Jeff awakened shortly before dawn. He jerked out of a sound sleep only to find himself right where he was supposed to be-in his bedroom. It was nearly a full second before he was able to register two important facts: he hadn't had the dream and he wasn't alone.
He didn't know which startled him more. After he and Ashley had made love the previous evening, they'd slipped under the covers. He'd held her close, fully expecting to spend another night staring at the ceiling, not daring to close his eyes and experience the nightmare. Instead he'd drifted off without being haunted by the specters of his past.
He turned toward the feminine warmth pressing against him, only to find Ashley watching him. She smiled slowly.
"Good morning."
Her voice was velvet, her body silk. He found himself instantly aroused by her presence and the acceptance he saw in her eyes.
"How'd you sleep?" he asked, turning toward her and touching her cheek.
"Really well." She hesitated. "At the risk of starting your day with the words every man hates to hear… we have to talk."
Her hair was a mess. Dark curls teased at her face and shot out in every direction like an uneven halo. Her skin was slightly flushed and the scent of their lovemaking clung to the sheets. Her need to have a conversation didn't disturb what he considered a perfect moment.
He knew what she was going to say. A casual relationship with him wasn't her style. This wasn't sensible; they had to end it. He told himself that he didn't mind. The past two nights had been more than he'd expected. They would be enough.
"Talk away," he said easily, propping his head on one hand.
"Oh, sure. Make me be the one." She flopped onto her back, then turned her head toward him. "Jeff, what are we doing?"
He wanted to say they had been sleeping and now they were having a discussion, but he knew that wasn't exactly what she meant. "What would you like us to be doing?"
"If anyone else gave me that answer, I would instantly accuse the man of hedging, but I suspect you're asking because you genuinely want to know. Am I right?"
He nodded. She wanted to talk about them. About their potentially mutual goals and desires. He didn't have either-at least none that included a normal relationship with a very nice woman.
She pressed her lips together. "I'm going to take a wild guess here and say that I think you're out of your element with me. Am I right?"
He nodded again. Now it was his turn to settle onto his back.
"Jeff, is there anyone special in your life?"
He knew what she was asking. "No. I wouldn't be here with you if there was."
"That's what I thought but I had to be sure." She slid her hand toward him under the covers and lightly touched his arm. "Has there been anyone special recently?"
He thought about the question. Recently there had been no one. "No. There hasn't been anyone in my life since Nicole."
And in an odd way, Nicole hadn't been in his life at all. The young man she'd married had disappeared in a matter of months. By their second anniversary, it was as if that Jeffrey Ritter had never existed.
He saw now that he shouldn't have married her. Or having married her, he shouldn't have gone into Special Forces. He'd changed so much so quickly. Their marriage had never had a chance. As for other women since then, they had existed but not the way Ashley meant. They had been nameless, faceless companions of the night. Strangers who welcomed him for an hour or a day. One woman had hung on for nearly two weeks.
"I haven't been with anyone since Damian," Ashley confessed. She shifted, curling against him. "There were a few guys before I met him, but I was pretty young then. It didn't really count."
"You're still pretty young."
"Jeff!"
He looked at her as she raised herself up on one elbow. "I'm twenty-five. That's hardly a baby."
"I'm thirty-three."
"So what? That makes you an old man?"
He was older than she could know. He'd seen so much that no one should ever see.
She sighed and settled back against him. He could feel her bare breast pressing against his arm. "You make me crazy," she murmured. "You're not that old."
"If you say so."
"I do. Besides, that wasn't the point. Damian was the first man I'd ever been with, which makes you the second."
Her words stunned him. He heard them and turned them over in his brain without having a clue as to what to do with them.
"Ashley?"
"Yeah, yeah, I get it. More than you wanted to know."
"Why did you tell me?"
"Because…" She pressed her lips to his bare arm. "Because I want you to know that I think what we have is very special. I think you're special."
She thought they had something. A relationship? Was that possible? He wanted to tell her that he didn't know how, that he wasn't safe. That this wasn't safe. Not for either of them.
"I didn't want this," she continued. "Getting involved, I mean. Based on how you live your life, I'm guessing you didn't want it, either. Which means we should probably assume it's just hormones and that whatever it is will pass."
He risked looking at her and nearly lost himself in her beautiful eyes. "What didn't you want?"
She smiled. "The complication. The attraction. I spent yesterday being completely schizophrenic-bouncing between grinning like an idiot and promising myself I would end this immediately."
So she'd been feeling the same things he had. "If you planned on telling me it was over last night, the lace nightgown was a mixed message."
