paula

  No need to panic yet. Whatever the woman remembered, it wasn’t enough to implicate him. She’d never gotten a good look at him; he’d been careful, wearing nondescript clothing and his hat low over his face. She might have seen his belt buckle, but that wouldn’t hurt him. He wore it only when he was hunting, and it had been a hand-me-down, not a purchase.

  Still, he’d feel better when he finally tracked her down.

  HANNAH COCKED HER HEAD, watching Riley flip the steak on the grill. He looked over his shoulder and smiled at her, fueling her suspicion that he was playing some sort of game with her. On the up side, at least she was getting a steak dinner out of it. But she couldn’t help wondering why he wasn’t trying to talk her out of playing bait for the killer.

  Driving home from the Canyon Creek Police station, he hadn’t said a word about Sheriff Tanner’s plan. On the contrary, he’d taken the scenic route, detouring along lightly traveled side roads winding through open range, where horses and cattle grazed on the last good grass before winter arrived. He was a charming tour guide, telling her all about the local legends from a time when cowboys were kings.

  “Just north of here,” he had told her, “lies the Wind River Indian Reservation. Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone. Emily’s mother grew up there.”

  Which explained Jack’s coloring.

  “Emily’s mother died when she was little—not long after Jack was born. They grew up with their dad, so they never really knew much about their mother’s side of the family. She always regretted that.” Riley’s voice had gone faint, as it often did when he spoke of his late wife.

  He’d changed the subject, and the conversation for the rest of the ride home had been light and inconsequential.

  Certainly no mention of Sheriff Tanner’s plan to put her in the killer’s crosshairs.

  “Are you sure I can’t help you with something?”

  “Got it covered,” he assured her. He closed the grill cover and came to sit next to her on the rough, wooden bench set against the back wall of the house. He edged closer, enfolding her cold hands in his. “Are you sure you want to wait out here with me? Your hands are like icicles.”

  She leaned against him, happy for his body heat. Though the house blocked some of the wind whipping down from the north, the sun was already beginning to set, robbing her of its waning warmth. “And miss watching you play chef? Not a chance.”

  He wrapped his arm around her, pulling her closer. “Better?”

  He smelled like wood smoke and grilling steak. Her stomach growled, and she chuckled inwardly. Tasty, indeed.

  “Somebody’s hungry.” His low, growly baritone rumbled in her ear, turning the statement into a nerve-melting double entendre. She looked up to find him watching her, his gaze restless.

  She swallowed hard, her heart fluttering wildly. “Yes.”

  He bent his head to nuzzle the side of her neck. His lips traced a shivery path up to her ear. “Me, too.”

  So, this is what he’s up to.

  Resistance was impossible, even though she was onto his plan of distraction. By the time his mouth slid over the curve of her jaw, she was far beyond protest.

  His lips found hers, moving lazily. She lifted her hands to his head, his crisp, short-cropped hair rasping against her palms, making them tingle. She pulled him closer, ready for the next course, but he gave her only a quick taste, his tongue brushing lightly over hers, before he pulled back. The kiss was an appetizer, only whetting her hunger.

  “Don’t want to burn anything,” he murmured, pulling away and returning to the grill.

  He grabbed a set of tongs and flipped the steaks. The smell wafting toward her made her mouth water.

  At least she told herself it was the smell.

  “You haven’t given up on talking me out of the plan, have you?” she asked.

  He glanced over his shoulder at her. “Did you think I would?”

  She shook her head slowly. “It’s not going to do you any good. You can’t wine and dine me out of this.”

  He smiled slightly, his eyes dark with determination. “I wasn’t expecting food to change your mind.”

  Oh, my. The unspoken promise of that statement sank in, spreading heat over her throat and down her back. The fleece coat she wore to fend against the evening chill felt suddenly heavy and constricting.

  “And I’m out of wine,” he added. “Afraid we’ll have to go into this sober.”

