Witness… And Wife?

Disbelief clouded Cassie’s expression. “You’ve got to be kidding… Chief Bradley assigned you?”

“Yep.”

Her eyes narrowed. “And if I say no?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“But I don’t want you,” she snapped.

“Too bad, baby. You’ve got me.”

Dear Reader,

Happy New Year! Silhouette Intimate Moments is starting the year off with a bang—not to mention six great books. Why not begin with the latest of THE PROTECTORS, Beverly Barton’s miniseries about men no woman can resist? In Murdock’s Last Stand, a well-muscled mercenary meets his match in a woman who suddenly has him thinking of forever.

Alicia Scott returns with Marrying Mike… Again, an intense reunion story featuring a couple who are both police officers with old hurts to heal before their happy ending. Try Terese Ramin’s A Drive-By Wedding when you’re in the mood for suspense, an undercover agent hero, an irresistible child and a carjacked heroine who ends up glad to go along for the ride. Already known for her compelling storytelling abilities, Eileen Wilks lives up to her reputation with Midnight Promises, a marriage-of-convenience story unlike any other you’ve ever read. Virginia Kantra brings you the next of the irresistible MacNeills in The Comeback of Con MacNeill, and Kate Stevenson returns after a long time away, with Witness…and Wife?

All six books live up to Intimate Moments’ reputation for excitement and passion mixed together in just the right proportions, so I hope you enjoy them all.

Yours,

Leslie J. Wainger

Executive Senior Editor

Witness…And Wife?

Kate Stevenson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

In memory of my father, Aleck Fine

1916-1995

KATE STEVENSON

After more then twenty years in Colorado, author Kate Stevenson considers herself a “near native.” Drawing on her knowledge of people and the Rocky Mountain Front Range, she writes stories about strong, risk-taking heroes and heroines who struggle to build lasting relationships in today’s challenging world.

Now that her children are grown, Kate spends her time writing and teaching. She shares her home, at the base of the Rocky Mountains, with her husband and their cat, Spike.

Kate always enjoys hearing from her readers, who can write her at P.O. Box 20271, Boulder, CO 80308-3271.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Prologue

Cassie Bowers hated being late, even a little. Even when it wasn’t her fault.

With an impatient gesture, she shoved back the hood of her khaki raincoat and hurried away from the security checkpoint at the Boulder Justice Center. Water dripped from the hem of her coat, leaving a trail of moisture in her wake, and her shoes made a squishing sound against the marble floor. Without slowing, she nudged aside her wet sleeve and checked the time—6:05. She quickened her pace and angled left into a dimly lit hall.

From behind the closed door of one of the offices she passed, a phone rang unanswered. Except for Cassie and the guard who’d let her through security, the Justice Center seemed empty.

Of course, she knew that wasn’t true. Besides the night cleaning crew, at least one other person was here late—Judge Thomas Wainright, the man who’d left the message on her home answering machine. The only man capable of pulling her away from her snug house on a soggy evening after a day of running down leads.

A gust of wind rattled windows high on the wall across from Wainright’s office, and as Cassie rapped on the door the lights flickered.

When no one responded to her knock, she tried the knob. The door swung open to reveal a small, shadowed anteroom. In the feeble light cast by the only window, the room’s furnishings appeared indistinct and vaguely threatening. Along one wall, file cabinets stood sentry duty, while a secretary’s desk in the center of the room guarded the entrance to the judge’s chambers.

“Judge Wainright?” Cassie stepped forward, her soggy shoes sinking deep into plush carpet.

“Judge Wainright?”

Behind her the latch clicked softly into place.

“Judge Wainright, it’s Cassie Bowers.”

Rain splattered against the window like the echo of distant enemy fire. A shiver ran up Cassie’s back.

Where is he?

Crossing to the desk, she switched on the brass lamp and examined the appointment book that lay in the pool of light at its base. Strange. Her name wasn’t there. Flipping the page, she checked on the next day’s calendar. Not there, either.

