She went out on the deck, saw Lelo and the dog playing throw it/fetch it, and stood, just for a moment, looking out at the blue and the green she'd made her own.

She didn't have to tell herself she'd do whatever she had to do to keep it. She already knew.

Twenty-eight.

She didn't know the other agents in their dark suits and sunglasses, but she doubted they were much different from the ones who had swarmed over the house, the woods in West Virginia seventeen years before.

She hadn't stood with them, as she did now, but had watched the news reports in the safe house when her mother slept.

Now she wasn't a child; now it was her house, her ground.

So she brought out cold drinks and started a jug of sun tea on the deck because it reminded her of summers in New York and how Harry had added mint from his kitchen garden.

She didn't interfere, didn't ask questions-yet-but she was present.

If somehow he watched, through a long lens, through field glasses, he would see that she was present.

Sam Winston stepped over to her, adjusted his ball cap. "I'm sorry about this, Naomi. The fact is somebody could've taken advantage of the house being empty just to satisfy curiosity. Point Bluff's got a lot of people curious."

"But you don't think that."

He inhaled through his nose. "I think we're going to take every precaution and turn over every stone. The FBI has people who can study those footprints, give us a sense of height, of weight, give us the shoe size, even the make. If this is who we're looking for, he made a mistake."

"Yes, he did."

Maybe not the same mistake the chief meant, Naomi thought. He'd made one by coming into what was hers. He'd made one by helping her pump that anger over the fear.

She went over to Lelo's truck. They'd be sending him away-as they had the others who'd come to work. She'd get the plants, at least take them around to the containers.

When she found none, she decided Lelo had taken them around for her already. With the dog again on a leash to keep him from rolling over the evidence, she took him around the far side of the house with her, and onto the deck.

Tears swam when she saw the flats and pots lined up on the deck, and her own garden gloves, spade, and rake beside them.

"He's a sweet man," she told the dog. "Remind me to stock some Mountain Dew. That's our Lelo's drink."

Though Tag objected, she tied the leash to a picket. "You need to stay with me, let them do what they have to do around front." To soften the insult, she got him a bowl of water, a biscuit.

Then she crouched, rubbing the spot between his ears that made his eyes roll back in bliss. "Was it you? Did you chase him off-big, fierce dog? Did some good fairy put you on the side of the road that day for me?" She laid her head on his. "Did you scare him as much as he scared you? Well, we're not going to let him scare us. We're going to take a bite out of him, you and me, if he tries it again."

She pressed her lips to his muzzle, looked into his wonderful eyes. She'd fallen in love with the dog, just as she'd fallen in love with Xander. Against her better judgment.

"There doesn't seem to be a thing I can do about it."

She rose, then walked to her pretty new containers to plant.

Xander found her tamping the dirt around a tomato plant while the dog stretched out full-length in the sun, half snoozing.

"They're pretty much done out there, and said there's no reason the landscapers couldn't get back to it tomorrow. Kevin's crew, too."

"That's good. That's fine." She picked up a pepper plant. "Do you know why I'm doing this?"

"It looks obvious, but tell me."

"Besides the obvious, I'm planting these herbs and vegetables. I'm going to water them, watch them grow, watch the vegetables flower and watch the tomatoes and peppers form. I'll harvest them and eat them, and it all starts with what I'm doing right here. It's a statement. I need to do some research, but I think you can plant things like kale and cabbage in the fall."

"Why would you?"

"I can make some very good and interesting dishes with kale and cabbage."

"You're going to have to prove that to me."

She kept planting while he went in, came out, and stood watching her.

"He ran away," Xander began, and she nodded.

"Yeah, I saw that."

"Saw what?"

"The footprints. You don't have to be an expert to conclude, or at least speculate. The ones going toward the house, toward the side are different from the ones leading away. Leading away they're farther apart, and with a kind of skid-moving fast, even running.

"I bet he strolled around the back here. The son of a bitch. Cocky, confident. I don't know if he'd intended to break in or just look, but he wasn't feeling cocky and confident when he left. The dog scared him."

Tag thumped his tail at her quick glance.

"I think he came around here, and would've gone in if the door hadn't been locked-or maybe planned to get in anyway, but the dog scared him off, defending his territory. Defending what's ours."

"You ought to know that the scenario you just outlined is the one those trained feds and cops outlined a few minutes ago. It's how they see it."

"Well, aren't I fucking clever?"

He arched an eyebrow. "I think so."

"I'm so pissed off. I should probably level that out before I plant any more. I don't think you should plant living things when you're so incredibly pissed off. You'll probably end up with bitter tomatoes."

