The crack of gunfire galvanized Angel. Rushing up the steps, he hit the door and grasped the handle. Locked. No other sound echoed behind the first, but he switched his attention to the window. For a moment, he could have sworn he saw her through the glass. It could have been wishful thinking, but she disappeared in the same moment he’d heard the shot.

After tracing the woman to a permanent address in Eagle Rock, Montana, he had no intentions of losing the only possible link to the people who’d bombed the shop, killed his sister, and left him literally holding the bag. The detectives investigating the case assured him he wasn’t the prime suspect, but they couldn’t clear him fully either—not when so much of his work was classified, and his arrival back in the city coincided with explosion ripping apart the shop and damaging nearby storefronts—especially when he’d literally killed someone a few feet away.

A friend on the force had gotten him some of the key details from the now in evidence purse. Leaving New York had been a gamble, but he had to find her. Had to know what she’d seen—and why someone had tried to kill her. Angel had to know who’d killed Moira, more than anything else, he wanted his sister’s killers caught.

Planting his shoulder to the door, he slammed into it. The pain ricocheted through his joint and rocked him. The lock gave, however, with a splinter of wood and the door swung open. Glancing down, he found the woman lying on the floor. A quick scan of the interior didn’t reveal the shooter. The only visible weapon, a shotgun, lay on the floor next to her hand.

Plaster drifted down, and dragged his attention upward. The fresh, gaping hole in the ceiling suggested the shot hadn’t been at her, but—maybe by her? Scanning the room again, he cocked his head and listened. The crackling of a fire in the fireplace, and nothing else…

Dropping to his knees, he checked the woman’s pulse, then did a quick spot check for injury. A ring of bruises around her throat gave him pause. They were old—faded—but very much present. A similar set of bruises were on her wrists, but the long sleeves kept him from checking her arms. Running his fingers over her skull, he found a hint of swelling. Likely from hitting the floor. Another glance at the hole in the ceiling, the shotgun next to her hand and he held his palm over the barrel of the gun—warm.

Fuck. Scooping her up, he pushed the door closed. He’d have to fix it so it would stay that way—since he splintered the frame. Carrying her into the living room, he set her on the sofa nearest the fire in the hearth. After covering her with a blanket and checking her breathing once more, Angel paused.

The image he had of the woman he’d saved in the aftermath of the explosion had been a split second snapshot. This woman was close, similar bone structure and the right coloring, but even as he stared at her dark hair, pale—almost china doll features—and painfully thin body, he couldn’t quite reconcile the two. The oversized sweatshirt didn’t conceal her figure that much.

Had she been ill recently? Or recovering from injuries? The bruises dug at him. Whatever was going on with her, if he found the jackass who put his hands on a woman, and he might return the favor.

Dragging his mind away from that concern, he went to fix the door and pick up the shotgun. Outside, the snow continued to fall, so he secured the entrance, then checked on the woman. She was still out. In the kitchen, he frowned at the partially prepared food.

He’d interrupted her breakfast. After fixing an ice pack, he placed it under the bump on her skull, then checked his watch. If she was still out in ten minutes, he’d look at getting her to a hospital. Chances were, an ambulance might have trouble getting out to the remote ranch—or maybe not. The locals were probably prepared.

Returning to the kitchen, he finished cooking the food she’d left. Steak and eggs in hand, along with two mugs of coffee he returned to the living room and had just set the items down when she jerked and her eyes snapped open.

The firelight reflected in the dark brown of her eyes, and he went still as she tried to sit up—then halted as her gaze landed on him. For a moment, the image of the woman from the aftermath transposed over the woman on the sofa—the same fierceness echoed at him. That woman had been fighting for her life; the woman in front of him was ready to bolt or maybe he had it wrong. She’d had the shotgun.

When she lunged to her feet, he stayed right where he was—mug of coffee in hand. The shotgun was out of reach, but he wasn’t trying to terrify her. He was… Not really sure what the hell I’m doing at the moment. He found himself in unfamiliar territory.

“Who the hell are you?” The huskiness of her voice rolled over him, sexy as hell and reminding him of a classic jazz singer from a movie set in the 20s.

“Angel,” he answered automatically, then before he could add the rest of his name, she blinked as disbelief and horror collided in her expression.

“I’m dead?” Her gaze cut away from him, to stare around the room, before zooming back to him. “Angels aren’t sexy—well unless you’re playing the devil. But that’s not what you said—” She sat abruptly, and scrubbed a hand over her face then winced. “How did I die? The guy who showed up? Was he one of them?”

