The Lawman's Last Stand

by Vickie Taylor

  Sometime in the last ten or eleven years Ronnie had grown up, and Shane hadn’t noticed.

  The elevator doors chimed open. Shane and Gigi stepped inside. Shane held the doors back with one hand when they started to shut. “When he wakes up, tell him I love him.”

  “He already knows. But I’ll remind him.”

  Shane let the door close.

  Outside, he stopped long enough to collect Oliver, who leaped all over them both in joy. He also pulled the pistol out of Gigi’s bag and stuffed it in the back of his jeans.

  Halfway across the parking lot, he hissed and jerked her back. Two men were leaning over Bill’s Honda, peering in the windows. He leaned around the minivan shielding them from the men’s sight and pointed them out to Gigi. “Recognize either of those guys?”

  “No.”

  He pulled out the gun he’d just taken from her.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, her voice high and tight.

  “Going to get some answers.”

  She grabbed his sleeve before he crept around the front bumper of the van. “Are you crazy? There are two of them.”

  “And one of me. Odds are in my favor.” The old feelings were back. Confidence. Immortality. All the things that made a good DEA agent. Too bad he wasn’t one anymore.

  “What are you going to do with them if you catch them?” she reasoned desperately. “Beat the truth out of them in a hospital parking lot?”

  “Who says I was going to give them a chance to talk?” he asked irritably, cocking the gun. The men who maybe shot Bill were twenty feet away, and she was talking common sense. He didn’t want to hear it.

  “You’re not going to kill them.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I know you.”

  He sighed. “What do you want to do, let them go? They’re the best lead we’ve had.”

  She looked anxiously at the men and then at the hospital. “There were all kinds of cops in there. Call them.”

  “And leave Bill unprotected. Not a chance.”

  “What about me? Are you going to leave me unprotected?”

  Those were probably the only words that could have stopped him. And they did. Dead in his tracks. He lowered the gun.

  Angrily, he pulled out Bill’s cell phone and stabbed in a number from memory.

  “Fitzsimmons.”

  “It’s me.”

  “Change your mind already?”

  “No. But if you’re interested in finding out who shot Bill Maitland, you might start by asking the men crawling all over his car in the south parking lot.”

  He hung up and pulled Gigi away from the minivan, careful to keep them both out of sight of the men prowling the parking lot.

  “What now?” she asked when they were a hundred yards away.

  He pointed across the lot. “See that red Jeep Grand Cherokee over there?”

  “Mm-hm.”

  “That’s our ride.”

  When they reached it, he bent over and fished around under the bumper. “Fitz has a teenage daughter who is always locking the keys in the car. She’s done it so many times he had to get one of those magnetic boxes to hide a spare in.”

  He found his prize and pulled it out, then unlocked the door for Gigi. When he’d settled in the driver’s seat across from her, she asked, “We’re stealing your boss’s car?”

  “Ex-boss. And not only that, we’re stealing his house, too.”

  Chapter 8

  “You’re sure this is a good idea?” Gigi asked, clutching Shane’s hand as they walked up to the porch.

  “I just quit my job. You think they’re going to look for me at my boss’s house? Even he doesn’t know we’re here.”

  Fitz’s house turned out to be a vacation cabin on Lake Pleasant, outside Phoenix. His daughter must have been as bad with house keys as she was with car keys, because Shane walked straight to a fake rock in the middle of a cactus garden, bent over, and came up with a door key.

  Inside, he pulled a second set from a rack in the hall and gave them to Gigi. “Hang on to those. I want to keep the place locked up while we’re here.”

  Gigi took the keys without question and walked around the house, checking out the large master bedroom and bath on the ground floor. In the kitchen she found enough canned goods to hold them a few days, and spotted a compact washer-and-dryer set in the mudroom by the back door.

  At least they wouldn’t have to hand-wash their clothes any longer.

  The living room was both spacious and cozy, with a stone fireplace—although she couldn’t imagine why, in Arizona—and a nook full of colorful throw pillows nestled in a bay window.

