Be Mine(34)

Had she overreacted? He’d been sweet. And so damn hot. And if she looked at it through his eyes... Heck, aside from all the cop stuff, she’d have been asking some very serious questions of Nate if an ex-wife had shown up in the middle of the night, causing trouble. Add to that the fact that Ellis definitely was acting a little strange, and Jenny lost a little of her hurt. Or a lot of it.

She stared out at the snow racing past the path of her headlights, but she didn’t put the car in gear.

Had Nate done anything so terrible? He’d been awkward, yes. His timing had been unfortunate. But maybe he really had been overwhelmed by...what? Lust? Need? Her?

The snowflakes blurred into a solid white mass, and Jenny closed her eyes against tears. Pitiful to feel so moved to be wanted that way, but it wasn’t gratitude. It was more like an answer to the need she’d felt for him. It struck her, ringing a chord deep inside her body. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a comforting sound.

Jenny pulled out of the parking lot and turned away from home. Storm or no storm, she needed to drive. And she needed to find out what the hell Ellis was up to. For Ellis’s sake, but more than that, for her own.





CHAPTER EIGHT



“SERGEANT, ARE YOU sure you want me here?” Nate asked.

His sergeant shot him an impatient look. “It’s your bust, isn’t it?”

“Well, I suppose, but the complicating factors make it—”

“Look, we’ve got your eyewitness testimony and that of your cousin. This isn’t going to be a complex case. These guys aren’t usually careful. I’m sure there are fingerprints all over the place. They operate on the principle of nondiscovery, not CSI: Miami.”

“I know, but I...further complicated things by—”

His sergeant seemed to be fighting back a smile. “I’m sure we can try the case without bringing your extracurricular activities into it.”

Jesus, now he wasn’t just a fool; he was a damned amusing one. “Fine.”

“Just hang back, all right? I’ll call you in when it’s clear.”

Nate paced deeper into the woods, following the path of an old camp road into silent trees. There was no wind this morning. The storm had settled all of that, blanketing Jackson in a foot of snow and stilling the bustle of the place.

It hadn’t stilled his mind, though. That still raced and bucked. He tried to calm it. His sergeant seemed amused by any assertion that he’d compromised a drug case by sleeping with Jenny.

“It wouldn’t be a case if you hadn’t brought it to us,” the sergeant had said, shoving aside Nate’s concerns. So why was he so tortured by it? He paced the road and waited.

It was 8:00 a.m. Jenny probably wasn’t even up yet. Not that it mattered. She wouldn’t forgive him once he had her ex-husband thrown in prison. And he probably shouldn’t forgive her for lying. He definitely shouldn’t. But the thought of letting their connection die...

He was thirty-five years old. He’d dated a lot of women, and slept with more than a few of them. There was lust. There was chemistry. And then there was something that went so deep it nearly hurt. He hadn’t known about that until yesterday, but now he couldn’t go on pretending he didn’t know.

Still, it was more than the physical. It was her sunny smile. The easy way she worked hard and still had a friendly word for everyone around her. He’d already known about her positive attitude, after pulling her over six times. What had surprised him was the glimpse of something more. When she’d lost her temper and revealed too much about why she’d really left home so young. A shitty childhood, she’d said. He wouldn’t have guessed it; she was so carefree.

But maybe that was what had attracted her to a man like Ellis. And maybe the drug stuff was just normal to her. No big deal. Hell, maybe it was a serious part of her life.

He hoped not. Not just for himself, but for her, too.

“Damn.” He tipped his head up to stare at the dove-gray clouds above him. It might snow again, but the storm was gone. Now it was just the sad cold that followed. And all he could do was wait.

* * *

JENNY JERKED AWAKE at a distant screech of metal on metal. Her car was cocooned in snow, completely cut off from everything, and for a moment, she had no idea where she was. The world was nothing but white and cold and the mist of her own startled breath. But a few heartbeats later, she remembered. She was parked in a camp parking lot, her car covered in snow.

