He’s not the man she thinks he is...

And everything he knows about her is a lie!

On the run with her young son, Miranda Blake must stay off the grid. That means she can’t tell her would-be protector why she’s fleeing her secret past. Just the same, Detective Tad Newberry can’t tell Miranda why he’s protecting her. Just as the two start falling in love, shocking truths explode their fragile trust.

Having written over eighty-five novels, TARA TAYLOR QUINN is a USA TODAY bestselling author with more than seven million copies sold. She is known for delivering intense, emotional fiction. Tara is a past president of Romance Writers of America and is a seven-time RWA RITA® Award finalist. She has also appeared on TV across the country, including CBS Sunday Morning. She supports the National Domestic Violence Hotline. If you need help, please contact 1-800-799-7233.

Also by Tara Taylor Quinn

Her Lost and Found Baby

An Unexpected Christmas Baby

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Christmas Baby

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

Her Detective’s Secret Intent

Tara Taylor Quinn

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-09436-8

HER DETECTIVE’S SECRET INTENT

© 2019 TTQ Books LLC

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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Version: 2020-03-02

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For Drake Winchester, the brand-new

little guy for whom I’d give my life.

I am so thankful you’re in the world.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

About the Publisher

Chapter 1

Detective Tad Newberry—currently on leave from the police force in Charlotte, North Carolina—walked into the pediatric examining room in Santa Raquel, California, forcing a big smile. In addition to the exam table, some plastic chairs, a counter with drawers and glass containers of various cotton supplies, the room boasted zoo animal prints in shades of blue and green. The floor was gray tile, eight-inch squares, and the lights were ceiling-mounted fluorescent bulbs.

After giving his surroundings a quick glance, cataloging every aspect out of habit, he focused on the seven-year-old boy dressed in jeans and a yellow T-shirt sitting on the edge of the table, swinging one of his legs back and forth—a nervous gesture, Tad surmised, not a happy or excited one.

The boy’s mother, in jeans and a navy hoodie with a light green shirt underneath, stood beside him, hand about an inch behind her son on the paper-covered cushioned mat. As though she was ready to grab him at any moment. Tad glanced at her, having been prepared ahead of time, and still felt bile rise in his throat when he saw the red-and-purple puffiness taking up one entire side of her face.

Marie Williams wanted to be kept safe from her abusive husband, but she didn’t want to press charges against him. She truly believed that once they got through their divorce, she’d be fine; he’d no longer be a risk to her. At the same time, she didn’t want to ruin his life.

Tad had heard the entire report. He didn’t get it. But it wasn’t his place to judge.

“Danny, this is Tad, the man I told you about,” said the third woman in the room that sunny April morning, the one Tad knew and by whose invitation he was there. Pediatric physician’s assistant Miranda Blake could easily steal Tad’s entire focus if he allowed himself to relax. Something he could never do around the lovely brunette.

“Hi, Danny,” he said, his gaze on the boy as he approached. “I hear you’ve had a bit of a tough time.” Pulling up a chair, not the doctor’s stool Miranda had pushed his way, he settled half a foot below the boy’s eye level.

Chin almost to his chest, Danny nodded.

The boy, a beefy little guy, though not overweight, wouldn’t meet his eyes.

Tad had never been married, had no kids, but he knew human nature. Leaning down, he tried to catch the boy’s look. Danny turned to his mother, burying his face in her chest.

“Tad’s not going to hurt you, Danny.” Miranda’s tone not only held authority, but that incredible sense of nurturing that had captivated him from the first time he’d heard her speak. The woman radiated caring. Not that he required it for himself.

He had other matters on his mind. Giving all his attention to the boy, he made a guess. “I’m not mad at you, son. You aren’t in any kind of trouble. And I’m not a doctor or anyone in the doctor business. I’m not here to look at your injuries. I’m just here to talk.”

He was there as part of an individualized plan designed by the High Risk Team in Santa Raquel—a team comprised of various working professionals who shared domestic violence information with the single goal of preventing domestic violence deaths. The current plan had been devised to protect Danny and his mother. His role, strictly volunteer, was to keep an eye on Danny anytime the boy wasn’t with his mother or teachers. Specifically he was to do multiple drive-bys a day to see that all was well. Miranda, a frequent visiting member of the High Risk Team, had come up with the idea for the two of them, Danny and him, to actually meet. Her reasoning—if Danny knew him and knew he was close by, he’d be more apt to reach out if he was in trouble—was sound.

But it was only going to work if he could get Danny to trust him.

Not an easy feat for a man who’d had few dealings with kids until recently, and a little boy who’d had his trust in men destroyed by the one man he should’ve been able to count on—his father.

The boy didn’t turn to him as Tad spoke. Danny’s tennis-shoe-clad heel on his good leg was no longer lightly bumping the table. It hung completely still beside the leg he could hardly move.

That caught Tad’s attention.

Danny didn’t have to know or like Tad for Tad to keep an eye on him. But maybe he could do more here than help prevent further physical harm. Maybe he could help the little guy heal in other ways.

As someone who was attempting to heal himself, he found that the idea appealed to him.

“Ladies, if you’ll please forgive any impropriety and feel free to turn your heads, I’d like to show Danny something on my leg.” He tore the paper from the top half of the exam table, wrapped it around his waist. Then, looking at Miranda and Danny’s mother for an okay and receiving nods, he awkwardly—using one hand, as though performing some kind of comic routine—managed to get his loose-fitting jeans undone and dropped them to the floor. He was a boxers kind of guy, dark blue that day, and even without the paper all pertinent parts were fully covered. It wasn’t the pertinent parts that were relevant right now.

Pulling the paper up on his waist, high enough to expose his upper thigh or, more accurately, the jagged, puffy and discolored seven-inch scar slashing across the front and around the side of his leg, he said, “It doesn’t look as gross now as it did. And yours won’t look nearly as bad because it was a straight line, and that makes a big difference.”

Standing there with his pants around his ankles, Tad might have felt embarrassed. Or inappropriate. All he felt was that he had to reach this little guy on his own level. Dealing with what was foremost on the boy’s mind.

And it appeared to be working. Danny, having sat upright, was staring at the scar. Boys must still be somewhat the way he remembered himself being—fascinated by gross things.

“I fell, too,” he said, leaving out the part about the explosion that had sent him flying. Just like he didn’t mention that he knew Danny had been running from his enraged father when he’d tripped and impaled his leg on a plant stake in the backyard.

“It hurt like heck to move my leg for a while,” he added, because he knew Danny had months of rehab ahead of him as the muscle that had been cut in his upper thigh healed. “I go to the gym at least twice a day, three days a week, to make it stronger, and now I can walk without any limp at all.” Unless he was overtired. Then a tilted gait came back to remind him of what he’d done.

He moved his leg enough to flex the muscle, which made the scar jump. “See, it works just fine now.”

Glancing briefly at the two women on either side of the exam table, he asked if they’d mind turning around so he could get himself put back together. He did so in record time, except for tucking in the blue cotton polo shirt. Going strictly on instincts, as he watched the boy watching him, he lifted his shirt a few inches, showing Danny his back. “I got burned, too,” he told the boy. “So, you see, I’m just here as a guy who got hurt, wanting to help another guy who got hurt.”

Danny didn’t speak. But he didn’t turn away, either. He watched Tad. And maybe that was enough.

“What happened?” Danny’s mother asked. Tad looked up and saw the compassion on her face. He chose to think of it as that, as opposed to pity, which he could not abide. He’d made a stupid choice.

But it had brought the best result possible—saving a little girl’s life. Something that might have been done with less damage—to himself and others—if he’d followed protocol by waiting for the hostage negotiators and SWAT to arrive.

Or little Lola could have been hurt far worse than the minimal bruising she’d suffered from Tad’s falling too heavily on her when he dived to protect her body from the blast.

“A guy was angry with me,” he said, vetting his words carefully with Danny in mind. “He had something that didn’t belong to him and when I went to get it back, he...hurt me.”

Lola’s’s father had rigged a homemade bomb to go off if anyone pushed open the antiques store’s back office door, behind which he held the child hostage. Unaware that the girl was there, Tad had gone to the business, not yet open for the day, to question him about some things he’d been selling in his shop. Stolen things.

“Did they get the bad guy?” Danny’s voice was surprisingly strong as he looked Tad in the eye.

“Yes, they did,” he said. The man had been prepared to kill himself and his daughter, too, apparently, rather than face arrest. The child wasn’t supposed to have been there. Her mother, who’d had shared custody of her and no idea that her soon to be ex-husband was in any kind of trouble, had dropped her off with him because she’d been called into work.

He’d dragged her into the back office, telling Tad and his partner to get out or he’d hurt her...

