Luck of the Draw Read online

  His mind was racing. Why would she lie about not remembering anything? Why would she lie about being an undercover cop two years ago? What else had she lied about?

  By the time they reached their vehicles, Garrett had talked himself out of saying anything to the sheriff. Not yet. He needed to talk to Joslyn alone. He needed to be sure of a few things first. But how was he going to get a chance to talk to her with a guard outside her door?

  “What will happen to her?” he asked, noticing that the rain had stopped. It wasn’t even drizzling, but everything dripped and the air felt like the inside of a sauna.

  “You mean when she’s well enough to leave the hospital?” Sid asked. “She’ll be arrested and arraigned. After that? It depends. From what you’ve told me, it was self-defense.”

  So he was about to save her again.

  “Given her lack of memory, it could be a while before we know what happened on that mountainside—if we ever do,” the sheriff said. “You aren’t changing your story, are you?”

  He shook his head. “I told you what I saw.” At least what he thought he’d seen.

  “It brings up some interesting questions though, doesn’t it,” Sid said. “Like why the man decided to haul her up that ridgeline so close to your guest ranch to kill her since, as it turns out, the two of you have a past.”

  Garrett had been thinking the same thing. “Have you fingerprinted her yet?”

  “No match came up,” the sheriff said.

  “So she doesn’t have a record. For all you know, the dead man abducted her and she is a victim in all this.”

  Sid was studying him. “It’s possible. The SUV was stolen. But it doesn’t mean she stole it.”

  He hadn’t realized what he’d been thinking until he said the words. “She’ll be getting out of the hospital soon, I would imagine, since her injuries don’t seem to be life-threatening. If someone were to post bail for her once she’s arraigned... I have plenty of room for her up at the guest ranch with us not open this summer. She could recuperate, get her memory back and when she does, if you haven’t already solved the case, you’ll get the answers before you retire.”

  He’d thought that he’d sold the idea fairly smoothly but the sheriff looked flabbergasted. “You can’t be serious. After everything you know about this woman? If she even is the woman you knew two years ago. I think that’s got to be the worst idea you’ve ever come up with—short of giving her your pickup keys during a convenience store holdup. You have no idea how dangerous this woman might be.”

  “I know if she hadn’t disappeared back then, I would have asked her to marry me.”

  Sid shook his head. “Two years can be a long time. You have no idea where she’s been or what she’s done. You didn’t know this woman then. You really don’t know her now. What if you’re wrong about her and have been from the start? We’re talking about a woman who was involved in a killing. A killing damned close to your guest ranch. She knew about the ranch two years ago, right?”

  “If you’re asking if I took her there, no.”

  “But she knew.”

  He wasn’t going to let the sheriff talk him out of this. “She’s going to need somewhere to stay other than a jail cell while she regains her memory. I have an empty guest ranch. And since from everything I saw the shooting was self-defense. And if she can’t remember any of it... What if I ask her if she wants to move into the guest ranch until she gets her memory back?”

  The sheriff shook his head. “Why would she do that?”

  He shrugged, pretending it didn’t matter one way or another to him. Joslyn might refuse. There was always that chance. But he had a feeling... “If she agrees...then you’ll know where to find her—if you should need her.”

  “You aren’t worried about her skipping bail and leaving you holding the bag?”

  It was a chance he’d have to take. If it meant getting her alone and getting the truth out of her, it would be worth every penny.

  Sid was still shaking his head. “Sleep on it, Sterling,” he said and swore. “Hopefully in the morning you’ll have come to your senses.” With that he turned and walked to his patrol SUV.

  * * *

  SID HAD PLANNED to go home and get some sleep himself. But he knew sleep wasn’t likely until he settled something in his own mind. Garrett wasn’t thinking straight. Not that he could blame him after the day he’d had. First witnessing what he thought was a woman’s murder only to find out that she had survived—and was someone he’d obviously once cared about deeply only two years before.

  That would send anyone into a tailspin. No wonder the man wanted answers, and thought that by taking the woman up to his closed guest ranch he could get them. Garrett seemed to have completely forgotten that his former lover still had the blood of the man she’d killed on her hands when she’d been taken to the hospital. Also she’d had the car accident because she’d been driving way too fast for the conditions, as if running from something more than a dead man.

  Sid considered the story Garrett had told him about how they’d met. Whoever that woman was in the hospital bed, she’d lied from the start. She’d lied so she wouldn’t have to face the police that night at the convenience store. And now she was probably lying to him as well.

  Talk about a lot of red flags. The woman had gotten to the rancher once and Sid feared she’d never let go. It was why he couldn’t let Garrett make a possibly deadly mistake by taking the woman up to the guest ranch with him.

  Not that he could stop that from happening if the judge granted bail and Garrett paid it, and she agreed to go with him. Maybe the big question, the one his mind had been skirting around, was why, if the woman really remembered nothing, would she agree to go with a man she’d never met before? Unless even her amnesia was a lie.

