Just remember, she reminded herself, the fable of the shoemaker and his daughter who were perfectly happy until the rich man invited them to live as he did for a day. As it stood now, Emma had an idea of what she was missing, but she didn't know. If she and Gage ever made love, she would know beyond any shadow of a doubt. And the knowledge could blight the rest of her life.

Gage hung up the phone once again and reached up to knead a knot out of his neck. He'd set the ball rolling, and now he could only wait to see what started coming back. Friday night, especially right before Christmas, was not the best time in the world to start bugging law-enforcement agencies for vague bits of information. The law might never sleep, but on a typical Friday night it was too busy handling trouble to want to handle routine requests for information.

Laramie PD had been cooperative enough, he guessed-after he had managed to work his way up the chain of command. They had promised to pull the file on Emma's case and express it to him in the morning. He could have asked them to fax it, but he was afraid somebody at the office might see Emma's name and let her secret out of the bag. Better to wait for express mail.

He'd also managed to persuade a friend at the drug agency to pull a wild-card search on the national crime computer. If a Turkish dagger or references to the hashshashin had turned up in any crime reports in the past fifteen years, he ought to know by tomorrow night.

And by tomorrow night he should have a pretty good idea who in Conard County had a criminal record. Then he could start really investigating.

Sighing, he leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes a moment, waiting for the clenching pain in his lower back to ease up a little. He guessed he'd better call Nate at home and tell him what he was up to. Nate would be justifiably annoyed if he thought Gage was circ.u.mventing him, but he would also understand Gage's reluctance to do all this at the office, where someone might overhear. Nate would recognize the need to protect Miss Emma's privacy. And Nate, unlike some of his deputies, could be trusted not to gossip.

He sure didn't want Emma to hear about any of this. She was already edgy enough without knowing what Gage suspected, and edgy was good enough to keep her cautious.

And last night. He swore and shifted in the chair, trying again to ease his back. The woman was as sweetly tempting as a frosted cupcake, totally vulnerable to the new feelings she had discovered, eager enough to make him hard just thinking about her.

He never should have touched her. Yesterday, when she had comforted him, he had succ.u.mbed to the closeness and his own long-unsatisfied needs, but last night, after pumping brandy into her, he should have been able to withstand the temptation. He hadn't been weakened by grief then.

There was no excuse for the way he had lifted her onto his lap-except that he had wanted her. Except that he hadn't been that turned on in years, if ever. Except that Emma Conard was enough to tempt a saint, never mind h.e.l.l's own archangel.

His crooked smile was self-mocking. From the moment he had set eyes on the woman, starchy and bristly as she was, he had wanted to sink his flesh into hers. He kept having the most incredibly arousing vision of her stretched out on white sheets beneath him, a sheen of perspiration glistening on her creamy skin. He could imagine holding her hands above her head while he licked...

"d.a.m.n!" He sat bolt upright and forced that fantasy back into a dark dungeon at the bottom of his brain. Thinking that way was only going to get both him and Emma into trouble. Time to call Nate and get his mind back on business. Reaching out, he lifted the receiver from the cradle.

"Gage!"

Emma's cry brought him instantly to his feet. He dashed for the study door and flung it open just in time to catch her as she came barreling through.

"Emma? Emma, what's wrong?" He could feel her shudder wildly as he held her, and she clutched at his sweater as if she wanted to climb right into him. "Emma?"

"Oh, Gage, he was wearing a mask. A horrible, hideous mask!"

Gage stiffened. "Who was wearing a mask? Who did you see, Emma? Was someone at the window?"

She shook her head jerkily. "No ... no ... I remembered... Oh, G.o.d, I can't stand this! I can't stand it!"

He drew her more snugly into his embrace and cradled her head against his shoulder. "You remembered something else?"

She nodded. "I could see him," she whispered shakily. "Just his head, and that horrible mask. And I knew I was ... hurt ... and I couldn't move. I was scared. So scared!"

The wise thing, he thought, would be to take her into the kitchen, fix her a stiff drink and keep the table firmly between them while he encouraged her to talk it out. Instead, he began backing her toward her bedroom. What this woman needed now had nothing to do with common sense and caution.

