"We're not safe here, are we?" Riley kept her voice low. The gra.s.s was so dry their footsteps crunched. They skirted patches of light thrown into the yards by the curtained windows, and at the same time Riley kept a careful eye on the media circus down the street. If they were spotted... "Margaret and Emma and me, I mean."

"Maybe you should think about getting out of town for a while," Bradley replied, tacitly confirming what she suspected: that she was right to be afraid.

Riley gave a huff of bitter amus.e.m.e.nt. "And go where, exactly?" She'd already considered, and discarded, the idea of gathering up Margaret and Emma and fleeing somewhere far, far away. The conclusion she'd reached was, there was nowhere that was far enough. "George ripped off a lot of people. I'm not sure there's anywhere that would be safe."

His slight grimace acknowledged the probable truth of that.

"I'll see what I can do to get you and your mother- and sister-in-law police protection."

"Since Jeff's death, the police already drive down our street every few hours. I think it's as much to make sure the press isn't disturbing the neighbors as anything."

"Should be able to get a patrol car parked in your driveway for the next few weeks, at least at night."

"That's something." Although Riley was terribly afraid that it wouldn't be enough. "Thank you."

He nodded, seemed to hesitate. "Listen, the b.a.s.t.a.r.d who attacked you-he's probably long gone. I don't think you have to worry about him coming back."

"Really?" When he gave a brief, affirming nod, she felt a flutter of relief and added, "That's good to know." But there was no way to be sure that her attacker and Jeff's murderer were one and the same, a thought that made her heart lurch at its implications for her, Margaret, and Emma.

"There are a lot more people who could potentially be coming after us than just that one guy tonight, aren't there?" Riley asked in a hollow voice, after outlining her conclusions for Bradley. They were in Margaret's backyard now, having just stepped through the gate. Bradley's hand had dropped away from her arm: the skin it had warmed was already starting to feel cold.

She was already starting to feel cold. Riley attributed that to the fact that without him, she was afraid.

"Maybe." He stopped walking and held out his hand. "Give me your phone. And the battery."

That dry add-on told her that he knew she'd disa.s.sembled her phone, too. Big surprise. Riley stopped walking, as well, fished both pieces out of her purse, and handed them over without a word.

He snapped the battery back into place far more easily than she'd taken it off.

Then he said, "Type in your code," and handed her phone back to her. She did as he asked, then without question gave her phone back to him when he held out his hand again.

She watched him punch a b.u.t.ton, type something in.

"I just gave you an emergency contact number," he said, showing her what he'd done. "All you have to do is. .h.i.t this. Think of it as your own personal 911. If I'm around, it'll get me. If I'm not, it'll call out the cavalry. You'll have help just as fast as it can get to you."

"Thank you." She accepted the phone with a quick smile and a surge of real grat.i.tude as he handed it back to her. At this point, the prospect of even speed-dialed protection was better than no protection at all.

"Keep it on you," he cautioned when she moved to put her phone in her purse, and she nodded and slipped it into her pocket instead.

"I will."

Although the section of the yard they were standing in was dark, all the lights in Margaret's house seemed to be on, which was unusual. The effect was to send stripes of illumination cutting across the gra.s.s. She doubted that the house was still full of guests. More likely Margaret and Emma, having been alerted to what had happened by the growing media presence out front, were pacing the floors, out of their minds with worry about her.

"I have to go in." She said it with a surprising degree of reluctance as she glanced toward the back door. Then she had a thought and exclaimed, "I forgot the ice cream!"

"Ice cream?"

"Strawberry for Margaret, peanut b.u.t.ter crunch for Emma," she explained, and hung her head. "I promised I'd bring some back."

"Ah."

Something about his tone caused her to give him a searching look. They were standing so close their arms brushed, but once again she couldn't read a thing in his face. And that wasn't because of the shadows that enveloped them, either.

She said, "Thank you. For everything."

"Not a problem," he said.

With no more warning than that, his hand came up to cradle her jaw, and he bent his head and kissed her.

- CHAPTER -

TEN.

Riley was so surprised that at first she couldn't move.

His kiss was as uncompromisingly masculine as everything else about him. Firm-lipped, hungry. And hot. So, so hot.

Her heart thudded. Deep inside, her body clenched.

His mouth moved persuasively on hers, and just like that the night went out of focus around her. His tongue slid past the lips she instinctively parted for him, taking expert possession of her mouth. She gave a little shudder, closed her eyes, and found herself kissing him back.

