Cowboy Alibi

“Who was I to you?”

Joe made himself meet her wary gaze. “We saw each other a few times.”

“You mean dated?”

“Yeah.”

A dozen emotions darted across her face in the span of a couple of seconds. “How long?”

“Five months.”

Her eyes flickered with surprise. “That long?”

He nodded and she processed that information quietly, but he could see her doing the math. Five months together meant more than just holding hands while walking or a goodnight kiss at the door.

He turned back to his food, aware that he had to keep up his strength, which had already been compromised by the bullet wound. But he couldn’t help but wonder if he’d ever have enough strength to deal with many more nights alone with Jane Doe.

MILLS & BOON

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PAULA GRAVES
COWBOY ALIBI

TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON

AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG

STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN • MADRID

PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND

For Jenn, Cissy and Emily, who make wonderful

sounding boards and wonderful friends.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Alabama native Paula Graves wrote her first book, a mystery starring herself and her neighborhood friends, at the age of six. A voracious reader, Paula loves books that pair tantalizing mystery with compelling romance. When she’s not reading or writing, she works as a creative director for a Birmingham advertising agency and spends time with her family and friends. She is a member of Southern Magic Romance Writers, Heart of Dixie Romance Writers and Romance Writers of America.

Paula invites readers to visit her Web site, www.paulagraves.com.

Contents

Cast of Characters

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Jane Doe—The waitress has no memory of her former life. All she knows is that someone is willing to kill to get to her.

Joe Garrison—The embittered Wyoming cop believes Jane was complicit in his brother Tommy’s murder. But when someone comes gunning for them, he finds himself in the role of protector to his prime suspect.

Angela Carlyle—Jane’s roommate ends up dead in the apartment they share, and Jane’s the only one who can identify her killer.

Clint Holbrook—Who is the steely-eyed man who’ll stop at nothing—even murder—to get Jane back under his control?

Hank Trent—The Idaho cop has a murder to investigate and a Wyoming cop who’s disappeared with his star witness. How many rules will he have to bend to stop the killer before he finds Jane and Joe?

Harlan Dugan—The wily old con man claims he can tell Jane who she really is—for a price. But where do his loyalties really lie?

Melissa Blake—Joe’s stepmother left home when he was just a little boy, breaking his heart. Will she help him now when he needs her the most?

Riley Patterson—Joe has always trusted his second-in-command with his life. But can he trust him with Jane’s?

Chapter One

“Tall, dark and cowboy at table four, you lucky dog,” Angela Carlyle murmured to Jane as she passed by with the remains of table seven’s lunch.

Jane eyed the cowboy in question, taking in his rangy build, short, dark hair and the dun-colored Stetson on the booth next to him. As he glanced her way, she quickly looked back to the older couple perusing their menus. “Our special today is pan-seared trout,” she said. “Caught fresh. There’s nothing like Idaho trout.”

As the couple discussed between themselves the merits of fish for lunch, Jane stole another look at table four. She found the cowboy’s gaze fixed on her face, unflinching.

She looked away quickly, unnerved by his scrutiny. She wasn’t used to being the object of someone’s full attention. Most male customers focused on Angela, with her copper-penny hair, creamy complexion and body even the pale pink waitress uniform couldn’t conceal.

Nobody ever stared at Jane, with her face full of freckles, unruly brown hair and slim, not-so-curvy figure. Worse, she was as blank on the inside as she was dull on the outside, with only five months of experiences to call her own and a whole lot of questions she couldn’t answer.

“Miss? We’re ready.”

Jane dragged her gaze away from the cowboy with a soft apology and took their order. She ripped the order from her pad, tucked it in her pocket and crossed to table four.

The cowboy’s gray-eyed gaze followed her all the way in. Jane’s stomach knotted with vague anxiety. “What can I get you today, sir?” she asked.

“I’ll have coffee.”

“Sugar or cream?”

His gaze narrowed slightly, as if she’d asked a difficult question. “Just black,” he answered.

“We have a trout special, caught fresh this morning—”

“Just coffee,” he interrupted, not unkindly.

