Shutting off all the downstairs lights, Faith moved upstairs and went about her bedtime routine. Washed her face. Brushed her teeth. Pulled her still-damp hair into a bun. She hooked her phone to the charger beside her bed and got under the covers. Sighing, she folded her hands across her stomach. This was the same routine she’d had most of her life. It hadn’t changed. Despite the fact that three nights ago she had bumped into North at the store. Her attempt to clear the air between them had gone abysmally wrong. He didn’t want to be friends. Or even friendly.

He had kissed her right there in the paper-towel aisle. To punish her. To prove the point that she wanted him. Then he had told her she couldn’t have him. He’d made a fool of her. It was like he held out a cookie jar for her to take a cookie and slammed the lid on her fingers when she reached inside. Jerk.

Forget I live next door. Forget you even have a neighbor.

Fine. She would do just that. Difficult as it might be, she would forget all about him. Brendan had called and they’d finally nailed down the day for their next date. She would focus on that. And forget all about North Callaghan.

Despite her turbulent thoughts, her lids grew heavy.

Outside, she heard the distant rattle of wheels on a garbage can as it rolled toward the curb, and it jarred her from her state of semiconsciousness. Damn.

Tomorrow was garbage day. They wouldn’t pick up again for another two days. Unless she wanted her trash overflowing onto her kitchen floor by tomorrow evening, she needed to take it outside now. She doubted she would be awake at five in the morning for pickup. Definitely not. Tomorrow she was sleeping late.

Flinging back the covers, she hurried downstairs and pulled the garbage bag out of the can.

Opening her front door, she was careful not to drag the bag over the concrete. The last thing she wanted to be doing at midnight was picking up smelly garbage.

The rest of her neighbors had remembered to set out their trash, including North. Garbage lined the curb up and down the length of her street. The night was quiet. Various porch lights glowed in the darkness. Two houses down, the little boy had forgotten to bring in his bike. It lay on its side in the driveway. Hopefully it would still be there in the morning. Or maybe his mother would remember to bring it in.

She deposited her trash at the curb and then turned to go back inside. Yawning, she scratched her elbow as she shuffled back to her house. A car door slammed shut. She glanced over her shoulder, noticing a man getting out of a truck parked across the street from her house. There wasn’t usually a truck parked there. The house had a garage and the lady who lived there always parked inside it.

The driver of the truck started walking toward her house. It almost looked like he was walking toward her. She hesitated, her feet dragging to a halt. He was walking toward her.

She squinted, trying to get a better look at him. His face was in shadow, but she didn’t think she’d ever seen him before. His lanky form ate up the distance between them with purposeful strides.

She backed up several steps, unease filling her. “Hello?” Sweet Hill wasn’t exactly a mecca of crime, but it was late and a man she didn’t know was coming at her in the middle of the night.

“Hello, bitch,” he greeted in turn.

The profanity, the slur, wasn’t actually the thing that panicked her. It was the way he said it. The way he spoke . . . the absolute rage shaking his voice that clued her in to his identity. She knew his voice. This was the same guy that called her on the phone at work the other day.

Whirling around, she sprinted for her door.

She wasn’t quick enough. She had her hand on the doorknob and was pulling it open when he came behind her. He grabbed her shoulder, forcing her around.

In the glow of her porch light, his features were no longer hidden. His narrow face was in perfect view. She didn’t only know his voice. She knew him. She’d seen this man before. He was Noah Grimes’s father. This was the man that went crazy in the courthouse the other week.

She opened her mouth to speak, but his hand shot out to wrap around her throat and she gasped. It was the last bit of air she was able to draw through her lips as hard fingers dug like knives into her.

“You’re up late. Having trouble sleeping, you child-stealing bitch?” His eyes were like ice. Cold and furious.

Her lips worked, trying to form words. Speech was impossible. Choked, gurgling sounds spilled from her lips. She brought her hands up to claw at his hand around her throat. It did no good. She used her nails, scratching and digging at his flesh.

Oh my God. This wasn’t happening. She was becoming a Dateline episode. She could imagine it now. The headline flashed through her mind.

Woman Strangled to Death on Her Front Porch.

No. It would not happen. Her life would not end like that.

She let go of his hands on her throat. Giving up that battle, she attacked his face, sinking her nails deep into his gaunt cheeks.

Grimes released her throat with a curse. She fell back, colliding with her door and sliding down. She struggled to rise to her feet, but he was back on her, his hands grabbing, bruising.

“Mr. Grimes! Stop! Please!”

“You didn’t think I would forget you, did you? You stole my boy!”

“I understand your distress, but the court—”

“Distress? You understand my distress?” Spit flew from his lips. He hauled her closer, his hard hands digging into her arms, crushing and painful. “You can’t talk your way out of this. I see what you really are. A cold vicious bitch who likes to destroy happy families.”

All attempts at diplomacy flew out the window. He was delusional. “Happy families? Your family was not happy or even a family.”

His eyes flared. He slapped her and gave her a shake.

She kicked and struggled and screamed. Someone had to hear. Someone would come.

She managed to wrest one arm free and land a blow to his face. He staggered and shook his head. When he fixed his gaze on her again his expression mirrored the same astonishment she felt. She had never struck another person in her life. Even with two older brothers, they had always been mindful never to be overly physical with her. As children, they never so much as shoved at her. She had never been forced to defend herself.

Shaking off his shock, he came at her with a roar. She braced herself for further pain, turning her face sideways and jamming her eyes tightly shut.

