"I'll check for you," Max said.

"I want Mom to do it," Flick said quickly.

Kristin saw that he was hurt that Flick didn't trust him. Apparently, Flick's fear was greater than her desire to please her new father.

"Are the windows locked?" Flick asked.

"We're on the second floor," Kristin reminded her.

"Would you check anyway, Mom?"

Kristin crossed to the windows, shoved the curtains aside and struggled to open each one without success. "They're locked tight." She crossed back to Flick and leaned down to kiss her. "Goodnight, Flick."

"Don't close the door all the way when you leave," Flick reminded her.

"I won't," Kristin promised.

After they left the room, Max turned to her, his voice hard and accusatory and said, "What is she so afraid of, K? Checking the closets and under the bed not once, but twice? Why does she have to be tucked in to be safe? Why is she afraid of the dark? What happened?"

"Let's go somewhere to talk," she said. "I don't want Flick to hear us."

Max shot a glance at Flick's open bedroom door down the hall. Then he gestured Kristin into his bedroom. And closed the door.

27.

Max was feeling rage and helplessness. Something bad had happened to his child. And he hadn't been there to stop it. He was almost afraid to hear what Kristin had come into his bedroom to tell him. "I'm listening," he said. "What happened?"

Kristin wandered around the room touching things. She traced the shape of a porcelain shepherd with his collie and studied the face of a Regency-era ormolu clock. He wondered if she wasn't able to speak or whether she just wasn't sure how to tell him whatever horrible thing it was that had made his daughter so fearful of the night.

"K? I have to know."

She settled on the edge of the bed, near the violent carvings on the footboard. He wished for a sword or an ax like the ones held by those long-ago knights-any weapon that could make a bloody pulp of whoever had frightened his child.

With her back still to him she began, "Since she was seven, Flick has been attending a Swiss boarding school, but she always comes home for holidays. She was home this past Christmas and wanted to spend the night with a new friend she'd met at Sunday school."

She looked at him, her eyes liquid with emotion. "I couldn't see the harm in it."

Max felt his gut tightening with fear. He wasn't sure he wanted to hear the rest. But he had to know. "What happened?"

"The weather was beautiful. It almost always is in Miami," she said with a sigh. "Last Christmas it was almost too warm. Flick and her friend were camping out in the family room in sleeping bags. The family left their jalousie windows open overnight to take advantage of the cool air."

Max held his breath, waiting to hear what came next.

"A burglar came in through the window."

"Bloody hell."

"He accidentally stepped on Flick. She woke up and made a noise and he grabbed her to shut her up."

Max could feel his heart squeezing with pain and fear for his daughter. "He didn't-"

She reached out to him and said, "No, Max. He didn't. But he covered her nose and mouth with his hand to keep her quiet."

She looked at him, her eyes agonized and said, "She couldn't breathe. She thought she was going to suffocate."

"Bloody, bloody hell."

"The family's dog started barking and growling to wake the dead. Flick's friend woke up and screamed and her father came running with a baseball bat. The burglar threw Flick down and slid back out through the space he'd made by removing a few of the glass louvers in the window."

Max's hands bunched into fists so tight his knuckles turned white. "Did they catch the son of a bitch?"

Kristin shook her head. "He disappeared into the night. Ever since, Flick has been...anxious at bedtime."

Max had only seen Flick in the daylight, when she was a vivacious and effervescent and normal child. Who, it turned out, was terrified of demons in the dark.

"I should have been with her."

"I've told myself that a thousand times," Kristin said. "There was nothing you-or I-could have done to keep what happened from happening. Because of what I do for a living, I'm a nut for security at home. But I can't very well demand equal care from every friend of Flick's. What happened to Flick..." she shrugged helplessly and said "...just happened. The chances of it ever happening again are astronomical. But the incident left her scarred."

"Permanently scarred?" Max asked. Was his beautiful daughter going to spend the rest of her life expecting a bogeyman to jump out of the closet or out from under the bed.

"She got a lot of good counseling at school. She seemed to be fine. Until we came here. Staying at Blackthorne Abbey and then at my hotel and now here. I guess it's just too many strange places."

"What can I do?" Max asked. "How can I help?"

"She'll be fine, Max. With love. And time."

He crossed around the foot of the bed and sat beside her. "I want to be there to protect her, K. I want to be a father to her. What can we do to make this work?"

"The crisis is past, Max. There's no need for you to do anything."

"What I need is to be there for my daughter," he shot back. He shouldn't be surprised by the protective instincts he felt. It was how the human species had survived. "I intend to be there for her from now on. Whatever it takes."

"Meaning what?" Kristin said, lifting a worried brow.

