God.

It was that, that got her. Because a murderer would not be looking at her as if he couldn’t decide between kissing her and wrapping his fingers around her neck, would he?

“I didn’t mean…” She trailed off, and he looked as if he was resisting the urge to thunk his head on the trunk of the truck.

Straightening, he drew in a deep breath and lifted his hands, stabbing them into his hair. The muscles in his shoulders and arms were tense, straining the sleeves of his T-shirt.

She’d experienced his strength firsthand last night and did not want to go another round with him.

Which did not in any way explain the little quiver that occurred low in her belly.

“I called about Logan while you were asleep,” he said. “He’s still in intensive care.” Hawk shook his head. “He didn’t fall from that roof. No way in hell.” He dropped his arms to his side and let her see everything he was feeling, which was more of that rage, frustration, exhaustion and also an underlying need for her to believe in him. “He didn’t call you back.”

Yeah. She’d noticed. If Gaines was on the up and up, and alive, he’d have called her back. Unless, of course, he really was dead. “Maybe the fire did get him-”

“It didn’t.”

“How do you know he didn’t die from his gunshot?”

“It was a flesh wound. Nothing more. And now he has the ultimate freedom.”

Abby shut her door and came around to the front of the truck to face him. “You’re certain he’s not dead.”

Fingers still shoved in his hair, he closed his eyes and drew a breath. “I’d stake my life on it.”

His body was taut as an arrow. She came up only to his shoulders, and she knew damn well he could have used physical force to coerce her to do whatever he wanted, but other than when she’d lost it completely last night, he hadn’t. In fact, he’d done everything within his power not to hurt her, even when she’d hurt him.

Then he opened his eyes and let her look at him, into him, hiding nothing at all. She peered into his face for a long beat and he stared straight back at her, as if he was hoping to hell she was finding the honesty she sought because he couldn’t possibly lay himself more bare.

“The Gaines I know loves justice,” she finally said.

“No, he loves to win.”

Yes, that was true, too. He’d taken great pride in all the cases he’d closed, and that was no secret.

“I realize you have a bond with him.” Hawk said this just a little too tightly, as if maybe he hated thinking about it.

“He saved me,” she reminded him.

He shocked her by reaching for her hand. “I know.”

She stared down at their joined fingers. “Hawk?”

“Yeah?”

“Just before I was taken, I’d been working on the Kiddie Bombers.”

“Yeah? There were a lot of agents across the whole western region doing so.”

“I felt like I was really making a breakthrough.” Her voice trailed off and they stared at each other. “This is insane,” she whispered. “You know that.”

“Insane, but real.”

“He saved me from the very men that you’d like to prove work for him. My God. He did this, he set all this up.”

He squeezed her fingers. “Yeah. I think so. Abby, I’m sorry, but I will prove it.”

Her gaze searched his. “He knew who had me. He let them have me.” Images bombarded her, the terror, the overwhelming certainty that she was dead. And then being all too alive-“He ordered me held captive,” she repeated in disbelief.

“God, Abby.” His low, husky voice brought her back. “I don’t want to dredge it up for you, I just-”

“You just want me to know that the reason I made it out of there alive is the only reason that I was there in the first place.” Sickened, she closed her eyes.

“I think he wanted to make himself the good guy. Your good guy.”

The men who’d taken her had been well-versed in how to get the answers they wanted. And what they’d wanted from her was any concrete knowledge she had on the Kiddie Bombers, which hadn’t been all that much. But she’d been chained up, then left alone in the pitch-black for four long hours before they’d come for her, knowing by then she’d be half out of her mind. And she had been.

They’d just begun to really have fun with her while she’d been trying desperately to pretend she was somewhere, anywhere, else, when Gaines had come in, gun drawn, taking two of her assailants out without blinking.

The other two had run like scared little bunnies while Gaines had freed her and carried her out.

She’d never questioned how he’d known, how he’d killed only two of the four and yet been able to get her out of there without either of them being killed.

It had never occurred to her to be anything but grateful. Extremely grateful.

“Abby.”

She opened her eyes.

Hawk had stepped close. “I hate bringing you back there.” He slid his hands in her hair. “I hate myself for making you think about it at all. But my life depends on it.

