FOUR DAYS EARLIER

SUNDAY

If Dave had known, before he’d picked up the phone, how much trouble this one call would cause, he would’ve let it go directly to voice mail.

But it was Sunday morning, and he was enjoying—very much—the experience of surfing the cable TV news channels from the comfort of Sophia’s bed.

He loved hanging out in the bedroom of her little apartment, and not just because most of the time he was in here of late, he was in the process of taking off Sophia’s clothes.

Though she’d lived in this tiny second-floor walk-up for far fewer years than he’d inhabited his spacious and still-spartan condo, she’d turned this place into a real home. Her furnishings were unique—quirky, mismatched pieces she’d picked up in flea markets and painted in the vibrant colors of the Mediterranean. Rich blues in a variety of shades mingled with bright yellows, warm reds, and a green that brought to mind the newness of spring. Artwork—some of it her own, and quite good—hung on the walls. The open windows were covered by full, gauzy curtains that shimmered and breathed with the breeze. A ceiling fan was kept always running, moving at its lowest, laziest speed.

Last week Sophia had moved the TV into the room for him—an admitted news junkie—and as the phone rang again, he pushed the remote control’s mute button as he shouted to her, in the bathroom, “You want me to get that?”

Sophia had just turned on the water, and as he heard the shower door clunk shut, she called back, “You don’t have to.”

Dave should’ve ignored it and turned off the TV and gone into the bathroom to help Sophia wash herself in those hard-to-reach places, but he was an idiot. He was still on a high from last night, when his plane had landed and he’d turned on his phone to find that she’d called him while he was in the air. Five times.

She’d gotten home several days early from her own business trip to Denver and—of course, because he had purposely neglected to tell her of his own international trek—was wondering where he was. She was cooking dinner, although, honestly? After four days apart? They were going to be eating late.

Dave had called her immediately, headed straight to her place, where she’d jumped him the moment he’d walked in the door—as if she’d been as starved for his touch as he’d been for hers.

Incredibly, it wasn’t the fabulous sex they’d had right there in her living room that had made his day, week, year—no, life. It was later, after dinner, with Sophia drowsy, her head on his shoulder, as they were about to fall asleep, telling him that she’d missed him, and that she slept much better—as in, she didn’t have her usual nightmares—when she spent the night in his arms.

It seemed the perfect segue for him to ask her about those nightmares—a topic they’d both shied away from, for years. And this time, he was ready for it. This time, he knew the questions to ask.

But then she’d added that, in the morning if he wanted her to, she’d clear out a drawer for him, maybe make him some space in her closet...?

If he wanted her to?

Dave had answered by kissing her, and she’d kissed him back, and they’d made love again—slowly this time. Sweetly. She’d breathed his name on a sigh and she’d fallen asleep almost immediately after, leaving him holding her in his arms, with his heart so full his chest actually hurt.

But now, in the light of morning, the TV, the empty drawer, and the closet space weren’t enough for Dave. Nuh-uh. No, sir. He had to further stake his claim here in Sophia’s life by answering the telephone on her bedside table at 10:37 on a sunny Sunday morning, with a voice still rusty and deep from a satisfying night made up only partially of sleep.

“Hello?”

There was a hesitation—an indrawn breath—as if the person on the other end were surprised to hear someone male pick up the phone. That’s right. Uh-huh. He was so the man. He was the dude with the cojones grande who was going to get his very own drawer here in Sophia’s pretty bedroom.

“May I speak to Sophia?” The voice, when it finally came, was female, older, with a hint of Great Britain in its precise enunciation.

“I’m afraid she’s indisposed,” Dave said. “May I take a message?”

“Please. Will you ask her to call her Aunt Maureen?” She pronounced it ahhnt, rather than like the insect. “Maureen Miles. I’m her father’s sister...?”

Oh, no.

“Yes,” Dave said. “Of course. Hi. Sophia’s, um, told me about you. From Boston, right? I’m Dave. Her...” What? Boyfriend? Lover? Bedroom-drawer guy? They’d talked about a lot of things over the past weeks, but they’d never precisely defined what their relationship now was.

Maureen Miles didn’t seem to care. There was more to her message. “Will you let her know that her father’s back in the hospital?”

Shit. “I’m sorry to hear that,” Dave said. “Mass General again?”

Another brief pause. “Yes. The doctors have given him only a few days this time, and he would like, very much, to see his daughter. I should think she owes him at least that much—”

“I’m sorry,” Dave cut her off. “With all due respect, ma’am, do we live in the same universe? Because in the reality-based one where I reside, Sophia owes him nothing.”

“He’s her father,” the woman said.

“He may have contributed his sperm to the creative process,” Dave said tartly, “but in my opinion he lost the right to call himself Daddy a few decades ago.”

She was silent again for a moment, but she was just regrouping. She hadn’t given up. “Please tell her that he’s being moved into hospice in a few days.”

“I’ll give her the message,” Dave said, a but heavy in his tone, and the woman hung up without a thank-you.

He dropped the handset into the phone’s cradle and flopped back onto Sophia’s pillows, staring up at the spinning ceiling fan.

From the bathroom, he heard the sound of the water shutting off, the shower door opening. Sophia’s melodic voice. “We need to get moving if we’re going to make it to Encinitas by noon.”

What? Dave lifted his head and aimed his voice toward the bathroom door. “Noon? Wait a minute, why?”

She appeared in the doorway, gloriously naked, drying herself with a towel, her wet hair slicked back from her face. She was one of those women who were even more beautiful when not wearing makeup.

Or clothes.

It was hard to think or listen when Sophia was naked, and he’d obviously not heard her response to his question, because she gave him her I’m repeating myself because you’re staring at me blankly smile and said, again, “The main parking lot’ll fill up by noon.”

