The first thing I do in any room is check for the nearest available exit.

It’s part of my job, considering the tactical planning and logistics required to work for Enguard Security.

But it probably says a lot about me, too.

No matter where I am, no matter what I’m doing...I’m always looking for the quickest, safest way out.

Guess that’s just the kind of girl I am. Skylar Szabo, escape artist extraordinaire.

Right now the only available exit is the office door, and I can’t take it. Not until I’m done with this route planning and escort strategy for our firm's latest VIP client.

I rub angrily at my gritty, aching eyes and force myself to focus on the computer screen, clicking through Google Maps and using Street View to scope out any prospective dangers along the proposed route. I study every little area where concealed assailants or snipers might take advantage of exposed stretches of road.

Go ahead and snicker. It might seem a little far-fetched, violent ambushes in sunny, affluent NorCal, but I can’t take any risks with the Duke.

Yes, a freaking Duke.

We've moved up in the world, and now the company is invoicing royals.

Four months ago, it was a big deal when Enguard managed to land pop starlet Milah Holly as a client. Now, after my boss – Landon Strauss, Grade A grump and complete slave-driving hard-ass –

saved Milah’s life in some huge dramatic internationally televised event?

Everyone on the planet with a seven-figure paycheck is beating down our doors. I have more money than I know what to do with piling into my bank account.

And I’m officially going completely cray-cray trying to keep the heck up.

It doesn’t help that my home life is a minefield, and I’m at the end of my rope.

I don’t want to be here, mapping a convoy route for the Duke of Sealesland, no matter how well it pays.

The Duke is fine. The Duke is safe. The Duke doesn’t need me.

My family does.

More specifically my grandma, my sister, and little Joannie.

Joannie.

My throat tightens just thinking about my niece. I haven’t seen her in months.

No one has.

Not my sister, not the police, not the Feds – not that anyone but my sister is really trying to find her. You know all those truisms about how every day a child is missing exponentially reduces the chance of finding them alive?

What they don’t tell you is, every damn day exponentially reduces the interest law enforcement has in the case. In their minds, your missing munchkin is already a dead lost cause.

I know Joannie’s not dead. I need to believe that.

Not just for my sake, but for my family’s. Maybe the police and FBI have given up on her.

I won’t.

I can't.

And I know who really took her: the asshole deadbeat she shares half her DNA with.

I just have to find a way to prove her father's the culprit, and I’m not going to do that by sitting here in an air-conditioned office, staring at a computer screen, wondering if someone with a good scope could take a shot from a tree that might not even be in a years-old Street View photo.

The Duke will be fine.

It’s almost midnight. I’m the last person at the office.

Even Riker left hours ago, murmuring something about his daughter – who he thinks hung the moon – and math club and regional semifinals or something else I don’t quite understand when I don’t have kids yet. A little part of me in the back of my mind wonders if I ever will.

If I’d even be able to stand the idea, after losing Joannie. She might as well be my daughter with the special, forever cozy place she has in my heart.

But she’s not lost. She’s not.

And it’s time to go home and do my real job.

I’m so used to being the last woman standing at Enguard that there’s really nothing all that unsettling about the darkened silence and haunted gloom of our late night office, though I suppose it would spook others.

I’m not easily spooked. I’m not easily anything. And if my coworkers think I either don’t hear, or I'm oblivious to the whispers wondering if I’m dead inside, a robot, whatever, I don’t care.

I don’t need emotions for this job. Being emotional leads to mistakes. Being emotional leads to trouble.

Being emotional leaves you vulnerable, and I can’t remember a time in my life when I was ever anything like vulnerable.

That’s not how Grandma raised me, or my sister, Monika.

But vulnerable or not, I can’t help deeply ingrained habits. Call it situational awareness.

As I sling my case over my shoulder, lock up with my little laminate RFID badge-card stamped with Skylar Szabo in big, black block print, and step outside into the balmy evening air, my senses range over the parking lot.

It’s all gold shadows of faded street lamps against concrete, turning everything a sort of dusty shade of half-night.

I breathe deeply, welcoming the night.

