Flirting with Disaster
Flirting with Disaster
Victoria Dahl
There's no hiding from sizzling chemistry…Artist Isabelle West has good reasons for preferring a solitary life. Tucked away in a cabin in the woods, she has everything she needs…except a red-hot love life. That is, until a hard-bodied US marshal threatens to unearth secrets she's spent years protecting. But giving in to the sparks flying between them can only lead to one thing…disaster.Tom Duncan lives by the letter of the law. But no one has tempted him–or confused him–more than free-spirited Isabelle, who arouses his suspicion and his desire. As their connection grows, and their nights get hotter, they find their wild attraction might shake everything he stands for–and expose everything she has to hide.
There’s no hiding from sizzling chemistry…
Artist Isabelle West has good reasons for preferring a solitary life. Tucked away in a cabin in the woods, she has everything she needs…except a red-hot love life. That is, until a hard-bodied US marshal threatens to unearth secrets she’s spent years protecting. But giving in to the sparks flying between them can only lead to one thing…disaster.
Tom Duncan lives by the letter of the law. But no one has tempted him—or confused him—more than free-spirited Isabelle, who arouses his suspicion and his desire. As their connection grows, and their nights get hotter, they find their wild attraction might shake everything he stands for—and expose everything she has to hide.
Bonus Novella!
For your enjoyment, we’ve added in this volume
Fanning the Flames, a Girls’ Night Out story by Victoria Dahl!
Praise for the novels of USA TODAY
bestselling author
VICTORIA
DAHL
“Wonderfully unconventional and deliciously sultry…among [Dahl’s] hottest to date.”
—RT Book Reviews on Looking for Trouble
“Dahl brings her signature potent blend of heated eroticism and emotional punch to another Jackson Hole cowboy story, to great success.”
—Kirkus Reviews on So Tough to Tame
“So Tough to Tame was a delicious, funny, warm-hearted read… Obviously I highly recommend this book. It’s like a comfort read with a dose of sass and smarts; it’s just about perfect.”
—Smart Bitches, Trashy Books
“Dahl adds her signature hot sex scenes and quirky characters to this lively mix of romance in the high country.”
—Booklist on Too Hot to Handle
“Victoria Dahl never fails to bring the heat.”
—RT Book Reviews on Too Hot to Handle
“Hits the emotional high notes. Rising romance star Dahl delivers with this sizzling contemporary romance.”
—Kirkus Reviews on Close Enough to Touch
“This is one hot romance.”
—RT Book Reviews on Good Girls Don’t
“A hot and funny story about a woman many of us can relate to.”
—Salon.com on Crazy for Love
“[A] hands-down winner, a sensual story filled with memorable characters.”
—Booklist on Start Me Up
“Sassy and smokingly sexy, Talk Me Down is one delicious joyride of a book.”
—New York Times bestselling author Connie Brockway
Flirting with Disaster
Victoria Dahl
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Cover (#u1cac72fe-e372-5583-afcd-a1d6f98e460a)
Back Cover Text (#uf6fcaacc-d0e3-577e-b540-2458f26b3eda)
Praise (#u61d0de11-6bba-5764-9a4c-af81f06b4b9b)
Title Page (#u9a6682fe-a73a-5ad6-8be4-b54e3375a7ea)
Dedication (#u675384d6-bb91-576c-8931-302140a62e59)
FLIRTING WITH DISASTER (#ulink_60c7c343-25b7-5160-a96f-d63044aa595a)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_9169f6be-032c-5aa7-ba23-cccd9b1e8fea)
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_f3684900-7329-53a3-bf8d-8cfde132d8aa)
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_0c05bd3e-d792-581d-8d7a-d70c04ea5b79)
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_5d848ab0-1bd3-5eff-a4a1-5cfa8aa69743)
CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_6b7bf81f-30af-5911-88c2-d8e78c4b48a0)
CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_b529156e-99e7-57cc-bd6c-977fac34f0bf)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#ulink_d9185994-fe0e-5ea7-8277-afefbf746ed5)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINETEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO (#litres_trial_promo)
FANNING THE FLAMES (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWO (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THREE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
This book is for everyone who’s had to start over.
Flirting with Disaster (#ulink_f00d306b-9338-5cf5-ba55-101bfb45a97b)
Victoria Dahl
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_390e0052-f355-5f64-853f-d248d0cb80e1)
ISABELLE WEST EDGED her SUV up the steep driveway and winced as she heard a grocery bag tip over. She tried to identify the dull rolling sound that followed. Probably the cantaloupe. But maybe just a can of soup. It’d be a little surprise for her when she opened the hatch and saw what sprang out and tumbled through the snow toward the trees.
She was getting tired of that particular surprise and promised herself she’d order the cargo net as soon as she got inside. She’d been meaning to do it for...maybe two years now. But today she’d remember. She was trying to teach herself to be proactive. Or at least to manage the small things that every other adult seemed to have no problem with.
As she rounded the last curve of the drive and spied her little cabin, she wrinkled her nose. Not because of the cabin. She loved that. It was perfect for her in every way with its dark log walls and big windows and front porch. What made her wince was the sight of the manual garage door past the haze of snow sifting from the sky, a reminder that she’d also been meaning to call about getting a garage-door opener installed. That one had been on her mental to-do list for at least four years. Definitely not five.
“I’ll do that, too,” she said to herself as she pulled close to the garage door and tugged up the hood of her coat. “As a matter of fact...” She dug her phone from her pocket and held down the button. “Phone, remind me to order a cargo net and call a garage guy.”
The phone beeped and said, “I’m sorry—I didn’t catch that.”
Gritting her teeth, Isabelle hit the button again. “Remind me to buy a cargo net and call the garage guy.”
“I’m sorry—did you need me to find a mechanic?”
“Fuck you,” Isabelle growled. She ducked out of her car, thankful that the giant, wet flakes of this morning had given way to the dry Wyoming snow she was more used to. The snow sounded like sand as it bounced off her jacket and slid to the ground.
She wrenched up the garage door and got back to her car without getting wet at all. But she couldn’t say the same about her cantaloupe. As soon as she opened the gate of her SUV, it rolled past her outstretched hand and straight into a snowbank.
“Fuck you, too,” she said to the cantaloupe, then felt immediately guilty. It took her only a minute to rescue the melon and dust off as much snow as she could. It hadn’t really caused that much trouble. It took a lot more time to repack the bag that had tipped over and haul it inside.
Next time, she’d remember to put the boxes of art supplies she’d picked up from the post office into the back; then she’d have room to store the groceries on the floor of her backseat, where they’d be less likely to—
“Art supplies!” she gasped and rushed back out to the truck to haul in the boxes of goodies.
She grinned as she set the first box on the kitchen table and slit the tape to reveal the treasures inside. She’d been out of yellow ocher for three days now, and even though she hadn’t needed it, the lack had hovered at the back of her mind like a foreshadowing of tragedy to come. She snatched up the tube and breathed a sigh of relief. Disaster averted. She was whole again.
After unpacking the box and carefully laying out each precious item on the kitchen table, she retrieved the other two boxes from the backseat and went through the same routine. She beamed at the sight of the bounty spread over the table. Seven more tubes of color, a new studio light to get her through the winter, a dozen prestretched canvases and her favorite brush conditioner that smelled like something close to sandalwood. It made the task of looking after her brushes almost soothing. Discovering it last year had been a treat.
Satisfied with her unveiling of the goods, she made five trips to the room she used as her studio, shelving the paints she didn’t need yet and getting the new lamp set up at her current workstation. She played with the LED settings for a while, still dubious about the idea that she could get good color temperatures, but the settings seemed sufficient. Nice, even.
“Hmm.” Isabelle crossed her arms and stared at the unfinished painting, trying to decide if the daylight setting was pure enough. There weren’t new technological advancements in the world of oil painting very often, so she’d be happy if she could get excited about this one. Still, she’d have to work under the light for a couple of hours and see how it felt.
During the summer, she wouldn’t need it much at all. This room was meant to be the great room of the cabin, and windows climbed up the two-story wall to the peak of the roof. The windows faced south, and during the summer, she had good light here for nearly twelve hours of every day. But during the winter, there were only a few decent hours of sunlight, and that was assuming the sky was clear.
As a matter of fact... She glanced out, hoping to spot an approaching break in the clouds, but it was solid white out there. A good time to try the lamp, then. It was almost two, so she should force herself to grab lunch first, but then she’d have hours to work.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the heavy slide of fur against her ankle. “Hey, Bear,” she said to the cat, surprised by his affection. He was an ornery twenty-pound stray who’d wandered into her cabin three years before, and he didn’t cuddle often.
He meowed loudly for attention, but when she leaned down to scratch his chin, he sidestepped and eyed her scornfully. “I suppose you just want food?” she asked. She’d run out of wet food yesterday, which was why—
“The groceries!” she gasped, but her heart barely managed a quick leap before she calmed it down. The bags in the SUV were fine. It was cold enough that she could leave them overnight and not lose anything. Except bananas, maybe. Those weren’t as hardy as people thought, not in the cold. If it were summer, though... Yeah. She’d lost hundreds of dollars of food that way over the years. But this time the only bag in danger was the one on her kitchen counter.
She rushed to the kitchen and unpacked that bag, happy to find that, aside from that damp cantaloupe, everything else was perfect. She shoved a frozen meal into the microwave, opened a can of food for Bear and went to haul in the rest of the bags. Half an hour later, she was organized, full of chicken piccata and happily planted in front of her canvas, adding a glistening highlight to a long stretch of a man’s triceps.
Glancing from the canvas to a spread of photos hung on a board next to it, she nodded. “Perfect.” Her eyes swept down the triceps muscle to the hard knot of elbow beneath it. What a beautiful line.
Her attention twitched for a moment, and Isabelle glared at the gleam of the light on wet paint, but then she shook off the random irritation and dipped her brush in white again. Just the tiniest drag of paint, just—
Her hand jerked, nearly touching the canvas before she pulled back. “What the hell?” she snapped as she finally registered that a sound had interrupted her. A loud sound. The staccato knock of some stranger come to screw up her workday.
She wanted to ignore it. It definitely wasn’t Jill, her neighbor and the only person who dropped by unannounced. Jill didn’t knock like that. She rarely knocked at all, because she knew Isabelle wouldn’t hear it. But it could be one of Isabelle’s other friends. Lauren. Or maybe even Sophie, who was supposed to be back in town soon.
Had Isabelle forgotten another meetup? It was possible. She vaguely remembered Lauren mentioning something about a new girl they might be able to bring into their little group of friends since Sophie was usually on the road these days.
Isabelle set down the brush, wiped her hands on a rag and decided she’d have to answer the door, just in case.
Whoever it was knocked one more time, just as Isabelle reached for the door. She yanked it open, ready to apologize to Lauren, but it wasn’t Lauren. Or Sophie. Or any other girlfriend. It was a man, taller than she was, snow dusting his short, dark hair and drifting in on the breeze as she frowned.
“Sorry to disturb you, Ms....?”
Really? He was going to start this off by asking for her name? “Yes?” she responded, tempted to close the door on his face and march right back to her studio. Whatever he was selling, she didn’t want it.
His gaze sharpened a bit, but his chin dipped in acknowledgment, and he reached into the pocket of the nondescript navy blue parka he wore. “I’m Deputy US Marshal Tom Duncan.”
Her hand tightened on the doorknob, and something went wrong with her ears. His lips kept moving, but she couldn’t hear the words. Then he paused, watching her as if waiting for a response.
Isabelle cleared her throat, hoping the noise would force her ears back into working condition. “I’m sorry,” she said with more calm than she could believe. “I wasn’t paying attention. Who are you?”
His brow tightened with irritation. “I’m Deputy Marshal Tom Duncan.”
“I got that part,” she bit out, her veins too flooded with fight-or-flight to keep her voice even now.
“I’m in the neighborhood as part of a protection detail, and—”
“This isn’t a neighborhood,” she interrupted, angry that he couldn’t come up with a better excuse. Did he think she was an idiot?
“All right,” he said carefully, his jaw clenching around the words. She’d made him mad. Good. She hoped he was cold, too. Because he was ruining more than her day. He was ruining something much larger than that.
He tried again. “I’m in the immediate area with a protection team, and I wanted to make contact with each of the residents. First—”
“What immediate area?” She glanced pointedly toward the one other house on her road, knowing damn well that Jill didn’t need the sort of protection a US marshal provided. This was ridiculous. Why was he even pretending?
“Ma’am,” he snapped, the word crisp with impatience. “We’re on Judge Anthony Chandler’s property. I understand that he may not live on your road, but his residence is only a half mile through those trees. I’m informing you and all of your neighbors in case you see anyone from the marshal service near your property or on the road. If you see anyone you don’t recognize, please give me a call.”
He held out a card, and Isabelle glanced at it. She didn’t take it. “You want me to call you.”
“Yes. If it’s one of my people, I’ll confirm that. However, if it’s not one of my people, then it could be the fugitive who’s threatened Judge Chandler’s life.” He held up a creased photo of an unremarkable-looking white man in his forties.
Isabelle finally took the card and examined it as she spoke. “Someone threatened Judge Chandler, so I should expect a team of marshals hanging around my property. That’s what you’re telling me?”
“Yes.” His gaze drifted past her shoulder, looking into her house. “Are you the only one living here at this time?”
“That’s not your concern.”
His eyes snapped back to her. “It’s very important for your safety and for ours that we be aware of any unusual activity. Trespassers, items missing from your home or property, even trash you might find on a trail. Have you seen anything unusual?”
Isabelle gave him a flat look. “Just you.”
His jaw tightened again. It was a nice jaw. A nice face altogether, lean and angled and just starting to show his age around his eyes. Too bad he was a liar.
“The man who threatened the judge is a survivalist, the brother of Ephraim Stevenson, whose trial begins on Monday. I’m advising you to be aware. And please notify any other residents of your home to do the same.”
She held his gaze for a long moment, trying to give nothing away while still conveying that she knew this story was bullshit. That he wasn’t fooling her. That she wasn’t scared.
But she was.
“Sure, Marshal,” she finally said, forcing a patently pleasant smile. “I’m happy to cooperate with any reasonable law-enforcement requests. But I’d appreciate it if you stayed off my property. If I need your help, I’ll let you know.”
She stepped back and closed the door. Hard. The defiance dropped from her shoulders. She covered her eyes with one shaking hand. For a moment, there was silence outside. Then she heard the crunch of his boots on her snowy porch steps. Isabelle leaned her back against the door and slowly slid down until she hit the floor.
They’d found her.
The ax had always been hanging over her, waiting to drop. In this day and age, you could never truly disappear. Not for good. But she’d tried.
For a girl like her, it hadn’t been easy. She’d been sheltered. Twenty-two years old, but still a child in important ways. Always taken care of, always protected.
Still, she’d managed to hide for fourteen years. She’d moved several times, assumed a new identity, built a successful career. But they’d found her.
So why hadn’t Deputy Marshal Tom Duncan arrested her immediately?
Surprised to find her eyes were blurry with tears, Isabelle wiped the wetness from her face and pushed up to her feet. She slipped over to the front window and carefully peeked outside.
The only sign of him was the set of footprints that led up to her porch and the set leading back down to her drive. There wasn’t quite enough fresh snow that she could track his prints down her driveway, but he hadn’t sneaked off into the deep snow at the side of her house. He was gone. Which didn’t make sense.
She wasn’t a dangerous criminal. She hadn’t even been a criminal at all until she’d purchased fake IDs and changed her identity. If he’d come here to arrest her for that, he would’ve just arrested her. He didn’t need to retreat to assemble a backup team or call SWAT. A set of handcuffs would’ve done the trick. Even one of those plastic zip ties would’ve incapacitated her.
So they weren’t here to make a simple arrest. There was only one explanation. Her father must be back in the country, and they assumed he’d be in contact with Isabelle. They were going to watch and wait.
“Asshole,” she muttered as she closed the curtains and locked her door. She hadn’t bothered with that kind of thing in years. She’d finally felt safe from the world up here in the mountains outside Jackson, Wyoming. What the hell was she going to do now?
She stood in her entry for a moment with no clue what her next move was. She couldn’t run again. She didn’t want to. This was her life. Her real life. The world she’d chosen for herself.
She wouldn’t run.
Fuzzy with shock, she headed back to her studio, feeling like a toy that was slowly winding down.
Did that guy really think she’d fall for such a flimsy story? She’d been around cops all her life. A protection detail was a protection detail; they didn’t canvass neighborhoods asking who you were hiding in your house.
Her head buzzed with the noise of a thousand memories as she stopped before her easel and took up the brush. She held it poised above the line she’d painted earlier, but the color wasn’t alive anymore. It wasn’t good. She looked at the photos again, trying to absorb the life captured there, but when she looked back to the canvas, her mind gave her nothing. Nothing except Chicago and her parents and her old home and friends and Patrick.
She set the brush down and switched off the lamp. She wouldn’t be able to work this evening. And she wouldn’t be able to relax. That was the reason she’d started this new life in the first place. For peace and quiet and forgetting. And now he’d blown it up with a casually dropped bomb. Deputy Marshal Tom Duncan, asshole extraordinaire.
Heading toward her tiny living room and the ancient laptop she kept there, Isabelle pulled his card from the pocket of her jeans and shot it a nasty look. She’d find out exactly who he was and what he wanted, and she’d figure out if there was any way to make it better. And then she’d get back to painting.
* * *
TOM STOPPED AT the end of the snowy driveway and glanced back toward the cabin. He could barely see it from here. Just the highest point of the roof, the sharp corner dark against the gray clouds and blurred by falling snow. But her house number was posted here on the road, likely only because it was required by law. The woman didn’t seem the type to welcome unfamiliar visitors. Certainly not the kind with badges.
Still, her reaction wasn’t necessarily unusual in Wyoming. Plenty of good people around here were raised to distrust the federal government. That didn’t mean they were doing anything wrong. They were just private. And maybe that was exactly what she was, too.
But Tom’s mind buzzed with warning. He’d find out who she was, at least. See if she had a past. Or a warrant.
He typed her address into his phone to reference later, then tucked it away so it wouldn’t get wet as he walked through the snow to the next house a few hundred yards down the road.
She’d looked harmless enough. In her thirties, maybe, dark haired and serious, though her skin had been streaked with the occasional swipe of color on her fingers and wrists. An artist, he assumed. Eccentric. So maybe she was only growing pot in her basement.
He glanced back again. From this spot in the road he could see her dark front window. She wasn’t watching him leave, at least. Still, Tom was too curious to wait until later to find out more about her, so he pulled his radio out and transmitted her address to the local sheriff’s office for identification. It took only a moment for his radio to squawk back.
“Tax records show that property belongs to Isabelle West. Purchased in 2006.”
Tom made note of that on his phone as he headed up the next driveway. This cabin sat a little closer to the road, and lights blazed from every window, despite that it was only 4:00 p.m. The afternoon was dreary enough to need it, but the rooms behind Isabelle West had been dark.
Further research would have to wait until he was at his computer, but he couldn’t stop himself from looking toward her place again, noting that from this cabin’s front porch, he could see the steps that led up to the other cabin and part of its driveway. He watched for one moment then raised his hand and knocked.
“Be right there!” a woman called, her footsteps quickly moving closer. The door nearly flew open.
Her greeting was a marked contrast to what he’d received from Isabelle West. This woman was a little older. Fifty, or maybe a bit older than that, as the black twists of her hair were streaked with gray. Her wide smile grew wider as she looked him up and down. “Hello!”
“Ma’am,” he said, flipping out his badge, “I’m Deputy US Marshal Tom Duncan. Sorry to bother you, but I’m giving everyone in the area a heads-up that we’re on protective detail in—”
“Oh! Is this about Judge Chandler? That poor man. I read about it in the paper. You’re no bother at all, you fine thing. Come on in out of the cold.”
“Ma’am, I—”
“Don’t ma’am me. Have I gotten that old, or are you just past charming? Nothing wrong with calling a woman miss. Or ms., if you’re going to quote me. I don’t want my feminist card revoked. I’ve worked too damn hard.”
Tom blinked several times and followed her into her house and all the way through to a kitchen where the aroma of roasting meat overwhelmed him. Cast-iron pans hung from the ceiling along with dried braids of garlic and herbs that he’d never be able to name. Whatever they were, they smelled damn good.
“I have the perfect tea to warm you up, Tom.” She paused and turned purposefully toward him. “I’m Jill Washington.”
He shook her outstretched hand. “A pleasure to meet you, Ms. Washington.”
She flashed a smile at that, then got back to work making tea. Tom didn’t particularly like tea—he was a black-coffee kind of guy—but he’d do everything possible to keep her friendly. If he needed an ally in this non-neighborhood, she was clearly the prime candidate.
“I’m getting snow on your floor,” he said, reaching to take his boots off, but she shook her head.
“That’s why they’re stone. Hard on the back, but they absorb all manner of sins. Your boots are fine, so say what you came here to say.” She bustled around her kitchen as she spoke, getting cups and saucers and a tiny pitcher of cream.
As he took a seat, Tom gave her the same speech he’d given Isabelle West, though with a very different result. Jill was all concerned expressions and sympathetic tutting as he explained why he needed community support. The judge’s home was isolated, and the man refused to live in a hotel for the two weeks the trial was expected to last. “Everyone around here knows each other. You know better than I who belongs here and who doesn’t.”
“Well, it’ll be easy to spot strangers here on Spinster Row.”
He frowned as he accepted the cup of tea and waved off the cream. “Thank you. Spinster Row?”
She laughed, the sound natural and well used. “A joke. It’s just Isabelle and me on this part of the road. She’s unattached, and my relationship is complicated, starting with the fact that my girlfriend has been stationed in Guantánamo for two years and doesn’t seem inclined to come visit. But that’s more than you asked.”
But not more than he wanted to know. “I met Ms. West a few minutes ago. An artist of some kind?”
“A painter.”
Maybe she really was a free-spirited libertarian who didn’t like government types. “So it’s just you two up here? No kids or live-in companions I should know about?”
“It’s just us. I guess I shouldn’t tell a stranger that, even if he is a cop, but everyone else around here knows.”
“I promise I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t need the information,” he assured her. “I live alone myself. I understand the safety issues.”
She laughed heartily at his wink.
“And what do you do for a living, Ms. Washington?”
“I’m a chef. Or I used to be, I suppose. Now I write cookbooks and while away my days here in my little place. It’s just me and the elk and a deep freezer full of test recipes. Oh! I’ve got just the thing for you. Beef Stroganoff. You look like a red-meat kind of boy, and you’re probably living off pizza on a job like this. Where are you from?” She hurried to the freezer and pulled out a paper-wrapped packet.
Tom knew the polite thing would be to say no, and he really wasn’t supposed to accept gifts, but his stomach tightened at the thought of giving up a good meal. He was sleeping on a cot in the judge’s basement, and despite it being a rather luxurious basement, it wasn’t home.
He gratefully took the frozen meal. “Thank you. That’s very generous. I’m over in Cheyenne.”
“Are you single? Four hundred and fifty miles might be considered long distance in most states, but here in Wyoming, Cheyenne’s practically within dating range of Jackson. I’m not asking for myself, of course.” She looked purposefully in the direction of Isabelle West’s house.
Tom smiled, hoping to charm her into giving up a little information about her neighbor. “Ms. West didn’t seem inclined to find out more about me.”
“Oh, God, that’s just Isabelle. If she was working when you knocked on her door, you’re lucky she didn’t throw her brush at you.”
Not exactly a recommendation for dating, but Tom didn’t mention that. “She did seem a bit antisocial.”
“Don’t let her fool you. She’s a lot of fun, but she does value her alone time. Like most people up here, really.”
“But not you?”
She laughed again, shaking her head. “I can talk to anyone. For hours.”
“Well, I’m afraid I have to move on before the sun sets.”
“Fine, but stop by for dinner tomorrow. You protect me from that crazy Stevenson man, and I’ll feed you. Deal?”
He stood and shook her hand. “Deal.” He’d take her up on dinner in case he had more questions about Isabelle West. And because it was only day two, and he was already sick of pizza. And his team.
There were only five of them here, and his second-in-command was staying at a hotel across from the courthouse. They had a temporary office at the courthouse, but they were using the judge’s place as a base, so Tom had decided it was best for operations if he stayed on site. Good for operations, maybe, but not good for his mood. At least the room he was sleeping in had a door, and there was a kitchenette in the larger open area of the basement. He could microwave his beef Stroganoff and close his door while he looked into the mystery of the grumpy artist down the road. She probably wasn’t a threat, but he trusted his instincts enough to do a quick check.
But first he had two more miles of forest to check out and a few motion-sensitive cameras to test. Duty before mysterious artist. Or beef Stroganoff, unfortunately.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_c754ff8d-2988-5399-a43c-6bab1f243869)
GOD, SHE HATED PEOPLE. Even living in a cabin in the Wyoming wilderness wasn’t far enough away to be rid of them. Here they were, seeping into her house through seams and crevices, like slime. Or sludge. Or a trail of annoying ants.
Isabelle groaned and let her head fall back onto the office chair wedged into the corner of her small living room. Her neck hurt from hunching over the computer for too many hours. It wasn’t a natural fit for her. The only things she used her laptop for were ordering supplies, shopping for books and looking at gorgeous men online.
But she’d spent last night and all of today clicking through link after link looking for a clue, any clue at all. She’d found nothing.
Marshal Tom Duncan was exactly who he said he was. No surprise there. And there were some articles about Judge Chandler and the security issues surrounding the trial of a survivalist who’d killed two state troopers. His brother had been involved in the shoot-out and hadn’t been seen since, but he’d sent a threatening letter just a week ago.
So there was a case in town that involved the marshals. There was a possible reason for Tom Duncan to be here. But she still wasn’t buying it. She knew how these people worked. He’d look into her life just for the fun of it. Just because he was in the neighborhood. And he wouldn’t give a damn about what it would do to her.
She hadn’t worked at all today. She’d stood in front of her current project, the biggest painting of the commission, and she’d done nothing but stare. Her hands had failed her. Her father was in her head again. Him and all the dangerous, lying men he’d brought into her world.
Now she was back at the computer, searching, searching. But there was nothing about her father there. Nothing but ancient newspaper articles and old court filings and everything she already knew. He’d thoroughly disappeared from the world. He hadn’t been seen in fourteen years. If they were after her again, it wasn’t because her father was back in the news.
So...what if Tom Duncan wasn’t lying?
“Right,” she huffed. They were always lying. All of them. She was vulnerable, so they’d play with her like a toy.
But there were such things as coincidences. There was a tiny possibility that a US marshal had shown up on her doorstep, and it had nothing to do with her father being a federal fugitive and Isabelle being an impostor. If that was true, she had to play it cool. Cautious and careful, but cool.
Isabelle stretched hard and pushed up from the chair. She’d found all she could online. Now she was chasing the same phantoms around and around. Tomorrow she’d paint even if she had to force it. But tonight she needed a shower. And a drink.
Forty-five minutes later, she twisted up her damp hair, shrugged on a thick coat and grabbed two bottles of wine. One for her and one for Jill. Tonight, Isabelle wasn’t sharing.
It was almost full dark by the time she set off, but she wasn’t worried. On the off chance that a murderer was actually hanging around, his interest wasn’t in Isabelle. The Stevenson family hated cops and judges, and a solitary woman with no family or connections wouldn’t make very good leverage if he decided to take hostages.
She trudged through the snow toward the bright glow of Jill’s house, not bothering to head for the road. The snow was deep here, but it was a straight shot, and she liked the lost feeling of wandering through the trees. The moon kept her company the whole way.
“I brought dinner,” she called, holding up the bottles as Jill opened the door.
“Oh, and here I bothered making a pork roast.”
“We can have that, too, if you want. It’s up to you.”
“Lush,” Jill said, ushering her in and taking her coat. “I’m just glad there’s someone around for me to eat with or I’d go crazy.”
“I’d say the same about drinking,” Isabelle said. She tugged off her boots with a sigh. “God, I’ve had a crappy day.”
“The painting isn’t going well?”
“I didn’t paint one damn stroke today.”
Jill opened the first bottle and poured two generous glasses. “Does that put you behind?”
“No, I was a little ahead of schedule. It just pisses me off.” She glanced around the kitchen, noticing the loaves of herbed bread cooling on the counter. “Uh-oh. You’re baking bread. A bad day for you, too?”
Jill arched a sour look over the tops of her reading glasses as she collapsed into the couch. Isabelle had never seen a couch in a kitchen before coming here, but Jill lived in this room, and it was big enough for the couch and the eight-person table that sat a few feet away.
