Evidence of Trust (25 page)

“You’re lucky that horse’s hoof just grazed you,” the woman commented.

She was a whole lot luckier than that. They all were—her, the horses, Joel. He watched silently from the chair beside the bed, elbows braced on his knees. They’d let him clean up in the bathroom, and someone had found him a T-shirt. Red rimmed his eyes, making it look like he’d been crying, but she knew it was from the stinging smoke.

Her eyes burned for a different reason as guilt crept in. She should’ve given him the note right way.

“You’ll be able to go home later this morning, but with the mild concussion, you’re going to need someone with you for at least the next twenty-four hours. Forty-eight would be best.”

“I got that covered,” Joel said.

The doctor glanced at him, then focused back on her work. “Good. I’ll send you home with instructions.”

Home
. The woman kept saying the word, and Britt realized it didn’t conjure up a picture of her place in Chicago. It didn’t bring to mind any one place. Instead, she found her gaze drawn to Joel once more.

Only he’d turned his attention to the door and risen to his feet. Britt looked over to see Aaron shadowing the doorway. He nodded at her, but stepped outside with Joel. She found herself straining to hear their low voices in the hall as the doctor finished.

“The nurses will be in each hour, and I’ll be back to check on you before I finish my shift at eight,” the doctor told her. “Get yourself some rest now.”

“Thank you,” she murmured. Tired as she was, once the woman left, Britt grew more frustrated by the minute as the men remained outside the door where she couldn’t hear a thing. She was about to call them inside when Aaron glanced over and noticed her frown. He said something to Joel, then stepped past to enter the room. Joel went the other direction and her chest tightened.

“Where’s Joel going?”

“To ask Mandy to grab your bag out of the truck.”

“For the envelope,” she guessed.

“That, and clean clothes for you.”

She didn’t return his brief smile and shifted her gaze toward the window. “I’m sorry. I know this is all my fault.”

“No it’s not,” Joel stated as he returned. She met his fierce frown. “That bastard is responsible, not
you.”

She shook her head. “I should’ve—”

“What’s done is done, Britt,” Aaron interrupted. “Joel’s right, so don’t beat yourself up over it. Right now, the most important thing is that you’re okay and no one else got hurt.”

Easy for them to say. She’d thought she was protecting her horse, but instead put all the animals
and
Joel in danger. If anything had happened to him in the fire…

He stood next to Aaron, and she wished he’d come closer. At the same time, she knew she should send him away. Being with her is what could’ve gotten him killed tonight.

“Joel’s kept me in the loop on his investigation so far,” the sheriff said. “But from here on out, we’re combining resources to nail this guy once and for all.”

She nodded, though her mind whirled about what
she
could do to help. Lying in a bed like a helpless victim was not a feeling she liked one damn bit.

Aaron glanced toward the door as Mandy entered with her duffle. She handed it to him and he set the bag on the foot of her bed before digging out the envelope. He dropped it into a plastic evidence bag, then sealed the bag. “I’m going to take what I’ve got here and get everything processed for prints. Between that and the investigation the fire Chief has started at the ranch, we might have something to work with later this morning.”

Joel walked to the door with him and the two spoke in hushed tones again.

“You could use me.” Both men swiveled to face her. “To draw him out, I mean. I could—”

“
Hell
no.”

That came from Joel even as Aaron shook his head. “You are going to lay low for a few days. Even better if you got out of town.”

Her eyes widened. They wanted her to leave?

“Listen, we’ll talk later, okay?” Joel murmured to Aaron.

The sheriff turned to Mandy. “I have to talk to the fire chief, so I can give you a ride back to the ranch.”

She nodded, and after Britt and Joel both thanked her, the two of them left. Joel turned and leaned against the doorjamb, arms crossed over his chest. Britt watched him, all the way across the room, her heart weighted with dread.

“You want me to leave?”

“I want you to be safe. But I might not be the best person for that job. Being next to me puts you in more danger.”

“I think it’s the other way around.”

“I can take care of myself, Brittany.” He uncrossed his arms and straightened to come closer to the bed. Her pulse increased with each step, but he stopped and gripped the plastic footboard. His gaze fixed on the bandage along her hairline as he asked, “Would you consider leaving? Going home early?”

She should. To protect him and even herself. And Mark would understand, she knew that. But she realized she couldn’t stand the thought of leaving Colorado any more than she could stand the thought of this being the last time she saw Joel. As it was, she only had so many days before he left, so she wanted every minute with him she could have.

The word selfish hovered in her head, until something else occurred to her. “What if he follows me to Chicago? Who’s going to watch my back then?” She trusted
him
for that job, no one else. “It’s obvious from the note this person knows all about me. I mean, he knows you call me Brittany, and he knew about Daniel.”

“I’ve been thinking about that.” Joel finally moved to the side of the bed and sat on the edge facing her, his hip brushing against hers. “If you stay, you and I are going to have to do some major brainstorming. Come up with a list of everyone you know so Aaron and I can start digging.”

If you stay.
There was no
if
about it. She’d finally figured out exactly where she wanted to be, no way in hell was she going anywhere. She sat forward and placed her hand on his leg, just above his knee. He covered her hand with his, sending fissions of electricity up her arm.

“I’m not leaving.”

His fingers squeezed hers as his lashes lifted. Relief and something more darkened the gold-flecked eyes that met hers. “Good.”

It’s a good thing she wasn’t hooked to a heart monitor, or the whole floor of nurses would have come running.

“And I want to help any way I can.”