She’d driven last night. Through the snow and wind. She’d had to do it, to get enough air. Enough oxygen that she could think. She’d driven for miles and miles.

Nate truly liked her. She knew he did. She could feel it. He liked her so much that even though she had the baggage of an ex-husband who was possibly an active criminal, he wanted to give her a chance. Or he had wanted to, until she’d lost her shit and thrown him out.

As she’d driven deserted, icy roads, she’d told herself she was willing to answer his questions. But she couldn’t. She had no idea what Ellis was up to. She didn’t even know if she was involved. He’d used her property. She’d agreed. But to what?

An urgency had overtaken her then. A need to resolve this. So she’d turned her car around and driven toward Hoback, where Ellis had rented a place. It was too far away for skiers to drive every day, so likely the only place he’d been able to find a bed.

An hour later, she’d driven slowly through the scattered cabins of the ancient camp where he was staying. It had taken two passes before she’d spotted his van. She’d pulled into the one plowed parking area she could find and raced to his door to knock, but there’d been no answer. Either he was passed out or he was partying at someone else’s place, but Jenny had come too far to give up. She’d retreated to her car to wait, and she’d promptly fallen asleep.

And now she was snowed in.

Jenny slowly cranked her window down, wincing at the ledge of snow that fell onto her arm. But a little discomfort was worth the sight of a slice of the world. Trees beyond a rooftop, and then the corner of a cabin. Ellis’s cabin was across the lot and up the road a little, but his van was no longer there.

“Shit!” she cursed, her eyes rolling wildly. But then she saw the tracks in the snow and followed them quickly up the lane to the highway. There he was, already making the turn. He hadn’t noticed her car because it had been nothing but a big lump in the snow.

She cursed again, using a few of the choicest words she’d ever learned serving beer to working cowboys. Pushing as hard as she could, she forced her door open and scrambled out. Her tall boots kept most of the snow out as she grabbed her snow brush and started frantically cleaning off the hood of her car. When she had all the windows cleared, she grabbed the shovel from the trunk and dug out the tires, too. She skipped the roof. She’d just have to create a snowstorm for the poor driver behind her. She needed to haul ass and catch up to Ellis.

At least she knew which way he’d turned, though she could guess he’d head toward Jackson, regardless. Once she got the car out of the lot, she turned toward town and floored it, praying to God that Nate wasn’t working traffic today.

It took almost fifteen minutes to catch up, but she found Ellis, and fell in behind his truck to follow. She only meant to follow him long enough to park beside him and demand an explanation. But as she drove, she realized she might have the wrong idea. Ellis didn’t want to tell her the truth. Whatever he was up to, he didn’t think he was doing anything wrong. If she wanted the real story, she’d have to find it.

She immediately let up on the gas and fell back, as if she could suddenly fade into the background like a bright yellow fog.

Frowning, hunched over her steering wheel, she glared at his white van, taking no note of the beauty around her. Had he spotted her? He hadn’t given any indication of it. The back panels of the van had no window, and his driver’s-side mirror appeared to be aimed at the sky. That left the mirror on the passenger side of the van, but really, if he wasn’t using one mirror, why would he use the other?

She fell back a little bit. Then a little more. She planned to catch up again when he got to town, but she didn’t get the chance. Cresting the rise of a hill about ten minutes before town, she realized she’d lost him.

“Oh, crap,” she gasped, looking everywhere in a panic, even toward the sky, as if he’d pulled a Mary Poppins and floated off above the chimneys of the houses gathered at the side of the road.

The houses. She searched among the driveways and saw nothing. But just before she reached the small group of log cabins, she saw a road and slammed on her brakes to take the turn.

It was the only place he could have turned. The river ran along the other side. He couldn’t have—There. His brake lights flashed ahead of her. Jenny slumped in relief and told herself to calm down. Ellis Stone wasn’t sharp enough to lose a tail, even a really awful tail like her.

Now that she’d found him again, she slowed. Even Ellis might notice someone following him on this narrow, isolated road leading to...somewhere she’d never been.