“I’m going to stay with you tonight.”

She straightened. “You will not.”

“Yes, I will. At least until we find out who was asking about you yesterday.”

“Jake, you cannot stay at my house. What will people think?”

“Since when do you care what people think?” The woman he’d known before had made a point of flouting public opinion.

“Since I moved to a small town where everyone knows me. I’m a schoolteacher, for God’s sake. I have a reputation to protect.”

“So you’re telling me nobody here sleeps with anybody else unless they’re lawfully married?”

“I’m sure they do, but they’re discreet about it.”

“So we’ll be discreet. Besides, I never said I was going to sleep with you—unless that’s what you want …”

Rocky Mountain Revenge
Cindi Myers

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CINDI MYERS is the author of more than fifty novels. When she’s not crafting new romance plots, she enjoys skiing, gardening, cooking, crafting and daydreaming. A lover of small-town life, she lives with her husband and two spoiled dogs in the Colorado mountains.

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Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Excerpt

Chapter One

Elizabeth Giardino had died on February 14. For three hundred and sixty-four days, Anne Gardener had avoided thinking about that terrible day, but on the anniversary of Elizabeth’s death, she allowed herself a few minutes of mourning. She stood in her classroom at the end of the day, surrounded by the hearts-and-lace decorations her students had made, and let the memories wash over her: Elizabeth, never Betsy or Beth, her hair streaked with brilliant purple, leaning dangerously far over the balcony of her father’s penthouse in Manhattan, waving to the paparazzi who clicked off shot after shot from the apartment below. Elizabeth, in a ten-thousand-dollar designer gown and impossibly high heels, sipping five-hundred-dollar champagne and dancing into the wee hours at a St. Tropez nightclub while a trio of morose men in black suits looked on. Elizabeth, blood staining the breast of her white dress, screaming as those same men dragged her away.

Anne closed her eyes, shutting out the last image. She’d gain nothing by remembering those moments. The past was the past and couldn’t be undone.

Yet she couldn’t shake a feeling of uneasiness. She looked out the window, at the picture-postcard view of snow-capped mountains against a turquoise sky. Rogers, Colorado, might have been on another planet, for all it resembled New York City. Those lofty peaks did have a mesmerizing effect, anchoring you to the earth in a way. Part of her would like to stay here forever, too, but she doubted she would. In a year, or two at most, she’d have to move on. She couldn’t afford to put down roots.

She drew a deep breath, collecting herself, then gathered up her purse and tote bag, and shrugged into her coat. She locked the door of her classroom and walked to the parking lot, her low-heeled boots clicking on the scuffed linoleum, echoing in the empty hallway.

Her parking space was close to the side entrance, directly under a security light that glowed most mornings when she arrived. But there was no need for the light today, though the shadows were beginning to lengthen as the February sun slid down toward its nightly hiding place behind the mountains.

The sudden descent to darkness had made her uneasy when she’d first arrived here. Now she accepted it as part of the environment, along with stunning bright sun that shone despite bitter cold, or the sudden snowstorms that buried the town in two feet of whiteness as soft and dry as powdered sugar.

She drove carefully through town, checking her rearview mirror often. People waved and she returned their greetings. That, too, had unsettled her at first, how people she’d never met greeted her as an old friend within a few days of her arrival. She’d never lived in a small town before, and had to get used to the idea that of course everyone knew the new elementary schoolteacher.

Dealing with the men had been the biggest challenge at first. More men than women lived in these mountains, she’d been told, and the arrival of an attractive young woman who was clearly unattached drew them like elk to a salt lick. Elizabeth would have been in heaven—the men were ski instructors, mountain climbers, cowboys, miners—all young and fit, rugged and handsome, straight out of a beer commercial or a romance novel. But Anne rebuffed them all, as politely as she could. She wasn’t interested in dating anyone. Period.

A rumor had started that her heart had been broken in New York and this was why she’d come west. The sympathetic looks directed her way after this story circulated were almost worse than the men’s relentless pursuit.

Things had calmed down after a few months. People had accepted that the new teacher was “standoffish,” but that didn’t stop them from being friendly and kind and concerned, though she suspected some of this was merely a front for their nosiness. People wanted to know her story and she had none to tell them.

She stopped at the only grocery in town to buy a frozen dinner and the makings of a salad, then drove the back way home. She tried to vary her route every few days, which wasn’t easy. There were only so many ways to reach the small house in a quiet subdivision three miles from town.

The house, painted pale green with buff trim, sat in the middle of the block. It had a one-car garage and a sharply peaked roof, and a covered front porch barely large enough for a single Adirondack chair, which still wore a dusting of snow from the last storm.

She unlocked the door and stood for a moment surveying the room. A sofa and chair, covered with a faded floral print, filled most of the small living room, the television balanced on an old-fashioned mahogany table with barley-twist legs. An oval wooden coffee table and a brass lamp completed the room’s furnishings, aside from a landscape print on the side wall. The place had come furnished. None of the items were things she would have picked out, but she’d grown accustomed to them. No sense changing things around when she couldn’t stay.

She stooped and picked up her mail from the floor, where it had fallen when the carrier had shoved it through the slot. Utility bills, the local paper, junk—the usual. Nothing was amiss about the mail or the house, yet she couldn’t shake her uneasiness. She eased out of the boots and padded into the kitchen in stocking feet and put away the groceries. She wished she had a drink. She had no liquor in the house—she hadn’t had a drink since she’d left New York. It seemed safer that way, to always be alert. But today she’d welcome the dulling of her senses, the softening of the sharp edges of feeling.

She put water on for tea instead, then went into the bedroom to change into jeans and a comfy sweater. Maybe she’d start a fire in the small woodstove in the living room, and try to lose herself in a novel.

The bedroom held the only piece of furniture in the house she really liked—an antique cherry sleigh bed, the wood burnished by years of use to a soft patina. She trailed one hand across the satin finish on her way to the closet. She stopped beside the only other piece of furniture in the room, a sagging armchair, and slipped out of the corduroy skirt and cotton turtleneck. Sensible clothes for racing after six-year-olds. Elizabeth would have laughed to see her in them.

