rammell arrived about four that afternoon, driving a pickup truck he had borrowed, with the replacement door in the truck bed. Dane paused for a moment to savor the incongruity of Trammell driving a truck, then went out to help him unload the door. “Whose truck is it?” he asked.

“Freddie’s husband’s.” They each grabbed one side of the door and slid it off the bed. They didn’t have to ask if anything had been reported; if it had, they both would have heard. Next door, Lou came out on her porch to watch them with open and suspicious interest. Dane took the time to wave to her. She waved back, but frowned disapprovingly. No doubt she had looked out her window first thing this morning and seen his car in Marlie’s driveway; he had undoubtedly besmirched Marlie’s spotless reputation.

“New lady friend?” he inquired delicately as they carried the door to the porch.

“Um, no.” Trammell was being unusually reticent, and Dane was instantly suspicious. It wasn’t that Trammell was the kind of guy who regaled the squad room with play-by-play details of a hot night, but he was usually forthcoming enough to at least give the lady a name.

“I thought the date was called off.”

Trammell cleared his throat. “She came over anyway.”

“Anything I should know about?”

“No. Maybe. But not yet.”

Dane didn’t get to be such a good detective by being stupid. He wondered why Trammell would feel it necessary to protect a woman’s identity, and only two possibilities presented themselves. One: The lady was married. Trammell wasn’t a poacher, though; married women were off limits to him. Two: The lady was a cop. That made sense; it fit. Immediately he began running through names and faces, trying to match them to the voice he’d heard last night. Everything clicked into place like three cherries in a slot machine. Ash blond hair sternly subdued to fit under her patrolman’s cap, a rather austere face, quiet brown eyes. Not beautiful, but deep. She wouldn’t enjoy being the butt of the raucous gossip that squad rooms specialized in, and she wasn’t the kind of woman to be trifled with. “Grace Roeg,” he said.

“Goddammit!” Trammell dropped his end of the door to the porch with a thump, and glared at him.

Dane set his end down with less force. “I’m good,” he said, shrugging. “What can I say?”

“Nothing. Make sure you say absolutely nothing.”

“No problem, but you’re really getting in deep with me. That’s two secrets I have to keep.”

“God. All right. If you feel the need to blab about something, if you just can’t stand the pressure, then tell them about the beer. I can live with that. But keep Grace out of it.”

“Like I said, no problem. I like her; she’s a good cop. I’d spill the beans on you, but I wouldn’t upset her for anything. Watch yourself, though, pal. You could be asking for major trouble. You outrank her.”

“There’s no question of sexual harassment.”

“Maybe not to you, maybe not to her, but the paper pushers may not look at it that way.‘” Though the concern was a legitimate one, Dane was enjoying himself immensely. Trammell was glaring at him, black eyes as hot as coals. It was nice to get back at him, after the way he’d silently laughed at Dane’s predicament with Marlie. “How long has it been going on?” Not long, he’d bet. He’d have noticed it before now.

“A couple of days,” Trammell said grumpily.

“Moving a little fast there, partner.”

Trammell started to say something, shut his mouth, then mumbled, “I’m not.”

Dane started laughing at the helplessness in Trammell’s tone. He knew exactly how it felt. “Another good man bites the dust.”

“No! It’s not that serious.”

“Keep telling yourself that, buddy. It might keep you from panicking on the way to the church.”

“Damn it, it isn’t like that. It’s—”

“Just an affair?” Dane inquired with lifted brows. “A good time in bed? It doesn’t mean anything?”

Trammell looked hunted. “No, it’s... ah, shit. But no wedding bells. I don’t want to get married. I have no intention of getting married.”

“Okay, I believe you. But it’ll hurt my feelings if I’m not your best man.” Smiling at Trammell’s frustrated curse, Dane went inside to get a screwdriver, and Trammell followed him. Marlie was lying curled on the couch, asleep. Dane paused to look down at her and tuck the light coverlet around her feet. She looked small and pale, utterly defenseless as her mind recovered from the devastating exhaustion.