She joined Jill and brought the rest of the wine for good measure.
“Well,” Jill sighed, “we’re officially seeing other people.”
Isabelle gasped before she could stop herself. “You did it?”
“I issued the ultimatum, and Marguerite took me up on it, so I’m not sure if I did it or she did.”
“Shit,” Isabelle whispered, taking Jill’s hand to give it a squeeze. “I’m sorry. So it’s over?”
“I told her I needed additional company if I couldn’t see her more than twice a year. I’m not saying it’s over, but... She chose to spend her last week of leave on her own. So I guess I’ll be seeing other women.”
Isabelle gently clinked her glass against Jill’s. “Back in the saddle?”
“If I still remember how to ride. Marguerite’s last visit was eight months ago.”
“You’re probably better off than I am,” Isabelle said drily.
“I don’t want to hear that bullshit. I’m a black lesbian living in Wyoming. You get no sympathy from me.”
Isabelle laughed until she snorted. “Okay, you’ve got me there. Then again, nobody’s forcing you to live in Wyoming.”
“No, but...” Jill waggled her eyebrows. “The flip side of that is I’m the only one around to fill the black-lesbian niche. Time to get back on the circuit.”
“All right. You’ll come out with me and Lauren for this week’s girls’ night out.”
Jill shook her head. “No. I’m too old for that.”
“Bullshit. You’re fifty-five. You’re hardly any older than I am.”
Jill howled. “Are you kidding me? You’re thirty-six. Imagine how much you’ve learned since the age of sixteen, and then double that for wisdom. That’s how close we are in age.”
Isabelle rolled her eyes. “It feels a lot closer than that.”
“Well, it’s not. So next time you have a girls’ night in, let me know.”
“Come on,” Isabelle pressed. “How will you meet anyone if you don’t get out?”
“It’s called internet dating. Maybe you’ve heard of it. I’ve spent more years picking up sexy young things at bars than you have. I’m done.”
Isabelle gave in with a grumble. When Jill dug in her heels, that was the end of it. “Well, I’m sorry. I know last time Marguerite was here, you two were trying to work through it.”
Jill waved a hand and got up to peek into the oven. “Enough about that. It’s all I’ve been thinking about for months. And I’ve got the perfect new topic.” She pulled the roast from the oven and smiled at Isabelle past the steam. “That hot US marshal who came by yesterday.”
Isabelle groaned, then immediately wished she could take the sound back. It revealed too much. The man should mean nothing to her. She latched on to her only excuse. “He interrupted my work.”
“Woman. No wonder you can’t get laid. Did you see him?”
Isabelle frowned. Yes, she’d seen him. He’d been tall. Lean. With short, dark hair just turning a bit gray at the temples. And if she thought about it, he’d had a pretty great face. A strong nose and dark eyebrows over intense green eyes. And lips that looked soft to the touch against all that masculinity. “Hmm,” she replied.
“Hmm, indeed. Aren’t you always saying you wish you could get home delivery of someone like him?”
No. Not someone like him. Someone like him but in no way associated with law enforcement. “He was fine. Do you think his story was legit?”
“About the judge? Are you kidding me? It’s been in the local paper all week. That man threatened to blow something up. You know the judge lives on the next road down the hill.”
Isabelle shrugged. “I guess I haven’t been reading the news.”
Jill got plates from the cupboard, but Isabelle didn’t get up to help. She knew from experience that Jill would only wave her away. Jill’s work was her art. There were sauces to be smeared and rosemary sprigs to be placed just so.
“You haven’t met the judge?” Jill asked.
“I don’t think so. You know how I am.”
“Hermit-y?” Jill tossed out.
Isabelle nodded. She wasn’t ashamed of being a hermit. And she had damn good reason to avoid a federal judge.
“Well, his daughter is the one who writes that advice column. Do you know her?”
“Dear Veronica? Really? She seems damn cool, but I’ve never met her. Have—?” Her words were cut off by the doorbell.
Jill disappeared into the front room. For a moment, Isabelle had a hopeful thought that maybe Jill’s girlfriend had dropped everything and flown in to try to make things work. But no. The military wasn’t that big on romantic gestures, even for a lieutenant colonel.
Then the door opened, and Isabelle heard a man’s voice. His voice. She jumped up and stared at the kitchen doorway in alarm. If she stayed hidden, she didn’t have anything to worry about. He couldn’t know she was here. Unless he’d followed her tracks through the snow. But what did he want?
She crept closer to the doorway, carefully keeping behind the wall. There was a living room and a short hallway between her and the front door, but his voice was deep, and she heard it rumbling as he spoke to Jill. Just a follow-up visit, hopefully. If this was really all about the judge, then—
The door closed, and Jill’s footsteps started back toward the kitchen. But she wasn’t alone. There were two sets of footsteps, one heavier than the other. Isabelle froze, her brain taking too long to respond to the change in situation, and she’d only just realized she should sneak back toward the couch when Jill stepped in. And he followed.
Jill’s chin jerked back in shock as she caught sight of Isabelle and did a double take. Tom Duncan’s nice dark eyebrows rose at the way she was huddled against the wall.
Isabelle stared up at him as she realized she’d pressed herself into a corner between the kitchen countertop and the doorway. It looked as if she’d been doing exactly what she had been. Hiding and eavesdropping. Damn it. She glared in defense at the man’s questioning look.
Jill cleared her throat. “Look who decided to join us. I told him yesterday that he could stop by for dinner. Tom, you remember Isabelle.”
“Ms. West,” he said.
“I didn’t tell you my name,” she responded. Jill glared at her, but she ignored it.
His surprised eyebrows finally dropped, and he nodded. “It’s my job to find out these sorts of things.”
“Just out of innocent curiosity?” Isabelle countered.
“No, it’s more about protecting the target. What if you were the cousin of the defendant?”
“Hmm.”
“I told him your name,” Jill said. “Regardless, he’s staying for dinner.”
He finally smiled, transforming his face from hard to handsome, but the look was all for Jill. “I really hope your offer was genuine, but I guess I’m here even if it wasn’t.”
“Of course it was genuine! Don’t pay any attention to Isabelle. She’s in the middle of a project. She’d much rather deal with her two-dimensional people.”
Isabelle didn’t deny it. “They’re simple,” she said. “Real people are way more trouble.”
Jill hurried back to her task. “But we’re much more fun, aren’t we?”
“Some of you.”
“It doesn’t matter. There’s no paint here, so you’re not being interrupted. Now,” Jill tossed over her shoulder, “pour Marshal Duncan a glass of wine.”
“I’d better not,” he said. “I’m not on duty right now, but I’m still the supervisor in charge. And it’s just Tom, please. Eating the neighbor’s food isn’t part of my official duties. Speaking of... That Stroganoff was delicious. The whole damn house was jealous. Pardon my language.”
Jill roared with laughter at that. “Please. I expect fouler language than that before this bottle of wine is gone.”
“Okay,” Isabelle volunteered, filling her glass again. “I’ll get to work on that.”
“All right, but bring the wine to the table.”
Isabelle did as she was told, but when she got to the table, she noticed that there were only two settings. She shot a resentful look at Tom, but he’d been invited and Isabelle hadn’t, so she didn’t bare her teeth at him before she grabbed another place setting from the sideboard. She even poured him a glass of water just before Jill brought all the plates to the table, one balanced on her forearm with ease.
“Let’s eat!”
Tom pulled out Jill’s chair, but Isabelle plopped into hers before he could get to her. That was when she noticed the streak of yellow paint down her shirt. Damn it. She didn’t normally care, but she didn’t want to feel at a disadvantage around this man. Plus, her supply of unstained shirts was dwindling. She had to start remembering to wear an apron. Or maybe a smock. Like a kindergartner.
She touched her mouth, hoping she hadn’t accidentally nibbled on a brush earlier when she’d been trying to find the will to paint. She glanced up at Tom and found him watching her fingers. His eyes rose to meet hers before she looked quickly at her plate.
“Wow,” he said a moment later. “This is good. Really good. I can’t say I’ve ever enjoyed cabbage before, but...wow.”
“Wait till you try the pork,” Isabelle said while Jill grinned across the table at him.
He popped a piece of meat into his mouth and closed his eyes, giving Isabelle the chance to study him for a quick moment. Shit. He really did have a nice face. And despite her current hatred of all law enforcement, she’d had her attraction to the men in that field hard-wired into her from an early age.
His firm jaw bunched and flexed as he chewed, and when he opened his eyes, they were dark with pleasure. “You know what? Maybe I will have a glass of wine. If there’s any left? This meal deserves a toast.”
“Tom,” Jill said as she leaped up to open the second bottle, “you’re my new favorite person. Why don’t you just move in here and I’ll feed you every day.”
“Don’t tempt me, because I might.”
Isabelle watched them grin at each other as Jill poured him a glass. All right. So, Jill liked him. But Jill liked almost everyone. She was terrible at being a hermit. In the summertime, she sometimes offered lemonade to hikers when they passed by. If any hikers had the nerve to show up at Isabelle’s door, she told them to use the hose for water.
“To new friends,” Tom said, tapping his glass to Jill’s. Isabelle hesitated a moment, but when he reached forward, she tapped his glass before taking a healthy gulp of wine.
“So where are you from, Isabelle?”
The wine soured in her throat as she swallowed hard. It might raise his suspicions if she spewed it all over the table at such a seemingly innocent question. Instead of choking, she cleared her throat. “Washington State,” she said.
“I thought I heard an accent.”
Her heart beat harder, but she shrugged. “My parents were from Cincinnati. I must’ve picked it up from them.” Okay, a Cincinnati accent wasn’t quite the same as Chicago, but her accent was subtle enough at this point. She waited to see if he’d press harder, but he didn’t.
“I lived in Oregon for a time,” he said instead. “I miss the moisture.”
“And the oxygen?” she asked.
“Yeah, I’ve gotta say, even coming from Cheyenne is a change here. I notice it every time.”
“And how often do you come to Jackson?”
She’d tried to make it a friendly question, but she could tell by the way his eyebrow twitched up that she’d gone too far toward flirtation. The wine had blurred her boundary between politeness and leering, apparently. Oh, well. If there was a chance he didn’t know who she was, she had to be less hostile. She went all in and smiled.
“It depends on the court schedule,” he finally said. “Most of us are based out of Cheyenne, since places like Jackson and Mammoth don’t need a full-time marshal. Sometimes I’m out here once a month. Sometimes once a quarter. But this time I’m getting my fill.”
He sounded sincere. Believable. He had good reason to be here, and he wasn’t even new to town. So maybe everything he’d said had been the truth from the start. A rush of near painful relief rolled over her at the mere chance that he wasn’t here for her.
Isabelle sat back in her chair and watched as he and Jill talked. He had a nice smile and a deep, rough laugh that made her feel bad she’d been rude to him for no reason. It was a bit of guilt, yes, and maybe a little affection for his looks, but mostly she regretted drawing attention by being suspiciously hostile. That had been dumb. But she’d been caught by surprise, and it wasn’t as if she’d been trained by the witness protection program in how to avoid discovery.
She’d tried her best to erase her identity, yes. But they’d been basic choices. She’d gone to Seattle first, smart enough to use cash and not credit cards only because she’d been exposed to cop talk at the dinner table. But everything else had been one terrifying blind choice after another. She’d never even lived on her own before. She’d never had to choose an apartment or buy a car, much less make contacts to buy a new name and social security number.
First there’d been Seattle, then a smaller town a year later. And finally she’d moved to Jackson.
That had been it. No one asked questions. No one even noticed her. She was average in almost every way. Average height, average build, average brown hair color, mildly average face. Aside from that, the only noticeable things about her were her size D breasts and odd career. She’d found it fairly easy to keep those under wraps.
She’d made friends with Jill right away. It had been impossible not to. Not only was Jill irresistibly friendly, but she also always brought food. Isabelle had been hanging out at her place within days.
Aside from a few brief affairs and a few more one-night stands, meals with Jill had been the extent of Isabelle’s social life for years. She had a PO box in town, so the mail carrier never bothered her. She couldn’t get pizza delivered, so there were no wild pizza-boy scenarios acted out. And the only other neighbors were separated from her and Jill by the deep, shadowed forests of ponderosa pines and aspen.
She liked it that way. She reveled in it. She felt almost safe. But things had changed last year. After dozens of trips to the library over the years to pick up interlibrary loans of rare, specialized anatomy books, one of the librarians had started a conversation. An interesting conversation. And Isabelle’s bubble of isolation had finally popped.
Lauren Foster was a good friend now. And Sophie Heyer, another librarian. Those two women had pulled Isabelle further out of her comfort zone by insisting on girls’ nights out every other Sunday.
But there hadn’t been much room for men. Not enough room. Her lies wouldn’t accommodate a long-term relationship, and neither would her heart. So she’d had a man for a week or a month at a time here and there, but never more than that.
Maybe that explained why she found herself watching Tom as he spoke, wondering if those lips would taste as good as they looked. Or if those shoulders were as wide as they seemed.
She shook her head. She needed more wine. Or less. Or she just needed to get laid. But definitely not by a US marshal.
But it didn’t matter tonight. Tonight she was full of wonderful food and less afraid of why he’d shown up on her doorstep. There was more wine, dessert was waiting and nobody was asking anything about her father. She’d be able to paint tomorrow. She could feel it.
As if the universe was offering a reward for her new good mood, Tom unbuttoned the left sleeve of his shirt and began to roll it up as he told Jill a story about a fugitive who’d fallen into an icy creek.
“The thing was, he wouldn’t come out.” His wrist was exposed first. The same tan color as the back of his hand, dark against the white cotton of his shirt. “His lips were turning blue. He couldn’t stop shaking. He couldn’t even speak anymore. But he refused to come out.”
Now the start of his forearm, slim but much harder than hers, muscles visible even at rest.
“None of us wanted to go in after him. It was probably twenty-five degrees in the sun, and the creek was solid ice around the banks. We just stared at each other across the water, waiting for someone to break. I mean, this guy was going to die, and the office kind of frowns on that.”
Now the thickest part of his forearm, the rolled cuff starting to tighten up around it. He was just as tan here, but the light from the wrought-iron chandelier skimmed his skin and caught on the hair of his arms, glinting golden and bright.
“So what happened?” Jill asked.
He grinned. “I broke. I had to do it. I was the senior officer. And holy shit, it was cold. So cold it felt like fire at first. The numbness set in pretty quickly, but that was only the skin. Deeper, in the muscles and joints, it hurt. And then when I hit a deeper pool of water...” He shook his head and turned the sleeve up one more roll. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Jill nodded solemnly. “Can you still have children?”
“I doubt it. Then again, they do freeze sperm, right?”
After she stopped laughing, Jill pointed at Tom. “A hero like you deserves dessert. I hope you like cherry pie. It’s Isabelle’s favorite.”
Isabelle laughed. “You make me sound like a bad ’80s sex joke. But I do love cherry pie. Almost as much as Jill does.”
A faint wash of pink appeared on Tom’s cheeks. Was he blushing? That was cute as hell. Maybe he wasn’t used to women joking about sex. But Isabelle had discovered that freedom was the best thing about getting older.
She’d felt a touch of it when she’d turned thirty. She’d suddenly felt less like a big kid blindly feeling her way through the world and more like an adult. Then at thirty-five she’d realized she was at that age when so many women really started to worry. That they were too old now. That they hadn’t married or had children. That this was their last chance to really live.
Isabelle didn’t feel as though this was her last chance. She felt as though she was finally free. Capable. Happy with herself. Comfortable with her body. And allowed to say anything she wanted to out loud, even if it made a grown man blush. Maybe especially if it did.
She loved it. She couldn’t wait to be forty. She was going to own that shit. And then at fifty, when strangers would stop hinting that it was time to settle down and have some babies, and just start looking at her with pity? That would be glorious.
So she grinned at Tom Duncan and took an extra-large piece of pie and didn’t bother stifling her moan of pleasure at the taste. Tonight she was almost sure she was safe, her mouth was sweet and tart with juicy red cherries, and tomorrow she would paint. She had every reason to moan.
* * *
ISABELLE WEST WASN’T only a mystery. She was also a distraction. First, there was that threadbare shirt, pale blue but marred with paint, and stretched too tight across her breasts whenever she reached for her glass. The shirt looked old enough to be turned into rags, and he’d been very afraid that one of those buttons was going to give way at any moment. So afraid that he’d constantly found himself checking to be sure it was still closed.
Then there was her glare, suspicious and narrow and almost as distracting as the smile she’d finally settled into toward the end of the meal. The cool smile was as interesting as the glare, as if she had a secret to go with every emotion.
Curiosity paced inside his brain like a caged lion. Who was she? Instincts weren’t everything, but Tom had learned to trust his own, and he would’ve bet quite a bit of money that she wasn’t a criminal. But she wasn’t innocent, either. Innocent women didn’t press themselves into a corner to hide and listen the way she’d done at Jill’s house.
“I’d better get going,” she said drowsily from the couch. She was curled up with the last of the wine and didn’t look as if she wanted to leave. “I’ll be painting for hours tomorrow.”
“At least it’s not summer,” Jill said. “You can sleep until eight and still get the morning light.”
“So true. And I’m going to sleep like a baby tonight. A drunk baby.”
Tom stood. “All right, drunk baby, come on. I’ll walk you home.”
Her languidness vanished in an instant. “I don’t need you to walk me home,” she snapped. “I’ve walked home a hundred times in the dark.”
“I’m sure you have. But this time, there might be an armed fugitive hiding in the woods. And I’m leaving anyway. I can either walk you or I can follow behind you. Your choice.”
“Walk her home,” Jill cut in. “Isabelle, put your prickliness away and be nice. Maybe you’ll like the feeling.”
“I doubt it,” Isabelle answered, but she shrugged. “And he already asked to walk me home. Apparently, he likes his girls mean and feral.”
“All the more reason to walk home with him, then.”
Isabelle huffed out a laugh at that then winked in his direction, completely confusing him. His mental state wasn’t helped when she reached to shrug on her coat and her blouse threatened to split in two and reveal the pink bra peeking out underneath.
He spun and walked toward the entryway where he’d left his own coat, but there was no relief there. Isabelle followed close behind to tug on her tall snow boots, leaning over so that her shirt gaped to show the generous rise of her breasts. Tom just shook his head and made himself look elsewhere until she’d finished her task. He, in fact, didn’t like his girls mean and feral. She was not the girl for him.
Then again, he still wasn’t sure he had a read on Isabelle West yet. He wouldn’t say she was mean, exactly. But as for feral...well, there was something a little wild about her. Something unfiltered. She said what she meant and wasn’t coy about her moods.
Jill, waving away Tom’s praise for her food, sent them out the door with warnings about ice on the steps. The woman was truly an amazing cook, not to mention a damn good pastry chef. He’d have to find one of her cookbooks and have Jill sign it for his sister. Wendy adored cooking. And she was terrible at it. But Tom liked to make her happy, so he went to her place once a month for a pleasant, polite evening with Mom and Dad and Wendy’s husband and kids, and he ate her awful dinners without complaint. Cookbooks hadn’t helped in the past, but maybe Jill’s would be the right fit.
“You’ve got Jill wrapped around your finger,” Isabelle said, the words warm instead of accusing.
“You have that turned around. I’d die for that woman.”
Isabelle’s laugh rang loud and pure into the night as they walked down the driveway to the road. “She’s easy to love.”
“But she likes living alone?”
Isabelle shrugged. “Maybe nobody is worthy of her. Or maybe love isn’t all that great.”
He shot her a look, but she was staring straight ahead, her small smile lit by the snow. “And which one is it for you?” he asked.
“Oh, me? I love living alone. And love definitely isn’t all that great.”
He’d heard that kind of sentiment before, but never with such good cheer. “I’d say that’s cynical, but you sound happy about it.”
She finally looked at him. “You’re not wearing a wedding ring. Do you live alone?”
“Yes.”
“No wife or kids? Are you depressed about it? Are you pining away?”
His lips twitched at the idea of sitting in the window of his apartment, staring yearningly into the night, like a sappy scene from a bad movie. “No. But I travel quite a bit.”
“A woman in every port?”
“Not quite,” he said with a grin. “But you make Mammoth and Casper and Cheyenne sound more promising than they are.”
“Exotic locales. Exciting adventures. Femme fatales.”
“I see you’ve been spying on me.”
She nodded, still more reserved with him than she was with Jill. “Well, I don’t travel, but I’m not lonely. I have my work, my friends and my home. And internet porn. Life is good.”
Tom tripped over a snowdrift and nearly fell flat on his face. Isabelle laughed as he dusted snow off his knee.
So much for her reserve. “If you said that to shock me, it worked,” he said.
“I said it because it’s true.” She grinned over her shoulder as she kept moving. “Try to keep up.”
He had a feeling she didn’t mean walking, but he hurried to catch up all the same. Silence fell over them as Tom tried to come up with a question that wasn’t “So what kind of porn do you like?” but his brain was stuck on the topic, so he kept his mouth shut.
Still, the silence was nice on a night like this. Their boots crunched in the dry snow, and there was the occasional thump of snow falling off tree branches, but other than that, it was only the black sky and white stars and their breath turning the air pale around them. And this very odd woman smiling at her own thoughts.
When they reached her driveway, her smile disappeared, and she shot him an arch look.
“I’ll walk you up,” he said in answer to her irritation.
She shook her head but didn’t argue when he started up the driveway with her.
“This is a gorgeous place,” he said. “I keep thinking I’d love to live outside town, but I’m not sure I want to deal with commuting in winter.”
“We get snowed in a few times a year, so I’m lucky I never have to be anywhere. And Jill always has food. I have had to strap on snowshoes on occasion to make it to her place, but it’s worth the trouble.”
“Clearly. She should open a restaurant.”
“I think she likes the solitude more than she lets on. She sold her last restaurant for a bundle, and her cookbooks sell nicely. People still love cookbooks, apparently, even in this age of ebooks and internet recipes. It’s the pictures, I think.”
“And you? You must be a pretty great artist. Jackson is hardly a cheap place to live.”
“I do all right.” She didn’t elaborate. She was clearly more comfortable telling him about Jill than speaking about herself.
“I read some stories about the judge,” she said as they trudged up the steepest part of her drive. “Do you really think he’s in danger?”
“Obviously, we take any threats seriously, but these guys associate with some groups that have strong feelings about the federal government. And they already killed two troopers.”
“I know.”
“Better safe than sorry. And the judge is isolated out here. You should be careful. I mean it.”
She nodded and stopped at the foot of her steps. “Okay. I guess I should thank you for walking me home, then.”
“You should, but I’m not sure you will.”
“Aren’t you supposed to say something gracious like ‘Just doing my job, ma’am’?”
“I would, but you didn’t actually thank me yet,” he reminded her.
“I guess I didn’t.” She smiled before she jogged up the porch steps. “Have a nice walk home, Marshal.”
Tom rolled his eyes when she opened her door. “You didn’t lock the door?”
“Oh.” She paused halfway in and winced. “I meant to, but I’m not in the habit.”
Tom shook his head. “Listen, I don’t want to piss you off, but could I take a quick look around before I leave?”
“Is this a ploy to come in for a nightcap?”
“No.”
“Peek at my etchings?”
He kept his mouth flat.
“Find out more about that internet porn?”
“Now you’re definitely doing it on purpose.”
She shrugged. “Maybe. Are you complaining?”
He hadn’t been complaining, exactly. It wasn’t that he minded her talking about sex. He just wanted to be prepared for it so he could act like a seasoned and stoic officer of the law instead of a blushing teenager.
“I’m not letting you in my house,” she finally said. She was haloed by the entryway light, and she wasn’t smiling anymore.
“Please?” he tried.
“I might have left my laptop open,” she said drily.
Okay. So she didn’t want to be alone in her house at night with a strange man. He could certainly understand that. “You could wait here. Watch from the doorway.”
Her head tilted as if she were confused by the suggestion. “Oh,” she finally said. Her forehead creased. “Look—”
Whatever she’d been about to say, it was cut off by a loud thud from somewhere behind her. Her eyes went wide, and Tom put his hand on the gun at his hip. “Step outside, please, Ms. West.”
She actually did as he’d asked, her hostility forgotten in the fear of the moment.
“There’s no one else staying here?”
“No,” she whispered.
Tom drew his gun and stepped slowly in, switching off the light to make himself less visible from the dark rooms deeper inside the house. “Stay out of the doorway,” he said to Isabelle, relieved when her shadow disappeared and left a clean rectangle of moonlight on the wall.
He was reaching for his cell to call for backup when something shot from the darkness and moved toward him. Before he could aim, it was past his feet and still moving.
Isabelle shrieked when the shadow flew out the doorway. He spun and ran toward her.
“Oh, my God,” she gasped. “It was just Bear.”
“A bear?” He scanned the porch and driveway.
“My cat, Bear.”
Tension fell from his shoulders like a weight tumbling off. “Your cat.”
“You scared him. He doesn’t like people.”
“Big surprise. But we don’t know that he made that noise. Wait here.”
She didn’t object. The strange man you knew was better than the one you didn’t, apparently, so she let him move past her back into the house.
Enough light came through the front window to let him navigate the living room. It didn’t take him long to discover a framed photograph lying facedown on the carpet. It appeared to have fallen from an end table that held a small plate with half a sandwich on it. He picked up the metal frame. It was heavy enough to have made the sound they’d heard.
Tom switched on the light and saw that some of the meat had been pulled from under the bread. He put the gun away. “I think I discovered the crime. You didn’t finish your lunch, and your cat was cleaning up for you.”
She poked her head around the door frame. “Oh. Sounds about right.”
She switched on the overhead light, revealing the rest of the room. It was simpler than he’d expected for an artist. A couch and chairs and a flat-screen TV along with a bookshelf stuffed full of paperbacks. And the laptop sitting dark and seemingly harmless on a desk that was crammed into a corner.
He looked at the photo in his hand, hoping for a little more insight into this woman. It was a picture of her with two other women, their arms around each other. Sisters or friends, maybe.
He glanced around for more photos, but only found two paintings on the walls.
One was a man, turned away, his eyes focused somewhere distant. His hair curled over his ear, and wind blew his shirt tight to his back. Pine trees rose up in front of him.
If not for the signature across the bottom corner, Tom would’ve thought it was a photograph at first glance; it was that stark and crisp.
The other painting was a completely different style. It was a watercolor of a golden field with shadows of mountains rising far away and storm clouds rolling closer.
“Is one of them yours?”
“Yes, the portrait. I suck at landscapes. And watercolor.”
“The portrait is striking. Really spectacular.”
“Thank you,” she said simply, not offering any protest. She knew she was good, and he liked that. He was about to ask who the man was, but Isabelle’s mouth tightened as if she was waiting for just that question—and resenting that he’d ask it—so Tom tipped his head toward the dark doorway on the other side of the room. “May I please check the rest of the house? Just to be sure?”
Her eyes narrowed. She watched him for a long moment then looked around the room, as if trying to see what he was seeing. “If you really think it’s necessary. Watch out for the laundry when you get to my bedroom. I haven’t quite kept up with it this...week.”
“Got it.” He flipped on the hallway light and moved to the right toward two open doors. The first was a small bedroom with no piles of laundry and no intruder. He checked the closet and moved on.
The second door was clearly her bedroom. A king-size bed was piled high with silver-and-blue pillows on top of a rumpled gray comforter. Despite the massive size of the thing, it looked as though she used the whole big mattress. There wasn’t a smooth spot of blanket on it. Or she’d had a guest sometime recently. He couldn’t rule that out.
Other than that, the bedroom was fairly unremarkable aside from the pile of laundry at the foot of her bed. There were also a few clean clothes stacked neatly on top of a dresser as if she’d gotten distracted before putting them away.
Tom moved toward a door in the far wall and found a large bathroom, empty aside from a can of turpentine on the counter and a smaller pile of laundry. He checked the closet, surprised there were still clean clothes remaining in there, then shut off the lights and headed for the other side of the house.
It was quick work. There was one more bedroom that seemed to be used for storage, and past it, a laundry room with a door that creaked in protest at being opened after so long. The last door led to the garage, which was empty aside from an SUV and a few very large canvases wrapped in plastic.
He found Isabelle in the kitchen, pouring a glass of water and not the least bit concerned about the security of her home. He shook his head. “I guess I should’ve asked you to wait in the living room until I’d cleared this area.”
She shrugged. “I would’ve yelled if I found someone.”
“Is that the last room?” he asked, tipping his chin toward the double doors.
“Yep, it’s my studio.”
