She was late.

Lily pressed a hand against her stomach, remembering all the times she had prayed for a child before adopting Annmarie. She didn’t dare hope for the impossible, especially under these circumstances. Not after learning how Quinn felt about family—and being abandoned.

She was at once terrified and exhilarated. Quinn’s baby. The contract Franklin Lawrence had put out on her life. The need to leave before someone—maybe her daughter—got hurt or killed.

Her already impossible choice had just become even worse. If she was pregnant, what did she do about Quinn?

For a moment she allowed herself to believe the baby was a foundation on which they could build a life together. For the moment she wanted to pretend that she didn’t have to run again….

Dear Reader,

Welcome to another month of the most exciting romantic reading around, courtesy of Silhouette Intimate Moments. Starting things off with a bang, we have To Love a Thief by ultrapopular Merline Lovelace. This newest CODE NAME: DANGER title takes you back into the supersecret world of the Omega Agency for a dangerous liaison you won’t soon forget.

For military romance, Catherine Mann’s WINGMEN WARRIORS are the ones to turn to. These uniformed heroes and heroines are irresistible, and once you join Darcy Renshaw and Max Keagan for a few Private Maneuvers, you won’t even be trying to resist, anyway. Wendy Rosnau continues her unflashed miniseries THE BROTHERHOOD in Last Man Standing, while Sharon Mignerey’s couple find themselves In Too Deep. Finally, welcome two authors who are new to the line but not to readers. Kristen Robinette makes an unforgettable entrance with In the Arms of a Stranger, and Ana Leigh offers a matchup between The Law and Lady Justice.

I hope you enjoy all six of these terrific novels, and that you’ll come back next month for more of the most electrifying romantic reading around.

Enjoy!

Leslie J. Wainger

Executive Editor

In Too Deep
Sharon Mignerey

www.millsandboon.co.uk

SHARON MIGNEREY

lives in Colorado with her husband, a couple of dogs and a cat. From the time she figured out that spelling words could be turned into stories, she knew being a writer was what she wanted. Her first novel garnered several awards, first as an unpublished manuscript when she won RWA’s Golden Heart Award in 1995, and later as a published work in 1997 when she won the National Reader’s Choice Award and the Heart of Romance Readers’ Choice Award. With each new book out, she’s as thrilled as she was with that first one.

When she’s not writing, she loves enjoying the Colorado sunshine, whether along the South Platte River near her home or at the family cabin in the Four Corners region. Even more, she loves spending time with her daughters and granddaughter.

She loves hearing from readers, and you can write to her in care of Silhouette Books, 233 Broadway, New York, NY 10279.

Acknowledgments:

I would never have been able to imagine microbes that live in high pressure and high temperatures around deep sea hydrothermic vents, nor would I have had any idea about how to create a disaster in a lab, without input from my brother, Paul Noble Black, Ph.D. Thanks, Paul, for answering endless questions about life in a lab and microbiology, and for providing invaluable suggestions that made the science come alive. The good stuff is yours, and the mistakes are mine.

Thanks to Jo Mrozewski, whose knowledge of village life on the Inside Passage gave me wonderful tidbits, including basketball and hot strong tea laced with sugar and cream.

Dedication:

To Barbara, Amy, Patty, Daniele and Karen…

I love our Wednesday-night laughter and your friendship

more than you know.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Epilogue

Chapter 1

“Mommy, look at what we found.” Five-year-old Annmarie’s call was filled with enthusiasm from where she was bent over a tide pool with her new best friend, Thad.

Lily Jensen Reditch grinned at her daughter’s excitement as she clambered around several large boulders to reach the rocky beach. Act the act until you feel the feeling. Normal was the feeling she wanted, and today felt…normal. Her daughter’s carefree joy as she skipped through life was something that Lily would give a lot to have back in her own. She’d done all the right things to be better—gone through grief counseling and completed the regime recommended by victim’s advocacy—and she was determined to be her old self. The optimistic one. The naive one. That thought made her smile. Optimistic—oh, she hoped so. Naive—never again.

Movement farther down the shoreline caught Lily’s attention. She breathed a sigh of relief when she realized it was just Thad’s uncle Josh, hiking around the Hollywood Bowl. It was a collapsed mineshaft that had eroded into a clamshell shaped cave at the water’s edge.

Lily deliberately reminded herself that the whole reason she had moved here was so she didn’t have to assess every person she met as a threat. No threats here, despite the sleepless nights that continued to plague her and despite the nightmares that made sleep something to avoid. Dismissing Josh from her thoughts and reminding herself to smile, Lily returned her attention to the children and the beach, which was dotted with tide pools that reflected the misty noon sky of late August.

By Alaska standards the day was warm. Cold, though, compared to the balmy weather of California where they had lived until two months ago. Despite the gray sky that promised rain, Annmarie’s blond hair gleamed, and Lily touched her daughter’s head when she reached the kids. Wrapping her thick red cardigan more firmly around herself, Lily bent over the pool where the children crouched.

A small scallop and an equally small crab rested at the bottom of the pool. A second later the crab bumped the scallop, and it shot through the water with surprising speed.

Annmarie laughed. “Wow, did you see that?”

Lily grinned at her daughter’s unabashed delight. “I did.”

“How do you suppose he did that?” Thad asked.

“He clamped both halves of his shell together, which squirts the water out and makes him leap forward,” she responded, demonstrating with her hands. The mechanics of how a bivalve moved was elementary compared to the mountains of research data she had been absorbing during the last few weeks.

A hydrothermic vent discovered last year was the major project under way at the Kantrovitch Research Center. Lily had uncovered several interesting areas where she could put her background to work…if she chose to get back into the research fast track. She was tantalized, a surprise since all she had wanted was to come home so she could be closer to family, especially her sister Rosie.

During the past month, the center had been practically deserted, evidently a planned break until additional funding arrived in September. Max, a jack-of-all-trades and handyman, had been the only other person around, caring for the specimens in the various aquariums, setting up the pressure tanks needed for deep-water specimens, and providing her with the extra muscle she had needed to drag new file cabinets out of the middle of the floor.

The project leader, Quinn Morrison, had interviewed her by phone, hired her sight unseen, and had encouraged her to settle in. He’d left her a set of keys and told her to take any desk in the main room except the one closest to the windows.

“How do you know it’s a he?” Annmarie wanted to know, drawing Lily’s attention back to the discovery at hand—the small scallop. “It might be a girl.”

“Could be.”

“How do clams make babies?” Annmarie asked, pulling at Lily’s sleeve. Whether talking about her aunt Rosie’s pregnancy or other animals, babies—or, more accurately, the making of them—recently held endless fascination for Annmarie.

“I bet they do it like snails. I’ve seen ’em in my brother’s aquarium,” Thad said before Lily could answer.

“But this is a clam,” Annmarie said.

“Not it’s not. It’s a scallop,” Thad said with the superiority that came with being two years older. “I bet they open their shell real wide so they can touch like snails do.”

“Actually, the male and female never touch,” came a voice from behind Lily, deep, as gravelly as the surf over rock, and pure Texan in the accent. “The male’s sperm is drawn through the water to the female when he senses eggs are present.”

Lily whirled around to look at the man, alarmed they were no longer alone and that he’d managed to arrive without her seeing or hearing him. His statement could have been salacious, but it was, instead, the matter-of-fact explanation of a scientist.

She sized him up through the haze of warnings that she hated…that she wasn’t safe, that strangers were potential threats. The man’s deep voice matched his appearance. Tall, broad-shouldered. Bigger than life, in fact, from where she knelt on the rocks next to the children. His sandy hair curled at his nape and over his ears, mussed as though he had repeatedly run his fingers through it. His eyes were dark, the color of a fjord when the shadows stretched over the water.

He smiled as he knelt next to them and said to Lily, “Hi, I’m Quinn Morrison.” Before she could respond he smoothly turned his attention back to the kids with, “This scallop will be lucky to even find a mate.” He pointed at the sea star that also occupied the tide pool. “See this guy here? He’s Pacific Henricia and his favorite food is the scallop. And if he gets close enough—”

“The scallop will be lunch,” Thad finished.

Lily’s galloping heartbeat settled. This was her new boss—and, of course, he knew the scientific names of the local sea life.

“That’s right,” the man agreed.

“Maybe we should take her out of this pool and put her into another one,” suggested Annmarie.

“What if the sea star is hungry?” he asked. His glance skipped over Lily before focusing on her daughter.

Each time he looked at her, Lily could feel a charge in the energy around her. She hadn’t felt a spark of awareness like this in nearly forever. She shivered and openly watched him. The tanned lines of his face and the deep smile lines around his eyes reminded her of the men in her family—men who wrestled a living from the sea by fishing the waters of the inside passageway.

He smiled easily as he talked to the children, the expression encompassing his entire face. It wasn’t so much handsome as interesting. Prominent cheekbones sculpted a deep hollow at his cheeks and a cleft emphasized his chin and square jawline. Clearly in his element, he wore a long-sleeved denim shirt, a micro-fleece vest and worn, button-fly jeans.

Annmarie asked, “Why does he have to eat this scallop?”

“Because Mother Nature intended that some animals be food for others. Sure, we could move it, but it could end up being somebody else’s lunch.” He winked at Annmarie. “Yours or mine.”

“That’s right,” Thad agreed with an emphatic nod. “I’ve eaten scallops. Lots of times.”

“So, how does the boy scallop know when the girl scallop has eggs?” Annmarie asked, returning with single-minded purpose to her earlier topic. The child had babies on the brain.

“Well,” the man answered, “we don’t actually know for sure. We think the female’s scent changes. That’s the trigger for mating behavior in most animals.”

“You mean, they smell? Like perfume or something?” She wrinkled her nose.

He laughed. “Yeah. Like perfume or something.”

Once more his gaze slid from Annmarie to Lily, who felt her color rise. She became aware of his scent—not cologne or sweat. Something far more subtle and altogether…pleasant. A nudge of awareness became something more, a primal recognition that welled out of the depth of her heart. He’s the one.

She shoved the thought away. John had been the one. Her beloved John who had died so suddenly more than two years ago. Whatever spark she felt was loneliness, she reasoned. Maybe even envy at seeing her sister and her brother-in-law so deeply in love. Maybe missing someone to hold her through the night when her thoughts were consumed with a past she couldn’t change.

He smiled and extended his hand. “You must be Dr. Jensen.”

“You’re back.” She automatically shook his hand. A common, ordinary act. Still, she was aware of his touch, his hand large and warm and inviting around hers.

“Just last night.”