Puzzled, she glanced toward the judge’s chambers. The door stood slightly ajar, but no light showed.

Mentally she reviewed bits of the message she’d heard on her answering machine when she’d returned from Denver. …something odd… Meet me at six. I’ll explain then.

If it weren’t for the note of urgency underlying the words, she’d have postponed their meeting till morning in spite of her curiosity. Instead, she’d thrown her coat back on and raced across town—to find him gone.

Unless he’d just stepped out for a bit.

She hesitated an instant, then shrugged out of her coat, depositing it across the top of a wing-backed chair. Since she was already here, she would give him the benefit of the doubt. Plopping onto the chair, she crossed one leg over the other and ran her fingers through her damp curls in a hopeless attempt to make herself look presentable. Water trickled down her neck.

A sigh of exasperation escaped from her lips. She hated delays. When she’d taken the job on the Denver Tattler a year ago, she’d thought her days of hurry-up-and-wait were at an end. With a weekly publication, she’d believed she could pick and choose her times. Yet, here she was—cold, wet…and waiting. Only one step removed from her years on the local daily newspaper.

Impatience wriggled inside her, betrayed by the soundless tapping of her fingers against the upholstered armrest. Shifting her weight, she tried to calm her irritation by envisioning the public’s reaction to the articles taking shape on her computer. Local drug traffic. Money laundering. White-collar crime. The series was certain to stir up a furor, establishing her once and for all as a top-notch investigative reporter. A reporter even Pop would approve of.

Her meetings with Judge Thomas Wainright were going to be instrumental to her success. In today’s world, nearly anyone could write a decent piece on drugs. But not everyone had access to Wainright. One of the best-known judges in the state, he was celebrated for hard-nosed justice when dealing with the drug cases that passed through his courtroom.

And he never gave personal interviews.

Cassie, however, held a trump card. Wainright and Pop had sat on the bench together, and even better, they’d remained friends after her father had retired to teach law.

She’d been certain Wainright would assist her in her mission. Though she’d seen him only occasionally in recent years, she still recalled his visits to the family home in Denver. His imposing figure, the air of reserved authority that clung to him, as well as her father’s obvious respect for the man’s integrity, had all combined to make an indelible impression on her young mind. Wainright was one of the few men Pop truly admired, and given half a chance, he’d expound for hours on some of the judge’s more famous cases. “Mark my word,” Pop would say. “Some day you’ll see Wainright on the Supreme Court.”

A crack of thunder split the muffling quiet. At almost the same instant the room brightened with a flash of lightning. Startled from her musings, Cassie checked her watch.

6:15.

In spite of her determination to be patient, she frowned. Where was he? She was positive she hadn’t garbled the message, yet it wasn’t like Wainright to overlook an appointment, and she’d only been five minutes late.

Maybe she’d misread his tone, mistaken distraction for urgency. Or he could have hoped to fit her in before another meeting, then decided not to wait when she didn’t show. After all, he couldn’t be sure she’d received his message in time to come.

A glance at the window told her nothing had changed outside. Rain buffeted the building, rippling the clear glass like a fun-house mirror. Unwilling to brave the weather again so soon, she decided to give him more time. Half an hour. If he hadn’t come by then, she’d leave a note and call in the morning.

Shadows crept across the carpet until she was finally on the outer fringe of lamplight, the darkness pressing at her back. The air in the room grew heavy and oppressive, a result of excessive humidity, she felt sure. But knowing the cause didn’t calm the jittery feeling in her stomach nor make breathing any easier. When she felt an eternity had passed she tilted her wrist.

6:20.

Maybe she should find the guard and ask for help locating the judge. She rose from the chair, then hesitated. What if Wainright showed up while she was gone?

A barely audible scraping sound, like the whisper of cord across metal, emanated from the room on the other side of the desk.

Cassie froze, hairs rising on the nape of her neck. When the sound failed to repeat itself, she let out the stale air locked in her lungs. She paced to the window and peered into the dreary landscape, feeling more sympathetic toward Noah than she ever had during years of Sunday school.

