He couldn't take his eyes off her face. She was sincere, right to her soul. She meant every word she said. He couldn't think otherwise.

"I, um...I have blankets and pillows in the car," she said. "And another bag, just a small one."

"I'll get them for you."

She nodded and they walked downstairs together. The phone was ringing before they reached the bottom. Jim hurried across the room to where he'd left his cell phone on the coffee table and yanked it up, knowing it had to be something important for anyone to call at this time of the night. And when he looked at the panel and saw the chief's number on it, he was even more certain.

"Corona," he said into the phone. "What's up, Chief?"

"They found the Blazer, Jim."

It was bad. He knew it was bad. The chief never called him by his first name. "Colby?" he asked, standing motionless.

"We don't know yet. The Blazer took a plunge into a deep ravine. It...it burned. They only identified it by a license plate that got knocked free on the way down. There's a crew out there now trying to find any sign of anyone inside, but with a fire that bad..."

"Where?" Jim asked. Kara was beside him, her hand on his shoulder, her face searching his as the chief told him where Colby's Blazer had been located.

When he hung up the phone and related what the chief had told him, he thought Kara was going to burst into tears. Instead she set her jaw. "Colby wasn't inside," she said. And she said it firmly. "He wasn't or they'd have found something, some sign."

"I hope you're right."

"You have to go," she told him.

He closed his eyes, feeling as if his heart were being torn right in half. "I can't leave Tyler."

"Jimmy, Caleb is here. I'm here. Nobody is going to get near that boy with me around. I swear to you, you can trust me to keep him safe."

He frowned as her words wormed their way deep inside him.

"I'm not Angela, Jimmy. I'd step in front of a freight train for that child."

More amazing than the power of her words was the fact that he believed them, he thought. He believed her, trusted her, in a way he had thought he would never trust any woman ever again. He trusted her with his son.

Amazing.

He took enough time to jot his cell phone number on a pad by the phone and then went out to find his best friend.

Kara wasn't sure how she was going to sleep in the room that had been Jimmy's, much less live under the same roof with him, without giving in to what she was feeling.

She'd never been with a man. Not...intimately. And she was afraid to admit that to him, even a little bit ashamed of it. It seemed so backward in this day and age to be a virgin at twenty-three. She thought maybe she wanted to be with Jimmy. And she thought he wanted to be with her, too. But she was afraid-so afraid of him. He was making her believe things she had always thought were impossible. Making her think there was suddenly a chance she could win the heart of the boy of her dreams. Man of her dreams now. God, the very idea of it frightened her because if it was all make-believe, it would kill her.

And maybe it was already too late to worry about that. Maybe she'd already let herself fall. She looked out the window and saw Jim talking to Caleb on his way out to join the search for his friend. Hell, how could she be thinking about her own problems, her own hopes and fears and silly little-girl dreams, when hell was breaking loose all around them? It was selfish of her. She needed to focus on what was important. Keeping Tyler safe, praying for Colby's well-being. That was all. Whatever happened-or didn't happen-between her and Jimmy Corona wasn't important. Not now.

She walked through the house, checking every window to be sure the locks were in place, checking the back door to make sure it was locked, as well. Then she went to Tyler's bedroom and stood looking in on him for a long moment. Her heart swelled. Jimmy was worried about Tyler getting attached to her. She wondered if he realized just how attached she was becoming to Tyler. To both of them.

Jim found the spot, off a side road surrounded by forest, within a half hour. It wasn't hard to find. The entire area was packed with emergency vehicles, police cars and a giant crane with its nose out over a drop-off. As he got out of his pickup, the crane growled and strained, and slowly the burned wreckage of the Blazer rose from the depths. Spotlights followed its progress. He winced when he saw the thing, almost doubled over from the pain that clutched his belly. Hell, no one could have survived a crash like that, much less the inferno that had followed.

A hand clapped his shoulder. "You Corona?"

He turned to face the man with the county sheriff badge pinned to his chest and nodded because he didn't trust himself to speak.

"We don't think he was inside," the sheriff said. "No sign of any body. And there should have been something. Some trace. Of course, we'll have forensics go over it to be sure. And we can't be sure he wasn't thrown from the vehicle on the way down, but we've got dogs working the slope. If he's there, we'll find him."

Jim swallowed hard. "Suppose he got out before it went over?"

"Slim chance, but I suppose it's possible."

Nodding, Jim looked around. "I'd like to start searching these woods."

"I'll get you some men. It would be easier by daylight."

"I don't want to wait. He could be injured."

