Zoe also hadn’t worn the little black dress. Because if the bingo dress reminded her of her failures, the LBD reminded her of the first time she’d been in Parker’s arms, and at the thought her resolve to go through with this nearly crumbled.

  She wasn’t ready to go on a date, and she knew it. But Kel had asked her to dinner and she needed to eat anyway, so she’d said yes. But she was determined to keep this casual, hence the dark jeans and a cute little knit top that gave her the aforementioned good boobs.

  “I’d be more excited,” Darcy said, “if the date was with the guy you fell in love with.”

  Parker had been a constant in her thoughts, but she’d made peace with all that had happened. She’d let it go.

  Okay, so she was pretending to let it go, but sometimes a girl had to fake it to make it. Easier said than done. She’d seen the cops drive by, checking on her, and she knew that was Parker’s doing. They were watching, making sure no one from Carver’s world came after her.

  She appreciated that but felt it unnecessary. She’d only been targeted because she meant something to Parker.

  And now that was no longer true. “We’ve been over this,” she said.

  “Right. You told him not to contact you, and that makes perfect sense.” Darcy nodded and then shook her head. “Wait—how does it make perfect sense again?”

  “His job—”

  Darcy snorted. “Screw the job. The job doesn’t matter. It’s about a guy’s character, his heart. And nothing says character and heart like a big, tough badass softening his hard edges for the woman he loves.” She spoke firmly, clearly knowing of what she spoke.

  And she did. She had AJ, a guy who loved Darcy for exactly who she was, warts and faults and all.

  Zoe loved that for Darcy, but she didn’t know if she’d ever be lucky enough to find such a thing for herself.

  The doorbell rang and she froze. Kel was here a few minutes early.

  Darcy gave her a long look. “Problem?”

  “Nope. Of course not. I’m just about ready . . .” Zoe looked around for something to do. Aha! Bonnie was struggling to get out of one of Zoe’s boots in the closet. Zoe rescued her, setting her on the bed next to where Oreo was snoozing. She then turned around, looking for the other heathen, and found him asleep on her T-shirt in the hamper.

  Parker’s T-shirt . . .

  Oreo lifted his sleepy head and licked his kitten with one huge tongue lap.

  Bonnie fell over.

  Oreo licked her again, and a rough, rumbling purr filled the room.

  “Good boy, Oreo,” Zoe said. “Watch the baby.”

  Darcy snorted. “You need real kids in the worst way,” she said.

  “Why would I need kids?” Zoe said. “I have you and Wyatt.”

  “You’re stalling,” Darcy said.

  Yes. Yes, she was. Determined, Zoe grabbed her purse and walked out. Her steps faltered as she passed the room where Parker had stayed. If she stepped inside and inhaled deeply, she could almost catch his scent, see him sprawled on the bed, smiling. Beckoning her with a finger crook . . .

  Closing her eyes, she turned away. They’d said all they had to say. Still, she had to rub the physical ache in her chest as she walked by. She hit the stairs, crossed the living room, and plastered a smile on her face.

  Then she opened the front door.

  Not Kel.

  It was Parker, hands up on the jamb above, looking tough and badass in mirrored lenses and no smile.

  Her heart skipped a beat. And then another. Not able to deal with what she was seeing, she placed her hands on his abs—rock hard, of course—and gave a little shove so that she could step out onto the porch and look around him to check the driveway.

  No Kel.

  “Looking for someone?” Parker asked her back.

  Her eyes drifted shut. She hadn’t seen him in a week, hadn’t heard his voice, but she was reacting to him as if he hadn’t left. “What are you doing here?”

  He didn’t answer until she turned to look at him. “Turns out, I forgot something,” he said.

  Thirty

  Parker’s heart had taken one good, hard knock against his ribs at the sight of Zoe, a punch to the system.

  “So what did you forget?” she asked, cool as a cucumber.

