Alana Matthews - A Wanted Man

Callie felt her face grow red. “I can’t believe you just said that.”

“What—you think because I’m old I’ve forgotten what it’s like to have a little—”

“Stop,” Callie said, her voice louder and more shrill than she’d intended it to be. She did her best to calm herself. “Nana, I appreciate your concern, I really do, but please, stop trying to force the issue.”

“Dear, if I don’t force the issue, I’ll be dead before—”

The ring of Callie’s cell phone cut her off. Callie took it from her pocket and checked the screen: Tucker Davies.

Already?

That was fast.

She jabbed a button on the keypad and put the phone to her ear. “Tell me this is good news.”

“Better than good,” Tucker said. “Turns out the Glock has a custom serial number, just like the weapons we use, only this one’s assigned to the U.S. Marshals Service.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

“I put in a call and found out that one of their deputies lost it last night when the prisoner he was transporting got the better of him. They were headed for Wyoming Correctional, coming up from Colorado Springs.”

Callie felt her heartbeat quicken. That prisoner was more than likely her perpetrator. How he’d wound up in Jim Farber’s truck was a mystery, but at least they knew who they were looking for.

“I need to talk to this deputy,” she said.

“Shouldn’t be a problem, since he’s already in the vicinity. He’s on his way to the station house as we speak.”

“Oh? What’s his name?”

“Cole,” Davies said. “Deputy Harlan Cole.”

Callie hesitated, certain she hadn’t heard him right. “Say that again?”

He enunciated carefully. “Harlan … Cole.”

His words were like a sledgehammer to Callie’s chest. If she didn’t know better, she’d swear her heart had suddenly stopped dead.

The name was not unfamiliar to her.

Far from it.

And the thought of Harlan Cole walking into her life after all these years made her want to turn and flee. If this was nature taking its course, then she wanted nothing to do with it.

Without warning a bucketful of memories flooded her mind. And while the pain that the name Harlan Cole invoked had long been relegated to a tiny corner of her brain, it now sprang forward as if freed from a cage, an untamed and ferocious beast, anxious to devour.

“Deputy Glass?”

Callie had to search for a moment, but finally found her voice. “Thanks, Tucker. I’m on my way.”

As she disconnected, she realized Nana was staring at her, concern in her eyes. “What’s the matter, hon? You okay?”

Far from it, Callie thought, knowing it would take every bit of her strength to climb into her SUV and drive back to the station house.

Because Deputy Harlan Cole wasn’t just a U.S. Marshal. He was a man she had long despised.

He was also the love of her life.

Harlan had no idea what to expect when he walked into the Williamson County Sheriff’s Department.

He was feeling humiliated and out of sorts after last night’s debacle, the side of his head still throbbing where Billy Boy Lyman had left a Glock-size bruise.

When he came to, he’d found himself lying in the restroom doorway, the room swaying, his weapon long gone. But what hurt most was the blow to his pride. In the span of less than a minute, he had lost a prisoner, a gun and a sizable chunk of his reputation. All because he’d been stupid enough to lower his guard, and was just biased enough to assume that the girl behind the counter wasn’t a threat to him.

Something he’d have to work on.

Whatever the case, he didn’t doubt that these mistakes would haunt him for many months to come. And as he pulled into the Williamson County Sheriff’s Office parking structure, he had no idea what he was walking into.

The locals would undoubtedly blame him for the death of one of their own, but the question was whether they’d take the professional route and hide their animosity, or—as was so often the case—treat him like a hostile intruder.

The moment he stepped into the conference room, however, such concerns immediately vacated his mind. This could have been a war zone, with bullets flying, and Harlan wouldn’t have noticed.

Of the six people sitting at the long table, only one of them—the lone woman in the room—commanded his attention, despite the fact that she refused to look him directly in the eye.

It was none other than Callie Glass.

Harlan’s internal alarm bells suddenly went off, and he knew he’d better sit down before he fell down. While he would’ve loved to have blamed his sudden disorientation on his head injury, that was only part of it. The sight of his old college flame sitting not ten feet away from him had thrown him completely off balance.

Was he imagining things? Had the bump on his noggin brought on some cruel hallucination?

No. She was real, all right. As real as a heartbeat. A little older but even more beautiful than he remembered—which, until this moment, he would’ve deemed an impossibility. He knew she was from Williamson, but he’d never imagined he’d find her here like this.

Not now. Not today.

“Deputy Cole, I’m Sheriff Mercer.”

Harlan blinked, then swiveled his head to his left to find a sunbaked cowboy in a gray suit with a string tie rising from his chair, his hand extended.

Harlan reached out and shook it, happy for the distraction. “Good to meet you, Sheriff. I wish it were under better circumstances.”

“You sure you’re up to this? Looks like your boy did quite a job on you.”

Harlan had hoped that the bruise wouldn’t be that noticeable—a symbol of his failure—but it didn’t much matter. He’d just have to learn to live with it for the next several days.

“I’ll be fine, thanks. But if you don’t mind, I think I’ll sit down.”

Mercer gestured to a chair. “By all means.”

Harlan glanced at Callie, then pulled the chair out, as Mercer introduced the people around the table. The names and faces came at him too quickly to process, but when the sheriff got to the only one Harlan really cared about, she finally looked up at him, offering him a curt, professional smile.

Her eyes weren’t smiling, however. Not even close. And her voice had a clipped, unfriendly tone. “Hello, Harlan.”

He nodded. “Callie.”

Mercer’s eyebrows went up. “You two know each other?”

“Long time ago,” she said. “Back in graduate school. We took a couple of criminology classes together.”

She’d said this with about as much warmth and enthusiasm as an accountant reciting the tax code. There was a lot more to it than that, but she wasn’t offering any details. Which was fine by Harlan. He didn’t want to think about those details—although he was finding it difficult not to.

Mercer said, “Denver, right? University of Colorado?”

“Right,” they said in unison.

They exchanged an awkward glance as Mercer studied them curiously, then sat back down.

“Small world,” he said, “but I reckon you two can catch up some other time. Right now we’ve got business to attend to.” He looked at Harlan. “Your supervising deputy says you’ve got some information to share.”

Harlan tore his gaze away from Callie and nodded. He had spent the better part of his morning at the Torrington marshal’s substation gathering up as much intel on Billy Boy Lyman as he could find. He hadn’t had much sleep since the incident, and his supervisor back in Colorado Springs had urged him to take it easy and let someone else handle the heavy lifting.