“So, anyway, if you want to come to the gym with me sometime, have your mom call me,” Tad said. Marie Williams already had his cell number. “You might see me hanging out, too,” he added. “You can talk to me or not, your choice. I just wanted you to know who I am and that I’ll be around.”

Danny said nothing more. Tad took the boy’s choice at face value and left the room.

* * *

Miranda didn’t hurry through the rest of her appointment with Danny and Marie Williams, but as soon as they were out of the exam room, she finished the last of her administrative responsibilities for the day. Then she was out the back door of the clinic where she worked for pediatric specialist Dr. Max Bennet, and heading to her car.

The white Chevy Equinox blended in with a million other similar-sized and -shaped white mini SUVs, which was why it fit her perfectly. She had an hour before she had to pick Ethan up, and Tad Newberry was waiting for her at a coffee shop halfway between her office and the school.

The balmy sixty-five-degree weather was perfect for her white cardigan and cartoon-spattered scrubs.

Heart pounding in an entirely new way, she drove five miles over the speed limit, switching lanes when necessary to weave past slower cars. All the while, she thought about those minutes in the exam room with the off-duty, out-of-state detective who’d shown up at a High Risk Team meeting six weeks before.

He’d dropped his pants. The move had been calculated, out of the ordinary, a somewhat shocking attempt to get Danny’s attention—and build trust, too. She understood that. Admired the hell out of it, actually. He’d known that Danny felt particularly vulnerable, so he’d made himself seem—and perhaps feel—just as vulnerable.

All of that aside...she’d peeked. She shouldn’t have. It had been completely unprofessional. Completely, 100 percent out of character. And she’d done it. Seen...a lot.

Blue boxers. Dark hair on legs that were tight and firm. Even now, driving to discuss the afternoon’s event and how it played into the care plan the High Risk Team had developed to prevent Devon Williams from ever hurting Marie or their son again, she shied away from thinking about the ugly facts of life, and found herself picturing those jeans pooled around Tad’s ankles instead.

Watching him with a very definite feminine reaction.

Wrong. It was just plain wrong of her. On so many levels.

Parking in the coffeehouse lot, seeing Tad already inside sitting at a table for two with a couple of steaming cups in front of him, she pulled herself together. Having very private fantasies was bad enough; allowing them to invade the space she shared with others was prohibited.

Period.

* * *

“That went well.”

Miranda heard the sarcasm in Tad’s greeting as she sat down. She felt herself immediately tuning into him.

“It did go well,” she assured him. “I can’t tell you what was said after you left—” he knew about her legal restrictions with regard to medical confidentiality “—but it went well. Marie asked me to tell you thanks. She feels much better knowing that you’ll be adding extra drive-bys to the ones the police are already going to be doing.”

Tad’s next comment was angry. “Devon Williams should be in jail.”

“Agreed. But since he hasn’t actually physically hurt anyone—that we can prove—since Marie dropped those charges against him last year, and still insists that her current bruising comes from a fall, there’s not a lot the prosecutor can do.”

He knew that, too. Santa Raquel’s assistant prosecutor was a new member of the High Risk Team.

“At least the judge granted her restraining order,” Miranda added, wishing she was only thinking about the woman who’d just left her office. Truth was, she saw more abused children and their mothers than she’d like. She suspected that at least five of the fifty families she saw on a regular basis dealt with that insidious disease.

“And you know as well as I do that those orders are ignored more than forty percent of the time in these kinds of cases,” Tad countered.

And often victims invited the abuser back into their lives. Yeah, Miranda knew that, too. Which was part of what made the situation that much more frustrating.

Unknown to Tad, though, she wasn’t just aware that it happened, she understood how it happened. In the most personal way possible.

“I don’t get it,” he said. “How can a woman marry a man after he’s already abused her? It makes no sense to me.”

He was talking about Marie, whose boyfriend had hit her a couple of times back in high school. Once, he’d also shoved her up to a wall with his hands around her neck.

He’d also loved and adored her when no one else had, making her vulnerable to him, and he’d scared her into thinking that marrying him was the only way to keep herself safe. And happy.

The incidents had been isolated. She’d understood that he hadn’t been himself for various reasons—usually involving alcohol. But she’d believed him when he promised never to lift a hand to her again when she’d dropped charges against him the previous year.

She’d hoped.

Right up until he’d been thundering behind their son, trying to catch up to him to give him a spanking for not packing a suitcase as he’d instructed. He’d panicked Danny, who tore out of their house so fast he’d tripped and fallen on a stake she’d just put up in her garden.

“Our job is to follow the safety plan and do what we can to see that Devon doesn’t have a chance to hurt either of them again,” she reminded him. “You heard Chantel. As soon as he violates that protection order, his ass is in jail.”

Chantel Harris Fairbanks, a Santa Raquel detective on the High Risk Team, might be married to a millionaire banker and live in one of the town’s most impressive mansions, but she was all cop when it came to her job. Even to the point of keeping her previous small apartment in town so she didn’t ever lose sight of who she was and what she knew. So she wouldn’t ever forget where she came from.

Miranda envied her—being able to keep her old self alive. Nothing about Miranda’s former self lived on with her. Not even her name.

“And then the prosecutor can call for a dangerousness hearing,” she said. It wasn’t technically called that in California, but it meant that if Devon was arrested and was considered a danger, he could be held without bail.

The man had threatened to kill his wife. Twice in the past eight weeks since she’d told him she wanted a divorce. He’d actually told her how he’d dispose of her body. He’d been drinking again. And quit his job. When he’d gone to their house the week before to insist that Danny come to his apartment and stay with him for the weekend, the boy suffered his fall. And then he’d blamed his wife for that, too, taking his anger out on her face. On a list of nineteen risk factors pointing to the danger of death, Devon Williams ranked at thirteen. It only took eight for the case to be referred to the High Risk Team.

Marie was changing her routine, her working hours. Her newly married sister and brother-in-law were moving in with her for a while. She and Danny were going to stay around crowds when they went out. She wouldn’t be going to her usual church, grocery store or hairdresser. Not until Devon was under control.

It wasn’t just to keep her and Danny safe, but because she truly wanted Devon to succeed. She wanted him to come through this. To find a good life for himself. To be happy.

She loved him.

And that was the part Miranda got that many others, most others, couldn’t. How a heart could still feel love for someone who beat them.

The secrets she held close inside kept her emotions in check during that afternoon coffee with Tad Newberry though she desperately wanted to talk to him about them.

She couldn’t. She wouldn’t.

No matter how badly she hurt.

Ethan’s life depended on her keeping her secrets to herself.

And the second she’d given birth to him, his life had become more important to her than her own.

Chapter 2

Miranda was fine right up until Tad walked her out to her car. His, an older-model black SUV, was parked down the street. He’d bought it used, he’d told her during one of their coffee sessions with a couple of others after a High Risk Team meeting. He was only in town for a year while he was on leave from his detective job back east. Michigan, she figured. That was where he’d said he’d grown up. A suburb of Detroit.

He was using his time off, he’d said, to learn more about the High Risk Team with the thought that he could help implement a version of it in his hometown.

Other than that, she knew so little about him.

And wanted to know much more.

Almost as soon as they drew up to her car, that vision of his pants around his ankles hit her again—like there was some kind of mental video player attached to her vehicle. Maybe she should buy a new car; maybe that would fulfill her wants, if not her needs. The inane thought came and went.

To be replaced by a sense of panic. Tad was different from any man she’d ever known. The way she responded to him was different.

But she couldn’t be an honest half of a partnership. Any partnership.

When she’d run, the idea of having a lover, or a boyfriend, or anything along the lines of a male companion, hadn’t even entered her mind. She spent two years in a women’s shelter outside of Santa Raquel before moving to the city four years ago, and it hadn’t been a problem since.

But now it was.

She didn’t want to live the rest of her life alone.

Did she have a choice?

“Ethan’s, what, six?” Tad asked, startling her out of her reverie.

“Yeah,” she said. She must be tired. Working too hard. Spending too much time identifying with Marie.

The woman’s case spoke to her on a personal level more than most. Probably because of Danny.

“He’s in the first grade,” she said, forcing herself back into the moment. Tad had met Ethan twice. Brief introductions both times.

After the second time, her son had teased her, saying she should go out on a date with Tad. They’d run into Tad at the grocery store one evening and she’d stopped to chat. Ethan’s reaction had surprised her. She’d never thought of her son as thinking about her personal situation. She was Mom. That was all.

But maybe it had been her son’s grinning little push that was her problem here. Was he missing a male figure in his life? Had that prompted his teasing remarks?

And was her current fascination with Tad merely reaction to that?

Just thoughts that Ethan’s comment had put in her head?

Yeah, if life were that simple.

“Could I take the two of you out to dinner?” Tad asked, while her mind continued to fly off course.