She opened the closet and reached for a pair of jeans. She scarcely had time to register the presence of another person in the room when strong arms wrapped around her in a grip like iron. A hand clamped over her mouth, stifling her scream. Panic swept over her, blinding her. She fought with everything she had against this unknown assailant, but he held her fast.

“Shhh, shhh. It’s all right. I won’t hurt you.” The man’s voice was soft in her ear, its gentleness at odds with the strength that bound her. “Look at me.”

He loosened his hold enough that she could turn her head to look at him. She screamed again as recognition shook her and choked on the sound as she stared into the eyes of a dead man.

Jake Westmoreland watched the woman in his arms closely, trying to judge if it was safe to uncover her mouth. He wasn’t ready to release his hold on her yet. Not because he feared she’d strike out at him, but because he’d waited so many months to hold her again.

She was thinner than he remembered, fragile as a bird in his hands, where he’d never thought of her as fragile before. Her hair was darker too, cut differently, and the bright streaks of color were gone. He’d seen her picture, so he should have been prepared for that. But nothing could have really prepared him for meeting her again, not after the trauma of their last parting. For months, he hadn’t even been sure she was still alive.

“I thought you were dead,” she said when he did remove his hand from her mouth. Tears brimmed in her eyes, glittering on her lashes.

“I was sure Giardino’s goons would go after you next.”

“Your friends got to me first. But they never told me you were still alive. How? The last time I saw you...” She shook her head. “So much blood...”

They told him later he had died, there on the floor of the suite at the Waldorf Astoria. But the trauma team had shocked his heart back to life and poured liters of blood into him to keep his organs from shutting down. He’d spent weeks in the hospital and months after that in rehab—months lying in bed with nothing to do but think about her.

He brushed her hair back from her temples, as if to reassure himself she was real, and not a dream. “Elizabeth, I—”

The pain in her eyes pierced him. “It’s Anne. Elizabeth doesn’t exist anymore. She died that day at the hotel.”

He’d known this, too, but in the moment his emotions had gotten the better of him. He stepped back, releasing her at last. “Why Anne?”

“It was my middle name.” Her bottom lip curved slightly in the beginnings of the teasing smile he’d come to know so well. The old smile he’d missed so much. “You didn’t know?”

“No.” There was so much he hadn’t known about her. “Can we sit down and talk?” He nodded toward the bed, the only place where two people could sit in the room.

A piercing whistle rent the air. He had his gun out of his shoulder holster before he even had time to think.

She stared at the weapon with an expression of disgust. “Are you going to shoot my tea kettle?”

He put the gun away.

“Let’s go into the living room,” she said. She pulled a robe from a hook on the closet door and wrapped it around herself, but not before he took in the full breasts rounded at the top of her black lace bra, the narrow waist fanning out to slim hips—and the scar on her lower back.

“Your tattoo’s gone,” he said. She’d had the words Nil opus captivis at the base of her spine, in delicate script. Take no prisoners. The motto of a woman who’d been determined to wring everything she could from life.

“I had it removed. They told me I shouldn’t leave any identifying marks.”

She led the way into the living room, going first to the kitchen to turn off the burner beneath the kettle, then to the front window to pull the blinds closed. He sat on the sofa, expecting she would sit beside him, but she retreated to the chair, her arms wrapped protectively around her middle.

“How did you find me?” she asked.

“I still have friends at the Bureau. People who owe me favors.”

“No one is supposed to know where I am. They promised—” She broke off, her lips pressed together in a thin line. He could read the rest of her thoughts in her eyes. This wasn’t the first time the government had broken promises to her. What about all the promises he’d made?

“I never meant to lie to you,” he said. “I was trying to protect you.”

“You didn’t do a very good job of that, did you?”

He clenched his hands into fists. “No. Tell me what happened after I left. I heard you turned state’s evidence.”

“If you’re still with the FBI you should know all this.”

“I’m not with the Bureau anymore.”

She raised her brows. “Oh? Why not?”

“Officially, I was retired on disability.”

“And unofficially?”

“Unofficially, they thought I was too much of a risk.”

“Because of what happened with my father?”

“That, and...other things.” He’d committed the cardinal sin of developing an intimate relationship with a person he was supposed to be investigating. Not that Elizabeth Giardino had been the target of his investigations, but she was close enough to her father to raise questions about Jake’s integrity and his ability to perform his job. “Tell me what happened after I was shot,” he said.

“My father’s goons did try to drag me away, but they didn’t know you had the place surrounded. When the cops broke in, everyone was too focused on keeping my father safe to worry about me. Someone hustled me into a car and took me downtown.”

He tried to imagine the scene. She’d been covered in his blood, wild with fear. They’d have put her in an interrogation room and turned up the pressure, grilling her for hours, trying to break her. At one time he would have said she wasn’t a woman who could be broken, but now he wasn’t so sure. “They wanted you to provide evidence against your father.”

“They didn’t have to persuade me. After I saw what he did to you...I wanted to make him pay.”

Was it because of him, really? Or because her father had destroyed her trust? In one blast of gunfire she’d gone from pampered daddy’s girl to enemy number one. It must have made her question everything.

“I laid all the family’s dirty secrets out in public and he swore he’d kill me,” she continued. “He stood there in court and cursed me and said I was dead to him already.” She swallowed, and he sensed the effort it took for her to rein in her emotions.

“After that it was too dangerous for you to remain in New York,” he said.

She nodded. “It was too dangerous for me to be me. Within a month my father had escaped prison and disappeared, but we all know he’s still out there somewhere, and he hasn’t forgotten anything. The feds gave me a new identity. Elizabeth Giardino died in a tragic boating accident in the Caribbean and Anne Gardener came to Rogers, Colorado, to teach school.”

“I never imagined you as a schoolteacher.”

