Hunted in Conard County Read online

  She astonished him by turning her hand over and clasping his fingers to give him a gentle squeeze. “I hope you’re not hoping.”

  “Hoping?”

  “For a relationship between us. It has nothing to do with you, Stu. It’s all me. I’d just be a great big burden. I don’t want to be a burden to any one person. I even hate it that I need someone to drive me to the store. Why would any man want to be saddled with that?”

  Well, he didn’t think it was a saddle, but he wasn’t sure how she was reading so much into a single touch.

  Except she wasn’t wrong. He was dodging his attraction to her because he believed she didn’t want it. Now he knew why.

  And his face must have betrayed more than he ever would have guessed.

  “You wouldn’t be a problem,” he said firmly, then withdrew his hand and changed the subject, for his own comfort as much as anything. “I hope the state lab comes back with something useful soon.”

  * * *

  Be sure to check out the rest of the Conard County:

  The Next Generation miniseries!

  * * *

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  Dear Reader,

  Many people have disabilities of all kinds. All of them are wrestling with it, although the disability may not be apparent to the casual observer.

  I suffer from the same disability as Kerri: epilepsy. I am grateful that I don’t have seizures in the way most people think of them. I call them “missing time” or “blinking out.” For a brief while, I am unconnected with the world. If they are short enough, I’ve often dismissed them as “not paying attention” or “woolgathering.” Must have been thinking of something else.

  When they are longer, the confusion can be scary. What happened? Why is everything different? How did I miss that? The confusion episodes continue to this day.

  Mine originated when I fell on the ice when I was thirteen. It was enough, and the “woolgathering” episodes began. They caused me a lot of trouble in school, but I got pretty good at piecing things together.

  I wasn’t diagnosed until I was twenty-four and the missing time became scarily evident. No more driving, for one thing. For another, many states wouldn’t allow me to marry or have children. Since I was already married with my second child on the way, it was too late to stop me.

  Learning to adapt can be overwhelming because it’s frightening and limiting. Over time, one learns to cope. As Kerri will. And Stu is not at all put off.

  Rachel Lee

  HUNTED IN CONARD COUNTY

  Rachel Lee

  Rachel Lee was hooked on writing by the age of twelve and practiced her craft as she moved from place to place all over the United States. This New York Times bestselling author now resides in Florida and has the joy of writing full-time.

  Books by Rachel Lee

  Harlequin Romantic Suspense

  Conard County: The Next Generation

  Guardian in Disguise

  The Widow’s Protector

  Rancher’s Deadly Risk

  What She Saw

  Rocky Mountain Lawman

  Killer’s Prey

  Deadly Hunter

  Snowstorm Confessions

  Undercover Hunter

  Playing with Fire

  Conard County Witness

  A Secret in Conard County

  A Conard County Spy

  Conard County Marine

  Undercover in Conard County

  Conard County Revenge

  Conard County Watch

  Stalked in Conard County

  Hunted in Conard County

  Visit the Author Profile page at

  Harlequin.com for more titles.

  To all who understand.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Excerpt from Ranger’s Family in Danger by Lara Lacombe

  Prologue

  The house was dark and quiet, the silence punctuated only by the sound of the refrigerator ice maker dropping ice cubes with a clatter. Digital clocks on appliances cast an eerie green glow, but enough to see by.

  He knew where her bedroom was. He’d waited patiently, walking along streets and alleys, waiting for the light in that room to go out. When it did, he waited another hour, keeping to the shadows, ducking from the occasional police patrol. Conard City, Wyoming, was soundly asleep, most of its activity now relegated to the truck stop at the western edge of town. Even the state highway stretched in endless silence, offering little traffic.

  Inside the house, he no longer cared about such things. A small pocket penlight with a red lens guided his feet.

  He was wrapped in long sleeves, long pants and quiet athletic shoes. A knit ski mask covered his entire head. It muffled his breathing even as the moisture from his breath dampened it. These were accelerating breaths, because he was excited. His heart hammered wildly.

  Gloved hands gripped a long, sharp hunting knife. The door to the bedroom stood open. The woman in the bed would have seen no need to close it. She was alone in her own house. This was a generally safe town.

  Not any longer. Not for her. He crept to her bedside and passed the beam of the small flashlight over her. She didn’t stir.

  He knew the lay of the land now. In an instant, he ripped the blanket off her and straddled her in the bed, holding the icy blade of the knife to her throat.

  “Scream and I’ll cut your throat,” he half whispered as her eyes opened wide in terror, glistening in the darkness. He waited for the situation to penetrate.

  Then the whimpering began. The pleas. How he loved the sound of that. The smell of her terror intoxicated him.

  His fun had begun.

  Chapter 1

  Two weeks before...

