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  idea of a nasty joke, but everybody’s going to take it seriously. I can bunk on the couch.”

  He would, she thought, for as long as she needed. “You’ve got a family. I have the dogs.”

  He leaned back. “Do you have anything cold to drink?”

  She cocked her head. “Because you’re thirsty, or because you don’t want to leave me alone?”

  He gave her a hard stare. “You can’t spare a cold drink for a hardworking civil servant?”

  She got up, opened the fridge. “You’re lucky I just hit the market. I have Coke, OJ, bottled water and V8 Splash. Beer, too, but as you’re a hard-working civil servant on duty—”

  “I’ll take the Coke.”

  “Ice and lemon?”

  “Just hand over the can, Fee. Why don’t we take it out on the porch, take advantage of the weather?”

  She got out a second can. “I’m all right on my own, Davey. I’m scared,” she added as they walked toward the front door, “but I feel safer and more secure in my own place than I would anywhere else. I’m carrying my cell phone in my pocket. I’ve done some practicing with my gun—and believe I’ll do more before dark. And you’ll be happy to know that when Simon walked in while I was having my freak-out, the dogs warned him back until I released them.”

  “All good, Fee. I’d just be happier if you had somebody staying with you. Why don’t you call James?”

  The fact that she considered doing just that told her she was shakier than she’d realized. “I don’t know. Maybe—”

  The dogs alerted when they reached the door. Davey nudged her to the side, opened it himself. And nodded when Simon drove back up. “I guess I’ll get going.”

  She’d been tag-teamed, she realized.

  “What about the cold drink and taking advantage of the weather?”

  “I’m taking the drink with me.” He gave her arm a reassuring squeeze before walking out to meet Simon.

  Fiona waited where she stood while the two of them had a brief conversation. Davey got in his car, and Simon slung a small knapsack over his shoulder.

  “I thought you went home.”

  “I did. I had to take care of a couple things and get some stuff. I need some of my stuff since I’m staying over tonight.”

  “You’re staying over tonight?”

  “Yeah.” He took the can of Coke from her, downed some. “If you’ve got a problem with that, too damn bad.”

  Her insides softened as another woman’s might if a man read her a love sonnet. “I guess you’ll expect sex and a hot meal?”

  “Yeah, but you can pick the order.” He handed her back the Coke.

  “I’m a lousy cook.”

  “Luckily you’re good in bed—or wherever.” He shrugged. “Don’t you have any frozen pizza?”

  Still scared, she realized, but she didn’t feel like crying anymore, didn’t have to fight off trembling anymore.

  “I do, but I also have a menu from Mama Mia’s. They’ll deliver for me.”

  “That works.” He started to move by her, into the house, but she turned, stepped into his arms, held hard.

  “Simon.” She murmured it as she relaxed against him. “I have no idea why, but you’re exactly what I need right now.”

  “I don’t know why either.” He tossed the duffel through the open door, then stroked a hand down her back. “You’re really not my type.”

  “That’s because I defy typing.”

  He studied her face when she laughed and leaned back. “Yes, you do.”

  “Let’s take a walk before we order dinner. I need to shake off the last of the jitters.”

  “Then I want a beer.”

  “You know what, so do I. Two walking beers coming up.”

  LATER, THEY SAT on the sofa with a second beer, the fire chasing the evening chill, with a pepperoni pizza in the delivery box between them. Fiona crossed her ankles on the coffee table.

  “You know, I keep telling myself I’m going to start eating like an adult.”

  “We are eating like adults.” Simon blocked Jaws’s attempt to scoot under his legs for a stab at the pie. “Get lost,” he told the dog. “Kids have to eat when and what they’re told,” he continued. “We get to eat when and what we want. Because we’re adults.”

  “That’s true. Plus, I love pizza.” She bit into her slice. “There’s no food to match it. Still, I was actually thinking before . . . before you came by that I’d ask you over to dinner.”

  “Then how come I paid for the pizza?”

  “You got out your wallet; I let you. I was going to ask you over to dinner that I cooked.”

  “You’re a lousy cook.”

  She jabbed him with her elbow. “I was going to make an attempt. Besides, I can grill. In fact, I’m superior on the grill. A couple of good steaks, Idahos wrapped in foil—some vegetable kabobs as a nod to a balanced meal. That’s where I rule.”

  “You cook like a guy.” He picked up a second slice. “I admire that.”

  “I guess I owe you a steak dinner, since you paid for the pizza, and you’re keeping me company tonight. Tell me about leashing the crazy.”

  “It’s not that interesting. Why don’t you have a TV down here?”