Someone needs to check their brakes. I can smell the strange, cool chemical scent of brake fluid, and the light turns green in an oily puddle left behind in one parking spot. I can taste the asphalt still baking after sundown, that bitter tar stench on my tongue. Then there's the faint sound of highway traffic, a whooshing, distant drone, and there’s a clang! about four blocks away that tells me someone just lost a hubcap to a speed bump.

Everything hits my brain in ordered streams of data, an instant tactical assessment of my environment. Old habits, again.

It’s almost automatic, idly percolating in the back of my mind while my thoughts focus on what I need to do tonight.

I go over the harsh litany, ticking them off on my fingers: leads I need to trace, info to compile, case files to review. There’s a sense of brutal urgency pressing down. Because I’m seeing Grandma and Monika tomorrow, in the flesh, and I need to be able to tell them something.

Something that will give them hope. Something that will ease the nightmare. Something that'll let them hold on just a little while longer.

But that sense of urgency turns into alarm as I draw closer to my car – a beat-up old Buick in a shade of champagne that hasn’t been on the market in at least fifteen years.

I know my car. Know it like I know my own body, and I know how the night shadows should fall over the interior and hood down to the last crooked silhouette.

And I know before I’m even ten feet away from the car that the shadows are wrong.

Someone’s been in my car.

Someone other than me has been in my car.

Someone other than me has been in my car, alone, with a Glock hidden away in the glove box and now, potentially, in an intruder's hands.

I go stock-still.

The muggy night suddenly feels cold as sweat beads and ices my skin, goosebumps rising.

“Fuck you. I'm not afraid,” I mutter quietly.

I don’t do fear, not if I can help it, one more irrational emotion I don't need – but there’s a tension like a static shock rolling through me. Adrenaline keys up in my blood until my heart’s playing hopscotch with the lines of my ribs.

I can hear my pulse in jumping patters against my eardrums. It can't stop my reflexes.

Carefully – no sudden movements – I bring my case around and reach inside. My Glock may be in the car or somebody's grimy hand, but I’ve got a Taser.

It’s firm and reassuring and slick in my palm, a solid weight that fits with the comfort of familiarity. I draw it out and let it hang at my side as I slowly approach the car; my keys fall into my other hand, one key spiked between each knuckle to make a fierce claw for close combat, the number one trick every girl learns as soon as she’s old enough to understand the dangers of a darkened parking lot at night.

Head down low, I move.

I'm not making an easy target for anybody inside the car. All I’ll have is the sound of a gunshot and glass shattering to warn me before I’m possibly eating a bullet. There’s an angle where the upper frame of the car creates a block, right where the corner molds around from the back driver’s side window to the rear.

A blind spot. I shuffle into it and edge closer, straining to see inside the shadows of the car with only the faint light from the street lamps to guide me.

There’s no one there.

Not that I can see.

Not anymore.

No one in the front seat, no one hiding in the back – but there’s something scratched on the dashboard I can’t quite read. Warily, rising up on my toes, I lean in to ensure no one’s crouched down in the leg space behind the front seats.

Nope. Empty. The only other place they could hide is the trunk.

Before I look any further inside the car, I pop the trunk and then fling myself to one side. But there’s nothing inside except my spare tire, my oh shit go bag, and a case of bottled water I’ve been forgetting to bring inside since my last grocery trip two weeks ago.

Sighing, I glance around, but there’s no one in the lot. Nowhere they could even hide, when there’s nothing but my car, a couple of skinny light poles too small to conceal anyone, and an expanse of flat concrete.

Still, I dip to peer under the car as I round it again, just to be sure. No one there, either.

A straight up coward broke into my car.

Left his message, and then ran off before I could catch him.

LAST WARNING. ONLY WARNING.

STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM HER.

SHE’S MINE.

It’s scratched across my dashboard in big slashing letters as jagged and pointed as the bowie knife thrusting out of the shredded leather driver’s seat of my car.

Asshole. That’s going to cost an arm and a leg to fix.

My breath pours out of me in a tired yet explosive sigh. I dig in my case until I come up with the spare t-shirt I keep in the event of an all-nighter, wrap my hand in it, and gingerly pull the knife from the seat, careful to avoid any fingerprints I might be smudging.

