“You’re sure your guys know what they’re doing?”

She made an effort not to stiffen at Special Agent Taggert’s bluntness as they paused, shoulder-to-shoulder, having cleared another section of their search area. He might have been Dean at the diner, but today he was again all hard-edged FBI agent. Which was fine with her. She’d spent enough time wondering why on earth she found a man who brought murder and horror into her safe, secure world so damned attractive.

She almost wished Taggert had been the one who’d left this morning, rather than his boss. Blackstone had stopped by only briefly before heading back to Washington, apparently because of a new lead in the case. Maybe that was just as well; she had a hard time picturing the supervisory special agent mucking around in the woods in his crisp black suit and highly shined shoes.

“They’re not going to go tromping on any potential evidence, are they?”

“They’re fine,” she snapped. “Completely trustworthy.”

Stacey had thought long and hard before deciding which of her deputies could be counted on to do this job right-not only the search, but keeping the reason for it quiet, at least for the time being. She’d have to tell Winnie Freed, and soon, but she’d be damned if she’d go to the woman without at least trying to find her daughter’s remains first. News of a death was bad enough for anyone to deal with. Not having a body to bury meant Winnie would doubt-would question.

Would torture herself with false hope.

So Stacey had to put off telling the woman at least long enough for one good search for Lisa.

“We need to pick up the pace,” Taggert said. “This is taking too long.”

“Are you sure your guys know what they’re doing?” she asked, not sure why she wanted to goad the man.

He frowned, his mouth pulling tight. Not a great sense of humor on this one.

“Pretty sure. Want to hear their qualifications?”

“I’m sorry. But we’re not even sure what we’re looking for, Agent Taggert,” she said, her tone remaining cool. She was pretty impressed with how well her deputies had reacted today and didn’t appreciate the implied criticism. She only wished her chief deputy hadn’t put himself out of commission by falling off his damn roof.

“We’re looking for anything,” he said. “Absolutely anything we can use.”

“Even if any blood could possibly survive in the elements, we know Lisa was standing on a tarp that would have caught most of it. I don’t imagine we’re going to stumble over an enormous red circle on the ground with a neon sign saying ‘It happened here.’ And I doubt this killer was stupid enough to leave his knife lying around for us to find.”

He thrust a hand through his thick, dark hair, frustration oozing out of his every pore. “I know. But a complete visual pass is imperative. Then we’ll move on to dogs, see if we can get something of Lisa’s and try to get them to pick up a scent.”

“That’s a long shot.”

“Tell me about it.” His jaw flexed as he cast a slow look around the clearing in which they’d parked, and which he’d designated as base of operations. She sensed he was seeing the entire forest, not just the trees. “This whole thing is an incredible long shot, and God knows we don’t have time to spare on a wild-goose chase.”

Realizing he hadn’t been criticizing, merely expressing his own anxiety, she unbent a little. Glancing at the sweat on his brow, the dampness of his unbuttoned dress shirt molding against his broad shoulders and thick arms, she murmured, “How are you holding up in this heat?”

“I’m fine.”

“I sense you spend more time in an air-conditioned office than in the woods.”

“You might be surprised. I’ve never been a desk-jockey type.”

“Have you been a Boy Scout? Because any ten-year-old with half a brain would have known better than to dress like that today.”

He jerked his head up, as if unused to women throwing snarky comments in his direction. A guy as tough and good-looking as this one probably got lots of compliments and come-ons instead.

A tiny smile that looked more menacing than friendly, as if it didn’t get much use, appeared on his lips. His eyes narrowed, his dark gaze homing in on her, every ounce of his attention focused in her direction rather than on the search. The full onslaught of that heated concentration suddenly made her heart skip a beat in her chest. “I wasn’t exactly the Boy Scout type. But something tells me you already knew that.”

That frankly assessing look would have sent any self-respecting good girl running in the opposite direction. Stacey shivered despite herself. Because he was about as far from a Boy Scout as she was from a suburban housewife.

“Nobody’s ever called me Mr. Nice Guy,” he warned. And again, she had the suspicion he was talking about more than just this moment, this case. As if confirming that he might have spent some of last night thinking about her, too.

She wasn’t scared off. Because nice guys? They were a dime a dozen in Hope Valley. And she was a good girl who’d been good so long she couldn’t even remember why she kept getting her birth control pill prescriptions refilled.

She’d started having a suspicion, though, ever since he’d walked into her office yesterday afternoon.

“Maybe nice is overrated,” she murmured.

Finally, as if realizing he was watching her a little too closely, building the already thick tension between them, he shook his head, hard. “You’re right about the clothes. But I didn’t exactly pack shorts and flip-flops.”

She chuckled, unable to picture it, and glad he’d coasted back into safe territory. Away from that confusing awareness that seemed to wash over both of them at the most unusual times. Because if he wasn’t as aware of her as a woman as she was of him as a man, then she had no business calling herself female. Every intuition she owned told her it was true. And the words he’d said when he’d joined her at the diner the previous evening-If we’re going to do this-had repeated in her ears a whole bunch of times since.

He hadn’t been talking about working together, having dinner or a drink together. Something had made him say those words in that way, and something in her had responded, even if she’d managed to keep her cool and pretend she’d misunderstood.

She hadn’t misunderstood. She got the message loud and clear. She just didn’t know what she was going to do about it.

Dean gestured toward her own pants and shirt. “You’re not exactly up for a day at the beach yourself.”

“At least mine are lightweight and light colored.”

Unlike Taggert’s dark trousers and long-sleeved shirt. She’d bet money he’d had a long mental argument with himself over whether or not to remove the suit jacket. If they’d been in public, where others could have seen the.40 Glock strapped in the holster at his hip, she doubted he would have, no matter what he’d had packed in his overnight bag for his trip to Hope Valley.

“Just make sure you drink plenty of water,” she cautioned.

“I can handle myself,” he retorted as he unbuttoned his sleeves and shoved them up his thick forearms. Every inch of tanned skin he revealed glistened, though they’d been out for only an hour. The muscles flexing in those arms confirmed his strength, the blunt power of him.

“I noticed,” she muttered before she thought better of it. Oh, boy, had she noticed.

Fortunately, he either didn’t hear the frank interest in her voice, or didn’t correctly interpret it. “You look pretty capable of handling yourself, too.”

“I guess,” she admitted.

“You’ve been on the job somewhere else,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

“Virginia State Police down in Roanoke.”

He studied her. Thought about it. “How long ago?”

“I quit in May of ’oh-seven.”

She watched him make the connections. Saw the truth click in his brain.

“You responded to the attack at…”