His hand felt warm and strong against the side of her face, and with the tiny part of her mind that remained functional she was aware that he was keeping control of the kiss by positioning her mouth exactly where he wanted it, positioning her exactly where he wanted her. Not that she objected. Hooking an arm around his neck, she let him tilt her back until her head found a pillow on his broad shoulder. He explored her mouth, the hard urgency of his kiss a revelation. It made her dizzy, made her cling to him. His arm tightened around her, pulling her lower body fully against him.

She went up in flames.

That enormous erection was back, making it obvious what he wanted from her.

The truly mind-blowing thing about it was, with that thriller of a kiss setting her on fire like it was, she wanted it, too.

The heart-stopping intensity of the way he was kissing her rocked her to her toes. It made her pulse pound. It made her bones melt. If he'd lowered her to the gra.s.s right there and then and come down on top of her, she would have started tearing off her clothes. She wanted to get naked with him. No, get real: she wanted to have s.e.x with him.

It had been a long, long time since a man had been able to turn her on so fast. In fact, she wasn't sure a man had ever been able to turn her on so fast.

What she was experiencing was nothing short of a blast of sheer, burning s.e.xual desire.

For the first time in her life, she understood how people wound up falling into bed with complete strangers. Given a bed and privacy, she would have absolutely been there.

He was the one who broke it up. He lifted his mouth from hers and straightened, setting her firmly on her feet and putting a small bit of distance between them while his hands on her waist helped her keep her balance.

For the briefest of moments her arms stayed wrapped around his neck. She stared up at him in bemus.e.m.e.nt, drinking in the dark, hot gleam in his eyes, the tension around his hard mouth, while she recalibrated. Then she removed her arms from around his neck and deliberately stepped back, out of his reach.

And to h.e.l.l with her wobbly knees.

"Agent Bradley," she began, her voice embarra.s.singly huskier than it should have been, then thought, G.o.d, that sounds idiotic after he just kissed me into next week, and amended it to a firm, "Finn."

His eyes narrowed slightly at her. To her annoyance, that was all the response she got.

Didn't seem to make a difference: she was still wildly aroused, still wanted more. She was breathing way faster than she should have been. Her heart pounded and her pulse raced. He was feeling the intensity of the attraction between them, too. She could tell, although he didn't say anything, didn't make any kind of move. Electricity arced between them. There was a sizzle in the air, an almost tangible heat.

What she wanted to do, more than she had wanted to do anything in a while, was move back into his arms and pick up right where they had left off.

But then the memory of how the rest of her day had gone came crashing into her consciousness, and all those hot, tingly feelings got doused by a wave of cold reality.

"What was that?" She was proud of the undernote of acerbity in her voice.

"A kiss," he said, and jerked his head toward the back door. "Go on in. I'll watch until you're safely inside."

Her brows snapped together.

"What-?" she began. -do you mean, a kiss? was the rest of what she was going to say, and pretty hotly, too, because that was no answer at all and sounded infuriatingly dismissive to boot, but she never got the chance to finish.

The back door opened.

"Whoever's out there, this is private property. You need to leave right now. I've called the police."

"Margaret, it's me," Riley called.

"Riley? Oh, thank goodness!" Margaret stepped out onto the stoop, her slim form backlit by the light spilling from the kitchen. She was still dressed in her funeral clothes, which made Riley wonder if maybe some of the guests had lingered. She was looking in Riley's direction, but because of the pool of light she was standing in and the darkness that blanketed the yard, she was unlikely to be able to see much-like the fact that Riley wasn't alone. "Come inside."

With a salute that might have been somewhat mocking-it was too dark to be sure-Finn gifted her with an infuriating glimmer of a smile and melted away into the shadows.

Riley frowned after him, surprised at how much she hated to see him go. Over and above that blistering kiss, he'd made her feel safe. Without him, she felt... vulnerable. Exposed.

In danger.

Like the dark was closing in again.

But with him gone, there was nothing else to do: she turned and walked into the house.

The second she stepped through the back door, Margaret closed and locked it behind her.

Then Margaret's gaze dropped to her neck, and she started exclaiming over the bruises that even Riley's high-necked shirt couldn't cover. Emma, who'd been sitting at the kitchen table, jumped up and ran over to hug her.

Hugging Emma back, Riley registered how thin she felt. At the same time, she was doing her best to thrust all thoughts of that blazing kiss and everything a.s.sociated with it out of her mind. It shouldn't have happened, and her response to it had been an aberration, a sign of the extreme stress she was under. Or maybe it had stemmed from the concussion. Or the meds. Whatever the underlying catalyst, she refused to think about it again.