Then I toss the knife on the empty seat, throw my case in the back, slide behind the wheel, check that the Glock’s still in the glove compartment, and start the engine grimly.

I’ll call the police tomorrow. Right now, I’m going home.

Nothing’s going to stop me from continuing the search for Joannie, especially not some pissant jackal who cuts up my car and disappears because he’s too shit-scared to look me in the eye.

For me, this isn’t a threat.

It’s a sign of hope.

No one would bother trying to scare me off if Joannie was dead.

And when I find my sister’s ex, I’m going to use his own knife to skin him before taking my little girl home to her mama where she belongs.

The night passes without further incident.

Not even the stiffest coffee can keep me up beyond 2:00 a.m., though, and I wake up in the morning drooling over a stack of printouts about my prime suspect, Harmon Ketchum – my sister’s ex, Joannie’s father, master scumbag with an almost comical amount of dirty ties to the vast San Francisco criminal underworld.

My neck aches, and I groan, rubbing at my eyes and leaning back in my creaking, high-backed chair. The first thing I notice is the air. It tastes like storms blowing in across the ocean and the tiny little patch of sandy scrub beach I can call my own, fronting my little fishing shanty house.

The second thing I’m aware of is, if I don’t haul butt, I’m going to be late for work.

Crap!

I shower in record time, slap on the quickest gloss of natural-pink lipstick that’s the sole difference between my professional face and my private one, knot my hair into a neat bun, toss myself behind the wheel of my mangled car, and floor it.

I don't know why I think speeding helps. San Francisco traffic is hell as usual, and I just barely skid into the parking lot in the wake of my boss' Impala. He's just stepping out, rolling his massive shoulders, raking dark hair out of his eyes. Landon Strauss would look equally well put together and imposing in the thick of D-Day, I swear.

Us mere mortals aren't so lucky.

I slew into my parking spot, rage-tuck an annoyingly loose strand of my short hair back into my bun, and step out, still straightening my uniform shirt. He glances at me, lifting his hand in a lazy wave, only to freeze mid-motion, vivid blue eyes flashing hotly as he stares past me into the car.

“Pixie, what in the fuck?”

I really hate that nickname.

But what I hate even more is dumping this shit show on his doorstep. Even if Landon’s a hard-ass, he’s always been good to me – even more so since he found out about Joannie.

Too bad what happened to my car also falls under vandalism on company property.

No choice. I’ve got to clue him in, if only so he can cover his ass for legal reasons.

I’d just hoped for more than five seconds to be ready for this conversation.

He prowls toward me, expression black as he circles the car. His lips move soundlessly, shaping around the words carved across the dash, then jerks his head up, almost glaring. “Your niece is alive.”

“Would seem so, sir,” I answer tersely.

I don’t want to hear what he’s going to say next, but that doesn’t stop him.

“This is some serious shit. What if they’d gone after you instead of your car?”

“He’d have come away with a Taser to his balls, sir.”

Landon snorts briefly, but his amusement doesn’t soften the ferocity of his stare. “This isn’t funny, Skylar. Your niece may be in danger, but so are you, and I'm not having it. If you keep pushing –”

“I’m not quitting. Sir.” I bite off the last word as an afterthought. “Everyone else has given up. I won’t.”

“I’m not saying you have to.” He holds both hands up. “But hear me out, Sky. It’s time to stop trying to do this solo.”

I shake my head sharply. “No. I’m not dragging anyone from Enguard into this. I'll keep my personal and work life separate, thank you very much. I don't need a babysitter.”

“You need protection,” he growls. “And I’m not thinking about someone from Enguard. Even if I’m sure Riker would be happy for an easy bodyguard gig.”

My eyes narrow. “Again, I don't need a babysitter, sir. And I can knock Riker on his ass in two seconds flat.”

“Precisely the reason I’m not putting him on your detail. That, and he’s already going grey trying to raise a kid alone. Well, greyer.” Landon grins, but there’s something in it that says I’m not wiggling out of this. I'm groaning inwardly before he even says the next words. “But, you know, I think I've got just the man for the job.”

“I don’t want help.”

“Too bad, Pixie. Not an option.” He smirks. “Look at it as humoring an overprotective friend.”

“You’re an ass, is what you are.”

