"Abby." His voice grated like steel against steel. "Look at me."
He saw that danger clearly when her gaze met his. Tentative. Wary. So lovely he couldn"t look away. The torment in her eyes was raw and hard as h.e.l.l to look at. No one could fake that kind of emotion, and he knew that whatever happened here today was honest and real with no holds barred.
"How was something like that admissible in court?" he asked.
"Let"s just say the prosecutor was a lot sharper than my public defender."
He thought about that for a moment, then said, "Tell me about your breakdown."
"Jake-"
"You"ve already told me this much. I need to know everything. Come on. Talk to me."
Her eyes skated away from his to stare into the fire. "It happened after my father died. I was almost eighteen years old. My father and I were very close. He was...a really good man." A sad smile touched her lips. "He was on his way home from work one day and a drunk driver hit his car head-on."
"I"m sorry," Jake said in a thick voice.
"He suffered multiple trauma. A terrible head injury. He was in a coma for six days. The neurosurgeon ran an EEG, and it showed there was no brain activity." Pain tightened her features, but she didn"t cry. "The doctor said he wasn"t going to survive. He took us into a little room at the hospital and explained the situation and told us we should discuss removing him from life support."
Cursing under his breath, Jake cut his eyes to hers. "Aw, man..."
She didn"t even acknowledge him. And he knew the memory had taken her back to that little room and one of the most horrendous dilemmas a person could face.
"I couldn"t believe they could suggest such a thing," she said. "I mean, I was too heartbroken to understand that he was already gone. That he couldn"t come back to us. And there were other considerations. The insurance company for one. They would only pay so much and we didn"t have a lot of money."
"Medical bills."
She nodded. "The doctor also told us there was a six-year-old boy in Dayton, Ohio, who needed a liver or he was going to die. He told us about a high school student in Seattle who needed a heart or she"d never see her first day of college." Her hands clenched the sleeping bag at her throat. "Mom made the decision the next day."
Jake had heard enough to know where she was going with this. He didn"t want to hear it, but couldn"t stop her. Not when he knew how badly she needed to tell him this. How badly she needed get it out in the open so she could purge herself of the pain she"d held inside her for so many years.
"That afternoon, they turned off the respirator," she said. "Mom and Grams and I were in the room with him. One minute he was lying there breathing as if he were asleep. Then he was just very...still. He was...gone."
Jake had seen death before. He hated it. The loss. The unfairness. The inevitable pain it caused the survivors. That was why he"d become an EMT. Why he"d chosen law enforcement as his career. Why he volunteered for Rocky Mountain Search and Rescue.
She raised her gaze to his, anguish fresh in her eyes. "I remember telling him goodbye. I remember walking out of the room, thinking it was over. I remember wanting to cry, but realizing I couldn"t. I couldn"t speak. I remember people talking to me, trying to comfort me. But the grief was dark and terrible and just...crushed me. I guess I shut down. I went inside myself." She took a shuddery breath. "I stopped talking to everyone around me. After a few days, Mom got worried and took me to the doctor. He recommended a psychiatrist. The shrink admitted me to a psychiatric hospital a few days later."
"I"m sorry, honey."
"It"s okay. I mean, I"m okay now."
"How long were you in the hospital?"
"About two months."
"You recovered fully."
She shot him a grateful look, but it was fraught with pain. The kind of deep, dark pain most people never had to feel. The people who did, never, ever talked about it. "The only good thing that came out of it was that I decided to go into nursing afterward."
"I"m sure your dad would have been proud."
She looked away quickly, clearly uncomfortable. "Thank you for saying that."
He wasn"t sure what to do or to say next. He wanted to comfort her, but knew better than to touch her. There was something about this strong, hurting woman that made him want to protect her, made him want to take away her pain.
Jake knew he wasn"t the man for the job "Reed knew about the breakdown." She pulled the sleeping bag more tightly around her and shivered. "The prosecutor in the case got the judge to allow my records as evidence at the trial. The prosecutor put Reed on the stand. Reed testified that I was "preoccupied with death" because of what happened to my father. He attested to this so-called preoccupation with death. He claimed that"s why I killed that patient."