"Get yourself tucked in, Emma," he said, releasing her slowly when he had her standing beside her bed. "I'll be back in five minutes with the brandy."

"But-" She lifted frightened, doubtful eyes.

"Trust me, Red. Just do it. I'll be right back."

With shaking hands, feeling weak and sick as if she were ill, Emma changed into a flannel nightgown and crawled into the bed that had been a haven since childhood. With the covers drawn to her chin, she watched wide-eyed as Gage returned and perched beside her.

"Here," he said. "Take a stiff belt."

"Didn't we do this last night?" she asked shakily, not certain she could survive a rerun.

"Just drink the d.a.m.n brandy, Emma." Scowling, he shoved it into her hand and urged her hand to her mouth. "I've traveled this road, lady. Take the brandy. Then you're going to talk until you lose your voice or you fall asleep."

She coughed as the brandy burned her throat, but she drank the full shot before she handed him the gla.s.s. "Why talk?" she asked a little hoa.r.s.ely. Her eyes grew even wider when he stood and yanked his belt off his black jeans.

"Because you're not going to be able to think about anything else until you've worn this to death." He knew that for a fact. Some things honestly had to be talked to death. He eased down beside her on the bed, on top of the blankets, fully clothed except for boots and belt. "Light on or off?"

"On," she said. "Please."

"Okay." Reaching out, he tugged her, blankets and all, into his arms. "Close your eyes and talk, Em. Tell me what you remembered. Tell me how you felt. Tell me how you feel about it right now."

For a little while she didn't say anything at all, but he understood her hesitation. The things that hurt the worst, the deepest wounds and scars, were the hardest to talk about.

They were also the ones a person most needed to put into words.

He stroked her back through the blankets from shoulder to hip, and once or twice he pressed a rea.s.suring kiss on her temple. To think he'd been a grown man before he had understood just how important it was to hold somebody close when they hurt. Before he had understood that a kiss and a hug could really heal some hurts.

"I'm mad," Emma said quietly.

"I should certainly think so," he rumbled soothingly.

"I'm furious."

"Maybe mad enough to kill." He felt her hand tighten into a fist on his chest.

"Maybe," she agreed hoa.r.s.ely. "Oh, Gage, how could anyone do such things? How could anyone...?"

"How could anyone hurt you like that?" he completed. "Beats the h.e.l.l out of me, Emma. It always has and always will. Sometimes people are careless, and I can understand that, but deliberate violence-h.e.l.l, I don't understand it, either."

"He must have been sick."

"Probably."

She fell silent again, and except for the small movements her hands made against him, he would have thought she slept. He wondered if she had any idea that she was practically petting him, and thought not. She was locked in her memory. He remembered how obsessive it was possible to get with each piece as it surfaced, how you twisted it and turned it and tried to fit it into the jigsaw pattern that was beginning to emerge. How you tried to remember the missing pieces around that one recovered memory. How you feared what else might surface.

"He was wearing a mask," Emma said again, a long time later. She sounded calmer now. Felt calmer. Gage made her feel safe, and the brandy had taken the edge off her anxiety. "Why do you think he wore a mask?"

"I don't know. A precaution, maybe, in case someone saw him." Or maybe he didn't want Emma to recognize him? "What kind of mask was it?"

"One of those translucent Halloween things that looks almost like a real face." She shuddered and wiggled a little closer to him. "I could almost see him inside it. Almost. It's like if I could just focus a little more clearly, I'd be able to see him."

He ran his hand down her back again, soothingly, and then took the clip from her hair so he could burrow his fingers into it and ma.s.sage the tension from her scalp. "Don't push it, Emma. Believe me, it'll come in its own good time."

"I wish it would just go away."

"I know. I know." Yeah, he knew. He ached for her, ached for what she was going to face. And he found himself hoping that the blows to her head had concussed her enough that her memories of that night would always be incomplete. Some things should never be remembered. He knew all about those things, too. Emma stirred and started speaking again, her voice little more than a whisper.

