Just a Cowboy. Rachel Lee

after a moment. “That’s normal enough. I doubt I’d have felt any differently.”

      “No.” She shivered and rubbed her arms again. The night was cooling down, but not that much. At least not for him, but he didn’t come from Miami. “Jeez, now I do feel crazy. I went on the run because it occurred to me that Dean had paid someone to kill me, but I didn’t think of the one thing that proved it until just now? I need a shrink.”

      “No,” he said firmly, “you’re normal. I don’t think the normal human mind is designed to readily accept the idea that someone wants to kill us. Certainly not someone we think we know and used to love.”

      “Maybe. Maybe.” But she sounded awfully doubtful.

      “Anyway,” he said bracingly, “you’re safe here. That’s what matters.”

      “Yes. It is.” Several minutes ticked by then she managed a wan smile. “That was the whole point in coming here. But now I’ve got a lot of other stuff to think about.”

      “Such as?”

      “Such as why I’ve been such an idiot, believing and not believing, and running if I didn’t fully believe it, and…”

      “Whoa,” he said gently, smiling for her. “Don’t start beating yourself up. The mind works in its own ways, and sometimes we don’t realize things until we’re ready for them.”

      She seemed willing to accept that. When he went home a half hour later, the conversation had even turned back to the home repair project she wanted to involve herself in.

      She seemed happier. And he was determined to find out what the hell had happened in Miami.

      Thank God for friends in the police department.

      Because, if he emerged from his own denial to look at this clearly, it seemed entirely possible that if a man with money really wanted to find her, there was little to stop him.

      He needed details. Every one he could get. Only then could he figure out what he could do, what he might need to do.

      He headed straight for his computer to send an email.