Snowbound Security. Beverly Long

for the couch.” He drew in a lungful of air. His cabin smelled like bleach. The cleaning crew he hired would have cleaned it after the last visitor, but he’d never noticed the smell before.

      “Did you have surgery?” she asked.

      “Yes,” he said. Because it seemed important to her, he leaned down, pulled his jeans up and his sock down. “Three weeks post-op,” he lied, shaving off two weeks.

      She nodded and he caught a quick flicker of unease in her eyes as she quickly glanced toward the second bedroom. There was definitely someone else in the cabin. There were two plates and two glasses drying on a towel next to the sink.

      “This is a heck of a problem,” he said. “I’m really sorry about it.” He stopped. “You’re not allergic to dogs, right?”

      She blinked, as if she was having trouble following him. Shook her head.

      “Great. That’s great. Look, the only thing I know for sure is that I need a place to crash and get my leg up for the night. My dog is in the car and I’ll need to bring him in, too. My info on this place said there were two bedrooms and some couches that pulled out.” He made a pretense of verifying that the one he was sitting on did. “Yep. I’d be happy to just flop here for the night and we can figure this out in the morning.”

      * * *

      What he was suggesting was impossible. He was a stranger.

      But she was fairly confident that he’d told the truth about his injury. The incision was consistent with surgery to fix a fracture of the lateral process of the talus. And that kind of injury could indeed happen in a waterskiing accident. Three weeks post-surgery, he definitely should not have been driving. No wonder his ankle was hurting.

      He was being pretty nice considering that he had to be irritated that there’d been a mix-up with the reservation.

      She’d known this was a possibility. But Melissa, who worked as a home health aide, had made it sound so good. “There’s a cabin, in Colorado,” she’d said. “I don’t know much about it except that one of the patients that I’m assigned to was supposed to go there. But she’s too ill. Just canceled this morning.”

      At first, Laura had discounted it. How the hell was she going to get to Colorado?

      But then Melissa, who’d been assisting the patient with accessing her emails, had offered up the entry code. As well as her ex-husband’s car that was currently in storage. Clovis will never know it’s gone.

      It had seemed like a good option, certainly the best option she had on short notice.

      She hadn’t counted on the rental company being able to get another guest on such short notice. He was apologetic now, but when this man called in the morning, it would become very clear that she was the interloper, not him.

      She should go now. But the truth was, she was exhausted and desperately needed some sleep. She was still recovering from the marathon drive and, quite frankly, it had been horribly stressful to cut Hannah’s long hair. She’d wanted to cry when she saw the long blond curls lying on the floor. Had thought about saving some but then immediately dismissed the idea. She needed to be vigilant about not leaving clues, and a lock of hair would be a stupid mistake. So she summoned her nerve, finished the haircut, swept up the hair and burnt it in the fireplace. Then put a medium brown dye on Hannah’s remaining short hair and dried it with a hair dryer to keep it smooth.

      Fortunately, Hannah hadn’t seemed to mind any of it. Her best friend at daycare had short brown hair and Hannah had been delighted that they were going to look like twins. Laura knew she’d never see that other child again but said nothing.

      There’d been no opportunity for a nap later, not even when Hannah had slept because Laura had dyed her own hair during that time. She hadn’t wanted the little girl to see her doing it. It would have elicited too many questions, made too big of an impression. Was much better that Hannah woke up and Laura passed off her new hair with a simple, “Now I’m blonde like you used to be. We both changed our hair today.”

      And if she were to leave now, there was no way she’d get Hannah into the car without waking her. Would she go back to sleep right away, or would she be awake for hours, concerned that they were once again in the car?

      How much change and disruption could the little girl take? Taking off in the daylight, after she’d had a good night’s sleep, had to be less startling, less scary.

      Laura wasn’t physically scared of the man. Yes, he was tall and fit but so was she. He had a definite liability with the ankle injury. One well-aimed kick from her in that vicinity would bring him to his knees. But she didn’t want him on the couch. There was a front door and a back door and he’d be squarely between both. Not good if she needed to leave quickly in the middle of the night.

      Why would you need to do that, a little voice nagged at her. She should be safe here. But just in case, she said, “You can stay. There’s no need for you to sleep on the couch. Give me a minute to get settled. The bedroom with the open door will be yours.”

      She waited until he nodded.

      “And just in case you’re wondering,” she added, “I’m a light sleeper. I’m taking my gun with me. If you try to come in, I’m going to shoot first and ask questions later.”

       Chapter 2

      When Rico woke up, he could smell coffee. He took an appreciative sniff. Didn’t drink the stuff, never had. But thought it smelled pretty damn good.

      He glanced at his watch. Just after seven. Which was late for him. But he’d been sleeping badly these last few weeks. He’d roll over without thinking and boom, there it was: the weakness, the tenderness, all telling him that the bone wasn’t quite healed.

      But it was better than he’d let on last night. Because he’d been fairly confident that the woman would have demanded he leave had he not appeared to be significantly impaired.

      It had taken her just one trip to move a few items out of the larger bedroom and into the smaller one. Then she’d closed her door.

      He’d made two trips to his vehicle. The first time, he’d moved his SUV into the driveway, parking it right next to her Mustang. Lucky had tumbled out of the car, so damn excited to finally be there. He loved his time at the cabin.

      Rico had let him sniff around and do the things dogs do outside while he unloaded. Finally, he had his crutches, his duffel bag and all the groceries inside. But before calling Lucky in, he took a second to enter her license plate into his phone.

      Back inside, he’d made sure the door was locked. Lucky had immediately made a path to the doorway of the second bedroom and stood at the door, softly whining. “I’ll introduce you in the morning,” Rico had whispered. “Settle down.”

      The dog had stopped whining and moved to the living room where he plopped down on one of the leather couches. Rico had quietly put away the perishables into the refrigerator. There’d been nothing in there but a few apples and oranges. The woman had said she’d arrived yesterday. He had wondered what she’d planned to eat if she stayed awhile. He’d left his remaining groceries on the counter, not wanting to open and shut cupboards and drawers.

      When he got into the bedroom, he saw a pile of sheets in the corner. Knew that his cleaning crew would never have left them there and was confident that she’d stripped the sheets off the king-sized bed and put on a clean set from the tote. Interesting. Had no qualms about being in the cabin without permission, but didn’t want him to sleep on used sheets.

      He probably wouldn’t have minded. He’d caught a whiff of her scent as she’d come in the door behind him and it had been sharply sexy.

      Last night he’d examined both the front and back doors of the cabin and all the windows. Hadn’t seen anything that led him to believe that she’d broken in. If she hadn’t forced