Terra tucked her hair behind her ears and then picked up her coffee up. She took a tentative sip of the hot liquid. Dylan cupped both of his big hands around his mug. Her fingers trembled, so she put down the mug.

“All right?” he asked, eyes worried.

A rush of warmth hit her, a feeling she didn’t expect. Sure, she was freaked. She was worried. Yet sitting across from this man made her feel as nothing could harm her ever again.

“I’m fine,” she said automatically.

She couldn’t help but stare at him. In a crazy moment she wondered what it would feel like to have those fingers and palms trace over her skin tenderly. To have those carved lips touch her.

Oh, my.

His dark eyes assessed her, and a warm tingle moved all through her and took up residence in her lower belly where it throbbed. She hadn’t experienced this raw an attraction to a man in a very long time. Though she didn’t know Dylan well at all, he made he feel safer than anyone had in her entire life. Looking at him across the table rattled her almost as much as the idea that Allan Rivers might be skulking around planning God knew what.

Then common sense bit her. Just because she found him attractive and nice didn’t mean it would go anywhere, or even that it should. Why the hell was she noticing how hot he was when her life could be in danger? It was stupid.

I’ve lost my mind, that’s why.

“I hope that jumpy look isn’t because of me,” Dylan said, lifting his hands up in a surrender gesture.

“Well, no…” She heard the doubt in her own voice. Her face felt hot, and she gazed into her coffee. “If you don’t want to stay, you don’t have to. I didn’t mean for you to get dragged into this.”

“Hell no.”

She looked up at him and frowned. “No?”

“I’m not leaving you alone. At least not until we’ve got a plan.” He drew in a deep breath. “Now, tell me about this Rivers guy.”

She abandoned the coffee mug and leaned back in her chair. “He stalked me for an entire year of my life. Well, more than that, actually.”

“Shit,” he said under his breath.

“Yes.” She didn’t know where to go from that here. So much had happened since then. “I guess I should start at the very beginning. I met Allan in high school when I was seventeen and so was he. He was the high school football coach’s son and a running back on the varsity team. I was a cheerleader my last year of high school.”

“Sound idyllic.”

She snorted a soft laugh. “Yeah, we were pretty high on ourselves for awhile. Before that I was never popular, but being a cheerleader changed all that. I let it go to my head. It was stupid.”

“We all make mistakes when we’re kids.” His gaze seemed reflective. “And sometimes when we grow up we continue to make them.”

She heard an undercurrent there, one that piqued her curiosity. She made a note to ask him later and continued with her story.

“We dated in high school, but Allan quickly turned possessive. Domineering.”

“Let me guess. He tried to gaslight you.”

Surprise hit her. “How did you guess?”

“Typical behavior for some jerks. I’ve met a lot of them. I’m sorry…go on.”

“Fortunately I recognized something wasn’t right and so did my parents. I cut the relationship off after two months. When he didn’t fight it and let me go I thought everything was fine. He left for college. I never heard from him for those four years. After I graduated, I became a therapist as a part of a psychiatrist’s office and worked there for several years. One day he makes an appointment with me.”

Dylan’s eyebrows went up. “That couldn’t be an accident.”

She shrugged and reached for her coffee cup. “Weird things happen, but you’re right. He point blank told me he’d sought me out.”

“Creepy.”

“It was.” She put down her cup and rubbed her arms.

“Cold?”

“Felt like someone walked over my grave.”

He didn’t press her and they went silent for a moment.

Finally she continued. “I immediately told him I couldn’t see him. I felt it would be a conflict of interest considering our past. Other staff members were witness to his behavior. It was erratic. He claimed that it had been a coincidence that he’d come to the practice. The psychiatrist decided to take him on, which I didn’t like. He should’ve referred Allan to another psychiatrist.”

“I can see that could get dicey.”

“It was. I hate to say this, but I think the psychiatrist I worked for thought I was being hard on Allan. He thought I was letting a breakup when I was a teenager color my professional abilities.”

Incredulity passed over his face. “What?”

“That was my reaction.” She rubbed one hand over her face, weary despite the caffeine. “I swallowed my disagreement because I was a wuss. I should’ve pressed the issue.”

“What did the psychiatrist think of him?”

“Dr. Conners didn’t say. He couldn’t. Client privacy and all that. Allan came in every Tuesday, and pretty soon I started feeling paranoid. Wanting to skip Tuesdays just to avoid seeing him. I kept to my office and tried to deal with it the best way I could.”

“I take it that didn’t go so well.”

