host, after all. He’d arrested her. He couldn’t be expected to provide hospitality, now could he? Still, she couldn’t help but resent it.
“No tea,” she muttered. “No fax machine. How do you get fingerprints and stuff like that? Do you have to wait for the mail for that, too?” She paled, suddenly realizing just exactly what that meant, and when she spoke again, her voice was pitched higher. “Am I going to have to wait for the mail in order to get out of here?”
He glanced at her, then back down at his paper. “Don’t worry,” he told her smoothly. “Either Santa Fe will send someone for you, or I’ll take you down in the morning.”
No. Something had to give before that. Morning seemed very far away right now. Rising, she paced restlessly through the room. She had to get out of here. There was just no way she was staying. Somehow, something had to be done. But what? The storm was slashing snow against the windows and whistling through the tiles on the roof. It was dangerous out there. She whirled, feeling frustrated.
“Previous arrest record?” he asked, and she spun, dropping back down to sit in the chair.
“None,” she said crisply. “Unless you count the time old Mr. Campbell caught me stealing gum out of the broken gum machine at his store when I was ten years old.”
He looked up at her. He couldn’t help it. He looked up at her and he noted her eyes, the pale blue of icy Arctic caverns, and her pretty mouth—it looked soft and smooth and very warm. Fire and ice—an intriguing combination, a pairing that stirred him in ways he didn’t want to admit.
And then he looked away and uttered a few obscenities silently and to himself. He had to keep from doing things like that. If he didn’t watch out, he would let her see the way she was affecting him, and if that happened, he would have a hard time maintaining his authority over her. He knew very well what could happen, the games men and women played with one another. And he wasn’t going to let himself get pulled into them.
“What did he do to you?” he asked gruffly, forcing his mind back to the childhood story she was telling.
She thought back, her eyes suddenly dreamy. “He gave me a lecture and made me sweep the floor.” An irrepressible smile curled her lips at the memories. “And then he gave me a whole bag of gum balls to take home. I was the most popular kid on the street that night.”
“Ah.” He nodded wisely, a sardonic look in his eyes. “So that’s what started you on your road to crime. You found you could gain popularity from handing out things that didn’t belong to you to your friends.”
Her jaw dropped and she sputtered incoherently. Grinning, he pulled out the paper and turned it to fill in the back, feeling very pleased with himself for having annoyed her. “Education?” he asked.
“Hidden Valley College in Marin County.” She looked at him defiantly. “I graduated, too.”
“Congratulations.” He typed in the words. “Well-educated criminals are the best kind.”
“Oh!” Exasperated, she rose again, throwing a quick glare his way, and went back to pacing the room. “If you weren’t a cop…”
She left the threat up in the air, but it hit home. He was a cop and he’d better not forget it. Looking at her, he wished he could take her back up on the ridge route and start this all over again. Somehow they had gotten off on the wrong foot. He wasn’t acting like himself at all. He was usually cool and detached, a complete professional. Where had he lost that reserve? To make up for it, he was going to have to be tougher than usual. Mean. Could he be mean to her?
She turned her head and her golden curls danced in the harsh light and something curled inside him like a coiled spring. He groaned silently. No, he couldn’t be mean to her. And if he didn’t watch out, the cop in him would disappear, and the man was going to take over. No matter what, he couldn’t let that happen. Hardening his mouth, he tried to harden his heart at the same time, and years of practice made it that much easier to do.
“Let’s just get this done, Miss Calloway,” he said firmly.
She glanced at him and frowned, wanting to shake him, wanting to shake up everything and get to the truth. The truth should be plain for him to see, if he would only look at her without all his preconceived ideas.
“This is crazy,” she muttered, still pacing. Suddenly she found herself nearing the corner of the room she’d been avoiding, where the bars were, and her steps slowed. Reaching out, she tentatively touched the lock on the little cell. The door swung away from her and she stared into a space hardly big enough to keep a cat in. There was a simple cot and a chair, and that was it. Was she going to end up spending the night in that place? No way!
She turned back to look at the sheriff, scared but unwilling to let him see it. “You call this a jail?” she said scornfully.
He barely looked up, still involved in paperwork. “It’s got bars, doesn’t it?”
She made a face at him, secure in the knowledge that he couldn’t see it. “So does the Las Vegas strip.”
He nodded, then looked up and actually cracked what might be considered a smile. “Yeah, but I don’t have the key to that,” he said.
Their gazes met, the lights flickered as a gust of wind hit the building, and something else happened.
She wasn’t sure what it was, but it hit her hard. Time seemed to stand still. His dark eyes turned smoky with a mystery she suddenly felt an aching need to unravel. All in a moment, she was intimately aware of his wide, sensuous mouth, his rock-hard shoulders, his long, lean, muscular hands. At the same time, she was alive to an acceptance within herself of an emotional embrace. This was not at all like her, and scared her to death. She’d never felt anything like this.
“No,” she whispered, still staring into his eyes. “No.” And then, finally, she tore her gaze away from his. “No, I’m out of here,” she muttered, rejecting it all as she whirled and began a headlong flight for the door.
He swore softly as he sprang up to catch her. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he demanded, grabbing her by the arm and jerking her around to face him.
She stared up at him as though she were afraid of what she might see, and shook her head. If he hadn’t sensed what she’d sensed, so much the better. But it didn’t really help her. “I can’t stay here with you,” she said hoarsely.
His head went back and his eyes took on a distant look. “Why not?”
But she couldn’t put it into words. Putting it into words would mean acknowledging it, and that would only make things worse.
It seemed he hadn’t felt the stinging connection she thought she’d experienced. That was a relief, she supposed. Maybe. Or maybe he was just pretending not to notice. Or maybe he made these sensual links with women all the time.
Well, she didn’t. And she wasn’t about to go where such things inevitably led. What she really had to do was get out of here.
“I…I just can’t, that’s all. Let me go. Come on.” She looked up at him beseechingly. “You know, deep down, that I’m not a criminal. Just let me go and I won’t tell anyone you ever saw me. Nobody will know and…”
“Stop it,” he demanded, frowning at her as his fingers tightened on her arm. “Don’t get all worked up. There’s no point to it.” He jerked his head toward the outside world. “You hear that wind? You can’t go out in this storm, no matter how innocent you are. You’re stuck here. You might as well relax.”
Relax? Relax? When every nerve ending was quivering inside her? She took a long, deep breath and closed her eyes.
He was right. She couldn’t go anywhere until morning. At least she wasn’t huddled in her car on the side of the road, wondering if she was going to freeze to death.
She opened her eyes again and managed a bleak smile. “Okay,” she said softly, pulling