“I needed to come.” His response sent her into another tizzy. What did that mean? Was there some investigative reason she didn’t know about that required his presence?

  They were standing there looking at each other like a couple of infatuated high school sweethearts.

  He took her hand. “Let’s go sit down,” he said, leading the way to the dining table that he’d passed before on his way out to her deck. Wrapping her fingers around his, she nudged them in another direction. Decorated in deeps reds and golds, with green accents, and earth-tone porcelain floors with hand-spun wool rugs, the family room was her peaceful place. In the daytime sun shone in from the two clerestory windows set high above the wall of windows that faced the ocean. Her home was only one story, but the cathedral ceilings gave the room a spacious feel.

  She could have taken one of the two rocking armchairs, left the other for him. Instead, she led him to the sectional they complemented, rounding the big square table that held court in the middle of the entire conversation area. The wall-mounted flat-screen television was hardly noticeable to her. What she loved were the three walls filled with intermittent bookcases that not only held more than one hundred of her favorite books, but many other random things that made her feel good. The colorful painted pony she’d picked up on a trip to Chicago with Wynne. A wooden angel that was in a flying position with hearts in her hands. That had come from a friend from college upon their graduation...

  He was touching the back of her head and she realized she’d turned as she’d perused the room, seeking out the feel goods automatically.

  Reaching a hand up immediately, she covered the small bald spot just beneath the crown of her head. “I’m going to be wearing ponytails for a while,” she said, self-conscious again. Out of nowhere came a memory of an episode of a sitcom when a jealous woman had convinced her ex’s new girlfriend to shave her head.

  It wasn’t like Greg was attracted to her. Or that she wanted him to be. Not really. Not the part of her that knew better. And it wasn’t like baldness was a turnoff anyway. Just because the writers of a television show played it that way didn’t make it so...

  He pushed her hand away. Rubbed his thumb gently across the spot. “Does it hurt badly?” he asked.

  Oh God, not unless you called tingles running through your whole body pain.

  “It’s a little tender,” she managed. “But...my dad used to yank me by my hair when I turned my back to walk away from him and didn’t do it fast enough. I’ve got a tough scalp.” She almost gulped on that last bit. Needing to push his hand away from her.

  And to move her head slowly beneath it, too. Savoring the feel of him.

  She knew she should be shaking in fear. Or residual PTSD from an attack reminiscent of years of abuse. Instead, she sat there trembling at this man’s touch.

  Wanting to bury herself in his arms and cry a little.

  Why did life have to be so hard?

  And so...wonderful at times, too?

  “The police took the hair,” she blurted. She couldn’t let anything happen. She’d be glad later. “I guess they can get her fingerprints or DNA off it or something. Seems like a lot of resources being spent on pulled hair, but...”

  He’d dropped his hand, was sitting with her, neither of them leaning back, on the edge of the sofa. Unlike the wicker bench out back, her sofa was plenty big enough to contain him. And yet she felt as though he dwarfed the room.

  And he was frowning.

  “What?” she asked.

  He shook his head. Studied her. And then said, “It’s just—your father, pulling his daughter by her hair...and...just the things I know... He should be in prison, but instead, he’s a respected businessman living a good life, from what I can see. And your exes... Mike...” He said the word with an intonation that led her to wonder if he knew she’d been talking about Desmond Williamson. “He should definitely be in jail. And now Heidi. You don’t think punishing an abuser is worth the resources needed to do so?”

  What she thought was that he was suddenly in a space where she didn’t want him. Jumping up from the couch, she walked around the table, between the chairs and stood just in front of the television set.

  He was talking about family. About those you loved.

  “They’re ill, Greg,” she said, trying to fight her way through the confusion he’d just splashed all over her. “But there’s still good in them. A lot of good. More good than bad.”

  He didn’t say anything for a while, and she fidgeted, tapping her bare heel on the cold floor, hugging her sides. She’d pushed Josh into a table, and he’d had to get stitches. In technical terms, that could make her an abuser. She was her father’s daughter, after all. Hadn’t only grown up with him, as Josh had, but she also had his genes.

  “People have to pay when they commit crimes,” he finally said. “It’s not only the law, it’s the boundary that makes society possible.”

  “You’re just seeing it from a law enforcement point of view,” she shot back. “But there are other things to consider. Like...” A little girl fearing that her younger brother was going to get hurt at her expense. Or get hurt, period.

  Rubbing his hands together slowly, he sat with his forearms on his knees, watching her. And she heard her words from his perspective.

  “I’m not protecting Josh, if that’s what you’re thinking,” she said, growing more rigid by the second. “If I thought my brother had ever hurt anyone, I’d be the first one insisting that he get help. Covering for him would not only hurt him, it would put Bella at risk, and if you think I’m ever going to let anyone hurt her, you don’t know me at all.” Her tone was biting now. She didn’t care. She hugged herself tighter. She could fight them all.

  Alone if she had to.

  “I don’t think you’re covering for him.”

