Jess appeared.
It had been that way all through high school. Jess was a good-looking man. He was on the ski patrol and lived in nearby Vail.
After enduring another hug, Mac punched Jess on the shoulder. “Are you still dating that movie star?”
“We moved on. It was too much attention. You know, the paparazzi.”
“Oh, yeah.” Mac rolled his eyes. “Those paparazzi can be a real pain.”
Paul stood between them. “It’s been a long time since the three of us got together.”
“It was your mom’s funeral, Mac.” Jess shrugged. “Four years ago.”
“She was a good woman,” Paul said.
Jess nodded.
Mac said nothing. His feelings about his mother were ambivalent. Sure, he had loved her. Kathryn Granger was beautiful and fun, always laughing. But he knew something about Kathryn that nobody else was aware of. She had betrayed the family.
That was one of the reasons he had left town when he graduated high school. It was also one of the reasons he knew never to trust a woman; they would only break your heart.
Speaking of which…he looked up and saw Vanessa strolling toward the pool table. What the hell was she doing here?
“Hi there,” she said in a breathy little voice. “Mac? Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friends?”
“This is a private conversation.”
Undeterred, she moved toward Paul. When she grasped his huge hand, he had no alternative but to shake. “I’m Vanessa,” she said. “And you are?”
“Paul Hemmings.” He gave her a sheepish grin. “How do you know Mac?”
“We’re both staying at the same little resort.”
“I wanted to ask about that place,” Paul said. “Why is it called Last’s Resort?”
“The woman who runs it is Julia Last,” Mac said. Though Paul was his friend and a deputy, he wouldn’t betray the true purpose of the safe house. “Nice place. Real quiet. A friend recommended it to me.”
“You could have stayed with me,” Paul said.
“Or me,” Jess put in.
“Thanks, guys.” Mac knew his lieutenant had arranged his stay at the safe house for a reason. “But I’m supposed to rest and recuperate. I can’t do that with the little girls at your place, Paul. Or with the big girls who are always hanging out with Jess.”
Vanessa had picked up a cue. “Whose shot?”
“Mine.” Mac stared down at the table. Paul’s last shot had left him behind the eight ball. There wasn’t much he could do.
“I’ll play the winner,” Vanessa said.
Though Mac concentrated on their game, he couldn’t help listening as Vanessa chatted with handsome Jess. She was the kind of woman who would always focus on the best-looking man in the room. Or the wealthiest. From the platinum blond curls on her head to the toes of her high-heeled boots, she was a gold digger. It annoyed him that her husky laugh tickled pleasantly at the edge of his senses.
“The Vail ski patrol,” she said admiringly to Jess. “You must know some famous people.”
“Some,” he admitted. “Mostly, my job is a great way to get in a lot of skiing. As a bonus, I get to help people.”
“Like your friend, the deputy.”
“Kind of weird,” Jess said. “The three of us were buds in high school, and we all ended up in some kind of law enforcement jobs.”
“Ski patrol?” Paul scoffed. “Do you catch a lot of bad guys on the slopes?”
“Tell me about Mac,” Vanessa said.
Mac muffed a shot. He didn’t want Jess giving her too much information about him. Until he figured out what Vanessa was up to, he didn’t want to let his guard down.
“Mac’s dad was the sheriff,” Jess said. “A good guy. He moved down to Florida after Mac’s mom died.”
“Does he have other family up here?”
“Aunt Lucille.” Jess chuckled.
“Oh, yeah,” Paul chimed in. “Good old Aunt Lucille. She’s a real character.”
Jess picked up where he left off. “The woman has got to be in her seventies, but she still wears flashy clothes and skis like a demon. She competed in the 1952 Winter Olympics when Stein Eriksen won the giant slalom.”
“My kind of woman.” Vanessa bared her teeth in a grin. “A winner.”
“We’ll see about that,” Paul said. “Looks like you’re playing Mac.”
As she sashayed toward the pool table, her dark eyes held a competitive gleam. Mac decided there was no way he’d let her win this game. Unfortunately, when he broke the balls, nothing went in.
When Vanessa positioned herself across the table, he had a spectacular view of her cleavage. Earlier today, her vamping and prancing was a major turnoff. Now, when she wasn’t trying to be sexy, he was getting turned on.
With a crisp shot, she sank a striped ball and left herself another good lie.
“Nice,” Jess commented.
Gliding around the table, she nudged Mac out of her way. “I don’t like losing.”
She tapped the cue ball. Another ball tipped into the corner pocket. Now she had a problem. The cue ball was trapped behind two others.
Her eyes narrowed as she considered all the angles. When Vanessa banked the cue and sank the four, it was obvious that she knew what she was doing.
“You’re a hustler,” Mac said.
“I learned more in Vegas than just shaking my tail feathers.”
When her ruby lips spread in a smug grin, he had the insane urge to kiss the smile off those lips. He didn’t want to be attracted to this woman. She was a protected witness. For all he knew, she was up to her pretty brown eyes in danger and disaster—criminal activity of the worst kind.
He only had one more chance to sink a ball. He muffed it. Then she cleared the table and sank the eight.
Grudgingly, he offered approval. “Not bad.”
“Beat you.”
She tapped her cue against his chest and looked him straight in the eye. What was going on inside her head? He wanted to find out.
Mac was good in a police interrogation when he had the weight of the law on his side. Subtlety wasn’t his forte, but he was good at spotting a liar. “Buy you a drink?”
“I’ll have a Singapore Sling.”
“The Sundown Tavern doesn’t do cocktails with umbrellas.”
“Then, I’ll have the specialty of the house.”
As he led the way from the back room to the bar, Mac calculated her body weight and probable resistance to intoxication. It shouldn’t take more than three tequila shots to loosen her tongue. Then she’d be ready to tell him anything he wanted to know.
AN HOUR LATER, Abby stared down at the shot glass on the table. It would be her fourth. Though she’d managed to spill more than she drank, she was beginning to feel the effect.
“Drink up,” Mac urged. He was sipping soda, claiming that he couldn’t mix alcohol with his pain medication. “No need to worry. I’m the designated driver.”
She rose to the challenge, lifting her shot glass. “Here’s to the mountains.”
“To