Dreaming of the Wolf

Chapter 5

Darien pulled Lelandi into his arms in the great room of his home, her belly seemingly getting bigger by the second the way the triplets were growing. He kissed her forehead and rubbed her back as she looked up at him.

“Jake’s all right, isn’t he?” Lelandi asked as Darien led her from the great room toward the stairs.

She was always worried about Darien, and she worried about his two brothers. He wondered how they had managed to survive before she came into their lives the previous fall. He smiled down at her. “He’s staying through the night and will let us know when he’s on his way home.”

Her lips parted in surprise.

Darien shrugged. “He’s taking some vacation time.

Then he’s going to do a little sightseeing.”

Eyes huge, she stared at him. “Jake? Your brother Jake?”

Darien chuckled. “Yeah.” He tugged on a red curl. “Do you want me to give you another back rub?”

“I don’t want you to get tired of giving them to me.”

He snorted and led her up the stairs to their bedroom.

“You’re carrying our future in there,” he said, running his hand gently over her expanding belly. “Anything I can do to make you feel more comfortable until the babies come and beyond, I’ll do. You’re the one who’s making all the sacrifices, after all.”

When they reached the room, he shut the door, then helped her out of her stretchy shirt. She rested her hands on his shoulders as he removed her jeans and then her undergarments.

“Have I told you how beautiful you are?” he asked, as he helped her lie down on her side, then tucked the pregnancy pillow under her belly and between her legs to take the pressure off her back.

He poured some cream onto his hands and warmed it between them before he began to massage her back.

“Hmm, Darien, you’ve said many times how beautiful I am, although I feel like a beached whale.” She sighed.

“What is Jake really doing? Hmm, oh, that feels so good, honey. A little lower if you don’t mind. Yes, to the right… wait, to the left… yes, there.”

He massaged her lower back and felt the tension ease in her muscles as she continued to purr.

“He was with a woman, I venture to guess.”

Her eyes wide, Lelandi looked over her shoulder at Darien. “A woman? A re you sure?”

He chuckled. “Well, the shower was running, and he wasn’t in it. The fact he’s sightseeing when he never does sure sounds to me like he’s holed up in a hotel room with a woman.”

Lelandi turned her head back to the pillow and didn’t say anything as Darien continued to massage her back.

Finally she said, “He never sees a woman socially beyond a strictly mutual sexual encounter because of what we are. If he’s sightseeing with her, does it mean she’s one of us?”

“We won’t know until he’s ready to tell us. But if she’s not one of us, I’m sure he just intends to stay with her tonight and return after that.” He had no intention of second-guessing the situation.

Lelandi was quiet. Darien knew her matchmaking mind was at it again.

“What about that woman… the one you said called here looking for Jake, but he hadn’t given her his number.

Would it be her, do you think?”

“Sherry Slate, the lawyer? Jake told me if he had wanted her to have his number, he would have given her his private one. She must have done some research to come up with my name and number in an attempt to get hold of him. He told me she was a nice woman but not his type.”

“So who was she then?”

He rubbed Lelandi’s shoulders. “She’s a partner in a law firm in Denver. She met Jake at that art gallery in Denver where he dropped off some of his photographs. If you remember, he was late coming home that time, too.”

“No one told me that was the reason. I assumed he got hung up in Denver traffic or something.”

Darien shrugged. “There was nothing to it, so no need to discuss it with anyone. She was a frequent purchaser at the art gallery. Modern art, though. Not the kind of work Jake does.”

“Hmm,” Lelandi said with speculation.

“I really doubt it’s the lawyer. It may be just a fling with a human, Lelandi. I wouldn’t make anything of it.” He began rubbing her shoulders, kneading out the tension.

“He hasn’t been with a woman in a very long time, you told me. And he never stays with one overnight. It sounds to me that she might be a lupus garou.” Lelandi smiled and snuggled tighter against her pillow. “If he’s found his mate, then I only have to work on Tom.”

Smiling, Darien shook his head. “Tom’s bound and determined to wait for his dream mate. After I found you, he said he wanted to find a woman like that.”

“Well, if he doesn’t find one that way, I’ll have to help him along. Is Jake bringing the woman he’s with home to us soon?”

“I don’t know anything more than I’ve told you. And even that’s circumstantial. He might have just been getting ready to take his own shower.”

She frowned at Darien, looking as though she was annoyed he’d ruin her hopeful news. “But…?”

“Why would he be staying at a hotel in the first place?