“I’m Annmarie,” her daughter interjected. “This is Thad.”

“Your children?”

“Just me,” Annmarie said with one of her infectious grins. “Thad, his mommy is Hilda. She’s my mom’s friend from when they were kids. Did you know that?”

“Ah, no.”

“Do you have kids? We could play with them,” Annmarie said.

He laughed. “No. No kids.” His gaze skipped back to Lily. “No wife. Not even a dog.”

“Aunt Rosie has a dog,” Annmarie informed him. “And I have a cat named Sweetie Pie.” When he looked back at her, she added. “You could play with them or I could help you get one of your own. Which do you like better? Dogs or cats?”

Quinn stood up, and his “Oh, no!” expression at the thought of being fixed up with a pet made Lily grin.

“You’d better say no quick,” she said. “Once my daughter gets hold of an idea—”

“I get the picture.” He smiled down at Annmarie. “Thanks for the offer. But—”

“You’ll think about it.” She gave an exaggerated sigh. “I don’t know why grown-ups have to think about all the fun stuff. Come on, Thad, maybe we can find an octopus.”

Quinn laughed and offered Lily his hand. “Now that would be an unusual find.”

He pulled Lily up when she placed her hand within his. The detached-scientist part of her wanted to know how it was possible to feel each separate pull of his fingers against hers.

The man was not quite as tall as her brothers-in-law, both of whom were well over six feet. Unlike them, Quinn had the breadth of a linebacker. Broad shoulders had never before been alluring. Next to this man’s bulk, she didn’t feel so much small as sheltered. She reminded herself that she really did prefer men who didn’t make her feel quite so small.

She watched Annmarie and Thad scamper down the deserted beach, pausing here and there to lean over and peer into the tide pools.

“I was expecting someone older,” Quinn added, releasing her hands, ignoring that it wasn’t politically correct for employers to bring up the subject of age. “Someone with your publishing record ought to be at least fifty.”

“A scientist without a publishing record is also one without grants…and a job.” Lily met his gaze and told him the truth. “I was expecting you to be older, too.”

One of his eyebrows rose and another engaging grin lit his face. “I’m only nineteen.”

“It’s not the years, then, but the miles.” The man had an impressive record based on what she’d been able to glean from the university Web site. With his investigation of this hydrothermic vent he had the chance to establish himself as one of the top marine biologists in the Pacific.

“They do pile on.” He laughed again, a deep, rumbling purr that encouraged her to laugh with him. And she did, feeling a rapport with this man she had experienced with only three other men in her life. Her father. Her husband. Her brother-in-law, Ian. Fleetingly, she wondered, if like Ian, this was a man she could entrust with her life. Her laughter faded. She turned away that thought as her gaze fastened on her daughter. Act the act, she reminded herself. This wasn’t California. She and Annmarie were safe.

“Are you responsible for that major cleanup project in the front office?” Quinn asked, pulling her attention back to him.

The question sounded to Lily like an accusation. When she had first set foot in the facility two weeks ago, she had found the office in complete chaos. Quinn Morrison might be a brilliant marine biologist, but organized he was not. Papers and files had been piled on every available surface of the office area, and two huge file cabinets that still bore their shipping tags were empty. Ignoring the mess on that one desk he’d told her to leave alone, she had gradually read, labeled and filed everything.

“Responsible?” She shook her head. “No. I’ve settled in like you told me to and acquainted myself with the research.”

“Getting acquainted with the research is one thing. Cleaning is another.”

“I was trying to find a place to sit. And since you had those empty file cabinets—”

“If I’d wanted a janitor, I would have hired one.” The instant the words left his mouth, Quinn heard the annoyance in them and reluctantly admitted he was irritated. When he’d left a month ago, the place had looked a shambles, but at least it was his shambles. When he’d walked in a half hour ago, he’d barely recognized the office. The homey touches on one desk—pictures and a plant—were an invasion to his space.

“I’ve moved something you need—that’s why you’re upset.” Her gaze openly searched his face. “What are you looking for?”

Quinn stared at her, surprised she hadn’t taken offense. Her willingness to take responsibility for his being annoyed took away any fun that he might have had in continuing to bait her.

“There were a bunch of files on clams we collected from the vent site. I’d like to find the ones on the hemoglobin levels found in the dissected clams,” he said. He’d need those reports sooner or later, he decided, but now was as good a time as any to figure out if he’d ever lay hands on any of his data again.

“I know exactly where that is. And since I couldn’t find the electronic file, I scanned them, so they’re also in the computer.” Lily’s glance went to the children who were bent over a tide pool. “Come on, Annmarie,” she called. “Time to go.”

Quinn looked at the shoreline, noting the tide was still going out. “They can stay here if they want.”

“Says the man with no kids.” Lily grinned. “I might let them walk from the research center to Thad’s house, but leaving them alone on the beach…” She shook her head.

“Asking for trouble, huh?” Time to be agreeable, though he thought she was being a little overprotective. Then again, maybe this was the way caring mothers acted. Like he would know.

“Big-time.”

As soon as Lily saw that the kids were right behind them, she headed toward the path that led up the steep slope to the research center. The bounce in her step matched the enthusiasm in her voice. “Do you have the data for the clams harvested from the Juan de Fuca site? Since this vent isn’t as deep, any variances should be interesting.”

Quinn followed her, wondering if she’d managed to really bring enough order to the files that she really did know exactly. He would have spent a couple of hours looking for the files, much as he’d never admit that to her. “Given your previous research, I would have thought the microscopic life around the vent would be more interesting to you.”

She glanced over her shoulder. “Like the barophiles? Or the autotrophs? They’re magical.”

That wasn’t the word he would have applied, but he liked the thought.

“Have you isolated any organisms yet?” she asked.

He shook his head. “We’re still in the survey stage. We’ve scheduled a week to gather samples when the summer break ends.”

“Figuring out how a living thing creates food from inorganic material,” she continued, “could keep a scientist happy for years.”

“You?”

Her smile faded. “I…left that behind.”

He still couldn’t believe that he’d managed to snag someone with her credentials for the research assistant’s salary that he could offer within the budget of his current grant. Now that he’d met Lily Jensen, Ph.D., he was even more confused. Especially after she’d made it clear during their phone interview that she was now using her married name. Since all of her publishing had been done under her maiden name, why in the world was she distancing herself from it?

“What made you give up the publish-or-perish career track to come here? There’s not much challenge for someone who’s had her own lab and grants big enough to support a staff.” He didn’t elaborate that the grants he’d secured so far were much too small to do the research needed. If she had come across those documents, she would have already figured that out. He gave her one of his practiced smiles. “Kick me if I’m being nosy.”

She didn’t respond for several seconds, then carefully said, “I needed a career change. No. More than that. A life change. My sister Rosie lives here, so we came here.”

“Ah.”

“Ah?” She turned face him.

“Everyone sometimes does,” he said with a nod. “Needs a change that is. After a divorce—”

“I’m not divorced.”

“After being fired.” His smile stayed firmly in place. He knew he was prying, and he wondered how long it would be before she told him to back off.

“I wasn’t fired. The university even offered me a bigger lab as an inducement to stay.”

That didn’t surprise him. She had a slew of papers that made his own publishing record look meager. “After rescuing your kid from drugs.”

“Annmarie is only five-years old, for pity’s sake,” she responded. The corners of her eyes crinkled as though she couldn’t decide whether to laugh at him or to be mad at him. “Okay, yes, wanting a good place for her to grow up was part of it. But I’m not so idealistic as to think children in small towns don’t have their problems. I grew up in a small town—”

“Where?”

“Petersburg.”

“Alaska? You’re not a California girl?” From her blond hair, casually secured in some kind of big clip at the back of her head, to the honey tan of her skin, she conjured images of the old Beach Boys’ song about California girls.

Lily shook her head with a chuckle. “Not me, though I lived there for the last ten years.”

“Which explains why you’re cold.” The long red sweater belted around her waist hadn’t kept her from shivering, even while they walked up the slope.

She shivered again, glancing back toward the beach where the children were tagging along behind them. “It’s a nice day.”

Without hesitation, he took off his vest and draped it over her shoulders. She stopped walking and turned around to face him. Since she was higher on the slope, they were eye to eye, and he realized she was petite, her bone structure fine.

A question formed in her eyes. “Are you always this—”

“Inquisitive? Pushy? Nosy?” he finished.

She shook her head, her gaze deeply searching his eyes as though she saw a hero. For an instant he wished he were.

She simply watched him with those dark brown eyes that were unusual in a complexion as fair as hers. He’d been around enough women to recognize the spark of interest in her expression, which was totally at odds with her body language.

Thinking she was way too likable for his peace of mind, he said, “You moved here to escape the scandal of being involved with a student.”

“Outrageous.” She laughed.

“That bad, huh?”

“Your behavior,” she said. “Pushy, maybe. Nosy, absolutely. And definitely outrageous.”

“That’s my stock in trade.” He grinned at her. She hadn’t taken his barbs seriously, and she’d responded with humor. An assistant with a sense of humor was a plus. Double if she was easy on the eye, and she was.

They reached the crest of the slope and she stopped walking so suddenly he nearly ran into her. She glanced at him, then away. “My husband died two years ago—”

“I’m sorry.” Something in her voice made him believe that she wasn’t beyond that. That put her in the do-not-touch category, which was too bad since he’d been thinking she was a woman he’d like to touch. All over.

“—and,” she rushed on, “I had a grant that ran out. So the timing to make a change was good. And I really did want to be closer to family again.”

He figured she was telling him the truth—just not the whole truth. He’d read her curriculum vitae and her papers. Her work was original, brilliant, and represented years of commitment.

“So you’re giving up research?”

“For now,” she said.

A shadow chased through her eyes, and he again wondered what she wasn’t telling him. Beneath her easy laugh and open smile, he sensed a flicker of sadness that he suspected she worked hard to hide. Deliberately teasing, he said, “Now that I know you can file…”

As hoped, she grinned. “I knew there was a down side to this job.”

“I have a theory about how the office got to be such a mess.” He waited a beat before adding, “In the dead of night, the files and papers get together, mate, reproduce and create new piles.”

“A topic for your next paper, hmm?” she returned. “Something you could publish in the Journal of Organizational Science, maybe?”

He laughed. “Maybe.”

Lily watched the kids coming up the trail behind them. She gazed at her daughter as though the child was more precious than life. Nobody had ever looked at Quinn like that, but until now he hadn’t thought it mattered.

The kids came over the crest.

“We made it!” Annmarie exclaimed, throwing her arms wide. “I’m king of the mountain.”

