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  “Of course.” Talia nodded.

  Talia could hear the crunch of gravel under the cop’s feet and saw the beam of his flashlight as he moved around the side of the house. She went into the kitchen and was pouring herself a glass of water when she heard a knock on the door that led to the single-car garage.

  Talia put down her glass and opened the door to Officer Roberts. “I think I know what the problem is.”

  But another voice, deep, male, and all too familiar, distracted her. “Where’s your sister? Is everything okay?”

  Talia turned to see Jack in her entryway, dressed in frayed jeans and a gray sweatshirt that proclaimed him property of the U.S. Army. His eyes were a little puffy and his short dark hair was ruffled as though he’d just rolled out of bed. Which, at just after two on a Tuesday morning, he no doubt had.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “I texted him from the bathroom,” Rosario said.

  “Rosie, we shouldn’t bother Jack with stuff like this,” Talia said tightly, even as her stomach did a little flip at the idea that he was willing to pull himself out of bed at this ungodly hour to make sure they were okay. “He doesn’t need to deal with our problems anymore.”

  Jack’s heavy footfalls echoed on the wood floors as he took the ten steps that led from the door to the small kitchen.

  Talia turned to face him. “I’m so sorry, Jack. Rosie shouldn’t have—”

  “Of course she should have,” Jack said, his eyes narrowing on her. “Why didn’t you call me yourself?”

  “It didn’t occur to me,” she said honestly. “Besides, the alarm company automatically calls the police. There’s no reason for us to bother you with it.”

  She could see a muscle tighten in his jaw. “When are you ever going to understand that it’s not a bother? I need to know you’re safe for my own peace of mind.”

  Under his scrutiny, Talia suddenly became aware that she was wearing her pajamas, which consisted of a pair of soft cotton pants and a thin tank top that showed off every curve of her braless breasts. Her face heated and she crossed her arms over her chest.

  It was silly to feel self-conscious—the man had seen her naked, for God’s sake—but there was something different between them now, a weird charge in the air.

  And it didn’t help that snippets of her earlier conversation with Rosie kept popping into her brain. Making her wonder if her sister was right, that Jack did have a thing for her after all and had just been biding his time before he called in his favors.

  Stop. Jack isn’t like that and you know it, she told herself, giving herself a mental slap for even thinking it. After all that he’d done—and more to the point, hadn’t done—Jack didn’t deserve anything but her gratitude.

  “I appreciate that you’re concerned about us, Jack, but I’m sure whoever tried to break in is long gone. No need for you to lose any more sleep over it.”

  “Actually, I don’t believe there was an intruder,” Roberts broke in.

  “Then what set off the alarm?” Jack said.

  “Want to follow me?” He gestured them out to the garage, Jack following Talia so closely she could feel the heat rolling off his much larger body.

  The overhead light was on, illuminating Talia’s silver Honda Accord parked inside. Next to it, a plastic garbage can lay on its side. The bag inside had been dragged out and shredded, and bits and pieces of banana peel, coffee filters, and other assorted trash littered the concrete floor.

  “Looks like the side door into the garage was left slightly ajar,” Roberts said, picking his way over a Styrofoam container dripping week-old noodles as he walked to the door. “My guess is raccoons pushed the door open, and when they did, they set off the motion detectors in here.” Roberts took a curious look around. “Don’t often see motion detectors in a house this small.”

  Especially not one full of secondhand furniture and cheap electronics. But it wasn’t stuff Talia’s more-sophisticated-than-average security system was protecting.

  She turned to Rosario, who was lurking in the door that led to the kitchen. “You told me you locked the door when you came in.”

  Guilt flashed in her sister’s eyes as she grimaced. “I thought I did, but it’s possible it didn’t latch…”

  Now she really felt like a jerk, having the police show up and dragging Jack out of bed because of a mishap with the neighborhood wildlife. “You need to be sure!” Talia snapped, her unease morphing into annoyance.

  “I’m sorry, okay? Don’t yell at me!”