“So long as you get that crazy idea out of your head about you being bait to lure this guy out. If anything happened to you…”

When he trailed off, his hand came up to brush the hair away from her face, then threaded through the tangled strands to cup the back of her neck. He leaned in for a quick kiss, then gently rested his forehead against hers, well clear of the bandage. “Promise me you won’t do anything stupid.”

“I won’t.”

But she already had. With her pulse tripping along at breakneck speed, she realized she’d fallen in love with the man who’d made no secret of the fact he’d never stay.

Chapter 29

One hundred percent confident no one had followed them this time, Joel put the truck in park and reached for the ignition. A glance toward his sleeping passenger made him pause. He hugged the steering wheel while laying his head down on his arms to just look at her.

Brittany’s head was angled away from him, but he could still see telltale circles beneath her eyes from lack of sleep and stress. Her hair needed to be washed better than the rinse the nurses had given her in the hospital, and the unpleasant stench of smoke seemed to have seeped deep into both their pores. Even with all that, she was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again. His heart was in for a world of hurt once this was all over, but right now, he couldn’t bring himself to care. As long as she was safe and he kept her that way, nothing else mattered.

She’d fallen asleep less than five minutes into the drive, which was not a surprise seeing as she’d barely rested in the hospital. About five a.m., he’d left for a couple hours only to return and find a seemingly endless stream of friends popping in to make sure she was okay. Casey, Jayne, Mitch, Jon, Randy, Billy, Mark.

There were others he hadn’t met, and he added every single one to his growing list of names.

He watched each person, his anxiety winding tighter with each visitor as he was unable to keep from wondering which one of them had tried to kill them less than twelve hours ago. Recalling that faint scent of gas, he had no doubt the fire had been intentionally set. Even Brittany wasn’t her usual warm, welcoming self, and more than once he caught concerned glances exchanged between her friends.

Gina had arrived shortly before they discharged Brittany about two o’clock, and he took a moment to make sure she wasn’t planning to return to her apartment alone. Jackson was with her, she told him, and she’d head back to Denver with him for a few more days. Joel nodded his approval and added their names to the list as well. Brittany hadn’t seen it yet, but he could just imagine what she’d say when she did.

He shut off the truck and gently closed the driver’s door before going around to her side. When he opened the passenger door, she startled awake. Her gaze found his, her green eyes so large in her pale face that his chest ached.

He offered a reassuring smile. “It’s just me.”

Color infused her cheeks as she sat up straighter. “Sorry. I’m not usually so…wait, where are we? This isn’t your place.”

She stared out the windshield at the rustic cabin nestled in a small clearing, surrounded by enough Ponderosa Pines to permeate the air with their vanilla-scented bark. The sound of running water told Joel the stream they’d crossed a few minutes ago on the road ran right past the back of the cabin.

“Aaron gave me the key to his cabin. We’re about fifteen minutes out of Estes, and he’s the only one who knows we’re here. He made sure there was no way to track us.”

When she started to climb out of the truck, he reached forward, intending to carry her inside. She held up a hand. “I’m good. I have a bump on the head, not broken legs.”

She softened the rebuff with a smile, and he backed up to grab their bags from the back. “Okay.”

Two steps toward the cabin, she paused. He quickly moved to her side, but all she did was take a deep inhale.

“Mmm, that smells good.”

“After a shower, it’ll be even better without the undercurrent of Eau de Smoke.”

Her laugh warmed his heart. “You smell, too, you know.”

“I know.” He hadn’t showered when he left the hospital, only taken the time to grab his things from the duplex, stop at the ranger station for his files, and then the police station to talk to Aaron.

“I call first dibs,” she said.

“It’s all yours.”

He went ahead of her to unlock the door, then swung it open and stepped aside for her to enter first. She halted in the doorway.

“Hello. Right behind you here.”

“Sorry.”

She moved out of the way, and he carried the bags inside. One glance was all it took to understand her hesitation on the threshold. The small cabin consisted of exactly two rooms. One was clearly the bathroom, the other was a combination kitchen, living area and bedroom…with one bed.

One large bed.

Despite her injury and the past twelve hours, his mind went right back to that kiss in the barn. “I didn’t realize…I’ll take the couch.”

“It’s not a big deal, Joel.”

She shut the door behind him and took her bag from his hand. The brush of her fingers against his fueled the simmering burn in his veins. After she’d crossed the room and shut the door to the bathroom, he blew out a breath. It was going to be a long night.

The only way to distract his libido once the water turned on was to head back to the truck to haul in his box of investigation files and the bag of groceries he’d picked up after throwing out half of what he’d bought the night before. The food only took a minute to put away, and then he spread the files out on the table, laptop off to the side.

Instead of reading the words in front of him, he listened for when the water shut off. Then he counted the minutes until the door opened, emitting a light cloud of steam that quickly dissipated in the cooler room as she stepped out.

“All yours. And good
God
, did that feel good.”

Good God,
she was going to drive him crazy. Her wet hair fell over her shoulders and down her back. She wore a short pair of thin, black pajama pants with a matching cotton tank top—and no bra. Comfortable and casual, and sexy as hell.

Not even the bruise on her head could douse the blaze sweeping through him. After one lingering glance, he bit back a groan and forced his attention back to the papers on the table.

She flipped back the comforter on one side of the bed and sat on the edge to comb through her curls. He flipped to the next file and read the first page. Then read it again.

Nope, not working.

He shut the file, shoved to his feet, and scooped up his own bag. “I won’t be long.”