Trusting Ryan

Tara Taylor Quinn

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Copyright

With more than forty-five original novels, published in more than twenty languages, Tara Taylor Quinn is a USA TODAY bestselling author. She is known for delivering deeply emotional and psychologically astute novels. Ms Quinn is a three-time finalist for the RWA RITA® Award, a multiple finalist for the National Reader’s Choice Award, the Reviewer’s Choice Award, the Bookseller’s Best Award and the Holt Medallion. Ms Quinn recently married her college sweetheart and the couple currently lives in Ohio with their two very demanding and spoiled bosses: four-pound Taylor Marie and fifteen-pound rescue mutt/cockapoo, Jerry. When she’s not writing or fulfilling speaking engagements, Ms Quinn loves to travel with her husband, stopping wherever the spirit takes them. They’ve been spotted in casinos and quaint little antique shops all across the country.

To Tim,

my own young hero who’s all grown up now.

I love you more today than yesterday.

CHAPTER ONE

THE WOMAN WAS too damned gorgeous for his good. When he was with her, he couldn’t focus on anything else. Including the reasons why he, Columbus Police Detective Ryan Mercedes—one of the city’s youngest and newest special victim detectives—was not going to get romantically involved with anyone anytime in the near future.

Most particularly, he was mesmerized by her laughter—had been since he’d first met her six months before at the adoption of an incest victim he’d rescued. The young girl had been Audrey’s client.

“What?” Audrey Lincoln asked, glancing over at him in the small living room of his one-bedroom loft condominium.

On the TV Bruce—Jim Carrey—had just been endowed with God’s powers and had single-handedly taken on the gang of thugs who’d earlier beaten him up. The scene involved a birth-worthy monkey and cracked Ryan up every time he saw it.

“Nothing,” he said, maintaining eye contact with the woman sitting next to him. They’d started hanging out a few months ago. Catching an occasional movie or meeting for a cup of coffee.

“I thought you liked this movie.”

Bruce Almighty. He’d seen it so many times the lines randomly popped into his head. “I do.”

“You said it was your favorite.”

“It is.”

“Then why aren’t you watching it?”

Good question.

“I am.”

Her brown eyes narrowed in a way that made him hungry. She stared at him a second longer, then turned back to the large screen television across from them.

They weren’t dating. Weren’t on a date. They were just friends. Watching a movie on a Saturday night.

So what if, the week before, they’d moved their watching from a generic theater to his home?

This was where the old movies were.

They’d watched her favorite movie, The Mirror Has Two Faces, the previous week. She’d said she related to the main character, Barbra Streisand’s version of a university sociology professor. The woman had struggled with being ugly. Undesirable.

Audrey Lincoln had no such worries.

“What?” She was looking at him again.

Sorry, Jim, Ryan silently apologized to the actor who’d given him more hours of hilarious entertainment mixed with just a bit of life lesson than he could count. “You thirsty?” he asked his guest.

“A little.”

He stood. Delilah, the cat, opened one eye from her perch on the back of the recliner. “Wine, beer or diet soda?”

“A glass of wine would be great.”

He thought so, too. It meant she’d have to stay around a while. Or he’d be forced to arrest her for DUI, and they certainly couldn’t have that.

AUDREY COULDN’T remember ever laughing so hard. And she’d seen most of Jim Carrey’s movies more than once. Was familiar with his brand of humor. Enjoyed it. Just never this much.

Or perhaps—she glanced over at the handsome detective sitting on the other end of the couch finishing off his glass of wine—it was the company?

Credits rolled. She didn’t want the evening to end. Tomorrow it was back to work—no matter that the calendar read Sunday. Audrey hadn’t had a day off in longer than she could remember.

She didn’t really want one.

Days off led to introspection, which led to…

Nothing that she needed to be concerned about tonight.

“Okay, so tell me why that’s your favorite movie,” she said, smiling at her companion.

He shrugged, leaving the remote on the table beside him, the DVD flashing its welcome screen. “It’s funny.”

“And?”

“How do you know there’s more?” His glance was intense again—just as it had been during the movie. Her stomach tightened, whether from reaction or dread, she wasn’t sure.

Maybe both.

For a thirty-five-year-old woman who spent her days trying to protect the hearts of damaged children, she was embarrassingly inexperienced when it came to matters of her own heart.

“I may have known you only a few months, Mercedes, but for a cop who’s been around long enough to make detective, you’re surprisingly empathetic. That’s an amazing feat. One that only a man with some depth could manage. So, show me the depth. Why’s that your favorite movie?”

The wine was talking. Ordinarily, Audrey would never be so bold. Especially not with a man she actually liked. More than as just an acquaintance. A peer.

Were they actually becoming friends?

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a personal friend.

“I don’t know.” Ryan didn’t look away as many men would have when faced with a touchy-feely question. “Maybe because I’m a control freak and the idea of having God’s power is so compelling I have to keep coming back for more?”

She studied him. Thought about what he said. Shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“Because you aren’t power-hungry.”

“How do you know?”

“You let me handle the Markovich kid.”

“You’re his guardian ad litem. He knows you. Trusts you.”

“And you were the arresting officer. Jurisdiction was yours. Most cops I know would not have stepped back.”

“I still arrested him.”

“You took him to the station to keep him safe.”

“I charged him.”

“He beat up his stepfather. He had to know there were consequences for that.”

Scott Markovich was safe now. For now. He was one of her “jobs” for tomorrow. She was making a visit to the fifteen-year-old in detention.

“How do you do it?” Ryan’s gaze was piercing. Personal.

A combination that was dangerous to her budding sense of awareness around him. The tight jeans he was wearing and close-fitting polo shirt, stretching across the breadth of his shoulders, didn’t help.

Or maybe it was just that she’d always been a sucker for light hair and green eyes.

“How do I do what?” She wanted a little more wine, but didn’t want to be too forward.

And she needed to go. Get home to her house. To her nice big pillow-top mattress and down pillows and lose herself in rejuvenating oblivion for a few hours so that she could get up tomorrow and start all over again.

“How do you see all the stuff you do—kids like Markovich who’ve been sexually abused by people in positions of authority over them—and be able to get close to them? To suffer with them? How do you even get up in the morning, knowing that’s what you’re going to face?”

How could she not? was the better question.

“How do you?”

“I don’t get close. I see them for a few minutes and my job is done. And I’m not always dealing with the little ones. I work with adult victims, too.” The room’s dim light cast shadows over his frown.

“Still, why do you do what you do? Face danger every day—dealing with the toughest to handle crimes.”

He seemed to give her question serious consideration. “I don’t have a good answer for you. I’ve wanted to be a cop since I was a kid, never asked myself why. I just know that if I can make a difference, I have to try.”

There was more to his story. Audrey didn’t succeed at her job without being able to read between the lines, to read people, to hear what they weren’t saying as much or more than what they were. And she didn’t succeed without knowing when not to push.

Ryan Mercedes was a private man. An intriguing man. A man who had the looks of Adonis and the heart of Cupid.

A man who was occupying her thoughts so often he was making her uncomfortable.

“How about you?” he asked. “Why do you do the work you do?”

For maybe the first time ever, she considered telling someone the whole truth. Considered.

“In 2003, in Ohio alone, there were 47,444 substantiated cases of child abuse and or neglect. More than seven thousand of them required the services of a guardian ad litem.” Hide behind the facts. It had always been her way. People couldn’t argue with facts. And win.

“I understand the need for child advocates,” Ryan said. “Remember, I see the results of child abuse and know full well that there are far too many children in this city who need someone on their side, someone looking out only for them and their best interests. But that’s not what I asked. I asked, why you?”

His perception surprised her. Or maybe not. Maybe her heart already knew that this man was good for her. That he was personal. In a life that was anything but.

She opened her mouth to tell him about the volunteer guardian ad litem program. The hours of training it took for one qualified ad litem to emerge. The need for legal advocates sitting alongside children in court to help clear up the confusion that stole childhoods.

And about the few of them, the paid lawyer ad litems who, in addition to looking out for the child’s best interests and supporting the child, also offered legal advocacy.

