As the EMTs moved aside to allow him to lay her on the gurney, he detailed the possible injuries and handed them the dart he had picked up off the truck seat earlier. He touched her hair, kissed her brow, then pressed his head beside hers as he fought the fear tearing through him, even now.

He had promised to keep her safe. Sworn it. And still, she had nearly died. He had nearly let her be taken from him because he hadn’t stayed with her. Because he had let someone else watch over her.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Natches growled behind him.

Alex lifted his head as an IV was being attached to Janey’s arm and the medics prepped her for transportation to the hospital.

“I left her,” Alex whispered, shaking his head.

“With a damned able soldier,” Natches argued back, his hair mussed, his eyes still wild. “She’s alive, dammit. And when she wakes up, she’s not going to need a guilt-ridden lover. And she better fucking have a fiancé, not some son of a bitch ready to walk out on her.”

Alex’s lips twitched and he shook his head slowly. “Not in a million years, Natches. Not a million years or a thousand stalkers. She’s mine.”

Natches’s eyes narrowed on him. “You love her?”

“She owns me.”

Natches smiled. “I’d suggest telling her the love part. Those are the only words women understand, you know.”

Alex shook his head. “She knows. It goes deeper.”

Natches snorted. “Dumb-ass. Tell her.” Then he sighed and reached out to touch Janey’s limp hand.

“Tell her, man. Because I think its something we both forgot to do.”

Teach me how to love, Janey. He’d asked her that once, and he hadn’t realized just exactly how both of them had misinterpreted what he did feel for her.

It went deeper than anything Alex had ever imagined love could be. Calling it love seemed almost trite, like saying he merely enjoyed being a Ranger when it had been his life for so long.

Until Janey. Janey was his life now, and his dedication to her went far beyond the dedication he had given his unit, his career, or even his life. It went beyond love. But if she needed the words, then he’d make sure she got them.

TWENTY-FOUR

Janey hated the hospital, and no one would let her leave. She was stuck there until they determined the effects of the drug in the tranquilizer and how her system was dealing with it. She had nearly died with the drugs Dayle had given her six months before; no one was taking chances now. And no one was leaving her in peace.

The whole Mackay clan was there; if they weren’t in her room, they were outside her room. Taking turns coming in, watching her carefully and making her crazy. It went on all night, until by the next morning she wanted to scream in frustration.

Thankfully, Timothy Cranston arrived, ran everyone else out, and gave Alex a hard look when he nearly refused. Janey was surprised to see him go.

“He’s a damned good man.” Timothy ran his hands over his thinning hair as he sat in the chair beside her bed and watched her with heavy eyes.

“He is at that.”

Janey watched Timothy. There was so much grief inside the other man that her heart ached for him.

“I had a daughter once,” he finally said. “A family.”

She felt tears flood her eyes and barely kept them in check.

“A little granddaughter.” He smiled sadly, then ducked his head as he rubbed at his chest and inhaled hard. “I lost them in a terrorist bombing. My son-in-law, my daughter and grandchild, and my wife. I was supposed to be there, but a case was coming together and I wouldn’t leave.”

“And they died,” she whispered.

He nodded. “Yeah. They died.” He lifted his head again. “You look so much like my baby girl,” he said then. “My little Maria. The first time I saw you, I knew your heart, everything you were, would be sweet and kind. And I was right.”

Janey watched him silently.

“I don’t have family,” Timothy said then.

Janey reached out and touched the hand that lay on the bed beside her. “You’re wrong.”

His head lifted.

“Natches doesn’t fight with people he doesn’t care for,” she told him softly. “Dawg calls everyone he loves names. And well, Rowdy, he just wouldn’t speak to you at all if he didn’t like you. And you remind me, Timothy, of everything I ever wished for in a father.”

“I’m not the nice man you want to see.” Timothy grimaced. “Every one of those boys out there will tell you that.”

“Alex says you’re a genius,” she told him. “And I overheard Natches and Dawg talking after you left at Christmas. Natches was disappointed you hadn’t stayed for dinner.”

There was a flicker of something in his eyes, an emotion, almost a hunger that filled him. A need for family. The family he had lost was gone, and he knew it, but Janey saw that need inside him for something to replace it.

“Hang around awhile.” She tightened her fingers on his. “Don’t run off on us, Timothy. We miss you.”

He sighed again. “Yeah, well, DHS has suspended me again.” He grinned, like a little boy that had been caught doing something naughty. “They don’t like my methods.”

She grinned at that. “They’re crazy, then,” she decided. “But that’s all the better for us.”

He scratched his cheek. “Alex wants to be chief of police.”

She nodded at that. “He’ll get it, too.”

“Well, of course he’ll get it.” Timothy’s grin widened. “How much you wanna bet I can’t win the next election for mayor, though?”

Janey stared back at him in shock, then in amusement.

“You wouldn’t dare. He’d die.”

“I know how to boss him around,” Timothy chortled. “Trust me, Janey, he won’t get bored at his job.”