Her stomach flip-flopped. She almost dropped her keys. Struggling to find a way to say no when what she wanted to do was ask how soon, she said nothing as he continued. “I’d like to spend some time with Ethan, since he’s so close to Danny’s age. Just to observe. It would help me get a better feel for things. In case I ever need to speak with Danny again. Dropping my drawers was a little extreme and I don’t think it would work a second time.”

She nodded, trying to school her features—feeling she managed, at best, a cross between a frown and the grin that was trying to break through.

Dinner was all he’d asked. To observe her son. No big deal.

And complicated as hell.

“I’m sorry about that, by the way,” he said when her feelings continued to flay around inside. “The dropping of the pants thing. And thank you for not mentioning it.”

“It was unconventional, not to mention unexpected, but I thought the idea was brilliant,” Miranda spoke the complete truth. Probably because she could. Her tongue needed to fly along with her brain waves, but most of them weren’t traveling in the same atmosphere.

“And... I like you in blue.”

What? Had she lost her mind? I like you in blue?

Oh my God. She was flirting with him?

Dinner was definitely out.

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Tad’s tone was so easygoing, her raging blood settled a little. A lot, actually. She felt completely put in her place.

Which meant that... “Dinner would be fine,” she said, sane again. He needed her help with Danny. And Ethan would be with her. She was clearheaded every second of every day that she was with her son. She was all he had in the world, and she was conscious of that fact first and foremost. “When?”

“Tonight? Unless you have other plans? I’m already on Danny duty and am eager to get what help I can so I don’t blow it with him.”

His “duty” entailed a few minutes a few times a day, driving by wherever the boy was, according to the schedule Marie would text him each week, with nightly changes if there were any. Marie could call or text him if she got in a bind. Miranda knew, because she’d been sitting at the table when the plan was devised. She knew what every participant in the plan was doing—including their medical office. They were all on alert. And careful to make sure that only handpicked personnel were alone with Danny any time he was in for treatment.

That brought her back to this morning. Tad in the examining room.

She was dying to know what had happened to him in the past. The details.

But she didn’t ask. Instead, she agreed to meet him at Uncle Bob’s, a hamburger diner on the beach with a sandbox for kids to play in, at six.

She didn’t have time to stand around and chat right now. Ethan would be out of school in ten minutes, and unlike Marie, she didn’t have a team of experts watching out for her son.

Because, unlike Marie, she’d escaped her past. She was safe.

As long as she kept her mouth shut.

* * *

In his rented apartment with a view of the ocean, Tad took a long, hot shower, turning the water to cold when the heat failed to relax him.

He was supposed to be recovering, and in the interim, doing a man he respected a favor as a private way of repenting for the wrong turn his career had taken. He was supposed to be getting his shit together, not losing it over the woman he’d been sent to find.

Pulling on a pair of black jeans one size larger than he normally wore, to accommodate the thigh that was still painful sometimes and had a tendency to swell, he took a T-shirt from the top dresser drawer. He followed that with a button-down white shirt from the closet, careful to line up the empty hanger in its proper place, and yanked open the little side drawer on the dresser for a pair of socks.

The arrangements in his apartment weren’t all as he would’ve preferred them, but the place had come furnished and that was what he cared about. His clothes back home in North Carolina were in the house he’d purchased the previous year in an upper-middle-class neighborhood.

Reaching inside one of the socks he’d retrieved, he pulled out the burner phone that had traveled across the country with him six weeks before. Fridays were call days. North Carolina was three hours ahead of California and he didn’t know how late he’d be out.

“Chief O’Connor.” North Carolina’s newly appointed state chief fire marshal always picked up on the first ring.

“Just checking in, sir. I told you she’s working as a physician’s assistant in a pediatric office and I had a chance to see her in action today. Like you, she’s not afraid to think outside the box. I think you’d be proud of her.” Maybe it made him a bit of a wuss that he always tried to find a way to comfort the older man during these conversations, to make him feel less alone.

But if it wasn’t for Chief O’Connor’s quick thinking at a scene that hadn’t even required his presence, Tad and a couple of his fellow officers could well be dead.

“And the boy?”

“Other than those two brief meetings I told you about, I haven’t seen him.” He’d meant to tell the chief about his dinner engagement. Didn’t.

Wondered why the hell not.

He didn’t like the predicament he was putting himself in.

“Yeah, best to go slowly.” The older man’s voice came firmly over the wire. “The last thing I want to do is tip her off...”

“I was going to ask you about that. With her ex gone, is there really a need for this secrecy?”

The question had been bothering him for a while, particularly since the Marie Williams case had sprung up that week. Miranda Blake, real name Dana O’Connor, had no way of knowing that she was out of danger. Surely she’d welcome the knowledge—and the chance to go home to the friends and family she’d been forced to leave behind when she’d changed her identity to escape a madman.

“I know my daughter, young man. This is my operation. My call. Dana doesn’t like change. She doesn’t like having her world upended. If she’s happy there, in that life, I want to know about it. I’ll need to figure that into how I approach her. And I’ll need to figure out how I might fit into that life so I can make the transition easier for her.”

Okay. Sure. But...

“Her ex...he might have family,” the chief went on. “Someone who’d want contact with the boy. I’ve got a guy looking into that. Good investigator. I need to be absolutely certain, before I have any contact with her, even through you, that I’m not putting her in any danger or in any way making her life more difficult than it’s already been. I’m not going to put my selfish need to have her back in my life ahead of her needs.”

Nodding, respecting the man all over again, Tad wandered into the living room, to the window looking out toward the Pacific Ocean two streets in the distance.

“I’d be more than happy to check into any in-law family that might exist.” His detective skills had earned him the right to make his own calls on the job—until he’d made a call based as much on emotion as skill, one that was so far from protocol that he’d almost gotten himself and others killed.

He’d saved the girl, though.

There was that. Always that. Every single time he relived the horror of that morning three months before.

“Forgive me for being set in my ways, but I learned a long time ago not to put all my eggs in one basket,” Chief O’Connor said. “I have someone else following that lead. Someone who has no idea that you, or your job for me, even exist. I’m paying you to use your highly touted skills to find my daughter and grandson, which you’ve done, and to be fully focused there, to keep me informed. It’s been years since I’ve had any word of my daughter and these weekly calls of ours...well, let’s just say they’re the best moments I’ve had in all those years. And I won’t risk having any searches for her coming from the town in which she lives. There can’t be anything connecting our investigation too close to her.”

Tad nodded, understanding. He’d succeeded in tracking her down, via the access he continued to have to law enforcement databases of various kinds. He’d learned a great deal about her.

But he still wasn’t satisfied. He didn’t even know Dana’s ex’s name. The cop in him needed to be certain, especially after witnessing from the sidelines the Devon Williams nightmare that week, that he was working with complete and accurate information.

In his entire career, he’d always double-checked facts himself. He wasn’t a “rely on others” kind of guy.

“You’re one hundred percent certain her ex is dead.” His voice could be intimidating, too, when necessary.

“Yes. I have definitive proof. I give you my word on that.”

Then there was nothing more to be said. He’d accepted the job. He respected the man. Hell, all of North Carolina respected him if such a thing was possible. Heroes didn’t come around every day, and when they did, they didn’t shine as often or as brightly as Brian O’Connor had. Again and again, over the course of a lifetime, he’d risked his life, and volunteered his time, too, to save and enrich the lives of those in his community. And his state.

If he’d grown a little eccentric over the years, Tad figured that was his right.

He owed him the news that Tad would be having dinner with his grandson in a few minutes. That he could call back later with a report the chief had been waiting for.

He owed him. And he reneged.

He’d figure that one out later.

First, he had a date to keep.

In a manner of speaking...

Chapter 3

“So...are we like...on a thing?” Ethan glanced between Miranda and Tad, his eyes rimmed by the dark-framed glasses he’d chosen because he thought they resembled the ones worn by Clark Kent, Superman’s alter ego—the Superman of earlier days that Miranda had shared with him. If her son had been grinning, teasing, she might have been able to brush the moment aside.

“No.” She reined in the rest of the blurted response that almost came out, changing it to a mildly firm denial. “I told you, Tad and I work together.”

They’d just ordered their burgers, and all three had glasses of soda with straws sitting in front of them. The minutes they’d be waiting until their food was delivered suddenly seemed interminable.

“On a committee.” Ethan nodded. “You said you work together on a committee.” He looked at Tad. “Do you like my mom?”

“Of course I like your mom. Why would I eat dinner with someone I didn’t like?”

“Exactly,” Ethan said, pushing his glasses back up his nose. “Do you know the game Zoo Attack?”

Breathing a sigh of relief, Miranda took a sip of soda and let her son have at Tad. After all, the off-duty detective had asked for the meeting to get to know Ethan better.

“No. I don’t know that game,” Tad said, elbows resting on the arms of his chair.