  It was obvious that Garrett needed closure from the old girlfriend he hadn’t gotten over. Sid had seen it in the rancher’s eyes. But Garrett also wanted to protect her. He saw her as a victim—two years ago and again now.

  Sid had been in law enforcement for too long not to know that things weren’t always the way they seemed. Maybe the deceased man had pulled the woman into the pines to kill her. Or maybe not. Maybe it had just looked like that from across the ravine. Because it was damned strange that the man was now dead and the woman was alive—and suffering from memory loss.

  But what was going to cause Sid to lose sleep was the question of what she’d been doing so close to Sterling’s Montana Guest Ranch. How convenient that Garrett had to save her once again—even if it meant putting his own life in danger.

  Sid shook his head. Maybe Garrett thought he could get answers from the woman he’d known as Joslyn Charles. But the sheriff worried that it might get him killed instead.

  Trying to convince him otherwise was a waste of breath, he realized. There was only one way to stop this. He had to find out who the woman was and just how dangerous she might be. It was a long shot that she’d told Garrett her real name, but he had to try.

  In his office, he turned on the light and, stepping to his desk, booted up his computer. He typed in Joslyn Charles.

  * * *

  SLEEP? NOT LIKELY, Garrett thought. He lay in bed staring up at the ceiling, replaying all of it over again in his head. From spotting something moving through the trees on the ridgeline across the ravine to Joslyn meeting his gaze, he went through it, trying to see anywhere he might have made a mistake.

  But in his heart, he knew. There was no mistake. The woman in the hospital bed was the Joslyn Charles he’d known. When she’d opened her eyes and seen him, that moment of recognition had felt like a bolt of lightning straight to his heart. It had rooted him to the floor, sent a shockwave through him. She knew him.

  And he knew her.

  That thought unsettled him. Because the truth was just as the sheriff had pointed out. He didn’t know her. Didn’t even know if h
er name was really Joslyn. He’d thought he’d known her from the months they’d spent together. He knew her laugh and her happy smile. He knew when she was worrying about something, although she’d always denied it.

  He’d told himself when he’d had any doubts about her back then that she was the kind of woman a man could spend his whole life with and still not really know her. But he had been okay with that, more than okay. He didn’t see anything wrong with a little mystery and had wanted to spend his life finding out her little secrets.

  That thought made him laugh now. He had a bad feeling that Joslyn had a lot more than little secrets. Possibly deadly big secrets. Either that or she had a way of attracting men with guns who threatened to kill her.

  He tried to remember if she’d told him anything about herself. They hadn’t talked about their pasts as if they’d made a silent vow to live day to day after the convenience-store incident.

  Or as if there was no tomorrow, he thought now with a curse.

  She’d known she wasn’t sticking around. There’d been a desperation in their lovemaking that he’d obviously mistaken for passion. Had he only thought there was amazing chemistry between them? Back then, all they’d had to do was look at each other and they’d be ripping off each other’s clothing. Had that too been a lie?

  He couldn’t recall her ever talking about her family. Had she told him that her father was in the military or had he just assumed that because she seemed to have moved around a lot?

  He had no idea what she’d done during the day while he’d been at law school during the time they were together. She’d said her law enforcement superiors were worried that her cover might have been blown and wanted her to lie low for a while.

  She’d moved in after their first night together. It wasn’t something they’d discussed. It was just a given since they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. He didn’t question the fact that she didn’t seem to have many belongings to move in. Just as he hadn’t questioned her story about working as an undercover cop. There was something strong and determined about her. She seemed street smart and that made him believe her. He’d thought back then that it was part of her charm.

  Also she had seemed to like being secretive as if she had a whole bagful of tricks yet to bring out. Thinking of her so-called amnesia, he suspected she still did.

  Sighing, he closed his eyes. She’d lied to him two years ago. She was lying now about her memory loss—and possibly the man she’d killed was also part of a lie.

  And still, he felt her pull. He wasn’t finished with her. Maybe he never would be. He’d been in love with her. So much so that he’d planned to ask her to marry him and had even bought the engagement ring. A ring he never got the chance to give her.

  * * *

  SID TRIED VARIATIONS on the name Joslyn. Joslin. Joslynn. There was no Joslyn Charles the right age when Garrett met her while attending law school. She hadn’t been a cop, but he’d thought she might have been a student and lied about her age. He went to the university directory. He found Garrett Sterling. But no one by any spelling of the name Joslyn, last name Charles, had ever attended the university.

  He rubbed his eyes, tired and frustrated. Even more confused and worried, he realized how late it was and shut off his computer. He thought about calling Garrett, waking him up, trying to solve yet another mystery surrounding this killing on the mountainside.

  Pushing to his feet, he started to leave his office, but changed his mind and picked up his phone. If he couldn’t sleep, then why should Garrett?

  “Hello?” The rancher answered on the second ring, sounding wide awake.

  “How do you spell her name?” Sid asked without preamble.

  Garrett answered as if there had never been a break in their conversation earlier. “Joslyn Charles.” He spelled it out. “Why?”

