Suppressing a shudder and making a conscious effort not to rub her wrists, she allowed the sheriff to guide her to an SUV with the department’s logo on the side. He unlocked the door, opened it and waited for her to get in, then went around to the driver’s side, taking off his hat as he opened the door, and tossing it onto the back seat.

Like we’re going on a date, Mary thought, and almost smiled at the irony.

The sheriff spoke briefly and, to Mary, unintelligibly into his radio, then started up the SUV. His ice-blue gaze slid across her when he turned to look over his shoulder as he backed out of the parking space, and she couldn’t hide her shiver.

“Cold?” he asked, and turned on the SUV’s heater without waiting for her reply.

She turned her face quickly to look out the window, emotion catching her unawares. Why are you doing this? Why are you being nice to me? she wanted to ask-and then, to her dismay, she did.

“If you’ve told me the truth about killing my b-Jason,” he said, narrowed eyes focused on the road ahead, “I’ve got no reason not to be nice to you. Do I?” She didn’t answer, and after a moment he shook his head and let out a breath in an exasperated sigh. “Ah…Mary. I don’t know what I can do to get you to trust me.”

She gave a sharp, disbelieving laugh. “Trust you? You must be joking. You arrested me for murder.”

She saw the depressions in his cheeks deepen with his frown before they were partly obscured by a big, long-boned hand scrubbed impatiently across the lower part of his face. “Dammit, I told you, I didn’t have a whole lot of choice.” He threw her a brief, stinging look. “The truth is, I-ah hell.” Scowling through the windshield again, he growled, “Look, I want the truth, that’s all. If you didn’t kill Jason, if you’ve got nothing to hide, then…then for God’s sake tell me who you are. Tell me what your real name is…who you’re being protected from.”

Mary made an involuntary sound, then just gazed at him, heart pounding.

He turned his head to give her a sardonic little smile. “Oh, yeah, I’ve pretty much figured that part out. Look, dammit,” he said, facing forward again, “if you’re a federally protected witness, you know I’m gonna find that out sooner or later. The U.S. Marshal’s Office isn’t going to protect you from a charge of murder.”

“Then why do you need me to tell you anything?” she said bitterly, watching houses and yards flash by, bravely clinging to their fresh spring finery in the face of winter’s spiteful reprise. Blackberry winter…that’s what my mother used to call this weather.

Thoughts of her mother were so unexpected, and so predictably painful, she wasn’t even aware of where they were until the SUV came to an abrupt stop. For a moment she stared at the little white clapboard house without recognizing it as hers. Then she noticed that while she’d been in jail the big lilac bush beside the front porch had come into bloom, and that brought another flood of unwelcome memories.

“I want to help you,” the sheriff said softly.

She couldn’t help herself. She laughed-and was shocked when she felt warm fingers brush her cheek.

Her breath snagged delicately, like roughened skin in fine silk. She caught and held it with infinite care, terrified to let it go for not knowing what might come with it. It had been so long since anyone had touched her this way…gently, with that special kind of tenderness that happens between lovers…and how was that possible when this was the man responsible for her utter and complete humiliation?

She wondered what he saw when he looked at her…a beautiful woman, a pitiful victim or a vicious killer? What did her skin feel like to his work-roughened fingers, and did he feel her blood surging hot and wild beneath it?

“If you’re innocent, why is that hard for you to believe? It’s my job to protect the innocent, just as much as it is to catch bad guys.”

His voice was like his fingers…warm, a little rough, but gentle and oddly stirring. His fingers caressed her cheek as he watched her…stroked a strand of her hair aside as if it were an obstruction to his view. Under their hypnotic spell she no longer felt the least bit cold…and yet she shivered. Protect? Who can protect me, if the marshals won’t?

Loneliness and longing descended on her like a blanket, pervasive as the need for sleep; her eyelids grew heavy, and the muscles in her face and neck cramped with the fierceness of her struggle against the desire to rest her cheek on his hand.

“I can’t help if you won’t talk to me, Mary.”

Talk to me…

Could he help her? Against all common sense, was it possible this man would protect her-this man who, by all indications, appeared to be trying to put her in jail for the rest of her life? What was it about him that, against all common sense, made the urge to trust him so strong? Was it his eyes, that seemed to know so much? His voice, so soft and yet so powerful? His hands, so strong and yet so gentle?

