LITMIR.BIZ

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      She blinked, disoriented for a moment, then whispered a fervent prayer that she hadn’t done something humiliating in front of the man, like snore or drool or—heaven forbid—talk in her sleep.

      They had stopped moving, she realized. The cessation of movement must have been what awakened her. The SUV was parked at the gas pump of a dusty, dilapidated filling station, far from the traffic and houses of the Wasatch Front.

      “Where are we?” she asked, her voice gruff with sleep.

      “A ways past Price. Sorry to wake you but Belle needed to get out.”

      “No. It’s fine. I can’t believe I fell asleep.”

      “Don’t worry about it. You looked comfortable so I figured you needed it. I know what kind of hours you M.D.s keep.” He started to say something more but Belle’s sharp, impatient bark cut him off.

      Kate winced. “That sounds urgent bordering on desperate. Why don’t I go to that park across the street and play with her for a few moments while you fill up?” she offered.

      “Thanks. I brought along a ball and a Frisbee. She likes either one.” He looked a little embarrassed. “But I guess you know what she prefers, don’t you? Probably better than I do.”

      That bitterness tinged his voice again and again she had to fight her instinctive urge to offer comfort.

      He opened his car door and she caught sight of the gas pump again, which reminded her of something she meant to bring up earlier in the trip. She reached for the huge, slouchy purse she’d bought in Guatemala when she was there on a medical mission a few months earlier, and dug through it until she found her wallet.

      She pulled out a credit card and handed it to him. “Use this for the gas.”

      With one hand on the frame of the SUV and the other on the door, he gazed at her, another of those unreadable expressions on his face. His mouth quirked a little as if he wanted to say something but he just shook his head.

      “No,” he said, and shut the door in her face.

      Undeterred, she climbed out after him before he could come around and open her door. A cold wind nipped at her and lifted the ends of her hair. The air felt heavy, she thought. Moist and expectant, as if just waiting for the right moment to let loose. Maybe they wouldn’t be able to skirt around the snowstorm after all.

      She shoved away inane thoughts of the weather and focused on what was important. With her Visa tight in her hand, she marched to the rear door of the Grand Cherokee, where he stood hooking on Belle’s leash so he could let her out of the crate.

      “I mean it, Hunter. The only reason you’re even here at some armpit of a gas station in the middle of nowhere is because of me. I intend to take care of expenses on this trip.”

      “I’m here because I want to be here,” he corrected her. “It was my idea to go after the woman you’re looking for.”

      “Right. The woman I’m looking for. That’s my point. For all intents and purposes, you’re my private investigator. You’re working for me, so I should be footing the bill along the way.”

      He paused at that, his hands on Belle’s crate as he closed the door. “Let’s get one thing straight. I’m not working for you. I’m doing this because I want to do it, because I was looking for something to occupy my time, and because I need to be doing something useful.”

      “And I appreciate all those reasons. Believe me, I do. But you’re still here because of me.”

      He sighed at her obstinate tone. “Look, I can afford it, okay?”

      She lifted her chin. “So can I.” So she had a pitiful resident’s salary with medical-school debts that would probably take her the rest of her natural life to repay.

      “Anyway, that’s not the point,” she went on, thrusting the card out to him again. “You’re already going to have to give up a couple weeks out of your life on this quest. Please let me pay for expenses.”

      Belle chose that moment to break in, a slightly frantic note to her bark this time. Hunter let her jump from the vehicle, where she danced around them, eager to be off.

      “You’d better take her,” Hunter said, holding out the leash.

      “Okay, as long as you take this.”

      She didn’t wait for an answer—as she reached to accept the leash, she handed the Visa to him in return. With a victorious laugh, she hurried away after Belle, certain she was leaving him glaring after her.

      Chapter 4

      By the time he finished pumping gas into his Jeep, that cold, damp wind seemed to have picked up and a few stray snowflakes drifted down.

      Hunter looked up at the heavy gray sky. The weather forecasters said the storm wasn’t supposed to hit this part of the state, but it sure looked to him like those black-edged clouds were boiling around up there, ready to blow.

      Maybe they could still outrun it before the center of the storm passed over. If the storm was heading east, as most low-pressure systems moved here in the Intermountain West, it might clip past them.

      He might still have to drive through a little snow, but by the time they hit southern Utah in a few hours, it would probably be mostly rain.

      Anyway, he didn’t mind snow. He had spent his youth driving the canyons of the Wasatch Front, skis strapped to the roof, looking for fresh powder.

      When he was a kid, skiing had been his passion. He’d even been on the junior U.S. ski team for a while.

      For the adult in him, skiing had been therapy. When he was stressed over a case and couldn’t quite find the answer to whatever puzzle he was working on, he would take a few hours of personal leave and head for the slopes. More often than not, while his body focused on turns and terrain, his mind was able to come up with an answer.

      He was chagrined to realize that even though most of the ski resorts had been open since mid-November, he hadn’t been able to summon the energy to go yet.

      The nozzle clicked off, signaling the tank was full. With a sigh, Hunter tightened the gas cap, then went inside to pay.

      On the way, he pulled Taylor’s credit card out of the pocket of his jacket and shoved it in his wallet before pulling out one of his own, new since his release and still shiny enough that the gilding on the numbers hadn’t worn off.

      He had absolutely no intention of letting Kate foot the bill for this trip. He meant what he’d said to her—this whole thing was his idea. He would pay his own way.

      He decided he wouldn’t make a big deal about it, though. He would just keep her card in his wallet until the trip was over, then give it back to her. He wasn’t prepared for another confrontation with her, not when it made her eyes look bright and vibrant and gave her skin that appealing flush, raising all kinds of questions in his vivid imagination, like if she would look like that in his arms.

      Inside the convenience store, he grabbed some liquid caffeine from the soda dispenser. He probably should have asked Kate if she wanted something, but he hadn’t thought of it and he didn’t have the first idea about her beverage preferences.

      Being forced to consider someone else’s likes and dislikes was a novel experience. Or at least not something he had considered much since his arrest three years earlier.

      That was one of the unfortunate side effects of prison—behind bars, the world condensed to one of survival, to thinking of self before anything else.

      At least for him it had. He knew men with families on the outside could spend their time thinking about them. He hadn’t had anyone but Taylor. Though he worried about her, in his heart he had known she could take care of herself, as she had proved so adroitly a few months earlier.

      It would take him a while to get into the rhythm of having someone

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