7

“THE TRUTH.” What Dan asked of her held Joan frozen in place, as much as the surrounding snow and ice did. Yet inside, she burned with the truth, with what she suspected she felt for him. “What if the truth is that you can’t help me? What then? What’s that going to do to you? And to me, knowing how you’d hurt because of it? I can’t do that to you. I won’t”

Dan put his hands to his waist, looked to the ground and shook his head. Then he met her gaze, showing her an agonizingly serious expression. “Try me. I’m a big boy. Let me worry about me. Just tell me what’s going on.”

Joan stared at him. And saw her answer in the way he held his ground, in his dark eyes, in his hands to his waist. Her heart threatened to pound right out of her chest and kill her before she could get the words out So, she took a deep breath and a big plunge. “All right. I didn’t kill Tony LoBianco. I saw him being killed, but not who did it. Not the killer’s face. I couldn’t identify him. All I saw was a tattoo on his arm. Of a native chieftain in a feathered headdress. And now, I think that man is trying to kill me. That’s why I turned myself in and said I did it”

Dan hadn’t said one word while she spoke. Hadn’t moved at all. And now, he still didn’t He just stared at her. Joan felt sure her blood was congealing as she waited for him to speak. Finally, he did blink. And then he muttered something, perhaps a curse, which she didn’t catch because he swiped a hand over his mouth at the same time. Then he shook his head, looking at her as if he’d caught her stealing money out of his wallet.

Then he exhaled, shook his head. “I knew it. Joan, this scares the hell out of me. This is the mob we’re talking about here. They’re not known for forgiveness. They’ll just keep coming, one after the other until you’re—” He shut up and stared hard at her. “Your life is in serious danger.”

Joan’s heart lurched for a beat or two. “I know. That was made clear by two attempts on my life in Houston. Which is why I made up that confession. Getting myself thrown in jail was the only way I knew to put myself out of their reach. All I could do was pray for your investigation to point you to that tattooed man. Or for him to make a mistake and get caught.”

Dan’s deepening frown notched vertical lines between his eyebrows. He looked up and away from her, as if filtering and ordering his thoughts. After a moment, he sought her gaze. “Yep—panic-thinking. Probably even seemed like a good idea at the time. But you keep saying you trust the legal system. So why didn’t you run to us, instead of away from us? We could’ve protected you.”

“How?”

“Are you kidding—with all our resources? Believe me, we’d bend over backward keeping you safe. You’re an invaluable eyewitness.”

“No, I’m not. My testimony is worthless, remember? I didn’t see his face. There’s no way I could identify him. The back office was shadowed and smoky. And I walked right into the middle of everything. I saw this other man stabbing Mr. LoBianco. I was so shocked I screamed. And there I was, spotlighted under a bare bulb right inside the doorway. The killer turned and saw me. Mr. LoBianco was already on the floor, and the guy lunged toward me. I dropped the books and got the heck out of Dodge.”

Dan shook his head, looked very worried. “Are you sure you didn’t see anything other than that tattoo? Describe the guy to me. What he wore, how tall, things like that.”

Joan concentrated on calling up that night, and then spoke as the scene played again in her head. “Not very tall. Husky build. Dark clothes. A hat, like gangsters wear in the old movies.” Then hearing herself, she slumped. “Sounds made up, like a movie, right? How could I go to the police with that? A tattoo and no face.”

Dan nodded, his expression thoughtful, assessing. “Actually, that’s a lot. You should’ve come to us.”

“And said what? Oh, hello, I just saw Tony LoBianco being killed by some stocky, tattooed guy in dark clothes, but I can’t identify him. And oh, by the way, I’m his accountant and was taking the books to him with my questions about why things didn’t add up.”

Dan grinned, giving it a fatalistic twist “I see your point. We’d have gone to the club, seen him stabbed—not a mobstyle killing—decided you had opportunity. A motive would be easy to figure. And we would’ve arrested you.”

“And never looked for Tattoo Man, right? At least the way I did it, stupid and panicked as it was, it aroused your suspicions.”

“You’re right. It makes dumb-luck sense. It also makes me cringe to think how wrong it all could’ve gone. And still could. God knows how many others are out there. And we don’t know where.”

Dan rubbed his gloved hands up and down her parka-covered arms and spared her an apologetic smile. “Right now, I want nothing more than to grab you and explore this whatever-it-is between us. But you’re not safe, and that eats at my gut. And worse, the only way I can go about securing your safety is to place you in more danger.”

“Great,” Joan muttered, frowning at him.

