Hers for the holidays

Nothing stands between ranger Adan Harrison and justice. Guided by his principles, swayed by no one, he’ll do anything to protect the law. Even if it means tracking a suspect through a winter storm to quirky Crescent Mountain, Arkansas. But Sophia Mitchell, a woman with secrets in her eyes and a shotgun in her hands, stops him cold.

Sophia puts Adan’s suspicion and attraction on high alert. Being snowed in with a lovely stranger isn’t his holiday wish, but whatever she’s hiding could help him locate a criminal. Or it might reveal that she’s someone the law—and his heart—has been searching for.

“I want to kiss you.”

Adan’s mouth was near her as he said it. “Which doesn’t make a bit of sense,” he added.

“I know,” Sofia said on a raspy protest that fizzled and faded. He somehow did feel the same way, which gave her hope and scared her silly. “I know.”

“We have to keep moving,” he replied, not moving.

“Yes.” She snuggled closer.

“Don’t do that.”

“What?”

“Look at me like that, touch me like that.”

“You’re the one holding me.”

He grunted then pulled her closer. “Let’s get this out of the way.”

His lips moved over hers in a blazing heat that would surely melt a spot in the snow. Sophia returned the kiss with a deep longing that pooled into liquid warmth with each touch of her lips to his. Had she ever really been kissed before?

No. Not like this.

Dear Reader,

Some people carry a secret with them to their grave. But most of us usually tell our secrets to someone we can trust, if for no other reason than to get it off our chest.

Adan Harrison comes to Crescent Mountain, Arkansas, right before Christmas to find a dangerous criminal. But before he can finish his mission, he gets all tangled up with Sophia Mitchell and her well-meaning but interfering neighbors. Adan soon learns that everyone on this remote mountain has some sort of secret. But he believes Sophia has the biggest secret of all. Could she be harboring a fugitive?

Sophia’s worst fear comes back to haunt her as she realizes Adan is trying to find the man she believed to be dead. A man who has come to the mountain to get his revenge on Sophia. And now on her protective friends, too.

I loved the quirkiness of this story. It seemed to take many twists and turns before Adan and Sophia realized they could trust each other and help each other. The tight-knit community of Crescent Mountain turned out to be like any community where the neighbors watch out for one another and sometimes just watch each other. But this story begs the question—do we ever really know our neighbors or what they are plotting behind closed doors?

I hope you enjoy Adan and Sophia’s story. It’s all about mystery and secrets but it does have a true Christmas story tied into all of that, too. I promise.

Lenora Worth

Cowboy Who Came for Christmas

Lenora Worth

www.millsandboon.co.uk

LENORA WORTH writes for Harlequin’s Love Inspired and Superromance lines. Her books have won national and regional awards. Her Love Inspired Suspense book Body of Evidence made the New York Times bestseller list. With more than fifty-five books published, she writes Southern stories set in places she loves such as Atlanta, Georgia, the North Georgia and Arkansas mountains, Texas and Louisiana, including Dallas and New Orleans. Lenora is married and has two grown children.

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To my Arkansas friend

Valerie Hansen with love.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

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

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

THE BARREL OF a shotgun pressing into his back stopped him in his tracks.

“Don’t take another step.”

The feminine voice surprised Adan Harrison. He had not been expecting that. What he had been expecting was a wanted fugitive he’d been tracking for three long, cold days.

“I’m not here to harm you,” he said, hoping she’d put the shotgun down. He held his hands up and went to reach inside his sheepskin-lined coat. “I’m...an officer of the law. I’ll show you my badge and ID.”

“Don’t do that.”

Adan stopped, waited. He could hear her shifting in the slush and the snow. Freezing in his boots, he didn’t dare turn or make a move for his own gun. He’d been around enough prickly females to know you didn’t mess with a woman with a loaded shotgun. Especially if you were in the deep woods of a treacherous mountain terrain in western Arkansas.

“Let me show you my badge,” he said. “Look, I got lost and it’s cold and I didn’t think anyone was inside the cabin.”

“Did you bother knocking?”

She was so close he smelled something clean and fresh through the scent of wet, frozen trees and decaying wood.

“I did knock, yes, ma’am.” He took a chance at looking over his shoulder. “Can I turn around so we can talk face-to-face?”

She made another movement, quick and sure. “Okay, but slowly. And keep your hands up.”

Adan did as she asked, pivoting in the snow and dirt to face her. Another surprise. She was young and pretty, but she was so covered in her big coat and dark blue scarf that it was hard to tell anything else. Her eyes matched the scarf and bits of stray hair hung in light auburn tufts around her face and ears.

“Show me your badge,” she said, the gun now aimed at his heart. “And I won’t hesitate to shoot if you try anything.”

Adan didn’t argue with her. He believed she’d shoot him in a heartbeat. Something about her stance and the dark fierceness in her eyes told him this woman was either hiding something or running from something. Or someone. Maybe she was hiding someone, now that he thought about it.

The someone he wanted to take back to Texas?

He slowly reached to unbutton his heavy jacket. She stepped closer, her unyielding eyes burning him to the spot. The damp hulking trees dripped with softly falling snow as night begin to descend on Crescent Mountain. If he didn’t get himself out of this soon, he’d be stuck here in a December snowstorm.

Keeping his eyes on the woman with the gun, Adan opened his coat and showed her the badge attached to the left pocket of his flannel shirt. “I’m a Texas Ranger, and I’m looking for a man,” he said. “A very dangerous man.”

She got all skittish and then her gaze moved from his face to the badge. “What if that’s fake? What if you’re a dangerous man?”

Was she trying to deflect attention away from herself by accusing him?

Aggravated and losing patience, Adan stepped closer. And found the barrel of the gun digging deeper into the middle of his chest.

“Look, lady. It’s cold and I’m tired. I thought the cabin was empty. I’m here for one reason, to find this man before he hurts someone else. I have it from a reliable source that he might be either headed here or already here, hiding out on this mountain.”

The fierce gaze he’d seen earlier was replaced with what looked like fear. He could feel the gun trembling against his ribs. And because he knew she was afraid of something besides him, he took advantage of that slight distraction by grabbing the barrel and holding tight as he pushed it up enough that she had to either shoot into the sky or drop the shotgun.

She stared into his eyes with a white-hot anger while they stood so close he could smell that sweet, fresh scent tickling against his cold nose. She pulled the trigger and sent scatter shots into the trees before he was able to wrench the gun out of her control. The woods vibrated with the sound of the gun going off and the trees shook down patches of snow and leaves.

Adan’s eyes held hers as they stood nose to nose. He saw a certain horror there in her startled gaze. She held onto the gun with surprising agility, but Adan was stronger. He wrestled the gun away and stared over at her.

“Okay, now that we’ve settled that, I’m not here to hurt you,” Adan said, holding the twenty-gauge down. “If we could just go inside and talk this through, I can prove to you that I’m who I say I am.”

“You never said your name,” the woman replied, a kind of triumphant gleam in her eyes.

In the next second, Adan heard the whack of something hitting him. And then he felt the intensity of a hard sharp pain. Her face was the last thing he saw before the world went black.

* * *

SOPHIA GRABBED THE gun back and stared down at the tall man lying at her feet. “Miss Bettye, I hope you didn’t kill him.”

Sophia’s seventy-year-old neighbor, Bettye Scott, stood over the big man, her hands tight on a cast-iron frying pan, her braided gray hair falling around her shoulders. “He ain’t dead. I see his chest rising and falling. Is he the one?”

“The one?” Sophia was used to her neighbor’s strange ways and quirky attitude on life, but sometimes Miss Bettye really didn’t make any sense. Then at times like this, the woman zoomed in on the glaring truth.

Miss Bettye tugged at her moth-eaten wool hat and smiled over at Sophia. “The man you’re hiding from, honey.”

Sophia had shared lots of secrets with her feisty neighbor but Bettye didn’t always remember the details. Sophia decided now was not the time to jar Bettye’s memory. But Sophia hoped the man she’d gotten away from wasn’t the man this Ranger might be looking for. Because as far as she knew, that threat had been neutralized. She thought. She hoped. She prayed.

She shook her head and gave Bettye what she hoped was a calm glance. “He says he’s a Texas Ranger, and he is wearing a badge.”

Bettye squinted, her chin dipping as she pushed her hat back. “Is his badge over his heart?”

Sophia glanced down at the unconscious man. His heavy jacket lay open to expose his plaid flannel shirt. The round badge with the star-shaped Texas Department of Public Safety emblem winked at the growing dusk. And scared her into backing up a few steps.

She nodded to Bettye. “Yes. Is that a good thing?”

Bettye stomped one of her booted feet. “Dang, I done hit a Texas Ranger over the head. And he’s a mighty pretty thang, at that. I guess I’ll be hauled off to jail.” She shook her head and held down the frying pan she’d used to hit him, her attitude resigned and nonchalant. “You don’t ever mess with a Texas Ranger.”

She said that with a little too much assurance. Sophia had learned to never ask any of her neighbors about their past and in return, she didn’t have to tell anyone much about hers. It was an unwritten rule of this isolated mountain of misfits and outcasts to keep things to themselves and to protect each other. They’d helped her when she’d first arrived. Helped her and welcomed her, no questions asked.

“What should we do?” Sophia asked, glancing around.

If the Ranger was telling the truth, then she had to be on watch. She should have asked him the name of the man he’d come looking for before she’d let Bettye knock him out.

But it can’t be him. He’s...he can’t hurt me again, ever.

“Let’s drag him inside your cabin,” Bettye suggested in a meek voice. She sounded as if they’d just discovered a kitten.

“Why?” Sophia didn’t like that idea. She’d stared into this man’s golden-colored eyes and...well...there was something about him. Something that made her think of a big tiger about to pounce, and that could be even more dangerous than running from your crazy ex-husband.

“We gotta hide him until he wakes up,” Bettye said. “We need to convince him that we meant him no harm. After all, we’re two innocent, helpless women living in a wild and wondrous world.”

Sophia would have laughed if the situation hadn’t been so serious. But with a shotgun and a frying pan, they didn’t look all that innocent or helpless. “I tried to shoot him and you knocked him out. How do we explain that?”

Bettye stared down at him, then kicked one of his snow-encrusted boots with her foot. “I got a plan. Let’s get him inside where it’s warm and I’ll explain.”

* * *

ADAN HEARD A band beating a marching tune somewhere close to his ear. Over and over the thump, thump struck at his consciousness until he could feel the hit of a big bass drum inside his brain. He really wanted it to stop. Now.

He woke up with a killer headache and two women staring down at him. One of them was old and scrawny and full of what looked like a daring glare.