"I know." Her smile faded. "Jeff, neither of us wants this. The timing is bad, it's confusing. There are probably a hundred reasons to pretend it never happened, but that's not what I want."
"What do you want?"
She settled her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes. "To play it by ear. To enjoy my time with you without getting too personally involved or getting hurt."
Until it's time for me to leave.
She didn't say those last words, but he heard the message and knew she was correct. They could pretend for now. Pretend that they were allowed to be lovers and act like other people. But they both knew the truth. Eventually she would walk away from him because he could never give her what she needed and deserved. And he would let her go because to keep her in his world meant being distracted. One mistake on an assignment could easily be the end of him and the client.
"I need to keep my own room," she said. "So Maggie doesn't get confused. I don't want her to know about this. I thought I'd plan on heading back there before she wakes up."
She was talking about spending her nights with him. Of them being together in the same bed for hours at a time. Not just making love, but holding and touching and sleeping together. Longing filled him. A need to inhale the scent of her and be with her until the memories were so strong that he could never forget.
"So what do you think?" she asked. She opened her eyes and looked at him. "You haven't said what you want."
He knew this was all pretend, but it was more than he had ever had, so it was enough. "I want to make you happy," he said. "I want to do whatever you would like."
She grinned. "Really?"
He turned her onto her back and slid one thigh between hers. "Absolutely anything."
"How wonderful," she murmured. "I'll give you a list of requests tonight."
"Why don't we start right now?"
"Mommy, I found one!" Maggie squealed with delight, then held up a brightly colored yellow plastic egg. "Uncle Jeff, look!"
"How many is that?" he asked.
Maggie glanced into her basket. "Four," she said with a reverence generally used by chronic shoppers at a twice-yearly sale.
Ashley smiled at her daughter and fought against an unexplained urge to cry. Her eyes began to burn and her throat tightened. She blinked rapidly until her wayward feelings were under control.
Her weakened emotional state was easy to explain, she thought as she sat next to Jeff on the rear step of his house. Ever since she was twelve years old, she'd been fighting to keep her world together. First she'd had to deal with her sister's death and the subsequent loss of her mother. Then she'd struggled to keep afloat in the foster home system. She'd managed to graduate from high school and start college, only to find herself in love with a charming loser who had no business being a husband let alone a father. Then she'd been a single mother, barely able to keep her world together.
For the past thirteen years, life had been one challenge after another. For the first time since the trouble all started, Ashley had a chance to relax and just breathe. Thanks to her job as Jeff's housekeeper and the part-time accounting work she did, she actually had a savings account. She was current in her studies, every day her graduation from college was that much closer, Maggie was happy and healthy and they had a very impressive roof over their heads.
All because of Jeff.
Ashley glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. He'd dressed for church in a beautiful navy suit, but she happened to know that shortly after six that morning, he'd been outside in jeans and a sweatshirt, hiding Easter eggs. He'd concealed them just enough that Maggie wouldn't think the Easter bunny had gone soft on her, yet she was finding every single one of the plastic eggs.
Last night Jeff had helped Ashley prepare the eggs, filling the hollow plastic with chocolates, stickers and gaudy Day-Glo rings. He was growing on her; he was growing on them both.
Ashley recognized the danger signs. It wasn't just that Jeff made love to her every night with an attention to detail that left her breathless. Somehow the three of them had created rituals. Jeff and Maggie went grocery shopping twice a week. Fridays were movie-and-popcorn nights, complete with a rented Disney video and plenty of cuddling on the sofa. Jeff had watched Maggie two evenings before Ashley's last set of midterms.
He always asked about both their days, listening intently as if the information were essential to world peace. Or maybe it was just essential to his own well-being. He talked about work, explaining he had a business trip to the Mediterranean late the following month, and kept her updated on the performance of the new recruits.
"Six!" Maggie hollered as she held up another plastic egg.
Jeff stood. "Well done, young lady. Most impressive. As I believe the quota for each child is six eggs per Easter bunny visit, you've found them all."
"Really?" Maggie's blue eyes glowed with pride. "Mommy, I found them all!"
"You are a very clever little girl," Ashley said, holding out her arms to her daughter.
Maggie ran to her for a hug, then turned to Jeff and held up her free arm. The tall, dangerous man bent low and scooped the child into his arms. Ashley's heart tightened in her chest. Both she and her daughter had it bad. Jeff no longer scared them, if he'd ever scared Maggie. He was kind and gentle and he paid attention. How was she supposed to resist him?