  Greg’s words knocked her off her axis. She stood there, openmouthed, not sure what to do with them.

  “You believe me? You really trust that I’m not lying to you?”

  “I trust you to tell me the truth. I’d already reached that point before now.”

  Okay. Wow. Well, what did she do with that? Dropping her arms, Jasmine moved closer to him. Plopping on the edge of the armchair closest to his side of the couch.

  “So, back to what I was saying. It’s not that I think what my father, or...any of them...did was okay, it’s just that...”

  She didn’t know what. If they went to jail, she should, too? Or—

  “I just always try to put myself in other people’s shoes,” she said now, pretty sure she was being honest. With him, yes, but with herself. Or was it that she saw herself through her perceived views others had of her? Her counselor had suggested the theory. She’d never identified with it before.

  But now...

  “It’s just because you’re a cop,” she blurted when things seemed to jumble up again. “You see the actions, not the people.”

  “I’ve only been a cop for a couple of years.”

  She stared at him. “But you’re a detective. You don’t just jump to that grade level.”

  So now he wasn’t whom she thought he’d been? Whom he led her to believe he was? Or had she just made the leap on her own? What the hell...

  “For the first ten years after I graduated from college, I practiced law,” he told her, bowing his head and then raising it again to look her in the eye. “I went through the academy with the express purpose of working in an investigative capacity for the prosecutor’s office. You don’t always have to do time on the streets, depending on the circumstances.”

  Wait. What? He was a lawyer? That made no sense to her. Who went from being a lawyer to being a cop? For one thing, the pay was less. Unless he’d been disbarred? But then he wouldn’t pass the background check to be an officer, would he?

  “Why am I only finding this out now?” She got out the easiest question to ask. Easier maybe because it was the one screaming most loudly in her head at the moment.

  “Because I hadn’t realized that being your friend was so important to me before now.”

  She stared. Openmouthed again. Like some dimwitted donkey who couldn’t hold an intelligible conversation.

  “As a detective, investigating a case, my past, or any part of my personal life, wasn’t important.”

  He wanted to be her friend. In her life. On a personal level. She could hardly take it in. Wanted to laugh out loud. Throw herself in his arms and hang on tight.

  She wanted to tell Lila. And Wynne.

  She sat there, wrapping her arms around herself again. “You told me about your parents,” she pointed out inanely. Looking for the lies. For the things she couldn’t see when she entered into personal relationships. Those things that would smack you upside the head when you least expected them, which made you most vulnerable to them.

  Heidi’s attack that evening... That would be nothing compared to the possibility of having Greg turn on her. And not just because of his mammoth size, which didn’t scare her at all.

  “I needed you to talk to me.”

  “You told me about your parents because you needed me to talk to you?”

  “Put people at ease, make it a give and take, and it’s easier for them to talk.” He dropped his gaze, and she had a sudden clear moment. An insight. And blurted out before she could question it.

  “How many people have you told?” She held his gaze fiercely.

  “In recent years?” He didn’t look away.

  Clasping her hands together in her lap, she didn’t relent. “In your adult life.”

  “One.”

  “Me.” He said nothing, did nothing, in response. “You told me because you wanted me to know,” she replied. “Maybe it was the other, too, but you wanted me to know.”

  Would have been nice if he’d told her he was a lawyer, too. He’d know even more about helping her and Josh wade through the issues facing them in Josh’s case. But then, he had a job to do. Giving legal advice wasn’t it. And...he’d told her about his parents, even before he’d known he wanted to be friends with her. That mattered.

  Rising, Jasmine went to join him back on the couch.

  * * *

  He’d known telling her was important. That he stood to lose her trust if he didn’t tell her about his past. But now, with the prosecutor thing out there and her sitting so close and still somewhat vulnerable from her recent attack, Greg wondered if maybe he’d said enough.

  “What kind of law did you practice?” The first words out of her mouth told him he’d called that one wrong.

  Taking a breath, much like he used to do when dealing with Liv, he dived in. “I was a prosecutor. In Santa Barbara. William and I used to sound cases off each other. We partnered with each other a time or two, as well.” He’d been the lead. William had been his second.

  And he didn’t regret, at all, the current status of their professional partnership—him working at William’s pleasure.

  Her shock shone from her eyes. She didn’t leave the couch. He saw that as a good sign. And knew, deep down, that he’d had to tell her. Now that he had to be her friend.

  To help her through when Josh was convicted.

  Because no matter what his ex had or had not done, Josh Taylor had committed a crime.

  “You and William worked together? You were... You...”

  He could almost feel the turbulent wave of thoughts speeding through her mind. And waited for whatever outcome she reached. He could be playing her to help his friend and peer of many years. It wouldn’t be illegal for him to be doing so.

  Immoral, maybe, but the court didn’t care. Unethical behavior could be a problem. But there was a very clear line, and he hadn’t crossed that, either. And wouldn’t be if he was using her to get William the information he needed.