The other one was young and pretty and full of what looked like apprehension.

And then he remembered.

He tried to speak and realized his mouth had been taped shut. He tried to sit up and realized his hands were tied with rope to the old iron bedposts just above a sagging mattress.

Had he been dropped into a century gone by? That movie The Beguiled with Clint Eastwood came to mind. That thought did not bode well for Adan. He’d left Austin in a hurry to get this man and get home to his five-year-old daughter by Christmas Eve. Adan didn’t intend to break the promise he’d made to Gaylen.

The women kept staring at him, their hands held down in a prim manner that belied the assault they’d landed on him. Okay, so this was a first. Tricked and hog-tied and now at the mercy of two obviously determined women.

This was why he didn’t go on blind dates.

Adan closed his eyes and willed the pounding pain and this bad dream to go away. Neither did. So he opened his eyes again and grunted. Crescent Mountain had not been kind to him.

He’d left Austin during a massive winter storm that covered the whole state of Texas, and now he’d managed to get stuck on this mountain in the middle of a brutal chill. The icy roads and a raging snowstorm full of daring, crazy drivers had stalled him for hours. He’d slipped and slid his pickup right through that and taken way more time than he’d planned, but he’d at least found the last road up the mountain before nightfall.

Only to take a mean slide toward the left and into a towering rock face that dented and banged his truck, and then he got stuck in a snowdrift. So he’d walked uphill the rest of the way and spotted a cabin that appeared to be empty. He’d come up here to see if he could get help or at least get in out of the cold until he could continue to look for the fugitive he’d been tracking. Maybe he should have asked a few more questions in the process.

Now he’d been attacked and accosted by two fierce women.

It was about time for him to retire.

He tried to speak. Tried to sit up. Gave up and grunted again, his gaze passing between the two crazy women before he pinned his eyes on the young, pretty one.

* * *

SOPHIA WATCHED HIM, her heart doing that warning clang as her pulsed picked up tempo. “I’m gonna take off the tape,” she said. “But first, we need you to understand something.” She got closer. “You have to remain quiet and calm. Nod if you can do that.”

He nodded, glared, struggled with his ties.

Bettye grinned, the shotgun in her capable hands.

“We didn’t mean to hurt you,” Sophia said, hoping he’d believe her. “We live close by and we watch out for each other. We have a few other neighbors but we’re not used to strangers showing up. Usually we just get long-lost relatives or a few lost tourists, but not during the worst winter storm of the season. Do you understand?”

“You shook us up,” Bettye said, bobbing her head. “She was over visiting me and saw you snooping around her cabin.”

He grunted and gave Sophia a stare down.

Ignoring those tiger eyes, she continued. “Good. So if I take off the tape and untie your hands, you aren’t going to haul us in or report us for assault with a deadly weapon or an attempt to shoot an officer of the law, are you?”

Bettye patted the shotgun, still grinning.

He grunted and shook his head, his golden-green eyes sending a different message from the docile grunt. He was probably bluffing, but she couldn’t keep the man tied up inside her cabin. Her very small cabin.

Sophia looked at Bettye. Bettye nodded and leaned over the man. “Just for good measure, I’ll shoot you if you try anything.”

“Do you understand that?” Sophia asked, hoping they had properly handled this situation. “We need you to understand we’re just trying to protect ourselves.”

She didn’t intend to let Bettye shoot the Ranger, but she wanted him to know this was serious. “Okay?”

He nodded, tugged at his restraints.

Sophia placed one hand on his face and felt the brittle caress of his five-o’clock shadow. Her fingertips tingled with an awareness that skidded right up her arm. In an attempt to ignore the unusual, long-dormant feeling, she smiled and gave him a reassuring glance. “This might hurt a bit.”

Then she pulled the duct tape off his mouth.

* * *

ADAN GRITTED HIS teeth but to save face, he refused to scream. As soon as the tape was off, he let out a string of colorful words.

“No need for profanity,” the old woman said, her smile as serene as a nun’s.

Adan glanced from her to the woman now untying the ropes from around his wrists. “Don’t you think y’all took this just a little too far? I mean, giving me a possible concussion, then taping my mouth shut and tying me up. What is wrong with you people?”

“We don’t trust nobody,” the old woman replied, still smiling.

He could hear that theme song, the one where the mountain people murdered the newcomer and buried him in an old well. His weapon had been removed and his cell phone had been confiscated. He hadn’t reported in all day, so hopefully someone would realize he’d gone missing. Or there was the other possibility—because he was known for going off on his own to do his job and he always turned back up eventually, he might not even be missed until it was too late.

Nor found until the spring thaw. He’d either be frozen solid under a snowdrift or chewed into pieces by some hungry mountain varmint. Not exactly a noble death.

Too late to worry about that now. He’d have to find a way around these two overly zealous defenders of the universe so he could get back to finding his fugitive. Obviously, if the criminal Adan was searching for had been here, they’d helped him escape while Adan was out cold. Or maybe thrown him into an old well, too. He couldn’t be sure, though. They didn’t seem all that cagey now. More like worried that he’d haul them in.

“I’m sorry,” the pretty one said as she stepped back to look at him. “About the...shotgun and about Bettye hitting you with her cast-iron skillet. She thought you were an intruder, so she was just trying to protect me.”

“We’re tight, me and Sophia,” the older one replied, her thumb hooking toward the pretty one, her eyes squinting inside the crow’s-feet stretching out around her face.

The older lady wore so many layers, it was hard to tell where the coats and scarves ended and her actual skin began. Her gray-streaked braid of hair was woven around her head to match the old gray scarf woven around her neck.

Adan let out another grunt. “You think? Tight like Thelma and Louise. Do you always greet strangers with a gun and a skillet?”

“Only the tall, good-looking ones,” the lady called Bettye said on a chuckle. “Just our way of saying welcome to the neighborhood.”

Adan wondered again if he’d stumbled into an alternative world. But this was Ozark country in Arkansas. Anything could happen. “Well, thanks for the welcome. Don’t I get cookies and coffee, too?”

“Yes,” the one called Sophia replied. She put her hand on his arm. “Can you sit up?”

“I’m fine,” he replied, testy because two spry women had gotten the best of him. “I can sit up and I can stand up.” He tried to do both and saw double.

And he really didn’t need two of either of them.

“Lie back down,” Sophia said. “Rest and I’ll make some dinner. Bettye, you will stay and have dinner with us, right?”

Adan saw something quiet and secretive pass between the women. Were they still aiding and abetting a fugitive?

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Bettye replied. “I’ll keep our guest company while you get dinner going.” Then she turned to Adan and hooted with laughter. “We’ve had ourselves a very exciting night, don’t you think, Mr. Texas Ranger?”

Adan glared at her and willed his eyes to quit showing him two of her. “I couldn’t agree more.”

But once his head quit spinning, he’d be up and out of this bed and then he’d decide what to do with these two enchanting and entertaining petty criminals.

Thinking he could persuade the older one, he said, “I’m just here trying to do my job. And I did try to show you my credentials.”

Bettye gave him a sharp glare. “Just remember, you were the one trespassing.”

CHAPTER TWO

“DINNER’S READY. DO YOU feel better now?”

Adan glanced up at Sophia and studied her for signs of betrayal and deceit. But the woman only appeared concerned and certainly worried. She was making nice now that he’d lived.

“I feel fine,” he said, his mood anything but fine and dandy. He was dirty, hungry and frustrated. At this rate, he wouldn’t make it back to Austin in time for New Year’s Eve with his parents and his daughter, Gaylen, let alone Christmas Eve.

How many times had he let that girl down? Being a single dad was hard on a normal day. Being a Texas Ranger didn’t provide for many normal days.

And being accosted by these two just proved that point.

He stood and made it out into the hallway then surveyed the tidy little mountain cabin. It was square and long, with a kitchen-dining area across from a small living room in the front and what looked like a bath between two bedrooms on the back. The furnishings were sturdy and colorful. Old furniture painted in bright primary colors—flowers and leaves, stars and the moon—and a Christmas tree with sparkling little odds and ends of all colors and shapes decorating it. Two entryways, one out the front toward the woodsy view of the Ozarks and the other probably backed up to a bluff overlooking one of the many flowing streams in the foothills that moved down from the mountain peak.

A man could sure hide out in those snow-capped hills. But a man could also freeze to death out there tonight, too.

“Nice place,” he finally said. He ambled toward the round oak table with the mosaic tile top, his pulse tapping at the sore spot on the back of his head. “You live here alone?”

“Who wants to know?” the older woman standing in the kitchen asked, her eyes going into double question marks.

Adan gave Sophia another direct glance. “I’m one of the good guys, so tell her to let up on being so ornery and suspicious. Or I will reconsider how I’m gonna handle being attacked and held hostage.”

“We are not holding you hostage,” Sophia said, motioning to him to sit down. She gave her partner in crime a warning glare. “We overreacted, but we have to be careful. This mountain is off the beaten path, and it’s isolated.”

“And don’t I know that.” He sat down and sniffed the beef-and-vegetable soup cooling in a chipped blue bowl. “How ’bout we start over while we eat.” He waited for the ladies to sit down.

Bettye giggled and pushed at her gray hair and then pointed a finger toward Adan. “A gentleman.”

She sat down with a prim and proper air. Sophia placed biscuits on the table and found her seat. Adan followed suit, his stomach growling in joy. It had been a long day and he’d skipped a meal or two.

He grinned, then grimaced because it hurt to grin. “I’m Adan Harrison. I live in Austin and I’m a Texas Ranger.”

“They grow them Rangers everywhere down in Texas, don’t they?” Bettye asked, her expression full of wrinkles and curiosity. She grabbed a flaky biscuit then shoved the straw basket toward Adan. “Tough lot, all of you.”

“We are a proud lot,” Adan admitted. How strange to be sitting here having dinner with the two women who’d tried to do him in. But he wasn’t so dumb that he couldn’t twist things around on them. “And we pride ourselves on getting the job done. So I’ll make a deal with you two lovely ladies. I won’t press charges against either of you. But you need to do something in return for me.”

“And what’s that?” Sophia asked, her blue eyes widening as she set the biscuit basket next to her plate. She put down her spoon and waited as if she were afraid to take her next breath. Guilty? Or scared? Or both?

“You need to tell me if you were harboring a wanted felon. And if you were and you let him escape, you need to come clean. Or I won’t be able to help you later.”

* * *

SOPHIA’S APPETITE WENT as cold as a lone snowflake. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Did he think she’d hide a criminal here? Did he know something about her already? What if he’d come here looking for her? He couldn’t possibly know what had brought her to this mountain over four years ago. Or what she’d done after she’d arrived here.