“You can’t be king,” Thad said. “’Cause you’re a girl.”

“I can be anything I want,” she informed him. “My mom said.”

“Okay if we go inside and look at the aquariums?” Thad asked Quinn.

“Sure.”

“Last one there has to eat raw fish eggs,” Annmarie taunted. They took off toward the building at a run.

Quinn grinned. “Now that’s one I’m going to remember.”

By the time the two children reached the door, they were neck and neck. Something had caught Annmarie’s attention, and she pointed.

“Mom!” she shouted, her voice full of fright. “Look out!”

Quinn’s gaze followed the line of her pointing finger. A dark-green vehicle was rolling down the slope, picking up speed…and headed directly toward him and Lily.

Chapter 2

Lily glanced over her shoulder, her first thought for her daughter. To her relief Annmarie stood on the stoop in front of the door.

“Move!” Quinn pushed Lily out of the vehicle’s path. Then he sprinted after the car.

“You stay there,” Lily shouted. When her daughter nodded that she understood, Lily started after Quinn. Dear heaven, he was a crazy man. Didn’t he realize he could get hurt?

The vehicle—her car, good God, her car—rolled across the shallow slope like some monstrous, lumbering beast, tipping when one of the wheels rolled over a small boulder. The vehicle veered in a new direction. Quinn caught up with it and pulled on the door handle. He stumbled back, swore, and made a second grab, this time at the back door. The vehicle picked up speed and jerked him along like a rag doll.

“Let go!” Lily’s heart rose to her throat. Any second he was sure to lose his balance and end up under the wheels. The car was headed directly toward the cliff between a huge pine and a flatbed trailer parked in the lower lot—a trailer she didn’t remember seeing earlier.

A tire rolled over another large rock and knocked Quinn to the ground. He disappeared from view and she screamed. A second later the car hit the trailer with a grinding crunch.

Lily came to a skidding halt by Quinn, who was already sitting up. She dropped to her knees next to him. He had a gash on his head that pumped blood. It ran down the side of his head and neck. His attention was focused completely on the car. She spared it only a fleeting glance while raw fear for him pulsed through her.

“Oh, God,” she panted. “You’re hurt.” She grabbed a packet of tissues from her pocket and pressed a wad against the gash. Instantly the blood soaked through.

“Damn it all to hell.” Rolling to his feet, he ignored her and the blood streaming from his head. He stalked toward the crash.

Shaking, Lily stood and trailed after him. Head wounds, even minor ones, bled like the devil. How hurt could the man be when he was swearing? Her attention shifted to the accident. One wheel of her car was in the air, still spinning. Her car, that she had just paid off, looked as though it was permanently attached to the trailer. She hadn’t taken fifteen steps when he turned around to glare at her.

“That’s not my car.” He waved up the hillside toward the parking lot. “That is.”

“It’s mine,” she said, following the line of his finger. His vehicle was nearly identical to her dark green SUV. Except hers was perched precariously against the open trailer. She finally gave the trailer a closer look. Sitting on its flatbed was a small robotic submarine—a huge white and silver ball with headlights—one of them broken—and mechanical arms—also one broken—that looked alive.

“And that—” he was beginning to sway as he gestured toward the trailer “—is a submersible that has been here for exactly—” He squinted at his watch as though he couldn’t read it. “Forty-three minutes. I parked it down here so nobody had a chance in hell of running into it. Do you have any idea what I went through to get it? Only sell my soul.”

Her legs rubbery, Lily’s gaze followed his accusing finger. The whole passenger side of her car was caved in, and the trailer was dented where the car had hit it. She wrapped her arms around herself, which did nothing to lessen her shaking or the fear that made her throat tighten.

Once again, Quinn tried to open one of the doors on her car, then leaned down to peer inside. Straightening, he swore again.

“You left the keys in the ignition,” he accused. Blood continued to pour down the side of his face, and he was looking more pale by the minute.

“We’ve got to get you to the clinic.” She laid a hand on his arm to steady him. “You’re bleeding.”

“I’ll get a Band-Aid later.” He shrugged off her support and looked back up the hillside. “How the hell did this happen?”

“I don’t know.” What she did know was that Quinn looked worse.

His knees buckled. Before Lily could reach him, he fell. She cried out and knelt beside him. Pounding footsteps made her look up. Max and the children were running toward them.

“Well, damn,” Quinn said, struggling to stand up.

“You stay put.” She pushed him back down.

“Damned if I will.” Somehow, though, Quinn found himself without the energy to stand. Which was ridiculous. The woman couldn’t weigh more than a hundred and ten pounds sopping wet. He bench-pressed triple that. Of course she couldn’t hold him down.

Except that resting for a minute seemed like a better idea.

Through a haze of red he watched Max and the two children come to a halt next to him. Lily’s child threw her arms around her mother. Lily automatically hugged Annmarie with words of reassurance and a gentle admonishment to stay out of the way.

That didn’t keep the child from kneeling next to him and peering into his eyes. “You’re going to be okay,” she crooned, patting his hand, then said, “I don’t think he’s in there, Mom.”

Where else would he be? Especially since his head was beginning to feel like it would crack open if he so much as moved it.

“Got your car keys in your pocket?” Max asked, appearing in Quinn’s line of vision.

“Vest,” Quinn responded, his voice sounding thick to his own ears. Everything was growing more blurry by the second.

The next time he looked up, his car was parked right next to him and Max was getting out of it. Didn’t make sense since they’d just been talking.

Lily’s face appeared in front of him and Quinn tried to smile. Her hair framed her face in a golden halo. God, but she was pretty. Why had he been mad at her?

“Can you stand up?” she asked.

He nodded.

To his complete irritation, he felt as weak as a wet noodle, and it took both Lily and Max to hoist him up. Just moving…made him sure that any second his head would simply explode.

After an eternity of awkward moves to get in the car, he collapsed in the back seat with Lily. Max and the two kids were in the front seat. The ride down the hill to Lynx Point had never seemed longer, and Max didn’t miss a single pothole on the way down, Quinn was sure of it. He wanted to know where they were going, but didn’t have the energy to ask.

He slumped over, somehow found his head resting on Lily’s lap. He opened his eyes and looked at her. Her mouth was moving, but it took too much effort to figure out what she was saying, so he watched her. He didn’t think anyone had ever smelled better, and he turned his head toward her belly and inhaled. She smelled like comfort. Through the soft texture of her sweater against his cheek, her body was warm. He decided being right here like this would be about perfect if his head weren’t pounding.

“I’ll go get a gurney,” Max said sometime later.

Quinn managed to open an eye. Through the window he could see a weathered sign. Medical Clinic. A scant two months had passed since he was last here. No way was he being wheeled in.

“I can walk.” Straightening and opening the car door required a Herculean effort that made him break into a sweat.

This time he managed to stand with only Lily supporting him, her shoulder fitting under his arm like it was meant to be there. She wrapped an arm firmly around his waist. Somehow he managed to walk the eight or ten steps to the door of the clinic.

Thad opened the door, and Quinn made every effort to walk through in a straight line. He’d had to do that once for a cop after he’d celebrated getting a scholarship for college. It had been easier then.

At the jingling sound of the bell, Hilda Raven-in-Moonlight came out of one of the back rooms of the clinic. Remembering something about Thad being her son and being Lily’s childhood friend, Quinn studied her. As usual, she was dressed in jeans, a unisex sweater, and jangly earrings he’d never seen her without.

“You never told me you had a kid, Doc.” Quinn flashed her a smile, straightening to his full height, and hoping for her usual tart reply to being called “Doc.” The very first time he’d been to see her, she had informed him she was a physician’s assistant, not a doctor. In his book, she was better than an M.D. any day of the week. Hopefully she hadn’t noticed that he’d fall over if Lily wasn’t holding him up.

“I have four of them, and that gash on your head will get bigger if it involves any of them.” For all the gruffness in her tone, she was gentle when she put an arm around his other side and steered them toward an examining room. She settled him on the examining table, hoisting his feet up. “How did he manage to get you involved in one of his hare-brained schemes, girl?”

“No scheme.” Lily caught his bloody head as though she somehow knew it was killing him and gently eased it back until he was lying down. “A stupid accident. This happened when he tried to keep my car from running into a trailer.”

Quinn heard tears clog her voice. Realizing she was more affected than her casual words suggested, he reached for her hand and found it was trembling.

“You should have seen it,” Annmarie said, close enough that she could peer into his eyes. “Mommy’s car bumped along and then it crashed right into the other one with a big kaboom.”

“Everybody else okay?” Hilda asked.

“Fine,” Max said. He came through the doorway and dropped the keys to Quinn’s car in Lily’s hand. “I’m going to go and see what needs to be done to take care of things at the lab.”

“Do you need a ride?” Lily asked.

“Nah. It’s not that far.” With one of his quick smiles that always looked vaguely foreign on his face, he turned around without waiting for a goodbye.

“Me and Annmarie are gonna play video games,” Thad said.

“I want to watch Hilda sew Mr. Quinn up,” Annmarie said. “Okay, Mom?”

Lily shook her head. “Not okay. Go play with Thad and I’ll be along in a bit.”

“Mom.”

“Go.”

Quinn liked the way Lily was firm with her daughter—as though what she did really mattered. Mrs. Perkins had been like Lily in that way. He closed his eyes and allowed himself to remember, just for a moment.

He had been one of five foster children in her house. She had made sure they studied and did the chores and remembered to say “Yes, sir” and “Yes, ma’am” when talking to grown-ups. Quinn had been pretty sure she was a mean old biddy until she died less than a year after he had gone to live with her. Kenny Jones had been in the car with her, and he died, too. Not the drunk who hit them, though.

As foster parents went, she hadn’t been so bad. She’d never taken a strap to him. She’d never treated him like she figured he’d steal whatever wasn’t tied down. She insisted that “sir” and “ma’am” be used when addressing adults and that he do his homework in the kitchen under her watchful eye. After she died, those two habits were key to his staying out of trouble.

His hand tightened around Lily’s and her fingers pressed reassuringly back. He sighed and opened his eyes, staring at the ceiling until the crack he remembered from his last visit came into focus.

“A mundane car accident?” Hilda said from the vicinity of the sink. “That’s a first. Last time it was pulling seaweed out of a propeller.”

When Lily glanced back down at him, he nodded toward his arm closest to her and tried to waggle his eyebrows. That hurt to much, but he smiled anyway. “Wanna see my scar?”

“Stop bragging. Not every woman is impressed with scars,” Hilda scolded, appearing in his line of vision. “Let’s see how big this hole in your head is.”