When I asked him about the shower running, he acknowledged it was but wouldn’t say anything further. If he’d been getting ready to take a shower, he would have hurried to end the conversation. But he wasn’t. As if he was waiting for someone to get out first.”

He massaged some more as Lelandi took a deep breath. “Why wasn’t he in the shower with her then?”

Darien chuckled. “How would I know?”

“Hmm, well, it sounds to me as if he’s working his way up to things… which makes it sound like she’s a lupus garou. If she were human, he’d just get on with business and be out of there.”

“Maybe,” Darien said.

She ignored him. “He didn’t even want to go to Breckenridge. Guess he’s changed his mind now. I wonder who she is.”

Poor Jake. If Lelandi had anything to do with it, she’d have him mated to the woman before he knew what hit him.

The shower curtain slid aside and Jake’s attention remained focused on the closed bathroom door. He envisioned Alicia’s silky skin covered in water droplets and licking every one of them off.

Before he could give much more thought to the matter, she opened the door to the bathroom, letting the steam out. Dressed only in a skimpy bath towel, she stood in the doorway for a moment looking at him and seeming a little hesitant.

“Is something the matter?” he asked, frowning.

She twisted her mouth a little and shook her head. “I forgot to get a change of clothes.” Her brows elevated a bit when his eyes shifted from her body to her face. But still she didn’t move.

Wrapped in the towel, she was beautiful. Her dark hair was dry except for the ends that were dripping wet. The towel was so short that it was more like a big hand towel than a bath towel, unless it was for kid-sized individuals.

The fabric had little body, and even less when it was damp.

Clutching the towel in front of her, she took a deep breath and moved toward him. He was frozen in place, wondering what she had in mind. Hoping she wanted to join him in that bed of hers, which was way too big for just one person.

She paused in front of him and said, “My bag is behind you.”

He didn’t move. He couldn’t. Stray water droplets clung to her breastbone, a couple cascading down her throat.

He glanced lower and saw some trailing down her thighs.

With a purely primal instinct, he rested his hands on her bare shoulders and licked the droplets off her throat. She sighed and acquiesced, tilting her head back and baring her throat to him.

If she’d been a wolf, it would have been the equivalent of showing how much she trusted him. She appeared to revel in the feel of his tongue on her skin, her free hand grasping his shoulder as if to keep her balance. Then he worked his way down to her breastbone, capturing all the sweet drops kissing her skin, and she released a soft moan, her fingers gripping him harder, as if she was about to sink into the carpeted floor.

But he hadn’t finished and crouched at her legs, lapping up the sweet droplets clinging to her thighs. She chuckled, the sound throaty, sensual, aroused. “Tickles,” she said with a hushed voice.

When he stood, he saw her nipples pressed against the thin, barely there towel and looking aroused and needy.

He preferred thick and luxurious towels when he showered and dried, but on Alicia, thin and barely there was perfect.

His hand cupped a towel-covered breast as his mouth captured hers, moving her against the wall and pinning her there. As she moaned into his mouth, his desire for her ratchetted up several notches. He molded his hand to her breast, the terry cloth rough against her soft mound of flesh, the nipple pressing against the fabric. His thumb began stroking the taut nub through the terry cloth.

“Hmm, Alicia,” he whispered against her lips, drugged by the feel of her, by the whisper of her heated breath against his mouth, by the sound of her heart pounding as hard as his. She clutched at the towel until he deepened the kiss, and then her hands went around his neck and the towel slid forgotten to the floor.

Scooping her up, he carried her to the bed, yanked away the cover, and deposited her. He shucked off his clothes as she watched him, her gaze lowering to his rigid arousal. She made him hard with a touch, a glance, a whisper of a kiss. No woman had ever affected him the way she did.

When he was naked, he joined her in bed, his hand caressing her breast, his eyes looking into hers—dark, rich chocolate and full of desire.

He bent his head and kissed her parted lips while her tongue touched his, teasing and penetrating his mouth, and he sucked on her tongue, smiling when she moaned in capitulation.

His hand massaged the supple mound of her breast, enjoying her softness compared to his hardness. He leaned over and licked her nipple, mouthed it, and tugged gently on it the way she had done his. But his fingers soon swept down her soft belly and lower until he found her wet curls and the place at the apex of her thighs already swollen and moist with eagerness. She parted her legs, combing her fingers through his hair as he plied her with strokes between her legs meant to bring her to joyful climax.