The pain never came.

Suddenly she was free. Released.

She fell back a step, falling against the door, her hand flying to her throat. Her eyes opened, searching wildly.

Grimes was gone. A shirtless North filled her vision. He moved like a panther, all fluid muscle. Speed and force and fury.

She hadn’t heard his approach. Not that she had seen much beyond the man attempting to steal the life from her.

Pressed against the expanse of her door, she could only watch. Stare and marvel at the fury of North Callaghan. She had never seen the like. The man was a firestorm, a hurricane of rage. Bone smacked bone as he hammered blow after blow.

In this moment, this man appeared capable of murder. His face was twisted into an expression of rage, so unlike the impassive expression he usually wore. She shuddered and brought her arms around herself, hugging tightly.

Grimes was under him now and North kept hitting him and hitting him, breathing hard, angry pants as he swung his fists over and over.

She heard her voice emerge. It sounded tinny and far away even to her ears. “North! Stop! You’ll kill him!”

Other voices arrived then, too. Down the street people surfaced, coming out of their houses to investigate the commotion.

“North! North!” Fear for him fueled her. She stepped forward to seize his arm, her voice urgent and desperate. “You need to stop.”

He did not even seem to hear her. He was a man possessed. He shook off her grip, so she added a second hand clutching him harder, shaking him harder, not to be deterred.

He straightened suddenly and turned on her, swinging around, a savage light in his eyes, as though he meant to strike her next. She lunged back a step with a gasp, her hand flying to her face as though to shield herself.

North stopped and shook himself. Blinking, he stared at her as though coming out of a daze. “Faith,” he whispered and his voice sounded broken. It took everything in her not to go to him then. Not to wrap her arms around him.

“What’s happening here?” a neighbor walking up her driveway called.

She held North’s stare. “North . . . are you okay?”

He looked down at his hands. She followed his gaze, noting his cracked knuckles. She made a small sound of distress at the apparent damage.

He looked back up at her, his eyes ravaged. He moved forward in a few jerking steps. She didn’t shrink away as he came at her with his wrecked hands.

He said her name again. “Faith?” He took her face in his hands, angling her chin higher so that the porch light hid nothing. His breath escaped him in a hiss at whatever he saw. His hands slid lower, his fingers grazing her tender neck and making her wince.

“He did this to you.” He made a growling sound and made a move toward Grimes as though he intended to finish his beating.

She snatched hold of him and tugged him back to her, her hands tight on his waist. “North, no. Leave it be.” She glanced around uneasily at the gathering of neighbors.

Grimes lay on the ground, moaning and writhing. He would not be getting up without assistance. She sighed. There was nothing to be done for it. They would have to call the police and an ambulance. She stifled a groan. The city police department worked closely with the sheriff’s office. Once her name was given, the SHPD would immediately notify her brother. She would have to file a report. Press charges.

Almost as though she’d summoned them, sirens started wailing in the distance. Apparently someone had already called the authorities.

North turned his head in the direction of the sound, too. “It’s about to get real now,” he muttered.

Dread pooled in her stomach and bottomed out when she recognized her brother’s Bronco swerving onto her street. Of course he would get here first, even before the SHPD.

He came to a stop with a hard push on the brakes. He was probably alerted once he heard her address on dispatch. Or maybe someone heard about it on the police scanner and notified him. Or maybe Doris called him. Whatever the case, he was here and things were about to get a whole lot more complicated.

Her brother was walking up her driveway with murder in his eyes as two SHPD cruisers pulled onto the street. She spotted Ford Willis through the windshield of one of the cars. He had gone to high school with Faith and also happened to be their minister’s kid. You couldn’t meet a nicer person than Ford. He couldn’t even bring himself to give out speeding tickets.

She sighed and then winced because the action of exhaling that hard actually hurt her throat. North was watching her closely. He did not miss her reaction. He tilted her chin up and his thumb lightly brushed the raw skin of her throat, his expression tightening with concern.

Suddenly her brother was there, shouldering his way through neighbors. He took one glance at North and looked ready to start a beat down of his own. “Callaghan!” he roared.

Naturally, he would think this was somehow the felon’s fault. She shook her head and stepped in front of North, holding up her hands. “Hale, stop! He didn’t do anything!”

Her brother’s bigger body collided with her hands, but he didn’t seem inclined to stop and listen to her. He kept walking forward, pushing against her hands, ready to plow through her to get to North. “No! Stop! It wasn’t him. He didn’t do anything.”

Except save her life. He did do that.

She turned, still keeping one hand on her brother’s chest to ward him off. She looked up at North. “He saved my life.”

North didn’t even glance at her brother. His eyes were glued to her face, as though she were the only person in the world . . . the only one who mattered in this scene of chaos.

“What the hell happened?” Hale demanded, not one to waste time getting to the point.

She shook her head and quickly realized that was a mistake. Dizziness swamped her and she staggered to the side. North let loose a curse beside her. Before she knew what was happening he swept her up into his arms. Closing her eyes against the spinning world, she pressed a hand to her forehead.

Dimly she heard her brother exclaim something. She wasn’t sure what he said, but there may have been a curse word or two trickled in there. North carried her a short distance. And then she was no longer moving. She sank down onto something soft and yielding.

She opened her eyes slowly. All she could see, the only thing she could even look at in that moment, was North’s face hovering so close to her own.

“North,” she breathed.

“I’m here, Faith.”