She pulled off a huge gauze bandage he had no recollection of anyone putting on him. When had that happened?

“Close encounters of the accidental kind—happens to this guy all the time.”

Lily cleared her throat. “This one is my fault.”

“No, it’s not.” Quinn’s gaze snapped to her. To his shock her eyes shimmered as though she was a breath away from tears.

Hilda patted his arm. “I get to sew you up again, big guy.”

“Okay.” His attention didn’t leave Lily, though. She had taken off the enveloping red sweater. The blouse underneath was cream-colored…and smeared with his blood. She still gripped his hand, but didn’t look at him.

“He’s going to be okay?” She glanced at Hilda.

“Fine,” Quinn said for himself. “This wasn’t your fault.”

“It was my car.” Finally she looked at him. “And like you said, the keys were in the ignition.”

“Little sting while I deaden this,” Hilda said, adding, “He’s got a concussion. Somebody needs to keep an eye on him, wake him up every couple of hours.”

Lily’s expression became even more guilt-ridden. “Do you have anyone who can do that?”

He searched her gaze. A man could drown in those dark, beautiful eyes. “Do what?”

“Be with you tonight?”

He managed a grin despite the needle pricks against his forehead. “Are you volunteering, darlin’?”

A blush swept up from her cheeks, then turned her fiery-red to her hairline. He couldn’t remember if a woman had ever blushed when he teased her.

“Last I knew, he lived alone.” Hilda wasn’t as gentle as Lily as she washed the blood away from his forehead, and he closed his eyes to keep his focus on something besides the pain.

“I still do,” he muttered.

Time blurred after that, and Quinn drifted in and out, absorbing bits of conversation between Hilda and Lily, who bantered like old friends. There was something about a house being built for Lily with somebody named Ian overseeing the project. And Rosie, who still had morning sickness.

Each time Quinn opened his eyes, he found Lily watching him. Each time, she squeezed his hand and gave him a soft smile as though his being hurt really mattered to her. Wasn’t that a hell of an idea.

When they began discussing him again, he forced himself to pay attention.

“He really does need to be checked on for the next twenty-four hours,” Hilda was saying. “Maybe the handyman…”

“Max?” Lily finally inserted.

“Yeah. Maybe he can look after Quinn tonight.”

“No,” Quinn said. “I don’t need a nursemaid.”

Lily looked at him as though she knew differently. “Ready?”

He nodded and sat up. Surprisingly, he didn’t feel nearly as bad as he had a few minutes earlier. “Take me home and let me down a couple of aspirin. By morning, I’ll be good as new.”

“And ready to kayak over to Foster Island,” Hilda said, her voice dry. She took off a pair of latex gloves and dropped them into a trash can. “Stay away from the aspirin. Do you have any Tylenol?” When he didn’t answer right away, she added, “I’ll give you some. And I want to see you back here in the morning.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Agreeable, now.” Hilda smiled. “Keep that up and you could tarnish your swashbuckling reputation.”

He stood and took step toward the door. “Like I said, tomorrow I’ll be back to normal.”

“I’ll get Annmarie and be ready in a minute.” Lily picked up the red sweater she had been wearing earlier and disappeared through the doorway.

He watched her walk down the hallway toward the door to Hilda’s apartment. Lily might be small, but the curve of her bottom was all woman, round and sexy despite the full cut of her slacks. The lady looked damn near as good walking away as she did coming toward him.

Hilda cleared her throat and he turned around. She handed him a small bottle. He glanced at the label and put the bottle in his pocket. When he looked up, he found her watching him.

“So that’s the way the wind blows,” she said.

“What?”

She folded her arms over her chest. “Don’t you ‘what’ me. I see how you look at her.”

“Last I heard, looking wasn’t a crime.” He didn’t add that Lily had been looking back. In fact she was the one who’d started it.

“She’s still getting over the death of her husband.”

“She told me.”

“She’s not the type to have a fling.”

Quinn pressed a hand against the bandage at his hairline. “Do you always fight her battles?”

Hilda grinned suddenly and the heat disappeared from her voice. “Since we were seven years old. She’d take in a stray and never check to see if he had rabies.”

“Talking about me behind my back again?” Lily asked, coming down the hallway from Hilda’s apartment, Annmarie holding her hand. “I haven’t picked up a stray since Sly Devious Beast.” She grinned at Quinn. “He turned out to be a great dog and quite without rabies.”

“I’m worried,” Annmarie said. “We’ve been gone a long time and Sweetie Pie is probably missing me.”

“Most likely.” Lily urged her daughter toward the outside door and gave Hilda a quick hug. “I promised Thad that I’d bring caramel corn when we come down for videos tomorrow night.”

“You’re spoiling my son rotten.”

“I know.”

Lily opened the exterior door and waited for Quinn. Annmarie ducked under her arm. He followed her outside where she said, “I’m driving.”

“Okay.”

She held open the car door for him, which made him feel like an old man, then waited until he was settled into the passenger seat before going around the vehicle to the driver’s side.

“I live up the hill from the dock. Second house from the end,” he said after she got in the car and was scooting the driver’s seat forward to accommodate her shorter frame. “You live with your sister, right?”

“That’s right.” Lily started the car.

“Then you should take the car after dropping me at home.”

She smiled at him. “Does your head still hurt?”

He nodded. “Like hell.”

“He said a bad word, Mommy,” Annmarie said.

“Sorry.” Now that they were moving again, his brief surge of feeling better had all but disappeared.

Lily drove right past the turnoff to his street.

“You missed the turn.”

“I know,” she said. “I’m not taking you home. Like Hilda said, you need someone to check on you tonight, and you yourself said there’s no one to do that.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“I’m sure you will,” she agreed.

“But you’re not taking me home.” He really ought to be more upset about that, he decided. Instead the idea of being babied somehow appealed more than being one of the strays she took in bothered him.

Again she smiled. “I’m not.”

“Who would have thought you’re stubborn?”

As they headed south from Lynx Point, he figured his brain cells were still mostly intact. He didn’t have to be a genius to figure out they were on their way to Lily’s sister’s house. There were only a couple of places out this direction, and the nursery was at the end of the road.

On the drive to her aunt’s house, Annmarie maintained a running monologue, informing Quinn how impressed she was with his car, which was green like hers only much nicer and with lots of dials and stuff, pointing out the turnoff to the house where she and her mom were going to live only couldn’t right now because the house had no walls yet, and relating how her kitten tormented the dog.

He’d seen the house the last time he had been kayaking, the straight lines of new lumber standing out from the surrounding forest.

They came around a final bend and the road ended at a gate with a hand-painted sign above it that read Comin’ Up Rosie. Quinn had ridden his mountain bike out here a couple of times, but he’d never been through the gate, which framed a traditional Tlingit totem in the middle of the yard. Beyond the house was a gorgeous yacht anchored next to a pristine dock.

As Lily parked the car, a woman clad in jeans and a dark green apron came out of the greenhouse. She was followed by the ugliest dog he had ever seen.

“Do you have a totem pole in your yard?” Annmarie asked him.

“Nope.”

“In California, we didn’t have one, either.” Annmarie sat up straighter and waved. “That’s my aunt Rosie,” she informed him. “She’s going to have a baby real soon. Did you know that?”

“No.” Or maybe he did—something about her having morning sickness. She showed no sign of an advanced pregnancy despite her niece’s assertion.

The instant that Lily shut off the ignition, Annmarie scrambled over her and bounced out of the car. She skipped across the yard and threw herself into her aunt’s arms.

“Guess what happened? Mommy’s car was in a crash and Mr. Quinn, he got stitches from Hilda, and Thad and me, we found lots of stuff in the tide pools.”

Quinn’s impression was that anyone could tell Rosie, Lily and Annmarie were related. Rosie was taller than Lily, but not by much. All three had blond hair and dark eyes. Even without the similarities in their coloring, the family resemblance would have stood out.

“What’s all this?” Rosie removed her work gloves and stuffed them into the pocket of the canvas apron.

When Quinn walked toward them, the dog sniffed his hand, then ambled toward the wide porch that wrapped around the house.

Lily briefly related what had happened with the accident. At the end, she glanced toward Quinn and introduced him.

“I think we met once last spring when you moved your lab to the new place.” Rosie shook his hand. “You probably want to go sit down somewhere.”

“Yeah.” He remembered how surprised he had been when about forty people showed up to help him move. A job that he had anticipated would take a week had taken, instead, hours. It was his first experience with the neighbor-helping-neighbor support commonplace in Lynx Point. Given the independent nature of the people who lived here, their generosity and support had been a surprise and had proven to be an integral part of the character of these people.

“You might as well stay for supper,” Rosie said.

“Actually, he’s staying a bit longer than that,” Lily said, taking him by the arm and steering him toward the house. “He has a concussion and needs somebody to keep an eye on him tonight.”

“He’s spending the night?” Rosie’s eyebrows rose and she gave Quinn an even more thorough look.

Hilda’s comment about strays struck home. He was done with being the odd man out, the stray, the one nobody really wanted. God, but he was tired.

“Lily was driving—”

“Which put me in the driver’s seat.” She led him up the steps to the porch. “So, yes. He’s staying.”

“I never agreed to that.” He stepped around the dog, who was sprawled in front of the door.

Somehow he found himself led into the house. Lily came to a halt, then gave him a long, considering glance. “You’re not as tall as my brother-in-law, but I bet he has something you can wear. The blood on your shirt—”

“Isn’t that bad. I’m fine.” Quinn didn’t tell her that he’d made a point of never wearing anyone’s else’s clothes since he’d gone off to college when he was eighteen. By then he’d had more than enough of hand-me-downs.

Annmarie came from somewhere in the house, carrying an apparently boneless calico cat in her arms that she held up for his inspection. “This is Sweetie Pie. Would you like to hold her? She purrs and everything.”

“Maybe later.”

“This way,” Lily said, urging him toward a doorway. Through a short hallway, he found himself in a comfortable-looking living room. As with the kitchen, the walls were a cheery yellow. The sofa and chairs were large enough to accommodate a man of his size. Lily pointed toward one of the blue-upholstered chairs in front of a large television. “That one is a recliner.”

“You’re going to let me sleep?” When she looked up to meet his gaze, he grinned. “I still haven’t agreed to stay.”

To his surprise, she handed him his car keys. “If you feel well enough to drive, go.”

No one had ever called his bluff as neatly. He gave her back the keys. “Maybe after a nap.”

“I’ll get you a glass of water so you can take the Tylenol that Hilda gave you.” She went back to the kitchen, and a second later he heard the sound of running water.