  She unzipped her jacket, grateful for the cool rush of air. “I don’t like wine anyway. Makes me sleepy.”

  “Exactly.” He turned back to the grill.

  Warning bells rang frantically in her brain, but walking away seemed beyond her. Instead, she scrambled mentally for a safe topic to cool down the heat rising between them. “I called my parents earlier. I told them what I had decided to do.”

  He looked over his shoulder again. “What did they say?”

  “Not to do it, of course.”

  “Mom and Dad know best.”

  She pressed her lips into a tight line. “If they were in my position, they’d do what I’m doing. Where do you think I learned it from?”

  His answer was to flip the peppers charring on the grill.

  “I just hope they don’t call my brothers and let them know what’s up. I’m surprised Aaron hasn’t called me already. He’s the cop,” she reminded him. “Chickasaw County’s finest.”

  He closed the top of the grill again and turned around to look at her. “What would Aaron the cop tell you?”

  “Not to do it,” she answered.

  “Seems to be the consensus.” He walked slowly toward her, every step a seduction, whether he intended it to be so or not. She tried to look away, but her muscles seemed paralyzed.

  A fly in a spider’s web, she thought faintly. Then he sat beside her again, lifting one hand to cup her cheek. What was left of her rational side curled up and whimpered.

  He had large hands, rough with work. He ran the pad of his thumb lightly across her bottom lip. “You have a beautiful mouth. Has anyone ever told you that?”

  The memory his words evoked helped her gather up what was left of her self-control. “Yes.”

  His thumb stopped moving. “Whoever he was, he was right.”

  “He liked kissing me.” She forced the words from her mouth, not because she wanted to talk about that painful time in her life, but because it was her best defense against Riley’s potent seduction. “But he loved someone else.”

  Riley dropped his hand to his lap. “What happened?”

  “He married her, not me.”

  Riley breathed deeply, bending forward to rest his forearms on his knees. “When was that?”

  “About four years ago.” She hadn’t planned to tell him more, but the gentle encouragement in his eyes made her open up about Craig, their whirlwind romance, the wedding plans and the terrible moment when, at the bachelor’s party, he confessed to Hannah’s brother Aaron that he was still in love with another woman. “Aaron made him tell me the truth.” She smiled wryly. “Craig’s lucky. Aaron was really ticked.”

  Riley took it all in silently, his expression solemn. Surely he couldn’t miss the parallels between then and now, between Craig’s lingering feelings for his old flame and Riley’s unending passion for his dead wife.

  “I think I knew long before he told me.” Shame burned the back of her neck. “I just thought I could change his mind. But you can’t will a man to get over the woman he loves.”

  “No.” Riley moved restlessly away from her and opened the top of the grill. The smell of grilled peppers and steak filled the light breeze, but she’d lost her appetite.

  Apparently, he had as well. Turning off the grill, he transferred the meat and peppers to a couple of plates, but he returned to her side without bringing the food. He turned toward her on the bench, reaching out to take her chin in his hand. He lifted her face, making her look up at him.

  The intensity of his gaze made her stomach tighten int
o a hot, tight knot. “I don’t want you to go to Jackson tomorrow.”

  “I know.”

  “I don’t know how to stop you. You’ve already said wining and dining won’t work.”

  She had to laugh at that, and his lips curved in response, but he soon grew serious again.

  “I can only tell you that I came damned near losing my mind when Emily died. I don’t think I’ve gotten all of it back yet.” He cradled her face with gentle strength. “If something happened to you, I don’t think there’d be anything left of me.”

  Tears trembled on her lashes and tumbled down her cheeks. She blinked them back, fighting for control. “You hardly know me,” she said, trying to be reasonable. But even as she spoke the words, she knew they were inadequate. In a few, brief days, she’d shared more about herself with him than she’d shared with most of her family. He knew the fears that hid behind her bravado, the longing she buried beneath her outward contentment.

