He couldn’t do any of that, of course. To her he was nothing but a stranger. She didn’t know him. She wouldn’t care.
He understood the price. Once they escaped and reached safety, he would have to leave her. He would put her in the custody of the police, or arrange to reunite her with her family. To walk away from her would finish him, he suspected, but to stay would be the greater madness.
Whatever it took, he would protect her, even from himself.
Ethan Jemmet rolled over the sag in the mattress, his hand expecting to land someplace it would want to stay. Instead he caught a tangle of damp sheets over a slighter hollow, and opened his eyes to the empty side of the bed.
He sat up, naked and pissed. The briefcase on the floor, the high-heeled shoes on the nightstand, and the white coat crumpled by the base of the lamp were gone.
So was every other trace of the woman he’d stopped last night on the road.
His father had arranged this trip and then bullied Ethan into making it, just as he did every other time he forced him to leave Frenchman’s Pass.
“I don’t need to go to some cop conference.” Ethan had shoved the online registration paper back across the breakfast table. “I know how to do my job.”
“You haven’t left the pass since January, when that snowplow driver called for help.” Paul Jemmet calmly dissected his pepper-speckled fried egg, neatly excising the yolk without breaking it. “A trip to the city will be good for you.”
It would be torture, and they both knew it. Ethan hated everything about Denver: the traffic, the crowded sidewalks, the packed restaurants. All the weekend skiers and holiday travelers would be flooding into the hotels, so the conference wouldn’t be just law enforcement—it would be a tangle of slope bunnies, board boys, and reuniting families. If there was anything he hated more than the city, it was tourists.
“The weather’s been too unpredictable this year,” Ethan added. “The first big snow is due in any minute.”
Paul dipped a corner of one toast triangle into a tiny puncture he made in the yolk. “The forecast is clear and cold through next week.”
“Dad.”
Paul set down his toast and regarded him steadily. “Ethan, we’ve discussed this. As much as we want to keep the pass to ourselves, some of us have to maintain connections with the outside world. Now more than ever.”
Ethan eyed him. “Someone else decide to move on?”
His father obviously didn’t want to tell him, but after a brief silence he finally said, “The Johnsons left day before yesterday. Ben said they left everything behind, even their personal belongings. He asked Nathan—”
Ethan dropped his fork with a clatter and stood. “I’m sure he’ll find them and talk them into giving life in town another try.” He strode toward the door.
“Son.”
He couldn’t walk out on his father, not when he used that tone. “I don’t want to talk about Nate.”
“I’m sure you don’t. Come back here.” Paul waited for him to return and sit down before he added, “Ethan, as the young people say, it is what it is. There is only so much I can do, and even that is limited. When we lost the Maynards and the Tisdales last winter, our population dropped below two hundred. The town is dwindling away.”
As it had been since Ethan could remember. “I can’t walk around a hotel asking cops if they’d like to relocate their families up to the mountains, Dad. Especially since I know what you want from them.”
“You could leave some property listings with a few Realtors,” Paul said. “I’ve prepared a CD with descriptions and photos of all the unoccupied properties. We’re going to sell them to outsiders.”
This was news to Ethan. “But the town—”
“Has already approved it. Unanimously.” His father offered an encouraging smile. “When you give the listings to the Realtors, you can let them know how great life is here for new residents. How friendly and welcoming our community is, especially toward single people.”
“Friendly. Welcoming.” Ethan folded his arms. “You really want me to say that with a straight face.”
“If the town is going to survive,” Paul warned, “we must bring in new residents.”
Frenchman’s Pass had always tolerated the occasional intrusion of an outsider, but now his father was proposing they actively recruit them. “Have you forgotten that new residents like to do things like hiking and getting in touch with nature and exploring the beauty of the mountains? How do you think they’re going to react when they run into Nate and his crew? Assuming they don’t first fall off a cliff or wander into one of the caves?”
“I will deal with your brother.” Paul went back to eating. “The CDs are on your dresser, along with a list of the Realtors I’ve e-mailed. Be sure to see all of them before you leave the city.”
Now Ethan got up and went to the window of the motel room, looking through the frost whorls at the gold-edged purple sky. The sun would rise above the ranges in half an hour to outshine the stars, polish the ice-coated trees to a glassy gleam, and turn the leftover night drifts into mounds of white diamonds.
To be fair, she’d warned him she would go, just before everything had dissolved into deep, endless kisses and his hands tearing at her buttons and zippers:
I can’t stay long. I have to beat the storm.
He’d heard her, and ignored it, and when they’d made it to the bed, he’d stopped thinking altogether. He’d feasted on her, gorging himself for what he knew would be a long, empty winter, reveling in her until the night itself blurred into one long series of tangling limbs, caressing hands, and thrusting hips.
He should have arrested her, Ethan thought, his mood growing sullen as he jerked on his uniform. Her story about forgetting her license and borrowing that car from a friend had been just too damn convenient. But he’d been out of his jurisdiction and out of patience with most of the world, and she’d looked like the girl next door, right down to the fourteen freckles on her nose and the white pearl barrette holding a swatch of dark curls back from her face. Her sweet blue eyes and steady smile had tugged at him, almost pleading for forgiveness.
And he’d fallen for it, escorting her back to her motel and even accepting her offer of a cup of coffee at the next-door diner. It was at the booth in the back they’d shared when things had gone from officer and driver to man and woman.
When things had gotten out of hand entirely.
She must have sensed his interest, but she’d been too smart to try to play him. Instead she’d spoken of ordinary things: her favorite Italian restaurant back home, and the handmade pasta she’d gone there to have every Friday after work. She’d claimed she was simply a corporate secretary, a single working woman going home to spend Christmas with her sister, but Ethan caught a glimmer of something more in her voice. She wasn’t traveling or vacationing; she was running. He’d figured it was from a boyfriend or husband.
