“Because I am fine,” she told him. “And I need to get to Joe. He’s in danger—”

  “No, he’s not,” her father said. “Not anymore. In large part thanks to you.”

  She frowned. They’d just established she’d only been out a few minutes. The world didn’t spin on a dime in that amount of time.

  “Priscilla’s the one who framed him, not Mark” she said, eyes wide and urgent. “They need to know... Give me your phone, I have to call Glen...” She’d suspected something was up almost right away in the rig, partially based on Joe’s reaction to Priscilla’s histrionics. But when the woman had started talking about her programming degrees, after having just given them plenty of motive...

  But Joe, he’d been going with her, to talk to Priscilla’s dad...

  It all came rolling back with frightening force. “Sheriff Richards...” She glanced at the paramedic. “You got a radio in here? Get Sheriff Richards on the line.”

  The lack of action in the small space was about to drive her to breaking some gurney straps.

  “He already knows everything,” Kyle told her, confusing her. Was she really losing her mind, then? Had he been humoring her about the ten minutes she’d figured she’d been out?

  “And Joe?”

  “Is fine and on his way back to Phoenix, I suspect. Or will be soon.”

  “So...”

  The ambulance stopped. Doors flew open, and she slid away from her father. Into a cubicle, curtains closed around her and her clothes were cut off.

  All overkill.

  But she lay there, letting the professionals do their thing, answering questions, submitting to X-rays, whatever it took to get her ribs taped up so she could get out.

  Knowing that as soon as she was free, on her own two feet, Joe would stand up from his chair in the waiting room, he’d get one look at her, and the worried look would leave his face.

  They’d walk into each other’s arms. Even if just for a cursory so-glad-you’re-okay hug, and he’d tell her where Priscilla was and what happened next.

  Even if she was right, and Priscilla was the one who’d framed him, there was still the social media fallout to deal with. Until word got around that Joe was innocent. Not just not guilty. But innocent.

  It all happened pretty much like she’d figured. She had a couple of cracked ribs and a split lip but was otherwise in perfect health. She hadn’t hit her head, had just passed out due to the tasing, which constricts air flow, and having the wind knocked out of her right afterward. She’d just needed a minute to catch her breath.

  Which, with cracked ribs, and lying on top of a bad woman, had been a bit difficult.

  So with taped ribs and donated clothes from a hospital closet filled for that purpose, she walked out of the ER and into the waiting room just a couple of hours after she’d been brought in. Out before dark.

  But there things got confusing.

  Wrong.

  Four men got up out of chairs to come meet her. And a woman, too.

  Her brothers. Her father. Her grandfather. And her grandmother.

  Shockingly together.

  But no Joe.

  * * *

  Sitting in his rig, still hooked up to electricity at Kyle Meredith’s cabin, Joe drank a beer and watched the sun go down over Shelter Valley.

  Waiting.

  Kierland had assured him that as soon as there was news of McKenna, someone would give him a call on the brand-new cell phone Joe had purchased first thing after leaving the police station.

  McKenna’s brother, whose number he’d obtained from Greg Richards, the sheriff of Shelter Valley, had been his first and only call.

  He’d cleared things up with Glen Rivers at the police station. Thanking the man profusely. He’d get a final bill within a few days. Mailed to his home address in Phoenix.

  It was all still surreal.

  He could go home.

  The sheriff was the one who’d suggested he wait until morning. Just long enough for news to hit nationally. Sierra’s Web marketing experts were all over the internet slamming the #wheresjoenow hashtag with truth and a whole lot of mentions of more to come by morning, and to watch the news.

  He’d been amusing himself with following the viral spread of the posts while he waited on news of McKenna.

  Mostly, he’d been...numb.

  Sitting alone, trying to comprehend.

  He’d been right about Priscilla. She’d been the one to frame him. Other than his bribe-taking father, she’d been the only one involved. Had concocted the plan herself, had written programs, implemented everything.

  Down to the minute detail.

  With one exception.

  She’d failed to protect herself from a curious kid taking a picture of the famous-looking woman visiting Joe’s father’s small, remote Alaskan village.

  A photo the Sierra’s Web investigative expert who’d flown to Alaska had lucked onto when asking questions of every villager...

  Priscilla wouldn’t have known that, but she’d known that Sierra’s Web was closing in on her. She had a seat on the Bellair board. Got every report.

  She was the one who’d started the #wheresjoenow hashtag. Had gotten all her friends to help her spread the word among influencers in an effort, she’d apparently told them, to save her family business. Interviews of those and others would happen. The investigation was only in its beginning stages, but with Sierra’s Web’s help, the Phoenix detectives would have an airtight case to present to prosecutors.

  And the missing link, the one he hadn’t known until Glen Rivers had told him in the sheriff’s office—his private password...

  His father, not trusting him when he got back from juvenile detention, had had a keystroke monitor put on his computer.

  Something young Joe would never have known existed.

