He looked at her, waiting to hear what that had to do-.

with anything.

Caitlin waved her hands in frustration.

"Doesn't something in your heritage say we're bonded now?"

His expression was flat, unreadable.

"No."

The man was infuriating.

"Well, pretend, then," she snapped.

She blew out a breath and her voice softened.

"Tell me."

He had no idea why he was sharing this with her, a woman who had walked

out on him.

Talking to Jeffers was one thing.

Ben was his partner, his friend.

They had been together for seven years and had shared a great deal in

that time.

Caitlin was someone he had thought he knew.

And discovered he didn't.

He was here to guard her, nothing more.

Despite all logic, somehow the words seemed to continu materializing on

his tongue.

"She's remarried, apparently very well, and she wants Jake."

It sounded so simple an was so devastatingly complicated.

He rose, suddenly restless, and began to roam about the room.

"Says she can give him a stable environment."

Graham bit the words off.

Celia's idea of stable translated into money.

"She thinks she can buy her way back into Jake' affections, that money

can negate everything she's done t him by leaving. But then, money was

always important to her." ' He didn't see the irony in it, did he? "

Has a familiar ring to it," Caitlin murmured.

Graham stopped roaming aimlessly around and looked a her.

"What?"

She hadn't meant to let that slip.

He was hurting.

The pas was gone; there was no use in dredging it up.

Caitlin shoo her head, annoyed with herself.

"Nothing. Go on."

He shrugged carelessly.

"There's nothing to go on with She wants to take me to court, sue for

custody, if I don' agree to hand him over."

The very words stuck in his throa Caitlin rose and crossed to him,

drawn by the emotion wasn't aware he was displaying.

She laid her hand on his arm.

"What do you plan to do?"

What every father would do.

"Fight it."

He saw sympathy in her eyes and instinctively withdrew.

"I don't h much saved up to hire a lawyer, but there's got to be some

thing I can do."

His words surprised her.

"You don't have any money?" Her voice was incredulous. He wasn't

frivolous. What ha he spent it on?

That was what the argument had always been about Money.

"Honest cops usually don't, at least, not the kin that it would take for a prolonged court battle."

"The fifty thousand dollars is gone, then?"

Graham looked at her as if she had lost her mind.

May the stress of what had happened in the alley had got to her "And

what fifty thousand dollars would that be?"

The patronizing expression on his face annoyed her.

She'd been through too much today to keep a rein on her temper.

"Don't play games with me, Gray. Don't you think I know?"

He kept his own temper on a choke hold, though it wasn't easy.

She looked ready to do battle, and he hadn't the slightest idea about

what.

"Obviously, because you wouldn't have asked, but I don't know what

you're talking about."

Caitlin threw up her hands, then crossed them before her chest.

"All right, have it your way," she said evenly between her teeth.

"The fifty thousand dollars that you asked for."

She still wasn't making any sense.