He’d figured wrong.
Ethan couldn’t quite recall the moment when the friendly cup of coffee had turned into serious, startling sexual attraction. She’d been listening to his description of the law enforcement conference he’d attended in Denver, and reached for the little pitcher of half-and-half at the same time he did. Their fingers had collided, almost knocking it over. Her innocent eyes had gone dark, and he’d heard her quick breath. His own heart pounded in his head.
Rather than jumping across the table, Ethan had pushed the pitcher aside to take her hand and hold on to the sensation that had clouted him as hard as a heavyweight’s fist.
He felt disgusted now as he recalled how he’d barely been able to speak. “You feel that?”
She didn’t want to; that was plain from the edge of her teeth worrying at her full bottom lip. Instead of telling him to forget it, she said, “I can’t stay long. I have to beat the storm.”
Ethan had been fully prepared to beg, but she was telling him he wouldn’t have to. He turned his head to catch the attention of the waitress behind the counter. “Ma’am, check, please.”
He held on to her hand, coming around the table and leading her up with him to the register. He’d used his free hand to fasten the front of her white winter coat, and pull the hood up over her dark brown curls. Then he’d walked with her to the motel, to the door of the room she had rented, and waited there as she looked up at him, unable to speak, unable to decide.
Ethan knew it couldn’t happen. Not here, not with her. But he wanted it, more than anything in recent memory. Maybe in his life.
One night
, he kept thinking.
Just one night.
“Sheriff.” She sounded a little rattled. “Thank you for the coffee.”
He’d reached into her coat pocket and found the room key. “Tell me good night,” he suggested through his teeth as he shoved it into the lock. “Hurry.”
Something shifted in her eyes before she smiled and demolished him with four words. “I don’t want to.”
He pushed the door open. “Then invite me in, baby.”
Ethan cleared his head, jamming on his hat before scooping up the room key where she’d left it by the phone. She’d rented the room; the night manager would have her particulars. He headed toward the motel office.
“Sure, Sheriff, I remember her,” the bearded college student said a few minutes later as he sorted through the guest information cards. “Nice lady. I think her last name was Anderson. No, here it is.” He pulled out the card and peered at the scribbled handwriting. “Her name is Anishon. J. Anishon.”
Ethan plucked the card from the kid’s fingers and skimmed it. “Aniston. Damn it.” He dropped the card on the counter. “Did she show you any ID? You make copies?”
“She paid cash, and she looked over eighteen. I’m only supposed to get ID on people who use charge cards.” The boy frowned. “Aniston. That sounds familiar. Wait, isn’t that the name of the one who was married to Brad Pitt? Before Angelina, I mean?”
“Jennifer Aniston.”
“Yeah, that’s her.” The kid’s grin lasted only three seconds. “Oh, man. Sorry, Sheriff. I’m so used to people using ‘Smith’ or ‘Jones’ that I don’t pay any attention to the normal-looking names.”
Which she had probably been counting on. Ethan checked the card again and memorized the plate number before stalking out of the office and heading for his Escalade. Once inside, he booted up his dashboard monitor, typed in the license number, and sent it to CDOT. The state licensing agency sent back a registration for a UPS truck in Boulder, and a stolen-plate report filed by the fleet manager yesterday.
Ethan didn’t know why she’d swapped out her plates and used a fake name at the motel, but he was going to find out. He typed up a request for every police and sheriff’s office in the region to be on the lookout for J. Aniston and her car, with a notation that she was to be immediately detained and held for questioning on suspicion of grand theft auto. Just before he hit the send button, he glanced at the door to the room he had shared with her.
She had told him a little about herself last night. She’d been sprawled on top of him, her head tucked under his chin, her breasts rubbing against him as she tried to catch her breath. He’d been stroking her spine with lazy fingers and wondering if there was enough room for both of them in the room’s shower. He was about to ask her to try it anyway when he realized something.
“Hey.” He waited until she looked up at him. “You never told me your name, sweetheart.”
“How rude of me.” She propped herself up and kissed his chin. “I’m Lori. What do I call you, besides amazing, incredible, and a godsend?”
He chuckled. “Ethan. So, you have family around here?”
“Just my sister.”
He felt her shoulders tense. “You two close?”
“We haven’t been, but I’m trying to change that.” She traced the outline of his lips. “How about you? Any brothers or sisters?”
“A brother I don’t talk to, and I’m not changing that.” He rolled her over onto her back and slid between her legs. “How about you and I get a little closer?”
Lori might be a liar and a car thief, but she’d been the best lover he’d ever had. While he slept, she also hadn’t touched the credit cards in his wallet or helped herself to his gun, his Escalade, or his briefcase and the four hundred dollars in cash he kept stashed in it.
Slowly, cursing himself as he did it, Ethan reached out and erased the BOL he’d typed up on his one-night stand.
Bye, baby.
He stopped to have breakfast at the diner, and sat in the same booth he’d shared with her last night. He could still smell her, although her scent was not coming from the vinyl cushions of the booth. It was all over him. He should have showered before he’d dressed; now he’d be smelling her the whole way back to Frenchman’s Pass.
As Ethan paid his check, he couldn’t help asking if Lori had stopped in before hitting the road. The bleary-eyed waitress, just coming off her double shift, nodded as she gave him his change.
“Came in around five, I think. Had a cup of tea and a muffin to go.” She slid the cash drawer shut. “I asked her if she was all right—she looked upset—but she said she was just a little tired.”