Air shifted against her back. Her heart thudded.

Get a grip, woman! Next, you’ll be seeing ghosts.

She smiled nervously. Cassie Bowers never let her imagination run away with her. She was too sensible, too down-to-earth. Why, if a ghost had dared rear its head, she would have laughed it back into the grave.

Although she’d checked her watch mere moments ago, she looked again… 6:22. She pressed her lips together and decided her nerves couldn’t take eight more minutes.

Her mind made up, she crossed to the desk, intent on scribbling a quick note. Something halted her hand as she reached for the notepad next to the lamp.

A soft, nearly inaudible sound.

A moan?

She held her breath and waited for the sound to repeat itself. It didn’t. Narrowing her gaze, she stared at the slit of black that outlined the unsecured door to the judge’s chambers.

No way could he be here. All the lights had been turned out, and she’d called loud enough to wake the dead.

Dead?

A sudden vision of the man, lying ill or injured, floated through her mind. She took a hesitant step toward the door. “Judge Wainright?”

With the flat of her hand, she pushed at the unresisting barrier. It swung noiselessly inward. In spite of the prickling along her scalp, she took another step and ran her fingers along the wall in search of a light switch.

A movement within the darkened room caught her attention, drying her mouth and making her pulse flutter.

“Judge Wainright?”

Even as she spoke, she suspected it wasn’t the judge. The shape that detached itself from the murky shadows wasn’t tall or solid enough.

Unnerved by the apparition’s failure to respond, she widened her eyes, trying to adjust her vision to the deep gloom, and groped once more for the elusive light switch.

The figure seemed to sense her purpose. With lightning speed, it leaped forward. In the dim light something glinted in its upraised hand.

Cassie’s heart thudded wildly.

Disbelief cramped her stomach.

Fumbling, she found the switch as something crashed against her skull.

Bright light exploded.

The room went dark.

Chapter 1

Straining to open her eyes, Cassie fought the darkness that pressed in from all sides, ominous and threatening like the murky depths of a midnight ocean. An undertow caught her, dragging her deeper and deeper into the abyss. Desperately she snatched at handholds to slow her descent.

Her clutching fingers came up empty. The current grabbed her, sent her tumbling and spinning farther and farther from the surface. A scream welled up inside her. She was trapped. Prisoner in a surreal world of turbulent water and inky despair.

Minutes…hours…went by while she struggled, driven as much by fear of the unknown as by instinct to survive. Seaweed tangled around her legs. Her movements grew sluggish. Warmth drained from her body, like blood from an open wound.

A traitorous voice urged surrender, told her she couldn’t win. She refused to listen. Ignoring her aching chest, her cold-numbed limbs, she gathered herself for one final assault.

She called on her last bit of willpower and launched herself.

Forward.

Upward.

Toward freedom.

For long moments she floated, pulling great gulps of air into her burning lungs as the nightmare receded. Gradually her breathing steadied and the world stopped spinning. The gentle rocking of waves solidified into a hard, lumpy surface that poked uncomfortably into her backside. She opened her eyes. Beneath her head, the pillow was damp. A sheet twisted around her legs.

Sounds, muffled and distant, grazed her ears. A low hum. A faint rattle. Her muddled brain registered the whisper of rubber-soled shoes brushing against tile. An antiseptic smell hung in the air.

Groggily she peered around, straining to make sense of the dim shapes. Metal bars hemmed the bed. The outline of a nightstand. And on the other side of the room, the edge of a darkened doorway.

A hospital? What was she doing in a hospital? Alarm spasmed through her.

“Awake?” a voice whispered.

The single word perforated the quiet of the room. Her heart lurched. She jerked toward the source and instantly regretted the movement. Pain stabbed behind her eyes, setting off a jackhammer in her skull. Muscles screamed in protest.

She gasped. What on Earth was the matter with her?

“Take it slow, slugger.”

Slugger? No one called her slugger anymore. The only ones who used the nickname she’d earned at age eight were her brothers and…Luke.

No, it couldn’t be him.