  Something thirty-one-year-old Joe had never considered.

  Sipping his beer, thinking about a second one, but wanting to be completely sober and able to drive if McKenna wanted to see him, Joe watched as lights came on all over the city.

  Telling himself that emergency room visits always took forever.

  If McKenna was in life-or-death trouble, someone would have called to let him know.

  Half an hour after Glen had gotten off the phone with Joe and McKenna that afternoon, he’d had a call from his expert in Alaska. Giving him both key pieces of information—Priscilla and the pass code. With one phone call, Glen had alerted Sheriff Richards, who’d already had a frantic call from McKenna’s grandparents. They’d raced up the mountain just in time to see Joe standing over McKenna and Priscilla lying on the ground.

  Priscilla’s hit man driver...he was still an unknown, at least as far as Joe knew. Priscilla might turn on the guy, she might not. Depended on what suited her own interests best.

  Either way, the guy better hope that she hadn’t paid him in any traceable form or her financials were going to lead law enforcement right to his doorstep.

  Guy had probably wet his pants when he’d driven up the mountain expecting to make a kill and finding the place ablaze with police cars and other emergency vehicles. If he had any sense at all, he’d be crossing the Arizona/Mexico border within the hour. If he hadn’t already.

  Priscilla had left the scene on a stretcher, but she’d been cuffed to it. Oddly, he hadn’t taken any pleasure out of the sight.

  James Bellair was going to be hurting over that one for the rest of his life.

  The man had already called Joe.

  Offered him his job back.

  Seeing headlights coming up the road, he stood, set his empty beer can on the counter and went outside, heart pumping as he waited. He hadn’t dared hope that McKenna would be back with him that night, but he’d...wanted her to be.

  The white truck that came into view made sense. Meredith and Sons Construction. She’d need a way back. Either of her brothers or her dad.

  Even if she was just there to pick up her things...he was beyond relieved to see her—anxious to see her. To look her in the eye, and know she really was all right.

  To thank her for...so much more than guarding his body.

  Only one person got out of the truck.

  Kyle Meredith.

  Not McKenna.

  Glancing toward the passenger door, waiting for it to open even though he couldn’t see a head or shoulders on that side of the truck, he finally turned to the older man walking toward him.

  “How is she?” That was all that mattered.

  “Good. Great. McKenna,” the man said, as if that explained it all. Knowing her, her strength and determination, he figured it kind of did.

  Got a little weak-kneed with relief.

  “We all thought you’d be home in Phoenix by now,” the man said, kind of shocking Joe. And making him suddenly embarrassed as well.

  “I apologize, sir. I need to get off your land... I just, if McKenna wanted her things...” He wasn’t a blubberer. He didn’t usually find himself in humiliating situations, either.

  Or have his heart in his throat.

  “No need.” Kyle sounded more pleased than anything. “I’m glad to have a chance to thank you, personally, for standing over that...with a gun.” Joe heard the expletive the pause covered.

  Agreed with it completely.

  “You’re welcome to stay as long as you’d like, Joe. You’re a good man. And a helluva construction guy from what my boys tell me.”

  He glowed like a little boy. Until he recognized what he was doing, straightened his shoulders and nodded.

  “It’s I who owe you, your family... You raised one helluva woman. I owe her my life. Several times over.”

  Kyle’s shrug, his headshake, seemed to convey perplexity—and understanding at the same time. “I never would have figured her for a bodyguard—growing up she was afraid of her own shadow, but there you have it. She found her calling. She won’t let what happened to her dear sweet mama happen to anyone else on her watch.”

  Because she’d been on watch the day her mother had died. A three-year-old trapped in her car seat, overhearing the killer, watching it all go down.

  “They’re keeping her overnight?” he asked then, figuring maybe he could see her in the morning before he headed out.

  “Hell, no. She’s already halfway to Phoenix by now, I’d imagine. Said she wanted to get home, sleep in her own bed. Caught a ride with her grandparents...”

  “What about the blood?” He’d been trying to forget the sight ever since the ambulance carrying her had pulled away. Resetting his mind every time it sent him a replay.

  “She bit her lip on landing. And if you talk to her again, I wouldn’t mention it,” the older man said with a chuckle. “She was grumbling about that even before she got to the hospital. She ended up with a couple of cracked ribs, which she took with a shrug. They taped her up, and she walked out of there.”

  Joe smiled. Expressed his relief, and his thanks. Gathered up McKenna’s things from his rig when Kyle offered to take them for her, and when Kyle told him he’d be seeing him, he agreed that he would.

  Knowing that he would never see the man again.

  Feeling like a fool, standing there in the RV alone after the man left, he pushed the button to pull in the slides, unhooked the electric, got his car on the tow bar and drove himself down the hill and out of Shelter Valley.

  James had told him to take some days off before he came back to work, but Joe had just had his head put on straight for him.

  No matter what he and McKenna had shared, his life was his life, and she wanted no part of it. She needed to have no part of it.