  “Because I never watch TV down here. I like to watch it in bed, all sprawled out or nested in. The living room’s for company and conversation.”

  “The bedroom’s for sleeping and sex.”

  “Until recently sex wasn’t that much of a factor, and watching TV in bed helps me fall asleep.” She licked sauce off her thumb. “I know when you’re changing the subject, and it won’t work. I’m interested.”

  “I’ve got an ugly temper. I learned how to keep it under control. That’s it.”

  “Define ugly temper.”

  He took a pull on his beer. “Fine. When I was a kid and something, someone pissed me off, tried to push me around, I’d go off. Fighting was my answer, the bloodier the better.”

  “You liked to brawl.”

  “I liked to kick ass,” he corrected. “There’s a difference. Brawl? There’s something good-natured about that word. I wasn’t good-natured about it. I didn’t pick fights, I didn’t bully other kids, I didn’t look for trouble. But I could find a reason to swing, I could find trouble, no problem. Then the switch would go off.”

  He turned the beer around, idly read the label. “Seeing red? That can be literal. And I’d wade in, and when I waded in, it was to do damage.”

  She could imagine him wading in—his build, those big, hard hands, the hard line of heat she caught in his eye now and then. “Did you ever hurt anyone seriously?”

  “I could have. Probably would have eventually. I got hauled down to the office in school more times than I can count.”

  “I never did. Not bragging,” she added when he turned his head to eye her. “I sort of wish I hadn’t been such a good girl all the damn time.”

  “You were one of those.”

  “Sadly, yes. Keep going. Bad boys are so much more interesting than good girls.”

  “Depends on the girl, and what it takes to bring out the bad.” He reached over, released the top two buttons of her shirt until her bra peeked out. “There you go. Pizza slut. Anyway,” he continued when she laughed, “I got in some trouble, but I never started the fight—and there were always people around to back me up on that. My parents tried different things to channel it. Sports, lectures, even counseling. The thing was, I got decent grades, didn’t smart-mouth teachers.”

  “What changed?”

  “Junior year in high school. I had a rep—and there are always going to be the type who need to challenge the rep. New guy comes along—tough guy. He goes after me; I take him down.”

  “Just like that?”

  “No. It was vicious, on both sides. We hurt each other. I hurt him more. A couple weeks later, he and two of his buddies jumped me. I was with a girl, making out in the park. Two of them held me while he took his shots. She’s screaming for them to
stop, screaming for help, and he’s laughing and beating me until I don’t even feel it anymore. At some point I blacked out.”

  “Oh my God, Simon.”

  “When I came to, they had her on the ground, holding her down. She’s crying, begging. I don’t know if they’d have raped her. I don’t know if they’d have gone that far. But they didn’t get the chance. I went crazy, and I don’t remember any of it. I don’t remember getting up off the ground and going after them. I beat two of them unconscious. The third ran off. I don’t remember any of it,” he repeated, as if it still troubled him. “But I remember coming out of it, out of that red zone, and hearing the girl—a girl I was half in love with—crying and screaming and begging me to stop. I remember the look on her face when I pulled in enough to see her. I’d scared her as much as the ones who jumped me and nearly raped her.”

  Then she was a wimp, in Fiona’s opinion. Instead of screaming and crying, she should’ve run for help. “How badly were you hurt?”

  “Enough for a couple days in the hospital. Two of the three who came at me spent longer. I woke up in the hospital—a world of hurt. I saw my parents sitting together across the room. My mother was crying. You had to practically cut her arm off with a hatchet to make my mother cry, but tears were just running down her face.”

  That, Fiona saw clearly, troubled him more than the memory lapse. That had been the mark that had turned his path. His mother’s tears.

  “And I thought, That’s enough. It’s enough. I leashed the crazy.”

  “Just like that?”

  “No. But eventually. Once you learn how to walk away the first time, or realize the one baiting you is an idiot, it gets easier.”

  So, she thought, that’s where the control had its roots. “What about the girl?”

  “I never made it past second base with her after all. She broke it off,” he added when Fiona said nothing. “I couldn’t blame her.”

  “I can. She should’ve found a big stick and helped you instead of crying. She should’ve grabbed some rocks and started throwing them. She should’ve kissed your goddamn feet for saving her from being mauled and raped.”

  He smiled. “She wasn’t the type.”

  “You have faulty taste in types.”

  “Maybe. Up till now, anyway.”

  She smiled, leaned over the take-out box to kiss him—and flipped open another button on her shirt. “Since I’m tonight’s pizza slut, I say we take the rest of this upstairs, where it’ll be handy if we want some after.”