Her pelvis arched against his stroking fingers as she lightly moaned with pleasure, pushing him to deepen his movements while he watched the expression on her face —lost in bliss, her tongue moistening her lips, her eyes heavily lidded with lust. He loved the way she writhed under his ministrations. Loved bringing her to climax and seeing her expression of elation. Wanted to do it again and again.

Alicia hadn’t meant to allow this to happen, hence the hesitation when she’d stepped out of the bathroom to get her skating skirt out of her bag but found Jake standing in front of it. Dressed as she was in the skimpy towel and the way he was eyeing her with interest, she was certain he wasn’t going to let her get away with just pulling a handful of clothes from her suitcase. Not that she wanted to discourage him. That was part of the problem.

She didn’t have an ounce of willpower when it came to wanting him. But she imagined that if she had managed to get dressed, he’d want to undress her once he saw her in the skimpy ice-skating outfit, and they’d be right where they were now.

His fingers stroking her caused a flare of white-hot heat to erupt deep inside her. With her nipples tingling with delicious feminine appeal and her freshly showered skin even more sensitive to his every touch, she arched against him like a feral animal, craving more and faster and harder and deeper. She’d never felt as wild or uninhibited as she did with him. She wasn’t sure why, but at the moment, she didn’t care. She just wanted to enjoy the fiercely intense sensations of pleasure that he made her feel.

Her bucking against him encouraged him to stroke and push his fingers deep inside her chasm, to explore and rub and send her hurtling to the edge of the earth and beyond. She was so close to climaxing, the sweet ecstasy just within reach, and then the explosion came, the rapture of his touch pushing her over the edge into a starry universe of pleasure. Her insides quaked with completion as she cried out softly, her hands clasping his waist, then moving over his hips and his buttocks, and sweeping up his back.

With that, he spread her knees farther apart and plunged deeply into her, hard and fully, with all control cast aside. He was thick and heavy and stretched her nicely, diving so deeply that she thought he reached places no one ever had been before. He felt so good with his muscular body working her, enjoying her as she thrilled in the feel of him, his lightly haired chest brushing against her nipples and making them even more sensitive to his softly abrasive touch.

He continued to thrust, his hands raking through her hair, kneading her breasts, and cupping her face, his mouth on hers, then her jaw, her throat, her breasts.

Every inch of her felt cherished beneath Jake’s sexy onslaught—from the way he licked her nipples, kissed them, and blew his hot breath on them, to how he smiled when she moaned and kissed her throat as his hand went back to massaging a breast.

Straddling him in the throes of passion in the woods had been an experience Alicia never would have thought she’d feel. And she hadn’t thought she’d ever feel that way again. But with Jake, every time was different, exciting, and fulfilling, and she couldn’t believe anyone would find her as appealing or as sexually stimulating as he seemed to find her. That made her feel special, although she had to remind herself their relationship was so new that, in a few days, it would surely be just like the way her ex-husbands had treated her. The newness worn off. The need to fulfill her desires secondary to fulfilling his own.

She shoved aside her silly self-doubt, reminding herself that this was all it would be, some really great sex with a really great man, and then he’d move on and she would, too, and that would be the end of anything between them.

But as soon as he thrust inside her, all her thoughts were swept aside as she explored every inch that her greedy fingers could reach, from sweeping them over his firm butt and fondling him to enjoying his hard-working muscles rippling under her touch and the silky feel of his skin. Taking in a deep breath, she savored his fragrance —musky male and pine breeze. She scraped her fingernails lightly over his buttocks and up his back, soliciting a low growl of ecstasy from him that made her smile.

He reached down and pulled her legs toward him so that her knees were bent, and he wrapped his arms around them, tightening them against his body as he deepened his thrusts. His pelvis rubbed against hers, her heart drumming with rapture as she arched against him, attempting to satisfy the need to soar all the way to the sun suspended in the late-morning sky.

And then she climaxed with much too loud a groan of complete blissfulness, and he kissed her mouth again before withdrawing and moving off to lie beside her. His fingers captured a handful of her hair that he brought to his lips and kissed, his eyes and lips smiling at her with a sense of smug satisfaction. She shook her head. She had known that if she got anywhere near her suitcase wearing that skimpy towel, this was exactly where she’d end up.

His arm captured her and rested there, his face nuzzled against her cheek as he closed his eyes. She realized that, at least for now, they weren’t going ice skating or anywhere else. She rolled onto her side like she was used to sleeping, although taking midday naps wasn’t her usual thing. But having conducted surveillance on Mario late into the night and then early this morning, and having made love to Jake twice today, she felt blissfully tired.