“It’s really cool,” Ethan said. “You get to be in the zoo, taking care of animals, and then danger comes and you have to solve puzzles to save the animals...”

As she listened to her son’s in-depth and enthusiastic description of his favorite video game, Miranda wanted to relax. To enjoy the moment.

There was much to enjoy. In spite of everything, she’d raised a boy who was confident enough, trusting and outgoing enough, to take charge of a conversation with a virtual stranger. A male stranger.

And she was sitting with a man who, in another lifetime, might have been someone she’d feel passionate about. Watching Tad as he seemed to give Ethan his full focus, engaging in conversation as though the conversation mattered to him, she felt again that peculiar bounce of joy inside, as though she was with someone special.

“I’d like that,” Tad said, and she tuned back in, realizing, too late, that Ethan had just invited him to their house over the weekend to learn how to play Zoo Attack in two-player mode, which meant that they’d be racing against each other to get puzzles solved to save animals.

Tad couldn’t come to their home. Ethan would ask, “Why not?” She could hear his voice inside her head, asking. No simple or credible-sounding reply presented itself. But the answer was unequivocal. He could not come into their home.

Home was her safe place. The only space she could be herself without fear...

“Jimmy from school is over there, Mom. Can I go play in the sandbox?”

She had to nod. To let him go. She wanted him to be independent. But she did not want, at that moment, to be left alone with a man who was getting way too far into her.

“This isn’t a thing,” she said as soon as her son was out of hearing range.

He nodded. “I know.”

“It can’t be a thing.” She was sounding like an idiot. Had to get herself together.

“You seeing someone, then?” Tad asked easily. She didn’t like how his total attention was suddenly on her. Eyeing her with some kind of understanding or something. She didn’t like how warm that made her feel.

She was hot enough already.

Tempted to lie to him, she hesitated. Santa Raquel wasn’t all that big. And her son’s conversational filters were sadly untrustworthy.

“No, I’m not seeing anyone.”

“Coming off a bad breakup?”

That might work. Except that Ethan seemed unusually focused on her dating situation. Could it be that now that he’d started school, he was noticing they were missing a part of their family? Was he needing that male figure in his life? Granted, there’d be plenty of kids without dads at his school and some without mothers. But many had other family, siblings, aunts and uncles, grandparents, cousins...

She’d known this time of reckoning would come. Had worried about it to no avail—figuring she’d have to let the future take care of itself on that one.

“No, I’m not coming off a breakup.” She prayed he’d leave it there. Or that their food would arrive and Ethan, who always seemed to know when there were goods to shove in his mouth, would descend upon them once again.

When Tad glanced in the direction of the boys playing outside the sandbox with little cars Jimmy must have brought, Miranda guessed he was seeking a way out of their awkward moment, as well.

He looked so good, his dark hair, thickening shadow of whisker growth and brown eyes giving him a rakish aura in an oh-so-masculine form. She knew his legs were lean and strong. She’d seen them firsthand...and was he still wearing his blue boxers? Or had he showered since she’d seen him at work that morning?

“So you don’t date at all, or is it just me?”

So much for the idea that he was looking for an out. He’d just slammed them right smack-dab in the middle of too complicated.

“You’re only here for your leave.” She blurted what immediately came to mind, as though that explained everything.

He didn’t argue, and again she hoped she was off the hook. At least with him.

She still had to deal with herself and her deepening feelings for this man. And she would. She’d only known him six weeks. It wasn’t like it would take a lifetime to get him out of her system.

Unless... What if, for the first time in her life, she was really and truly falling for someone? As in...the real thing?

Of course, that didn’t matter in the long run. Her life wasn’t open to real. Her goal was to give Ethan a chance at a good life, a life of his own. He wouldn’t have to lie to anyone he met in his future. The life he lived now was his only known reality.

“You don’t ever talk about Ethan’s dad.”

“It’s not like we’ve had a lot of time for private conversation.”

Not entirely true. They’d fallen into the habit of having coffee after every High Risk Team meeting. At the moment, as the team became a stronger force in Santa Raquel and the surrounding communities, they were meeting weekly. And she’d volunteered to go in place of her employer, Max, every single week.

Partially because of Tad, she was ashamed to admit to herself.

“Ethan’s father is dead.” She dropped it out of the blue. There were some truths she could tell, at least in part. Clearly everyone would realize Ethan had had a father. “He died before Ethan was born.”

With no name, there’d be no chance to find a death record. To trace her to any young man who’d died during their last year of college. Or even to trace her to a particular college. Or to identify a girl who’d been friends with a boy who died. No way to discover who she really was.

“Wow. I’m so sorry.”

So was she. Jeff had been one of the greatest guys she’d ever known, and he hadn’t deserved the blows life had dealt him. “I miss him every day,” she said, allowing one more piece of her real self through. Jeff had been the only one who ever knew the whole truth about her. The only one in her past life she’d told.

“That had to be hell, to lose him and be pregnant at the same time.”

She shrugged. “You’d think so, but being pregnant, knowing that Ethan was part of him, and a new part of me, a whole new life... I’m sure that’s what saved me.” In more ways than Tad could ever imagine. If it hadn’t been for Ethan she might never have had the strength, the clarity of mind, to get away.

Jeff, who’d been a foster kid, had believed in her, trusted her to raise his child—even knowing the truth about her life.

Tad’s brows had been drawing closer together as she talked, giving Miranda the impression that she was coming on too heavy. She was suddenly aware that she wasn’t in their own little cocoon, with her son playing safely in the distance. Instead, she—and Tad—were in a noisy diner with Friday-night happiness going on all around them.

She tried to think of a way to change the subject.

But she didn’t manage before he asked, “How long did you know him? Ethan’s father?”

“Four years.”

“You were obviously close...”

Obviously. She’d had his son. Though not close in the way Tad would assume. “We were best friends.” And that was all they’d been. Friends. Not a “thing.” Best friends. With Ethan, she’d given her best friend his dying wish—a child who would always be part of him, carrying on a life that had been cut far too short.

“How long were you married?”

Her mind went blank. What did she say? Would the truth give her away somehow? She tried to think of everything she’d been told. By the lawyers who helped her legally change her identity. By Lila and Sara at The Lemonade Stand, the unique women’s shelter in town that had founded the High Risk Team. Everything she’d heard during her time with the team about the ways information could travel to the wrong people.

Marriage meant records.

The haze of panic receded. “We weren’t married.” She told him the truth. No one could find what didn’t exist. She was safe.

And no one knew that Jeff was Ethan’s father. She hadn’t named him on the original North Carolina birth certificate, and their new identities certainly didn’t name him. To begin with, she’d kept the secret to protect Jeff from her father’s wrath; Jeff had so little time to live and she couldn’t bear the thought of bringing more tension into his life. And when he’d died before Ethan was born...she’d just kept the secret.

Tad sat back, adjusted his knife on the table. Took a sip from his straw. What was he thinking?

Surely, in today’s world, he didn’t respect her less for having a baby outside of marriage?

She wanted to tell him that they knew Jeff was dying. That they’d decided not to marry so there couldn’t be any legal chance she’d be held responsible for any of his medical bills.

It seemed to be taking an inordinately long time for their dinner to arrive. But then, it was Friday night and the place was packed. Ethan had glanced their way a few times, but was still happily engaged with Jimmy. The two were in the sandbox now, trying to plow roads for their cars around the other children playing there.

All in all, less than ten minutes had passed. It just seemed like forever.

“I haven’t dated anyone since Ethan was born.” She had to tell Tad something that would get them out of this awkward mess. “A conscious choice I’ve made.” For reasons she’d never tell him, no matter how badly she wished she could.

Tad wasn’t asking her out, but she was guaranteeing that he wouldn’t, although her heart was clamoring for a chance to see what life with him would be like.

Even if just for the months he was there.

Because it was only for however many months he’d be there. There’d be no risk of having to live a whole life of lying to him... It would be a question of living in the moment for the few months he was around.

Which her heart was telling her would be better than nothing.

It would be great, actually, to have such a memory to take with her into the future. To hold close. A good secret to combat all the bad ones...

“In honor of his father?”

“No. But...” She searched for an explanation that would shut him down. And yet she didn’t allow anything remotely credible to surface. Would it be so wrong to get to know him better? He wouldn’t be staying, had an entire life, an important job, to return to.

“I haven’t had the time,” she finally said, wondering if leaving a door open to him was emotional suicide. Or maybe it was the only personal bliss she’d know in her life. “I’m a single mother, and not all men want to take that on. Added to that, until last year I was in school full-time and working, too.” While becoming a PA had only taken two years of additional schooling, she’d been unable to take her college degree with her and had to earn that all over again, too. Thankfully she’d been able to test out of more than two years of that, having to pay just for the class equivalent, not actually retake the classes.

