“Hi, stranger,” she said, a soft smile curving the delicate bow of her mouth. She gripped that bit of courage a little harder when Shane didn’t return her smile with one of his own. Lord, she’d have given anything to see his mouth quirk up on one side in that devastatingly sexy way of his, to have him reach out and caress her cheek with his elegant musician’s hand. But he merely stood, a half step back from the side of her bed, out of reach both physically and emotionally.

“How are you feeling?”

“A little woozy.” But not woozy enough to dull the pain that came from looking into his eyes.

“I won’t stay long. You need to rest,” he murmured, stuffing his hands into his pants pockets. Every inch of him ached to hold her, to feel her soft warmth against him one last time, but he wouldn’t allow himself the pleasure. If he touched her now, he’d never be able to let her go-and that was exactly what he had to do. “Banks spoke with the prosecuting attorney in Washington. He said he could push back the date of your testimony. He can get a continuance-”

“No,” Faith interrupted. “I’ll be fine by then. I don’t want him to delay anything. The sooner it’s over, the better.”

The sooner I’m out of your life, Shane added silently. It was astounding how much that thought hurt. All these years he’d gone along on his own, touching no one, needing no one. In a few short weeks this one small woman had so captured him, it would be like tearing his heart out to leave her. And it would be doubly painful because until Faith, he had stopped believing he had a heart to lose.

“I’m leaving for Washington in the morning,” he said abruptly, his voice gruffer and more clipped than usual. “Agent Timmons will stay on and escort you back for the trial.”

He set his jaw at a stubborn angle and resolutely refused to look at Faith. But then, he didn’t need to see her face to know her reaction. He could feel the shock and hurt roll off her in waves that battered his wall of self-control.

“Why?” she asked in a stunned whisper, managing to put all her painful questions into that one word.

He wasn’t strong enough to look her in the face and answer. She sounded so hurt, and Lord knew the last thing he wanted was to hurt her more than he already had. He’d known all along she wasn’t for him, but he hadn’t been strong enough to resist her. His weakness had nearly gotten her killed.

Struggling with the guilt, he prowled around her room and further punished himself by memorizing every detail of it. The wallpaper was a delicate floral print. She had snapshots of Lindy tucked into the frame of the beveled glass mirror above her cherry dresser. There was also a photograph of Faith and her friends in their graduation caps and gowns with Notre Dame’s gold dome behind them and a rainbow arching over their heads. The dresser top held a porcelain pitcher and bowl filled with dried flowers.

Everything about the room was delicate and feminine and old-fashioned. The air was sweet with that soft lavender scent he would forever associate with Faith.

Forcing his mind back to the issue, he said, “You knew from the start I couldn’t stay. I was nothing less than honest with you, Faith.”

She couldn’t argue with that. Shane had warned her on more than one occasion that he couldn’t make promises, that their relationship would span only the time it took to solve the case. She had known that going in, but it still hurt to hear him reconfirm it. Lord, it hurt. The pain was so sharp, it cut through the haze of medication and eclipsed the throbbing ache in her shoulder.

Stupid, romantic fool, she berated herself. How many times did she have to learn the same lesson before it would sink in? Shane had come right out and told her she would never possess more of him than his body. Still, she had plunged in headfirst, brimming with Pollyanna optimism, sure that she would be able to change his mind, that she would be the one person able to get behind his defenses and touch the vulnerable, lonely man who lived behind those gray walls of isolation.

Stopping at the foot of the bed, Shane’s left hand gripped the carved cherry wood post as if he needed something to steady himself against. “I came to apologize,” he said.

For breaking my heart? Faith wondered bleakly. Don’t bother. I should be used to it by now.

But when she met his gaze, it was his pain she felt, not her own. It hit her like a blast of cold wind, stunning her, confusing her.

“You could have been killed because of me,” he said, his voice thickening with the emotion he had worked so hard to suppress. His hand tightened on the bedpost until his knuckles turned white. “You’ll never know how sorry I am that happened.”

She would never know the regret he felt not only for her injuries but over what he had lost as well. The dream of a future with her had been within his grasp until reality had intruded in the form of Adam Strauss. Now Strauss was dead, but the reality was just as alive, just as harsh. He had chosen a lifestyle that didn’t allow for dreams.

“Is that why you’re leaving?” Faith whispered, her heart immediately taking hope. “Shane, I don’t blame you for what happened.”

It was clear, though, that he blamed himself. The guilt that etched lines into his handsome face was almost unbearable to see.

“Shane, I love you.”

He shook his head, not to deny her statement, but to keep her from elaborating on it. “Faith, don’t. It can’t work between us. I knew that from the start, and dammit to hell, I should have had sense enough to stay away from you.”

“You said you loved me.”

“That was a mistake.”

Well, he wasn’t mincing words, was he? Faith had no idea how she kept from crying out at the pain. It was as sharp as a knife in her chest. Getting shot didn’t even compare. She didn’t try to keep the tears from rising in her eyes. They flooded her field of vision and brimmed over the barrier of her thick dark lashes. Her throat tightened on a knot of them. That she managed to comment at all was a minor miracle. “I see.”

Shane damned himself to yet another eternity in hell as he took in the stricken look on Faith’s delicate heart-shaped face. For a man with a degree in literature he had a way with words that no doubt had the great poets rolling in their graves right about now.

Pushing himself away from the foot post, he moved to the chair that had been pulled up beside the bed. Sitting down, he leaned his forearms on his thighs and heaved a sigh. “No, you don’t see. I shouldn’t have let myself fall in love with you, Faith. It’s just not allowed.”

She wasn’t about to pretend she was sophisticated enough to understand the rules that governed men like Shane Callan. She wasn’t. She didn’t want to be sophisticated enough to understand a world that left no room for love. “You’re not allowed to be human?”

Since he knew he was all too human, Shane chose not to answer her question. “The job I do is important, Faith. It’s also very demanding and dangerous. I chose this way of life knowing the limitations, knowing the rules. I broke those rules, and now you’re the one paying the penalty.”

“But I told you, I don’t blame you for what happened.”

No, it wasn’t in Faith to lay blame, but that was beside the point as far as he was concerned. “Don’t you see, honey? Our worlds don’t exist on the same plane. What happened with Strauss only proved that.”

Finally giving in to the need to touch her, he reached out and gently closed his hand over the fist she clenched so tightly in her lap. “I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m sorry you were hurt because of me. I should never have let it happen.”

“You’re talking as if I never had any say in the matter,” Faith said with a harsh laugh. The man was a rampaging chauvinist, going on about how he should have made this decision or that decision about what she did, as if she wasn’t capable of making a rational choice herself. “I’m a grown woman, Shane Callan. I make my own decisions.”