One of them? Did she mean one of the bombers? Someone else? And as tempting as it might be to play along to extract the information he needed, her stricken reaction demanded he fix it.

“My name,” he said slowly, keeping his grip on the mug and his position solid, “is Liam Knight, Angel is a nickname.”

A flush filled her pale cheeks with color before she covered her face with her hands. “Oh God. Am I dead? I can’t believe I just asked you that…” And as abruptly as she’d covered her face, she jerked her head up to look at him. “What the hell are you doing in my house?”

The flash fire emotions, and shifting reactions fascinated him. Not that he had time for his fascination. He was here to take her back to New York or at least find out what she knew. “I broke the door in when I heard the shotgun go off.” Absolute truth.

Twisting, she looked toward the front door, then her head tilted and he assumed she could see the hole she’d made in her ceiling. Since no one else appeared in the time since he’d come through the door, he assumed they were alone. He’d much rather have cleared the house, but he’d been curiously reluctant to leave her.

“How the hell did I…” She didn’t finish the question, rising to her feet. She put a hand to her head, and looked at him once more as she explored the lump on her skull.

“You were down when I came in,” he answered, keeping his voice steady. Every nuance of her reaction gave him a little more information. Genuine confusion. True discomfort. Most of all: fear. She’d come to the door with a gun. She had bruises on her neck, and seemed pale—even for winter—and her overall unhealthy appearance reminded him of someone hiding with limited resources.

Big ass ranch notwithstanding.

“I got you a cup of coffee.” He barely finished the sentence when she picked up the cup and took a large gulp. Then a second.

Okay, so she took her coffee black. Good to know.

“You apparently finished cooking my steak and eggs, too.” The dry observation pulled a faint smile from him.

“Didn’t see the sense in letting it go to waste. Won’t attest to how edible the food is.”

Then she pivoted to study him. Did she recognize him? “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Holding her gaze, he willed her to say it before he had to confront her. As much as he wished he could allow her the time to recover—a strange enough sensation he’d identify later—he had a mission to complete. The most personal one of his career. “You should eat. You look like you could use it.”

Her nose wrinkled. “Don’t be judgy.” Though she did drop back to a seated position and reclaim the ice pack he’d made. Pressing it to her head, she winced.

Ignoring her comment, he focused on her action. “Do you need a doctor?”

“I’ve had worse bumps coming off a green horse in spring.”

Well, all right then.

Then her gaze found his again. Her eyes didn’t betray her thoughts, nor did her expression. “What brings you to The Arches?” He must have looked blank, because she added, “The ranch is called The Arches. Why are you here? We’re not hiring at the moment.”

He could play along, instead he took a long swallow of the coffee and said, “You know who I am. You recognized me.” It was a gamble. She seemed to be playing it all close to the vest.

“I don’t know…” It was a lie. And a bad one at that, as her gaze cut away from him and from the way she glanced around, he suspected she searched for her shotgun.

Setting the mug on the mantle, he folded his arms. There were a lot of pictures scattered about, a number of them featuring a younger girl with her coloring—she was skeet shooting in some, riding horses in others, and on stage in a couple of them. This was her parents’ place. No parents in evidence, so either they were dead or away. He’d leave that part alone for now.

“Do us both a favor,” he said, studying her. “Let’s not pretend we don’t remember where we met—or at least saw each other.”

Her throat convulsed and her knuckles went white against the mug.

“You should eat. Your head probably hurts and the food is getting cold.”

“If you’re just going to kill me,” she said, raising her chin and glaring at him. “What the hell is the point of food?”

Angel raised his eyebrows. The girl had spunk and grit. Of course, when she’d been fighting amidst all the smoke and debris, she’d never stopped. It hadn’t mattered that her opponent had been larger than she and inflicting hurt on her. “I’m not here to kill you.” Sure, he could use fear and intimidation to get her to answer his questions. He could make the argument that since he didn’t plan to hurt her, it would simply facilitate the information gathering. Didn’t matter, he wanted answers, not fear. Taking a seat on the hearth, he reduced his threat footprint. She hadn’t touched her food, though she still held her coffee and her gaze slid to the side at least twice—probably looking for her shotgun. Well, he could add not a shrinking violet to his list of qualities about her. Faint not withstanding. “Let’s start again—my name is Liam Knight. Currently a lieutenant in the Navy, though I am facing medical discharge.” Even saying the words aloud didn’t make them real.

The ringing in his right ear increased in volume, but he’d been hearing it since the blast wave flung him into the wall. The glass had left him with more than a dozen lacerations, the impact with broken ribs. They had all or would all heal. His hearing?

