“Ah, guys?” she said as both of them started unloading high-end electronics and stacking everything neatly according to criteria only they could see onto her coffee table. “This stuff looks expensive. You need to give me the bill so I can—”

“Nah,” Metal said. He was fitting together highly machined pieces and his hands didn’t stop. “ASI gets a professional discount, a big one, a lot of this stuff is being road-tested so it’s at cost, and besides Joe—”

Joe sent him a fulminating look and Metal shut up. You could practically hear his jaw clacking shut.

Isabel rounded on Joe. “You are not paying for this! I am!”

His hands didn’t stop either, as he fitted one highly polished doodad onto another highly polished thingamajig. “It’s all going around both our houses, honey. And I’ve already eaten more than the equivalent of your share so it’s all good.”

The meals she’d prepared for him wouldn’t cover one high-tech knob, let alone all this equipment. “No, I can’t accept—”

He laid a long finger across her lips. His face was tight, brackets lining his mouth. “I’m putting a wall of security around both our houses. We’re talking about your safety here and I’m responsible for that. It isn’t open for discussion.”

The man she’d made love with an hour ago, the man who’d melted into her body was gone. This man was all steel and resolve.

Isabel blinked. No one had ever said anything remotely like that to her in her life. Not open for discussion? She drew in a deep, outraged breath, ready to let loose, when Jacko spoke.

He rarely spoke, so it was sort of an occasion.

“Joe’s right. He’s keeping you safe. I do the same for Lauren. No one’s going to touch her, hurt her, I make sure of that.” Jacko’s voice was even deeper than Joe’s. It was more a low rumble than human speech. His dark eyes met hers and his gaze was hard.

“Ditto,” Metal said. “This is even better than what I’ve got at my place to protect Felicity and me. As a matter of fact, you’re doing us all a favor. We’re testing a lot of stuff, and we’ll probably be adding it to our places, too.”

His default expression was friendly, unlike Jacko’s. But Isabel saw the exact same seriousness and absolute firmness of purpose.

Three serious male faces were turned to hers, Joe’s a little pissed off.

Okay. They believed in what they were doing and weren’t going to stop because of her scruples. So she’d just resolve to feed them a billion meals.

“Right,” she said. “Is there anything I can do to help you?”

There were thousands and thousands of dollars’ worth of expensive electronics on the coffee table. The three men froze as they tried to disguise their horror at the thought of her messing with any of it. Presumably Felicity understood this stuff, she was an electronics genius, but Isabel...

“No,” three male voices said at once.

“But thanks, honey,” Joe said. He smiled at her but his eyes drifted down to what he had in his hands. They all looked enraptured, slightly punch-drunk. It must be really cutting-edge stuff to put that look in their eyes.

They were three huge guys, martial arts experts, superb shots, and they looked like dazzled nerds who’d just been handed the demo of the latest version of Grand Theft Auto.

Well. She’d leave them to their manly stuff and go do something womanly in the kitchen.

* * *

“A fly can’t fart without us knowing about it,” Joe said proudly three hours later.

It was true. Her house and Joe’s were surrounded by a series of hidden sensors that would sound an audio alarm if anything crossed over into their yards. The guys were talking about delivering mild electric shocks when she vetoed that in horror. Suppose some of the neighborhood kids were playing and fell into the hedges or against the fences!

They also selected out false alarms by animals. The alarms were sounded only by living entities that weighed above thirty pounds, though Isabel had no idea how that worked.

Her front door opened by her thumbprint or Joe’s pressed against a security pad, followed by a code number entered within ten seconds.

Video cameras were hidden in the eaves and in what looked like water sprinklers and they showed her that the cameras covered every square inch of her property. They fed into monitors in the kitchen and the bedroom. The kitchen monitor was on at all times, the bedroom monitor switched on when movement was detected, preceded by a soft alarm.

Joe had leaned over and whispered that he’d hear the alarm if she didn’t. He was assuming that he’d be sleeping over each night. She’d blushed. Metal’s and Jacko’s gazes moved over her face but neither said anything.

Should she be miffed that Joe simply assumed he’d be staying nights? In theory of course, yes. No man should assume anything like that. It should come after a long tryout period and after careful pondering.

But...

This was Joe. Whose presence in her bed guaranteed not only hot sex but the most reassuring presence she could imagine. If she had nightmares, she wouldn’t wake up alone and frightened in the dark. She’d wake up to Joe beside her.

She didn’t say no. Didn’t really even contemplate it. Joe in her bed every night was the best thing she could imagine.

Then—the windows. Some strange film had been applied to every window in her house and in Joe’s. It didn’t in any way affect sunlight streaming in. And from outside, it didn’t look as if there was distorting film over her windows. It’s just that it was impossible to see what was happening inside. As a matter of fact, you couldn’t even tell if the lights were on.

Amazing.

Isabel made the rounds of the house outside, while either Joe or Metal or Jacko stood right behind the windows with a flashlight.

She couldn’t see anything. Anything at all.

When she came back around the front, a big man was getting out of an enormous SUV.

A big big man. As tall as Joe and Metal. As broad as Jacko. With a rough, dangerous look about him.

Terrifying, actually.

Isabel was about to call Joe, trying not to reveal her panic, when Joe walked out the front door, followed by Metal and Jacko. Joe met the guy and thumped him hard on the shoulder.

“Senior!” he bellowed. “Good to see you!” Joe turned to Isabel, smiling, and introduced him.

“Isabel, this is former Senior Chief Douglas Kowalski. The guy I told you about. He’d be my boss if I were actually working.”

“Joe...” the man growled. His voice was scary deep. His expression was ferocious. She glanced up at Joe for reassurance and saw only affection and respect. Ditto for Metal and Jacko.

Okay.

Scary-looking guy was dangerous but not, apparently, to her.

“How do you do?” Isabel did the most courageous thing she could imagine. She offered her hand to the man. “I’m Isabel Lawton.”

Though if the grapevine worked in Portland the way it worked in DC, he knew her real name.

“Ms. Lawton.” That rough deep voice turned gentle. He took her hand in his huge one, carefully squeezed, then let it go.

She’d half expected not to be able to use it for a day or two, but no. It was fine.

Well, he seemed like a perfectly normal citizen, even if he looked terrifying. Her manners, drummed into her by her mother, rose to the fore. “Would you like to come inside? I have coffee and I made some muffins.”

A smile crossed that frightening face and it didn’t really humanize him. It just made him look even more scary. He had a huge scar along his jawline that pulled when he smiled. It looked exactly like a knife scar.

“Thank you, but no. I wanted to come over with my guys and help lock down your place, but I was called away. But I knew Joe, Metal and Jacko would do a perfect job. I hear you had some trouble last night. You won’t have trouble again.”

He believed her. Believed there’d been someone there. Just as Joe believed her. And if he believed her, Metal and Jacko did too.