Dan grinned, rather sickly, in her estimation, and nodded. “Yeah, isn’t it? But it can’t be helped. The only way to catch this guy before he finds you is to get back in touch with the world, give his description to Cal and get started hunting for him.”

Joan’s fears rushed out with her cold exhalation. “Oh, Dan, do you know how much that thought scares me? If something should happen to you because of me, I’d just—”

“Shh. Nothing’s going to happen to me. But if it did, it wouldn’t be because of you. Don’t forget that I wear a badge, that I took the oath that goes with it. So even if I didn’t…have feelings for you, it would still be my job to protect you, at any cost. So there, it’s out of your hands.”

Joan felt the tears come to her eyes. She blinked them back and mumbled, “That doesn’t make it any easier.”

Dan tipped her chin up until she looked into his eyes, so hazel-green and warm with an unnamed emotion. Darn him. Even with his cheeks and nose red from the cold, with the goggles pushed up on his forehead, and his parka’s hood framing his face, Dan had never looked more handsome. Her fluttering belly seconded that emotion. “Nothing easy was ever worth fighting for, Joan.”

“Which explains us arguing all the time, I guess.”

Dan chuckled and slipped his hands under her heavy coat to encircle her waist. “No, that’s sexual tension that makes us fight.”

Joan’s heart pounded, her eyes widened, her cheeks heated, as did other areas…a lot lower down. She swallowed, clutched his sleeves. “I think what makes us fight is not doing anything about that tension, don’t you?”

“Oh, baby,” Dan breathed, exhaling a warm breath that clouded the air between them, and slid his hands up her rib cage. “I think you’re dead-on with that. When we get to that lodge and thaw out—and providing no vital body parts fall off—I’m willing to give you ample opportunity to demonstrate that alleged passionate nature of yours.”

Joan pulled back in mock insult. “Alleged? Why, Sheriff, I’m guilty as charged on that crime. Now kiss me—hard.”

ABOUT FIVE MINUTES LATER, Joan stood in front of Dan while he knelt on one knee and buckled himself onto his skis. Hands to her waist, feigning a frown, she watched him and teased, “You want me to climb on your back? Are you sure? I mean, I haven’t consulted a how-to manual in years, but I think you have the positions reversed. For this to work, I need to be—”

“You need to quit talking dirty to me, is what you need to do.” With his gaze still on his task, Dan shook his head. “Keep it up and I’ll have a…third ski pole to deal with. Like I need the aggravation.” Now he stood up, brushing the snow off his hands. “Piggybacking down to the lodge will look stupid. But it’s that or walk. Or knock ourselves senseless and freeze to death. So while we’re still young, just climb on and wrap your legs…” His sudden pained look said he had a mental picture going.

Joan bit down on the inside of her cheek until she was sure she wouldn’t laugh. Served him right for bringing up that whole sexual-tension discussion. Now that she knew he felt the same way about her, that he had trouble keeping his hands off her, too, just as she did him, then it would be no holds barred from here on out She’d show him passionate nature. Alleged? Ha. Time to separate the men from the boys. “So, Sheriff, I wrap my legs around your waist, and we…? Go on, I’m listening.”

Dan exhaled hard enough to puff his breath into a good-size cloud. Again he tried. “You climb on me and wrap your legs around my waist…and…” Again his voice trailed off.

All serious business now, Joan nodded. “I got that part. My legs around your waist. And then what?”

Dan half turned, pointing distractedly in the direction that led down the mountain. “We ski down this mountain with you…like that. You on my back, your legs…” He gave her a look of sheer pain.

But now Joan had her own problems. All that piggyback talk had a painful ache centering itself…where it counted. She closed her eyes, shook her head, opened her eyes. Saw Dan looking at her mouth. She took a deep breath and huffed out, “Okay.”

Dan repeated, “Okay.” And stood there.

Joan took several lung-freezing breaths and prayed for detachment. When all she wanted to do was jump on him, wrap her legs around his waist—from the front—kiss him long and deep and—

Dan cleared his throat. Joan jerked her gaze back to his face. He’d stepped up to her, was right in front of her now, looming larger than life in her vision. She nearly sank to her knees. Did the man never quit? He had a dark, earthy sensuality about him that deepened with every self-assured movement, every pointed look, every heated word. “Climb onto me and hold on.”

Joan’s mittened fingers went to her mouth. She bit down on them and whimpered.

“Just climb on,” he said huskily, turning his broad back to her and hunkering down, which tightened his denims over his heavily muscled thighs. She stared at them until she realized he was holding his hands up and out, ready to help her on, to steady her, if need be.