“Me neither,” Bettye said. “I don’t know anything about anybody.”

She passed the biscuits again, her actions twitchy and nervous. Sophia gave her friend another warning stare.

Bettye took the hint and asked the Ranger, “Want some homemade mayhaw jelly with that biscuit?”

“I’m good, thanks.” Adan kept his eyes on Sophia, making it hard for her to breathe, let alone eat. “So I know your name—or at least your first name—Sophia. Want to give me your whole name?”

“Not particularly,” she replied, her bravado a false front. “I don’t like strangers.”

“Again, I get that,” he said in that wry Texas tone that seemed to be his way of getting people to talk. “I can find out, you know. Run your plates—”

“She ain’t got a car,” Bettye said. Then she put her hand over her mouth. Grabbing her spoon, she took a big gulp of soup. “Mmm. So good.”

Adan gave Sophia another too-close stare. “Did you let him take your vehicle?”

Sophia was caught in a vise. She couldn’t tell this man her worst fears because if she did, she’d have to tell him the rest of the story and she wasn’t ready for that. Not even Bettye knew the whole story. No one ever would.

“I don’t know what you’re implying—”

“I’m not implying anything. I’m stating the facts,” he said, his tone getting dangerously low and growling. “If you two let a known felon escape with your vehicle, then that makes you both accessories. Do you want to take the fall for a man who’d as soon kill you than look at you?”

“I don’t want to take the fall for a man like that,” Bettye said, her eyes glued to Sophia in shock. “I don’t know anything about a felon who’s that dangerous.”

Sophia wanted to shout to her friend to stop talking but Bettye wasn’t the most tactful person on earth. Now seventy, Bettye had been through her own horror story, and past events had left her a little dazed and confused.

The Ranger zoomed in on Bettye’s declaration. “Well, do you know any criminals? Maybe one who pretended to be the victim and talked y’all into harboring him for a while?”

Bettye glanced over at Sophia, and Adan’s sharp gaze moved between them like a roaming flashlight. “I don’t think I know anybody like that, but—”

“We haven’t been hiding anyone in this cabin,” Sophia interjected, trying to salvage the situation. She could not be hauled off this mountain. This was the one place she felt safe and secure. Or at least she had until he’d shown up.

She stared him down, but it was nearly impossible to intimidate a man who was six feet tall and solid muscle. A man she and Bettye had huffed and puffed and dragged up onto her porch and inside her house.

He didn’t break the staring match but his eyes, so golden brown and burning, seemed to soften and shift. “Look, I understand you were scared when I got here, but I can help you. If you’re in trouble, tell me the truth and I’ll do what I can.”

She jumped up and put her forgotten soup in the sink. “I’m fine. Or at least I was until you arrived here. How’d you even get up the mountain anyway, and why were you on foot?”

“I’m on foot,” he said on a slow, let-me-explain-so-you’ll-understand note, “because my truck slid on some black ice and rammed into a snowdrift and got stuck and I wanted to find either some help to get it out or a shelter to provide me with some warmth until morning.”

“That does make a lot of sense,” Bettye said in a pragmatic tone. “I mean, it ain’t a fit night out there for anybody.”

“Of course it makes sense,” he said, his voice rising with each word. “You have my badge and my gun, so why don’t you just tell me the truth?”

“The truth? You want the truth?” Sophia took in a breath and willed her next lie to sparkle into sounding real. “The truth is that I was visiting my friend here in her cabin. We were making Christmas cookies and didn’t realize how bad the weather had turned. I was on my way home and looking forward to getting all settled in with my soup and a good book and I heard a rustling on my porch. So I got my shotgun and I came around the back way to see who was out there.”

“Were you expecting someone else?”

“No.” Frustration coursed through her like a mountain spring. “I was expecting some peace and quiet and a nice long sleep while the storm passed outside.”

“She likes her private time,” Bettye explained. “Took me a while to understand that.”

“I think she does at that,” Adan said. Then he shoved a spoonful of soup into his mouth and chewed the beef, his eyes still on Sophia. “But tonight, she won’t get any, because I can’t leave here in that storm. And I won’t leave y’all, since this man could show up here or return back here. If that happens, y’all will have more than me to worry about.”

Sophia’s pulse skidded and slid with each snowflake that fell outside her door. What if he did get snowed in and she had to deal with him for a week or so? She’d go mad. The man stared through her with those captivating eyes and made her think he could see all of her secrets. She’d get cabin fever and spill her worst sins to him. Then she might truly go to jail.

* * *

ADAN WAITED, GIVING them every opportunity to chime right in. But neither said a word. Sophia busied herself with offering more soup, but something about her demeanor worried him.

“Have you seen any strangers around here recently?”

“Just you, Mr. RangerMan,” Bettye blurted out.

His gut told him that one wasn’t lying about this, but they both had secrets about something. He could give them a description of the criminal to see how they’d react but he didn’t want to give away too much too soon. If they’d been involved with Joe Pritchard, they’d let something slip sooner or later.

“Y’all are sure making this harder than it needs to be.”

Bettye snorted a retort. “I thought Rangers could handle just about any situation.”

“I can,” he said, his frustration mounting with each breath. He watched Sophia for signs of stress or any sign that she might be willing to talk to him. “I would. I’m not worried about the storm. I’m worried about what y’all might be trying to hide.”

“We ain’t got nothing to hide,” Bettye replied. “Not from you, that is.”

He leaned his elbows against the table and gave Sophia a measured look. “Then who are you hiding from?”

Sophia’s head snapped up. “We’re living here, trying to mind our own business. And that’s the truth.”

She got up and started clearing the dishes. Adan took that as a sign dinner—and the conversation—was over.

Adan had never had anything like this happen before. He was going to have to walk a line on this one. He couldn’t deal with having these two hauled in because the man he’d tracked to Crescent Mountain was still out there on the loose. And while they’d tried to do bodily injury to Adan, he figured it was more out of fear than any criminal intent.

Still, he’d have to make it a point to be on his best behavior and ever watchful while he was around them. They were hiding something, all right, only he couldn’t be sure they’d been involved with hiding the man he’d come looking for.

But he couldn’t leave two slightly innocent women alone if that man was out there somewhere. So he stood in front of the fire and listened to the sounds of feminine chatter and a few cryptic whispers coming from the kitchen across the room. They had never actually answered his question. After snapping that curt retort, Sophia had busied herself with the dishes. Bettye had offered him homemade fudge and coffee. The rich chocolate was now stuck in his gut and the coffee had him too warm.

Sophia finally approached him. “Bettye needs to go home, but I’m not sure she’ll be able to find the path. I thought I’d walk with her.”

She left things hanging, so he jumped right in. “I’ll walk with both of you and I’ll check her cabin.”

“And what do you plan to do after that?”

He thought he saw a plea there in her interesting dark water-blue eyes. She pushed at her rich auburn curls and stared up at him, waiting again.

“I plan to stay close by until this storm is over. I’ll figure out the rest in the morning.”

“You mean you want to stay here?”

“Do you have any other suggestions?”

She glanced at the fire, looked out the window, stared over at Bettye waiting by the back door. Then she turned back to him. “No, I don’t have any other ideas. Unless you want to stay at Bettye’s place.”

He looked at her then turned to do a quick glance at her friend. “To be honest, I’d be afraid to fall asleep with her in the next room. My head is still throbbing from that darn frying pan.”

The older woman let out a whooping laugh. “My aim is still good.”

Adan rubbed the back of his sore head. “I agree with that, at least.”

He was rewarded with a pretty smile from Sophia, followed by a firm reminder. “I’m the one with the shotgun, though, remember?”

“I don’t think I’ll ever forget,” he said, mirroring her grin in hopes of gaining her trust. “But I doubt I’ll sleep no matter where I stay.”

“You can sleep on the sofa,” she finally said. “I have a spare room, but it’s full of my art supplies.”

He nodded on that, saving the information to mull over later. “I won’t be a bother, I promise.”

“I know,” she said with a smile. “I always sleep with my shotgun right by the bed.”

He let out a chuckle and shook his head. “I’ve never met anyone like you two.”

Sophia didn’t give anything away with her Mona Lisa smile. “Let me get my coat and hat. Bettye lives right around the curve so it’s not a long walk, but I don’t want her to fall in the snow. It’s brutal out there tonight.”

He checked the windows, wondering what was hiding in those woods. “We’ll get her home. Think she’ll be safe?”

“She’s been living on this mountain alone since her husband died about fifteen years ago. She can take care of herself, but...if there is someone out there lurking around, I’ll be worried about her.”

His mind raced ahead as he did another visual. It was near impossible to see beyond the banks of thick white snow. “Should she stay with you, too?”

“She won’t. Bettye likes her privacy, same as me. Most of the people who live up here keep to themselves unless we plan to have a dinner or get-together. But Bettye has been a good friend to me.”

“I’ll keep watch between the two of you,” he said on a decisive note. And in the meantime, he’d try to decipher who was telling the truth and who wasn’t.

“You two gonna stand by that fire all night or are you gonna walk a feeble old woman home?”

“Coming,” Sophia called.

He watched as she wrapped her bright blue scarf around her neck and tucked it into her coat. “Oh, she also has a dog that usually tags along with her. She won’t let him out too long in this weather, so he didn’t come over here with her tonight.”

“He mighta bit you,” Bettye added. “Only he can’t see and he can’t really hear good. A lot like me, I reckon.”

“But he protects you,” Sophia said on an empathetic breath.

Bettye nodded. “Bandit’s his name. He can still bark warnings.”

“Good.” Adan took that comment as a personal warning to him. Or maybe to anyone in hiding around here.

He mulled it over and then put on his own coat and opened the door. The storm was full-blown now. Fat white flakes danced around under the porch light like bits of lost lace. The soft sound of snow hitting the woods didn’t bring him any peace. It was a bitter, unforgiving night.

And it didn’t help that a man who’d long ago given up on any decency might be somewhere out in those woods. If he was, he probably wouldn’t survive for long. And like a dangerous animal, he’d turn on anyone who encountered him or tried to stop him.

They all stood on the porch while Bettye got her bearings.

“I shoulda marked the way,” she said, squinting into the night, her flashlight beam hitting dark tree trunks and thick hedges. “I guess we’ll find our way if we hold on to each other. That’s what my Walter used to say to me. Too bad it didn’t work out for us.”

“We’ll make sure we get you home,” Sophia replied. She leaned close to Adan. “She says that no matter the weather.”