A poster-size photograph over the mantel caught his gaze—a family gathering. He wanted to look away, hating the feeling that always wound through his chest with the whole family thing. Other people took pictures like that for granted. Easy if you had a family…and he didn’t.

This photograph chronicled a wedding, he realized a second later. Right away he recognized Lily and Annmarie wearing traditional Norwegian dress. Rosie stood next to a tall man in a tux and another woman looking much like Rosie and Lily stood next to another tall man, this one in a full dress uniform. Annmarie hadn’t changed much, so he figured the photograph had to be a recent one.

The other picture that snagged his attention was one of Lily with a man and a baby—clearly one of those portraits that had been taken to commemorate the beginning of a family. The man and Lily cradled the baby, but their eyes were on one another. Their expressions made Quinn feel as though he was peeping through a window at something too private to be shared. Lily’s husband…. No matter what kind of signals she had given Quinn this afternoon, no man could compete with this dead husband she obviously adored. Him least of all.

He fished the bottle of pills out of his pocket and sat down. The chair was as comfortable as it looked. He had just lifted the footrest when Lily returned. She waited for him to take the pills, then covered him with a knitted blanket. The novelty of it all had him searching her gaze and snagging her hand when she would have stepped away.

“Hilda was right, you know.” When she raised an eyebrow, he added, “About checking for rabies.”

“If you were some stray, she might be right, but you’re not.” She pulled her fingers from within his and brushed his hair away from his forehead, lightly skirting the bandage that covered his stitches. “You belong here more than you realize.” Patting his shoulder, she walked away. “Rest.”

Rest? Not likely. He fingered the handmade blanket, his thoughts following the woman. Of all the words he’d wanted to hear his whole life and never had, hers were the ones. You belong here.

Chapter 3

A loud rhythmic rumble made Quinn open his eyes. A pair of brown eyes within a pixie face peered into his. Annmarie. He turned his head slightly and found her cat resting on his chest, her paws kneading. The source of the rumble, her purr, was loud, satisfied and inviting.

“I’m s’posed to wake you up when the timer rings,” Annmarie said, lifting a handheld timer for him to see. According to the dial, he had less than five minutes.

“Looks like I woke up just in time.” He pushed the recliner into a sitting position, and the cat slid to his lap. He glanced at his watch, surprised that nearly two hours had passed. He’d slept, and he hadn’t intended to.

“Sweetie Pie likes you.”

“I can see that.” He petted the cat, discovering that she was far smaller than he had imagined, her long calico coat disguising her size. He’d forgotten how soft cat fur was. She opened her green eyes, her expression one of complete contentment.

Quinn glanced around the room, which was bathed in the light of early evening. Everything about the room suggested this was where Lily and her family spent a lot of time—books stacked on one of the end tables, a basket filled with skeins of yarn, and a coloring book and crayons on one end of the coffee table. Again, his gaze lingered on the family photos on the mantel.

This place was a home, in all that word conjured. And, as always, he was the outsider.

If asked, he’d deny he had ever wanted this, but for a moment he allowed himself to imagine being right here enjoying one of the Alaska’s long winter nights with a family—a woman like Lily and a little girl like Annmarie.

The timer pinged and Quinn gave himself a mental shake. e had tried the family thing right after college and it hadn’t lasted a year. No way was he repeating that experience. Bad as it was for him, he wouldn’t subject anyone else to his Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde behavior ever again. The honeymoon period, doing everything he could to please. The rebel-without-a-cause period, being a royal pain and sabotaging the very relationships he wanted. He’d finally grown up and admitted the obvious. Wanting a family and having the goods to make it work…those didn’t come in the same package—at least, not with him. End of story.

He lowered the footrest and handed the cat to Annmarie. She grinned at him, then skipped toward the kitchen, the cat draped over her shoulder.

“He’s awake, Mom. Guess what? He snores. I heard ’em.”

Quinn grinned at that. Annmarie really was a pistol. He stood, deciding he really did feel better, not good enough to whip anyone, but at least his still-aching head didn’t feel as though it would fall off when he moved it.

“And snoring sounds like?” Lily asked from the kitchen.

“Like Sweetie Pie when she purrs, only louder.”

Nothing had ever been more inviting than Lily’s soft, answering laugh. Or maybe it was the mouthwatering aroma coming from the kitchen.

At a slower pace, Quinn followed Annmarie. Lily stood at the stove, her back to him. She had changed out of the tailored slacks into a print skirt that skimmed her ankles. An oversize towel was wrapped into an apron around her slim waist. Her feet were bare and tapping to the rhythm of a Country tune on the radio. The scientist had been replaced by an earth mother cooking in a cheery yellow kitchen.

“Are you making cobbler yet?” Annmarie pulled a chair across the floor toward the counter. “I want to help.”

“Fine, but put the cat down and wash your hands first.”

“Hi,” Quinn said.

Lily turned around, her smile welcoming, her gaze frankly searching his face. There it was again…an invitation in her dark eyes that he found all too tempting.

“Hi. How are you feeling?” She came toward him and pulled one of the chairs away from the table in the center of the room, motioning for him to sit down. “What can I get for you—a soda, milk, coffee?”

“Nothing, thanks.”

She wiped her hands on the makeshift apron and returned to the stove where something sizzled in a large cast-iron skillet.

“Whatever you’re cooking smells great.” What he had intended was to make his excuses, thank her for her hospitality, and leave. Instead he moved closer, drawn by both the woman and the tantalizing aroma of her cooking.

She flashed him another smile over her shoulder, then expertly turned over the pieces, cooked to a crisp golden brown. “Comfort food—fried chicken. I thought you might enjoy that.”

“Sounds great.” The same thing as agreeing that he’d stay for dinner. Then he’d go home.

“And smashed potatoes,” Annmarie said from the sink where she was washing her hands. “Uncle Ian says they’re his favorite, did you know that?” Without waiting for an answer she added, “And he likes cold pizza, too, but Mommy thinks that’s yucky.”

Quinn caught Lily’s gaze. “What about cold fried chicken?”

“On a picnic…”

“With potato salad…”

Lily shook her head. “Cole slaw and chocolate cake.”

“Sign me up.” The way to a man’s heart, he nearly said, which was the same as admitting he wanted more from this surprising woman. He merely offered, “Your picnics sound better than mine.”

“Aunt Rosie and me, we planned lots of picnics, and then it always rained,” Annmarie said, once again pulling her chair toward the counter. “Can we make cobbler now, Mom?”

“Yes.” Lily set a mixing bowl in front of Annmarie.

The little girl looked at Quinn. “You could help, too, Mr. Quinn. Mommy measures and I get to put everything in the bowl. But I can share.”

“Thanks, but I think I’ll just watch.”

Annmarie grinned. “And you get to put your finger in to see if it tastes good.”

He laughed. “Would I have to wash my hands?”

“Certainly,” Lily said, giving him a mock frown that he didn’t believe for a minute.

Within seconds he figured out that he was in the way by simply standing around, so he retreated to the kitchen table and sat in the chair that Lily had pulled out. He had never imagined that he’d find watching a woman and a little girl so fascinating, but it was. The flour that ended up on the floor instead of in the bowl didn’t seem to bother Lily a bit. She was patient and funny with her daughter, both of them clearly enjoying the process.

Throughout the interplay, Lily somehow managed to maintain a running dialogue with Quinn, eliciting from him that his head still pounded and bringing him a Dr Pepper after he mentioned that was what he liked.

“Where’s your sister?” he asked as Lily slid the raspberry cobbler into the oven.

“I have two. Rosie is on a walk with Ian. And Dahlia is in Colorado.”

“With Uncle Jack,” Annmarie piped in. “He was Mr. Jack and Uncle Ian was Mr. Ian and then there was the wedding and I got two uncles on the same day.”

“I see,” Quinn said.

Lily smiled. “Can you believe we planned a double wedding in less than two months?”

It was the sort of question that required a “No, I don’t believe it,” so he shook his head.

“We had a great time. Lots of family, lots of food. And perfect for Rosie and Dahlia.”

Family. That again.

“Mommy says just because Aunt Rosie is having a baby doesn’t mean Aunt Dahlia is,” Annmarie offered. “I really, really want a baby sister or a baby brother, but Mommy says she won’t be having any because that takes a mommy and a daddy.”

“Aha.” Quinn had the feeling this was part of an ongoing conversation between the two when he noticed the chastising look Lily gave Annmarie.

She tousled her daughter’s hair. “Time to help me set the table, sweetie.”

Quinn stood. “That’s something I can help with.”

“Okay.” Lily pointed to where the plates and flatware were kept, then returned her attention to the stove and the dozen things that suddenly all needed to be done at once.

In the middle of setting the table and smiling at Annmarie’s direction where the forks and knives should be placed, the outside door opened. Rosie and the dog Quinn had seen earlier came in, followed by a tall, rugged-looking man whose gaze lasered in on him.

“I’m Quinn Morrison.” He offered his hand. “You must be Rosie’s husband.”

“Ian Stearne,” the man said, shaking Quinn’s hand. “Rosie tells me you’ve been playing chicken with Lily’s car.”

“Chicken-brained is more like it,” Quinn said. “I had the dumb-ass idea that I could catch it.”

“And he would have, too, if it hadn’t been locked,” Lily offered. She carried a steaming platter of crispy fried chicken to the table.

Ian gave her a sharp look. “Your car rolled down the hillside, and it was locked?”

“And the keys were in the ignition.” Lily returned to the stove where she poured steaming green beans into a serving bowl. “I would have sworn I put them in the drawer of my desk, but I must have left them in the car.” As had happened before, Lily’s casual words belied the pain in her eyes, which gave Quinn the impression she didn’t want anyone to know how frightened she had been.

“That makes no sense,” Ian said.

Rosie motioned for them to all sit.

Quinn pulled out a chair, wondering what was behind Ian’s protective attitude toward Lily.

“The handyman—Max—called,” Ian said. “Frank Talbot picked up your car and towed it down to the garage.”

“That was good of him.” Lily took the seat next to Quinn and promptly passed him a napkin-covered basket that he discovered was filled the warm corn bread. “I bet I have to send it off to Juneau to get it fixed.”

“Not as convenient as San Jose,” Ian said.

“Speaking of California,” Rosie said, glancing at Lily. “Cal called today asking for you. Said he was just checking in.”

If Quinn hadn’t been watching Lily, he would have missed the shadow that chased across her face before she smiled. Old boyfriend, maybe? The twinge of jealousy over that thought surprised Quinn.

“He’s been calling a lot,” Ian said. “Everything okay?”

