Turned out Jonas had an alibi for the night Heather Logan disappeared. According to Fran Tilman, he’d gone off for a few days with the girl he’d been seeing, a college student name Cissy Winters. The affair had been going on for several months before Jenny Murray found out. According to Fran, it was the final straw in the destruction of his marriage.

The sheriff might have known, but it wasn’t in the police report. Either way, unless something new turned up, Jonas was off her list.

From the start, she had been looking into the ranch hands, the men closest to Kade, men who also had access to his wife. So far, she’d found nothing suspicious. The Diamond Bar hands all appeared to be trustworthy, hard-working men. As she came to know them, she could better judge whether one of them would have gone behind Kade’s back with Heather. At this point, Ellie didn’t think so.

She turned the rented Jeep Cherokee onto the paved road and continued toward Coffee Springs, though she didn’t plan to stop in town. Kade had said Heather’s two best friends were women who’d gone to college with her. They were married now, but still living near Vail. Both of them had agreed to talk to her.

Ellie was glad for the chance to escape the ranch. She’d been attracted to Kade Logan since the moment she’d first seen him, an attraction that had grown stronger every day. She admired the way he ran the ranch and the way he handled his men.

He was also tall, solidly muscled, and the most ruggedly handsome, sexiest man she had ever met. Her stomach contracted just thinking about the kiss they had shared in his study last night. She wouldn’t easily forget the feel of his mouth moving hotly over hers, his lips so much softer than they appeared. When his big hands cupped her breasts, every bone and muscle in her body had turned as soft as melted wax.

She wanted more of him, wanted him to kiss her again, touch her all over, wanted to touch him. She wanted Kade to make love to her.

But what would happen if he did? Kade wasn’t looking for a relationship. On the other hand, neither was she. And as he had said, with both of them being such strong, self-reliant people, maybe it could work. At least for the time she would be staying at the ranch.

Setting out beneath a bright morning sun and the crystal shimmer of snow along the edges of the road, Ellie drove the Jeep to the turnoff near Coffee Springs and headed southeast on Highway 131 into the Vail valley. Her first appointment was with Gretchen Kneedler, blond and pretty from her Facebook photos, though it looked as though Gretchen had put on a few pounds since her college days.