  “I’m a fan of cold pizza.”

  “I’ve never understood people who aren’t.” She rose, held out a hand for his.

  FOURTEEN

  Simon woke with the sun in his eyes. At home he slept in a cave, shuttering the bedroom windows so he could wake up, get up, whenever the hell he wanted. He considered it, like eating whatever and whenever, a perk of adulthood aided by being self-employed.

  Of course, the dog had changed that, demanding to be let out at questionable hours by jumping on the bed, or licking any body part that might hang over the bed. Or his newest, and fairly creepy, method: standing beside the bed and staring at the human.

  Still, they’d worked out a routine where he let the dog out, stumbled back into bed and caught some more sleep until Jaws wanted in again.

  So where the hell was the dog? And more important, where the hell was Fiona?

  Deciding they were undoubtedly together, Simon grabbed a pillow and put it over his face to block the light so he could sleep.

  No good, he realized in seconds.

  The pillow smelled of her, and her scent drove him crazy. He indulged himself for a moment, just breathing her in while a picture of her formed in his mind. The soft coloring, the sharp features, the long, strong body. The dash of freckles and clear, calm eyes.

  He’d thought if he figured out what there was about her he found so damn compelling, he’d get past it, or around it.

  But now that he had, at least partially, he found himself only more tangled up. Her strength—mind and body—her resilience, her humor and what seemed an almost bottomless well of patience combined with an innate kindness and an easy, almost careless self-confidence.

  He found the mix fascinating.

  He shoved the pillow aside and lay there squinting at the light.

  Her bedroom, he thought, showed a strong, imaginative use of color. The walls glowed a coppery hue in the sunlight and formed a good backdrop for some decent local art—probably picked up at Syl’s. She’d indulged herself with a big iron bed with hints of dark bronze along with that copper, and high, knobbed posts.

  No fuss, he thought. Even the obligatory female bottles and bowls on the dresser had a sense of organization, while the trio of dog beds across the room spoke of her passion and profession.

  Attractive lamps, simple in style, an oversized chair draped with a beautifully made throw—likely Syl’s again. A low cabinet holding books—and he’d bet they were shelved alphabetically—photos, trinkets.

  No clothes tossed around, no shoes left on the floor, no pocket stuff scattered on the dresser.

  How did anyone live like that?

  In fact, he noted, the clothes he’d peeled, tugged and yanked off her the night before were nowhere to be seen, and the clothes she’d peeled, tugged and yanked off him sat neatly folded on the chest under the window.

  And since he was lying there thinking about how she decorated and organized her bedroom, he obviously wasn’t getting any more sleep.

  He used her shower, found it stingy on the pressure and the hot water. Her bathroom, he thought, needed some serious updating. The old fixtures should be replaced, the tile work redone, and the basic layout wasted space.

  Despite what he considered a poor design, it was tidy, organized, scrupulously clean.

  He dropped his towel on the floor, went out into the bedroom to dress. Walked back into the bath, picked up the towel and slung it over the shower rail.

  He dressed, thinking about coffee, then started out of the room. Walked back, snarling a little, and picked up the pillow he’d shoved off his face and onto the floor. Tossed it back onto the bed. Muttered, but pushed his neatly folded clothes into his duffel. Satisfied, he started out again.

  “Goddamn it.” Since he couldn’t shrug off the guilt line between his shoulder blades, he backtracked again, yanked the sheets into some semblance of order, then flipped the bold blue comforter up and over—and considered the bed made.

  Feeling put-upon, he trudged downstairs and decided there better damn sight be coffee.

  It waited for him, hot, fragrant and seductive. Next to a woman, he thought as he sloshed some into a mug, coffee was the best thing a man could consume in the morning.

  He drank, topped off the mug, then went to find the woman and his dog.

  They were in the sunny side yard fooling around on what he thought of as the playground equipment while the other three dogs sprawled on the grass. He leaned against the porch post, drinking his coffee, watching the woman—her stone gray hoodie zipped against the early morning chill while she walked his dog up a teeter-totter.

  It tilted down at his weight when he passed the center, but rather than jump off, as Simon expected, he walked straight down.

  “Good!”

  Jaws got a treat, a pat before she directed him to the tunnel.

  “Go through.” She moved down the outside as he—probably, Simon thought—wound through the inside. He wiggled out the far side.

  After his reward, she turned to a platform. Simon watched his dog leap on command, preen at the praise, then trot down the ramp on the other side and straight to the ladder of the slide.