  If she didn’t look outside, she might have thought she was back in the mountains. But she did look out. The view was pretty in its own way, even if it wasn’t as heavenly as the scene out the massive glass wall of Shane’s Utah home.

  Here, the land was level instead of jagged, but it gave a welcoming impression, and opened up more of the sky. It was quieter, without so many birds to fill the silence with song, but quiet was good for thinking, and she and Shane had a lot of thinking to do about what had happened and what to do next. A trail marked by a few sentry pines led the short distance to Lake Pleasant. The water’s surface glittered like a sleek sheath of blue-and-silver-sequined satin rippling in a kind breeze.

  Shane sat on a boulder by the waterfront with Oliver lying by his side. Physically he was only thirty yards from the cabin, but emotionally she had a feeling he was in another world. A world where he felt responsible for Bill Maitland’s shooting.

  She hadn’t helped any, easing her own guilt by turning her anger on him earlier, blaming him. Surely he knew she hadn’t meant it. That she’d only lashed out from fear and frustration.

  Still, the damage was done. He’d pulled away from her. It hurt, watching him sort through his pain alone after their closeness this morning, but she let him be, sensing his need for solitude.

  She busied herself putting together a meal from what she could find in the cupboards and sitting in that cozy bay window seat, waiting for him. Willing him to come inside. To come to her.

  By dusk, she couldn’t stand it a minute longer. She scuffed her feet as she walked up behind him, making him aware of her presence long before she rested on the rock beside him. “I scrounged up some soup and some potted meat from the supplies inside,” she told him, searching for safe ground to start a conversation, “I can heat it up whenever you’d like.”

  “Thanks.” He didn’t even turn his head.

  “Shane…I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “For saying that I blamed you for what happened to Bill.”

  He shrugged. “Why shouldn’t you blame me? I do.”

  The sun touched the horizon and set the lake on fire.

  “None of this is your fault. You were only trying to help—”

  He stood abruptly and she had to clench her hand to keep from reaching out to him.

  “We should go in.” He shoved his fingers in the front pockets of his jeans, hunching his shoulders and looking at the ground. “It’s going to be dark soon.”

  They walked inside and she cooked a meal, which he hardly touched. When she volunteered to do a load of laundry, he gave up his dirty shirt, throwing the clean replacement she’d found for him in a closet over the back of the couch.

  “How about a little radio?” She reached for the dial of a boom box on a table in the dining room.

  “No. I need to hear what’s happening outside.”

  Squashing her annoyance at his curt tone, she let her hand fall to her side. He was right. With the road outside being gravel, they’d hear if a car approached, if the house was quiet. Shane had closed the blinds and insisted on lighting only a couple of small candles instead of turning on a lamp. He didn’t want them to make easy targets through the window. The candles bathed the room in dim, watery light. The smell of tallow weighed down the air.

  She couldn’t bear to be i
n this house with him—how long? A day? Two? Maybe more?—with nothing but darkness and tense silence to fill the gulf between them.

  “Bill is going to be all right,” she suggested. “I know it.”

  His head snapped up, his eyes glinting like steel in the semidarkness. “Is that your medical opinion, Dr. Ferrar? Treat a lot of gunshot wounds in horses, do you?”

  “No, but I’ve treated you for them twice now.”

  His eyes still gleamed defiantly, but his chest deflated enough to let her know she’d at least partially hit her mark.

  “A couple of scratches is hardly the same thing as two rounds in center mass,” he muttered.

  “No, it’s not. But I’ve talked to a lot of patients’ families after surgery. I know how a doctor words things when he’s preparing them for the worst, and that isn’t how that doctor was talking to Ron Maitland.”

  Shane’s scowl buckled. An ember of hope burned in his soulless eyes. He looked at her with such longing, such need to believe what she was saying that her heart cried for him. She wished he would put his head on her shoulder and cry for his friend. It would have been easier to take than that yearning stare.