Adan took Bettye’s flashlight, pain throbbing in his temples. “Let me lead and y’all hold to each other and follow.” He waited for them to huddle behind and then turned to search them with the light. “Just shout the directions to me as we go.”

“What are you doing?” Sophia asked with a frown.

“Looking for frying pans and shotguns,” he replied.

Bettye let out a hoot of laughter. “It’s gonna be a good Christmas this year. I just know it.”

CHAPTER THREE

SOPHIA HUGGED BETTYE and petted her big hound dog. “Bandit, take good care of Bettye for me, okay?”

The chocolate-colored hunting dog whimpered a reply and then pushed his nose against Bettye’s worn overcoat.

Bettye nodded and kissed Sophia on the cheek. “You’ll be all right, sugar pie.” She sent Adan a stern glance. “I don’t know a thing about a criminal on the loose around here, Mr. Ranger-Man. But this girl means the world to me and she’s been a friend to me since she moved up here a few years ago. Be kind to her.”

“We’d better get back inside,” Sophia said before Adan could form a reply.

Bettye meant well, but she could take care of herself. This man showing up had confused and surprised Sophia even though she should have known someone would find her sooner or later.

“I’ll check on you in the morning,” she told Bettye.

The older woman stood silent and waved, a knowing smile beaming on her withered face. “I’ll be right here, honey.”

Adan said good-night to Bettye, then followed Sophia, his hand on her elbow making her too aware of the fact that he would be in her tiny cabin all night. And making her all too aware that his presence did make her feel safe in spite of her fears.

She didn’t need him or anyone else taking care of her, though. She’d been on her own for so long she wouldn’t know what being taken care of might mean...and she wasn’t even sure she deserved anyone’s attention or concern. She turned and hurried off the porch before Bettye could add any more information.

“Keep your porch light on,” Adan called to Bettye. “Just in case.”

Bettye chuckled and nodded. “I’ll do that, Mr. Ranger-Man.”

Then she shut the door and turned off the light.

As they shuffled through the ankle-deep snow, he turned to Sophia. “So who else lives on this mountain besides two stubborn women?”

Sophia didn’t want to trust this man, but even though he hadn’t charged in on a white horse, she could tell he was one of the good guys. She wished she could ask him who he was looking for, but if she showed too much interest he’d see the truth in her eyes. But she could be honest with him about Crescent Mountain.

“This spot was named by a trapper who traveled the summit of the hills and decided he’d walked in a curve that made him think of a crescent moon. That somehow stuck and so this curved hillside became Crescent Mountain.”

Adan had studied several maps of the area. “It circles west of the lower White River. I can see how it got that name.”

“Yes, and it also has a reputation for being a kind of retreat since it’s so near a big national forest. Few people know about our little community. We’re pretty self-sufficient. We take turns going down the mountain to town for supplies and groceries and if someone is in need, we either take care of them or get them help at the regional medical center about forty miles from here.”

Adan didn’t respond. Maybe he thought she was issuing him a warning. Good. He needed to back off and leave her alone. She’d only give him as much information as she thought he needed.

They followed the beam of his flashlight and stayed on the path, retracing their earlier footsteps. When they reached Sophia’s yard, he moved the light over the path and out into the nearby woods. The eerie yellow glow shined brightly against the stark ghostly white curling around the trees, making Sophia feel as if shrouded fingers were reaching for her.

Sophia shuddered, the cold wet wind piercing her skin. How could anyone survive out here tonight? The temperatures had dipped well below freezing.

“We don’t normally get snow this heavy,” she said, glad to have a warm place to stay. “A rare winter storm right here before Christmas.”

She was about to go inside when she thought she saw a moving shadow just past Adan’s beaming light. He must have seen it, too. He stopped, held up the light again. Then he walked toward the encroaching woods and held the light up and out.

Nothing but trees and snow. The blanketed woods held no sounds except that of the occasional dripping of snow off drooping branches.

Sophia didn’t want to think about who might be out in those dark woods. She’d escaped death once and this isolated mountain community had taken her in, no questions asked. The Crescent, as the locals called the mountain, was known for accepting quirky characters who wanted to get away from the world. She wasn’t all that quirky, but she did want to stay hidden. She had no other choice.

Now a mountain of a man had come pushing into her quiet, safe world. And he was a man of the law. Which could only mean trouble was sure to follow. If Adan Harrison found out the real story about her, he’d haul her off in handcuffs without another word.

“What did you see out there?” she asked, trying to sound brave. But her teeth chattered from the cold. And from that deep fear she’d tried to hide for so long.

“I don’t know. Probably nothing.” Adan stomped the snow and mud off his boots. “Just the wind pushing at a tree.”

Sophia cast one last look out into the darkness. The hills and valleys beyond the level lane glistened in an eerie shimmer against the dark night. The woods were hushed and still and the snow fell in soft lacy threads that covered the ground like an icy white blanket.

How could anything evil be in such a beautiful setting?

“Let’s get inside,” Adan said, his hand on her arm.

Sophia normally didn’t allow strangers to touch her, but she didn’t push his hand away. They’d reached a tentative unspoken truce and she intended to keep it that way until this storm was over and she could decide what to do with this cowboy who’d invaded her space.

They shook off the snow then went inside to take off their coats and scarves. Sophia took Adan’s big still-warm coat and hung it on a peg by the door, her actions making her think of the kind of life she might not ever have. A life that included a husband and a family. A real Christmas.

“Want some more coffee?” she asked, tongue-tied now that she was alone with Adan Harrison.

“Yes.”

He did a quick visual of her cabin, his gaze sweeping and serious. Whoever he was after, he seemed intent on getting the job done. And intent on finding out her secrets, too.

“Can you talk about this man, the one you’re tracking?” she asked after she brought over two cups of fresh coffee.

They settled by the fire, him on the sofa and Sophia in her favorite old leather chair between the Christmas tree and the fireplace.

“That depends,” he responded. “Can you tell me if you’ve seen anyone suspicious around here?”

She shook her head, her fears about her past at bay now that things had quieted down. “Like Bettye said earlier, you’re the first stranger we’ve had all winter. We usually get lost hikers or vacationers thinking they can rent a cabin for the night, but most of us live here year-round except for one or two couples. The Burtons—one of those couples—are here now, at least through Christmas.”

“How many people?” he asked, his expression serious now.

“Bettye and me,” she said. “Jacob Miller—he’s got a bad crush on Bettye and she doesn’t even realize it. David and Karen Harper. Mostly retired people or...people who’re single. It’s a mixed bag. I’m an artist and Bettye is a collector—mostly junk, as you saw if you looked in her cabin—and Jacob builds stuff and helps us keep up the cabins. The Harpers fish and go for long walks, and the Burtons—Maggie and Arnie—they go on more rigorous hikes all over the mountain. We have a few more who rent part of the year, but they usually only show up in the summer. We come together for meals and picnics and holidays and we leave each other alone other times.”

“No odd person lurking about?”

Sophia got that uneasy feeling in her gut again, a stabbing, sick feeling. “No. We’d notice that, trust me. We’re all accounted for and we watch out for each other.”

Something snapped outside.

“The tree limbs are starting to crash,” she said, hoping that was all they’d heard. Her stomach clenched in a jittery snap of its own.

When another snap echoed against the porch, Adan got up. “Limbs, maybe, but I’d better check.” He set his coffee cup down and put a finger to his lips. “Don’t move.”

Sophia’s heart hit her chest and caught against her ribs. Was someone out there? She didn’t want to have a panic attack, but between this rugged Ranger and whomever he’d been tracking, she couldn’t help but fear the worst. And if her fears overtook her, she’d get that racing heart feeling and lose her breath. Taking a deep, calming gulp of air, Sophia willed herself to go into a silent strength.

And then another sound outside. A tap at the back door, maybe?

Adan’s hiss hit the air. “Where did you put my gun?”

She rushed into her bedroom and came out with his big, heavy handgun. “And here’s your badge, too.”

Taking both, he checked the gun then stashed his badge in his pocket. Grabbing his coat, he glanced back at her. “Stay here,” he said. “I’m going out to check.”

Sophia’s emotions ran the gamut between scared and anxious to sad and full of regret. She’d only known Adan Harrison for about three hours, and in that time, she’d held a gun on him, watched her friend knock him out and they’d tied him up and put tape over his mouth. Now, she was so glad he’d come to Crescent Mountain. The man exuded confidence and power and made her feel secure. But those traits didn’t hide the one glaring thing Adan’s presence had brought out in her—the solid fear she’d managed to keep at bay by sheer force and willpower.

For the first time in years, she didn’t feel safe here.

* * *

ADAN SLID ALONG the rough plank walls of the square brown cabin. He’d checked around the big front porch and found nothing. But here on the side of the house, he hit the ground with a penlight and saw fresh footprints by the back window of one of the bedrooms.

Someone snooping, or someone leaving through a window. He checked the windowsill but it didn’t look as if the window had been opened. Fresh snow was encrusted over the bottom of the glass and the thick wood casings. He did see a couple of imprints. Looked as though someone had placed a hand against the outside sill. Then he heard a crunching sound out in the woods.

Adan cut his light and turned to stare into the swaying trees. Something was definitely out there. Or someone. Had ol’ Joe seen his truck down on the road and followed the path Adan had taken to get up to the cabin?

Or had the man he’d come to find been here all along? He waited in the shadows, his breath hitching in the cold, his hands freezing against the steel of his gun. A shuffling and rustling in the distant woods had him on the move again. He reached the edge of the cabin’s garden and stood silent behind a giant oak tree.

More thrashing about and then the woods went quiet. Deciding to circle back around, he trotted from tree to tree, hiding behind snowdrifts and limbs heavy with ice and snow until he thought he’d cleared the area in the woods where he’d heard the noise. But the heavy snow and the midnight darkness kept him from finding anything. Following his own footsteps, he could imagine how easy it would be to get lost out here at night. Maybe whoever’d been snooping around had gotten confused and crashed into a ravine. Or they’d purposely caused a distraction to lure him away from the cabin.

When he heard a scream, he started running through the knee-deep snow, falling and getting up again until he hit the porch and rushed inside the cabin.

Sophia stood there staring at a piece of paper, her face as pale as the night. Adan hurried to take the paper from her. “Where did you find this?”

She pointed to the back door. “Inside the screen. I heard someone and I thought it was you.” She shuddered, took in a breath. “When I opened the door I found this.”

Adan stared at the artist’s rendering of the man he was chasing. “Do you know this man, Sophia?”

She sank down on a dining chair, shock evident in her eyes. Holding her chest, she gave him a frightened stare. “I... I don’t know. I mean, I just got scared when I saw that someone had left that there.” She gulped in air and shot a worried glance at the door.