“Nah. Trust me, when you meet Gabe Barin, you’ll be thanking me.”

Not fucking likely.

But when Landon Strauss gets hung up on details like this, there’s no stopping him. And while I don’t think he’d fire me for refusing his help, I can’t exactly be an ungrateful brat and say no either.

There's no denying the harsh truth. Whoever tore up my car last night might do the same to me next.

I’ll just have to play along. Shake whatever loser he wants to dump on me at the first chance.

It shouldn’t be hard.

I’m better than over half the men at Enguard. I can drop anyone in two seconds flat.

If this Gabe guy wants to keep up with me, he’s got his work cut out for him.

I’ve got too much to do to babysit a bodyguard.

After two and a half solid days on the road and nights in hard, cramped hotel beds, there’s a deep and quiet pleasure in stretching my legs out on the sand and letting myself just be.

Don’t get me wrong, the drive from New Orleans to San Francisco was plenty pretty. Scenic and slow, just how I like it.

I went from long, slow roads dripping with Spanish moss to stretches of desert where the mesas looked like purpled murals and the whole damn Milky Way sprawled over me in a thousand whispers of stars. Then the bright blue waves, taking the coastal highways up the Pacific, toward Northern California.

I’ve always been a road trip kinda guy at heart.

But I’m also too damn big to be cramped into the cab of a Dodge Ram for thirty-four solid hours of driving. After that long behind the wheel, I’ve got cabin fever and possibly a few saddle sores.

That’s why, after getting to Landon’s place after midnight, I was happier than hell to ditch the beach house he’d made up for me and sleep under the stars.

The naked sand feels softer than any mattress, and there’s a difference in the dry, hot sand of San Francisco beaches versus the grayer, denser, wetter sand of the Louisiana shores I call home.

It’s always too clammy on the Louisiana waters, whether it’s on the banks of Lake Pontchartrain or the ragged edge of the Gulf – especially when it’s sweltering hot and humid and buzzing with clouds of mosquitoes. Not to mention every other goddamn thing that wants to take a bite out of your hide.

Sleeping on that Pacific Ocean shore, though...

That's something magical. Near perfection.

All hot and warm and soft and comfortable.

Probably the last comfy night I’ll have for a good long while, if this job Landon pulled me in for turns out to be as difficult as he’s hinted.

I lean forward, turning the makeshift spit I’d made over my little beach bonfire, letting my breakfast sausages crackle in the flames. Then I flop back on my blanket, and propped up on one elbow, open my journal against my thigh.

Sunrise over the ocean, I scribble. It’s every color and all one color I can’t describe, until it clears and decides it just wants to be...

Blue.

That’s what I want to remember about this morning.

Everything’s blue. The sky, the water, the soul.

I want blue to be a color for something besides melancholy, for once in my life.

Don't tell me that's too damn much to ask.

I stop, the pen’s scratch silencing.

Blue. That was the color of my old man’s suit, the day they buried him.

Open casket. I’ve never understood open casket funerals.

Morbid shit, y’all. Real morbid. Cuts the pain that much deeper, just standing there and looking down at that dead body all made up to look like he’s gonna open his eyes right then and there, when you know he’s never going to again.

And even if he does, he’s not gonna recognize you.

Fuck.

I still remember the day I came back from my last Army tour, all primed for that picture-perfect family reunion I'd imagined. The kind they broadcast on the news with a red, white, and blue banner underneath, some hokey headline. Military porn for the public, almost, but it makes people happy so who cares?

It made me plenty happy, walking up that drive with my kit hanging from one hand, and the other reaching for the door to the little bayou-front house my parents lived in ever since I was knee-high to a frog.

Only for my father to bar my way, staring at me through the latched screen door with his eyes rheumy and hazed and blank. Not an ounce of recognition. His voice harsh as he threatened to call the cops if I didn’t tell him who I was or get off his property.

Not even my mother’s sad-eyed explanations and apologies helped.

I hadn’t wanted to tell you, sug. You were dealing with enough in Iraq, too much on your plate.

I didn’t want you to worry when you couldn’t be here to help out. Gabe, please, don’t be mad...

Her words, however heartfelt, couldn't stop me from running later on. I just didn’t have the heart to tell her I hadn’t been running from Dad.