She nodded. “Coffee it is.”

She took his order and the order from the previous table to the kitchen. Angela was there already, cornered by Boyd Jameson, the restaurant manager.

“That’s the third order you got wrong,” Boyd growled.

“I gave them what they ordered,” Angela countered.

“Customer says otherwise and the customer’s always—”

“Right,” Angela finished for him. “I know. I got them what they wanted immediately and they all gave me big tips, so what’s the problem?”

Jane made eye contact with Angela, wondering if she should do something to intervene. Boyd was a piece of work, a real control freak with the waitstaff, and unfortunately, he was untouchable, having worked at the River Lodge longer than most of the staff had been alive.

Angela caught her eye and gave a tiny shake of her head. But it was enough for Boyd to take notice. Whipping his head around, he pinned Jane with his fierce gaze. She looked away, not in any position to cause trouble, and handed off the lunch order to the chef.

She returned to the lunch counter and found the cowboy sitting on a stool in front of her. His dark eyebrows arched slightly when she stumbled to a stop.

“Thought it’d be rude to take up a booth just for coffee.” He smiled, but his eyes were watchful.

Unease skittered through her as she poured him a cup of coffee. Placing it in front of him, she plastered on a smile. “Sure I can’t get you anything else?”

He eyed her name tag. “What’s your last name, Jane?”

She looked down at her hands. “Doe,” she answered flatly, wondering if he’d think she was joking.

He was silent a moment. She dared a peek and found him gazing at her through narrowed eyes, one eyebrow quirked. “Nice to meet you, Jane Doe. I’m Joe Garrison.” He paused, as if waiting for her reaction.

Was she supposed to react?

Of course she was supposed to react. What kind of guy wouldn’t comment on “Jane Doe”?

“Do I know you?” she asked.

His eyes narrowed farther. “Do you?”

She shook her head, her wariness growing. “No. Sorry.”

The bell over the front door rang, heralding new customers, a pair of college-age girls dressed for hiking. Grateful for the excuse to walk away, she grabbed a couple of menus and followed as they settled at the booth that Joe Garrison had recently vacated.

She took their drink orders and returned to the counter to fill them. Joe Garrison’s gaze followed her as she worked. He didn’t even pretend not to stare.

She was about to ask him if he’d like a refill on the coffee when Angela stalked out of the kitchen, her cheeks red with anger. She yanked the strings of her uniform apron and flung the garment onto the counter, stopping next to Jane. “I quit.”

Jane looked at her, alarmed. “You what?”

“Quit. Q. U. I. T. Boyd Jameson is a woman-hating jerk, and life is way too short for me to put up with his bull.” She started toward the employee break room, but Jane caught her arm.

“Angie, you can’t—”

Angela squeezed Jane’s arms. “Boyd always had it in for me anyway. There are other jobs. I’ll be fine.”

But I won’t, Jane thought, watching her go. Angela was one of the few real friends she’d made in Trinity, Idaho, since she’d turned up wandering through the Sawtooth Mountains a few months earlier, half-frozen and memory-free. She’d gotten used to having Angela around the restaurant as a buffer between herself and Boyd Jameson.

Jane finished the drink orders for table four and turned to Joe Garrison. “Refill?”

“No, thanks. I’m ready for my check.”

She didn’t know whether she felt relieved or disappointed. As unnerving as Joe’s attention might be, it was the first time anyone had ever made her the object of such single-minded focus. Well, that she could remember, anyway. It was flattering, if a bit disconcerting.

She handed him the check. “Hope you enjoy the rest of your day. And come back to see us again.”

She carried the drinks to table four. As she took their lunch orders, she caught sight of Joe crossing to the cashier’s desk by the door. One of the girls at table four made a low whistling sound. “Look at those jeans,” she murmured to her friend.

Jane dragged her gaze away from Joe Garrison’s departing backside and returned to the kitchen to hand in the order. When she came back out, Angela stood by the counter, now dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. She gave Jane a quick hug. “I’m heading to the apartment to start making some calls about another job. When do you get off?”

