"That is because you are not my true love." Ahmed turned away from the group and walked away.

"Deep, but true." Cade rolled his eyes at Miles. He looked at his watch and hoped it was late enough for him to get home and away from these busy bodies.

"I'm about to head home. Want me to give you a ride?" Cole asked.

"That would be great. Thanks for the victory party guys. Good night."

Cade followed Cole to his Explorer and climbed in. They were at Marshall's farm, and it was only a matter of minutes to his place, but he couldn't get there fast enough. The truth was catching up with him and he didn't want to face it in front of anyone else.

"You know, I fought like crazy to not love Paige."

"You really think this conversation is appropriate with her being my sister and all?" c.r.a.p. Now he was trapped in the car. He should have walked.

"Love happens. It's what you do with it that matters. If you embrace it, it will give you a joy you have never known was possible. If you ignore it, it has the power to haunt you."

Thank goodness. There was his house. "Thanks for the lift."

"Any time. Think about what I said."

Cade nodded and practically leapt out of the Explorer. He didn't want to hear any more about love. He just wanted to have a beer, watch SportsCenter, and pet his dog.

Cade set down another empty beer bottle and was still no closer to where he wanted to be. He wanted to be comfortably single again like he had been before Annie. Then he didn't have to worry about if she felt the same. So, he had set out to drink himself stupid in hopes to forget about his fear, his fear that his love wouldn't be returned.

He groaned when he heard the knock on the door. If it was Marshall here to give him h.e.l.l again, he wouldn't be held accountable for his actions. He gave Justin a pat and got up after he hopped off his lap. His brother just didn't know when to stop. Cade couldn't wait until Marshall fell for some woman and then he would have his payback.

Cade yanked opened the door and froze. He wondered if he had drunk too much and was hallucinating his desires. Annie stood in his doorway looking like a vision. He heard himself whisper her name as he reached for her. She came eagerly to his arms as his lips met hers in unspoken desire. He scooped her up, kicked the door shut and carried her upstairs.

He placed her before his bed and gently removed her clothes before shedding his. She reached up and with her finger slowly traced his jaw line.

"I love you," he heard himself whisper before he lowered her to the bed.

Annie gasped for breath. She was sure she was being tortured. She couldn't breathe and her face was wet. But then something tickled her. She struggled to open her eyes against the attack. When she managed to open them, she came face to face with Justin lying on her chest. His big hairy paws were planted beside her head, and his face was inches from hers. Slurp! She was drowned again in another doggie kiss.

She gave him a pat and encouraged him to get off the bed. Cade was still asleep next to her, but Justin obviously wanted to go out. He jumped off the bed and danced around, waiting for her to get dressed.

"Okay, come on, big boy." She headed down the stairs and into the living room. Justin ran behind her, his feet slipping on the hardwood floor as he took a corner. He regained his footing, sped past her and ran headfirst into the sliding gla.s.s door.

"Oh my G.o.d, are you okay?" Justin just ducked his head embarra.s.singly and wagged his tail. She opened the door and he bounded out onto the patio.

She headed into the kitchen in search of coffee. She needed stimulation to be able to contemplate what Cade had said last night. He couldn't possibly mean it, could he? She had never been loved before. The vulnerability of it and his potential to hurt her was downright scary.

"Good morning." Annie looked up from pouring her coffee to see Cade leaning against the doorjamb. His bare feet poked out from his jeans, and his arms were folded across his chest as he smiled at her.

"Good morning, I hope I didn't wake you up." She suddenly felt a little shy. Should she bring up what he had said last night? Or, what if he didn't mean it? Or, if he didn't even say it, and she had imagined the whole thing?

"No, you didn't. It was the mighty ram there." He nodded his chin to where Justin was staring into the room, pink tongue hanging out of the corner of his mouth and matching pink bow falling out.

"I had been meaning to tell you that Trey came by my office. He seemed close to telling me more details on S2 but wanted to confront the users himself. I a.s.sume he did so. He hasn't been back to see me since."

"That's right. He took the team over and got them to come together better than I ever could. I know one of the boys was Austin, but as you have probably noticed, he's clean now. I haven't figured out who the others were, but maybe Trey will tell you now that they're clean?"

