If she was even still in the car.

He turned into the parking lot of a coffee shop about a block up the street from the motel and parked between a couple of SUVs. The lights inside the shop doubtless made mirrors of the plate-glass windows, making it easy to escape the notice of the scattering of patrons inside as he made his way toward the back of the parking lot, where a narrow alley stretched for a couple of blocks to allow access for waste-disposal trucks to empty the large trash bins behind the establishments.

He stuck to the shadows, moving stealthily up the alley toward the Admiral Arms Motel. He paused for a moment at the edge of the motel grounds, peering around the corner of the redwood fence separating the motel’s parking lot from the narrow empty lot next door.

He spotted Clint Holbrook and a shorter man walking across the front parking lot toward the detached building housing the front office. They disappeared from sight around the front of that building.

Joe made a dash for the two tall trash bins sitting at the edge of the alley and started to squeeze between them when he realized he was not alone. Someone was already crouched low in the space. He skidded to a stop, cursing silently as his boots made a loud crunching sound on the loose gravel of the alley.

The crouched figure moved, launching herself forward. Joe caught a flash of red hair in a narrow beam of light shining between the bins.

“Jane!” he whispered.

The figure froze. “Joe?” she whispered.

“I’m right here.”

She scooted backward toward him, unable to turn in the narrow space between the bins. He pulled her to him when she was in reach, wrapping his arms around her from behind and pressing his face into her hair. Despite the foul odors coming from the trash bins, she still smelled good, soap-and-water fresh with an underlying essence he would recognize anywhere.

“Clint’s here,” she whispered, rubbing her cheek against his.

“I know. I saw him.”

She trembled wildly, her teeth making a faint rattling sound. He tightened his hold on her and peered through the narrow space between the bins. “Which car is his?”

“The black sedan parked closest to the edge of the building. That’s its rear end there by the corner.”

He pressed his lips to the back of her head and watched the black sedan for any sign of movement. A few long minutes later, the taillights lit up and the car began to back out of the parking lot. As the headlights swung toward the trash bins, Joe pulled Jane around, pressing his back against the tall metal trash container.

He waited a few seconds and peeked through the space again. He spotted the sedan turning left into light traffic. He waited until it disappeared from sight before he released Jane, turning her to face him.

“You all right?”

“I am now,” she responded breathlessly before throwing herself into his arms.

He held her tightly for a moment before gently setting her away from him. “Let’s go. I want to get to Twin Falls by daylight.”

She frowned. “Twin Falls, Idaho? I thought we were heading to Wyoming.”

“I don’t want to take the most direct route, in case anybody’s figured out where we’re headed.” He threaded his fingers through hers and led her down the alley toward the coffee shop where he’d left the Chevrolet.

“SO, TELL ME about Rita,” Jane said as they crossed into Wyoming just after sundown the next day.

Joe glanced at her briefly before returning his gaze to the highway. She’d been napping in the passenger seat since Pocatello, but he should have known he wouldn’t make it back to Canyon Creek without the subject of Rita coming up again. She’d been too hyped about the close call with Clint Holbrook on the long overnight drive to Twin Falls, and by the time they found a dingy motel where they could rest a bit before continuing on to Wyoming, her adrenaline rush was long gone. She’d been asleep before she hit the covers of the sagging queen-size bed in their motel room.

“That bad?” she murmured, shifting in the passenger seat to look at him.

“Rita was-briefly-my wife.”

“Oh.”

He slanted another look at her, taking in her furrowed brow and narrowed eyes. “It didn’t last a year. I really should have known it wouldn’t, but a man in love-”

“So you were in love with her?”

“I wouldn’t have married her if I weren’t.”

“Are you still in love with her?”

He hadn’t expected that question. “I suppose once you love somebody, there’s a part of you that always will. But Rita taught me a good lesson about love.”

“What’s that?”

He looked at her again. “Sometimes it’s not enough.”

She turned her gaze back toward the windshield, falling silent. The darkness hid the craggy hills they were traveling through, as well as the towering grandeur of the Grand Teton Mountains to the north. It was a shame; Jane had loved the mountains, thrived on the harsh demands of the wilderness. She’d have enjoyed seeing them again.

Unlike Rita, who’d scampered back East after the first big snowfall, Jane had helped his brother, Tommy, keep the ranch running through a rough Wyoming winter without complaint. It had been her grit that had convinced Joe that what he was coming to feel for her might last longer than a few short months.

“Rita was a photographer,” he said aloud. “She freelanced. Fashion shoots, mostly. Some magazine pieces. She came to Canyon Creek on location for a big men’s clothing designer who wanted a Wild West theme for his next line. She came to city hall with the production manager to check on permits for the shoot.”

“And you were there?”

“I was there.” His voice softened in memory. “She was beautiful. Like something out of a magazine herself. Long blond hair, eyes the color of the Wyoming sky, trying to dress like a native and not quite pulling it off…”

“Love at first sight?”

“Yeah.” He sighed. “For her, too, or so she said.”

“Did you follow her back East or did she stick around Wyoming?”

“She said she loved it here, and I’d already done my time away from Wyoming. She decided to stay, see if she could get some work in the Jackson Hole area. She had a good portfolio. Folks in Jackson Hole were happy to give her work. We got married a month after we met.”

“That fast?”

He smiled at her surprise. “That fast. And you know, the first few months were wonderful. The first flush of love always is.”

“What happened?”

“It snowed.”

Jane looked at him. “What?”

“It snowed. Wyoming-style.” He could laugh about it now, with some time and distance. “She was from New Jersey, spent several years living in New York City. I tried to warn her about the snow, but she laughed at me. She knew about snow, she said.”

“But not Wyoming snow.”

“She didn’t understand how much there’d be. How it could limit life in a lot of ways for weeks at a time.”

“So she left because of the snow?”

“Well, that and the rich guy she met up at one of the Jackson Hole resorts. He offered to take her back East and make her forget her rash decision to marry a cowboy cop, and she took him up on it.”

“Bitch,” Jane muttered.

Joe laughed again. She’d said the same thing the first time he’d told her the sad story of Joe and Rita, almost a year ago. “She’s not. She just made a mistake. So did I. We were lucky to get out of it as easily as we did. We could have had kids to deal with.”

Jane fell silent after that, her gaze turned back to the winding highway unfolding in the beams of the Chevrolet’s headlights. A light wind had kicked up as night fell, and to the east, the lights of Jackson cast a faint gray glow on the low-slung rain clouds gathered over the horizon. By the time they crossed the Snake River, rain

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