“I had a degree in English from Barnard. The Marshals Service pulled a few strings to get me my teaching certificate. They found this job for me, and this house.” She looked around the room. The plain, old-fashioned furniture was as unlike her hip Manhattan apartment as he could have imagined. “I suppose they thought this place was as anonymous as a town could be.” Her gaze shifted back to him. “Yet you found me.”

“I had inside information.”

“Other people can pay for information.”

Other people being her father and his goons. “I knew about this place. That it was on a list of possible hideouts. I persuaded a former colleague to let me take a look at the accounting records for the period after you disappeared and I found payment to a Colorado bank. I was able to trace that to this house.”

“But you still didn’t know I was here.”

“I looked online, through the archives of the local paper. I saw the announcement last summer about the new teacher. The timing was right, and I thought it might be you.”

“You make it sound easy.”

“Not so easy. There are a lot of layers between you and the feds. Layers I helped design.”

“I forgot you started out as an accountant.” She gave a rueful laugh. “Not the picture most people have of the rough-and-tough federal agent.”

He’d been hired straight out of university to work as a forensic accountant for the Bureau. Following the money put away more criminals than shootouts. But then they’d needed someone to go undercover in the Giardino family and he’d volunteered, wanting a change from sitting behind a desk. He hadn’t counted on getting in so deep. He hadn’t counted on Elizabeth.

“How are you doing?” he asked. “Do you like it here?”

“I don’t dislike it. The people are friendly. I love the children.”

He tried to imagine her surrounded by first graders. He’d never thought of her as the mothering type, yet the image seemed to suit this new, quieter side of her. “It’s very different from the life you lived before,” he said.

“I’m very different.”

“Yeah.” A person didn’t go through the kinds of things they’d been through without some change. “How are you doing, really?” he asked.

“How do you think?” Her voice was hard, the accusation in her eyes like acid poured on his wounds. “It’s hard. And exhausting, being afraid all the time.”

“You don’t feel safe?”

“You of all people should know the answer to that. You know my father—he’ll do anything to get his way. And he meant it when he said he would see that I was dead. If you found me, he can too. Why did you come here?”

“I wanted to see you.”

“Well, you’ve seen me. Now you can leave.” She stood, and cinched the robe tighter around her waist.

He rose also. “Eli—Anne. Listen to me. I need your help.”

“For what?”

“I need you to help me find your father.”

“Why? You said you’re no longer with the Bureau.”

“No. But if we find him he’ll go back to prison—and they won’t let him escape this time.”

“I can’t help you. All I want is to stay as far away from him as possible.”

“Don’t you want to put an end to this? Don’t you want to be safe again?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about finding your father and making sure he’s punished the way he deserves.”

“Revenge?” She spat the word, like a curse. “You want revenge?”

“Call it that if you want. Or call it justice. He’s killed too many people. Someone has to stop him.”

“Well, that someone won’t be me.”

“I’m not asking you to risk anything. I just want you to talk to me. To tell me where he might be hiding.”

“I already gave you everything I could. Why do you want more?”

She had given him everything—her body and her beauty and a willingness to risk that had made his own bravery seem a sham in comparison. “I need your help,” he said again.

“You’re as bad as he is—you only want to use people to get what you want.” Without another glance at him she left the room, the door to the bedroom clicking softly shut behind her.

He stared after her, feeling sick. Maybe her words hurt so much because they were too close to the truth. He did want to use her. She was the only link he had to Sam Giardino. The only way he could do what he had to do.

Chapter Two

Anne leaned against the closed bedroom door, her ear pressed to the wood, listening. The silence in the house was so absolute she imagined she could hear Jake’s heart beating—though of course it was only the frantic pounding in her own chest. Footsteps crossed the room, moving away from her, the heavy, deliberate echo of each step moving through her like the aftershock of an earthquake. She bit her lip to keep from shouting at him not to leave. Of course she wanted him to leave. She didn’t want any part of the kind of danger he represented.

The front door closed with a solid click. She held her breath, and heard the muffled roar of a car engine coming to life. The sound faded and she was alone. She moved away from the door and sagged onto the bed, waiting for the tears that wouldn’t come. She’d cried them all out that night at the hotel, believing he was dead, knowing her life had ended.

Jake. One of the other agents at the Bureau had laughed when she’d called him that. “You mean Jacob? No one ever calls him Jake.”

No one but her. And everyone in her family. It was the way he’d first introduced himself to them. His name—but not his name. Like everything else about him, he’d built a lie around a kernel of truth. He wasn’t really a low-level official with the Port Authority, wanting to get in on the Giardino family business. He was an undercover operative for the FBI. Not even a real cop, but an accountant.

By the time she’d learned all this it had been too late. She had already been in love with him.

So what was he doing back in her life now? Hadn’t he done enough to ruin her? Before he came along she’d been happy. She’d had everything—looks, money, friends, family. She wasn’t an idiot—she’d known her father didn’t always operate on the right side of the law. He’d probably done some very bad things. But those things didn’t concern her. They didn’t touch the perfect life she’d built for herself.

Jake had made her take off the blinders and see the painful truth about who her father was.

About who she really was.

She pushed herself off the bed, pushing away the old fear and despair with the movement. Not letting herself stop to think, she dressed, grabbed her keys and headed out the door. She couldn’t sit in this house one more minute or she’d go crazy.

She drove back into town, to the little gym one block off Main. A few people looked up from the free weights and treadmills as she passed. She nodded in greeting but didn’t stop to talk. She changed into her workout gear, found her gloves and headed for the heavy bag and began throwing jabs and uppercuts, bouncing on her toes the way the gym’s owner, a former boxer named McGarrity, had shown her.

She’d taken up boxing when, shortly after her arrival in Rogers, she’d come to the gym for what was billed as a ladies’ self-defense class. Turned out McGarrity’s idea of self-defense was teaching women to box. Anne had fallen in love with the sport the first time she landed a solid punch. She’d never been in a position where she had to fight back before. Now, at least, she was prepared to do so.

She’d worked up a sweat and was breathing hard when a woman’s voice called her name across the room.