  He didn’t have to contradict her. She saw in his eyes that he knew the complexity of their relationship went far beyond a few days of acquaintance. Soul mates, her traitorous mind whispered, and she couldn’t disagree. But the truth didn’t make Riley any less in love with his dead wife.

  She closed her eyes and drew away from him, needing breathing room to gather the scraps of reason still left in her rattled brain and try to figure out what to do.

  She wanted him. She couldn’t have denied that truth if her life depended on it. And she also knew the futility of letting her desire become anything more demanding. They might have a deep and special connection, but that was no guarantee of happily ever after.

  Could she settle for happily right now?

  “Please don’t go to Jackson tomorrow,” he said.

  She forced her eyes open, letting the tiny flicker of anger licking at her belly grow into a slow burn. “I told you my decision,” she snapped. “You’re going to have to respect it.”

  She stood and entered the house, leaning against the door for a second to calm her jangled nerves. She listened through the door for any sign that he intended to follow, but all she heard was the clatter of plates and cutlery.

  A sudden crash made her jump, and she peeked through the small window set in the top of the door and saw Riley crouching by the grill, piling up pieces of a broken plate with swift, jerky movements.

  She went to the guest room, closing the door behind her, and sat on the bed, hating herself for breaking the peace between them. He’d just opened up to her, sharing feelings she suspected he hadn’t shared with anyone since Emily’s death, and she’d rewarded him with a temper tantrum.

  Nice, Hannah. Way to make sure the rest of your time in Wyoming is a living hell.

  RILEY TOSSED THE PIECES of broken plate into a trash bag one by one, grimly enjoying the sound of each thunk. As irritated as he was at the moment, he found a strange sort of pleasure in the feeling. It had been a while since anyone had inspired in him a powerful emotion outside of grief.

  He understood her frustration with his stubborn insistence that she back out of Jim Tanner’s plan, but what choice did he have? He’d sacrificed a normal life in his quest to find Emily’s killer, but he wasn’t going to sacrifice Hannah.

  Which was also a new sensation—caring about someone more than he cared about revenge.

  He set the trash bag in the bin by the door and went back to the grill to gather up the food and take it inside.

  Hannah was nowhere to be found. He glanced down the hall and saw the door to her room closed.

  So she was hiding. Trying to stay mad? He knew she wasn’t as angry at him as she wanted to be. But anger was better than vulnerability. He knew that better than most people.

  He found a pair of clean plates and split the steaks and peppers between them. Going back to the drawer for flatware, he glanced down the hallway again. The door was still closed.

  He waited until after he’d poured ice water in two glasses before he went down the hall to knock on the door. “Hannah?”

  She didn’t answer, but he could sense her listening just behind the door.

  “If you don’t answer me, I’m going to assume something bad happened to you and bust the door down,” he warned.

  The door opened and she stood on the other side, looking up at him with flashing green eyes. He took a step forward before he could stop himself.

  She put her hands up, almost defensively, but when her fingers touched his chest, they curled into the fabric of his shirt, pulling him closer.

  His heart rate soared as their bodies made contact. He couldn’t have stopped his physical response if he’d wanted to.

  She rose to her toes and pulled his head down, slanting her head back and fitting her mouth against his. He drank in her sweetness, fire building low and slow in his belly.

  “I don’t want to fight,” she whispered, sliding her lips across the edge of his jaw.

  He felt himself falling into her, the last shred of resistance gone. Pushing her back toward the bed, he fell atop her, shifting so that her body cradled his. Her thighs parting to welcome him, she tugged urgently at his shirt, her eyes glazed with hunger.

  “Hannah—” he began, needing to be sure she knew what was about to happen between them, but she silenced him with her mouth, drawing him down to her with strong, determined arms.

  There was nothing he could do but follow her into the sweet, desperate madness.

  Chapter Fourteen

  She rose beneath him, her strong fingers digging into the muscles of his back. The sound of her whispered endearments seemed as familiar as his own voice. Her body opened to him, soft and furnace hot, drawing him into a web of pure pleasure that left his body weak but his soul as strong and enduring as the Wyoming mountains. She clung to him, raining kisses over his cheeks, his jaw, down the side of his neck.