  But she knew that would never happen. Her proud protector buried his pain deep inside him. He’d never let anyone bear a part of his burden.

  The moment stretched; time ran as slowly as molten wax down the side of a fat candle. Shane had combed the long length of his hair back. She reached up and brushed it down over his eyes.

  His lips parted, as if he needed more breath, and impulsively she let her hand fall to his back, ran it up and down the length of his spine, over the taut muscles of his shoulders in a soothing stroke.

  He leaned into her touch for a hint of a moment, his eyelids drifting shut. Then his chest heaved and he pushed away from her. Disappointment weighed heavy on her limbs, and she dropped her numb hand to her thigh.

  Shane shuffled across the room with his back to her, looking upward. “I want you to sleep up in the loft tonight.”

  She followed his gaze to a ladder against the far wall and a little room she hadn’t noticed before, tucked between the rafters of the cabin’s vaulted ceiling. She hadn’t noticed the loft earlier. “Why?”

  “You’ll be out of harm’s way if someone kicks in the door. They won’t be expecting you to be up there.”

  A sick feeling washed through her stomach. “And where will you be?”

  “Down here. In the big bedroom.”

  In the big bedroom. In the big bed. Alone. And she’d be alone in the loft. She would have laughed, if it hadn’t been so sad. She’d slept by herself all her life. Now, after four nights with him, she couldn’t bear the thought of sleeping without him.

  Swallowing her pride and mustering up all the confidence that a woman who’d been rejected all her life, starting with her own father, could muster, she stepped up close behind Shane. Even without touching him she could feel the warmth—and the hurt—radiating from him.

  She circled him from behind with her arms, brushed her hands through the bristly hair of his chest. “What if I said I want you in the loft tonight?”

  He jerked away as if he’d been stung. “Don’t.”

  “Don’t what? Don’t touch you? Don’t try to make you feel better? Don’t try to make this night a little easier for you?”

  He stalked the room like a lion circling his pride, occasionally throwing a glance her way. “Yes.”

  The fine thread of her control snapped. She was humiliated. And afraid. “It’s all right for the big, bad DEA agent to protect and console the poor witless female, but when he’s hurting, heaven forbid he should accept a little comfort in return.”

  “Is that what you think I want from you, Gigi? Comfort?” He stopped pacing in front of her and leaned forward. Just a fraction, but it was enough. The room seemed to shrink. His presence overshadowed everything—time and place. A male in all his glory, conquering all that stood in his path, lording over all he left in his wake.

  Her breath hitched, but she refused to back down. She reached out and flattened her palm against his bare chest. Her confidence grew with each beat of his pounding heart. He could pretend disinterest. He could pretend to be unaffected.

  She knew better.

  “What do you want from me, Shane? Tell me.”

  An explosive blast of air hissed from his lungs. He took a quick step back, raking the hair off his forehead and pulling at the roots. “Dammit, Gigi. You can’t touch me like that, look at me like that and expect to slip into bed later all safe and prim and proper. I’m not that noble, and I’m not that strong. Not tonight.”

  “Maybe you should let me be the strong one tonight,” she said quietly.

  “I’m trying to protect you.”

  “I know that. What I don’t know is what you’re trying to protect me from.”

  In a flash the room turned. Or maybe she turned, but not of her own free will. The rough stone of the fireplace pressed against her back. Shane pressed against her front.

  Even if there had been a fire in the hearth, it wouldn’t have been warmer than the heat radiating from his body. He pressed a kiss against the tender flesh of her neck beneath her ear. He suckled on the column of her throat. He grazed his whiskers along the valley between her breasts, abrading her even through the cotton of her T-shirt.

  When his leg wedged hers apart, she opened herself oblig ingly. Before she’d recovered from the multitude of sensations created by his thigh gyrating against hers, his hand found her breast and molded her to his touch. His mouth found hers and their tongues danced, mated.