Maggie O’Neal taught second grade in the classroom across the hall from Anne. A curvy woman with brown, curly hair, dressed now in pink yoga pants and a matching hoodie, she was the closest thing Anne had to a best friend. “Maybe I should take up boxing,” Maggie said. “You look so healthy and...dewy.”

Anne laughed. “I’m sweating like a pig, you mean.”

“It looks good on you.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I just got out of a yoga class. Marcie Evanston teaches one every afternoon at this time. You should join us sometime.”

Anne had tried yoga once. While everyone else lay still in savasana, her mind had raced, unable to grow quiet. She needed physical activity—punching the heavy bag or an opponent in the ring—to shut off the voices in her head and drown out the fear.

“Can I talk you into a break for a smoothie or some juice?” Maggie asked.

“Sure.”

Anne stashed her gloves in the cubby marked with her name and the two women made their way to the juice bar next door to the gym—McGarrity’s latest effort to squeeze more profit out of the facility. The idea seemed to be working—the juice bar was usually busy, favored by tourists and local office people as well as gym members.

They sat at the counter and ordered banana-berry smoothies.

“Look what Ty gave me for Valentine’s.” Maggie extended her pinky, showing a gold ring with a row of tiny diamonds.

“It’s beautiful,” Anne said. “Was it a surprise?”

Maggie nodded. “We saw it in the window of a store over in Grand Junction last month and I remarked how I’ve always wanted a pinkie ring. When I saw the ring box on my plate this morning, I squealed loud enough to wake the next door neighbors.” She smiled at the ring. “Did I get lucky or what?”

“You got very lucky.” Anne ignored the pinching pain at her heart. In her party-girl days she’d dismissed love as some fanciful notion from novels and movies. She’d liked being with men, but she hadn’t needed one to make her happy. And the thought of wanting to spend the rest of her life with one had seemed ludicrous.

And then Jacob Westmoreland—she’d known him as Jake West—had walked up to her at one of her father’s clubs and asked her to dance. She’d thought he was handsome and a decent dancer, but then she’d looked into his eyes and her world had shifted. A flood of lust and longing and locked-in connection had rocked her like a tidal wave. Nothing had ever been the same after that.

And now he was back. She didn’t have the strength to go through that heartache again.

“Did you see your picture in the paper? Great promo for the carnival.”

Anne realized Maggie had been talking for several minutes about something. “My picture?”

“In the Telluride paper today. You made the front page.”

She fought back the nervous flutter in her stomach. “I don’t remember anyone taking my picture.”

“You remember that reporter who came around Saturday, when we were working on our carnival booth? He must have taken some candid shots after he talked to us. He got a perfect picture of you framed by the heart cutout in the side of the booth. I think you leaned out to say something to Ty.”

“He should have asked me before publishing it.”

“Oh, come on! I know you don’t like having your picture taken, but it was a great shot, I promise. I’ll save my copy for you. And maybe it will pull in a few more people to our booth at the carnival.”

“That’s great.” Anne managed a weak smile. The first and second grades were teaming up to sell hot chocolate and cider at the Winter Carnival in the town park next weekend, an annual fundraiser for local charities. She wanted to do her part to help, but the thought of her picture circulating in the public made her uneasy. What if someone from her old life saw?

She shrugged off the thought. After all, it was just a small-town paper, a very long way from New York.

“Hey, ladies, how you doing?” A stocky man with broad shoulders and a shaved head came to stand beside their bar stools. Evan McGarrity was rumored to be in his sixties, but he looked two decades younger, and had the energy of a man half his age. “Annie, did your friend find you?” he asked.

Anne went cold. “What friend?”

“There was a guy in here earlier, asking about you. Said he was a friend of yours from New York.”

Aware of Maggie’s eyes on her, Anne kept her expression noncommittal. McGarrity must mean Jake. “What did he look like?”

“Not too tall. About my height, maybe. Good set of shoulders on him. Looked like he might have played football. Dark hair. Expensive suit.”

Jake was tall, with sandy hair and a slim build. This wasn’t Jake. She stood, knocking the half-empty smoothie glass onto its side as she groped blindly for her purse.

“Anne, are you all right?” Maggie asked. “You’ve gone all gray.”

“I’m sorry about the mess.” She stared numbly at the purple liquid spreading across the countertop. “I really have to go.”

She ran to her car, still dressed in her workout clothes, not feeling the icy evening breeze against her bare legs, ignoring the shouts of her friends behind her.

Someone had found her—someone who wasn’t Jake. Someone who might mean her harm.

* * *

ANNE’SFIRSTINSTINCTwas to go to Jake for help. But she had no idea where he was staying. And maybe he’d led them here. She could call Patrick Thompson, the marshal who’d been assigned to her, but he was hours away in Denver. By the time he got here, it might be too late.

She drove home and raced into the house, locking the door behind her. In the bedroom, she dragged her suitcase from the top shelf of the closet and began throwing things in it. She’d wait until after dark, then she’d leave. She’d drive as far as she could toward Denver. It was easier to get lost in the city. She’d ditch the car there, maybe buy a new one or take a bus. She couldn’t travel out of the country. The feds wouldn’t let her get a passport—letting her leave would be too risky, they said.

But she had to leave. The last time she’d seen him, her father had vowed to erase her. That was the word he’d used—erase. As if she were a mistake he needed to blot out. She’d never seen such coldness in his eyes before. His daughter was dead to him already—disposing of her body was of no consequence.

Never mind that she still had plenty of use for that body.

A knock on the door made her freeze. She tried to think. Would the man who was looking for her knock and announce himself?

Yes, she decided, he would. He’d want her to open the door. To let him inside where he could dispose of her quietly, without the neighbors seeing. He’d slip away without anyone noticing and tomorrow, when she didn’t show up at class, someone would find her. Someone else would discover her true identity, and the newspapers and gossip magazines would print the news in bold headlines. Mob King Takes Revenge on Daughter Who Betrayed Him or Mafia Princess Gets Hers.

She waited, but no second knock came. No friendly voice called out in concern. She forced herself to breathe, ragged, metallic-tinged breaths that tasted of terror.