She opened her mouth and said, “I…had a…rough childhood.” And in spite of the heat in her cheeks, the discomfort attacking her from the inside out, she couldn’t seem to stop. “Other than my parents’ divorce, things looked fine on the surface. Middle-class, well-dressed mom with a college education and respectable job. No one could see the things that went on underneath the surface, behind the closed doors of our home. And trying to get anyone to listen, when things looked so picture perfect, proved impossible.”

His frown deepened. “She hit you?” He sounded as though he’d like to hit her mother back, and Audrey almost smiled. Too many years had passed, the wounds had healed, and still it felt good to have someone come to her rescue.

She was falling for this man.

“No,” she said. “She suffers from depression, though she refused counseling and has never been treated. Sometimes she’s fine, but when the darkness descends, watch out. She’ll turn on me without warning. Her way of loving is to control. If you do something to displease her, she’ll take away her love. And anything else she’s providing that she knows you want.”

“Such as?”

“When I turned sixteen, she gave me a car. I needed it to get to the university where I was attending class as part of a special high-school-student program. From that point on, she used that car to control me. From the classes I took, the people I chose as friends, the jobs I applied for, the clothes I wore, the church I attended, even the boys I dated. If I didn’t do as she suggested, she’d take away my car. Or my college-tuition money. Or the roof over my head. She’d tell me what to think, how to act, who to love. She used to write these horrible letters, telling me how stupid I was, how I never came to the table, as she called it, or that I came late. Anytime anything went wrong, it was because I’d screwed up again.”

“Where was your dad through all of this?”

“I’m not sure. They divorced before I was a year old. Mom told him he wasn’t my real father, but there’s never been anyone else in her life that I’m aware of.”

“You didn’t get tested, to find out if the man was your father?”

Audrey kept thinking that she’d stop the conversation. Right after the next sentence.

But something about Detective Ryan Mercedes compelled her to talk to him. She’d never met anyone like him. Such a mixture of idealism and rigid determination. He was a man you could count on to protect the tribe. But one with a heart, as well.

“He wasn’t interested in proving anything,” she said.

“Did you ever see him?”

“Nope. I don’t even know what he looks like. I wrote to him once, when I was in high school, but the letter came back with a big ‘return to sender’ on the front. My mother said it was his handwriting.”

“And she never told you who your father really was?”

It did sound rather fantastic, now that she heard her story aloud. Audrey was so used to that part of her circumstances, it seemed normal to her. And in her line of work, representing children whose rights were in jeopardy, she regularly saw familial situations that were much more dysfunctional than hers had ever been.

“I’ve always assumed that the man listed on my birth certificate, the man she was married to, was my father. My mother has a way of changing the truth to suit her in the moment. She uses words to lash out and hurt when she’s hurting, but I don’t think she’d have been unfaithful to her marriage vows.”

“He must have known that.”

“Probably. But she uses people’s vulnerabilities against them until she breaks them down to the point where they’ll agree with her just to get some peace. I’m guessing she hit him where it counts one too many times.”

Audrey sat forward. She’d said too much. Far too much.

“Nice guy, to leave his kid all alone with that woman.”

“He paid child support, every single month, until I turned eighteen.”

“Like money was going to make you happy? Protect you?”

Life was black and white to Ryan. There was right and wrong. Good and bad. You chose the right. Righted the wrongs. Served good and obliterated the bad.

A characteristic that had drawn her to him from the beginning. The world needed more of his kind of passion.

She just didn’t want to need it. Not on a personal level.

“Maybe he thought, since I was a girl, her daughter, that there’d be some kind of motherly instinct that would come out in her, protect me from the emotional abuse he must have suffered.”

“Or maybe he sucked as a father.”

Ryan’s words made her smile.

“YOU NEVER DID answer my question.” Ryan wished he’d brought the wine bottle in with him. Wished he could pour another glass for both of them. Keep her on his couch with him.

At least for a time.

Long enough to get to know her well enough to get her out of his system. To dispel the strange and uncomfortable hold she had on him.

Ryan was used to being his own man. He’d been hearing the beat of his own drummer for most of his life. And walked to it alone.

He liked it that way.

He had things to do with his life—lives to save and evils to conquer—and he couldn’t do that if he gave his heart away.

Or at least that was the story he’d been telling himself. If there was another reason, some deep-seated something that prevented him from living the normal life of wife and kids and family, he didn’t want to know about it.

“What question?” Her big brown eyes were mysterious, pulling him into their shadowed depths, as she flung a lock of her long blond hair over her shoulder. She sat on the edge of the couch, as though poised for flight. He wished she’d relax again.

“Why you do what you do.”

“Oh, I thought I had. That’s easy. I spent my childhood feeling powerless,” she said as though that explained it all.

And in a sense, it did. She’d been stripped of something vital as a child. And every day, when she went to work, when her work preserved the dignity and sense of self of even one child, when she protected the innocence of childhood, she took back the personal power she’d lost.

Ryan understood that. Righting wrongs was what made his past, his history, his genealogy conscionable, too.

CHAPTER TWO

AUDREY DIDN’T WAIT around for his call. And only checked her cell phone so many times Sunday evening because she gave the number to all her clients, and if a child needed her, tomorrow could be too late.

It wasn’t Ryan’s fault she’d bared her soul like an idiot the night before. He had no way of knowing she’d shared with him more than she’d ever told anyone.

She’d come across like some pathetic victim, instead of the strong and healthy woman she’d become.

With the hundred-year-old hardwood floors of her Victorian-style cottage shining, she put away the cleaning supplies she’d hauled out and went upstairs to the treadmill. And half an hour later, panting and sweaty, headed across the hall to her home office—the only other room upstairs—and read over her files for the next day.

When everyone else in the world was relaxing, watching television, reading, napping, Audrey worked.

The kids whose lives seemed reduced to files of unfortunate facts, whose parents, for a variety of reasons, were unable to parent effectively, called out to her. They were always calling out to her.

Kaylee Grady. Date of birth, 9/29/04. That made her four years old. Audrey looked through the documents of the new case she had an initial meeting on the following morning.

Kelsey Grady. Date of birth, 9/29/04.

Twins.

Lifting the cover page, she studied the picture underneath. They were identical. Blond. With chubby cheeks—and far too serious eyes. Their parents had been killed in a car accident during a blizzard the previous February. There’d been no will. And the family was fighting over custody. They wanted to split up the girls to satisfy members from both sides.

“Over my dead body.” Audrey’s voice, usually a comfort, sounded loud in the gabled room. Loud and lonely.

And she glanced at the cell phone she’d carried up with her. Nothing. No missed calls. No messages.

She didn’t blame him for not calling.

The cuckoo clock in the family room downstairs of her 1920s, whitewashed home chirped eight times. Not meaning to, Audrey counted every one, and then knew what time it was. A piece of information she’d purposely been denying herself.

It was just that, last night, she and Ryan had crossed into new territory. Hadn’t they?

That of friends, trusted friends. Or something. It wasn’t as though they were kids, playing the dating game. They were mature adults. Getting to know each other. Sharing a moment in time.

A phone call would have been nice. That was all.

HE WAS STILL working the eleven-to-seven shift. Not because he had to—no, Ryan Mercedes had all the right contacts in all the right places, whether he wanted them or not. He was on the night shift for one reason only.

A selfish reason.

Working nights allowed him to keep his distance from everyone in his life. Having to sleep when family gatherings happened, when an old school mate suggested going out for beers, anytime he was issued an invitation that got a little bit too close, he could always bow out with the excuse that he was working.

The night shift let him operate in a different world. A world where everyone slept—except those few who were working as well, or those who took advantage of others’ sleep to commit crimes against them.

The downside was, when he came off shift Monday morning, he was completely exhausted and wired at the same time. He’d been awake all day Sunday having dinner with his birth parents—he hadn’t seen two-month-old Marcus Ryan in over a week, and his biological cousin, Jordon, a fatherless young man Ryan had met the previous summer who seemed to gravitate to him, had been visiting from Cleveland. Then he’d visited his adoptive parents to watch the Reds game on television with his dad.