  Her heart pounded as raucously as his had been beating when she’d touched him a few moments ago. Her head was spinning, her world contained in the bubble of pleasure surrounding her.

  Desperate for a gulp of air, she pulled her mouth away.

  “That.” He cupped the back of her head, steadying her at the waist as he eased himself away from her.

  “What?” she asked dizzily.

  “What you’re feeling right now,” he said, still not making sense. “And this.” He grasped her hand and pressed it over the juncture of his legs. “That feeling that you can’t get enough air. That you’re drowning. That your heart is going to explode. That nothing else matters or ever will matter. That’s what I’m protecting you from.”

  “I don’t understand.” She hadn’t moved her hand, didn’t want to, though the heat of him burned her fingertips where he pulsed against her.

  He threaded his fingers through the curls at her temple. “Since the day we met, we’ve been like two trains steaming headlong toward each other on the same track. When we collide, lady, there’s not going to be anything comforting about it. It’s going to be a helluva wreck. Are you ready for that?”

  Her chest rose and fell rapidly against his, but she couldn’t get enough air. She felt lightheaded. Dizzy.

  Aroused.

  Shane stared at her, his blue eyes mesmerizing her.

  Breathlessly, she pulled together two words. “Choo-choo.”

  Shane’s conscious mind spun in a vain attempt to catch up with the unconscious demands of his body. Things had happened fast—too fast. One second he’d been arguing with Gigi. The next he had her pressed up against a wall again, lifting her until she fit him just right, supporting her thighs as she wrapped her legs around his hips and pulled him closer.

  Their mouths fused. Hot, wet and hungry, he tasted her. Her flavor was as unique as the rest of her. Tart, like a lemon drop.

  She skimmed her hand over his chest and pinched his nipple and the shock blasted straight to his groin. Not that he needed any further stimulation. He was already painfully hard. The soft cotton of his briefs chafed like sandpaper. Focusing on anything beyond getting out of the confining undergarments and into the smooth, wet heat of her was beyond him.

  He cupped her behind and lifted her away from the wall. “Upstairs,” he managed to gasp, and stumbled toward the ladder.

  Dear
God, a ladder. How was he going to climb and carry her and not break both their necks?

  Halfway across the room, he forgot about the ladder. If Gigi rocked against him one more time, squeezing him with her legs and arching her hips, he wasn’t going to last long enough to get there anyway. He stopped behind the sofa, resting her on the back while he reached over to the table and snuffed out the candles with his fingers.

  Gasping, Gigi snatched his hand, examining his fingertips for burns. He didn’t have any—he’d been putting candles and matches out that way since he was a kid. But he liked the way she studied each fingertip in turn, then drew it into her mouth and soothed it with her moistness just in case.

  Her suckling nearly put him over the edge. He picked her up again and headed toward the ladder.

  She looked at him curiously, and he answered her unspoken question. “I still want you in the loft tonight.”

  “Because its safer?”

  “No,” he said, the truth spilling unbidden off his tongue. “Because it has a skylight.”

  The exquisite curiosity in her expression captured him. Pulled the beat from his heart. He’d slept up there once when he and Fitz had spent a weekend here resting up after a tough case. He’d never forgotten how beautiful the tapestry of light in the sky had been that night, or the healing peace he’d found staring up at it. He’d hoped Gigi would find the same solace, sleeping in the loft.

  Now, he realized, he wanted more than for her to see the beauty of the night. He had his own selfish reasons for wanting her in the loft. “I want to see the stars in your eyes when I make love to you,” he admitted.

  Her whole demeanor softened, like he’d just pulled a dozen roses from behind his back.

  The ladder didn’t prove too difficult. Gigi climbed on her own with Shane just one rung behind her, his arm wound protectively around her waist as her behind wiggled provocatively against his chest. By the time he crawled over the top rung and flung himself onto the futon mattress on the loft floor, any pretense of civility was beyond his reach. He was feeling primitive. Savage.