Case File: Canyon Creek, Wyoming

Chapter Five

“Don’t move,” Riley said quickly, putting out a warning hand toward her. “You’re barefooted.”

She met his urgent gaze, trying to regain her mental balance. Had he really just stormed in here, wearing nothing but a blue towel, and told his brother-in-law that she was his new girlfriend?

What the hell was he thinking?

A droplet of water slid down the side of his neck and pooled briefly in the hollow of his throat before trickling over the muscles of his chest. Hannah licked her lips and dragged her gaze away to meet Jack Drummond’s dark scrutiny.

Now that her initial panic had subsided, she saw that Riley’s brother-in-law was only a little older than she, no more than thirty. His sun-bronzed skin was smile-lined, as if he laughed a lot, although at the moment, the pained look in his eyes made her stomach hurt.

“I guess I shouldn’t have just sprung the news on you like that, Jack. I wanted to be a little more sure where things were heading-” He shot Hannah a look full of pleading, as if begging her to play along with his story.

She cleared her throat. “I told him he should call you and give you a heads-up.” Her tone was more tart than she’d intended. “Small-town gossip. Things get around fast. But you know how he likes to do things his own way.”

Jack crossed slowly to the kitchen table, his boots crunching over the shards from the glass she’d dropped. He sank into the nearest chair. “How long has it been going on?”

Hannah shot Riley another look. How was she supposed to answer that? They didn’t have their stories straight yet.

“Let me get a broom and sweep this up.” Riley disappeared down the hall, returning with a broom. He swept up the glass around her feet, clearing a path to the door. “Go get dressed and get some shoes on. I’ll let Jack in on what’s going on.” He moved so close that she could feel the steamy heat of his damp skin. He smelled good, like fresh air and a hint of pine. Her hands curled into fists.

She tamped down the urge to bury her nose in his neck to breathe in more of that heady scent. “And then you’ll let me in on it?” she added under her breath, soft enough that Jack couldn’t hear.

He answered with an apologetic look and a quick gesture toward the guest bedroom.

She scurried down the hall to get dressed, keeping an ear cocked to follow the conversation going on in the kitchen as she pulled on a pair of jeans and a warm sweater.

There was a soft tinkle of glass-Riley sweeping up the glass she’d broken. “Out of minutes on your cell phone?” he asked drily.

“You and Emily never used to care if I called ahead.” There was a petulant tone in Jack’s voice that Hannah had not expected. She dropped her estimate of his age by a couple of years. “‘Drop by anytime, Jack. We love to see you, Jack.’”

“You were her only family.”

“And now you’re my only family,” Jack shot back. “At least, I thought you were.”

Hannah paused in the middle of tying her shoe, the pang of sorrow in Jack Drummond’s voice catching her by surprise. He sounded so sad. It made her appreciate her big, rowdy family even more.

She heard Riley dumping the broken glass into a trash bin. “Don’t be a baby, Jack.”

Hannah winced.

“What’s with the bandage on your girlfriend’s face?” Jack asked after a few seconds of silence. Hannah finished tying her shoe and padded down the hall to the kitchen.

“Car accident,” Riley answered. “She knocked her head a bit, but she’s going to be fine.”

“I thought she was gonna cut me.” Jack’s voice was tinted with a smile. “I bet she’d be tough in a bar fight.”

“I don’t get into bar fights,” Hannah said from the doorway.

Riley turned to look at her. She gazed back, not hiding her irritation. He shouldn’t have sprung this crazy girlfriend cover story on her without warning her. And he shouldn’t have been so harsh with his brother-in-law, who was clearly hurting from the loss of his sister just as much as Riley was hurting from the loss of his wife.

She looked away from Riley and smiled at Jack. “Have you had breakfast? I could probably make an omelet or something.”

“I grabbed something at the diner in town,” Jack answered, returning the smile. “Riley told me about your accident. I hope you’re feeling better.”

“We were up most of the night at the hospital,” Riley answered quickly. “The doctors said she had a mild concussion, but they cut her loose this morning.”

“Wow, I bet you’re beat, then. Look, I can go find a place in town or something-”

“I started a fire in the wood stove,” Hannah said quickly, darting a glance at Riley. He started this mess, so now he’d have to live with it. “The bed’s made. I put a few of my things in there because Riley’s closet is full, but there’s plenty of space for you to put your things.”