He hadn’t been to bed since Saturday night. And that session hadn’t contained his most restful sleep with the continuous interruptions of vivid dreams of a certain lady in the bed with him.

He’d never had a woman in his bed at the condo. Never had a woman in his bed, period.

So why was one suddenly appearing there, uninvited?

He wanted to think she was unwanted, but his body wouldn’t let him go quite that far.

He settled for…uninvited.

And still, nearly thirty-six hours after she’d left his apartment, he was thinking about her.

He was on shift again that night, Ryan reminded himself as he drove slowly through the streets of Westerville, cell phone in hand. Two kids were waiting for the school bus on the corner of Cleveland Avenue and Homeacres Drive. Usually there were three. The shorter girl was missing.

Ryan made a mental note to take the same route home tomorrow. And the next day. If the girl was still missing by the end of the week, he’d stop and ask about her.

In the meantime, he had to sleep. And sleep well. He couldn’t do his job on adrenaline alone. His instincts wouldn’t be as sharp. Lives could be at risk.

He had to get some rest.

“Hello?”

Her number was on speed dial only because a couple of her clients were under his investigation.

“Audrey? Is this a bad time? Did I wake you?”

Seven-thirty in the morning was early to some people.

“Of course not. I’ve been up a couple of hours.”

Well, then… “Are you at work? With someone? Should I call another time?”

“No, Ryan.” She chuckled. “This time is fine. I don’t have to be in court until ten-thirty this morning, and my breakfast meeting canceled.”

Canceled. She was free for breakfast. Unexpectedly. The thought of asking her to meet him somewhere for a quick bite sent alarm signals up his spine. Where was the harm in two friends having breakfast?

They both had to eat.

“So what’s up?” she asked, bringing to his attention the length of time he’d let lapse while he blubbered over the idea of asking her out to eat.

Shifting in his seat, adjusting the pistol digging into his thigh beneath the brown tweed sports jacket he wore, Ryan thought about the case he’d been working on for most of the night.

Focused on the life he’d chosen to live.

The juvenile who’d beaten his stepfather to a pulp, claiming that it was self-defense. He’d claimed some other pretty horrendous things, too.

Reviewing four hours of witness testimony, tapes, doctors’ reports and police records had netted Ryan no more than they already had.

“The prosecutor’s going to charge Markovich.”

“No way.” He heard the drop in her voice and felt as if he’d failed not only the fifteen-year-old boy whom he’d believed, but Audrey, too.

“The kid’s testimony has too many holes,” he said. “He contradicts himself on four separate occasions.”

“But there’s a doctor’s report that proves he was molested.”

“At some point in his life. Not necessarily by his stepfather.”

“He nearly killed the man, Ryan. A fifteen-year-old kid, especially one as sensitive as Scott, doesn’t suddenly get violent unless something pretty vile is going to happen to him.”

“I know.” He was missing something. He just didn’t know what. “But it’s not my job to be the lawyer,” he reminded himself as much as her. “I check out the facts, make the arrests, collect the evidence, then I’m done.”

“You aren’t, though, are you?” The soft question surprised him.

And then it didn’t. He’d called her, hadn’t he?

“No,” he admitted. “The kid’s lying about something, but not about why he unhinged on his stepfather, I’m sure of it. Unless I can find out what else is going on, the kid’s going back to detention. Maybe for a long, long time.”

“They aren’t charging him as an adult, are they?”

Ryan wasn’t sure. But he’d heard a rumor that they might. He let his silence answer for him.

And because he’d called to escape the sometimes hell of his job, he asked another question that had been plaguing him on and off for more than a week.

“Why do you relate so much to The Mirror Has Two Faces?”

The woman was gorgeous. Not only the classic beauty of long blonde hair, long legs, great figure and big brown eyes, but also the sensitivity that shone through those eyes, especially in one so young, the job she’d chosen to do when, with her law degree, she could be making a mint, made her irresistible.

As a friend only, of course.

“I don’t know.”

It was one of those “I don’t know”s. The kind that really meant, “I don’t want to tell you.”

“I think you do.”

“Maybe.”

“So tell me.”

Another long pause.

“I told you why I like Bruce Almighty.”

“Because you have power envy.”

The more commonly used p-word in that phrase sprang immediately to mind, and Ryan was grateful that Audrey couldn’t read his thoughts.

Glad, too, that they were on the phone and not where she could see the reaction hearing her voice was having on that p part of his anatomy.

Turning, he pulled into the parking lot of his complex. Parked in the covered lot and headed around to his door. His place was only a one-bedroom, but it was two stories with a private patio that looked out over a golf course.

“So why do you?” Delilah, the cat he had because he was gone too much to have a dog, wrapped herself around his legs as he let himself in and dropped his keys on the table by the front door.

“Why do I have power envy?” she asked, the amusement in her voice sending another surge of blood beneath his fly.

With Delilah under one arm, like the football he’d never carried in high school, Ryan entered the kitchen, looking for the opened can of tuna in the fridge.

“Why do you relate to The Mirror Has Two Faces?”

“You’re like a dog with a bone, you know that?”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t you ever get sidetracked?”

“Not often.”

Delilah munched from the can. Ryan snagged a chunk of the white fishy meat, dropped it in a bowl and looked for the mayonnaise. Not bacon and eggs, but it would do.

“I’m waiting,” he said.

“What are you doing?”

“Eating.”

“Eating what?”

“I’m not telling you until you tell me why you identify with that movie.”

“Fine.” The word was clipped, but her tone wasn’t nearly aggrieved enough to convey any real irritation. “I’ve always thought that kind of relationship would be perfect.”

“What kind? The kind where they end up dancing in the street?”

“No.” Her voice had quieted. Lost the playfulness. “I’d love to have a best friend, a significant other, someone to come home to, without messing everything up with sex.”

Not what he’d expected to hear. Where was his opportunity to tell her that she was gorgeous? That she had no reason to think herself anything but beautiful? It was all about what you saw in the mirror, right? The way you see yourself, as opposed to how others see you.

“So get a roommate.”

“Roommates leave. Get married. I want a lifetime companion.”

He couldn’t believe she meant that. “A sexless one.” Hell, everyone knew that part of the movie was crazy. Even the stars of the movie found that out.

It didn’t work. Couldn’t work. Unless maybe one of the parties was gay…

“At least one where the relationship isn’t based on sex,” she said slowly, as though choosing her words with great care. “If, after we’ve lived together for a while, we decide we want to do that some time, that would be fine. As long as we both want it. And it isn’t a big deal one way or the other.”

The woman was nuts. Sex, not a big deal? She couldn’t really expect any guy with blood in his veins to live with someone as beautiful as she was and not burn up with a need to make love with her. Could she?

“So you’d do it once?” he asked, out of morbid curiosity. “Or do it once in a while?”

“I don’t know.” She drew the statement out. “That’s the whole point. Whether we ever did it or not wouldn’t matter. If we both wanted to, we could. If one of us didn’t want to, no big deal. The relationship would be based on mutual respect. Trust. Great conversation. Just enjoying being together.”

If one of us didn’t want to. Alarms went off in Ryan’s head. The kind he’d honed to perfection.

“Are you gay?”

The question was inappropriate. Disrespectful. Uncalled for. And not what he’d really wanted to ask at all. He just didn’t know how to find out what he suddenly needed to know.

“No. But that’s a typical guy response.”

“I’m a guy.”

But not a typical one.

“I’m not gay.”

“But you’ve been abused, haven’t you?” He wasn’t pleased with himself, with the words. His tone had lowered enough that maybe she hadn’t heard him.

“If you’re asking if I was raped, the answer’s no.”

Thank God. Thank God in heaven. Shocked at the emotion pricking at the back of his throat, his eyelids, Ryan grabbed a carton of juice from the refrigerator and took a huge swallow.

“But you’ve been in a relationship where you had sex because you felt like you had to.”

“That’s kind of a personal question, don’t you think?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I told you why I liked the movie. Now I want to know what you’re having for breakfast.”

