"Call it a gut instinct." Dewey rubbed the barrel on Stern's neck. "Do we talk? Or shall I fade away and let your chips fall where they may?"

Stern stared at him in the mirror. Did the little pissant really think he could take him on and live? He'd find out what happened to people who screwed him. As would Harding. "We talk."

Jake had enjoyed the family dinner, as much as he could enjoy anything. His mom's roast had been better, even better than his memory of it, the talk lively. He'd been to Matt and Dani's wedding, but this was his first chance to see the couple together in a post-nuptial setting. In an out-of-the-loop way, he'd been amused to think of his tough-minded big brother getting snagged by a romance writer who was afraid of heights. He was surprised to find he liked her and that she wasn't at all what he'd expected, although he couldn't have said exactly what he'd expected a romance writer to be. She seemed to have Luke, who called her Louise, wrapped around her pinkie right next to Matt. Mom liked her, too, he could tell, suddenly feeling like an outsider.

When Dani'd announced she and Matt were expecting an addition to the Kirby clan, the reunion turned into a celebration. Jake was delighted for Matt. His big brother deserved to be happy. He'd become harder, more distant after the collapse of his first marriage. He'd always wanted kids, and Jake knew Dani had lost her first child in an accident. They deserved this happy ending and even happier beginning.

It wasn't their fault Jake's life was spinning off-center, that there'd be no happy ending for his...hell, he couldn't even call it a romance. Some heavy breathing, one near kiss and a bunch of might-have-beens did not a romance make. He felt like the spectre at the feast and slipped outside to keep from casting his personal pall over the proceedings. Shit, had he stooped so low he was jealous of his brother? If this was what love did to you, he wanted no part of it.

He looked back toward the house, where his mom was telling Dani what kind of baby Matt had been. This couldn't be love. That stuff inside the house was love. Love was joy, not pain. All he had now was only lust, proximity. It had to be. It would fade. He'd move on and get on with his life.

He heard the screen door slam and saw Dani strolling toward him like someone out to enjoy the night. She was, Jake decided, a beautiful woman, though not in the way most people rated beauty. She was a quiet mountain meadow, as opposed to the Grand Canyon. Her coloring was soft, but there was strength of character in the rounded curve of her jaw. Her steady gaze was that of someone who had seen sorrow and come to terms with it.

"It's nice out here," she said softly. She leaned against the fence and stared up at the sky. "I always vow I'm going to learn more about the stars, but I always forget."

"Too many things, not enough time," Jake said, feeling his insides begin to smooth out. No wonder Matt looked as if he'd found the mother lode when he had her to come home to every night.

There was a short, companionable silence, one filled with only the soft sounds of the night, the murmur of his mom's voice directing the cleanup of the dinner debris and the hum of a distant car passing.

Jake sighed. "I'm really happy for you and Matt," he said.

"I know." She turned toward him, her eyes reflective and almost sad. "When Meggie...died, I avoided being around children." Her smile flickered briefly in the dark. "I'd drive blocks out of my way so I wouldn't have to pass any schools." She rested her arms on the fence as she stared skyward. "It wasn't that I begrudged other people their children, their joy. I just...couldn't bear to see it. It made my loss seem bigger. More raw."

"How did you get over it?"

"I didn't. I thought I had, but I was just moving too fast for the pain to completely overwhelm me. It wasn't until I got stopped in my tracks by the little incident last year-"

Jake grinned at her calling being kidnapped by a nut case and almost tossed off a mountaintop a "little incident."

"-that I realized it. It took almost dying to make me realize how much I wanted to live, even in a world without my daughter. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't miss her, but I've made my peace with the pain. Learned to live with it, like a lousy roommate." Her smile was wry and soft around the edges. "One thing I know for sure, the shadow of her death makes the...light I've found with Matt that much sweeter. Because of the sorrow, the joy is..."

Her hand spread across her stomach in a gesture both protective and loving. He saw unshed tears glitter in her eyes and felt his throat tighten.

"Let's just say I'm trying to not run from life." There was a long, peaceful pause, then she asked, "What's she like?"

"How did you know?"

Her laugh was soft but kind. "I'm a romance writer. If I couldn't sense unrequited love in the air, I'd be a disgrace to my profession."

Jake chuckled, surprised that he could. "You'd like her, I think. And she'd like you but probably wouldn't admit it." He rubbed the back of his neck. "Getting her to admit anything is damn near impossible."

"Is she the one you have in custody?"

Jake nodded. "Mom says if it's meant to be, it will be."

"You don't believe her?"

"It's not that." He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans and scowled at the future.

"You want it to be but don't see how it can?"

"You're good."

"I'm a romance writer. I have to be." She slid her arm through his and started him back toward the house. "Does she feel the same about you?"

"I think so, but-"

"No buts." She stopped, forcing him to look at her. "You're a fixer, like Matt, so this is driving you nuts. My advice, for what it's worth is, you do your job and let love find the way."

Right. He managed to smile at her, as if she'd helped, as they started up the steps. "Okay."

She laughed. "You don't believe me. Let me ask you a question then. How did you catch her? Matt didn't seem too optimistic about that prospect yesterday."

Jake stopped halfway up. "You know, that's a good question."

An offhand comment Sebastian had made while securing the computers at Smith'scame back to him now. "I wonder why she didn't phone in the wipe?" he'd asked, as he unplugged the computers from the phone line.

At the time, Jake had assumed there'd been physical evidence she needed to destroy and let the comment pass, but why hadn't she done that before the heist? So far Sebastian hadn't found anything on the drive. It was almost as if it had already been wiped. Matt had put someone on to piecing together her few shredded papers and hadn't found anything of interest there either. If she was Pathphinder, how had she made such a rookie mistake?

"A...very good question."

"Maybe she's trying to find a way to you."

Or, it was part of the plan?

"Matt is luckier than he deserves." He grabbed Dani and quickly kissed her on the mouth.

The screen door opened, framing Matt in the opening. "When you're through kissing my wife, I'd like to take her home."

Jake grinned. "I'm almost done." He kissed her again, this time on the cheek. "Thanks."

She patted his cheek. "I can't wait to meet her."

Jake rubbed the back of his neck. Maybe romance writers couldn't help being optimistic.

Chapter 18.

It seemed like a long time since the cell door had slid closed behind her with a final-sounding clang. She wouldn't be here for long, her mind said, but her heart wasn't so sure. She was alone in this part of the jail. There were no sounds besides her breathing. No window to the outside world, no way to track time or assess its passing after being stripped of her belongings and all contact with the outside world.

Of course they wanted her to be anxious. She was more likely to make a mistake if she was on edge. They didn't have much time to crack her before she was out on bail.

Despite the unrelenting stare of the surveillance camera, she wasn't as uncomfortable as she'd expected to be. It was kind of a relief to be alone, her options narrowed to so few and nothing to do. Nothing she could do. Wouldn't be too great for the long haul to have her world narrowed to three walls and a row of bars, but right now the breathing space was nice. There was nothing to distract her. Certainly nothing to remind her of anything familiar.

She was tired, she realized, and not just in the physical sense. Her soul was weary, too. She stretched out on the narrow iron bed, the odor of the same disinfectant they'd used on her engulfing her. Would it hurt them to add a little lemon scent to it?

At some point she fell asleep, her dreams spent in a fruitless search for a coat. When she woke and found she was chilled, she knew why. The orange jumpsuit, besides not being even close to her color, wasn't warm. A coarse blanket was folded at the foot of the bed, so she wrapped up in it, feeling the first stab of homesickness for her lost house in Estes Park.