When she could stand the tension no more, she tiptoed into the front room and peered out a gap in the blinds. The street in front of her house was empty. Dark. After another half hour of stillness, she decided no one was there. But maybe they were waiting across the street, waiting for her to open the door.

She pulled on her coat and gloves, then took the loaded pistol from her bedside table and slipped it into the pocket of her coat. When she’d asked for the gun the Marshals had dismissed her, saying she had no need to be armed. She was merely an innocent schoolteacher. Patrick Thompson had assured her the U.S. Marshals Service would provide all the protection she needed. She’d argued with him to no avail.

But three days after her arrival here she’d received a package in the mail. The handgun, ammunition and an unsigned note. I hope you never need this, the note read. But just in case...

One hand on the pistol, she slipped out the back door. The temperature had dropped twenty degrees with the setting sun. The air was brittle with cold, the ground crisp beneath her feet. Staying close to the side of the house, she moved toward the street. She took a step, then waited, listening. She repeated this process all the way down the side of the house, so that twenty minutes passed before she reached the corner. She craned her head around to look toward her front door.

The small porch was empty, the light shining down on the doormat and a rectangle of white that lay on the mat.

Chapter Three

Anne studied the rectangle of white that gleamed on the doormat. It looked like an envelope, and a simple envelope shouldn’t be so ominous. But this one was out of place. The mail carrier delivered letters through the slot in the door. Other people who had messages for her telephoned, or contacted her at school. Did this envelope contain an explosive to injure her, or a poison?

Neither of those things were her father’s style. He believed in personal retribution—not necessarily from him, but from his goons. His representatives, he called them. She remembered overhearing him on the phone with a contractor he suspected of double-crossing him. His words had been so calm, in sharp contrast to the menace in his voice. “I’m sending a couple of my representatives over to discuss this with you.”

When the police found the man, he was floating in the sound, his face gone. Cut off, she’d heard later, while he was still alive.

Shivering with cold and fear, she turned and raced back around the side of the house and through the back door. She ran to the front, opened the door just wide enough to snatch the envelope from the mat, then sat on the sofa, shaking.

She turned the envelope over and read the childish printing. Miss Gardener was rendered in uneven printing. Below that, a more adult hand had penned Happy Valentine’s Day.

Inside the envelope was a crooked heart cut from construction paper, decorated generously with silver glitter and stickers bearing images of cupids and more hearts. The crayoned signature was from one of her students, a wide-eyed little boy who clearly had a bit of a crush on his teacher.

She stared at the words through a blur of tears, hating how the sordidness of her old life had reached out to taint this sweet, innocent gesture. If she ran away, all of that ugliness would follow her, to whatever new town she settled in.

She had friends here in Rogers. A place in the community. She wasn’t ready to give that up, not until she absolutely had to.

* * *

“AREYOUSTAYING in town long, Mr. Westmoreland?”

The desk clerk at Rogers’s only hotel smiled at Jake, all but batting her eyelashes at him. He returned the smile. It never hurt to be friendly with the locals, especially in a place this small. You never knew who might give you the information you needed, or put you in touch with the one contact who could help you break a case. “A few days. I’m not sure, really.” He plucked a brochure advertising Telluride ski area from a rack on the counter. “This is such a beautiful place, I might stay longer than I planned.”

“We’ve got plenty of scenery, that’s for sure,” she said. “Not much excitement, though.”

“I don’t need excitement.” He’d had enough to last a lifetime. As soon as he was done with this last job, he’d stick to crunching numbers for the rest of his life.

“You might stick around for the Winter Carnival next weekend,” the clerk said. “That’s kind of fun.”

“What’s the Winter Carnival?”

“It’s this little festival in City Park. Ice skating, ice sculpture, a broomball tournament. A bonfire. Different groups have booths selling food and hot chocolate and stuff. Real small-town, but a lot of tourists like it.”

“I might have to check it out. Thanks.” The phone rang, and when she turned away to answer it, he took the opportunity to set the brochure aside and leave before she questioned him further.

Outside, the sun was so bright he squinted even behind his sunglasses. The windshield of the car he’d rented in Grand Junction was thick with frost. He turned the heat on full blast and sat in the driver’s seat, debating his next move.

He’d driven by Anne’s house last night, after midnight. Her car had been parked in the driveway, a single light in the back of the house glowing yellow behind the shades. Her bedroom. He’d thought of stopping, but she’d made it clear she wanted nothing to do with him.

Not that he intended to take no for an answer. He understood she was angry with him—upset and hurt by the lies he’d told her. Sooner or later she’d see he’d had to lie to protect them both. The fact that he’d failed so miserably made him more determined than ever to make it up to her.

She was afraid; that was clear. Who wouldn’t be, in her position? Helping him would force her to admit that fear—that weakness. For all the changes in her life and her appearance, she was still a woman who never liked to admit any weakness. Take no prisoners. She could erase the words from her skin, but Jake was certain they were still inscribed on her heart.

Approaching her at her house had been a tactical error. He could see that now. They needed neutral territory. With other people around she wouldn’t be so guarded.

He spent the morning at the library, reading through back issues of the Rogers Reporter, learning what Anne’s life had been like these past nine months. Other than the announcement of her hiring, the new first-grade teacher had stayed out of the spotlight. She was playing by the rules of the Witness Security Program, keeping quiet and fitting in.

At three o’clock he drove to the school, a low-slung group of buildings set one behind the other at the foot of a mesa. The elementary classrooms were in the last building, next to a fenced playground where children in parkas and snowsuits climbed a jungle gym and kicked a soccer ball in the snow.

Jake spotted Anne standing with a shorter woman with curly hair. He waved and strode toward them. Anne stiffened, and the other woman eyed him warily, but he kept a pleasant expression on his face. I come in peace.

Up close, she looked tired, gray smudges under her eyes, her skin pale beneath the makeup, as if she hadn’t slept well. Had thoughts of him kept her awake? Memories of what had happened between them? “Hello, Anne,” he said, stopping in front of her.