He hesitated a moment. He’d never been in the home of a real working artist before. “I won’t be invading your privacy if I look inside?”
“You’re invading it right now, but I think I’ll survive.”
He opened the doors to cool air and a strong smell of paint. Even before he reached for the light he could make out easels highlighted by the moonlight that streamed through tall windows. Their shadows stretched across the wood floor, the long shapes making his neck prickle with alarm. Anyone could be standing there. He’d unbuttoned his gun strap, but he hadn’t drawn it. The likelihood that anyone was actually here was minuscule, but he still put his hand on the butt of his gun as he swept the wall with his fingers.
They finally found the switch, and the darkest shadows vanished in the sudden onslaught of light.
Her studio was a large room, and the scattered canvases blocked a lot of the view, but Tom could see practically every corner when he dropped down to peer past the forest of easel legs. It looked clear. He blew out a sigh, but his relief lasted for only the two seconds it took him to stand and refocus his eyes on the nearest canvas.
This time his breath left him on a rush, and he stepped back in alarm.
What the hell?
His gaze skipped off that painting and moved to the next one, trying to escape the sight or just make sense of it, but the second one was no better. Just a mess of blood and sinew and flayed skin and glistening muscles.
Narrowing his eyes, he forced himself to step closer to the first easel, but that only made it worse. Her painting was of a human abdomen, except that this person’s skin had been peeled off to reveal the connective tissue beneath it. It was so incredibly detailed that he could make out the smallest capillaries on the underside of the peeled skin.
Even worse than the paintings were the photos taped to the sides of the canvas frames. These were actual pictures of bodies stripped of their skin and humanity. They were corpses. And she was re-creating them.
“You don’t like them?” she asked from only a few feet away. Tom jumped, spinning toward her, his hand tightening on his gun. He didn’t draw it, though. He had that much sense left.
“What the hell kind of art is this?” Was she a provocateur or just some sort of sicko?
She grinned at him, and he changed “sicko” to “serial killer” in his mind. Clearly, she was sociopathic. “I’m an anatomical painter.”
“Yeah, I damn well see that.”
Now she was actually laughing. “You should see your face.” She wiped a tear from her eye. She was laughing so hard she was crying.
“What is this?” he barked.
“Just what I said it is. I work on commission for textbooks and medical art companies.”
He blinked and forced his tension down a notch, but it wasn’t easy. He hated seeing dead bodies. Really hated it. “Textbooks?” he managed to ask more calmly.
“Yes. Biology. Anatomy. Some surgical instruction. Photos don’t really work well. There’s not enough definition and contrast, usually. And digital art sucks. Don’t tell anyone I said that. Ninety percent of work is digital now. 3-D rendering has its uses, I suppose. But my niche is oil. Not very common these days. It’s specialty work.”
He looked at the nearest painting again then turned back to her. He could feel the horrified confusion etched into his face, and he could see it in the laughter that still swam in her eyes.
“I also do posters for doctors’ offices. You know, the ‘This is your knee joint’ kind of thing.”
“This is—” he shook his head “—awful.”
“Really?” She shrugged, as if she couldn’t fathom his reaction. “You probably don’t want to see the comparison ones, then. A small child winding up for a softball pitch on one side, and the same small child as a skeleton in the next. They’re a little morbid, but the kids love them.”
“The kids?” he gasped, looking over his shoulder again. His eyes focused on the next easel and a photo taped there. It was a thigh, half the flesh removed, the other half still intact, a tattoo of a dragon livid against the pale skin. He felt the blood leaving his head and took a deep breath to try to steady himself. “Jesus, Isabelle. How can you do this?”
Her smile finally faded. “What do you mean? It’s my job. Medical students need to learn about the body. So do high school kids. Would you rather schoolkids had to work with cadavers?”
The word cadaver was almost too much for him. The memory of his brother’s pale, stiff body flashed into his head, but he forced it back. He could control it. It was the same every time he had to deal with death, and death was part of his job. But this...
“This is your home,” he said. “Where you sleep at night.”
“I work here, too. It’s no big deal.”
No big deal. Right. Here he’d been warming to her, and the woman was a freak. A freak who looked at pictures of dead people all day. In her secluded cabin. In the dark woods. “Well,” he managed to say, “the house is all clear. You’re safe.”
“Thank you. Want to sit down and stay awhile?” she teased.
“No, thanks,” he muttered as he brushed by her. Her laughter followed him to the front door. “Have a good night,” he called over his shoulder. “And lock the door.”
Or bar it. From the outside.
Maybe this woman’s secret was more dangerous than he’d suspected.
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_4425d75a-f2bd-573f-82ae-4f1a29033083)
IT WAS 11:00 P.M., and Tom was staring at the computer instead of sleeping. He’d planned to get right back to Judge Chandler’s basement and do some research into Isabelle West, but instead he’d walked in to find his second-in-command, Mary Jones, yelling at their tactical commander over the phone.
Mary, the senior deputy marshal whenever Tom was out of the room, had rightly made the decision to move the judge’s twenty-six-year-old daughter into his home for the trial. Veronica Chandler lived alone in an apartment just off Jackson town square, and Mary had decided that the woman would be safer in her father’s home, where the security detail could keep an eye on her, as well.
Chris Hannity, the tactical command specialist, had bristled at being cut out of the decision, especially as he’d already scouted Veronica’s place and had made schedules to patrol her block.
An acute case of male pride, as far as Tom was concerned, and he’d quickly dismissed the issue with a few curt words for Hannity.
“He’s still pissed about that disciplinary hearing,” Mary said from behind him, her Southern drawl ruining the hard edge of the words. She set a plate of cookies at his elbow. “The cookies are courtesy of Veronica Chandler.”
“Thanks. And he’ll get over it.”
“You think? It’s been a year. I told you not to report it.”
Tom grabbed a cookie and shot Mary a look, noticing that she was chewing on her thumbnail. She did that only when she was tired enough to forget. “He called you a dyke. In front of me.”
“It’s not the worst I’ve heard.”
“Then he chose the wrong place to say it. And you’re chewing your nail again.”
“Shit,” she muttered, clenching her hand into a fist and forcing it to her side.
“He’ll get over it,” Tom repeated. “And he won’t disrespect you or anyone else on the team again.”
Mary was forty-five, but she looked a lot younger. Couple that with her small frame, curly blond hair and heart-shaped face, and she sometimes had trouble commanding respect. Actually, that wasn’t true. She commanded respect. Her men followed her orders to a T. But there were always a few holdouts on other teams who considered her authority an insult to their testicles.
She made it a policy never to show weakness in front of those assholes, and she hated giving away that she might be stressed.
“I already read the day’s report,” he said as he polished off a second cookie. “Everything’s in place for the trial?”
“Yes. You still think we’ll hear from the brother again?”
“I hope not,” Tom said, rolling his shoulders to release some of the tension. “But I’ve got a bad feeling. And the judge? How is he handling the detail?”
Mary shrugged. “He seems entirely comfortable with an entourage. Like he was born to it.”
Tom snorted. That was no big surprise. The judge was a blowhard and pretty damn impressed with his position in the community.
“He actually calls Wes his ‘driver.’”
Tom guffawed at how much that must chap Wes’s hide. “I’ve got to see that myself.”
Mary grinned. “It’s pretty awesome.”
They both turned toward the stairway when the door to the first floor opened, expecting Wes to head down, but these footsteps were soft and light.
A young woman Tom recognized as Veronica Chandler stuck her head past the wall, her blond hair swinging. “I just wanted to check and see if you needed anything before I turn in.”
Tom stood. “No, we’re all set up down here. Thank you for the cookies.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Do you know Jill Washington up the road? She’s an amazing baker.”
The woman smiled. “No, my father only bought this house two years ago, and I was living in New York then. And these cookies went straight from the tube to the oven.”
“The perfect recipe,” Mary said.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” Veronica called as she headed back upstairs. She looked happy enough to be here. Tom suspected she was relieved. She’d spent two of the past three evenings here already. What was the point in driving home in the dark to sleep?
It was the same reason Tom was in the basement, after all.
“I’m heading out,” Mary said.
“You can take the cot, if you want. I’ll sleep here. It’s a fold-out couch.”
“Thanks, but no thanks. If I wanted to wake up to obnoxious men, I’d change my dating habits.”
“Are you calling me obnoxious?”
“No comment.” She eased her feet into the heels she wore on duty to add a couple more inches to her height.
Tom cleared his throat. “So what’s your age range?”
“For what?”
“Dating.”
She frowned at him and grabbed her coat. “That’s a weird question.”
“I’m just making conversation.”
“Bullshit. You know somebody? Is it that new girl in Intake? She’s only twenty-one. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
“It’s no one,” he said. “Forget I said anything.”
“Stop trying to take care of me. I’m not one of your lost causes.” She tugged a knit hat over her blond curls and glared at him for a moment before heading toward the staircase. “Ten years on either side,” she tossed back without slowing down.
“Good to know,” Tom responded, not bothering to hide his smile.
But as soon as Mary’s footsteps hit the first floor and the door closed behind her, Tom was left alone with his thoughts. And those thoughts were not on Jill anymore; they were on her freaky-ass neighbor. What the hell was up with Isabelle West?
He closed his email program and opened his browser to try her name again, but there were still no good clues, so he searched for anatomical art instead. He clicked around for a good half an hour, learning what he could about it. What he saw was pretty on par with what he’d glimpsed at her house. He didn’t like one bit of it.
He could handle seeing dead bodies on the job. It was rarely a complete surprise. He usually had the chance to brace himself against the sight so he wasn’t snapped back to that long-ago moment when he’d found his brother. But tonight had sneaked up on him.
He took a deep breath and cleared the search window then tried a new one for “medical paintings” and her name. He got back garbage. That was weird. She obviously did well for herself. She must have a legitimate career. So why was she missing online?
Tom sat back in his chair and tapped a pen to his chin for a minute then thought of the other painting he’d seen in her home. The vivid realism of it. The beauty. And the very short signature in the corner.
He typed in “I. West” and “anatomical painting” and hit the mother lode.
“Bingo,” he breathed. Here was her career. She’d been telling the truth.
There wasn’t much to get from the search results, other than that confirmation. Her work wasn’t meant for private buyers. The hits were all sites where posters and textbooks could be purchased. There was no author biography anywhere. No pictures or stories about her.
Still, the morbidity of the whole thing niggled at his brain. Combined with her initial hostility, Tom decided he couldn’t ignore that prickling he’d felt on the back of his neck earlier.
He signed in to the National Crime Information Center to do a quick check on her background. Two hours later, he was even more confused. Isabelle West didn’t seem to be a criminal. There were no warrants, no arrests, not even a traffic ticket as far as he could tell. So she wasn’t a criminal. But she also hadn’t existed before 2002.
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_1d0e6819-797e-56ec-a315-a83267dbbf77)
“GOOD GOD, ISABELLE, you have got to be kidding me!”
Isabelle stared in confusion at her friend. Lauren was standing on the front porch, wearing a tight red dress and heels, and she was glaring daggers.
“What?” Isabelle asked.
“It’s Sunday! I texted you this morning!”
“It’s Sunday?”
“Yes!”
“Are you sure you sent a text?” She swiped the back of her hand across her forehead, trying to angle the paintbrush in her fingers so that she didn’t get cadmium green in her hair. “I didn’t get it.”
Lauren sighed. “Have you been anywhere near your phone today? Is it charged?”
Isabelle rolled her eyes. “I don’t know. I’m working. I guess you may as well come in.”
“Nope. We’re going out. It’s girls’ night.”
“I’ll have to cancel—”
“No, you won’t. You canceled last Sunday, remember? Let’s go.”
Now it was Isabelle’s turn to glare. “I’m not going anywhere. I look like shit.”
Lauren nodded and made a shooing motion. “Wash your face and put your hair up. If you don’t have any clean jeans then put on a dress. Surely those don’t have paint on them.”
Well, some of them did. But it was too cold for a dress anyway. Then again, Lauren was wearing one, along with high-heeled boots. Isabelle had cute boots that Jill had helped her pick out. She supposed she could throw something together.
She looked over her shoulder toward her studio, but Lauren pushed past her and pointed to the bedroom. “Do it. Sophie’s not here to protect you anymore. It’s just me and my cruel demands.”
“I think I read a book like that recently,” Isabelle muttered.
“Yeah, well... Wear something pretty for me or you’ll be punished.”
“Does this mean I’m not allowed to wear panties?”
“Whatever it takes.”
“Fine. Let me get rid of the brush first.” As much as she resented having to stop painting, she still smiled as she ditched the brush and hurried to clean up. She’d gotten in almost ten hours of work, after all. Even she could be satisfied with that.
So she did exactly as Lauren instructed. She washed her face and pulled her hair up into a neater knot than usual, and she even put on makeup. Then she stared into her closet for five minutes before finally deciding that she just wasn’t into dresses right now.
She settled on her favorite pair of skinny jeans and a gold top she’d worn only once before. It was sleeveless and low-cut and too sparkly, but what the hell. Tonight was girls’ night out. Plus, she’d found her last pair of clean underwear, and that was something to celebrate. Of course, that meant she’d have to do laundry tomorrow. Or just go commando. Probably the latter.
“I’m ready!” she called out as she walked back into the living room, but her smile transformed into an O of surprise when she saw Tom standing there with Lauren.
Isabelle fought down her alarm. She’d almost decided he wasn’t onto her the night before. But then he’d asked to search her house, and she was fighting that fear again.
“Hello,” she finally said.
“Hi.” His eyes swept down to her cleavage then back up so quickly she could’ve imagined it. But she hadn’t. Maybe he really had been interested in her internet porn.
She relaxed enough to smirk. “Braving the house of horrors? This must be important.” She met Lauren’s questioning look. “He saw my work. He’s not a fan.”
Lauren huffed, but he shook his head.
“It’s not that you’re not talented. I just...” His gaze slid toward the kitchen and the double doors beyond. “Wasn’t expecting that.”
“Want another look?” she asked.
“No!”
Isabelle laughed so hard that she snorted. “It’s funny because he’s a big strong US marshal,” she explained to Lauren.
“Oh, that is funny!”
They both grinned at him for a long moment while Tom frowned back. “I was just stopping by to check on you.”
“Hey,” Lauren said, “are you here working on Judge Chandler’s case?”
“Yes.”
“I saw his daughter today at the library! She said she’s staying at her dad’s place for a while. It’s right around the corner, isn’t it? We should invite her over for a girls’ night in. We have to replace Sophie.”
Isabelle’s smile fell. “We do?”
Lauren nodded, and her voice went quiet. “I talked to her last night. She was tiptoeing around it, but I think she’s finally going to turn in her notice at the library. She’s living her dream.” Lauren nudged Tom. “Which is riding around the country on a motorcycle with a big tattooed guy. Isabelle, she’ll be back for a week on Tuesday. Don’t forget!”
Tom cleared his throat. “I’d better let you get to your evening.”
Isabelle remembered her wariness. “Did you need something?” she asked.
“Not really. I was making the rounds of the area and decided to stop by.”
Her paranoia made her want to snap at him, but she forced it back. She’d decided she didn’t need to worry about him. If he were really on a stakeout, looking for her father, he’d never have walked right up and introduced himself. Isabelle had overreacted. There was nothing to fear.
She shrugged. “Everything is good. Aside from the horrifying carnage in my studio, I mean.”
“Right. Well. I hope you’re taking this seriously now. Lock your door. Be careful when you get home tonight.”
“I will,” she said. “Scout’s honor.”
As soon as he closed the front door behind him, she winked at Lauren. “I was never a Girl Scout.”
“Yeah, he could probably tell by the way you held up two fingers instead of three.”
“Oops.” Isabelle cringed. “Oh, well. He’s too polite to call me on it.”
“Polite, huh? I was going to say ‘fucking sexy,’ but I guess that’s just me.”
“I wouldn’t say it’s just you.”
“Oh, really? Honey, I’m gonna need all of these details.”
Isabelle laughed off Lauren’s curiosity, but she could feel her cheeks warming. He really was sexy. And if she could keep him focused on her paintings instead of her past, he wouldn’t be a threat to her. “There aren’t any details.”
“Then I need reasons why. You’ve been whining about your sex drought for the past year, and now the gods have dropped a hot US marshal on your doorstep, and you haven’t devoured him yet? You’ve got some ’splaining to do, missy. Over drinks.”
“Fine. But only over drinks.” Isabelle excused herself to grab her purse, feeling strangely discomfited around her friend. Tom being there had reminded her that she wasn’t lying to only him; she was lying to everyone.
Somehow it hadn’t felt that way with her girlfriends, at least not since those first few conversations. They knew who she was. Who she really was now. But having Tom around reminded her that her whole life was a lie.
No. Not her whole life. Just her past. Everything she was doing now was real and genuine, and she was not going to let one US marshal ruin that.
She grabbed her little clutch purse. “Ready?” she called out as she headed back to the living room.
Lauren waved toward the front door. “This girls’ night has officially begun. Let’s do this.”
* * *
FROM THE COVER of the trees on the far side of the road, Tom watched the taillights of the car move slowly away. He felt guilty standing in the dark, watching, but he was in the woods only because he was heading back to the judge’s on a trail he’d already cut through the snow. He wasn’t spying. Much.
The problem was that he hadn’t had a good reason to stop by Isabelle’s tonight. He hadn’t really needed to check on her. Everything had gone quiet in anticipation of the start of the trial tomorrow. They hadn’t heard one word from the defendant’s brother or any of his other supporters. Of course, that silence had Tom on edge, too, but not as much as his suspicions about Isabelle.
Or whatever her real name was. That name was a lie. He was sure of it. She wasn’t from Washington, she wasn’t Isabelle West and she wasn’t an innocent isolationist suspicious of the feds.
“Or you’re overreacting,” he muttered.
If he used a little creativity, he could imagine that she was a girl from rural Washington State who’d been raised by parents from Cincinnati, who’d kept her off the grid until she was in her twenties. That might explain the slight accent that had nothing to do with the West Coast and the fact that there were no property, tax or motor-vehicle records for anyone named Isabelle West before 2002.
That slim possibility aside, he had no idea who she could be. A criminal, certainly. Or maybe just a woman escaping a bad past. If she’d been a victim of domestic violence, judges had the leeway in almost every state to issue an off-the-record name change. Or maybe she was just a girl who’d gotten herself into a bad situation and had been forced to make a run for it.
“Shit,” he muttered, finally turning back to make his way through the woods. He had a problem. He knew he did. A compulsion to help people whether they wanted it or not. Especially those who didn’t want it.
A problem, maybe, but it wasn’t an unreasonable one. Often the people in the worst trouble were the least likely to ask for help. He knew that firsthand. And Isabelle showed all the symptoms of someone like that. She was prickly and proud and smart and self-contained. She hadn’t even wanted him to check her place for an intruder. How would she ever reach out about something weightier?
He took a deep breath and tried to lose himself in the walk. The moon was almost full, and it glowed from every snowy surface, so he had no trouble making his way. But the beauty surrounding him wasn’t as peaceful as it had been when he’d walked Isabelle home.
He’d gone back tonight hoping to discover more of who she was. He hadn’t paid close enough attention the night before. At least he knew who was in the picture with her now. Her girlfriends. And it must mean something that she hadn’t had one other framed photograph in the house. No family. No kids. No history.
Maybe he should just let it go. Mary joked all the time about his determination to fix things that were none of his business. He knew it was about his parents and their tendency to stick their heads in the sand and hope for the best. He loved them, and he’d never say it, but his brother would’ve had a hell of a better shot at survival if they’d stepped up and interfered.
His cell phone rang, destroying the silence of the forest and startling him from his thoughts. He was surprised to get a call out here. Service was spotty even when he wasn’t in the trees.
“Duncan,” he answered.
“We got another letter,” Mary said without preamble. “Where are you?”
“About one minute out from the Chandler house. Where are you?”
“Just pulling up,” she said as lights swept over the trees far ahead of him. “Security guards finally decided to go through the Saturday mail delivery at the courthouse.”
Tom cursed. “Didn’t we ask them to bring any mail to us?”
“I guess the weekend shift didn’t get the news.”
“Hold on,” he said, picking up his pace along the packed trail of snow. “I’ll be right there.”
The lights from the judge’s cabin blazed through the trees. Another car pulled up as he got there. Hannity got out. “A threat to the judge’s family,” he said immediately, falling into place next to Tom as he jogged up the stairs.
“Mary already moved Veronica here,” Tom said pointedly, “so that’ll make this easier to address. What else?”
“He mentioned a bomb.”
“Shit. We’re gonna need another team—”
“Already on it.”
“Anderson?”
“Yes. He says he can have a K-9 unit here in three hours.”
“Have a plan drawn up before he gets here,” Tom ordered. “We’ll sweep the area around the house for footprints and evacuate the judge’s home if we find anything. If not, let’s focus on the courthouse.”
Mary was waiting for him with a copy of the letter. He grabbed it and started through the four pages of single-spaced ranting. Things were about to get a whole lot busier around here.
CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_1871c64a-ed61-5b0d-a7cb-e13eda1104a7)
ISABELLE SLIPPED ON her sunglasses, but she still squinted against the bright morning light as she walked through town. Well...afternoon light, maybe. Sunlight was brutal at this altitude and even more brutal when it was shining off the snow piled along the narrow sidewalks of Jackson like a punishment handed down by the cruel god of hangovers.
Halfway through their night out, she and Lauren had decided to throw caution to the wind and get unapologetically drunk. That had meant no ride home for Isabelle and a very cold midnight walk from the bar to Lauren’s house, but it had been worth it. Lauren didn’t have to work today, and Isabelle had needed to shake off the last of the fear Tom Duncan had delivered to her doorstep.
She’d shaken off the fear but had acquired a headache, though she’d managed to sleep off most of the alcohol.
Still, the crisp air helped eliminate the last of her lethargy, and she walked a little taller and unbuttoned her coat to feel more of the sun. She wasn’t worried that she was wearing the same clothes she’d worn the night before. If anyone noticed and thought she was taking an extended walk of shame, she’d be happy for the gossip. Her “creepy hermit artist” reputation wasn’t getting her any dates. Maybe “creepy party-girl artist” would help.
She smiled at the next person she passed and put a little more swing in her step. Maybe she should wear her heeled boots every time she ran errands. It certainly made walking to the post office feel less like a chore and more like the possibility of adventure.
And funny enough, when she turned the corner, adventure was waiting right there for her. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the sexy kind. It was the kind that came with a heavy police presence and a scrum of reporters. She’d accidentally stumbled onto the property of the tiny federal courthouse of Jackson, Wyoming.
For a moment, she just stood there, hand tightening on her little clutch purse and heart ratcheting up her fight-or-flight response.
Funny that she hadn’t thought about this at all. She hadn’t considered what Tom’s job really meant and how much it had in common with her past. She’d been too worried that he was actually here to scout her out.
Her father’s case had never gone to trial; he’d skipped town long before that. But he had been indicted, and there had been hearings and other cases to process, and it had all looked like this, only instead of two satellite trucks, there’d been ten. All the Chicago outlets and a few national ones, as well.
This was an entirely different scene, she tried to tell herself. Nothing like what had happened to her father. Here there were only fifty or so spectators and another twenty press people, and the federal courthouse in Jackson didn’t look much different from the post office. It was a one-story, ugly ’60s structure that evoked none of the gravitas or Greek dignity of the courthouses of Chicago.
So yes, it was a very different scene, but she was still standing there panting as if she were the one in danger. As if that pack of reporters was about to chase her life down and devour it in front of her. Again.
She took a deep breath. Then another.
This had nothing to do with her. It didn’t have anything to do with people she knew. Except Tom.
The threats against the judge really were a big deal. She’d read a few things online, but she hadn’t understood the scope of it. These news trucks had come all the way from Cheyenne, six hours away. They might even be sending coverage to a national feed.
She could no longer feel the fingers gripping her bag, but she’d calmed down a little, so she moved her clutch to the other hand and took a moment to look for Tom. He was likely inside the courthouse, running the show there, but she had a strange urge to see him in his element. She had a feeling that that much authority would look sexy as hell on him, especially when she’d been raised to find that kind of thing manly.
But her interest fled when a car pulled up to the courthouse walkway, and the reporters suddenly surged forward. She didn’t recognize the man who emerged, but everyone else seemed to. Small town or not, these reporters behaved the same way Chicago reporters did, shouting at their crew, yelling out questions, rushing forward like hungry animals.
Isabelle took two steps back and spun to make her getaway, practically running to the next cross street so she could detour around the courthouse to get to her postal box. She never wanted to see that kind of thing again. She never wanted any part of a trial or a scandal or people who shouted hateful things.
Once she was out of sight of the crowd, Isabelle slowed down, but she had to force it. She wanted to run. If she’d had her car, she’d probably have sprinted straight for it and left rubber on the road as she sped out of town. But she didn’t have her car. She was meeting Lauren in thirty minutes so they could have lunch before Lauren drove her home.
She put one foot in front of the other and skirted the rear of the courthouse and then worked back around to the post office.
After giving a wan smile to the clerk, who was ready with a wave, Isabelle got her mail and took it to the recycling box to ditch the junk mail. It was all junk mail. Even the one piece that caught her eye and made her hands start to tremble.
Her name and address were typed, and it looked like any other piece of marketing, except that there was a stamp in place of printed postage. And there was no return address.
She turned the envelope over. It shook in her hand. The return address was printed on the back, but with no name or company logo.
Though she meant to throw it away, her shaking hand reached for the flap of the envelope and slowly worked it open. She pushed up her shades as she pulled out the single piece of paper and unfolded it.
At first, she couldn’t quite see the words. She couldn’t focus. Then she started reading and still couldn’t decipher them. It took her three attempts to read through the half page of text before she realized that it wasn’t from her father. It was only a marketing letter from a Realtor who was fishing for seasonal rentals.
The soft sound that came from her own throat frightened her. Isabelle carefully tore the letter into long strips and dropped each of them into the trash can next to the recycling box. The letter had done nothing to her, but she wanted it gone, not recycled into something else.
She’d always told everyone that her father had never contacted her after he’d run. That he’d never been in touch. She’d sworn that was the truth to every federal officer who’d questioned her and every shady Chicago cop who’d shown up at her place with a creepy smile and assurances that they were there to help. But it hadn’t been the truth.
From the moment he’d disappeared, he’d sent letters. A week of peace would go by. Maybe two. And then she’d get another letter disguised as junk mail in case anyone was watching the mailbox.
He’d pretend to be apologizing or explaining or just sending his love, but he’d always asked for money. Always. She’d sent a little, but after the fourth or fifth letter that she’d refused to reply to, he’d become less apologetic and more aggressive. How can you do this? I’m sorry about everything, but I’m still your father. I need help. You owe me that.
She hadn’t owed him anything. After twenty-two years of being his daughter, she hadn’t even known who he was. She’d thought he was a hero, but he’d killed at least one fellow officer, stolen money from countless others, and he’d brought dangerous people into Isabelle’s life. Isabelle had hated him.
But none of this had to do with today. He wasn’t back. He hadn’t found her. And her immediate terror was pissing her off.
She sorted through the rest of her mail to be sure it was all junk, then tossed it in the trash. This was ridiculous. She wasn’t a scared girl. She’d left all that behind. She’d walked away from it. She’d made a damn decision, and she’d pulled it off.
“Screw it all,” she muttered. Then she slipped her shades back on and stepped back out into the day. She forced herself to walk toward the courthouse instead of avoiding it. She put the swing back in her step, and she didn’t shy away from the news trucks as she made her way through the crowd.
And she was glad she didn’t, because that was the moment she spotted Tom.
In action, he was just as hot as she thought he’d be. His dark gray suit showed off strong shoulders and a slim waist. He wore shades against the bright sun, too, and some sort of earpiece. Leaning in to speak to a man dressed in similar fashion, Tom looked like Secret Service or FBI or something way more urbane than a US marshal.
Damn it. He was sexy.
She saw the moment he noticed her, despite the dark shades hiding his eyes. His head cocked. One expressive eyebrow rose. His lips stopped moving. But for only a moment. He resumed talking, but his head followed Isabelle’s movement down the sidewalk. She raised her chin. Better to think about him watching her than to consider the chaos surrounding both of them.
She’d recognized his attractiveness even when she’d been suspicious of him, but after talking with Lauren about him last night, her awareness had sharpened. She liked the way he looked and moved. She liked his voice. She even liked the way he smelled. His profession was a drawback, but it had somehow ceased to be a deal breaker. In fact, maybe it was a turn-on. The danger. Tempting fate. It was stupid, but she suddenly felt alive.
