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“You’ll be sure to take the rest of the veterinary supplies out of the back and give them to Mariah Morgan out at the Double M?” She’d already taken the few supplies she might find useful and boxed them up in the back of the Jeep. The remaining supplies weren’t much to offer Mariah in the way of goodbye, but they were all she had to give. Besides, it would be a shame to let them go to waste.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Nodding, she turned to survey her new vehicle.
Once, the Jeep had probably been fire-engine red. Now it had faded to the color of weak tomato soup. But the motor sounded fine and it had a full tank of gas. It would do.
The road blurred in front of her as she headed south, out of town. She tried not to think about never coming back here. She’d always known she would have to leave one day. She just hadn’t thought it would be in a run-down Jeep with nothing except her survival bag and the clothes—dirty clothes at that—on her back.
She wished she could have risked stopping by the house, just for a minute. Besides her clothes, she’d like to have picked up the few prizes she’d gathered on her frequent mountain hikes—a pine cone as big as her forearm, a smooth, round stone with grain in it in the shape of a peace sign, and a walking stick. Not much to show for twenty-eight years of living, but it was all she had.
Used to have. Even those few treasures were gone now. It was time to move on to a new life.
Except she liked this life.
Her eyes stinging, she pulled into a small rest stop fifteen miles outside of town. In the women’s room, she pinned her hair back and slipped on the wig from her emergency bag. Dark contacts came next, coloring her eyes from blue to brown. She studied her new image in the cracked mirror over the sink. Not bad for two minutes’ work. She didn’t look anything like herself.
That random thought almost brought her tears back. She couldn’t help but feel she’d finally given up the last vestiges of her true self. There was nothing left of the person she used to be. But that couldn’t be helped.
A new life was better than no life at all. Better than death.
Squaring her shoulders, she slung her pack over her back and stepped out of the washroom.
And stumbled into a broad male chest.
Shane.
He steadied her elbow, setting her back on her feet. Her hand brushed the fine, crisp hair of his forearm as she pulled away. The sensation shot up her arm like a jolt of static electricity.
His head tipped a fraction, and she felt his gaze peruse her slowly, even if she couldn’t see it behind his reflective sunglasses. She burned under his scrutiny, from the tips of her ears to the ends of her curling toes.
Shane.
He straightened, his jaw set perfectly square, and stood with his hands behind his back, his feet shoulder width. He looked very tall. Very disciplined.
Very cop.
“This is a new look for you, Doc,” he said, reaching out to finger her shoulder-length fake hair. He let the wig go and folded his sunglasses into his shirt pocket.
Being able to see his eyes heightened the effect of his gaze. She felt her face heat.
“A girl gets tired of same ole–same ole.” The quaver in her voice didn’t sound too convincing, even to her. She swallowed hard. “Did you need—I mean, is there something I can do for you?”
“You didn’t mention that you were leaving town today.”
“No, well, yes…it was sudden. My aunt is…sick.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Thank you.” She jangled her keys in her hand. “I hate to run like this, but I really should get going.”
Shane moved himself between her and the Jeep. “You know, all this time I thought you were avoiding me because you just didn’t like me.”
Her heart leaped. “Of course not. I mean, I haven’t been avoiding you. And I—” Her mouth suddenly felt like she’d been lost in a desert for days. “I like you.”
“Yeah, I figured that out last night when I kissed you. That’s what finally tipped me off.”
“Tipped you off to what?”
“That it’s not me you’re afraid of.” He thumbed his badge off his chest. “It’s this.”
“No, it’s just—”
“I know,” he said, the challenge in his words clear despite the dead calm in his voice.
Her heart bucked. “Know what?”
“That Gigi McCowan, D.V.M., is sixty-two years old and lives on the thirteenth hole of a nice retirement community in Ocala.”
She’d thought her plan was perfect. The forger from whom she’d purchased her false identification in New York was reputed to be the best. The real Gigi McCowan, her mentor in vet school, had even gone along with the scam, providing authentic diplomas and transcripts so that she could apply for and receive a real veterinary license from the state of Utah. She didn’t see how anyone could have figured out she wasn’t the real thing.
