Judith nodded. "The only two people who even come close to date have been Elle Drake's husband, Jackson, and even more dark is Joley's husband, Ilya Prakenskii. This man, this Levi Hammond, honestly, Rikki, he scares me."

Rikki forced air through her lungs, anger welling up in spite of her belief that they were right about Lev. She didn't like that they were saying aloud what she was thinking. He was violent. She couldn't argue with that, but that wasn't all there was to him-and they had given her a chance. Lord only knew if she was worthy of it. They were all convinced she didn't start fires, but who, besides her, had four homes burn down, two with people she loved in them?

Lissa put a gentle hand on Rikki's shoulder. "He went out the window like a pro. He's fast and silent, and I'm betting very efficient, but he was definitely in protection mode. He'd be handy out in her boat, or any other place for that matter."

Rikki shot her a grateful look. "If we're going to stay in this room, all together, I have to open the front door." There were beads of sweat dotting her forehead and her chest felt on fire, as if she was already desperate for air. She swore she could smell smoke.

"I'll get the door," Lissa assured. "You sit down before you fall down. Maybe Blythe can get you water."

Rikki shook her head. "Everyone should stay together." She looked around. "Do you smell smoke? My eyes are burning."

Judith passed the glass of water to Lissa. "There's no smoke, Rikki. Take a drink. You'll feel much better."

Rikki inhaled deeply, trying to draw in air, terrified that she was reliving a nightmare that would never go away. Her feet and calves burned, a fierce, bone-wrenching pain. The scars had seemed a little less tight, but now they hurt as if newly formed. Usually they ached when she walked, the tight skin resisting stretching. Underwater she didn't have the problem-she even forgot about the scars until she was back on land.

Her house had been purposely designed so that she could look from the kitchen door, straight through her house all the way through the bedroom door that led to the back of the house. There were doors in almost every room leading to the outside, a safety net should there be a fire. She had wanted sprinklers, but with her penchant for nightmares and calling out for water, her house would have been destroyed in the first few months of occupation. She chose the chair she'd placed in her living room where she could see every door. The kitchen had only the screen door closed, so she had a good view of the outside.

"Lissa, open the front door and the back bedroom door, please," Blythe said. When Rikki started to protest, Blythe put a gentle hand on her. "She'll be in sight the entire time and she's very safe around fire. Your screen doors are dark so no one can see in but we can see out. You'll feel so much safer with the doors open. We'll all watch for anyone close to the house."

"I'll call Jonas," Airiana announced, reaching for the phone.

Rikki shook her head. "No. Not yet. I don't want to talk to him. I'm too stressed and I don't know if I could handle it. Let Levi see what's out there. Maybe it's my imaginaton." She huddled in the chair, drawing her feet up off the floor, rubbing at her burning scars.

Lissa opened the back bedroom door and stopped to get Rikki's weighted blanket. "Take this, honey."

Rikki didn't see how cowering under her blanket was going to stop her from feeling guilty. She should be outside, helping Lev.

"He shouldn't be out there alone. He's hurt, Lissa. He really hit his head. He's had a terrible concussion. That's why I let him in the house. Someone had to take care of him."

The women exchanged relieved glances and Rikki realized that made sense to them, that she would bring him home to take care of him.

"You should have told us," Blythe said gently. "We could have helped you."

"I didn't want anyone else in the house," she muttered. That would make sense to them as well. They knew she was extremely leery of having anyone inside her house.

She looked around her at the faces looking back at her with so much open affection. "You thought he was using me, didn't you?"

There was an awkward silence. "He's gorgeous," Blythe said. "Any woman would take one look at him and fall at his feet."

"You mean like Judith and Airiana did?" The scent of smoke was fading as her mind cleared, slowly releasing her from the grip of a full-blown panic attack. She turned her gaze back to the outdoors. She wouldn't-could'nt-be comfortable with the people she loved gathered under one roof, so she would have to pull herself together in order to keep them safe. "Or just me? I'm not desperate for a man, you know. I'm quite happy here without one."