“I can’t think this way,” she whispered. “I’ll fall apart.”

“Then I’ll think that way. All I’m asking you to do is give me a chance. Don’t send me to the gallows yet.”

“So what now? Do you think we’re going to go in there and I’m going to sleep with you?”

“No, I think I’m going to sleep, and you’re possibly going to stab me in my sleep. Which is slightly preferable to going to jail.”

“Okay,” she said softly.

“Okay, what? You’re going to stab me in my sleep?”

“I guess you’ll have to take your chances on that, won’t you.” She turned and headed up the front walk to the door. Her clothes felt damp and icy, though she knew that was more from shock than anything else because Hawk had been running the heater in the truck for hours.

But she felt as if she’d never get warm again.

He caught up with her with his long-legged stride, and reached out and took her hand in a sweet gesture.

Or maybe to keep her from running. Although where he thought she was going to run off to, she had no idea.

Opening the rough wooden gate, he let her in. There were several low lights lining the walk, illuminating an antique-covered wagon in the front yard and the house, complete with old-style shutters and white lace curtains hanging in the windows. The yard itself was thick with growth. She took her first deep breath in hours, and smelled fresh-cut grass and the scent of myriad different blooms.

Behind her, the gate clicked closed and she knew Hawk was right on her heels. Watching her closely. Was he looking at her wild hair? Her grubby clothes? She glanced back-

Um. Yes. He was noticing all the above, and more. When his gaze lifted and met hers, he didn’t try to be coy or reserved, or anything other than who he was, and he had no problem letting her see him.

All of him.

Everything he felt, which pretty much ran the gamut. Oh, God. She’d never been so aware of another human being in all her life, standing so close she could feel his soft exhale on her temple, could see deep into his warm eyes. He was just so…overwhelmingly male. Did he know the confusion he aroused? Or that when he stared at her like that she had certain reactions she couldn’t seem to help? She crossed her arms over her chest, because, seriously, she had a problem. How could her body react in this manner, when with the other side of her brain she was recoiling in horror at the evening’s events? “This is crazy,” she whispered. “I don’t want to look at you and-”

“And what?”

“Hawk.”

“And what, Ab? Want me?”

“I don’t…want you.” Trying to be casual, she dropped her arms to her side.

His gaze fell to the front of her shirt, which revealed her traitorous nipples, hard and pressing against the fabric of her shirt. She felt the heat rush to her cheeks. He should have at least pretended not to notice.

Instead his eyes blazed with a new awareness, and a staggering heat that almost equalled the explosions they’d faced earlier.

Oh, God. Was this really happening?

“Abby-”

But whatever he’d planned on saying was lost as the front door opened. There in the doorway stood a stunningly beautiful brunette in a cream silk bathrobe that hugged her spectacular curves. Her smile came slow and sure as she took in the sight of Hawk on her doorstep. “Well, look what the cat dragged in.”

He smiled back. “Serena.”

Serena tossed back her long, thick hair and crossed her arms, which as she undoubtedly knew, plumped up her substantial breasts from a D-plus to at least a triple-F. “My my. I guess hell froze over?”

“If you only knew.” Hawk’s smile remained easy and charming, and completely confident in the manner of a man who always got his own way. “Do you have a room available?”

“Two rooms,” Abby clarified.

“One,” Hawk repeated.

“Two, or nothing,” Abby said through her teeth.

Hawk sighed. “Connecting. We’ll take connecting rooms.”

Serena divided a glance between them, then tossed back her head and laughed. “Oh, boy, Hawk. I think you’ve finally met your match.”

12

STANDING IN THE pre-dawn chill, Abby craned her neck and stared at Hawk. She’d thought tonight couldn’t get any more Twilight Zone-like. “Your match?”

“Serena has a very peculiar sense of humor.” He shot Serena a long look. “Any second now she’s going to let us in off her doorstep and put us in a room, and then go far, far away.”

Serena smiled but didn’t budge. “Oh, but this is so much more fun. So.” She turned to Abby. “You been dating him long?”

Abby opened her mouth to correct that impression, but Serena went on. “No, it can’t have been too long, because, after all, you’re still with him.” She grinned at herself. “That means you haven’t discovered his character flaws yet.”