“So now that you’re fully accredited and have more time...”

Oh, God. Was he going to ask her out? Flooded with heat, she felt she was possessed by something stronger than herself—this desire to get closer and closer to him.

She shrugged when he didn’t complete his sentence.

He nodded, as though her lack of a definitive “no” was interesting.

She smiled.

He nodded again.

And dinner was served.

* * *

What in the hell was he doing?

Walking the dark streets of Santa Raquel sometime after midnight, hunched in his department-issued coat with the collar turned up, Tad warded off the thirtysomething-degree chill of California ocean air. He’d intended to head over two blocks to the beach, but had only gone one and then turned, choosing sidewalk instead of sand.

If it hadn’t been for dinner arriving, he was pretty sure he would’ve asked out his client’s daughter. The subject of his current job.

If he ever hoped to work in law enforcement in North Carolina again, he couldn’t be pissing off the state’s chief fire marshal—a man with more connections, both law enforcement and political, than Tad could ever hope to have.

Did he hope to go back to some form of law enforcement work?

He’d quit his job.

The department had refused to accept his resignation, so officially, he was on administrative leave for the year they’d agreed upon.

Time for the department to fully investigate, review and further discuss his last case or, more accurately, the one really bad decision he’d made in a career of relatively great ones. His solved-cases record was better than that of anyone in the department.

They wanted to keep him on.

They also wanted him to take some time to get his head on straight. To show them that he’d be able to regain any trust he’d lost with his peers.

But...did he hope to go back?

Noting that he’d crossed the fourth block with at least two largely cracked cement pieces, he thought about Santa Raquel’s finances. Figured fixing cracks in the sidewalk of a seasonal tourist town should be on the radar. Someone could trip. Fall. Sue the municipal government.

The town, which was more resort-like than not, didn’t seem to be hurting for money. Based on the number of large, well-maintained homes in the area, he supposed the town was doing just fine. Sidewalks didn’t last forever. They cracked.

And a detective was bound to make one bad decision in his lifetime.

But what if he made two?

What if he asked out the daughter of his client? A woman he’d been hired to find? And keep watch over?

In his line of work, there’d been more than one occasion when the means justified the end.

Would that be the case here? Could he convince the chief that dating his daughter, casually, of course, was the best way to stick close to her? To spend time with her son?

And what about Miranda? What right did he have to mess with her life? As if she hadn’t already been through enough?

She knew he was only in town for a matter of months. Their conversation that evening had gone in an unexpected—and much more personal—direction. Thanks to Ethan, who’d put the simmering tension between him and Miranda right out there.

So...if she was potentially interested in spending more time with him, say, one-on-one, knowing that it couldn’t last long, would he be wrong to give it to her?

The thin line he walked was going to trip him up. He knew it.

Just as he’d known, when he made the choice to barge into that back office without waiting for SWAT and the hostage negotiators to arrive, assess the situation and do their jobs, that he was crossing a line.

He’d practically gotten himself killed. Had put every other officer on the scene at risk.

But he’d saved the girl.

It always came back to that for him.

He’d saved the girl.

Could he help save Miranda and Ethan, too?

Chapter 4

The thing about having a kid was that you couldn’t just make up your mind about something and count on having it happen. When Ethan was a baby, Miranda was in charge. Or at least she’d felt she was. From the twos on, though, he’d been pretty adamant about having his own say in anything and everything, and she’d had to rethink her approach. A process that seemed to happen every day since. She had to foster his independence. And above all, keep him safe. So her mantra had become that if it didn’t involve his safety or health, he could decide—which, in their world, meant he could have his way.

If it did have any kind of impact on his well-being, they did it her way. The line used to be clearly delineated. At least in her mind. And her boy had been good about accepting her decisions once she explained them to him.

That Saturday after dinner with Tad, Ethan woke up talking about Zoo Attack, about a new animal kingdom he was going to create and then show Tad. He’d said he’d come to their house and so, to Ethan, that meant he was coming.

Her moment to object to that idea had already gone.

Tad’s, too, apparently, at least according to her son.

And Miranda was left with the task of explaining to her son that sometimes adults said things they didn’t really mean.

A concept he wasn’t willing to accept.

“Call him, Mom, he’ll come, you’ll see,” Ethan said for the umpteenth time that morning. Standing in a pile of dark clothes on the kitchen floor by the laundry room, he kicked up a sock to emphasize his point.

She threw the last pair of white underwear in the dryer and bent to pick up their darks before he kicked them any farther.

“He’s a grown man, Ethan,” she told her son. “I’m sure he’s got more important things to do than play video games this weekend.”

As soon as she heard the words, she wanted to retract them. Implying that her son’s engagements weren’t important wasn’t what she’d intended to say.

“He said he wanted to,” Ethan insisted.

But she didn’t want him in her home. Hadn’t let any man visit since she’d made the first home for her and Ethan.

Their little rented cottage was her haven. She didn’t have to be as careful there to hide her secrets. Or to worry that someone might be watching her. Looking for her. Or him. Keeping their home private was paramount to her peace of mind, to her belief that she could keep them safe.

None of which she could explain to her son.

“Call him, Mom, please? You’ll see, he’ll come.”

She took her time loading the washing machine. Pouring the soap. Filling the little ball dispenser with fabric softener and dropping that in. What should she tell Ethan?

She’d promised herself that Ethan wasn’t going to grow up in fear. Jeff had trusted her with his son.

Turning, she saw him still standing there, his big blue eyes imploring her.

“Okay,” she heard herself say. “You go put the clean sheets on your bed like I showed you, and I’ll call him.”

“Yes!” Ethan jumped up in the air and he was off.

Miranda had a knot in her gut as she pulled her cell out of her pocket. Tad was in her contacts, as were all the High Risk Team members.

She’d told Ethan she’d call.

“Miranda?” He picked up on the first ring. “Everything okay?”

“Of course,” she lied, listening to the washer fill with water, the clinking of a metal button on a pair of white pants in the dryer. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Just making sure.” He didn’t really sound worried and she figured he was merely being polite—not reading her mind.

“I’m sorry to bother you, but I told Ethan I’d call. He hasn’t let up on me all morning about that Attack game.”

“He’s going to give me my key to the animals.”

“You were being nice to him, and I appreciate that, but I’ll get you out of it. The thing is, he wasn’t going to take no for an answer until I called.” So she did. Because she didn’t have a logical reason to give Ethan that he’d understand.

“I don’t want out of it.” His response sent her heart thudding. “I meant to solidify something before we split up last night and forgot.”

“You don’t have to come here and play video games with my kid,” she told him, hoping her chuckle sounded genuinely unconcerned. Although it wasn’t.

“I want to...unless you have some reason for not wanting me to?”

What was it with these two guys? It was like they were plotting together against her. One she loved with all her being, and the other...she really liked Tad.

She was intrigued. Curious. She wanted to explore further.

Her life didn’t support that choice.

At least not long-term.

“I mean, I know you’re busy and—”

“I’m on leave,” he reminded her with a laconic drawl. “In a town where I know very few people. Other than my daily exercises, High Risk Team meetings and checking on Danny, my day is free.”

Looking around at the fairly large but still cozy living and kitchen area—all open so she didn’t have to worry about anyone lurking in a corner—she tried to figure out what to do. This was why she didn’t let people get too close, why the only “friends” she had were at work or The Lemonade Stand.

Not only did it keep life manageable, safe, but she’d also realized that if she ever had to run again, having no one close, in any sense, would make it easier. Less complicated.

“Or we can do it another time,” Tad said, his tone as relaxed as always. Hard to believe this laid-back guy was a decorated detective. In her experience with law enforcement personnel—and she had a lot of it growing up with her fire chief father—first responders were an intense bunch. Work hard, play hard.

Get mad just as hard, at least in her father’s case.

“I’m cleaning house this morning,” she said. What was she going to say? What reason could she give for not having him over that didn’t make her sound crazy?

She’d been told, during her identity-change counseling, to stick to the truth as much as possible to avoid mistakes. But the truth was, there was no real reason she couldn’t have people over. Her counselors had also told her to live life as normally as possible.

She was...scared.

“But it’s not a big place,” she continued. Hallway, bath and the two bedrooms left to sweep and mop. “If... How does one sound?”

He offered to bring lunch.

She tried to demur, but failed. He offered Mexican. She and Ethan loved Mexican.

Clicking off her phone after giving him their order, she didn’t feel hungry at all. In fact, she felt nauseous.

She pushed through the sensation. Picked up her broom. Took nice, even strokes down the hall.

She’d invited Tad Newberry further into their lives.

She was doing this for Ethan.

Who better than a man who was already protecting another little boy from domestic abuse to have around her son? To help fill the male void she’d been noticing. He’d been talking about Jimmy’s father a lot.