I’d been running from the fear of that ticking time bomb that might be counting down inside me right now, the same goddamn gift of genetics that ruined him. The same dagger twist of fate that could one day be me.

A hollow wreck drowning in Alzheimer’s and alcohol, every day losing a bit more of who I am and who I love.

That’s why I write. Every day, every moment, every bit of life I want to remember.

So even when it’s gone, it’ll still be with me. Long as I can read, or have these words recited back.

And I promise the impossible: I’ll never look at anybody I love like they’re a stranger, the place in my mind and heart where they belong just a hole where they used to be.

But I’m not gonna lie. I’ve been drifting around this old world ever since Dad died.

Sure, I was a bit of a roamer even before, odd jobs here and there, then the military, maybe a few things I never shoulda gotten mixed up in. But after he died, I just got by working construction. Easy, mindless work meant for straining my muscles and putting my brain to sleep. And I do mean easy for a man my size, the harshest days are more like a good workout, rather than backbreaking.

For a while, that was all I needed. Now?

I don’t want easy. I don’t want mindless.

After the hell I left behind in Iraq – both during my tour and during my short-lived, disastrous stint in private security contracting overseas – I feel like my life could use a little purpose. A little goodness.

A little anything that’d make it worthwhile again, as if I can atone for the shadows in my past by building a brighter tomorrow.

“You know,” Landon drawls over my shoulder, “I know you Southern boys aren’t up on the latest modern conveniences, but the kitchen can’t be that hard to work.”

I’m flipping him off before I even look back. It only lasts a second before he’s clasping my wrist and pulling me to my feet, into a thumping bear hug.

Old Landon looks the same as he did last time I saw him, even with years between us...but there’s a difference, too. He looks calmer. Settled. Peaceful, with that shiny new wedding ring on his finger.

Happy, instead of tortured by whatever demons haunted him during our time in the service, making him wild and reckless and dangerous as hell.

I grin real wide. It’s good to see somebody happy. I envy him that, I think.

Don’t know if I’ll ever settle down. But I almost get knocked down right on my country ass when the two cats twining around Landon’s ankles decide to investigate me, and get tangled right up in my legs.

“Hey!” I lean down to stroke their soft, velvety blue-grey fur. “Y’all gonna kill me if you ain’t careful.”

“Velvet and Mews are harmless. Just very, very spoiled.” Landon chuckles, folding his arms over his chest. “You slept out here, didn’t you?”

“Guilty as charged.”

“Guess it’s no worse than the bivouac tents in Fallujah.” He jerks his chin toward the bonfire. “Be careful with that, will you? I just rebuilt this damn beach house after fucking Dallas burned it down. I don’t need another house fire.”

“Sorry.” I retrieve my crisped sausages, then kick sand over the fire. “That whole mess settled yet?”

“Sentencing was handed down not too long ago. Seventy to life for the murder, another life sentence for attempted double homicide, extra ten tacked on for arson. They’re still processing additional charges against his daddy, Reg.”

He's been through the wringer, all right, a knock down drag out fight to save his company and his woman that almost cost him everything.

I tilt my head, studying him. “How you feel about that?”

He grins. It’s fierce, wolfish, familiar. “Feel like I didn’t get enough of a chance to draw blood, but I’ll take it. Justice, you know.”

I can’t help laughing. Landon and I understand each other in more ways than one; we’re almost brothers, both of us running away from our lives far too young to join the military. Both of us losing our fathers.

I just wish the demons that took mine away had a name and a face like his.

Something I could fight.

But I keep my thoughts to myself and hunker down on the sand again, scraping my sausages onto a plate and then offering it to him for first pick. He waves it off, dropping down next to me, propping his elbows on his spread knees.

“I already made breakfast. Just waiting for Kenna to drag herself out of bed.” He sighs, looking out over the waves. He’s another point of blue, those bright eyes that have always meant friendship and solidarity to me. Another way to change that color into something that matters more than loss, sadness, and death. “So, you up for this job?”

“Sure. Better be. Came all the way here, didn't I?” I pick up a breakfast sausage with my fingers, blow on it to cool, and then take an alligator bite. “What’s so tough about this little lady that you had to call me, though?”