Jeff headed for the back door. Ashley rose and followed. He was so good with her daughter. How tragic that he couldn't have children of his own. He would be the best kind of father. Nicole had been wrong to tell him he wasn't human. Jeff Ritter was very much a man-as flawed and frail as the next. But he was also decent.
She stepped into the kitchen where Maggie and Jeff had already opened several of the plastic eggs to discover the goodies inside. Her daughter laughed with excitement over a bright orange ring in the shape of a daisy. She looked up at her mother and grinned.
"This is the bestest Easter ever. Can we go to church now, and then to Brenda's where I can see Muffin again?"
Ashley nodded and held out her hand. "Let's put on our Easter dresses and get all pretty for Uncle Jeff."
Maggie clasped her hands together in front of her chest. "We have hats," she said happily.
Jeff raised his eyebrows. Ashley smiled. "I know it's silly, but it's a tradition. New Easter hats."
"I can't wait to see them."
His gaze met hers. Ashley's heart squeezed a little tighter. In that moment she knew that she'd fallen for Jeff. Fallen hard and fast with no hope of walking away without being crushed.
"Why is everyone staring?" Ashley asked in a low voice as they walked through Brenda's house in Bellevue.
Jeff had also noticed the interested looks they were receiving. He put his hand on the small of Ashley's back. "It's because you're so lovely."
She glanced up at him and laughed. "Yeah, right."
He took in her dark, wavy hair, the hazel eyes that seemed to see down to his soul, the way her mouth turned up slightly at the corners. She wore a cream-colored dress with long sleeves. The heavy fabric outlined her curves, falling gracefully to her calves. Atop her head sat a small scrap of lace and fabric that could only be called a hat under the loosest of interpretations. She looked beautiful and elegant and he couldn't believe they were here together.
"Maybe it's you," she murmured. "After all, you're not so bad looking yourself."
"I'm sure that's it."
She chuckled and took a glass of orange juice from a tray circulated by a tuxedo-clad waiter.
Brenda's house was spacious. Her husband had joined Microsoft in the days when the computer firm was little more than a start-up. Their wealth was reflected in the elegant furniture and attractive artwork. But while Ashley admired the decorator touches, Jeff counted exits and planned escape routes. He knew there was no point, but old habits died hard.
"So tell me about this brunch," Ashley said. "She goes all out."
"It's a yearly tradition." He glanced around the crowded living room. "Most of the employees from the security company are here, along with a lot of people from her husband's work. The rest are friends and family."
"Do you come often?"
"No."
He didn't bother to tell her that this was the first time he'd attended. That combined with him showing up with a gorgeous woman and her daughter explained all the attention they attracted, but he wasn't about to tell Ashley that, either. From what he could figure out, she thought of him as relatively normal. He didn't want to do anything to change her opinion before circumstances did it for him.
"Well, well, fancy seeing you here."
Jeff held in a groan. Fate hadn't taken long to burst his bubble, he thought as he turned to greet his partner.
Zane Rankin stood with a young woman clinging to his arm. She was in her early twenties, with long blond hair and a chest so large, it threatened her ability to stay upright. Her scrap of a dress barely covered her from breasts to thighs.
Jeff turned and shook hands with his partner, then introduced Ashley. Zane's date, Amee-"No y just a double e"-giggled.
"Zane says you're really dangerous, like him. That you could kill someone with your bare hands."
Jeff shot Zane a death look that was depressingly ineffective. "This isn't the sort of place I can demonstrate that," he said coldly.
"Oh." The young woman glanced around at the crowd. "I guess not. It's Easter. I guess we have to be nice to each other today, you know?" She cuddled against Zane. "Maybe you can tell me about it later."
Zane leaned close her to ear. "Honey, I'll give you a personal tour of the vulnerable areas."
Amee giggled again. She disentangled her arm and touched Ashley's hand. "I have to go to the little girl's room. Want to come?"
Ashley shot Jeff a helpless look before following the other woman out of the living room.
Jeff glared at his partner. "Just once I'd like to see you with a woman whose IQ was slightly larger than her chest."
Zane grinned. "My normal response to that would be to say that I'd like to see you with a woman. But you're with one. I'm surprised, Jeff. And impressed. What you lack in quantity, you make up for in quality."
"Thank you."
Maggie raced toward him, a moplike ball of fur tagging along. "Uncle Jeff, Brenda said I can brush Muffin and we're going to watch a movie together."
She raised her arms as she approached and he automatically swept her up against his chest. Muffin raised herself up on her back feet, her front paws scrambling against his legs as if she, too, wanted to be picked up.
Zane raised his dark eyebrows. "Uncle Jeff, why don't you introduce me to this lovely young woman?"
