That got his attention. "Sixteen?" He shook his head. "Was it legal?"

"Don't know. Made sure the divorce was."

"How long before the waitress?" He was convinced that story was true.

"Six months, more or less. Our Jesse isn't naturally inclined toward monogamy."

"Why did you marry him?" Jake hadn't meant to ask, but their game had turned unexpectedly serious. Her eyes didn't change, her body didn't tense at the question. So why did it feel as if she'd moved away from him?

"Seemed like the thing to do at the time." At the time. For a moment that time weighed in against her. The girl she'd been pushed at the barrier holding her in. Jake was dangerously easy to tell things to, she'd felt it when they touched. Everything about him invited confidence, promised security, but there was no security for her. She broke contact, sitting back as far as the plastic seat would allow. "And Jesse, well, I think he confused himself with Sir Galahad, what with me being a kid and on my own and all."

For an instant he caught a glimpse of that kid in her eyes before the protective veil of her lashes dropped. He felt an unexpected distaste for his duplicity. I'm the good guy, he reminded himself. "I can understand the compulsion to play white knight."

"Yeah, well, I've learned to look out for myself." Her mouth thinned and firmed, clearly setting out a No Trespassing sign. Her eyes warned him to heed it.

He'd never been known to read posted warnings.

"Phoebe-"

"Time to head for the barn. It's past late, and I was up real early."

Her withdrawal turned into a pain deep in his gut, but he just nodded. "Sure."

He slid out and helped her up. He shouldn't have, but he kept her hand for the walk to his truck. She didn't pull her hand away, but she didn't hang on either. Just accepted it. How did he know she'd had to accept a lot of things in her relatively short life?

Inside the truck, she leaned forward, her hand on the radio dial. "Do you mind?"

Jake Wasn't eager for silence and nodded.

She played with the dial and soon music flowed out of the speakers, filling the silence with a country love song. She relaxed, her fingers absently picking out the chords of the song on an invisible guitar, her musky scent drifting on the cool air coming in the window.

At a light, the sound of her soft vocal added to the mix invited him to look at her. He found her face unevenly illuminated by a nearby streetlamp, her lips in the right shape for her song about shutting up and kissing.

Phoebe felt him watching and looked. The heat in his eyes stopped her in mid-hum, her lips still pursed around the words. She gave a nervous laugh and switched off the radio.

"Good song," Jake said.

"Yeah, we get a lot of requests for it." She brushed her hair back. "Light?s green."

"Is it?" He let up on the brake. "I thought it was yellow."

She gave a tiny cough that might have been a laugh and said, "Turn right at the next street. It's up that rise on the right."

A single lamp glowed behind the curtained window of a small cabin of a house. The light from a streetlight hinted at a well-kept yard, and the porch light showed the way down a straight, neat sidewalk through trimmed grass to a blue door.

He got out and started around the truck. She didn't wait for him. He wanted to take her hand again, but it was a line he shouldn't have crossed the first time.

He walked beside to her up to the blue door, watched her dig a key out of her pocket, insert it in the lock and push open the door. When she turned to face him, an under current of desire made a circuit between them.

Shut up and kiss me. He could hear the words in his head, waited to see if they'd be in her eyes when she faced him.

Phoebe wanted to kiss him so bad, her lips hurt. It made her nervous as a teenager on her first date as she stepped across the threshold and turned. In the dim glow of the porch light he looked as calm and steady as a rock.

"Thanks-for the food and the ride."

"Next time I'll do better."

Next time. She shouldn't feel a surge of pleasure. How much time could she spend getting probed by those eyes without spilling her secrets? Her brain sent down excuses, but her mouth said, "Sounds-good."

"Good night, Phoebe."

"Night, Jake."

While he waited, just out of reach, she backed up until she could shut him from her view. It seemed a long time before she heard the slam of the truck door, the fire of his engine, the slow fade as he drove away.

"Damn." She'd taken her share of missteps rock climbing, felt herself tumble through space, waiting for the sharp tug of the belay to stop the imperative summons of gravity. Felt the jarring collision of flesh to rock. But this-this was falling without a belay-

Course, the up side was, it wouldn't be flesh smashing into rock-

She shook her head sharply and tossed her purse onto a table. Only took a moment to shrug off her jacket. She fought with her boots in little hopping steps that took her down the short hall into the living room. The boots got kicked into a corner.

She started working at the stubborn zip of her jeans, determined to be undressed by the time she hit the bed. She needed to get unconscious, the faster the better.

There was no tingling, no sense of premonition. Just a sudden awareness of movement behind her.

She felt a hand touch her shoulder.

"Took you long enough to get home, Phoebe," Earl said.

Jake had followed his instincts into a lot of places, some dangerous, some boring, some that led nowhere, though most of the time they led him right where he needed to go. He had good instincts, accepted them as a gift from God, the same way he did the desire for hunting that Phoebe had so neatly nailed.

What kept him sniffing until he was certain there was nothing left to smell-well, that was sometimes gift, sometimes curse, depending on the situation. The fact was he couldn't stop going forward until he got what he was after. It was the way he was. He'd put his life on the line, come close to losing it more times than he admitted to his mom, but this-Phoebe-was uncharted territory for him.

Not the desire, he knew about desire, knew how to channel it into less dangerous byways before it got out of hand. Now his instincts were broadcasting a warning he didn't want to hear.

He wanted her, not the fugitive she might lead him to. Alone in the truck, he could admit it, could admit that something about her made him want to try a different kind of hunting-the kind a man did when he met the one woman exactly right for him.

He could feel lust drawing him off the scent, beckoning him to try this new direction, despite the question marks hovering over her. Some blanks he could fill in. Her mother was a drunk who'd probably been knocked around by her dad. She sang and played guitar in a honky-tonk band, talked tough while retaining the air of a lady. Had a good brain, great verbal skills, despite the fact she'd apparently run away from home before graduating. Married too young, divorced too young, but still on good terms with her ex.

And she managed the highly suspect JR's.

None of it added up. Yet.

Phoebe didn't lend herself to a straightforward equation, like two plus two equals four. No, she was an algorithm of unknowns, where y was a lot of questions and x stood for something he shouldn't be feeling. He was afraid the final equation could be-explosive.

He picked up his cell phone and punched in Matt's office number. His brother was assigned to the Denver office of the Marshals Service and could give him access to the kind of information he needed to clear the lust out of his head.

Their different investigative styles sometimes caused friction, but that didn?t stop Jake from calling when he needed help. When his brother answered, Jake asked, "Don't you ever go home to your wife?"