Adan’s gut told him she was lying. This woman who’d been so strong and sure was now shaking and uncertain. Fear colored her skin white. Her hands were cold, her actions jittery and unsure. She kept staring at the mug shot in the picture with a shocked expression on her face.

“You know this man, don’t you?” Adan asked again. “Sophia, did you help this man escape earlier tonight?”

She hurtled out of the chair and crossed her arms as if to stop the shaking. “Why do you keep asking me that?”

He grabbed her, his hands rubbing her arms over her heavy sweater. She stared up at him but she couldn’t seem to speak.

Finally, she asked, “The man you’re tracking? You said he’s a wanted felon. What did he do?”

Adan decided it was time to come clean. Someone had left that poster on this woman’s door on purpose. That same person had obviously broken into his truck and found the flyer. If Joe Pritchard was here, the battle had just begun, but Adan had to take on that battle.

“He robbed a gas station near the Texas border and killed the cashier. He’s been robbing people left and right all the way from Austin to the Arkansas border and some locals had him cornered, but he escaped. Based on maps we found in a vehicle he stole and abandoned, we believe he was headed here. He’s got a long rap sheet that stretches over years, but this time he’s committed murder and I need to find him.”

He held her there and looked into her eyes. “If you know him, if you’ve aided him in any way, you need to tell me now. Before he hurts someone else.”

She gulped a sob, held a hand to her mouth. “He killed a store clerk?”

“Yes, a woman. A single mother with two children.”

She let out another sob then pulled away from Adan. “I need to check on Bettye.”

Adan watched her, his instincts to protect her too strong to ignore. “We’ll check on Bettye. But you have to tell me what’s going on with you. Right now, Sophia.”

When she kept moving toward her bedroom, he grabbed her and turned her around. And that’s when he saw the sheer terror in her eyes.

Without thinking, Adan gently tugged her into his arms. “It’s okay. It’s all right. I’m not going to hurt you. No one is going to hurt you.”

She felt small and stiff, like a frozen doll. But he held tight and kept reassuring her while his mind raced with the possibility that there was a killer out in those dark, snow-covered woods. He’d protect this woman because that was part of his job. But from the terrified expression on her face and the way he wanted to wrap her in a cloak of warmth, Adan decided he was in this for the long haul. He shouldn’t feel this way about a woman he’d only known for a few hours.

And he had to ask again. “Sophia, did you recognize this man?”

She shook her head, but the look in her eyes told Adan differently.

Disappointment coursed through Adan. Had she helped this man escape? But if she had, why would he risk coming back to stick that poster in her door? Maybe as a warning or a threat? Or maybe to taunt Adan? To show him that he’d managed to let yet another criminal get away?

“Have you seen anyone matching this description?” he asked, his hands still on her shoulders.

“I’m not sure,” she said, a plea in the words. “I don’t know him and I didn’t help him, Adan. I’ve...never seen that man on Crescent Mountain.”

She turned and walked to the table and stared down at the grizzly face on the white paper. “I... I don’t know him and I don’t know why someone would leave this on my door.”

Adan put his hands on his hips and watched as she paced from window to window. For someone who repeatedly said she didn’t know this man, Sophia sure seemed nervous and agitated. She’d just said she’d never seen the man in the picture here on the mountain. But had she seen him or known him before?

She was lying through her pretty white teeth.

And Adan wasn’t leaving here until he found out the truth.

CHAPTER FOUR

ADAN STEPPED BACK and took a breath, his eyes watching Sophia with a big-cat precision. “Sit down.”

Sophia did as he told her, too weak and afraid to do anything else. No gun could protect her from the trail of lies she’d had to tell. But she’d stall as long as she could.

She had to protect Bettye and the others. She’d brought this trouble on all of them when she’d shown up on the mountain late one night, scared and in shock. The cluster of people who’d become her neighbors had helped her without asking too many questions, and she didn’t want to pull them into any kind of trouble with the law.

What if it’s him? Sophia’s stomach roiled each time she glanced at that sketch. What if you don’t have a choice?

Adan went to the stove and turned up the heat on the kettle, then searched through the cabinets until he’d found the tea bags.

She watched him, amazed. “How did you know...?”

His chuckle was quiet and sure. “My mama always makes hot tea when she’s upset.”

Sophia latched onto that tidbit, a wistfulness filling her soul. She ached for a family of her own but for now, Bettye and her other neighbors would have to do. “Your mama and you—are you close?”

He turned and gave her a quick glance. “Yep. I’m close to both my parents. They live in Austin, not far from my house. They help me take care of my daughter, Gaylen.”

So he was married. Good. Sophia could put yet another wall between them. And she could let go of that sizzle of attraction that seemed to spark her back to life each time he touched her.

“Where’s your wife?” She’d asked it before she could think it through. “I mean, won’t she be wondering where you are?”

He didn’t turn around, but his hand went still on the teakettle. “She’s gone.”

So much for trying to focus on the positive. So did that mean he was still married and his wife had left? Or did that mean his wife was dead? Sophia refused to ask.

“She left when Gaylen was eight months old,” he finally said. “I’m a divorced single father.”

Sophia’s heart went out to him and his little girl, but she didn’t want to make him uncomfortable by saying that. “So you’re a single father who chases criminals in the snow.”

“Yep.” He opened a tea bag and dropped it into a big floral mug. “And I need to be done with this and home by Christmas Eve.”

Sophia hoped that would happen. “You think you’ll find him around here?”

“I think so. He’s here for a reason, but he’d have to hunker down tonight or risk freezing to death.”

She decided to feel Adan out and get a few details in the process. “I wonder why he decided to come to Crescent Mountain.”

Adan left that statement out there floating on the air between them along with the scent of chamomile tea. Finally he said, “I wonder that, too.” He brought her the tea, his gaze sweeping over her face. “It sure would make my job easier if you’d just tell me the truth.”

Sophia didn’t know what to say to that. She wanted to shout that yes, she knew who Joe Pritchard was but...she thought he was dead. She thought he would never hurt her again. So how could that possibly be him out there?

But she couldn’t find her voice. She couldn’t speak his name. So she sat there and watched Adan while he watched her drink the herbal tea and she hoped against hope that Joe wasn’t on this mountain.

But Adan didn’t pressure her anymore. He pulled out his cell phone and tried to make a call. “No bars,” he finally said, frowning down at his phone. “Guess the storm is messing with the reception.”

“We never have good reception up here,” Sophia told him. “It comes and goes even on good days. If we have important calls to make, we go down into town and sit on a bench or do our business in the Crescent Diner. They have free Wi-Fi there.”

“I see.” He tapped his phone and put it away. “I wanted to check in with my parents and tell Gaylen good-night.”

He sat for a moment, his gaze on his phone. Sophia chanced a glance when he put it on the table and saw a picture of a pretty blond-headed little girl. His daughter?

Before she could ask, Adan picked the phone back up and started tapping away.

“Notes to myself,” he said by way of an explanation. “So I won’t forget the chronological order of things.”

Sophia couldn’t believe her world had shifted within the space of an hour. The Christmas decorations Bettye had helped her make and put on the tree now held a garish shimmer that only reminded her of other Christmases she’d rather not remember. Days and nights that had involved overly decorated rooms and expensive catered dinners. And a facade that crumbled like dry bricks.

Sophia didn’t miss that kind of fake holiday. Nor did she miss the disconnected misery of growing up moving from pillar to post and sometimes living with strangers.

She’d looked forward to a quiet Christmas on the mountain with real people who cared about her. She’d planned on baking all kinds of goodies for her friends over the next week or so before they all celebrated with a Christmas Eve get-together.

But all of that had changed. Now, she had one very good-looking, very serious man questioning and doubting her and one very dangerous, very angry man out there possibly searching for her. Tonight they’d both found her. Would there be a battle between them? She got the impression that Adan Harrison wouldn’t give up until he had Joe Pritchard in custody. But would he give up on questioning her? No doubt on that one, either.

She sank down on an old side chair and grabbed a turquoise-colored chenille throw and held it tight to her chest. She didn’t realize she was shivering until Adan bent in front of her and lifted the blanket from her. With slow, deliberate gestures, he carefully took the throw and tucked it over her lap and around her sweater leggings and old cowboy boots.

Sophia didn’t like men touching her, but this gentle giant did it in a way that made her want to cling to his hand and thank him. His eyes held no malice, no intentions other than to bring her comfort. When was the last time a man had been this kind to her? Especially a man who’d seen the business end of her shotgun?

“There,” he said, his eyes going a gentle burnished brown. Then he turned to a side table. “Here’s your tea.”

She nodded her head, still not used to this kind of reaction from a man. Or her reaction to that man. “Thank you.”

His gaze stumbled over her heated skin. “You don’t look so hot.”

She almost smiled at that. “Well, I wasn’t exactly expecting company tonight.”

He sank back on a stool made out of old floorboards and straightened the embroidered yellow cushion. “And I wasn’t exactly expecting to show up on your porch.”

She forced a smile. “Funny how life works, huh?”

He nodded. “Ready to talk now?”

Sophia looked down at the frayed threads of the secondhand throw. “About what?”

He gave her a long, hard stare. “You’ll have to tell me sooner or later.”

Sophia sipped her tea so quickly she burned her tongue. “Tell you what?”

“Why you reacted so strongly to this poster.”

He held it up, his intentions obvious and deliberate.

Sophia glanced at the drawing then looked away. “I just got scared when I saw it hanging on my door. I mean, someone was out there prowling around and whoever it was came up onto my back porch.”

“I was out there prowling around and you came at me with a shotgun.”

She shrugged, tried to put on a neutral face. “I guess two prowlers in one night sent me over the edge.”

Adan pulled out his phone. “Mind if I ask you some questions?”

“Haven’t you been doing that since you showed up here?”

“Part of my job, especially when I need some answers and I think you can give them to me.”

Sophia didn’t want to give him any information, so she pointed to his phone, thinking he was going to haul her in. “I told you, you might find it hard to get any service out here.”

“It’s okay. I have a password to protect any work-related information so I take notes on my phone’s notepad. But if you’re uncomfortable—”

“No, I just don’t have anything more to say.” She tried to swallow away the dryness tightening her throat. Then she lifted her chin and stared him down. “Even if it means you have to take me to jail, too.”

* * *

ADAN RUBBED A hand down his face. This day had not turned out the way he’d planned. “Okay then. I hope I don’t have any reason to take you to jail. The best thing you can do for yourself is tell the truth, understand?”