“What are you doing here?” She didn’t look angry—more resigned, he decided.

“I was hoping I could take you for a cup of coffee.” He was aware of the other woman staring at him, suspicion in her eyes.

“Is this the man McGarrity was talking about?” the woman asked.

“What man?” Jake asked. “Who’s McGarrity?”

Anne shook her head. “This isn’t him.”

Jake turned to the other woman and offered his hand. “I’m Jake Westmoreland. A friend of Anne’s from New York.”

“Margaret O’Neal.” Her hand brushed his lightly before retreating. “Anne doesn’t look like she wants to see you.”

“It’s been a long time. I wanted to apologize for what happened the last time we met.”

“What happened?” Margaret and Jake were the only ones talking, but at least Anne was listening. She hadn’t walked away.

“Anne left before I could say goodbye.” He spoke to Margaret, but his gaze remained fixed on Anne. She stood with her arms folded, her body angled away from him, her shoulders stiff with tension. “I’ve always regretted that.”

“We don’t have anything to say to each other,” Anne said.

“We have a lot to say to each other. I came two thousand miles to talk to you. Please don’t turn me away now.”

“You can’t say no to a man who says please.” Margaret touched her friend’s shoulder. “A cup of coffee can’t hurt.”

Anne’s eyes telegraphed the word “traitor” to her friend, but she kept silent. She glanced at Jake. “One cup of coffee, then you leave me alone.”

“One cup of coffee.” He wouldn’t leave her, though. He couldn’t.

“Call me,” Margaret said, and left them, smiling to herself.

Anne moved closer to Jake. “Now you’ve done it,” she whispered.

“Done what?”

“Everyone will think you’re the long-lost boyfriend who broke my heart.”

The words were so melodramatic they were almost comical, but he felt the pain behind them. “Is that what happened, Anne?” he asked, his voice as gentle as he could make it.

“No!” Her eyes sparked with anger, the energy in them a jolt to his system, a glimpse of the woman she’d been. “But it’s what people want to think. They think I don’t know about the stories they’ve made up to explain me, but in a town this small, gossip always eventually gets around to everyone. They say I came here all the way from New York to recover from a broken heart. It’s the reason I don’t date anyone now. The reason I won’t talk about my past.”

“It’s a good story,” he said. Maybe part of it was even true, but he didn’t say this. He didn’t want to risk making her angrier.

“That’s the only reason I let them think that. It’s a good story.”

“Have coffee with me and tell me your real story.”

“You already know my real story.”

“Then maybe it’s time I told you mine.”

Her gaze met his, sharp and questioning. “Come with me,” he said. “Listen to what I have to say and then decide how you feel.”

She hesitated, then nodded. “All right.”

She insisted on taking her own car, and led the way to a coffee shop tucked between the library and a church. At this time of day the place was practically deserted, and they settled into a pair of upholstered wing chairs, facing each other across a low table. She cradled her coffee cup in both hands, legs crossed, back straight, elegant even in her schoolteacher’s denim skirt and turtleneck sweater. “Tell me your story, Jake,” she said. “Or should I call you Jacob?”

“I always liked the way Jake sounded when you said it.”

“But Jake West wasn’t your real name.”

“No. But Jake West was close enough to Jacob Westmoreland my handlers thought I wouldn’t get confused in a tense situation.” He shifted, balancing his coffee cup on the arm of the chair. “I wasn’t even supposed to be there at all. I was auditing the accounts at one of your father’s companies, looking for some proof of mob connections. I needed some more information so I made a personal visit. Completely unauthorized, but when I hit it off with the manager there, my bosses saw a way in. They gave me a crash course in undercover work and sent me off to find out what I could. They never expected I’d blow the whole organization open.”

She traced one finger down the side of her cup. Her nails were short and unvarnished, different from the perfect manicure she’d always sported before. “Was seducing me part of the plan?”

“You were never part of the plan,” he said. “I didn’t even know you existed until I saw you at the club that night.”

“You were investigating my father and you didn’t know about me?” She looked scornful.

“I was investigating his business. I didn’t care about his personal life. And I don’t read the society pages.”

“Why did you dance with me that first night?”

“Because I couldn’t not dance with you. The moment I saw you, we might as well have been the only two people in the room.” He leaned toward her. “Don’t tell me you didn’t feel it, too.”

She looked down at her lap, avoiding his gaze, but the blush in her cheeks warmed. “Yes,” she breathed, scarcely louder than a whisper.

Attraction pulled at him now, as strongly as that first night. He’d arrived at the club late—almost midnight. Andy, the manager he’d befriended, who was one of Sam Giardino’s lieutenants, had invited him for drinks. A social call, though Jake suspected this was the night he was going to meet Sam himself.

He and Andy had been standing at the railing overlooking the dance floor of the club in the East Village. A D.J. played techno-pop too loudly and dozens of young people crowded the dance floor. How he’d even spotted her in the confusion was a mystery, but his gaze had zeroed in on her like a laser. She had been dancing with a group of girlfriends, hands in the air, twirling. Laughing with such joy. He’d stared, knowing for the first time what the word “gobsmacked” really meant. He’d never seen someone so full of life and energy. So beautiful and vibrant.

And he’d never wanted anyone so much. Forgetting why he was there and all he might be risking, he’d pushed his way through the crowd until he’d stood in front of her. She’d immediately lowered her arms, and her smile had faded. “Dance with me,” he’d said.

“Why should I?” she’d asked, her voice cool.

“Because I asked nicely.” He’d smiled, coaxing her. “Please.”

He’d expected a few moments’ dancing facing each other, not touching even, but she’d surprised him by moving into his arms. As if the deejay played only for her, the music had switched to a slow number. She’d cuddled up to him like a kitten, and laid her head on his shoulder. “If you want to dance with me, you have to do it properly,” she’d cooed.