She thought Jake had fallen asleep, but he pulled her into his arms, spooning her with his thighs and chest and with his arms around her body in a possessive way, claiming her as his own for the moment, his face nuzzled against the back of her head. His heated breath caressed her ear, and she sighed. He was sexy and hot—very hot and, for the moment, all hers.

She didn’t even want to think about saying good-bye.

Yet all along, she knew that was where this was headed.

“You said you didn’t want the bitch dead,” Danny Massaro, Mario Constantino’s cousin, muttered to him as Mario sat on his leather couch reading the morning paper, irritated as hell with the two buffoons who’d botched the job. “We wouldn’t have bothered trying to bring her in alive if you hadn’t ordered us not to kill her.

But she shot Carino on the trail,” Danny insisted.

“You’ve told me three times already,” Mario said darkly, flicking a hard look at Danny. “You both knew she was armed. That she’s nothing like her mother. You should have handled it better.”

Mario had two cousins. Two. Danny and Ferdinand Massaro. And although Danny, the younger of the two brothers, was loyal as could be, Ferdinand was the one who could be counted on to get a job done right. Too bad Mario had pissed him off. But the damned woman Ferdinand had been seeing had stolen a hell of a lot of money from Mario’s Vegas casino. And no one got away with that without paying for it big time. He had a reputation to maintain, after all. He just hadn’t realized how hard Ferdinand would take it. Hell, family loyalty was supposed to take priority over some damned broad.

“Alicia’s a bounty hunter now. If she catches sight of me, she can arrest me and turn me in for the reward,” Danny said.

As if some woman could get the jump on Danny. When Mario didn’t respond, Danny shoved his hands in his pockets, his action whenever he was stumped about what to do next. “What about the guy? Can’t we kill him?”

“The artist?” Mario snorted. “Lover boy?” He shook his head. “The woman has something I want. Don’t kill her.

As for the guy, he’ll disappear soon enough. One way or another. If he’s smart, he’ll leave and live another day. If he’s not…” Mario shrugged and looked back at the paper, reading an article about a drunk driver who had ripped out forty feet of fence on a local ranch.

Nothing noteworthy in the area. Not since killing the Greiston woman six months ago. Or the shooting at the same location today, if anyone had been aware of it.

He really should have killed Danny and Carino after they’d botched the job of murdering Alicia’s mother.

Killing her right next to the trail, where hikers could find her, was more than stupid. And murdering her lover at the falls? Double the stupidity. Yeah, he’d wanted it done, but discreetly. Idiots.

He sighed, opened the paper to the crossword puzzle, and laid the paper down on the coffee table, then pulled a pen out of his pocket. “Has Carino gone home?”

“Tucker took him back to Denver so Doc can patch him up without the authorities getting any word of it.”

Mario nodded and read: One A cross: Lupus, four letters. He wrote: wolf.

“What now?” Danny asked.

Mario looked up at him. “You said the artist met with her in the woods.”

Danny balled his fists in his pockets. “Yeah, she must have planned to rendezvous with him there. I saw his truck parked near her car in the lot, but I didn’t see any sign of him when I brought Carino in. Later, I found both Alicia’s and her lover’s vehicles parked at her hotel. They were still there when you told me to meet you here.”

“A ll right. Well, she’s not going anywhere. Not when she thinks she’s going to take me down for the murder of her mother. She’ll come after me again. And she’ll do it alone. You can leave a message from me to her ensuring that’s the case.” He grabbed a scrap of paper he’d been using for his daily crossword puzzles and wrote a note: You want me, come and get me. But if lover boy is with you, consider him dead.

He folded the note in half, wrote Alicia Greiston, Room 101 on the top of it, and handed it to Danny. “Go buy an envelope, stick this inside with her name and room number written on the envelope, seal it, and drop it off at the front desk—but only leave it when it’s busy enough that no one will notice you. Can you do that? It’d be easy enough to do when a clerk is busy with a customer. Just leave it on the counter and walk away. A ll right?”

“Yeah. I can do that.” Danny acted annoyed that Mario had to spell it out for him as though Mario thought Danny wasn’t bright enough to do the job right.

But hell, Mario had made the mistake of trusting him before. The problem was that he needed someone damn loyal, and Danny was it.

Mario glanced back at his crossword puzzle. “Go. As soon as she’s following me again, grab her, and she and I will have a little talk.”