Hell, she’d been complaining for months that she wanted a hot fantasy man to show up on her doorstep and show her a good time. This man had literally shown up on her doorstep, and she’d be an idiot not to at least entertain the idea. Or so Lauren had told her.
Her mouth refused to hold back a smile when Isabelle remembered Lauren’s assessment of his ass. Something about it being truly bitable.
Isabelle tipped her head toward him just as he turned to gesture toward the courthouse. His suit jacket tightened against his backside with the movement.
She let her smile widen. His ass did look bitable. It was taut and just round enough to make her want to squeeze it. God, she did love a nice male ass. And it had been so long since she’d dug her nails into one.
She walked on, grinning at the sidewalk in front of her and hoping he had a good view of her own ass from where he was working.
“Isabelle,” he called.
Telling herself not to look too pleased, she turned to see him walking toward her.
“I figured you were too busy to talk,” she said.
“I am, but there’s been a delay in the defense counsel getting here, so we’re in a holding pattern. A cattle truck jackknifed on the highway.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Sounds like a setup to me.”
He smiled, and the way the shades hid his eyes made him look dangerous. “Believe me, if it was the prosecutor’s car, I’d be on my way out there with lights flashing. But the defense is on their own.”
“Cruel. And the cows?”
“I gather they’re fine. Regardless, we don’t have the manpower to offer them protection.”
His head rose, and he seemed to give a quick scan to the area before smiling down at her again, his attention tipping a little lower this time. This was a different Tom. He was...almost flirty. And totally confident. “I hope you locked up before you left last night.”
Ah. So he’d noticed she was wearing the same thing. Good. Let him wonder if she’d gone home with someone. Let him wonder what she was like in bed. “I locked the door. I’ll let you know if there’s any trouble when I get home.”
“All right.”
“I’d better let you get back to work,” she said, stepping away with a little wave. “Nice suit, by the way.”
He looked down, brows twitching up in surprise. “Thanks.”
She couldn’t resist drawing it out a little more. She’d fought off her panic, and now she felt powerful. Maybe a little reckless. “Are you going to stop by tonight and check on me?”
He’d been sweeping the area again, but his face tipped back to her. “If you’d like me to.”
She shrugged. “You’re probably busy,” she said casually before walking on. “Good luck with this circus.”
He didn’t reply, but she could feel his gaze on her as she left. Isabelle barely even noticed the loud drone of the crowd around her as she moved through them. She was too busy swinging her ass.
* * *
“K-9 SAYS THE parking lot is clean.”
Tom wiped the frown from his face and immediately spun to follow Mary as she moved through the crowd. She parted groups of people with just a look.
“They’re stationed at the door?” he asked.
She nodded. The K-9 unit had cleared the judge’s home first as a precaution, and they’d been working over the entire courthouse since six this morning, the two dogs taking turns so they weren’t overwhelmed.
“Forensics?” Tom asked.
“Fingerprints confirm it’s him.”
Saul Stevenson hadn’t bothered disguising his handwriting or keeping his prints off the paper last time, either. He wanted them to know who he was.
Mary glanced over her shoulder as they neared the building. “Postmark is Helena, three days ago.”
They both flashed their badges at the security team, despite that they knew every member. It was important that no one get lax.
Tom had gone over the schedule for the day four times already. He trusted his team, and he’d briefed local law enforcement himself. There wasn’t much to do now except watch and wait. The threat was likely just a scare tactic. If Saul Stevenson meant to actually plant a bomb, he’d be stupid to give them a heads-up. Then again, maybe he was stupid.
But it was more likely that the bomb threat was a diversion, meant to draw attention away from his true intentions. “Hannity is sweeping rooftops now?” he asked Mary as they entered the meeting room.
“He’s almost done.”
“A sniper shot would be a hell of a lot simpler for him to pull off than a bomb.”
“Maybe he wants the drama of an explosion, though.”
Tom nodded, but the buzz of his phone in his pocket cut off his next words. His thoughts immediately flashed on Isabelle, her smile teasing and her clothes advertising that she hadn’t bothered going home last night. Not to her place, anyway. She’d slept somewhere else.
But when he drew his phone from his pocket, there was no incoming call from the mysterious Isabelle West. It was only his sister. He winced and put it away.
“What is it?” Mary asked.
“My sister.”
He thought that was the end of it, but it wasn’t. Mary had been invited to dinner at his sister’s place too many times.
“Why are you avoiding Wendy?”
“I’m not avoiding her,” he answered. “I’m busy.”
“Maybe she needs something.”
He glanced up to find Mary leaning against the wall, arms crossed in that stubborn way that said she wasn’t going anywhere. “Aren’t you always telling me not to worry about my family? If she needs something, she’ll call back.”
“I’m also always telling you that one dinner a month is not enough time with your family.”
Tom rolled his shoulders. “I need to send a few emails,” he muttered.
She didn’t move.
“Okay, I’ll text her,” he grumbled, getting his phone back out to let Wendy know he’d call her in a couple of days.
Once he’d hit Send, Mary gave up her stance and sat down at her own computer. He felt bad shutting her out, but he didn’t want to talk about it.
It was his brother’s birthday, and Wendy always called. He always avoided the call. His sister was like his parents. She considered Michael’s death a sad accident. Tom considered it a tragedy that could’ve been averted if anyone had done anything to try to stop it. If they’d even acknowledged his addiction just once, maybe his brother would be alive.
He couldn’t talk to Wendy about how sad it all was, because he wasn’t sad. He was pissed. At Michael. At his parents. Even at Wendy when she wanted to call and reminisce. And he loved his family too much to tell them how angry it still made him.
His parents had done the best they knew how. Tom understood that. He’d even told them that. But he couldn’t say it on Michael’s birthday. Not on this day. So he’d call Wendy tomorrow, and today he’d think about something else.
He meant to turn his mind to Saul Stevenson, retreating into his work as he always did, but for once it was no escape. Isabelle West kept intruding, her ass swaying as she glanced over her shoulder.
Tom smiled at the memory and figured that was as good an escape as any.
CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_13d4d90a-8a26-5b86-9faf-ec8c29ababcd)
ISABELLE SLIPPED ON FLIP-FLOPS, tugged on her gloves and glared menacingly at her messy kitchen. “It is on,” she growled, trying to pump herself up as she held the yellow latex gloves high in the air like a surgeon prepping for an operation.
She paused and frowned. “Music,” she muttered, looking around. She needed music first. Slipping off the gloves, she went in search of her phone and the stereo connector.
Thirty minutes later, she’d finally gotten the music hooked up, tracked down the gloves she’d set down somewhere during the search for the auxiliary cable, and she was poised in front of her kitchen again. “Let’s do this.”
Lauren had called with the news that afternoon. Sophie had just ridden into town and girls’ night in was a go for the next day. It was time to catch up and get drunk, not necessarily in that order. But drinking or not, no one wanted to look at the week-old macaroni noodles stuck to her stove burner. Isabelle didn’t want to look at them, either, which was why she’d been ignoring them this whole week.
But the loud music got her dancing and singing and sipping beer as she worked, and before long the kitchen was gleaming.
She moved on to the living room, tossing out magazines she’d been hoarding for months and scaring Bear out of the corner, making him hiss in fury before he disappeared into a back room. “You’re the one leaving fur everywhere!” she yelled after him. He didn’t deign to reply.
It was a good thing he’d taken off, though. She had to vacuum the rug, and if she dared to do that near him, he’d disappear for a week. They were too much alike, she and Bear.
She was feeling good tonight, though. Really good. That chaotic scene at the courthouse had actually soothed her fears. This whole thing with the judge truly was a big deal. Tom hadn’t lied about why he was sneaking around the neighborhood and knocking on doors. This had nothing to do with her, and her relief was bubbling over into giddiness. She danced around with the vacuum, singing along to Elvis Costello at the top of her lungs.
It took her only a few minutes to vacuum, but after she brought in wood from the porch and piled it next to the fireplace, she had to vacuum again. Before she was done with the second pass, Bear was screeching. Loudly. She glanced over to see him stretched up on his tiptoes, clawing at the front door. She shook her head. He kept clawing.
“Stop that!” she yelled over the vacuum. He ignored her then yowled louder when she switched off the vacuum.
“You know it’s dangerous out there,” she scolded. “There are coyotes. Mountain lions. Foxes.”
He shot her a nasty look. Yeah. He could probably take a fox. And maybe a coyote.
“There are cars sometimes,” she tried. He didn’t relent. “All right, Bear, but please come home. Don’t get lost. Okay?”
He paced in front of the door until she opened it, then shot through the narrow space, his massive body forcing its way through. “Rude,” she snapped then lunged back in shock when she saw the dark shadow looming above her.
“God!” she screamed, reaching toward the door to push it closed again.
* * *
“YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO ask who it is before you answer,” Tom said as she caught the door at the last minute and glared at him.
The terror on Isabelle’s face quickly narrowed into irritation. “Yeah, no shit!” She snapped on the outside light. “I didn’t know you were there.”
“Sorry. I knocked.”
She waved weakly toward the living room. “I had a lot of stuff going on.”
“I noticed.” He’d noticed when he’d pulled up and seen her dancing in the living room window, both with the vacuum and without it. Between the warm light shining around her in the dark and the tight orange tank top clinging to her breasts, she’d been a fucking vision. He’d watched for only a minute, though. Then he’d started to feel like a creep.
By the time he’d gotten to the porch, there’d been shouting and feline howling, plus the loud music, and all of it roaring over the vacuum.
“Elvis Costello,” he said as she closed the door behind him. “Nice.”
“He’s great to clean to. You want a beer?”
“Not today. Too much going on.”
“Well, I need something cold. I’m hot as hell.”
Yeah, he’d noticed that, too. Her cheeks were pink, and there was the faintest hint of moisture glinting off her cleavage when she moved. Jesus. He tried to look away, but then she raised her arms to pull her hair off her neck and twist it up. Her breasts rose with the movement. His eyes didn’t.
“Come on,” she said, turning away and breaking the spell. She grabbed something metal off a table as they passed and stuck it into the knot she’d made of her hair.
“The place looks nice,” he said, following the sway of her hips to the kitchen and trying to keep his mind off her curves and on the real reason he’d come.
“Thanks. I’m having a little girls’ party tomorrow.”
“I heard.”
Her head popped up over the open fridge door. “Did Jill invite you?” She didn’t sound exactly pleased.
“To girls’ night? No. But we got word from Veronica Chandler that she’d like to come.”
“Oh, that’s right. Lauren told me she was going to invite her. Are you okay with it?”
He nodded. He was more than okay with it, because it would give him an excuse to poke around this place some more. To solve this mystery. The longer he knew her, the more he thought she was hiding from something, and the more he wanted to help. “We’ll have to send a couple of agents along with her, though. We’ll try to stay out of your way.”
Her eyes narrowed a little. “I don’t want strangers in my house.”
“I’ll do it myself, if you’re more comfortable. And my second-in-command is a woman. I could bring her.”
She shrugged one shoulder and opened a beer. “I suppose that would be all right. Veronica probably needs to get out of the house if she has a bunch of you people underfoot all the time.” Isabelle took a long draw of the beer then shivered a little as she wiped the bottle over her brow. Her nipples tightened. He watched, despite that his brain was screaming at him to look away. Look away! But God, they were...perfect.
“Are you staring at my breasts, Marshal Duncan?”
He jumped as if he’d been touched with a live wire. He couldn’t deny it, and he couldn’t excuse it. “Shit. Um. I’m sorry.”
She shrugged again, and to his complete shock, she smiled. “It’s all right. If you were standing there in workout shorts, I’d stare at your ass. I guarantee it. Your thighs, too.” Her gaze slid down his body to the aforementioned area, and Tom’s face flamed. He hoped to God the enthusiasm he could feel swelling his dick wasn’t enough to be noticeable.
“Plus...” Her gaze rose slowly back up until it met his. “I’ve got nice tits.”
Her eyes didn’t waver. She didn’t look coyly away. She watched him as though she wasn’t even flirting; she was only letting him know because it was true.
But she was flirting. Clearly. And Tom fucking liked it. He liked it more than he’d liked anything in a long while.
Isabelle wasn’t beautiful in some striking way, but there was something gorgeous about the way she held herself, the way she moved. As if she didn’t give a damn what anyone else thought. You could accept her or you could move on, but either way, she’d still be here, in her place. This was where she belonged. Tom was the interloper, and it felt like an honor to be let in.
He looked at her hazel eyes, tight at the corners with amusement, and her too-strong nose, and that wide mouth, tipping up just a little at the edges. She was daring him. Tom knew he shouldn’t; he had a hundred reasons not to, but he still stepped forward and slowly raised a hand to her jaw. His fingers slid along her warm skin, tracing her, feeling the way her head tipped ever so slightly into his touch.
She rose to meet his mouth, and though he meant to keep it careful, she wasn’t interested in care. Her lips immediately softened against his, parting slightly, teasing him with her hot breath. Her tongue touched his mouth, one little lick of fire.
He couldn’t help his sound of surprise. Not surprise that she’d licked him, but that the heat of it shot through his body. Isabelle smiled against his mouth, and then she laughed. That was how he kissed her, taking a taste, touching his tongue against hers until her laugh turned to a groan, and she kissed him back.
Whoever she’d gone home with the night before hadn’t satisfied her, because she pushed up to take more of his mouth, more of his tongue. Her hand, cold from the beer, sneaked up his neck and into his hair, as if she’d hold him in place if he wanted to leave.
He wasn’t going anywhere.
Slanting his mouth over hers, he gave her what she wanted with a deep, slow kiss. Their tongues slid against each other with a rhythm that had him rock hard in no time flat. He must have moved closer, because she eased back until her hips were caught by the kitchen counter.
He held her there, his hands sliding over those sexy hips, feeling the fascinating curve of her body from ass to waist. That primal geometry told his hands and cock and brain that this was right and good. Yes, they urged him, this was the best part of life. This curve and heat and her mouth open and taking him.
Only a minute ago he’d been mortified that she might notice her physical effect on him. Now he wanted her to feel it. He wanted to press his hips to hers and ease some of the ache in his cock. He wanted her to know what he needed, what she’d done.
But fuck... He lifted his head. “Fuck,” he murmured, hands still clutching her hips.
Her throaty laugh chased over his jaw. “Yeah. I agree. That was very nice.”
His laugh was a little more pained than hers. Then again, it’d been longer than a day since he’d done this. More like eight months. Not that he was counting.
She pressed a kiss to his cheek then his chin, and then her teeth closed gently over his bottom lip. “Mmm,” she murmured before letting him go. “Let’s do it again.”
“I can’t,” he said, but he kissed her anyway. He could control himself, no question. It was just that he didn’t want to. Not when she’d tugged him a little closer, so that those gorgeous breasts were pressed against him, and her mouth drew him deeper, and if he just pressed his hips a little tighter...
He groaned into the kiss as he eased away. “I can’t get distracted right now. I’m sorry.”
“Oh. Am I distracting you?” Her smile told him she knew the answer, even before she pulled his hips into hers.
“You know you are.”
“Well, I wasn’t sure until just now.” She pressed snug against him.
Tom laughed, loving her boldness and the challenge in her eyes. “Thank God you’re not still uncertain.”
“No,” she said, pressing her hips tighter. “Not at all.” She raised one hand to slide it up his stomach to his chest, watching her hand explore until it disappeared beneath his suit jacket. “You feel really good.”
It had been a slow build before, starting with the sight of her, then her teasing, her taste, her curves. But this...this frank appreciation for his body? His heart thundered in his chest, and his cock was suddenly painfully hard. He wanted that hand of hers to slide lower. He wanted it to unzip his pants and curl around him and tighten. And he wanted her telling him how good it all was. So damn good.
“Isabelle,” he said, and just that, just her name, reminded him that he shouldn’t do this. “Stop trying to make me crazy.”
That husky laugh burst from her, and she gave him a friendly shove. “Fine. But only because you’re being cute.”
He didn’t feel cute. He felt bereft and a little betrayed that she wasn’t keeping his cock warm anymore. But that was what he’d requested, wasn’t it?
“As you can see,” she said as if normal conversation wasn’t difficult after that kiss, “everything around here is fine. You can get back to work.”
He frowned and looked around in confusion for a moment, not quite recalling what he’d meant to do. “I know how you are about your privacy, but if Veronica is going to be here for a few hours, would you let me take a closer look? Windows, doors, that sort of thing? There was a threat against the family. In fact—” he rubbed a hand over his face “—maybe it’d be better if you disinvited her.”
“No way,” Isabelle said immediately. “That girl needs a night out. Look at whatever you need to.” Her eyes narrowed just a little. “I don’t have anything to hide, Marshal.”
Damned if she didn’t lie almost as well as she kissed.
CHAPTER SEVEN (#ulink_7d4146e1-6861-5d03-aec8-18a72a31cd7f)
HE STILL SEEMED slightly out of sorts. She liked that look on him. The big, tall lawman confused by a simple little kiss.
Okay, so it hadn’t been little. Or simple. She’d been turned on before he’d even pressed his mouth to hers. And judging by the lovely size of his cock, he’d been pretty excited, too.
She’d found him attractive before, but now she knew how firm that stomach was and how his hard chest curved up so nicely into his shoulders. She looked him up and down, and her mouth watered.
“Stop it,” he muttered, taking another step back.
God, he really was adorable. “You don’t have to stand here and let me ogle you. Go on. Look around.”
He glanced past her toward the studio doors. “I’d rather you come with me.”
“You’re not seriously scared of my paintings, are you?”
“No, I’m scared of the photographs.”
It took her a moment to recognize the dry humor in his voice. “I’ll protect you. Try to think of them as part of a case file.”
“I want you to come with me because I know your privacy is important to you.”
She drew back a little in surprise that he even cared. “Okay,” she agreed and followed him back to the living room, where he spent a lot of time checking her window locks.
“Living here alone, you might want to invest in some pin locks. They slide into the frame of the window.”
“I’m too isolated to worry much about that. Anyone who wants in can just break the glass. Even Jill wouldn’t hear that.”
He grunted, not looking pleased. “You’ve got a dead bolt on the door, at least.”
“It was here when I moved in.”
“Any weapons?” he asked.
She hesitated long enough for him to stop his inspection of the door and look at her. “Yes. I’ve got a 9 millimeter.”
“Legal?” he asked, clearly wondering if that was why she’d hesitated.
“Yes.” But the Luger wasn’t. Tom didn’t need to know anything about that. Her father had given it to her. She didn’t even have ammunition for it. Still, she assumed it was illegal in more ways than one.
“Well,” he finally said, “don’t shoot any of my people if you see them poking around on girls’ night.”
“Deal.”
His eyes swept over the living room one more time before he moved on to the garage and laundry room and finally the kitchen.
“You don’t have any family?” he asked as he did a quick check of the window above her kitchen sink. She hesitated again. She could feel herself doing it and couldn’t stop it.
“I don’t see any photos,” he added.
“They’re all gone,” she said, and that was true enough. Her father was gone for good, whether he was alive or not.
“No pictures, even though they’re gone? I guess you weren’t close?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Yeah?” he pressed.
“Yeah.”
“So you don’t want to talk about your family.”
She set her jaw, preparing to lie or tell him off for prying or...something. She should never have kissed him. This was not a man whose curiosity could be easily brushed aside. But while she was chastising herself, he became distracted, staring down the double doors to her studio as if he were steeling himself.
“Come on,” she said. “The easel lights are off. It’s not so bad.”
He rolled his eyes as if he hadn’t been watching the doors as if they’d burst open and zombies would come shuffling out. She noticed he waited for her to open them.
“Don’t you have nightmares?” he asked as soon as he stepped in.
“Of course not.” Not because of her work, anyway.
He took a breath and moved quickly past the first few easels to the two-story wall of windows. “This is the weakest point in your security,” he said, testing the lock on the French doors that led out to a small deck. “But at least you have a slide lock here.”
He engaged the lock at the top of the door, pushing it into the frame. “Where does this lead?” he asked, flipping the light switch next to the door. Nothing happened.
“Sorry. It’s burnt out.”
“Could you replace the bulb tomorrow?”
“Sure. There’s a deck out there.”
He pressed his hand to the glass to see past the lights of the room. “Stairs?”
“Yes.”
“If it’s—” Something slammed against the glass. Before Isabelle could even yelp, Tom had shoved her behind his back and drawn his weapon. “Out of the room!”
“It’s just Bear!” she cried.
Tom was backing up and forcing her toward the door. “What?”
“It’s the cat.”
Bear batted at the glass slightly more gently this time. His big paw pressed against the window, the pink pads splaying out on the glass.
“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Tom barked. “That goddamn cat.”
“He just wants in.”
“Well, let him in.”
Isabelle rolled her shoulders, trying to release the tension that had latched in like claws. “He won’t come in here. He doesn’t like this room.”
“I’m not surprised!”
“It’s the smell of the paint, not the carnage. You should see what he can do to a rabbit.”
Bear hit the door harder this time, and Tom jumped even as he put the gun away. “Why is he banging on the glass if he won’t come in?”
“Because he wants me to open the door so he can stare at me while I get exasperated. Haven’t you ever had a cat?”
“I’ve missed out on that joy,” he said drily.
“They have their benefits.”
“Like?”
She smiled. “He’s really warm on a cold night when I’m alone.”
He slanted her a look as he ran a hand over a windowsill. “How often are you alone?”
“Marshal Duncan, that’s a very forward question.”
He sneaked another look over his shoulder. “That was a very forward kiss.”
She couldn’t stop her grin. “I’m not attached to anyone, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“That’s what I’m asking.”
“Why?” she asked slyly. “Are you going to kiss me again?”
He looked gratifyingly pained by the question. “I can’t. I need to get back to my assignment. Plus, we barely know each other.”
She realized her laughter was a little impolite, but she couldn’t help it. “And we’re not going to get to know each other. You live on the other side of the state. But we can still kiss.”
He finished checking the windows and turned to her, his mouth flat. “Come on. Cheyenne isn’t that far away. Tell me something about yourself.”
“You know plenty about me already. It’s your turn. Do you have family?”
“Yes. Mom and Dad, and a sister who has a family of her own.”
“Are they all in Wyoming?”
“Yes,” he answered as he led the way out of the room.
“Do you get along with them?”
“We get along fine,” he said, as if that meant anything at all. Before she could press, he asked her a question. “How did you end up here?”
“I came through on a road trip, and I liked it.” Another truth. She was getting almost comfortable with it. “Why aren’t you married?”
He didn’t hesitate. “I travel too much.”
“Oh? So US Marshals don’t get married?”
“Fine. I never met the right woman. I don’t want kids, so that complicates things, or so I’ve been told.” He didn’t look to see if she was following him toward her bedroom.
“Now we’re getting interesting. Why don’t you want kids?”
“Why don’t you? You’re, what...midthirties? Why aren’t you married?”
Ha. She could answer that. “I’m thirty-six. And I’m too mean.”
He stopped and turned toward her. “You’re not mean.”
“Oh, really? Am I nice?”
His head cocked, and he studied her for a moment. “You’re not nice, exactly.”
She laughed so hard she had to press a hand to her stomach to try to control it. “I like your honesty,” she managed to say past her gasps. “You’re pretty cool.”
“Now, that’s something I haven’t heard in a really long time.”
“Then we’re even.”
They stared at each other for a long moment before Tom shook his head. “Shit, I want to kiss you.”
“Do it,” she dared him, her insides already tightening at the idea.
But his gaze slid to her bed, and he shook his head. “I can’t.”
“Afraid I’ll lure you into my bed and steal your virtue?”
“If you can find my virtue, you can have it. And if that’s a euphemism, even better. But what I’m afraid of is having to leave in twenty minutes. Not very memorable. And...” He held up a hand as if reminding himself. “I really shouldn’t get involved when I’m in your house on official business. Now tell me why you’re not married.”
“Tell me why you don’t want kids.”
That shut him up, and Isabelle was free to watch him work for the next five minutes until he left with a warning about locking the door. And with no goodbye kiss.
But that was okay. She could wait. He’d give in before long. And in the meantime, she could fantasize about exactly how it would happen.
* * *
DAMN. TOM WAS in deep trouble. He hadn’t meant to kiss her. It would’ve been a bad idea even without the extra complication that he was looking into her on the side. He had Veronica Chandler to protect, and he couldn’t mess around with Isabelle when he was on duty.
More than that was the trouble of Isabelle herself. Tom had been thirty-one before he’d realized he couldn’t trust himself with women. Not because he had a roaming eye or a callous heart or a cruel streak, but because he didn’t. He’d been a sucker for the damsel in distress. The soft girl who couldn’t quite figure life out. He’d been smart enough not to fall for any hard cases, but that had only made it worse. When a girl was hot and helpless and nice, it was really hard to break things off when you finally realized you needed to.
Isabelle wasn’t like that, of course. He’d finally aged out of those immature attractions. Isabelle was capable and tough and smart as hell. But she was still in some sort of trouble. He couldn’t add sex to the mix, especially when he could tell just how good it was going to be. He couldn’t do that when he was still checking into her past.
“Damn it,” he growled as he drove carefully down her snow-packed driveway and eased onto the road.
All he wanted to do was turn around, bang on her door and spend the next few hours in her bed. But he couldn’t.
Despite his misgivings, he might not have had the willpower to make it out of there, but then she’d said she liked his honesty. When the only reason he’d asked her to stay close in her house was so he could probe her about her past.
He should drop it, but he couldn’t. What if she was in danger? Worse yet, what if she was a criminal and he didn’t do his job because he would rather have sex with her?
He shook his head. Dropping it wasn’t an option. He couldn’t ignore his gut at this point. The most he could do was keep his suspicions quiet until he found out the truth.
You didn’t just ignore trouble. He’d learned that the hard way at a young age. Those were the kind of lessons you got when your older brother was a drug addict. When the choice came down to honesty or tricking someone into getting help, you dropped honesty every time.
If Isabelle needed help, she’d never admit it. And if she’d done something wrong, he couldn’t ignore it.
Simple enough, but he felt like biting someone’s head off by the time he got out of the car and stalked toward the judge’s house. He wanted to slam the door open and yell at everyone in sight, but it wasn’t his home, and his people hadn’t done anything wrong.
Mary was waiting for him as soon as he hit the basement stairs. “Did you really approve this night out for Veronica?” she snapped.
“Yes.”
“Why?” Her tone suggested he’d lost his mind, and she was about to help him find it.
“Veronica didn’t have to come here. We can’t keep her prisoner. And it’s not like she wants to go to the state fair. It’s a private residence within shouting distance of our base. It shouldn’t be difficult.”
Mary was about to argue with him. He could see that as clearly as if she’d said it, but eventually she closed her mouth and nodded. “Okay. Fine. Who are you sending over?”
“You.”
“Me?” she screeched.
“I’m going, too.”
“What the hell, Tom? We’ve got twelve additional people here now, and this is a job for a first-year deputy.”
He couldn’t tell her that the real reason was that he wanted to spy on Isabelle. He also couldn’t tell Mary that he wanted her to meet Jill. She’d dig in her heels and tell him to mind his own business. She was always telling him to mind his own business; he never did. “Those guys need all their attention on the courthouse. We know how to pace ourselves. You can sleep in the next day if you need to.”
“I don’t need to sleep in!” she growled before stomping up the stairs. That was the end of the discussion. Good.
They’d debriefed in the meeting room after court had adjourned, but that didn’t mean there weren’t twenty emails waiting for him. So far there’d been no activity at the judge’s place, and Stevenson hadn’t been spotted in Jackson or Boise or anywhere in between.
Tom wrote an update for his chief, laying out his plan to feed only the smallest bits of information to the press so as not to inspire any of the defendant’s sympathizers. Then he sent an email to his team with a few more specifics about tomorrow’s detail, requested an expedited review of the letter from the consulting psychiatrist and was finally ready to turn in at eleven.
But he had something else to look into.
He’d considered taking a long-range photo of Isabelle and feeding it into a reverse image search, but if she’d kept a low profile for the past fourteen years, it probably wouldn’t pan out. No point stepping that far over the line into invading her privacy. He’d also considered that he could’ve lifted some small piece of garbage from her trash to get her fingerprints, but that felt even more wrong. He really wanted to leave a moral pathway open to sleeping with her.
