justice for Em.”
“And for the other women, too,” Hannah added soberly.
His grin faded. “For the other women, too.” He parked his truck next to Riley’s in the yard. “I’m going to go feed the horses. You go on in.”
“Coward,” she said, but lightly, because it probably wasn’t a good idea for Riley to see Jack as wound up as he was right now. Riley would wonder what his brother-in-law was up to.
She went into the house alone, not certain what she’d find. The kitchen was empty, though he’d left the light on over the sink so she wouldn’t be entering into darkness. The hallway was dark, but a light shone in the guest room.
She entered her room to find Riley sitting on the bed, holding the sweater she’d left lying on her bed when she’d changed clothes for dinner with Jack and the reporter.
He looked up at her, his expression calm and regretful. “I didn’t tell Joe the truth,” he said.
She stopped at the rocking chair near the wood stove and sat, folding her hands on her lap. She held his gaze, waiting for him to elaborate. She wasn’t sure what she wanted to hear from him-the blunt, harsh truth or some half-baked pointless apology. Either way, it was going to hurt.
“I’m not just using you to find Emily’s murderer. I do care about whether or not you get hurt.” He bent forward, his forearms resting on his knees. He looked as bone-weary as she felt. “The last three years have been hard.”
“Sounds like an understatement,” she murmured.
His pain-darkened eyes lifted to meet hers. “I used to be a very different man. I wasn’t driven, I wasn’t focused. I just enjoyed life as it came. Rode out whatever happened, not worrying too much about it. I had my health, I had my friends, I had Emily.”
She didn’t want to think about how much his description of his former life matched her own. Despite the broken heart she’d told Jack about, her life had been pretty good. Pretty easy. She’d done well in school, never having to struggle to achieve. Surrounded by a loving, happy family and the friends she’d grown up with, she’d gone to college just as planned, took a job at the Marina because it was what she’d always assumed she’d do.
What in her life had ever been a struggle before now?
“I sometimes think Joe just sticks around out of stubbornness. I’m a terrible friend to him. He and Jane were in a dangerous mess a couple of years ago, and I barely managed to pull my head out of my backside enough to give them a hand right about the time it was all over.” He looked away, his face flushed with shame. “My other friends gave up a long time ago. I keep telling my parents I’m fine, but they know. They just don’t know what to do about it.”
“It’s hard to know what to say to someone who’s hurting,” she said, thinking about her brother J.D., who was, at least, lucky enough to have his two kids to keep him putting one foot in front of the other every day.
“It’s not their fault. It’s mine.” He briefly pressed his palms against his temples, then dropped his hands to his knees. “I’ve pushed people away because it took all the energy I had to keep going, keep focusing on finding out who killed Emily and those other women. I can’t-I can’t let other things matter.”
His voice faltered, the words trembling on his tongue. She wanted to go to him, pull him into her arms and share the burden, but he clearly wasn’t ready for that.
Might never be ready.
“But you matter,” he said finally, so softly that she almost missed it. He looked up at her, his eyes blazing blue fire. “You matter.”
He lurched off the bed, towering over her for a long, breathless moment, then bent and put his hands on the rocking chair arms, leaning close enough that she felt his breath warm on her cheeks. “You can’t put yourself at any further risk. Do you understand? If something happened to you-”
Tears burned her eyes and spilled down her cheeks as he pulled her to her feet and into his embrace. His mouth descended on hers, fiery sweet and urgent. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him closer, needing the heat of him against her trembling body. Guilt mingled with desire as she struggled to find the center of her suddenly upended world.
He edged her toward the bed, turning and falling until she lay beneath him, her back against the mattress. He drew back long enough to cradle her head between his hands and gaze down at her with a question in his eyes.
Her body screamed for him to keep touching her, keep kissing her, to fill the aching, empty places inside her. But her mind was dark with regret, because she’d already set into motion something that would put her in much more danger, the one thing he’d just begged her not to do.
“Stop,” she said softly as he bent to kiss her again.
Riley went still, gazing at her with suddenly wary eyes. She felt the rapid drumbeat of his heart against her chest.
“I talked to a reporter tonight,” she confessed.
Chapter Twelve
Riley froze, Hannah’s admission washing over him like ice water. His arms trembled as he hovered over her, trying to process what he’d just heard.
“I told him some of what happened to me.” The words spilled from Hannah’s lips in an inflectionless rush. “I held back most of the details-the belt buckle, the latex gloves. But I mentioned that my attacker posed as a cop. And I made it clear that I remembered more than I was telling the reporter.”
He rolled away from her, sitting up with his back to her. Cold, hard fear settled in his gut as a dozen terrifying outcomes rattled through his brain like a horrible slide show.
What had she done?
“I’m sorry,” she said, regret threaded through her voice. “I thought I had to do something to push things forward. I have so little time left before I have to go back home.”
If she even made it home alive, he thought bleakly. “You shouldn’t have done that.” His voice came out hard and strangled.
She didn’t answer.
“How did you get in touch with a reporter?”
She couldn’t answer that question without implicating Jack. She hedged instead. “Does it matter? It was my choice to do it.”
He looked inclined to probe deeper, but to her relief, he just sighed and asked, “Can we stop it?”
“No. He was writing and filing the story as soon as he got back to the office. It’s probably already on the press.”
He pushed to his feet, not ready to give up. He pulled out his cell phone. “Who was the reporter?”
“I don’t even remember the paper-it’s a daily out of Jackson. The reporter’s name is Mark Archibald.” She caught his arm, tugging him around to look at her. “I don’t think we should stop it, Riley.”
Her chin was up, her jaw squared. A sinking feeling settled in his gut, and he shook off her hand. “Like hell.” He flipped open the phone and dialed the number for Teton County Sheriff Jim Tanner.
Tanner answered on the second ring. “Jim Tanner.”
“Sheriff Tanner, it’s Riley Patterson.” Not waiting for the chief’s response, he tersely outlined what Hannah had told him about her meeting with the Jackson reporter. “Can you get the story killed?”
After a brief pause, Jim Tanner answered, “No.”
“Why the hell not?”
“The First Amendment comes to mind,” Tanner answered in a dry drawl. “Also, we’re doing a disservice to the communities we serve by holding back on this any longer.”
Riley couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “This article will put Hannah Cooper’s life in greater danger.”
“And not running it will put the lives of women all over Wyoming in greater danger,” Tanner countered firmly. “Hannah Cooper has a cop playing bodyguard for her twenty-four hours a day. Those other women don’t even know the flashing blue light in their rearview mirrors could mean their lives are over.”
Riley slumped against the bedroom wall, reason starting to gain on the galloping fear eating away at his