He smiled darkly. This time he’d learn what her mother might have passed along about his operation, and then—

he wasn’t sure. He glanced out the window at the ski slopes and felt the waxing moon stirring his blood. The mother wouldn’t succumb to his needs. Maybe the daughter would do.

But he still had another problem. Danny’s brother, Ferdinand, was a loose cannon. Mario needed to get rid of him as soon as he could get hold of him. The last time Mario had attempted to have Ferdinand murdered had only made him madder… and more willing to get Mario back.

In a tangle of legs at the ice-skating rink, Alicia laughed out loud as she found herself on her butt on the ice again with Jake. His eyes were bright with laughter as he pushed her hair out of her face and grinned at her. She hadn’t laughed this much in forever.

“I haven’t fallen this many times in an hour on the ice since I was a little girl. And I was a lot lower to the ground then. But then again, I haven’t had this much fun in years.”

And she meant it. She had applauded every wobbly bit of success Jake had accomplished. And when they’d fallen, she’d laughed and enjoyed his good-humored responses. She wasn’t the only one who was interested in Jake, though. From older teens to college-aged women, he had their undivided attention. She was certain they wished they were entangled with the hunk on the ice instead of her and laughing their heads off. She had to admit, they looked fairly risqué at times with his leg wedged between hers and her short flare skirt thrown back, exposing the panties of her leotard.

If Jake hadn’t had such a difficult time staying on his feet and keeping from tripping Alicia up, she figured he would have been more hot and bothered in an intimate way by their close proximity. But he hadn’t let on, and for that, she was grateful.

Two of the women watching him with hungry, desirous gazes had been bold enough to come to speak with him when he told Alicia he wanted her to demonstrate how she did the figure eight and other ice skating maneuvers.

She hadn’t wanted to leave him for a second, and now she knew for certain what a mistake that could be.

Even though she had wanted to chase off the voluptuous blond and striking brunette, she concentrated on her performance and gave Jake the show of her life as if she were trying out for the Olympics while he stood propped against the railing, smiling at her with admiration. She loved him for it because no one had ever cared how she skated except for her mother and her grandmother. But this was different, seeing the look in his eyes as she skated for him—a sexual attraction, a feral desirous look in his gaze—and his lips curving upward as if he was thinking sinful thoughts about some of her sexier moves.

When she was through with the last jump, she skated back to Jake. He pulled her into his arms, holding her tight, and gave her a kiss that could have melted the ice.

It certainly warmed her from the tip of her cold nose to her cold toes, and he made her feel special all over again.

“You’re beautiful, you know?” he murmured against her ear.

His two new fans gave her simpering smiles, but their smiles were designed to get his attention. He ignored them, thankfully.

She smiled up at him. He was beautiful and fun and the best thing that had ever happened to her. “You make me feel beautiful.” She leaned against him, loving the heat and hardness of his tall body but knowing they needed to skate or leave. Before they got kicked out of the rink for too much sexy cuddling. “Do you want to ice skate some more?”

“I need to drop by the art gallery and sign some consent forms. And it’s past time for lunch. If you’ve had enough fun and are ready to go. I’m afraid watching you skate is getting harder and harder for me.” He cast her a wickedly salacious grin.

She chuckled, wanting to check out his package, but… what the heck. She glanced down at his crotch, saw the rigid bulge in his stonewashed jeans, and was ready to ease his discomfiture anyway that she could.

“A ll right.” She gave the women a smile that said, “He’s mine, so hands off,” and then skated slowly to the exit with him so that he could keep up with her. “You were gathering quite a fan club.”

“I was the only male on the ice, and I looked a bit needy,” he explained.

“You looked anything but that. I think the idea of you getting tangled up with one of them was more what they had in mind.”

He laughed. “I wasn’t interested in getting tangled up with anyone else, believe me.”

When they reached the sitting area, she helped him off with his skates first. His hands reached up to cup her face as she crouched in front of him. “You’re lovely, Alicia. A free spirit, unpretentious, charming.”

Her face warming, she smiled a little shyly, not used to any man complimenting her like that. She hoped he didn’t feel obligated to say such things to her. She didn’t expect them, and she was a little suspicious of his motives for doing so.

“You’re not used to anyone complimenting you, are you?” he asked, tilting her face up to look at him. His eyes challenged her to respond, but she couldn’t. “A re you?” he asked again.

She gave a small exhalation of breath and said, “No.

Once when I was in high school, some guy said he liked the way I smelled. I had spritzed on one of my mother’s perfumes before I left for school that morning. Anyway, he asked me out to have pizza, and on the way over to the pizza place, he pulled into a park and said how much he wanted me. How beautiful I was. That was right before he copped a feel and was suddenly all over me, tugging at my blouse with his other hand under my skirt.