Trammell was watching Dane’s face rather than looking at Marlie. “You have it bad yourself, partner,” he said softly.

“Yeah,” Dane murmured. “I do.” So bad he was never going to recover.

“I thought it was just a case of the hots, but it’s more than that.”

“Afraid so.”

“Wedding bells for you?”

“Maybe.” He smiled crookedly. “I’m still not her favorite person, so I’ll have to work on that. And we have a killer to catch.”

He continued on into the kitchen, where he went through the cabinet drawers in search of a screwdriver. All kitchens, in his experience, contained a junk drawer, and that was the most likely place to find a screwdriver since he couldn’t imagine Marlie having an actual toolbox. Her junk drawer, bless her neat little heart, was more organized than his flatware, and lying there in its own clear plastic holder was a set of screwdrivers. He could picture her carefully selecting the appropriate tool, using it, then sliding it back into its place in the holder, never getting them out of the order they’d been in when she’d bought them. He took the entire pack, and the small hammer lying there.

She woke as he used the hammer to tap the pin out of the second hinge, sitting up on the sofa and pushing the heavy curtain of her hair out of her face. Her eyes were heavy-lidded, her expression still showing the remoteness of mingled fatigue and shock. Dane gave her an assessing glance and decided to let her have a moment to herself. She sat quietly, watching with only mild interest as they removed the damaged door and replaced it with the new one.

It wasn’t until they were finished that she said bemusedly, “Why did you change my door?”

“The other one was damaged,” Dane explained briefly as he gathered up the tools.

“Damaged?” She frowned. “How?”

“I kicked it in last night.”

She sat very still, slowly reconstructing the memories, putting details into place. “After I called you?”

“Yes.”

There was another pause. “I’m sorry,” she finally said. “I didn’t intend to worry you.”

“Worry” wasn’t quite how Dane would have described it. He had been in a gut-twisting panic.

“Do you remember my partner, Alex Trammell?”

“Yes. Hello, Detective. Thank you for helping replace my door.”

“My pleasure.” Trammell’s voice was more gentle than usual. It was obvious that Marlie was still struggling to get things together.

“Have you heard anything yet?” she asked.

He and Trammell exchanged a quick look. “No,” he finally said.

A faraway look drifted into her eyes. “She’s just lying there. Her family doesn’t know, her friends don’t know. They’re going about their routine, happy and oblivious, and she’s lying there waiting to be found. Why doesn’t someone call or go by, just to check on her?”

Dane felt uncomfortable, and Trammell did, too, restlessly shifting position. They were more objective about bodies, especially bodies that might not even exist. They saw so many of them that they were hardened, for the most part thinking of the bodies as victims but not as individuals. The possibility of another murder victim had them both worried, because of the implication of a serial killer on the loose in Orlando. For Marlie, however, it was personal. She didn’t have that inner wall to protect her.

“There’s nothing we can do,” he said. “Unless you can give us a name or a location, we have nothing to go on, nowhere to look. If it happened, someone will eventually find her. All we can do is wait.”

Her smile was bitter, and not really a smile. “It happened. It’s never not happened.”

He sat down beside her. Trammell took a chair. “Can you think of any details, something you didn’t tell me last night? Not about the killing, but about the location. Could you see anything that might give us a clue? Is it a house or an apartment?”

“A house,” she said instantly.

“A nice-looking house, or a slum?”

“Very neat, good furnishings. One of those larger-screen televisions, on a pedestal.” She frowned, rubbing her forehead as if she had a headache. Dane waited. “Cypress.”

“Cypress? There’s a cypress tree out front, a park with cypress trees, what?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t really see it. He just thought it.”

“That’s a big help,” Dane muttered.

“What did you expect?” she snapped. “That he’d think, ‘Now I’m breaking into this house at so-and-so number on so-and-so street, where I’m going to rape and kill Jane Doe?’ Nobody thinks like that, everything’s more automatic and subconscious. And I’m not telepathic anyway.”

