That got their attention. Was that...relief...in Bryn's baby blues? A tiny crack in the iron lady's defenses? Hot damn. Dewey waited for a long beat, then said, "I think I'm ready to play -Let's-Make-A-Deal' if you are?"

He thought Bryn choked, but she covered it up with a cough. She was fast on her pointed heels.

It seemed to Phoebe that she'd been in the tiny interrogation room for hours, but, once again, she had no way to clock the passing time. Unlike the one she'd been in before, this room didn't have a one-way window or mirror. Just a sliding panel over a barred window in the door and another barred window to the outside world. Maybe, she wondered uneasily, it's the one they put people in when they planned to kick their butt.

She tried sitting down, tried pacing, seriously considered banging on the door, but she had a little pride left, so she settled for leaning against the grubby wall and staring through the bars at the even grubbier alley and the tiny patch of night sky showing between two tall buildings. The ice pack had lost its chill, so she tossed it onto the table.

Full circle. The past had met the present. Her dead were finally at peace. Now only the future remained to be sorted out, though it seemed obvious what was ahead for her. It was kind of ironic that Harding had escaped the incarceration now waiting for her and Dewey. She'd always meant for him to do time, to be as powerless as the people he'd hurt, to feel the full horror of what he'd dished out.

Stern had thought she was looking for revenge, but it had always been about justice-the difference between night and day. She'd spent her time in the night. There were times when she'd fantasized about killing Harding, even slowly torturing him to death. She'd lost her taste for that long before her little visit to his warehouse of horrors. She felt a sense of peace, knowing this. Harding had shaped her life, but she'd never become him. She lived in the day, not the night.

Jake quietly opened the door and stood watching her, remembering the first night he'd seen her. She seemed so far away, now he didn't know what to do, or even who she was. Phoebe or Nadine? Or someone else now that her quest was over?

"I don't know what to call you."

She turned. "Retired?" Her grin was pure Phoebe.

Relief almost took out his knees. He needed to see Phoebe. Needed some of Phoebe to hang around. "I'm glad to hear it."

She grabbed the back of the chair. Jake didn't know why, but it seemed important what she did next. She hesitated, then pulled it out and sat down. Her gaze was steady, her expression neutral and oddly distant as she looked up at him, as if there were a barrier between them.

"What happens now?"

Jake sat down, too, spreading his hands on the battered tabletop to keep from reaching out for her. She seemed so fragile, sitting there waiting for the storm to break over her head, and yet strong, too. Submissive, yet not. Her strength was gathered in close, her spirit braced and ready for whatever would come. She knew she would endure. She knew she would survive. She'd learned how the hard way.

She amazed him. And she scared the hell out of him, because he wanted her to need him, as much he needed her. Could she? She'd been alone so long, would she know how? Did she even want to try?

"We're working out the details of the deal," Jake said. "That was quite the bombshell Hyatt dropped." Did she tense? Why? "I take it you didn't know he'd gotten RABBIT to run?"

"No. I thought-"

"He'd have to give up Phagan?"

"I hoped he wouldn't," Phoebe admitted. Her eyelashes covered her expression. "Were...people...pretty upset?"

Jake grinned. "Just between you and me? I think Bryn was a little relieved."

Her lashes lifted at that. Her smile spread across her face like the sun rising over a mountain. The sight of it stole his wits. She'd smiled before, but, he realized, she'd always held something back. This one held nothing back.

"Cool." The smile faded, but the warmth lingered. "So he gets his suspended sentence and the million hours of community service?"

Jake didn't answer, because he wasn't sure he could keep the edge out of his voice. Hyatt had so many years with Phoebe, years of intimacy. He knew things about her Jake never would.

He realized she was looking at him, a tiny frown between her brows and a question in her eyes. "He was more concerned about what would happen to you, though I suspect he'll get whatever he wants from the military." He hesitated. "He cares about you."

