Cowboy Alibi

He took her hand and enfolded it in his own. “I’m sorry your mother’s dead.”

“And that my father’s a self-centered bastard?”

“That, too.”

She rested her temple against his shoulder. “When I first realized I didn’t know anything about my past, I imagined all sorts of scenarios to fill in the blanks. My parents were professors. Doctors. Spies.” She chuckled bleakly. “But I knew better. Deep down, I knew.”

“Have you remembered anything else?”

“Nothing new. But there’s something I didn’t tell you about my earlier memories.” She withdrew her hand and shifted on the bed to face him.

He returned her gaze, his expression wary.

“The reason I remembered Reno at all was because I remember being arrested by an undercover Reno police officer,” she said. “For my part in Harlan’s shell game.”

His expression softened. “You must have been a kid,” he said. “We didn’t get any hits on your fingerprints until you showed up in Trinity, but maybe a closed juvenile record wouldn’t have been in the system.”

“If I left here at eighteen, I guess I didn’t have time to rack up a record as an adult.”

“You probably never got arrested again, since you didn’t show up anywhere on our search.” He brushed the back of his knuckles against her cheek. “But we have a name now to help us find out more about who you are.”

“I don’t want to know who I was.”

He cupped her chin in his palm and turned her to look at him. “You can’t run away from it, Jane, or you’ll spend the rest of your life running.”

“I wish I could,” she murmured, her heart racing as his fingertips traced the curve of her cheek. “I wish I could keep running until I found a place that feels safe.”

“Running away from Wyoming didn’t make you safe.” His voice dipped lower.

She closed her eyes, unable to think with him sitting so close. “Tell me how we met.”

“Tommy introduced us.”

She waited for him to withdraw, the way he always did when he mentioned his brother. But she still felt the heat of his body next to hers, the warmth of his breath stirring her hair and warming her cheeks.

With her eyes still closed, she turned her face toward him. “Tell me how. Where were we? What did you say? What did I say?”

His breathing quickened. “All I remember,” he whispered, “is wanting to do this.”

His mouth brushed over hers, soft and hot.

She opened her eyes, startled. For a brief moment, she was too surprised to react. By the time that moment passed, any thought of pulling away disappeared.

She parted her lips, returning the gentle pressure, and curled her fingers into the crisp cotton of his shirt to pull him closer. He cradled her face in both hands, slanting his mouth over hers with greater urgency.

Blistering need scorched through her at his touch, catching her off guard. Entangled by desire so fierce she couldn’t catch her breath, she fought for control, as frightened by what she was feeling as she was enthralled.

This was memory, she realized, as much as instinct. She remembered these sensations, the feel of his hands as they traced a path of sexual heat down the side of her neck to the curve of her breasts. She remembered the taste of him-rich, dark and bittersweet.

He shifted on the bed and she followed, ending up on his lap, her thighs straddling his hips to bring their bodies flush and hard against each other. Threading his fingers through her hair, he broke off their kiss and made her look at him. “If we do this, I won’t be able to let you go,” he warned, his gray eyes dark with hunger.

“I won’t let you go.” Clint’s voice was hard, full of warning. His grip on her wrist tightened, just short of painful. “You know that.”

He released her and she forced herself not to rub her wrist where he’d touched her. She couldn’t let him see her distress. He enjoyed it too much.

She tightened her hands into fists and watched him leave the room. The sound of the lock clicking into position was loud in the silence of her bedroom prison. She dropped wearily onto the side of her bed, pressing her hands against her roiling stomach.

She had to get out tonight. Before he found out.

Jane pulled away from Joe’s arms, stumbling a little as she slid off his lap and took a few steps away from him. Her heart raced from a double dose of desire and fear.

Joe stared at her from his seat on the edge of the bed, his eyes dark with frustration. “Guess that’s a no?”

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, edging past him toward the bathroom. She shut herself inside and stared at her reflection in the bathroom mirror.

Gazing back at her was a person she barely recognized as herself, a well-dressed woman with long, dark hair twisted in a coil at the base of her neck and light but perfectly applied makeup. The only thing familiar was the hunted look in her green eyes and the determined set of her mouth.

She had to get out of there.

The night was dark, which served her purpose. Miguel had risked everything by providing the code for the back gate. She couldn’t let him down by getting caught.

Outside, the air was cool and dry, with a faint salt breeze coming from the Pacific a few blocks west. Clint had gone to a party-something political, she thought, though he’d long since stopped informing her of the details of his comings and goings.

It would be her last chance to get away before…what? Why was tonight the night she had to leave? She knew the answer was there somewhere, in her fuzzy head, but she just couldn’t pull it out.

Jane blinked and the image in the mirror was gone, replaced by the bottle redhead with tired, sad eyes.

Everything she needed to know about herself lay hidden somewhere behind those eyes. She couldn’t run from her memories. They would follow her wherever she went, daring her to suck up her courage and face them.

A knock on the bathroom door made her whole body jerk. She steadied herself with both hands on the sink counter.

“Jane, are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she lied, staring at the mirror as if she could will another memory into being. But her other self remained stubbornly elusive.

She turned on the faucet and splashed water on her hot face, wishing she could return to the moment when all she wanted in the world was to be in Joe Garrison’s arms.

But how could she offer herself to him when she didn’t even know what she was offering? What kind of woman was she, really? Why was Clint Holbrook willing to kill to take her home with him? Joe couldn’t give her those answers. And until she knew the truth about herself, the last thing she could afford to do was give her heart to a man who might never be able to trust her.

SOMETHING HAD to give, Joe thought, staring bleakly at the closed bathroom door. He wasn’t the kind of man who sat around waiting for things to happen.

He made things happen.

What he needed was home-field advantage. He knew every inch of Canyon Creek, Wyoming. And more important, there were people in Canyon Creek who’d known him since birth, who knew the kind of man he was and what he was-and wasn’t-capable of doing.

He needed to go home.

But getting there undetected was the hard part. His earlier call to his deputy chief-and Riley’s quick ring off-had made it clear the authorities were watching his friends and associates. His credit cards were probably flagged, too. Another long bus ride seemed the best option, but it left them at the mercy of the driver and other passengers.

He was tired of being at anyone else’s mercy.

The bathroom door opened, and Jane walked into the bedroom, carrying first-aid supplies and a plastic garbage bag she’d apparently taken from the bathroom trash can. She slanted a wary look at him. “Time to change your bandage.”

The last thing he trusted himself to do at the moment was take off his shirt. But the unadulterated challenge in