“Then how did you pick up on a cypress tree?”

“I don’t know. It was just an impression. This guy is an unbelievably strong broadcaster,” she said, trying to explain. “He’s like a super powerful radio station, overriding all the other signals.”

“Can you pick him up now?” Trammell interjected, his eyes bright with interest.

“I can’t pick up anything now. I’m too tired. And he probably isn’t broadcasting.”

“Explain,” Dane said briefly.

She glanced at him, then away. His attention was focused on her so intently that she almost couldn’t bear it, because the lure of it was so strong and she was afraid to give in.

“His mental intensity builds as he gets closer and closer to the kill. Probably he can’t maintain that level of rage for very long; he couldn’t function at anything approaching normality if he did. So the only time his mental energy is strong enough for me to read is right before and during the kill, when he’s at his peak. I lose him shortly after that; I don’t even know how he leaves the scene.”

“That explains the fingers,” Dane said to Trammell, who nodded.

“Fingers?”

“Did Mrs. Vinick scratch him at any time?” Dane asked, ignoring her puzzled question.

Her eyes went blank again as she turned inward. “I’m not certain. She tried to fight, clawing at him. It’s possible, but I don’t think he noticed if she did.”

Until afterward, Dane thought. That was why Marlie didn’t know anything about Mrs. Vinick’s fingers. The killer had been very calm and deliberate when he’d done it, because he hadn’t noticed the scratches until his killing frenzy had cooled. That her fingers had been cut off was one of the details that hadn’t been released to the press, and he didn’t intend to tell Marlie about it. She had enough to bear, enough gory details to fill a thousand nightmares; he wasn’t going to add to it.

“You said that you picked up a hint of him the other night.”

“It wasn’t a clear image; it wasn’t an image at all. It was just a feeling of evil, a sense of threat. He was probably stalking her,” she said, her voice trailing away as she realized that was exactly what he’d been doing. He had controlled the rage, but the hatred and contempt had leaked through, and she had felt it.

She was becoming very tired again, and her eyelids drooped. She wanted to curl up and sleep. She wanted him to leave her alone. She wanted to lose herself in the sanctuary of his arms. She wanted everything and nothing, and she was too tired to make up her mind.

But then Dane’s hands were on her, strong and sure, turning her so that she was lying down, and the light blanket was arranged over her again. “Sleep,” he said, his deep voice immensely reassuring. “I’ll be here.”

She took one slow, deep breath, and settled into oblivion.

Trammell’s lean, dark face was somber as he watched her. “She’s helpless,” he said. “Is it like this every time?”

“Yeah. She’s recovered some now. It was a lot worse last night, and earlier today.”

“Then I hope the killer never finds out about her; she’s completely vulnerable to him. If his mental energy is so strong it can block hers even from a distance, think what it would do to her if she were the one he was after. He’d be right on her, and she wouldn’t be able to protect herself in any way.”

“He won’t get the chance to get to her,” Dane said, and in the grimness of his voice there was a promise. No matter what, he’d keep Marlie safe. “Have you talked to Bonness?”

“He wasn’t thrilled with the possibility that there could be a serial killer, so he said to play it close to the vest and not mention it to anyone else until, and if, we find out there really was another murder. But he was also as thrilled as a kid at the idea of working with Marlie, because after all, it was his idea. I swear to God, sometimes I wonder if there isn’t some weirdo juice in the water in California.”

“Don’t laugh,” Dane advised. “Right now we’re pretty involved in it ourselves.”

“Yeah, but we aren’t jumping up and down with joy over it.”

“Bonness is a good guy; a little weird, but okay. I’ve seen worse.”

“Haven’t we all.” It was a statement, not a question.

Dane’s gaze wandered over Marlie’s sleeping face, and his brows drew together in a frown. “Cypress,” he said.

