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  “It’s getting late. Let’s go find you a bedroom. I need to go to bed. Jessie is up about seven in the morning. She won’t care what time I went to sleep.” Isabella stood. “So how safe are we tonight? We don’t have an alarm now, and one pane is out of one of the windows.”

  “I’ll stay down here and guard you,” Colin decided. “I left a backpack outside behind the bush by the window. I’ll go out and get it.”

  “Let me get it for you,” Isabella suggested. “You tell me where you put it, and that way you won’t be outside where anyone can see you.”

  He nodded and led the way to the room where he’d entered the house. He pointed at the bush. “My backpack is there.”

  “I’ll get it. I’ll have to call someone to come out and fix the alarm tomorrow.”

  “Mike needs to get a different type of alarm. A lot of men can do exactly what I did. It was almost as easy as walking through the front door.”

  “I wonder if that’s true at Boone’s and Jonah’s,” she mused.

  “At least they’re out on ranches. That’s more challenging, but not impossible to break into. Wouldn’t hurt for all of them to take a close look at their security.”

  “I’ll get your backpack.” She raised the window and put her leg over the sill.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “Going out the way you came in. It’ll be easier.” She slipped outside and dropped to the ground, retrieving the backpack and turning to hand it to him through the open window. He reached down to lift her inside, his hands picking her up under her arms. She placed her hands on his forearms and felt the muscles knot.

  He swung her inside with ease and set her on her feet, looking down at her. They stood in the darkened room. Her eyes had adjusted to the dark and she was certain his had, also.

  “You’re as light as a feather,” he said.

  She didn’t want to move away, her hands still resting on his arms. His hands slipped down to her waist. She wondered how long since he had kissed a woman. Was he going to kiss her now?

  Chapter 3

  H e stepped back, inches farther from her. “You’ve got your life, Isabella, and I have mine. Don’t conjure up things that aren’t there.”

  “You’re scared to let go and live again. Talk about waste—”

  “I’m not complicating my life or yours anymore than I already have,” he said, and she knew she should leave him alone.

  Wordlessly, she moved away and he picked up his backpack.

  “You know where the bathroom is. I’ll show you one of the downstairs bedrooms. We should be safe.”

  “I agree. But I’ll still sleep on the sofa. I’m a light sleeper.”

  She led him to a bedroom and switched on a small lamp. The four-poster was covered in white eyelet and she couldn’t imagine Colin in the fancy bed. And she knew she shouldn’t try. She eyed the backpack. “Those are your things?”

  “I travel lightly,” he said. “Clothes wash and I don’t need much to get along.”

  “I think there are clothes here, and Mike probably has some that would fit you. You’re thinner, but about his height. There may be a robe in that closet.”

  “I don’t need a robe,” he said. “I’m all right. Go to sleep and don’t worry. I’ll hear anything that’s amiss.”

  “Well, if someone breaks in, don’t be so polite this time. You hit the intruder.”

  “Now wouldn’t that have been terrible if I had hauled off and struck you?”

  “Me, yes. Someone breaking in here, no.”

  “Don’t worry. It won’t be anyone friendly coming after me, and I won’t hesitate,” he said, touching her hair. The light was a soft glow and they were standing close. Once again, her heart began a drumroll. His smoky eyes darkened as he stood looking at her.

  She tilted her head to study him and touched his jaw lightly. “You should live where there are people who care about you, get back your old life.”

  “Never.” He shook his head. “I won’t go through that pain twice in my life and I won’t ever trust a woman with my heart again, not after Danielle,” he said harshly, his gray eyes growing glacial.

  “Half the world takes love lightly,” she said in exasperation, wishing she could reach him. “People marry and divorce with tears shed and short-term pain. You four guys fall in love with someone and it’s a forever deal. Jonah didn’t want to live without Kate. He didn’t date. He was bitter. Now you’re the same way, torn apart over your fiancée after all this time.”