Landon snorts. “You’re the only one patient enough to deal with her.”

I quirk a brow. “C’mon. She can’t be that bad.”

“She’s hard as nails – and all those nails are pointed sharp end out, aiming right at you. Saying Sky’s prickly is like saying water’s wet.”

That draws a snort. “C’mon. She’s probably like a possum. All teeth and scary eyes, curls up and plays dead the second you holler.”

“You think that, you’ll be the one playing dead just to get her to stop kicking your ass.” There’s affection in Landon’s voice, though. Like he’s talking about a sister. “Skylar’s tough. No-nonsense. This pint-sized terror who’s got men three times her size terrified of her.”

“...and she needs me why?”

“Because it’s impossible to watch your own back twenty-four seven, and someone’s out to get her.” He sighs. “Look, Gabe, this may not be war, but she needs backup anyway. She’s just too proud to admit it. The more she runs herself into the ground on this case, the more vulnerable she’s going to be. She thinks I can’t see it, but she’s ragged and falling apart at the seams. She’s been looking for her niece for almost a year.”

“So, she’s been getting tangled up with some rough types.” I nod, leaning forward to retrieve the insulated metal thermos I’d stuck in the sand near the fire, and screw the cap off. “I get to play Santa, then. Sounds fun.”

“Santa?” Landon's eyebrows crunch together.

“I see you when you’re sleeping, I know when you’re awake.” I grin. “I'll leave it there because actually, I always thought that red-nosed old bastard was a bit of a creepy peeping tom. But it’s not that different from taking second shift. Watching out for her when she’s got her guard down.”

Landon lets out a rough bark of laughter. “This one never lets her guard down. But sure. Play Santa. Just no dandling her in your lap.”

“She already got someone?”

“She’ll take your nuts off if you try.” His eyes sharpen. “And so will I.”

I chuckle. “Duly noted.”

He starts to say something else, but then a soft call of his name comes drifting down the beach from up in the main house. I glance over my shoulder. A petite figure with a tumble of chestnut hair stands in the doorway, waving across the distance.

“There's Kenna,” Landon says, and levers himself up, dusting sand off his jeans. “Girl sleeps like a damn grizzly bear after she’s finished a book. Didn’t think she’d come out of hibernation for another week.”

I hide my grin against the mug. “Awful small for a bear.”

“Say that again when she’s pissed at you. She’s larger than life, then.” But there’s nothing but love, real affection, when he says that, and it’s not hard to see how his eyes gravitate toward her and stay there. “You want to come up to the house? Eat something more than a box of Jimmy Dean sausages?”

“Nah.” I take a long, lingering sip of thick black coffee. I make it like mud. Trucker coffee, my Ma used to call it. “I’m good. Got everything I need right here.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure. I’m a man of simple needs, Landon. You know that.” I raise my mug in a salute. “So, let’s keep things simple. You set things up with Skylar, and I’ll take care of the rest.”

Landon chuckles. “If you think it’s going to be that easy, my friend, you’ve got another thing coming. I'm paying you so well because it's work.”

I'm still smiling as he looks back over his shoulder one last time, making his way back to the house.

A little hard labor never hurt these bones. And neither did no little girl.

Apparently, Landon’s idea of 'setting things up' is giving me an address, a time, and a basic physical description before leaving me to fend for myself against the legendary She-Demon of NoCal.

I’m not sure what I’m expecting when I park my truck outside Enguard to wait and watch the sun go down in a rush of pinks and purples and oranges, noting down the colors in my book while the hours pass.

Short hair, pint-sized, blue eyes, last one out of the office. That's what Landon told me I'm looking for.

Since there’s only one car left in the lot – a Buick even more beat-up than my Dodge, the front seat and dashboard all slashed up – I guess that door opening must be her.

I glance in the rear-view mirror – and then look again. A classic double take.

For a split second, I think I’m looking at someone’s eighteen year old daughter, she’s so tiny.

Talk about knee-high to a frog; I could pick her up with one hand, but one look in those flinty, pale blue eyes says I’d die trying.