Trammell read him immediately. “You’ve thought of something.”

“Maybe. That’s all she said. Cypress. Not cypress tree. That was just an association I made.”

“Cypress. Cypress,” Trammell muttered. They looked at each other, two minds racing madly down the same track. “Maybe it’s the—”

“Address,” Dane finished, already on his feet. “I’ll get the map.” Like all cops, he had a city map in his car.

A minute later they were both bent over the map, open on the kitchen table. Dane ran down the alphabetical list of streets. “Shit! Don’t developers ever think of any other word to use? Cypress Avenue, Cypress Drive, Cypress Lane, Cypress Row, Cypress Terrace, Cypress Trail—”

“It’s worse than that,” Trammell said, scanning the other listings. “Look at this. Old Cypress Boulevard. Bent Cypress Road. And isn’t there an apartment complex called Cypress Hills?”

“Yeah.” Dane folded the map in disgust. “There’s no telling how many streets have cypress in the name. That’s a dead end. We can’t go door to door on every one of them, checking for bodies. What would we do if no one answered the door? Break in?”

Trammell shrugged. “You’ve done it twice in less than twenty-four hours.”

“Yeah, well, there were extenuating circumstances.”

“You’re right, though. We’re stuck. We may be fairly certain Marlie’s for real, but Bonness wouldn’t authorize that kind of search. People would be calling the mayor at home, screaming that Orlando wasn’t a police state and we had no right to come into their homes like that. And they’d be right. We can’t do that.”

“So we’re back to waiting.”

“Looks like it.”

There was no point in fretting over something they couldn’t change. Dane allowed himself a moment of frustration, then changed the subject. “Would you mind going over to my place and getting some clothes for me? And my shaving kit. I had to use Marlie’s razor this morning.”

“I noticed,” Trammell said, eyeing the nick on Dane’s jaw. “Sure, no problem.” He checked his watch. “I have time. I have a date tonight, but I’ll be close to a phone.”

“Grace?” Dane asked slyly.

Trammell scowled. “Yes, I’m seeing Grace. What about it?”

“Nothing, just asking.”

“Then stop grinning like a jackass.”

He left and was back within the hour with Dane’s clothes and shaving kit. “Your wardrobe is severely limited,” he groused, dumping the clothes on a chair. He glanced down at Marlie, who was still asleep. “Maybe she can do something about it.”

“Maybe,” Dane said. “What’s wrong with my clothes?” he asked innocently. If anything was certain to send Trammell into a tirade, it was that question.

“What’s right with them?” Trammell snorted. “You have mostly jeans, very old ones. You have one suit, and it looks as if you got it from the Salvation Army store. Assorted slacks and sport coats, none of which really go together, and the most disgusting collection of ties I’ve ever seen. Did you actually buy this stuff? You paid good money for it?”

“Well, yeah. Nobody gives stuff away, you know.”

“They should have paid you to take it off their hands!”

Dane hid his grin as he picked up the clothes and carried them into Marlie’s bedroom, where he hung them in her closet, her very neat closet. His haphazardly hung garments looked out of place there, but he stood back and admired the sight for a minute. He liked the idea of his clothes in her closet, or her clothes in his closet. He thought about that possibility for a minute. He’d have to clean out his closet before she could, or would, put anything of hers in it.

Trammell left, and Dane watched television for a while. He couldn’t find a baseball game, so he settled for a basketball playoff game. He kept the volume low, and Marlie slept undisturbed.

He’d been on a lot of stakeouts, spent a lot of time just waiting. In stakeouts, boredom and the need to piss were the two biggest problems. This reminded him of a stakeout, because the waiting seemed interminable, but the quality was different. They weren’t waiting to catch a criminal, or to prevent a crime. The crime had already been done, they just didn’t know where or to whom. They were waiting for a victim to surface, waiting for suspicion and worry to send someone to a quiet house somewhere in the city, to check on a friend, neighbor, or relative. Then the waiting would be over.

