But the dreams were worsening.

She knew she needed this change. She’d been clinging to the thought that work would be the solution, but she’d felt so…helpless this afternoon.

The accident, the woman being run down right in front of her—she’d tried so hard to call for help, and nothing had come.

She’d seen the doubt in Huston’s eyes. One of the guys must have reported in about her visit that afternoon. It was readily apparent that she wasn’t ready to go back to fieldwork. If she wouldn’t be allowed to do anything but drive a desk, that would make her stir-crazy.

Getting away, being alone, appealed so much. She was tired of people trying to help. Of being babysat, and chauffeured, and looked at with pity. And suspicion. She couldn’t help but read the subtext of her day—Taylor, we love you, but you’re just not ready. Maybe they had a point. And face it, people got hurt when she was around, whether they were strangers, friends or lovers.

Some time alone might help her find a way to forgive herself. And maybe, find a way to forgive Baldwin. At this point, she was prepared to try most anything.

How to tell Baldwin that she wanted to go to Scotland without him—that was the problem. She didn’t feel right about it. She knew Memphis was interested in more than friendship, and that was the biggest thorn in the plan.

Memphis. With his ridiculously blue eyes and obvious hunger for her.

If she could just let go of the idea of them together, none of this would matter. She could go to Scotland, conscience clear, and get some much-needed away time from her life.

Memphis was the only one who treated her like she was still Taylor, not some shell of a being. It was…nice.

He’d be a gentleman. She’d make sure of it. Besides, she was a big girl. She knew how to handle herself. If Memphis got frisky, she’d knee him in the balls.

The thought made her laugh.

She was shivering now. Reluctantly, she about-faced and headed for the house. Back to reality. Baldwin would be waiting, a hopeful expression on his face. He would make her food, ply her with wine. He had gotten her drunk one night and made love to her, and she’d said his name at the end, softly, but there, full in her mouth, and he’d held her so tight she could barely breathe.

Things weren’t right between them, not at all, but she needed him. He was a part of her soul, as important to her as her hands. But she needed him to understand her hurt, to understand her desire for a little time apart. She loved him desperately, but looking at him just reminded her of his betrayal. If she hadn’t been shot, hadn’t been through the horror of the surgeries and the dysphonia, she would have cut off her nose to spite her face and stopped talking to him. This seemed a better punishment, forcing him to watch her struggle.

She had faced the abyss, and turned away, not accepting its lure, and yet here she was, still being penalized.

Two words. That’s all she really needed to hear from him. Two words that he danced around.

God, if he would just say I’m sorry.

CHAPTER TEN

Baldwin watched Taylor walking down the street toward the drive. Why she was on foot, he didn’t know, unless she and Sam had words and Taylor bolted from the car. Which was entirely possible. Taylor was a cactus with everyone these days.

He thoughtfully chewed the end of a pencil. She was truly struggling, and he’d tried everything. She wasn’t letting him in, and after four weeks of begging and pleading to let him help her, he was still getting the big brush-off. He was getting tired of her obstinacy, but didn’t know what else to do. And he had his own demons to wrestle.

He watched her stop and glance up at the window. He waved and she waved back. She looked almost happy for the first time in weeks. Maybe things would be all right tonight. He smiled at her, then went back to his desk. Felt like he was turning his back on her. Maybe he was.

His chest was heavy. He was losing her. And after watching her get shot, going down on the floor in a bloody heap, then praying for days that she’d wake up, that she’d be normal, then the constant fighting…all the tension had drained him. She wasn’t exactly giving him a lot to work with—the occasional smile, a laugh here or there. Some emails and handwritten notes.

She’d pulled into herself, shut him out. He knew she was angry and upset. Hell, he didn’t blame her. But he also felt like she was being unfair. She was fighting her own battle, and not giving him any consideration. He was beginning to have his doubts that she loved him enough to forgive him. He should have told her, yes. But she was carrying the grudge like a mantle, swinging it from end to end with bull’s horns.

She couldn’t experience the emotions he was feeling. How could she? It was his son that was missing.

His son. He’d only found out about him last year, when the child had just turned four years old. The boy’s mother, Charlotte Douglas, was dead. Their affair was a momentary fling during a high-pressure case, and when she’d gotten pregnant, she told him she’d aborted their child.

And he, damn himself, had believed her. Stopped speaking to her, fled to Nashville. He hadn’t seen her in years.

Charlotte had carried and delivered the child in secret, gotten him adopted out, and never told Baldwin of the boy’s existence. All Baldwin wanted was to find his son and bring him home.

Charlotte hadn’t named the boy on the birth certificate. Another slap. Baldwin knew he shouldn’t be getting so emotionally involved—this was the kind of situation that often ended badly, but he couldn’t help himself. He’d never wanted kids, but suddenly felt the need for family. For permanence. For marriage. Three kids and a dog, no. But something to anchor him to an otherwise elusive world.

He thought Taylor wanted that, too, but the shooting seemed to shake something loose inside her.

Baldwin needed to let that all go for the time being. He had an emergency meeting to attend. Atlantic had sent word that he needed Baldwin, immediately.

His contact was currently eight hours ahead of him, and an early riser. He got into his address book and started dialing numbers. Getting in touch with his handler was a process—phone calls, codes, paging services, emails—all designed to bounce off multiple servers and systems and be nigh on impossible to track.

Atlantic wasn’t CIA, or MI-6, or Mossad, or any other official agency. Atlantic ran people from them all from behind the scenes, an agent here, an agent there. Covert missions that were performed by operatives from all branches of the intelligence services across the world on a need-to-know basis. Missions that were so top secret that they simply didn’t exist.

Baldwin finished dialing, then sat back and listened to the bells and beeps and whirrs that told him he was being routed through a secure line. The computer screen came to life, and Atlantic popped up like the Wizard of Oz, his disembodied bald head pixilated into submission.

“Good evening, M,” Baldwin said.

“Being a smart-ass will get you nowhere, my boy.”

Atlantic’s gaze was as cold and frigid as the ocean, a genetic anomaly that made his blue eyes abnormally light, like a Siberian Husky. Baldwin had finally figured out Atlantic’s heritage: he’d thought the man Belgian for a time, but moving farther east into Eurasia gave him what he was looking for. Baldwin was convinced Atlantic was a full-blood Ainu, the indigenous Japanese, who are often mistaken for Caucasians. The blue eyes were the giveaway; they couldn’t belong to any creature that wasn’t half-tied to the beginnings of the earth. Atlantic was a big man, broad through the shoulders and torso. His fingers were like sausages, with precisely trimmed and buffed square nails. Baldwin had no doubt that Atlantic could choke the life from a man with one hand while examining the other for hangnails. He was ice.