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  “When did you realize you loved her? I mean, when did you know that going on without her would be worse than—”

  “Living with my own sorry company for the rest of my life?” Cole stopped smiling, but his expression remained open. “Looking back I think some part of me knew all along. Otherwise I never would have agreed to help her.” He released a sigh of his own. “But it wasn’t until she left me that I did some serious thinking.”

  “And?”

  “And I decided that if I fought half as hard to keep her as I did trying to ignore how I felt about her, I stood a pretty damn good chance of being happier than I had any right to be.”

  Reese nodded, but remained silent.

  After a few moments, Cole said, “This wouldn’t have something to do with that mousy little professor type Regina Ravensworth sent you to rescue, now would it?” The longer Reese sat there and scowled, the broader Cole’s smile became.

  “Up yours, Sinclair,” Reese growled. But eventually his set jaw relaxed into the closest he could come to a smile.

  “Wow. She must be some lady, my friend.”

  “She’s no mousy professor type.”

  Cole laughed. “I can well imagine. So, what are you going to do about her?”

  Reese looked at Cole, then turned his head and looked at Elvis. “You got a carrying cage for this reptile?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “I think I know just the person to take a look at him.”

  Cole rose from his desk and went to rummage in his closet. He came out with a fiberglass, vented carrying case.

  Once he’d loaded up the iguana, he handed it to Reese. “Take good care of him. I’ve grown sort of … attached to him.”

  “Yeah, I know how you feel.”

  “You? Fond of Elvis?”

  Reese took the cage and peered inside, then let it dangle next to his thigh. He looked up at Cole, assuming an air of casual arrogance. “Nah. No pansy reptiles for me. I got a nine-foot gator waiting for me.”

  Cole smiled. “Just as long as he doesn’t eat iguanas.”

  “Actually, it’s a sheila.” Cole raised his eyebrow. Reese had the grace to look sort of sheepish. “With three legs, name’s Cleopatra.”

  “And you think I’m sick?”

  Reese did smile this time. He walked to the door, then turned back. “I, uh … I might be gone for a few—”

  “Take whatever you need. I can handle it.”

  Reese nodded. “Thanks. I owe you one.”

  “Nah. Way I figure it, we’re just now getting even.”

  As Reese headed down the short hallway, Cole shouted, “And it’s about damn time! Bring her back with you, Braedon. Kira and I want to meet her.” There was a brief pause. “And I’m not talking about the gator!”

  Reese’s smile lasted until he let himself out into the bright Florida sunshine.

  “I’m gonna try, mate. Like I’ve never tried before.”

  Reese wasn’t surprised to see that things hadn’t improved much in the ten days since he’d left Caracoles Key. He knew that Ivan had only brushed the coast before heading back out into the gulf toward Texas and that most of the damage was south of the Sanibel area. But Jillian had been lucky. Some of the smaller spits of coastal land had been flattened.

  Reese thanked the captain of the boat he’d hired to take him from Sanibel to Caracoles and headed toward Jillian’s compound on foot. The first thing he noticed was that she’d moved his truck inside the now-warped fence, up closer to the house. Some of the smaller bits of wreckage had been moved into rubbish piles, but most of the work still lay ahead.

  As he entered the grounds through a downed section of fence, he wondered if he’d be lucky enough to stay and help her with it. But luck had never been his claim to fame.

  His grip tightened on the small carrying case. “Well, Elvis, let’s go find her.”

  He was halfway to the house when he spied her standing on the near side of the pond, a pair of binoculars perched on her nose.

  His heart doubled, then tripled in time. He realized then how nervous he’d been. That a part of him had wondered if he’d imagined it all. The way she made him feel … like he’d finally found the one woman who could look at him and feel the same damn thing.

  He was less than ten feet away when she whirled around, one hand flying to her chest as she let the binoculars bang against the front of her T-shirt.

  “Reese.” As quickly as she’d said his name, he watched her piece her control back together again. But that one unguarded moment was all he needed.