"I have been fortunate in my friends." Her voice turned very Southern. "And the kindness of strangers."

He chuckled, feeling the tightness in his gut ease. The past was the past. It was her future he was interested in.

"I was able to get you temporarily released into my custody," he said. "If that's not acceptable, I can make other arrangements for you. It's your choice." When she didn't immediately respond, he added, "You can't go back to Estes Park yet, not until the deal is completely worked out." He hesitated, then added, "I called my mom. She's making up the guestroom for you. If you want it."

"Your mom?" Her eyes opened wide, and for the first time she looked alarmed.

"She told me that when I found you she wanted to meet you." He grinned. "I always try to do what my Mom says."

She smiled back, but the alarm didn't fade from her eyes.

"I can also offer a personal meeting with an honest-to-goodness romance writer as an extra incentive. My sister-in-law is Dani Gwynne, and she's eager to meet you, too. On the downside, well, you've already met my brothers."

Phoebe looked down at her hands, realized she was twisting them in her lap. Just because he was taking her home to meet his family didn't, couldn't, mean anything. Put your hope back in the box and lock it up, girl.

"Do they know I'm a thief?" Jake's hand covered hers, and she realized it was what she'd been waiting for. Delight coursed up her arm and heat. Her libido was obviously really easy to please.

"You're not a thief." Jake sounded defensive. "You're-"

"A thief. A person who conspired to steal things."

"It's what you were, not what you are." He rubbed the back of his neck. "And, yes, they know. They're fine with it, okay?"

"Okay." But it wasn't. They weren't fine with it. She could tell he was worried about what they'd do. Maybe not his mom, though Phoebe couldn't figure out why the woman wouldn't be frantic. For sure his brothers would be upset. They'd know what associating with her could do to his career.

What was that scripture? Charity never faileth. It seeketh not its own. It seemed she was learning all her lessons about love on the fly. She loved Jake, but while her love wouldn't fail, it also wouldn't seek its own. If she had to break her own heart, she would not suck Jake into the morass of her bad choices.

"Give me a few minutes to get your paper work done and we'll go."

Chapter 22.

Phoebe woke late the next morning, surprised and a little unsettled by how deeply she'd slept. Normally, when she woke with her nerves jumping like beans, she'd jog to clear her thoughts and settle down, but she wasn't sure she could leave. What were the rules of being in Jake's custody?

She stretched and sighed, then sat up and looked around. She'd been too tired last night to do more than absorb the fact that Jake looked like his mother and that Debra Kirby was a kind person who was worried about her son.

The room she'd shown Phoebe to was cheerful and neat. It could even be called quaint. The furniture was western and rustic, the curtains white lace. The wall by the bed was a family photo album of the-Kirby-boys-grow-up. Jake was easy to identify, because his hair was lighter than his brothers' and his smile hadn't changed much over the years.

Seeing the pictures put him in a different context, made her realize what a small part of his life she was. A minute or two in years of experiences. It wasn't just the law and the unlawful part. In the time it took him to go to the prom with a pretty blonde and receive his high school diploma, she'd begun and ended a marriage. He'd attended college and graduated with honors while she'd refined her grand-larceny skills-when she wasn't buying booze for the bar or shaking her booty in smoky honky-tonks across the country.

Forget Venus and Mars, she and Jake inhabited different galaxies.

Usually she tried to avoid normal people, normal lives, because they only reminded her how screwed up her life was. She shouldn't have come here. Shouldn't have given in to the temptation. This wasn't a house. It was a home, a place where people who loved each other lived and laughed and helped each other through their hard times.

Which made it not like any house she'd ever been in.

The differences went way beyond the comfy furniture and cheery curtains at the windows. Her furniture wasn't quite as nice as Debra Kirby's, but that wasn't what made this a home. No, it was the way the house felt, the way she felt being in it.

Her house gave nothing away. It shut out. It hid from.

This place, this room, was wide open, welcoming. Even to a thief.