Taking a deep breath, but thinking she’d be better off to sit in the snow and allow it to cool the heat down there, Joan stifled a groan and gingerly draped herself over his back. Oh, yes. Hard. Muscled. Broad. Powerful. A moan of want threatened at the back of her throat. Joan bit at her bottom lip, and wrapped her arms loosely around his neck. Then, with a finality born of physical hurt, she lifted her legs, one at a time, wrapping them around his waist. And knew she was lost. Completely and totally.

But Dan stood up easily, as if her added weight were no more than a child’s. He looped his gloved hands under her thighs and hefted her weight until it apparently felt balanced to him. “All settled?”

In an agony of desire, Joan nodded, realized he couldn’t see that, and croaked out, “Yes.”

Turning his head, as if to look over his shoulder at her, but with his face blocked from her view by his parka’s attached hood, he said, “You’ll be fine as long as you don’t let go of me.”

“I’m not letting go of you until you beg me to, Sheriff. I’ve been wanting to get a hold of you since you opened that door into Interview Room 3. And the feeling is just getting stronger with each passing minute.”

Dan tensed, made a sound. A noise. A guttural, animal noise that Joan wanted to hear again. But as each agonizingly long moment passed, he didn’t make that or any other sound. Nor did he move. He didn’t say anything, either. But a series of exhaled vaporish clouds marked his breathing, confirmed he was still alive. Then, his voice a low, husky drawl that crept on kitty feet over her skin, he said, “That’s deputy to you. And remember, I still have the handcuffs. If you don’t behave, I’ll put you back in them.”

She grinned, glad he couldn’t see her face. Inching up his back some, she aimed for his ear, saying, “Is that a promise…Deputy?” She tightened her legs around his waist. “I’m going to hold you to that.”

LATE THAT SNOWY AFTERNOON, Dan’s imaginative but straining efforts paid off. He crested a bunny-course hill and sidled to a stop, staking his poles. Then he stared quietly, as if at a religious vision. There it was, laid out below him. The nestled-against-a-mountainside, wood-deckskirted, shopping-center-and-nightclub-encircled tourist enclave. And all of it, according to the posted signs, Closed For The Season.

His heart sank. But then he saw the lights of the lodge itself, the shadows of folks moving around inside. Such relief swept him that he almost wept. The lighted sanctuary he’d sought all day. The brand new Snake River Ski Lodge of the Taos Ski Valley. Yes! Warmth, food, water, shower, rest. Joan off his back. Bed. Sleep. Call Cal and clear up this whole mess. And then get on with life. And Joan.

“Wow. This place is great,” Joan the Igor-hump on his back chirped. “Look. We’ve been seen. We must look pretty funny to those people standing up there.”

Dan nodded and shoved forward, perhaps a trifle too enthusiastically. Because in mere seconds, they were hurtling downhill, approaching warp speed. Joan gasped her alarm and tightened her grip around his neck. Dan gritted his teeth, wishing she’d not choke him every time she moved. Lucky for her that relief was at hand. Or would be, if only he could stop. Preferably before they got smacked, like bugs on a windshield, into the looming-ever-larger white fence around the ski lift’s base.

The escalating pitch of Joan’s screams in his ear kept Dan apprised of how close they were getting. Accompanying her aria was the Greek chorus of shouts from the folks pressed against the deck railing and gesturing madly for him to turn aside. As if he didn’t know that. Still, Dan finally won some purchase on the icy hill and careened to a last-second, knees-bent, feet-pigeon-toed, skis-crossed stop.

In the blessedly silent aftermath, Dan remembered to exhale. He staked his poles, registered that his arms and legs felt rubbery, and his back was killing him. He bent forward, wheezing in and out. A buzz of excited chatter seemed to be getting closer, so he glanced in that direction. An apparent rescue team—four bundled grandpa-types—cautiously edged their way through the drifts. From the deck, the ladies called out for them to be careful. Dan then focused on his own problem, flinging two words over his shoulder to it. Her. “Get. Off.”

“Oh. Sorry.” Joan pulled and clutched and slid and climbed down him, somewhat as she had that gnarlytrunked pine tree back at Cabin Rustica. How many years ago had that been? Still hanging on to him—as if he’d been on her back and she needed steadying—she worked her way around him, raised her goggles and asked, “Are you all right?”

Trying to stay upright and at the same time breathe in and breathe out—in the correct sequence—he spent long moments staring at her. Only when he remembered how, did he nod and answer her. “I’ve. Been. Better.”

She grimaced her sympathy and patted his sleeve. “Poor baby. Was I too heavy?”

Dan was not so tired and frozen that he’d forgotten his lines. “No.”