And that was how he’d met Sam Giardino, with the don’s daughter wrapped around him, closer than any father likes to see his daughter next to another man. Of course, he hadn’t known she was Giardino’s daughter, but the horrified look on Andy’s face clued him in that something was very wrong. When Elizabeth had stepped back and murmured, “This is my father,” he figured he’d just made the biggest mistake of his career.

But Sam had surprised him. “Elizabeth is a very good judge of character,” he’d declared. “If she likes you, I like you.”

And that was it. With one dance he’d gone from suspicious stranger to practically a member of the family. Weeks went by when he scarcely returned to his own apartment, living at the Giardino penthouse in Manhattan. He ate dinner with the family four nights out of five. He saw Elizabeth every day. And he collected reams of evidence he hoped to use to one day put her father away. His work never felt like a betrayal of her; she was too good for her father. Jake was going to rescue her from that life.

He’d never asked if she wanted rescuing. He could see now that had been a mistake. “I’m sorry things worked out the way they did,” he said.

“It could have been worse. At least we’re both still alive.” She sipped her coffee. “Elizabeth’s gone, but I’m still here.”

“Are you okay with that?”

“Would I rather be living the life of the carefree, wealthy socialite in the most exciting city in the world?” She shook her head. “Even if it was possible, I couldn’t go back to that life—not after you showed me what was really going on, where the money that paid for my designer clothes and nights on the town really came from.”

“I always knew there was more to you than most people gave you credit for.”

“Right. They didn’t give me much credit after my father was arrested. If I wasn’t the poor little rich girl who was biting the hand that fed her, I was the gold-plated harpy who was no better than a criminal herself.”

“I guess I missed all that.”

“How long were you in the hospital?”

“Five weeks. Then I was in a rehab facility for four months after that.”

“Why aren’t you in the witness protection program?” she asked. “If my father knows you’re alive he’ll do everything he can to change that.”

“You thought I was dead—he probably does, too. And even if he doesn’t, I fought too hard to keep my life to turn around and leave it behind. Not that I blame you for making that choice.”

“Maybe it was easier for me because I didn’t want to be who I was anymore. But I still don’t feel safe. Aren’t you afraid?”

“If I let myself think about the danger, I’d be afraid. But I’ve learned to put it out of my mind.”

“To compartmentalize.”

“Is that what it’s called?”

“The marshal who’s assigned to me—a guy named Patrick Thompson—used to talk about it. He told me that’s what I had to learn to do—to lock the fear away in a separate part of my mind and not let it out, like a file I’d sealed.”

“Good advice. Did you take it?”

“I tried. It works sometimes. And then something happens to remind me....” She looked away, her lower lip caught between her teeth.

“Has something happened lately?” he asked. “Something that’s made you afraid again?”

She didn’t answer, and kept her face turned away from him. He leaned forward and took her chin in his hand, gently turning her head until her eyes met his. “Tell me.”

Chapter Four

Jake noticed Anne’s hesitation, as if she was debating whether to trust him. “I’m the only one who knows your story,” he said softly. “The only one who can understand what you’re going through.”

She took a long sip of coffee, then set the cup down and looked him in the eye. “Yesterday, after we talked, I went to my gym. The owner told me a man had been in there asking about me. Was that you?”

He shook his head. “I haven’t been to any gym. And I didn’t ask anyone in Rogers about you. I came straight to your house as soon as I got here.”

The lines around her eyes deepened. “McGarrity—that’s the gym owner—said this guy was dark, and built like a football player.”

“Could be one of your father’s goons.”

“Yes. It could be.” Her shoulders sagged. “I started to leave last night—to throw what I could in the car and just...run away.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“What would that solve? I’d still be afraid, and alone. More alone even than I am now. I like it here. I’ve made friends. And there are people here who depend on me. Kids. I don’t want to let them down.”

“You’ve always been a fighter. That’s one of the things that drew me in. Even that first night on the dance floor, you made your own rules. Everyone else had to follow them or get out of your way.”

“You make me sound like a pushy witch.”

“You could be that, too. But it’s kept you alive.”

She shook her head. “I’m not like that anymore. I’ve learned the wisdom of staying in the background and letting others take the lead. I just want to do my job and live a quiet life.”

“Wouldn’t it be better if you didn’t have to be afraid?”

“You mean if my father weren’t around to threaten me?”

“Yes.”

“I’m not going to help you, Jake. I did what I could to punish my father and I wasted my breath.”

“You won’t be wasting your breath this time.”

“What are you going to do? You’re not with the Bureau anymore. You don’t have any authority. If the government can’t find Sam Giardino, with all their resources, what makes you think you’ll have better luck?”

“You know your father better than anyone. You know his habits and the people he associates with. The places he likes to vacation and where he stays when he goes out of town.”

“You can learn all those things without me. Your friends in the Bureau have files filled with that kind of information.”

“They know facts. They don’t know emotions, or the reasons your father does what he does. You can tell me those things. You can help me predict what he’s going to do next.”

“And then what? You confront him and end up dead yourself? Or you lead him to me and I’m dead?”

“I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise.”

“You can’t make that promise. Not when so much is out of your control.”

“I’m going to stay with you tonight.”

She straightened. “You will not.”

“Yes, I will. At least until we find out who was asking about you at your gym yesterday.”

“Jake, you cannot stay at my house. What will people think?”

“Since when do you care what people think?” The woman he’d known before had made a point of flaunting public opinion.

“Since I moved to a small town where everyone knows me. I’m a schoolteacher, for God’s sake. I have a reputation to protect.”

“And me spending the night with you is going to ruin that reputation? You’re a grown woman.”

“This isn’t New York. Some people here still care about morality.”

“So you’re telling me nobody here sleeps with anybody else unless they’re lawfully married?”

“I’m sure they do, but they’re discreet about it.”

“So we’ll be discreet. Besides, I never said I was going to sleep with you—unless that’s what you want.”

The color rose in her cheeks. “It doesn’t matter what we’re actually doing. It’s what they think we’re doing.”

“But I’m the long-lost boyfriend come back to beg forgiveness,” he said. “Doesn’t everyone love a lover?”

“No. You can’t stay with me.”