The look of alarm in Riley’s eyes made her smile. How’s that surprise thing working for you now, big guy?

“Are you sure?” Jack directed the question more toward Riley than Hannah.

He hesitated only a moment, genuine affection in his eyes. “Of course I’m sure,” he said. “You’re family.”

Jack’s grin made Hannah’s stomach twist into a knot. The poor guy looked like a grateful puppy, happy he didn’t get kicked out of the house once the new kid came along. “Can I do something around here?” he asked Riley, pushing to his feet. “I bet you two were too tired to check on the horses this morning-want me to go let ’em out into the pasture?”

“Would you? That would be great.” Riley latched on to the idea quickly, no doubt wanting to get Jack out of the way so he and Hannah could finally get their stories straight.

“I’ll be back in a bit.” Jack winked in Hannah’s direction, grabbed his hat from where he’d laid it on the counter by the door, and headed out the back, the screen door slamming behind him.

The ensuing silence made Hannah’s skin prickle. Riley turned slowly to look at her. “Go on, say it.”

“Your girlfriend?”

“What else was I supposed to say? He walks in on you in your robe, me in a towel-”

Her gaze fell on the towel, which had slipped down his body a notch to reveal the hard, flat plane of his lower belly. She swallowed hard and forced her gaze back up to his face.

“We can’t tell people why you’re really here,” he said.

She sighed. “How long do you think he’ll be here?”

“I don’t know. This is the first time he’s been here since Emily died.” He started to sit, until he apparently realized that he was wearing only a towel. He nodded toward the hallway, as if asking her to follow.

After a quick detour to the guest room to grab a few things she’d need, they went down the hall to Riley’s bedroom. She waited outside, standing with her back against the wall while he entered his bedroom to dress. “I guess we should get our stories straight. But I should warn you, I’m not a good liar.”

“So we keep it simple and as close to the truth as possible. Why did you come to Wyoming in the first place?” His voice was a bit muffled.

Trying hard not to picture a T-shirt sliding over his lean, muscular chest, she swallowed the lump in her throat. “Some friends invited me up to fish on their private lake, and then I planned to do the tourist thing at Grand Teton and Yellowstone.”

Her friends, David and Julie Sexton, had a small ranch with a very good trout lake nestled in a valley in the Wind River Mountains. She’d spent the first four days of her vacation with them and their two school-age daughters.

If only she’d stayed there instead of deciding to do the typical tourist thing and visit the national parks-

“So we stick with that. You came here to go fishing, and we met by accident-”

She heard the sound of a zipper. Squeezing her eyes shut, she sighed. “And immediately started shacking up? I’m not that kind of girl.”

“Hey, you’re the one who gave Jack your room.”

She glared at the opposite wall. “You started it with the girlfriend thing.”

“Enough. Clearly, since you’re not that kind of girl and I’m not really that kind of guy, we met months ago.” He emerged from the bedroom dressed in jeans and a fresh T-shirt. “Maybe we met online.”

If she’d thought a fully dressed Riley Patterson would be less distracting than a naked one, she’d been gravely mistaken. The T-shirt only emphasized the broadness of his shoulders and the powerful muscles of his chest, and the well-worn jeans fit him like a second skin.

Stop looking, Hannah. Looking leads to touching and touching leads to getting your heart shattered in a million pieces the day before your wedding-

She cleared her throat. “Where online?”

“I don’t know. I don’t go online much.” Frustration lining his lean features, he headed toward the kitchen.

She followed. “Do you fish?” she asked.

He turned to look at her, leaning against the sink counter. “What is with the fishing thing?”

“My family runs a marina and fishing camp. I’m a fishing guide, among other things.” She shot him a wry smile. “You’re looking at the Crappie Queen of Gossamer Lake.”

His lips quirked. “Okay, we met on a fishing Web site.”

“Which one?”

He reached for the coffeemaker. “You tell me. You’re the Crappie Queen.”

Over coffee, they quickly outlined their cover story. They’d met online on Freshwater Expeditions, a fishing forum that put avid freshwater fishermen together with fishing guides all over the country. Hitting it off immediately, they’d formed a friendship that became something more, and Hannah had combined her planned fishing trip to Wyoming with the chance to finally meet Riley face-to-face.

“One thing led to another, and…”

“And now we’re sleeping together.” Hannah’s forehead wrinkled as she finally realized the full implications of offering the guest room to Jack. She pushed away her unfinished cup of coffee and rubbed her tired eyes. “Mama’s right. My temper always gets me in trouble.”