“In an hour. I’ll see you there. Maybe we can go for a walk in the park or something, get your mind off things.”

“You’re on. See you soon.”

Jane watched her friend go with a sigh. Behind her, the door from the kitchen swung open with a soft swish. “What’re you staring at, Jane? Don’t you have customers waiting?” Boyd asked.

She tamped down a smart-alecky comeback that rose in her mind, well aware that she was in no position to be insubordinate. Unlike Angela, she didn’t have a lot of other options or the luxury of family in town to help her out if things got tight.

She delivered the food to table six and stopped by one of her other tables to make sure everyone was happy with their orders, then returned to the counter to pick up a pitcher of water to offer refills. As she reached for the ice scoop, she saw that the cowboy had left her a tip. A crisp five-dollar bill—more than three times the cost of the coffee—lay folded neatly on the counter.

Jane had picked it up and started to put it in her pocket when she realized there was something tucked inside. She unfolded the five to discover a business card from the Buena Vista Hotel. He’d written room 225 under the hotel address on the front.

She stared at it, dismayed. Was that the point of his attention? Did he think he could swagger in and pick up the first waitress he set eyes on? Or had he chosen her because she looked particularly easy?

She’d started to crumple the card when she realized there was something written on the back. She flattened it out, staring at the words etched in bold, black strokes.

I know who you are.

The card fell from her suddenly nerveless hands.

THE APARTMENT was small and dingy, smelling of cheap soap and cheaper air freshener. There was only one bedroom and a worn sleeper sofa in the tiny living room. The living room was neat, so Clint guessed she was the one sleeping on the sofa.

He’d taught her all about being neat.

He was tempted to pull the bed out, to see if the sheets tucked inside smelled like her. He refrained, moving instead to the nearest window, carefully parting the curtains and gazing out through the age-warped panes.

The apartment was on the second floor, overlooking a small park across the narrow street. Not much to it, really, a stretch of faded grass and a couple of stubby trees providing shade from the midday sun. It was April in Idaho, still cold enough that most people avoided the shade trees and took full advantage of the sun’s mild warmth.

The rattle of the doorknob made him jump. She was early. He’d seen her work schedule when he stopped at the River Lodge Diner for breakfast that morning. She was supposed to be working until one, her roommate until three.

Why was she home early?

Clint skirted the sofa and pressed himself flat against the wall near the door. He didn’t want to give her a chance to run.

The door swung open, blocking his view for a moment. It closed and he saw that the unexpected arrival was the roommate, Angela. She’d been his waitress at the diner that morning. No longer in uniform, she wore a figure-hugging T-shirt and low-cut jeans and carried a paper bag full of groceries tucked under one arm.

She turned to engage the dead bolt and stopped short when she caught sight of him. The groceries slipped from her grasp, hit the floor and split open, spilling apples, a head of celery and a box of cereal onto the hardwood floor. She stared at him, recognition dawning in her blue eyes. Then she made a dive for the door.

He stopped her, clamping his hand over her mouth. “We can make this easy or we can make it hard.”

She rammed her elbow into his gut and scrambled away. Wincing, he caught her at the kitchen entrance.

“Hard it is,” he said, dragging her into the kitchen.

JANE GLANCED over her shoulder for any sign of Boyd Jameson. There was a lull in the lunch crowd, giving Jane a minute to use the pay phone by the kitchen entrance to make her call, but she didn’t want Boyd to overhear. Lucky for her, he didn’t seem to be around.

“Buena Vista Hotel,” a woman’s voice answered.

“I’d like to leave a message for Joe Garrison. I believe he’s in room 225.” Jane kept her voice down.

“Would you like me to check if he’s in his room?”

“No,” she said quickly. “I just want to leave him a message. From Jane. He’ll know who I am. Tell him I’ll meet him at Alliance Park on Briley Street at one-fifteen.”

“Alliance Park, one-fifteen.”

Jane hung up and grabbed a couple of menus as a pair of hikers entered the restaurant and headed for table six. She took their drink orders, trying to steer her mind away from what she’d just done.