The metallic taste of despair coated her throat, overriding the throbbing in her head. She closed her eyes in denial, remembering the last time she’d lain in a hospital bed, the last time she’d heard the same gravel-edged voice utter the silly nickname.

The last time.

Or was the last time now?

Her stomach knotted and she clenched a fist against it in an attempt to ward off a rising tide of nausea. Surely she hadn’t just…

Fragmented scenes flashed across her mind—bits and pieces of her life that assured her she hadn’t imagined the passage of time. Her queasiness eased.

A nightmare, then.

She frowned, wincing as skin tightened over bone.

No nightmare. She felt too awful to be dreaming. Taking care to make no more sudden moves, she shifted her head and peered into the shadows, hoping she was wrong about the speaker’s identity.

“Can you stand a little light?”

No. She didn’t want to see, didn’t want to know who was there. Before she could protest she heard a click, and white pricked the darkness, illuminating the figure next to the bed. She squeezed her eyes shut as her suspicion was confirmed.

It was Luke.

A rush of longing, more potent than anything she’d allowed herself to feel in ages, clogged her throat. What was he doing here? No one had told her he’d returned to Colorado. But then, why should they? No one knew it mattered. No one—not even her family—knew what it had cost her to offer her ex-husband his freedom and then watch him walk out of her life. Without a single protest.

A familiar, aching hollow opened inside her, an emptiness more draining than whatever had landed her in this bed. Wearily she opened her eyes, knowing she had to say something. “What…happened?” Her tongue, suddenly three sizes too big for her mouth, stumbled awkwardly over the words.

“There was an accident.” He lifted the water container from the table beside the bed. “Would you like some water?”

She nodded, then regretted the movement as pain needled down her neck. What did he mean, “an accident”?

Before she could make sense of the statement, he’d slipped an arm beneath her shoulders for support and eased her higher, allowing access to the container’s plastic straw. She gulped greedily, trying to ignore the pressure of firm muscles at her back and his palm warm against her arm. When he finally drew away, it was like losing him all over again. Perilously close to tears, she said the first thing that came to mind. “I thought you were in Texas.”

Only when his expression tightened did she realize how accusatory she sounded. Helplessness enveloped her. Around Luke, it seemed she never said the right thing.

“I’ve had enough of Texas. Two years was all I could take.” He shrugged, the nonchalant gesture at odds with his bleak tone. “No Rocky Mountains.”

Two years? It seemed like yesterday. Through eyes barely open she studied his heavily shadowed jaw and uncompromising mouth. He hadn’t changed a bit. Except that now, instead of condemnation, she sensed a flicker of concern in his eyes. Tears prickled against her lids.

Too late. An eternity too late.

Two years ago she’d needed him. Not now. She concentrated on the throbbing in her head in an attempt to blot out the pain in her heart.

It hurt so bad.

When she raised a hand to her forehead, her fingers brushed a padding of gauze. “What—”

“Leave it alone,” Luke said. Laying a restraining hand on her arm, he reached across her to press the button on the bed’s control panel.

Although Cassie tried to summon resentment at the authority in his tone, her senses overrode her. His touch warmed her chilled skin. His familiar scent filled her nostrils, stirring old memories, old needs, old desires.

The hall door swung open.

“You’ve finally decided to rejoin us, have you?” said a cheery voice. The nurse touched Cassie’s wrist, checking for a pulse Cassie felt sure was elevated, then smoothed the bed-clothes. “How do you feel?”

“Like I’ve been keelhauled.”

“That’s to be expected. How’s the head?”

“Sore. What happened?”

“You had an accident.” The nurse shot a glance at Luke. “Hasn’t Detective Slater—”

Confused, Cassie saw Luke shake his head, halting the nurse midsentence. A look of consternation crossed the woman’s face, but she recovered quickly. “You’ll be fine,” she assured Cassie with a comforting pat before leaving. “I’ll let the doctor know you’ve regained consciousness. He’ll want to see you right away.”