But then Shane Hightower wasn’t anyone.
Knowing it was the wrong body language to send, but unable to stop herself, she crossed her arms over her chest. “There must be some mistake.”
“No mistake. You lied to me. You’ve been lying to everyone. The town, your customers, your friends.”
Her throat bobbed, grasping for words and finding none. She clenched her upper arms to stop her fingers from trembling. The lies that should come easily weren’t there anymore. In their place, she found only deep, cutting remorse.
Shame.
The tremor in her hand became a full-fledged quake. Her keys fell and clanked on the gravel. She bent to retrieve them.
Without warning the Jeep’s driver’s side window exploded over her head. Before she knew what had happened, Shane tackled her and rolled along the ground, cradling her against him as tires squalled.
Over Shane’s shoulder she glimpsed an arm holding a pistol out the window of a midnight-blue Mercedes—the same Mercedes that had run her off the road the night before.
How had he found her? Had he been following her all morning, waiting for his chance to attack, or had Shane brought him?
Fire flashed from the gun’s muzzle. He was shooting at them! But there hadn’t been any noise. No shots.
She didn’t have time to decipher the meaning of that, as Shane tucked her head against his shoulder and rolled again, this time propelling her behind the bumper of the Jeep. With the vehicle as cover, he raised up and pulled a weapon from under his jacket in one fluid movement. Gigi sat up beside him, and he pushed on the top of her head with his free hand. “Get down.”
She took his advice as another volley of bullets skittered across the hood of the Jeep. Still no gunshots. They must be using a silencer. But then, they were pros, she knew that.
Shane returned fire. He certainly wasn’t using a silencer. The explosions from the muzzle of his gun pounded her eardrums. The Mercedes sped past the rest stop, and Shane grabbed her hand and pulled her into the Jeep, snagging the keys off the ground as he went.
He shoved her into the driver’s seat, handing her the keys, and then climbed in the back. “Drive,” he shouted as the Mercedes did a one-eighty a few yards down the road.
“Me?” She yelled, stabbing the keys into the ignition. “Why me?” He was the DEA agent; she was just a civilian. She wasn’t trained for this sort of thing.
“Because I’m going to be busy shooting.” To prove his point, he leveled his weapon and squeezed off two rounds at the approaching Mercedes. A slug from the sedan clinked off the roll bar, convincing her that starting the Jeep’s engine was more critical than arguing at this point.
The Jeep roared to life and she slammed it into reverse so hard that the lurch almost sent Shane flying into the front seat. He grabbed the roll bar for support. “Go! Go!”
She blasted onto the roadway, turning the Jeep so that she faced the attacker head-on. She stomped on the gas, and this time Shane was nearly flung out the back of the Jeep. They flew by the Mercedes before either Shane or the other driver could regroup and get off another shot. The unwieldy luxury car squealed into another one-eighty, giving Gigi and Shane a few seconds’ lead.
“That way. That way.” Shane waved with the gun in his hand to one of the county roads that wound down the mountain.
Gigi complied, bringing the Jeep around in a screeching turn. In the rearview mirror, the sun gleamed off the polished hood of the sedan, too close behind them.
Shane clambered into the front of the Jeep then turned around, kneeling backward in the passenger seat, his gun arm braced on the seat back as he squeezed off another shot at the sedan. “Faster!” he yelled. “He’s gaining on us.”
The wind whipped through the Jeep’s open canopy. “Faster? We’re on a mountain. That’s a sheer cliff over there. If we skid over the side, we’re dead!”
“And if that guy catches up to us in the open, we’re dead! Take your choice.”
Holding her lip between her teeth, Gigi pushed the accelerator to the floor. Briefly, the Jeep pulled away from the Mercedes, but the car soon matched the Jeep’s speed, and then some.
The driver behind her was firing again, but the bullets weren’t hitting the body of the Jeep. He was probably aiming at the tires. Gigi said a silent prayer that he didn’t hit them. Not with those cliffs so close to the side of the road.