“You’re thinking about it, aren’t you?”

Marlie’s voice startled him. Dane jerked his head around to look at her, she was sitting up again, her somber eyes on him. He realized that he had been staring sightlessly at the television for some time, because it was almost eight o’clock.

“It isn’t something you put out of your mind,” he said.

“No, it isn’t.” For her more than anyone else.

He got up and turned off the television. “How about calling out for a pizza? Are you hungry?”

She thought about it. “A little.”

“Good, because I’m starving. What do you like? The works?”

“That’s fine.” She yawned. “You call it in, and I’ll go take a shower while we’re waiting. Maybe it will wake me up.”

“Take your clothes off this time,” he advised, and she smiled a little.

“I will.”

The water felt good, washing away the mental cobwebs and cleansing her of the sensation of having been tainted, dirtied somehow by the evilness she had witnessed. She was tempted to linger under the cool spray, but thinking of the pizza, forced herself to briskly shower and shampoo. After blow-drying her hair to a semblance of order, she thought about clothes, but settled for the light robe Dane had selected for her.

She left the bathroom and halted, staring at her unmade bed. If she had been more alert, she would have noticed it sooner. The fact that her bed was unmade was unusual enough, but what riveted her to the spot was the sight of twin indentations in the pillows, where two people had slept. Awareness roared through her like a brushfire. Dane had slept with her, in her bed.

She had docilely accepted his presence all day, knowing that she had talked to him the night before but never wondering about his location during the lost hours. Now she knew. He had been right there, in bed with her.

A wave of sensual heat overcame her and she closed her eyes, shuddering at the deliciousness of it. Her heart pounded, her breasts tightened, and a flooding, loosening sensation in her loins made her knees go weak. Lust. She was astounded as its presence, at its power. Instead of being outraged that he had taken advantage of the situation, she was aroused by the thought of him sleeping beside her.

He had been so gentle in his care of her that day, that iron strength and fierceness controlled so that she had felt only the protection he offered. He had combed her hair, fed her, held her while she cried, and most of all, he had given her the comfort of his presence. She hadn’t been alone this time, though somehow she always had been before, even while she had still been with the Institute. Dr. Ewell and the others had always maintained a distance from her; mental privacy had been so difficult for her to attain that they had gone out of their way to let her recover in her own way, at her own pace. Until now, she hadn’t realized how lonely and terrifying that had been.

Dane knocked briefly on the door and opened it without waiting for an answer. “Pizza’s here.”

As always, the impact of his presence was like a blow. He was so big and rugged, exuding a male vitality that made her shiver. For the first time she began to think that it might be possible, that Arno Gleen’s legacy of terror was losing its power over her. Gleen had been a sick, sadistic bastard. Dane was pure, hard-edged male, too intense and grim for life around him to ever be entirely comfortable, but a woman would always feel safe with him, in bed and out.

His eyes narrowed. “Are you all right?” He reached her in two long strides, his arm sliding around her waist and pulling her into the support of his body.

“Yes,” she said, not thinking about it, and slipped her hand around the back of his neck.

He didn’t hesitate, didn’t give her time to think about it. She wasn’t certain she was extending an invitation, but he accepted it before she could decide. This time there was no careful restraint; he set his mouth over hers with open hunger, a hunger so intense and greedy that it stunned her. He caught her chin with his free hand and held her, then moved his tongue deep inside her mouth, touching her own tongue in blatant demand. She sagged against him, both frightened and tempted, and he gathered her in against his hard frame. His erection pushed against her belly. She had never been wanted before like that, so swiftly and violently. She had no experience of men like Dane Hollister, or of how he could make her feel.

But contact with that potent body was suddenly all she wanted. She put both arms around his neck, moving against him, trying to get closer. He was bruising her with the force of his kisses, and she wanted more. Her loins were tight and achingly empty, growing moist with yearning.

