Deadly Identity by Lindsay McKenna

in worry. Had her stupid comment set off his warning signals? It was hard to think straight, when his male mouth sent a tremor of longing through her. Even now, her scalp continued to tingle from the snow he’d brushed from her hair. It had been an intimate, unexpected touch. In that moment, Rachel ached to discover him, not as a protective law-enforcement officer or employer, but as a man.
    â€œCome on, let me show you around,” he muttered. “It’s time we got you out of the house and into fresh Wyoming air.” Cade was anxious over the power of his impulses. He couldn’t touch her again. For a moment, he’d seen what he thought was yearning in her eyes as she glanced over at him. Yearning for what?
    Once more, Cade placed his hand beneath her elbow as he walked her out of the barn and into the surrounding area of the corrals. Rachel didn’t want to pull away from him. It was as if being near Cade erased all her fears, anxieties and worries about Dirk finding her. And for a moment, Rachel convinced herself that everything was all right, that Cade was interested in her. It was an idealistic thought beneath a daydream. Rachel knew it was only that: a dream. But Cade’s strong, supportive hand on her arm was not. It was real. He was real.
    The Grand Tetons rose like sharp, jagged peaks out of the snow-covered plain. Rachel loved looking at them. The snow gleamed on their blue granite slopes, the pine trees below ten thousand feet were a green-and-white mantle about their bases. As they walked to the corral where the four Belgian plow horses stood happily munching on hay, Rachel asked, “Do you ever get tired of looking at the Tetons? As an artist, I find myself wanting to paint them every time I look at them.” How badly Rachel wanted tolean against Cade, but it was wrong. He was her employer.
    Keeping her close as they crunched through the little-used path around the Belgian’s pen, Cade said, “I never get tired of it.” Monitoring his support of her elbow, Cade felt himself wanting Rachel on purely a physical basis. For so long, he hadn’t felt the need for intimacy. Abby’s death had snuffed out his life in all respects. The loss of his daughter had traumatized him into numbness. Now, his body was awakening because of Rachel. Or had he transited through the worst of his grief over the loss of his family? Cade was unsure, and tension sizzled through him.
    Her elbow tingled with heat. Rachel swallowed nervously. She cast about for anything to talk about. “Do you hike in them?” Their breath looked like miniature clouds around them. The temperature was ten degrees and, luckily, no wind was blowing to make it even colder.
    â€œYes, quite a bit. My dad is a hunter. I’m not, but he is. I go with him during elk-and moose-hunting season. But when my schedule allows me, I like to hike with my camera.” Cade decided to simply absorb and appreciate Rachel. He couldn’t do anything else, not under the circumstances.
    â€œAh,” Rachel said, stopping at the metal rail behind which the horses stood, “you shoot with a camera, not a rifle. That’s good.”
    Releasing her elbow as if he’d been burned, Cademoved to the pipe railing and leaned against it. He kept plenty of space between them. “Maybe being in law enforcement and carrying a weapon you know can kill someone has taken the edge off my desire to hunt. When I was a kid, I did hunt. But after I had to shoot and kill someone about four years ago, hunting didn’t seem as important to me.”
    Rachel heard the pain in Cade’s tone. He leaned his elbows across the pipe rail and watched the horses eat their hay. She walked up to him. “I couldn’t do what you do. I—well, taking a life…any life…it just isn’t something I could do.” His profile was clean and strong. Yet, the corner of his mouth flexed inward. Rachel sensed pain and