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Blindly she staggered to her feet and ran to the kitchen, grabbed the phone. She had to call Anthony. He would know what to do. He wouldn’t turn his back on her. Not now. He would be on the next plane to Chicago and—
One word about this call to anyone, and your son will pay the price.
Danielle sagged against the small white tiles of the counter and let the receiver drop from her hands. She couldn’t make the call, couldn’t take the risk.
The contact came thirty-three minutes later. She was staring at the phone, waiting for it to ring, but the noise resonated from the foyer. A knock. At the door.
She stood there a minute, stunned, before her training kicked in and she calmly dragged a chair to the cabinet and removed a lock box from the top shelf. Inside, the trusty Derringer awaited her. By rote, blindly, she retrieved the clip from a second box and slid it into place, all the while the knocking continued. Louder. Harder.
Sliding the gun into the waistband at the small of her back, she walked to the front door and pulled it open.
Nothing prepared her. Nothing could have. He stood against a wash of late-afternoon sun, the play of shadows and light stealing the details of his face, but not the force of his presence.
Danielle saw what the shadows stole. She saw the aura of danger, the hard, dark eyes, the sharp lines of his cheekbones, the square jaw. And she knew. Instinct urged her to draw the gun, cram it against his jugular and curl her finger around the trigger, while demanding he lead her to her son. But something else, sanity—caution—prompted her to stand very still, with the air-conditioning slapping her back and the hot summer sun blasting her face, not moving other than a slight tilt to her chin.
“You’re awfully bold, aren’t you?” she asked.
The big, tall man who wore confidence like body armor blinked. “Excuse me?”
Her fingers itched for the cool steel of the Derringer she’d received in honor of her sixteenth birthday. “It’s daylight,” she pointed out, glancing beyond his wide shoulders to the quiet suburban street, where Jonah Johnson raced by on his dirt bike. “Someone might see you.”
His lips, ridiculously full and soft for such a grim, hard man, twitched. “And would that be such a bad thing?”
“Not for me,” she said with a cold smile. “You’re the one taking the risk.”
“I see.” Slowly, very slowly, never taking his eyes from hers, he slid a hand into his pocket.
Danielle’s breath slowed to the slide of his fingers. Adrenaline ebbed, flowed, guided her own hand behind her back, to the waistband of her tailored black skirt. She’d stood face-to-face with monsters before. Talked with them. Pretended. Played their game.
“It’s a good thing I like risks, then, isn’t it?” His question was casual, as unexpected as the dimple that flashed with his smile. He stepped closer, lowered his voice. “I have to say, though, this is hardly the greeting I expected.”
“No?” Her fingers curled around the cool metal. “Did you expect to find me quivering in the dark? On my knees? In a puddle waiting to be mopped up and pushed aside?” If so, the man was sadly mistaken. Danielle had learned at an obscenely early age that the best defense was a strong offense. If she let this man see the stark fear slicing her to thin painful ribbons, gave him one clue how hard it was to stand there and face him, to keep her voice calm, then his power over her would grow.
“Look,” he said, “I’m afraid—”
“You should be.” Slowly, calmly, she pulled the gun and pointed it at his chest. “Very, very afraid.”
The man went still. She saw his eyes flare in surprise, then narrow in confusion. His mouth thinned to a flat line. His body, straining against the dark-gray of his wrinkled button-down and black jeans, froze.
“Doesn’t feel very good, does it?” she asked, enjoying the brief upper hand. Pray God she wasn’t making the biggest mistake of her life. “Now get inside and tell me what the hell is going on.”
In another lifetime Liam might have laughed. In another lifetime he might have quickly and efficiently knocked the gun from her shaking hands, jammed her arm up behind her back and shoved her against the faded siding of her little house. In another lifetime he might have felt a flicker of fear or compassion or…or something.
But he felt nothing now, only the cold certainty that, once again, his informant had been right.
She was the one.
He saw it in the stark fear in her eyes, a fear she tried hard not to show behind the defiance and bravado, but which glimmered bright like the fire of highly polished opals. He saw it in the red rim around her eyes, the tracks of the tears down her pale face, a face that had been lively and vibrant only hours before, when he’d watched her at the hotel. He saw it in the mouth he was quite sure she didn’t realize trembled.
A trickle of admiration leaked through, but he quickly stanched the flow. He was not here to admire this woman, no matter how appealing she’d looked earlier in the day, all snug and tidy in her chic little crimson jacket and tight-fitting black skirt. He’d watched her for the better part of an hour, observing her mannerisms, her movements, watching the way she artfully arranged the roses and lilies, learning all that he could before making his move.
A man in his line of work could never be too prepared, and this woman did not fit the profile. She worked an average job and lived in an average house. She had no visible ties to anyone in the spotlight. According to the assistant manager, she didn’t even date.
But she didn’t hesitate to pull again, when she felt threatened.