Jeff would rather have left the brunch. Too many people were watching him, talking about the shock of seeing him with a child. He knew they were right, that he had no business being with an innocent like Maggie. But for reasons that weren't clear to him, the little girl wasn't afraid. He hoped he didn't do anything to change that.
"This is Maggie," he said. "Ashley's daughter. Maggie, this is Zane Rankin. I work with him."
Maggie's blue eyes widened. "Uncle Jeff is very important. He keeps bad men away. Do you do that, too?"
"Sure," Zane said easily. "But Uncle Jeff is the best."
Maggie snuggled close to him. "I know." She pressed her tiny rosebud mouth against his cheek, then motioned for him to put her down. "Muffin really wants to see the movie," she explained, gave him a quick wave, then disappeared into the crowd.
As soon as they were alone, Zane's gaze turned speculative. "I hadn't realized you and the kid were so close."
Jeff shrugged. "She's pretty easy to like."
What he didn't say was that Maggie terrified him. He didn't want to do anything to hurt her and the knowledge that he could was just one more thing that kept him up nights.
Zane looked as if he wanted to say something else, but then he stepped back. "The ladies have returned."
Jeff turned and saw Ashley and Amee approaching. Zane was watching them, as well, but Jeff noticed his friend was paying as much attention to Ashley as to his own date.
Something hot flared to life inside of his chest. It took him a moment to recognize the bitter heat of jealousy. No way, he told himself. Jealous of Zane? Ashley hadn't looked twice at the man. Besides, Zane would never try anything. Ashley wasn't his type. But despite the logic, the feeling remained, making him uncomfortably aware of being out of his element.
He wasn't prepared to be a part of society's mainstream, he reminded himself. The cries of the dead were never quiet and he would do well to remember that.
"Amee was telling me the most interesting things about your business," Ashley said as she stepped close to him. "Did you and Zane really single-handedly save the British royal family from certain death?"
Jeff shot Zane a questioning look.
His partner grinned. "Okay, so I might have exaggerated the story a little."
Ashley moved close to Jeff. "How much? I want to hear the part where you threw yourself on the queen to save her from a flying bullet."
Amee beamed. "Aren't they just the bravest men? Zane has over a dozen scars. You should see them."
"Maybe another time," Ashley murmured.
Jeff looked into her eyes and saw the humor lurking there. "There was no incident involving the royal family," he said softly into her ear. "They have their own security."
"I figured as much, but Amee was so proud." They watched as the blond bombshell ran her manicured fingers up Zane's arm.
"Zane's offered to show me what he does," the young woman said, "but I'd be too frightened."
"You mean, take you on an assignment?" Ashley asked, sounding doubtful.
"No. They have an executive training course in a couple of weeks." Amee sighed. "But it's just too scary for me."
Zane winked at Ashley. "Maybe you'd like to go. It's just for a weekend. You could check out what it is Jeff does with his day."
Jeff hesitated. His first instinct was to change the subject. No way did he want Ashley to see what he did in his world. She would be terrified. Which meant it probably wasn't a bad idea. Her being scared would be the safest way to end the relationship before he did something stupid and hurt her. Her current view of him wasn't based in reality. The weekend away would change that.
"I'm intrigued," Ashley admitted. "What happens during the training weekend?"
Zane shrugged. "It's no big deal. A dozen or so executives join us in the mountains. We have a special resort we use. It's rustic, but not unpleasantly so. We teach them some basics about staying safe, how to recognize a terrorist threat, that sort of thing."
"Why do I think it's slightly more complicated than that?" Ashley asked.
"You'd be perfectly safe," Jeff assured her. "If you're interested, I'm sure Brenda would be willing to baby-sit."
She stared at him. "Do you want me go?"
No, he didn't. But he also knew it was important that she saw a piece of his reality. Being around her was changing him, and not for the better. He was getting weaker, softer. If she saw the truth, she would back off.
"I think you'd find it interesting," he said. "There's nothing dangerous for the participants. It's not survival training."
"Are there bugs?"
He grinned. "Just little ones. You could take them."
"Okay. Sounds like fun. If Brenda doesn't mind watching Maggie, I'll go."
"Great." Zane gave her a thumbs-up. "I'll arrange everything."
Just then Brenda announced that brunch was being served in the main dining room. Jeff put his hand on the small of Ashley's back and ushered her toward the doorway. Amee said something about shoes and the subject was changed. But he couldn't stop thinking about the weekend retreat, two short weeks away. Nothing would be the same at the end of those forty-eight hours. He wasn't sure if his friend had done him a favor or just sent him a one-way ticket to hell.