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victim?”
    “No, I didn’t mean that…I…” She looked down at the half-eaten food on her plate and it was a moment before she lifted her head.
    The sight of her contrition, as genuine as her smile, slammed his defenses. Nothing could change the tortuous sense of loss he felt whenever he was forced to talk about his family, but something about Gemma defused that.
    “I probably would have stayed in the military,” he said.
    Her beautiful eyes met his again.
    “I’d wanted to be a soldier since I was a kid.”
    “It’s not too late to go back.”
    “Reenlist?” He shook his head. “It’s more important to me to be here. This is where my parents would have spent the rest of their lives. Besides, being a cop isn’t so bad.”
    “What do you like about it?”
    He grinned and pointed to his badge. “This.”
    She traced its outline with her forefinger. “I like that about it, too.”
    “I didn’t realize how much until I met you,” he said before thinking.
    She blinked softly and the fireball began rolling again.
    Putting her hand on the bench between them, she leaned closer. “Me, either.”
    He looked down at her plump and ready lips. Something intimate and uncontrollable stirred. He moved the fraction of an inch it would take to press his mouth to hers. Then he jerked back as soon as he realized what he’d done. She made the world around them disappear. The sound of people talking, children playing, the country-and-western band, all of it had become white noise. He’d been so engrossed in her. In talking to her. The things she brought out of him. And above all else, simply in being with her. She led him into treacherous territory, a hurricane of dark emotion that made him seek safer waters.
    Except with her, he wasn’t sure he’d find them. He felt caught between running and facing the unknown with her.

Chapter 4
    A fter enduring another three hours of enticement with Gemma, including a spectacular fireworks display, Ford dreaded going inside her house. Already he’d come up with several fantasies depicting them in a variety of inventive positions—none of them on a bed. He drew his Escalade to a stop in her gravel driveway—no doubt intentionally left that way to add to the old-fashioned charm of her home. She kept a meticulous lawn, and nothing on the exterior showed signs of a lapse in maintenance. Typical Cold Plains residence.
    Ford couldn’t say Gemma was typical. Not for this town. Something about her broke down his usual precautions. Was it her vulnerability? When she wasn’t trying to escape her ex-husband she wasn’t all that vulnerable. He also couldn’t forget that she’d taken up a friendship with Lacy Matthews and had not one bad word to say about Samuel Grayson. He didn’t want to get involved with a woman who’d wind up getting a D tattooed on her hip.
    He got out of the SUV and would have walked around to her side if she hadn’t alighted from the vehicle on her own. She’d been quiet all the way here. That quick and casual kiss could have progressed into more. He suspected she felt the same as him; the way she avoided eye contact revealed her own discomfort. Good. Maybe they’d manage this temporary living arrangement without a storm neither of them were prepared to weather.
    While she fumbled with her keys to unlock the front door, he checked the street and what he could see of the covered porch. Discreetly, he drew his gun. Gemma stepped aside and let him go in first. He entered the living room, where a lamp chased shadows away. Gemma came inside and locked the door behind her, then waited there. Ford made a quick check of every room and closet downstairs then went upstairs to perform the same surveillance.
    When all was clear, he headed for the stairway. With any luck he’d tell Gemma good night and retire to her first-floor guest room, alone. But when he turned the corner, he collided with her. She lost her balance with a small, startled sound, flailing her arms.