Yeah, fuck bad luck and the horse it rode in on.

Her throat convulsed. Yeah. She knew him.

“We didn’t quite meet—but I was there that day, in New York.” The dilation of her pupils along with the compression of her lips until all the color drained from them were the final nail in the coffin. She recognized where she knew him from, too. “I stopped the man attacking you.”

Her gaze dropped to the mug in her hands, and her knuckles had gone white. Fear radiated from her in waves.

“He’s dead,” Angel assured her, why he thought it would make her feel better he had no idea.

She clapped a hand to her mouth and lurched to her feet. Only quick reactions on his part saved the mug she dropped. When she fled, he set the cups aside and followed. She raced down a dark paneled hallway tucked behind the stairs, her socked feet sliding on the hard wood, then skidded into a small powder room.

Angel hesitated for a split-second at the half-closed door. At the first sound of retching, he pushed in. Gathering her hair away from her face, he braced her so he could keep her semi-upright. The shadow of bruises around her neck were still visible.

Six weeks later—unless the son of a bitch who hurt her was somewhere on the ranch. Fury, instant and hot, threaded through his veins. He didn’t have to know this woman to know he planned on kicking that man’s ass until he could taste shit on his tonsils.

There was very little for her to bring up, she hadn’t even touched the food. When the gagging calmed, he reached passed her and flushed the toilet. After wetting a hand towel, he ran it over her face. She opened her honey brown eyes and they fixed on him. “You’re still here.”

“’Fraid so,” he said, almost feeling the need to apologize. “Feel better?”

“Not really.” The fear drifting through her gaze stabbed at him.

“Stupid question probably, but…what’s wrong, specifically, right now?” Even stupider that he cared—at best she was a witness, right? At worst, well he didn’t want to fucking contemplate worst. So why didn’t he just ask his questions and get the hell out of the frozen north?

“There’s a stranger in my house. I blew a hole in my parents’ ceiling with a shotgun I learned how to use at the age of eight.” She grimaced. “I fainted like some dopey, useless person.” Tugging the damp towel from his hand, she scrubbed it over her face with far more force than he’d been using. “I’m starving.”

“Okay…well your food is out there.” Okay, who was being the useless one here? “Probably cold, and you know…unpleasant. But it’s still food.”

She cut a look toward him, then began to laugh. The empty, hollow note gained strength as her chuckle came from a deeper place. Latching onto her amusement like a buoy in rough waters, he pulled her to her feet and brushed the dark hair away from her face. This close, with pain and humor tangling in her expression, demonstrated the mixture of contrasts she displayed—strength and delicacy, tough attitude and innocence.

“Or I could make us something else to eat, and we could try this again.” The unexpected offer eased his conscience.

“I’d like that.”

“Me, too.” The quiver in her smile thrust the knife a little deeper. Yes, he’d come here because he needed something from her, but he had zero intention of causing her such serious distress. Liar. How the hell else did you think you would get answers? Ignoring his conscience for the time being, he backed out of the powder room and motioned for Katie to precede him.

Blowing out a breath, she led the way through the living room to the kitchen. He paused to check the door. The air in the living room seemed colder than earlier. “Do you have something I can use to fix the door? I had to break it in earlier when you collapsed…”

Hesitating at the entrance to the kitchen, she glanced back at him. Her cheeks pinkened. “We can do that after we eat. It’ll hold for now and I’ll just turn up the heat.” The curve of her lips, and the way her eyes glistened in the light sent a wholly inappropriate bolt of lust through him.

Yeah, he wasn’t cold anymore. He also shouldn’t be looking at her that way—period. “If you’re sure…”

“No, but you’re here and the storm is going to get worse. The closest place is Old Tom’s and he’s three miles down the road, if you can get to it. So we eat, have fresh coffee, then you can tell me again why you’re here.”

Just like that… “You’re not worried I’m here to hurt you anymore?” Was he just gambling for trouble?

“If you planned on hurting me, you would have already.” Then she turned her back on him and continued into the kitchen. The fatalism in her statement kicked him in the gut.

Damn. He really was going to find the son of a bitch who gave her the bruises on her throat and her soul and he would…was it the jackass he already killed after the explosion? While somewhat satisfying, he wished he’d taken his time.

“Are you coming?” She called.

“Yep, just getting our dishes.” It gave him an excuse to get his shit together. Nothing about this trip had gone as planned.

His attraction to the witness least of all.