  “You’ve never been in love, Isabella, not really in love. Those guys who wanted to marry you and you didn’t want to, you weren’t in love. You don’t know what it’s like. And it is a forever thing. One love, always.”

  “If it had been a ‘forever thing,’ for your sweetheart, she wouldn’t have married someone else. Get over Danielle, Colin. It was over for her a long time ago. Life is wonderful and people are marvelous and caring and exciting. Stop trying to be the walking dead and come back into life.” Isabella knew she should stop, but this was probably the last time she would be alone with Colin. Tomorrow morning she would be busy with Jessie. Then she expected Colin to be with Mike and the other guys and then gone forever.

  “I’ll bet you’ve never been a coward about anything else in your life,” she said. “But you’re scared to live.”

  “You’re scared to love!” he snapped back, a muscle twitching in his jaw.

  She blinked and then stared hard at him. Slowly she shook her head. “No, I’m not,” she said. She stepped close, wrapped her arms around his neck, stood on tiptoe and kissed him.

  Stunned, he was caught off guard as much as he had been the first few seconds he had accosted her in the dark hallway when he’d broken in. When her tongue slid over his, his insides clenched, his heart thudded and he came to life.

  His arm banded her waist. Standing in the middle of an inferno could not heat him more. Holding her tightly in his embrace, he leaned over her while he kissed her in return. She wouldn’t call him scared again.

  The desire was like an explosion. Something he hadn’t felt in so long, it shocked him. His body had been as numb as his heart. But he was coming back to life in a rush.

  Passion raged like a roaring bonfire. His heart thudded and he ran his hand down her back, over her buttocks, pulling her up tightly against him as he kissed her long and thoroughly.

  Anger, lust, a staggering hunger for her mouth rocked him and he poured himself into kisses that were the first real ones in too long to remember. Her kisses were hot and sweet and unbearable torment.

  Then he remembered that he was holding Boone’s sister in his arms.

  Colin raised his head, gazing down at her as she opened her eyes. Fire burned in depths of blue, accelerating his pulse. It was an effort to release her. Her lips were red, her long hair cascaded around her face and over her shoulders. Her nipples pushed against the tight T-shirt and her breathing was as ragged as his as they stared at each other.

  “You’re off limits.” His voice grated. “I haven’t—” He broke off his words.

  “I shouldn’t have pushed you, Colin,” she said. Her eyes were huge. “Just don’t let go of life. You are much too wonderful to do that.” She turned and left the room, and he watched her go. His pulse pounded. He had not kissed a woman since Danielle.

  He hadn’t felt alive since that explosion, but he had drifted through pain and daily living, not caring if he was numb to everything, not caring if he was only half alive and in danger or about anything else that came his way. Only this past year had he decided he wanted out of Washington, away from the military and all authorities. He wanted peace and quiet, and a simple life. He didn’t want to hurt his family further or to bring danger to them.

  The last thing he’d planned to do before going into his isolation was to warn his buddies of the danger they might be in.

  Now he was on fire with longing he hadn’t felt in years. This kid sister of Boone’s had stormed into h
is body, making his heart pound harder, awakening him to needs that he thought were dead and over. Little Izzie. But she wasn’t “little” Izzie any longer. She was a beautiful, desirable, stubborn woman.

  He didn’t want to be on fire with longing. He didn’t want to think about her kiss that had all but melted his insides.

  But Colin suspected he wasn’t going to be able to forget her kiss anytime in the near future. He wiped a hand across his mouth, wishing he could erase her kiss, wishing they hadn’t goaded each other into such a heated confrontation.

  She was like a miniature tiger. There should have been warning signs. Do Not Surprise Or Taunt. Big blue eyes and hair in a pigtail. Deal With At Your Own Risk. She should have been sweet and pleasant and afraid of him as most young women were.

  Maybe that gutsy daredevil blood in Boone ran in his whole family. Boone. Isabella was his kid sister. “Just keep reminding yourself,” Colin whispered to himself. He needed to keep his hands off Boone’s sister. He would never have thought this would be a problem.