Slowly, he lifted his hands. “Whoa,” he said in a low, soothing voice, one that was rusty and scraped his throat on the way out. How long since he’d last soothed someone? How long since he’d last cared?
Not cared, he amended. He didn’t care about her, only about the hunt.
“Do you have a permit for that?” Liam asked.
“You really think a permit matters?”
“Yeah,” he said slowly, confidently. “I do.”
She angled her chin, jabbed the gun closer. “You don’t need a permit where you’re going.”
No, he didn’t. That much was true. But he didn’t need a bullet hole through his heart, either. He looked at her standing there and wondered if she had any idea how provocative she looked, a tall, beautiful woman with streaks of dark hair slipping from her barrette and falling against her tear-streaked face, her pale lips trembling, a damn fine gun in her shaking hands. Her body screamed fear, but her eyes glittered with a fierce determination he recognized too well.
Deep in his gut, the truth sunk like a deadweight. “Jesus, I’m too late.”
She blinked. It was the first chink in her armor. But then she rallied, narrowed her eyes. “That depends upon what you have in mind.”
The words were tough, gutsy, but they hid a pain he didn’t want to hear. Didn’t want to know about. He was too late. Again.
Frustration lashed at him. He’d left New York the second he’d received the scribbled note, used all his resources to find her. But just as he’d been for the past three years, he was one step behind.
The senator lying cold and dead in a New York morgue bore silent testimony to that.
“Look, Danielle.” It was his voice that wanted to shake now, his hands that wanted to tremble, his past that wanted to leak through. “You don’t need to be afraid,” he said, and for a change, he didn’t strip away the emotion. He changed it. Glossed over the hard edges, sanded down the splinters. “I’m here to help.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I suppose that’s why you were asking questions about me this afternoon at work? Watching me? Because you want to help?”
“That’s right.” Slowly, he released the edge of the black wallet he’d been holding in his hand, allowing one side to fall open and reveal the tarnished badge. “Special Agent Liam Brooks,” he said very slowly, very deliberately. “FBI.” He paused, watched the shock, the disbelief, the horror, wash over her face. “Now lower the damn gun before I do it myself.”
Chapter 2
Danielle was a smart woman. Not the learned, book smart that came from school and study, but street smart, the kind that came from hard knocks and foster homes. She’d learned how to read between the lines. She knew how to recognize trouble, how to know when to stay and when to go, how to take care of herself. Her sister had insisted Danielle could make a nice living setting up at carnivals, charging a fee for the intuition that came to her naturally.
There wasn’t much that got by her, wasn’t much she didn’t understand.
But standing there with a gun pointed at this grim-faced stranger, with her heart racing and her knees trying not to knock, she watched his mouth move, heard the deep tenor of his voice, but didn’t understand. She didn’t understand what he was saying. She didn’t understand why his badge looked so real. Didn’t understand how her life could shatter in the space of only an hour, not after all the measures she’d taken to protect her son. He was just a little boy. Only six. Innocent.
But worst of all, most damning of all, she didn’t understand the dizzying desire to believe this man, to trust him, to think that the badge was real, that somehow he could help.
One word about this to anyone, and your son will pay the price.
“You’re lying.” That had to be it. He was fabricating a story to gain her trust, her cooperation. Or maybe he was testing her, trying to trick her into disobeying his instructions.
His eyes locked onto hers, dark, commanding. “Why would I lie?”
The gun grew heavier, like a weight on her heart, but she kept her hands steady. “You tell me.”
He answered not as she’d expected, as she’d hoped, but with a low stream of curse words. “I’m too late,” he said again, and this time his voice cracked on a hard edge of frustration and disgust and remorse.
Danielle wanted to step back from him, from the crazy way he made her feel, the confusion, the hope. But she forced herself to stand very still, even as he took a step closer, so close that the barrel of the gun jammed against his chest.
“What has he done to you, Danielle?” The question was soft, laced with a vehemence that chilled her blood. “Tell me what that bastard has done to hurt you.”
The walls, the certainty, started to crumble. “No one has hurt me.”
His face hardened. “Don’t lie to me, damn it.” The words were hard, not at all preparing her for the way he lifted a hand to skim a finger beneath her lashes. “I see it in your eyes.”
Naked. She suddenly felt completely exposed, as though she stood before this man without a stitch of clothing on. The way he looked at her, with that dark, penetrating gaze, made her feel as though he could see beyond the fabric of her uniform, deeper than the flesh, to the fear snaking through her like cold slime.
“You don’t need to be afraid,” he said in a voice that no longer resonated with anger but soothed like a warm summer breeze. “Not anymore. Not of me.”
Her throat tightened. For almost two hours she’d been holding all the jagged pieces together, the fear, the uncertainty, the desperation, willing herself to be strong, to stay in control. For Alex. But now, in the face of this man with the hard eyes but soft words, who offered her a gift she couldn’t accept, the gift of help, everything started to slip, and it sliced to the bone.