“Seriously?” Dave sat up, struggling to make sense of her words. “Are we talking about the same thing? The parking lot’ll fill up? For a flea market?”

“Antique show,” she corrected him, heading out of sight, back to the sink, where she kept a collection of bottles and jars of lotion, each one of them smelling sweeter than the last. If he hurried, he could watch her smooth some onto her arms and legs, her stomach and breasts.

As he skidded to a stop in the bathroom, she met his eyes in the mirror. “You know, we don’t have to go.”

“I want to.” He opened the shower door and turned on the water. “The thrill of the hunt, the excitement of finding a treasure hidden in with the trash, the hours tromping through the brain-meltingly hot sun with the four million other people who helped us fill up the main parking lot before noon, who are hoping to find the exact same perfect cabinet for the kitchen before we do, so maybe we’ll have to win a duel or probably a spelling bee in order to gain ownership... I’m totally there, T-H-E-R-E.”

Sophia had turned around to look at him, her gaze traveling below his waist, her lower lip caught between her teeth as she tried not to smile—and failed. “You either really love antiques, or you’re lying through your teeth.” She reached out and wrapped her fingers around him as she gave up and laughed. “I’m going to go with lying through your teeth.”

Dave laughed, too, as she stroked him, as she smiled up into his eyes. “Obviously I’d anticipated a different morning agenda,” he told her. “But I’m a grown-up. I can multi-task. I can both be your antique-hunting partner and spend the day imagining all the ways I’m going to make you come after we get home.”

“Hmm,” she said, swaying closer, the tips of her breasts brushing his chest as she pressed his erection against the softness of her stomach. “Or we can say the heck with the main parking area, and take the PITA shuttle from the south lot.”

“South lot,” he repeated, unable to keep himself from touching her, his fingers sliding across her silky, clean, lotion-sweet skin. “There’s a south lot?”

Sophia nodded, then jumped up, wrapping her arms around his neck, her legs around his waist, like a piggyback ride in reverse.

“I love the south lot,” Dave told her as he grabbed her to keep her from slipping off him, her perfect derriere filling his hands. And God, this was unlike any other piggyback ride he’d ever given anyone, because she shifted and pushed him hard and deep inside of her. “Holy shit.”

She pulled back to look at him, laughter lighting her face and making her eyes sparkle and dance. “New one, huh?” she asked as she began to move against him.

He nodded. “Oh, yeah.” His experience with sex, pre-Sophia, was ridiculously limited, and she knew it because, well, he’d told her the truth.

They’d talked about a lot of things in those first few days A.S.—after Sacramento—and while he hadn’t been ready to go into full, gory detail about his farce of a relationship with Kathy-slash-Anise, he had confessed to Sophia that his full sexual oeuvre was limited to five interactions with one woman who didn’t particularly like him, even though she’d pretended otherwise.

Sophia hadn’t fainted at that news, no doubt because her own baggage was also quite cumbersome when it came to sex.

That first morning they’d woken up in each other’s arms, they’d made a promise to be honest in regard to their intimacy—since it was a potential minefield for both of them.

So, yes. Having sex standing up in the middle of the bathroom was a new one for him. Although there really wasn’t much he could do but stand there holding her, the muscles in his arms and shoulders getting quite the workout.

Which maybe meant he was a wimp, because she was petite and didn’t weigh more than a hundred pounds. But Dave was discovering that holding on to a hundred-pound woman was a very different experience than holding on to a hundred-pound woman while having sex with her. “Ah, God,” he said. “Soph...”

“Thumbs up or down?”

“Oh, up,” he told her. “Big up.”

“Me too,” she gasped, her breath warm against his ear. “But feel free to, you know, set me on the counter, by the sink, if you need to—”

“Not a chance.” Dave loved where his hands were, loved the sensation of her legs and buttocks straining to push him more fully inside of her, but when he shifted slightly to get a better grip, he discovered—eureka!—there was something he could do besides simply stand there and not drop her. He shifted again to hold most of her weight with his left arm, freeing up his right hand to touch her again, with slightly better aim.

She sighed his name, and that, combined with the increased speed of her rocking motion, was enough to bring him teetering to the edge of his release, so he touched her harder, deeper, and she came with a moan and a shudder that he loved as much as he loved his new drawer and closet space. And in that fraction of a heartbeat, in the brief instant of time between his knowing that he, too, was going to orgasm—now—and the deep rush of mind-blowing pleasure that was already starting to surge through his body, he remembered the phone call.

He’d yet to tell Sophia that her father was in the hospital.

Dave came with a crash, with a shout—“God, I love you!”—pulling her warm, pliant body more tightly against his, as she kept coming around him, urging him, as always, to give her more, more.

It should have diminished his pleasure—his remembering the unhappy message he’d promised to deliver. It should have made him ashamed for forgetting something so important in the first place.

It should have, but it didn’t.

Sophia’s father was a rat-bastard and few besides his sister Maureen would miss him when he was gone.

“Sweet Jesus,” Dave said when he got his vocal cords working again.

Sophia just laughed, still clinging to him, nuzzling his neck, ankles locked just beneath his butt.

Arms shaking, knees wobbly, he carried her out of the bathroom and dumped her onto the bed, collapsing beside her. “That was a solid thirty on the fun scale.”

She laughed again. “When is it ever not a thirty?”

In an effort to lighten things up—mostly for his own sake, since the simple fact that he was in a relationship with the woman of his dreams was often enough to get him choked up—Dave had suggested a rating system, one to ten, for each new-to-him sexual position, of which there were many. And yes, in all honesty, it was a way, too, for him to acknowledge his lack of experience—by addressing it straight on, with humor.