  All he’d get. Unless he made damn sure he was around long enough to see that unguarded expression any damn time he wanted to.

  Her expression was closed now, distanced. Reese vowed that, one way or another, that wouldn’t last long.

  “You here for your truck?”

  “No.”

  Her gaze faltered for a split second, then held his firmly once more. “Oh. Then it must be the other loose end. You don’t have to worry about that one. No clutter.”

  Something heavy and hot in Reese’s heart shifted at her attempt to casually dismiss the life that might have begun as the result of what they’d shared ten days ago.

  “I wasn’t worried about that.”

  Her eyes widened slightly, then her shoulders squared and her chin lifted. Still a survivor.

  Aw mite, he thought, don’t you know me better than that by now?

  “I wasn’t worried, because I’m not sure I would have been upset if the outcome had been different.”

  Her mouth dropped open.

  Good, now they were getting somewhere.

  “What do you—?” Her attention was snagged by the case dangling from his hand. “What is that?”

  Reese glanced down. “This is my excuse.” He looked up and smiled at her. He wasn’t certain of much, but he knew he wasn’t going anywhere. Not now. Not yet. Not ever, if he had his way. And he bloody well planned to. “Pretty poor one too. His name’s Elvis. He’s an iguana. Belongs to my partner Cole.”

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  “Nothing now. He’d stopped eating, and Cole wasn’t sure why. But on the way here I picked him up some crickets and he hasn’t stopped eating since.” He grinned at her confused expression. “Maybe he just needed to get out. He used to spend most of his time on the back of a Harley.”

  “Crickets? A Harley?”

  “It’s a long story.” Reese’s expression slowly sobered as Jillian looked from the carrying case to him.

  “Why bring him to me?”

  Lord what a loaded question. “Because there is no one else, Jillian,” he answered, not even bothering to pretend he was still talking about the bloody iguana. “There never has been, and there never will be.”

  She stilled, staring at him, her expression … blank. Except for those eyes. Those ageless, survivor eyes. Let me in. Believe in me, he wanted to yell.

  Jillian turned her back to him. He was amazed how much that hurt him. No, this wasn’t going to be easy.

  He stepped closer to her, wanting to touch her so badly, he ached with it. But he kept his free hand at his side.

  She lifted her binoculars and aimed them across the pond.

  After a short period of incredibly tense silence, Reese asked, “What are you looking for?”

  “At. I’m watching Cleo’s nestlings hatch.”

  “So they’re okay?”

  “I don’t know if they’ll all survive. Typically they don’t, but there aren’t any natural predators here, so their chances are dramatically improved. Still, a lot of water was dumped on that mound during the storm.”

  “But the chances are—”

  “Shh.” She waved her hand to silence him. “Listen.”

  Reese strained to hear something, anything.

  “Do you hear that? Those tiny little gulping sounds?” Jillian turned to him, her eyes shining. She imitated the sound for him. “Like that. Hear it?”

  His puls
e pounded, his blood ran hot. Nothing could have torn his gaze from hers, but he listened again. “I hear it.”

  “That’s the nestlings. And if we can hear it from this distance, that means there’s a bunch of them. Oh Reese, they made it! They made it!”

  He almost pulled her into his arms right then and there, but at the last possible second, he managed not to. No. This had to be done right this time. In the right order. He wasn’t going to give her any reason to run back to her little self-imposed shelter.

  “Is there somewhere we can go?” he asked, his voice rough with the need he’d worked so hard to control. Her eyes darkened, and he almost lost it right there. “To talk?”

  She nodded. Then after one last look across the pond, she slipped her binoculars from her head, jotted some notes in the notebook she’d been carrying, then stuffed it in the pocket of her baggy shorts. “I’m living in the clinic for the time being.” She turned and headed in that direction.

  Once inside, he lifted Elvis’s travel case to one of the long shiny tables, then leaned back against it and watched her put away the notepad and binoculars.