She’s got eyes like the shadows in glacier caves, so pale and cold it’s impossible to see anything but ice. Her hair’s a sort of sandy dark brunette, no-nonsense and cropped in a cute little pixie bob falling in messy strands from a bun spilling around her face, bringing out pert features and a stubbornly pointed chin.

Her lips are pink, the remnants of a day’s worn-off lipstick, and her mouth is too full and soft for the hard line she makes of it. Her uniform shirt and slacks are perfectly pressed and fitted like a second skin, all square edges.

Too bad they can’t hide the delicate curves that seem to belong more to a graceful ballet dancer than a hardened tactician.

“Damn,” I whisper to myself, doing a slow blink.

I’d expected a stubby little battle-axe. Not this tiny, fairy creature.

But there’s nothing fey about the way she moves. I recognize that stride; it’s ex-military.

You get to know certain things about people like you, and this woman knows what it’s like to shine boots before dawn and tuck every corner of your bedsheets in till they’re so tight they sing.

She knows what it’s like to always have one ear open for trouble, and knows what it’s like to have people you can rely on through blood and death and fire and pain, only to be shipped back home as a changed thing that doesn’t quite fit into the normal world anymore.

She’s like me.

She’s like me, and my heart already aches for her, when I know damn well the kind of things you have to go through to have that hard, empty look in your eyes, to wall off everything, both good and bad.

Because if you don’t feel the nice things, then you can’t feel the painful ones, either. Dualism is a bitch, and it's making me think real crazy right now.

It feels like I’ve been needled, cut, exposed. Shown this place inside me that recognizes her even though we’re total strangers. Cut and bleeding with this powerful need to protect her.

Maybe it’s that brotherhood ingrained in old soldiers, the same brotherhood that makes me so loyal to Landon, that feeling of comforting sameness.

Or maybe it’s just something about her, this Pixie, and the wary way she holds herself as if even before the military, she’d never known what it was like to have anyone shelter her and keep her safe.

I’m staggering out of my truck before I even realize it, smoothing my hair back, straightening my shirt before stepping forward and offering my hand. “Miss Szabo –”

Her eyes snap to me: quick, assessing.

Taking in my threat potential in an instant. She bristles subtly, a certain stillness settling over her that says if I make any sudden moves, I’m in deep shit.

She’s sharp, as if she’s fresh off the battlefield.

Her mouth thins. “It’s Skylar. Don’t you ‘Miss’ me, Barin. I know who you are. Since I’m stuck with a glorified babysitter for the next few weeks, let's skip the formalities, m'kay?”

I let my hand drop, trying not to grin.

Maybe I should be offended, but you gotta understand I’m used to Southern charm, where people say bless your heart when what they really mean is go fuck yourself.

Her bluntness is refreshing. “Sure thing,” I tell her.

She folds her arms over her chest, pushing her tits up till they make the button over her chest strain. This time, the way she’s eyeing me isn’t tactical.

It’s just raw and skeptical, a complete once-over that says I don’t measure up.

“Just so you're aware, this is a favor to my boss,” she points out sharply. “One I don’t really need. So let’s keep this simple and minimal. You’ll drive me home, then get lost. You can come back later for scheduled overnight patrols. Check off whatever report you're turning in. I'll sign what I have to saying I was a good girl. After I’m asleep, in the morning, so I don’t have to deal with you more than I need to. You’ll follow Landon’s orders to the letter of the law, and no more. Got it, Barin?”

It's like I'm holding burning napalm in my guts, trying not to laugh.

I’d worked with drill sergeants less demanding. I’m keeping my grin inside, but good goddamn. This girl’s a human razor blade.

Small, but cuts real deep.

This is gonna be fun.

“We’re in the same boat,” I say. “We’re both here as favors to Landon. So, let’s do what we’re gonna, sugar, and when it’s over, you can put my ass out on the street.”

Her eyelid twitches. “Never call me sugar.”

“Sorry. Southern thing.”

“I can tell from the accent, but we’re not in Alabama anymore.”

“Louisiana,” I interject.

“Same difference.”

“Nah, darlin’. No way, no how. In Alabama, they marry pigs. In Louisiana, we just eat them. Feet and all. I like ‘em pickled myself.”