Fair enough. But he figured they both knew she wasn’t getting off the hook permanently. “Tuna.”

“You made a sandwich?”

“No. Just tuna.”

“With dressing?”

“Nope. Couldn’t find any.”

“You’re eating tuna out of the can.”

“Ate. It’s gone.” Thanks to Delilah. She wasn’t great at sharing.

“And that’s all you’re going to have?”

“I’m on my way to bed,” he reminded her, trying not to remember the images of her that he’d taken to his repose the last time he’d been there.

“What time do you get up?”

“Depends on the day.”

“Today.”

“I’m planning to crash until I wake up. No alarms. Which means I’ll probably make it until around three.” If he was lucky.

If not, he’d be up in an hour. Even with room-darkening curtains he couldn’t lie in bed during the day if he was awake. There was always someone to see, or talk to, who wasn’t available in the middle of the night.

Like the cable company that was supposed to be adding Sportzone to his monthly service—had charged him, but failed to turn on the games.

“You think you’ll want some breakfast then?”

“I’m sure I will.” If you could call stale bread and peanut butter breakfast. He hadn’t been to the grocery store. Saturday nights were usually reserved for that because it was the only time of the week the place wasn’t milling with people.

“I make a mean omelet.”

Ryan’s blood started to pump harder again, all signs of exhaustion taking a hike. Had she just invited him to her place?

“I’m glad to hear that.”

“I have a seven-o’clock meeting tonight, but nothing after court this afternoon. If you’d like to stop by, I could show you my ham-and-cheese.”

“Okay.” Sure. He crossed one scuffed wing-tipped shoe over the other. Nonchalance was called for.

He just had to find some.

“If you want to, that is,” she added in a bit of a rush. “I mean, you’ve provided dinner the past two Saturday nights. I thought I should return the favor.”

He’d ordered pizza.

“That’d be great,” he said with a tight rein on himself. Don’t make anything out of it, Mercedes. The woman’s beautiful. And not interested in sex. Or you. Or she’d be interested in sex.

And he wasn’t interested, either. His obsession with her was a blip. Like the flu.

“It’s not a big deal,” she said. “I mean, I’m just offering one friend to another.”

“Hey, Audrey.” He added a teasing chuckle to his tone—he hoped. “It’s fine. I’m a bachelor. I never say no to homemade food. No strings attached.”

“Good. Fine.” The confidence had returned to her voice. “Say, around five, then?”

Five was fine. That left him seven and a half hours to get his libido under control and forget that he’d ever had one intimate thought about a stunningly desirable guardian ad litem.

He was not the least bit interested in a long term relationship.

And one thing was certain. Audrey Lincoln was not a woman a good man had casual sex with. She was the type of woman he loved.

CHAPTER THREE

THE OMELET didn’t happen. The phone rang, instead, and Audrey only had time to scramble some eggs and take five minutes to eat them with Ryan before running off to be at Mollie Anderson’s mother’s house when the confused twelve-year-old’s father came to pick her up for visitation.

Neither of Mollie’s parents had known she was coming because Mollie had been the one to call for Audrey’s help.

Audrey talked to Ryan again on Wednesday morning. He phoned as he came off his shift to ask her about another case they’d shared—a pair of nine-year-old fraternal twins who’d initially been reported as runaways several months before. Very soon into the investigation, however, they’d realized the twins had been abducted.

Ryan thought he might have located them living in Arizona with a man who, other than the color and length of his hair, perfectly fit the description of the children’s father.

She’d grieved for Darla and Danny Buford for months until she’d finally, with the help of some counseling, let them go. There’d been an obvious break-in at Mrs. Buford’s well-to-do home. A ransom note.

Mr. Buford, the other half of the lengthy and ugly divorce that initially had brought Audrey into the picture, had been right beside his ex-wife through the entire ordeal. He’d paid half the ransom and cried with his ex-wife in his arms when the terms of the bargain were not met.

The money disappeared. The police didn’t catch the slight figure who’d picked up the bag in the middle of the busy New York City street where the kids supposedly had been taken. And the children were never returned.

The kids were dead. Plain and simple.

And shockingly, horribly, grossly unfair.

Audrey wanted Ryan to be right about the Arizona lead, but she didn’t think so.

Yet that didn’t stop her from hoping. If any other detective had told her he’d located those kids, she’d have shrugged off the news without much thought. But Ryan Mercedes’s track record for accuracy was impressive.

Because he didn’t speak until he knew what he was saying? Or because he was that gifted at his job?

He called again on Friday morning. The Buford twins were alive.

“Turns out some psycho, who’d just lost his wife and daughter in a car accident, had taken them. He never let them out of his sight.”

“What about school?” Audrey prided herself on the professional tone—glad that Ryan couldn’t see the moisture in her eyes.

“He home-schooled them. They’re pretty confused, but physically unharmed. The state has them until their parents can get there.”

Audrey had to take a deep breath to let the emotion pass. There were so many more tragic stories in her line of work than happy endings. “Mr. and Mrs. Buford are going together?”

“They remarried more than a month ago.”

Thankful that at least two traumatized children had every advantage for full recovery, Audrey listened as Ryan offered to grill a steak for her that night to celebrate a homecoming they both took personally, yet neither would attend.

“I can’t.” It was for the best, she told the part of herself that was disappointed. “I’m having dinner with a therapist who had a session with one of my clients yesterday.”

Both she and the therapist were booked for the next week, but Audrey wasn’t willing to settle for a paper report on this one. Nor could she wait a week. The family was due in court again on Monday.

Saturday night she had a fund-raiser with the Arizona Bar Association, and on Sunday she was volunteering legal services at a women’s shelter.

All things she did because she loved to do them. Wanted to do them. Because they gave her life meaning. And a reason to get up in the morning.

The activities were designed to create the life she wanted. And that was exactly what she had as she hung up the phone, fully aware that Ryan thought she’d been making excuses not to see him again. Fully aware that she might never hear from him again—outside the office.

Fully aware and completely okay.

It was very unsettling, therefore, that a time or two over the weekend she almost resented those same activities. Mostly when she was thinking of the handsome detective and wondering what he was doing with his two days off, living in real-world time.

Still, a little resentment, in exchange for the ability to live her own life, was a small price to pay.

When her phone rang again Monday morning at the time Ryan was due off shift, she picked it up with far too much vigor. And flooded with warmth when she heard his voice.

Get a grip, my girl, she admonished herself. He’s a friend. Nothing more.

“Do you have any free time this week?” he asked after a brief hello. He sounded as impatient as she felt over the past weekend’s misses. Not angry. More like…needy.

Or maybe she was projecting her own eagerness onto him?

“I have a couple of hours between court hearings tomorrow, starting around eleven, but you’re sleeping then,” she told him.

“I’ll stay up.”

“What—and get yourself killed tomorrow night?”

“I can sleep after lunch.”

“Are we having lunch?”

“I think so.”

“Okay.”

AND THEY DID. She had a quick dinner with him on Thursday, too, before her guest lecture at the Moritz College of Law at Ohio State. They talked about work. About the weather and the Cincinnati Reds and about work some more.

She asked about Delilah.

They didn’t talk about each other. And the more they didn’t, the more Audrey wanted to.

What was the matter with her?

She’d never needed a man to complete her before. To the contrary, she did better, felt stronger and more capable, when she wasn’t with a man.

So why couldn’t she stop looking at him? Whether he was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, exhausted and on his way to sleep, or wearing a jacket on his way to work, the man looked like an art sculpture to her. Legs that were long and lean and nothing but delineated muscle, shoulders that blocked the clouds from her view when he stood in front of her, eyes that smiled, or admired, or sympathized without guise, and a butt that—

No. She wasn’t going to think about that. Wasn’t going to think that way. She wanted a friendship.

She didn’t want sex. Didn’t want to be that vulnerable. A man might be able to join his body parts with a woman, share pleasure with her, and get dressed and walk away, but not Audrey. Nope, she’d open her heart right along with her legs, then she’d be right back where she’d been at sixteen. Craving love. Needing validation from someone who could give it, or take it away, without notice.

No butt looked good enough to risk that.