"I'll try on Monday. Well, I better get dressed and get home. I have some paperwork I need to get to my boss."

Cade stared after Annie's quickly retreating form as she scuttled out the door and to her car. Maybe it was the wrong move to break out the L word last night, although, it wasn't as if he could have prevented it. Those words had come tumbling out of their own volition as soon as he had seen her.

He had also seen disbelief and a little fear streak across her beautiful face before he kissed it away. Maybe he should have talked about it with her before she left, but she had seemed so skittish that he didn't think it would be a good idea. He was hopeful his plan of giving it time to sink in wouldn't result in her running for the hills, or else he'd be left chasing after her.

Cade pulled the curtain away from the window in his office and looked out. He smiled at the cloud of dust her vehicle was leaving behind. It would be a fun chase though.

Chapter Eighteen.

Cade felt the smile spread across his face as his last student left the room. He had a free period until his senior anatomy cla.s.s started. He needed to go see Annie and invite her for dinner at his parents for tomorrow night.

He had gone to his parents' house for the weekly family dinner and been cornered by both his mother and Paige. He was ordered to bring Annie to dinner or else all homemade food would be cut off. Not that he couldn't cook, but his mother made a peanut b.u.t.ter fudge pie that was to die for. On top of that, the only person she had shared the recipe with was Paige, and they were sticking together on this.

"Hiya. How is our winning coach doing today?"

"Hi, Steph. How are you?" Cade looked up and saw Stephanie in her usual black pencil skirt and matching sweater set. Her hair was pulled back into a little bun at the base of her neck. She was holding a covered plate and Cade wanted to groan.

One of the reasons he had asked her out was because she had been so kind. She had brought him homemade treats and had talked with him about his students. But, after that first date, it became weird. She was sweet, but she was always there. Now she was standing in front of him with a plate of home cooked food and a smile on her face.

"Really good. I made brownies yesterday and had these left over. I thought you would like some." She placed the plate on his desk and he tried to smile sincerely.

"These smell great. Thanks, Stephanie. I'm just getting ready to go see Annie. My mother has p.r.o.nounced that it was time she meet the whole family properly in the form of a dinner."

"Really? It's that serious?" she said, just a little too seriously. "I mean, that's great. I just didn't think you'd ever get serious about someone."

"Kinda took me by surprise, too. Well, thanks for the brownies. I'm sure they're as delicious as always. I better give Annie the bad news!" Cade stood and walked out into the hallway with Stephanie.

"Good luck at the dinner. I better get back to making up the pop quiz my junior chemistry cla.s.s is going to get this afternoon." Stephanie walked back into the cla.s.sroom and shut her door. G.o.d, he hoped he had misread those signals. He liked Stephanie. She was sweet but not right for him.

Annie smiled at Samantha and reached out for her hand as she led her toward her office door. "Sam, I promise, you'll do great on your SAT's. You have been studying for a year with a tutor. You're a 4.0 student. Just relax and have confidence in yourself."

"Thanks, Miss H. I'll let you know how I do on my next practice test. Oh, h.e.l.lo, Coach Davies. Do you have the test scores back from our genetics test?"

"Yes, you'll get them in cla.s.s today. But, Sam, Miss Hill is right. You need to have some faith in yourself. You put in the time to do your homework and study and as a result you did very well."

"How...."

"You'll see in cla.s.s."

"Oh, okay. Bye, Miss H, Coach Davies." Annie watched as the young girl hefted her backpack on her small frame and headed off towards her next cla.s.s.

"Good afternoon. How was your weekend?" Cade asked her.

"It was good. Got my reports done and even was able to meet with Romero on Sunday. How about you?" Annie went back to her desk. She needed some distance from him or she might just beg him to love her.

"Well, that's why I'm here. I am here to deliver a royal proclamation from my mother. You are invited to family dinner at the farm tomorrow at six."

"Me?"

"Who else but the woman I have been spending all my time with?"

She watched as Cade walked around the desk. She dug her nails into the arms of her chair. She just didn't know what to do with all these emotions. Emotions were something fairly new to her. "Tomorrow?"