  Talia took a deep breath and bit back her temper. “I’m sorry I yelled. I know it was an accident. This is a safe neighborhood, but we still need to be careful.”

  Rosario nodded, but her mouth was still pulled into a slight pout.

  Officer Roberts’s radio squawked from his hip and he unclipped it to have a low-pitched conversation full of codes Talia couldn’t decipher.

  “Ms. Vega?”

  Talia turned back to Officer Roberts. “Are you satisfied everything is okay around here? I have a possible two-sixty-one I need to respond to.”

  “What’s a two-sixty-one?” Talia wondered out loud.

  “It’s sexual assault,” Jack said quietly before Roberts could answer. “Right?” Jack asked Roberts as an afterthought.

  “That’s correct.”

  “Yes, we’ll be fine, Officer. Thanks for responding so quickly,” Talia said. As he walked away, talking into his radio, she heard something about “panic,” and “raccoons.”

  As she looked at the garbage tossed around her garage, Talia suddenly felt very, very tired. “How could you not check to make sure the door was locked?” she said again as she took a garbage bag from the box on a shelf and gingerly picked up an empty pretzel bag.

  “It was just a raccoon,” Rosario said defensively. “It was nothing.”

  “This time,” Talia snapped as she threw a bunch of rancid carrot tops into the bag. “But you heard him. He left to go investigate a rape. That could have been us. It could have been you—” Her voice choked on the thought.

  “Don’t get all paranoid again—”

  “Your sister’s right,” Jack snapped, and knelt down to scoop up some stray papers. “You can’t just think you lock the doors; you have to be sure—”

  “This is exactly why I live in the dorms,” Rosario snapped, and stomped back into the house.

  Talia snatched a milk carton from Jack’s hand. “You can go now,” she said, wincing at her peevish tone. “I’m sorry,” she added immediately, and sat back on her heels with a sigh. “I shouldn’t talk to you like that. It’s just, I thought I was past it, you know?” She pushed herself to her feet and held up her hand to show him how much it was shaking. “One minute I’m fine, sleeping like a baby, but all it takes is a wayward raccoon to send me into a full-blown freak-out.”

  Jack caught her arm, the warmth of his big palm seeping into her skin, making her suddenly aware of how cold the rest of her body was. She clenched her teeth to keep them from chattering as a shudder tumbled through her.

  “Next time it might not be nothing. Don’t beat yourself up for being prepared.”

  Talia let him pull her into the house. False alarm or not, the adrenaline rush of fear and the subsequent crash were real. And though she was loathe to admit it, it felt good to have him here, his strong presence, ready to spring into action at the slightest threat.

  She closed her eyes. Jack was not her personal knight in shining armor, and she couldn’t keep depending on him. She already owed him so much. She couldn’t keep adding to the list.

  Jack pulled Talia into her postage-stamp-sized kitchen and forced himself not to focus on the silky feel of her wrist under his fingers. Though she was trying hard to keep it together now that her intruder had turned out to be a furry bandit, she was clearly shaken up. She didn’t need him to start fondling her arm like some sexually frustrated perv.

  But it was damn hard to pull his hand away as he settle
d her into a spindly wooden chair. He gave her wrist one last squeeze, telling himself it was to comfort her, but it was just as much to savor a last quick feel of the smooth, milky, coffee-colored expanse.

  “You should let me redo the system,” he said. “Hook it back into the Gemini network so I get an alert when it goes off—”

  She looked up at him, her eyes shadowed with fatigue, her full mouth pulled into a wry half smile. “Really? So you can come running every time a raccoon gets in my trash? Besides, the Gemini alarm system would mean retro-fitting the house’s phone lines. Even if my landlord let me do it, I can’t afford to pay for it.”

  “I can—”

  “Don’t you dare offer to pay for it!” Talia snapped before he could even get the words out. “I’m sorry, I know I’m acting like a bitch, but you don’t need to do anything else for us.” She shook her head and huffed out a little laugh. “I know that sounds ridiculous given how much you’ve done for me and Rosie. But, Jack, it’s been over two years. Whatever debt you think you owe me for what happened, believe me, you’ve made up for it. You can let go of your guilt and stop worrying about us.”