  Clearly she didn’t intend to make things easy on him. Zoe was a lot of things. Easy wasn’t one of them. Not that he deserved it, anyway. Nope, Zoe was tough on the outside, and though she’d deny it, on the inside she was sweet and warm and capable of such staggering emotion that she scared him to the bone. Right now, way on the inside. She wasn’t going to give an inch; she never did.

  He loved that about her. “You,” he said. “Zoe, I forgot you.”

  Not looking impressed, she crossed her arms. “I don’t buy it. You never forget a damn thing.” She looked at her watch. “And I don’t mean to be rude, but I’ve got plans.”

  “I get that. I had plans, too,” he said. “But things change.”

  She just stared at him. “What are you doing here, Parker?”

  It was a legitimate question, one that he’d asked himself only every hour or so since he’d last seen her.

  He’d gone home. Spent time with Amory. And with his parents. Things were going to be okay there; he’d been shocked and surprised. He’d been welcomed, and together they’d come up with a plan to allow Amory to have some more freedom. They’d all spent a whole twenty-four hours together and no one had raised their voice.

  Progress.

  From there it had been onward to D.C., where he’d gotten the shock of his life to find out he wasn’t fired. His job was still there if he wanted it. A month ago, hell yeah, he’d have wanted it, but he wasn’t that same guy. He’d never be that guy again. “I didn’t lose my job,” he said.

  She softened slightly. “I’m glad it worked out for you,” she said genuinely.

  “I resigned, Zoe.”

  She blinked. “What?”

  He’d walked away and then taken the job with the ATF. Right here in Idaho. He’d have cases much like he’d had for the FWS, but it would be regional. Close to home.

  He’d gone his entire adult life not wanting to be like his parents and yet in the end, that was exactly what he’d become. He’d visited with them for a day and realized something else—they had each other, always. He’d realized how much he wanted that, wanted to let someone in.

  Zoe.

  The job here with the ATF would challenge him and keep him on his toes, but there was a balance to be found between work and a personal life.

  And he’d found it.

  And then walked away from it.

  He’d been a boneheaded dumbass, and all he could do was hope that he wasn’t too late because when it came right down to it, all he really wanted was for Zoe to be his.

  And for him to be Zoe’s.

  The sound of a vehicle coming down the street had Zoe giving him another push. “You’ve got to go,” she said quietly. “I’ve got a date—”

  The car drove right by.

  “Kel’s not coming,” Parker said.

  “Why not?” She narrowed her eyes. “You messed it up somehow, didn’t you?” Giving up trying to push him away, she poked him in the pec. “You know that I manage to mess up these things all on my own. I don’t need your help. Dammit, I needed that date tonight, Parker. I needed it to get you off my mind. You had no right to—”

  “I’m your date, Zoe.”

  She blinked. “What?”

  “I’m your date tonight,” he repeated. And if things went okay in the next few minutes, he was hoping to be her date until the end of time.

  But she was shaking her head. “We don’t date. We just f—”

  He hauled her up to her toes and covered her mouth with his. He kissed her until she sagged against him, until she sank her fingers in his hair and wrapped herself around him with a soft moan that went straight through him. Only when they were both breathless did he pull back, just a fraction of an inch, because he needed to see her.

  “You walked away from me,” she said softly, her pain like a knife to his gut.

  “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.” He dropped his forehead to hers. “I wanted you to have the life you deserve, Zoe, not a guy who would come and go at the mercy of his job, who might not be reachable for long stretches of time or be able to help you if you needed him. I wanted you to have a guy whose job doesn’t come with the potential of criminals tracking him down and threatening the people he cares about.”

  “So you gave up the job for me?” she asked. “No. No, I can’t live with that, Parker, I—”

  He kissed her again, more softly this time. “I gave it up,” he said against her lips, “because I realized that without you in it, my life means squat.”

  She let out a low breath and poked him in the chest again. “But the job made you you.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to be the job anymore,” he said.

  She took that in. “What do you want to be?”