"Rikki, no one is saying you're desperate for a man," Judith objected, her voice every bit as gentle as Blythe's. "There are predators in this world, and they look for certain traits in women so they can use them."

"Certain traits?" Rikki sat up straighter, the scent of smoke dissipating altogether as her temper kicked in. "Just what are you saying?" She glared at them all. "No man is going to want to be with me because I'm so different? You think I don't already know that?"

"That's not what I said," Judith replied. "Nor do I think it's true."

"Yes, you do," Rikki said. "I think it, so why shouldn't you? I don't care. That's the important thing here. I honestly don't. I'm happy. I have a life. I don't like other people around touching my things. He used my dishes this morning. He doesn't eat peanut butter. Sheesh. He wants on my boat."

Blythe folded her arms and sat back in her chair. "Let's think about this."

"Let's not," Rikki said. "As soon as he's feeling better, he's gone. No one has to worry about whether or not I'm going to be so desperate for a man's attention that I let him use me." She glanced up at Judith. "Or abuse me, if that's what you're implying."

Judith shrugged. "You can get as angry as you want with me, Rikki, but if you think I'm going to back off from protecting my sister from a predator, you can just get over it. That man is no lamb. He's got teeth, and he's dangerous. It's not some small shadow surrounding him. He lives with violence."

Judith always managed to disarm her with affection. And Rikki couldn't very well deny that Lev was a violent man. He'd put a knife to her throat and he was a walking weapon. But they'd given her a chance, and she saw something in him that apparently Judith and Airiana couldn't see. She saw past those shadows to something altogether different. But how could she explain what she didn't understand?

"I know what he's like, Judith. You have to trust me this time. He's much more than the protection he's wrapped himself in." Rikki looked up at the one person she knew she'd have to convince. Judith always amazed her with her insight into people. She was calm, where Rikki was stormy. She chose her words carefully, while Rikki often blurted out a response, if she bothered at all. "I'm asking as a personal favor to me that you give him a chance, Judith."

Judith sank down in front of Rikki and took both of her hands. "Tell me why you feel so strongly about him, honey. Make me understand."

Rikki shook her head. "I'm not like you. I'm not good with words. But I know him. I know him better than he knows himself. I see him. I can't tell you how, but I do. He needs us. All of us. We have to help him. He's lost-just like I was."

The women exchanged wary looks.

Judith sighed. "You were never violent, Rikki."

"You don't know that. You don't. You took it on faith that I didn't start those fires, but even I don't know for certain. It makes sense. Everyone else believes I did. And don't think Jonas Harrington hasn't had his suspicions about me. He watches me. I've seen him. You gave me a chance when there was no reason to and I'm asking you to do the same for him."

"And if you're wrong?" Blythe said.

"I'll keep him away from the rest of you. I'll be the only one in danger."

Judith shook her head. "Absolutely not acceptable. I'm sorry, baby, but if you take the risk, we all do."

Rikki looked around her. Each of the others nodded solemnly. There was no dissenting vote. It was up to her. How strongly did she feel about Lev? She barely knew the man. She rubbed the pad of her thumb over the center of her palm.

"Why are you doing that?" Airiana asked.

Rikki frowned. "What?"

"You're rubbing your palm. You've never done that before."

Airiana was frightening in her observation of detail. Rikki shrugged and turned her palm over, pressing it against her jeans. "No reason. I'm just confused about all this. I want to give Levi a chance."

Blythe glanced at the others and then nodded. "We're with you then."

10.

LEV opened the window in the bedroom, grateful it slid up silently. Whoever was watching Rikki-and how the hell had they found her?-had some kind of psychic power. He'd felt the shift in energy. It hadn't been particularly powerful, but he noticed the two women who he had determined were the most sensitive to psychic forces had been the only ones really affected. Rikki had been with him all week, holed up in her house, so if this was about her, there had to have been a trail leading to her. And if it was about him ... Well, no one was going to hurt her or the others because of his dubious past.