When her shift ended at one, she changed out of her uniform in the employee locker room and donned her sweater and jeans. Not the most appropriate attire for a mysterious assignation, but she wasn’t actually going to the park to meet Joe Garrison.

Not yet, anyway.

First, she was going to the Buena Vista Hotel.

THE SECRET to flying under the radar, Jane knew, was to act as if you knew what you were doing at all times. Keep your eyes forward, head up, stride purposeful—not too slow or too fast. Exactly how she knew this, given the vast blank that was her past, she couldn’t say, and she had a feeling she wouldn’t like the answer if she knew.

She’d spent the last hour at work with half her mind occupied with what to do about Joe Garrison’s cryptic note. Meeting him was out of the question. She wasn’t about to walk into a trap. She needed to know more about who he was and what he was up to. And that meant getting him out of his hotel room—and herself into it.

She crossed to the pay phone on the lobby wall, put a couple of coins in the slot and dialed the number on the card Joe had given her.

Somewhere behind her, a phone at the front desk rang. A woman answered. “Buena Vista Hotel.”

Jane resisted the urge to look behind her at the desk clerk. “This is room number 229. I need housekeeping to bring me extra towels as soon as possible.”

“Certainly, ma’am. Right away.”

Jane waited a few seconds after the desk clerk rang off before hanging up the pay phone, in case anyone was looking. She crossed to the elevator and hit the button for the second floor.

On the second floor, she stepped out of the elevator and glanced down the hallway. Halfway down, a plump woman with straw-blond hair knocked at a door. “Housekeeping.”

Jane started walking down the hall toward her, careful not to look too interested in what the woman was doing. After a few seconds, when there was no answer, the maid pulled out a key, unlocked the door and disappeared inside.

Jane moved quickly then to find room 225. She took a breath and knocked on the door, listening carefully for any sound from within. When she heard nothing, she knocked a little more loudly. “Joe, baby?”

The maid exited room 229 and glanced at Jane.

“Locked myself out.” Jane plastered a sheepish smile on her face. “And my husband doesn’t seem to be here. I swear, I’m going to have to fit him with one of those tracking devices—”

The maid smiled, lowering her voice. “I have a man like that at home. Want me to let you in?”

“Would you?” Jane didn’t hide her excitement, knowing it would help her sell the cover story. “Joe is always teasing me about being a ditz—I’d hate for him to find out I locked myself out of the room! I’d never live it down.”

The maid unlocked the door for her. “There you go.”

“Thank you so much!” Jane dug in her purse and found a couple of dollars. “Here—for your time.”

After the maid left, Jane closed the door behind her and leaned against it, her heart pounding. What the hell had she just done, and how had she known how to do it?

She couldn’t give in to her nerves for long. There was no telling how long Joe Garrison would wait for her at the park. She had just a few minutes to look around this place and see if she could figure out exactly who the tall, dark cowboy really was.

The room was unnaturally neat, the suitcase in the bottom of the closet empty. He’d packed his clothes away in the narrow dresser at the foot of the bed, four shirts and four pairs of jeans neatly folded in one drawer, white cotton boxer shorts and white socks carefully lined up in the adjacent drawer.

Pretty buttoned-up for a cowboy.

She spotted a laptop computer on the desk and briefly considered booting it up and taking a look inside, although she had to pause to figure out what, if anything, she knew about computers. But the one thing she did know about them, for sure, was that most people password-protected their systems, and she didn’t have time to play hacker, even if she knew how to do it. Which, for all she knew, she did. She seemed to possess some disturbing skills, if her con job with the hotel maid was anything to go by.

She opened the desk drawer. A manila folder lay inside, thick with papers. Taking a deep breath, she pulled out the folder, careful to keep the contents from spilling, and laid it on the laptop.

She pulled up a chair and started scanning the papers. Many were faxes from police departments—Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Kansas—with responses to a request for information about someone named Sandra Dorsey. Caucasian female, midtwenties, five-seven, green eyes, brown hair.

Jane looked up at the mirror over the dresser by the desk. Frightened green eyes stared back at her.