RYAN STAYED UP on Friday after work. He had two days off, plans to see Marcus Ryan—because he couldn’t seem to stay away from the baby recently born to the biological parents he’d met the previous year—to go to a Reds game with the dad who’d raised him, and have some of his mom’s home cooking. He needed to be on the same time as the rest of the world.

He also needed to shop and clean his place before Audrey showed up at six expecting steaks on a grill he didn’t yet have. He didn’t have the food, either, or furniture for the patio, but those were minor details.

Things to take his mind off the rape victim he’d watched being loaded into an ambulance at three that morning. What in the hell a middle-aged married woman had been doing out in a deserted school parking lot by herself in the middle of the night, he didn’t know.

But he hoped to God she lived to tell him. One way or another, as the newest detective in the Special Victims Unit, he was going to find out.

His place was ready, new furniture assembled, grill put together, salad made and steaks marinated by five. Up in the master-suite loft, Ryan showered, pulled on some jeans and a black T-shirt, ran his fingers through his hair—then decided to shave again. Just for something to do.

Ten minutes later he still had forty minutes to kill. Avoiding the king-size bed, avoiding thoughts of his dinner guest in that bed, he checked his cell phone for messages.

Nothing from work. Good. Sometimes it was nice not to be needed.

Needed. He adjusted his jeans. Ryan wanted to be needed. Bad.

He needed his watch.

Walking around the massive bed to the nightstand where he’d left the timepiece his father had given him when he’d made detective—it had a tiny recording device built into it—Ryan glanced at the comforter.

It was clean. The browns and beiges were kind of masculine, but then, he was a guy. Guys tended to be masculine.

The sheets were light-colored. While he tried to see them from a woman’s perspective, a thought occurred to him. He hadn’t changed them in a while.

Never seemed to have the time.

He had twenty minutes right now.

Only because he so rarely had extra time, only because he needed to take advantage of that time to accomplish something, Ryan changed his sheets.

He’d just finished when the doorbell rang.

HE’D SEEN HER in jeans before. Several times. Just didn’t remember them fitting those long, feminine thighs quite so well. The white, short-sleeved T-shirt covered the waistband. As long as she didn’t move.

“Wine?” he asked, handing her a glass as she sat in the wicker rocker he’d purchased that afternoon.

She lifted her hand to take the glass. “Thanks.” Ryan had to turn away before she noticed his reaction to the thin strip of lightly tanned stomach she’d exposed.

He’d have raised his gaze to avoid that possibility, except that her breasts, which were round and full and completely framed by the tight shirt, were far too much temptation.

He was a solitary man. With a job to do. People to protect.

Maybe he should go next door. That way he wouldn’t see her. Wouldn’t flirt with temptation. He could cook on his neighbor’s grill and courier the steaks over….

“I talked to Scott Markovich today.”

The kid who’d beat up his stepdad. The bastard dad was going to live. Thank God. As it stood, Scott had been charged with assault, which was a lot better than murder.

And talking about work was a lot better than…anything else.

“And?”

“I think he’s protecting his mother.”

“She was out of town when the incident took place.”

Audrey’s hair fell forward across her shoulder as she shook her head.

“I don’t think so. I think she was there. I think she’d been drinking again.”

“I thought the court ordered that she’d lose custody of Scott if she went back on the juice.”

“Right.”

Realization dawned and Ryan blurted, “She knows what happened that night.”

“I think so.”

“And she won’t speak up because she was drunk.”

Audrey shrugged.

“She knows what that SOB was going to do to her son.”

“That’s my guess.”

Ryan swore, his mind racing ahead—and back at the same time. Going over the reports he’d practically memorized, looking for clues he’d missed. Trying to figure out how he was going to prove Audrey’s theory.

“Her sister wasn’t her only alibi. There was the bus driver who took her to Detroit,” he reminded her.

And maybe the guy was dating the sister. Or had lied for favors. Maybe he’d been drinking on the job and couldn’t remember who he’d transported and had lied to save his ass.

Maybe…

“There was the woman who sold her the ticket, too,” she added.

Didn’t mean she got on the bus. “No passengers remembered her.”

“It was the middle of the night,” Audrey said, not that he hadn’t already been thinking the same thing himself.

“There were only two of them and they were both asleep,” he finished for her.

The evidence was mostly circumstantial. But Scott had openly threatened to kill his stepdad the previous year. And there was no denying that the kid had used the crowbar on the man’s back. The only question was why.

“If we can get it on the record that she was there that night, we can subpoena her to testify. If her husband had been about to rape her son, any halfway-decent attorney should be able to get a self-defense dismissal out of that.”

Her eyes had the fire of battle, the glow of an imminent win, and Ryan was almost a little sad that she’d opted not to practice law. She’d make a damned good prosecutor. And Lord knew the world needed them.

But she was young. Fresh out of law school, he figured, based on the fact that she’d taken the bar exam the previous year. There was time.

“As strongly as I believe you,” he said, sitting down beside her, wishing he’d opted for the footed double swing rather than two chairs, “I can’t put theory on report.”

“I think I can get Scott to talk to you, if you’re willing.”

Sitting forward, Ryan almost spilled his drink. “Hell, yes, I’m willing.”

“It’ll have to be tomorrow. They’re moving him to a facility in Dayton until his trial. Something about bed space in the non-sexual-offense unit for fifteen-year-olds.”

“Fine.”

The Reds game might have to wait. His dad would understand.

SHE’D HAD BETTER steak. Apparently Ryan liked them very well-done. But Audrey couldn’t remember anyone whose company she’d enjoyed more.

“I like how you think,” she told him, trying not to overreact as he sat next to her on the darkened patio, handing her the half-glass of wine she’d requested.

His eyes, as they stared at her, glistened with two white spots, a double reflection of the moon shining overhead. “You like how I think? What does that mean?”

“I don’t know.” She should go. Before she did something she’d regret. “I like the way your mind works, your take on things. You’ve got all these theories that are just a bit outside the norm, and yet I agree with them, you know? I like listening to you talk.”

And if she didn’t shut up she was going to ruin a friendship before it had the chance to exist.

Because her next sentence wasn’t going to be about liking his conversation.

“I like how you think, too.” The words were offered slowly, softly. A declaration of admiration. At least.

Or so her heart seemed to think. It flip-flopped, sending a sharp blade of desire down through her most feminine places.

Without removing her gaze from his, she took a sip of wine. Moistened a throat that was suddenly far too dry. Inexplicably dry. What was she doing?

Ryan didn’t seem to want his wine. Setting down the glass he’d barely touched, he stared at her for a second longer, then leaned forward. Slowly. Deliberating. Coming closer.

She watched, glanced down to his lips, frozen as she waited. There was no thought of action, of shoulds and shouldn’ts, of wants or not wants. No thought of any moment that came before, or any that might come after.

And when those full, masculine lips touched hers, the shiver that went through her wiped away any last conscious thought.

She’d been kissed before. Many times. But never like this.

Ryan’s mouth controlled hers, even as it asked permission. He invaded and invited at the same time, taking her on a sensual journey that consumed her entire being with the mere touch of his lips. He was tender. And confident.

And when he pulled back, Audrey couldn’t let him go. Her mouth followed his the couple of inches he retreated, until her lips were once again attached to his.

He opened his mouth then, demanding more from her, his tongue finding hers, not just tip to tip, but fully engaging with her in a give-and-take that made them far more intimate than friends.

“I want to make love with you.”

She wasn’t sure she heard the words at first. Thought maybe she’d imagined them. And even then, her body responded, igniting every nuance of sensual feeling inside of her.

“Please.”

There was no mistaking the pleading in his voice.

Or the answering desire inside of her.

Pulling back, Audrey studied those glistening green eyes. “I…”

How did she say no without turning him off? Without losing his interest? What words did she use?

“I want that, too.”

She didn’t just say that. Didn’t just lick her lips. Her nipples weren’t hard, sensitive, against her bra.

She couldn’t…

Ryan’s lips covered hers again, his hands coming up behind her to rest beneath her shoulder blades, pressing her against him, and as she melted into his embrace, Audrey knew that she was going to break her own rules.