  “Yours.” Cupping her face, he stroked her jaw with his thumbs and looked her in the eyes. “I took the ATF job. I’ll be working right here in this county.”

  She sucked in a breath.

  “I was hoping you could live with that,” he said, wishing she’d say something. Anything.

  “What I want is to be with a guy who can let me decide what I can live with and what I can’t.”

  “I know,” he said. “And I intend to be that guy.”

  Another poke, this one even harder, but he manfully held in his wince.

  “Really?” she asked. “Because if you were that man, you’d already know that I could live with the travel that comes with a job you love. You’d know that I can live with being more security smart if that takes a weight off your mind. You’d know that what I can’t live with—” Her voice caught and she swallowed hard before sliding her fingers into his hair and fisting them there, holding his face to hers, “is being without you.”

  “I hear you,” he said softly. “And I can’t live without you, either.”

  A few tears spilled from her eyes and he felt like she’d stabbed him. “Zoe.” He reached for her but she backed away, swiping at the tears angrily before whirling on her heels and vanishing inside the house.

  He stared at the still-open door. What had just happened? He started to follow her, but suddenly Darcy was there blocking his way.

  “You’re back?”

  “How much did you hear of our conversation?” he asked.

  “All of it.”

  “Then you know I’m back,” he said.

  She studied him for a long beat. “So, you going to stand here all night or go after her? Wyatt said you were a sharp one, but I gotta say, not sure I see it.”

  Zoe turned on the oven and was heading straight for the freezer for the lasagna she’d made the day before when two big hands snaked around her. She was pulled into Parker. “Hey,” she said. “I need some cheese and trans fat, stat.”

  Parker whipped her around to face him and then proceeded to melt her brain with a blistering kiss. “I’ve got something better than trans fats.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  He smiled and pushed her hair back from her face in that warm, familiar gesture she loved. “I’m all in with you,” he said. “You know that, right? The good, the bad, the ugly, all of it.” He stared at her like he’d never get enough. “All in,” he repeated. “I love you, Zoe.”

  Oh God. Those words. She’d wondered if she’d ever hear them directed at her. Wyatt and Darcy loved her, to the bone, she knew that. But the three of them had grown up with parents who hadn’t used the words, and as a result none of them were all that good with them, either. She closed her eyes. Closed her mouth, too, because she was afraid to let anything out, afraid she’d humiliate herself.

  Parker merely adjusted, shifting so that his mouth slid over her earlobe to press a kiss there in the spot that he knew damn well melted her bones every single time. “You’re gonna have to talk to me eventually,” he murmured.

  “I’m confused on your need to talk at all,” she managed. “It’s unlike you.”

  “You’re right. But as I said, things change. I’ve changed.” He tipped her face up to his and looked into her eyes. God knows what he saw there. Most likely a good amount of stubbornness because his gaze lit with wry humor . . . and damn. She’d missed him so much. She had to bite her lip to keep the words. He wasn’t getting her words, none of them, not a single one.

  “Okay,” he said gently. “How about this instead—I’ll talk, you listen.”

  She lifted a shoulder, as if to say: Look at me not caring, even as her pulse pounded as though she’d been running uphill.

  He smiled; she could feel it against her jawline where he bent to nuzzle her, making her knees weak, damn him.

  “You’re right,” he murmured. “I’m not an open book, not even close. You’re not the only one who carefully guards their heart, Zoe. It’s my default mode and it’s going to take me some time to get this right. I’m going to need some patience here, and you might even have to smack me upside the back of the head once in a while.”

  “Only once in a while?” she asked.

  He set a finger on her smart-ass lips. “No, you’re just listening now, remember? I’m being as open and honest as I know how here, babe. With you more so than I’ve ever been with anyone else.”