The panic attack wasn’t her first, but Katie couldn’t believe she’d fled the minute Liam assured her he’d killed JK in the aftermath of that explosion. JK, one of Nash’s best friends, or whatever terrorists called themselves these days, had caught her after the explosion threw her into the wall. She had the bruises on her back still. If Liam hadn’t been there…suppressing a shudder at the direction of where that thought took her, she concentrated on putting together a real meal. There was some bacon, and she had the eggs.

After scraping off the uneaten food into the trash, Liam set the plate in the sink, then rinsed out their coffee mugs. “Put me to work,” he said. The man was big, with broad shoulders, and sweet eyes that didn’t seem to go with the way his jaw set or how intently he stared at her when he thought she wasn’t looking. He wanted something from her, why else come all the way out here?

Fear fluttered in her belly. When she’d seen him outside, all she could think was that Nash or his guys had found her. She’d confided in Nash that she’d grown up in Montana, but had she ever mentioned Eagle Rock specifically? She couldn’t remember. That scared her.

Liam’s presence scared her, too. Worse, the strange compulsion to either trust him, or run like hell out into the snow. The former was dangerous, but was it more or less hazardous than the latter?

“Coffee,” she finally said, when she realized he waited for her. Making herself busy, she began beating several eggs in a bowl. “You might think I’m nuts—whether because I’m making food for you or because I ran like hell from New York, I don’t know. You’re right, if you’d wanted to hurt me, you had plenty of opportunity. So what do you want?”

Maybe it wasn’t the most polite she’d ever been, but the man had just held her hair while she dry heaved. They’d kind of tap-danced passed the niceties.

“I want your help.” He’d poured two more cups of coffee, then checked the cupboard over the coffee pot and pulled out a fresh filter, and reloaded the pot to get it ready to brew more.

Once she had the bacon frying, she studied him. In the light of the kitchen, he didn’t look so fierce. His hair was cut short, but there was an uneven length falling over his forehead. Stubble decorated his cheeks, and extended below his chin and along his throat. His eyes were gray, like the sky just before the first flakes of snow fell. He was too rugged to be pretty, yet the word hunk seemed kind of insulting.

“Is your car stuck in the snow?” Avoiding the memory didn’t make it go away, nor did playing dumb. The quick curve of his lips into a hint of a smile was worth the flip remark.

“No,” he returned, his tone droll. Of course it wasn’t stuck, she’d seen him pull up in front of the house. Ugh. “But it’s been snowing like that since I got here and the road nearly vanished on my way here.”

“Where did you drive from?”

“Bozeman.” He folded his arms, and leaned back against the counter. “Anything else you want me to do?”

“I was going to make omelets, so look in the fridge for vegetables you might like. Then chop them?” If he recognized the busy work, he didn’t argue. Turning back to the stove top, she turned the bacon. “And I can’t believe you drove from Bozeman in this weather if you’re not from around here. We’re crazy—hence the mountains. You’re something else.”

“Frogman.”

“Frogman?” Twisting, she caught the hint of a smile on his face as he made short work of the veggies. The speed of his knife chopping through the tomatoes was efficient and impressive.

“Navy,” he answered without looking up from his work. “Well, I was…won’t be much longer.”

“What happened?” Hank Patterson had been in the Navy, and he had more than a few military guys working for him. Maybe she could introduce Liam to them…

“Damage to my inner ear will make diving impossible.” He finished with the tomato, then reached into the fridge and came out with mushrooms. Captivated, she studied his motion…there was a hint of hesitation to his arm extension, and his leg dragged a little.

The explosion ended his career? Nausea swam through her. It took every bit of her concentration to get the bacon out of the pan. She laid a few more strips in the grease, and winced as some of the hot fat spattered her fingers. The little burns didn’t hurt near as much as realizing the people killed in the shop weren’t the only victims of her stupidity.

The man next to her was, too.

“Katherine?” His voice penetrated, especially when he used her full name. No one except her grandmother did that.

“Katie,” she corrected, and shook her head. “What?”

“I just asked do you have a cheese grater?” Then she noticed the block of cheese he held.

Omelets.

“Yeah, um…it’s there—in the cabinet next to the pantry.” She pointed to it. Then watched as he made his way across the kitchen. The faint drag she’d noted earlier was still present, but she doubted she would have noticed it if she hadn’t been looking for some sign. When he turned, grater in hand, their gazes collided again. “I’m sorry.”

“For the grater?” Doubt echoed back at her from his tone.

“No—for the explosion.”

Silence dropped like a second, incendiary device into the middle of the kitchen leaving only the sizzle of the bacon to pop and crackle in the air.