“I’ve got a sleeping roll I can put on the floor.”

She shook her head. “It’s your bed. I’ll take the roll.”

“I’ve slept outdoors on the hard, cold ground before, plenty of times. Snugged up next to the wood stove will be a luxury.” He carried their cups to the sink. “So we’re set? Is our cover story close enough to the truth for you to handle?”

“I think so. But we should make a pact-we share whatever we tell Jack separately. There’s a lot of room to mess up.”

The rattle of the back door cut off any response he might have made. He grabbed his gun from the counter.

Jack entered the kitchen, his dark hair windblown and his cheeks bright with exercise. Riley relaxed, tucking the gun in the waistband of his jeans.

Jack’s earlier glum mood was gone, replaced by a mischievous light in his dark eyes. “I took Jazz out for a run. He cut loose-you haven’t been riding him much recently?”

“Not as much as I should,” Riley admitted.

Hannah almost asked how many horses he had, then wondered if that was something they’d have discussed online. She slanted a quick look at Riley and found him looking a bit unnerved.

“Do you ride?” Jack asked Hannah.

“Yeah, though not as much as I’d like. In fact, we’ve been thinking of buying some horses and offering trail rides in the spring and fall up Gossamer Mountain.”

“Gossamer Mountain?”

“It’s in Alabama,” Riley interjected. “Hannah’s family has a fishing camp up there. That’s how we met.”

“You met at a fishing camp in Alabama?” Jack looked at Riley with a confused expression. “When did you go to Alabama?”

“No, we met online. On a fishing forum,” Riley said.

“You go online?” Jack’s eyes widened further.

“Not a lot,” Riley said defensively, as if his brother-in-law had accused him of being a nerd.

Hannah stifled a grin. “It’s a forum called Freshwater Expeditions.” She checked out the forum from time to time herself to keep up with what avid anglers were talking about. It was good for business. “We hit it off right away.”

“And when Hannah made plans to visit some friends here in Wyoming, we decided to finally meet in person.”

“And here we are.” Hannah hoped her smile didn’t look as brittle as it felt. Playacting wasn’t one of her talents. It was nerve-racking, wondering if Jack Drummond was buying the load of bull she and Riley were selling.

Not to mention the way her rattled brain kept returning to the realization that she and Riley Patterson would be sharing a bedroom come nightfall.

“SHE SEEMS NICE.”

Riley looked up from the case folder he was reading to find his brother-in-law’s dark-eyed gaze on him. He set the folder on the coffee table. “I know this has been a kick in the teeth for you, Jack. I’m sorry we sprang it on you like that.”

Jack pushed the rocking chair closer and propped his socked feet up on the coffee table. “Three years is a long time to be alone. I get that.”

Pain settled over Riley, down to the bone. “I haven’t stopped loving Em. I never will.”

“But we both know she wouldn’t want you to live the rest of your life alone,” Jack said solemnly.

Lying to Jack about his fake relationship with Hannah was worse than Riley had anticipated. Each fib felt like a bitter betrayal of Emily and the love they’d shared. His skin prickled, as if the truth was trying to seep through his pores and shout itself to the world.

He wasn’t over Emily! He hadn’t moved on.

He never would.

“You look a little beat, Riley. You were up all night with Hannah at the hospital, weren’t you?”

“Yeah,” he answered, relieved to finally say something that was true. “It was an eventful night.”

“Where’d she have her wreck?”

“Just outside of Whitmore-on the road toward Jackson.”

“Isn’t that way past here?”

Hell. “Yeah. She wanted to drive into Jackson to do some shopping.” Women liked to shop, right? Emily always had.

“How’d the wreck happen?”

Riley tamped down his irritation. Jack’s question wasn’t unreasonable, and if he and Hannah weren’t lying through their teeth, it wouldn’t even matter. “Nobody’s quite sure-Hannah doesn’t remember much of what happened around the time of the wreck. The police think she might have been run off the road.”

“Hit and run?”

“Something like that.”

Jack cocked his head. “I’m surprised you’re not out there hunting down the jerk who did it.”

“There aren’t any leads. And I’m more interested in taking care of Hannah.” That was true, at least. His voice rang with conviction.

Jack smiled, although Riley still detected a hint of sadness in his eyes. “I like her, I think. I mean, what I’ve seen of her. She seems very down to earth. Emily would approve.”