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Victoria Dahl
There's no hiding from sizzling chemistry…Artist Isabelle West has good reasons for preferring a solitary life. Tucked away in a cabin in the woods, she has everything she needs…except a red-hot love life. That is, until a hard-bodied US marshal threatens to unearth secrets she's spent years protecting. But giving in to the sparks flying between them can only lead to one thing…disaster.Tom Duncan lives by the letter of the law. But no one has tempted him–or confused him–more than free-spirited Isabelle, who arouses his suspicion and his desire. As their connection grows, and their nights get hotter, they find their wild attraction might shake everything he stands for–and expose everything she has to hide.
There’s no hiding from sizzling chemistry…
Artist Isabelle West has good reasons for preferring a solitary life. Tucked away in a cabin in the woods, she has everything she needs…except a red-hot love life. That is, until a hard-bodied US marshal threatens to unearth secrets she’s spent years protecting. But giving in to the sparks flying between them can only lead to one thing…disaster.
Tom Duncan lives by the letter of the law. But no one has tempted him—or confused him—more than free-spirited Isabelle, who arouses his suspicion and his desire. As their connection grows, and their nights get hotter, they find their wild attraction might shake everything he stands for—and expose everything she has to hide.
Bonus Novella!
For your enjoyment, we’ve added in this volume
Fanning the Flames, a Girls’ Night Out story by Victoria Dahl!
Praise for the novels of USA TODAY
bestselling author
VICTORIA
DAHL
“Wonderfully unconventional and deliciously sultry…among [Dahl’s] hottest to date.”
—RT Book Reviews on Looking for Trouble
“Dahl brings her signature potent blend of heated eroticism and emotional punch to another Jackson Hole cowboy story, to great success.”
—Kirkus Reviews on So Tough to Tame
“So Tough to Tame was a delicious, funny, warm-hearted read… Obviously I highly recommend this book. It’s like a comfort read with a dose of sass and smarts; it’s just about perfect.”
—Smart Bitches, Trashy Books
“Dahl adds her signature hot sex scenes and quirky characters to this lively mix of romance in the high country.”
—Booklist on Too Hot to Handle
“Victoria Dahl never fails to bring the heat.”
—RT Book Reviews on Too Hot to Handle
“Hits the emotional high notes. Rising romance star Dahl delivers with this sizzling contemporary romance.”
—Kirkus Reviews on Close Enough to Touch
“This is one hot romance.”
—RT Book Reviews on Good Girls Don’t
“A hot and funny story about a woman many of us can relate to.”
—Salon.com on Crazy for Love
“[A] hands-down winner, a sensual story filled with memorable characters.”
—Booklist on Start Me Up
“Sassy and smokingly sexy, Talk Me Down is one delicious joyride of a book.”
—New York Times bestselling author Connie Brockway
Flirting with Disaster
Victoria Dahl
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Cover (#u1cac72fe-e372-5583-afcd-a1d6f98e460a)
Back Cover Text (#uf6fcaacc-d0e3-577e-b540-2458f26b3eda)
Praise (#u61d0de11-6bba-5764-9a4c-af81f06b4b9b)
Title Page (#u9a6682fe-a73a-5ad6-8be4-b54e3375a7ea)
Dedication (#u675384d6-bb91-576c-8931-302140a62e59)
FLIRTING WITH DISASTER (#ulink_60c7c343-25b7-5160-a96f-d63044aa595a)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_9169f6be-032c-5aa7-ba23-cccd9b1e8fea)
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_f3684900-7329-53a3-bf8d-8cfde132d8aa)
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_0c05bd3e-d792-581d-8d7a-d70c04ea5b79)
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_5d848ab0-1bd3-5eff-a4a1-5cfa8aa69743)
CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_6b7bf81f-30af-5911-88c2-d8e78c4b48a0)
CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_b529156e-99e7-57cc-bd6c-977fac34f0bf)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#ulink_d9185994-fe0e-5ea7-8277-afefbf746ed5)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINETEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO (#litres_trial_promo)
FANNING THE FLAMES (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWO (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THREE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
This book is for everyone who’s had to start over.
Flirting with Disaster (#ulink_f00d306b-9338-5cf5-ba55-101bfb45a97b)
Victoria Dahl
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_390e0052-f355-5f64-853f-d248d0cb80e1)
ISABELLE WEST EDGED her SUV up the steep driveway and winced as she heard a grocery bag tip over. She tried to identify the dull rolling sound that followed. Probably the cantaloupe. But maybe just a can of soup. It’d be a little surprise for her when she opened the hatch and saw what sprang out and tumbled through the snow toward the trees.
She was getting tired of that particular surprise and promised herself she’d order the cargo net as soon as she got inside. She’d been meaning to do it for...maybe two years now. But today she’d remember. She was trying to teach herself to be proactive. Or at least to manage the small things that every other adult seemed to have no problem with.
As she rounded the last curve of the drive and spied her little cabin, she wrinkled her nose. Not because of the cabin. She loved that. It was perfect for her in every way with its dark log walls and big windows and front porch. What made her wince was the sight of the manual garage door past the haze of snow sifting from the sky, a reminder that she’d also been meaning to call about getting a garage-door opener installed. That one had been on her mental to-do list for at least four years. Definitely not five.
“I’ll do that, too,” she said to herself as she pulled close to the garage door and tugged up the hood of her coat. “As a matter of fact...” She dug her phone from her pocket and held down the button. “Phone, remind me to order a cargo net and call a garage guy.”
The phone beeped and said, “I’m sorry—I didn’t catch that.”
Gritting her teeth, Isabelle hit the button again. “Remind me to buy a cargo net and call the garage guy.”
“I’m sorry—did you need me to find a mechanic?”
“Fuck you,” Isabelle growled. She ducked out of her car, thankful that the giant, wet flakes of this morning had given way to the dry Wyoming snow she was more used to. The snow sounded like sand as it bounced off her jacket and slid to the ground.
She wrenched up the garage door and got back to her car without getting wet at all. But she couldn’t say the same about her cantaloupe. As soon as she opened the gate of her SUV, it rolled past her outstretched hand and straight into a snowbank.
“Fuck you, too,” she said to the cantaloupe, then felt immediately guilty. It took her only a minute to rescue the melon and dust off as much snow as she could. It hadn’t really caused that much trouble. It took a lot more time to repack the bag that had tipped over and haul it inside.
Next time, she’d remember to put the boxes of art supplies she’d picked up from the post office into the back; then she’d have room to store the groceries on the floor of her backseat, where they’d be less likely to—
“Art supplies!” she gasped and rushed back out to the truck to haul in the boxes of goodies.
She grinned as she set the first box on the kitchen table and slit the tape to reveal the treasures inside. She’d been out of yellow ocher for three days now, and even though she hadn’t needed it, the lack had hovered at the back of her mind like a foreshadowing of tragedy to come. She snatched up the tube and breathed a sigh of relief. Disaster averted. She was whole again.
After unpacking the box and carefully laying out each precious item on the kitchen table, she retrieved the other two boxes from the backseat and went through the same routine. She beamed at the sight of the bounty spread over the table. Seven more tubes of color, a new studio light to get her through the winter, a dozen prestretched canvases and her favorite brush conditioner that smelled like something close to sandalwood. It made the task of looking after her brushes almost soothing. Discovering it last year had been a treat.
Satisfied with her unveiling of the goods, she made five trips to the room she used as her studio, shelving the paints she didn’t need yet and getting the new lamp set up at her current workstation. She played with the LED settings for a while, still dubious about the idea that she could get good color temperatures, but the settings seemed sufficient. Nice, even.
“Hmm.” Isabelle crossed her arms and stared at the unfinished painting, trying to decide if the daylight setting was pure enough. There weren’t new technological advancements in the world of oil painting very often, so she’d be happy if she could get excited about this one. Still, she’d have to work under the light for a couple of hours and see how it felt.
During the summer, she wouldn’t need it much at all. This room was meant to be the great room of the cabin, and windows climbed up the two-story wall to the peak of the roof. The windows faced south, and during the summer, she had good light here for nearly twelve hours of every day. But during the winter, there were only a few decent hours of sunlight, and that was assuming the sky was clear.
As a matter of fact... She glanced out, hoping to spot an approaching break in the clouds, but it was solid white out there. A good time to try the lamp, then. It was almost two, so she should force herself to grab lunch first, but then she’d have hours to work.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the heavy slide of fur against her ankle. “Hey, Bear,” she said to the cat, surprised by his affection. He was an ornery twenty-pound stray who’d wandered into her cabin three years before, and he didn’t cuddle often.
He meowed loudly for attention, but when she leaned down to scratch his chin, he sidestepped and eyed her scornfully. “I suppose you just want food?” she asked. She’d run out of wet food yesterday, which was why—
“The groceries!” she gasped, but her heart barely managed a quick leap before she calmed it down. The bags in the SUV were fine. It was cold enough that she could leave them overnight and not lose anything. Except bananas, maybe. Those weren’t as hardy as people thought, not in the cold. If it were summer, though... Yeah. She’d lost hundreds of dollars of food that way over the years. But this time the only bag in danger was the one on her kitchen counter.
She rushed to the kitchen and unpacked that bag, happy to find that, aside from that damp cantaloupe, everything else was perfect. She shoved a frozen meal into the microwave, opened a can of food for Bear and went to haul in the rest of the bags. Half an hour later, she was organized, full of chicken piccata and happily planted in front of her canvas, adding a glistening highlight to a long stretch of a man’s triceps.
Glancing from the canvas to a spread of photos hung on a board next to it, she nodded. “Perfect.” Her eyes swept down the triceps muscle to the hard knot of elbow beneath it. What a beautiful line.
Her attention twitched for a moment, and Isabelle glared at the gleam of the light on wet paint, but then she shook off the random irritation and dipped her brush in white again. Just the tiniest drag of paint, just—
Her hand jerked, nearly touching the canvas before she pulled back. “What the hell?” she snapped as she finally registered that a sound had interrupted her. A loud sound. The staccato knock of some stranger come to screw up her workday.
She wanted to ignore it. It definitely wasn’t Jill, her neighbor and the only person who dropped by unannounced. Jill didn’t knock like that. She rarely knocked at all, because she knew Isabelle wouldn’t hear it. But it could be one of Isabelle’s other friends. Lauren. Or maybe even Sophie, who was supposed to be back in town soon.
Had Isabelle forgotten another meetup? It was possible. She vaguely remembered Lauren mentioning something about a new girl they might be able to bring into their little group of friends since Sophie was usually on the road these days.
Isabelle set down the brush, wiped her hands on a rag and decided she’d have to answer the door, just in case.
Whoever it was knocked one more time, just as Isabelle reached for the door. She yanked it open, ready to apologize to Lauren, but it wasn’t Lauren. Or Sophie. Or any other girlfriend. It was a man, taller than she was, snow dusting his short, dark hair and drifting in on the breeze as she frowned.
“Sorry to disturb you, Ms....?”
Really? He was going to start this off by asking for her name? “Yes?” she responded, tempted to close the door on his face and march right back to her studio. Whatever he was selling, she didn’t want it.
His gaze sharpened a bit, but his chin dipped in acknowledgment, and he reached into the pocket of the nondescript navy blue parka he wore. “I’m Deputy US Marshal Tom Duncan.”
Her hand tightened on the doorknob, and something went wrong with her ears. His lips kept moving, but she couldn’t hear the words. Then he paused, watching her as if waiting for a response.
Isabelle cleared her throat, hoping the noise would force her ears back into working condition. “I’m sorry,” she said with more calm than she could believe. “I wasn’t paying attention. Who are you?”
His brow tightened with irritation. “I’m Deputy Marshal Tom Duncan.”
“I got that part,” she bit out, her veins too flooded with fight-or-flight to keep her voice even now.
“I’m in the neighborhood as part of a protection detail, and—”
“This isn’t a neighborhood,” she interrupted, angry that he couldn’t come up with a better excuse. Did he think she was an idiot?
“All right,” he said carefully, his jaw clenching around the words. She’d made him mad. Good. She hoped he was cold, too. Because he was ruining more than her day. He was ruining something much larger than that.
He tried again. “I’m in the immediate area with a protection team, and I wanted to make contact with each of the residents. First—”
“What immediate area?” She glanced pointedly toward the one other house on her road, knowing damn well that Jill didn’t need the sort of protection a US marshal provided. This was ridiculous. Why was he even pretending?
“Ma’am,” he snapped, the word crisp with impatience. “We’re on Judge Anthony Chandler’s property. I understand that he may not live on your road, but his residence is only a half mile through those trees. I’m informing you and all of your neighbors in case you see anyone from the marshal service near your property or on the road. If you see anyone you don’t recognize, please give me a call.”
He held out a card, and Isabelle glanced at it. She didn’t take it. “You want me to call you.”
“Yes. If it’s one of my people, I’ll confirm that. However, if it’s not one of my people, then it could be the fugitive who’s threatened Judge Chandler’s life.” He held up a creased photo of an unremarkable-looking white man in his forties.
Isabelle finally took the card and examined it as she spoke. “Someone threatened Judge Chandler, so I should expect a team of marshals hanging around my property. That’s what you’re telling me?”
“Yes.” His gaze drifted past her shoulder, looking into her house. “Are you the only one living here at this time?”
“That’s not your concern.”
His eyes snapped back to her. “It’s very important for your safety and for ours that we be aware of any unusual activity. Trespassers, items missing from your home or property, even trash you might find on a trail. Have you seen anything unusual?”
Isabelle gave him a flat look. “Just you.”
His jaw tightened again. It was a nice jaw. A nice face altogether, lean and angled and just starting to show his age around his eyes. Too bad he was a liar.
“The man who threatened the judge is a survivalist, the brother of Ephraim Stevenson, whose trial begins on Monday. I’m advising you to be aware. And please notify any other residents of your home to do the same.”
She held his gaze for a long moment, trying to give nothing away while still conveying that she knew this story was bullshit. That he wasn’t fooling her. That she wasn’t scared.
But she was.
“Sure, Marshal,” she finally said, forcing a patently pleasant smile. “I’m happy to cooperate with any reasonable law-enforcement requests. But I’d appreciate it if you stayed off my property. If I need your help, I’ll let you know.”
She stepped back and closed the door. Hard. The defiance dropped from her shoulders. She covered her eyes with one shaking hand. For a moment, there was silence outside. Then she heard the crunch of his boots on her snowy porch steps. Isabelle leaned her back against the door and slowly slid down until she hit the floor.
They’d found her.
The ax had always been hanging over her, waiting to drop. In this day and age, you could never truly disappear. Not for good. But she’d tried.
For a girl like her, it hadn’t been easy. She’d been sheltered. Twenty-two years old, but still a child in important ways. Always taken care of, always protected.
Still, she’d managed to hide for fourteen years. She’d moved several times, assumed a new identity, built a successful career. But they’d found her.
So why hadn’t Deputy Marshal Tom Duncan arrested her immediately?
Surprised to find her eyes were blurry with tears, Isabelle wiped the wetness from her face and pushed up to her feet. She slipped over to the front window and carefully peeked outside.
The only sign of him was the set of footprints that led up to her porch and the set leading back down to her drive. There wasn’t quite enough fresh snow that she could track his prints down her driveway, but he hadn’t sneaked off into the deep snow at the side of her house. He was gone. Which didn’t make sense.
She wasn’t a dangerous criminal. She hadn’t even been a criminal at all until she’d purchased fake IDs and changed her identity. If he’d come here to arrest her for that, he would’ve just arrested her. He didn’t need to retreat to assemble a backup team or call SWAT. A set of handcuffs would’ve done the trick. Even one of those plastic zip ties would’ve incapacitated her.
So they weren’t here to make a simple arrest. There was only one explanation. Her father must be back in the country, and they assumed he’d be in contact with Isabelle. They were going to watch and wait.
“Asshole,” she muttered as she closed the curtains and locked her door. She hadn’t bothered with that kind of thing in years. She’d finally felt safe from the world up here in the mountains outside Jackson, Wyoming. What the hell was she going to do now?
She stood in her entry for a moment with no clue what her next move was. She couldn’t run again. She didn’t want to. This was her life. Her real life. The world she’d chosen for herself.
She wouldn’t run.
Fuzzy with shock, she headed back to her studio, feeling like a toy that was slowly winding down.
Did that guy really think she’d fall for such a flimsy story? She’d been around cops all her life. A protection detail was a protection detail; they didn’t canvass neighborhoods asking who you were hiding in your house.
Her head buzzed with the noise of a thousand memories as she stopped before her easel and took up the brush. She held it poised above the line she’d painted earlier, but the color wasn’t alive anymore. It wasn’t good. She looked at the photos again, trying to absorb the life captured there, but when she looked back to the canvas, her mind gave her nothing. Nothing except Chicago and her parents and her old home and friends and Patrick.
She set the brush down and switched off the lamp. She wouldn’t be able to work this evening. And she wouldn’t be able to relax. That was the reason she’d started this new life in the first place. For peace and quiet and forgetting. And now he’d blown it up with a casually dropped bomb. Deputy Marshal Tom Duncan, asshole extraordinaire.
Heading toward her tiny living room and the ancient laptop she kept there, Isabelle pulled his card from the pocket of her jeans and shot it a nasty look. She’d find out exactly who he was and what he wanted, and she’d figure out if there was any way to make it better. And then she’d get back to painting.
* * *
TOM STOPPED AT the end of the snowy driveway and glanced back toward the cabin. He could barely see it from here. Just the highest point of the roof, the sharp corner dark against the gray clouds and blurred by falling snow. But her house number was posted here on the road, likely only because it was required by law. The woman didn’t seem the type to welcome unfamiliar visitors. Certainly not the kind with badges.
Still, her reaction wasn’t necessarily unusual in Wyoming. Plenty of good people around here were raised to distrust the federal government. That didn’t mean they were doing anything wrong. They were just private. And maybe that was exactly what she was, too.
But Tom’s mind buzzed with warning. He’d find out who she was, at least. See if she had a past. Or a warrant.
He typed her address into his phone to reference later, then tucked it away so it wouldn’t get wet as he walked through the snow to the next house a few hundred yards down the road.
She’d looked harmless enough. In her thirties, maybe, dark haired and serious, though her skin had been streaked with the occasional swipe of color on her fingers and wrists. An artist, he assumed. Eccentric. So maybe she was only growing pot in her basement.
He glanced back again. From this spot in the road he could see her dark front window. She wasn’t watching him leave, at least. Still, Tom was too curious to wait until later to find out more about her, so he pulled his radio out and transmitted her address to the local sheriff’s office for identification. It took only a moment for his radio to squawk back.
“Tax records show that property belongs to Isabelle West. Purchased in 2006.”
Tom made note of that on his phone as he headed up the next driveway. This cabin sat a little closer to the road, and lights blazed from every window, despite that it was only 4:00 p.m. The afternoon was dreary enough to need it, but the rooms behind Isabelle West had been dark.
Further research would have to wait until he was at his computer, but he couldn’t stop himself from looking toward her place again, noting that from this cabin’s front porch, he could see the steps that led up to the other cabin and part of its driveway. He watched for one moment then raised his hand and knocked.
“Be right there!” a woman called, her footsteps quickly moving closer. The door nearly flew open.
Her greeting was a marked contrast to what he’d received from Isabelle West. This woman was a little older. Fifty, or maybe a bit older than that, as the black twists of her hair were streaked with gray. Her wide smile grew wider as she looked him up and down. “Hello!”
“Ma’am,” he said, flipping out his badge, “I’m Deputy US Marshal Tom Duncan. Sorry to bother you, but I’m giving everyone in the area a heads-up that we’re on protective detail in—”
“Oh! Is this about Judge Chandler? That poor man. I read about it in the paper. You’re no bother at all, you fine thing. Come on in out of the cold.”
“Ma’am, I—”
“Don’t ma’am me. Have I gotten that old, or are you just past charming? Nothing wrong with calling a woman miss. Or ms., if you’re going to quote me. I don’t want my feminist card revoked. I’ve worked too damn hard.”
Tom blinked several times and followed her into her house and all the way through to a kitchen where the aroma of roasting meat overwhelmed him. Cast-iron pans hung from the ceiling along with dried braids of garlic and herbs that he’d never be able to name. Whatever they were, they smelled damn good.
“I have the perfect tea to warm you up, Tom.” She paused and turned purposefully toward him. “I’m Jill Washington.”
He shook her outstretched hand. “A pleasure to meet you, Ms. Washington.”
She flashed a smile at that, then got back to work making tea. Tom didn’t particularly like tea—he was a black-coffee kind of guy—but he’d do everything possible to keep her friendly. If he needed an ally in this non-neighborhood, she was clearly the prime candidate.
“I’m getting snow on your floor,” he said, reaching to take his boots off, but she shook her head.
“That’s why they’re stone. Hard on the back, but they absorb all manner of sins. Your boots are fine, so say what you came here to say.” She bustled around her kitchen as she spoke, getting cups and saucers and a tiny pitcher of cream.
As he took a seat, Tom gave her the same speech he’d given Isabelle West, though with a very different result. Jill was all concerned expressions and sympathetic tutting as he explained why he needed community support. The judge’s home was isolated, and the man refused to live in a hotel for the two weeks the trial was expected to last. “Everyone around here knows each other. You know better than I who belongs here and who doesn’t.”
“Well, it’ll be easy to spot strangers here on Spinster Row.”
He frowned as he accepted the cup of tea and waved off the cream. “Thank you. Spinster Row?”
She laughed, the sound natural and well used. “A joke. It’s just Isabelle and me on this part of the road. She’s unattached, and my relationship is complicated, starting with the fact that my girlfriend has been stationed in Guantánamo for two years and doesn’t seem inclined to come visit. But that’s more than you asked.”
But not more than he wanted to know. “I met Ms. West a few minutes ago. An artist of some kind?”
“A painter.”
Maybe she really was a free-spirited libertarian who didn’t like government types. “So it’s just you two up here? No kids or live-in companions I should know about?”
“It’s just us. I guess I shouldn’t tell a stranger that, even if he is a cop, but everyone else around here knows.”
“I promise I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t need the information,” he assured her. “I live alone myself. I understand the safety issues.”
She laughed heartily at his wink.
“And what do you do for a living, Ms. Washington?”
“I’m a chef. Or I used to be, I suppose. Now I write cookbooks and while away my days here in my little place. It’s just me and the elk and a deep freezer full of test recipes. Oh! I’ve got just the thing for you. Beef Stroganoff. You look like a red-meat kind of boy, and you’re probably living off pizza on a job like this. Where are you from?” She hurried to the freezer and pulled out a paper-wrapped packet.
Tom knew the polite thing would be to say no, and he really wasn’t supposed to accept gifts, but his stomach tightened at the thought of giving up a good meal. He was sleeping on a cot in the judge’s basement, and despite it being a rather luxurious basement, it wasn’t home.
He gratefully took the frozen meal. “Thank you. That’s very generous. I’m over in Cheyenne.”
“Are you single? Four hundred and fifty miles might be considered long distance in most states, but here in Wyoming, Cheyenne’s practically within dating range of Jackson. I’m not asking for myself, of course.” She looked purposefully in the direction of Isabelle West’s house.
Tom smiled, hoping to charm her into giving up a little information about her neighbor. “Ms. West didn’t seem inclined to find out more about me.”
“Oh, God, that’s just Isabelle. If she was working when you knocked on her door, you’re lucky she didn’t throw her brush at you.”
Not exactly a recommendation for dating, but Tom didn’t mention that. “She did seem a bit antisocial.”
“Don’t let her fool you. She’s a lot of fun, but she does value her alone time. Like most people up here, really.”
“But not you?”
She laughed again, shaking her head. “I can talk to anyone. For hours.”
“Well, I’m afraid I have to move on before the sun sets.”
“Fine, but stop by for dinner tomorrow. You protect me from that crazy Stevenson man, and I’ll feed you. Deal?”
He stood and shook her hand. “Deal.” He’d take her up on dinner in case he had more questions about Isabelle West. And because it was only day two, and he was already sick of pizza. And his team.
There were only five of them here, and his second-in-command was staying at a hotel across from the courthouse. They had a temporary office at the courthouse, but they were using the judge’s place as a base, so Tom had decided it was best for operations if he stayed on site. Good for operations, maybe, but not good for his mood. At least the room he was sleeping in had a door, and there was a kitchenette in the larger open area of the basement. He could microwave his beef Stroganoff and close his door while he looked into the mystery of the grumpy artist down the road. She probably wasn’t a threat, but he trusted his instincts enough to do a quick check.
But first he had two more miles of forest to check out and a few motion-sensitive cameras to test. Duty before mysterious artist. Or beef Stroganoff, unfortunately.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_c754ff8d-2988-5399-a43c-6bab1f243869)
GOD, SHE HATED PEOPLE. Even living in a cabin in the Wyoming wilderness wasn’t far enough away to be rid of them. Here they were, seeping into her house through seams and crevices, like slime. Or sludge. Or a trail of annoying ants.
Isabelle groaned and let her head fall back onto the office chair wedged into the corner of her small living room. Her neck hurt from hunching over the computer for too many hours. It wasn’t a natural fit for her. The only things she used her laptop for were ordering supplies, shopping for books and looking at gorgeous men online.
But she’d spent last night and all of today clicking through link after link looking for a clue, any clue at all. She’d found nothing.
Marshal Tom Duncan was exactly who he said he was. No surprise there. And there were some articles about Judge Chandler and the security issues surrounding the trial of a survivalist who’d killed two state troopers. His brother had been involved in the shoot-out and hadn’t been seen since, but he’d sent a threatening letter just a week ago.
So there was a case in town that involved the marshals. There was a possible reason for Tom Duncan to be here. But she still wasn’t buying it. She knew how these people worked. He’d look into her life just for the fun of it. Just because he was in the neighborhood. And he wouldn’t give a damn about what it would do to her.
She hadn’t worked at all today. She’d stood in front of her current project, the biggest painting of the commission, and she’d done nothing but stare. Her hands had failed her. Her father was in her head again. Him and all the dangerous, lying men he’d brought into her world.
Now she was back at the computer, searching, searching. But there was nothing about her father there. Nothing but ancient newspaper articles and old court filings and everything she already knew. He’d thoroughly disappeared from the world. He hadn’t been seen in fourteen years. If they were after her again, it wasn’t because her father was back in the news.
So...what if Tom Duncan wasn’t lying?
“Right,” she huffed. They were always lying. All of them. She was vulnerable, so they’d play with her like a toy.
But there were such things as coincidences. There was a tiny possibility that a US marshal had shown up on her doorstep, and it had nothing to do with her father being a federal fugitive and Isabelle being an impostor. If that was true, she had to play it cool. Cautious and careful, but cool.
Isabelle stretched hard and pushed up from the chair. She’d found all she could online. Now she was chasing the same phantoms around and around. Tomorrow she’d paint even if she had to force it. But tonight she needed a shower. And a drink.
Forty-five minutes later, she twisted up her damp hair, shrugged on a thick coat and grabbed two bottles of wine. One for her and one for Jill. Tonight, Isabelle wasn’t sharing.
It was almost full dark by the time she set off, but she wasn’t worried. On the off chance that a murderer was actually hanging around, his interest wasn’t in Isabelle. The Stevenson family hated cops and judges, and a solitary woman with no family or connections wouldn’t make very good leverage if he decided to take hostages.
She trudged through the snow toward the bright glow of Jill’s house, not bothering to head for the road. The snow was deep here, but it was a straight shot, and she liked the lost feeling of wandering through the trees. The moon kept her company the whole way.
“I brought dinner,” she called, holding up the bottles as Jill opened the door.
“Oh, and here I bothered making a pork roast.”
“We can have that, too, if you want. It’s up to you.”
“Lush,” Jill said, ushering her in and taking her coat. “I’m just glad there’s someone around for me to eat with or I’d go crazy.”
“I’d say the same about drinking,” Isabelle said. She tugged off her boots with a sigh. “God, I’ve had a crappy day.”
“The painting isn’t going well?”
“I didn’t paint one damn stroke today.”
Jill opened the first bottle and poured two generous glasses. “Does that put you behind?”
“No, I was a little ahead of schedule. It just pisses me off.” She glanced around the kitchen, noticing the loaves of herbed bread cooling on the counter. “Uh-oh. You’re baking bread. A bad day for you, too?”
Jill arched a sour look over the tops of her reading glasses as she collapsed into the couch. Isabelle had never seen a couch in a kitchen before coming here, but Jill lived in this room, and it was big enough for the couch and the eight-person table that sat a few feet away.
She joined Jill and brought the rest of the wine for good measure.
“Well,” Jill sighed, “we’re officially seeing other people.”
Isabelle gasped before she could stop herself. “You did it?”
“I issued the ultimatum, and Marguerite took me up on it, so I’m not sure if I did it or she did.”
