Because she’d seen a monster.

Only kids saw monsters. And usually they saw them under the bed, not outside the window. And she’d only seen it for a fraction of a second.

Had her eyes been playing tricks on her?

Was she crazy?

Had she seen her own reflection and her sick, muddled mind had projected a monster onto the windowpane? An outward manifestation of the chaos and pain inside?

A soft knock that she felt through the skin of her back, pressed against her front door.

“Isabel?” Joe said. “It’s me. Let me in.”

Shaking, Isabel turned and opened the door. Joe slipped inside and she closed it behind him. In the moment it was open, she could feel the cold air. It was freezing outside but you wouldn’t know it from him. Shirtless and barefoot, he wasn’t shaking and he wasn’t shivering.

Unlike her.

Joe looked her over carefully, head to toe, the way a doctor would check for injuries.

Oh God, no. Please. When putting on her oh-so-pretty nightgown she’d flashed on an image of Joe seeing her in it. She imagined how he’d react. His dark eyes would flare with sexual desire and he’d reach for her.

His eyes weren’t flaring with sexual desire, he was watching her the way you would watch a wounded person. And he was reaching for her because she was shaking so hard she thought she would fall apart.

“D-d-did you f-f-find—” Her teeth were chattering so hard she couldn’t speak.

Joe wrapped his arms around her, just to stop her from flying apart, she was shaking so hard.

But oh! It felt so good! He was warm and hard and solid, something to cling to while she felt her entire world rock on its foundations.

“Did you—” She wheezed. Her lungs weren’t working.

“Did I find someone?” Joe was holding her tight, head bent over hers. She heard his words through his chest more than from his lips. “No.”

She jolted. No, he hadn’t found him. It.

Maybe there hadn’t been anyone there. How many monsters could be out roaming around on a cold Portland evening?

“But—but—I did see someone. Something.”

Joe’s arms tightened around her, his cheek resting on top of her head. He was curling himself around her as if he could protect her from all sides, including from the ceiling should a monster decide to drop down like a bat.

“I checked carefully, but couldn’t find anything,” he finally said. “But the ground is hard and wouldn’t leave imprints. I checked your lawn and the bushes to see if someone passing changed the dew patterns, but I didn’t see anything. Maybe tomorrow morning something will show up in the sunlight.”

It would never occur to her, not in a million years, to check for dew prints. She sighed, burrowed her face in his shoulder. This was awful. At some deep level, she was expecting him to find something, some sign of a human being’s passing.

But Joe hadn’t seen anything and he was the kind of man who’d find some kind of sign of a monster’s passing, if it was there to be found at all.

She whimpered, huddled in his arms.

There hadn’t been anyone there.

No one.

Just a figment of her scared and crazy subconscious. No one there but the monsters in her own head.

Her shaking intensified and her head swam, as if she was in a centrifuge, a place where there was no stable footing, everything spinning out of control.

“I saw him. It,” she whispered, more to hear the sound of her own voice than anything else. But her voice shook and she barely had the breath to form the words.

Joe’s arms tightened again and suddenly her legs left the ground. For an instant she thought she was falling to pieces physically and not just mentally. But something strong was holding her. Joe. He was carrying her to the sofa where he sat down with her in his arms.

She wound up sitting in his lap, arms around his shoulders, face buried against his neck. Though he was bare-chested he was amazingly warm, like a steel furnace. One big strong arm was around her waist, the other cradling her head and she felt like he was the only thing holding her together. Without him she would fly apart.

Words were forming but they didn’t make much sense. One big hand rubbed her scalp beneath her hair in a soothing caress. Maybe not caress. Maybe it was more trying to calm the lunatic. Isabel closed her eyes tightly but a single tear escaped.

This was worse than her worst nightmare. Someone seeing her rendered down to bedrock, afraid of everything. So far she’d managed to keep her craziness away from everyone, but here this man, this man she admired and liked and even had sexy thoughts about—this man was seeing her at her most desperate.

Another tear ran down her cheek. Even her dignity was being taken away from her. A long finger tipped her chin up so she had to look Joe in the eyes.

They stared at each other. He was studying every feature, his gaze going from her eyes to her mouth, where his gaze lingered. Then he lifted his gaze to look into her eyes again.

“I saw something,” she said miserably. “I did.”

Joe blinked. “I know you did,” he said. “Did you think I didn’t believe you?”

She nodded, never taking her eyes from his.

Joe bent his head, his nose nudging a lock of hair away from her temple. He bent down to speak directly into her ear, voice low and deep. “I believe you. I’ll always believe you.”

The words made hot tears spring to her eyes and she had to blink them away. How could he say that when she hardly believed herself?

It wasn’t just his words that were having a big effect. His body was, too. Being so close to all that strength and power and heat.

She had a big effect on him, too. Big big effect. When she shifted in his lap her thigh came up against an erection. Not a half-assed one, either. Full-blown, hard as steel. Like sitting next to a section of pipe. With a large diameter.

For a second she’d wondered what it was, then a flash of heat ran through her like a hot wind.

This was a surprise. She’d have thought that her crazy behavior would be a turnoff for him. Who wanted a hysterical woman? Joe was handsome, built, had a good job waiting for him. Stable, handsome, built bachelors didn’t grow on trees. He probably had his pick of women, what would he want with her?

His body didn’t seem to care that she’d just sent him on a wild-goose chase because what she felt against her hip was arousal. Big-time arousal.

Joe didn’t seem disturbed in any way. He wasn’t thrusting it at her, he wasn’t denying it. But it had the effect of clearing her mind. When she met his eyes she could tell he knew she was past her panic and fully in the moment.

He was still holding the back of her head in a strong grip and their faces were inches apart, noses nearly touching.

“You okay?” he asked quietly.

She nodded her head jerkily.

“Can you tell me exactly what you saw?”

She nodded again. Sighed. “You’re going to think I’m crazy.”

“No.” Joe’s voice was firm. “I’m not.”

Okay.

“I was, um, planning tomorrow night’s menu. Having fun with it. You know Felicity and Lauren are coming over tomorrow night while you guys play poker?”

A corner of his mouth lifted. “No, I didn’t. Sounds great. Then you come over to my house with dessert, right?”

“Something like that. Maybe. Though it appears you take everyone’s money.”

Joe nodded. “They keep coming back for more of it, though. I’m really glad you’ll be spending time with Felicity and Lauren. They’re great.”

“Well, I liked Felicity and she likes Lauren so it looks good. Anyway, I went into the bedroom to change into my nightgown and go to bed.”

Joe looked down at her nightgown, fingered the material. “It’s a really pretty nightgown, too.” When he looked back up at her there was heat in his dark eyes. Exactly what she’d hoped for when putting it on. The skin over his cheekbones tightened and the steel tube next to her hip came alive and surged.