He put his hand on her breast, and her breath locked in her throat. His thumb rubbed over and around her nipple; at first it was a curious sensation, like a slight pricking of pins, then it suddenly intensified and pure sensation zinged from the nipple to her loins. She moaned aloud, frightened by the way her own body had so swiftly gone beyond her control.

Dane lifted his head. There was a hard, predatory expression on his face, the faint cruelty of arousal, and his lips were wet from their kisses. His hand remained on her breast, with only the very thin cotton of the robe between them. His breath was coming too fast, and she could feel the hard pounding of his heart against her. “Bed, or pizza?” he asked. His voice was so guttural, she could barely hear him. “If it’s pizza, you’d better say so now.”

She wanted to say “bed,” she wanted it so much. She had never felt desire before, and the lure of it was almost irresistible. She wanted to forget the reason he was there, the murders she had seen, and simply give herself over to the physical. She had never been able to do that before, and maybe couldn’t now, but for the first time it seemed possible.

“P-Pizza,” she managed, and closed her eyes as she fought for control. Sick dismay filled her at her own cowardice.

She could feel him bracing himself, and he took a deep breath. “Pizza it is, then.” Slowly he released her and stepped back. A huge, obvious ridge in his pants told her how difficult it had been for him to stop. Most men wouldn’t even have made the offer.

He gave her a wry, crooked smile that lit his rough features. “I guess I was going too fast for you, honey. I’m sorry. It’s just that I have a hair trigger where you’re concerned, and I’m not talking about firearms.”

Marlie stared at him, a lump in her throat and a huge knot in her chest. She felt dizzy with shock and realization. Oh, God. She had been attracted to him from the first, had recognized it and fought it, but with that smile she slipped helplessly over the edge. She had loved, but she had never been in love before, and the power of it made her actually feel faint. Swaying, she put out her hand in search of support, and he was there, solid and vital and so hot that she almost melted. His arm was around her, and her head lay against his chest.

“Shhh, it’s okay,” he crooned. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m sorry.”

“No,” she managed to croak, alarmed that he thought he had reminded her of Gleen. He hadn’t; she had been expecting it, but it simply hadn’t happened. She had always assumed that sexual fear would be a constant in her life, and now that it hadn’t materialized, she felt oddly adrift and off balance. “It isn’t you. I was just dizzy for a minute.” Somehow she formed a smile, and it was a real one for all its shakiness. “Maybe your kisses are more potent than you thought.”

“You think so?” His voice rumbled under her ear. “We’ll have to experiment, won’t we? After the pizza.”

He walked her into the living room and guided her to the couch. “Just sit; I’ll get the drinks. Do you want a plate?”

“Well... yes. Of course.”

He chuckled. “It must be a woman thing.”

“I prefer a napkin, too,” she said politely. “As opposed to licking my fingers.”

He winked at her. “I’ll be glad to lick your fingers.”

She shivered in response and sat, dazed and quiescent, while he puttered around in the kitchen. He seemed to know his way around in her house. How had this happened? She was bewildered by the speed and force of it. In less than twenty-four hours he had taken over, he had spent the night with her, apparently moved in with her, and with a grin made her fall in love with him. He was a one-man SWAT team, overwhelming her defenses without effort.

He was back in a few minutes with the iced soft drinks, a plate and fork for her, and a couple of napkins. He sat beside her on the sofa, turned on the television to a sports channel, and gave a grunt of satisfaction when a baseball game filled the screen. He served her a slice of pizza, got one for himself, and settled back with obvious enjoyment. Marlie blinked at him. This was what she’d gotten herself into? She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. In the end she simply concentrated on the pizza, sitting curled beside him on the sofa, bemused that she was so content to just be close to him and watch his face as he watched the game.