“Sweetheart”—he opened his eyes to do his best Bogart—“for me, just being in a room with you is a twenty.”

She had her head propped up on one elbow so that she could look down at him, her eyes wide and serious as her smile slowly faded.

“You know that I love you, too, right?” she finally murmured.

He gazed back at her for several long moments before he responded. He waited until he knew for sure that his voice wouldn’t vibrate with emotion. “You don’t have to say that.”

“It’s true,” Sophia insisted. “These past few months have been...” She shook her head. “Sad, because of Nash dying, but... Also... I don’t know if I’ve...” She looked down toward the jumble of bright blue sheets beneath them and started again. “I can’t remember ever being this...” She searched for the right word as Dave waited, his heart in his throat. She met his gaze again, her eyes guileless and nearly as blue as the sheets. “Content.”

Not quite the word he was hoping for. Still, he smiled because he was okay with it. Fact was, he’d be okay with a wide variety of less than words. Such as satisfied. Comfortable. At ease.

At peace.

Dave knew he was Sophia’s second choice. He’d accepted that weeks ago, the very first night they’d made love. It would be enough. It was enough.

“I’m glad,” he told her now, reaching up to push her hair back behind her ear, and it wasn’t a lie. He let her look long and hard into his eyes so she would know that he meant it, that he accepted her words for what they were—something good, if not fairy-tale perfect.

Her mouth quirked up into a smile. “You have no idea how hot you are, do you?”

“What?” Dave laughed as he realized what she’d said, and then rolled his eyes. “Yeah, actually,” he said, “I’m pretty sure I do. I fall somewhere between pickled and poached. Maybe, right after I get a haircut, for about two minutes, I can pass for steamed and... As fascinating as this discussion is, can we save it for tonight? Because—and I should have told you this before, but you stupefied me with your nakedness....”

“I’m still naked,” she pointed out, that lip again between her teeth as she played with the hair on his chest, and dear God, Dave could see a whole lot of as long as we’re going to park in the south lot dot dot dot in her eyes.

“Right,” he said, as his body stirred at the thought of staying in bed with this woman—his woman—for the rest of the morning, “so I better talk fast. That was your Aunt Maureen on the phone, Soph. Your father’s back in the hospital.”

Jimmy Nash had been dead now for nearly two months, and he could confirm, absolutely, that being dead sucked.

And, yeah, it was true that not being dead had its occasional negative moments, too. For example, getting out of bed for the first time, after the surgeon removed a small but deadly chunk of lead from his chest. That had been unpleasant.

And watching his memorial service via webcam—that hadn’t been as much fun as he’d imagined it might be. In fact, he’d been stunned—and deeply moved—by the sheer number of operators from the SpecWar community who’d shown up to pay their last respects. It was SRO inside that church. On top of that shock, it had bothered him immensely to see friends like Dave and Sophia mourning his passing when he was sitting right here, alive if not quite well, in a hospital bed.

But most of his not being dead was positive. Waking to find Tess Bailey curled up in the chair beside his bed. Waking to find Tess reading in the chair beside his bed. Waking to find Tess running her fingers through his hair or holding his hand as she sat in the chair beside his bed....

All by itself, waking was pretty positive, particularly when Jimmy thought about how close he’d come to never waking again. But with her freckles and her sunshine-filled smile, with that palpable love for him in her eyes, Tess made his waking miraculous.

Deck made it pretty damn good, too. Yeah, Lawrence Decker spent a shitload of time on watch in another chair on the far side of that hospital room. And he always knew exactly what to say, each time Jimmy had surfaced from his narcotics-induced haze.

“Tess is safe. You’re safe. We’re all safe.”

It didn’t matter how many times Jimmy came up out of the fog. Decker would reassure him, over and over again, that they were safe. Until Jimmy finally believed him.

An FBI agent named Jules Cassidy had helped Deck fake Jimmy’s death—a con that had been brilliantly realized. Of course, circumstances had provided the perfect setup. Jimmy had been critically injured in a firefight with some very bad men—although not, ironically enough, the same bad men who now wanted him dead. He was rushed to a hospital in Fresno via medevac chopper and had, in fact, flat-lined on the flight. This gave additional teeth to the idea that he might not survive his surgery and, in fact, that was the very story Decker and Cassidy had used.

James Nash, aka Diego Nash, was pronounced dead on the operating table at Cedar Vista Hospital in Fresno, California at 6:14 P.M., Wednesday, 30 July 2008.

Only a handful of people knew otherwise—and Jimmy trusted them all, completely. There wasn’t even a surgeon floating around out there as a potential liability because Cassidy had worked some kind of voodoo at the hospital. Jimmy suspected it involved hacking into and changing medical records, which was probably some kind of a felony, since the agent was acting on his own accord. But Cassidy was purposely keeping his FBI superiors and the entire Bureau out of the loop when it came to the fact that Jimmy was still alive.

In fact, Jimmy’s new identity—one Lloyd Howard—had been fabricated without the help of any kind of government protection program. Decker and Cassidy agreed that it was important to hide the fact that Jimmy was alive from any and all government agencies.

Because at this point? They were pretty sure that the very nasty men who wanted Jimmy dead had access to government records—even those labeled top secret.

They were pretty sure that the bad men they had to take down—in order for Jimmy to very literally get his life back—worked for the mysterious and clandestine no-name Agency’s black ops sector.

They were pretty sure about that because, at one time, Jimmy Nash had worked for the Agency’s black ops sector, too.

“Good morning.”

Tess smiled as she looked up from her book. “Hey,” she greeted Decker, who came to the end of the bed and actually reached out and held on to Jimmy’s left foot.