Cassie scarcely registered the nurse’s departure over the sound of blood rushing in her ears. Every instinct screamed they were hiding something—something worse than the car accident she’d imagined when Luke first spoke. But that was crazy. She wasn’t pregnant. Not this time. Dizzy with tension, she fumbled for alternatives. For an instant she envisioned herself paralyzed, but a quick test of her legs beneath the covers assured her everything was in working order.

The fact that she was relatively uninjured did little to stem her rising flood of panic. She hadn’t imagined the odd exchange between Luke and the nurse, so what else could it be?

A gruesome thought popped into her head. “Did someone die?”

Avoiding her eyes, Luke massaged the back of his neck in an all-too-familiar gesture of reluctance.

My God, that’s it. I’ve killed someone! Her breath caught in her lungs as she waited for the answer.

“Yes.”

She recoiled. Around the lump of horror forming in her throat, she managed to croak, “Who?”

Luke turned away, his voice muted. “Judge Wainright.”

Judge Wainright? Why would Judge Wainright be in her car?

Cord whispered across metal.

Cassie’s gaze leaped to where Luke stood at the window, pushing aside the curtains to look at the predawn sky. She stared in alarm at his slumped shoulders while faint impressions brushed her consciousness.

Rain.

Shifting shadows.

Darkness.

Abruptly, before she lost her nerve, she spoke. “I don’t remember the accident. Tell me.”

“No accident.” Luke let the curtain fall back into place. “Murder.”

Light flashed across her memory. Light and the sound of thunder.

A storm. Yes—a storm! She’d been on her way to interview Judge Wainright… She remembered rain splattering her face as she hurried from the parking lot into the building.

Into the building?

Her heart slammed against her ribs. Something about the building. She gripped the bedrail, struggling to remember.

Shifting shadows.

The taste of terror on her tongue.

A flash of light.

Her gaze leaped to the door of what she supposed was the bathroom, strangely unsettled by the darkness beyond. And like a rubber band stretched to the breaking point, the string of impressions snapped.

Shuddering, she released the railing and stared at her open hand, unsurprised to see the imprint of the metal bar on her palm. She rubbed at the ache and took a shaky breath. “It’s all a blank.”

Luke took forever to settle into the room’s only chair, an eternity of time during which her anxiety level went up several notches. His guarded expression, when he finally raised his eyes, made her tense in anticipation.

“At approximately seven-thirty last night, a guard at the Justice Center called the police to report a homicide.”

She clutched at the sheeting. “Judge Wainright?”

Luke touched her fisted hand and nodded.

“How?”

For several moments she feared he wouldn’t answer. Head bent, he loosened her grasp from the sheet and, with elaborate attention, smoothed her fingers between his palms. His clumsy attempt at comfort only increased her apprehension.

“Please,” she pleaded.

His hands stilled. “A blow to the head. Something heavy enough to crush his skull.”

She’d thought she was prepared to hear the details. She wasn’t. Her stomach plummeted as an image of Thomas Wainright’s benevolent smile formed in her mind. “He called…left a message…”

Luke lifted his head, slipping into cop mode. “What about?”

“I don’t know. I assumed it was something to do with the series I’m working on. He’d been helping me—”

“What’s the series about?”

“Drug traffic—the new white-collar crime.”

Luke frowned, but didn’t comment. “Did you erase the machine?”

“There wasn’t time. I jumped in the car and—” She swallowed convulsively and gripped his hand. “He wasn’t there. At least, I thought—”

Something stopped her, an elusive scrap of memory that fluttered ghostlike on the edge of her consciousness.

“Tell me what you remember.”

“I heard something.” The tape holding the gauze in place tugged at her skin as she knit her brows, but the harder she tried to concentrate, the farther away the memory slipped.

“I can’t remember.”

“Take your time. It works better if you don’t try to force it.”

She recognized the tone. She’d heard him use it often enough on others. Accident victims and hysterical witnesses—they all responded to his quiet concern and spilled their guts. But Cassie had nothing to spill. No explanation. No insight. Nothing except a vast void.