As she lifted her eyes, she had her professional smile in place—but promptly lost the expression.

Standing in front of her was a male about six feet, seven inches tall, with shoulders as wide as a doorway, and a jaw that was straight as an arrow. He had some kind of windbreaker on, even though it was cold enough for a proper coat, and no gloves.

And then there was the Orange ball cap and those jeans.

“May I help you?” she asked.

The brim of that hat was so low, she couldn’t see his eyes, but she could feel the impact of them.

“I’m here about the training program.”

His voice was very deep and surprisingly quiet. Given his physical size, she would have expected something much louder.

“The training program?”

“For the Black Dagger Brotherhood’s soldiers.”

“Oh, yes. I know, but it’s not—I mean, it’s not here. At this house.”

As he looked around, she tried to catch sight of his eyes. “I know,” he said. “I mean, I need an application, and I thought there might be one here.”

“There was an e-mail that went out. Would you like me to forward it to you?”

“I, ah . . .” He glanced around again. Shoved his hands into the pockets of those jeans. “Do you have an application that’s printed out?”

“I can just send you the whole thing right now—what’s your e-mail address?”

As he seemed to focus on the wall behind her head, she decided that his hair was dark. Dark and very short.

“I don’t have an e-mail address,” he said softly.

Paradise blinked. “Hotmail is free.”

“It’s okay,” the male said, taking a step back. “I’ll find another way to get one.”

“Wait.” She opened up the desk drawer. “Here. Take mine—I mean, this one.”

He hesitated. Reached a long arm over. Accepted what she had previously taken out of the wastepaper basket.

“Thanks.” He glanced down and frowned—at least, she thought he was frowning. “This one is already filled in at the top?”

As he passed it back to her, she cursed. “Sorry. I . . . let me print you out a fresh one.”

Clicking through with her mouse, she signed into her e-mail, got Peyton the Jerk’s forward, opened the attachment, hit print.

As the machine behind the desk woke up and started whirring, the male put the application down on her desk. “You’re going into the program?”

Great. Like she needed to get The Lecture from a complete stranger.

She snatched the paperwork back. “Females are allowed to join, you know. It’s in the e-mail. We can join—”

“I think you should. Even if you choose not to fight, I think females should be trained—you don’t know when or under what circumstances you might have to protect yourself. It’s only logical.”

Paradise just stared up at him. “I . . .” She cleared her throat. “I happen to agree with you.”

As the printer fell quiet, she pivoted in her chair and took the warm pages off the top of the HP. There was no real need to paper-clip, staple, or otherwise tie them together, but she made work out of pulling open another drawer and rifling around for something from OfficeMax.

“You can bring them back here,” she said when she handed them over. “Once you’ve filled them out, I can give them to the Brothers.”

He folded the application once and put it inside his thin windbreaker. “Thank you.”

And then he took his ball cap off and bowed to her.

As he straightened, she got a better look at him, and file that under OMG.

Make that OMFG.

His eyes were a perfect sky blue, deeply set, with dark brows and lashes. His face was hollow-cheeked, because he was a little too lean, but that just set off the masculine bone structure. And his mouth was . . .

If he’d gotten her attention before, he pretty much knocked her on her ass now.

Thank God for her chair.

“What’s your name?” she blurted as he turned away.

He put his ball cap back on. “Craeg.”

She got to her feet and stuck out her hand. “I’m Paradise—well, you probably know that already, because you read the thing I’d filled in.”

Great, she was babbling.

“Nice to meet you, Craeg,” she prompted when he made no move toward her.

He nodded once, and then walked out, leaving her palm hanging there in the breeze.

Flushing, she sat back down—and realized that ooooooh, about five people had witnessed that whole exchange. And were now busy thumbing through issues of People and Time magazine, trying to look busy. One of the older males even picked up an entire Caldwell Courier Journal and put it up to his face.

Well, she could play at the pretend-to-be-busy thing, too.

Making all kinds of tapping noises on her keyboard, she tried to camo the full-body fluster she had going on.

She’d never seen him before. Like, ever. So maybe he had just come over from the Old Country—except what were the chances of that? The vast majority of the population had been in and around Caldwell for how long? Plus no accent. So he must be . . . well, a stranger, obviously. But he had to be a member of the aristocracy if he’d heard about the training program, right?

Glancing over at the archway he’d come through, she found herself wishing he would hand-deliver that application back.

Who was he—

“Paradise?”

She jumped. And focused on her father, who’d come out of nowhere. “Yes?” Realizing her voice sounded too close to normal, and she was supposed to still be angry at him, she cleared her throat. “What may I do for you?”

Like he was simply another person she was taking care of.

“I just wanted to inquire how you were doing?”

His affect was nothing aggressive. Instead, he seemed so worried—damn it. She wanted to keep being angry at him.

She sighed. “I’m fine, Father.”

“You’re doing such a marvelous job. Truly. Everything is running so smoothly. The King is so pleased—I am so proud.”

See, this was just like him. It was impossible to be pissy when you were confronted by this . . . this earnest, his-version-of-an-apology stuff.

“May I bring you something to eat or drink?”

“You’re not a doggen, Father.”

“Perhaps you need a break?”

“No.” She rolled her eyes. Got to her feet. Walked around to him. “You drive me nuts.”

She gave him a hug because that was what he was looking for. Then she stepped back. “Oster, son of Sanye, is next.”

As she indicated the gentlemale in question, and the civilian got to his feet, her father gave her hand a squeeze and then reassumed his official duties.

Following his example, she sat down again. Looked at the computer in front of her. And still felt caged.

But what was she going to do? Even though he technically couldn’t stop her—she was of age, and there had been no specification on the application that a female had to get a male elder to approve the submission—she nonetheless found herself paralyzed.

It was hard to rebel against your parents when there was only one left.

And he was all you had in this world.

Selena hated pretty much everything about the exam, the blood draw, the X-ray process. And she felt bad about that. It wasn’t that Doc Jane was anything less than perfectly gentle and very kind. But to be in one of those hospital johnnies, getting poked and prodded, twisted and pictured, was like having the countdown to some kind of detonation happen right in front of you.

Plus, she hated the fake-lemon antiseptic they had to use on everything.

And the fact that she was cold even after they put a blanket over her legs.

And then there was that bright light hanging over her head.

Mostly, though, it wasn’t the external environment that was hard to put up with. It was the internal screaming that she found she had to hold in through force of will.

“Okay, I think that’s our last X-ray,” Doc Jane said from over by the desk.