made poor preventatives against her attraction to the man.
Just the sound of his slow, steady breathing had been enough to fire her fantasies, and she’d tossed and turned all night, trying to fight their potent allure.
He wasn’t even that good-looking, she had tried to tell herself, even as her skin still remembered the feel of his body pressed so tightly against hers. His craggy features were too rough-hewn to be considered conventionally handsome, his rusty hair close-cropped, almost military style, and worthless for running one’s fingers through.
Except she kept finding herself imagining the crisp texture of his hair sliding beneath her fingertips, and the mere thought made her whole body tingle with anticipation.
An image of Craig’s face flashed through her mind. So handsome, so familiar. She hadn’t been able to keep her hands off him, either.
And hadn’t that worked out well?
“What about the personnel files from the hospital?” Riley asked Joe.
“Jim called this morning. He was having a little trouble working out the legal details, but he found a judge late last night who’d sign the court order for access to the records. Only he can’t share them outside his jurisdiction, so we’ll have to wait for his people to work through the list,” Joe said.
“That could take forever,” Riley protested, running his left hand over his jaw, clearly frustrated.
Morning sunlight slicing into the room between the kitchen window curtains reflected off the slim gold band on his ring finger, catching Hannah’s attention. She let her gaze linger on the ring as it provided a much-needed reality check.
Riley Patterson might be sexy. He might be the kind of rugged, masculine man that made ordinarily sane women consider moving to Wyoming and roughing it through long, harsh winters just to sleep at night in such a man’s arms.
But in the ways that mattered most, Riley Patterson was a married man. His love for his wife drove him, day in and day out, to find an elusive killer who’d left few clues to follow. His body might respond like a man when he was around a woman, just as he’d responded to being close to her last night. But his heart was strictly off-limits.
“I know it’s frustrating that we can’t get all the answers immediately,” Joe said, giving Hannah something to think about besides her alarming attraction to Riley. “But this is pretty significant movement on these cases. That’s good news.”
Riley nodded. “I know you’re right. It’s just-” He looked at Hannah.
“So maybe you should spend your time trying to concentrate on what else Hannah can remember,” Joe suggested.
Footsteps on the back porch heralded Jack Drummond’s return from the stable. Joe stuffed the files he’d been sharing with them in his briefcase and rose from the table as Jack walked into the kitchen. “Hi there, Jack.”
Jack shook hands with Joe. “Back so soon?”
As Joe responded, and their greeting turned into small talk, Riley leaned toward Hannah, his voice lowered. “I think Joe’s right. We need to concentrate on helping you remember more of what happened the day of the attack.”
“Every time I try to concentrate on it, I just become more confused,” she said softly. “I don’t even know what would help at this point.”
“I have some thoughts-”
Jack cleared his throat loudly. “Can’t even leave these lovebirds alone for five seconds before they’ve got their heads together, whispering sweet nothings, Joe. What am I gonna do with them?”
“Short of hosing them down?” Joe responded, shooting a wink at Hannah.
“Well, they’ll have themselves a little free time today, because I’m heading into town to see if I can stir up a little trouble.” Jack held his hands up toward Joe. “Strictly legal, of course.”
“Of course.” Joe patted Jack on the back and turned to Riley. “I’ll let you know if I hear anything about that case I was telling you about. Enjoy your time off.”
“Thanks.” Riley walked Joe out, while Jack settled into the chair his brother-in-law had vacated.
“You could ditch Riley and come to town with me, you know,” Jack said with a wicked grin. “I’d show you places in Canyon Creek Riley probably doesn’t even know about-”
“I heard that,” Riley shot over his shoulder as he closed the door behind Joe. “And you’d be surprised the places I know about in Canyon Creek, son.” He crossed to Jack’s side and clamped his hands on his brother-in-law’s shoulders. “Like where to bury a body so nobody can find it.”
“Okay, okay, I’m going!” Jack said, laughing. He headed down the hall toward his room.
“He’s right about one thing,” Riley said, holding out his hand to Hannah. “Let’s get out of this house.”
THE MORNING WAS TURNING out to be unseasonably mild for October in Wyoming, the bright, late-morning sun warming the cab of Riley’s pickup truck. Hannah laid her head back against the headrest and closed her eyes, enjoying the light on her face and the slow, bluesy strains of a Tim McGraw song playing on the truck’s radio.
If it weren’t for Riley’s steady stream of questions, she might even be able to pretend it was a carefree outing.
“What had you been doing before you headed west on 287?”
She opened her eyes, releasing a soft sigh. “I’d spent longer on the lake at my friends’ place than I’d intended. The trout were biting great, so we decided to eat some of our catch for lunch. I’d planned to be on the road before lunch, but I couldn’t pass up the fresh fish, so I didn’t get out of there as early as I’d hoped.”
“You were about twenty miles southwest of Grand Teton State Park when you were pulled over, right?”
“That’s what Sheriff Tanner said. I don’t know for sure.”
Riley’s brow creased. “Would you be able to recognize where you were pulled over if you saw it again?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I know it was fairly isolated, and there was no shoulder of the road to speak of. I pulled over just past a crossroad, because there was finally a little bit of a rocky shoulder to pull over on.” She turned to look at him, wincing a little as her seatbelt pressed against her still-sore body. “Would it help to find the place?”
“I suppose the Teton County Sheriff’s Department has already looked for it, but-yeah. I think it would help. Maybe it would jog your memory, if nothing else.”
“If we’re lucky,” she agreed, although the thought of recreating the nightmare of that day held little appeal. Still, if it helped Riley get closer to stopping a killer, she’d do it.
“Where do your friends live?”
“It’s a small ranch in the Pavillion area.”
He nodded. “I know the area. Do you think you could find it again?”
“You want us to go there? Today?”
“I want us to start where you started, when you started. The more directly we duplicate your drive, the better.” He reached into his pocket for his cell phone and dialed a number. “Hey, Joe, it’s Riley.”
As Riley outlined the plan over the phone with his boss, Hannah turned her gaze back toward the landscape unfolding ahead of them. They were driving east, toward Canyon Creek. The plan had originally been to stop for lunch in town, just to give Hannah a chance to get out of the house. The countryside outside of town was mostly ranch acreage, punctuated by scrub grass and the occasional small lake or winding creek. Horses and cattle dotted the grassy pastureland, although Riley had told her that the grazing season was mostly over for the year.
“Anything new from Jackson?” Riley asked. His lips pressed to a line as he listened to Joe’s response. “Yeah, I know I just talked to you a half hour ago. Yeah. Bye.”
“Still nothing?”
He shook his head. “Jackson has this stuff on rush, which is really all we could hope for, given we haven’t definitively made the connection between your attack and the murders.”
“But the belt buckle-”
“The state lab guys will look at what we sent them. But they have other cases.”
Hannah slumped against her seat, frustrated. It was a lot easier to be patient with the snail’s pace of forensic science when you weren’t the one whose life had been upended, she supposed. And she knew the Wyoming authorities were probably working as quickly as they could.
“So, are we still going into town?” she asked aloud.
“Yeah. You left your friend’s place in Pavillion when?”
“Around two in the afternoon.”