“As far as I know,” Lily said. She gave Ian the sort of smile that suggested the subject was closed, then asked, “Did the windows for my house arrive today?”

“They did,” he said. “We’re right on schedule to have the exterior weather-tight by the first of October.”

The next few moments were taken up with the discussion of Lily’s house, which was under construction, while food was passed around the table. The routine was clearly ordinary to Lily and her family, but for Quinn… He figured the last home-cooked meal he’d had like this was last Thanksgiving. Lily hadn’t been whistling “Dixie” when she promised comfort food. Fried chicken and corn bread. One of his favorite meals…one he’d enjoy a whole lot more if his head wasn’t once again pounding.

“Any strangers hanging around the center?” Ian asked.

Lily uttered a soft chuckle, her gaze amused when she looked at Ian. “You have the most suspicious mind. No, it was nothing like that. Just a stupid accident.”

Ian’s expression suggested that he didn’t agree.

Quinn realized that he didn’t think it was an accident, either.

With a sudden rush of clarity, Quinn remembered a conversation he’d had with Dwight Jones on the ferry yesterday. As chief geologist for Anorak Exploration, Jones’s views on the natural resources surrounding Kantrovitch Island were diametrically opposed to Quinn’s. Jones had been more than a little hot that Quinn had filed a request for an injunction to stop the exploratory drilling within a twenty-mile radius around the hydrothermic vent.

“If you want to play hardball,” Jones had said, “you’ll be getting yourself in way deeper than you can imagine. We will be drilling. Get used to it.”

Until now, Quinn hadn’t thought that anything about their conversation could be construed as a threat. Was it? He wished he didn’t feel so woozy and out of it, which left him with the feeling that he had overlooked something important.

Though their professional differences kept them from being close friends, Quinn liked Dwight well enough. They had gone kayaking a couple of times, which had been fine. As had their occasional Friday afternoon basketball games on the dock.

“That’s some mighty deep thinking you appear to be doing there,” Ian said.

Quinn nodded, meeting the other man’s narrowed gaze. “Just remembering a conversation I had on the ferry yesterday. I’ll check it out.”

The narrowed gaze became a frown. “You bring trouble to Lily’s door—”

“Stop it.” Lily flashed Quinn an apologetic smile. “You’ll have to forgive Ian. He sees a boogeyman behind every bush.”

“That’s ’cause there were bad mens. Lots of them,” Annmarie piped in.

“As for those bad men—” Lily said “—that’s behind us, and they’re in prison.” At Quinn’s questioning glance, she added, “I testified in a murder case last spring, the man was convicted and he’s in prison. Since then, Ian has been a little edgy.”

Quinn caught the other man’s gaze, certain there was a wealth of information that Lily had left out of her light explanation. Ian Stearne didn’t strike him as a man who imagined things. He did strike Quinn has the kind of man who took care of his own, though. Quinn admired that.

“Lily’s car is almost identical to mine.” He cleared his throat. “If today wasn’t an accident, it has to do with me…not her.”

“Something involving Anorak?” Rosie asked. “They’ve made it real plain to the fishermen they expect to begin drilling soon.”

Quinn knew better than to throw even the most casual of stones before checking his facts. “I don’t know, but like I said, I’ll check on it.”

“Eat,” Lily urged. “Our dinner is getting cold, and I’ve had about enough of this. Today was an accident. That’s all.”

Quinn hoped she was right. He flat-out hated the idea that somebody else’s argument with him could have put Lily or Annmarie in danger. The quicker he figured out if Anorak or Dwight Jones had anything to do with today, the better.

His name being whispered brought Quinn wide awake.

After a second of disorientation he remembered where he was. Spending the night with Lily and her family. He really had intended to go home, but instead found himself in Lily’s queen-size bed, while she slept with her daughter.

He’d watched Lily and Rosie put clean sheets on the bed, but they still smelled like Lily, a scent he liked better by the hour. Long after he’d gone to bed and turned out the light, he had imagined having her in bed with him, naked, hot and willing. She wouldn’t be so worried about waking him at the two-hour intervals that Hilda had prescribed if she knew how unruly his thoughts were.

He turned his head toward the open doorway. The hall light behind Lily backlit her slim figure. To his disappointment, she was wrapped in some kind of thick bathrobe that prevented the light from revealing a bit of her body.

“What time is it?” he asked.

“A little before one.” She came into the room, knotting the sash of the robe more firmly around her waist.

That meant he’d been asleep not even two hours.

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

“Like hell.” He wished her face wasn’t hidden in the shadows. “Which probably means I’m going to live.”

“Is there anything I can get you?”

That was too good to pass up. “What are you offering, darlin’?”

She chuckled as though she understood exactly what he meant. “Company—” she held out a glass of water as he sat up “—Tylenol.”

“I guess that will have to do, then.” He took the pills from the palm of her hand, washed them down, then set the glass on the nightstand.

“Are you hungry?” she asked. “There’s milk and chocolate cake. Or maybe you’d rather have hot chocolate.”

“I’m fine. You shouldn’t have to give up any sleep on my account.”

“I’m not.”

He snorted. “Sure you’re not. You’re up in the middle of the night all the time.”

“More than you might think.” Her expression was hidden in the shadows, but it was impossible to miss the sadness in her voice. “Go back to sleep, Quinn.”

“Sure. Just so you can come wake me up again.” Truth was, he was looking forward to it. He slid back down until his throbbing head rested on the pillow.

She turned off the light in the hallway and he heard the soft click of the other bedroom door as she closed it.

He fell asleep in the middle of wondering about her confessed insomnia. True to her word, she came back at three. The only other time in his life that he remembered anyone checking on him during the middle of the night was when he’d been in the hospital with appendicitis. At the time he’d been sure the nurse had woken him simply to give her something to do. Thinking about the kind of caring a man might attribute to Lily’s actions was dangerous thinking in the middle of the night.

“Are you doing okay?” she asked. Perching on the edge of the bed, she touched his shoulder. That simple touch shot straight to his groin.

He took her hand and kissed the back of it. “Fine.” Gruffly he asked, “What about you? Did you sleep?”

“I was hoping you would have forgotten about that.”

“So you didn’t.”

She didn’t say anything, but didn’t deny it, either.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked, taking one of her hands within his, rubbing his thumb against her palm.

She sighed. “If there weren’t nights, this would all be a lot easier.”

“What?”

“Getting on with my life.” A long moment of silence stretched before she added, “I felt like I was just getting back on my feet after John died when I saw this guy murdered one night. I’d just gotten into my car and was leaving the parking lot, and there they were—these three men. One of them was on his knees and one of the others shot him in the back of the head.” Her voice had a soft, overcontrolled quality to it that showed just how close to the surface her emotions lay.

When she paused, Quinn didn’t say a word, just continued to hold her hand. What could he say that wasn’t totally meaningless? But he ached with the fear that he knew she would have felt.

“God, I don’t even know why I’m telling you all this.”

“Maybe because I’m interested. Maybe because there’s something about the dark that feels safe.”

“Sometimes I just wish there was someone to hold me during the night—” She broke off suddenly. Then, in a strangled whisper, added, “I’m not asking… I didn’t mean—”

“It’s okay,” he said. “I didn’t think you were inviting yourself into my—your—bed.”

“God, I’m embarrassed.”

“Don’t be.”

“During the day, I’m busy and I do okay. But at night…”

“You have too much time to think.”

“Yes,” she breathed. A smile was back in her voice when she said, “So, you’re doing me a favor. Giving me something to do during the long hours of the night, something other than my puny fears to think about.”

“They aren’t puny, so stop right there,” he said, cataloging all she had been through the last couple of years—at least the obvious things. Her husband dying, witnessing a murder, walking away from a career, moving, and all the while keeping things normal for her daughter.

Though his head was throbbing, he liked having her with him, liked knowing that in some strange way his being here was somehow helping her, too. She didn’t say anything more, just sat there with him, her hip warm against his side. And despite wanting to stay awake, to keep her company, he felt himself drift back toward sleep.

When she came back at five, though it was still dark outside, sleep was the last thing on his mind. He’d been awake for maybe half an hour, anticipating the moment when she’d slip inside the room. Knowing she fought demons during the night somehow made her even more likable. Like? Who was he kidding? There was like and then there was like. What he was feeling at the moment had nothing to do with friendship and everything to do sex. Morning arousal didn’t usually have the direct focus of a warm, fragrant woman.

She sat close to him on the bed, apparently oblivious to the danger, and brushed his hair away from his forehead. “Are you doing okay?”

“Lie down with me,” he whispered, wondering where the hell those words had come from the instant he said them. Sure, he’d been thinking about it, but that was no excuse.

Her breath caught, and he wished for more light than came from the hallway so he could see her expression. She looked away from him, then stood.

Ah, damn. The apology he owed her remained stuck in his throat. She’d been nothing but kind, and she was bound to take his invitation as an insult rather than… Than what? he wondered.

He closed his eyes and a second later heard the click of the door. He looked over at it and, to his astonishment, saw that she was moving toward him as if in a shadowy dream. He heard the soft swish of her robe, then sensed more than he saw as she let it drop from her shoulders to the floor. She pulled back the covers and slipped in beneath them.

She scooted closer as he shifted onto his side, then she was in his arms, pressed against him full body to body. Hardly daring to breathe, he wrapped his arms around her. He had to be dreaming.

No way had she just climbed into bed with him.

Chapter 4

“Oh, Quinn,” she whispered, her arms coming around him, gently for an instant, then fiercely, as though she expected him to be wrenched away. “You feel so good.”

“So do you, darlin’.” Against Quinn’s feet, hers were like ice. As soon as he touched them, she tried to pull away. “Shh,” he murmured, cradling her cold feet between his much larger ones.

Breathing in the fragrance of her hair, he decided that if he was dreaming he didn’t want to wake up. If he wasn’t dreaming…he sure as hell didn’t want to do the honorable thing and send her away.

He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to roll her onto her back and to plunge into her soft body. He wanted to know the sounds she made while making love. Instead he held her, feeling her feet warm.

Beneath his hand, the silky fabric of her nightgown slid against his fingers. Soft, but not as soft as her skin at the nape of her neck. He couldn’t have kept his hands from wandering to the swell of her bottom or the sweet curve of her breasts if his life had depended on it. As he did, she somehow snuggled even closer, her breath hot against his cheek.

He buried his face in her hair. Silky. Fragrant as sunshine. In his arms, she was so damn small. Smaller by far than any other woman he had ever held. He shifted against her, absorbing the slide of her body against his, the friction undoing him a bit at a time. Oh, she fit him perfectly.

