In Bosnia, ten days into his first assignment, Nick had seen a mother keel over dead from shock upon viewing the remains of her daughter’s body after Serb soldiers had finished with her. There hadn’t been much left.

Shock kills.

He took Charity’s ice-cold slender hands between his, trying to warm them up. Her hands were completely still. She wasn’t moving at all, not even her chest.

In a sudden panic, he put a hand under her sweatshirt, feeling for her heartbeat. She wasn’t wearing a bra and Nick was half ashamed of the surge of desire as he felt her soft breast under his hands. He loved her breasts.

A Delta teammate, Kit Sanderson, once said he worshiped at the Church of Big Tits and without thinking about it too much, Nick had, too.

The first time he’d touched her there, cupped her in his hand, feeling the velvety pink nipple harden to a point, he’d become an instant convert to the Church of Small Tits, this classy little Greek temple, where they played Bach on an organ, so unlike the other church—loud with raucous country music.

He laid two fingers over her left breast. Ah, there it was—fast and thready, but a definite beat. He rocked back on his heels, still crouching beside her.

Jesus, what now? He’d had basic medic training. If she were bleeding from a bullet wound, he’d know precisely what to do. If she had a broken bone he could probably set it, if she needed stitches he could do that, too. But this was beyond him.

“Charity,” he said softly, then louder. “Charity!”

Christ, she was barely breathing. Her nostrils were pinched and white, her muscles completely lax.

This wasn’t good. She was run down anyway. Her cheekbones were sharper, that sharp little chin more pointed, collarbones more prominent. She’d lost weight and she hadn’t had that much weight to lose in the first place.

Damn, he should have played this differently, but how? How do you tell a grieving widow—Whoops! Husband not dead, after all! Big mistake; sorry about that. Hey, shit happens.

Nope. There was no way he could have revealed himself without shocking her in a big way. And no way he could keep her from going to Worontzoff’s tonight without revealing himself. What was he supposed to do—send her e-mails from beyond the grave? Leave her messages written in lipstick on her bathroom mirror?

No, this had to be done in person.

The story of his life—only one possible hard road to take, dead ahead, with narrow walls and no side streets. The only way out was straight through. No alternatives, no detours.

Charity moaned and he watched her face carefully as a little color crept back in. Thank God she wasn’t paper white anymore. She was coming round.

He’d have poured her a finger of whiskey and forced her to drink it, but that fuck Worontzoff had already made her drink vodka. With nothing in her stomach, that much alcohol would knock her right back out. And besides, he didn’t want to leave her side.

She moaned again, her hand flexing inside his. He lifted her torso up, keeping his arm around her back for support.

Unexpectedly, her eyes opened. No coming-around process, no fluttering of eyelids, so he’d have a chance to prepare. Just those beautiful light-gray eyes, closed one second, wide open the next.

She looked frightened, lost.

“Nick?” she whispered. She lifted her hand, tentatively. It trembled. She moved it slowly toward his face, as if she were pushing her hand against a waterfall. Slowly, slowly closer.

Finally, she touched his face, gingerly. As if touching him might burn her. Cheekbone, temple, jaw. Reassuring herself by touch that he was here, alive. As if the evidence of her eyes and ears weren’t enough. A little line appeared between her ash-brown eyebrows. “Is it you? How can it be you?”

Nick slid his other arm around her knees and rose with her in his arms, frowning at how slight she felt.

This next part was going to be…tricky. Before he even got to the part where he convinced her not to go out tonight, which was like climbing Everest, he had to hack his way through thorny woods, ford raging rivers, cross blazing deserts.

Worse. He had to tell her that every word he’d ever spoken to her was a lie.

So he knew he was in for an uphill battle and the best way to deal with that was to tell her the truth—or as much of truth as he could—while touching her.

His words had been lies, but his body hadn’t lied. Not once. Every time he touched her, every time he slid into that lovely, warm, welcoming body, his body’s delight was genuine. No lies there.

Touch is a powerful tranquilizer, soothing animals and soon-to-be furious women. He was going to need every advantage he could get.

He sat them down in the corner of the couch, Charity’s back against his right side, her legs stretched out. Her eyes never left his. One shaking hand was on his shoulder, kneading his shoulder muscle.

“You’re alive,” she whispered finally. It wasn’t a question.

Nick nodded, watching her face. “Yes, sweetheart, I’m alive.”

She blinked and shuddered. “I’m going crazy, like Aunt Vera. You can’t be alive. I buried you. I’m hallucinating.”

“No, you’re not hallucinating. You’re touching me,” Nick said. He bent to kiss her cheek. “You can feel me. I’d pinch you to make you believe, but I don’t want to. I don’t want to hurt you in any way.”

It was exactly the wrong thing to say. She drew in a deep breath and sat up straight in his lap.

Ouch. Right over his hard-on.

Yep. Unbelievably, with all this heavy stuff coming down, danger on the horizon, Apaches outside the gate, he’d got himself a woody.

Her eyes widened. She felt it. For a moment, it was as if everything in the world stopped. They even stopped breathing. There wasn’t a sound in the house or from the street outside. Utter silence reigned as he watched her struggle with the concept of a dead man having a hard-on for her.

This could go either way. Sex between them had been more than good, from the first quick kiss in his car on the way to Da Emilio’s to the last time they had made love on Friday morning. Her body was attuned to his. Though she was small, she had been requiring less and less foreplay for him to fit. Sometimes all it took was a kiss, a touch, and she was ready, wet and swollen and hot. As if simply being near him was foreplay for her.

So he had to watch her eyes very carefully, and if she softened, it was entirely possible that he’d start kissing her and one thing would lead to another, maybe right here on this pretty little couch—it wouldn’t be the first time, either—and he’d say I’m sorry I deceived you, and she’d be looking up at him after coming, all rosy and dewy, and say I forgive you, Nick and he’d say good and by the way, don’t even think of going to that fuckhead Worontzoff’s tonight and she’d go whatever you say, Nick and that would be that.

Charity reared her head back and narrowed her eyes. “Don’t. Don’t even think of going there.”

Then again, maybe not.

“No,” he said. Damn, it would have made things easier, cut through a lot of the crap.

“Who—who did I bury?” Charity whispered.

Nick shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Her mouth tightened and she tried to get out of his arms. No way. She was staying right where she was, with him touching her. He tightened his hold.

“I’m sorry, honey. That’s the honest truth. I don’t know who he was. But he was trying to kill me and I do know who sent him.”

She was barely listening, watching his eyes carefully, as if trying to identify him. She licked dry lips. “Where have you been these past days?

“Here,” he said bluntly. “Mainly outside your house. I slept in a motel about twenty miles from here.”

“Here?” she whispered. Her eyes left his face to wander around the living room, as if seeing her house for the first time. Her gaze locked back onto his face.