But it hadn't helped every time. On a few occasions, his whispers that he had found her and she was going to be all right hadn't done the trick. And at those times, he had known she was dreaming about something other than the night he'd rescued her.

Those nightmares were more heartbreaking. She wouldn't talk about them, but he had his suspicions about the horrors she saw in her sleeping hours.

Perhaps the face of her nephew, peering in terror through the window of a dark van driven by the sick bastard who had kidnapped him. Lily had, after all, been the last one to see him alive. She had even had to testify in the murder trial against Jesse Boyd, the sexual predator convicted of killing the child.

Or perhaps her dreams were of a few weeks later, when she'd walked into her sister's home and found her twin in the bathtub, her wrists open and weeping blood.

Such sights could haunt a person for life, drive them right into madness. Or into a need for complete, emotionless self-control.

But her dreams might not have been merely about the torture of losing her loved ones. They could have been of the week she'd spent blindfolded in that old shack. Learning the real meaning of torture.

Which dream are you having right now?

She cried out again. He got out of the bed, crossing the room in silence, resisting the urge to continue into the hallway, to her door.

He didn't do that anymore. Not ever.

When Lily had been so injured, frail, and helpless, he had felt like nothing more than a friend or caretaker looking after a child. But she was no longer injured, frail, or helpless. And not at all childlike. He'd acknowledged that one night in July when he'd gone to her, only to have her wake up and stare at him from the bed. The full moon and the glimmer of the outside floodlights had brightened her room. Enough for him to see the strong jut of her jaw, the hint of angry determination in her expression as she brought herself under control.

Not to mention the flush of color in her lovely face, the fullness of her lips as she heaved in deep, gasping breaths. Or the clinginess of the thin nightgown that skimmed over her body.

Their stares had met and locked. Her breaths had slowed. His had deepened. Neither spoke, but their thoughts were communicated nonetheless.

In that one long, heavy moment, he'd stopped seeing Lily, the girl he had liked and taken care o£ And had begun to see the woman she was now. Strong. Fierce. Beautiful.

It was as if he were seeing her for the first time.

He'd wanted her. Suddenly. Unexpectedly. Completely. God help him, he had wanted to touch her and pleasure her and give her one night of heated sexuality to replace the coldness of her dreams.

Which was utterly impossible. Wanting Lily was almost as unacceptable as actually having her. He was her protector; he'd been her boss. She was a decade his junior and trusted him to keep his distance.

He'd told himself all those things. But still, Lily's image had intruded any time he had even thought about another woman since that night.

So, no. He no longer went to her room when she cried out in her sleep. After fiercely insisting she was strong and capable of looking after herself, and didn't need to be coddled, Lily probably suspected that was why he had backed off.

It wasn't her strength he had doubted. It was his own.

Frankly, he was also beginning to question his own sanity. Was it possible he was really considering her a suspect in the lily murders?

"It's insane," he whispered, all the suspicions that had driven him here to see her this weekend having faded into ridiculous conjecture once he was back in her company.

Ridiculous conjecture or not, he had a job to do. And ruling Lily Fletcher out as a suspect was chief on his to-do list.

Ruling her in, he didn't even want to contemplate.

He heard movement and leaned closer to the door, silent, quieting even his breaths. Lily's bedroom door opened. She stepped into the hall, her footsteps firm, as if she had leapt out of bed. angry at her own subconscious. But they faltered when she reached his room.

Wyatt closed his eyes, his hand flat on the middle panel of the door, his fingers splayed.

Would she knock? Would he answer?

A moment more. She moved on.

Not sure whether he was relieved or disappointed, he remained there, waiting for her to return. She had likely gone downstairs to get a drink of water, take a sleeping pill, perhaps. But the minutes stretched on. And on. Until finally, he needed to make sure she was okay.

He moved silently through the house and down the stairs, expecting to find her in the kitchen. It was empty, as was the living room.

"I'm out here," a voice said from the darkness without.

The coldness inside finally registered, as did the open patio door. He stepped out to find her at the railing, staring down at the beach. She wore simple cotton shorts and a T-shirt and should have been shivering from the night air, but seemed oblivious to it. Oblivious to everything, really, except the sound of the waves and the newly lit cigarette in her hand.

"Haven't quit yet, hmm?"

She gestured toward the table but didn't look around. "That's the same pack I bought in May."

The small package was still half-full. It rested beside her laptop, which was open and turned on, an Internet news page displayed on the monitor.

"You know, before the nightmares, I never smoked a single time in my life."

"I know."

She'd told him once that on the worst of those nights, it was either light a cigarette or down a few glasses of vodka. Still on pain meds and antidepressants at the time, she'd figured smoking was the lesser of two evils and apparently hadn't kicked the habit.

"I've never done it in the house."

"I know that as well." Not that he'd give a damn if a stray match burned the entire place to the ground, once Lily was well and had no need for it anymore.

He'd certainly considered it over the years. Just demolishing the place. But something had stopped him. Perhaps just knowing his grandparents had held on to it for him, never even letting him know until their declining years that it was his, still there on the cliff, silent and dead.

He'd never come to see it before last winter. Nor, however, had he let it go.

She glanced down, then wordlessly crushed the unsmoked cigarette into the railing. Finally turning to look at him, she admitted, "I guess conversation beats inhalation."

He smiled faintly. "You ready to talk?"

"Well, you sure had nothing to say at dinner."

No, he hadn't. At dinner he had been too busy wondering how to break the news to Brandon that Lily had been able to get around whatever firewalls and constraints he had placed around the group's files. Not to mention how to get Lily to open up and tell him why she was doing it.

While he was lying in bed trying to fall asleep a little while ago, the answer had, of course, come to him. "You know I'd tell you if we had anything on him."

Her brow lifted, though her tone sounded unsurprised. "What?

"The Lovesprettyboys investigation is stalled. That doesn't mean it will never be solved. You've got to trust me."

He couldn't imagine how frustrating it must be for her, knowing the man who had attacked her had gotten away and had never been identified. Lily had never stopped believing he was out there, looking for her, wanting to finish what he started. Not only because he held her responsible for his downfall, but also because she might somehow be able to identify him.

"Damn it, Wyatt. It's been seven months," she said, her anguish clear. Her voice, her face, her twisting hands, her shaking arms, all confirmed how far on the edge she truly was-and confirmed that she might do something crazy, like a little hacking, to get some answers. "How the hell can you still not know who he is?"