Collecting Evidence. Rita Herron
so he made a big hole in the sky and built the mountains, then sent snow and rain down to make the world more beautiful.”
“Did he make the animals, too?” a curly red-haired four-year-old asked.
“Yes,” Aspen said with a smile. “He made all the animals and the birds. But soon, like children and grown-ups do sometimes, the animals began to fight. So Manitou decided he needed a king to rule them all.”
“Was it a lion?” a little boy asked.
“A dinosaur?” another suggested.
Aspen shook her head. “No, a grizzly bear.” She reached up her arms and held them wide. “Now give me a big bear hug and say night-night.”
The kids giggled and hugged her, and as they parted, she looked up to see Sister Margaret standing with a man in the doorway.
Her breath lodged in her chest in a painful surge. He was broad-shouldered and tall, so masculine with his wide jaw and chiseled features that her stomach fluttered with nerves. Thick black hair brushed his ears and forehead, long black lashes framing the bluest eyes she’d ever seen, eyes like the sky on a clear Colorado day.
Yet he looked dangerous and imposing, anger radiating off him in waves. And those startling eyes were intense, haunted, seemed to be trying to see deep into her soul, and made a chill skitter up her arms.
So did the scar that slashed his chin.
Although even that scar didn’t detract from his good looks.
One of the mothers herded the children to the back rooms for bed, and Aspen stood slowly, her ankle still slightly weak from her tumble with her attacker.
Sister Margaret offered her a tentative smile and gestured for the man to follow.
“This is Special Agent Dylan Avecedo. He came to take you home, Aspen.”
Fear slithered through Aspen as she met his gaze. Then he extended his hand and she placed hers inside his large palm, and a warm feeling of awareness shot through her. Something about those eyes seemed…familiar.
Had she met this man before?
But how would she have known a federal agent? Did he have the answers to her missing past?
And if he did, was she ready to hear the truth?
God, Aspen was even more beautiful that he’d remembered. Seeing her sitting on the floor with those kids triggered childhood memories of his mother doing the same with him and his siblings.
And served as a reminder that Aspen had intended to help children before her life had been interrupted by a murder.
Her long dark hair hung in a thick braid over her shoulder, her chocolate colored eyes huge and so sultry that once again he lost himself in the beautiful depths.
They were also pensive, pained by her loss.
Damn, he could almost feel the turmoil inside her, the need to replace her missing past with the truth. Yet she instinctively knew the truth wouldn’t be pretty, and she was frightened.
“Detective?” Her voice was pleading, searching his for answers. Answers that he didn’t have.
He studied her for any sign of recognition, for any glimmer that she would welcome him back in her life. That she knew that he could be trusted to stay by her side.
But he saw no indication that she knew who he was…or that she’d ever melted beneath his hands and mouth like a wanton lover.
Instead she looked at him as if he was a perfect stranger.
That hurt. He wanted her to know him, to recall what they’d had together, to want his touch as much as he craved hers.
Her face flushed slightly as he clung to her hand, and the trembling in her petite body and flushed expression in her eyes offered him a seed of hope. Even if she didn’t remember him, there was something there, a simmering, immediate attraction, just as the first time they’d touched and fallen into bed.
She was serving cocktails in that casino in Vegas, wearing a short little black skirt with a cropped T-shirt that hugged her breasts and exposed the smooth brown flesh of her flat stomach. Her voice had purred like a kitten, her movements fluid and seductive, her body so tempting that he had had to caress her bare skin.
That body he knew so well. One he’d tasted and explored and memorized.
One he’d wanted so often over the past few months that he’d fantasized about having her again and again.
Somewhere in the building, a baby cried out, and he thought of Jack. Along with relief that she was physically okay and the instantaneous heat that ripped through him at the sight of her, anger churned through his gut.
Dammit, if Jack was his, why hadn’t she told him?
Finally, she retreated and pulled away, wiping her palm on the side of her skirt. “Sister Margaret said you know where my family is.”
A slight tremor laced her voice, and he tried to place himself in her shoes, to understand what it must be like to be lost and alone with no memory of what had happened, but obviously aware she was in danger.
“Yes, your cousin Emma is waiting at the Ute reservation. That’s where you live. She’s been searching for you ever since you disappeared.”
A frown creased the delicate skin above her huge almond-shaped eyes. “How could I forget my own cousin?”
The doctor’s advice trilled in his head like a warning bell, and Dylan forced an understanding smile. “You suffered a head injury,” he said, hating the distress lining her face. “Sister Margaret said in time you may remember everything.”
She shivered and wrapped her arms around her waist.
“Sister Margaret also said a man broke into your room. Did you get a look at your attacker?”
She shook her head. “No, it was too dark. All I saw was his shadow. Then he attacked me, and I fought back and screamed.” Her voice broke, her breathing rattling out as if she was reliving that horrible event. “Then the sisters and other women ran in, and he jumped out the window and got away.”
A fresh bruise darkened her cheek, and he gritted his teeth to keep from touching it and pulling her into his arms to comfort her. She looked so small and fragile and…vulnerable. “What else do you remember?”
She chewed her bottom lip. “He had a knife in a leather pouch attached to his belt.”
Dylan’s blood ran cold. “How tall was he?”
She hesitated, rubbing her head in thought. “I don’t know. It was just a shadow.”
“Did you notice a distinctive smell?”
“Cigarettes,” she whispered. “And sweat.”
Watts used to smoke but had supposedly given up the habit. But perhaps the man had picked it back up. “Did he say anything?”
She shook her head. “No, he just grabbed me and shoved his hand over my mouth. Then I…I think I bit his hand.”
Her feistiness might have saved her life. Twice now. “I’d like to look around that room and see if I find any evidence.”
Sister Margaret nodded, and he went to the sedan to retrieve his crime kit. He flipped on a flashlight, waving it across the room in an arc as he searched the corners, the bed and floor.
With a grunt, he knelt and with his gloved hand, retrieved a loose hair that had fallen on the floor. It might belong to one of the other women or children, but he’d check it out. The hair was longer than Boyd Perkins’s or Sherman Watts’s—but still, it might be a lead