  Goddamn, if only it was that simple, he thought as he studied her. So different now than the almost savagely beautiful woman he’d met for the first time two and a half years ago. Back then she’d been tough as nails, slinking around Club One, ruling with an iron fist and a killer bod.

  Or so he’d thought. It hadn’t taken him long to see the cracks start to show, to realize she was in way, way over her head.

  And with his usual—and sometimes misguided—sense of what his sister called old-school chivalry and what he called an idiotic hero complex, he’d decided Talia Vega was a damsel in sore need of rescuing.

  But he’d drastically misjudged his opponent and nearly gotten her killed.

  So, hell yeah, guilt had driven him, especially at the beginning. But as he’d gotten to know Talia, he’d seen firsthand her drive to protect her sister at any cost, her fighting spirit that helped her survive an attack that would have killed most.

  Then he’d watched her these past two years as she picked up the pieces and built a new life for herself, and his admiration had grown exponentially.

  Admiration and something else he wasn’t quite ready to put a label on. In any case, whatever he felt for Talia was a lot more complicated than simple guilt. “I don’t see why it’s such a problem for me to want to help you out every once in a while.” The truth was, he wanted a hell of a lot more, and a depraved part of him knew she’d probably give it if he asked.

  But it would never be for the reasons he wanted. And he would never settle for anything less.

  “So can you indulge me?” he asked softly. As he gazed into her dark, shadowed eyes, her beautiful face with the high cheekbones and full lips that gave her an exotic air, his hand itched to caress her cheek. Trail down her neck. Tangle in the thick tumble of near-black curls.

  He curled his hand into a fist.

  She nodded. “I don’t want you to think I’m not grateful. For everything—”

  “I don’t want your goddamn gratitude,” he said, harsher than he’d intended.

  To her credit, she didn’t flinch. “But I don’t know why you feel obligated to bother with us, especially now that we’re safe.”

  “But you don’t feel safe, do you?”

  “It’s over,” she said. “There’s nothing to worry about anymore.”

  He wasn’t sure if she was trying to convince him or herself, but the fear was still there, along with the scars that had faded but not disappeared.

  And though he knew it would be torture to be around her while knowing he couldn’t have her, at that moment he knew he was going to stick around for as long as it took him to banish her fear for good.

  The light in the penthouse suite was dim, the heady scent of gardenias filling the air. The silk of her dress rustled against her skin as she gazed out the window at the Seattle skyline. She smiled as the strong hands looped the delicate chain around her neck. “It’s beautiful,” she breathed as she held the diamond-encrusted platinum rose charm between her thumb and forefinger so she could better admire it.

  A deep voice rumbled in her ear. “I wanted to give you something to remind you exactly what you mean to me.”

  The voice sent a shiver of dread through her as the walls of the suite started to ripple. Suddenly the room changed, morphing from a luxurious hotel suite into a dank, cold dungeon. The scent of the flowers grew stronger, the sickly sweet scent threatening to suffocate her. The necklace tightened around her neck, digging into her throat, cutting through her skin.

  She clawed at the chain, its razor sharpness slicing through her fingers as the chain sliced its way through her neck.

  “Jack!” She tried to scream but nothing came out except a weak gurgle.

  Talia jerked awake, her body bathed in a cold sweat, her breath coming in sharp pants. Her hand went automatically to her throat. Nothing. She let out a sound, half sob, half laugh.

  Though her fingers and neck still tingled, there was nothing there. The necklace David had given her was long gone, taken from her body the day Jack had carried her, bleeding, from Nate Brewster’s hideous torture chamber.

  She breathed deeply, reassuring herself there was no trace of the cloying gardenia scent in the air.

  She swung her feet to the floor, groggily shuffled to the bathroom, and tried to sweep away the lingering images of David Maxwell from her mind. She couldn’t remember the last nightmare she’d had about him, but clearly last night’s scare had called one of her primary demons from the depths of hell to torment her.