She yanked off her gloves, tossed them down. "He used her again, Xander. He used Donna, used the fact that everyone who's usually here would be at her funeral. That makes me sick inside."

"Then think of this instead. That stray, that dog who wandered from place to place as much as you used to, stuck, like you stuck. And scared the bastard off. He didn't leave here strolling, Naomi, just like you said. He left with his heart knocking and his knees shaking."

"Damn right, he did. Damn right," she repeated, and strode up and down the deck. "If he tries it again, he won't get to leave, heart knocking, because he's going down bloody. If he thinks I'm an easy mark, that he can come for me whenever he damn well pleases, he miscalculated."

"I get the value of mad, as long as it doesn't walk with stupid and careless."

She whirled to him, eyes dark green fire. "Do I look stupid and careless?"

"Not so far."

"And that's not going to change." She calmed a little, told herself to keep the mad in a back corner until she needed it. "Do you think Kevin and Jenny can get a sitter? I'd like them to come over, I want to tell them sooner rather than later, but not with their kids around."

"I'll make it happen, if you're sure."

"I am."

"What time?"

"Whatever works for them will work for me. I'm going to finish these containers, clean up, so any time that works for them."

- Where did you confess your blood ties? Naomi wondered. The scarcity of furniture in the living and sitting rooms made that difficult. Sitting around the dining room table on folding chairs seemed too uncomfortable.

She opted for where she herself felt most relaxed and brought more chairs out to what she thought of as the kitchen deck.

"Do you want me here?" Mason asked her.

"You have work?"

Did she serve food? Naomi wondered. What sort of canape suited the moment, for God's sake?

My father's a serial killer. Try the crab balls.

"I mean, of course you have work, but something specific?"

"The team's meeting for a briefing, but I can catch up with it if you want me here. This is hard for you."

"Why hasn't it ever been as hard for you?"

"I wasn't in the woods that night. I didn't go down into that cellar. I didn't find Mom. She was his last victim."

"You never were."

She remembered that day in the coffee shop, after she'd bolted from the movie theater. How young he'd been, and how strong and steady.

"You resolved so early on not to be, to be everything he wasn't. And however much I denied it, ignored it, shoved it back, I let myself be his victim. I'm done with that. Go to the briefing. Find a way to end this, Mason."

She put a tray together-cheese, flatbread crackers, olives. It kept her busy until Xander got back from a roadside call and Mason left.

"Do you know how many people don't pay attention to, or just don't believe the fuel gauge?"

"How many?"

"More than you think, so they end up paying more than double what the gas would've cost in the first place, so they bitch about that-like you should make the service call as a fricking favor. Are these any good?"

Look at him, she thought, heading toward scruffy again. Annoyed with some stranger who'd neglected to get gas, unsure what to make of sesame and rosemary flatbread. Idly scratching the dog's head as he decided whether to risk the fancy.

"You brought me lilacs."

He looked over, frown deepening. "Yeah. Was I supposed to do that again?"

"Sometime. But you brought me lilacs in an old blue pitcher. That was when."

"When what?"

Not really listening, she thought. She'd grown up with a brother. She knew when a male wasn't really listening.

All the better.

"You told me when, and I'm telling you."

"Okay."

"Stolen lilacs in an old blue vase."

"It wasn't that big a deal."

"You're wrong. It was a very big deal, the biggest of my life, because that's when. That's when, Xander, I knew I was in love with you. I didn't know what to do about it," she said as-oh, he was paying attention now-his gaze snapped to hers, hot blue and intense. "I've never felt what I feel for you before, never believed I could feel it, so I didn't know what to do about it. I have a better idea now."

"What's the better idea?"

"To be glad you're in love with me, too. To be grateful, really grateful it happened now after I'd already realized it was time to stop running. Or at least try to. To be happy it happened here where we both want to be. And to hope. To be brave enough to hope you'll want to stay with me here."

"Lilacs?"

"Lilacs."

"Lelo needs to work one into his design."

"It's going out back, so we can see it from the deck. I told him I wanted to plant it myself."

"We'll plant it."

Her throat closed; her eyes brimmed. "We'll plant it."

He stepped to her, caught her face in his hands. "I'm moving in. You're going to have to make room."

The first tear spilled over. "There's plenty of room."

"You say that now." He kissed the tear away, then the second as it trailed down her other cheek. "Wait until I tell Kevin to build a garage."

"A garage."

"A guy's got to have a garage." He brushed his lips to hers. "Three-car garage, north side of the house, put a side door on the laundry room."