"When ... when I woke up in the hospital, it was-I don't know how to describe it. It was as if-"

"As if you woke up in somebody else's body in the middle of somebody else's life," he supplied.

Slowly she turned her face up, and after a moment he looked down at her, meeting her concerned green eyes. "You do understand," she said with relief. "The last thing I remembered was being in cla.s.s, and suddenly I was in the hospital with my arms and legs in casts, and bandages... What about you?"

His hold on her tightened. It was something he tried not to remember, tried not to think about, but he felt he owed it to her. "I was pretty much out of it for a couple of days, I guess. I didn't remember the explosion. The last thing I remembered was ... well, right before it happened. It wasn't until a couple of weeks later that I started to recall. It was something I didn't want to do, either."

"Do you ... do you think there's any reason to remember? I mean, is there any point at all in remembering? Or is it all pointless?"

He'd wondered that himself and wasn't sure he'd ever gotten an answer. "I don't know, Em," he said finally. "Honest to G.o.d, I don't know. Maybe it's healing of some kind. I just don't know."

Compared to what she had forgotten, he had forgotten very little. Just a few minutes of time that he'd been able to paint with horrifying clarity in imagination. He hadn't needed to remember those moments, least of all the enraged, sick feeling when he had found he couldn't move and had lain there facedown, helplessly listening to his own screams and smelling his own flesh burn. Or the moment when a neighbor had come running and kicked snow on his back to put out the flames. Or the moment when they had lifted him onto the stretcher and he had seen the burned-out hulk of the car. The burned-out hulk of his life. Remembering those minutes had seemed so utterly pointless, except possibly to give reality to the loss. To engrave forever in stark clarity the moments when his life had ended.

"They told me about it when I woke up," Emma said. "They said I'd been attacked and beaten very badly. Both my arms and legs were broken, and I had a fractured skull. It wasn't until later that they told me he had stabbed me, too. He ... um ... carved some kind of symbol into my stomach."

"My G.o.d!"

"My father had it removed by a plastic surgeon before I even came out of the coma. You can hardly tell it was there now. It was ... um ... a ... a..." Suddenly she was gasping for air and clinging to him so hard that her nails dug into his skin even through the thick layer of his sweater. "A-a pentagram!"

Shock nearly froze Gage's blood. "My G.o.d, Emma, why didn't you tell me this morning?"

"B-because I forgot. I g-guess I'm good at forgetting. I just remembered that..."

He crushed her to him and gave up any hope of remaining detached or uninvolved with Emmaline Conard. He was involved already. Involved so deeply that his gut was burning with a hunger for revenge and his soul was aching with an impossible need to comfort.

There was no doubt now, he thought grimly. No doubt at all. She was being stalked.

And now Emma knew it, too.

The storm howled savagely outside, and the old house groaned and creaked before its onslaught. Emma had been asleep for hours now, and Gage sat up slowly, moving cautiously as he always did after staying in one position for very long.

"Don't go."

Emma's sleepy voice caused him to turn and look down at her. Her eyes were drowsy but open.

"I just need to go to the bathroom," he told her. "I'll be right back. Need anything?"

"Water, please."

"Coming right up."

What she needed, he thought as he left the bathroom and headed for the kitchen, was something to laugh about. Something to make her forget all the dark things for a little while. Trying to think of something, he took a minute to check all the locks and peek outside. Snow was drifting deeply against the cars in the driveway. Sure as shootin' n.o.body would be going anywhere in a hurry.

He filled a gla.s.s with ice water and took it back to Emma. She was sitting up, propped against the pillow, wide-awake now.

"Thank you," she said when he handed her the gla.s.s.

He sat on the edge of the bed, facing her, wishing he could remember a lousy joke or two, wondering, What now?

"You'll probably think I'm a great big chicken," she said shyly after a moment, "but I really don't want to be alone. Not since I remembered that ... pentagram."

