Vickie Taylor - The Lawman's Last Stand

“Why not?”

He turned those trust-me blues on her, and for a moment she considered telling him the truth. About New York. Her father. The man in the Mercedes. But that would be foolish. Shane was a cop, the last person she should confide in.

But what choice did she have with him out there somewhere?

She glanced into the woods, and then up the ravine toward the shoulder of the road.

Shane looked at her quizzically. “What are you gonna do, walk home?”

“Maybe I should wait with my truck. You could call a wrecker.”

Shane shook his head, disbelief settling on his face, and let go of her elbow long enough to poke at the welt on her forehead. “Just how hard did you hit your head, anyway?”

She brushed his hand away.

“Forget it, Doc. I’m not leaving you out here.”

One look at the square set of his jaw and she knew resistance was futile. He wouldn’t leave her here, alone. He was a cop, and he obviously took his job very seriously.

But then, so did the man who was after her.

She held her breath and listened. Other than the slow patter of sleet on rocks, all was quiet. No one was there. No one except Shane, whom she couldn’t afford to make suspicious with unreasonable protests.

Maybe his cabin was the safest place for her to be tonight. She couldn’t go home. The man in the Mercedes undoubtedly knew where she lived by now. But he wouldn’t know about Shane.

She hoped.

Her heartbeat gradually slowed. “I guess you’re right,” she said. “Thanks for the rescue.”

He smiled again. Gigi tried not to notice the dimple that dented his right cheek as he swept his arm grandly toward the hillside. “M’lady…”

She turned toward the open door of her truck. “I need my bag.”

Shane dodged around her and leaned across the seat. “I’ll get it.” He reached to the floorboard and pulled out her tapestry handbag.

“Thanks,” she said, taking it. “But I didn’t mean this one.” She tried to keep her voice light, not to arouse suspicion. “There’s an orange backpack, behind the seat.”

He looked at her, his blue eyes brimming with curiosity.

“Sometimes I’m out all night on emergency farm calls. I keep a few…essentials…in the truck.” She forced herself to smile. The things she carried in that bag were essential all right. To survival. Which is why she called it her survival bag. But she had to think of some other excuse for Shane. “Believe me, by morning you wouldn’t want me around if I didn’t. A woman’s got to have her stuff in the morning, you know?”

He retrieved the bag. “I’d want you around in the morning,” he said, his voice grown suddenly husky. “Stuff or no stuff.”

He passed her the bag, and their hands brushed in the exchange. She retreated, and her sore knee buckled.

He caught her before she realized she was falling. Giving her a look that dared her to protest, he helped her up the slope to the road, where blue and red lights strobed over the icy pavement. He was still driving the sheriff’s Blazer. No wonder the guy in the Mercedes had left. He must have made Shane as a cop right away.

He steadied her as she stepped up into the cab and then he walked toward the front of the truck. Her fear redoubled for a moment. She half expected to see the Mercedes come gunning out of the darkness.

Relax, she told herself, studying the sparkling ice on the road. Breathe. No one was gunning anywhere tonight. Not without hockey skates. She was safe.

Shane circled the hood of the vehicle, moving with the natural grace of an athlete, despite the slippery footing. Watching him, she had the same funny feeling in her chest that she’d had the first time they’d met. An acute awareness.

Safe, huh? Safe from the man in the Mercedes, maybe.

Shane Hightower was another matter altogether.

He climbed behind the wheel. With the vehicle’s interior lights on, he switched the heat on full and turned all the vents toward her.

As he worked the knobs, a few strands of damp hair fell across his forehead. The hair on the sides and back of his head was trimmed short. But on top, where the sun had bleached dark blond to shining gold, a longer, heavier layer swept to one side. Brushed back, the cut appeared very conservative, very law enforcement. But when those locks tumbled forward, like now, they gave him a much less civilized look. Rugged. Careless. And very sexy.

She wished she could reach up and push those troublesome locks back in place. It would be easier to remember he was a cop that way.

“Buckle up,” he said.

When she didn’t move, her attention still captured by a silly lock of hair, he reached across her and pulled the shoulder harness over her chest. Her nostrils flared at the sudden scent of damp leather and understated aftershave.

He pushed the metal buckle into the fitting. “There. All set.”

She waited until he’d straightened up to breathe again.

He smiled at her. A very male, knowing smile like he knew what she’d been thinking. She would have called him arrogant, if he hadn’t been right.

Her fingers curled, tightening until her fingernails dug into her palms. As if being rescued by a cop wasn’t bad enough. Did she have to be so unbearably attracted to him, too?

“Sit still.”

“It stings.”

“It’s supposed to sting. It’s good for you.”

“What kind of logic is that?”

“The kind that keeps people from getting infections?”

“It’s not going to get infected.”

“No, it’s not, because you’re going to sit still and let me put this stuff on it.”

“I’m the doctor here.”

“You’re a veterinarian.”

“You didn’t seem so particular when you were the one bleeding to death.”

Exasperated, Shane rocked back on his heels where he squatted in front of the toilet. Gigi—Dr. McCowan, he reminded himself—sat on the porcelain lid wearing an old flannel robe he’d loaned her so she could get out of her damp clothes. She was wriggling like a trout on the line.

“I was not bleeding to death,” he said. “And neither are you.”

He had been wounded, though, thanks to a couple of local drug dealers, even if the injury wasn’t as serious as she made it sound. And Gigi McCowan, the first on the scene once all the shooting had stopped, and the only one around with any medical training, had provided first aid.

Shane had been hurt before in his eight years with the DEA, but never had he enjoyed being doctored—even if it was by a vet—as much as he had that day. She’d been his angel of mercy, sent from heaven to stanch the flow of blood with a gentle touch.

Then she’d turned her face up to him, and one look into her eyes turned his thoughts polar opposite of angels and heaven. Images more congruent with what was sure to be his ultimate fate sprang to mind. She’d made him think of fire and brimstone. A scorching desert sun and a sea of sand.

Sin and sweat and sex.

Even now, her eyes intrigued him. They were blue, like his own, but a shade wilder in color. Indigo, like a pair of jeans not quite broken in.

And mysterious. Those eyes held secrets.

She squirmed on the toilet seat and he realized he’d been staring. Pulling his gaze away, he found his attention captured by her feet instead. Her toes were wiggling, like the rest of her. Bright-pink paint adorned her toenails. He smiled to himself, finding that small vanity endearing. And suiting. Gigi was all movement and bright colors.

At least she had been until tonight. Tonight she was different. Still busy, but with a nervous, restless kind of energy.

“Why are you still in Utah?” she asked.

He glanced up. He’d been asking himself that question for days. The docs had cleared him for duty, and he sure as heck didn’t have anymore leave coming. He’d used that up months ago. “I was planning on leaving in the morning.”