“You ready to blow this popsicle stand?” he asked Jimmy.

Who laughed and then winced at the surge of pain. “Yeah. I wish.” He held up his arm, IV tubes still attached. “I’m still attached to the mother ship.”

Before the words were out of his mouth, Deck turned to the door, where one of the nurses—Paula, buxom and jolly, a proud new grandmother—came bustling in. She shut off the drip, and almost before Jimmy could blink, she’d extracted the needle from the back of his hand.

“This goes back in, Mr. Howard,” she warned Jimmy sternly, which was countered by the permanent twinkle in her lively brown eyes, “at the least little sign of dehydration. You want to go home? You’ll push fluids.

Do it right, we’ll release you tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Tess spoke for him, disbelief in her voice.

Decker was grinning. “Blood test came back clear.”

“But...” Tess was still concerned.

“It’ll be easier for him to rehab off-site,” Deck told her, not saying more than that, since Paula was still in the room. It wouldn’t just be easier, it’d be safer. For all of them.

Truth of the matter was, as safe as he’d been made by the news of his “death,” Jimmy still worried every time Decker or Tess left his room. He knew he was safe, and they were, too—when they were with him. But the only way he’d ever be fully convinced that the threat was completely gone, would be for him to identify and track down the men who’d threatened and then tried to kill him.

Right now he knew barely nothing. Several vague clues. An e-mail address that he’d already tried to track, that had gotten him nowhere. A shirt that he’d worn on one of the days they’d tried to eliminate him—stained not only with his own blood, but with the blood of the man who’d tried to take him out. The vaguest of descriptions of that man, who’d attacked him in the darkness of a moonless night.

Jimmy hadn’t gotten a visual, just a sense of the man’s size: average height and weight, medium build.

Which narrowed his search down to, oh, about a quarter of the world’s population.

A DNA test on the shirt could provide far more specific answers, but it would also tip his enemy off as to his current still-alive status. Decker and Cassidy had agreed about that. Their plan was to wait to do that test until Jimmy and Tess were out of this hospital and ensconced in an even safer place. Which was looking to be tomorrow. Saints be praised.

“Don’t worry,” Deck was reassuring Tess. “We’ll get him back up to speed in no time.”

“He’ll be getting into trouble before you know it,” the nurse reassured Tess, then turned to give Jimmy a mock evil eye, “if he pushes fluids.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jimmy said as she left the room, as Decker made certain that the door was tightly shut behind her.

“Are you sure...,” Tess started.

“The infection’s gone,” Decker told her. “He’s healing nicely. It’s time.” He turned to Jimmy. “Cassidy wants to bring in additional security for the move to the safe house. He’s going to give me a list of names. I want you both to go through it. If anyone on his list makes you at all uneasy—”

“I don’t care who’s on the list,” Jimmy interrupted, “as long as it includes Dave Malkoff.”

But Decker was already shaking his head.

“Why?” Jimmy asked. “Deck, I have two friends on this entire planet. You and Dave. And Dave thinks I’m dead. He also happens to be one of the smartest operatives we know.”

Decker’s smile was gone—he was back to his usual grim.

Tess leaned forward to take Jimmy’s hand, but it wasn’t just to calm him down. She had something to tell him, and he could tell from her face that it wasn’t going to be good news.

“Oh, shit,” Jimmy said, looking from Tess to Deck and back again. “What happened to Dave?”

“No, no,” Tess quickly reassured him. “He’s fine. He’s just...”

“Sophia happened to Dave,” Decker told him, and the words didn’t make sense.

“Dave and Sophia hooked up,” Tess translated, and Jimmy realized that the concern he’d seen on her face had been for Decker, who’d had some kind of twisted thing for Sophia for years now. Fool that he was, he’d never acted on it. And now, apparently, Dave had intervened. Jimmy’s disappointment for Deck was curiously mixed with a sense of “you go, boy” for old Dave. Dave and Sophia. Holy Mother of God.

“It happened the night that, you know...,” Tess continued, but he didn’t know until she added, “The hostage rescue outside of Sacramento...?”

“Are you kidding me?” Jimmy asked.

She shook her head. Not kidding. “They’ve been hot and heavy ever since.”

“Wait a minute.” He needed her to clarify. “Are you telling me that the night that I died, Dave and Sophia decide to skip the grieving and fuck like bunnies?”

Tess winced at his verb choice, glancing quickly at Decker, who was shaking his head.

“Sorry.” Jimmy realized what he’d just said. “I just thought that, you know, Dave would be a little upset. Sophia, too. Christ.”

“People deal with grief in all kinds of ways,” Tess reminded him. “And I’m also sure that Sophia knew...”

She didn’t finish her sentence. She didn’t have to.

What Sophia had known was that her last hope of starting something with Decker had died with Jimmy Nash. Sophia had believed—as had the rest of their friends and co-workers—that with Nash out of the picture, Deck would insert himself into Tess’s life, dick first.

And everyone also believed that, without Nash and all of his bullshit around to distract her, Tess would instantly recognize how terrific Decker was, and how perfectly suited they were for each other.

And Jimmy’s fiancée and his best friend would get married and live happily ever after, leaving Sophia out in the cold. Jimmy, too—but his cold would be the six-feet-under kind.

“Look, I’m... happy for her,” Decker said now, about Sophia—proving what a Boy Scout he was. Because he meant what he’d said. “I’m happy for Dave, too. He’s wanted this for a long time.” He cleared his throat, obviously uncomfortable with this entire discussion, because at the bottom of it lay a truth they all studiously worked overtime to avoid mentioning: that Decker had, once upon a time, had feelings for Tess.