While she struggled with it, tense and silent…on the verge of giving in, his hand left her cheek. He leaned across in front of her to open the door, muttering, “Oh, hell, I just hope to God Harvey Klein doesn’t catch me talking to you like this.”

Her skin felt tingly and cold where his hand had been. She wanted to put her hand up and rub the spot, almost as if he’d slapped rather than caressed her. Instead, in ignominious retreat, she cringed back from his arm and the too-intimate warmth of his body, grasped the door with both hands and held on to it for support as she slipped blindly from the car. With the pavement firm under her feet, she turned to slam the door, only to find the sheriff still leaning toward her, one arm across the back of the seat she’d just left. The other hand was holding out a key.

“You’re gonna need this.” He nodded toward the house. “It’ll open both locks, here and the one at your shop.”

She took the key and managed a stiff and grudging, “Thank you.”

The steely blue eyes seemed to darken as they stabbed into hers, and his mouth curved into what she knew better than to think was a smile. “I’m going to be watching you, Miss Mary. Count on it. So do yourself a favor-don’t try to leave town.”

Then she did slam the door. As she hurried up the walkway, she heard the SUV roar to life and drive away, but she didn’t look back. She wouldn’t look back.

Alone on the porch she paused, shivering with anger and cold and hopelessness, bathed in the scent of lilacs that was almost too sweet to bear. She stood staring at the criss-cross of yellow police tape and the padlock on the front door, with the key to the padlock a nugget of warmth in her cold hand. Warm from his hand… And the thought of lifting it and inserting it into the lock, of opening the door and going alone into that stranger’s house, made her very soul cry out with loneliness.

Caught up in her misery, she almost didn’t notice it at first…the peculiar ratchety humming sound that seemed to come from nowhere…and all around her. And then…something soft, warm and heavy bumped her leg. As Mary stared down at the broad feline head covered with moth-eaten fur and sporting a pair of scarred and tattered ears, it nudged-incredibly-at her ankles. The strange snarling sound grew in volume. The mottled back arched and the raggedy tail quivered as the sinewy body twined and rubbed itself around her legs.

“Oh, Cat,” she whispered. And a tear fell with a soft plop to make a tiny wet stain on the wood porch floor.

The days that followed were easier than Mary, in the long dark hours of that first sleepless night, had feared they’d be.

No sooner had she left the house the next morning, filled with dread but determined not to crawl into a hole and hide like a coward, than a sheriff’s department SUV came cruising down the street and pulled up beside her. Her heart gave a drunken lurch and slammed into her ribs as the window slid down and a familiar rumbling voice drawled cheerfully, “Mornin’. Just happened to be passing this way, thought I’d give you a lift to your shop.”

“Yeah, right,” Mary muttered without pausing. She’d almost been looking forward to walking the half-dozen blocks in spite of the persistent wind and a hint of frost in the air…remembering a long-ago life in a faraway place where walking to work in all kinds of weather was the normal way of things. New York, New York… She’d had so much there…friends, an exciting career…and Joy, who’d been more like a sister than a friend. Why wasn’t it enough? Why wasn’t I happy with what I had?

Why am I letting myself remember all this now? I can’t think about this now.

“Thanks,” she said distantly as she strode briskly along, “but I’m fine.”

The car rolled silently, keeping pace with her, and the growl from within was deeper and somewhat less cheerful. “Mary, get in the car.”

She halted and turned, hugging her sweater around her and lifting her face to the wind, grateful for that wind now, hoping it might be blamed for the breathlessness of her voice and the flush she could feel burning her cheeks. “Am I being detained?” she inquired in a cool, polite tone. “Should I get in back? I assume that’s where you put prisoners.”

The sheriff made an exasperated sound. “Don’t be ridiculous. My department’s impounded your car. I’m giving you a ride to work.”

“All part of your service to the community.”

“Right…keeping dangerous criminals off the street.” He leaned his long body across the seat to yank the passenger-side door open, the way he’d done the night before. “Mary, don’t make me come out there and get you.” Though his tone was mild, she caught the glint of a dangerous light in his steel-blue eyes.