I love Alabama, actually. Lost my virginity to a pretty little thing in Mobile half a lifetime ago, but she doesn't need to know the truth behind the shit-talk that goes down in Dixie.

Her nose scrunches. “That’s disgusting. And don’t call me darling, either.”

“You got it.”

She says nothing, just flashes me one of those looks like I just crapped in her shoe.

Then, with a lift of her chin, she breezes past me – and storms right into my truck without even waiting, pulling the door open and hefting herself up on the footboard before sliding into the passenger seat.

I move to close the door for her, but she slams it shut with a baleful look before I can.

Okay then. Little lady wants to do things for her lonesome, she can.

I'm not her butler. I’m not here to wait on her hand and foot or make her feel like an overgrown baby. I’m just here to keep her safe.

But goddamn, she’s meaner than an alligator and prettier than a peacock.

That makes her a hard one to figure out. And it's even harder to fight the urge not to shake my head and let my dick stand on end simultaneously as I climb into the driver's seat.

If only I'd had some honest warning.

Landon didn’t warn me just how interesting this was gonna be.

I’m starting to think this woman never sleeps.

I’m supposed to be the night watch, but from where I'm looking, the sun never goes down on Skylar Szabo.

My truck's parked on the road leading up to this adorable little run-down fishing shack you’d never expect to find in gentrified San Francisco. Looks more like the kind of thing you’d see perched on a float out in the Atchafalaya Basin back home.

It suits her, I decide. It’s charming, the wood slats painted a dusty dark blue that’s been weathered down to bare wood in the cracks.

From this distance I can see her silhouette through the blinds, shadows and bits of color moving through the spaces between the Venetian slats, backlit by a lamp that hasn’t shut off since I dropped her off on the sand-littered path. She’s wearing an overly large shirt, and when she moves it catches the light till she’s like a naked silhouette through a screen, backlit by fire.

There’s a laptop, I think. Something she’s bent over, focusing furiously.

Occasionally, there are hints of jerky motion, probably typing. I shouldn’t be watching her this closely like a creepy lunk, but I can’t help myself.

She has this energy about her that’s fascinating, all raw rough edges and bleeding fury and this knife-edged grace. She’s a tempest, and it’s damnably easy to get swept up in her even when you’re standing on the edges of her storm, trying to stare into the eye.

Skylar Szabo is a hurricane. I’m just wondering if there’s a calm at heart, hidden somewhere in all this chaos.

I make myself tear my gaze away from her and focus on my phone.

She looks back at me again from the screen, a photo. It's one of those brutal, offhand photographs.

Her gaze looks like she'd enjoy gutting the photographer, even though her face is streaked with tears, her eyes not cold like they are inside that house, but burning with hate, pain, loss, grief, determination.

It’s a news story from months ago, one of many I’ve been skimming all night. Easier to get the scoop this way than to expect her to spill the beans, when she clearly resents me for breathing.

Looks like her niece, Joannie Szabo, got snatched up right under Skylar’s nose while she was out with the girl and the kid's mother, Monika.

Fuck. That’d eat me up inside, too. It must be tearing Skylar to bits, chewing her up like the devil's own dentures. No wonder she’s so focused.

I remember being like that, too, once upon a time.

Like when Mama called in a panic, pulled me back from wherever I’d been roaming and trying to remember as much as trying to forget, and told me Dad was missing.

It’s fucking weird seeing myself in her, this tiny, warped, beautiful Pixie mirror.

Even stranger, wanting to save her from the mess I fell into, the one that brought me to the brink of no return.

Drinking, gambling, fucking around, doing some work for some people I ain’t really proud of. Despair can chase you into some mad, dark places, and I can’t help wanting to shine a little light for Skylar Szabo. Make the blue of those eyes one of my memories that turns blue into something I never want to forget.

Except, I can’t let myself get caught up in this.

Can’t make her present about my past. It ain’t supposed to get personal.

I’m just here to do a job.

It ain’t that deep. Ain't that real. Ain't that crazy.

Though I can at least do that job right. I couldn’t save my Dad. I couldn’t save anyone, even myself.

But I can try my damnedest to pull Skylar back from the bitter edge and protect her as best I know how for as long as that furious, cold, beautiful, viciously independent little woman will let me.