“Seeing them together is... This whole thing is...” Deck shook his head and started again. “It’s harder than I thought.”

Jimmy knew his friend wasn’t talking merely about seeing Sophia with Dave. Decker was talking about being seen in public with Tess, pretending that he and his dead best friend’s fiancée had turned to one another for comfort. That was what was harder to do than Deck had thought.

No shit, Sherlock.

And Jimmy would’ve wagered the entire contents of his bank account that Sophia’s watching Decker pretending—yeah, right—to want to be romantically involved with Tess was at least partially responsible for her propulsion into Dave Malkoff’s waiting arms.

But wait. The festival of jealousy didn’t stop there.

Jimmy was guilty of having a carnival-load of it himself—watching the footage of Deck putting his arm around Tess’s shoulders at the memorial service, holding her hand as she leaned toward him for comfort. He’d gotten pissed off, imagining Decker kissing Tess good-night so that those fuckers who’d tried, numerous times, to kill Jimmy would believe he truly was dead.

It sucked the biggest dick ever.

Oh, what a tangled web we weave....

“I’m sorry,” Jimmy said again, because he was the spider who’d started this multi-level charade spinning in the first place.

“I just think we all need a little space,” Decker told him quietly, pouring a cup of water from the pitcher on Jimmy’s tray.

“Fair enough.” Jimmy nodded. “We don’t tell Dave. And sorry if I brought an unwanted picture to mind.”

Decker handed him the water. “Drink,” he ordered as he headed back out of the room. “Lots. I want to get the hell out of here.”

Jimmy drank.

The place really was perfect.

Eight bedrooms, ten baths, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, outfitted gym with a climbing wall, home theater, chef’s kitchen, fully furnished and equipped—all sitting like a castle atop the summit of a mountain.

And FBI agent Jules Cassidy had the key to the front door in his pocket.

And, okay, this probably wasn’t a mountain for most people, but Jules had grown up in the Northeast where the mountains were ancient and tree-covered and worn. Here in California—home of that nifty geological phenomenon known as the Sierra Nevadas—this thing jutting up between two desert valleys really was just a very steep, ragged little hill.

But for Jules’s intents and purposes—which were many and varied—a hill of this magnitude was mountain enough.

“Two million dollars,” Sam Starrett mused as he stood at the wall of sliders that opened onto a deck overlooking the scenic desert valley to the south. “He’s working for a month, and they’re paying him two million dollars. That’s... what? Over sixty-five thousand dollars a day. A day.”

“Yeah, but you see,” Jules pointed out, “after his agent takes his cut, and after taxes and expenses? It works out to be only about half that much, so, you know, it’s not that big a deal.”

Sam turned and looked at him, eyebrows up.

“Kidding,” Jules said, laughing at his friend. “It’s a huge deal. It amazing.”

Jules’s husband, Robin, had come ridiculously far in the years since he’d publicly acknowledged that he was gay, and had gone into rehab for his alcoholism. His had been a coming-out of epic proportions, since he was on the verge of becoming one of Hollywood’s leading action-adventure stars.

And while Robin’s two-million-dollar paycheck for his role in this film was impressive, there had been a time, right before he first came out of the closet, that he could have demanded five times that amount. But Robin hadn’t cared. He’d chosen sunlight and honesty over guaranteed fortune and fame. He’d chosen Jules, and had worked his ass off to stay sober. It was never going to be easy, but he now had over two alcohol-and drug-free years under his belt.

The naysayers had assumed his career was over.

The naysayers were not only freaking nincompoops, they were, as it turned out, seriously wrong freaking nincompoops. Proof was in the Emmy that sat on the mantel of the home Jules and Robin shared in Boston.

Robin was psyched to be doing this movie—a science fiction action-adventure—during his hit TV show’s summer hiatus. He was pleased to be making that much money, but he was most excited about using this opportunity to help out Jules with what they’d been referring to lately as “his little extracurricular project.”

The film was shooting nearby in the desert as well as six hours away in San Diego. Robin wouldn’t be staying at this fabulous fortress of a house every night, but he’d be here as often as he could. And he’d be footing the bill—a fact that he generously shrugged off as “no big deal.”

“Do you think we should form a search party and go after Alyssa and Ash?” Jules asked Sam now.

“I was checking out the security room.” Alyssa’s voice carried up the stairs before she appeared, little Ashton—nearly six months old—on her hip. With his baby-smooth mocha brown skin—as beautiful as his mother’s—and his father’s blue eyes, he was a remarkably cute baby, with a gleeful smile that was all his own. “May I state for the record that this place has a security room? There are forty-two video cameras and God knows how many motion sensors, not just out by the fence, but around the house as well.” She exhaled a laugh and added some attitude. “If you can call this castle a house.”

Sam took Ashton from his wife and sat on the leather sofa with the baby on his lap, putting his cowboy-booted feet up on the heavy wood coffee table. Clunk, clunk. “I myself couldn’t help but notice the industrial-strength backup generator,” he drawled, heavy on the Texas—he’p instead of help—as he made a face at his son, who chortled with laughter.

“And by the way, that fence? Electric,” Alyssa informed Sam as she sat down next to him, fishing in her bag for Ash’s binky. “The gate’s the kind the government uses at embassies in countries that tend to end in -stan. You will not be getting visitors dropping by unexpectedly.”

“You can see for miles from that deck.” Sam turned to Alyssa. “What do you figure? About fifty clicks on a clear day?”

“At least. Anyone who wants to get through that gate without permission”—Alyssa wasn’t done talking about the fence—“ is going to have to use a substantial amount of C-4. And once they do, they’ve got, what? Two miles of completely exposed driveway up to the house?”