The sheriff nodded. Jim got the feeling the man was humoring him, but he didn't care. Within ten minutes searchers were fanning into the woods. Jim searched using a borrowed flashlight. He strained his eyes until they watered and walked until he had no idea where the hell he was. He searched every clump of deadfall, every pile of brush, every shrub and weed patch and fallen log.

He searched until the tiny flicker of hope he'd felt began to fade away. And then he got an idea. Maybe a stupid idea, but hell, it couldn't hurt to try. He'd have tried anything by then.

He pulled out his cell phone, dialed Colby's. He hit send, then lowered the phone from his ear and listened to the woods around him.

And he heard it. Small, faint, distant, but there. Colby's cell phone, playing the old cavalry bugle charge. He followed the sound until it stopped, then he hung up and dialed again. And again, working his way closer every time.

Then his flashlight beam found a lump on the ground, and he ran closer, dropped to his knees, fear an ice-cold weight in his chest as his fingers fumbled around Colby's neck in search of a pulse. When he found one, he damn near cried. He shouted instead. "I found him! He's alive. Get some paramedics out here!"

Chapter 9.

It was nearly three in the morning when Jimmy returned home. Kara surged to her feet when she heard the car in the driveway, saw the headlights painting the house walls before they went dark.

"Easy," Caleb said. He'd come inside to sit watch with her after Jimmy had left, and when Wade showed up to relieve him, he'd decided not to go home. Wade had been brewing coffee nonstop-in fact, he was putting on a fresh pot when the car pulled in, but he heard the vehicle, too, and quickly joined them at the front door. "It's Jim," Caleb said.

"God, I hope..." Kara bit her lip. She didn't need to finish the thought. All three of them were dreading the news Jim might bring, the devastation he might have encountered when he'd gone out there tonight.

Kara unlocked the door and pulled it open as he mounted the front steps, shoulders slumped, head low. He looked exhausted.

"Jimmy?"

He lifted his head, met her eyes, then glanced past her at the two men who stood behind her in the doorway. He had to see the questions in their eyes.

"He's alive," he said.

"Oh, thank God." Kara put her arms around him. It wasn't planned-it was instinctive. She hugged his neck and he hugged her waist, right there in the open doorway.

She felt the looks Wade and Caleb exchanged behind her, and a rush of self-consciousness slid through her. She released her hold on Jimmy, but he didn't reciprocate. Instead he shifted to the side, keeping one arm around her waist, holding her close beside him as he walked into the house.

"You look wrung-out," Wade said. "You want coffee?"

"Thanks, Wade. That would be great."

Nodding, Wade went to the kitchen. Jim walked through the living room to the open bedroom door and peeked inside at Tyler, who slept soundly. He sighed, then turned to move back to the sofa, still holding Kara beside him as he sank onto its cushions. Caleb took a seat in the chair across from them, and Wade returned, handed a hot mug to Jim, then sat in the rocker.

Jim sipped. Then he talked. "They found Colby's Blazer in a deep ravine, up on a side road north of town." He wrinkled his brow. "Devil...something or other."

"Devil's Drop," Wade said. "How the hell did he survive the plunge?"

"He got out before it went over. I don't know how-he was unconscious when we found him in the woods, and by the time the E.R. docs finished with him, he'd had enough drugs to keep him incoherent for a while." He lifted his head. "He'll probably have to stay in the hospital for a couple of days. It could have been a lot worse. The Blazer exploded on impact. It's burned black, completely gutted. They wouldn't have even known it was the vehicle we were looking for except that one of the tags came loose on the way down."

"Thank God he got out," Kara whispered.

"Do they know what happened? How he wound up over that drop?" Caleb asked.

Jim shook his head left, then right. "No skid marks. It's a dirt road, so the tire tracks are good. It's too dark to be certain of anything, but we had spotlights. It looks to me as if the Blazer drove straight ahead, then turned right to veer off the road, through the grass and over the drop-off. No signs of veering out of control or fishtailing or sudden braking."

"How badly is Colby hurt?" Kara asked.

"Aside from a solid blow to the head and a couple of broken ribs, not too badly. The docs say he's gonna be fine. He's got a concussion but no sign of anything more serious. They said we should be able to talk to him in the morning."

"That's good news," Wade said, nodding firmly.

Jim nodded. "For now, we're not saying anything about finding Colby. The press is going to get that the vehicle was found and that it will take forensics teams a week or more to try to determine whether any human remains burned with it."