The thought of dirty legal maneuverings chafed Jake"s sense of justice. The thought of the pain those maneuverings had caused this woman outraged his sense of honor. "I"m sorry."
"The jury agreed. I was found guilty of second degree murder and sentenced to life in prison."
The need to touch her was as powerful as any he"d known. He could picture himself going to her, pulling her to him and holding her until the tremors stopped and the words that were crowded in his throat came pouring out and chased the sadness from her eyes.
He rose abruptly. His heart hammered in his chest. He felt Abby"s eyes on him, but he didn"t look at her. He knew he should say something more, but he couldn"t. He didn"t want to see her pain or vulnerability. He didn"t like the way it affected him and wasn"t sure how much more he could take before he did something stupid. Like go to her and kiss her until the pain on her face was gone and she put her arms around him as she had out in the snow today.
Lifting his rifle from the table, he walked over to the window and looked outside. He tried to concentrate on the high ridge to the north, looking for the sniper, but he couldn"t stop thinking about what she"d told him.
He continued to stare out the window, acutely aware that she was sitting near the fire, silent and hurting, and there wasn"t a thing he could do about it. Beyond the gla.s.s, the wind shuffled a bank of dark clouds on the horizon. Snow more than likely, d.a.m.n it. They needed to get down the mountain. With the weather threatening and a sniper on the loose, he knew it wasn"t safe for them to stay here any longer. But Jake also knew they couldn"t leave until Abby"s clothes were dry and she"d recovered her strength enough to travel. Getting down the mountain on horseback in hip-deep snow was going to be tough. Jake had enough experience to know you didn"t take any chances with something as serious as hypothermia in the high country.
He looked over at Abby, found her staring into the fire, the sleeping bag wrapped tightly around her shoulders. She was turned away from him, her profile delicate against the backdrop of flames. He couldn"t see her eyes, but the long sweep of her lashes lay soft against her cheek. Her blond-streaked hair had dried into wild little corkscrews that fell over her shoulders in a thick ma.s.s. The firelight shot silver sparks through the blond. It looked soft. Touchable.
His gaze slipped lower and his mouth went dry at the sight of her graceful throat. He wondered what it would be like to kiss her there. To run his tongue along the delicate curve and taste the flesh. He wondered if she would taste the way she smelled. Sweet and secret and soft as wet velvet....
Raw l.u.s.t struck him in the gut like a fist. Blood pooled low and hot in his groin. Muttering a curse under his breath, he turned away from her and stared blindly out at the wind-blown peaks. He thought inappropriate thoughts about the woman behind him and all the things he wanted to do with her. He thought about what all those things would cost him, and cursed under his breath.
"Is it safe for us to stay here? I mean, with that guy with the gun outside?"
Jake glanced at her over his shoulder, warning her with his eyes for her to stay away. "Why? You got someplace to go?"
She held his gaze, challenging his question. "Actually I do."
"Where?"
"I can"t tell you that."
"Didn"t think so."
"Jake, we could split up. You could head back down the mountain. You could tell the D.O.C. guys about the sniper. Tell them I-"
"I"m taking you back, Abby. If you"ve got a beef with your conviction, you"ll have to fight it through whatever legal channels are left." He felt like a b.a.s.t.a.r.d saying that to her, knowing what he did. But the alternative was too crazy to contemplate.
She hissed an obscenity that left no doubt in his mind how she felt about those legal channels. "I could just take off."
He shot her a sour look.
"I know you won"t shoot me in the back," she said.
"You know I"ll come after you."
"So, we"re stuck here?" she asked.
"We don"t have a choice for the moment."
"You mean, because I fell through the ice and got a little disoriented?"
"You"re a nurse. You figure it out."
She rolled her eyes. "Look, I"m not some Denver daisy who went out for a jog this morning. I"ve trained for six months for this. I"m strong and feel just fine."
"You go out in subzero weather in wet clothes and a body that was hypothermic just a few hours earlier and you"re asking for trouble."
"I"m in good shape, Jake."
He didn"t want to think about what kind of shape she was in. He"d seen her long, toned legs and flat belly. He"d seen the muscle definition in her arms. Yeah, she was in good shape, all right. So good, he couldn"t keep his eyes off her.