“Yes,” she said on a soft note. “I... I’m sorry I held a gun on you. I’m not a criminal.”

He glanced at the ever-present shotgun then pivoted back to her and decided not to tell her how many times he’d heard that comment over the years. “I don’t know about that.”

“I have a right to protect myself,” she said, her hackles definitely rising, her freckled skin flushing while her eyes became a fire-tipped blue.

Ignoring the current of heat running through his body, he said, “Yes, you certainly do. Why do you need to protect yourself?”

“I shouldn’t have to tell you that. It’s pretty obvious.”

Adan tried again. “Do you recognize the man in the sketch?”

She lowered her head, her gaze cutting to the floor. Adan couldn’t be sure if she was about to lie to him or if she really was agitated by seeing that wanted poster on her door.

“Sophia?” Adan wasn’t always patient, but he’d learned to be whenever he was trying to drag information out of someone. He waited for her to look at him and hoped she’d be honest.

She finally let out a long sigh and gave him a direct glare. But he didn’t see anything but sincerity and stubbornness in her blue eyes. “I haven’t seen him around here.”

Adan let out a grunt and got up. “That’s not what I asked.”

* * *

SOPHIA DECIDED SHE’D had enough questions for one night. “I’m going to see about Bettye,” she said, already reaching for her heavy coat and her gun.

“Hey, wait a minute,” he called after her.

But Sophia was tired of waiting, tired of looking over her shoulder and very tired of being afraid. “I told you, I haven’t seen that man around here, but somebody left that mug shot for a reason. I’m going to check on my neighbor, so you need to just back off.”

“I’m coming with you,” Adan called, his boots hitting the old hardwood floors as he chased after her.

Sophia opened the heavy latched door, a gust of cold wind and wet snow taking her breath away. She needed this blast of cold air to clear her head. After four years here on the mountain, she’d become happy again and she’d gotten her strength back. She wasn’t about to have a midnight confession with a Texas Ranger.

I’ll figure out something. I always do.

“Hey, wait up.”

The driving wind caused the heavy flakes to dance in a straight line across the woods. She gasped to catch her breath then motioned to Adan. He’d just come after her if she didn’t let him go with her. And to be honest, she didn’t want to be out here alone. Not if Joe Pritchard was roaming around.

Adan followed her down the slippery wooden steps and took hold of her arm to link it with his. “We need to stick together.”

“I agree.”

“Why do you feel this sudden need to check on Bettye? We just left her place.”

Sophia lifted a gloved hand in the air. “The weather, a criminal on the loose, because I can.”

“You’re sure stubborn,” he said on a hiss as the wind cut them both to the bone.

“Yes, I am.” She nodded. “Her cabin is dark, but she has a night-light. The power might have gone out.” Taking a glance back at her own cabin, she said, “I still have electricity, so she should, too.”

“Must be asleep,” Adan called over the driving wind.

Sophia nodded, her skin tingling as the icy flakes hit her and clung to her hat and hair. This was the worst snowstorm she’d ever experienced while living on Crescent Mountain.

How would Adan ever be able to get out of here?

Worried now that she’d have to contend with him for more than just tonight and wondering where Joe had gone, she steeled herself to deal with both of them. She wouldn’t let Ranger Harrison intimidate her and she wouldn’t let Joe Pritchard—or whoever it was—scare her. She was long past being afraid of anything.

Except the truth.

She’d worry about how to handle that later. She had to make sure Bettye was okay—she was spry and in good shape, but she was still getting on in years. If Joe knew Bettye was Sophia’s friend, he’d zoom in on her just to bring out Sophia.

When they reached Bettye’s porch, Adan pointed to the snow going up the steps. “No fresh footprints, but the downfall could have hidden any.”

“We left her about an hour ago,” Sophia replied. “I’d feel better checking the back porch and all the windows.”

Adan grabbed her by the arm. “Why are you so worried about Bettye?”

Sophia didn’t know how to explain that now. Telling him the truth would save her a lot of grief, but she didn’t want to give Adan something to pin on her, a bargaining chip to make her talk even more. Or evidence that could put her in jail.

“I care about her,” she finally said. “She’s helped me a lot and...she’s the only real family I’ve ever had.”

Adan’s eyes widened but he seemed to accept that explanation. At least that much was the truth.

“Let’s go around back,” he suggested, his gun now drawn.

Now he was taking her seriously.

“Will her dog alert?” he asked.

“He should if it’s a stranger,” she said, her voice carrying through the ferocious wind and clinging snow. “But he knows me, so he might not bother with us.”

Adan shined the flashlight at the side window, but the heavy bushes were so covered with fresh snow it was impossible to tell if anyone had been near the place. No sign of new footprints on the back porch, either. Not even a peep from Bettye’s devoted companion.

“Her bedroom is on the other side,” Sophia said, pointing to the right corner of the porch.

Adan nodded and helped her down the steps. They slogged through almost a foot of snow before they reached the other window.

And saw that the screen was not on the window. It was lying ripped and torn on the snow-covered grass.

Sophia turned and tried to run. “I have to get inside.”

Adan hurried and caught her by the arm. “Hold up. Do you want to scare her?”

Angry that he was wasting time, she shouted, “You saw that screen!”

Adan nodded. “Yes, and I saw the window. The glass is intact. No one went through that window.”

“He could have closed it.”

“He would have broken out a pane to get inside. The glass is intact.”

When they heard a dog barking from inside the house, Sophia yanked away from Adan. “I’m going inside.”

“How?”

She lifted the key ring from her coat pocket. “I have a key.”

She didn’t wait for him to ask her about anything else. Sophia’s heart was churning and shifting in the same blustery confusion as the wind’s unforgiving gusts. Her safe, quiet life was now in an uproar and her fears for her friend had multiplied twofold after seeing that busted window screen.

She was fighting two very determined men. One evil...and one good. She just wished she knew which one would win.

CHAPTER FIVE

BY THE TIME they’d made it back around the house, the rear porch light flickered on and Bettye cracked open the door enough to push a rifle barrel through it. “Who’s out there?”

Letting out a held breath, Sophia ran up the slippery steps. “It’s me, Bettye. I was worried about you.”

The door peeled back like a creaky old trunk lid. “I’m fine, honey. You sure scared Bandit, though.” She motioned them inside with the gun down and her left hand in the air.

Sophia smelled the faint scents of vanilla and lavender. A burning candle? Then she heard a man’s cough.

Adan shot her a confused glance before they entered the back door of the cluttered, cloying cabin. “What’s going on?”

Bettye gave them a sheepish grin. “Jacob saw y’all with me earlier and...came over to see what all the commotion was about.” She motioned to Adan. “Jacob, this is the Ranger-Man I was telling you about.”

Jacob? Sophia’s relief was followed by a bemused confusion. She’d always known Jacob Miller had a huge crush on Bettye, but Bettye had never indicated that she felt the same about the grizzled, cantankerous older man. He had to be at least eighty. He could barely walk!

Adan introduced himself and walked over to shake Jacob’s hand. “Hello, sir.”

Jacob pushed up off the chair and shook Adan’s hand. “Hear you’re tracking a nasty criminal.”

“Yes, sir.” Adan explained what he was doing here. “Have y’all seen or heard anything?”

“Not a peep until you two showed up,” Jacob said on a grin.

“Hey there,” Jacob said to Sophia after grasping Adan’s hand, his ever-present pipe hanging like a leafless tree branch out of his whiskered mouth. What little bit of hair he had stood out around his head in white tufts that reminded Sophia of snow caught against limbs. “We’re just sitting here enjoying the fire.”

“Without any lights on, apparently,” Adan replied on a dry note. He turned to Bettye. “Sophia was concerned and when we went around to the side, we found one of your window screens lying in the bushes.”

Bettye brushed at her braid. “Been meaning to replace that.”

“Remind me when spring comes and I’ll take care of it,” Jacob said, his gray beard dancing. “A mite too cold out there tonight.”

Bettye eyed Adan and Sophia. “It’s late, but you’re both welcome to come in and sit awhile.”

She didn’t offer up anywhere to sit, however.

“Uh, no, we won’t stay,” Sophia replied, unable to hide her smile. “As long as you’re okay, Bettye.”

“She’s just fine,” Jacob said with another big grin and a strong bobble of a nod. “We were reminiscing about when we were young and in love.”

“With other people,” Bettye replied in a rush of words. “We both were married long ago, before the mountain claimed us.” She glanced down at her house booties, a sly smile hanging off her cheery face. “Now we enjoy sitting by the fire.”

“Uh-huh,” Adan replied, his lips twitching. He glanced at his watch. “It is late. Sophia, I think we should leave these two young’uns alone.”

Bandit meandered out of the bedroom, his ears flopping and his nose in the air. After sniffing at Adan and then stopping in front of Sophia for a fur rub, he sauntered over to the hooked rug in front of the fireplace and plopped down.

“Some watchdog you are,” Sophia said, walking over to bend and pet him again. After giving Bandit a thorough belly rub, she stood and said, “Okay, now that I’ve embarrassed everyone, I’m going back to my own cabin.”

Bettye came over to give her a hug. “Jacob and I’ll sit a bit longer, then I’ll send him on his way.” She leaned in. “I did hear a noise earlier, honey. I used the old-fashioned message system. I flicked the porch light three times. Jacob saw it and came over straight away.”

“You should come home with me,” Sophia said, her gaze scurrying toward where Adan was making small talk with Jacob. She’d wondered if Jacob had been climbing in and out of that window, but that image just didn’t jive with his arthritic arms and legs. Maybe he was a back-door man.

Bettye shook her head then lifted a hand toward Jacob. “Are you kidding me? I been waiting for this man to catch me—this man sitting in the rocking chair, that is—for about three years now. Fate has a way of working in our favor sometimes.” She shot a covert glance at Adan. “Bad guy on the loose, nice-looking Ranger in the house, Jacob in my rocking chair. Fate.”

“I don’t need this kind of fate,” Sophia retorted, her gaze hitting on Adan. Then she looked Bettye in the eye. “Maybe we can talk in private tomorrow.”

“Sure thing,” Bettye said, stepping back. “Sorry about scaring you,” she said a bit louder for Adan’s benefit.

After a few more questions from Jacob about Adan’s being a Ranger, Sophia and Adan left to face the brutal cold once again. Adan had given them a description of Joe Pritchard before urging them to be alert. He did one more thorough check on the bushes around Sophia’s cabin, but turned up nothing.

Maybe the prowler was gone, or worse, frozen in the snow. Sophia could hope that, right?

When they were safely inside her cabin, she turned to give Adan a solemn stare. And found him standing there with a wide grin on his face.

