But it was the view from the front porch that took her breath away. Evidently they’d driven higher into the mountains last night than she’d realized. Beyond the small clearing, the trees dropped away with startling suddenness. From where she stood, she could see for miles.
The tiny cabin seemed to hover halfway between the sky and the wide, meandering valley far below. The steep slopes were carpeted with verdant spruce and pine. Aspens just tipped with the first touch of fall color cascaded like ribbons of gold against the darker evergreens. Stands of new growth where loggers had replanted harvested areas spread like blankets of pale green.
The small clearing in front of the cabin had gone to tall grasses and a riot of gold, violet and red wild-flowers. It was an idyllic setting, both calm and uplifting at the same time—or at least that’s how Lauren perceived it until she stepped off the porch and caught sight of the snow-capped peaks behind the cabin. They stood tall and jagged against the sky, like glistening teeth ready to tear into anyone or anything foolish enough to come within their reach.
“What mountains are those?”
Settling his black Stetson low on his forehead, Marsh gave the rugged slopes a look of healthy respect.
“They’re the San Franciscos.” He leaned closer, pointing over her shoulder to one that reached higher into the sky than the others. “That’s Humphreys Peak. At twelve-thousand-plus feet, it’s the highest point in Arizona.”
Suddenly, disturbingly conscious of the tanned cheek only inches from her own, Lauren half turned and shifted her field of vision to a volcanic cone rising from a black lava field across the valley.
“And that?”
“That’s Sunset Crater. You’ll see how it got its name later this afternoon, when that rim of orange ash and cinder starts to glow.
“If we’re still here later this afternoon,” she murmured.
She swung around, grazing his vest with her shoulder. They both stepped back, as if even that slight contact violated some unwritten ground rules for the duration of their stay.
“Do you really think David Jannisek will try to contact you today?”
His face took on a stony cast. “I’m hoping he will, but I can wait as long as it takes.”
“So you said.”
“What about you?” he asked, his eyes intent under the brim of his hat. “You said you wanted to protect your sister by drawing the dogs off her scent. How long are you prepared to act as decoy for Becky?”
The question hit Lauren right where she was most vulnerable these days—her fledgling business. Biting down on her lower lip, she wandered past him toward the edge of the clearing. Native grasses brushed at her calves. Bits of deadwood crunched under her sneakers.
It had taken her more than a year to recover from the financial disaster of her divorce, and another year to secure the loans to purchase the supplies and equipment to start up her own firm. Now, after months of long days and even longer nights in her studio, she was just starting to establish a toehold in the highly competitive note-card market.
Her stomach curled at the thought of the meeting she’d instructed Josh to cancel. The museum account might have taken her business out of the red for the first time. Then there were the prototype note cards for the Breckinridge Group. She’d planned to screen them in sepia tones to convey a sense of the hotel’s long history and western tradition. The screens had to be done with a light touch or the artwork would wash out completely. Josh was a whiz on the computer, but he didn’t have Lauren’s eye or her training.
Marsh could hole up here indefinitely, but could she?
She didn’t have to search very deep inside herself for the answer. Looking out for Becky came as natural as breathing to her. She’d rushed to her sister’s rescue so many times, and drawn such comfort from Becky’s irrepressible good humor, that everything else faded into insignificance in comparison to her safety.
Dragging in lungsful of sharp mountain air, she retraced her steps. Marsh stood where she’d left him. Thumbs looped in his waistband, hat riding low on his forehead, he looked every bit as tough and unyielding as the mountains behind him.
“I’ll play it one day at a time. If I decide to leave, you’ll be the first to know.”
He inclined his head an inch or two. “Fair enough.”
“I’ll need to use your phone later this morning. I have to contact my assistant.”
“No problem. What about your sister?”
He slipped that in so casually that Lauren knew instantly she’d better reconsider last night’s plan to keep in touch with Becky. She suspected that any call made from Marsh’s phone to Aunt Jane would result in federal agents showing up at Jane’s door within an hour. She wasn’t ready to violate her sister’s sanctuary.
“I told her to stay where she is until I contact her. I’ll do that when I know it’s safe.”
His brow hitched. “You still don’t trust me?”
“Would you?”
The skin at the sides of his eyes crinkled in the beginnings of a grin. “I don’t trust anyone, sweetheart.”
She was just gearing up to inform him that she didn’t particularly appreciate sexist endearments like “sweetheart” or “honey” when he wrapped a hand around her elbow to help her over a patch of decaying deadwood.
The casual courtesy axed the rebuke she’d intended to deliver. There were certain aspects of chauvinism she appreciated, and she couldn’t very well slam him for one and accept the other.
“I’ll show you how to fuel the generator,” he said. “Just in case.”
“Just in case of what?” Alarmed, she dragged to a stop. “You’re not thinking of going off and leaving me here alone, are you?”
“Of course not. But it doesn’t hurt to be prepared for any contingency.”
“Like what?”
“Like a tumble down a slope that could bust an arm or a rib,” he offered with the casual unconcern of someone who’d experienced both. That sounded ominous enough to Lauren. The rider he then tacked on sounded even worse.
