He crashed through a hedge into a clearing and set her on her feet. There hadn’t been a single shot since leaving the house, but he cautiously scanned the moonlit distance between them and the ramshackle building they’d reached. His gun followed his line of vision until, satisfied, he curled an arm around her and speed-walked her not to the front but to a side entrance.
He let her go long enough to shove his hand into his pocket. An almost soundless beep triggered the locks to turn in what looked like an ordinary wooden door. But when he opened it and all but shoved her inside, she got a closer look and realized it was made of some kind of very carefully disguised metal.
Lights within switched on automatically. Triggered by motion detectors? She didn’t get a chance to ask before Cole pulled the remote device from his pocket and pressed another button. Metal guards rolled down across the windows. Once they were in place, Cole moved away from her, to the other side of the room, where he threw on a haphazardly discarded sweatshirt, then consulted several computers set up on his kitchen counter. He left her standing beside the door she assumed was once again securely locked.
“Very impressive.” She looked around at the sophisticated interior of the outwardly run-down place, feeling unsure and annoyingly embarrassed by her latest meltdown. She didn’t like it, the needy place inside her that was once again softening toward him. “Expensive toys. Your task force went all out.”
“It’s my personal setup.” Cole faced her, his legs braced apart and his hands clasped behind his back. It was a soldier’s stance. An officer of the law. A heartless professional that a part of her realized even now, after everything, wasn’t really who this man was deep inside. “I’ve made a lot of enemies over the years. All alone up here on the mountain the few times I get home, I can’t be too careful.”
“Naturally.” He hadn’t spared any expense. He wasn’t one to do anything he cared about halfway. “Too bad you couldn’t get Dawson or your Bureau to take protecting me nearly as seriously.”
“I called in every marker I had to be here for you, Shaw. I knew you were innocent of the crimes you were suspected of committing. And despite our past, I dove headfirst into trying to solve things for you, because you were in no shape yet to solve them for yourself. Being here and watching were the only things I could do for you until your stalker raised the stakes on us.”
She wanted to believe him, the way a part of her still longed to cling to everything that had happened between them over the last two days. She felt the last of her outrage receding. The logic of what he’d been saying was starting to ring true. But all the fast talk in the world couldn’t undo how he’d kept lying to her, how he’d misused her love for him to carry out his orders.
Had he really done what he had out of genuine concern for her? Concern that had felt so real, she’d begged him to make love to her. Or had this been nothing more than a painful replay of how they were both too damaged to make a loving relationship work with anyone, particularly each other?
“I came to the bedroom that last time to tell you everything,” he said, as if he’d followed her unspoken thoughts. “I should have told you right away, but you were so unbelievably sweet and sexy, and I got lost in…us.” He cleared his voice, his throat clenching several times before he spoke again. “Then you woke screaming, and you were hurt on the stairs, and Dawson called…” He waved his hand, as if to brush away his excuses. “I screwed this up. I’ve handled it all wrong, and I’m sorry for that. But you’re being irrational if you’re not willing to concede that my tactics have worked for you. For us. You were already catching on in that last dream. Your subconscious knew I was here for some other purpose than just being a good neighbor. And you still trusted me once you woke up and calmed down. I need you to try and hold on to that so we can discuss alternatives.”
“Alternatives?” she asked. For his tactics? “For what?”
He lifted a hand and rubbed the back of his neck the way he must have all those years ago when they’d first been lovers. She couldn’t remember a single other occasion when she’d watched him become frustrated beyond bearing. But a part of her warmed at the reminder of the young man she’d once known.
“For ending this,” he said. He pulled the device she’d found from his pocket and studied it. “The creep knows he’s been discovered, but he can’t get to you in here with anything short of a tank or antiaircraft artillery. He can’t hear us anymore. This place is well shielded. That gives us a tactical advantage. He doesn’t know what we’ll do next.”