“What’s so funny?” she asked, completely captivated by his beautiful smile. Too captivated. The man dazzled her with gleaming toughness, but she needed to remember this was not a social call. He was here to do lawman business and she had to keep that in mind at all times.

He lifted a dark eyebrow. “Did we just walk in on a...senior hookup?”

Sophia gasped then clamped a hand over her mouth. “No. I mean, no. I don’t know. I... I don’t think so. Not yet, at least. Bettye isn’t that kind of girl.”

“You’re blushing,” he said, his smile dying on his lips while his eyes heated to liquid gold. “And you’re smiling.”

Trying to deflect the sizzle of his eyes moving over her, Sophia shook her head. “So are you. I didn’t think Rangers knew how to smile.”

His eyebrows lifted while he stared her down. “And what exactly do you know about Rangers?”

“Not nearly enough,” she said on a sassy huff. “Or in your case, way more than I ever wanted to know.”

Such as, he would arrest her if he knew the truth. Or maybe that his smile could definitely change her attitude from standoffish to come closer.

No, never mind that!

“But I still don’t know a lot about you,” he said, his gaze melting her chill away. And scaring it right back in a shivering slide down her backbone.

“You know enough.”

He grinned and headed to drop another log on the fire. “What a night.”

“Full of lots of revelations,” Sophia said, reminding herself to be careful. He was being charming now that they were alone. Did he plan on tormenting her with his commanding presence until she gave in and spilled her guts?

Even that thought made her blush.

“And full of lots of secrets,” he retorted, his grin tapering off to a solid, unyielding poker face.

The man was truly like a dog with a bone.

“So we have a snowstorm, a criminal on the loose and two old people making eyes at each other.”

Not to mention her being here with Adan in a cabin in a snowstorm, alone. Trapped.

He stepped so close she could smell the snowdrift all around him. “And...one very pretty woman who isn’t telling the truth.”

* * *

SOPHIA STARTED MAKING the sofa into his sleeping quarters, probably to avoid the accusation in his words. After fluffing blankets and tucking sheets, she said, “So you’re back on that?”

Adan watched her face for lies but in the flickering golden light from the fire all he saw was a secretive confusion. Was she hiding something? Was she hiding someone? Would the snow ever melt?

The snow she had around her heart, that was. This woman obviously had something to hide and she seemed to have a major distrust of law enforcement.

Not so much a hard heart, but maybe a bruised one.

“I’m good at my job,” he replied, once again taking in the bright colors and quirky artwork that filled every surface of her little home. “I’ll get the truth out of everyone around here, sooner or later.”

“I figure you’ll have to go back to Texas—sooner than later, I hope.”

Adan decided to mess with her a little bit. “Until that storm clears, I got nothing but time, darlin’. And you got nobody else to talk to tonight.”

She whirled to give him a feminine frown. “And what makes you think I’m lying? Haven’t I tried to cooperate with you and answer all of your questions?”

He had to grin again at that. “You held a gun on me and tied me up but yes, you’ve been very cooperative. But as I said before, I couldn’t help but notice you got scared, extremely scared, when you found that wanted poster on your back door.”

She lowered her head then crossed her arms over her stomach. “That was silly and I shouldn’t have reacted that way. Probably one of our neighbors went down the mountain and ran into someone passing those out. Any one of my friends could have left that on my door just to warn me.”

“A passable explanation, but not on a night like this.”

She peeked out the kitchen window. “Criminals don’t care about the weather.”

“True. But why would a neighbor wait until so late in the day to leave posters on doors? And why didn’t Bettye mention having one on her door?”

Sophia whirled around and took her time putting fresh pillowcases on the two pillows she’d pulled out of the hallway closet. “I don’t know. I just reacted to seeing that right after you showed up here. Too much excitement and you with all your talk of some dangerous man on the run.”

Adan stared over at her with purposeful intent. “A dangerous man who obviously came to Crescent Mountain for a reason.”

She got that fearful look again but quickly cleared it and gave him a defiant chin lift. “Maybe he knows someone around here.”

A roundabout confession? “Maybe so.”

The room grew uncomfortably quiet.

Deciding to back off for now, Adan stifled a yawn. “Sorry. I guess I’m more beat than I realized.”

“Me, too,” she said on an eager sigh. “I hope this will be okay.”

He nodded toward the blanket and fluffy pillows. “Looks like heaven.” He took off his hat and laid it on the coffee table then shrugged. “I’ve slept in worse places.”

She gave him an appraising glance. “I guess you have at that.”

“I’ll be fine.”

He wanted to say more, but it had been a while since he’d been in a forced confinement with a woman. Adan’s rule was to keep moving fast so no woman would ever try to tie him down the way his ex-wife had. And yet this one had already tied him up. He’d have to bear that in mind until the snow stopped falling. No telling what she’d try if he actually fell asleep.

“Okay, then, I’m, uh, going to bed.” She motioned toward the bathroom. “I’ll just be a minute then you can take a shower if you’d like. Towels underneath the sink. And I think I have several unopened toothbrushes from our many trips into town. Jacob always brings everyone a new toothbrush. He’s a retired dentist.”

Adan nodded and grinned. “He did have white teeth.”

She put a hand to her mouth and reminded him of his daughter, girly and giggly. But this particular girl was all grown-up and way too enticing.

“I guess I have missed a few clues around here,” she admitted. “Did not see that one coming.”

“I think they make a cute couple,” he replied. “But I’ll have to question them again. And everyone else on this mountain, too. I need you to understand that, Sophia.”

“I guess I don’t have much of a choice,” she replied, her playful expression changing as an aggravated frown arrowed its way up her forehead. “You do what you need to do. And we’ll do the same.”

“Is that a threat?”

“I have no reason to threaten you.”

“Then be honest with me so I don’t have to threaten you.”

“I’m tired,” she replied. “And I’m going to bed.”

And the moment was gone.

In a whirl worthy of an award-winning actress, she turned and strutted into the bathroom and slammed the door.

But the warning had been very clear.

Sophia and her merry band of followers would not make his job easy. He’d have to do some investigating when this weather cleared. If this weather cleared.

Something wasn’t right about Sophia’s reaction to that poster. Either she knew the man in the picture or she’d seen him recently. Why would she withhold information on a dangerous man?

Maybe because she might be the reason that man had come to this mountain?

Adan grunted and sank down on the sofa and removed his boots. Sometimes, his job really got the best of him.

But at no time on a case had a woman ever gotten the best of him.

Not yet, at least.

CHAPTER SIX

ADAN DOZED WITH one eye open.

He must have finally fallen into a deep sleep only to wake up to sunshine and the smell of coffee. With a grunt, he sat up on the sofa and looked around. In the light of day, this place was cozy and comfortable even if it wasn’t much bigger than a horse stall. The room was colorful and full of little woman things—embroidery and lace, fluffy pillows and crocheted quilts, vases and picture frames. Dainty things. Which only made him feel like a stallion in a henhouse.

When he heard noise in the kitchen, he first checked his hands and feet for any ropes or tape. None there. Then he checked her for signs of a weapon. Nothing there, either. She wore a too-big flannel shirt and slim gray sweatpants and fuzzy boots. Her hair, caught up in a haphazard twist, was a loose rich auburn that burned bright in the light of day. Sophia looked earthy and right at home as she scooted around the small U-shaped efficiency kitchen.

He hitched a breath then got aggravated at himself. This woman was lying through her pretty white teeth and somehow, he had to get around all that cuteness and find the truth. He didn’t like lying women. Only reminded him of Gaylen’s absent mother, Helena. She’d lied to him from the day they’d met and she’d lied even as she’d walked out the door, never to return. Helena hadn’t wanted a baby and she sure hadn’t wanted him. She’d used him as a means to an end—to get out from under her powerful father’s thumb. Well, now she was living high on the hog with the rich man she’d always wanted. Good for her.

He missed Gaylen with the kind of ache that brought a man to his knees. He’d get home to her soon. Somehow.

Adan scowled over at the woman in the kitchen, trying to associate that pretty countenance with that of a liar.

Hard to do.

“You’re up,” she said, her smile not so sure-footed.

Adan realized he’d been staring and pushed at his hair and grunted. “Yes, and... I’m still alive.”

“Don’t worry, I thought about doing you in but decided against it since I didn’t want to drag you out there and leave you like a frozen lump.” She smiled and brought him a huge cup of steaming coffee. “I have biscuits and ham in the oven.”

Her serene attitude threw him. It was completely opposite of her skittish, worried mind-set last night. If she was hiding something she sure didn’t seem too worried about it this morning. Or maybe she’d successfully helped Pritchard escape and she was bluffing until she could figure out how to get rid of Adan. In the meantime, he’d bide his time and get some answers out of her. And watch her like a hawk.

He took the coffee with a grateful nod. “Do you always get up at the crack of dawn?”

“Most days,” she replied. “I like to work in the early light.”

He glanced around at the various forms of artwork. “So you’re an artist?”

“Yes. Mixed media.”

“Mixed what?”

She went back to the kitchen and opened the oven. “It’s just using several different ways of creating an art piece. Layering different textures and materials onto one canvas.”

“Right.”

She laughed and pointed to a big structure hanging over the fireplace. “I made that piece out of old fence boards, buttons and jewelry.”

Adan studied the piece of art and decided it did look like part of a fence. Then he saw it. “It’s the mountain. A vista.” He moved closer, amazed at the striking piece of art. “I don’t know art from Adam,” he said, “but this is real pretty.”

She smiled, obviously pleased that he’d guessed right and probably glad she’d managed to distract him. “There’s one spot down near the stream running behind the cabins where the view is incredible. I go there a lot for inspiration.”

“And so you recreated that view of the mountain with old wood and other things?”

“Yep. I go into town once or twice a month and leave a couple of pieces in the art gallery. Sometimes I go with Bettye to the arts-and-crafts shows held in several of the towns around the Ozarks and we set up a booth. She makes quilts and does embroidery on pillows and hand towels.”

That explained all the dainty stuff exploding in this room.

“Is that how you make your living?”

She stilled at that. “Yes. And I saved up before I came here.”

Okay, there it was again. A subtle evasiveness that he immediately recognized. She wasn’t telling him everything, but he only needed to know the part where Joe Pritchard came into the picture. Adan knew patience wasn’t his virtue but decided to take it easy since she was slowly opening up to him. He needed to get Pritchard and get back to Texas. First, he wanted to check on his truck and maybe move it back here near the cabins, and then he’d figure out what to do next.

He waited to see what Sophia was doing. When she started toward him with two biscuits on a plate, he stood. “I can eat that at the table.”