Pointing at a break in the trees, Shane said, “Turn there, up ahead. On that gravel road.”
Gigi slammed on the brakes and swung the Jeep into the narrow opening. She swung her head from side to side, not liking what she saw. Walls of trees hemmed them in, pushed them forward. They were trapped. The trees encroached so closely on the road that they had no maneuverability.
But neither did the car behind them. Even with its superior speed, the sedan couldn’t pull alongside for a clean shot.
Shane checked the progress of the car behind them. “All right, scum. You wanna play, let’s play.”
“Play?” Gigi adjusted her clammy grip on the steering wheel. “You think this is a game?”
“Just keep driving,” he ordered. “As fast as you can.”
Gigi checked the rearview. The Mercedes plowed down the trail behind them, leaving a plume of dust in its wake.
The front right tire of the Jeep dropped into a deep rut in the road and then rebounded with a vengeance, catapulting Shane out of his seat. He grabbed the roll bar with both hands.
“Faster,” he ordered.
“I’m going as fast as I can.”
Gigi looked over her shoulder. The Mercedes was right behind them. The gun hung out the window.
“Duck!” Shane shouted. Several rounds dinged off metal. She couldn’t tell where. Keeping her head as low as she could and still see over the dashboard, Gigi pressed the accelerator to the floor.
“All right, get ready,” Shane called.
She glanced up warily. “Ready for what?”
He dropped into the passenger seat and climbed across the console until he was practically sitting in the driver’s seat with her. “Ready to hit the brakes and make a hard right turn.”
“Why?”
“Because the road ends right up there.”
“What!” She raised her foot to stomp on the brake, but he quickly kicked her foot away. Then he stomped on the gas.
“Move over,” he yelled.
Move? Move where? She crushed herself against the door, giving him haphazard control of the Jeep.
He pushed the accelerator to the floor once again and locked his fingers around the steering wheel. “Hold on! Five…four…”
The road ahead disappeared into nothingness. Gigi grabbed the door handle.
“Three…”
She let go of the handle and wrapped her arms around the headrest of the seat.
“Two…”
Her heart stopped, she let go of the headrest and, in a moment of sheer desperation, coiled herself around him. She buried her cheek against his chest.
“One… Now!”
Shane stood on the brake and yanked the steering wheel viciously around to the right, sending the Jeep fishtailing into a tight curve surrounded by a choking cloud of dust and gravel hail. Gigi ground her chin into him and held on.
He jerked the wheel back to the left, pulling the Jeep out of the spin within feet of the cliff and driving parallel to the precipice.
Over his shoulder, she saw that the driver of the car had finally seen the danger ahead. He was reared back from the steering wheel, elbows locked straight as if could push himself away from the cliff by physical force. The big sedan’s brakes ground and groaned with the effort, but couldn’t stop his momentum in time. Just as it slid to a halt, the nose of the Mercedes edged over the embankment. The car tottered forward, then back, coming to an unsteady rest with the front half of the car hanging precariously over the edge. A shower of pebbles clattered down the slope, then all went quiet.
Shane stopped the Jeep. Slowly Gigi uncurled her fingers from the front of his shirt and looked up at him.
He had the audacity to grin. “Antilock brakes aren’t so nifty when stopping fast is more important than stopping straight.”
“I can’t believe we just left him there. Aren’t you going to arrest him or something?”
Gigi glanced at Shane. His once golden tanned complexion had jaundiced. He hadn’t said a word in the ten minutes since he’d ordered her to drive, leaving the man who’d ambushed them dangling off the side of a cliff. For an experienced federal agent, he wasn’t taking a little thing like a shoot-out too well.
His eyes drifted shut. “You want to cross an open field in front of a man with a gun and try to take him down, you go right ahead, honey. Me, I prefer not to go out in a blaze of glory. At least not today.”
“You could have kept him pinned down or something while I went for help.”
“Yeah, I could have. Except the nearest help is in town, better than half an hour away, and I’m out of ammo.”
“Out of ammo?”
“Well, not technically out. I’ve got one round left. In case of emergency.”
