She wanted to believe him. She wanted it more than she could remember wanting anything. But she didn’t. Not really. “No, not quite perfect.”

He was silent for a moment, then said, “Why, because you don’t have a uterus?”

The way he said it sounded so clinical. “You make it sound like we’re discussing an appendix.”

“Just about.” He placed his hands on the sides of her face and raised her gaze to his.

“No, it not the same thing. It’s not a reproductive organ.”

“I don’t mean to sound insensitive here, but there is a hell of a lot more to being a woman than reproducing. A hell of a lot more to being a man than knocking up women. If you ask me, your ex-husband sounds like a jerk, and he did you a real favor by having that affair with your friend. I know he did me a favor. Otherwise, you’d be in Carmel or playing golf in Palm Springs. Instead, you’re standing here with me without your panties on.”

She laughed. “That’s true.”

He slid a hand beneath the back of her dress and grasped her bare behind. “And I wouldn’t have ruined you for other men.”

“You heard that, huh?”

“Of course.” He brushed his nose against hers. “Anything else you want to tell me you’ve lied about before I ruin you some more?”

No, she’d confessed enough for one day. “That’s it.”


Wind whipped Hope’s ponytail about her head as she pawed through the cassette tapes in Dylan’s truck. More Dwight Yoakam, Aaron Tippin, John Anderson, Garth Brooks… and AC/DC. She took the latter out of the case and held it up. “Highway To Hell?”

He looked over at her through his mirrored sunglasses and grinned like he was sixteen. “Partied a lot with those boys.”

“I thought cowboys listened to country.”

He shrugged and turned his attention back to the road. “I used to listen to Blue Oyster Cult, too. And, of course, Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson.”

“I remember my brother listening to AC/DC.”

“I didn’t know you had a brother.”

“Yep.” She plugged in the tape and said, “Evan lives in Germany with his wife and kids. I don’t see him much.”

Suddenly the inside of the truck was assaulted with an electric guitar and screeching vocals. Hope turned the volume down several notches below earsplitting and sat back to enjoy the ride into the Idaho wilderness. Earlier, Dylan had woken her up from a sound sleep with the wild idea of backpacking to a lake he wanted her to see.

Since she needed pictures for her alien stories anyway, she hadn’t been opposed to a hike. Until he’d told her they would spend the night and return tomorrow. She’d refused to even consider sleeping in a tent, but then he’d sat on her and kissed her neck and told her he wouldn’t let the bears get her. It hadn’t been his promise of safety that had swayed her, but she’d discovered days ago that she was sucker for the way he kissed her neck.

It had been a week since that Wednesday afternoon when he’d barged into her house and assured her he hadn’t come over for sex. A week since the condom incident. A week since they’d bothered with one. She’d seen him every day. Slept with him every night. He’d taught her how to do the two-step and taken her night fishing. He’d told her about his life as a homicide detective. How and why he’d come to hate it, and how much he enjoyed his life now. She told him about college and writing obituaries for The Los Angeles Times, and how she was trying to enjoy her life again. They discussed the article about Hiram she was working on. She asked him questions and he answered. No, he hadn’t been the FBI’s informant and he didn’t know who it had been. No, he hadn’t been first on the scene the night the old sheriff had killed himself, although he’d arrived shortly after the FBI agents. He’d seen the photographs and videos and the dead body of a man out of control.

She’d asked for his perspective.

“He had a sickness that got too big for him. When you cheat and steal and risk everything, you have a problem. The more he got into it, the more he wanted. In California, it’s not that difficult to find a place that caters to that sort of thing. But this is Gospel, honey. If you want to get tied up, you have to go to where the talent resides. And that takes money.” He smiled and winked at her. “Unless you find someone who enjoys that sort of thing as much as you do.”

Hope felt herself blush at the reminder of his tying her to a chair the night before. She’d never mentioned her job with The Weekly News of the Universe. He’d reacted somewhat negatively when she mentioned she’d queried People magazine about her article. She didn’t know if he’d cop a patronizing attitude, but she wasn’t sure. It was better for now that he thought she wrote for a Northwest magazine.

Mostly, they watched movies, or just held hands and didn’t do anything. She liked that best of all. Just sitting still, being quiet, knowing he was there.