She shook her head. “No, here by the fire.”

“Okay.” He took the plate and stared at it for a full minute.

“Is something wrong?” she asked as she curled up in a big, broken-in leather chair, her legs tucked up under her.

“Just checking for glass or maybe poison mushrooms.”

She looked confused. “Oh, you think I’m still out to do you in?”

He sniffed at the wonderful smells coming from the plate. “Aren’t you?”

She shook her head. “If that were the case, I had all night to do it. And yet, like you said, you’re still alive.”

He leaned back and took a sip of the coffee. The taste was rich and dark and fresh, like that head of hair cascading around her face. Then he bit into the biscuit.

“Hmm, pretty good.”

“Bettye taught me how to cook,” she explained, her blue eyes going soft. “She knows how to cure ham in a smokehouse. She grew up on a farm in Alabama.”

“How’d she wind up here?”

“I’m not sure. She doesn’t like to talk about it, but I think after her husband died, she went into a deep depression. She told me once that she got in her car and drove until she found this mountain.”

“This sure must be a special place,” Adan said, his gaze taking in everything and seeing nothing out of the ordinary other than him sitting here among exotic paintings and twisted doodads eating a biscuit.

She nibbled at her own breakfast. “It’s a quiet, unassuming place. It’s peaceful and secure and...comfortable. I like a certain schedule and I like order. I’ve had enough chaos in my life.”

He zoomed right in on that last comment. “Care to talk about it?”

She looked so shocked, he figured she just now realized she’d mentioned her past. “No.”

“What brought you here?”

She glanced around as if searching for a good response. “Art. I like how everyone here is involved in folk art.”

“How did you find out that everyone here is an artist?”

She gave him a blank stare and shrugged. “Artists tend to find each other.”

“Why is everyone around here so tight-lipped?”

“You haven’t met everyone around here.”

“You have a way of answering a question with a counterstatement. Were you ever a lawyer?”

Shock again. “No. I just don’t like to talk about myself.”

“And why is that?”

She got up and threw another log on the fire. “You might be able to get out and walk around today. The snow and ice will be here awhile, so I doubt you’ll be able to get down the mountain today, but you can at least search for...that man.”

“You mean Joe Pritchard?”

Her hand stilled on a log before she tossed it into the fire. “Whoever he is.”

Hmm. A bit of defensiveness and deflection. She sure didn’t like to talk about herself and apparently, any wanted criminals, either. Adan’s burning gut told him Sophia knew more about Joe Pritchard than she was letting on. If he had any service on his phone he could run a check on her, too.

“I intend to get out and search for him,” he replied with a cool assurance that didn’t calm his stomach. Then he polished off the last of his second biscuit. “Thank you for breakfast.”

She turned and took his plate before he could set it down. “Want more coffee?”

“Sure.”

He got up and followed her into the tiny kitchen and, too late, realized this space wasn’t made for two people. They bumped together when she whirled to take his cup.

“Excuse me,” she said, a becoming blush moving down her cheeks. She lowered her gaze and held her head down.

“I can get my own coffee,” he said to fill the space.

“Let me get it.”

She took the cup right out of his hand, her fingers brushing his in a soft sizzle that surged through him all the way to the tips of his boots.

Adan backed up, regrouped and reminded himself he didn’t like entanglements of any kind. Even while he envisioned his hands entangled in all that rich auburn hair.

* * *

SOPHIA GRIPPED THE sink with one hand and scrubbed with all her might with the other hand. She hated stains.

And she also hated having Adan Harrison in her home. And she hated lying and hiding things.

But she had no other choice. Did she?

When she’d come into the kitchen earlier and seen his too-big body curled up on her too-small couch, she’d had to swallow back a shard of longing. She’d always imagined having someone special in her life, and she’d tried so hard to make that happen. Once. But once was enough for Sophia.

Having Adan asleep on her couch was one thing. Getting all fuzzy hearted and sentimental was quite another. So she’d reminded herself to stay away from the sleeping giant and to keep her hands and her daydreams to herself. After a sleepless night of trying to figure out what her next move could be, she’d decided she had to be nice to the big Texas Ranger. For now.

This man wasn’t here for a fling.

He’d come to this mountain to find a killer.

And she’d come to this mountain to escape. Just to escape.

Why was he here now and when would he leave? Who was out there taunting her? Her mind skittered over memories still too fresh to tuck away completely. Did someone know her sins?

Sophia stared at the sink and decided it was clean enough. She rinsed away the cleanser and washed out her dish towel, then dried her hands and grabbed her lotion bottle to moisturize them. Then she turned to tidy up the living room. Adan had folded his bedding and pillows and left them on the sofa. She touched a hand to one of the pillows and remembered his head touching that same spot.

The bathroom door opened, causing her to jump back like a kid caught with her hand in the candy jar.

Adan walked into the room, chewing up space with each step. “I’m gonna walk down the mountain to check on my truck.”

Relief flooded through her. He’d be out of her hair for a couple of hours so she’d have a chance to talk to Bettye. Trying not to sound too happy, she said, “Oh, okay. Be careful.”

“You’re going with me.”

Panic scurried across Sophia’s nerve endings. “What? Why?”

He stood by the fire, his hands in his pockets. “Don’t look so scared. I need you to be my guide and to help me with spotting any signs of activity out there. You know these woods better than me.”

She did know these woods. She also knew how to steer him away from places he didn’t need to go. Her heart beat in little skips and jumps, but she didn’t have a choice in this matter, either. She would have to serve not only as Adan’s guide, but his guard, too.

She ran a hand over her hair. “I’ll get my gear.”

He gave her a puzzled glance. “I figured you’d protest and stomp your foot and come up with some good excuses.”

Sophia quirked an eyebrow. “Would that have worked?”

He laughed at her remark. “No. I’d still take you with me.”

“Even if I refused to go?”

“That would only make me suspicious.”

“You mean even more suspicious than you already are?”

“Yeah. Even more.”

She went about putting on her hat, gloves and coat so she could hide the fear and disappointment his words brought out. “Why don’t we get going while the morning sun is bright and shiny? The snow won’t melt completely. Too cold out here.”

“Fine.”

That sun might shine a light on things she wanted to hide. But if she kept him on the road and out of the woods, they should be okay.

She should be okay.

He grabbed his coat and hat. Then he turned to holster his gun. “Let’s go then.”

Sophia felt as if she was about to go on a death march. How could she keep up this charade until the winter mix had melted completely? Until she could wave goodbye to Adan? Until she found out for sure if a criminal who wanted her dead was still out there somewhere?

With weak cell signals and frozen roads below them, Sophia figured he’d be here for a couple of days, at least. No snowplows or tow trucks would dare come here, anyway. This mountain was too remote for any kind of county maintenance.

She was juggling a lot of snowballs and they could all come crashing down on her if she wasn’t careful.

* * *

THEY WALKED DOWN the curving mountain road in silence.

Adan wondered what Sophia was thinking. She’d been a bit too keen on escorting him to his truck. Probably afraid he’d stumble on the place she’d obviously hidden a criminal. Or possibly, she was trying to stall him while the others helped that criminal get away.

But he still couldn’t figure out how anyone could have found a hiding place out here in this whitewashed world. The only visible cabins were up the ridge on a flat incline. He’d checked around the area when they’d first walked outside. Sophia had pointed out the circle of cabins and mentioned again the people who lived here year-round.

“The last cabin’s vacant. The owners usually come up here in the spring and summer.”

Adan should have searched more last night, but the driving snow and the possibility of getting lost in whiteout had held him back. “I’ll want to check the cabins before we head down the road to my truck. He could have broken into one.”

She’d obediently followed him, her gaze cutting here and there through the ice-covered trees. When they’d searched around the vacant cabin and glanced in the windows, Adan decided he could rule out anyone hiding inside. No signs of forced entry in the windows or doors.

So what would he find on down the road?

Now they were headed past the little community and down the sloping road, the way slippery with ice patches and thick with snowdrifts. So far, they hadn’t seen a soul. The woods were quiet and settled in a blanket of fresh, powdery snow.

“It rarely snows this heavily here,” Sophia said, her breath wispy around her. “I need to take some pictures.”

“It’s cold,” he said, hoping to rouse her into more small talk. “And beautiful.”

“Yes.”

She said that in a way that implied he might be stupid.

Adan smiled at her attitude. If he could trust her, that kind of sass might be cute. But since he couldn’t trust her, it only managed to irritate him.

He tried again. “Did you have any big plans for today?”

“No.”

“So do you try to work every day?”

“Most days, yes.” She actually cut him a glance. “I like to take long walks and find different things to include in my work. Twigs and leaves, old buttons and scraps, feathers. I never know what I’ll find.”

“My job is kind of like that, too,” Adan replied, glad for the comparison. “I have to put together bits and pieces of different things to come up with a way to solve a case.”

She slanted her gaze toward him again. “Are you comparing your job to art?”

“I guess I am. It requires a certain amount of artistic persuasion to find out what I need to know.”

“Oh, is that what you’d call this? You questioning my every move and badgering me to come clean on something I don’t even know about? That’s your kind of art?”

“I am painting a picture in my mind, yes.”

“Are you always this funny?”

“I have my moments.”

She gave him a harsh glance followed by a wry smile. “At least you’re not boring.”

“You might change your mind on that after I’ve been around a few days.”

She stopped on the snow-packed road so fast ice chips flew out around her boots. “Are you staying that long?”

He gave her a frown. “Ah, tired of me already?”

“Yes,” she said much to his surprise. “I want my nice, quiet life back. You’re annoying.”

“You make me laugh in spite of myself,” he admitted.

Then he decided while he had her out here in the open, he’d level with her. But he made sure they were in the middle of the slippery road and not near a plunging ravine before he confronted her. “Sophia, we really need to talk.”

She looked up at him, concern filtering through her poker face. “This is no laughing matter, is it?”

At least she knew the situation was dangerous. But she also needed to know he was serious. Dead serious. “No. Pritchard is desperate and he’s mean. That’s a dangerous combination.”

Her face went pale again. “Are you sure he’s still here?”

“If he came to this mountain with a purpose, he won’t leave until he’s fulfilled that purpose.”

She held a hand to her mouth and then dropped it to her side. “We need to check your truck and then get back. I don’t like leaving the others.”

Adan stopped on the side of the road and breathed deep, his words coming out through a cold mist. “Sophia, I’m not leaving this mountain until I have my man. If I have to drag Joe Pritchard back to Texas in a body bag, I’ll do it. I always get my man.”

Then he gave her one of his surefire Ranger glares. “Or my woman.”

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