Caleb nodded. "If this was an attempt on his life, there's no point giving his attacker a reason to try again."

"Exactly. We booked him into the hospital under a false name." He sighed, shaking his head. "It's not gonna stay quiet long. Too many cops know, the paramedics at the scene know. People tend to talk. They'll tell their wives, best friends, and it'll get around."

"Yeah," Caleb said. "But out-of-towners aren't going to be as tuned in to the local grapevine. They won't hear for a while."

"I'm counting on it. Meanwhile, now that every cop in three counties is involved, they aren't going to get far."

"Even though he hasn't been conscious long enough to identify his assailants?" Wade asked.

Jim nodded. "There was a sticky residue around his wrists, ankles and face. One piece of duct tape still on his sleeve. He was definitely held against his will. This accident was either an escape or attempted murder. Colby's a cop-Chicago cop, but it doesn't matter. Cops don't like people messing with their own. Stuff like this goes down, they close ranks. They're on this." Jim drew a breath, sighed. "Frankly I feel better about things than I have in a long while."

"That's saying something," Wade said.

Jim nodded, then lifted his head. "Thanks, you guys. This was above and beyond, coming out here like this. I don't know how I'll ever repay you."

Wade sent him a smile. "Don't worry. We'll think of something." He got to his feet and Jim did, too. The two clasped hands, and then Caleb repeated the gesture. When they left, Jim followed them to the door to thank them again, then remained there and watched as they drove away even as he turned the locks.

Then he turned to Kara. She was close to him. He pulled her into his arms and held her so tight she felt truly cherished. "I really think everything's going to be okay," he told her. "I really do."

"I know everything will be," she said, resting her head on his shoulder. There was so much on her mind. A thousand questions whirled around inside her, eager to escape and have their answers. But this was no time for any of that. Jim had been through enough today. "You should get some sleep, Jimmy."

"So should you," he told her. "I'll climb in with Ty. I need him close tonight. So rest easy. Don't lie awake worrying or listening for things to go bump, okay?"

"Okay."

He stroked her hair and looked into her eyes. "I'm really, really glad you were here tonight."

She smiled a little. "I'm glad I was here, too. I...I like being here." She leaned up and pressed a kiss to his cheek. "Good night, Jimmy."

"Night, Kara."

She went up the stairs and felt his eyes on her all the way.

Kara slept for five hours, then bounded out of bed wide-awake and incredibly upbeat. And maybe that was because Colby had been found and Jim was sure things were going to be okay now. Or maybe it was because she was finally letting herself be convinced that his attention to her, his tenderness toward her, came from more than just a casual interest.

She showered, dressed, fussed a little with her hair and barely-there makeup. Thanks to Edie, she knew how to maximize her best features without leaving a trace. Then she headed downstairs and felt joyously domestic as she cooked pancakes and sausages in the functional kitchen, brewed fragrant coffee. And she felt pretty-and suspected that had to do with Jimmy Corona's constant, convincing attention over the past few days.

When she felt eyes on her and turned from the frying pan to see him leaning in the doorway, arms crossed, watching her, she knew he liked what he saw.

She let her smile come, though it was a little self-conscious, a little nervous. "Good morning."

"Morning," he said. "The whole house smells so good my mouth is watering. Sausage?"

"Mmm, and pancakes."

"Tyler loves pancakes."

"I know. That's why I made them." She turned her attention back to the pan, rolling the sausage links with a fork. The burner beside it held a griddle, pancakes bubbling on one side, ready to flip. "Is he up yet?"

"Not yet. Won't be long." He crossed the room to stand beside her, looking over her shoulder at the food. Then he reached around her to pick up a spatula, used it to flip the pancakes. The action brought him very close, his body rubbing against the back of hers, his face close and bristly, his arm encircling her.

She could have easily closed her eyes and leaned back against him. But she managed not to.

"I could get used to this, Kara."

She lowered her head a little, then started when first his breath and then his lips caressed her neck just briefly.

"I like having you here when I wake up."

"I...I like it, too."

"Yeah?"

She turned to face him. His body was still very close, touching hers. She brought her gaze to his and asked, "Did you love your wife, Jimmy?"

He blinked. Clearly those had not been the words he'd been expecting to hear. "I did. I loved her a lot. She lied to me, cheated on me and damn near killed my son."

She nodded. "I didn't think you were the kind of man who'd marry a woman he didn't love."

He lowered his gaze a little too quickly, and a flutter of alarm came to life in her chest. She pushed it down and swallowed her fears. "And what about since then? Have you...dated a lot of women?"