The decision to have Tad around, just for a short time, was a good one for Ethan, she told herself as she finished with their small bathroom and moved into her bedroom, listening to her son sing a goofy rendition of a kid’s song blaring from the player she’d given him for Christmas.

But she could only have Tad around if she made absolutely sure that Ethan understood that the detective was only in town for a while. And kept herself constantly apprised of that fact, as well.

* * *

Tad barely had a few seconds inside the quaint little cottage not far from the beach. The front door opened to him and he was whisked through a living area and out to a back patio before he’d even had a chance to say hello.

The place smelled like disinfectant mixed with lavender. The brown leather sectional had a patched spot on one arm; the recliner and coffee and end tables were dust-free but mismatched. Wall art, generic. Floors, ceramic tile with throw rugs. Nothing out of place. Kitchen off to the left, complete with a top-of-the-cupboard microwave and built-in dishwasher. All spotless.

“Hey, Mr. Newberry! Mom says we can play on my Windows tablet, which is so cool ’cause we can pass it back and forth, instead of the computer where I usually have to play.” From a too-big chair at an outdoor table for four, the blue-eyed boy stared up at him, his brown hair shaggy and cute, not quite long enough to hang in his eyes. As before, he was in blue jeans and a T-shirt.

“That’s Detective Newberry,” Miranda said from right behind Tad. “What would you like to drink?”

Ethan had a glass half filled with red liquid in front of him, and a hint of pink mustache to go with it.

“I’ve got tea, bottled water or punch.”

He chose the tea and, taking a seat on the eight-by-eight tiled patio, dug into the bag of food he’d brought, dispensing items according to the orders placed—burrito minus the sauce for Ethan, taco salad with sour cream for his mother. From the family-run taco joint down by the beach.

Tad went with the house specialty. Tacos.

“That’s Mom’s seat.” Ethan’s voice was softer than normal as he unwrapped his burrito.

Tad’s fingers slowed on his own paper-covered food. “What?”

“You’re in Mom’s seat. She always sits there, and if I do, she makes me move.”

He’d taken the seat with his back to the wall of the house. He could see the door to the living area, and the small, nicely manicured, walled-in yard, too.

That was probably why she’d chosen it as her own. A woman who’d been scared enough to take on a new identity could experience a need to keep her back to the wall.

As quickly as possible, he moved, managing to resettle himself before Miranda returned.

Maybe what he was doing—ingratiating himself into their worlds—was duplicitous. Making him untrustworthy. He liked Miranda. Really liked her. More than he could remember ever liking a woman in such a short time. He couldn’t tell her the truth about his mission, not yet, anyway. Not until he knew that his news wouldn’t ruin her life again, upend her and cause her to start all over. From scratch. With a six-year-old child.

On the contrary, his goal was to make her life better. To take away her fear. To let her know she could live safely, free of the past.

He just wasn’t at liberty to do that yet.

And didn’t even want to think about it until he knew for certain that her ex-husband was dead. If he believed her, the man had been dead for years, but it wasn’t like she was going to tell the truth. She’d told him the rehearsed story attached to her assumed identity. But as much as he trusted her father—his current employer—he wasn’t a man who relied on the word of others. You never knew if someone had been given falsified proof.

He’d seen enough twists and turns in his career to make him wary. As recently as his last case—a man putting his own daughter’s life at stake, preparing to kill the child while she stood there in his arms, crying...

“You need to watch me do this, Mr. Newberry,” Ethan’s young voice brought Tad fully back to the moment just as Miranda came outside with their drinks. “That way you’ll learn for when you do your own and our animals can fight sometimes, too.”

“Sorry, I had to brew more tea,” Miranda said on the tail end of Ethan’s words. “I added extra ice.”

Which was quickly melting.

“And it’s Detective Newberry, Ethan,” she said again, sitting in her chair, unfolding a napkin and dropping it in her son’s lap.

“I’d prefer Tad, if that’s okay with you,” he told her. Who knew if he was going to stay on as a detective when his leave was through?

Although he couldn’t see himself being happy doing anything else.

“Is it okay, Mom? Can I call him Tad?”

Looking over the boy’s head, Tad smiled at her.

She smiled back.

And lunch was good.

Chapter 5

It clearly wasn’t Tad Newberry’s first video game.

Nor had it seemed in any way a hardship for him to have his time engaged with Ethan’s Zoo Attack. Miranda had lunch cleared away, the laundry finished, the dishwasher emptied, and brownies made before either of them seemed to notice that she’d left the table on the patio.

She only had one Saturday off a month and had to make it count—couldn’t just sit and watch the “boys” play—but she caught herself smiling a few times as she heard the deep male voice coinciding with her son’s little-boy enthusiasm. And heard the friendly dissension as they disagreed and ended up in battle. She was grinning from ear to ear as her son, with compassion in his voice, claimed victory.

She wasn’t smiling so much that evening, though, when Ethan hit her up with a request to take his training wheels off his bike the next day.

“I’m done being a baby, Mom,” he told her, his brow furrowed as he gazed at her with those big blue eyes. Jeff’s eyes. She’d never been able to resist Jeff’s pleading. And the man definitely lived on in his son. “I’m the only kid in first grade with training wheels.”

The fact that she’d known it was time didn’t make her acquiescence any easier. Training wheels were a safety net. Miranda was already living more boldly than was comfortable for her. More risks weren’t on her agenda.

You didn’t get to choose when life handed you challenges. Jeff had certainly been proof of that. He’d been her best friend. The only person on earth who knew about the beatings. He’d been her rock. And when life had turned on him, she’d been his rock, too.

Which was why, at nine o’clock Sunday morning, after breakfast and dishes and making beds and washing up—and anything else she could come up with to stall—she was outside on the driveway of her rented haven, a screwdriver in hand, granting Jeff’s son’s request.

Jeff couldn’t do it, so she had to.

Somehow. She’d had the wheels put on at the store two years earlier when she’d bought Ethan the bike for Christmas. They must have used a frickin’ machine.

“Can’t you do it, Mom?” Ethan asked, squatting down beside her and pushing his glasses up on his nose, as though staring at her incompetence would somehow get the baby wheels off his bike.

“Of course I can,” she told him. “I just need some oil.” Or some of whatever it was that helped loosen bolts. She’d read about it...

“Maybe you could call Tad,” he said. “Or I can if you gimme the phone.”

She wished it was the first—or even the fifth—time she’d heard the detective’s name since he’d left the day before. But no...all afternoon, all night long, even that morning, Ethan had been talking about him.

Warning bells had been sounding so loudly in her head, it was a wonder she’d even heard her son’s request—let alone finished the grocery and necessary-item shopping and then managed a trip to the movie theater with her son, followed by the fried chicken that he loved.

Trying to get his mind off Tad Newberry.

Didn’t help that even when Ethan wasn’t mentioning the guy, Miranda’s mind was jabbering on about him.

Bike on its side, with the back wheel lodged between her feet, Miranda sat in the driveway and pulled on the wrench with all her might. It slipped off the bolt and slammed her in the knee.

She didn’t swear out loud. Nor did she give up. She couldn’t afford to do that. She stood. “Let’s go.” She got her keys and headed over to her car. Driver’s license and credit card were already in the back pocket of her jeans.

She never stepped outside without the means to run, to take Ethan and disappear, if she had to.

“We going to take the bike back?” Ethan asked as she wheeled the bike out of their way.

“Nope, we’re going to the store to find something to help us with the bolts.” She’d look up on her phone what she needed when they got to the hardware store.

“Or we could just call Tad,” Ethan said, under his breath and with a touch of belligerence.

She let that go, choosing her battles. “Tad’s only going to be in town for a while, Ethan. I told you that already. We can be friends with him, but we can’t ask for his help with stuff.”

How did you explain life’s hideous complications to a six-year-old?

“You could date him and then maybe he’d stay around.”

“No, he wouldn’t.” Make no mistake about that, little man. Because she couldn’t let him stay.

“He has an important job to go back to as soon as he’s healed enough. Remember?”

Looking out the window he could barely see over, Ethan crossed his arms and harrumphed. “He doesn’t act like he’s hurt.”

“Well, he is.”

“How do you know?” She could feel those blue eyes turned on her.

“I’m a doctor’s assistant. I’m trained to know.” She almost mentioned having seen Tad’s scars, but thought better of it. Remembering Danny’s reaction, she couldn’t take a chance that Ethan would share the seven-year-old’s seeming fascination and ask to see for himself.

“But we can be friends,” he said.

“Yep.” Somewhere over the past six weeks, maybe even during the past twenty-four hours, she’d made that choice.

More like, it had been made for her.

“But we just can’t need him, like, to fix my bike, right?”

“Right.”

“Okay. Cool.”

