She basked in the sun on her skin and breathed in the earthy wildness of the woods and the water from her perch on the end of the weathered wooden pier. Her bare toes played in the warm water, drawing curious bluegills close to the surface before they darted back down to safety near the lake bottom.
Suddenly, the pier shook and creaked beneath her as footsteps approached from behind. She turned to look up at the visitor and met a pair of brilliant blue eyes gazing out from the chiseled-stone features of Riley Patterson.
“Wake up,” he said. “You’re in danger.”
The dream images shattered, like a reflection in a pool displaced by a falling stone. She woke to the murky darkness of a hospital room filled with alien smells and furtive movements. A shadow shifted beside her in the gloom, and she heard the faint sound of breathing by her bed.
She froze, swallowing the moan of fear rising in her throat.
But why hadn’t the nurse left the door to the hallway open?
She felt the slightest tug on the IV needle in the back of her hand. Peering into the darkness, she caught the faint glint of the IV bag as it moved.
The intruder was putting something into her IV line.
Panic hammering the back of her throat, she swallowed hard and tried to keep her breathing steady, even though her lungs felt ready to explode. Slowly, quietly, she tugged the tube from the cannula in her right hand until she felt the cool drip of liquid spreading across the bed sheet under her arm. She had no idea where the nurse call button was, but it didn’t matter anyway. She was too terrified to move again. The last thing she wanted to do was let the intruder know she was awake.
Instead, she focused on her breathing, keeping it slow and steady. In and out. Her heart was racing, her head was aching, but she kept breathing until she felt the intruder move away from her bedside. A moment later, the door to her room opened and the silhouette of a man briefly filled the shaft of light pouring inside. But he was gone before she got more than a quick impression of a solid, masculine build.
The door clicked closed and she jerked herself to a sitting position, groping for the nurse call button that hung by a cord from the side of her bed. She flicked the switch that turned on the bedside light and frantically pressed the call button.
A few seconds later, a woman’s tinny voice came through the call-button speaker. “Yes?”
“Someone just came into my room and tried to put something in my IV line,” she said, her voice shaking.
After a brief pause, the nurse’s voice came through the speaker again. “I’ll be right there.”
A few seconds later, the door opened and a nurse hurried inside. She hit the switch by the door, flooding the room with light. Her brow furrowing, she looked at the tube Hannah had extracted from the cannula. “Are you sure someone was in here?” she asked, checking the IV bag.
“He was standing right there. He put something in that port thing.” Hannah pointed toward the bright orange injection port positioned a few inches below the IV bag.
The nurse’s frown deepened.
The door to the room whipped open and Riley Patterson entered, his tense blue eyes meeting Hannah’s. “What’s going on? I saw the nurse run in here-”
Hannah watched him close the distance between them, unsettled by how glad she was to see the Wyoming lawman again. The memory of her dream, of his quiet warning, flashed through her mind, and she felt the sudden, ridiculous urge to fling herself in his arms and thank him for saving her life.
Instead, she murmured, “I thought you went home.”
“You thought wrong,” he said drily. “What happened?”
She told him what she’d just experienced, watching with alarm as his expression darkened. “I wasn’t imagining it,” she said defensively.
He looked at her. “I didn’t say you were.”
“I’ll call security,” the nurse said, heading for the door.
“I think we should call the Teton County Sheriff’s Department, too.” Riley reached for the phone.
“So you believe me?” Hannah pressed.
“Any reason I shouldn’t?” He started dialing a number.
Hannah sank back against her pillows, reaction beginning to set in. She tried to hold back the shivers, but it was like fighting an avalanche. By the time Riley hung up the phone and turned around, her teeth were chattering wildly.
He sat beside her on the bed and took her hands in his. “It’s okay. You’re going to be okay.”
His eyes were the color of the midday sky, clear and brilliant blue. They were a startling spot of color in his lean, sun-bronzed face. He seemed hewn of stone, his short-cropped hair the rusty color of iron ore, his shoulders as broad and solid as a block of granite. His lean body could have been chiseled from the rocky outcroppings of the Wyoming mountains. He had cowboy written all over him.
Aware she was staring, she looked down at his hands enveloping hers. They were large, strong and work- roughened. A slim gold band encircled his left ring finger.
She tugged her hands away, acutely aware of her own bare ring finger. “I should have screamed. I let him get away.”
“There are probably security cameras around. He took a big risk coming after you here.”
“He was so calm.” She gripped the bed sheets to keep her traitorous fingers from reaching for his hands again, though she felt absurdly adrift without his reassuring touch. “His actions were furtive, but he didn’t seem nervous.”
“Did you see anything about him?”
“It was too dark. I saw his outline when he slipped out the door-definitely male.”
“My size?”
She let her gaze move a little too slowly over his hard, lean frame. Chiding herself mentally, she shook her head. “Heavier. More muscle-bound or something. Probably your height, maybe an inch or two taller.” She pressed her lips together to stop her chattering teeth. “I should have made noise, gotten the nurses in here-”
“If you’re right about what you saw, the man came here to kill you. Making a noise only would have made it happen faster.” He briefly touched her hand where the cannula remained, unattached to the IV tube. “You got that tube out. You saved yourself, and nobody could expect anything more.”
He was saying all the right things, but she heard disappointment in his voice. Clearly, finding the man who’d attacked her was more than just another case to him.
She’d always been insanely curious-nosy, her brothers preferred to call it-but something kept her from asking any more questions of Riley Patterson. She sensed that pushing him for more information would make him back off. She couldn’t afford for him to back off.
A man had tried to kill her twice in one day, and she had a feeling Riley Patterson might be the only person who could stop him if he tried it a third time.
JOE GARRISON ARRIVED not long after the Teton County Sheriff’s Department detectives. Riley caught his boss’s eye as he entered Hannah Cooper’s room, motioning him over with a twitch of his head. Joe met him in the corner, his gaze wandering across the small room to where Hannah Cooper sat in a chair by her empty bed, her green-eyed gaze following the activity of the evidence techs who were processing the scene.
“The Teton County Sheriff’s Department wants her in protective custody, but she’s refusing,” Riley said. “She said she’d rather go home early tomorrow and forget all about this.”
“You don’t want her to leave.”
Riley met his friend’s understanding gaze. “She saw the guy. Maybe she didn’t see his face, but she’s the only living witness, and she’s about to fly back home to Alabama.”
“You can’t keep her here against her will.”
Riley pressed his hands against his gritty eyes. “I can’t let her leave.”
Joe’s answer was dry as a desert. “So kidnap her and hold her hostage.”
Riley slanted a look at his boss. “Did you drive all the way here to give me a hard time or are you going to help me figure out how to keep her in Wyoming?”
“Do you want me to arrest her or something?”
“Could we?” Riley glanced at Hannah, only half-joking. She looked calm now, more curious than worried, her