“One and eight tenths,” Jules corrected her.

Both of them turned to look at him with nearly identical concern as he made himself comfortable in the easy chair across from them.

Alyssa put voice to their question. “Is Robin having trouble with another stalker?”

Jules shook his head. “No. I mean, yeah, there’re always the fans who go too far, so we’ve learned to be careful, but this is—”

“A freaking fortress,” Sam finished for him.

“Yes, it is,” Jules agreed.

“What’s going on?” Alyssa asked.

Jules cleared his throat. Crossed his legs. “Before I tell you this,” he said, “I want to state that it’s both an advantage and a disadvantage that you guys are my best friends.”

Sam looked at Alyssa and covered Ash’s little ears. “Why can’t he ever ask us for a favor without having to make a fucking speech?” Despite the covered ears, he only mouthed the F-bomb.

“I have no idea.” Alyssa settled back on the couch, getting comfortable. “But part of being a good friend is letting your friends talk, so...”

Sam turned to Jules, clearly not willing to climb aboard Alyssa’s train of serene acceptance. “Yes,” he said. “Whatever you’re gonna ask us to do? We’ll do it.”

“But see, that’s my point,” Jules said. “I don’t want any of us to feel as if I’m taking advantage of our friendship—”

“Help me out here, Ash,” Sam told his son as he turned the baby to face Jules. “Tell your Uncle Squidward that we’re happy to assist.” He spoke in a squeaky baby-voice that was just too funny. “We’re happy to assist.”

Laughing, Jules shook his head as he looked at his friends. Alyssa had been an officer in the Navy before she joined the FBI. She’d worked for the Bureau for years—as Jules’s partner. She’d left at about the same time she’d married Sam, who’d served as an officer in legendary U.S. Navy SEAL Team Sixteen. Sam had managed to get himself into some trouble, and rather than take a desk job, he’d retired from the military. At which point the pair of them went to work for former SEAL Tom Paoletti’s civilian personal security firm, Troubleshooters Incorporated.

Alyssa was Tom’s XO, or second-in-command, which made her Sam’s boss, go figure.

Jules persisted. “When I say any of us? I’m including me. And I kind of feel as if I’m—”

“If you’re asking us to camp out here to help keep the crazies away from Robin,” Sam interrupted, “it’s not exactly going to be a hardship.”

“I already picked out our suite,” Alyssa added.

Sam looked at her. “The one with the blue drapes?”

She nodded. “With the extra room that could be the nursery. You see that bathroom? I think it’s bigger than our kitchen.”

“Nice shower.” He nodded. “Very nice shower. Although the suite on the third floor—”

“That one’s ours. And this isn’t about Robin,” Jules said again, interrupting them. “He’s renting this house, yes. And he’ll be staying here, with me, part of this month, and possibly even longer, if the situation doesn’t rectify itself and will you please let me tell you what this is about before you say yes?”

“I’m pretty sure that ship has sailed,” Sam pointed out.

“What situation?” Alyssa asked, silencing her husband with an amusedly pointed look.

“I’m just saying,” Sam said with a shrug.

And with that, alleluia, they were now sitting there quietly, waiting for Jules to explain, finally giving him a chance to talk.

“I’ve got an operative in hiding, who needs a safe house to rehab and regroup.” He chose his words carefully, because until they signed on he couldn’t tell them too much. “He worked in the black ops sector of a government agency and believes that he’s been marked for what he calls deletion—which is exactly what it sounds like. I’ve kept him separate from any of the official protection programs, because we haven’t identified the person or persons who’ve tried to kill him. But we do believe that whoever they are, they have access to top secret, high-clearance-level information.”

“Shit,” Sam covered Ash’s ears to say. He glanced at Alyssa before asking Jules, “You’re absolutely certain that your operative isn’t, um, how do I put this? The problem?”

“He’s not, and I am,” Jules said. “Certain.”

“Black ops create... certain pressures for operatives,” Sam pointed out. “Some agents go rogue.”

“Oh, he’s rogue, all right,” Jules said. “But not the way you mean. I trust this man. Completely.”

“Enough to risk your career,” Alyssa said. It wasn’t quite a question, but it wasn’t quite not, either.

So Jules answered as if it were. “Yes.”

“What career?” Sam scoffed.

“Hey,” Jules told him. “S-squared, SpongeBob. I happen to love Boston.”

“I can’t help but notice, Toto,” Sam said, “that we’re not in Boston anymore.”

Jules sighed, exasperated. “I’m on vacation. May I please continue?”

“There’s more?”

“Yeah,” Jules said a tad sharply. “The important part. The part where—”

“We might find ourselves investigating corruption deep inside a government agency?” Alyssa interrupted this time. “That’s basic math, Jules. I think we’ve already figured that out. At least I have.” She looked at her husband.

“Durrr,” he said.

“This could be extremely dangerous,” Jules had to tell them.

“Eek,” Sam deadpanned.

“You said rehab,” Alyssa asked. “Your man’s been injured?”

He nodded. “Gunshot wound to the chest. He’s gonna need a month of hard work to get back to speed. Maybe a little less because he’s... who he is.”

Alyssa glanced at Sam before asking Jules, “I assume you’re going to take the utmost precautions when you move him in here.”

“That’s one of the things I was hoping you could help me with,” he told them. “My plan was to bring him in when Robin arrives tomorrow.”

“We do this right,” Sam said, with a glance at Alyssa, “and no one will know your man is here. It’ll look to the world like we’re taking a high-end vacation with our fruity and very rich friends.”

“Without Ashton?” she asked.