  You don’t feel safe, do you?

  No. She hadn’t from the instant she realized she’d given her love, given herself to a monster. And now, even with him dead, it seemed she would never escape the cloud of fear he’d cast. She resisted the urge to spend the day behind a locked door and forced herself to keep with her regular routine.

  She’d come too far, worked too hard to get her life to some semblance of normal. No way was she going to let a stupid raccoon send her back to that place where she could barely go to the grocery store without having a panic attack.

  It helped that Rosie didn’t have class until the afternoon and had offered to hang out this morning. The fact that her sister was unfazed by the nighttime visitor made it easier for Talia to get herself out the door to the boxing gym.

  And the fact that Jack Brooks was somewhere in the vicinity, ready to drop everything to come to her rescue at a moment’s notice…

  No, no way, you are not going there. Jack has done more than his fair share to save your ass. You haven’t been a pain in his side for nearly two years and you’re not going to start up again now.

  Two hours later, Talia was feeling immensely better after an intense training session, energized from both the workout and the bucket-sized lattes she and Rosie had picked up on the way home.

  But her postworkout euphoria vanished when she saw an unfamiliar car parked in front of her garage. Unbidden, irrational uneasiness consumed her. There was no reason to freak out, she told herself, just because there was a strange car in her driveway. Maybe the landlord sent someone over to do a repair, though he’d never sent anyone over unannounced before.

  If that was the case, Talia would have to have a word. She didn’t care that she was merely renting. She didn’t like strangers, and she didn’t like being caught by surprise.

  She parked on the street and walked up to the car and peered into the driver’s side window.

  Empty.

  “Who—”

  She raised a hand and cut Rosario off as she walked up the path to the front door. Her stomach leaped to her throat as the door swung open just as she was reaching for the handle.

  The realization that it was Jack, followed closely by a tall, muscular man Talia had met but whose name didn’t immediately come to mind, didn’t do much to quell the impending heart attack. She staggered back, hand
up to her chest as Jack looked down at her.

  “Shit. I was hoping to have this finished before you got back,” Jack said.

  “Have what finished? What are you doing?”

  “Jack wanted to make a few modifications to the security system.” His friend offered his hand with a flash of white teeth that might have charmed the pants off a normal woman. “I’m Ben Moreno. I don’t know if you remember me,” he said as his big hand swallowed the one Talia automatically offered. “We met a couple times at Suzette’s, when I came in with Derek and Alyssa.”

  Talia nodded. “I remember now.” Every female in the place—besides herself, of course—had been tittering and buzzing around the table. Immune though Talia was, even she had to admit that between him and Alyssa’s husband, Derek, they’d provided quite the display of eye candy. “You work with Gemini, too, right?”

  Moreno nodded and released her hand. “Since I just finished upgrading all of the employee residences, I told Jack I’d give him a hand with this.”

  Talia gave her head a frustrated shake and hurried up the stairs. Ignoring Ben, she tried to keep her tone civil as she said to Jack, “We talked about this last night.”

  Jack’s square chin jutted out another inch. “You talked. I decided to upgrade.”

  “What, you thought I wouldn’t notice when the security system I use every day has changed?”

  “Actually,” Ben broke in, “it’s designed to work seamlessly with your existing system, so much so you wouldn’t have noticed if—”

  He broke off at Jack’s icy glare. “Wow, I sure could use a cold drink.”

  “I’ll get you something.” Rosario rushed past her, her cheeks already flushed as she basked in Ben’s lazy grin. Rosario wasn’t the first woman between the ages of eighteen and eighty to fall under the spell of that sexy grin and dark eyes, and she wouldn’t be the last.

  Talia clenched her jaw. “I realize all of this is coming from a good place, so I’m trying really hard to stifle my inner bitch right now. But you had no right to go behind my back and do something like this without telling me.”

  Jack folded his arms across his massive chest, about as giving as a block of granite. “It needed to be done. You weren’t going to let me do it. I found another way.”