  Instead it was a monumental dilemma—one that kept his pulse racing even now, long after she had sashayed out of the room with that sexy walk of hers.

  He groaned, raked his fingers through his hair, then rubbed his knee. His old injuries were acting up after the earlier struggle with Isabella. But he also ached in places he hadn’t hurt in years. And the desire, hot and elemental, angered him.

  She had brought him back into life like igniting a fire—Could he put out the flames? Could he go back as he had been, numb, unemotional, not caring? He swore under his breath and walked through the downstairs of Mike’s mansion.

  Colin switched off lights until the entire lower floor was bathed in darkness. His eyes adjusted, and he strode to the window he had broken, gazing outside. But his mind was still on Isabella and her kiss.

  She was the first woman since Danielle to get through to him. He didn’t want Isabella Devlin clouding his thinking or stirring him to yearnings he thought were long dead. He wouldn’t be here long. He was here to pass on a warning and to vanish once more.

  From what she had told him, she didn’t know anything about love. She knew plenty about kissing. And fighting. And shocking him into awareness.

  “Dammit, get out of my thoughts!” he whispered. Raking his fingers through his hair again, he remembered combing his hand through her long, silky hair. She had smelled delectable…tasted luscious…and he wanted to forget every second he’d spent with her tonight. He heard a thump overhead and looked up. Everything had to be all right.

  Uneasy, he turned and went to the foot of the stairs. All was dark at the top and he climbed slowly, carefully, not making a sound. In seconds he could see the upstairs hall where one small wall lamp burned. Doors opened off the wide hallway in both directions. He knew there was a third floor to the mansion. He hadn’t asked Isabella where she was sleeping.

  He climbed a couple more steps and saw a door open a crack, light spilling out. He moved to the top of the stairs.

  “Isabella?” he called quietly.

  The door opened wider and she stepped into the hall. She was wearing a pale pink cotton nightgown and he could see her figure outlined through the backlighting from the bedroom. He inhaled deeply.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, unable to prevent the husky note in his voice.

  “I’m fine,” she replied, sounding puzzled. “Did something disturb you?”

  Before he could answer, a baby started crying and Isabella hurried to the room next to hers, opening a door. He walked down the hall, every step telling himself to turn around and go back downstairs, to keep distance between himself and Boone’s sister.

  He paused in the open doorway. She was holding a little girl in her arms. The baby’s arm was around Isabella’s neck as she tried to comfort the crying child.

  As she patted the little girl’s back, the child stopped crying and snuggled closer to Isabella. Isabella turned around and her eyes widened.

  “Is she all right?” he asked.

  “She’s fine. She’ll go back to sleep. This is Jessie. Jessie, love,” she said softly, “this is—What rank are you, Colin? The last I heard was Colonel Garrick.”

  “Colin is enough for a baby to deal with. She doesn’t talk yet anyway, does she?”

  “Yes, she talks,” Isabella replied with a smile. “She has a limited vocabulary, but she talks. She’s seventeen months old now.”

  Isabella looked beautiful in the nightgown, her hair tumbling over her shoulders, the baby in her arms. He was staring and had momentarily forgotten they had been talking.

  “Did something disturb you?” she asked.

  “I heard a thump,” he replied, telling himself to leave her alone. Yet he could only stand and stare.

  “We’re fine. I dropped my book. Maybe you heard that.” She looked down at Jessie who had gone back to sleep. “See, she’s fine.” She put the toddler back into the crib and turned to go. “She’s gone back to sleep.” She looked up at him. “Shall we go?”

  The neck of the nightgown was high, but the top two buttons were unfastened and he couldn’t keep from staring, wanting to reach out and push open the gown. It was cotton and opaque, covering her, but he knew there was nothing under it and he wanted to pull her into his arms.

  He turned abruptly and left. “Just wanted to see that you were all right.” He flung the words over his shoulder without looking back. He rushed down the stairs as if a demon were after him; he certainly felt as though one were. A devil of desire. Something he hadn’t had to deal with in so long and that he didn’t want to cope with now.