“No. The psychiatrist kept seeing Allan, and I decided to apply for other therapist jobs in the area. About a month later I started seeing this off white Toyota Forerunner following me everywhere, and finally spotted Allan in it. One day I got so angry, I marched up to his car in the parking lot and yelled at him to stop following me. He just laughed and said I was delusional. The same gas lighting crap he used to pull when we were kids. Only more intense. He pulled out his cell phone and called the cops on me.”

“What the hell?”

“That’s what I said.”

“What did you do?”

She downed the remainder of her rapidly cooling coffee. “I waited for the cops.”

“Good for you.”

“I thought it was at the time.” Drained, she dragged herself from her chair and went to the sink with her empty cup. “He claimed I’d been harassing him and he wanted a restraining order placed on me.”

“What an asshole.”

She smiled, liking the vehemence in his voice when he described Allan. “That he is. The police questioned both of us in the parking lot for a long time. They took me aside and got my take on the situation. After what I told them about our history, they seemed suspicious of him. They put the restraining order on me only because he insisted.”

She rinsed the cup and placed it in the dishwasher. She returned to the table and plopped down.

“Don’t tell me where this is going,” Dylan said. “I can almost see it. He approached you and then claimed you violated the restraining order.”

She pointed at him quickly. “Boom. Fortunately for me, it didn’t ring true with the cops. I was sitting in a restaurant with the psychiatrist I worked with. The psychiatrist invited me to lunch straight from work. There was no way I could have stalked Allan.”

Dylan nodded. “Let me guess. When you told the police this, they realized Dylan was playing games and trying to get you jammed up.”

“Exactly. The psychiatrist vouched for me and explained how Allan was his patient and there was no way I was stalking the man since I was with the psychiatrist during lunch. Allan had to be looking for us or for me in particular at the restaurant.”

“And?” he asked softly.

“The cops warned Allan away from me and told him point blank not to use the restraining order that way or there would be consequences.”

Dylan sat back in his chair, eyes sharp. “How long before that wore off?”

“Less than a day. I guess what the police said pissed him off and he used it as an excuse to raise the stakes. Allan started a full-fledged stalking. Calling my house, my cell phone. He left hundreds of messages until it was full and no legitimate callers could leave a message.” She couldn’t stop now, letting it all out. “He accused me of having an affair with the psychiatrist.”

“Did you?”

Surprised, she glared. “What? No.”

He held both hands up. “Sorry.”

She shook her head. “No. I’m sorry. It’s a legit question. Doctor Milestone was twenty years older than me with a wife and sons. He wasn’t interested in me that way, and I wasn’t interested in him. Even if I had been I wouldn’t have acted on it. As it was, he was kind of a dismissive man. I didn’t exactly like him much. I should’ve looked for a new job long before Allan showed up again.”

“Did Rivers turning up at your lunch convince Doctor Milestone that you weren’t overreacting?”

“Thankfully, yes.”

She closed her eyes, anxiety dancing around in her stomach. When she opened her eyes, Dylan stared at her with a breathtaking intensity.

He leaned forward. “Wait a minute. You said was when you mentioned Doctor Milestone.”

Her throat went tight. “He had a heart attack and has become severely disabled. I blame Allan for that, too. So does Doctor Milestone’s wife and kids.”

Dylan groaned slightly. “Damn. I’ll bet there’s more to that story than I know.”

“Way more.” She hesitated, unsure if she could say more without choking up. She drew in a deep breath and spilled it before she lost courage. “An off-white Toyota Forerunner tried to run him over in the parking lot of the grocery store one day. He had a heart attack. No one got the license plate, and the video surveillance in the lot wasn’t working so there was no proof it was Allan who tried to run him down. But the doctor said it was an off-white Forerunner that tried to run him over.”

“Oh, man.”

The cell phone on the table in front of Terra rang. Emily’s phone number popped up on her cell phone screen. Terra answered.

“Hey Emily.”

“Hi sweetie. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“Good. Fletch is on his way out but he needs to talk with both of you.”

“I’ll put it on speaker phone.” Terra placed the phone on the dining table and turned on the speaker. “Okay, go.”

Fletch’s voice came over the line. “Hey guys. Any sign of the Toyota or Rivers?”

“Nothing,” Dylan said.

“Good. We got information back from my source. I have good news and bad news. Which do you want first?”

“Hit us with the bad,” Terra said.

“You got it. The bad news is that Allan Rivers escaped from a prison work detail in Denver two weeks ago.”

Terra’s throat tightened, and suddenly she felt as she stood on the edge of falling off the world. She had to force herself to listen to Fletch’s next words.

