“At the conclusion of the trial, in order to protect the mother and sister no one knew about, as well as himself, he had to enter witness protection. He’d been in New York using a fake identity at the time he’d witnessed the crime. If he assumed his old identity, his mom and sister would be exposed. And because his mom had shared parenting of his sister, she would have had to leave her behind to join him in the program. He knew that going in, as did his mother, and he still, with her blessing, chose to testify. To do the right thing and put away a murdering drug dealer for life.” She broke off, briefly, then added, “The program has never lost a witness who abided by all the rules.”

  She kept reminding herself of the statistic every time she thought of Tommy getting in the car with the US marshal who would whisk him away to a new life.

  A world where he had no family.

  She couldn’t imagine life without her family—both sides of it. And ached inside every time she thought about helping a process that ripped a kid’s family away from him forever.

  Joe’s silence meant more to her than any platitudes he could have offered.

  The tall, bony-kneed guy, even if he was guilty, had at least one good quality.

  * * *

  She had him stay on the same highway through Phoenix and then travel another two hours farther east, over equally deserted desert surrounded by shadowy mountain ranges, to Tucson, directing him to pull into the first twenty-four-hour big box store parking lot they came to upon reaching civilization.

  The abundance of overhead lights—giving security to late-night shoppers—hurt his eyes with their brightness. Making him feel as though he was onstage, under a spotlight, but he agreed with her call. He’d recently spent more nights than not in parking lots exactly like the one she’d chosen.

  Other than a directional conversation, they’d spoken little over the drive. She’d been alert, watchful, clearly on duty and—after the tidbit about her last case—silent.

  He’d have thought that he’d want it that way. Was used to being alone. Until he was exonerated, he wanted to be alone. He needed to focus. To live and relive every move he’d made over the past two years until he found the key to where it had all gone wrong.

  Until he knew who’d framed him, he couldn’t trust anyone.

  He also couldn’t be bothered with inane chatter.

  So why did her lack of conversation rankle so damned much?

  “I need to get some things from the store,” she said as he waited for her to exit the cab area of the rig so he could do the same. “And since I can’t leave you out here alone, I need you to come with me.”

  Her directions were sounding more and more like orders. He’d taken a lot of them, from a lot of people, growing up. In the life he’d built for himself, he was the one who gave the orders.

  And he generally issued them with a lot more respect than she’d had in her tone.

  “Please.”

  One word. Offered with a glance that met his. And he followed her out the door.

  * * *

  McKenna did a quick sweep of the recreational vehicle’s outside before they headed into the store. Theirs wasn’t the only rig on the lot. It wasn’t the biggest. And the sweeping brown tones blended in with the other camping homes that had stopped for the night on the edge of the desert. While the space inside was elegant almost to the point of opulent with ceramic countertops and porcelain tile and real wood flooring, the outside looked like any other of hundreds such vehicles on Arizona roads.

  She’d taken stock of every inch of the interior, including the bedroom with its empty under-bed compartment, while Joe drove. Delivering up fresh salmon salad sandwiches for dinner from a container she’d found in the refrigerator, at one point. For which he’d thanked her.

  And she’d noted that his silverware was the real thing. Silver. Noted the small dishwasher, too, along with the state-of-the-art microwave/convection oven combination, installed above the small glass-topped stove and conventional oven. All, along with the refrigerator, in stainless steel. Other than the miniature sizes, she could have been in the kitchen of the mansion in which she’d grown up. The home where she still had her own room, which she visited several times a year. Her grandparents were getting older.

  And while she didn’t agree with many of their choices, she loved them.

  “We need eight cameras,” she said as she headed to the electronics department as soon as they entered the store. “You can pay for them now, or Sierra’s Web can bill you as part of our expense report.” She would give him the very best of her ability.

  She didn’t have to like him. Or what he stood for.

  And didn’t want to admire the way he pulled out his card and paid the bill for the cameras and other groceries and incidentals without a word of dissent. Or even question.

  He assisted her with installing the eight optical devices, too, and then helped her test them on her phone to make certain they were angled exactly as she wanted them.

  Inside the rig, sometime after midnight, she stood by the couch, looking at her phone, held it up to him so that he could see all eight videos, in miniature, lined up side by side on her screen. And as he came closer, leaning in to get a better look, she...liked having him there.

  Liked his warmth. The piney smell of his skin.

  Shutting down her phone, she backed up immediately. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to get some rest,” she said then. Adding, “I’ll only be a couple of minutes in the bathroom, and then you can have that whole back area to yourself.”

  Yeah, she was basically kicking him out of his living room. And not being all that polite about it. She wasn’t proud of herself.

  And knew she was doing exactly what she was being paid to do.

  And doing it well.