  He stretched out on the sofa. While he had traveled across country for nights on end, he had been going with little sleep and catching it any way he could. Tonight, he had a plush, comfortable sofa and he should have been asleep immediately, but he knew that as long as images of Isabella tormented him, slumber would elude him.

  He didn’t want back into the land of the living. He put his hands behind his head, stared at a fixture and blanked out his mind as he had learned to do in prison. He repeated passages committed to memory, going over them without thinking, but keeping his mind blank until sleep overtook him.

  Upstairs, Isabella sat in her darkened bedroom, her thoughts stormy as she went back over every minute of the evening.

  And Colin’s kiss. They had taunted each other. She shouldn’t have said the things to him that she had, but she was disappointed with the man he had become. If he had been antisocial and mean, she would have left him alone about his future. But he’d once been so alive, the change seemed like a betrayal of the old Colin.

  His plans for the rest of his days were grim. Going into seclusion. Giving up love and friends and family.

  She touched her lips lightly, remembering his kiss again. She shouldn’t have started that kiss, but what he had said had made her angry. And then after the first startled seconds, he had responded fully. As far as kisses went, his had been devastating. Just thinking about their kiss, she grew hot and ached to kiss him again. Something she couldn’t do—shouldn’t do—impossible.

  He had come to life all right, kissing her senseless. Too vividly, she recalled each detail of his arms around her, holding her pressed tightly against him, his tongue stroking hers, his thick shaft pressing against her. And her heart pounding wildly, her breath gone, her pulse racing.

  Tomorrow he would be gone forever. How long would she remember tonight?

  She hurt for him and knew she shouldn’t. She should let go worrying about Boone’s friend. While she stared into the dark, all she could see were Colin’s gray eyes and somber expression and remember how he had been a brave, idealistic man filled with vitality and enthusiasm. All of that was gone, and she could understand why from what he told her. He had mended physically, now he needed to mend emotionally.

  “Right, Isabella,” she said to herself. “Go save him from himself.” She gave a harsh laugh. He was sexy, appealing and lost. And she wanted t
o save him. What a project!

  The man didn’t want to be saved and if she delved much deeper, she might find she had opened a Pandora’s box of problems. Let him go tomorrow. Don’t spend time with him. Leave him for Boone and Mike and Jonah to deal with. That’s what he wants anyway.

  Yet—she thought about his kiss and how full of vitality he once was. She inhaled deeply. Did she want to save him or to seduce him?

  She shook her head. When had a man tangled her thoughts or her life as Colin Garrick had tonight? Never. Never once had she lost sleep over a man or argued with herself or done anything she was going through now. Even when she’d gone with Drake a year and he had proposed, she had never been tied in knots, never wanted to marry.

  Forget Colin, she told herself. Blank Colonel Garrick out of mind and let him go. He’s a wounded sparrow she was trying to save. Walk on by and ignore him. He doesn’t want to be saved. And it wasn’t “walk on by,” it was “run for your life.” He was a threat to her peace of mind.

  She closed her eyes and gripped the arms of the chair and wished she could take back the best kiss of her life.

  The very best. She inhaled deeply and wondered if she should go work out.

  Reluctantly, she got up and dressed and went to the exercise room to pedal and jog, to banish the memory of Colin’s searing kiss.

  It was almost dawn when she fell asleep. Jessie’s crying woke her and she went to pick up the baby and change her diaper. Then, slipping into a robe, she took Jessie to the kitchen to feed her.

  When she entered the room, Colin was seated at the table. Seeing her, he stood with that lithe ease that indicated how strong and fit he was. Coffee was already brewing and he had made scrambled eggs and bacon. The orange juice was poured, toast buttered. Dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, he looked fit, tough and in prime condition. His black hair was combed back. Her heart thudded because all she could remember was standing in his embrace last night as he’d kissed her. And she realized she was only in her cotton gown and robe.