  “I’ve been on my computer since I last saw you. There is no Joslyn Charles anywhere near the right age that I can find.” He could hear what sounded like Garrett sitting up in bed, turning on a lamp, feet hitting the floor.

  “So she definitely lied about her name and you said her prints turned up nothing either, right?”

  “Right. Are you going to be able to get any sleep?”

  Garrett chuckled. “Probably not. I keep going over everything.”

  “You’re still sure about what you saw on the mountainside across the ravine, though.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I hope this changes your mind about asking her to come stay at your guest ranch.”

  “No. You and I both want answers. Eventually, she’s going to be freed since you can’t send her to prison when I witnessed enough to swear it was self-defense. When that happens and she disappears again, neither of us will ever know the truth.”

  He had a point there, Sid thought. “What makes you so sure she’ll come up to the guest ranch with you, a complete stranger, let alone tell you anything?”

  “Just a feeling.”

  The sheriff shook his head. The man was besotted with the woman. “Well, let’s see how you feel in the morning after a sleepless night.” He was hoping they’d have more information by then to go on.

  “You said she was driving the stolen SUV at a high rate of speed. Sounds to me like she was running from something—from someone. And it wasn’t the man she’d just emptied four shots into. I’d say she needs protection.”

  Sid chuckled. “So this is altruistic on your part. You just want to protect her. Be her bodyguard. You sure that’s what’s going on here?”

  “I’m not sure of anything except that she needs some place to stay and I want answers. Keeping her alive seems the only way I’m going to get them. Also you wouldn’t have put a deputy outside her door unless you too think her life might be in danger.”

  “Well, if it is, then so is yours. You think you can’t get any sleep now? Wait until you take the woman up to your isolated empty guest ranch. If I were you, I’d sleep with one eye open.”

  * * *

  GARRETT HADN’T EVEN attempted sleep after that phone call from the sheriff. He got up, pulled on his jeans and padded into the kitchen. Opening the refrigerator, he started to take out a bottle of beer.

  “Drinking this time of the night?” Dorothea asked from the doorway. She wore a fuzzy thick pink robe over what appeared to be bear-print flannel pajamas.

  He frowned. “You’re right. If I’m going to drink, then I might as well have something a whole lot stronger. I definitely need it.”

  She followed him into the living room and sat down on the couch as he poured himself a shot of bourbon, downed it and poured another. “That’s just going to give you a headache,” she warned him.

  “Then it will have to be on top of the one I already have.” He groaned to himself as he dropped into a chair opposite her.

  “I can understand how you might be upset over what you saw on that mountainside today.”

  “You don’t know the half of it,” he said as he studied the amber liquid in the glass. It reminded him of Joslyn’s eyes. That thought did nothing for his disposition.

  Dorothea was giving him one of her you’re-holding-out-on-me looks. “What happened at the hospital?”

  Garrett chuckled. He could feel the alcohol already racing through his bloodstream. He’d never been much of a drinker, but tonight he was going to make an exception. “The woman, the one who it appeared was about to be killed and ended up killing her attacker? I know her.”

  “What do you mean you know her?”

  “I know her. Like in...know her.”

  “Okay, I get the picture. So is she someone I know?”

  He shook his head. “I knew her two years ago down in Missoula when I was going to law school.” He took a sip of his drink, realizing that Dorothea would put the pieces together and know the real truth about why he dropped out of law school. But it no longer
mattered.

  “We were in love,” he said, realizing he needed to talk to someone about this and Dorothea would get it out of him eventually anyway. “At least I was in love. There was this chemistry between us that was amazing and—”

  Dorothea rolled her eyes. “I told you. I get it. You were lovers.”

  “Sorry. But here’s where it gets crazy. I met her at a convenience store late one night.”

  “Well, I suppose that’s better than a bar,” she said.

  He shook his head laughing. “Remember that convenience-store robbery?”

  “Where you cold-cocked the robber with a can of beans?”

  “That’s the one. The woman the first robber was threatening to kill? Well, that was her. I helped her get out of there before the police came.”

  She was looking at him as if he’d lost his mind. “Why would you do that?”

  “Because she asked me to. I handed her my pickup keys and sent her to my apartment.”

  Dorothea groaned. “What could have possibly gone wrong with that plan?”

  “She was waiting at my apartment. She told me that she was an undercover cop and it would have blown her cover if she’d had to deal with the regular cops and her name ended up in the newspaper.”

  “Let me guess. She wasn’t.”

  “Actually everything she ever told me was a lie—including her name.” He looked down into his now empty glass. His voice dropped and broke. “I know it was fast, not quite six months together, but I was going to marry her. I can’t tell you how close I came to asking her.”

  “This explains a lot,” Dorothea said. “You dropping out of law school. You coming back looking like a kicked dog. I knew there had to be a woman. So this was the one who broke your heart and ruined you for all others.”

  He hated to hear her take on him even if it was true. “As if things aren’t bad enough, I have you psychoanalyzing me.” Getting up, he went to refill his glass.