Identity: Classified. Liz Shoaf

saw him first and flew into his lap, wrapping her precious arms around his neck, preventing him from reaching for his weapon. He kept his eyes glued to the new woman in town, and, in a flash, Sam tucked away her weapon and seated herself back at the table. He started breathing again.

      “Daddy, you’ll never believe what happened at school today. Tommy Milton put a gross frog in my desk and I told him you’d put him in jail. He said a person couldn’t go to jail for that, but that’s not true, is it? ’Cause he deserves to be punished.”

      Ethan stared at his six-year-old blond-haired blue-eyed precious daughter and wondered yet again why he’d been so blessed to have this child. She was the spitting image of her mother and the reason he got out of bed each morning.

      He didn’t have a chance to respond because Penny squealed and wiggled out of his lap when she spotted the sweet-vicious dog. She got away from him and was on the floor with the animal before he had a chance to stop her. He held his breath, waiting to see if the beast would take a chunk out of his daughter, until a chuckle came from across the table.

      He frowned at Sam.

      “Don’t worry. He won’t hurt her. Geordie loves kids.”

      A knife, a gun, an attack poodle and a Harley. Ethan wasn’t happy with the new visitor in town, but he couldn’t question her in front of his daughter.

      “Penny, how did you know I was here?”

      Big, innocent blue eyes swung his way. “Daddy, I asked the bus driver to let me off at the station. Mrs. Armstrong told me you were here.”

      Mrs. Denton interrupted before he could reprimand his daughter for ditching her after-school babysitter.

      “Have a cookie, Penny. They’re fresh out of the oven.”

      His daughter scurried around the table, grabbed a cookie and stared at Sam.

      “Who are you and is that your dog?”

      Ethan took a small amount of satisfaction in Sam’s discomfort as she stared at his daughter as if she’d never seen a child before.

      “Um, my name is Samantha Bailey, and Geordie belongs to me.”

      “What kind of a dog is he? Can I come play with him tomorrow after school?”

      Time to put a lid on his daughter’s natural curiosity and find out more about Sam before Penny spent any future time with her.

      “Penny, thank Mrs. Denton for the cookie. We should get you back to the sitter. She’ll be worried sick when you don’t get off the school bus at her house.”

      Penny focused adorable, pleading eyes on him. “You’re not mad, are you, Daddy? I just couldn’t wait to see you after school.”

      As always, his heart melted. “No, sweetie, I’m not mad. We’ll talk about this when we get home.”

      Sam mumbled something under her breath. He gave her a sharp look. Did she just say what he thought she said?

      “What was that?”

      Her lips curved up at the corners, and her words came out sweet and syrupy. “I said one of my dogs would never get away with what your daughter just did.”

      That raised his hackles. Nobody criticized his daughter but him. “And what did my daughter just do?”

      Sam gave Penny an apologetic glance. “Sorry, kid, but I know all the tricks.” She looked back at Ethan. “Let’s just say I train dogs on the side, and I know all about handling. We’ll leave it at that.”

      Ethan was about to explode until he saw Penny’s eyes narrow on Sam. Time to go. He’d seen that look before and it usually preceded an unsettling argument.

      Maybe he had been too lenient, but Penny had lost her mother so young, and his daughter’s tears just tore him up.

      He rose and took Penny by the hand. “Thanks for the cookies, Mrs. Denton.” He also acknowledged Sam. “I hope you enjoy your vacation.”

      He pulled Penny away from the dog and breathed a sigh of relief when they were outside. His daughter walked quietly beside him on their way back to the station. He tightened his hand on hers when he thought about Sam and the beige sedan and wondered if trouble had followed Miss Biker Babe to Jackson Hole.

       THREE

      It was after midnight, and Geordie’s eyes followed Chloe as she dumped everything she had brought with her onto the bed. She checked every piece of clothing, searched every item of her toiletries and went through Geordie’s supplies, but found no tracking devices. Not that she expected to. She would have known if someone had broken into her apartment. She had very good security, but she checked all her stuff anyway, just to be on the safe side. Throwing on her jacket, her dog followed her as she went outside and scoured her bike from front to back.

      No tracking devices anywhere.

      She reached down and scratched Geordie behind the ears. He grunted and she grinned.

      “Whatcha think? Should we move on to safer pastures, or stay here and find out who those two men in the beige sedan are? It could be they’re harmless. Just two men on vacation.”

      Her dog grunted.

      “Yeah, I don’t think so, either. As Stan always says, there are few coincidences in life. Well, there’s only one way to find out. Let’s get you back inside and I’ll pay our New York friends a little middle-of-the-night visit and see what’s what. Maybe they know something about the disc.”

      Geordie knew the drill, and after he settled in, Chloe took off on foot. The air had a bite when she stepped back outside, warning that winter wasn’t far behind. Pulling her leather collar up, she started walking. From her online search of Jackson Hole, there were only a few motels in town besides the bed-and-breakfast. Several blocks away, she circled the first one, but there was no beige sedan. The car was parked right in front of room number 126 at the second motel.

      Avoiding the security lights, Chloe stayed in the shadows and ducked to one side of the car. Rising, she peered through the windows, but there was nothing on the seats, front or back. In a crouched position, she ran to the door, then checked the room’s single window. No light from a television or computer screen seeped past the edges of the curtains.

      Hopefully, they were fast asleep. Taking a deep breath, she pulled a set of lock picks from the pocket of her leather pants and stood there, staring at them for the longest time. She thought of the people who would be disappointed if she broke the law. Stan, Sarah Rutledge and Uncle Henry. She’d walked on the straight and narrow ever since those harrowing teenage years, and she realized she couldn’t do it.

      So she wouldn’t be tempted to change her mind, she tucked the tools away and hurried toward the sidewalk fronting the motel. Turning right toward the bed-and-breakfast, she slipped the knife from her sleeve and into her right hand as a large body moved silently from the woods hugging the sidewalk.

      She stopped when she recognized the sheriff and flipped the weapon in the air before shoving it back up her sleeve. She disliked being caught off guard, surprised he’d slipped up on her. That’s what she got for disregarding her own instinct for survival and not paying attention while agonizing over doing the right thing. Had he been in the woods the whole time? Had he seen her standing in front of room 126?

      He stood close, his legs spread in an intimidating manner, but she refused to back away. That would reek of weakness. Best to go on the defensive. She looked up—way up—and moved even closer. She’d learned that nifty move while working with dogs. Always move forward and the dog would move back. It put the human in the pack leader position. Only problem was, Sheriff Hoyt didn’t react like her furry friends. He stood firm, as if he was at the top of the pecking order.

      She rocked back on