Wrapping the sleeping bag more tightly around her, she approached him. "Let me go," she said.
"Abby-"
"Please."
"I can"t do that."
"Why not?"
"Because I"m a cop, d.a.m.n it."
"You know I"m telling the truth."
Jake didn"t want to have this conversation. It wasn"t his responsibility to judge her guilt or innocence or any of those gray areas in between. All he was supposed to do was take her back. And he planned to do just that come h.e.l.l or high water.
He turned his back on her. "Put another log on the fire, will you?" he asked quietly. "Try to get some rest. I"m going to feed the stock and take a look around."
"d.a.m.n it, Jake-"
"Rest while you can, Abby. We leave at first light."
Chapter 9.
Jake avoided going back inside until dark. He fed the stock, put some snow in a pail and melted it for the animals to drink. At noon, he tacked up Brandywine, sheathed his rifle and rode a one-mile perimeter around the cabin, hoping to spot a spent casing or some tracks or some other clue that might tell him who"d been taking shots at them. Later, he spent a couple of hours hauling dry firewood into the cabin. He even built a small bonfire on the off chance the RMSAR chopper was out looking for them. He knew it was futile; for the second day in a row, the winds were kicking in from the north and the Bell 412 was likely grounded.
But even something as futile as building a bonfire was better than going back inside. Spending time with Abby was making him crazy, filling his head with thoughts he had absolutely no right to be thinking.
But Jake knew he was going to have to go inside at some point and face her. He couldn"t avoid it much longer. It was barely above zero outside. His hands and feet were numb. His face tingled from the cold. He had to go inside. He needed to eat. He needed to rest, so he could keep watch tonight.
h.e.l.l, he was going to have to spend the night with her.
Jake didn"t want to think about her any more. He didn"t want to want her, didn"t want to know anything more about her. He didn"t want to know what she"d been through or how it had affected her. All he wanted was to get this job over with so he could go back to his life where things were black and white.
But for the first time in his life things weren"t quite so black and white and he was scared to death that doing the right thing included helping an escaped con.
The cabin was dim when he finally pushed open the door and stepped inside. The only light came from the low, burning fire in the hearth. The tang of smoke hung in the air. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust. On the floor a few feet in front of the fire, Abby lay on her side, wrapped in her sleeping bag, asleep. She looked fragile and innocent and incredibly s.e.xy lying there with that mane of hair spread out under her like coils of silk.
The sight of her stopped Jake dead in his tracks.
Stomping the snow from his boots, he tore his eyes from her. He went to the small table in the kitchen, picked up the kettle and filled it with snow. When he took it to the fire, she was sitting up, watching him, her face soft from sleep.
"Thirsty?" he asked.
"Yeah." She rubbed the back of her neck and looked out the window. "I can"t believe I slept the day away."
"That"s the hypothermia. The cold will zap you." He walked over to the window facing the ridge and pulled the frayed curtains closed.
"Do you think he"s still out there?" she asked.
"I don"t know." He looked at her and felt the now familiar tightening sensation in his gut. "Probably."
Scowling, Jake walked over to his saddlebag. "I"ve got two more meals. Do you want to eat now, or in the morning?"
"Do you have anything left to snack on tomorrow?"
"Not much. A couple of protein bars."
"Let"s eat now." Rising, the sleeping bag wrapped around her, she walked over to the fireplace and lifted her jumpsuit from the back of the chair. "I mean, if you don"t mind. I"m starving."
"No problem."
"I need to get dressed."
h.e.l.l. "Ah...okay."
"Would you mind turning around for a second?"
"Sure."
Because her back was already to him, Jake hesitated a moment and watched her. The lady definitely had a nice back. And he knew even after this was over, he"d be thinking about that slender back for a long, long time to come.
Turning away, he busied himself with their last two meals while Abby dressed. In short order, they were sitting cross-legged in front of the fire with their meals on their laps. They ate in silence for several minutes. Sipping water from the cup between them and savoring their last two meals. Jake had just begun to relax and believed he was going to get through this when she started in with the questions.
"So, how long have you been in law enforcement?"