LITMIR.BIZ

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but she kept her weight against the wall in case her legs gave way. She got her first good look at the man she had thought she could trust. Now she wasn’t so sure.

      It was Jack Whitley all right.

      She recognized that midnight-black hair. Those intense gunmetal-blue eyes. He wore jeans and a white shirt with his badge clipped onto a wide leather belt with a rodeo buckle. Definitely a cowboy cop in both appearance and attitude.

      “I told you the truth about being held hostage,” Alana insisted.

      But if he heard her, there was no indication of it. His eyes widened, then narrowed. “Alana Davis?” he snarled.

      “You remember me.” The intense look in his eyes was scaring her.

      “Yeah. I remember you.”

      Too bad she couldn’t recall exactly what she’d done to rile him. And there was no mistaking that she’d done just that. “You helped me.”

      He glared at her. “Eight months ago, I pulled you from your car when you went over the bridge at Mill’s Creek.”

      Yes. Images flashed through her mind. Icy water. She couldn’t breathe. Trapped in her car. She tried to make the pieces fit and finally nodded. “You saved my life.”

      He didn’t take his eyes off her. “And you ran away from the hospital the first chance you got. You didn’t tell anyone why you were leaving or where you were going.”

      Alana didn’t remember that at all. Why would she have done that?

      “Look, I don’t know what game you’re playing, or why you showed up here like this. But it doesn’t matter,” he stated. “You’re not getting Joey back.”

      “Joey?” She shook her head.

      That riled him even more. “Are you saying you don’t remember him?”

      Alana forced herself to concentrate on that name. Joey. But it meant nothing to her.

      “I’m confused about some things. Not about being held captive,” she admitted. “Or you rescuing me from my car eight months ago. I know those things happened. But I think this fever’s making it hard for me to concentrate. ”

      “Right.” That was all he said for several long moments. “I’ll call the doctor and see if he’s still at the hospital,” he grumbled.

      Jack shoved his gun back into his shoulder holster, caught her arm and led her to his office. He put her in the chair adjacent to his cluttered desk, and snatched up the phone.

      While Jack made a call to the doctor, Alana tried to force herself to think, to assemble the memories that were fragmented in her head.

      Had she really left the hospital after Jack saved her?

      “My brother,” she mumbled. Then she groaned. Maybe her brother, Sean, had heard about her accident and had done what he usually did.

      Taken over her life.

      If she’d been incapacitated, he would have had her removed from the hospital. And yes, he would have done that without telling anyone, including the sheriff. Sean wouldn’t have approved of the medical care, or lack thereof, that she might be getting in a small country hospital.

      And had Sean then taken her to the house in the woods?

      Probably not.

      Alana leaned forward so she could lay her head on Jack’s desk. There weren’t many bare spots on the scarred oak, but there was plenty of stuff. A flyer showed a picture of a woman with the word missing beneath her name, Kinley Ford. Several old newspapers. An outdated chunky computer monitor, stacks of files, not one but two chipped coffee mugs, a half-eaten slice of chocolate cake on a saucer.

      She saw the fax about the car she’d supposedly stolen and would have gotten angry all over again if she hadn’t spotted a framed photograph of Jack holding a baby boy. The baby wore denim overalls, a miniature cowboy hat and red boots. Both Jack and the baby were grinning.

      Staring at the baby, Alana reached for the picture, but Jack snatched it away from her and put it into his center desk drawer.

      “The doctor’s on his way here,” he relayed the second he hung up the phone.

      That was good. But it wasn’t the doctor or her fever that had her attention now. It was the little boy in the picture. “Who’s Joey?” she asked.

      Jack Whitley cursed under his breath. “What the hell’s the matter with you?”

      She flinched at his hard tone. “The fever, I guess. But you already know that. Please tell me—who’s Joey?”

      For several long moments, he didn’t say anything. Alana was afraid he might not tell her. For reasons she didn’t understand, it was suddenly critical that she know.

      “Joey’s the baby you gave birth to eight months ago,” Jack informed her. “W-what?”

      Jack leaned in and got right in her face. “Joey’s the little boy you abandoned at Willow Ridge Hospital.” He stabbed his index fingers at her. “And if you think you can get him back after all this time, then think again. Because Joey is mine.”

       Chapter Two

      Jack felt as if someone had dropped a mountain on him.

      The same woman who’d already given him the surprise of his life eight months ago on Christmas morning.

      Alana Davis.

      Now here she’d turned up again like a bad penny. Driving a stolen car and rattling off a story about being held captive.

      A story he wasn’t buying.

      Alana had some explaining to do.

      She didn’t look much different now than she had when he’d fished her out of that frozen creek. She’d been wet then. Shivering, and scared, too.

      Of course, she’d had a darn good reason to be scared. She’d nearly drowned and then had gone into shock and labor at the same time. It’d been a miracle that Jack hadn’t had to deliver the newborn right there in the cab of his truck. Thankfully, he’d gotten her to the hospital and Dr. Bartolo in the nick of time.

      “I had a baby?” Alana asked.

      It was a question that confused and riled Jack. Of course, just about everything Alana had ever done had confused and riled him. Maybe it was the fever causing her to act this way. Maybe not. But it didn’t matter. She’d made her decision about Joey the minute she walked out on him when he was barely a day old.

      Now she’d have to live with that decision.

      She couldn’t have a lick of a claim to Joey. Jack had been the only father the little boy had ever known. He wouldn’t lose him now, especially not to the mother who’d abandoned him, and Jack was certain he’d be able to convince a judge of that. She might have some legal rights as the birth mother, but those rights could be taken away.

      “You don’t remember giving birth to a baby,” he said. Jack made sure it sounded as if he was accusing her of a Texas-size lie.

      Tears sprang to her china-blue eyes, and her bottom lip trembled. She awkwardly swiped at her wet shoulder-length brown hair to push it away from her face. “Why are you saying this? Why are you telling these lies?” The tears and the trembling increased. “If I’d had a baby, I would have remembered.”

      But the stark fear on her pale face said differently.

      “Oh, you had a baby all right. Six pounds, two ounces,” he supplied.

      She only shook her head.

      And Jack saw something in those blue eyes that he hadn’t wanted to see. Something familiar that he’d garnered from eight years of being the sheriff of Willow

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