“Fine. Then you come stay with me. At the hotel.”

“That’s even worse. Sneaking off to a hotel together.”

He laughed. “We’re just a sordid pair. Honestly, I think you’re making something out of nothing.”

“You don’t live here. I do. And I don’t want to do anything to call attention to myself.”

“Too late for that. I’m here. And this other mysterious stranger is here, asking about you. What are people going to say about that? The new teacher’s gotten very popular all of a sudden.”

“Just go away, Jake. Please? I’ll handle this on my own.”

“No.”

“You don’t think I can handle this?”

“I’m not going to leave you. Not until I know you’re safe.”

“I’ll call the Marshals office in Denver. They’ll send someone to babysit me for a while.”

“Another strange man come to town to hang out with the teacher. Won’t that set people talking?”

She made a face. “Maybe they’ll send a woman. I’ll tell people she’s my sister.”

“Then tell them I’m your brother.”

“As if anyone would believe that.”

“Why not? Siblings don’t have to look alike.”

“You don’t act like any brother.”

“Maybe not like your brother. What’s Sam Junior up to these days?”

“I have no idea. As far as I know, he thinks I’m dead.”

“Sammy was what, twenty-four when I saw him last? He’d just had a baby with that woman—what was her name?”

“Stacy. She was the daughter of some guy who owed my father a favor. It was practically an arranged marriage. I don’t think she was very happy.”

He didn’t remember much about the girl, or her husband, for that matter. “Sammy Junior was in law school, wasn’t he?”

“Yes. I imagine he has his license by now.”

“I guess a lawyer is a handy thing to have in the family when you spend so much time breaking the law.”

She stood. “I think it’s time for you to go now.”

“I’ll be over later tonight,” he said.

“No!”

“I’ll park my car a couple blocks away—near that mechanic, with all the cars in the yard. And I’ll leave early, before anyone is up.”

“I won’t let you in.”

She turned away, but he grabbed her wrist and leaned closer, his voice low but insistent. “I can’t leave you alone, not with some man neither of us knows asking about you. At least let me protect you until your handler from the Marshals office shows up.”

Her eyes told him she hated being in this position—hated having to depend on anyone, but especially him. But she’d always been more intelligent than most people he knew; she could be reckless, but she was never foolish. “All right,” she said, and pulled out of his grasp. “But only until the marshal gets here. And you’ll sleep on the sofa.”

By the time Anne reached her house, she was jittery with nerves and fear and anger. Jake—she couldn’t think of him by any name but Jake—had no right to come here like this. After all he’d done, he owed her peace and an illusion of safety.

But of course her safety was an illusion. It always had been. No matter how many promises the Marshals made to her, she’d never really believed they could protect her from her father.

The phone was ringing when she unlocked the door. She fastened the locks behind her and went to answer it. “How was coffee?” Maggie spoke with a musical lilt, her joy at having the scoop on Anne’s love life—or so she thought—barely contained.

“Coffee was...tense.” The Marshals had drilled into her that sticking as close to the truth as possible was the best way to keep from getting caught in a lie.

“I take it the two of you didn’t part as friends.”

“You could say that.” She and Jake had grown so close in the weeks they’d spent together, but their final night had been all chaos and confusion. One moment they’d been dancing, her head cradled on his chest, wondering how soon they could make their excuses and head upstairs to bed. Nights in Jake’s arms were heaven to her then. The next moment her world exploded in a hail of bullets and blood. Jake lay shattered on the dance floor, the front of her dress red with his blood. Her screams echoed over the music as two men she didn’t recognize dragged her backward out of the room.

Later, still wearing the bloodied dress, huddled over a cup of bitter, cooling coffee in some gray-walled interrogation room, the agents had told her their version of the truth—that Jake West was really Jacob Westmoreland, accountant turned undercover FBI agent, assigned to infiltrate her family and bring down her father.

She hadn’t hated him immediately. Hatred had come later, when the weight of his lies had settled on her. He’d told her he loved her. He’d said he wanted to protect her. He wanted them to get married, to live happily ever after. And all that time she hadn’t even known his real name. How could anything else he’d said be true if his very identity had been a falsehood? He’d used her to betray her family. As much as she’d come to despise her father, she’d despised Jake almost as much.

“Are you going to tell me what happened?” Maggie asked. “’Cause if I want to talk to myself, I can do that without holding a phone to my ear.”

Maggie must have been talking while Anne took her trip down memory lane. “Nothing happened,” she said. “He said he was sorry. I said I was sorry, too. End of story.”

“Uh-huh.” Maggie sounded skeptical. “How long is he staying in town?”

“I don’t know. Another day or two. We don’t have plans.” As soon as she got off the phone with Maggie, she’d need to call the number her WitSec handlers had given her. Denver was only five hours away—they could have someone here tomorrow, surely.

“He was really good-looking,” Maggie said. “And I think he still has a thing for you. You have to admit, coming so far to say he was sorry took guts. Maybe you’ll get together again while he’s here.”

“Maggie.” Anne said her name as a warning.

Maggie laughed. “I know. I’m an incurable romantic. All right, I’ll shut up about it. What are you doing tonight?”

“The usual. Schoolwork. Maybe some TV.”

“Have a good night. See you tomorrow.”

“Goodbye.” Anne replaced the phone in the cradle and started to the kitchen to make tea. She was only halfway across the room when a knock on the door made her jump. She glanced out the window; the sky was a gray smudge against the black-and-white shadows of mountains, the day rendered in charcoal by the disappearing sun. Jake had said he would come by after dark—maybe a city boy used to all those lights thought this was dark enough.

She strode to the door and took a deep breath, bracing herself, then checked the peephole. She registered a man, about Jake’s height, huddled in the shadows. Apparently, the bulb in her porch light had burned out. As long as Jake was here, she’d ask him to replace it. She threw back the chain, turned the dead bolt and jerked open the door.

A burly, dark-haired man shoved her back into the room and slammed the door behind him. He looked her up and down, his face expressionless. “Long time, no see, Elizabeth.”

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