No way.

“I’ll call a taxi,” I told him. “Thank you Agent Calhoun.”

He didn’t move therefore I didn’t either.

Then he offered, “I know it’s been a long night, Tess, but, you give me twenty minutes, I can get away, take you home.”

I studied him and really saw him for the first time. A little salt in his pepper hair, not much. Tall. Broad shoulders. A bit of a belly. Nice wrinkles by his eyes saying he either needed to wear protective eyewear in the sun more often or he laughed a lot. Older than me by maybe five years, maybe more and he was good at hiding it, maybe less and he didn’t take great care of himself. No wedding band.

This was the kind of man for me. This was the kind of man who might take on that pale faced woman in the mirror and handle her with care.

Not Jake Knox.

Never Jake Knox.

Agent Calhoun was a decent looking man, probably a good man, maybe a safe man and, above all, I needed a man who made me feel safe.

But, not being a bitch or anything, he was no dream man.

I’d f**ked up once, gravitating toward a man who blinded me with his charisma if not his looks.

But, if that night taught me nothing it taught me I needed to learn to play it safe in order to get safe.

Something tight and uncomfortable was sitting coiled in my belly but it was squirming like it was about to unfurl and I’d had enough experience with that poisonous snake that I knew I didn’t want it to do that. I knew it.

But it was going to happen. I knew that too.

“I’ll be okay,” I said softly.

His head tipped to the side and something shifted through his eyes, disappointment, maybe, concern, possibly.

“Sure?” he asked and I nodded.

He opened the door further but stepped out of my way.

I stepped into the hall and dug into my purse for the phone. Lucky for all citizens of Denver, the taxi companies had easy to remember numbers they plastered on the sides of their cars.

I’d never called a taxi.

Until now.

I punched in one of the numbers as I walked down the hall then I put the phone to my ear, listening to it, eyes on the elevators in front of me as I walked out of the mouth of the hall into a bustling open room filled with people, phones ringing, fingers tapping keyboards and low conversations.

My eyes moved through the room unseeing and then they blinked as I heard the taxi company answer in my ear and I stopped short.

My eyes were pointed through the window of an office taking in the back of a man I knew.

I knew the back of that man.

Hell, I knew that old t-shirt and I’d committed that fine ass in those faded jeans to memory. I’d been pressed to that back on a bike. My hands had moved across the skin of that back and that ass just that night after I’d removed that shirt and after he’d removed those jeans. My fingers had moved through that dark, messy hair that night too and other times, countless times the last four months.

He turned toward the door and I didn’t see his face.

No.

I saw the shiny badge on his belt.

“You sleep naked?”

“No.”

“Don’t start tonight.”

Oh.

My.

God.

He left the office he was in and my eyes went from his badge to his face and since that thing in my belly was unfurling, growing, swelling, filling my stomach, slithering up my throat, I didn’t notice the look on his face or feel his mood hit the room like a slap.

I just knew a man like Jake Knox would have not one thing to do with the pale faced woman that was me.

Unless it was his job.

His eyes caught mine and he stopped dead.

I’d been stopped dead and the minute his eyes hit mine I moved.

Rushing quickly towards the elevators I hit the button at the same time my eyes scanned.

I found what I was looking for.

Exit.

Stairs.

I dashed to the door, opened it, darted through it and then down.

I heard my heels echo on the stairs then I heard his boots.

One flight and around, I went faster. Two stories. Three flights to go.

“Tess,” I heard his voice call and I went faster.

Another flight and around.

“God damn it, Tess,” he clipped and I kept going.

Another flight and around.

His boots were getting closer.

Another flight, the last one, I raced down them and had a hand to the door, opening it when my wrist was seized in an iron grip, yanked away, my body with it. I was pulled from the door and pushed against the wall, Jake’s tall, lean frame fencing me in.

I looked to the side.

“Let me go,” I whispered.

“You promised we’d talk,” he growled.

I shook my head and kept my eyes averted. “Let me go,” I demanded.

His voice dipped gentle and his other hand curled around the side of my neck. “Tess, baby, you pro –”

My eyes shot to his and whatever he read in them made him stop talking and flinch.

“Let… me…. go, ” I hissed.

He let me go and stepped back.

I walked instantly to the door and pulled it open.

Standing in it, I turned to him to see his eyes on me; his face unreadable except his strong jaw was set in granite.

“Is your name even Jake?” I asked quietly.

His silvery-gray eyes, not melted, not quicksilver, not affectionate but glittering and hard held mine.

I held my breath until he finally shook his head.

Then, without another word or a glance back, I walked through the door.

Chapter Three

Kentucky

Three months later…

I was in my kitchen when I heard the knock at the door.

My eyes went to the microwave.

Holy crap.

Martha was early. Martha was never early. In fact, I told her to be there at three because I actually needed her to be there at three thirty. Martha kept a steady schedule of being at least fifteen minutes late but had an average of being half an hour late (I’d known Martha a long time, long enough for it to happen so often I could actually calculate that average which I did) and therefore it wasn’t unheard of for her to rush in, winded and filled with excuses forty-five minutes or an hour late.

It was ten to three and I didn’t even have the cake ready.

Damn.

This meant one of two things.

Man trouble or wardrobe malfunction.

Both of these did not bode good things for both of these meant Martha would be in more than the usual Martha tizzy. And the usual Martha tizzy which was set to spinning constantly in the crazy, out-of-control life Martha lived was bad enough.

Fuck.

“I’m elbow deep in icing, honey!” I shouted toward my front door, bending back over the cake with my pastry bag. “Let yourself in, it’s open!” I finished as I continued to dot every third fluffy, white, buttercream frosting star with a point of pale yellow icing.