She smiled. “Good. Stay right here. Some nice people are coming to help us.”

Within minutes, those nice people—a handful of old-folk guests and a couple of young male lodge employees that Dan didn’t recognize—had him un-skied, and him and Joan inside, shed out of their wet outer clothes, cuddled together on one of the lobby’s big, overstuffed sofas in front of the roaring fire in the grate, blankets wrapped around them and warm rum-laced toddies cupped in their hands. And fielding about fifty thousand questions.

None of which Dan got to answer, seeing as how Joan beat him to the punch every time and had their geriatric audience enthralled with her lies. Yes. Lies. Every one of her answers. The why of her lies eluded him. What was wrong with the truth? He thought about that Oh, yeah. Bloody murder. Capital crime. Prisoner. These sweet old people would flee like frightened deer. So Dan relaxed some, listening in on Joan’s rendition of their lives.

Well, relaxed was a relative term, lasting only until she said to Gertrude Binder, a white-haired, cherubic older woman who inquired about their marital status, “We’re newlyweds from South Bend, Indiana.”

We are? Dan lowered his mug to his lap and stared hard at Joan. Then he scanned their attentive grandparental audience. Yeah, they liked the idea of newlyweds. Great. Now all he needed was for some of them to be from—

“Why, me and the wife are from South Bend,” chimed in a short, thin old guy with a graying mustache. “Lived there all our lives. Well, not all our lives—not yet, anyway. Right, Mother? Ha, ha.”

Ha, ha. Great. Dan took a sip of his toddy, electing now to stare straight ahead. No way was he getting drawn into a conversation about landmarks in that fair city, one to which he’d never been. South Bend? Where the hell had she pulled that city from?

“Oh, you are?” Joan gushed to the friendly gentleman. “Why, we might know some of the same people. You’ll have to talk to my husband about that.”

Dan swallowed his sip in a gulp, scalding his throat. “I don’t think—”

“Oh, do that later,” said a pleasingly plump matron with big, jet-black-dyed hair. Dan could have kissed her for saving him like that. She turned to Joan. “So are you kids on your honeymoon?”

Here we go, he thought fatalistically.

Sure enough, Joan took to that idea like a petty thief to a convenience store. “Why, yes, we are. How’d you guess?” She grabbed Dan’s arm to prove it, and turned a lovey-dovey expression up to him.

He managed a grin for the round of congratulations coming their way and then eyed his “wife,” giving her his best you-can-stop-anytime-now look.

Of course, she didn’t. But looking down into that pixie face—one he suspected he’d want to wake up to and see every morning for the rest of his life—was Dan’s further undoing. He was in over his head. It was that simple. One little green-eyed, red-haired woman and he was sunk like a submarine. All he could do was sit and watch her—and listen very closely to her lies so he’d know what their story was. In case anyone should ask him.

Right now she was regaling their elderly audience with the tale of how they came to be stranded here. This ought to be good, Dan thought as he tuned in. “We were driving through to…Tucson when the snow hit and stranded us in our car. It was awful. We just finally had to abandon our new…Corvette and ski out.”

Tucson? Corvette? Dan’s eyebrows slid right down over his nose as he again stared at her. He ought to ask her why they had skis and heavy clothes, since they were just driving through. In eighty-degree weather. In the valley. But he couldn’t. He was, after all, a participant and, to all intents and purposes, had been there and lived that. It didn’t matter, though, because he couldn’t have found a conversational opening what with all the sympathetic tsk-tsking and handpatting from the old folks clustered around him and his wife of ten seconds.

“I think the worst part was the bears,” Joan explained, and Dan sputtered. She patted his knee, no doubt as a gesture of appeasement, and never missed a verbal beat. “They came right at us, all thr—five of them. Huge bears. Hungry bears. It was awful.”

That elicited gasps and a breaking-up into discussion groups where everyone simultaneously recounted for his or her neighbor a personal encounter with bears. Dan took that opportunity to lean over and whisper, “Don’t forget the plane wreck and how you’re a murder suspect in my custody. Or do you think that’d be stretching it a bit?”

Joan patted his cheek and whispered, “Leave me alone. I’m on a roll.”

“I see that. While you are, try coming up with something to tell Mark Jacobs—my friend and the manager of this place. But mostly, I’m wondering what your groupies make of my shoulder holster and the handcuffs dangling from my belt loop. Strange devices for a man on his honeymoon.”

Joan eyed him and pursed her lips into a pout, speaking low and seductively. “Then again, maybe not, Sheriff.”

