"And why would they come all the way to New Mexico to silence you?"

She cringed at his blunt statement. "I guess because of Eve Caldwell. I can put her with David at the time of the trial. They were exchanging e-mails. That's lawyer misconduct, or jury tampering, or whatever you call it."

"Both," he said. "It's grounds for the verdict to be overturned. That's twenty million dollars in legal fees on the line. Not to mention disbarment, jail time."

"So I guess someone's afraid-oh my God, I just thought of something."

He glanced over. Her eyes were huge. "What?"

"Those e-mails," she said. "I told you how I snooped through David's e-mail? I didn't have time to read them right then, so I just forwarded everything to myself."

"You forwarded his messages to yourself?"

"What if he found out I did that? And maybe told someone, and that's what they were looking for? They don't just want me. They think I have his messages."

"Do you?"

"I have no idea. Maybe. This was, like, seven months ago. Do they stay in your in-box that long?"

"Depends." Will was already thinking of how long it would take them to find a place where she could check. Where was her laptop? But then he remembered it had been searched already.

"We ran your computer," he said. "Nothing like that came up."

She shook her head. "It wouldn't. This happened in the middle of the day, on my lunch break. David was in the shower while I was looking through his BlackBerry, and I didn't have much time, so I forwarded his messages to myself at work. They'd be in my in-box at Bella, only that's probably been shut down by now, since I left."

Will gripped the steering wheel, and not just because he didn't like the image of her having a nooner with Alvin. "This is exactly why running was a bad idea, Courtney. We could have gotten to all this weeks ago if you'd just let us interview you."

"You mean arrest me and charge me with murder?" She scoffed. "No, thanks. Your lieutenant hates me. He's had it in for me from day one."

"It's different now. We've got video of a guy in a ski mask entering Alex Lovell's workplace. He beat her up, trying to get to you. It corroborates everything you've been saying."

"What? Why didn't you tell me?"

"I'm telling you now. You've been a little hard to reach lately."

"Is she all right?"

"She's fine," he lied, then felt guilty. "He tossed her office, gave her a bloody lip."

"Oh my God."

She was upset now, and Will regretted bringing it up. But she needed to know he wasn't dragging her back to Austin to face charges. He was dragging her back to Austin to clear her name.

And he was dragging her back to the place where someone was actively trying to kill her.

Which was why he intended to be on her like her shadow. She needed protection, and he would provide it. He just had to get her to believe that.

He pressed on through the darkness. She got quiet and leaned her head against the window. He wondered what she was thinking but didn't want to ask. She might turn around and ask him the same thing, and then he'd be screwed.

I'm thinking it's so good to see you again it hurts. I'm thinking I love listening to you argue with me, and I thought I'd lost you, and now I never want to let you out of my sight.

He glanced at her and saw that her eyes were closed. Maybe she was asleep. Or, more likely, ignoring him.

The Suburban vibrated with its familiar hum. Yellow stripes flew past in a rhythm that threatened to hypnotize him. He shook off the feeling and turned up the AC.

She turned it down.

He turned it up again.

"I'm freezing," she said, rubbing her bare arms.

"Yeah, well, I'm tired."

"Why don't I drive? You can take a nap."

He snorted.

"What?"

"You're not driving anywhere."

Her eyebrows arched. "What do you think I'm going to do, kidnap you?"

"I have no idea what you'll do. I just know that I don't trust you. And you're not driving my truck."

"Stubborn," she muttered, and then shut up again.

The minutes slid by. Then the hours. The mountains became foothills, and then the desert stretched out in all directions, the vast flatness dotted with lights here and there. The yellow lines kept coming, and Will's eyelids drooped. He ran through baseball stats in his head in an effort to stay alert. Suddenly the tires buzzed over the shoulder, and he jerked the wheel left. Shit.

"Why don't you just shoot us both now? Get it over with?"

He glanced at her. "Sorry."

"When was the last time you slept?"

He trained his gaze back on the highway and didn't answer.

"It's nearly one o'clock. Let's stop for the night."

He shot her a scathing look.

"What? Look, there's a motel up ahead. I saw a sign a few miles back. We can sleep a few hours, then get back on the road."

It was about the sorriest plan he'd ever heard. Except for the sleep part. That part would be good. Problem was, he knew she had no intention of sleeping. She'd get him to pull over and then she'd take the first opportunity to make a run for it, which, in this middle-of-nowhereville location probably meant hitching a ride with some trucker.

"Will?"

He ignored her and kept going. But then he shifted in his seat when he noticed the gas gauge had dropped to a quarter tank. They'd have to stop at some point.

An exit sign loomed ahead. Gas. Food. Lodging.

"Come on, Will. You look beat."