“Or an unexpected encounter with a black bear.”
“You’re kidding, right? You don’t really expect us to go face-to-face with wild animals?”
“If we do, you just let out a screech like you did last night, and they’ll go hightailing it for cover.”
“I thought we’d already settled this. I did not screech. I merely yelped a little.”
The grin that had started a few minutes ago appeared now in full force. “Could have fooled me.”
If Lauren hadn’t lived the past three years in mile-high Denver, she might have ascribed her sudden breathlessness to the thin air at this elevation. Since her lungs had long ago learned to extract every molecule of oxygen from the air around her, she couldn’t use that flimsy excuse to explain the crazy kick in her respiratory system.
The root cause could only be Marsh’s smile. It softened his rugged features and grooved the skin at the corners of his mouth. It also set off alarms all up and down Lauren’s spine. She’d just told him that she didn’t trust him, for heaven’s sake! She’d better remember why.
“So where’s this generator you want to show me?”
“Around back.”
He hunkered down beside the humming unit some twenty or so yards from the cabin. Unlatching the door to its air-vented metal enclosure, he showed Lauren a surprisingly clean little motor topped by a bright-red fuel tank.
“This is a Honda 2000, one of the safest and most reliable units on the market. It’ll run for forty-six hours on one tank of gas, or for twice that if you don’t draw full power.”
“Full power being the electric heaters, refrigerator and lights?”
“And the hot-water heater. This is the ignition switch. This is where you add the gas.” A jerk of his chin indicated a small wooden storage shed a few yards away. “The gas is stored over there.”
Balancing on one heel, Lauren gave the motor a thorough once over. It didn’t look all that complicated,
but she sincerely hoped they wouldn’t have to depend on her mechanical skills to keep the lights on and the fridge running.
“Don’t touch any engine parts while it’s running,” Marsh warned. “They get hot. Real hot. Don’t add fuel while it’s running, and never light any matches or cigarettes around either the generator or the extra gasoline.”
“Don’t touch, don’t fuel, don’t light. Got it.”
When he was satisfied she understood the basics, Marsh relatched the door to the unit.
“I’m surprised you don’t keep it under lock and key,” she commented, noting the absence of a padlock in the hasp. “As small as it is, someone could cart the thing off.”
“It wouldn’t do a stranded hiker or a ranch hand caught by an early blizzard much good if they couldn’t get at it.”
“I didn’t realize the DEA operated with such humanitarian concern for the common man.”
“The DEA doesn’t own this property,” he replied, pushing to his feet. “We just use it on occasion.”
His hand came down to help her up. It was another small courtesy, an unthinking one. Someone had hammered manners into this rough-edged cop. Or maybe they were instinctive. Lauren folded her hand into his, wondering for the first time about the man behind the shield.
He didn’t wear a wedding ring, but many married men didn’t, including her own gone-and-unregretted ex. Her curiosity piqued, Lauren tried to think of a subtle way to elicit a few details about her temporary companion. As they circled back to the front of the cabin, she finally decided on the direct approach.
“Do you do this often? Hole up with strange women for indefinite periods of time, I mean?”
“Not often.”
“What does Mrs. Special Agent Henderson think about this aspect of your chosen profession?”
He slid her an amused glance. “There isn’t a Mrs. Special Agent Henderson, if that’s what you’re asking.”
It was, but Lauren saw no reason to say so.
“But if there was,” he continued with a careless shrug, “she’d have to accept that situations like this come with the job.”
“Boy, are you living in a dreamworld.”
“You think?”
“Let me put it this way. When you find this paragon of patience and trust, you’d better grab her with both hands and never let go.”
The amusement went out of his eyes. It was as if a curtain dropped, blanking out all thought and emotion.
“I’ll remember that.”
Uh-oh. She’d hit a nerve there. Lauren was still wondering which one when he tossed her question right back at her.
“What about you? You said you needed to call your assistant. Isn’t there someone else you should notify about your extended stay in Arizona? Someone,” he said, parroting her own query, “who might object to you holing up for an indefinite period with a strange man?”
“Not anymore.”
To Lauren’s considerable surprise, the admission had a strangely liberating effect. She felt no trace of the bitterness and hurt that had dogged her during the first months after the divorce. No lingering sense of betrayal. No disgust with herself for being so naive and trusting. Only a clean sensation of freedom.
It must be this sharp mountain air, she decided. It cut into her lungs and swept through her body, blowing away all the accumulated cobwebs. Or maybe it was the urgency of Becky’s situation. The idea that mobsters might be searching for her sister left no room for petty, personal hurts.
Or it could be the man beside her, she admitted silently. From the moment she’d careened into him last night, he’d crowded almost everyone and everything else out of her mind.
No wonder. In a few short hours, he’d totally disrupted her life, her business and her preconceived notions of law enforcement officers. She never imagined they could be so ruthless—or so damned attractive.
