I spent most of the day setting up the security system back at Alli’s shop. It was dirty, sweaty work installing it myself, something I hadn’t done since we first opened our doors at Stone Security. We had a whole team set up to do that sort of thing. But it was cathartic in its own way, having something constructive to do with my time.

“This is the front door,” I was telling Harry and Alli as I ran through the camera feeds on her old Apple computer. “You just push the space bar, and the system will take you through the whole list. Eventually it’ll go back to the screen that shows all the cameras in these little boxes, or you can just leave the whole thing alone, and it goes back there on its own.”

“And it records?”

“Onto this hard drive,” I said, touching the external drive I’d connected to the computer. “Something happens in the middle of the night, you can search this thing and it’ll show it all to you—the parts that the cameras caught, anyway. And I put cameras everywhere I could imagine someone might be, so you shouldn’t have any blank spaces.” I sat back and ran my fingers through my hair. “It’s all hooked up to the internet, too, so both Harry and I have access to the cameras at any time, night or day.”

“We’ve got your back, Alli,” Harry said, running his hand over her literal back as he spoke.

Alli crossed her arms over her chest. “I just wished I believed this would make a difference. But these Guardians think they own the town. And the sad thing is, they practically do.”

“It might slow them down a little.”

She nodded, but he expression on her face told me she didn’t believe it.

I left her and Harry alone in the office and went to collect my tools. Sue came up behind me while I organized the narrow bag Aidan had sent with the system, quiet in that way that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.

“What can I do for you?” I asked.

She remained quiet a moment longer. Then she sighed.

“This place is all my mom has, you know? If they push her out of town, we won’t have anything.”

“I know.”

“Tommy’s going to graduate from high school in May. She wants to go to college, but if we lose the shop—”

“You won’t lose the shop. I’ll make sure of it.”

“But these people seem unstoppable.”

“No one is unstoppable.”

“You’re just one guy, Jack.”

“Yeah, but I’ve got you and your mom and Tommy. And Harry. Then there’s my people back in Memphis. It’s not just me.”

“I hope so.”

I touched her arm, aware of the fear in her green eyes, so much like her mother’s. “It’ll be all right.”

I left a few minutes later, headed back into town. A good meal and a warm bed seemed like the perfect prescription for my tired muscles. But as I made my way through the wide streets, I found myself stopped at a light just outside a large warehouse that looked as though it was in desperate need of new ownership. There was a sign outside, the name and number of a local real estate agent. I snapped a picture of it, wondering what it would take to convert such a place into workable office space. The location was good. It was just outside the city limits, far enough away for privacy, but close enough for convenience. And there were empty lots on either side of it. If those were for sale, too, it might be possible to create a smaller version of the training course that graced the grounds outside the original Stone Security offices.

What if we did open a satellite office out here? We were getting a lot of calls from California and New Mexico, some from Nevada and right here in Arizona. Opening an office here would give our people a closer base of operations when it came to taking those cases. And a new start wouldn’t be such a bad thing for me.

Would it?

The light changed, and I eased the rental car forward, my thoughts jumping from Rae to the pretty girl at the bookstore. There was something about her, about the innocence that oozed from her every pore. She couldn’t be more different from Rae. Ruth was kind, gentle, and intelligent, but naïve. Rae was as close to broken as any woman could get and still function, still be so damned determined to make her own way. I’d admired her determination when we first met, found it refreshing. Stacy had been so dependent on her father, on me, that she was almost annoying in her clinginess. Rae had been a breath of fresh air. And wild in bed. I’d never been with anyone quite like Rae. But there was something about Ruth that had edged Rae out of my thoughts all day. Was it just curiosity? Was it just this weird drive inside of me to experience every new thing that I could? Or was it something more?

Ruth was a challenge. Rae was…Raelyn was Raelyn. There was no other explanation for her.

Maybe I was just tired of pining over someone who didn’t want me anymore. It’d been six months. How much longer was I going to sit around and wish Rae would come back to me? Life was too short for that sort of thing.

But was Ruth really something I wanted to get wrapped up in?