CHAPTER FOUR

HE SHOULD HAVE BEEN nervous, for many reasons. Any time he’d thought about this moment in his life—and he’d thought of it plenty over the past ten or so years—Ryan had envisioned shaky hands. Some fumbling. Uncertainty born solely of ignorance.

Hesitation, at the very least, as he risked the isolation he’d so carefully concocted and guarded vigilantly.

Audrey’s hands on his shoulders, her moans consuming the air around them, the light flowery scent of her perfume enveloping him, allowed no room for hesitation. Her soft, feminine skin, waiting there for him to find, to expose, to caress, created fire within him, not quivering.

He kissed her, opening her mouth wider with his, exploring her with his tongue in ways that happened naturally, as if of their own accord. With no learned or practiced moves to draw on, he lifted her body gently against him, breaking contact with her lips only briefly, as he carried her to his bed.

He’d be Detective Ryan Mercedes tomorrow. And all of the tomorrows after that.

Tonight he was a man.

He’d made the trek upstairs many times—exhausted and coming off thirty-five hours without sleep, wide awake, early, late, angry, frustrated, enervated, flying up the steps two or three at a time. He’d made it hurt, content, and even drunk once. He’d traversed them alone with a hand truck and solid pine chest of drawers, a bed, his second large-screen television. Tonight he climbed them with no thought of the journey, only of the woman with her arms wrapped around his neck, of getting her to the soft mattress that awaited them so that he could love her properly.

Reverently.

Laying her gently crossways in the middle of the bed, Ryan slid down next to her, covering one of her legs with one of his as he half lay on top of her. He was on fire, needing everything, everywhere, and was compelled to stare at her, instead, to connect, first, through the eyes of her soul, the eyes of her heart and mind, those chocolate-brown windows that gazed back at him with an intensity that matched his own.

“I’ve wanted this since the first moment I saw you.” He confessed what he’d sworn to himself he’d never admit to anyone.

She was his match on a level much deeper than anyone ever had been. But she was independent, too. Surely there was safety in that.

“Have you?” she asked, her voice huskier than usual. The little grin turning up the edges of her mouth made him hard.

Harder.

The bulge in his pants wasn’t a new thing. Its control of him was.

“I have,” he told her, bending to kiss her again, opening his mouth over hers, needing to get as far inside her as he could, to join as much of him to her as was humanly possible.

And beyond.

Audrey’s moan lit another flame in his groin and Ryan rubbed his aching penis against her denim-clad thigh. He felt like a damned animal, rutting against her.

She didn’t seem to mind. Lifting up, Audrey moved back and forth against his chest, pressing her upper body against him until he could clearly distinguish two hard nipples caressing him.

“I like that.” He’d had no idea.

“Me, too.”

“I’d like to see them.” He could only give her honesty.

“Okay.”

Her gaze was open, and shadowed with desire, as she studied him. The rest of her didn’t move.

Which left him one choice. Glancing down at the rounded mounds of her breasts, he lifted her shirt as though he’d had a lot of experience with such things. With one hand and a smooth glide, the white cotton was bunched up beneath her armpits and the lacy, low-cut bra he’d seen only in outline was fully exposed. The soft skin of her breasts spilled over the edges of the flimsy material.

Heart racing, Ryan took his time, savoring the view. His hands itched to cover those breasts, but he couldn’t deny himself the beautiful sight.

“I’ve never seen anything so perfectly gorgeous.” His voice was mostly a whisper. It was all the breath he had to spare.

“You’re pretty gorgeous yourself,” she said. She’d lifted his T-shirt, as well, was staring at his chest.

She touched him, running slim fingers over the muscles in his chest, stroking her thumbs against his nipples. Flickers of sensation moved through him, straight down to his erection.

His nipples had that kind of power? He’d taken one hell of a lot of showers, rubbed them with hundreds of bars of soap, to have missed that one.

Mary Ellen Rowe had spent the six weeks they’d dated rubbing his chest. He’d been pleasantly comforted by the touch.

Nothing more.

“That feels good,” he told the awesome woman lying in his bed. “Really good.”

Her smile was a sweet mixture of knowing and modesty. A woman who was, perhaps, just becoming aware of the depths of her own sexual power, as well?

What the hell was the matter with him? Analyzing, even now. He had breasts waiting before him.

Loving to do.

And still, Ryan couldn’t lose his distinct awareness of every single movement, every touch.

These moments were going to be embedded deeply within his memory, his heart, for the rest of his life.

Over the next hour Ryan discovered much about himself. And about Audrey Lincoln. As much focus as she gave to her young clients, she gave to making love with him. Every aspect of her was intent on him. Her gaze. Her touch. Her responses and attention. He’d never felt so consumed—and so alive. She knew him better in an hour than anyone had ever known him.

With fingers skimming the edge of his jeans, she almost drove him over the edge.

He had to release the zipper on his fly. Get his pants off. He had to set his penis free to love a woman. This woman.

Where before he’d moved slowly, savoring, Ryan now pulled at the button of Audrey’s pants with more strength than finesse. It came free with one tug. On his knees above her, he bent to her hips, grasping the jeans in both hands to tug them down over slim hips and long legs that seemed to go on and on.

Just when he’d thought it couldn’t get any better.

He stared at her thighs. At the scrap of white lace panty that didn’t quite cover the dark hair curling there. The thin strap of thong disappearing into her backside.

And something occurred to him.

She’d dressed for this. For him.

Looking up at her, he sought silent confirmation in the gaze that was fully on him.

“You’re okay with this.” It was more statement than question.

Her lips were trembling as she nodded.

With fingers that were oversensitized, he touched her, the soft skin of her legs, her inner thighs, the brush of hair at the top of her panties. He had to go slowly now, or explode before he ever got where he was going.

“I want yours off, too.”

Slow down, Mercedes, he told his raging body as he stood. Unbuttoned his own jeans, stepped out of them—taking his briefs off at the same time.

And then he stood before her, his penis full and weighted down, while she looked at him.

“Okay?” he asked when her gaze finally met his.

Licking her lips, she nodded again.

Ryan was beginning to love that silent affirmation, recognizing that she gave it when she most wanted something.

He meant to take another hour with her, to put his fingers every place he wanted his penis to go, to explore her so thoroughly there would be no part of her unknown to him.

He took a moment to sheath himself with a condom from the box in his bedside drawer—a supply that he used to replace the one in his wallet each month—and turned back to her.

Taking off her panties as he rejoined her on the bed, he made it only so long as it took him to spread her legs and settle himself between them. He didn’t have to wonder what to do. His body knew. He found her opening and gave a slow nudge, his gaze glued to hers.

And he watched her eyes open wider as his penis first penetrated and then, moving gently in and out, filled her more fully.

Nothing had prepared him for the way that felt. Ecstasy was too bland a word. Perfection not good enough to describe the sensation that filled him from head to toe. Heaven couldn’t be this good.

Ryan hadn’t known how he’d make certain that Audrey had an orgasm, wasn’t sure he’d recognize it when it happened. He only knew that he was not going to take his own pleasure without ensuring hers.

As it turned out, there was no issue. Fully inside her, he pulled out and thrust in again, and again, more quickly, feeling the pressure building in his erection, getting ready to explode, and knowing he was going to have to stop or go before she did when her moans changed, became more frantic, and then surprised-sounding as the inner folds of her body clasped him, pulsing around him. Over and over.

“Oh, my…” Her words were more cry than statement, released breathlessly before she sucked in air.

And with that breath, Ryan joined her, his body erupting with huge throbs as he came inside a woman for the first time in his life.

Highly praised and swiftly rising detective, Ryan Mercedes, had just lost his virginity.

YOU’RE IN TROUBLE, girl. Big trouble.

With Ryan’s “Oh, yes,” still ringing in her ears, the aftermath of his lovemaking leaving her lethargic and absolutely joyful at the same time, she tried her darnedest to rein herself in. To find reality.

She’d had sex before. Way before. And more recently than that, too. But she’d never made love.