He slid a glance at her.

"I know I am," she said reasonably, "and I got a good eight hours last night. Let's pull over."

"Gas and coffee. That's it."

"And we can switch drivers. You can take a nap."

"Not happening."

He pulled off the highway and quickly found the gas station. The convenience store adjacent to it was dark, but the pumps were lit up like a stadium. Will pulled up to one and realized his mistake. He'd been so tired, he'd forgotten he needed to use cash, not credit. Credit would leave a trail. He had a wallet full of twenties, but that wouldn't do him much good here.

He sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Hey, you wouldn't happen to have a credit card, would you? That has some name on it that has nothing to do with you?"

"What, you mean like an alias? That sounds illegal."

Her tone grated on him. Goddamn he needed sleep. "Don't push me. Do you have a card or not?"

"Not."

He muttered something particularly shocking, and she didn't look shocked at all.

"Let's call it a night." She nodded at the motel across the street. "We can gas up in the morning."

Will gazed tiredly at the Desert Dreams Motel. The neon sign announced a vacancy, and a light glowed in the front office.

Fuck it.

He was out of gas in every sense of the word. He needed a nap. Not to mention a shower and a few thousand calories to get his system cranked up again before he faced another ten hours behind the wheel.

He drove across the highway and pulled into the motel. Courtney's happiness at this turn of events was palpable.

"Four hours," he said firmly. "I want us gassed up and on the road by daybreak. And don't even think about going anywhere."

She tipped her head to the side and pretended to be confused. "We're in the middle of a desert. Where on earth would I go?"

The tiny room smelled like cigarettes. Courtney sat on the edge of the bed as Will turned on the shower. After a few minutes, steam drifted into the room and she glanced over her shoulder just in time to see him step naked under the showerhead.

He caught her eye in the mirror. "I'm watching you. And if you think I'd be embarrassed to go after you buck naked, you're wrong."

She let her gaze drop to his bare butt, which looked even better than she'd remembered. She lifted an eyebrow.

"Forget it. I don't fall for the same shit twice." He ducked his head under the stream, and she turned away so he wouldn't see her expression.

The same shit? What was that supposed to mean? Did he think she'd slept with him to...what? Distract him? Influence the investigation?

Fuming, she stood up and flipped on the TV. Besides the predictable lineup of pay-per-view porn, she found infomercials and televangelists. She switched off the power and unlaced her boots. She kicked them to the floor and shimmied out of her jeans. Then she pulled down the tacky bedspread, stretched out on the bed, and closed her eyes.

The water shut off. He stepped into the room, and she heard a towel being tossed over a chair. Next, she heard denim against skin as his jeans went on. Then there was the gentle thunk of something on the floor near his side of the bed. His gun? The mattress dipped, and she rolled into him.

"Hey!"

"Sorry." He was sprawled out on his stomach, diagonal across the bed, with his feet hanging off. His right elbow was practically in her face, and his eyes were closed.

He was going to sleep? No way. She was half naked here, and she'd seen the way he'd looked at her at the inn.

Suddenly, he pushed up on his palms, reached into his back pocket, and pulled out a pair of handcuffs.

"Forgot something." The cool metal clamped over her wrist just as she jerked backward.

"Ouch!"

He flopped onto his back and clamped the empty silver bracelet on his left hand.

"What are you doing?"

He closed his eyes and settled back against the pillows. "Combat nap."

She stared down at him, at his bare, perfect torso and the smirk on his face. She nearly bit a hole in her tongue to keep from screaming.

"You have three seconds," she said calmly.

"To what?" He opened his eyes and reached for the lamp. The room went dark, except for the blue glow from the vacancy sign in the parking lot.

"To take these things off or I will claw you to pieces."

He lifted one eyelid. "I'd love to see you try."

"Will-"

"Go for it." He rolled onto his side and flung his free arm over her, pinning her against the mattress.

And then she got it. He was baiting her. He wanted her to start a wrestling match with him, which she'd lose, of course. This was revenge. This was him exerting control over her after she'd walked out on him without a word. What was it he'd said earlier? Nice exit? She'd hurt his feelings, and rather than admit it, he was doing this macho power play. What he really wanted was sex, obviously-the same thing every man always wanted. She glanced at his chest, rising and falling. There were those arms again, those arms she'd missed. Something heated inside her, and she knew sex wasn't far from what she wanted, too.

But the handcuffs pissed her off.

They weren't about preventing an escape, they were about his being a Neanderthal.

Weren't they?

His breath came deep and even, and she frowned at him. Was he really asleep?

No way he'd gone to sleep so quickly.

But his arm was heavy on her rib cage, and he was totally, completely immobile, except for that breathing.