“Fortunately, I don’t know exactly what you’ve done. And I don’t want to know. Since we’ll be working together, I’d rather not let that form the basis of my opinion.”

“Hiding from my history won’t change who and what I am.”

He was the one pointing that out? That said a lot about him, evoked a certain amount of respect, however grudging. “What’s the problem, Simeon? Afraid I’ll expect you to act like an honorable man?”

“Honorable?” He chuckled under his breath. “I’m not worried about that. Just making a few things clear.”

“Well, there’s no need to draw such a solid line between us.”

“Because you’re not likely to forget who and what I am?”

“Because you’re not interested in me in the first place.”

He leaned his shoulder against the door frame. “Why do you say that?”

“You don’t like authority figures.”

Reaching around her, he grabbed the cloth. Then his chest came within an inch of her breasts as he wiped the cut on her neck. She could tell he expected her to flinch. He was trying to prove she wasn’t really willing to treat him like any other man, despite her words.

But she didn’t jerk away, and that seemed to surprise him. Judging by the expression on his face, it also piqued his interest.

“Tell me how I’m not interested in you again?” he murmured.

“Stop testing me. I work with convicts every day. I won’t spook just because you stand close.”

Strong emotion flashed in his eyes as he took hold of her arm. “Maybe you should be more frightened than you are,” he said from between gritted teeth. “You have no idea what I’m capable of.”

If he wanted to hurt her, he would’ve done it when he held the knife. So why was he dead set on displaying himself in the worst possible light? To make sure she wouldn’t give him a chance to prove he could be so much better?

She wanted to ask, but didn’t. She knew she’d be stupid to tempt him into revealing how terrible he could be. Besides, she preferred to keep her distance. He made her uneasy. But not because she feared him. Just the opposite, in fact. She saw something decent and worthy in him regardless of all he’d been through, all he’d said and done—which was dangerous in its own right. Feeling empathy or anything else for a man caught in this type of no-win situation could only lead to heartbreak.

“Next time you proposition someone, you might show some tenderness,” she said, and stared at his fingers, which were still wrapped tightly around her arm.

“Some women like it rough,” he said, but he let go simply because she’d indicated she wanted him to, and that made her smile. He was what she thought he was—essentially a good man.

“You can’t always play it safe,” she responded.

“Play it safe?” he echoed.

She removed her high heels so she could walk without stressing her ankle and squeezed past him. “Someday you might actually want to feel something that goes beyond the physical.”

He didn’t follow her. “That won’t be any day soon.”

Considering what he had to face in the coming weeks, that day might never come. But she didn’t see any reason to state the obvious. “Get some sleep,” she said, but then she spotted the groceries and remembered that he’d used them to prop open the door.

Hesitating, she turned back. “How’d you figure out I was here before you even entered the room?”

“I pay attention to detail,” he said, and this time when his gaze dropped to her legs, she got the impression he wanted her to know he was enjoying the view.

4

Peyton Adams had done much more than break into his motel room; she’d blindsided him. The raw, jagged emotions she inspired—desire, regret, frustration, sadness and hope—slammed into one another as if there wasn’t room inside Virgil to hold them all. There probably wasn’t, not with the hate, anger and resentment already simmering in his heart.

You can’t always play it safe…. Someday you might actually want to feel something that goes beyond the physical, she’d said. But she didn’t understand. After what he’d been through, it would be a relief to limit his experiences to tangible, concrete exchanges.

Anything more than that fed the yearning he felt for all the comforts and experiences a normal man would crave, and that was his greatest enemy. Anything more brought up the “what could have beens” and the “if onlys” and the “whys” that burned in his gut. Anything more made his existence unbearable.

The only way to survive in his world, at least without going mad, was to stop wanting. Wanting made him weak.

Dropping onto the bed, he covered his eyes with one arm while trying to regain the calm, cool, decisive control that had taken him this far. Getting out of prison after so long and facing all the changes that required had been a lot harder than he’d anticipated. The opportunity to finally touch, taste, feel, smell and see the outside world had made him greedy. He wanted to grab what he could, experience as much real living as possible before it was too late. And finding a beautiful woman in his room, especially one who knew what he was and didn’t seem to be afraid, only heightened that desperate urge.

But he wouldn’t think about Peyton anymore. It didn’t matter how pretty she was. Who was she to him? No one. Just a woman—a woman he’d be a fool to even like. He couldn’t afford distractions, hopes or disappointments. Only if he managed to do the impossible would his sister and her children have a chance at the life they deserved, and he wanted that for Laurel, Mia and Jake more than all the things he wanted for himself.

Lifting his arm, he eyed the phone, wishing he could call Laurel. He knew she had to be upset, even frantic with worry, and that made him agitated, too. But Wallace was right. He couldn’t put her mind at ease. Not yet. When she’d arrived at the prison to get him, she would’ve been told that someone else had picked him up and that was all she could know until Wallace had her safely tucked away, with a new identity, somewhere else in the country.

Just a few more days, he told himself. As soon as Wallace called to say she was in protective custody, he’d explain.

The relief he felt then would have to carry him through the months ahead….

The Ford Fusion was back. Laurel spotted it in the pale yellow light of the streetlamp near her neighbor’s house, and the nagging anxiety she’d experienced so often of late began to churn in her stomach. The acidic burn suggested her ulcer was coming back. The doctor had warned her that could happen. He’d insisted she relax, calm down. But how could she calm down when her brother was missing? When she was being watched, even followed, by two men she’d never seen before? She had children to protect.

Were these strangers somehow involved in Virgil’s disappearance? She’d thought that collecting her brother from prison would be the easiest part of the past fourteen years. But it hadn’t gone as planned. When she’d arrived, he’d already left, and no one seemed to know where he was.

Had he slipped away because he knew these men would be waiting for him? Were they waiting for him? What else could they want? They’d started coming by around the time she’d first learned he’d be exonerated.

If only she’d hear from him.

Fearing he might be dead, she struggled to hold back the tears that seemed to burn behind her eyes all the time now. She and Virgil had been through too much for his life to end so soon. They deserved the chance to recover what they could of the years they’d lost.

Forever conscious of the car across the street, she returned her attention to the window. She needed to call the police again. Yesterday they’d sent out a patrol unit. The officer had run the men off and warned them not to return, yet here they were. They didn’t frighten easily.