When pressed, he could catch a few winks anywhere, sleeping sitting up

or lying down.

It was all the same to him.

Caitlin sank down beside him and he tried not to notice how soft she

felt.

How good she smelled.

The room was wide and airy, with vaulted, wooden beamed ceilings, yet

all he was aware of was her.

He wasn't a boy anymore, he reminded himself.

He was a detective with an assignment.

Caitlin shook her head, embarrassed over the way she was behaving.

She was a full-grown woman acting like frightened child.

She flushed as she looked up at him.

"I know I'm being silly, but maybe it's the dark."

Caitlin leaned against him, trying to keep her voice steady.

"I'm scared, Gray."

It seemed natural, somehow, to place his arm around her shoulders.

To hold her to him, as if the mere act could protect her from harm.

"No, you're not being silly. It's normal to be afraid. He almost

killed you today."

His error, Graham thought.

He should never have let her out of his sight.

Caitlin turned to look at him, her long brown hair lightly brushing against his cheek,

sending shock waves through him.

"Are you ever afraid?"

There was no honor in lying, no shame in the truth.

"Yeah, sometimes."

She straightened, looking into his eyes.

His answer surprised her.

"Really?"

"Sure."

He smiled at the wonder in her eyes.

Did she think he was so devoid of feelings after all?

"I think of what might happen to me sometimes when I'm out there,

working."

But not often.

If he did, he couldn't go out into the street, day after day.

The thought would freeze him.

"I'm careful, that's all. There's not just me to think about anymore.

There's Jake. And my mother."

She liked that about him.

Liked the way his eyes seemed to soften when he spoke of his son.

Liked the fact that he had a sense of family.

It made him wonderfully human for her.

Without thinking, he stroked his fingers along her arm as he held her to him and spoke.

"I've got an insurance policy, but money isn't everything."

Having grown up without a father, he knew how empty that could be for a

boy.

Caitlin smiled against him.

God, but his warmth felt -good to her.

It seemed to envelop her.

"Yes, I know."

Maybe she really did at that, he thought.

She'd grown up with plenty of money, but with a viper for a mother.

He had a feeling that Caitlin would have traded a great deal of it for

a mother who lived up to the name.

"It's Jake I worry about mostly."

And this haunted him, now more than ever, since Celia and her demands

were breathing down his neck.

"If I wasn't there for him, hell, Jake might turn out to be just like me."

She didn't like him running himself down.

He'd always taken such a dark view of his life.

She saw a far nobler man than he did.

Caitlin straightened again and looked up at him.

"I would think that would be a plus."

He toyed with the end of a strand of her hair and laughed softly at her

comment.

"You didn't seem to think that yesterday."

Yesterday was a million years ago.

"Yesterday I thought you sold me out for thirty pieces of silver. Or

for fifty thousand pieces of paper."

No matter what she thought or didn't think, in reality nothing had

changed.