  Kerri Lynn Addison sat at the desk in her minuscule faculty office, her service dog, Snowy, lying beside her on the floor. On her desk was a volume of Homicide Detective’s Crime Scene Manual. The written one, not the companion book with all the graphic photos. She didn’t want some unprepared student walking in on the visual presentation of ugly crimes. The book was useful to her, however, in prepping lessons for her criminal justice classes.

  But she wasn’t reading. She was awaiting Sergeant Stuart Canady of the Conard County Sheriff’s Office. As a former cop herself, she shouldn’t have been nervous about the meeting, but she was.

  She was a former because she now suffered from a type of epilepsy as a result of being shot in the head. She didn’t have convulsions, for which she was grateful, but instead had absence seizures. That meant that for anywhere up to a couple of minutes, she might as well be unconscious. Out of touch, unaware of anything around her. It was not necessarily something anyone else would notice, unless it went on too long, and she couldn’t tell when it happened herself, unless something in the world around her had changed.

  It was like a movie that skipped. Sometime during her absence, new characters would appear or people walking in front of her would suddenly be way down the street. Or an animal would come out of nowhere. At least that’s how it seemed to her. And when things had changed, she felt confused until she sorted those changes out in her mind, which further froze her. It was even possible that
the confusion was part of the seizure itself.

  That’s why she had Snowy. He was trained to tell when a seizure was coming and would persistently poke her with his snout, giving her time to stop whatever she was doing. When it came to crossing streets, for example, that early warning might be a lifesaver. He kept her safe while the confused aftermath stymied her.

  Leaning over, she patted his back. He lifted his head briefly, acknowledging the touch, waiting in case she wanted to rise. Nope. She just wanted the comfort.

  He was a snow-white dog with a kind of gray mask, like a husky or a malamute, but the trainers had said he was probably mostly German shepherd. He was an unusual mix for a service dog, labs being recognized among the best, but Snowy had an instinct for predicting her seizures. It was a relatively rare ability and, since she didn’t need him to do anything else, they were a perfect match.

  Right now he was calm, watchful and totally comfortable. The minute she put his vest on him, he became the epitome of a professional. Let loose to run in a safe place, he became all energetic, playful dog.

  Since her office door was closed, she spoke to him. Her confidant. His ears pricked as he listened.

  “I shouldn’t be nervous, Snowy. I used to be a cop, too. But... I don’t want to have a seizure while he’s here. I’d be embarrassed.”

  Snowy answered with a quiet, short huff.

  Embarrassment was one of the things she still struggled with. It could be awful to drop out in the middle of a conversation and come to, finding others looking at her, wondering why she hadn’t responded. One friend had told her that she looked coldly angry at such times, but she didn’t know if that was true. Either way, she didn’t want her first meeting with Stuart Canady to start like that.

  A rap on the door, even though expected, startled her and she straightened in her chair. “Come in,” she called.

  The man who walked through the door was the stuff of a Western movie hero. Rugged, face aged a bit by sun and wind, but clearly not that old. He filled his khaki uniform with a body that must be trained to a perfect peak. The belt around his waist carried his pistol and all the other accoutrements a police officer needed right at hand from a loop of black plastic handcuffs, like zip ties, to a Taser and auto reload cartridges. So they still used revolvers around here. Or maybe it was a weapon of choice for him.

  Her gaze swept upward, taking in the seven-pointed brass star on his chest, the name tag, the rank pinned to his collar, then met eyes the gray-green color of tornadic clouds. They riveted her.

  Then he smiled. “Ms. Addison? I’m Sergeant Stuart Canady, Conard County Sheriff’s Department.”

  She rose from her chair, smiling in return, and offered her hand, inviting him farther into the cramped space. She waved him to the chair on the other side of her desk. “I really appreciate you coming and being willing to give your time to my class.”

  “My pleasure,” he said as he sat and crossed his legs loosely. “A change of pace.”

  She resumed her seat, leaning a bit forward so her forearms rested on her desk. “It’s my first semester of teaching, but I believe it would do the students good to hear what the job of police officer is really like.”

  “You were law enforcement yourself, weren’t you?”

  She forced a small laugh, uncomfortable though the question made her. “The uniform helps, Sergeant.”

  His smile widened. “The gun on the hip probably does, too. And Stu will suffice. I’m not used to formality anymore. We have very little of it around here.”

  She wouldn’t know. Since her arrival, she’d been avoiding law enforcement officers because they reminded her of what she’d lost. In fact, except for her classes, she’d been avoiding people in general. Now she had to deal with it.

  “Call me Kerri,” she answered. Suddenly she was remembering all her fellow officers back in Tampa, and all the support they’d tried to give her. Maybe she’d been nuts to strike out on her own.

  Bringing herself back to the present, she added, “The important thing is that the students know what they might be getting into. All of it, including the boredom between bouts of terror.”

  A snort of laughter escaped him. “Like the way you feel every time you stop a car for speeding?”