"I don't think you're a chicken, Red. In fact, I was wondering how to tell you that I don't think you ought to be alone." She needed an archangel now, the real thing, one of the ones who were immortal and invincible and who couldn't succ.u.mb to temptation. Because she was a delectable sight right now, and he was in mortal danger of succ.u.mbing.

That beautiful red hair of hers spilled all over the pillow and gleamed in the lamplight. The nightgown, for all its thick flannel, framed her b.r.e.a.s.t.s in a way that left deliciously little to the imagination, and he didn't need to imagine anyway. Just last night he'd touched and kissed those b.r.e.a.s.t.s, had sucked on those raspberry nipples until she had groaned and clutched him close. No, he didn't need to imagine when reality was so much better than pretend.

He also didn't want to take advantage of her, so when she finished the water, he set the gla.s.s on the night table and returned to his position beside her-on top of the blankets. He was touched more than he wanted to admit when she immediately snuggled close, expressing her trust in the most convincing way possible. It played havoc with his willpower and made his body feel like one great big throbbing ache-and reminded him that he didn't want to betray her trust.

"I'm sorry," she said a little while later.

"Sorry? For what?"

"You need your sleep. It isn't fair to ask you to stay with me like this."

"Fair?" He repeated the word, tasting its bitterness. "Babe, fair is an invention of children and wishful fools."

The harsh way he spoke caused her to tense. He had terrible things in his past, too, she reminded herself. She hadn't thought about it before, but it must have been very difficult for him to listen to her tonight. After all, he, too, had painful memories, and everything she had said must have reawakened all that for him.

In fact, she told herself sternly, for much of this entire week she had been too absorbed in herself and her own inchoate ghosts to remember that this man was dealing with some pretty powerful ghosts of his own. Still vivid in her mind was the sight of the tear streaks on his face yesterday when she had found him, and equally vivid was the horrible twisting sensation she had felt in her belly when she had witnessed so starkly and unexpectedly his pain and grief.

There were things he hadn't told her, terrible things. She sensed them roiling in his mind, sensed them in the way he tried to wall himself off. It was awful to think that she might have stirred all those things up and made them fresh for him.

"No," she said presently, "life isn't fair, is it? But that doesn't mean we shouldn't do what we can to be fair."

"One small candle flame in the dark, huh?"

He sounded so cynical, so hard, and maybe in some ways he was, but Emmaline Conard knew there was more to him than that. Much more. Hadn't he been there for her each and every time she'd needed someone this week? Hadn't he readily hugged her and comforted her and listened to her? Wasn't he here right now, holding her through a long, dark night?

He said he'd been raised on the streets like a wild dog, but she found him to be one of the most humane people she had ever met. One of the most caring. Because it took caring to take the risks he had taken as an undercover agent in memory of a long-dead brother. To take those risks to make the world a safer place for people you didn't even know. It took caring to feel the kind of grief she had seen in his eyes yesterday.

And you didn't need walls when you didn't have anything to protect.

Slowly she tipped her face up and leaned backward, trying to see his face. After a moment he looked down at her and their eyes locked, hers green and soft, his dark and stormy. Ever so slowly, feeling as if she were mired in mola.s.ses, she reached up and pressed her soft palm to his scarred cheek.

She spoke quietly, achingly, a catch in her voice. "You've been hurt so badly."

"So have you." He tried to sound indifferent. He tried to feel indifferent. Somehow he couldn't. This woman's caring was shining sadly in her eyes, and the touch of her palm on his hideously disfigured cheek was a blessing he hadn't understood he wanted until this very moment. He tried to pull away, but somehow he couldn't do that, either. He couldn't even move the couple of inches that would take his cheek from her hand.

She held him captive with a single, simple touch.

Emma saw the tension come to his eyes, felt it creep into his muscles as he lay still beside her. He continued to hold her, but something was happening. Something was making him look wary, like a dog that's been kicked once too often, then shies away from the very touch it wants.

She felt that look in the very depths of her being, felt that wary yearning as a reflection of her own deepest fears and needs. All these years she'd been avoiding what she most wanted for fear she might get kicked again. All these years she had been alone because she didn't dare not to be.

Wasn't that incredibly stupid?