  She wouldn’t be able to maintain a sufficient level of focus if she didn’t get some sleep.

  “You don’t like me much, do you?” He hadn’t moved from his stance by the couch, where he’d been looking at the phone she’d been holding out to him.

  “I don’t know you.”

  “So, you’re just always this...distant...with your clients?”

  Distant instead of rude. The kind of choice her grandfather would have made. Calling out without losing the face of congeniality.

  Doing it softly.

  “We’re strangers dealing with forced proximity, with the added tension of posing as husband and wife, and your life could be in danger, with only me to protect it. Keeping a measure of distance is wise.”

  But getting to know him better, having actual conversations like human beings...that would not only help her understand better how to protect him, but it could give insights for the rest of her team, too. The sooner they completed their investigation, one way or the other, the sooner she could get out of there.

  “It’s not only you protecting me.” His words broke into her thoughts, the tone of voice getting her attention most of all. He sounded...resolute. A man ready to go into battle with absolute certainty he was going to win.

  He had someone working with him, then? An accomplice? Was he hoping to frame whoever it was, pin the blame elsewhere so he could get back to the cushy life, complete with acceptance and admiration, he’d so obviously enjoyed? Thoughts flew. She tried to harness them. “Who else?”

  “Me.” With that, he turned his back, headed toward the bedroom. Then spun around. “I’ve been looking out for myself since my mother died. I was four at the time. I’ve been in jail. Lived on the streets. Put myself through college, earned multiple degrees and worked my way up to CFO of a prominent, publicly traded software conglomerate. All while keeping the only eye there’s ever been on my own back.”

  She’d hit a nerve. Was kind of surprised it had taken so long. And couldn’t let herself believe that his implied aggrievement was sincere. The man had convinced a jury that he wasn’t guilty. He had to be good at making people see what he wanted them to see.

  He could also be giving it to her straight up.

  And still be guilty.

  Or not.

  “I apologize for making it sound as though you couldn’t take care of yourself,” she said, scrambling for a way to get out of the conversation and have some time apart from him.

  With his long hair and face full of hair, his bony knees, the man wasn’t overly attractive. The rest of his body—maybe, in another life, she’d have a hard time ignoring it...but...physical attraction aside, there was something about the guy that kept calling out to her.

  A warning?

  Or a cry for help?

  Used to relying on her instincts, her lack of conviction unsettled her. A lot.

  He was paying her to be at her best.

  And was standing there, as though waiting for something, without having so much as acknowledged that he’d heard her apology.

  Silence. Waiting. Leaving an uncomfortable lull. All ways to get someone to talk.

  If they had something to confess.

  “I was disappointed when your jury found you not guilty.”

  Anger should have appeared on his face, and then he should have kicked her out of his home. His stance, expression, didn’t change at all.

  Reminding her, once again, of her grandfather. The man could keep up appearances through anything. Including his own daughter’s funeral. McKenna had only been three at the time, didn’t remember much of anything from that year, but she had a clear vision of standing between her grandparents at the grave site and looking up to see her grandfather’s stoic face and then over at the tears running rampant down her grandmother’s cheeks. Some of them had dripped on her...

  “Friends of my grandparents put their major retirement investment in Bellair stock.” The son of that same couple had been the man her grandparents had wanted her mother to marry.

  “You’re close with them?”

  “My grandparents?” She shrugged. “Relatively.”

  “The friends.”

  “Oh.” Another shrug. “Not particularly. I haven’t seen them in years.” Not since she’d laid down her own set of rules with her maternal family. No more society outings or big lavish gatherings. The time she spent with them was to be just them. Family time. Period.

  “Glen Rivers is aware of this?”

  “Yes.”

  “And he still called you to take this job?”

  If they were being honest—”Actually, he said I was the best person for the job.”

  “He told me the same.” Joe punctuated his words with a nod at the end, and she wondered if that was it then. The conversation was over and they could get some rest before dawn happened and they’d need to get going again.

  The only movement he made was to put his hands in the pockets of his shorts. Drawing her attention to those knees.

  Maybe to avoid looking at any other part of him. His eyes most of all. So much to read there. Real or fantasy, she wouldn’t decide. Couldn’t let herself get caught up in the answer.

  “You think I’m guilty.”

  The quiet statement drew her gaze up in spite of her best choice not to look him in the eye. The vivid blue of his eyes seemed to point straight into her. “I did. I’m not sure what I think at the moment. Except that, either way, I’ve committed to keeping you safe as long as Sierra’s Web is in your employ and your life is in danger.”

  Another nod. His chin jutted, drawing attention to lips that were mostly buried in facial hair. Bringing to mind a picture she’d seen of him in the news after his acquittal. His full lips had been upturned, but not enough to be considered smiling. His cheekbones prominent, in a strong face that she’d found far too attractive.