* * *

Tad had been burning with anger after he watched Miranda and Ethan drive away from their house. Livid with a man who’d father a child and then beat that boy’s mother to the point that she’d feared for her life and run away from everyone she’d ever known or loved just to keep the two of them safe.

Anyone she’d have called to help when she couldn’t get the training wheels off her son’s bike had been left behind in North Carolina.

He hoped to God that Miranda’s husband really was dead, as the chief had testified. For Miranda and Ethan’s safety, first and foremost. And, he had to admit, so he wasn’t tempted to go for the man’s throat himself.

Out of his car, he was halfway between it and the bike leaning up against Miranda’s little house, intending to get those training wheels off and be out of sight before she got back, when he stopped.

He was still a newcomer to the world of domestic violence, but after six weeks as an honorary member of the High Risk Team, in addition to all the reading he’d been doing since agreeing to work for Brian O’Connor, he knew he shouldn’t fix that bike. A woman in Miranda’s position, a woman who’d lived with daily fear, would be more likely to panic at the idea that someone had been on her property, messing with her stuff. The fact that this person knew she’d been struggling to get training wheels off her son’s bike would tell her he’d been spying on her. Chances were she wouldn’t see her benefactor as a Good Samaritan, but rather, someone who’d found her and intended to control her again. Someone who was letting her know he was stronger than she was. That she needed him.

If the panic was too intense, that act, something as simple as fixing a bike, could even prompt her to run again.

He was being paid to keep Miranda and Ethan in sight. To keep them safe. Not to fix bikes.

Back in his older-model SUV, he drove away before he had any other stupid ideas.

* * *

Miranda saw Danny again on Monday. She’d removed his stitches on Friday and Marie was worried about a puffy redness on one end of the incision that had been made during the surgery, which was done to repair the muscle tear he’d sustained during his fall.

“I’m fine,” Danny said, when Miranda asked him how he was doing.

As soon as she had a look at the incision site she knew what the problem was.

Fear. Marie’s fear.

Not infection. Or further physical damage. The scar area was pink, not red. A healthy pink.

Asking a nurse to come and stay with Danny in the exam room, and giving the boy a handheld learning-game device with the permission of his mother, Miranda led Marie down the hall to her office, closing the door behind them.

“What’s wrong? Is it infected or is the injury worse than we thought? Does he need more surgery? Should Dr. Bennet take a look at him?”

Max Bennet, the pediatrician who’d hired Miranda as his PA even before she’d completed her training, would be a good person for Marie to talk to. But not about her son’s leg.

“Danny’s incision is fine, Marie.”

“But shouldn’t Dr. Bennet take a look, just in case?”

Picking up her phone, Miranda sent a quick text to Max, who responded immediately.

“He’s going in now, if you’d like to meet him down there,” she said to the worried mom.

Her furrowed brow smoothing out, Marie shook her head. “He’ll let you know if there’s a problem, right?”

“He’ll text either way.”

“You called me in here to talk to you—separate from Danny—and since there’s nothing wrong with his incision...” The other woman’s words trailed off.

Miranda nodded, words tripping over themselves as they fought for release, while, for the most part, she was forced to remain silent.

For the most part.

“Danny’s leg hurting...we know it’s going to.” She started slowly. “Surgery let us put the fibers back together, but there’ll still be scars. We talked about how the nervous system sends messages when muscles have been compromised, inflaming the area to protect weak fibers, shortening the fibers...”

Marie gave a quick nod. “Rehabilitation is all scheduled, and we’ll be there on time, every time,” she said.

“Good.”

“I just... I’m so scared, you know? Danny—he’s all I have. I should’ve gotten him out sooner and now he’s hurt, and Devon might try to take him from me and... I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have wasted your time today.”

Marie was in daily counseling through The Lemonade Stand. She didn’t need Miranda to work through all the issues with her. Nor was Miranda professionally qualified to do that.

“I know,” she said now, making a silent choice that she prayed she wouldn’t regret. But what was the value of her life if she couldn’t use her experiences to help others? She’d needed to speak to Marie since she’d first heard her story. “And that’s why I called you in here. Fear is insidious. The thoughts it drives can consume you to the point of interrupting your ability to cope with daily life. The stronger those thoughts get, the more real they seem...”

Danny was only a year older than Ethan.

If Miranda hadn’t left when she did, her son could so easily have been that little boy sitting down the hall. Or worse.

Her father had been after Ethan, just as Devon was after Danny.

“I know I’m being paranoid, and I’m sorry...”

“No, no, don’t apologize,” Miranda said, leaning forward with both hands on her small desk, in her small office, as she looked at the woman in the folding chair across from her. “What I wanted to tell you, still want to tell you, is that I understand. And that...anytime you have a concern, even if you pretty much know that it’s just fear, you’re welcome to call me. At home.”

Taking a card from the holder on the front of her desk, she wrote her cell number on it. “Anytime,” she said, handing Marie the card. “Sometimes you have to hear a professional opinion to stop the fear,” she added. “You couldn’t trust your own mind because you knew that someone else had manipulated it, that it played with you.

“I don’t want you to put off calling the doctor, or to have to wait for the office to open, nor do I want you to run up medical expenses with urgent care and emergency room visits. Of course, if it’s an emergency, go! But if you’re not sure, even if it’s the middle of the night—call me.”

Staring at the card, looking like she was fighting tears, Marie didn’t reach for it. “I can’t do that,” she said instead. “I can’t bother you like that.”

“I want you to.” To communicate how intensely she meant those words, she laid her hand on Marie’s, then turned both hands over and placed the card in Marie’s exposed palm, closing her fingers around it.

“I have to do this on my own...” Marie’s words were a trembling whisper.

“Some of it, yes.” Miranda knew she might be overstepping a line between professional and personal, but she wasn’t sure that mattered.

Not in this case.

“But you also have to know when to accept help,” she said, realizing that she was speaking to herself, as well.

“Why?” Marie’s eyes were moist as she looked at her. “Why would you do this? You’ve got your own life. You don’t need patients, or mothers of patients, waking you up in the middle of the night because they’re afraid...”

Miranda told herself to come up with some platitude. Quickly.

She couldn’t break the promise she’d made to herself never to screw up again.

Couldn’t speak of the past she’d left, ever. Doing so could expose her to someone talking to someone else who happened to be talking to someone who’d once known a woman named Dana and was looking for her...

“Just please...if your mind starts to play tricks with you, if you start getting paranoid that something’s wrong with you or Danny, if he sneezes and you worry that he could be getting pneumonia, don’t get scared. Don’t let fear take over your senses. Call me instead.”

“I don’t...”

“Think of me as your weapon in that particular battle,” Miranda said, finding strength out of nowhere. “Fear seems all-powerful, but the truth is, it buckles and evaporates when you stand up to it. Calling me is the way you look that particular fear right in the eye.”

Marie needed an arsenal. She’d collect it one weapon at a time, to face down one fear at a time.

Just as Miranda had.

And she’d need to carry it with her for the rest of her life, too. Because although fear slithered away, it always waited, out of sight, to strike again.

Chapter 6

The Santa Raquel High Risk Team was meeting every Tuesday in a conference room at the police station—for those who could make it or had news to share. Eventually the meetings would taper back down to once a month, but while the team was building, they were keeping in close contact.

In jeans and a striped shirt, with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, Tad sat and listened. He wasn’t an official member of the team, although he had his moment to report that during his dozen drive-bys of Danny Williams, he’d noticed nothing untoward. Everyone, including Danny’s mother, Marie, was following established protocol.

Sara Havens Edwin, a licensed professional clinical counselor, head counselor at The Lemonade Stand, looked relieved, and Tad nodded in her direction. In a private conversation, Sara had informed him that one of the biggest concerns in a situation like the Williamses’, one of the greatest threats to life was Marie herself. She not only loved her husband, but she’d been manipulated by him since high school. She was driven from within to keep him happy.

Miranda had her turn, too, telling everyone about Marie’s visit to her office the morning before, leaving out specific medical information that wasn’t pertinent to the case, but letting them know that while Marie had been concerned about her son’s wound, the boy’s healing was completely on track. There’d been no sign of any other injury. Sara took notes on that, too.

A few minutes of administrative discussion took place then. A new email loop was being set up; contact information was dispersed. Funding was mentioned, finances appropriated. He listened, but found himself paying more attention to the little park benches with primary-colored rainbows over them that dotted the scrub top Miranda was wearing.

They dipped and fell with the shape of her breasts and he knew he shouldn’t be noticing that. Tried not to. And looked again.

Her breasts weren’t the only ones in the room. And he wasn’t the type of guy who generally went around noticing them in any case. A shapely, curved butt was his more usual distraction. But those rainbow-covered breasts across from him... They were so captivating. Like the woman.

Miranda’s ability to nurture flowed from her with every breath. And he kept wondering how it would feel to lay his head on her breasts.