“I say we bring him,” Sam said. “The alternative is to see if Mary Lou can take him, but... After seeing this place, I’m convinced he’d be safer here with us.” He looked at Jules. “You okay with that?”

“Of course.”

Alyssa asked, “How actively is your operative being hunted?”

“We’re pretty sure they think he’s dead,” Jules told them. “Whoever they are.”

“Define pretty sure,” Sam said.

“His own friends think he’s dead,” Jules said. “I can count the number of people who know that he’s not, on the fingers of one hand.”

“So the goal,” Alyssa clarified, “is both to keep your man alive and to find out who wanted to ‘delete’ him.”

Sam laughed. “You know, some people actually go to Disneyland when they take a vacation?”

“Are you in?” Jules asked.

“Absolutely,” they said in unison, then looked at each other and added, “Owe me a... Coke,” also at the same time, down to the pause before Coke and the smile that followed it.

Euphemism, anyone?

“One condition,” Sam said, reluctantly pulling his attention away from his wife’s loaded smile. “If we meet him and don’t get the same warm fuzzies you obviously feel for him, we walk away and keep our mouths shut.”

“Deal,” Jules said.

“Who is he?” Alyssa asked. “Do we know him? Oh, my God, Jules—”

“Gunshot wound to the chest?” Sam spoke over her, putting it together at the same moment. “Son of a bitch! Is it...?”

“James Nash,” Jules told them. It no longer surprised him that out of the two of them, it was Sam whose eyes instantly filled with tears.

“Ah, Jesus,” he said. “Does Tess know?” He answered his own question. “Of course she knows. And Decker.... Holy....” He held Ash out for Jules. “Will you... Please... I gotta...”

Jules took the baby and carried him down the stairs. “Come on, Ashton, let’s find the playroom, see what kind of toys come with this joint,” he said, drowning out Sam’s voice as he embraced Jules’s good news with a resounding “Holy, holy fuck!”

“I don’t think you should go. Not for him,” Dave told Sophia, as calmly and evenly as he always sounded. “I think you should go for you.”

Her Aunt Maureen had tracked Sophia down a few years ago. She hadn’t even realized she had an aunt before that startling call—and she wasn’t at all sure she wanted one at this late date. But the brusque, stern-voiced woman now phoned every few months, trying to guilt, shame, or bully Sophia into visiting her dying father.

Of course, Paul Miles had been dying for quite a few years now.

“You honestly think I’ll find closure?” Sophia asked Dave as she stepped into her panties and put on her bra, her movements jerky with her frustration and anger.

“No,” he said, reaching for her, catching her arm and tugging her back to the bed, where he was still stretched out, still naked and extremely male, and yet still solidly Dave. Her champion, her hero, her lover—and her best friend. “I doubt you’ll ever find closure. I just think—”

“I have nothing to say to him,” she interrupted. It was what she always said to Maureen—and to Dave, too—whenever her aunt called.

It was funny—the turmoil caused by Maureen’s phone calls had always made Sophia run straight to Dave. They’d talked about her father frequently over the past few years, and about whether or not Sophia should go to Boston to see him before he died.

But never while Dave was naked and sprawled on her bed.

“Maybe you don’t have anything to say,” he told her now. “Or maybe you just think that you don’t. Maybe going to Boston to see him will—”

“I was eleven years old,” Sophia said flatly.

He blinked, then blanched. “What?”

“Eleven years, one month,” she said. “It was four weeks to the day after my birthday.”

“You told me you were a teenager. I thought—”

“I lied,” Sophia informed him, but then had to turn away from the maelstrom of emotion in Dave’s usually bemused hazel eyes. “Because I didn’t want you to look at me the way you’re looking at me right now.”

“Let’s go to Boston,” he said quietly. “So I can kill him.”

Sophia shook her head. “That’s not funny.”

“I’m not kidding.” Now his eyes were hard, almost flat. She’d spent most of her life around dangerous men, and she’d seen that look before, but rarely-to-never in Dave’s eyes.

“Don’t,” she said. “If I’d wanted a caveman, I never would’ve given up on Decker.” And okay, she’d not only spoken too sharply, she’d spoken too thoughtlessly. She immediately apologized. “Sorry. Sorry.”

Too late.

But her harsh words had done the trick. Dave was back. Kind, warm, smart and funny, slightly goofy Dave. Who, as usual, pushed his own hurt feelings aside in order to focus on her. In order to take care of her. To make sure she knew that she mattered to him—more than anything else in the world. To make sure she knew she was safe and loved.

“Your parents never came back?” he asked. “Not even to... to... pick up their things?” She shook her head, but he still couldn’t believe it, saying, “So from the time that you were eleven...?”

“I was on my own,” Sophia verified for him. “Yes.”

Maureen had insisted that her darling brother had left his only child in Katmandu, believing her to be in her mother’s care, and that Sophia’s crazy mother, Cleopatra Farrell—she’d legally changed her name from Cynthia—had left, believing Sophia to be safe with Paul. It was a simple mistake. An unfortunate accident.

But a month after her eleventh birthday, Sophia had woken up to find herself alone in an unfamiliar country, with no money, no passport, and only enough food to last a scant few days.

She was too young to know that she could go to the embassy. It never occurred to her that the consulate might be able to help. There was only their angry landlord shouting about the money her parents owed, and pushing her out into the street when she couldn’t pay him. She’d cried—What will I do?—and he’d slapped her and told her to be a man, to do what other boys her age were doing: get a job, become an apprentice to a craftsman.

She could tell that Dave was imagining a nightmare of a different kind for a little blond girl alone on the streets, so she quickly reassured him. “I dressed like a boy. All my clothes were hand-me-downs, and... About two months earlier, I had a bad case of lice, and my mother...” She tried to make it a joke. “Thanks to her work ethic, which was if you don’t have to, don’t, she didn’t try to, you know. Comb out the nits. She just shaved my head. My hair was still short so...”

