After rubbing Enzo, the gunman inclined his head at Clare, stuck out his chin at Zach, and faded away. Clare sighed. If Zach let her go, he figured that she would pace restlessly. He hadn’t noted the habit much at her former house, but this house was big enough for her to get a long run going.

You need to nap. The big dog leapt onto the end of the bed.

Zach took her fingers from his thigh, squeezed, and trailed his own up her bare arm. “Yeah, let’s nap.”

You need to nap, too. Enzo stared at Zach.

Clare bit her lip. When her voice came, it quivered. “I know I need to nap.” She put a hand over her stomach. “This is going to be it, the big deal.”

The big deal, Enzo barked.

Dropping a kiss on her head, Zach said, “You can do it.”

She leaned against him, then drew away a bit, eyes fixed on something he couldn’t see—visualizing the future? The apparition of Jack Slade again? Some other demanding specter?

“I will do it.” Her hands fisted. Finally she shuddered and let out a deep breath, and sank back on the thick layered pillows she liked. Her gaze met his. “I’m even more wound up than I was.” She reached out and stroked his chest, dragging her nail gently over his nipples, spiking his arousal. “I think a good release would help us sleep.”

He totally agreed. Zach had had enough of lying in bed alone. He thought he heard caws outside the window and his shoulders tensed. No. This was happening far too often . . . since Montana. Maybe since before then. Since his mistake. Nothing he would analyze now, especially not when Clare came closer and said, “We really need to break in my new bedroom more.” She whirled her hand. “Fill it full of good energy.”

He noted the strain in her eyes. She was a woman completely unused to violence and had been swept into a violent plot. He dealt with violence every day, lived within its confines, and so had the police who’d questioned her, and the counselor who’d stood by her.

She needed this time, this sex, with him more than he realized.

He’d wanted to make love to her tenderly, but nerves fizzed in him, too. He took her chin in one hand and locked gazes with her, while his other hand stroked down her body, found a hard nipple on her plump breast, felt the curve of her hip. He shifted until she was on her back and he on his side. His fingers feathered to the apex of her thighs and she opened for him . . . was damp and his cock thickened, his blood pulsed heavily.

Then she touched his erection, rolling a condom over him that he hadn’t even known she’d had. She curled her fingers around him and he brushed away her hand. “I don’t have much control.” Keeping his breath steady was impossible. He moved over her, slid into her. Perfect.

Her hips arched and his breath caught as he slipped deeper inside her. Need threatened. Soon. Soon. Soon he’d let the reins go.

“Fast and hard would do me,” she said.

Lust simply blew his mind away. He plunged inside her, keeping his eyes open and staring at hers, linked together.

Dimly he heard her cry out and she tightened around him, and he let himself go.

 • • •

Two hours later he opened his eyes, saw that the alarm would sound in a couple of minutes. He’d thrown the incredibly soft sheet off himself, the air-conditioning turned up just enough to make the house a good temp. Gazing down at Clare, who had the sheet up to her neck, Zach thought that she might always have a problem with cold.

She should move to a warmer climate. And that notion made his heart twinge and his dick twitch. But her great-aunt Sandra had lived in Chicago, so Clare should be able to manage Denver.

Besides, she loved this house. Zach was just beginning to let liking for this house sneak under his guard. He’d lived a lot of places when he was growing up, tended to stay no longer than five years at one job since he’d started working as a cop. Had never had a home.

Clare had moved around, too, but he figured this place was definitely home for her.

She woke slowly, blinked up at him, and smiled. Then she sat up and stretched and kissed him. As she glanced out the window, he saw when knowledge and dread came to her eyes at what it was finally time for her to do.

Then she looked over at him and Zach understood with a sickening jolt that his bad knee, the hideous red scars, his foot a little floppy and unable to flex, were bare to her sight. He froze. She shifted toward him. The view of her naked breasts swaying distracted him, fuzzed his mind until she sat cross-legged, another fine view, and stroked his scars with her fingertips.

“Oh, Zach, how much pain this caused you.”

He just couldn’t move away; he was immobile under those light touches.

“And how it hurt you,” she crooned.

“It destroyed my life.”

Sighing, she continued to caress, meeting his eyes with a sad smile. “What a pair we are.” She tapped her temple. “My ‘gift’ wounded me, ruined my life. It just happened on the inside and doesn’t show as much on the outside.”

“You’re stronger for it,” he said. “Wiser.”

Even in the dim light he saw her roll her eyes.

He went on, “This . . . gift . . . you received didn’t ruin you. It enriched you. . . .” He let more truth out into the world, words he needed to say aloud. “And my injury didn’t wreck my life, just my career. I was stupid and I paid.”

Clare angled her chin, but her lips still curved in that half smile. “And I spent my life ignoring what Great-Aunt Sandra might have taught me, rebelling against the craziness of my parents and her ‘weirdness.’ I could have accepted earlier, could have learned, could have been prepared.”

“We are a pair,” he said.

Her gaze was straight as she continued to pet him. “This finished your career, but it’s made you stronger, Zach.” A breath that lifted her full breasts. “I’m glad I met you now.”

“Yes.”

Enzo barked, breaking the moment. Time to go.

Clare leapt off the bed. “I need a brief shower. I’ll be ready in under fifteen minutes.” She gestured to a curvy love seat where Zach now saw she’d laid out her clothes: new jeans, a silk blouse and light leather jacket, buffed hiking boots. Incredible.

“I can’t go face that situation without looking my best!” She hurried to the master bath.

“I’ll get the ears,” Zach said, and grinned at her expected squeal.

But when he swung his legs from the bed to the floor, he saw that the scars weren’t as red as before, and his left foot dropping and brushing the plush oriental carpet as he walked felt sensual, almost acceptable.

Clare made good on her word, and she and Zach and Enzo were out of the house in under fifteen minutes, along with the cooler full of snacks, drinks, and chicken strips, and her overnight bag containing her tablet and some clothes.

When Zach put her bag in the compartment behind the truck seats, Clare noticed he had the duffel he usually carried there, the one that had come and gone at her place. The one she’d insisted he take with him that morning—so very long ago! And so very much change happening to her so very fast. She wasn’t the same woman as she’d been even that morning.

But they’d cleared the air, for now, between them.

She’d offered to share driving time with Zach, but he turned her down and gripped the wheel a little harder. Since she had a brother who insisted on driving instead of letting her help, she settled back in her seat, only a little disgruntled. That was a minor battle for another day, though she noticed Zach drove a consistent seven miles over the speed limit.

Enzo curled up near her, but she didn’t pet him. From what she understood her role would be, she’d be interacting deeply with Jack Slade, freezing and in color. Why hadn’t she realized that the shawls Great-Aunt Sandra draped herself in weren’t only for show?