He pressed his lips against that fragrant hair, then on her cheek. Soft. Then at her jaw. Smooth. Then the other cheek. Silky.

Her small hands were warm through the fabric of his T-shirt; he would have given just about anything to feel them against his bare skin. Through the pounding of his head, he couldn’t decide what the mixed signals meant. She was in his arms, being held so intimately that with a couple of shifts of their clothes, he could be where he wanted—buried in her. Though she held him tightly, offering the comfort of her body, he wondered if she meant to be offering sex, too.

God, he wished his head didn’t hurt so much. He needed to really think this through.

Her fingers eased into his scalp, finding the pressure points and gently massaging them, the movement easing the throb in his head. Instantly, he relaxed, and his head dropped into the hollow between her neck and shoulder.

“Keep that up, darlin’, and I’m yours for life.”

Her soft chuckle vibrated against his cheek. “Promises, promises.”

Though he was too relaxed to move, the realization that he had said, Yours for life? stabbed at him. Where the hell had that thought come from? Who was he kidding? He was a here-and-now kind of man. And she was…definitely a forever kind of woman.

That knowledge didn’t keep him from wanting to kiss her, from wanting this innocent embrace to morph into torrid sex.

“Better?” she whispered, her magic fingers easing the knots out of the tendons in his neck.

“Mmm.” He kissed her neck, then had to test that silky skin with his teeth.

She shuddered then arched beneath him in that timeless gesture of surrender that his own body recognized. He released her skin, then laved the tiny hurt, kissing her neck. He inhaled deeply, loving the floral, musky scent of her.

His arms came around her and he ignored the throbbing in his head to kiss her the way he had been wanting to practically from the moment he had met her.

Her lips were soft beneath his, trembling, and so sweet.

“Darlin’, let me in.”

She sighed, and then he was in, finding her shy tongue with his own. She moaned, or maybe he did, and the sound drove the last coherent thought from his mind. All that was left behind was a need to be connected to her, a need that he’d die for.

The kiss went on and on. Dark. Carnal. More vital than breathing. He pulled her close, sliding his hands across the satiny fabric of her nightgown, pushing the fabric up…until he reached the inside of her thigh. Soft. So…damn…soft.

Barely daring to breath, he lay there, his head pounding and his arousal throbbing…more scared about making that next move than he had ever been. Time stopped except for brush of his thumb against her leg.

From somewhere he found the honor to ask, “Is this what you want?”

“Lying with you?” The beat of a second passed. “Or sex?”

“Either. Both.”

“What I want.” She cupped his cheek with her hand, the tension seeping out of her body. “You’d have to be a decent man and ask me, wouldn’t you?”

“There’s not a single decent thing about what I’m thinking.”

Still, he had his answer. He dredged a little deeper, found his conscience and removed his hand from the inside of her thigh. Wishing that he’d touched her more intimately, he smoothed her nightgown into place. She’d have to be dead not to notice his erection pressing into her belly, but to his relief she didn’t ease away from him. Her body softened even more, though the thrum of arousal continued its hum through him, urging him to ignore his self-control and the headache that had resumed its incessant pounding. He allowed himself a sweep of his hand over the curve of her bottom and imagined how she’d feel naked.

They lay together like that for a long time, her hands continuing to knead the knots of muscle in his back and neck. Her touch became more languid, then ceased altogether. Her breathing became even as her body relaxed against his, and he realized that she had fallen asleep. He didn’t dare let his mind embrace the implications of that. Sleeping together, in his mind, was a thousand times more intimate than sex, required way more trust than sex. And yet she had fallen asleep in his arms as though he could keep her worries at bay. Sighing, he pressed his lips against the smooth skin at her temple and wished he was the kind of man who could do that for her. But he wasn’t.

He must have slept because sometime later he opened his eyes and the room was light, sunshine streaming through the window. He rolled onto his back and stretched, noticing feminine things, frilly things, about the room that he hadn’t noticed last night. A stack of paperback novels on the nightstand caught his attention, along with a small lamp. He had images of her in here inside that tiny pool of light reading and keeping her worries hidden from her family.

Rubbing a hand over his face, he felt the bandage at his hairline and realized his headache was mostly gone. He hoped it stayed that way when he was vertical.

An erotic dream lingered, its focus Lily. He brought one of the pillows to his nose and inhaled deeply, the scent of her making him instantly hard. For a moment he wondered if she had really been in his bed or if he had simply been wishing so hard that it seemed real. His remembered words tore through his brain. I’m yours for life. What kind of idiot was he to ever say such a thing? No one else had wanted him for life, and he was about to delude himself into thinking that she would. Thank God they hadn’t had sex. He didn’t need that kind of grief in his life.

Instead he’d been even more stupid—letting her under his skin with her hidden worries and vulnerabilities that made him wish he was a different kind of man. He needed to reestablish the relationship on a professional level, and fast. Before he hurt her. Because it would come to that. It always did.

He had just met her, didn’t really know her. She worked for him, for Pete’s sake. Making love with her…what in the hell would he call it, if not that? So they hadn’t had sex. Not quite. What they had shared, though, had been a hell of a lot more intimate. He might have sex with the occasional woman, but he didn’t sleep with them. She worked for him. He had to remember that because he didn’t have a damn thing that he could offer her.

Why even think about that, moron? he told himself, yanking on his clothes. Sex without commitment, he was used to. Somehow those words in relation to Lily sounded dirty. What he had felt with her wasn’t. Not even close.

He had nothing to offer her. Not a woman who had been as happily married as she clearly had been. Not a woman with a cute little girl like Annmarie. He’d done that once before—acquired the ready-made family he had been so sure he wanted. One word described that experience. Disaster.

He raked a hand through his hair and went to the window. Thanks to the sunshine, the water in the cove beyond the house sparkled and the islands in the distance rose from the water like mountains. The scene was so idyllic he was tempted to hope for the possibilities that skipped through his mind.

The daydream lasted for about a second. Until the old accusation, so true it hurt, ripped through his head. You’re too damn scared to let anyone love you. However much you’re hurting me…you’re killing yourself. You just don’t know it.

Oh, he knew. His ex-wife had been right on all counts. No way could he risk going there again.

His emotions in turmoil, he glanced around the room to make sure he had all of his things. Shoes in hand, he pulled open the door and stepped into the hallway. To his relief, the door to Annmarie’s room was closed—with any luck, Lily was still asleep. Coward that he was, he didn’t want to face her.

He crept down the stairs. Uncertainty crawled through his gut, reminding him of being a child in a strange house with people he didn’t know, sure that soon he’d be sent somewhere else because he always was. He hated the feeling and reminded himself he was a man, no longer powerless like the scared boy he had once been.

Downstairs, he went through the hallway to the kitchen. As soon as he put on his shoes, escape was within reach. Seconds away.

“Hi, Mr. Quinn,” Annmarie said from the kitchen chair where she was sitting, a coloring book in front of her. “I’m having hot chocolate. Do you want some, too?”

“I…” His gaze darted around the room. “Where’s your mom?”

“Sleeping.” She sighed and took another sip of her hot chocolate, carefully lifting the mug to her lips with both hands. “Everybody is sleeping, ’cept you, me and Sweetie Pie.” Annmarie set the mug down and pointed toward the cat who was on the windowsill, her attention riveted on the bird feeder visible through the window.

“I see.”

“Is your head still hurted, Mr. Quinn?”

“Only a little.” He sat across the table from her and began to put on his shoes. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Annmarie put one of the crayons in the box, then select another one.

“I can make hot chocolate all by myself. Uncle Ian showed me. Blowing up the marshmallows is the best part.”

“What?” When he looked up from tying his shoe, she grinned.

“You put ’em in the microwave, and they get real, real big. Uncle Ian says that I can do it by myself, but I have to follow the rules.” She leaned closer to him. “So, Mr. Quinn, you want hot chocolate and marshmallows, don’t you?”

“I do.” Clearly he had lost his mind. What he wanted to do—needed to do—was to leave before anyone else was up. Still, this little girl with her impish smile made him want to linger—to pretend for a few minutes longer that he really could do the family thing.

He followed Annmarie across the kitchen, where she scooted a chair to the counter, filled a cup with water, heated it in the microwave, added chocolate mix and stirred carefully. Then she added a marshmallow and put the cup back in the microwave for ten more seconds, all the while telling him each step and finishing with, “See? Simple, huh?” and handing him the cup with a huge, puffy-white topping, the likes of which he’d never had.

“That’s very grown up,” Quinn told her as they sat back down at the kitchen table.

“I know,” she agreed solemnly. “And, if I don’t get a baby brother or sister soon, it will be too late.”

“Too late for what?” Quinn asked, focusing on the one part of the sentence that kept him from thinking about the very activity that could lead to Annmarie having that sister or brother.

“Well,” Annmarie said, swinging her legs back and forth, her fuzzy pink slippers making her feet look bigger than they were. “If Mommy waits too long, then I’ll be sixteen like Angela.”

“I see.” In fact, he didn’t see anything at all. “Who’s Angela?”

“Thad’s sister,” Annmarie said before returning with laser precision to the topic at hand. “And I asked Mommy why she couldn’t do it like last time, only she said things are different now. We can’t adopt Aunt Rosie’s baby like Mommy did with me because Uncle Ian wouldn’t like it. But he could still be the daddy and Aunt Rosie could still be the auntie.”

Quinn failed to follow the child’s logic even as he was sure things made perfect sense to her.

“So I’ve been thinking. Since Uncle Ian says you have to have a mommy and daddy, all I have to do is find a daddy. Mine died, you know.”

Quinn nodded at her matter-of-fact announcement.

“When you were a little boy, did you have a daddy?”

“No.” The question was as unexpected as everything else about the conversation.

“Oh.” A tiny pucker appeared between her eyebrows. “Did you want one?”

Had anyone else asked the question he would have lied. Instead he found himself telling this child a truth that he would have denied anyone else. “With all my heart.”

She smiled. “Me, too. But mostly I want a baby. This time maybe the baby can grow in my mommy instead of in Aunt Rosie. That should work, don’t you think?”

He didn’t know what to think, but he was sure of one thing. Agreeing with Annmarie in any way at all would likely land him in deep trouble.

“I think—” he glanced at his watch “—it’s getting late.”

“Yep,” Annmarie agreed.

“And I should probably go.”

“Before breakfast?”

He nodded, standing up, and she expelled a big sigh.

When he looked down at her, she said, “Are you sure you don’t want breakfast?” She pointed at the cupboard. “The cereal is way up there. The bowls are over there and, besides, the milk is very heavy.”