I demanded he take me home before I screamed rape.”

Jake’s expression hardened. “The guy was lucky I wasn’t around.”

She smiled at Jake. “I’m afraid a lot more would have gone on at the park if I’d been with you instead. You’re sort of… addictive and hard to say no to.”

He pulled her to the seat and switched places and removed her skates. “I would have meant everything I said, if it had been me with you in the car.” He looked up at her. “I just hope you’re not wearing a ton of bruises after all the falls that I caused.” His hand caressed her calves over her tan skate tights.

His caress was gentle but oh so provocative. She shook her head. “A couple, but they’ll soon fade to nothing.”

He helped her from her seat, then escorted her outside, his fingers interlocked with hers as if they were a boyfriend and girlfriend on a date. She liked the sensation and would have wanted more if only her mother hadn’t gotten mixed up with Mario and his thugs.

Alicia was destined to play the scenario with the mobsters out to the end, no matter what.

Jake unlocked the truck doors with the push of a button. “I have to admit, seeing you do some of those spins, jumps, and landings, and thinking of the figure skaters who dance together made me wish I could glide across the ice with you in my arms, like ballroom dancing only, to my way of thinking, a hell of a lot sexier.”

“Hmm,” she said, climbing into his truck. “That’s because the women’s tiny little skate skirts, or the form-

figure skating dresses that barely cover anything, are so revealing. And then tights or tan panty hose look pretty —”

“Sexy.” He reached over from the driver’s side and stroked her thigh. “Good thing no other men were there watching you perform. I would have had to fight them off.”

She laughed. “My ex-husbands thought my skating was boring. After watching me the first time, neither of them would bother. They were into ice hockey—guys beating up guys on the ice.”

“They were crazy. I’d much rather watch you dancing solo as eloquently as you do or be the one making the moves with you on the ice.”

She gave him an appreciative smile as he started the engine. Where had Jake been when she could have used him years earlier in her life? Her life was way too messed up now.

She peered out the window on the drive back to her hotel from the skating rink. She kept watching for any sign of a black Mercedes, but she didn’t see either one of them. With the way Jake was glancing up at his rearview mirror or out his windows, she thought he was watching for anyone following them, too.

“Lunch next after I sign the papers at the gallery, all right?” he asked.

“Sure. I’ll just change while you’re gone.” She looked over at him to see him glancing down at her short skirt and nearly bare legs, and she had the sneaking suspicion he wanted to do something else first. “Don’t tell me you need to work up an appetite first.”

He chuckled, and the sound was deep and dark and aroused. But he shook his head and ran his hand over her thigh with a gently caressing touch. She got the distinct impression it wouldn’t take much for him to change his mind.

When they arrived at her hotel, Jake escorted her to her room, his hand in hers, but he seemed to be in a real hurry. As if he was afraid he’d stay and forget his business, he smiled broadly and framed her head with his hands against the outer wall beside her door instead of entering the room. “If I don’t run over to the gallery now, I’m likely to get awfully distracted and wait too late, and then they’ll be closed.”

She smiled, brows raised, hands sliding up his chest.

“Then you’d better run over there, because I think you might just be right.”

And with that, he gave her one of his searing kisses that promised much more later. Desire curled in her belly, making her feel that if she hadn’t been leaning against the wall, she would have melted into a puddle at his feet.

“I’ll be right back. Twenty minutes, max.”

She smiled and tugged at his buttons. “By the time you drive back into town, sign the papers, and return, it’ll be more like forty-five. But that’s fine. I’ll change and lie down for a few minutes.”

“If you fall asleep before I return, I’ll be happy to wake you.” He kissed her again and strode off before she could tug him into the room and give up on napping or anything else.

The women at the rink didn’t know how really good he could be. And she liked him way too much already.

But as soon as he disappeared down the hall, she shuddered, feeling the first real inkling of fear. For as long as she could remember, she’d been the survivor of one disaster or another. And her anger after her mother’s killing had kept her blood hot for revenge—so she hadn’t really felt anything but a compelling urge to take her mother’s murderers into custody. On the darker side, she hadn’t cared whether she made it or not—as long as they paid for their crime.

Now, for the first time since her mother’s death, she did care. Because of a man named Jake Silver. Because of the joy of living he’d awakened in her. Because for once in her life, she felt worthy.

And that scared her.