  At that, she felt her heart melt more than a little. She stared into his eyes and saw that he spoke the truth. While her mind was spinning over that, he reached over and shut off the oven.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Just making sure we don’t burn the place down while we figure this out,” he said, and while she scrambled for something appropriately scathing to say, he apparently decided he was done standing. He kicked a chair away from the table and sank into it, pulling her down on top of him.

  “There’s nothing to figure out,” she said, the words not quite having the impact intended since she was straddling his lap. “I threw myself at you. And you shut yourself off from me. You were gone for a week. Seven damn days, Parker, and I spent every last one of them pining away for you.”

  A full, genuine smile curved his mouth at this. “Pining? You?”

  She crossed her arms, feeling pissy. “I didn’t mean that. Forget I said that.” She huffed out a breath. “I just missed you, dammit. A little.”

  He was still grinning when he gripped her hips in his big hands and yanked her in closer so that not even a piece of paper could fit between them. “You going to run scared?” he asked.

  She gaped at him. “You’re the one who let me go! You took off! You’re the big, fat baby here, not me.”

  He went very serious. “And I’ll regret that to my dying day, Zoe. I was an idiot, a complete dumbass. I know that now. I want to be a part of your life. If I’m being honest, I want to be the most important part.”

  “My life is in Sunshine,” she said.

  “I get that. I’m interested in having a home base, too, but you’ve got to know that the home base I’m thinking of is you. Not a house. Not a town. You. As long as you’re with me, I don’t care where we live. Now it’s your turn. You’ve got to give me something here, a crumb, anything. I’m a desperate man, Zoe.”

  She blew out a breath, feeling the last of her fear drain away as her heart bloomed and opened, warming her from the inside out. “You’re a better detective than this,” she said quietly. “I’ve managed to sabotage every single relationship that’s come my way except for the one I have with you. You’re the one I want. I love you back, Parker. Don’t ever doubt that.”

  “God, Zoe.” He touched his forehead to hers. “I don’t know what I ever did to deserve you, but I plan on spending the rest of my life proving to you I’m worth it.”

  It was the Parker James equivalent of begging on bended knee. She drew in a deep breath and then nearly had heart failure when Darcy stuck her head in the kitchen.

  “Sorry,” she said, not looking sorry at all. “But I have to get home and I don’t want to leave before the show’s over. Can we fast-track it to the ending?”

  Zoe stabbed a finger at the door and Darcy flashed a grin. “Fine. I’m out.” She took the time to point at Parker and then back at her own two eyes, mouthing I’ve got my eyes on you . . .

  When she was gone, Parker looked at Zoe. “My sister has nothing on nosiness compared to yours.”

  “Nope.”

  He gave her a little smile. “She loves you.”

  “Yep.” Zoe squeezed him tight. “Where were we?”

  “You were about to spill your guts to me,” he said.

  “I’m glad you came back,” she said. “Took you long enough.”

  “I tried not to come back,” he said with a low laugh. “Christ, I tried.”

  “I know.” With a little laugh of her own, she rested her head on his chest so she could admit this part without having to hold his gaze. “And I tried not to care.”

  His voice had a wry smile in it as he hugged her into him. “We deserve each other.”

  “Yes, we do.” His hands slid down her back to cup her ass, and she felt her body rev. She lifted her head. “Maybe we should go upstairs and give each other what we deserve.”

  They made it as far as the stairs before Zoe dragged him down on top of her, reaching for his zipper. “Thank God my sister left,” she said, freeing a most impressive erection.

  He was in the middle of stripping her naked, his hands everywhere. “Yeah, maybe we could not talk about your sister right now.”

  She smiled coyly. “What should we talk about?”

  He pulled her over him and shoved her hair from her face. “How I’ve been yours since the second we met.”

  She felt her throat tighten, but still she tried to make light. “You mean when I mistakenly kissed you on my porch?”

  Poised to enter her, he stopped and cupped her face, staring into her eyes, not letting her joke this away. “Best damn mistake to ever happen to me, Zoe.”

  Oh, he was good. So very, very good. “So what now?” she asked in a whisper.