Pain sliced through Riley’s chest at Jack’s words. He took a couple of shallow breaths and looked away.

“I’m sorry if the way I acted this morning made you feel bad or anything.” Jack leaned forward, laying his hand on Riley’s arm. “You were a good husband to Emily. You deserve to be happy again.”

Riley managed a smile, but inside, an ache had settled in the center of his chest. He pushed to his feet. “I’m going to check on Hannah. Make yourself at home.”

Jack responded with a silent nod, his expression bemused.

Riley headed down the hallway to his bedroom, opening the door quietly. Hannah lay curled on her side beneath a plaid woolen blanket, her back to him. Walking softly so as not to wake her, he settled into the armchair by the window and watched her sleep. Early-afternoon light filtered through the curtains, bathing her face with shimmering rose color. She looked weary and battered, her face a roadmap of scrapes and bruises. But beneath the imperfections was beauty that even his shuttered soul couldn’t miss.

He wondered if Jack was right. Would Emily have liked Hannah Cooper? If this charade were the truth instead of a necessary lie, would Emily approve?

He wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer.

THE AFTERNOON HAD WANED while she slept, cool blue shadows of twilight encroaching on the bedroom where she lay. She heard the sound of footfalls, boots on the hardwood floor. Riley, perhaps, coming to wake her for dinner.

She was warm and comfortable. She didn’t want to move. Perhaps if she pretended she was still asleep-

As she started to close her eyes, something shimmered in the low light. She made out a curve of silver, complex shapes and shadows.

A silver belt buckle.

The breath left her lungs in a shaking hiss. She tried to stir, to escape the cottony cage of twilight slumber, but she was paralyzed. The bootfalls came closer, and she heard him breathing. Slow, steady and deadly.

Riley, she thought. Where is Riley?

She opened her mouth and tried to scream. Only a hoarse croak emerged. Her vision narrowed to the silver belt buckle moving inexorably closer.

A hand caught hers, tugging her up. She tried to fight, her movements sluggish and flailing.

“Hannah!” Riley’s voice tore through the fabric of her nightmare, dragging her into consciousness with shocking speed. Her whole body buzzed with adrenaline, making her tremble.

Riley’s hands cradled her face, his gaze intent. “Are you okay? You were crying out.”

She dropped her head against his shoulder, pressing her nose into the curve of his neck. She breathed deeply, filling her lungs with his tangy scent. “I’m okay,” she said, her voice muffled against the collar of his T-shirt.

He brushed her hair off her cheek. “Nightmare?”

She nodded, hoping he wouldn’t pull away. It wouldn’t hurt to cling a moment, would it? At least until the shivers eased.

He edged over, sliding onto the bed beside her. Tucking her against him, he waited patiently for her to relax. The silence between them was comfortable, she found to her surprise. She had not thought of him as someone who could provide much comfort, no matter how good his intentions.

“I’m okay,” she repeated a little while later, afraid she’d tested his patience too long. She sat away from him, brushing her hair back from her damp face.

“Do you remember what you dreamed?”

She didn’t really. Only the nagging sense that she’d seen something important lingered with her.

“You cried out as if you were afraid.”

“I was,” she admitted. “I just don’t know why.”

She couldn’t tell if he was disappointed or not. He was good at hiding his feelings. He had turned on the lamp by the bed, casting a warm glow on the shadowy room. She must have slept most of the day, for outside the window the sky was dark and the room had grown uncomfortably chilly.

Riley crossed to the wood stove in the corner and added wood and kindling. The dying embers flickered to life.

When he turned back to her, the wary look in his eyes drove away the memory of their earlier ease. Though she couldn’t read his thoughts in his shuttered expression, there was no softness there, only a tense watchfulness that made her skin prickle.

He sat beside her on the edge of the bed, his gaze searching hers, as if he wasn’t sure she was telling the truth about not being able to remember. The silence between them became anything but comfortable, the air in the small bedroom crackling with electric awareness.

Looking away, she swallowed hard and tried to remember whatever it was that was hovering just on the outer edges of her memory. There had been fear. Darkness.

A glimmer of metal, curves and recesses…

“A snake,” she said, her voice faint.

“A snake?”

She looked up and met his quizzical gaze. “The man who attacked me. I remembered what was on his silver belt buckle. It was a rattlesnake.”