"We were so scared for you," Emma said as she stepped back. Like Margaret, she was still wearing the black dress she'd worn to the funeral, but her shoes were off and her hair hung straight and sleek down her back instead of being caught up in a ponytail as it had been earlier.

Margaret chimed in with, "A reporter came up and rang the doorbell and when Bill answered the door to order him off the porch, he told Bill someone had tried to kill you! Is that true?"

Bill had walked into the kitchen a moment earlier and now stood frowning at the three of them as they stood in a tight little group near the refrigerator. Riley wasn't particularly surprised to see that he had stayed with Margaret and Emma until they'd found out whether Riley was safe.

Riley breathed an inward sigh of relief: if Margaret had seen the man she was with, she would have immediately said something-and she didn't, so Riley knew Finn hadn't been spotted. "I'm all right," she a.s.sured them, and glanced toward the living room. "Is anyone else here?"

"Brent left about fifteen minutes ago." Emma's lips didn't quiver, but the bruised look in her eyes told Riley that Brent's visit hadn't exactly left her with the warm fuzzies. "Right before the reporter came to the door. He was with Julie and Sarah Mason and Andrew Brown." Julie being one of Emma's (former) close friends. Sarah Mason and Andrew Brown were schoolmates. "They stopped in on their way to get a pizza. To say, you know, sorry about Jeff. They were the last, I think. I mean, accept for Mr. Stengel."

Reading between the lines, Riley deduced that Brent and Julie had shown up as a couple. Aching for Emma, she gave the teen a sympathetic pat.

"Sucks." Riley's summation was succinct, and Emma grimaced in acknowledgment.

"I'm just glad you're okay," Emma replied. "I couldn't take it if-"

"So tell us everything," Margaret interrupted before Emma could finish with something on the order of, you died like Jeff. Riley thought it was probably because she didn't want Emma's thoughts going any farther down that path than could be helped. "The reporter said you were surprised by a man who was waiting in your apartment."

Margaret's normally low-pitched voice was shriller than usual. Her arms were crossed over her chest, and her face looked pale and pinched. Riley would have given pretty much anything not to have to add to her, or Emma's, distress, but this was something she simply couldn't keep to herself: the attack const.i.tuted a dire development that had to be shared.

"There's something I have to do first," Riley said, because she knew she needed to get it over with while she was still feeling strong enough, and while the opportunity was there. "Hang on a minute, and I'll tell you the whole story."

With them peppering her with questions even as they followed her, she headed for the front door. After warning Margaret and Emma to stay inside and dismissing with a wave of her hand Bill's sharp query as to what in the world she was doing, she stepped out onto the front porch and closed the door behind her.

The response she was antic.i.p.ating took maybe five seconds.

"It's Riley!" one of the reporters shrieked.

"Look, it's Riley!" another yelled half a beat later.

With that, they rushed her, pounding through the front yard, focusing their blinding lights and cameras on her, thrusting their microphones toward her, hurling so many questions at her that it was almost impossible to separate them into anything coherent. Before, she'd avoided them like the bloodsuckers they were, ducking from their cameras, ignoring their questions. Now they const.i.tuted the ideal way for her to send a message.

The questions came thick and fast.

"Were you the target of the shots that were fired in your building earlier?"

"Did somebody just try to kill you?"

"Were you attacked by a man in your apartment tonight?"

Riley could barely make out the faces behind the barrage of lights.

"Yes, I was attacked tonight in my apartment-possibly by the same man who murdered my ex-husband," she said directly into the lens of the closest camera, her hand curling around one of the wrought iron roof supports. Using the media to tell the public the truth about what had happened to Jeff felt good. She desperately wanted whoever had killed him to be caught, and since she'd already been targeted, she no longer had to fear making herself one. "The man who attacked me demanded that I give him Jeff's cell phone, which was in my possession. I was able to get away, alive and reasonably well as you can see, and have since turned Jeff's cell phone over to the FBI. It's with them now." She raised her free hand to shield her eyes from the glare, and added, "That's all I have to say. The cell phone's with the FBI. Good night."

There was a collective wail of protest.

"Riley, no! Come back!"

"Why was he after Jeff's phone?"

"Was he trying to kill you?"

"Is it true he's in police custody?"

Steadfastly ignoring the increasingly frantic tenor of the shouted questions, she waved, stepped back inside the house, and shut and locked the door.

Whew.