She just reacted when he was near.

Glancing around the room, Jennifer’s attention fell on the big bed. A heavy wrought-iron bed. She stripped but kept on her underwear and bra since she hadn’t exactly come equipped with pajamas.

Jennifer climbed in bed and pulled the covers up to her chin. The ranch house creaked a bit around her, and the wind howled as it hit the windows.

Brodie’s home. A place of joy for him, and a place of incredible sorrow. She’d done her research before running to him—she’d needed to be sure the SEAL she’d known before hadn’t changed over the years.

He had changed, though. He’d become harder, and now, sadness flickered within his gaze, a sadness that seemed to haunt him. Oh, he did a good job of wearing his mask, of pretending to have no emotions, but she could see right through his facade.

Maybe it was easy for her because she was so used to wearing a mask of her own.

She knew that his parents had died in this house. They’d been murdered, shortly after her own rescue by Brodie in the Middle East. If the accounts she’d read online were true, Brodie’s younger sister had been at the ranch during the attack, but she’d escaped.

Some folks thought that his sister, Ava, wasn’t just an innocent victim.

They thought she might just be a vicious killer.

The pipes rattled a bit, and she could hear the thunder of water coming from the room next door. She had a sudden flash of Brodie in the shower.

Jennifer swallowed. Getting involved with him again should not be on her agenda. If he found out the truth she’d been keeping from him, then any personal involvement would just make him feel more betrayed.

She didn’t want that. Brodie McGuire was her safe port in this storm. A man with an impeccable record, and a man with deadly killing skills.

Before this nightmare was over, she might just need those skills.

Brodie had been very wrong when he’d asked if a former lover was the one after her. The few lovers she’d had in the past didn’t know her secrets. This man—this man who hunted her so relentlessly, he did.

I know. The picture in her luggage wasn’t just some random shot. It had been taken right after her last meeting with her government contact. Taken on the day when she’d finally bid farewell to a life that wasn’t really hers.

She’d always feared that life might destroy her, but Jennifer had never expected that destruction to come just when she was finally free of the thick web of lies that had twined around her for so long.

But freedom had a cost in her business, and that cost... It might just be her life.

* * *

A FAINT SOUND woke Jennifer hours later. Her eyes flew open just as she heard the creak of her door’s hinges.

Someone was coming into her room.

“Brodie?” Her voice was soft, uncertain. She yanked the covers up to her chest. It was so dark in the room, and her eyes were frantically trying to adjust. She could barely make out a large looming shadow in the doorway.

The shadow was roughly as big as Brodie, because his shoulders seemed to stretch and fill that doorway but... “Brodie?” she said again.

Jennifer was pretty sure the shadow shook its head.

He found me. And if her stalker had gotten through the security at the ranch, what had he done to Brodie? Fury and fear pumped through her as she jumped from the bed. Jennifer grabbed for the lamp on the nightstand. She didn’t waste time screaming. She threw that lamp right at the shadow that was now staggering toward her.

The man swore as the lamp hit him, but he tossed it aside. The lamp shattered when it crashed into the floor. Even as that lamp smashed into a hundred pieces, Jennifer was already launching herself at her attacker. She went in fast and hard, just as she’d been trained, going for his weak spots. Right for the eyes with her thumbs even as her knee aimed for his groin.

But the shadow had been trained, too. He grabbed her, swearing, and he shoved her up against the nearest wall. Her head immediately rammed toward him as she tried to break his nose.

“Jennifer!” That roar came just as the lights in the room flashed on.

Jennifer froze, her head bare millimeters from her target. Her gaze jerked to the door. Brodie stood there, clad in a pair of jeans, his chest heaving, his eyes glaring—at the man who held her in a too-tight grip.

“What the hell is happening?” Brodie demanded as he rushed into the room. “Davis, get your hands off her!”

Davis? Her gaze jerked back to her attacker and Jennifer’s breath caught in her throat. The man she was staring up at—he had Brodie’s face. Brodie’s unforgettable eyes.

“Just trying to stop her from ripping off my head,” the man—Davis—muttered.

Davis’s hair was a little longer than Brodie’s, and, though their eye color was the exact same, Davis looked...harder, rougher than Brodie. There was something there, a darkness that lingered in the depths of his eyes.

“If I let you go...” Davis drawled, his Texas accent a bit more pronounced than Brodie’s, “do you promise not to throw another lamp at me?”

She wasn’t going to make a promise she couldn’t keep. “How about you just promise not to try sneaking into my room during the middle of the night?”

“Davis.” Brodie grabbed his brother’s arm and yanked him away from Jennifer. “Why are you in here? With her?” He took up a protective position right next to Jennifer.

Davis rolled his shoulders and exhaled on a long sigh. “I’ve been up for over thirty hours, bro. I just got in town an hour ago. I stumbled home, and all I wanted to do was crash.”

“Your room,” Brodie snapped, “is on the other side of the house.”

Jennifer glanced over at Davis once more, and she found his gaze sliding over her body. Appreciation was in his stare. “The view on this side of the house is much better.”

Swearing, Brodie put his body in front of hers. “She’s not an option for you. Forget that now. Go find your room. Crash there and make sure you stay away from her.”

Jennifer craned her head and saw Davis put his hands up as he backed away. “Easy. I didn’t realize you had a girlfriend spending the night.”

Brodie stiffened. “She’s not my girlfriend.”

For some reason, those words stung a bit. But he was right. She wasn’t his girlfriend. Former lover? Was he about to reveal—

“She’s a client, and she’s here so she can have protection, not so she can be terrified by you in the middle of the night.”

Davis stopped his retreat. “I didn’t know.” His voice was a rumble. “Sorry, ma’am. Didn’t mean to scare you.”

Her breath rushed out. “I...” What? “It’s fine,” she mumbled.

“Go, Davis,” Brodie ordered.

Davis went, but he did cast one last look back at them, a guarded, measuring glance, before he left the room.

When the door shut behind Davis, Brodie whirled toward her. “I’m sorry. My twin brother can be—hell, difficult.”

“I...I didn’t realize you two were identical twins.” For some reason, she hadn’t expected to find a carbon copy of Brodie at that ranch. Fraternal twins, sure. Why had she thought that? When she’d been researching Brodie, she’d come across a reference to his twin, but she hadn’t thought the guy was his identical match.

“We’re only alike on the outside.” He flashed her a grin, and his dimples winked. “I’m the easygoing twin.”

Was she really supposed to believe that? There wasn’t a whole lot that was “easy” about the former SEAL standing in front of her.

Brodie’s gaze dropped to her body.

Her pretty much unclothed body.

A muscle jerked in his jaw, right before he spun around, presenting her with the broad expanse of his back.

She hurried to grab her shirt. Jennifer went to yank it on and—

Brodie lifted her up into his arms. “Be careful,” he whispered. “You almost cut yourself.”