Wrong. Wrong, Newberry. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

They’d be soft, with hard nipples. Womanly softness with a core of strength.

And they’d smell like flowers.

Because she did. Something in her soap, probably. Or whatever lotion she used.

When he started envisioning himself rubbing lotion onto her back, into her shoulders and the sensitive parts of her neck, he sat forward. Brought his thoughts to a screeching halt—to catch her watching him stare at her breasts.

Their charged gazes held for a second.

How could something so not good feel so great?

* * *

Tad wasn’t feeling too great half an hour later as he sat with Miranda over coffee in a shop they’d visited several times before. Others had been there with them, the last of them just leaving.

“Let’s move to a smaller table,” he suggested when she didn’t get up with the others. He was pleased she’d stayed, but the look on her face didn’t bode well. Something was bothering her.

And since she’d been fine until the others left, he was pretty certain that something had to do with him.

Or rather, his wandering eyes. He’d screwed up. Badly. Bringing sexual awareness into the workplace. He of all people. Back home, at the station, he’d developed a reputation for being the one guy who hadn’t fallen under the spell of a young female cop who’d apparently joined the force to find herself a husband in uniform, not to serve and protect.

He’d also refused friendly advances from a forensic specialist he’d actually liked a lot because he knew better than to bring sex into work.

Letting Miranda pick the table, he followed her to a two-seater in the far corner, and his mood dropped another notch. He was supposed to be gaining her trust, not losing it. For her own safety. And because he’d given his word to a man he trusted.

It wasn’t about the money. It had never been about the money for him—not one day of his working life.

He had to fix this.

“I’m sorry,” he said the second they were seated across from each other at a table so small he had to turn so his knees weren’t touching hers.

Absolutely no touching. He had fences to mend, not further destroy.

“I was completely out of line, but I swear to you, I’ve never, ever had a problem keeping personal and work separated.”

Miranda’s frown made her look smart rather than confused. Assessing rather than seeking. “I’m sorry, did I miss something? What are you talking about?” She sipped from her half-full cup of latte, which had to be getting cold.

His straight-up black had been gone a quarter of an hour after they’d arrived. An espresso sounded good. He wasn’t used to all the sitting in his car staring out at life that he’d been doing these past six weeks. If nothing else, the time off was letting him know that much as he loved detective work, he wasn’t cut out to be a private investigator.

He was more of an action type of cop. Following leads. Hunting down the bad guys.

Not being one of them. “You and I... I appreciate the chance to learn about the High Risk Team, to help out while I’m here. I might have crossed a line and—” He stopped. “Uh, I want to tell you that—”

He broke off as she shook her head, and then looked him straight in the eye. “If anyone crossed a line, it was me, Tad. Letting my son talk you into playing video games with him...”

“I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I was kind of hoping for a rematch,” he said. She thought she was the one being inappropriate?

“He is, too,” she said. But she wasn’t smiling. So he wasn’t getting his hopes up. Or his worries, either.

He had to talk to her father. His current boss. To let him know he could be developing feelings for his daughter, so the chief had a chance to get him off the case before anything happened between them.

And then he’d lose his reputation for good. Lose any chance of resuming his career in North Carolina, and possibly anywhere else depending on how the internal investigation into his last case went down.

“I told Ethan I’d talk to you about it,” she said, surprising him further. “But...this is all so awkward, you know? You haven’t even asked me out, or hinted that you wanted to, and it feels like we’re having ‘the talk’ or something.”

“I’d say apologizing for possibly crossing a line could be construed as a hint.” What the hell was he doing?

“So maybe it’s a little complicated, huh?”

“Maybe.” He should be walking away. Instead he was leaning in. Smiling at her. “I’m attracted to you.”

He wasn’t going to lie to this woman any more than he had to. She’d had enough hell in her life. Had already had a man betray her trust in the worst possible way.

“Yeah.” She glanced away, licked her lips in a completely natural manner that turned him on, although it clearly wasn’t meant as a come-on, and looked back at him. “I told you I haven’t been on a date since Ethan’s father died. What I didn’t tell you was that...”

He waited, not even breathing. Was she going to tell him that the man had beaten her so badly, terrorized her so horrifically, she’d had to change her identity to get away from him?

Would she tell him the man’s real name so he could verify his death and know for himself that she was safe?

He couldn’t tell her who he really was without her father’s say-so, not at that point, but if he could at least be certain that the fiend who’d hurt this woman was definitely gone, he’d be a whole lot happier.

“Well, the truth is, I haven’t even been attracted to anyone...”

Becaauuusse...

“Which is probably why I’m behaving like such an imbecile right now,” she finished, running the rim of her finger around the edge of her coffee cup.

Had she just told him she was attracted to him? Replaying the last minute or so without his own inner dialogue, he was pretty sure she had.

And while he was disappointed that she wasn’t confiding in him, he was relieved, too. Anytime she spoke to anyone about her past, she opened herself up to the possibility of being found.

He was glad to know that Miranda was taking good care of herself and Ethan.

“We’re attracted to each other,” he said, adding a lightness to his tone he didn’t feel. “We should drink to that. Can I get you another coffee?” He stood, needing that espresso in the worst way.

“Another latte?” she asked, gazing up at him, as though she’d just asked for a whole lot more and was confident he’d deliver.

He wanted to.

But was equally sure he couldn’t. Not yet.

One thing was for certain. His weekly call with the man paying his rent couldn’t come fast enough. Maybe he’d break protocol and move the conversation up by a few days.

Maybe.

Standing at the coffee bar, Tad was mostly just eager to get back to the beautiful woman waiting for him at the table in the corner.

* * *

Miranda’s stomach was in knots. Her hands shook. It didn’t seem to matter that she’d made up her mind two days ago to have this talk with Tad Newberry, or that she’d rehearsed how it would go.

He’d looked her in the eye and told her he was attracted to her. Okay, not a major occurrence in the larger scheme of things, but in her world, it was a huge first. A guy she had the hots for thought she was hot.

In her old life, that had never happened. After all the counseling she’d had, she understood that the feminine part of her, the part that controlled things like budding sexual attraction, had been shut down by her father’s abusive treatment. Her defenses against men, against trusting men, had been acute ever since.

And now?

Now she had to have the conversation she’d set out to have. Regardless of how her belly flip-flopped and her crotch got warm as she watched Tad walk back to her.

She thanked him for the coffee. Took a sip to distract herself while he sat down. No need for her to glom on to his fly while it hung there at eye level.

This situation was not going to get out of control. She couldn’t let it.

Wouldn’t let it.

“I’m not looking for a relationship,” she said as soon as the sting of hot coffee subsided from her tongue. “No matter how I feel about someone, I’m not going to hook up, period. At least not until Ethan is older.”

There. She’d done her deed. And if it meant he walked out of here and avoided her the rest of the months he was in town, so be it.

All the better, really. Meant she didn’t have to be on her guard around him. Constantly fighting the insane need she had to feel his lips on hers.

To know how his tongue felt against hers.

When she and Jeff had conceived Ethan, they’d tried to kiss first, but had ended up laughing, instead.

Tad was still sitting there. Studying her. “Good to know,” he said, leaving her with a strong desire to be privy to every single one of his thoughts.

“You’re only here for, what, another nine months, at most?”

No. That hadn’t come out right. As though, if he was willing to hang around, she might change her mind.

There could be no hint of possibility here. No cracks in any doors or windows through which he might slip.

“At most,” he told her. He’d leaned back in his chair, was sitting partially sideways so that one arm was on the table, the other hanging off the corner of his chair. As though he didn’t have a care in the world.

But the way he watched her...assessing...made her nervous. Like he was seeing more than she could ever allow.

This was a bad idea. Worse even than she’d feared.

What if she let something slip? Some little nugget of a fact that made him curious...

No.

She stopped that thought, too. She was not going to let paranoia take over again. She’d won that battle. Wasn’t going to let fear and suspicion get close enough to have to fight them again.

At least not if she could see it coming.

Since returning to the table, Tad had contributed nothing to their conversation. If she wasn’t still humming inside from his admission that he was attracted to her, preceded by an apology for “crossing a line,” and followed by his backhanded admission that he wanted to ask her out, she might be able to convince herself that they had nothing to talk about.

That she’d been worried for nothing.

“I told Ethan we can be friends, the three of us, you and me, you and him, but that we can’t need each other for things. Or rely on each other,” she said in a rush.

Half hoping he’d miss the “you and me” part of that. And yet fearing he would.

“I’d like to be friends.” He rested both arms on the table again, and she could hardly comprehend how relieved she felt. Almost giddy with it. Like she had to laugh out loud. And maybe cry a little, too.

“All three of us, me and Ethan and you and me,” he added.

And she started to tremble.

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