  He wasn’t using her, actually. But he wouldn’t blame her for thinking he was. In the beginning, the possibility had been there, on his list.

  In truth, he couldn’t even tell her when he’d eliminated that option. He just knew it had left the scene.

  She was quiet for so long he considered getting up and leaving. Thinking maybe that would be the kindest thing.

  But his reason for offering his friendship to begin with—other than the fact that she was in for a huge upheaval when her brother was convicted—kept him sitting there.

  “You’re going to have to decide.” He dropped the statement into the room when he’d reached his limit of doing nothing. “You trust me or you don’t.”

  She looked at him then, and the pleading in her gaze got to him. Deep. “Can I ask a few more questions first?”

  So unexpected. A calm, rational request he could grant. “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Why did I come to talk to you in the first place? Why didn’t I tell you I was a prosecutor?”

  “Why did you quit being one? And why did you become a detective?”

  He wasn’t going to get off easy. Nothing about this woman was turning out to be easy. And yet, facing her, the words came much easier than he’d ever have expected.

  “As an attorney, I’m bound to present only the evidence that makes it past all of the laws that protect perpetrators. I was not only stifled, but I was oftentimes dependent on the detectives who investigated my cases to find admissible evidence that would allow me to do my job in a way that sat well with me. As I grew more and more frustrated, it became clear to me that I’d be happier doing the investigating and making damned sure that I brought every conceivable angle to the prosecutor so that he could be happy doing his job well.”

  That was the more generic answer. One he’d repeated ad nauseam when his decision had first become public knowledge. Before that, actually. It had started with his parents.

  “I’m guessing there were specific cases that prompted the frustration?”

  He sat back, enjoying the largeness of her sectional. Of the room. Not sure what to do about her, though. In all of the times he’d talked about his most recent career choice, all of the times he’d given the same basic answer, not once had anyone delved deeper. Or seen beyond. At least not out loud.

  Not even Liv.

  “There was one,” he told her. “A drug dealer, a higher-up, not one of the street hoods. We’d known about him for years. Law enforcement longer than that. They wanted him bad. His lawyer got phone records thrown out, there’d been a piece of physical evidence compromised and a star witness refused to testify. The guy walked when I and everyone else in that room knew he was guilty.”

  “He’ll make a mistake. They always do, right? At least that’s what they say on TV.”

  If only real life emulated the life Hollywood created—or better put, if only Hollywood told the full story. Ever.

  “He did,” he said, feeling the rock in his gut with as much discomfort then as when he’d first heard the news. “He raped a woman and is serving fifteen years.”

  Greg had been unable to get the man off the streets, and he’d gone on to rape a woman. Not Liv. But like Liv, he’d broken into that woman’s home and irrevocably changed her life forever.

  Liv had explained that part to him. About the joy she’d lost. And he’d never forgotten.

  The day he’d won that man’s conviction, after spending weeks with the victim’s testimony, living over and over the grisly details of the case, the pain and suffering that should never have happened, Greg had handed in his resignation.

  He wasn’t going to get them all as a detective, either. There would still be inadmissible evidence. Even mistakes made. But now he had the freedom to spend every working minute of every day doing nothing but going after them...

  His thoughts were interrupted by the touch of a soft hand, sliding on top of his. “I’ve made my decision.”

  He couldn’t believe how hard his heart was pounding as he looked over at her.

  “I’ve decided to let myself trust you,” she said softly, her makeup-less, red-rimmed eyes wide and bright and beautiful. “And I want to be your friend.”

  Chapter 16

  She thought he might kiss her. Hoped he would.

  He didn’t.

  Instead he told her about a woman, Liv, who sounded an awful lot like Heidi, minus the physical brutality. A woman who was emotionally scarred to the point that she struggled at times not to wallow in the drama of it all.

  “Not that you and I are...like, dating, or in that kind of relationship...” Her heart sank to the cold porcelain floor beneath her feet as he spoke. “Not yet, anyway.” Her heart flew up to the clouds. “But I need you to know, from the outset, what you’re getting into,” he told her while she managed to sit calmly a foot or so away from him, listening.

  “I’m not good with the drama,” he told her. “It makes me feel helpless, which irritates me.”

  She nodded, couldn’t think of a guy offhand who was into it.

  “I’m serious,” he told her. “I can be an unsympathetic ass at times.”

  “Like when I called tonight and you rushed right over here?”

  He was looking at her, and she wished she could tell what he was thinking. Wouldn’t change what she’d said. Or might say. She couldn’t play games. There were too many real minefields to cross in life without creating more. None of which negated her desire to know his mind.

  “I’m serious,” he told her, effectively brushing off what she’d said as though his jumping in his car and heading to her immediately was inconsequential. “I’m not good with emotional breakdowns. I’m detached. I tend to come across as cold and retreat to my gym at the soonest possible moment.”

  “You have a gym?” She was learning more about him in ten minutes than she’d learned in two weeks. Facts only, but she’d been gathering her opinions about the character of the man all along.