“Did you set it?” The quiet, yet deadly question sent an apprehensive chill over her arms.

Shaking her head slowly took every ounce of her concentration. “No.” Then she swallowed, and admitted the one thing she never wanted to say—ever. “But I didn’t stop it either…”

Violence seemed to lick the air around Liam as he returned to the counter next to her. “Explain.”

Swiping the back of her hand to her eyes, she searched for the right words. There were none. “I found out—by accident—what was going to happen. But I didn’t…I didn’t believe it. I thought I was blowing the information out of proportion.” Wincing at the pun, she squeezed her eyes shut. She could still see the papers scattered out on the table in the apartment. An apartment she wasn’t supposed to know about—a place she thought Nash had for his hookups. She hadn’t been wrong, but she’d pictured some woman not—not…

“I dated a man for the last year, I was always busy and so was he. I thought he was perfect. He never complained about my schedule, and he seemed to make allowances when I was free. It was—easy in a city where nothing was ever easy.” Not when she spent more time working as a cocktail waitress to pay for her studio apartment while auditioning every other free moment for roles that ended up with her either in the chorus line or nowhere at all. “None of which you really care about, except I thought he was cheating on me because he kept getting weird calls and one night, he got one at my apartment and I know it betrays the independent woman theory, but I had to know the truth—so I followed him.”

To the apartment.

Liam nudged her to the side, and turned the heat off under the bacon before removing the charred remains to the plate with the other more edible pieces. “I’m listening.”

Blowing out a shaky breath, she folded her arms and hugged herself. “After seeing the apartment—which wasn’t his—I couldn’t get it out of my head. And I went by a couple more times. I never saw anyone else, but then I noticed there were times he wasn’t where he said he would be and after three weeks…I did the dumbest thing ever. I went over to his secret place and talked my way inside.”

Just hopefully he didn’t ask what ridiculous story she concocted when she swallowed her pride.

“Once I was in there, I expected—I don’t know some ridiculous heart shaped bed, soft porn lighting and the realization that my perfect Nash was an imperfectly, flawed human being. The truth was—I wasn’t even torn up about it, just disappointed.”

As much as she hated the confession, she pressed on. He deserved some kind of answer.

“What I found were maps, schematics, and devices and wires…and it was like something out of a movie. I didn’t understand it, but then there was an address—for the shop in the square and the words detonate on a piece of paper. Detonate doesn’t have a lot of other meanings…”

“Why didn’t you call the police?” The ice in his tone was colder than the weather outside, and she bit her lip.

“Because I didn’t think it was real. I kept telling myself it was something else, that it had to be something else…and I went there to see whatever detonate meant—who knows someone who is going to plant a bomb? A real one? I’m an actress, a singer—and a waitress. Not some Mata Hari level spy. And who bombs a shop in Storybook Square? It’s a place where people go to buy fanciful things to make their happily ever after come true.”

Tears burned in her eyes, but she refused to shed them. She didn’t have the right to cry when she was just as responsible as…

“So you didn’t call the police, but you came to the square?” The detached note in his voice didn’t invite her to confide, but why should he offer her comfort?

“I wanted to prove myself wrong, like I said. When I got there—I saw JK and Tim…they are—were—Nash’s buddies. JK saw me, and he was pissed. He grabbed my arm, and ordered me to leave. When I asked him what detonate meant, something in his face changed. It was, furious, cold, and more than the pissed off. I wanted to know where Nash was and what was happening and then…the world caught fire.”

Rubbing a hand over her face, she shook her head again. “I hit something, one of those low walls and I think I blacked out. When I came to, there was JK in my face. He wrenched my arm, and put his hand around my throat. I couldn’t breathe, and the world kind of blanked on me. The world was on fire, and it was snowing or something…and then someone dragged JK off of me.”

Not someone.

Liam.

“And you ran.” He finished for her. “Not stopping until you put a couple of thousand miles between you and your boyfriend.”

“Whatever he is, he’s not my boyfriend anymore.” Panic squeezed her chest. “I swear if I’d thought even for an instant he could do this, I would have told someone. I thought I was making it up in my head. I thought I’d imagined it. I couldn’t have imagined that nightmare, and then I was just scared. JK wasn’t the only one who saw me and I don’t know if Tim got out. Nash was in that apartment. They were his friends.”

“Does Nash have a last name?” He set the grater on the counter.

“Guiness. Like the beer.” She wiped away the tears which tried to escape. “Why?”

“Because he’s a dead man.”