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“You know what I mean.” He braced his hands on the side of her door. Strong hands, with long elegant fingers. His muscular forearms were tan, a few light hairs mixed among the dark, glinting in the sun.
Yes, she thought, licking her lips. A few seconds earlier she’d known exactly what he’d meant, but somewhere between his biceps and broad shoulders, she’d totally lost track of her thoughts.
“Get out,” he said. “Please.”
She sighed. “You, please, cut me some slack. I feel eighteen months pregnant, according to you, my husband’s trying to kill me and I haven’t had a decent meal in two days.”
“Wait just a sec,” Beau said, jogging the fifteen feet to his black SUV.
He soon headed back her way bearing a large grocery sack. “This is for you,” he said, “but only if you’ll at least get out long enough to talk to me.”
“I’m not stupid,” she said, thumping her forehead against the steering wheel. “I get out, you’ll slap cuffs on me. That’ll be it. My whole life instantly ruined.”
“Look—” he knelt, resting his forearms on her door “—I’ll level with you. You’re not going to like it, but for your own good, it has to be said.”
“What?” She made the mistake of raising her head to meet his eyes. They were amazing eyes. Deep walnut with flecks of mossy-green. Above all, they were kind, not the eyes of a man deadset on destroying her life.
“Gracie Sherwood, this isn’t a game. Your ex-husband wants to kill you—and your baby.”
“I have to get to that competition,” she said, refusing to let his words sink in. “And anyway, how would Vicente or his supposed hired thugs ever even find me?”
“I did. You’re a looker, driving a look-at-me car. Believe me, you’re not too hard to find.”
“Then why’d you have to steal my stuff to get me back?”
“I didn’t,” he said. “All I had to do was temporarily store your belongings in my car, then wait. I knew it was just a matter of time till you returned.”
“So all night and day you’ve been right behind me?”
“Pretty much.”
“Who else?”
He looked away.
“Tell me.”
“So far, one suspicious guy in a forest-green Hummer.”
“And?” she asked, looking toward the busy highway. “Where is he now?”
“He, ah, turned off around Fort Dick.”
“Uh-huh. Which only proves my point that Vicente’s no fool. He wants nothing more to do with me. What happened back in Portland was no doubt some last chance, desperation effort designed to scare me, which it did. I’ve left town—for all my ex knows, for good.”
Marshal Beau sighed. “Ever heard that saying about the calm before the storm? Right now, you happen to be in the sun—and I’m not complaining, but your ex isn’t known for being a warm, fuzzy kind of guy. If you come with me now, you’ll have a team of folks to keep you safe. If not…” He shrugged.
She bravely raised her chin. “I guess, seeing how I’m safe for the moment, I’ll pick, not.”
Chuckling, he said, “Actually it’s not up for negotiation. I was trying to be nice, but—”
Nice? Gracie didn’t have time for nice, so she grabbed for the bag bearing what she prayed were doughnuts, then gunned her engine. She might not get much of a lead, and hot Marshal Beau might still have her stuff, but the way she saw it, desperate times called for desperate measures. She had to get to San Francisco. Winning that contest was her and her baby’s only shot at a decent future.
BEAU PRESSED OFF his cell phone, sick after having to admit to the boss that he’d lost Gracie—again. Only this time, it really wasn’t his fault, but that of fierce tourist traffic. He’d kept up with her no problem for thirty miles, then at Steed Point, he’d been cut off by a gang of parading preschoolers on tricycles celebrating Clean Air Day.
From there on, it was slow going. Checking every dirt crossroad for rising dust, signaling she might’ve gone off the main path. In every town he approached, he checked every gas station, restaurant and motel for her car—as did the other marshals assigned to the case.
It was ten that night when he got the call from Adam that they’d found her in an inland motel. “Want me to cuff her and bring her in?”
Resting his forehead on the steering wheel, Beau sighed.
At this point, he wasn’t sure what to do.
God only knew why, but he had a soft spot for the woman. She’d proven herself to be a major pain in his derriere, but seeing how she was pregnant and all, he at least wanted her treated with kid gloves. She had a goal, which was way more than he could say for himself.
Sure, he had his career, but it wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough. For as long as he could remember, he’d wanted a real family. Like the one he’d grown up in only better, because his future wife, the mother of his children, wasn’t going to die like his own mom had.
In marrying Ingrid, he’d thought himself well on his way to making his every dream come true. Funny how that so-called dream had turned nightmare.
“Yeah,” he said to his brother, “I guess if it comes down to it, go ahead and cuff Gracie, but be gentle. I don’t want her or the baby getting hurt.”
“Duh,” Adam said. “When’s the last time I banged up a—” His brother’s sudden silence hit Beau hard. It was tough enough on Beau remembering what’d happened to the last woman Adam had been assigned. Beau couldn’t imagine how his brother must feel. Yeah, he had woman problems, but at least Ingrid was still alive.
“What happened to Angela wasn’t your fault,” he told Adam for the hundredth time. “Could’ve happened to any one of us. Now, with Gracie, just use common sense. She’s an itty-bitty thing. Crafty, but she doesn’t bite.”
“BRO,” Adam said an hour later just as Beau approached the miniscule town of Boynton where Gracie had finally been found. “You’re not gonna believe this, but she got away again.”