“Ah.” Things were beyond her reach, if he understood the problem. How could he leave without helping her out, especially since she had made hot chocolate for him? “Okay. I guess I can have cereal before I go.” He opened the cupboard and found a single box of cereal on the top shelf. Cocoa Puffs. He had been hoping for cornflakes or something similar.

She beamed as he poured cereal into two bowls and got out the milk. Within no time they were munching on cereal as Annmarie continued talking about babies. This time, thankfully, the subject was the cat that lived in Rosie’s greenhouse.

“Where’s my punkin’?” Lily called from the hallway.

Annmarie giggled as dread settled into the pit of Quinn’s stomach. He should have left. He shouldn’t be sitting here waiting for Lily, wanting to see her, wanting, just wanting, all the things he could never have.

Smiling, she came through the doorway an instant later, wrapped in that same thick robe she’d had on when she’d visited during the night. Until now, he hadn’t known it was lavender. The smile remained, but something changed in her eyes when her gaze lit on him. Was she glad to see him or wishing he’d left already?

“I’m having breakfast,” Annmarie returned.

“Cocoa Puffs,” Lily murmured, taking in the contents of the bowl. “Your Saturday treat on—”

“It’s not Saturday?” the child asked.

Lily tousled her hair. “You know it’s not.” She dipped a finger in her daughter’s hot chocolate, then licked off the gooey mess of the marshmallow before turning to Quinn. “I never would have figured you for a hot-chocolate kind of guy.”

He shrugged, images of licking her fingers destroying any hope he had of ignoring the flare of attraction between them. “When in Rome…you know.”

Lily moved away from him, wanting to put her arms around him and discovering that she had used up all her courage a couple of hours ago. Having him watch her with that troubled expression made her opt for pouring a cup of coffee. After adding cream and sugar to it, she sat next to him. “How’s your head?”

“Better.” He touched the bandage at his hairline. Without meeting her eyes he added, “Thanks for taking care of me.”

“I’m done,” Annmarie announced. “Can I give Sweetie Pie my milk now?”

Lily looked at her daughter, then the bowl of cereal-flavored milk she was holding up. “You may. Time to go get dressed, sweetie.”

Annmarie climbed down from her chair, set the bowl of milk on the floor near the window, then lifted the cat from the windowsill and set her in front of the bowl. When Annmarie skipped away, Lily glanced back at Quinn, giving in to her need and resting her hand over the top of his.

“Thanks to you,” she said, “I had the best sleep I’ve had in weeks.”

He grasped her fingers for an instant before letting them go, his gaze far too somber when he met hers.

She didn’t need the Ph.D. after her name to recognize the man was uncomfortable in the extreme. Her sisters had both lamented about awkward morning-afters. Personally, she had never experienced one. Though she had fallen asleep in the man’s arms, this morning didn’t count as a morning after, either.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

He nodded. “You?”

She caught his gaze. “Wishing—” She took a deep breath and plunged ahead. “Wishing I’d told you I wanted to make love. Wishing I were braver.”

Something in his eyes fractured and his jaw clenched. “I think you’re plenty brave. But the truth is, you don’t know anything about me, and I didn’t expect…didn’t have any way to protect you.”

“From what?”

“Are you crazy? From me. From a possible pregnancy.” He jumped to his feet and glared at her. “Or… For all you know, I could have HIV or—”

“Do you?”

“No.”

“Or anything else?”

“No. But that’s not the point, damn it.”

She rose to her feet and took a step toward him. “Then what is?” When he glanced blankly at her, she added, “The point.”

“I’m not one of those strays you’re known for picking up.”

That baffling hurt was back in his eyes. “It never occurred to me that you were.” She took another step toward him.

He retreated a step. “Why in hell—”

“Did I climb into bed with you?” She shrugged, then told him the truth. “I’ve lived my whole life being the good girl, doing what was expected of me.” She took another step toward him and he backed up one. “That was the old me.” She closed the space between them until she could feel the heat from his body though they weren’t touching. “An aneurism in my husband’s brain burst while he was having lunch. Two days later he died.”

“I’m sorry,” Quinn murmured.

She met his gaze. “So am I. But you know what that taught me? Finally? That nothing is sure. That today is all there is. That you’d better grab what you want when you have the chance because tomorrow it could be all gone.” She touched one of the buttons of his shirt with her finger, not quite sure enough of herself to put her arms around him, but aching for him to give her some clue that she’d be welcome if she took that final tiny…huge…step into his arms.

Pretending to be far more courageous than she really was, she looked up and found him watching her with the eyes of a man being tortured. “So, that’s my regret. That I once again took time to think, instead of taking what I wanted. I’m so sick of being a coward.”

“That’s not true,” he said quietly. He held her gaze for a long moment, his eyes deeply searching hers. They held the colors of the earth and ocean and stormy sky, framed with lashes any woman would envy. “Not making love was for the best,” he finally said, glancing up when something behind Lily caught his attention.

She turned around and found Rosie at the doorway and headed for the cupboard where the crackers were kept.

“Good morning,” Lily said.

“Morning,” Rosie returned, reaching into the cupboard. She pulled down a package of soda crackers, then took a bite of one, giving them an apologetic smile. “Don’t mind me.”

“No problem.” He glanced down at Lily and managed to slip from between her and the counter. “I’ve got to go.”

“Cocoa Puffs isn’t much of a breakfast,” Lily said. “Let me make you something.”

“I really do need to…” His gaze caught hers once again.

“Go?” Rosie supplied, looking from him to Lily.

He nodded, pulling keys out of the pocket of his jeans.

“If you can give me about fifteen minutes, I can get dressed and go with you,” Lily said.

“I, uh, need to check with Hilda before going to work.”

“Fine. I thought you might.”

A flush crawled up his cheeks, and Lily realized he was trying to find a tactful way to leave without her. “I think I’d like to go home before going to work.”

“I can take you to work, Lily,” Rosie said, waving one of the crackers. “Another half dozen of these and I’ll be fine.”

A look of pure relief passed over Quinn’s face. “There. A solution. You have a ride to work.” He headed for the door. “See you later.”

“Okay.” Lily watched him leave, one more regret heaping on all the others. She had ignored the possibility that he might not want her the way she wanted him.

“You slept with him, didn’t you?” Rosie accused.

The call came into the payphone near the marina exactly when the man was expecting it—dreading it.

“Is it done?” asked the raspy voice.

“Accidents are dicey things,” he said, watching a float plane land beyond the line of boats. “Not predictable like more traditional methods. This will be a helluva lot easier with the direct approach.” Stealing the keys out of a desk—that had been easy. Pushing a car down a slope at exactly the right time to kill somebody—that was a gamble in anybody’s book.

“No,” was the immediate answer. “So you’re telling me that the status quo hasn’t changed.”

“She’s not dead, if that’s what you mean,” he answered, tired of the stupid game of refusing to name what he’d been hired to do. The chances of anyone listening to a conversation made to a pay phone from a pay phone were slim and none. “You want an accident, that’s going to take time.”

“And expenses on our clock. Mr. Lawrence expects results from you. I expect to read in the paper that a terrible accident has had tragic results. The sooner, the better.”

“And like I said, accidents aren’t that easy.”

“Let me put this another way, so you’ll understand perfectly. Mr. Lawrence is an engineer, did you know that?”

“Get to the point.” So he was an engineer. So what?

“He always ensures there are backup systems and fail safes.”

Which explains why he’s in prison, he nearly retorted.

“If a fail safe is required for this situation,” the voice continued, “you won’t be needing a single dime of the payment that was agreed to. Now, then. Since you seem to be unable or unwilling to think on your own, you will find a way to get close to her, and you will see to it that she’s involved in a very tragic, life-ending accident.”

The line went dead.

He stared across the water. A fail safe? A chill slithered down his spine. He got it. Somebody would kill him if he didn’t kill Lily Jensen Reditch. So far, he hadn’t been able to get close enough, which was only one of the problems with “accidents.”

As for thinking on his own, he already had an employment application in to go to work at the research center. He had enough of a chemistry background to create fire out of water, to even blow up a building. Plus, he knew for a fact he had the party-hearty merchandise a couple of the students wanted—they’d already made a buy from him. Trade drugs for a favor or two—a plan that was already in the works. Think on his own. What the hell did the old guy on the other end of the phone even know?

As the opening movement of Tchaikovsky’s Seventh Symphony swelled from the small CD player on the counter, Max Jamison, aka Jones, sat at the kitchen table waiting for a collect call. Depending on the length of the lineup to use the phone at the prison, the call could come in the next second or the next three to four hours. His gaze swept over the austere apartment he’d rented after arriving here a week after the double wedding of Dahlia Jensen to Jack Trahern, and Rosie Jensen to Ian Stearne. That’s a ceremony he would have liked to have seen, though he wouldn’t have been welcome.

The last time he had seen Dahlia, she’d believed he would kill her. She had shot him instead. Luckily for him, hospital prison wards were easier to escape from than prison cells. And now, unlikely as it seemed, here he was—seeking his revenge. Franklin Lawrence was going to pay for blackmailing him into kidnapping Lily’s sister.

Oh, he had done it, but he’d hated everything about it. After learning that Franklin Lawrence had since issued a contract on Lily, he had headed here.

A pro bono job—and his last. God willing, his sister would never learn that he had spent the last twenty-plus years as a paid assassin. He liked thinking how retirement would be, being with her without the lies about what he did or where he had gone. Enjoying his favorite music on his state-of-the-art system over coffee that had been ground seconds before brewing. Spending time with his niece and nephew.

The few dishes from breakfast had been washed and put away. The double bed that should have been hauled off to the dump ten years ago was made. The floor was swept, the battered furniture dusted. So, waiting was all he could do, just as he had done for much of his adult life.

He suspected that Lily believed Franklin Lawrence wouldn’t still be interested in her now that the trial was over. Max knew better. Men like that—men like him—didn’t let go. Since Lawrence was looking at a life sentence of hard time if his appeal failed, Lily still wasn’t safe. She might be with her family using her married name instead of her maiden name—but she wasn’t safe. Not yet.

Max’s cell phone rang thirty-seven minutes later.

“Yeah,” he said.

“Interesting proposition,” came a gravelly voice on the other end of the line, “assuming you’re J.M.”

“I am.”

“So how does this work?” the man asked.

Max wished for the more secure telephone line he had at his home. “If you agree to the job, I’ll deposit fifty Gs wherever you want. After it’s done, I’ll deposit another fifty.”

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