  When she was done, she stood against the sink across from him and loosely crossed her arms.

  It was then Reese felt the panic. It clawed at him, filling his stomach, then his throat. This was it. Where in the hell did he start?

  “I came from a harsh country, Jillian,” he said in a short burst. He drew a long, shaky breath, then let it out slowly. “I thought I was so damn tough. Didn’t need anyone. Hell, I was only seventeen when I left to come here and I’d been on my own for almost three years.”

  “What … why?”

  “You once said pearling was a tough, dirty business. Well, you were more right than you knew. My father had dreams. But they never seemed to work out. He worked hard, made a decent wage. But it wasn’t what he’d planned. It wasn’t enough. He started hitting the pubs. Eventually his hours on the job decreased, his wages went down, and he drank most of that.

  “My mother … she tried every way she knew how to let him know it didn’t matter to her. That she only wanted him. She’d have done anything to get his attention, to get him to understand. To the exclusion of just about everything else—me included. And when she realized the bottle held more allure than she did, she joined him inside of it. Things went to hell after that.”

  TWELVE

  “How old were you?”

  “I dunno. Twelve, thirteen. Old enough to know what was what and that I didn’t have any.”

  “Oh, Reese.”

  The ache in her voice, the pain. He knew—knew—she understood. And the knowledge hurt him more than it soothed him. But he had to get it out.

  “By the time I was fifteen, I didn’t think anything or anyone was tougher than me. And all I wanted was to get out of there, as far away as I could go. It took me close to two months once I left Oz to reach America.”

  “But you were only a kid.”

  “I was a big kid. I spent most of what money I had on a passport and fake ID. That, a fast mouth, and a willingness to do just about anything can get you a job on a ship more easily than you’d think.” He shook his head, an empty smile twisted his lips. “One day on the streets of Miami told me I didn’t have even a passing fair acquaintance with tough. I was worse than a fish out of water, didn’t fit in anywhere. The middle class blokes didn’t half understand me, the ones who didn’t think I was a wacko thought me a bloody savage.

  “The Latinos didn’t trust me, thought I was British and couldn’t imagine I’d understand where they were coming from. I spent the next two years of my life just surviving.”

  “What happened?”

  “I got busted for stealing food. The old man who owned the market didn’t press charges. He gave me a job working for him instead.” He focused sharply on her. “Jillian, for the first time in my life I was treated with respect.”

  “Somehow it doesn’t sound like you were the type who fell all over the guy with gratitude.”

  “No. If I were Old Man Kotler, I’d have kicked my ass out in under a week. But he didn’t. He busted my chops over every little thing. But he was always there. Even when I wished he’d go to hell, he was there. It wasn’t easy, Jillian. But I tried. For the first time in my life, I really tried. When I decided I wanted to get my citizenship, he helped me.”

  “Where is he now? Still in Miami?”

  Reese shook his head in a tight negative motion. “He was shot and killed right in front of me. I was twenty-one.”

  Jillian gasped, her hand flying to her mouth at the unexpected horror of his words.

  “It was a robbery. Nothing you didn’t hear every day on the news. I think they got about two hundred dollars.” Reese looked at his feet. “I would have given my life for that old man.” Reese felt the familiar hollowness inside yawn open as it always did when he thought of that day. So violent, so senseless.

  “Reese.” The word was an anguished whisper.

  He looked up at her. “He always told me if I was going to be any kind of a man, that I should stand up for my beliefs. Well, I believed that an old man, or anyone else for that matter, should be able to go about the business of living without the fear of being gunned down. Not for two hundred bucks, not for two million.” Reese heaved a deep sigh. “The short of it is that I knuckled down, begged, did anything I had to and went to work for Uncle Sam. Eventually DEA.” He snorted. “Young hero cleans up Miami gutters.”

  “But you are a hero, Reese. Don’t you understand? Mr. Kotler would be so proud of you.”

