"Oh shoot!" she said, as the ball hit the concrete.

The sight of his little girl shooting baskets shouldn't have moved him so profoundly. But as he watched her push her wheelchair forward to catch the ball, then lean forward and prepare for another shot, his heart convulsed in his chest. The ensuing jab of pain took his breath.

She needs to live her life to the fullest, risks be damned.

Erin 's words rang uncomfortably in his ears. She was wrong, Nick assured himself. Stephanie needed protecting. If he'd been there for her the night of the accident she wouldn't be in that wheelchair.

Needing a moment to rein in his emotions, he leaned against the side of the house, telling himself he wasn't overprotective. Steph needed someone to look after her. Someone to keep her safe. Someone to keep her from getting hurt again.

After a moment, Nick approached his daughter. He smiled, but his face felt plastic and he feared she would see straight through him. His little girl had become increasingly perceptive in the last couple of years.

She looked at him from beneath her lashes and grinned. "I missed my shot."

Nick swallowed, terrified the emotion crowding his throat would overtake him. "I saw that."

"I'm sorry I was so mean to Erin."

" Erin 's fine. She understands and told me it's okay if you don't want the basketball. She'll get you something else."

Stephanie lifted the ball to him. "I never noticed this when she first gave it to me. Check it out, Dad."

Nick looked down at the orange globe. Pain broke apart and scattered deep in his chest at the sight of his daughter's name scrawled in sweeping black handwriting above the autograph of a popular Chicago Bulls player.

"Well, I'll be," he muttered.

"Pretty cool, huh? How'd Erin know he's my favorite player?"

Nick didn't know what to say. Not to his daughter. Certainly not to Erin, who must have driven more than two hundred miles, plus somehow wrangled a personalized autograph.

Stephanie looked down at the ball in her hands. "I was thinking about what she said."

"What's that?"

"About… you know, wheelchair basketball. I saw these guys playing on TV, but I didn't think I could ever do it."

"You can do anything you want, honeybunch."

"Well, I thought maybe I could, you know, take some lessons or something. I used to be a pretty good player."

"You sure that's a good idea?"

"My back doesn't hurt that much, if that's what you're worried about. Maybe we could ask Dr. Brooks."

Nick cleared his throat, hoping his voice wouldn't break and reveal the pain in his heart. "It's past your bedtime, honeybunch."

She cocked her head. The movement made her look like she was six again and challenging his authority, as she had so many times over the years. "Will you at least think about it?"

He stared at her, shaken and so full of love for this child that he ached with the need to hold her and keep her safe. Another part of him wanted desperately to make her happy-to let her play basketball and do all the things a little girl should be able to do. For the first time since the accident, he wondered if one was at odds with the other. He wondered if Erin McNeal was right.

"I'll think about it as long as you promise not to become a professional basketball player," he said after a moment. "I couldn't handle you being on the road for long stretches."

She turned thoughtful. "You think professional players miss their dads when they're on the road?"

"You would." Grinning, Nick leaned forward and tugged gently on her ear. "But I'd miss you more."

Wheeling the chaff back, Stephanie bounced the ball toward him. "So, I can take lessons?"

Nick caught the ball, but couldn't bring himself to bounce it back to her. "I'll think about it, sweetheart, all right?"

"Promise me you'll think hard about it, Dad, okay?"

"I promise."

Erin sat at her desk and stared out the front window of the police station, trying not to think about Nick-and failing miserably. Frowning, she looked down at the blur of forms and reports spread out in front of her, and typed a line of information into her computer. Unable to drum up the least bit of enthusiasm for her work, she resumed her vigil of watching the cars as they drove down Commerce Street. She'd been hard at it since seven that morning-two hours ago-and only sixteen cars had passed. Logan Falls, she thought. Life in the fast lane.

What in the world was she going to do about Nick?

Hector's philosophy on training new officers differed dramatically from Nick's. While the chief had started her out with making rounds, Hector preferred to pawn off his paperwork on her, while he did his rounds alone. Erin wasn't happy about the desk work. On the other hand, she didn't feel much like company today.

She wanted to blame Nick for her sour mood but knew she had no one to blame but herself-and that blasted kiss. How was it she could build an illustrious career in a police department the size of Chicago 's, yet in her first week in Logan Falls she'd managed to alienate her counterpart, tick off her boss and generally screw up at every turn? What had she been thinking, letting Nick kiss her like that? What on earth had she been doing kissing him back?

She wanted to believe the kiss was a result of high emotion in the wake of Stephanie's reaction to the basketball. Or Nick's anger. Or her own guilt over having upset the little girl. But Erin knew better, and she wasn't going to start lying to herself now. She'd wanted Nick to kiss her, wanted that hard, uncompromising mouth against hers-consequences be damned. No amount of denial was going to change any of it, or the fact that her pulse kicked every time she thought about doing it again.

Her cheeks heated at the memory of their encounter in his driveway, but she quickly shooed it away. She couldn't change what was already done. It had been two days since the kiss, and she hadn't seen him since. She told herself that was best. She didn't need a man like Nick messing with her head and teasing her body with promises that would do nothing but make them both miserable in the long run.

He'd told her it was her recklessness he couldn't tolerate. Erin knew it had more to do with the fact that she was a career cop who wasn't afraid to put herself on the line. Well, she'd had her fill of men who couldn't handle her being a police officer. Warren Prentice was a prime example, and it still disturbed her deeply that six years ago she'd been naive enough to nearly throw it all away in the name of love.

Love?Whoa. Where had that crazy notion come from? Erin certainly wasn't naive enough to believe in the fallacy of love-or risk her career over it. Things were better if she avoided Nick, she assured herself. Simpler. A hell of a lot safer. She'd do her time in Logan Falls. Get back on her feet. Hopefully, in six months, Frank would reinstate her, and she could move back to Chicago where she belonged.

She started when the bell on the front door jingled. Expecting Hector, she felt a jolt of surprise when Stephanie opened the door and rolled inside. Not sure how to react in light of the fiasco at her birthday party, Erin looked down at the form in front of her and typed another line of information into the computer.

"Hi."

Erin looked up and felt her mood soften as she watched the little girl struggle to get her wheelchair through the door. "Hi, Steph," she said. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah." The answer lacked the enthusiasm one would expect from a nine-year-old. "Is my dad around?"

Concerned, Erin shoved away from the computer and watched her approach. "You're not sick, are you?"

No, I'm just desperately sad and lonely and need someone to talk to. Erin saw the words in the little girl's eyes as clearly as if she'd spoken them. Compassion and an odd sense of understanding squeezed Erin 's heart. How many times had she felt that same sadness growing up without her mother? She wondered if Nick saw the same sadness when he looked into his daughter's eyes. She wondered if it tore him apart, because there wasn't anything he could do to fix it.