He did a rolling somersault, coming up on one knee, allowing a couple of seconds to orient himself in the surrounding terrain. The few minutes he'd managed to stay up he'd spent studying the house and the immediate acreage around it. He'd committed the map of the farm to memory so he was fairly certain he could find his way around, but it was imperative he scout Rikki's five acres as soon as possible. He needed to know every shrub and tree, every hollow. Where the tall grass was that might conceal someone. Everything. Especially if he was going to make his home here.

That brought him up short. What was he thinking? Living here? With Rikki? Men like him didn't have homes. They didn't have loved ones. Those things were liabilities to his kind. He'd been trained to move, to shed his identity fast and assume another one just as quickly. That was life. Trying to be someone was a certain road to death.

He moved as fast as his pounding head would allow him. Each jolt sent a dagger through his skull. His stomach lurched. He knew his head injury had been worse than he'd first imagined, but it was healing. He was speeding the process along as best he could, and now he needed to be at full operating capacity. He made his way up the terraced flower beds and began working his way over toward the northern side of her property up toward the tree line.

Sid Kozlov was dead. Did that mean Lev Prakenskii was as well? An image of Rikki's little frown filled his head. A few times, when he couldn't sleep and he just lay there beside her, aching, wishing, he fantasized that she was his. That the world he was in was real. Maybe this was his one chance. It was a miracle he'd survived the sinking of the yacht. Another miracle, that although he'd been slammed into the rocks by a powerful wave, he'd lived through it. And Rikki. She was the real miracle, with her quirky ways and her eyes that could see beyond his armor and straight to something he'd thought long gone.

Damn. He wanted her. He wanted this life. He wanted it to be real. Were there second chances? It was possible he'd have to walk away, but before he did, Rikki Sitmore was going to be safe. She would know that she didn't start fires in her sleep. She would know she hadn't killed her parents or fiance, nor had she burned down the homes of her foster parents.

As he made his way through the trees, he tried to figure out what it was about her that appealed to him so much. Passion. She was passionate about everything she did. Everything she was. Who she was. He was fairly certain she had some form of autism, yet she had carved out a life for herself in spite of all the odds and she made it her own. She was the sea she loved so much, moody, joyful, playful, and at times stormy and wild. He was ice-cold, a passionless floe out in the arctic seas, alone and struggling for survival.

He had faced death every day of his life and never once had he flinched. He'd seen things that no man should ever have to see. He'd made decisions no man should ever have to make. Some might call him courageous, yet compared to Rikki, he saw himself as a coward. She took hold of life and lived it, in spite of her limitations. She forced herself out of her comfort zone for those she loved, while he stayed in his, behind his wall of armor, behind his survival instincts and his vast training.

He wanted life-with her. With Rikki. He wanted to lie awake at night and feel her next to him. He wanted to hear her breathing while she slept. He wanted to know that she couldn't tolerate anyone else in her bed-only him. He wanted to see her frown and the flash of her eyes, hear her breathing change right before he kissed her. They had a connection he didn't understand, but it didn't matter even though everything else in his life had to make sense. She didn't. She just was. And that was enough and that was everything.

He glanced up at the sky, watching until he spotted a hawk in the outer branches of a fir tree. He closed his eyes and summoned the predator, pushing it to take flight. Its talons dug into the branch for just a moment of resistance before the hawk spread its wings and glided into the air. The hawk began the search with a tight pattern, widening each circle as it took in a larger and larger radius.

Images poured into Lev's brain, but none of them were of what he was searching for. He released the hawk with a small nod of thanks, knowing even before he came up on the spot where he knew the intruder had been that the man was already gone. He still moved carefully, wanting to preserve evidence. The watcher had been much lighter than Lev. The storm had left the soil damp and there were impressions everywhere. Crushed grass and sunken boot prints, but not too deep, indicating a lighter build. The man was tall, though, because the needles had been knocked off several branches of the tree he'd been standing under at about an inch or so below Lev's height.