  “I know.” He looked up at her again. “And I did the best damn job I could. I gave it everything I had to give. But eventually it wasn’t enough for me. Or more to the point, I didn’t have anything left to give. And when I knew I couldn’t do my best, I got out.”

  “But you’re still making a difference, Reese. You’re still helping people.”

  “That’s not what I’m trying to say.” Without realizing it, he closed the small distance between them and took her by the shoulders. “The point is that I made a decision to do something, and I did it. I made it happen. I dedicated myself to it. Do you understand, Jillian?”

  She nodded, her eyes guarded. “And I’m proud of you. But what does that have to do with me? You’ve also told me that you don’t like messy ties, that you ruthlessly avoid anything that sounds like intimacy. That you want to be responsible only to the people who pay you for the service, and then, only until the job is done. Neat. Clean. No clutter.” Her voice had risen steadily. She was shaking now. “So what in the hell has that got to do with me!”

  He shook her, his face close to hers. “I can’t let you go, dammit! There’s this … hole … in me now. I think you are the only one who can fill it. I know you are.”

  “And what happens when you can’t do that any longer, Reese? Huh? When you’ve given me all of yourself you can give? Do you walk away then too? I can’t do that. I can’t let you do that to me.”

  “So you’ll stay here alone? Forever? There are no guarantees in life, Jillian. Or is it that you just don’t want me?”

  Her eyes widened. “Yes, I want you! Is that what you wanted to hear? Well, I said it. I want you, Reese Braedon. More than I’ve ever let myself want anything. And the instant I turned around and saw you behind me, I knew I’d take whatever you had to give me.”

  “And now?”

  “And now I’m not convinced I’ll be enough for you.”

  “What?” he barked in disbelief.

  Jillian’s fierceness crumpled, and she felt suddenly hollow and deflated. “You … you’re intense, you know what you want, what you need. You go after it. You demand it and if it’s not good enough, you leave and keep on going until you find something that is.” She looked up at him. “I’d take part of you if I knew it was forever, but I don’t think I can let you take all of me and know you’ll walk away with it.”

  He lifted his hands from her shoulders and cupped her face, his hol
d on her unbearably gentle.

  “And what if I told you I’ve stopped looking? That I’ve found it? I’m glad I left my old life, I like what I do now. But what I did was harder to handle than I realized. It was ugly and brutal and endless. If I’d stayed in it much longer, I doubt I’d have recognized the need I hadn’t filled. That the emptiness I felt wasn’t about job satisfaction. It was about me, about what I haven’t let myself believe I could have. Until I met you. I looked into those wary gray eyes and saw myself, saw the other part of me.” His expression gentled, his vulnerability plain for her to see. “What if I told you I’ve never been so sure of anything in my entire life?”

  He was scaring her to death. He was big, and bold and strong and beautiful and fierce and she loved him. Loved him fiercely, boldly, strongly, completely. The way she’d always wanted to be loved.

  And she was terrified to discover that the one thing she didn’t do was trust him to love her like that in return. The pain was crushing. But it didn’t alter the truth. She might love him like she’d never thought she’d love anyone. But she knew without a doubt that she wasn’t strong enough to survive giving him her heart … only to have him change his mind somewhere down the road.

  She wasn’t even certain how well she was going to survive pushing him away now. But she had to. It was selfish, it was cruel, but it was survival. Hers.

  That instinct had been too well honed, for too many years. And she found she couldn’t give up its protection. Not even for Reese. Especially not for someone as dangerous to her as Reese.

  “No,” she whispered. Then more adamantly, with all her strength she said again, “No!”

  She’d expected rage, defiance, a renewed assault or his immediate departure. So the utter pain that wracked his features, the brightness in his eyes, that faded swiftly into a bleak, cold place as if he’d just been cast back into that barren wasteland of his past struck her like a deathblow.

  Her knees swayed. Pinpoints of light flickered in the periphery of her vision. Dear Lord, what had she done to him? What had she, in her selfish need to make sure she didn’t suffer, done to the man she loved above all else?