I passed the bookstore as I rounded the corner to get to the parking lot that served the hotel. The light was on even though the closed sign sat daintily in one corner of the front display window. I parked and—without really thinking about it—crossed the street to have a little peek.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she said when she cracked the door to peek up at me.

“I saw the light on. I was just wondering if you’d changed your mind about getting some dinner with me.”

She tilted her head slightly. “I told you, I can’t.”

“But what if we didn’t call it a date? You have to eat sometime, and so do I. Who could fault you for the coincidence of eating in the same restaurant as me?”

That made her smile. “Have you tried the Italian place down the street yet? They have amazing fettuccine Alfredo.”

“No. But I do love some pasta.”

Her eyes skittered over my chest, my belly. She blushed again as she forced her eyes elsewhere. “You don’t look it.”

“Chasing bad guys burns a lot of calories.”

She giggled a little. “Well, I might wander down there in a few minutes. If you happen to already be there…”

“Then I guess I’ll just happen to be there.”

I touched the back of her hand lightly before walking away, glancing over my shoulder as this feeling that I was being watched washed over me. She was making me a little paranoid with all this talk about chaperones and whatever.

The restaurant was a small, hole-in-the-wall sort of place that I walked by twice before I finally found it. The elderly man serving as a sort of maître d’ escorted me to a table in the center of the room, growing slightly confused when I asked for a wine menu. I guess the locals didn’t drink with their pasta. I settled for water before turning to peruse the menu, quickly finding that fettuccine Alfredo was about the only dish the place offered. A simple spaghetti and meatballs and a chicken parmesan were the only other choices a guest had.

Small cities.

She walked in not two minutes after I was seated, a harried look on her pretty face. She spoke briefly to the maître d’ before coming to my table, hanging a heavy book bag over the back of her chair before slipping into it.

“Hi,” she said softly, shy now that we were once again face to face.

“Hello.”

She looked me over, curiosity naked in her eyes. Her gaze lingered on my eyes, my nose and lips, before moving down over my chest and arms. It lingered there, too, before coming back up to my eyes. I’d had a lot of women check me out, but never quite like this. Her gaze was both bold and shy, her eyes filled with so many warring emotions that I almost felt bad for her.

“Have you lived here all your life?” I asked, attempting to dispel some of the tension.

She nodded, glancing over her shoulder at the other diners who appeared to find our table quite interesting. “My family has lived here since the late 1800s.”

“Really?”

“They settled here during the migration after our church founder’s death.”

“I’ve read a little about that. The church divided into multiple factions during that time, didn’t it?”

She nodded. “It’s come back together, mostly. There are a few extreme factions still out there, but not many.”

“My family was never really religious. My mother was Catholic, and she’d make us go to church with her from time to time, but not often.”

A slow smile touched her lips. “I’ve always wondered what it would be like not to have the church in my life. But it seems like it would be very empty. Everything, from my friends to my social activities, are centered on the church.”

“My family was always pretty social. My father was a business man, and we lived in a community where money and social status were everything.”

“So you worship money over God.”

“Not necessarily. But it was important.”

“Then you’re rich.”

I tilted my head slightly. “My father was rich.”

“Was?”

“He died several years ago.”

“I’m sorry.”

I shrugged, wondering how fast she’d rush from the restaurant if I told her it was suicide. Wasn’t that a sin in her world? Would she believe that my father was being punished in the afterlife for his actions?

“I’ve never known anyone who was truly religious.”

“No? What do you think?”

Her question caught me slightly off guard. I laughed. “I don’t know. You seem like other women I know. But you’re very different at the same time.”

“How am I the same?”

I shrugged. “You’re clearly intelligent. And witty.”

“Is that good?”

“That’s very good.”

“And how am I different?”

I answered quickly, not stopping to censor myself. “You’re very naïve. Innocent. I don’t know many women who are as innocent as you.”

A cloud skittered across her face. “Is that bad?”

“Just different.”

She studied my face for a long moment. “Do you have a woman back where you come from? Memphis?”

“I did. But she broke up with me months ago.”

“Why?”

“I asked her to marry me.”