“It’s a big mess and heads are rolling,” Fletch said. “Apparently he went straight to his parent’s farm and stole the old Forerunner.”

“Wait,” Dylan said. “How did he make it from the work detail all the way to his parents?”

“He stole another car first,” Fletch said. “Anyway, he left that car and took the Forerunner, but the police think his parents just plain gave it to him without a fight. They claim he left them a note saying he was skipping the country. How he’ll do that with no cash and no passport is beyond me. Maybe slipping into Mexico or Canada illegally. Who knows?”

Terra took a big breath, trying to calm her nerves. “So you think it’s possible he isn’t in town?”

“No, I think it’s very possible he’s in town. Because of that, I think we should implement a plan to stay on the safe side,” Fletch said.

“What’s the good news?” Terra asked.

“We have a way to protect you,” Fletch said.

Terra glanced at Dylan’s implacable expression, then back at the phone. “What do you have in mind?”

Fletch cleared his throat. “You need a bodyguard.”

Terra half feared he’d say that. “No. I mean, I can’t afford to hire someone.”

“You can’t go this alone. It isn’t safe,” Emily’s voice broke over the line.

“They’re right,” Dylan said suddenly. “There’s too much of a chance this guy could freak and do something desperate. There’s a good chance the car we saw was his.”

“And you saw the car at least two other times, Terra,” Emily said.

Terra rubbed her cold hands together, the inevitable rising up to meet her. “Okay, what’s your idea?”

Before Fletch could propose a solution, Dylan said, “I’ll be your bodyguard.”

Terra’s lips parted with a ready retort but died immediately. “But…are you a professional bodyguard? I mean…”

Dylan shook his head. “You’d be my first detail.”

“He’s qualified for close security work and close quarters battle. I’d trust him with my life,” Fletch said.

Her mind scampered for an excuse, anything she could say or do to wiggle out of this without sounding like or being like a complete idiot. Face it. You’re in trouble. You need help. She swallowed pride, and her insides started to shake.

“But what does this mean?” She dared to look at Dylan, who still wore an indecipherable expression. “You move in here?”

“Yep. I’ll sleep on the couch.”

“Good,” Fletch said in a rush. “I’d talk more, but I gotta go. You guys work out the details.”

“I need to talk to you, Fletch,” Dylan said, snatching up her phone and heading for the front door. He turned to look at her. “Lock this door behind me.”

She went on automatic pilot and did as he said. When he left with her phone and stood at her front door, she could hear the low murmur of his deep voice.

Two thoughts twisted up in her mind. How did I get here? I don’t like manhandling. I don’t like being forced into anything.

Although she knew intellectually Fletch and Dylan weren’t manhandling her, it still pissed her off that she needed a man’s help, or anyone’s help for that matter. She stood at the front door, starting to fume and wishing she knew another way around this situation. Not long after, a knock came on the door. She looked through the peephole and it was Dylan. She let him inside, and he closed and locked the door again. With a slow, easy stride, he moved back into the room. He handed her the phone.

“Sorry I just snatched your phone. I wanted to talk with him privately before he got away.”

“Talk with him about what?”

“To chew him out.”

She made a scoffing noise. “Chew him out?”

He heaved a sigh. “It’s a long story.”

“I’ve got time.”

“Come with me to my apartment so I can pick up some clothes and things. I’ll explain on the way.”

She made a another noise, this one of disbelief. “You’re planning on moving in here for a few days?”

“As long as it takes.”

Her mouth popped open. “I’m not liking this.”

He slipped on his leather jacket, his expression transforming from stone hard to gentle and understanding. He wandered her direction and stopped close. She drew in a breath, disconcerted and yet aroused by his proximity.

He cupped her shoulders. “Hey, look. I get it.”

“Do you? Has some possessive, gas lighting, domineering male tried to control your life?”

He smiled, and the warmth filled her.

“No.” He shrugged. “Wait. Yeah. A couple of drill sergeants.”

She couldn’t help but respond to his levity with a smile. “All right smarty pants.”

He rubbed her shoulders. “No, I don’t know what you’re going through, but I have a good imagination. Fletch and Emily care about you. They’re worried, and if I don’t help you, they’ll be beside themselves.” He released her shoulders, but stayed close. “Fletch asked me a couple of days ago to watch over you because of Rivers. Their gut is telling them you’re not safe. You don’t feel safe. After seeing what’s happening, I don’t think you’re in a good situation staying here by yourself.”

She tilted her head to the side. “Wait. That’s not all. What makes you willing to put yourself on the line for a virtual stranger?”

“I’ll tell you more if you come with me to my apartment, all right?”

She sighed. “All right.”