Never felt that liquid heat devour every vein in her body, or known herself to give up control to the wild and free ecstasy he’d built inside her.

It had to be the wine. Or the fact that no one had ever taken more than an hour to have sex with her before.

It had to be how long they’d known each other without acknowledging the attraction between them.

It had to be the overdone steak.

It absolutely could not be that she’d in any way given any part of her heart to the man who was even now inside her.

Making her want to do it again.

“I’m sorry—am I too heavy?” Ryan lifted his shoulder off hers. The chilled air that drifted over her newly exposed skin was not welcome.

“No.” With one hand on his backside, holding him in place, and another on his shoulder, she pulled him back down. “You feel good.”

“I’m about to fall asleep.”

She’d figured so. Any man she’d ever been with—not that there’d been that many—had either jumped up and thrown on clothes immediately afterward, or fallen asleep without a word.

Novel to have someone actually talk to her about doing either.

“Sleep awhile, then,” she said softly, thinking she’d do the same herself.

Another first.

“But I don’t really want to sleep.” He raised up enough to look her in the eye. “I don’t want to waste a single moment with you.”

Oh, God, I am in serious trouble.

“I think that’s just about the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me.” She told her new lover the unadorned truth. And lifted her head to plant a small kiss on lips that were slightly swollen.

Had she done that?

And left that love mark on his neck, too?

Was he going to be angry when he saw that?

Guiding his head gently back down to her chest, she ran her fingers slowly back and forth through his hair. It was full and thick, even for its shortness. And surprisingly soft.

So many things about this man were surprising to her. And yet, not surprising at all. He fit her so exactly, not only where they were still connected, but in all ways. He approached his job as she did, with everything he had, sparing little for any other life. He cared. He didn’t give up. He saw reality and still believed.

He had unbounded energy and had found a way, in spite of the experience and time it took to make detective, to avoid cynicism.

The weight of his head grew heavier and she hoped he’d allowed himself to rest. The man had worked all night. And if she had to guess, she’d figure he’d been up all day today, getting ready for tonight.

Everything in the apartment had been perfect. He’d dusted since she’d been there last. Vacuum marks had still lined the carpet. And the furniture outside was new, added since her previous visit when she’d peeked outside to the empty patio.

Dinner had already been prepared, other than the cooking of the steaks. Even the meat had been marinated.

It all spoke Ryan to her. Attention to every detail. Few mistakes. Dependable.

And she couldn’t fall prey to the tugs he was making on her heart. Neediness had cost her part of her soul.

A part she’d never get back.

As she continued to stroke his hair, Audrey glanced around the bedroom. As pristine as the rest of his apartment, and as sparsely decorated, the room was what she would have expected of a man whose priority was not his home, but rather, in getting the sleep he needed to do his job.

A bed. A dresser. Another big-screen television—for those sleepless nights? No window treatments other than the standard white blinds that were on every window in the condo.

And in every other unit in the complex, as far she’d been able to tell.

Nothing that really spoke of the man’s life. His past. No pictures of parents—or any other family. No obvious mementos from past girlfriends.

Not even a receipt on the dresser or a belt hanging from the doorknob.

He didn’t put himself out there.

And that was just fine with her.

“I want to make love to you again.” The words were uttered against her skin. Other than his mouth he hadn’t moved.

And she was already filling up with the moist heat that threatened to flood her lower belly. With a hand on his buttocks, she pulled him more fully inside her again.

“Then I think you should,” she whispered, needing him so badly she ached for him.

But only physically.

Please, God, let it only be physical.

CHAPTER FIVE

RYAN GOT UP in time to make it to the meeting with Scott Markovich. The kid, fearing that his stepfather would hurt his mother if he was in detention and not there to protect her, admitted that the woman had been home the afternoon the bastard had come after Scott in a way a man should never come at a boy.

She’d been drinking since early morning and had been plastered enough that her husband thought he could get away with a little on the side with her son.

He’d miscalculated Scott’s determination never to be touched that way again.

He’d also overestimated his wife’s stupor. She’d come into the room soon enough to keep Scott from killing the son of a bitch.

And she’d promised him that from that moment forward she would never, ever let another drop of alcohol pass her lips.

Scott believed her.

Ryan didn’t. As much as Scott wasn’t going to like it at first, being separated from his mother was the best thing that could happen to the boy. There was a relative, an aunt on his father’s side, who desperately wanted him.

None of that was Ryan’s business, however. His business here was almost done. A report to the prosecutor and he was out.

Another job done. A successful outcome this time.

Not something he ever took for granted.

Just as he didn’t take for granted the woman who, on Saturday night, he was once again holding in his arms.

Not because he wanted to, but because he had to. His sudden need for Audrey was not something he was comfortable with. It didn’t fit at all with his life plan. With his self-concept.

But one thing he’d learned in life—sometimes the things least understood were the most important.

“Thank you,” she said now, her voice sleepy.

“For what?” They’d been talking for more than an hour, lying there naked in his bed, the covers up around their waists.

They’d been in bed almost three hours.

“For Scott.”

He shrugged. “It’s my job.”

“Maybe.”

There was no maybe about it.

“But there’s something different about you. Something that makes you, I don’t know, more accessible. I don’t think Scott would have talked to anyone else. He’s not very trusting of cops. As a rule, every time they’ve come around, his life has been painfully disrupted.”

Because of his mother’s drinking. And because when he’d reported his stepfather’s earlier abuse, there hadn’t been enough solid evidence to charge the man with anything. And now, when Scott had been defending himself from a horror that must have seemed worse than death to him, he’d been arrested and detained on charges of manslaughter.

They were all doing their jobs. Enforcing laws that were in place to protect society, the people. So why was it so often that the victims were the ones who had the fewest rights?

With a brief flash of his birth mother, and a briefer one of his birth father—a man Ryan still struggled to accept for so many reasons on so many levels—Ryan said, “I think maybe my age helped us out this time. Most times it’s the other way around.”

He could say this here, to her. She’d understand. Audrey must have to fight many of the same battles he did, having so much responsibility, being capable of a maturity that was uncommon at such a young age.

Being forced into it by life’s lessons.

Maybe someday, he’d even be able to tell her about the circumstances surrounding his conception.

Maybe someday. Not today. Other than a few brief conversations with the parents who’d raised him, Ryan hadn’t talked about that particular case since they’d solved it the year before. Not even to the biological grandfather who was a law-enforcement icon in this state.

“How would your age have had anything to do with Scott’s ability to trust you?” She turned onto her back, her head in the crook of his shoulder, pulling his hands around her to rest across the flatness of her belly.

“Maybe it doesn’t. I just figured I’m probably closer to his age than any other detective he’s had to deal with. I figured that might have helped him relate to me a little bit.”

Her skull dug into his flesh as she turned to look up at him, grinning. “What, they give out some kind of memo at the office listing detectives’ exact ages?” she asked.

“No.” Suddenly Ryan wasn’t feeling so good. Surely she knew…he just assumed she knew. Everyone seemed to.

Shit. What if she didn’t know? His skin grew cold. Clammy. Worse than when he’d been facing that freaked-out druggie with the sawed-off shotgun the previous month.

“Then why would you say that?” she asked again. He could tell, from the frown marring her brow, the confusion in her gaze, that she was catching on to something.

And had no idea what.

Disentangling himself as gently, but as quickly, as possible, Ryan stood, skipping underwear as he pulled on his jeans and zipped them.

Surely this wouldn’t be a big deal. She’d only be what, two, maybe three years older than he was, assuming she went straight from college to law school?

Suddenly the budding relationship he’d been fighting against became something he had to have. No matter what. And another one of life’s little lessons became personal. Only by losing something—or facing its possible loss—did you realize its worth to you.

“You haven’t heard them telling the jokes about the detective in diapers?” he asked, scrambling for words.

“Nooo.” She drew the word out, sitting up and pulling the covers to her chin. “Exactly how old are you, Ryan?”

“How old do you think I am?” Now that was a mature reply. Fresh out of junior high.

