Of course, eventually, she’d figured out what he was after-certainly by the time he’d asked her to the prom at the end of their junior year. Maybe even before that, like when he’d punched out Kevin Harrell in the locker bay-and for sure by the summer after graduation, when she’d ended up in the backseat of his car, a hot green, incredibly fast old-style muscle car he’d called “Roxanne.” Oh, yes, by then she’d definitely figured out what he’d wanted, and if she’d had any doubts, he’d pretty much cleared them up in between unhooking her bra and unzipping his pants. He wanted her, wanted her to be his girl, and he’d wanted it since the first time he’d laid eyes on her in Ms. Trent’s social studies class way back in seventh grade.

And he was out in the hall.

She took a breath. Roxanne. Yeah. That was right, a Dodge Challenger, 1971, very hot, very fast, and completely underappreciated by her at the time, but she’d long since learned how rare and wonderful the car had been, and exactly what Johnny Ramos had saved her from by putting himself between her and Kevin Harrell that day in the locker bay.

Kevin, a current resident of the state penitentiary in Canon City, had been twice his size, but there had been no contest in the brief, violent encounter. The older boy had shoved her up against the lockers, pressing his body against hers, talking trash and trying to jerk her skirt up to her waist, and for a few seconds, she’d been frozen in fear, the breath knocked out of her. Then someone had called him out, their voice harsh, the words insistent, spoken in gutter Spanish and full of threat.

Kevin had turned to face his challenger, and it had all been over. One punch, brick hard and lightning fast.

An iron fist, her dad had called it, being able to knock out somebody that size with one hit. Johnny had also had a tattoo, she’d discovered in Roxanne’s backseat, a tattoo with its own claim to iron.

God, that had been an experience. Definitely. Being in the backseat of a car with Johnny Ramos had been the single most educational experience of her life up to that point, and maybe even a little bit beyond.

Iron tattoo, iron fist, a reputation crossing over into misdemeanors edged in felonies, if the rumors about how he’d “acquired” the Challenger were true-and he was standing out in the hall.

Unbelievable.

And what in the hell was she going to do about it? He obviously knew she was in here-which just opened up a whole other can of worms, one she was simply going to ignore, like how maybe his was the voice she’d heard outside the door at the Oxford, like maybe she had been tailed, which made her more than a little irritated with herself, a whole lot more. It also meant he had way more information about her than she was comfortable with him having-like the whole hooker scene. Dammit. Dax had taught her better than that.

“Esme?”

Hell. She couldn’t wait him out. She had a schedule to keep, which only left her with Option

B: Play along with his “heard you were working with your dad” line, and get rid of him.

Yeah, that’s what she’d do, say her hellos, hand him one of her dad’s business cards, give him the office hours-without actually telling him she was shutting the place down-and shoo him along, back out onto the street, which is where she’d heard he’d ended up-out on the street. Someone she’d known in high school had mentioned it, about how so-and-so who worked in LoDo had seen Johnny Ramos going in and out of the alley called Steele Street. As she had recalled, the only thing in that alley was an old garage, a place that at one time had been the most notorious chop shop in Denver.

Esme’d hoped for better for him. He’d been a smart kid, far smarter than his academic record had implied, but a lot of things can go wrong when a person grows up wild-and Johnny Ramos had been running wild for as long as she’d known him. His older brother hadn’t even made it to twenty before he’d been gunned down in City Park.

God, that had been awful, she remembered, especially for Johnny. He’d been there when it happened.

“I actually could use a little help here tonight, Esme,” he said, still trying to talk his way inside, and she wondered how in the world she’d failed to recognize his voice in the Oxford, the calm edge of it, the deep, feathered undertones, the easy, measured cadence. Those hadn’t changed. For all the craziness in his life, he’d had a steadiness about him, even at thirteen.

“All right, all right,” she said, stepping over to the door, making sure her voice carried. “Hold your horses. I’m coming.”

Yeah-play along and get rid of him. That was the best plan.

Taking a deep breath, Esme pulled the door open-and got hit by a freight train.

Full speed.

No brakes.

Two engines in front, and two engines in back.

No caboose.

Diesel powered. All locomotion.

Johnny Ramos, in the flesh, all grown up and looking like the stone-cold definition of every big bad boy she’d ever known, except better, harder, and like the last thing he needed was help, with anything. Oh, hell, no. One look said it all: This boy could take care of himself-in spades.

Criminy.Her breath was actually caught in her throat, an unprecedented reaction to a guy since… well, since the last time she’d seen him, naked in the backseat of the awesome Roxanne.

Perfect.

She couldn’t breathe. Her heart was racing. He was standing in the hall, and all she could do was stand there in front of him, clutching the doorknob and praying for her brain to kick in.

Oh-kay, Johnny thought, looking at the stunned expression on Esme Alden’s face. This is good…I think.

Sure. Shell shock was good. It meant he wasn’t what she’d expected, and that could only be good, considering that everyone from his parish priest on down to his guidance counselor had expected him to end up in prison before his twenty-first birthday.

“Esme. Hi. Good to see you.” He gave her an easy smile and stuck out his hand. “You don’t mind if I come in for a minute, do you?” Low-key, friendly, but not too friendly-that was him.

She responded automatically, putting her much smaller hand in his. Her grip was firm, her skin warm.

“John… Ramos, yes, well… come in, yes.” She was slightly breathless, but given the night she’d had so far, he didn’t blame her.

When she stepped back, he stepped into the office, and since she hesitated about what to do next, he did it for her, taking hold of the door and quietly closing it behind him, which left them in the dark-not such a bad place to be with a woman wearing red lace panties and a push-up bra.

But that wasn’t why he was here-or maybe it was. He wouldn’t have followed Liz Malone, a great girl from his twelfth-grade chemistry class, or Benita Montoya from calculus, or Janessa Kaliski from English… okay, he might have followed Janessa Kaliski, if he’d seen her on the street dressed in next to nothing and platform heels. But he wouldn’t have followed her into a hotel, climbed down a fire escape, and jogged through an alley to catch up with her.

No. He’d done that because it had been Easy Alex he was trailing.

“I… uh, guess I should explain right up front,” she said with an absent gesture, carefully backing her way toward one of the desks in the office, one high-heeled step at a time. “I don’t actually work for my father.”

There were two desks in the office, two bookcases, and four filing cabinets, another door besides the bathroom door, two overstuffed chairs, and enough light coming in the windows for him to see it all.

“Well, I do, actually,” she was going on, “but I don’t do my dad’s kind of work. I do secretarial stuff… like filing… and stuff… so, I, uh, don’t know how I could help you… with anything, I mean… like a problem.”