He rose to his feet, and his expression became serious once again as he reached out and touched her hair. “You’re too old to adopt.” He sighed. “Too bad. I’d have enjoyed holding a shotgun on Alex.”

Janey shook her head before patting his hand and staring up at him gratefully. “You’re a good man, Timothy.”

His shoulders shifted, his wrinkled suit jacket bunching around his neck. “I better go. Alex will be getting antsy.”

“Timothy.” She stopped him as he moved to turn away.

“Yes?”

“You’re part of my family,” she told him then. “Admittedly, those Mackay boys are hard to get along with, but I have a feeling you enjoy that part of it.”

His grin was mischevious. He finally grunted. “It’s the only reason I didn’t slap their asses in jail last year.

They’re good boys. Damned good boys.”

“And we’ll see you soon?” she asked, looking for promises. She felt the need for promises right now.

She didn’t want to lose anyone else she cared for.

“Yeah.” He nodded slowly. “Yeah, Janey. You’ll be seeing me more often than Alex might like.”

With a final grin, he left the room. Silence surrounded her for the first time in too long, and before she knew it, her eyes drifted closed and sleep was finally attainable.

No bitching cousins, no worried brother, no sister-in-law hovering anxiously. She missed Alex, but she knew he was close. She could feel him. She let her head sink deeper into her pillow and let sleep wash over her.

She felt the kiss at her brow and almost smiled. Heard the soft whisper of her lover’s voice, and almost woke. But it was quiet here, peaceful, and warm. And she let the warmth wash over her. Just for a little while.

TWENTY-FIVE

Hoyt’s journals, and there were many of them, detailed a young boy growing into a young man aware that he had disappointed the father who’d expected him to be taller, broader, and stronger. He had a mother who had loved him with almost fanatic intensity, and he’d had the knowledge, even as a boy, that there was something not quite right about the parents he loved.

The past six months, the journals had been filled with fear as well. Attempts to make certain his mother took her pills, even hiding them in her food, melting them in her coffee. But nothing could have stopped Augusta Napier’s insanity.

The fact that Nadine Grace and Dayle Mackay had always been her enemies didn’t help. For years she had hated Natches, and only after word had circulated that it had been Natches who revealed his father as a traitor had Augusta decided he was a man worthy of her love. He and Alex, they were like her husband, she had decided. Strong and brave.

The man Jimmy Napier had been was just average. A soldier who had taken every tour he could get to escape his wife. A man rumored to have had a different lover in each different area he had been assigned to. His last lover, the daughter of a terrorist, had been his downfall. He had died in her arms, literally.

He’d been a good soldier, a loyal soldier, but he’d never advanced because he didn’t have the drive, or the strength, to go higher. Or the trust. He wasn’t known for keeping his word. Jimmy Napier hadn’t just broken promises to his wife and son.

It was a sad tale.

Three days later, Janey stood beside Hoyt’s casket before it was lowered into the dark wound in the earth created to hold him. She didn’t bother to wipe her tears away, because she wondered if anyone had ever cried for Hoyt.

She laid a rose on his casket, touched the cold metal lid, and whispered a last good-bye to him. The young man who had supported her from the first day in the restaurant, the one who had given his life to save her from his mother, wouldn’t have the chance to realize the dreams he had written in those journals.

Nor would he have the chance to realize the vision he had shared with her for the restaurant.

Her throat was thick with her tears as Alex held her against him, his arm tight around her, his warmth seeping past the layers of clothes to protect her against the harsh bite of the early February air. There wasn’t even a hint of spring. Hoyt had been buried on one of the coldest days that the month of February had known in decades.

And that somehow didn’t seem fair. There should be a hint of warmth, a hint of newness in the air somehow. Something to give her hope that Hoyt knew he had been loved by those around him.

Swallowing tightly, she let Alex lead her from the cemetery back to the truck. And from there they drove to his house.

The Mackay family had gathered around her for three days. All of them. Her brother and his wife, the cousins and their wives, and Uncle Ray and Maria. But they were alone now as Alex pulled the truck into the driveway of his house.

Alex had been quiet for the past few days. Too quiet. She could almost feel him drawing away from her, and it rocked her to her soul. She was safe now, so how much of him would she still own now that there was no danger of anyone killing her or his potential child?

He unlocked the kitchen door and stepped in, still cautious, before he let her into the dimly lit house. It was overcast outside; the forecast was calling for snow, perhaps sleet along with it. It was brutally cold, but inside, the warmth seemed to seep around her.

She liked Alex’s house. She would regret leaving it.

“The construction crew says the apartment will be finished in a few weeks.” She shrugged her jacket off and hung it up with her purse on one of the coat hooks by the door.

“Really?” he drawled. His voice was cool, distant. “That’s fast work.”

She nodded slowly. “Yeah. Natches signed off on it immediately. I was surprised.”

“Did you talk to him about a manager?” he asked.

She shrugged. She hadn’t yet. Maybe she was afraid to.

“Why haven’t you, Janey?”

She looked up at him, feeling uncertain, a little lost.

“Maybe,” she whispered, “as long as he’s not signing off on it, it means he wants to keep me around.”