  He raised his head to look at her, her name trembling on his lips.

  But the face gazing back at him wasn’t Emily’s.

  He woke with a small start, gazing up into darkness, his heart pounding wildly in his chest. At eye level, the pale blue light of an alarm clock displayed the time. 5:30 a.m.

  Tucked into the curve of his body, Hannah’s body was soft and warm. He could feel her slow, even breathing and knew she was still asleep.

  The memory of their night of passion blurred with the dream that had wakened him, until he wasn’t sure what was real and what was imagination. Was this really her body, fitted to his so perfectly it seemed they’d been chiseled from the same stone? Had their bodies found, instinctively, that perfect rhythm that lovers knew, the ebb and flow of control and submission that usually came from years of intimacy?

  Had it been Hannah’s face gazing back at him in his dream?

  Carefully, he edged away from her. She stirred briefly but settled back into a deep, quiet sleep.

  He rolled from the bed, grabbing his discarded boxers from the floor, and padded down the hall to the bathroom. He looked into the mirror over the sink, gazing curiously at the man who stared back at him in the glass.

  He looked rested, he realized with surprise, despite the early hour and the exertions of the previous night. Stress lines that had creased his forehead had almost disappeared, only faint shadows marking the skin as a reminder of what had once been. His eyes looked clear, his gaze steady, devoid of pain for the first time in three long years.

  About a year after Emily’s murder, when his self-imposed isolation had begun to make him crazy, he’d gone to Jackson for a weekend, just to be around people who didn’t know who he was or what he’d lost. It hadn’t been hard to find a woman as uninterested in happily-ever-after as he had been. Trips to Jackson had become a regular thing for him, once or twice a month. Just to take the edge off.

  The other nights, the other women—all had left their mark. But always for the worse. Never the better.

  He turned off the light and went out into the hallway, pausing outside the bathroom. What should he do now? Go back to
the bedroom, where Hannah lay warm and naked between his sheets? Or to the kitchen, to get an early start on figuring out how to talk Hannah out of her crazy, dangerous plan?

  She made the decision for him, emerging from the guest room wearing nothing but his shirt.

  She gave him a tentative smile. “Good morning.”

  Her hair was a dark tangle, framing her sleep-softened face. Her lips were pink and swollen from their kisses, and the skin of her throat was bright red from the rasp of his beard against her skin.

  His body quickened in response, and he had nowhere to hide.

  A slow, naughty smile spread over her sleepy face. She walked slowly down the hallway, her gaze locked with his. She stopped in front of him, lifting one hand to his chest.

  “It’s cold out here in the hallway.” She slid her hand slowly down his belly, until her fingers tangled briefly in the waistband of his boxers, then dipped lower. “Why don’t we go back to bed?”

  He couldn’t have said no if he wanted to.

  THEY TOOK TURNS SHOWERING a couple of hours later, oddly hesitant to share that particular bit of intimacy. Maybe it was tacit acknowledgement, on both their parts, of how transient their intimacy really was.

  Hannah went first, and by the time Riley emerged from the bathroom, dressed in clean jeans and a fresh, blue chambray shirt, she’d already brewed a pot of hot, strong coffee and was cracking eggs in a skillet on the stove.

  “Two eggs or three?” she asked over her shoulder, trying not to picture the long, lean body hidden beneath the clothing. If she didn’t get her mind out of the bedroom, how was she going to pull off her part of Sheriff Tanner’s plan?

  She couldn’t afford to be off her game today.

  “Three.” Riley reached into the breadbox to pull out a loaf of wheat bread. “I’m making toast—want a piece?”

  “Please.” She cracked two more eggs into the pan and let them cook sunny side up. “Sheriff Tanner didn’t call last night, did he? I didn’t hear the phone ring.”