“What do you want?” she asked with a valiance she no longer felt.
His dark eyes narrowed. “Right now,” he said very slowly, very softly, “I want you to put that gun down.” The hand at her face, the fingers that feathered along her cheekbone, lowered, dropping to the Derringer.
No! someplace deep inside screamed. Fight him. Don’t let him have his way with you. But she could no more move, no more look away from him, than she could push time backward and bring Alex home.
“I’m going to help you,” he murmured, uncurling her fingers and taking the weight of the gun from her hand.
She watched him, saw his square palm, his long fingers, the bronze of his tan against her pale wrist, but just like earlier at the hotel, when she’d stared at the patrons milling about the lobby, she couldn’t bring the moment into focus.
“See?” His voice was low, soothing. “We’re putting the gun down.” In a svelte move he removed the clip and shoved the barrel into the waistband of his jeans. “Good.”
A trap, she told herself. A trick.
No, came the voice deep inside, the voice she’d once staked her life on but could no longer trust.
“Now we’re going to go inside,” the man was saying, and before she could pull away, he had a hand at her waist and was guiding her into the cool confines of her small foyer. She knew she should fight him, stop him, but lethargy stole through her, numbing like a sweet, forgotten drug.
The man, Liam he said his name was, an FBI agent, led her into the cluttered family room, where the puzzle of the United States she and her son had been working lay unfinished on the old pine coffee table. He guided her to the denim sofa, the one Alex had picked out, and encouraged her to sit.
She did.
He sat beside her, didn’t release her hand. She hadn’t realized how cold she was, hadn’t known she could be so cold while the sun still blazed outside and blood still pumped through her body.
Ty.
Ty had been this cold. But then, her son’s father had been dead. She’d stared at him in his casket, a tall, lanky man in dark gray trousers and a black dress shirt, sandy-blond hair combed obscenely neatly for such a perpetually unkempt man, the soft lines of his face, the whiskers she’d begged them not to shave. Ty wouldn’t be Ty without his scruffy jaw.
Anthony had been by her side, strong and protective as always. He’d stood to her left with a steadying arm around her waist, Elizabeth to her right, also lending an arm in support. They’d held her up, tried to stop her when she stepped forward with a picture of her son in her hand. She’d meant only to lay it on Ty’s chest, but she’d lifted her hand higher, skimmed it over his mouth, his cheek.
Cold. So horribly cold.
But there was no cold now, not from the man seated next to her. The heat of his body blanketed her, soaked through her palm and into her blood, fighting with memory and reality.
The desire—the need—to lean into him stunned her. It would be so easy. There wasn’t that much space between them. She had only to let go, lean against his chest.
She pulled back abruptly, putting as much space between them as she could while he still held her hand.
“Talk to me,” he said in that darkly magical voice of his, the one that both threatened and coerced. “Tell me what’s going on. Tell me what he’s done to you.”
She wanted to. God, against every scrap of sanity and caution, she wanted to. The forgotten force of need burst through her like a punch. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes,” Liam said, never releasing her hand, her eyes, “you do.”
She watched him, much as he’d watched her earlier, noting the lines at the corners of his eyes, laugh lines on some men, but not this man. These lines carved deeper, screamed of life and lessons that had nothing to do with humor. His face was tanned, not quite leathery, but not smooth like Alex’s. At his jaw she saw the gathering of whiskers and wondered when was the last time he’d shaved.
He wasn’t her friend. He wasn’t her ally. No matter how strong the temptation to lean on him, trust him, the possible consequences screamed through her. She didn’t know who he really was or what he really wanted. Badges could be faked. Compassion forced. He could be involved.
Or he really could be FBI. Which would almost be worse. The caller had made it clear what would happen if the authorities got involved.
“It’s just been a long day,” she hedged.
“And that’s why you pulled a gun on me?”
The question landed with unerring accuracy. Pulling a gun on a stranger was not the mark of a calm, content, rational woman. “I…I thought you were someone else.”
“Who?”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”
He let out a rough breath and looked away from her, staring at the half-finished puzzle on the coffee table. Just beyond, a pair of dirty sneakers lay near the back door. “You have a kid?”
Her heart jumped. “A son,” she admitted, because she knew the safest lies grew from the truth.
“Where is he?”
“At day care,” she lied automatically.
“Are you sure?”
“I talked to them less than an hour ago.” The truth.
“Why didn’t you pick him up on the way home?”
The questions just kept coming, one after another. “I was hoping to rest for a few minutes, get rid of my headache.” Hoping the phone would ring and she would receive her next set of instructions.
Before Liam could fire off another query, she launched one of her own. “Maybe you should tell me what’s going on,” she suggested. “You say you’re with the FBI. What could you possibly want with me?”
From the time she’d pulled the gun on him, something had changed. His stony expression had softened, the hard edges to his voice had vanished. He’d been almost human. But that all changed now. The man from the lobby returned, and with his arrival, the oxygen fled the small family room.