  Leaving his RV outside the gated entrance to his property, he went inside, turned on his computer, found a program, typed, printed and walked the quarter mile from his house to the road, taped the For Sale signs all over the rig, locked the doors and went in to shower and sleep in his own bed.

  He had to get up for work in the morning.

  Work had always been the panacea for what ailed him.

  He was sure it would soon put McKenna out of his mind.

  Or, at least, bury her in a private space that he’d have to visit from time to time.

  Just to remind himself of the incredible completeness he’d once known.

  Chapter 24

  McKenna lay around for a full day. Used her ribs as an excuse. Babied herself. Her grandparents had tried to get her to go home with them, but she’d known she wouldn’t have been able to handle that with aplomb. She’d needed her own space.

  Her grandmother came to see her—twice—that first day.

  She’d heard everything that had happened. Her greeting party outside the ER had filled her in on all the day’s details.

  With both of her grandparents tearfully apologizing for having sent Priscilla her way in the first place. They’d been on their way to a doctor’s appointment to hear test results for her grandmother—a possibly life-threatening screening for something they hadn’t even told McKenna about that had, thankfully, turned out completely benign—but talking after the appointment, they’d both felt off about the morning visit. Her grandfather had made a call to a high-ranking official he knew who filled him in on Priscilla Bellair’s run-ins with the police over the years, and they had immediately called McKenna’s dad to let him know that they might have sent danger McKenna’s way.

  Kyle had called Sheriff Richards first, and then his sons, only to find that McKenna and Joe had already left the construction site—half an hour before.

  Everyone had scrambled, come together, and they’d all come to a happy ending.

  The best of all endings for Joe Hamilton.

  Maybe not for James Bellair, but that was life.

  Her father had called several times that day, too, as had her brothers. Wanting her to come home to recuperate. Telling her that Joe had left her things with them.

  And she’d received his private message through his lack of any kind of attempt to contact her at all. The job was over, and so were they. He didn’t want to see her again.

  As her male family members had cajoled her, in triplicate, on different calls, she’d remained strong in her need to be in her own home, sleep in her own bed. Eventually, they’d capitulated.

  What they didn’t know, what she couldn’t tell them, was that it might be a while before she could be in Shelter Valley again. The town that made everyone welcome, whose residents helped hurting souls heal, was the town where she’d given away her heart.

  And had it broken.

  Her grandmother had told her, during the afternoon visit, that James had offered Joe his job back. She’d said that from what she’d heard, he’d presented himself in his old office before opening that morning.

  A big part of McKenna’s heart soared for him.

  Knowing that Joe was safe, had his life back and was happy made her happy.

  And the smaller part, the selfish part that wanted more time with him...she’d get over that. Just like she got over every other pain in her life.

  When you learned at three how to recover from tragedy, it became an integral part of you. Was just kind of something you did.

  And when you lost it at sixteen, trembling in your room and threatening death if anyone tried to make you go out, you learned your limitations, too.

  Joe’s life was what he needed.

  And it wasn’t a life she could live.

  But as she lay in bed that night, longing for him—his body, but just him even more—she admitted to herself that she just might have fallen in love with her wealthy, framed accountant client.

  She couldn’t be sure, analyzer and planner that she was, but she knew for sure she’d never hurt like she was hurting, never cried like she was crying every time she thought about never seeing him again for the rest of her life.

  But on the second day, she quit wallowing.

  And she quit her job.

  Because the one thing she’d learned during her time with Joe—and maybe on the job before his as well—was that she needed more out of life. Had to find another way to help people live safe, happy lives. Because she needed a real home—and family—of her own.

  She wanted to get married. To have a man in her bed at night who welcomed her with open arms and cried out when she pleasured him.

  A man who had her back when she was in danger, even though she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself.

  She wanted children.

  And there was the true stopping point. No way she could bring little people into the world and expect them to just deal with her continual absences, knowing that every single time she left home, she’d be risking her own life to save another.

  She’d had a good run of it. Had made a true difference.

  But she’d always known the job wouldn’t last forever. Bodies got older.

  And hearts needed different things.

  By the third day, she was meeting with Glen Rivers again—at his behest. Sierra’s Web wanted to offer her a new job—part of a new venture for them. Instead of just hiring qualified-in-their-field experts, they wanted each field of expertise to have a full-time staff member who put every qualified expert through initial and then continued training to make certain that Sierra’s Web’s highest standards were always maintained.

  They wanted her to train and manage all the bodyguard experts who took on Sierra’s Web jobs.

  She accepted the position on the spot.

  And made her life plan.

  She was going to work. Date.

  Fall in love. Get married.

  And be pregnant by the time she was thirty-three.

  That gave her a year for the dating and loving part. And a year to get pregnant.

  She had her work cut out for her.

  But when it came to the falling in love part, she’d be able to quickly cut through the crap. She knew what she wanted. What she needed. What she deserved.