He liked fire. As Lev examined the ground, he had no doubts in his mind that this was the man who had stalked Rikki since she was thirteen, starting the fires that had destroyed her loved ones. Tiny bits of grass were burned in small clumps, as if, while idle, the man had started tiny fires to amuse himself. How long had he been up there? There were four cigarette butts and seven places where the grass was burned. Fortunately the entire area was soaked so there was little chance that the fire would have gotten out of hand, but Lev could see the potential for disaster. Fire generally burned uphill, but that didn't mean the stalker wasn't contemplating a massive strike.

Lev studied the house from this position. Rikki was in the habit of sitting on her kitchen porch each morning and having her coffee. There was a clear line of sight to the porch. The stalker could have been here observing her often, but Lev doubted it. There was no evidence that visits to this particular spot had occurred at any other time.

He tracked the boot prints through the trees back to the road. The man had scouted along the ridge, but he hadn't gone off the narrow deer trail. Lev didn't have the feeling the stalker was experienced in the woods. He'd avoided deeper woods and didn't try to go through heavier brush. He was no professional hit man. This wasn't about a contract. But how could it be personal when the trouble had started when Rikki was only thirteen?

Lev cast around for more signs, but as far as he could tell, whoever was watching her had only come this one time and had stood in the grove of trees above her house, watching long enough to smoke four cigarettes. Lev hadn't caught the smell of smoke, but the wind had been blowing toward Blythe's home.

"Next time," he whispered aloud. He knew with absolute certainty there would be a next time, but he'd be more prepared.

Rikki had set up security around her immediate home. She'd installed an amazing widespread sprinkler and water system throughout her yard and the farm. But she had no surveillance on the property anywhere. He would have to change that. He found where the stalker had parked the truck-not a car-and took note that the back tire was worn. He should have sent the hawk toward the road first.

"Next time," he repeated, and searched for more signs, trying to get a good picture of the man responsible for several murders.

He liked fire. There was no doubt in Lev's mind the stalker had been playing with it while he waited-almost absently playing with it. Fire intrigued him. Maybe the man even needed the crackling bright flames like some addiction-or maybe in the same way Rikki needed water. Elements attracted one another. Could she have run across another element as a child and this was a bizarre war she didn't even know she was in?

He turned the idea over in his mind. He had to find a way to get her to talk to him about the events leading up to the fire, the days and weeks before the fire. The event was so traumatizing he doubted if she remembered much before that. And right now, he wanted to lie down for a good ten hours and try to keep his head from falling off. Unfortunately, he had a lot of work to do before he could rest.

With a small sigh, he made his way back to her home-the home he wanted for himself. He found his gut tightening, hard knots developing, which was a little shocking. He wasn't exactly a tense man, but then he'd never had anything this big at stake. He wanted to see her eyes when he walked through the door. Rikki could hide a lot of things behind her still face, but she couldn't hide anything she felt behind those dark, liquid eyes.

Tension didn't suit him. He was a man who cared little about the pleasures in life. He had been programmed nearly from birth to do a job-exterminate the enemy. There had been no other way of life for him. His emotions should have been gone-had been. He killed coldly and efficiently, just as his handlers had taught him. There was no room for emotion. Emotion meant mistakes and mistakes meant death. His life was in the hands of Rikki Sitmore and she didn't even realize it. Because if this didn't work out and he made a mistake, they would send everyone after him and they'd never stop until he was dead. But who the hell were "they"?

He glided onto the kitchen porch in silence before turning back to take a slow sweep of the surrounding trees. Closing his eyes, he reached out, sending his call to the birds foraging or making their homes in the trees. Hear me. Watch. Call to me when we are disturbed. He waited another moment until he felt the positive response. The network of spies and sentries would grow. Once he could show them what to look for, a single vehicle he wanted watched or, better yet, the actual man, he would have an unbeatable alarm system.