Sometimes his size overwhelmed her and sometimes she was comforted by it, but this was the first time she had had the opportunity to simply sit and study him. He was definitely a big man, even bigger than she had thought, at least six two and over two hundred pounds. The feet parked on her coffee table had to be size twelves, or larger. His shoulders were so wide, he took up almost half the couch; his arms were thick and hard, sinewy with ropy layers of muscle. His chest, she knew, was rock-hard, and so was his abdomen. His long legs, stretched out before him, looked like tree trunks.

His hair was darker than hers, almost black. She eyed the blade of a nose and the brutally carved cheekbones, and wondered if there was any American Indian in his heritage. He had a heavy beard; evidently he had shaved that morning, since there was a fresh-looking nick, but already the black stubble had darkened his jaw.

He leaned forward to get another slice of pizza, and her gaze fell on his hands. Like everything else about him, they were big, easily twice the size of her own. But they weren’t thick hams; though powerful, they were lean and well shaped, with short, clean nails. She felt safe with those hands on her; not safe from him, but from everything else. She didn’t want to be safe from him. She had lost her heart about fifteen minutes ago, and she was still reeling from the shock of it.

He was a cop, a man who made his living in violence. He didn’t commit the violence, as a rule, but he had to clean up after it, he was constantly surrounded by it. Close by his right hand was a big automatic pistol. At some point during the day she had become aware of it, and now she realized that it was never far from his side. A shoulder holster was slung across the back of the couch, beside him.

There was a scar across the back of his right hand. She caught a glimpse of it when he reached for a third slice of pizza, and recognition congealed in her. “That scar on your hand,” she said. “How did you get it? It looks like a knife wound.”

He turned his hand to look at it, then shrugged and gave his attention back to the television. “It is. A close encounter of the punk kind, when I was still working patrol.”

“It looks bad.”

“It wasn’t any fun, but it wasn’t serious. It was a shallow cut, didn’t slice through any tendons. A few stitches and I was as good as new.”

“Gleen cut me,” she said. She didn’t know why she said it; she hadn’t meant to.

His head snapped around, all affability gone as if it had never been, and the expression in those hazel eyes was scary. “What?” he asked softly, putting down the slice of pizza. His thumb moved on the remote control, and the television screen went blank. “The professor didn’t say anything about that.”

She set the plate aside and drew her knees tighter to her chest. “They weren’t serious cuts, just little slices. He was playing with me, trying to break me down with pain and fear. He got off on that; it was what he needed. And he wasn’t trying to kill me, at least not then. He wanted to keep me alive so he could play with me. He would have killed me later, of course, if the sheriff hadn’t gotten there.”

“Let me see.” The words were a soft growl and he was already reaching for her, uncurling her, his hands opening the robe. Marlie struggled briefly for control of the robe, but then he had it open, spreading it wide as he looked down at her, naked except for thin, brief panties.

The scars, six years old, weren’t disfiguring. They would, given time, probably fade completely. She had never fretted about them, because they were so unimportant compared to everything else, and she had never been vain anyway. They were just small, silvery lines, five of them: one on the inner curve of her right breast, the rest on her abdomen. There would have been more, but Gleen had swiftly lost control when the gambit hadn’t worked, degenerating to the crude force of his fists to elicit the response he had wanted.

She quivered, a hot blush staining her cheeks as Dane slowly examined her. She was acutely aware of her bareness, in a way she never had been before. His mouth was a grim line as he traced the line on her breast with his fingertip, the touch as light as a breath. Her nipple tightened, though he wasn’t even touching it. She heard her own ragged breathing as he slowly touched every scar. He was shaking, too, and suddenly she realized that it was with pure fury, at a man forever beyond his reach.

She put her hand on his hair, threading her fingers into the warm thickness of it. “They aren’t important,” she said, forgetting her embarrassment. “Of everything that he did, those little cuts amounted to the least.”

“It isn’t the cuts.” His voice was thick with rage as he pulled her into his arms, cradling her head against his shoulder. “It’s knowing what you went through, how terrified you were. You didn’t know that he wasn’t going to kill you.”

“No, I expected to die. In some ways, that would have been easier.”