"Yes, and if you know my mother, she won't take no for an answer. We'll talk about it more tonight when I come over with dinner. Sound good to you?" He smiled and she felt herself melting. Little devil, he knew what he was doing.

"Okay, tell your mom I will be there. How about some meatloaf from the Blossom Cafe? I had never had meatloaf before, but I find myself quite addicted." She smiled up at him. No woman could say no to him when he looked at her like that.

"Looking forward to it. I missed you this weekend."

Annie's mind was whirling at that proclamation. She wanted to ask him more about it, but he turned around, winked and sauntered out of the office. Oh that man was waging war on her. Surely that meant he loved her!

That knowledge put an extra bounce in her step for the rest of the day. Nothing, not even a faculty conference this afternoon, would ruin her mood!

Annie shook her head and tried to focus on the papers in front of her. She was trying to figure out which players had used S2 and which she could flip. Austin was at the top of her list, but he wasn't talking. She had called him into the office today just to talk. He was polite and talked about the stress of leading the team and about the worry of college scouts, but nothing about S2 and bad influences.

Annie would get there though. She'd build a good relations.h.i.+p with him and then slowly extract the truth. She glanced at the clock and gasped. She was due at Cade's parents in less than an hour. Annie scooped up her files and tossed them into her shoulder bag. She had to hurry if she wanted to have time to get home and change for the meeting of the parents.

It terrified her more than any meth user waving a gun around. Parents. She had never had any and was scared of the unknown. She reached for the doork.n.o.b and turned it. Nothing. It didn't turn. She must have been so nervous that she had accidentally locked it. Annie looked at the lock and grew confused. The door appeared to be unlocked. She tried again to pull the door open but nothing. The blinds rattled against the small gla.s.s window as she yanked on the door.

"h.e.l.lo? Is anyone there?" Silence met her. She pulled up the blinds and looked out the window but saw nothing except an empty hall. What was going on?

Annie was reaching for the desk phone when she was plunged into darkness. She tripped over one of the chairs and landed against her desk. Now what? With no outdoor window, her office was pitch-black. She reached out with her hands and felt around her desk for the phone. She grasped it and brought it to her ear. Silence. The electricity outage must have disconnected the phones as well.

Something nagged her though. The power outage could explain the phone but nothing could explain the locked door. She lifted the leather flap of her bag and rummaged around for her cell phone. Finding it, she activated the screen and the brightness lit up the room enough for her to see. She looked down at her phone and cursed. No signal. Impossible.

Someone in the S2 ring must have figured out who she was. But, if they figured out who she was, why were they just locking her in? Shouldn't they be trying to kill her? None of this made any sense. What did make sense though was that she was going to have to break her door's window to unlock the door.

She touched her cell phone screen again to light up the room. She looked around and grabbed the blue plastic chair resting against the well with its metal legs. Annie hated breaking gla.s.s. It was always such a mess. She gripped the chair on each side and rammed it into the window. The impact reverberated up her arms and into her chest as she watched the window splinter and crack. With a couple pokes of the chair's legs, the gla.s.s shattered and fell to the floor in the hallway.

Now, if she could just unlock the door. She carefully slid her head through the window and looked down to a sight she was not prepared to see. There, in the door lock was a thin piece of metal broken off. There was no way she'd be able to unlock the door. She was going to have to climb through the window. What took her back more however, was the small black rectangular object that sat a couple of feet from the door: a cell phone jammer. What the h.e.l.l was going on and who was responsible for it?

Annie took off her jacket and laid it over the broken gla.s.s. She tossed her bag through the window and placed the chair against the door. She stepped up onto it and looked at the broken window. Oh, this was going to hurt. She hiked her dark green skirt up around her waist and stuck her left leg through the window. She had to grip the side of the window to keep balance, the broken gla.s.s puncturing the palm of her hands, as she grasped the sides. She hissed but kept a tight hold until she was precariously perched half in and half out of the window.

The gla.s.s poked at her bottom as she sat on her jacket but didn't cut her through her jacket. Blood started to trickle down her forearm as she ducked her head and bent far enough over to squeeze her upper body through the window. Shards of gla.s.s tore into the back of her neck, ripping out her hair as she popped free. She slowly started to adjust her weight to her bottom half as she inched herself further out the window. She moved her right leg through the window as well and twisted towards her left until she was perched on the window facing the hall. She pushed off the window and leapt to the ground, rubbing her bottom as she stood up. That had hurt.