Dan’s breath caught “Now see? It’s that brilliance of yours—that’s why I married you. I like how you think.” With that, he straightened up and grinned behind his toddy mug, again content to let her bury them all in more lies.

Before she reconvened the nice old people around her, she arrowed him a long-lashed, sidelong and sexy pout, and then chirped, “Now where was I? Oh, I remember—the day before the snowstorm. I was so helpless. I mean, there I was…Dan had me handcuffed to that old metal bed and was getting ready to—”

Hot toddy spewed like sea spray from Dan’s mouth as he pitched forward. Several hands attached to clucking voices reached to pound his back. Someone even raised Dan’s arm over his head and shook it. When he could, Dan extricated himself from their helpful clutches and said tightly, “I’m okay. Thank you. Yes, I’m sure.” Then he turned to Joan. “Sweetheart, I’m sure these folks don’t want to hear the gory details of our—”

Several loud protests to the contrary from Joan’s agog audience assured him that they did indeed want to hear the gory details. Dan shot his bright-eyed and grinning bride a warning look. And that was when big, blond Mark Jacobs walked up to the little group, recognized Dan and called out, “Hey, buddy, I had no idea—”

Dan’s head-shaking and narrowed eyes stopped his friend’s words and brought a frown to the man’s face. Dan immediately stuck his hand out to Mark, saying, “How are you? Thank your staff for me for coming to our rescue. I’m…” Who am I? Had Joan told anyone their names, real or otherwise?

“Ken Thompson,” she supplied, adding, “and I’m Barbie. Newlyweds from South Bend, Indiana.”

Dan’s eyes began to water. But he held his expression and Mark’s gaze. By sheer dint of will. Mark stared at him, then at Dan’s outstretched hand. After a moment, his expression cleared and he shook Dan’s hand, saying, “Well, Ken and…Barbie, welcome. Let me tell you what everyone else knows. Snake River is a new lodge, so not all the rooms are ready yet. But we’re pretty much stranded here—without our maids or our chef. We have plenty of food and drink. As well as warmth and company. So, everybody’s pitching in, making do with what we have.”

“Whatever you can do, we appreciate,” Dan assured him, looking his friend directly in the eye and nodding while he spoke.

Mark nodded right back and handed Dan a room key. “All I have to offer is this room with a king-size bed. But since you’re…newlyweds, that’s probably fine, right?” He shot Dan a what-the-hell-is-going-on? look and added, “Once you’re settled in, could I talk with you a minute in my office, Da—Ken?”

Da-Ken shoved forward on the sofa, grabbed his wife’s arm and stood them both up. “Nothing would make me happier, Mark.”

With that, and for some reason Dan couldn’t immediately fathom, everyone was staring at him. Then he realized his gaffe. Mark had never said his name. Dan quickly searched his friend’s shirtfront. No name tag. Oh, hell.

Joan…Barbie, bless her heart, pulled back some in his grip to look up at him. He telegraphed her an evil-eyed look, but it did no damned good. “How do you know his name?”

A waiting silence again occupied the next passing seconds. Dan seethed, wanting very much to kill her. Right there in front of everyone. But before he could do that, or come up with a statement appropriate to mixed company, Joan crumpled her expression and all but whispered, “Oh, no, it’s happening again.”

What is? was all Dan had time to wonder before Joan, appearing greatly upset, turned to the enthralled assemblage. “It’s his psychic powers.”

Dan gaped from her, to the wary old folks, to the struckdumb Mark, and back to…Barbie for her explanation. He was not least among those wanting to hear this one. “Sometimes,” she began, “after a lot of sex, the powers rekindle themselves, and Ken really can’t control them. Why, he’s not even aware of what he’s saying. He just blurts things.”

Dan blurted, “What the hell are you talking about, Joan?”

“See what I mean?” she deadpanned, shaking her head sadly, accepting the murmurs of sympathy coming her way. “He calls me by other names,” she stage-whispered. And further confided, “Ignore it—and the cursing. And the gun—it’s not loaded. He just likes to carry it. Not that he ever gets violent…as long as I’m with him. Don’t talk to him if I’m not. Because I couldn’t be responsible for what he might—”

“That’s it.” Dan’s bellow had the old folks—and Mark, who should know better—gasping and jumping back. Dan shot them an irritated scowl and tightened his grip on Joan, too late directing her steps across the flagstoned floor of the lobby and away from her audience. He marched her directly toward the split-log stairs to one side of a small gift shop.

Once there, he turned to the wide-eyed assemblage across the way. “We’re very tired. We’ll see you in the morning.” Then he turned to Joan. “Upstairs, Barbie.”