“I don’t know. I thought early thirties. So…what…you’re twenty-eight, twenty-nine? That’s young for a full detective. And I guess it could make you seem more accessible to a kid Scott’s age.”

Ryan didn’t lie. Or prevaricate. Or play games. He lived life by the rules. All of them.

If you didn’t, people got hurt.

He was also a risk taker. Came with the cop territory.

He’d just never known such stark fear before when taking one.

“I’m twenty-two.”

He faced her, an unarmed firing squad of one, and knew by the look on her face as soon as he said the words that he’d risked as much as he’d feared—and lost.

AT FIRST AUDREY THOUGHT he was joking. He had to be. She was not spending the weekend in bed with a twenty-two-year-old boy. Someone had paid him to say that. Except that Ryan wasn’t the type to play mean games—not even for money. Especially not for money. If there was one thing she was sure of, it was that Ryan Mercedes could not be bought.

“Say something.” He wasn’t laughing.

He wasn’t even smiling.

Nor did he look nonchalant, as though he was playing with her. In fact, he looked about as sick as she was beginning to feel. Sick, and scared.

And young.

Oh, God, what had she done?

“You’re twenty-two.” How could her voice sound like her when she’d just become someone she didn’t know at all?

“Twenty-three in a little over seven months.”

A young twenty-two. Not even twenty-two and a half. With numbers running quickly through her head, she stared at him, horrified.

Suddenly the sparseness of his apartment was no longer admirable. It screamed at her of youth and college and just starting out. The new patio furniture didn’t make her feel warm and wanted, but rather, as though she’d come to a tea party with a child.

And lying there, naked in his bed, she felt like a sex offender. What would this young man’s mother think of her?

She had to get up. Get dressed. Get out. Except that she didn’t want him to see her naked. At twenty-two Ryan would be used to young, nubile, completely firm and unmarked coeds.

Audrey had cellulite.

And what in the hell did that matter?

She did not want to attract this kid. Didn’t want him interested in her. At all. It was gross. She was gross.

Besides, he’d already seen it all.

When tears sprang to her eyes, she wanted to die.

“Hey, Audrey, it’s not a big deal.” With her eyes closed against the wetness still squeezing its way out of them to slide down her cheeks, Audrey almost gave in to that voice.

It had been the highlight of her life for weeks. It had brought her to life all weekend long, speaking to her of needs and a beauty that transcended all the trash their jobs brought to them. She’d responded to it like a flower to rain.

“Sweetie…”

Her heart calmed at the word. Knew a second of peace. Everything was going to be all right.

Then the bed dipped beneath his weight.

And she waited to feel the touch of his fingers on her face. Her neck. Needed to feel his heart beating beneath her cheek, his arms around her, keeping her safe…

No!

No! No! No! No! No!

“Stop!” The scream was shrill. Not a sound she’d ever heard come out of her mouth before. “Don’t come any closer.” The tone was softer, but no less foreign.

“Come on, babe, it’s not as if…”

Audrey’s eyes flew open. Wide open. She held up a hand, silencing him. She knew now. Couldn’t get sucked in by that deep, reassuring tone. The sense of confidence. How could she possibly find emotional safety and security with a twenty-two-year-old child?

Or almost child, she had to amend as she looked at the man sitting on the edge of the bed, concern shadowing his gaze. Concern and a caring so deep she almost couldn’t breathe.

She knew the breadth of that chest intimately. Knew the strength in the bones and sinews. The gentleness and passion in his…

No! What in the hell was the matter with her?

His lack of chest hair wasn’t genetic as she’d assumed. It was a symptom of youth. He hadn’t grown any yet!

Good thing she knew where the bathroom was. She might need to make a dash for it if the nausea attacking her got any worse.

They’d showered together in there that morning. He’d soaped her back and breasts and…

“Don’t babe me,” she said with more strength in her voice. And some venom, too.

“You’re angry.” He sounded surprised, was sitting there wearing the most heart-wrenching frown. Compelling her to smooth it away with her fingers, followed by a kiss…

What was she? His damn mother? Needing to take care of his woes?

“Damn straight I’m angry.” Audrey swung out of bed with a heave worthy of a football team, taking the covers with her. She would not expose her old body to his young gaze again.

Ever.

How embarrassing. Humiliating.

Wrong.

“Why? I don’t get it.” He followed her around the bed to where her clothes were scattered all over the floor. Helped her pick them up.

She snatched her bra from his fingers with a sharp “Give me that.” He shook his head.

“What’s a few years’ difference in age, Audrey? We’re still the same people who’ve been making love in that bed for most of the past twenty-four hours.”

How dare he remind her of that? Especially now?

“A few years?” she screamed at him. Where had that voice come from? Taking a deep breath, she finished a little more calmly, “That’s what you call it?”

“Last time I looked a few’s three to four,” he said, standing between her and the door—deliberately, she suspected. “I figure at the most we’re looking at five or six, so if you want to split hairs and worry about semantics, then it’s one or two more than a few.”

His voice had lost some of its tenderness, though she detected no anger. Just distance. He was transforming from lover to detective again. From child to man. Audrey stared at him. She couldn’t help it.

She had to leave. Had to get away and pretend this weekend never happened. To somehow rescue her heart from the debacle she’d created.

She started to laugh incredulously.

“Five or six years?” she asked, her voice, shaky with tears, still sharp. “That’s what you think?”

He slid his hands into the pockets of his jeans. A child his age had no right to look so damned mature doing that.

So damned sexy.

“Yeah,” he said with another frown. “You just took the bar exam. On average, a person graduates from college at twenty-one or -two, then does three years of law school. That puts him at twenty-five. But as smart as you are, and being a workaholic, I figured you probably didn’t take five years to do your undergrad, so there’s a good chance you were twenty or twenty-one when you finished your undergrad and twenty-three or -four out of law school, which made the difference in our ages not that great.”

He’d given the matter a lot of thought. She didn’t really understand why the notion calmed her, but she welcomed the respite. However brief it might turn out to be.

“I graduated from college at twenty,” she told him, not sure her delivery carried the power she intended as she stood there trailing sheets and a blanket over her naked torso. “At which time I followed my mother’s dictates and worked for her until I had saved enough money to attend law school without any help from her. She’d told me she would disown me if I made a decision so obviously not right for me.”

Ryan’s shoulders straightened. Tensed. His entire body seemed to be on alert. As though he were walking into a robbery in progress. “How long did it take you to save up for law school?”

“You can’t work your first year in law school, did you know that?”

His eyes narrowed. “No.”

“I had to save a couple of years’ living expenses, as well as tuition and books…”

“But you were working for the boss, so you made a lot.” There was nothing childlike about the alert man standing before her. Nothing young or immature about the commanding tone of voice, almost as though he could will the truth to be what he needed it to be.

“My mother insisted I start out at the bottom and earn my way up just like everyone else. Character building, she said.”

She almost felt sorry for him. Except that she had to stay angry to survive this. And to figure out a way to exit with dignity.

Or, more importantly, with finality.

She just wasn’t sure who she was mad at. Herself or him. She hadn’t known. She’d assumed.

And so, apparently, had he.

Suddenly Audrey was exhausted. Needed to get this over and done with. Needed to get outside his world and find herself again.

To reassure herself that she was still there.

Intact.

That she hadn’t made a mistake that would change the rest of her life.

“I’m thirty-five, Ryan.” Her words were crisp and clear. All business. “Thirteen years older than you. Almost old enough to be your mother.”

CHAPTER SIX

YOUR MOTHER. Audrey’s words crashed around in Ryan’s brain, deafening him to whatever else she was saying. He could see her lips moving, but couldn’t make any sense out of the sound. Your mother.

She had no idea how close she was to the truth.

Ryan’s biological mother was thirty-eight. Only three years older than the woman he’d spent the past twenty-four hours in bed with.

He stood rigid. It’s what he did. Remained on his feet no matter the circumstances. Met it head on. Handled it.

Did what was right.

Followed the rules.

Black and white.

What in the hell did he do with a situation that had every color of the rainbow, in every hue, all clashing with one another, surrounded by a sea of brown and a buzzing that wouldn’t quiet?

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