Want.

“Zach!” She lifted herself, pressing them center to center, rubbing his erection. Not so low a groan now, especially when he saw her breasts so close to his face. Nice and full. Like her mouth, fuller from passion now?

“Zach.” Low and whispery. A choked sob.

What the hell?

“I can’t do this now.”

“Do what?” he croaked, and he focused on her face just in time to see a tear run down her cheek and drip onto him.

Crying! Sexual hunger! Emotions clashed inside him.

“It’s just too soon. And I’m not a tease, I swear. I’m sorry.” She arched backward again, causing him to grunt, set his teeth, and hang on to control so he wouldn’t embarrass himself, as she began to leave him.

Leave. Him.

No. And not just because he wanted sex. This was the first time in too many months that someone had actually held him close, touched him more than just for medical reasons, or for a few seconds, or with more than affection. He needed that. He needed more of Clare.

“My fault,” he said, his own gritty words surprising him. He rarely apologized, but he needed her touch, her emotions spilling out onto him, her genuineness. So she saw ghosts; she also had given him something he needed every time they met. Respect? Tenderness? Acceptance without questions? He’d bet she still hadn’t run a search on him. He tightened his arms around her waist. “Stay, please.” Then he loosened his grip so she could go if she insisted.

“You’re aroused.”

A laugh, a little painful. “Oh, yeah, but this isn’t just about sex.” That truth actually came out of his mouth. Geez.

Right thing to say, though; she gave one more of those long sighs and subsided back on top of him, her head turning to lie against his shoulder. Back where she belonged. For now. Zach stuck the burning of unsatisfied lust into a corner of his mind as his brain came more online. “Tough day.” He stroked her back.

She sniffled and he snagged a tissue from the coffee table, dabbing at the silver tear trails on her cheek. “Epic day,” she said, her body trembled a bit.

After a moment’s silence, probably as she went over the day as Zach tried to relax, she said, “But, all in all, we did good.”

He grunted. “That’s right. Bottom line”—he resisted cupping her ass—“we did good.”

“Yes.” She took the tissue from him. Her breathing had slowed, her own body becoming more lax. She stroked his face and his dick surged and his heart squeezed. He listened to his heart.

“You got the bad guys.”

“We got the bad guys.”

Long breaths from her now, and he knew that she must not have been sleeping well. Disturbing dreams had hit him the night before, too.

Minute by minute, her trembling went away.

She cleared her throat. “Why did you become a police officer?”

His mind had been drifting and that yanked it back, focused him, thrust him into a choice. Leave now and break whatever moment they shared. She’d feel rejected.

He discovered that would hurt them both.

The quiet summer night wafted peace around them.

“Zach?”

So he tried to relax, petted her, as he dredged up words of the old story he rarely told. “We’d just moved to a new base and Jim and I had unpacked, done all the regular things that Mom and the lieutenant colonel insisted on, and I wanted to explore. We were finally . . . in the D.C. area.”

“Jim?”

“My older brother.” He couldn’t believe he was talking about Jim, about this. About that epic day. But her serenity was sinking into him. Her breathing had slowed.

Their heartbeats had slowed, too. He could feel hers now. And after a few beats, she said, “Go on.”

“I wanted to explore. Go off base this time. I was twelve—old enough, I thought—and had been told the next time we moved I’d get the privilege of being able to go off base.” The smell of her was twining around him again, becoming more important than the events of the past. Really good.

“But my father got an unexpected promotion and we moved sooner than our parents had anticipated.” He’d have shrugged, but that took too much energy.

Now he let out a long breath, and much of the tension of the day went with it.

“My father didn’t want me to go. I argued with him. With Jim.” He paused, didn’t know how much she was paying attention, but now that he’d started the story, he wanted to end it. “A lot of times it was just me and Jim against everyone else,” he murmured. The moving, the many new schools, the expectations of them by everyone, from their parents to other kids on the base.

“Mmm-hmm.”

“I waited, sneaked out, and wandered, but didn’t actually go off base.” Now the inevitable climax of the story had come, had jerked him into wakefulness. The tension was back, and he had to force the next words from his throat. He hadn’t talked about this since his time with the last family therapist, years ago.

Clare touched his cheek. Yeah, he wanted her on his chest and more than just tonight, so he’d better suck it up and get the other thing off his chest. “I didn’t sneak off base.” He’d respected his brother enough that he just walked around the perimeter. Unfortunately, Jim had believed Zach’s resentful threats. “But everyone thought I might have, and Jim went off to look for me. He headed into the city where he and I had discussed we’d go first. Was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

One. Deep. Breath. “And got shot. Died. He was sixteen.”

The first shot that had wrecked Zach’s life. Ruined his family.

Worse than the one that had crippled him and ended his career.

“Gang stuff. His killer was never found. So I became a cop.”

“Oh, oh!” Sounded like she wept again. For him. Too emotional a day for her, he guessed. He felt the swish of the tissue as she wiped tears away, heard a delicate blowing of the nose. Ladylike.

“Jim was the . . . glue . . . of the family, the one we all loved best. When he was gone, we were gone.” Zach’s throat went scratchy, achy. No, he would not think of those terrible days after Jim’s death. Because they stung, he closed his eyes. Definitely hadn’t gotten enough sleep last night, and strained his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Clare whispered, sifting her fingers through his hair, rubbing his scalp. Simple tenderness and caretaking. From a woman who could become more than lover, a friend.

She hadn’t left him, and now she put her face against his neck, skin to skin with animal comfort, her breath flowing gently, deepening as she slid into sleep.

Zach didn’t move. The story was done; the past was past. Even today’s images tagged with jumbled emotions were past, over. Along with Clare’s breathing, he noticed the continuing song of the crickets. A coolness wrapped around his feet, eased the heated ache of his bad foot. The front door remained open, the breeze freshened into cool gusts. Too tired to move, letting peace sink into him, his muscles loosen, he put his arms around Clare. Yeah, very nice that he had someone near, to sleep with, that simple animal comfort again. He let the night take him.

He woke to a howl and opened his eyes to see an apparition, a man of shadows dressed in an old-fashioned suit drifting toward him—them. Zach’s arms tightened reflexively around Clare.

Blinking, he studied the whites and grays and blacks, scouring his memory for why this . . . being . . . looked familiar.

Clare gasped, and he knew she’d wakened. She gripped Zach’s shoulders, lifted her head.

“Jack Slade,” she said.

TWENTY-ONE

ZACH JUST STARED. He’d only seen the profile drawing of the guy, but as the specter turned, he knew she was right.