Left to fend for herself, even at eleven, she’d instinctively known she’d be better off not advertising the fact that she was a girl.

“Everyone thought I was a boy, so I played along,” she told him.

“Miles Farrell,” Dave said. It was the name by which he’d first known her, back in her previous life—back when her husband, Dimitri, was still alive. “Your father’s and mother’s last names.”

Sophia nodded. She knew from his eyes that he knew she’d called herself that because part of her had naively hoped one or the other of her parents would come back. She’d hoped that they would search for her and find her.

“I’m so sorry,” Dave said, his hand as warm and gentle as his eyes as he smoothed back her hair.

“I survived,” she reminded him.

But he shook his head. “Eleven-year-olds shouldn’t have to survive something like that.”

“I like to think I’m lucky,” Sophia told him, leaning against him, grateful for his solid presence as he continued to stroke her hair. “My mother didn’t move to the hard-core drugs until after I was born.”

Dave laughed. “ Whoo-hoo. I wonder if Hallmark makes that card. Happy Mother’s Day. Thanks for not mainlining heroin until I was nine.” His hand paused. “And there’s a question I’d like to ask your father. What the hell was he thinking to leave you with a woman who could well have sold you to a local warlord to get her next fix?”

“Maureen said he didn’t know. Which is...”

“Bullshit.” He finished for her.

They sat for a moment in silence, Dave lost in his own thoughts as Sophia tried to think of a single item for the Go-See-Her-Father “pro” column, and came up only with if she went, Maureen would stop calling her.

No, she had to change that would to a might. There was no guarantee the phone calls would stop. They might even increase. Maureen might start asking for money. Or her father might make a “miraculous recovery”—assuming he truly was sick in the first place. He could well follow her back to San Diego and... the thought made her sick to her stomach.

“I don’t want to go,” Sophia blurted out. “To Boston.”

“Then we don’t go,” Dave said without hesitation, as if it were an absolute. His use of the plural got to her, too. We don’t go, as it if were a given that he’d go with her.

She tipped her head back to look up at him. “I’m sorry that I said what I said about—”

“Shh.” He briefly pressed his lips to hers before she could say Decker. “It’s done. Forgotten.”

But she couldn’t let it go. “You deserve better.”

“What I deserve,” Dave told her quietly, “is honesty. You never need to soften the truth for me, Soph. Never.”

“Sometimes,” she admitted, just as quietly, “I soften the truth”—it was a good description of what she regularly did—“for me.”

He was silent then, the tension in his body the only sign that her words had impacted him.

“Well, whenever you’re ready to talk about... anything,” he said, unable to keep his voice completely steady, “I’m here and I’m ready to listen. I know you’ve... been through a lot and... Just because you survived it doesn’t mean it doesn’t haunt you.” He cleared his throat. “You know, we haven’t talked about Dimitri once since Sacramento.”

Sophia closed her eyes.

“That wasn’t meant to be a reprimand,” Dave continued. “I’m just pointing it out. I’m sure it’s subconscious on your part. I mean, we make love pretty frequently. Which isn’t a complaint,” he added quickly. “Believe me. But chances are strong that I’m not going to say Let’s talk about your husband’s death when you’re on the verge of talking off my clothes. Which I’m happy to have you do anytime.”

“Please,” Sophia said. “Let’s not talk about Dimitri now.”

“I wasn’t suggesting that we do,” Dave responded. “Just pointing out that... Okay, I just wanted to mention it and I did, so... Enough said.” He paused. “About that, anyway. But at the risk of pissing you off, I do have something else I want to say to you. About your father.”

Sophia opened her eyes. “Dave...”

“Just listen,” he urged her. “I’m not saying you should change your mind. In fact, I’m virtually certain you’re going to be sorely dissatisfied with his answers to any of your questions, but I do know—absolutely—that once he’s gone? He’ll be gone, Soph. And your chance to talk to him, to tell him whatever you might want to tell him? That’ll be gone, too. Dead is forever. And you’re going to be on this planet for years after he’s passed. As crazy as the idea might seem right now, you might reach a point, later in your life, where you’ll be able to forgive him. I don’t want you to regret letting this last chance to see him slip away.”

She managed a laugh. “Yeah, that wasn’t you trying to change my mind.”

“It wasn’t,” he argued. “I’m just saying be certain. And if you’re not, well heck, let’s go to Boston. I’ll be with you the whole time, I promise you. If we get there, and you look at him through the doorway to his room, and you decide you want to turn around without letting him know you’re there...? I’ll lead the way home.

“And if you are certain, and you want me to call Maureen back,” Dave continued, “and say that your father’s already dead to you so stop calling, be-yotch? I’ll do that. I’ll help you change your phone number, if you want. I’ll help you move. And if you want to say the hell with everything and just get in the car and go to that flea market, find that perfect cabinet? Give me two minutes to shower.”

All the complicated emotions Sophia was feeling—her frustration with Maureen, decades of hurt and anger toward her father, and the complicated mix of everything she felt for Dave—swelled in her chest and rose up, filling her throat. She had to work hard to speak. She had to squeeze her words out, so she said as few of them as possible, hoping that Dave would understand.

“Kiss me.”

And he smiled at her as only Dave could smile, with a mix of amusement, chagrin, and what could only be called pure adoration. It lit him up, made his eyes even warmer, and took about ten years off a face that most people wouldn’t call handsome.

But most people had never seen that smile.

“Or we could go with Plan D,” he said, and obeyed her command.