“How?” Beau asked.
“I was just about to slap cuffs on her, when she bit me!”
AT FOUR in the morning, while everyone else on the team had long since pulled over for naps, Beau was still out looking. For sure, Vicente’s new crew wasn’t sleeping. If they got to Gracie before him, well…
Beau refused to think about it.
It was four thirty-seven by the digital clock on his dash when he pulled into the rear of a relic of a motel with individual cabins for rooms. On the outskirts of the Mendocino National Forest, the place was surrounded by more of the dark, eerie, dense forest that was starting to be a major pain in his ass when he spotted Gracie’s car behind the last unit.
He killed his lights and engine a few cabins back. Took his time getting out of his car, rolling his shoulders, trying to work out Gracie-induced kinks.
Every cabin save for one was dark, so he headed toward Cabin Eight with its bluish TV glow.
When she’d been little, and sick or upset from a bad day at school, his sister Gillian had liked to fall asleep in front of the living room TV.
Maybe Gracie was the same?
He peered through the inch or so between the curtain and wall. A lone man sat up in bed, sipping a Coors.
Great. Now what?
Beau yawned. Rubbed his eyes. Headed for the motel office.
Of course, at this time of the morning it was closed, but he wailed on the bell regardless.
“I’m comin’, I’m comin’.” A wisp of an elderly woman who didn’t at all match her booming, gravelly voice flicked on lights in a shabby reception area. “You want me to open the door,” she shouted through thin glass, “show me you got money for a room.”
“How much?” Beau asked.
“Forty.”
He flashed two twenties.
She unlocked the door.
“I’ll need your license,” she said from behind a counter she could barely see over.
“Here’s the thing,” he said, setting the cash on the counter. “My wife is already here, so I’ll just need the number of her room.”
The clerk raised her eyebrows.
“She forgot to charge her cell, otherwise, I’d just call.”
Tapping a vintage black rotary-dial parked beside his left elbow, she said, “Here you go. Each cabin has its own line. Only one single gal girl staying with us tonight.” She wrote a number on a pad that said Alpine Lodge across the top.
Beau flashed his star, then smiled. “You know, I really hate waking her. How about you please tell me which cabin is hers.”
“How do I know that badge is real? For all I know, you bought it off the Web. You could be some serial killer.”
Beau sighed. “Never mind, ma’am. Thank you for your time.”
He turned to leave.
“Take your money. I don’t deal with any of you late-night sickos.”
Tucking the money in his wallet, Beau headed back out into the night.
One by one, he knocked on cabin doors. “Housekeeping!”
“Get a life, bud!”
“Maintenance! I’ve gotta unplug your john!”
“Screw you!”
Five doors later, a cop pulled into the dirt lot, lights and siren blazing.
“Good girl,” Beau said under his breath about the desk clerk he’d apparently correctly pegged as the type to call the law on him.
“Freeze!” the cop said, gun and flashlight aimed at Beau as he emerged from his car. “Okay, now slowly raise those hands.”
Wincing from the blinding light, Beau did as he’d been told.
Glancing off to his left and right, out of the light’s glare, he saw that just as he’d hoped, lamps flicked on and draperies parted in all but cabins Three and Fifteen. The former had been the one Gracie’s tank was parked closest to, so Beau deduced Cabin Three was hers.
The cop asked, “Mind telling me what you’re doing out this hour of the night, knocking on sleeping citizens’ doors?”
Beau said, “I’m a deputy U.S. Marshal down from Portland.”
“Right.” Rolling his eyes, the cop said, “And I’m Santa. Let’s see some ID.”
Beau obliged, and five minutes later, after the officer made a few calls and found his story checked out, Beau was free to go.
“Ho, ho, ho,” the now jovial cop said. “Sorry to rain on your parade.”
“Not a problem,” Beau said.
Once he was again alone, and all those lamps had gone out, Beau trudged to Cabin Three.
He gave Gracie the benefit of a courtesy knock, then worked magic on the lock with equipment he didn’t officially have.
Inside, he quietly shut the door.
Gracie was sitting up in bed, hands curved around her bulging stomach, looking prettier, softer, more fragile than she ever had.
For an instant he looked away, hating to think himself the cause of her grim expression. If only she’d get it through that thick head of hers that he wasn’t the problem, but the solution.
“I’m so tired of this,” she said softly. And she did look tired. Even in the dim light leaking in from the Alpine Lodge’s blue neon sign, he saw circles under her eyes. “Can’t we just be friends?”
“I wasn’t aware we weren’t.”
She sighed. “Come on, Beau. Enough games.”
“We’re now on a first-name basis?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yeah,” he said, drawing the room’s one chair up to the head of the bed. “I do.”
“So then this is it? You agree to let me go on to San Francisco? Alone?”
He laughed.
“This isn’t funny, damn you, it’s my life.”
“I’m not disputing that.”
“Then why are you acting this way? Like my wanting to take my hard-earned spot in a prestigious competition is wrong? I mean think about it, this is the Olympics for cooks. People kill for chances like…” As her words trailed off, she tucked her lower lip into her mouth.
“Oh man,” he said with a groan. “You’re not going to cry, are you?”
