"What is it?"

"A thank-you. For the mad dash to the hospital. For saying you were my wife so I wasn't left alone.

And an apology for the ones that were ruined," he added cryptically.

Then he was gone, leaving her alone to open her palm. And there he had left a tiny wild pink rose made of glass.

Chapter Twelve.

Julia had three very bad qualities. Or so her father had been fond of telling her.

She was overly curious, easily bored, and patently rebellious. Growing up with her dad after her mother died had only fanned the flames of her personality. But while she and her father had butted heads whenever he was home, she had always known he loved and cared for her. And while he was gone a lot of the time, he never once forgot her birthday. No matter where he was in the world, he always remembered to send her flowers. Red roses. Not her favorite, granted, but it was the thought that counted.

With her birthday looming just around the corner, Julia was all too aware that this would be the first year ever that she wouldn't receive roses.

Her throat tightened. She didn't care about the roses. She just wished she'd get to see her dad again.

Even once. Even for half a second. Just so she could tell him she loved him.

She had always taken it for granted that he understood. Just as she had always known he loved her. But now she wondered. If he had loved her so much, why had he been so careless with his life? And why would he leave her with so much debt?

She didn't care about the money, just as she didn't care about the roses. But she cared that her father didn't seem to care for her as much as she had thought.

Which was ridiculous. He had cared. Those roses had been proof that he thought about her and wanted her to know that he loved her. And surely he had known how much she loved him.

She knew Ben wondered why she was so determined to change. Why now? Her father's death didn't seem to be answer enough. And of course it wasn't that simple. She had been wild and willful for as long as she remembered. After her father's death she felt the need to be ... better.

She rolled the glass rose around in her palm.

It was beautiful, tiny, and delicate. And unexpected, coming from Ben.

She finished up in the kitchen, turned out the light, then headed for the opposite side of the house. Ben's

light was on. She told herself to keep going, but like a moth drawn to a flame she knocked.

"Come in."

She peeked around the door. Ben sat at the desk, the laptop computer going. At the sight of her he sat

back and smiled.

"What can I do for you?" he asked.

She shrugged, then entered. "I love the rose."

"I'm glad."

"It was really considerate of you."

"It was the least I could do. I wish I could have saved that damned rosebush."

She held back a grimace at the reminder of the plant that was drying up and dying. Despite his wound,

and despite all her protesting, Ben had tried to replant it. But the poor bush was wilting like it didn't know how to hang on after getting torn from its nice comfortable place.

She shrugged instead. "It's just a bush."

He tilted his head and studied her. She figured he was too smart by half and might start asking questions she didn't want to answer about that bush.

"What are you not working on now?" she asked, with a teasing smile.

It took a second, but finally he blinked, then looked back at the screen. "Just the same old, same old,"

he offered. "The same old nothing."

"At least you're consistent."

As usual, Ben looked great in jeans and a T-shirt despite the November cold. He appeared a zillion times

better than he had a week ago, but he still didn't seem like he was a hundred percent.

Standing, he walked over to retrieve his boots, then returned to the chair to pull them on. She could tell

he swallowed back a grimace of pain. When he stood again and slipped into his leather jacket, she looked at him in confusion.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"I've got some things to take care of."

"Things?" She jammed her hands on her hips. "You're going out?"

"Yep."

"Is someone picking you up?"

"Nope."

She shook her head as if she could shake comprehension into it. "You're driving yourself?"

"Yep."

"Did you ask the doctor about this?"

"Nope."

With a screech, she skewered him with a glare. "Yep, nope, yep, nope-can't you say anything else?"

"Nope."

She nearly launched herself at him. "The doctor said you had to wait until next week before you could

drive. So you need to wait until next week."

He continued to find his keys and wallet. "Sorry, cupcake, no can do."

"Which means you are going out, driving yourself, without consent from your doctor."

He stopped in the middle of sliding his wallet into his back pocket. "Good work, Nancy Drew. Now let's go out and have a cherry soda at Woolworth's."

"Funny."

"I aim to please."

By then, she stood by his computer, more to get out of his way than anything else. She gaped at what

she saw on the screen. "A dating site? You're surfing a dating site?"

That got a reaction from him, though not a good one. All that dark moodiness came surfacing in his eyes like a tsunami heading for the shore.

But just as quickly as the intensity had flared, he held it back. "Yep, dating sites."

Her eyes narrowed. "Why do you need dating sites? Why not date any one of your slew of admirers?"

"I've told you, none of them are for me."

"And a stranger on a dating site is?"

"You never know." He winked at her. "Hope springs eternal."

She hated the foolish anger she felt, anger that she had been moved by the dinner they had shared and by

thinking he was kinder and deeper than she had believed. But no, she reminded herself, he wasn't deep. He was a man who got himself shot coming out of a bar and now was heading out for some kind of late-night rendezvous with a woman he'd found on the Internet.

Only a half hour after he had given her that rose!

He reached around her, logged off the computer, then headed out.

"Fine. Drive, date, find some wacko stranger online. But don't come crying to me when you're back in

the emergency room or ... or ... dead."

He cocked his head, then came back to her, stopping so close that the tips of his boots nearly touched

the tips of her sneakers. There went her pulse. There went all that liquid heat pooling in places she was trying to keep out of her mind. "Who would have guessed that Julia Boudreaux would ever be jealous? And over me," he added, the words a sensual caress of sound.

"Dream on, Prescott. I'm not jealous, I'm disgusted."

She barely got the words out of her mouth before he leaned close. She could tell he was going to kiss