She scanned the faxes for more information. After a few seconds, the rest of the truth became clear. All of the faxes were addressed to Chief Garrison of the Canyon Creek, Wyoming, Police Department.

Chief Joe Garrison.

The cowboy was a cop.

JOE CHECKED his watch. One-fifteen, just as the message had specified. He hadn’t figured she’d choose a rendezvous point so close to where she lived, but Trinity, Idaho, wasn’t Boise. Everything was close to everything else in a place with only five hundred residents.

Besides, the woman he’d been chasing for months was savvy enough to stick to familiar territory, where she knew all the shortcuts and secret hiding places. She was nothing if not resourceful, or she’d never have evaded him this long.

The Trinity Police Department had cooperated once Joe flashed his badge and briefed them on the case he was working. He’d left out a few details, such as his relationship to the deceased—and to the suspect, short-lived as it had been. But what he’d provided had been enough to ensure that the Trinity police gave him the information he needed to find Sandra’s apartment.

Not Sandra, he reminded himself, his mouth tightening into a scowl. Sandra Dorsey was a mirage. Might as well stop thinking of her as a real person.

She was no more real than Jane Doe.

Jane lived in a one-bedroom unit above a hardware store on one of four cross streets intersecting Main. Alliance Park sat directly across the street.

She liked places like that, Joe remembered. She liked bare grass beneath her toes. Fresh air, warm sunshine—

He ruthlessly cut off the images racing through his mind and focused on the job he’d come here to do. He wasn’t here to relive a past that he now knew had never been anything more than another of her lies.

He stood inside the hardware store, faking interest in the boxes of nails on the shelf in front of him. Just behind the shelves, the wide picture window gave him an unencumbered view of the park, while the mirror effect of the bright sunshine outside and the relatively darkened interior of the story would hide him from view.

He didn’t trust “Jane” to play fairly, especially if she was faking her amnesia. He wasn’t about to walk into one of her traps.

He moved slowly up and down the aisle, pretending to read the box descriptions, while the minutes ticked further from their agreed-upon meeting time. By one-thirty, he was beginning to draw the attention of the store employees, but still Jane Doe hadn’t shown.

Where the hell was she?

JANE APPROACHED her apartment building from the rear, trying to keep her pace unhurried despite the panic rising like bile in her throat. Angela had shown her how to get inside using the fire escape one day a few weeks ago, when she’d accidentally locked herself out of the apartment. The fire escape landing on the second floor was right outside Angela’s bedroom window, which she almost never locked. Not in a place like Trinity.

Jane had thought her roommate was crazy to take such a chance, though she couldn’t articulate why. Maybe in her former life, she’d lived in some high-crime district.

Right now, she was glad for a way to get into the apartment without going through the front entrance. The last thing she wanted was to run into Joe Garrison, and there was no way she’d be able to sneak past him. The whole park had a wide-open view of the hardware store.

She took the back steps two at a time and hit the fire-escape ladder running, wincing at the clang of metal against metal as the ladder took her weight. She scrambled up quickly to the landing and pushed open the window, once again grimacing as the aged wood screeched in protest. Slipping as she crawled through the window, she landed gracelessly at the foot of the bed. She looked up, expecting the noise to have brought Angela running.

But her friend didn’t appear in the open doorway.

She headed to the living room, stopping short as she caught sight of the spilled bag of groceries lying on the floor in front of the door. “Angie?”

Only silence answered.

She remained still, listening. An odd smell caught her attention. Metallic.

She forced herself to move, edging toward the tiny alcove kitchen. As she stepped into the darkened room, the metallic smell hit her anew. Fear gripped her, cold and darkly familiar, but her mind rebelled against whatever vestige of memory was trying to fight its way to the front of her mind. She turned to run away but her foot slipped from under her and she went down, hitting hard on her side.

She felt something wet beneath her hands. Shaking her hair from her eyes, she saw her roommate’s still, bloody body lying tucked up next to the breakfast bar.

She opened her mouth to scream but couldn’t find the air for it. A sharp pain lanced through her side.

Then, over the roar of blood pounding in her head, a soft creak behind her made her go still with terror.

“Welcome home, baby.”