“Shit,” Isabelle whispered, taking Jill’s hand to give it a squeeze. “I’m sorry. So it’s over?”
“I told her I needed additional company if I couldn’t see her more than twice a year. I’m not saying it’s over, but... She chose to spend her last week of leave on her own. So I guess I’ll be seeing other women.”
Isabelle gently clinked her glass against Jill’s. “Back in the saddle?”
“If I still remember how to ride. Marguerite’s last visit was eight months ago.”
“You’re probably better off than I am,” Isabelle said drily.
“I don’t want to hear that bullshit. I’m a black lesbian living in Wyoming. You get no sympathy from me.”
Isabelle laughed until she snorted. “Okay, you’ve got me there. Then again, nobody’s forcing you to live in Wyoming.”
“No, but...” Jill waggled her eyebrows. “The flip side of that is I’m the only one around to fill the black-lesbian niche. Time to get back on the circuit.”
“All right. You’ll come out with me and Lauren for this week’s girls’ night out.”
Jill shook her head. “No. I’m too old for that.”
“Bullshit. You’re fifty-five. You’re hardly any older than I am.”
Jill howled. “Are you kidding me? You’re thirty-six. Imagine how much you’ve learned since the age of sixteen, and then double that for wisdom. That’s how close we are in age.”
Isabelle rolled her eyes. “It feels a lot closer than that.”
“Well, it’s not. So next time you have a girls’ night in, let me know.”
“Come on,” Isabelle pressed. “How will you meet anyone if you don’t get out?”
“It’s called internet dating. Maybe you’ve heard of it. I’ve spent more years picking up sexy young things at bars than you have. I’m done.”
Isabelle gave in with a grumble. When Jill dug in her heels, that was the end of it. “Well, I’m sorry. I know last time Marguerite was here, you two were trying to work through it.”
Jill waved a hand and got up to peek into the oven. “Enough about that. It’s all I’ve been thinking about for months. And I’ve got the perfect new topic.” She pulled the roast from the oven and smiled at Isabelle past the steam. “That hot US marshal who came by yesterday.”
Isabelle groaned, then immediately wished she could take the sound back. It revealed too much. The man should mean nothing to her. She latched on to her only excuse. “He interrupted my work.”
“Woman. No wonder you can’t get laid. Did you see him?”
Isabelle frowned. Yes, she’d seen him. He’d been tall. Lean. With short, dark hair just turning a bit gray at the temples. And if she thought about it, he’d had a pretty great face. A strong nose and dark eyebrows over intense green eyes. And lips that looked soft to the touch against all that masculinity. “Hmm,” she replied.
“Hmm, indeed. Aren’t you always saying you wish you could get home delivery of someone like him?”
No. Not someone like him. Someone like him but in no way associated with law enforcement. “He was fine. Do you think his story was legit?”
“About the judge? Are you kidding me? It’s been in the local paper all week. That man threatened to blow something up. You know the judge lives on the next road down the hill.”
Isabelle shrugged. “I guess I haven’t been reading the news.”
Jill got plates from the cupboard, but Isabelle didn’t get up to help. She knew from experience that Jill would only wave her away. Jill’s work was her art. There were sauces to be smeared and rosemary sprigs to be placed just so.
“You haven’t met the judge?” Jill asked.
“I don’t think so. You know how I am.”
“Hermit-y?” Jill tossed out.
Isabelle nodded. She wasn’t ashamed of being a hermit. And she had damn good reason to avoid a federal judge.
“Well, his daughter is the one who writes that advice column. Do you know her?”
“Dear Veronica? Really? She seems damn cool, but I’ve never met her. Have—?” Her words were cut off by the doorbell.
Jill disappeared into the front room. For a moment, Isabelle had a hopeful thought that maybe Jill’s girlfriend had dropped everything and flown in to try to make things work. But no. The military wasn’t that big on romantic gestures, even for a lieutenant colonel.
Then the door opened, and Isabelle heard a man’s voice. His voice. She jumped up and stared at the kitchen doorway in alarm. If she stayed hidden, she didn’t have anything to worry about. He couldn’t know she was here. Unless he’d followed her tracks through the snow. But what did he want?
She crept closer to the doorway, carefully keeping behind the wall. There was a living room and a short hallway between her and the front door, but his voice was deep, and she heard it rumbling as he spoke to Jill. Just a follow-up visit, hopefully. If this was really all about the judge, then—
The door closed, and Jill’s footsteps started back toward the kitchen. But she wasn’t alone. There were two sets of footsteps, one heavier than the other. Isabelle froze, her brain taking too long to respond to the change in situation, and she’d only just realized she should sneak back toward the couch when Jill stepped in. And he followed.
Jill’s chin jerked back in shock as she caught sight of Isabelle and did a double take. Tom Duncan’s nice dark eyebrows rose at the way she was huddled against the wall.
Isabelle stared up at him as she realized she’d pressed herself into a corner between the kitchen countertop and the doorway. It looked as if she’d been doing exactly what she had been. Hiding and eavesdropping. Damn it. She glared in defense at the man’s questioning look.
Jill cleared her throat. “Look who decided to join us. I told him yesterday that he could stop by for dinner. Tom, you remember Isabelle.”
“Ms. West,” he said.
“I didn’t tell you my name,” she responded. Jill glared at her, but she ignored it.
His surprised eyebrows finally dropped, and he nodded. “It’s my job to find out these sorts of things.”
“Just out of innocent curiosity?” Isabelle countered.
“No, it’s more about protecting the target. What if you were the cousin of the defendant?”
“Hmm.”
“I told him your name,” Jill said. “Regardless, he’s staying for dinner.”
He finally smiled, transforming his face from hard to handsome, but the look was all for Jill. “I really hope your offer was genuine, but I guess I’m here even if it wasn’t.”
“Of course it was genuine! Don’t pay any attention to Isabelle. She’s in the middle of a project. She’d much rather deal with her two-dimensional people.”
Isabelle didn’t deny it. “They’re simple,” she said. “Real people are way more trouble.”
Jill hurried back to her task. “But we’re much more fun, aren’t we?”
“Some of you.”
“It doesn’t matter. There’s no paint here, so you’re not being interrupted. Now,” Jill tossed over her shoulder, “pour Marshal Duncan a glass of wine.”
“I’d better not,” he said. “I’m not on duty right now, but I’m still the supervisor in charge. And it’s just Tom, please. Eating the neighbor’s food isn’t part of my official duties. Speaking of... That Stroganoff was delicious. The whole damn house was jealous. Pardon my language.”
Jill roared with laughter at that. “Please. I expect fouler language than that before this bottle of wine is gone.”
“Okay,” Isabelle volunteered, filling her glass again. “I’ll get to work on that.”
“All right, but bring the wine to the table.”
Isabelle did as she was told, but when she got to the table, she noticed that there were only two settings. She shot a resentful look at Tom, but he’d been invited and Isabelle hadn’t, so she didn’t bare her teeth at him before she grabbed another place setting from the sideboard. She even poured him a glass of water just before Jill brought all the plates to the table, one balanced on her forearm with ease.
“Let’s eat!”
Tom pulled out Jill’s chair, but Isabelle plopped into hers before he could get to her. That was when she noticed the streak of yellow paint down her shirt. Damn it. She didn’t normally care, but she didn’t want to feel at a disadvantage around this man. Plus, her supply of unstained shirts was dwindling. She had to start remembering to wear an apron. Or maybe a smock. Like a kindergartner.
She touched her mouth, hoping she hadn’t accidentally nibbled on a brush earlier when she’d been trying to find the will to paint. She glanced up at Tom and found him watching her fingers. His eyes rose to meet hers before she looked quickly at her plate.
“Wow,” he said a moment later. “This is good. Really good. I can’t say I’ve ever enjoyed cabbage before, but...wow.”
“Wait till you try the pork,” Isabelle said while Jill grinned across the table at him.
He popped a piece of meat into his mouth and closed his eyes, giving Isabelle the chance to study him for a quick moment. Shit. He really did have a nice face. And despite her current hatred of all law enforcement, she’d had her attraction to the men in that field hard-wired into her from an early age.
His firm jaw bunched and flexed as he chewed, and when he opened his eyes, they were dark with pleasure. “You know what? Maybe I will have a glass of wine. If there’s any left? This meal deserves a toast.”
“Tom,” Jill said as she leaped up to open the second bottle, “you’re my new favorite person. Why don’t you just move in here and I’ll feed you every day.”
“Don’t tempt me, because I might.”
Isabelle watched them grin at each other as Jill poured him a glass. All right. So, Jill liked him. But Jill liked almost everyone. She was terrible at being a hermit. In the summertime, she sometimes offered lemonade to hikers when they passed by. If any hikers had the nerve to show up at Isabelle’s door, she told them to use the hose for water.
“To new friends,” Tom said, tapping his glass to Jill’s. Isabelle hesitated a moment, but when he reached forward, she tapped his glass before taking a healthy gulp of wine.
“So where are you from, Isabelle?”
The wine soured in her throat as she swallowed hard. It might raise his suspicions if she spewed it all over the table at such a seemingly innocent question. Instead of choking, she cleared her throat. “Washington State,” she said.
“I thought I heard an accent.”
Her heart beat harder, but she shrugged. “My parents were from Cincinnati. I must’ve picked it up from them.” Okay, a Cincinnati accent wasn’t quite the same as Chicago, but her accent was subtle enough at this point. She waited to see if he’d press harder, but he didn’t.
“I lived in Oregon for a time,” he said instead. “I miss the moisture.”
“And the oxygen?” she asked.
“Yeah, I’ve gotta say, even coming from Cheyenne is a change here. I notice it every time.”
“And how often do you come to Jackson?”
She’d tried to make it a friendly question, but she could tell by the way his eyebrow twitched up that she’d gone too far toward flirtation. The wine had blurred her boundary between politeness and leering, apparently. Oh, well. If there was a chance he didn’t know who she was, she had to be less hostile. She went all in and smiled.
“It depends on the court schedule,” he finally said. “Most of us are based out of Cheyenne, since places like Jackson and Mammoth don’t need a full-time marshal. Sometimes I’m out here once a month. Sometimes once a quarter. But this time I’m getting my fill.”
He sounded sincere. Believable. He had good reason to be here, and he wasn’t even new to town. So maybe everything he’d said had been the truth from the start. A rush of near painful relief rolled over her at the mere chance that he wasn’t here for her.
Isabelle sat back in her chair and watched as he and Jill talked. He had a nice smile and a deep, rough laugh that made her feel bad she’d been rude to him for no reason. It was a bit of guilt, yes, and maybe a little affection for his looks, but mostly she regretted drawing attention by being suspiciously hostile. That had been dumb. But she’d been caught by surprise, and it wasn’t as if she’d been trained by the witness protection program in how to avoid discovery.
She’d tried her best to erase her identity, yes. But they’d been basic choices. She’d gone to Seattle first, smart enough to use cash and not credit cards only because she’d been exposed to cop talk at the dinner table. But everything else had been one terrifying blind choice after another. She’d never even lived on her own before. She’d never had to choose an apartment or buy a car, much less make contacts to buy a new name and social security number.
First there’d been Seattle, then a smaller town a year later. And finally she’d moved to Jackson.
That had been it. No one asked questions. No one even noticed her. She was average in almost every way. Average height, average build, average brown hair color, mildly average face. Aside from that, the only noticeable things about her were her size D breasts and odd career. She’d found it fairly easy to keep those under wraps.
She’d made friends with Jill right away. It had been impossible not to. Not only was Jill irresistibly friendly, but she also always brought food. Isabelle had been hanging out at her place within days.
Aside from a few brief affairs and a few more one-night stands, meals with Jill had been the extent of Isabelle’s social life for years. She had a PO box in town, so the mail carrier never bothered her. She couldn’t get pizza delivered, so there were no wild pizza-boy scenarios acted out. And the only other neighbors were separated from her and Jill by the deep, shadowed forests of ponderosa pines and aspen.
She liked it that way. She reveled in it. She felt almost safe. But things had changed last year. After dozens of trips to the library over the years to pick up interlibrary loans of rare, specialized anatomy books, one of the librarians had started a conversation. An interesting conversation. And Isabelle’s bubble of isolation had finally popped.
Lauren Foster was a good friend now. And Sophie Heyer, another librarian. Those two women had pulled Isabelle further out of her comfort zone by insisting on girls’ nights out every other Sunday.
But there hadn’t been much room for men. Not enough room. Her lies wouldn’t accommodate a long-term relationship, and neither would her heart. So she’d had a man for a week or a month at a time here and there, but never more than that.
Maybe that explained why she found herself watching Tom as he spoke, wondering if those lips would taste as good as they looked. Or if those shoulders were as wide as they seemed.
She shook her head. She needed more wine. Or less. Or she just needed to get laid. But definitely not by a US marshal.
But it didn’t matter tonight. Tonight she was full of wonderful food and less afraid of why he’d shown up on her doorstep. There was more wine, dessert was waiting and nobody was asking anything about her father. She’d be able to paint tomorrow. She could feel it.
As if the universe was offering a reward for her new good mood, Tom unbuttoned the left sleeve of his shirt and began to roll it up as he told Jill a story about a fugitive who’d fallen into an icy creek.
“The thing was, he wouldn’t come out.” His wrist was exposed first. The same tan color as the back of his hand, dark against the white cotton of his shirt. “His lips were turning blue. He couldn’t stop shaking. He couldn’t even speak anymore. But he refused to come out.”
Now the start of his forearm, slim but much harder than hers, muscles visible even at rest.
“None of us wanted to go in after him. It was probably twenty-five degrees in the sun, and the creek was solid ice around the banks. We just stared at each other across the water, waiting for someone to break. I mean, this guy was going to die, and the office kind of frowns on that.”
Now the thickest part of his forearm, the rolled cuff starting to tighten up around it. He was just as tan here, but the light from the wrought-iron chandelier skimmed his skin and caught on the hair of his arms, glinting golden and bright.
“So what happened?” Jill asked.
He grinned. “I broke. I had to do it. I was the senior officer. And holy shit, it was cold. So cold it felt like fire at first. The numbness set in pretty quickly, but that was only the skin. Deeper, in the muscles and joints, it hurt. And then when I hit a deeper pool of water...” He shook his head and turned the sleeve up one more roll. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Jill nodded solemnly. “Can you still have children?”
“I doubt it. Then again, they do freeze sperm, right?”
After she stopped laughing, Jill pointed at Tom. “A hero like you deserves dessert. I hope you like cherry pie. It’s Isabelle’s favorite.”
Isabelle laughed. “You make me sound like a bad ’80s sex joke. But I do love cherry pie. Almost as much as Jill does.”
A faint wash of pink appeared on Tom’s cheeks. Was he blushing? That was cute as hell. Maybe he wasn’t used to women joking about sex. But Isabelle had discovered that freedom was the best thing about getting older.
She’d felt a touch of it when she’d turned thirty. She’d suddenly felt less like a big kid blindly feeling her way through the world and more like an adult. Then at thirty-five she’d realized she was at that age when so many women really started to worry. That they were too old now. That they hadn’t married or had children. That this was their last chance to really live.
Isabelle didn’t feel as though this was her last chance. She felt as though she was finally free. Capable. Happy with herself. Comfortable with her body. And allowed to say anything she wanted to out loud, even if it made a grown man blush. Maybe especially if it did.
She loved it. She couldn’t wait to be forty. She was going to own that shit. And then at fifty, when strangers would stop hinting that it was time to settle down and have some babies, and just start looking at her with pity? That would be glorious.
So she grinned at Tom Duncan and took an extra-large piece of pie and didn’t bother stifling her moan of pleasure at the taste. Tonight she was almost sure she was safe, her mouth was sweet and tart with juicy red cherries, and tomorrow she would paint. She had every reason to moan.
* * *
ISABELLE WEST WASN’T only a mystery. She was also a distraction. First, there was that threadbare shirt, pale blue but marred with paint, and stretched too tight across her breasts whenever she reached for her glass. The shirt looked old enough to be turned into rags, and he’d been very afraid that one of those buttons was going to give way at any moment. So afraid that he’d constantly found himself checking to be sure it was still closed.
Then there was her glare, suspicious and narrow and almost as distracting as the smile she’d finally settled into toward the end of the meal. The cool smile was as interesting as the glare, as if she had a secret to go with every emotion.
Curiosity paced inside his brain like a caged lion. Who was she? Instincts weren’t everything, but Tom had learned to trust his own, and he would’ve bet quite a bit of money that she wasn’t a criminal. But she wasn’t innocent, either. Innocent women didn’t press themselves into a corner to hide and listen the way she’d done at Jill’s house.
“I’d better get going,” she said drowsily from the couch. She was curled up with the last of the wine and didn’t look as if she wanted to leave. “I’ll be painting for hours tomorrow.”
“At least it’s not summer,” Jill said. “You can sleep until eight and still get the morning light.”
“So true. And I’m going to sleep like a baby tonight. A drunk baby.”
Tom stood. “All right, drunk baby, come on. I’ll walk you home.”
Her languidness vanished in an instant. “I don’t need you to walk me home,” she snapped. “I’ve walked home a hundred times in the dark.”
“I’m sure you have. But this time, there might be an armed fugitive hiding in the woods. And I’m leaving anyway. I can either walk you or I can follow behind you. Your choice.”
“Walk her home,” Jill cut in. “Isabelle, put your prickliness away and be nice. Maybe you’ll like the feeling.”
“I doubt it,” Isabelle answered, but she shrugged. “And he already asked to walk me home. Apparently, he likes his girls mean and feral.”
“All the more reason to walk home with him, then.”
Isabelle huffed out a laugh at that then winked in his direction, completely confusing him. His mental state wasn’t helped when she reached to shrug on her coat and her blouse threatened to split in two and reveal the pink bra peeking out underneath.
He spun and walked toward the entryway where he’d left his own coat, but there was no relief there. Isabelle followed close behind to tug on her tall snow boots, leaning over so that her shirt gaped to show the generous rise of her breasts. Tom just shook his head and made himself look elsewhere until she’d finished her task. He, in fact, didn’t like his girls mean and feral. She was not the girl for him.
Then again, he still wasn’t sure he had a read on Isabelle West yet. He wouldn’t say she was mean, exactly. But as for feral...well, there was something a little wild about her. Something unfiltered. She said what she meant and wasn’t coy about her moods.
Jill, waving away Tom’s praise for her food, sent them out the door with warnings about ice on the steps. The woman was truly an amazing cook, not to mention a damn good pastry chef. He’d have to find one of her cookbooks and have Jill sign it for his sister. Wendy adored cooking. And she was terrible at it. But Tom liked to make her happy, so he went to her place once a month for a pleasant, polite evening with Mom and Dad and Wendy’s husband and kids, and he ate her awful dinners without complaint. Cookbooks hadn’t helped in the past, but maybe Jill’s would be the right fit.
“You’ve got Jill wrapped around your finger,” Isabelle said, the words warm instead of accusing.
“You have that turned around. I’d die for that woman.”
Isabelle’s laugh rang loud and pure into the night as they walked down the driveway to the road. “She’s easy to love.”
“But she likes living alone?”
Isabelle shrugged. “Maybe nobody is worthy of her. Or maybe love isn’t all that great.”
He shot her a look, but she was staring straight ahead, her small smile lit by the snow. “And which one is it for you?” he asked.
“Oh, me? I love living alone. And love definitely isn’t all that great.”
He’d heard that kind of sentiment before, but never with such good cheer. “I’d say that’s cynical, but you sound happy about it.”
She finally looked at him. “You’re not wearing a wedding ring. Do you live alone?”
“Yes.”
“No wife or kids? Are you depressed about it? Are you pining away?”
His lips twitched at the idea of sitting in the window of his apartment, staring yearningly into the night, like a sappy scene from a bad movie. “No. But I travel quite a bit.”
“A woman in every port?”
“Not quite,” he said with a grin. “But you make Mammoth and Casper and Cheyenne sound more promising than they are.”
“Exotic locales. Exciting adventures. Femme fatales.”
“I see you’ve been spying on me.”
She nodded, still more reserved with him than she was with Jill. “Well, I don’t travel, but I’m not lonely. I have my work, my friends and my home. And internet porn. Life is good.”
Tom tripped over a snowdrift and nearly fell flat on his face. Isabelle laughed as he dusted snow off his knee.
So much for her reserve. “If you said that to shock me, it worked,” he said.
“I said it because it’s true.” She grinned over her shoulder as she kept moving. “Try to keep up.”
He had a feeling she didn’t mean walking, but he hurried to catch up all the same. Silence fell over them as Tom tried to come up with a question that wasn’t “So what kind of porn do you like?” but his brain was stuck on the topic, so he kept his mouth shut.
Still, the silence was nice on a night like this. Their boots crunched in the dry snow, and there was the occasional thump of snow falling off tree branches, but other than that, it was only the black sky and white stars and their breath turning the air pale around them. And this very odd woman smiling at her own thoughts.
When they reached her driveway, her smile disappeared, and she shot him an arch look.
“I’ll walk you up,” he said in answer to her irritation.
She shook her head but didn’t argue when he started up the driveway with her.
“This is a gorgeous place,” he said. “I keep thinking I’d love to live outside town, but I’m not sure I want to deal with commuting in winter.”
“We get snowed in a few times a year, so I’m lucky I never have to be anywhere. And Jill always has food. I have had to strap on snowshoes on occasion to make it to her place, but it’s worth the trouble.”
“Clearly. She should open a restaurant.”
“I think she likes the solitude more than she lets on. She sold her last restaurant for a bundle, and her cookbooks sell nicely. People still love cookbooks, apparently, even in this age of ebooks and internet recipes. It’s the pictures, I think.”
“And you? You must be a pretty great artist. Jackson is hardly a cheap place to live.”
“I do all right.” She didn’t elaborate. She was clearly more comfortable telling him about Jill than speaking about herself.
“I read some stories about the judge,” she said as they trudged up the steepest part of her drive. “Do you really think he’s in danger?”
“Obviously, we take any threats seriously, but these guys associate with some groups that have strong feelings about the federal government. And they already killed two troopers.”
“I know.”
“Better safe than sorry. And the judge is isolated out here. You should be careful. I mean it.”
She nodded and stopped at the foot of her steps. “Okay. I guess I should thank you for walking me home, then.”
“You should, but I’m not sure you will.”
“Aren’t you supposed to say something gracious like ‘Just doing my job, ma’am’?”
“I would, but you didn’t actually thank me yet,” he reminded her.
“I guess I didn’t.” She smiled before she jogged up the porch steps. “Have a nice walk home, Marshal.”
Tom rolled his eyes when she opened her door. “You didn’t lock the door?”
“Oh.” She paused halfway in and winced. “I meant to, but I’m not in the habit.”
Tom shook his head. “Listen, I don’t want to piss you off, but could I take a quick look around before I leave?”
“Is this a ploy to come in for a nightcap?”
“No.”
“Peek at my etchings?”
He kept his mouth flat.
“Find out more about that internet porn?”
“Now you’re definitely doing it on purpose.”
She shrugged. “Maybe. Are you complaining?”
He hadn’t been complaining, exactly. It wasn’t that he minded her talking about sex. He just wanted to be prepared for it so he could act like a seasoned and stoic officer of the law instead of a blushing teenager.
“I’m not letting you in my house,” she finally said. She was haloed by the entryway light, and she wasn’t smiling anymore.
“Please?” he tried.
“I might have left my laptop open,” she said drily.
Okay. So she didn’t want to be alone in her house at night with a strange man. He could certainly understand that. “You could wait here. Watch from the doorway.”
Her head tilted as if she were confused by the suggestion. “Oh,” she finally said. Her forehead creased. “Look—”
Whatever she’d been about to say, it was cut off by a loud thud from somewhere behind her. Her eyes went wide, and Tom put his hand on the gun at his hip. “Step outside, please, Ms. West.”
She actually did as he’d asked, her hostility forgotten in the fear of the moment.
“There’s no one else staying here?”
“No,” she whispered.
Tom drew his gun and stepped slowly in, switching off the light to make himself less visible from the dark rooms deeper inside the house. “Stay out of the doorway,” he said to Isabelle, relieved when her shadow disappeared and left a clean rectangle of moonlight on the wall.
He was reaching for his cell to call for backup when something shot from the darkness and moved toward him. Before he could aim, it was past his feet and still moving.
Isabelle shrieked when the shadow flew out the doorway. He spun and ran toward her.
“Oh, my God,” she gasped. “It was just Bear.”
“A bear?” He scanned the porch and driveway.
“My cat, Bear.”
Tension fell from his shoulders like a weight tumbling off. “Your cat.”
“You scared him. He doesn’t like people.”
“Big surprise. But we don’t know that he made that noise. Wait here.”
She didn’t object. The strange man you knew was better than the one you didn’t, apparently, so she let him move past her back into the house.
Enough light came through the front window to let him navigate the living room. It didn’t take him long to discover a framed photograph lying facedown on the carpet. It appeared to have fallen from an end table that held a small plate with half a sandwich on it. He picked up the metal frame. It was heavy enough to have made the sound they’d heard.
Tom switched on the light and saw that some of the meat had been pulled from under the bread. He put the gun away. “I think I discovered the crime. You didn’t finish your lunch, and your cat was cleaning up for you.”
She poked her head around the door frame. “Oh. Sounds about right.”
She switched on the overhead light, revealing the rest of the room. It was simpler than he’d expected for an artist. A couch and chairs and a flat-screen TV along with a bookshelf stuffed full of paperbacks. And the laptop sitting dark and seemingly harmless on a desk that was crammed into a corner.
He looked at the photo in his hand, hoping for a little more insight into this woman. It was a picture of her with two other women, their arms around each other. Sisters or friends, maybe.
He glanced around for more photos, but only found two paintings on the walls.
One was a man, turned away, his eyes focused somewhere distant. His hair curled over his ear, and wind blew his shirt tight to his back. Pine trees rose up in front of him.
If not for the signature across the bottom corner, Tom would’ve thought it was a photograph at first glance; it was that stark and crisp.
The other painting was a completely different style. It was a watercolor of a golden field with shadows of mountains rising far away and storm clouds rolling closer.
“Is one of them yours?”
“Yes, the portrait. I suck at landscapes. And watercolor.”
“The portrait is striking. Really spectacular.”
“Thank you,” she said simply, not offering any protest. She knew she was good, and he liked that. He was about to ask who the man was, but Isabelle’s mouth tightened as if she was waiting for just that question—and resenting that he’d ask it—so Tom tipped his head toward the dark doorway on the other side of the room. “May I please check the rest of the house? Just to be sure?”
Her eyes narrowed. She watched him for a long moment then looked around the room, as if trying to see what he was seeing. “If you really think it’s necessary. Watch out for the laundry when you get to my bedroom. I haven’t quite kept up with it this...week.”
“Got it.” He flipped on the hallway light and moved to the right toward two open doors. The first was a small bedroom with no piles of laundry and no intruder. He checked the closet and moved on.
The second door was clearly her bedroom. A king-size bed was piled high with silver-and-blue pillows on top of a rumpled gray comforter. Despite the massive size of the thing, it looked as though she used the whole big mattress. There wasn’t a smooth spot of blanket on it. Or she’d had a guest sometime recently. He couldn’t rule that out.
Other than that, the bedroom was fairly unremarkable aside from the pile of laundry at the foot of her bed. There were also a few clean clothes stacked neatly on top of a dresser as if she’d gotten distracted before putting them away.
Tom moved toward a door in the far wall and found a large bathroom, empty aside from a can of turpentine on the counter and a smaller pile of laundry. He checked the closet, surprised there were still clean clothes remaining in there, then shut off the lights and headed for the other side of the house.
It was quick work. There was one more bedroom that seemed to be used for storage, and past it, a laundry room with a door that creaked in protest at being opened after so long. The last door led to the garage, which was empty aside from an SUV and a few very large canvases wrapped in plastic.
He found Isabelle in the kitchen, pouring a glass of water and not the least bit concerned about the security of her home. He shook his head. “I guess I should’ve asked you to wait in the living room until I’d cleared this area.”
She shrugged. “I would’ve yelled if I found someone.”
“Is that the last room?” he asked, tipping his chin toward the double doors.
“Yep, it’s my studio.”
He hesitated a moment. He’d never been in the home of a real working artist before. “I won’t be invading your privacy if I look inside?”
“You’re invading it right now, but I think I’ll survive.”