Shelly thought things were getting serious between the two of them. Hope knew better. Whenever he came to her house, he parked behind the Aberdeens‘. Sometimes he came across the lake in his boat. When they were at his house, he parked his truck in his barn. His reasons all sounded perfectly logical. If people knew he was home, they’d stop by. They’d want to chat and gossip and bring him food, and he wouldn’t have as much time to spend with her. Yeah, it sounded reasonable, but it didn’t feel like the whole truth. It felt like there was something he wasn’t saying, and Hope wondered again if he was embarrassed to be seen with her. She knew he didn’t like to be the subject of gossip, but she wondered if he would mind so much if the gossip weren’t about his relationship with her.

She looked at him now, at his Stetson resting on his head, fingers tapping the steering wheel to the beat of hard rock, and she wondered exactly how he did feel about her. She knew what she felt for him, and it frightened her. It sneaked inside her chest and gave her heart panicky palpitations. She wasn’t in love with him, not yet, but it could happen if she weren’t careful. And she planned to be very careful.

Dylan slowed and turned onto a dusty, bumpy road. They quickly rolled up the windows, and Dylan ejected the tape from the player. The rolling meadows gave way to a lodgepole forest and within three miles the road ended at the Iron Creek trailhead. Before they’d left that morning, he’d insisted that she borrow Shelly’s hiking boots and down parka. The boots on her feet were made of waterproof mesh and Gore-Tex and were lighter than she would have expected. The puffy coat had been rolled like a sausage and stuffed in her backpack. Presently it was ninety-four degrees beneath a cloudless sky, and Hope wore a pair of camouflage shorts and a green tank top. She’d applied a few swipes of waterproof mascara, and Dylan had given her a tube of SPF 15 Chapstick, which she had in her pocket. She felt a little naked without blusher and lip liner, but Dylan told her he liked the way she looked. She didn’t believe him for a second, but he’d certainly seen her in the morning when she looked her worse.

The truck rolled to a stop in a parking area sectioned out of the forest by logs. There was one Jeep and a pickup and camper parked on the far side. Earlier, Dylan had mentioned that the area wouldn’t be busy because it was the middle of the week. He’d been right.

Dylan was dressed in his usual Levi’s, blue T-shirt, and hat. There were two notable differences: He’d traded in his cowboy boots for hiking boots much like Hope’s, and he’d strapped a pistol to his hip.

“What are you going to do with that?”

“Keeps the bugs away,” he said, then took off his sunglasses and sprayed himself down with insect repellent.

There had been a time not too long ago when she would have thought he meant to shoot flies, and he would have had a good laugh at her expense. Now she thought she knew him better than that. “No. The gun.”

“Cover your face,” he said and sprayed her, too. “I told you I’d protect you from bears, didn’t I?”

“Oh, my God,” she said from behind her hands. “You didn’t tell me you were going to shoot bears.”

“You didn’t ask.”

She dropped her hands as he sprayed her stomach and the front of her legs. “Okay, isn’t this the part where you tell me bears taste just like chicken?”

“Bear doesn’t taste anything like chicken.” He walked behind her and sprayed. “It’s tough as a boot and real gamey.”

She didn’t want to know how he’d come by that information. “Do you think we’ll see bears?”

“Not likely.” He stuck the can of “bug juice” into his backpack. “Chances are they’ll smell us and run away long before we see them. Black bears usually aren’t aggressive, but if we see one, we’ll just make some noise, and I’ll shoot my gun in the air to scare it off. Mostly they just want to know where you are so they can head in the opposite direction.” He grabbed the backpack that belonged to Adam out of the bed of his truck and helped her into it. Unlike the cute little Ralph Lauren backpack she’d bought at Saks last summer, this one had a metal frame and two sturdy mesh harnesses that belted across the hips and chest. Dylan widened the straps for her, then stepped back to eye the fit. Her breasts were squished together at the top, and he widened the straps a bit more. His hands lingered at the task longer than was necessary. His knuckles brushed across her tank top, and then he gave up all pretense of strap adjusting and cupped her left breast. When she looked up, he turned her face to the side and settled into a slow, soft kiss. His hand moved to her stomach, then slid around her side. “I want to show you the most beautiful place I’ve ever been,” he whispered lightly against her mouth. His tender kisses left her wanting more, but when her tongue chased his, he pulled back. “I think you’ll like it.”