"Meaning that if we can't work out some sort of shared custody-"

"Don't try taking Flick from me, Max," she warned, jumping up from her perch on the edge of the bed. She faced him like a lioness protecting her cub, her hands curved into dangerous claws and her teeth bared. "I'll fight you. With everything I am. With everything I have."

He rose, towering six inches over her head, a dark avenging angel with broad, muscular shoulders and powerful arms. But physical strength wasn't his only-or even his greatest-advantage. "Whatever you do, it won't be enough, K. I have more money, more time, more resources."

"I'm her mother!"

"And I'm her father."

"What do you want, Max?"

"Marry me, K."

"You're not a good bet, Max," she said bluntly.

"Maybe I wasn't in the past. I can change."

"Not fast enough," she said even more brusquely.

"We're good together, K. Admit it."

He saw she didn't want to. At last she said, "Yes, we're good together. In bed-"

"And out," he finished for her.

"I think I could love you," she continued inexorably.

The words were a balm to his heart, but when he took a step toward her, she held out a flattened hand to keep him at bay. Tears were streaming down her face, but her eyes looked fierce and her jaw was clenched.

"This isn't just about us, Max," she said ruthlessly. "Not anymore."

He couldn't believe what he was hearing. She was going to give him up to save her-their-daughter from him. "I can be a good father to Flick," he argued.

"You think being a father is wielding a baseball bat at one of the bad guys. You think it's taking a child on a horseback ride. You think it's buying her clothes-"

"It is all those things," Max protested.

"It's also holding a sick child's head while she vomits in the toilet, or cleaning vomit off the carpet, when she doesn't make it to the bathroom. It's listening to her whine when she's tired and having the fortitude to send her away to boarding school when it's the best thing for her."

"How is boarding school the best thing for Flick?" he asked angrily. "How is being away from her mother for months at a time best for our daughter?"

"I had to work to support us. A lot of times it meant being away nights and weekends. My father was busy eighteen hours a day with his tennis academy. Flick was left alone with babysitters and housekeepers. I got off work so late the only interaction I had with Flick was to kiss her forehead after she was sound asleep."

"So quit."

She glared at him. "You haven't heard a word I said. I have bills to pay! I need my job! I can't be home for Flick. At least at boarding school she gets to spend her days and nights with girls her own age. Girls in her same situation. When she comes home on holiday, I take my vacation days and spend every minute with her."

"Quality time?" he said sarcastically.

"Make fun of me if you will," she said. "It's worked for us. I'm not saying the situation is perfect. But you can see Flick is happy and well-adjusted. I did the best I could."

"I can do better," he said, his voice rough with emotion. "I can arrange to be there when Flick comes home for dinner every night."

"Can you?" she demanded. "Are you willing to give up a challenging and rewarding job? Willing to give up traveling the world, at least during the school year? What, exactly, are you planning to do during the day while your daughter is away at school? The dishes? I doubt it!" she snapped.

"You're being ridiculous."

"Am I? As time goes by, and Flick goes off to college, where will you be? Home, without a life of your own, that's where!"

Max had to admit she was asking questions he'd never had to consider. Raising issues that had never crossed his mind. He was rich enough never to have needed to work. He'd done a great deal of gambling and sailing and playing polo and riding around in flashy cars with fast women in his teens and early twenties. He'd quickly gotten bored. He'd wanted to lead a life that mattered.

The CIA had been delighted to have him. He'd worked for his country for the past four years-and done some good, he thought. The undercover investigation he was involved in right now might save the president of the United States from being assassinated. If he did quit, what would he do with his life?

Being a parent was a big job, but Kristin was right. The job changed dramatically when Flick turned eighteen and left home for college and began to lead her own life.

That was only nine years from now.

He was reminded again of how much of his daughter's life he'd missed. And more determined than ever not to miss another minute of it.

"What if we just live together, without being married?"

"Live together where?" she asked. "Miami?"

"You don't have to work, K. You can come to London and-"

"My life needs purpose, too," she said simply. "I work for the FBI. In the United States."

"Maybe not for much longer," he couldn't help pointing out.

She paled. "Maybe not. But until I'm forced to quit, I'm not going to quit."

"I can support you."

"Yes, but will you? What happens if you get bored with us, Max? What happens if another woman catches your fancy?"

"We can write a contract-"

"That your lawyers can fight in court," she pointed out.

"I can put money in a bank account for you and Flick."

"If we have your money, why do we need you?"

Max had never felt so frustrated. "Is that all you think I have to offer? Financial security?"

"It's the only thing I'd be willing to count on you providing."

"You can trust me, K."

"Based on what?"

"Give me a chance, K. Please." He couldn't believe he was begging.

She shook her head. "I'm sorry, Max. I can't take the risk."