Annie shoved her skirt into place as she listened for her a.s.sailant. Nothing. Not a sound. She slowly walked down the hall to where the switches were. She flipped them but nothing happened. The circuit breaker must have been thrown. She went rigid when the slightest noise reached her ears.

Someone was here. She placed her right hand on the wall and started to turn when she heard a footfall directly behind her. Before she could turn around, something was brought down on the back of her head. She staggered forward and fell head first into the lockers before everything went dark.

Annie heard the m.u.f.fled sound of someone running away and forced herself to open her eyes. The hall appeared blurry, but she could make out a dark figure running for the exit. She pushed herself up and tried to chase after the figure, but the world spun. She focused on the end of the hallway until it came into focus. Annie ran down the hall, each pounding footfall like a hammer against her head.

She slowed when she reached the door to the parking lot. Her hand closed around the metal rod as she carefully opened the door. Annie peered out into the parking lot. Not seeing anything, she stepped out and looked around. No footsteps, no dark figure, just her car in an otherwise empty parking lot.

"Dammit!" She pulled out her phone to call her boss and then swore again. She was due at dinner in less than five minutes. She ran for her car as she dialed Romero's direct line.

"Romero."

"Something is going on, and I don't know what. I was just imprisoned in my office with a lock pick broken off in the lock, electricity cut, and a cell phone jammer sitting outside my door."

"What happened?"

"I broke the window, crawled out and was. .h.i.t from behind and into the lockers as the perp fled. I didn't get a good look at all. But, I wasn't seriously hurt, and it was certainly not an attempt on my life. It doesn't make sense at all."

"Okay. Where are you now?"

"On my way to meet Cade's family for dinner."

"It's a good thing you disclosed this relations.h.i.+p or I'd be p.i.s.sed. h.e.l.l, I still am p.i.s.sed, but it works with your cover. From your file, I know you never have done this before which means this is serious for you. I remember the first time I met my in-laws. My father-in-law met me at the door with a large carving knife. So, I guess I'm saying good luck. I'll send a forensic team over to the school to see if we can lift any prints and to figure out who is behind this. Do you think your cover is blown?"

"No. If they knew who I was, wouldn't they have killed me or threatened me in some way? That's what isn't making sense to me." Annie skidded her tires as she turned onto the dirt road leading to the farmhouse.

"I agree. Keep your cover for now. I'll let you know what we learn."

"Oh my G.o.d!" Annie screeched.

"What is it? Are you okay?" Romero asked, practically jumping through the phone.

"I just looked in the rear view mirror. I have a huge bruise on my forehead, a lump on the back of my head, blood running down both arms where my palms were cut on gla.s.s, and I think I left a chunk of hair on my window. Plus, I just pulled up to the Davies' house." Annie didn't notice the m.u.f.fled laughter as she attempted to clean up.

"I'll be in touch with the results from the crime lab. Have fun, Blake."

"Yeah, right," she mumbled, but Romero had already hung up and her time had run out.

"She's here!" Paige screamed over the NFL pregame show. Cade blew out a breath as Pierce jumped over him.

"Oh, this is going to be so much fun," Pierce said with a devilish glint to his eyes.

"I hate to sound like the voice of reason here, but maybe you all should not interrogate her like you all did with me. I am FBI after all and can handle it. She's just a counselor," Cole told the group as he moved to the door with the rest of the family.

"As much as I would relish grilling her as much as Cade grilled and tormented my dates, I really like her. So, boys, behave." Paige gave her brothers a stern look before opening the door.

Cade had to push his brothers away so he could walk down the steps and meet Annie at the car. This must be her worst nightmare, and having everyone staring at her probably didn't help.

He hurried down the stairs to her car and smiled as he watched her frantically brus.h.i.+ng her hair. Her nervousness was so cute. Cade walked around to open her door and froze when she looked up at him. Cade yanked open the car door to get a better look at what he thought he saw.