Her eyes widened. “Why would she break up with you over that?”

“Because it frightened her, I think.” I hadn’t said the words aloud until now, but realized as they fell from my tongue how true they were. “She had a very difficult childhood. Bad people did things to her that no woman should have to experience. She’d only just gotten her freedom from that world, and she was determined to hold on to it. Asking her to marry me threatened that.”

“But you asked anyway.”

“I wasn’t thinking about her, I suppose. I was thinking about how I’d finally come to a place in my life where I was ready to settle down and have the commitment, the family, I’d never imagined I really wanted.”

“But you do? You want a family?”

“Very much.”

She smiled softly as she sat back. I wanted to ask what that smile meant, but the waiter came up at that moment, insisting on taking our order. By the time he was gone, she’d changed the subject, and I couldn’t steer her back. But listening to her talk was one of the most delightful things I’d done in a long time. She had this soft voice that was like a balm on a burn. I could have listened to it all night.

“Am I allowed to walk you home?” I asked when our meal was done.

She glanced over her shoulder as she’d been doing most of the evening, checking on the patrons around us. “I think my brother will probably show up soon.”

“Until then?”

“My car is parked behind the store. I don’t see why you can’t walk me there.”

“It’s a public place, lots of lights.”

She gave me that look again that seemed to wonder if I was teasing her, or if I was serious.

We left the restaurant and walked in silence for a few moments, not touching but standing as close as two people could without doing so. I wanted to touch her, wanted to slide my hand over the small of her back the way people who knew each other well sometimes did. I felt like I did know her well. We’d talked about everything from our mutual level of education to the movies we liked to see. She’d never seen most of my favorites because she didn’t watch movies that were rated R or higher, but there were a few PG-13 movies that we both counted among our favorites. And she was a huge fan of music of just about any kind, something else we both had in common. But it wasn’t those silly details that two people share when getting to know each other that made me feel like I knew her. It was something else, something deeper. We connected on a level I’d never felt before. I glanced at her, wondering if she felt it, too.

She glanced up at me and smiled. It was a smile that spoke volumes.

The alley behind the bookstore was barely big enough to accommodate her small sedan and a single dumpster, not much more. It was dark there, filled with shadows. I couldn’t resist drawing her in to one of those shadows.

I touched the side of her face, wishing I hadn’t eaten as much garlic bread with my meal as I had. She looked up at me, her face tilted upward because of the near foot difference in our heights. Her hands came up, but hesitated before slowly coming to rest on my forearm.

“Thank you for dinner,” she said softly.

I brushed my lips against hers before the words were fully out of her mouth. She pulled back, surprise making her blue eyes twinkle in the moonlight. She touched her lips, something like wonder filling the soft sigh that left her throat. I slid my fingers down over her jaw the way I’d wanted to from the moment I set eyes on her this morning and lifted her chin. I brushed my lips against hers again. She didn’t pull away this time.

It was the most chaste kiss I’d ever offered a woman in recent years. It took me back to when I was fourteen and kissing a girl from my eighth grade algebra class for the first time. It almost hurt the way it grabbed me, the way it wrapped itself around my balls and squeezed. I sighed softly before kissing her a little harder, my tongue slipping out just enough to steal a taste of her bottom lip.

She jerked back.

“Sorry,” she mumbled.

“It’s okay.”

She looked up at me, her eyes suddenly filled with tears. “I, uh…I—”

“It’s okay.”

I drew her close to me, my hand gentle on the side of her face. Our lips brushed again, and she sighed softly. When I went in once more, I drew her bottom lip between my teeth and nibbled as gently as I could. Just a taste. Then I pulled back.

“You should go,” I said, aware my voice had taken on a deeper tone.

She stared up at me, her eyes filled with wonder. It took a moment, but she stumbled away, forced off balance by my touch. The sight of that tugged at me again, making me wish I could snatch her up and drag her across the street to the hotel and my huge, four poster bed. But I let her go, aware that this was one time when patience and a lot of cold showers were the only way to go.

I stayed where I was until she drove away, her eyes still wide and filled with awakening.

Lots of cold showers. Starting now.