  She nodded. It was true. Pulling over cars was one of the most dangerous things an officer could do. The reaction was always unpredictable and, statistically, more officers were killed and wounded during traffic stops. “Like that,” she agreed. “A window on reality, and maybe some personal experiences if you don’t mind. The class isn’t huge, just eighteen students, but many of them are talking about becoming officers in larger communities. A taste for excitement, I guess.”

  He nodded. “I’ll make it clear, though, that most of my experience was with the military police. Depending on where you’re stationed, life can be too exciting.”

  “I imagine.” Although she supposed she really couldn’t. Her war zone, such as it was, had been city streets. As part of the victims unit, she’d been too often embroiled in domestic disputes, which could become very ugly. She had been getting close to making detective, however, and being part of investigative work had been her love. Now here she was, teaching.

  “So when do you want me?”

  “The class is on Friday for three hours at two in the afternoon. You can pick your day, and you don’t have to spend the entire three hours. I’m looking for a window on reality from you, if you don’t mind, a window that won’t crush their dreams but that might bring them more in line with what it’s like. Especially in a larger jurisdiction.”

  “You’d probably know more about busier jurisdictions, if we’re talking civilian only. This one is fairly quiet compared to a big city,” he agreed. “Although it seems to be getting less quiet. You should talk to our previous sheriff sometime. I hear that for the last thirty years he’s been swearing this county is going to hell in a handbasket.”

  That drew a laugh from her. “When did he retire?”

  “About fifteen years ago. Still likes to stick a finger in the pie from time to time, though. Good man.”

  “I’d like to meet him.” Maybe. She wasn’t sure she was ready to get involved in any depth with the whole cop scene again. But that was for later.

  He glanced at his watch. “It’s five-thirty. I just came off shift. Can I buy you dinner at the diner? We can talk more there without my stomach growling.”

  She couldn’t drive so she’d have to walk. She’d been avoiding public places out of...what? Fear. Fear? She’d never been one to be afraid about much before. She couldn’t let it get in her way now. Steeling herself, she nodded. “Sure. I’d like that. I don’t drive, though, so I’ll walk there.”

  He arched a brow but didn’t ask. “I’ll give you a lift. No problem.” He nodded to her service dog. “No problem for him, either.”

  After being nervous about meeting this man, she’d been asked to have dinner with him. Just a cordial, friendly thing. Why did she keep avoiding the contact? Sheesh.

  But it wasn’t really fear, she admitted. It was something more craven. She didn’t want to become embarrassed. Hell, she was going to have to learn to live with that. Absolutely no way around it.

  “What’s your pal’s name?” he asked as they walked out to his official SUV. The parking lot was nearly empty at dinner hour, and evening classes hadn’t yet begun.

  “Snowy.”

  “Well, I know from experience that Maude will give him a burger on a paper plate, if that’s okay. I don’t know the rules with service dogs, just police dogs.”

  “Pretty much the same. Don’t touch.”

  He laughed. “Makes sense. But can he have a burger?”

  “Sure, if I tell him it’s okay. And it will be.” Because she really wouldn’t need him once she was seated, and she knew from experience that Snowy loved burgers. Heck, if they passe
d a joint cooking them, his head would lift and he’d start sniffing loudly. He didn’t break stride, pull on his leash or anything, but it was clear he hoped she would stop and treat him. She did, too often, she supposed.

  He opened the door of his police SUV, a tan color not much different from his uniform and probably a color that didn’t show dust much. Along its side the name of the department and the smaller words To Protect and Serve had been painted in a dark green. Beside it was blazoned a gold sheriff’s star.

  Kerri climbed in and Snowy followed, taking the back seat as he had learned. “Good boy,” she praised him. He gave her his version of a smile.

  * * *

  Stuart watched the process play out before he closed the door as Kerri snapped her seat belt into place. Good dog. Apparently pleasant woman. Sure pretty enough. She was dressed, however, in black slacks and a black silky shirt. Not quite a uniform, but suggestive of one. Interesting.

  Then he wondered if he should tell her that Snowy’s fur was redecorating her a bit. He decided that would be an unmannerly thing to do. She was probably aware of it.

  As he climbed in behind the wheel and snapped his own seat belt into place, he glanced at her again. She was staring straight ahead as if a bit uncomfortable. Hell, she was just going to have a meal with another cop. She must have done that frequently.

  Her eyes were striking, a brilliant green that he doubted he’d ever seen before, her hair a rusty red that fit her. It was cut short and businesslike but no less pretty. Her face was smooth, youthful, classic in its lines and sprinkled with cute freckles.

  He turned his attention to driving because he’d realized at some point in adulthood that women didn’t really like being looked over by strange men. It made them uneasy.

  Eyes front, he warned himself. He’d only just met her and assessing her physical attributes wouldn’t help their budding relationship any. But man, did she have some attributes! He smothered the smile that played around his mouth because he didn’t want to explain it.