He opened the doors to cool air and a strong smell of paint. Even before he reached for the light he could make out easels highlighted by the moonlight that streamed through tall windows. Their shadows stretched across the wood floor, the long shapes making his neck prickle with alarm. Anyone could be standing there. He’d unbuttoned his gun strap, but he hadn’t drawn it. The likelihood that anyone was actually here was minuscule, but he still put his hand on the butt of his gun as he swept the wall with his fingers.
They finally found the switch, and the darkest shadows vanished in the sudden onslaught of light.
Her studio was a large room, and the scattered canvases blocked a lot of the view, but Tom could see practically every corner when he dropped down to peer past the forest of easel legs. It looked clear. He blew out a sigh, but his relief lasted for only the two seconds it took him to stand and refocus his eyes on the nearest canvas.
This time his breath left him on a rush, and he stepped back in alarm.
What the hell?
His gaze skipped off that painting and moved to the next one, trying to escape the sight or just make sense of it, but the second one was no better. Just a mess of blood and sinew and flayed skin and glistening muscles.
Narrowing his eyes, he forced himself to step closer to the first easel, but that only made it worse. Her painting was of a human abdomen, except that this person’s skin had been peeled off to reveal the connective tissue beneath it. It was so incredibly detailed that he could make out the smallest capillaries on the underside of the peeled skin.
Even worse than the paintings were the photos taped to the sides of the canvas frames. These were actual pictures of bodies stripped of their skin and humanity. They were corpses. And she was re-creating them.
“You don’t like them?” she asked from only a few feet away. Tom jumped, spinning toward her, his hand tightening on his gun. He didn’t draw it, though. He had that much sense left.
“What the hell kind of art is this?” Was she a provocateur or just some sort of sicko?
She grinned at him, and he changed “sicko” to “serial killer” in his mind. Clearly, she was sociopathic. “I’m an anatomical painter.”
“Yeah, I damn well see that.”
Now she was actually laughing. “You should see your face.” She wiped a tear from her eye. She was laughing so hard she was crying.
“What is this?” he barked.
“Just what I said it is. I work on commission for textbooks and medical art companies.”
He blinked and forced his tension down a notch, but it wasn’t easy. He hated seeing dead bodies. Really hated it. “Textbooks?” he managed to ask more calmly.
“Yes. Biology. Anatomy. Some surgical instruction. Photos don’t really work well. There’s not enough definition and contrast, usually. And digital art sucks. Don’t tell anyone I said that. Ninety percent of work is digital now. 3-D rendering has its uses, I suppose. But my niche is oil. Not very common these days. It’s specialty work.”
He looked at the nearest painting again then turned back to her. He could feel the horrified confusion etched into his face, and he could see it in the laughter that still swam in her eyes.
“I also do posters for doctors’ offices. You know, the ‘This is your knee joint’ kind of thing.”
“This is—” he shook his head “—awful.”
“Really?” She shrugged, as if she couldn’t fathom his reaction. “You probably don’t want to see the comparison ones, then. A small child winding up for a softball pitch on one side, and the same small child as a skeleton in the next. They’re a little morbid, but the kids love them.”
“The kids?” he gasped, looking over his shoulder again. His eyes focused on the next easel and a photo taped there. It was a thigh, half the flesh removed, the other half still intact, a tattoo of a dragon livid against the pale skin. He felt the blood leaving his head and took a deep breath to try to steady himself. “Jesus, Isabelle. How can you do this?”
Her smile finally faded. “What do you mean? It’s my job. Medical students need to learn about the body. So do high school kids. Would you rather schoolkids had to work with cadavers?”
The word cadaver was almost too much for him. The memory of his brother’s pale, stiff body flashed into his head, but he forced it back. He could control it. It was the same every time he had to deal with death, and death was part of his job. But this...
“This is your home,” he said. “Where you sleep at night.”
“I work here, too. It’s no big deal.”
No big deal. Right. Here he’d been warming to her, and the woman was a freak. A freak who looked at pictures of dead people all day. In her secluded cabin. In the dark woods. “Well,” he managed to say, “the house is all clear. You’re safe.”
“Thank you. Want to sit down and stay awhile?” she teased.
“No, thanks,” he muttered as he brushed by her. Her laughter followed him to the front door. “Have a good night,” he called over his shoulder. “And lock the door.”
Or bar it. From the outside.
Maybe this woman’s secret was more dangerous than he’d suspected.
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_4425d75a-f2bd-573f-82ae-4f1a29033083)
IT WAS 11:00 P.M., and Tom was staring at the computer instead of sleeping. He’d planned to get right back to Judge Chandler’s basement and do some research into Isabelle West, but instead he’d walked in to find his second-in-command, Mary Jones, yelling at their tactical commander over the phone.
Mary, the senior deputy marshal whenever Tom was out of the room, had rightly made the decision to move the judge’s twenty-six-year-old daughter into his home for the trial. Veronica Chandler lived alone in an apartment just off Jackson town square, and Mary had decided that the woman would be safer in her father’s home, where the security detail could keep an eye on her, as well.
Chris Hannity, the tactical command specialist, had bristled at being cut out of the decision, especially as he’d already scouted Veronica’s place and had made schedules to patrol her block.
An acute case of male pride, as far as Tom was concerned, and he’d quickly dismissed the issue with a few curt words for Hannity.
“He’s still pissed about that disciplinary hearing,” Mary said from behind him, her Southern drawl ruining the hard edge of the words. She set a plate of cookies at his elbow. “The cookies are courtesy of Veronica Chandler.”
“Thanks. And he’ll get over it.”
“You think? It’s been a year. I told you not to report it.”
Tom grabbed a cookie and shot Mary a look, noticing that she was chewing on her thumbnail. She did that only when she was tired enough to forget. “He called you a dyke. In front of me.”
“It’s not the worst I’ve heard.”
“Then he chose the wrong place to say it. And you’re chewing your nail again.”
“Shit,” she muttered, clenching her hand into a fist and forcing it to her side.
“He’ll get over it,” Tom repeated. “And he won’t disrespect you or anyone else on the team again.”
Mary was forty-five, but she looked a lot younger. Couple that with her small frame, curly blond hair and heart-shaped face, and she sometimes had trouble commanding respect. Actually, that wasn’t true. She commanded respect. Her men followed her orders to a T. But there were always a few holdouts on other teams who considered her authority an insult to their testicles.
She made it a policy never to show weakness in front of those assholes, and she hated giving away that she might be stressed.
“I already read the day’s report,” he said as he polished off a second cookie. “Everything’s in place for the trial?”
“Yes. You still think we’ll hear from the brother again?”
“I hope not,” Tom said, rolling his shoulders to release some of the tension. “But I’ve got a bad feeling. And the judge? How is he handling the detail?”
Mary shrugged. “He seems entirely comfortable with an entourage. Like he was born to it.”
Tom snorted. That was no big surprise. The judge was a blowhard and pretty damn impressed with his position in the community.
“He actually calls Wes his ‘driver.’”
Tom guffawed at how much that must chap Wes’s hide. “I’ve got to see that myself.”
Mary grinned. “It’s pretty awesome.”
They both turned toward the stairway when the door to the first floor opened, expecting Wes to head down, but these footsteps were soft and light.
A young woman Tom recognized as Veronica Chandler stuck her head past the wall, her blond hair swinging. “I just wanted to check and see if you needed anything before I turn in.”
Tom stood. “No, we’re all set up down here. Thank you for the cookies.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Do you know Jill Washington up the road? She’s an amazing baker.”
The woman smiled. “No, my father only bought this house two years ago, and I was living in New York then. And these cookies went straight from the tube to the oven.”
“The perfect recipe,” Mary said.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” Veronica called as she headed back upstairs. She looked happy enough to be here. Tom suspected she was relieved. She’d spent two of the past three evenings here already. What was the point in driving home in the dark to sleep?
It was the same reason Tom was in the basement, after all.
“I’m heading out,” Mary said.
“You can take the cot, if you want. I’ll sleep here. It’s a fold-out couch.”
“Thanks, but no thanks. If I wanted to wake up to obnoxious men, I’d change my dating habits.”
“Are you calling me obnoxious?”
“No comment.” She eased her feet into the heels she wore on duty to add a couple more inches to her height.
Tom cleared his throat. “So what’s your age range?”
“For what?”
“Dating.”
She frowned at him and grabbed her coat. “That’s a weird question.”
“I’m just making conversation.”
“Bullshit. You know somebody? Is it that new girl in Intake? She’s only twenty-one. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
“It’s no one,” he said. “Forget I said anything.”
“Stop trying to take care of me. I’m not one of your lost causes.” She tugged a knit hat over her blond curls and glared at him for a moment before heading toward the staircase. “Ten years on either side,” she tossed back without slowing down.
“Good to know,” Tom responded, not bothering to hide his smile.
But as soon as Mary’s footsteps hit the first floor and the door closed behind her, Tom was left alone with his thoughts. And those thoughts were not on Jill anymore; they were on her freaky-ass neighbor. What the hell was up with Isabelle West?
He closed his email program and opened his browser to try her name again, but there were still no good clues, so he searched for anatomical art instead. He clicked around for a good half an hour, learning what he could about it. What he saw was pretty on par with what he’d glimpsed at her house. He didn’t like one bit of it.
He could handle seeing dead bodies on the job. It was rarely a complete surprise. He usually had the chance to brace himself against the sight so he wasn’t snapped back to that long-ago moment when he’d found his brother. But tonight had sneaked up on him.
He took a deep breath and cleared the search window then tried a new one for “medical paintings” and her name. He got back garbage. That was weird. She obviously did well for herself. She must have a legitimate career. So why was she missing online?
Tom sat back in his chair and tapped a pen to his chin for a minute then thought of the other painting he’d seen in her home. The vivid realism of it. The beauty. And the very short signature in the corner.
He typed in “I. West” and “anatomical painting” and hit the mother lode.
“Bingo,” he breathed. Here was her career. She’d been telling the truth.
There wasn’t much to get from the search results, other than that confirmation. Her work wasn’t meant for private buyers. The hits were all sites where posters and textbooks could be purchased. There was no author biography anywhere. No pictures or stories about her.
Still, the morbidity of the whole thing niggled at his brain. Combined with her initial hostility, Tom decided he couldn’t ignore that prickling he’d felt on the back of his neck earlier.
He signed in to the National Crime Information Center to do a quick check on her background. Two hours later, he was even more confused. Isabelle West didn’t seem to be a criminal. There were no warrants, no arrests, not even a traffic ticket as far as he could tell. So she wasn’t a criminal. But she also hadn’t existed before 2002.
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_1d0e6819-797e-56ec-a315-a83267dbbf77)
“GOOD GOD, ISABELLE, you have got to be kidding me!”
Isabelle stared in confusion at her friend. Lauren was standing on the front porch, wearing a tight red dress and heels, and she was glaring daggers.
“What?” Isabelle asked.
“It’s Sunday! I texted you this morning!”
“It’s Sunday?”
“Yes!”
“Are you sure you sent a text?” She swiped the back of her hand across her forehead, trying to angle the paintbrush in her fingers so that she didn’t get cadmium green in her hair. “I didn’t get it.”
Lauren sighed. “Have you been anywhere near your phone today? Is it charged?”
Isabelle rolled her eyes. “I don’t know. I’m working. I guess you may as well come in.”
“Nope. We’re going out. It’s girls’ night.”
“I’ll have to cancel—”
“No, you won’t. You canceled last Sunday, remember? Let’s go.”
Now it was Isabelle’s turn to glare. “I’m not going anywhere. I look like shit.”
Lauren nodded and made a shooing motion. “Wash your face and put your hair up. If you don’t have any clean jeans then put on a dress. Surely those don’t have paint on them.”
Well, some of them did. But it was too cold for a dress anyway. Then again, Lauren was wearing one, along with high-heeled boots. Isabelle had cute boots that Jill had helped her pick out. She supposed she could throw something together.
She looked over her shoulder toward her studio, but Lauren pushed past her and pointed to the bedroom. “Do it. Sophie’s not here to protect you anymore. It’s just me and my cruel demands.”
“I think I read a book like that recently,” Isabelle muttered.
“Yeah, well... Wear something pretty for me or you’ll be punished.”
“Does this mean I’m not allowed to wear panties?”
“Whatever it takes.”
“Fine. Let me get rid of the brush first.” As much as she resented having to stop painting, she still smiled as she ditched the brush and hurried to clean up. She’d gotten in almost ten hours of work, after all. Even she could be satisfied with that.
So she did exactly as Lauren instructed. She washed her face and pulled her hair up into a neater knot than usual, and she even put on makeup. Then she stared into her closet for five minutes before finally deciding that she just wasn’t into dresses right now.
She settled on her favorite pair of skinny jeans and a gold top she’d worn only once before. It was sleeveless and low-cut and too sparkly, but what the hell. Tonight was girls’ night out. Plus, she’d found her last pair of clean underwear, and that was something to celebrate. Of course, that meant she’d have to do laundry tomorrow. Or just go commando. Probably the latter.
“I’m ready!” she called out as she walked back into the living room, but her smile transformed into an O of surprise when she saw Tom standing there with Lauren.
Isabelle fought down her alarm. She’d almost decided he wasn’t onto her the night before. But then he’d asked to search her house, and she was fighting that fear again.
“Hello,” she finally said.
“Hi.” His eyes swept down to her cleavage then back up so quickly she could’ve imagined it. But she hadn’t. Maybe he really had been interested in her internet porn.
She relaxed enough to smirk. “Braving the house of horrors? This must be important.” She met Lauren’s questioning look. “He saw my work. He’s not a fan.”
Lauren huffed, but he shook his head.
“It’s not that you’re not talented. I just...” His gaze slid toward the kitchen and the double doors beyond. “Wasn’t expecting that.”
“Want another look?” she asked.
“No!”
Isabelle laughed so hard that she snorted. “It’s funny because he’s a big strong US marshal,” she explained to Lauren.
“Oh, that is funny!”
They both grinned at him for a long moment while Tom frowned back. “I was just stopping by to check on you.”
“Hey,” Lauren said, “are you here working on Judge Chandler’s case?”
“Yes.”
“I saw his daughter today at the library! She said she’s staying at her dad’s place for a while. It’s right around the corner, isn’t it? We should invite her over for a girls’ night in. We have to replace Sophie.”
Isabelle’s smile fell. “We do?”
Lauren nodded, and her voice went quiet. “I talked to her last night. She was tiptoeing around it, but I think she’s finally going to turn in her notice at the library. She’s living her dream.” Lauren nudged Tom. “Which is riding around the country on a motorcycle with a big tattooed guy. Isabelle, she’ll be back for a week on Tuesday. Don’t forget!”
Tom cleared his throat. “I’d better let you get to your evening.”
Isabelle remembered her wariness. “Did you need something?” she asked.
“Not really. I was making the rounds of the area and decided to stop by.”
Her paranoia made her want to snap at him, but she forced it back. She’d decided she didn’t need to worry about him. If he were really on a stakeout, looking for her father, he’d never have walked right up and introduced himself. Isabelle had overreacted. There was nothing to fear.
She shrugged. “Everything is good. Aside from the horrifying carnage in my studio, I mean.”
“Right. Well. I hope you’re taking this seriously now. Lock your door. Be careful when you get home tonight.”
“I will,” she said. “Scout’s honor.”
As soon as he closed the front door behind him, she winked at Lauren. “I was never a Girl Scout.”
“Yeah, he could probably tell by the way you held up two fingers instead of three.”
“Oops.” Isabelle cringed. “Oh, well. He’s too polite to call me on it.”
“Polite, huh? I was going to say ‘fucking sexy,’ but I guess that’s just me.”
“I wouldn’t say it’s just you.”
“Oh, really? Honey, I’m gonna need all of these details.”
Isabelle laughed off Lauren’s curiosity, but she could feel her cheeks warming. He really was sexy. And if she could keep him focused on her paintings instead of her past, he wouldn’t be a threat to her. “There aren’t any details.”
“Then I need reasons why. You’ve been whining about your sex drought for the past year, and now the gods have dropped a hot US marshal on your doorstep, and you haven’t devoured him yet? You’ve got some ’splaining to do, missy. Over drinks.”
“Fine. But only over drinks.” Isabelle excused herself to grab her purse, feeling strangely discomfited around her friend. Tom being there had reminded her that she wasn’t lying to only him; she was lying to everyone.
Somehow it hadn’t felt that way with her girlfriends, at least not since those first few conversations. They knew who she was. Who she really was now. But having Tom around reminded her that her whole life was a lie.
No. Not her whole life. Just her past. Everything she was doing now was real and genuine, and she was not going to let one US marshal ruin that.
She grabbed her little clutch purse. “Ready?” she called out as she headed back to the living room.
Lauren waved toward the front door. “This girls’ night has officially begun. Let’s do this.”
* * *
FROM THE COVER of the trees on the far side of the road, Tom watched the taillights of the car move slowly away. He felt guilty standing in the dark, watching, but he was in the woods only because he was heading back to the judge’s on a trail he’d already cut through the snow. He wasn’t spying. Much.
The problem was that he hadn’t had a good reason to stop by Isabelle’s tonight. He hadn’t really needed to check on her. Everything had gone quiet in anticipation of the start of the trial tomorrow. They hadn’t heard one word from the defendant’s brother or any of his other supporters. Of course, that silence had Tom on edge, too, but not as much as his suspicions about Isabelle.
Or whatever her real name was. That name was a lie. He was sure of it. She wasn’t from Washington, she wasn’t Isabelle West and she wasn’t an innocent isolationist suspicious of the feds.
“Or you’re overreacting,” he muttered.
If he used a little creativity, he could imagine that she was a girl from rural Washington State who’d been raised by parents from Cincinnati, who’d kept her off the grid until she was in her twenties. That might explain the slight accent that had nothing to do with the West Coast and the fact that there were no property, tax or motor-vehicle records for anyone named Isabelle West before 2002.
That slim possibility aside, he had no idea who she could be. A criminal, certainly. Or maybe just a woman escaping a bad past. If she’d been a victim of domestic violence, judges had the leeway in almost every state to issue an off-the-record name change. Or maybe she was just a girl who’d gotten herself into a bad situation and had been forced to make a run for it.
“Shit,” he muttered, finally turning back to make his way through the woods. He had a problem. He knew he did. A compulsion to help people whether they wanted it or not. Especially those who didn’t want it.
A problem, maybe, but it wasn’t an unreasonable one. Often the people in the worst trouble were the least likely to ask for help. He knew that firsthand. And Isabelle showed all the symptoms of someone like that. She was prickly and proud and smart and self-contained. She hadn’t even wanted him to check her place for an intruder. How would she ever reach out about something weightier?
He took a deep breath and tried to lose himself in the walk. The moon was almost full, and it glowed from every snowy surface, so he had no trouble making his way. But the beauty surrounding him wasn’t as peaceful as it had been when he’d walked Isabelle home.
He’d gone back tonight hoping to discover more of who she was. He hadn’t paid close enough attention the night before. At least he knew who was in the picture with her now. Her girlfriends. And it must mean something that she hadn’t had one other framed photograph in the house. No family. No kids. No history.
Maybe he should just let it go. Mary joked all the time about his determination to fix things that were none of his business. He knew it was about his parents and their tendency to stick their heads in the sand and hope for the best. He loved them, and he’d never say it, but his brother would’ve had a hell of a better shot at survival if they’d stepped up and interfered.
His cell phone rang, destroying the silence of the forest and startling him from his thoughts. He was surprised to get a call out here. Service was spotty even when he wasn’t in the trees.
“Duncan,” he answered.
“We got another letter,” Mary said without preamble. “Where are you?”
“About one minute out from the Chandler house. Where are you?”
“Just pulling up,” she said as lights swept over the trees far ahead of him. “Security guards finally decided to go through the Saturday mail delivery at the courthouse.”
Tom cursed. “Didn’t we ask them to bring any mail to us?”
“I guess the weekend shift didn’t get the news.”
“Hold on,” he said, picking up his pace along the packed trail of snow. “I’ll be right there.”
The lights from the judge’s cabin blazed through the trees. Another car pulled up as he got there. Hannity got out. “A threat to the judge’s family,” he said immediately, falling into place next to Tom as he jogged up the stairs.
“Mary already moved Veronica here,” Tom said pointedly, “so that’ll make this easier to address. What else?”
“He mentioned a bomb.”
“Shit. We’re gonna need another team—”
“Already on it.”
“Anderson?”
“Yes. He says he can have a K-9 unit here in three hours.”
“Have a plan drawn up before he gets here,” Tom ordered. “We’ll sweep the area around the house for footprints and evacuate the judge’s home if we find anything. If not, let’s focus on the courthouse.”
Mary was waiting for him with a copy of the letter. He grabbed it and started through the four pages of single-spaced ranting. Things were about to get a whole lot busier around here.
CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_1871c64a-ed61-5b0d-a7cb-e13eda1104a7)
ISABELLE SLIPPED ON her sunglasses, but she still squinted against the bright morning light as she walked through town. Well...afternoon light, maybe. Sunlight was brutal at this altitude and even more brutal when it was shining off the snow piled along the narrow sidewalks of Jackson like a punishment handed down by the cruel god of hangovers.
Halfway through their night out, she and Lauren had decided to throw caution to the wind and get unapologetically drunk. That had meant no ride home for Isabelle and a very cold midnight walk from the bar to Lauren’s house, but it had been worth it. Lauren didn’t have to work today, and Isabelle had needed to shake off the last of the fear Tom Duncan had delivered to her doorstep.
She’d shaken off the fear but had acquired a headache, though she’d managed to sleep off most of the alcohol.
Still, the crisp air helped eliminate the last of her lethargy, and she walked a little taller and unbuttoned her coat to feel more of the sun. She wasn’t worried that she was wearing the same clothes she’d worn the night before. If anyone noticed and thought she was taking an extended walk of shame, she’d be happy for the gossip. Her “creepy hermit artist” reputation wasn’t getting her any dates. Maybe “creepy party-girl artist” would help.
She smiled at the next person she passed and put a little more swing in her step. Maybe she should wear her heeled boots every time she ran errands. It certainly made walking to the post office feel less like a chore and more like the possibility of adventure.
And funny enough, when she turned the corner, adventure was waiting right there for her. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the sexy kind. It was the kind that came with a heavy police presence and a scrum of reporters. She’d accidentally stumbled onto the property of the tiny federal courthouse of Jackson, Wyoming.
For a moment, she just stood there, hand tightening on her little clutch purse and heart ratcheting up her fight-or-flight response.
Funny that she hadn’t thought about this at all. She hadn’t considered what Tom’s job really meant and how much it had in common with her past. She’d been too worried that he was actually here to scout her out.
Her father’s case had never gone to trial; he’d skipped town long before that. But he had been indicted, and there had been hearings and other cases to process, and it had all looked like this, only instead of two satellite trucks, there’d been ten. All the Chicago outlets and a few national ones, as well.
This was an entirely different scene, she tried to tell herself. Nothing like what had happened to her father. Here there were only fifty or so spectators and another twenty press people, and the federal courthouse in Jackson didn’t look much different from the post office. It was a one-story, ugly ’60s structure that evoked none of the gravitas or Greek dignity of the courthouses of Chicago.
So yes, it was a very different scene, but she was still standing there panting as if she were the one in danger. As if that pack of reporters was about to chase her life down and devour it in front of her. Again.
She took a deep breath. Then another.
This had nothing to do with her. It didn’t have anything to do with people she knew. Except Tom.
The threats against the judge really were a big deal. She’d read a few things online, but she hadn’t understood the scope of it. These news trucks had come all the way from Cheyenne, six hours away. They might even be sending coverage to a national feed.
She could no longer feel the fingers gripping her bag, but she’d calmed down a little, so she moved her clutch to the other hand and took a moment to look for Tom. He was likely inside the courthouse, running the show there, but she had a strange urge to see him in his element. She had a feeling that that much authority would look sexy as hell on him, especially when she’d been raised to find that kind of thing manly.
But her interest fled when a car pulled up to the courthouse walkway, and the reporters suddenly surged forward. She didn’t recognize the man who emerged, but everyone else seemed to. Small town or not, these reporters behaved the same way Chicago reporters did, shouting at their crew, yelling out questions, rushing forward like hungry animals.
Isabelle took two steps back and spun to make her getaway, practically running to the next cross street so she could detour around the courthouse to get to her postal box. She never wanted to see that kind of thing again. She never wanted any part of a trial or a scandal or people who shouted hateful things.
Once she was out of sight of the crowd, Isabelle slowed down, but she had to force it. She wanted to run. If she’d had her car, she’d probably have sprinted straight for it and left rubber on the road as she sped out of town. But she didn’t have her car. She was meeting Lauren in thirty minutes so they could have lunch before Lauren drove her home.
She put one foot in front of the other and skirted the rear of the courthouse and then worked back around to the post office.
After giving a wan smile to the clerk, who was ready with a wave, Isabelle got her mail and took it to the recycling box to ditch the junk mail. It was all junk mail. Even the one piece that caught her eye and made her hands start to tremble.
Her name and address were typed, and it looked like any other piece of marketing, except that there was a stamp in place of printed postage. And there was no return address.
She turned the envelope over. It shook in her hand. The return address was printed on the back, but with no name or company logo.
Though she meant to throw it away, her shaking hand reached for the flap of the envelope and slowly worked it open. She pushed up her shades as she pulled out the single piece of paper and unfolded it.
At first, she couldn’t quite see the words. She couldn’t focus. Then she started reading and still couldn’t decipher them. It took her three attempts to read through the half page of text before she realized that it wasn’t from her father. It was only a marketing letter from a Realtor who was fishing for seasonal rentals.
The soft sound that came from her own throat frightened her. Isabelle carefully tore the letter into long strips and dropped each of them into the trash can next to the recycling box. The letter had done nothing to her, but she wanted it gone, not recycled into something else.
She’d always told everyone that her father had never contacted her after he’d run. That he’d never been in touch. She’d sworn that was the truth to every federal officer who’d questioned her and every shady Chicago cop who’d shown up at her place with a creepy smile and assurances that they were there to help. But it hadn’t been the truth.
From the moment he’d disappeared, he’d sent letters. A week of peace would go by. Maybe two. And then she’d get another letter disguised as junk mail in case anyone was watching the mailbox.
He’d pretend to be apologizing or explaining or just sending his love, but he’d always asked for money. Always. She’d sent a little, but after the fourth or fifth letter that she’d refused to reply to, he’d become less apologetic and more aggressive. How can you do this? I’m sorry about everything, but I’m still your father. I need help. You owe me that.
She hadn’t owed him anything. After twenty-two years of being his daughter, she hadn’t even known who he was. She’d thought he was a hero, but he’d killed at least one fellow officer, stolen money from countless others, and he’d brought dangerous people into Isabelle’s life. Isabelle had hated him.
But none of this had to do with today. He wasn’t back. He hadn’t found her. And her immediate terror was pissing her off.
She sorted through the rest of her mail to be sure it was all junk, then tossed it in the trash. This was ridiculous. She wasn’t a scared girl. She’d left all that behind. She’d walked away from it. She’d made a damn decision, and she’d pulled it off.
“Screw it all,” she muttered. Then she slipped her shades back on and stepped back out into the day. She forced herself to walk toward the courthouse instead of avoiding it. She put the swing back in her step, and she didn’t shy away from the news trucks as she made her way through the crowd.
And she was glad she didn’t, because that was the moment she spotted Tom.
In action, he was just as hot as she thought he’d be. His dark gray suit showed off strong shoulders and a slim waist. He wore shades against the bright sun, too, and some sort of earpiece. Leaning in to speak to a man dressed in similar fashion, Tom looked like Secret Service or FBI or something way more urbane than a US marshal.
Damn it. He was sexy.
She saw the moment he noticed her, despite the dark shades hiding his eyes. His head cocked. One expressive eyebrow rose. His lips stopped moving. But for only a moment. He resumed talking, but his head followed Isabelle’s movement down the sidewalk. She raised her chin. Better to think about him watching her than to consider the chaos surrounding both of them.
She’d recognized his attractiveness even when she’d been suspicious of him, but after talking with Lauren about him last night, her awareness had sharpened. She liked the way he looked and moved. She liked his voice. She even liked the way he smelled. His profession was a drawback, but it had somehow ceased to be a deal breaker. In fact, maybe it was a turn-on. The danger. Tempting fate. It was stupid, but she suddenly felt alive.
Hell, she’d been complaining for months that she wanted a hot fantasy man to show up on her doorstep and show her a good time. This man had literally shown up on her doorstep, and she’d be an idiot not to at least entertain the idea. Or so Lauren had told her.
Her mouth refused to hold back a smile when Isabelle remembered Lauren’s assessment of his ass. Something about it being truly bitable.