He stood in the doorway, his shoulders filling the entrance to Rikki's house-home. He inhaled, drawing the scent of it into his lungs. She was sitting in a chair with a clear view of the screened door, and he noted vaguely, somewhere in the back of his mind, how clever the design of the house had been, but he was utterly still inside, waiting for her to look up. Waiting to see his fate in her eyes.

He wasn't a praying man-men like him hoped there was no God to judge them, but he couldn't help the silent appeal stealing into his mind. Let her choose me. He'd chosen her with her quirky ways and her adorable frown. And God help him, he wanted to see that right now because it would mean she was serious. He wanted her to be serious about him.

She looked up, her eyes locking with his and his heart stopped. Everything in him went still. Settled. Anchored there in her dark gaze. She was worried. She was relieved. She was happy to see him. There was no smile, no outward sign, but all he needed was in the depths of her eyes. He stepped inside and closed only the screen door. Too many people together in the house made her crazy, and maybe that would never change. He didn't care if it ever did, as long as she could close the doors with him inside and she had that look in her eyes.

Lev smiled as he walked the short distance to her, through the kitchen and straight down the hall into the living room. He ignored her sisters, taking both her hands in his and pulling her close until he could wrap his arms around her and hold her tight against his chest. He needed the closeness more than she did right then. He wasn't used to his emotions being so close to the surface.

He registered Judith and Airiana exchanging a surprised and rather pleased expression, just as he noted the position of everyone in the room, the escape routes and the potential weapons. Observation was his way of life and that would never change, even though he was determined that Sid Kozlov and Lev Prakenskii were dead and buried for all time. He was never going to be anyone but what those nameless faces in his past had made him.

"I was worried," she murmured and reached up to trace his honed features.

"You shouldn't have been," he answered. You can always reach out and I'll answer.

Color swept into her face and she glanced back at the circle of interested faces. "Well, I was worried," she told her sisters a little belligerently.

Blythe nodded. "We can see that."

"I take it no one was out there," Lissa said. She didn't sound as if she believed that.

"Someone had been," Lev said. He needed to sit down before he fell down.

As if reading his mind, and maybe she was, Rikki took his arm and led him to the recliner, gently pushing him into it.

"I won't give you a lecture about wearing shoes in the house," she said. "This time."

"Sorry, lyubimaya." He leaned his head back because he couldn't help it. It felt good to be off his feet. He hadn't realized just how dizzy he was. "I'll remember."

"Tell me," Lissa insisted.

"He's a fire lover," Lev confirmed. "And he was watching Rikki. He smokes Camels. There were several cigarette butts there. I didn't touch them. While he was watching, he started seven small fires, just playing, but the potential could be disastrous. Fortunately, everything is soaked from the storm."

Rikki sucked in her breath, the color draining from her face. "Do you think he plans to start a forest fire?"

Lev studied her sisters' faces even as he took her hand, his thumb sliding over the center of her palm, tracing small circles there. "I don't know what he plans to do. If he wants to destroy everyone Rikki cares about, then none of your homes is safe."

Lissa lifted her chin. "He'll have to fight all of us."

Rikki shook her head. "No. No way. If he's found me, then I'm getting out of here. I'm not taking chances with any of your lives. Who is he? Why is he doing this to me?"

"And if he didn't know where you were, which he couldn't have or he would have been starting fires before this, then how did he find you?" Lev asked.

"You aren't leaving," Blythe said. "We're in this together."

The other women nodded and Lev liked them all the more for their united stand.

Judith snapped her fingers. "The news. Rikki, you were on the news the other night. I meant to tell you about it."

Lev scowled, his fingers tightening around Rikki's hand. He tugged until she was up against the chair. "What the hell were you doing on television?"

She shook her head, looking confused. "I have no idea what she's talking about. How could I get on the news, Judith?"

"When you came to the village and I went into Inez's store to get the soup for you," Judith reminded her. "Remember the place was crawling with news reporters. You were standing outside by your truck and then there was another shot of you sitting on the bluff with the sea behind you, right out on the headlands."

"I didn't notice anyone filming me."