She put the brakes on that thought, fast. Granted, Marsh Henderson looked even more dangerously handsome in the light of day than he had in the dark of night. And she’d bet he could tempt a postmenopausal nun to sin with one of his devastating grins if he put his mind to it. The fact that Lauren’s own love life since her divorce bore remarkable similarity to the most devout nun’s went a long way toward explaining why the heck her skin prickled whenever he cranked up a smile.
She’d darn well better remember he was here to lure another man into a trap, and she was here as bait. Her only purpose in accompanying Marsh to this mountain retreat was to protect her sister. She’d remind herself of that sobering fact every time her skin started to prickle.
With that resolve fixed firmly in her mind, Lauren followed while Marsh finished his guided tour of the cabin and its grounds. Other than the generator and fuel storage shed out back and the spectacular view out front, there wasn’t much to see—until Marsh bent back a low bush and showed her a small, innocuous-looking metal disk.
“It’s an infrared heat sensor,” he explained. “I’ve strung a whole network around the cabin as a sort of perimeter defense.”
“Defense against what?” she asked, startled.
“Unannounced visitors.”
The casual reply was hardly reassuring.
“It’s a relatively simple alarm system, but the sensors are sophisticated enough to distinguish the body temperature of an animal from that of a human. The old ones used to go off every time a raccoon ambled by.”
Unsure whether she should feel reassured or trapped by the electronic fence, Lauren led the way back inside.
“So what do we do now?” she asked, when the door shut behind them.
“We wait.” He shrugged out of his vest and tossed it onto the sofa. “While we’re waiting, you can tell me everything you know about David Jannisek. What you don’t know, I’ll fill in from the investigation we ran on him. He’s got to believe you’re Becky when he calls.”
“If he calls.”
“He will.”
“How can you be so sure?”
He flicked her a glance she couldn’t interpret.
“Tell me,” she insisted.
“Let me put it this way,” he said with a grin, mimicking her words of a few minutes ago. “If your sister looks half as good in that purple string thing we found in her living room as you did in a similar number last night, he’d be crazy not to call.”
To Lauren’s consternation, a fiery heat started beneath her collarbones and pushed its way to her cheeks. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d blushed. Junior high, maybe. Certainly not since Becky had clued her in on the facts of life.
Even more annoying, her skin prickled like mad.
This was, she thought grimly, going to be a long day.
It turned out to be even longer than she envisioned.
Marsh didn’t waste time starting his interrogation. As soon as she’d shed the suede jacket, he emptied the contents of a thick file on the table.
Lauren’s throat went dry at the sight of her sister’s license photo, blown up to blurry proportions. Under it was another shot, this one in black and white. Her heart clutched as she lifted it.
Oversize sunglasses and a wide-brimmed straw hat all but obscured Becky’s face as she laughed up at the man at her side, but her vitality leaped from the glossy print.
Oh, Beck, Lauren thought, you can’t laugh your way out of it this time. Sighing, she shifted her gaze to her sister’s escort.
“Is that David Jannisek?”
Marsh flicked a glance at the photograph in her hand. Lauren got the distinct impression that his disdain for Jannisek bordered on animosity. Maybe all cops felt that way about those walking the narrow path between legitimacy and the mob.
“That’s him.”
Becky certainly hadn’t exaggerated when she’d described her latest love as tall, tanned, blond and too blasted handsome for his own good. He was all that and more. He should have looked four decades out of date in that pencil-thin mustache, silk ascot, and navy blazer, but somehow he managed to carry th
e absurd ensemble off with careless panache.
“What did your sister tell you about him?”
“Not much,” she admitted. “Only that he’s funny, he prefers dogs to cats, and he likes to live well.”
“No kidding. Take a look at that report under your hand.”
Shocked and more than a little staggered by what she read, Lauren skimmed a report that painted a vivid picture of Jannisek’s extravagant lifestyle. Although he’d dug himself into a deep hole long before he met Becky, she’d put her hand on the spade, too. Lauren squirmed uncomfortably when she read the reports detailing the gifts the hotelier had purchased for her sister.
Evidently David Jannisek appreciated her sister’s taste in lingerie as much as Marsh did. He’d footed the bill for three hundred dollars’ worth at an exclusive Scottsdale boutique. He’d shelled out, too, for the new CD player recently installed in Becky’s car, as well as a weekend fling at a resort in Palm Springs and cosmetic laser surgery to blast away the strawberry-shaped mole on her sister’s right hip.
Then there was the diamond unicorn. It had to go back. It would go back, Lauren promised silently, as soon as she could arrange it.
“He also,” Marsh informed her, dryly, “wagered almost twenty thousand dollars at the track the last time he took your sister there for an afternoon of sun and fun.”
“She couldn’t have known he was betting that much!”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” His gaze drifted to her hair. “He put ten thousand on a three-year-old filly in the last race, by the way. Her name was Red,” he drawled. “Red Delight, out of Dancer’s Delight.”
Lauren’s cheeks heated again, this time on Becky’s behalf. “Even if my sister knew David Jannisek was throwing money around like that, she must have thought he could cover his bets.”
Mistaken Identity Page 8