Isabelle tipped her head toward him just as he turned to gesture toward the courthouse. His suit jacket tightened against his backside with the movement.
She let her smile widen. His ass did look bitable. It was taut and just round enough to make her want to squeeze it. God, she did love a nice male ass. And it had been so long since she’d dug her nails into one.
She walked on, grinning at the sidewalk in front of her and hoping he had a good view of her own ass from where he was working.
“Isabelle,” he called.
Telling herself not to look too pleased, she turned to see him walking toward her.
“I figured you were too busy to talk,” she said.
“I am, but there’s been a delay in the defense counsel getting here, so we’re in a holding pattern. A cattle truck jackknifed on the highway.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Sounds like a setup to me.”
He smiled, and the way the shades hid his eyes made him look dangerous. “Believe me, if it was the prosecutor’s car, I’d be on my way out there with lights flashing. But the defense is on their own.”
“Cruel. And the cows?”
“I gather they’re fine. Regardless, we don’t have the manpower to offer them protection.”
His head rose, and he seemed to give a quick scan to the area before smiling down at her again, his attention tipping a little lower this time. This was a different Tom. He was...almost flirty. And totally confident. “I hope you locked up before you left last night.”
Ah. So he’d noticed she was wearing the same thing. Good. Let him wonder if she’d gone home with someone. Let him wonder what she was like in bed. “I locked the door. I’ll let you know if there’s any trouble when I get home.”
“All right.”
“I’d better let you get back to work,” she said, stepping away with a little wave. “Nice suit, by the way.”
He looked down, brows twitching up in surprise. “Thanks.”
She couldn’t resist drawing it out a little more. She’d fought off her panic, and now she felt powerful. Maybe a little reckless. “Are you going to stop by tonight and check on me?”
He’d been sweeping the area again, but his face tipped back to her. “If you’d like me to.”
She shrugged. “You’re probably busy,” she said casually before walking on. “Good luck with this circus.”
He didn’t reply, but she could feel his gaze on her as she left. Isabelle barely even noticed the loud drone of the crowd around her as she moved through them. She was too busy swinging her ass.
* * *
“K-9 SAYS THE parking lot is clean.”
Tom wiped the frown from his face and immediately spun to follow Mary as she moved through the crowd. She parted groups of people with just a look.
“They’re stationed at the door?” he asked.
She nodded. The K-9 unit had cleared the judge’s home first as a precaution, and they’d been working over the entire courthouse since six this morning, the two dogs taking turns so they weren’t overwhelmed.
“Forensics?” Tom asked.
“Fingerprints confirm it’s him.”
Saul Stevenson hadn’t bothered disguising his handwriting or keeping his prints off the paper last time, either. He wanted them to know who he was.
Mary glanced over her shoulder as they neared the building. “Postmark is Helena, three days ago.”
They both flashed their badges at the security team, despite that they knew every member. It was important that no one get lax.
Tom had gone over the schedule for the day four times already. He trusted his team, and he’d briefed local law enforcement himself. There wasn’t much to do now except watch and wait. The threat was likely just a scare tactic. If Saul Stevenson meant to actually plant a bomb, he’d be stupid to give them a heads-up. Then again, maybe he was stupid.
But it was more likely that the bomb threat was a diversion, meant to draw attention away from his true intentions. “Hannity is sweeping rooftops now?” he asked Mary as they entered the meeting room.
“He’s almost done.”
“A sniper shot would be a hell of a lot simpler for him to pull off than a bomb.”
“Maybe he wants the drama of an explosion, though.”
Tom nodded, but the buzz of his phone in his pocket cut off his next words. His thoughts immediately flashed on Isabelle, her smile teasing and her clothes advertising that she hadn’t bothered going home last night. Not to her place, anyway. She’d slept somewhere else.
But when he drew his phone from his pocket, there was no incoming call from the mysterious Isabelle West. It was only his sister. He winced and put it away.
“What is it?” Mary asked.
“My sister.”
He thought that was the end of it, but it wasn’t. Mary had been invited to dinner at his sister’s place too many times.
“Why are you avoiding Wendy?”
“I’m not avoiding her,” he answered. “I’m busy.”
“Maybe she needs something.”
He glanced up to find Mary leaning against the wall, arms crossed in that stubborn way that said she wasn’t going anywhere. “Aren’t you always telling me not to worry about my family? If she needs something, she’ll call back.”
“I’m also always telling you that one dinner a month is not enough time with your family.”
Tom rolled his shoulders. “I need to send a few emails,” he muttered.
She didn’t move.
“Okay, I’ll text her,” he grumbled, getting his phone back out to let Wendy know he’d call her in a couple of days.
Once he’d hit Send, Mary gave up her stance and sat down at her own computer. He felt bad shutting her out, but he didn’t want to talk about it.
It was his brother’s birthday, and Wendy always called. He always avoided the call. His sister was like his parents. She considered Michael’s death a sad accident. Tom considered it a tragedy that could’ve been averted if anyone had done anything to try to stop it. If they’d even acknowledged his addiction just once, maybe his brother would be alive.
He couldn’t talk to Wendy about how sad it all was, because he wasn’t sad. He was pissed. At Michael. At his parents. Even at Wendy when she wanted to call and reminisce. And he loved his family too much to tell them how angry it still made him.
His parents had done the best they knew how. Tom understood that. He’d even told them that. But he couldn’t say it on Michael’s birthday. Not on this day. So he’d call Wendy tomorrow, and today he’d think about something else.
He meant to turn his mind to Saul Stevenson, retreating into his work as he always did, but for once it was no escape. Isabelle West kept intruding, her ass swaying as she glanced over her shoulder.
Tom smiled at the memory and figured that was as good an escape as any.
CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_13d4d90a-8a26-5b86-9faf-ec8c29ababcd)
ISABELLE SLIPPED ON FLIP-FLOPS, tugged on her gloves and glared menacingly at her messy kitchen. “It is on,” she growled, trying to pump herself up as she held the yellow latex gloves high in the air like a surgeon prepping for an operation.
She paused and frowned. “Music,” she muttered, looking around. She needed music first. Slipping off the gloves, she went in search of her phone and the stereo connector.
Thirty minutes later, she’d finally gotten the music hooked up, tracked down the gloves she’d set down somewhere during the search for the auxiliary cable, and she was poised in front of her kitchen again. “Let’s do this.”
Lauren had called with the news that afternoon. Sophie had just ridden into town and girls’ night in was a go for the next day. It was time to catch up and get drunk, not necessarily in that order. But drinking or not, no one wanted to look at the week-old macaroni noodles stuck to her stove burner. Isabelle didn’t want to look at them, either, which was why she’d been ignoring them this whole week.
But the loud music got her dancing and singing and sipping beer as she worked, and before long the kitchen was gleaming.
She moved on to the living room, tossing out magazines she’d been hoarding for months and scaring Bear out of the corner, making him hiss in fury before he disappeared into a back room. “You’re the one leaving fur everywhere!” she yelled after him. He didn’t deign to reply.
It was a good thing he’d taken off, though. She had to vacuum the rug, and if she dared to do that near him, he’d disappear for a week. They were too much alike, she and Bear.
She was feeling good tonight, though. Really good. That chaotic scene at the courthouse had actually soothed her fears. This whole thing with the judge truly was a big deal. Tom hadn’t lied about why he was sneaking around the neighborhood and knocking on doors. This had nothing to do with her, and her relief was bubbling over into giddiness. She danced around with the vacuum, singing along to Elvis Costello at the top of her lungs.
It took her only a few minutes to vacuum, but after she brought in wood from the porch and piled it next to the fireplace, she had to vacuum again. Before she was done with the second pass, Bear was screeching. Loudly. She glanced over to see him stretched up on his tiptoes, clawing at the front door. She shook her head. He kept clawing.
“Stop that!” she yelled over the vacuum. He ignored her then yowled louder when she switched off the vacuum.
“You know it’s dangerous out there,” she scolded. “There are coyotes. Mountain lions. Foxes.”
He shot her a nasty look. Yeah. He could probably take a fox. And maybe a coyote.
“There are cars sometimes,” she tried. He didn’t relent. “All right, Bear, but please come home. Don’t get lost. Okay?”
He paced in front of the door until she opened it, then shot through the narrow space, his massive body forcing its way through. “Rude,” she snapped then lunged back in shock when she saw the dark shadow looming above her.
“God!” she screamed, reaching toward the door to push it closed again.
* * *
“YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO ask who it is before you answer,” Tom said as she caught the door at the last minute and glared at him.
The terror on Isabelle’s face quickly narrowed into irritation. “Yeah, no shit!” She snapped on the outside light. “I didn’t know you were there.”
“Sorry. I knocked.”
She waved weakly toward the living room. “I had a lot of stuff going on.”
“I noticed.” He’d noticed when he’d pulled up and seen her dancing in the living room window, both with the vacuum and without it. Between the warm light shining around her in the dark and the tight orange tank top clinging to her breasts, she’d been a fucking vision. He’d watched for only a minute, though. Then he’d started to feel like a creep.
By the time he’d gotten to the porch, there’d been shouting and feline howling, plus the loud music, and all of it roaring over the vacuum.
“Elvis Costello,” he said as she closed the door behind him. “Nice.”
“He’s great to clean to. You want a beer?”
“Not today. Too much going on.”
“Well, I need something cold. I’m hot as hell.”
Yeah, he’d noticed that, too. Her cheeks were pink, and there was the faintest hint of moisture glinting off her cleavage when she moved. Jesus. He tried to look away, but then she raised her arms to pull her hair off her neck and twist it up. Her breasts rose with the movement. His eyes didn’t.
“Come on,” she said, turning away and breaking the spell. She grabbed something metal off a table as they passed and stuck it into the knot she’d made of her hair.
“The place looks nice,” he said, following the sway of her hips to the kitchen and trying to keep his mind off her curves and on the real reason he’d come.
“Thanks. I’m having a little girls’ party tomorrow.”
“I heard.”
Her head popped up over the open fridge door. “Did Jill invite you?” She didn’t sound exactly pleased.
“To girls’ night? No. But we got word from Veronica Chandler that she’d like to come.”
“Oh, that’s right. Lauren told me she was going to invite her. Are you okay with it?”
He nodded. He was more than okay with it, because it would give him an excuse to poke around this place some more. To solve this mystery. The longer he knew her, the more he thought she was hiding from something, and the more he wanted to help. “We’ll have to send a couple of agents along with her, though. We’ll try to stay out of your way.”
Her eyes narrowed a little. “I don’t want strangers in my house.”
“I’ll do it myself, if you’re more comfortable. And my second-in-command is a woman. I could bring her.”
She shrugged one shoulder and opened a beer. “I suppose that would be all right. Veronica probably needs to get out of the house if she has a bunch of you people underfoot all the time.” Isabelle took a long draw of the beer then shivered a little as she wiped the bottle over her brow. Her nipples tightened. He watched, despite that his brain was screaming at him to look away. Look away! But God, they were...perfect.
“Are you staring at my breasts, Marshal Duncan?”
He jumped as if he’d been touched with a live wire. He couldn’t deny it, and he couldn’t excuse it. “Shit. Um. I’m sorry.”
She shrugged again, and to his complete shock, she smiled. “It’s all right. If you were standing there in workout shorts, I’d stare at your ass. I guarantee it. Your thighs, too.” Her gaze slid down his body to the aforementioned area, and Tom’s face flamed. He hoped to God the enthusiasm he could feel swelling his dick wasn’t enough to be noticeable.
“Plus...” Her gaze rose slowly back up until it met his. “I’ve got nice tits.”
Her eyes didn’t waver. She didn’t look coyly away. She watched him as though she wasn’t even flirting; she was only letting him know because it was true.
But she was flirting. Clearly. And Tom fucking liked it. He liked it more than he’d liked anything in a long while.
Isabelle wasn’t beautiful in some striking way, but there was something gorgeous about the way she held herself, the way she moved. As if she didn’t give a damn what anyone else thought. You could accept her or you could move on, but either way, she’d still be here, in her place. This was where she belonged. Tom was the interloper, and it felt like an honor to be let in.
He looked at her hazel eyes, tight at the corners with amusement, and her too-strong nose, and that wide mouth, tipping up just a little at the edges. She was daring him. Tom knew he shouldn’t; he had a hundred reasons not to, but he still stepped forward and slowly raised a hand to her jaw. His fingers slid along her warm skin, tracing her, feeling the way her head tipped ever so slightly into his touch.
She rose to meet his mouth, and though he meant to keep it careful, she wasn’t interested in care. Her lips immediately softened against his, parting slightly, teasing him with her hot breath. Her tongue touched his mouth, one little lick of fire.
He couldn’t help his sound of surprise. Not surprise that she’d licked him, but that the heat of it shot through his body. Isabelle smiled against his mouth, and then she laughed. That was how he kissed her, taking a taste, touching his tongue against hers until her laugh turned to a groan, and she kissed him back.
Whoever she’d gone home with the night before hadn’t satisfied her, because she pushed up to take more of his mouth, more of his tongue. Her hand, cold from the beer, sneaked up his neck and into his hair, as if she’d hold him in place if he wanted to leave.
He wasn’t going anywhere.
Slanting his mouth over hers, he gave her what she wanted with a deep, slow kiss. Their tongues slid against each other with a rhythm that had him rock hard in no time flat. He must have moved closer, because she eased back until her hips were caught by the kitchen counter.
He held her there, his hands sliding over those sexy hips, feeling the fascinating curve of her body from ass to waist. That primal geometry told his hands and cock and brain that this was right and good. Yes, they urged him, this was the best part of life. This curve and heat and her mouth open and taking him.
Only a minute ago he’d been mortified that she might notice her physical effect on him. Now he wanted her to feel it. He wanted to press his hips to hers and ease some of the ache in his cock. He wanted her to know what he needed, what she’d done.
But fuck... He lifted his head. “Fuck,” he murmured, hands still clutching her hips.
Her throaty laugh chased over his jaw. “Yeah. I agree. That was very nice.”
His laugh was a little more pained than hers. Then again, it’d been longer than a day since he’d done this. More like eight months. Not that he was counting.
She pressed a kiss to his cheek then his chin, and then her teeth closed gently over his bottom lip. “Mmm,” she murmured before letting him go. “Let’s do it again.”
“I can’t,” he said, but he kissed her anyway. He could control himself, no question. It was just that he didn’t want to. Not when she’d tugged him a little closer, so that those gorgeous breasts were pressed against him, and her mouth drew him deeper, and if he just pressed his hips a little tighter...
He groaned into the kiss as he eased away. “I can’t get distracted right now. I’m sorry.”
“Oh. Am I distracting you?” Her smile told him she knew the answer, even before she pulled his hips into hers.
“You know you are.”
“Well, I wasn’t sure until just now.” She pressed snug against him.
Tom laughed, loving her boldness and the challenge in her eyes. “Thank God you’re not still uncertain.”
“No,” she said, pressing her hips tighter. “Not at all.” She raised one hand to slide it up his stomach to his chest, watching her hand explore until it disappeared beneath his suit jacket. “You feel really good.”
It had been a slow build before, starting with the sight of her, then her teasing, her taste, her curves. But this...this frank appreciation for his body? His heart thundered in his chest, and his cock was suddenly painfully hard. He wanted that hand of hers to slide lower. He wanted it to unzip his pants and curl around him and tighten. And he wanted her telling him how good it all was. So damn good.
“Isabelle,” he said, and just that, just her name, reminded him that he shouldn’t do this. “Stop trying to make me crazy.”
That husky laugh burst from her, and she gave him a friendly shove. “Fine. But only because you’re being cute.”
He didn’t feel cute. He felt bereft and a little betrayed that she wasn’t keeping his cock warm anymore. But that was what he’d requested, wasn’t it?
“As you can see,” she said as if normal conversation wasn’t difficult after that kiss, “everything around here is fine. You can get back to work.”
He frowned and looked around in confusion for a moment, not quite recalling what he’d meant to do. “I know how you are about your privacy, but if Veronica is going to be here for a few hours, would you let me take a closer look? Windows, doors, that sort of thing? There was a threat against the family. In fact—” he rubbed a hand over his face “—maybe it’d be better if you disinvited her.”
“No way,” Isabelle said immediately. “That girl needs a night out. Look at whatever you need to.” Her eyes narrowed just a little. “I don’t have anything to hide, Marshal.”
Damned if she didn’t lie almost as well as she kissed.
CHAPTER SEVEN (#ulink_7d4146e1-6861-5d03-aec8-18a72a31cd7f)
HE STILL SEEMED slightly out of sorts. She liked that look on him. The big, tall lawman confused by a simple little kiss.
Okay, so it hadn’t been little. Or simple. She’d been turned on before he’d even pressed his mouth to hers. And judging by the lovely size of his cock, he’d been pretty excited, too.
She’d found him attractive before, but now she knew how firm that stomach was and how his hard chest curved up so nicely into his shoulders. She looked him up and down, and her mouth watered.
“Stop it,” he muttered, taking another step back.
God, he really was adorable. “You don’t have to stand here and let me ogle you. Go on. Look around.”
He glanced past her toward the studio doors. “I’d rather you come with me.”
“You’re not seriously scared of my paintings, are you?”
“No, I’m scared of the photographs.”
It took her a moment to recognize the dry humor in his voice. “I’ll protect you. Try to think of them as part of a case file.”
“I want you to come with me because I know your privacy is important to you.”
She drew back a little in surprise that he even cared. “Okay,” she agreed and followed him back to the living room, where he spent a lot of time checking her window locks.
“Living here alone, you might want to invest in some pin locks. They slide into the frame of the window.”
“I’m too isolated to worry much about that. Anyone who wants in can just break the glass. Even Jill wouldn’t hear that.”
He grunted, not looking pleased. “You’ve got a dead bolt on the door, at least.”
“It was here when I moved in.”
“Any weapons?” he asked.
She hesitated long enough for him to stop his inspection of the door and look at her. “Yes. I’ve got a 9 millimeter.”
“Legal?” he asked, clearly wondering if that was why she’d hesitated.
“Yes.” But the Luger wasn’t. Tom didn’t need to know anything about that. Her father had given it to her. She didn’t even have ammunition for it. Still, she assumed it was illegal in more ways than one.
“Well,” he finally said, “don’t shoot any of my people if you see them poking around on girls’ night.”
“Deal.”
His eyes swept over the living room one more time before he moved on to the garage and laundry room and finally the kitchen.
“You don’t have any family?” he asked as he did a quick check of the window above her kitchen sink. She hesitated again. She could feel herself doing it and couldn’t stop it.
“I don’t see any photos,” he added.
“They’re all gone,” she said, and that was true enough. Her father was gone for good, whether he was alive or not.
“No pictures, even though they’re gone? I guess you weren’t close?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Yeah?” he pressed.
“Yeah.”
“So you don’t want to talk about your family.”
She set her jaw, preparing to lie or tell him off for prying or...something. She should never have kissed him. This was not a man whose curiosity could be easily brushed aside. But while she was chastising herself, he became distracted, staring down the double doors to her studio as if he were steeling himself.
“Come on,” she said. “The easel lights are off. It’s not so bad.”
He rolled his eyes as if he hadn’t been watching the doors as if they’d burst open and zombies would come shuffling out. She noticed he waited for her to open them.
“Don’t you have nightmares?” he asked as soon as he stepped in.
“Of course not.” Not because of her work, anyway.
He took a breath and moved quickly past the first few easels to the two-story wall of windows. “This is the weakest point in your security,” he said, testing the lock on the French doors that led out to a small deck. “But at least you have a slide lock here.”
He engaged the lock at the top of the door, pushing it into the frame. “Where does this lead?” he asked, flipping the light switch next to the door. Nothing happened.
“Sorry. It’s burnt out.”
“Could you replace the bulb tomorrow?”
“Sure. There’s a deck out there.”
He pressed his hand to the glass to see past the lights of the room. “Stairs?”
“Yes.”
“If it’s—” Something slammed against the glass. Before Isabelle could even yelp, Tom had shoved her behind his back and drawn his weapon. “Out of the room!”
“It’s just Bear!” she cried.
Tom was backing up and forcing her toward the door. “What?”
“It’s the cat.”
Bear batted at the glass slightly more gently this time. His big paw pressed against the window, the pink pads splaying out on the glass.
“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Tom barked. “That goddamn cat.”
“He just wants in.”
“Well, let him in.”
Isabelle rolled her shoulders, trying to release the tension that had latched in like claws. “He won’t come in here. He doesn’t like this room.”
“I’m not surprised!”
“It’s the smell of the paint, not the carnage. You should see what he can do to a rabbit.”
Bear hit the door harder this time, and Tom jumped even as he put the gun away. “Why is he banging on the glass if he won’t come in?”
“Because he wants me to open the door so he can stare at me while I get exasperated. Haven’t you ever had a cat?”
“I’ve missed out on that joy,” he said drily.
“They have their benefits.”
“Like?”
She smiled. “He’s really warm on a cold night when I’m alone.”
He slanted her a look as he ran a hand over a windowsill. “How often are you alone?”
“Marshal Duncan, that’s a very forward question.”
He sneaked another look over his shoulder. “That was a very forward kiss.”
She couldn’t stop her grin. “I’m not attached to anyone, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“That’s what I’m asking.”
“Why?” she asked slyly. “Are you going to kiss me again?”
He looked gratifyingly pained by the question. “I can’t. I need to get back to my assignment. Plus, we barely know each other.”
She realized her laughter was a little impolite, but she couldn’t help it. “And we’re not going to get to know each other. You live on the other side of the state. But we can still kiss.”
He finished checking the windows and turned to her, his mouth flat. “Come on. Cheyenne isn’t that far away. Tell me something about yourself.”
“You know plenty about me already. It’s your turn. Do you have family?”
“Yes. Mom and Dad, and a sister who has a family of her own.”
“Are they all in Wyoming?”
“Yes,” he answered as he led the way out of the room.
“Do you get along with them?”
“We get along fine,” he said, as if that meant anything at all. Before she could press, he asked her a question. “How did you end up here?”
“I came through on a road trip, and I liked it.” Another truth. She was getting almost comfortable with it. “Why aren’t you married?”
He didn’t hesitate. “I travel too much.”
“Oh? So US Marshals don’t get married?”
“Fine. I never met the right woman. I don’t want kids, so that complicates things, or so I’ve been told.” He didn’t look to see if she was following him toward her bedroom.
“Now we’re getting interesting. Why don’t you want kids?”
“Why don’t you? You’re, what...midthirties? Why aren’t you married?”
Ha. She could answer that. “I’m thirty-six. And I’m too mean.”
He stopped and turned toward her. “You’re not mean.”
“Oh, really? Am I nice?”
His head cocked, and he studied her for a moment. “You’re not nice, exactly.”
She laughed so hard she had to press a hand to her stomach to try to control it. “I like your honesty,” she managed to say past her gasps. “You’re pretty cool.”
“Now, that’s something I haven’t heard in a really long time.”
“Then we’re even.”
They stared at each other for a long moment before Tom shook his head. “Shit, I want to kiss you.”
“Do it,” she dared him, her insides already tightening at the idea.
But his gaze slid to her bed, and he shook his head. “I can’t.”
“Afraid I’ll lure you into my bed and steal your virtue?”
“If you can find my virtue, you can have it. And if that’s a euphemism, even better. But what I’m afraid of is having to leave in twenty minutes. Not very memorable. And...” He held up a hand as if reminding himself. “I really shouldn’t get involved when I’m in your house on official business. Now tell me why you’re not married.”
“Tell me why you don’t want kids.”
That shut him up, and Isabelle was free to watch him work for the next five minutes until he left with a warning about locking the door. And with no goodbye kiss.
But that was okay. She could wait. He’d give in before long. And in the meantime, she could fantasize about exactly how it would happen.
* * *
DAMN. TOM WAS in deep trouble. He hadn’t meant to kiss her. It would’ve been a bad idea even without the extra complication that he was looking into her on the side. He had Veronica Chandler to protect, and he couldn’t mess around with Isabelle when he was on duty.
More than that was the trouble of Isabelle herself. Tom had been thirty-one before he’d realized he couldn’t trust himself with women. Not because he had a roaming eye or a callous heart or a cruel streak, but because he didn’t. He’d been a sucker for the damsel in distress. The soft girl who couldn’t quite figure life out. He’d been smart enough not to fall for any hard cases, but that had only made it worse. When a girl was hot and helpless and nice, it was really hard to break things off when you finally realized you needed to.
Isabelle wasn’t like that, of course. He’d finally aged out of those immature attractions. Isabelle was capable and tough and smart as hell. But she was still in some sort of trouble. He couldn’t add sex to the mix, especially when he could tell just how good it was going to be. He couldn’t do that when he was still checking into her past.
“Damn it,” he growled as he drove carefully down her snow-packed driveway and eased onto the road.
All he wanted to do was turn around, bang on her door and spend the next few hours in her bed. But he couldn’t.
Despite his misgivings, he might not have had the willpower to make it out of there, but then she’d said she liked his honesty. When the only reason he’d asked her to stay close in her house was so he could probe her about her past.
He should drop it, but he couldn’t. What if she was in danger? Worse yet, what if she was a criminal and he didn’t do his job because he would rather have sex with her?
He shook his head. Dropping it wasn’t an option. He couldn’t ignore his gut at this point. The most he could do was keep his suspicions quiet until he found out the truth.
You didn’t just ignore trouble. He’d learned that the hard way at a young age. Those were the kind of lessons you got when your older brother was a drug addict. When the choice came down to honesty or tricking someone into getting help, you dropped honesty every time.
If Isabelle needed help, she’d never admit it. And if she’d done something wrong, he couldn’t ignore it.
Simple enough, but he felt like biting someone’s head off by the time he got out of the car and stalked toward the judge’s house. He wanted to slam the door open and yell at everyone in sight, but it wasn’t his home, and his people hadn’t done anything wrong.
Mary was waiting for him as soon as he hit the basement stairs. “Did you really approve this night out for Veronica?” she snapped.
“Yes.”
“Why?” Her tone suggested he’d lost his mind, and she was about to help him find it.
“Veronica didn’t have to come here. We can’t keep her prisoner. And it’s not like she wants to go to the state fair. It’s a private residence within shouting distance of our base. It shouldn’t be difficult.”
Mary was about to argue with him. He could see that as clearly as if she’d said it, but eventually she closed her mouth and nodded. “Okay. Fine. Who are you sending over?”
“You.”
“Me?” she screeched.
“I’m going, too.”
“What the hell, Tom? We’ve got twelve additional people here now, and this is a job for a first-year deputy.”
He couldn’t tell her that the real reason was that he wanted to spy on Isabelle. He also couldn’t tell Mary that he wanted her to meet Jill. She’d dig in her heels and tell him to mind his own business. She was always telling him to mind his own business; he never did. “Those guys need all their attention on the courthouse. We know how to pace ourselves. You can sleep in the next day if you need to.”
“I don’t need to sleep in!” she growled before stomping up the stairs. That was the end of the discussion. Good.
They’d debriefed in the meeting room after court had adjourned, but that didn’t mean there weren’t twenty emails waiting for him. So far there’d been no activity at the judge’s place, and Stevenson hadn’t been spotted in Jackson or Boise or anywhere in between.
Tom wrote an update for his chief, laying out his plan to feed only the smallest bits of information to the press so as not to inspire any of the defendant’s sympathizers. Then he sent an email to his team with a few more specifics about tomorrow’s detail, requested an expedited review of the letter from the consulting psychiatrist and was finally ready to turn in at eleven.
But he had something else to look into.
He’d considered taking a long-range photo of Isabelle and feeding it into a reverse image search, but if she’d kept a low profile for the past fourteen years, it probably wouldn’t pan out. No point stepping that far over the line into invading her privacy. He’d also considered that he could’ve lifted some small piece of garbage from her trash to get her fingerprints, but that felt even more wrong. He really wanted to leave a moral pathway open to sleeping with her.
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Victoria Dahl
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: There′s no hiding from sizzling chemistry…Artist Isabelle West has good reasons for preferring a solitary life. Tucked away in a cabin in the woods, she has everything she needs…except a red-hot love life. That is, until a hard-bodied US marshal threatens to unearth secrets she′s spent years protecting. But giving in to the sparks flying between them can only lead to one thing…disaster.Tom Duncan lives by the letter of the law. But no one has tempted him–or confused him–more than free-spirited Isabelle, who arouses his suspicion and his desire. As their connection grows, and their nights get hotter, they find their wild attraction might shake everything he stands for–and expose everything she has to hide.