  Such a waste on a man who’d bilk millions...

  And...stop.

  “You’ve been in touch with Glen today,” she said then, the consummate professional. She had, after all, grown up in her grandparents’ home, under their tutelage. “You know that the firm is just getting started and has more than a thousand pages of case file to assimilate in order to determine where to start looking for another guilty party. Or for evidence that definitely proves your innocence. Obviously, your safety is the first concern, so they moved on that immediately and will keep me updated anytime anything changes there, but this could take a while. From what I understand, the people after you...it could be any number of people who lost large amounts of money...could be overzealous zanies out to get anyone who’s rich and seemingly getting away with massive fraud. And, if you’re innocent, the real thief, or thieves, have good motivation to want you dead, as well. If you die without proving your innocence, who else will ever look for it? They continue to shine the light on you, and the likely scenario is the world believes them.”

  “They’ve been pretty good at it so far.” His statement was fact...completely without any call for sympathy.

  She needed to get him to talk about his case, from the beginning. Glen and others at the firm had already and would be speaking with him again, as well.

  And none of it needed to happen that night.

  She looked up at him. “You know I could be perceived as having a conflict of interest. If you’d like Glen to replace me, now would be a good time to make that call. He could have someone else here before daybreak and time to head farther south.”

  “Farther south?”

  “There’s nothing about you or your life that would lead anyone to think you’d head down to nothing but small towns swallowed up by the massive acreage of desert and mountains. Which means it’s less likely anyone down there would be expecting to see you.” Which wasn’t the issue at hand. “Would you like me to call Glen?”

  He perused her long enough to make her uncomfortable again. Personally so. And then he straightened, pulling his hands out of his pockets to plant them on his hips. Man, he was tall. And those hips...the arms that led up to muscular shoulders...

  “In the first place...” His commanding tone brought her attention back to his face. To eyes that seemed not to miss much. “If a call to Glen Rivers is in order, I’d make it myself. Second, while I don’t completely trust you, or Sierra’s Web, for that matter... I’ve made the decision to put my future in the firm’s hands, for now, which means giving you all free rein to do your best on my behalf.”

  She heard him. Knew that the fact that he was acting strictly from a place of carefully thought-out logic, not instinct or emotion, mattered, but couldn’t delve into the whys. Not then. “You don’t trust me?” That was new to her. And not a sensation she liked. At all.

  “You just told me that you don’t trust me.”

  Well, yes, she had, but... “You’ve been in the news for months and there’s been no proof you didn’t—”

  She broke off.

  Having someone not trust her felt...horrible. And she’d thrown that feeling in his face without even realizing what she’d been putting on him.

  There’d been no proof that he wasn’t a major criminal, but there wasn’t substantial enough proof to convict him of being one, either.

  What if he really was innocent? Life had to have been sheer hell for months...with everyone he knew, people he’d trusted, turning their backs on him.

  She’d known the man less than a day, and she’d been insulted by his lack of trust. Multiply that by thousands and...

  “Don’t take it personally.” His words broke into her thoughts. “I don’t trust anyone right now. Probably wouldn’t even trust myself if I weren’t privy to the inside scoop.”

  He didn’t quite grin. But there’d been a lightening to his tone that seemed to reflect from his eyes, too.

  “I...um...need to apologize,” she said then, moving closer to him, but only because she was heading for the bathroom so that she could get her ablutions done and be closer to desperately needed time to herself. “I’ve been treating you like a job instead of like a person for whom I’m working, and that was wrong. No matter what, you’re a human being with feelings, and I’m sorry I lost sight of that.”

  “Apology accepted.”

  Warmth flooded her. Which wasn’t good, either, for entirely different reasons.

  Grabbing her duffel, she pushed past him and slid the pocket door into place behind her.

  Until she could rest, think, get perspective, she needed his person separated from her person by a door, at the very least.

  Chapter 4

  Joe slept surprisingly well. Maybe better than he had in months. Stupid, really, kidlike, but having someone out in his living room, guarding his door—even though he didn’t fear danger for an instant or he’d have kept guard himself—had given him a sense of security he hadn’t known since the morning the FBI had stormed into his office and arrested him.

  And who was he kidding? Having McKenna Meredith out there had distracted him from the messed-up reality his life had become.

  For whole minutes there, she’d had him thinking about things other than the crimes it looked like he’d committed.

  He heard her in the bathroom, less than four feet away from where he lay in bed, separated only by a pocket door, just before dawn. Heard her body knock against the wall of the shower, too. Swallowed hard. And gave himself an extra ten minutes after she’d exited the room before entering it himself.

  As per the system they’d worked out the night before, both pocket doors—the one leading from the front of the rig into the bathroom, and the one leading from the bathroom to the bedroom—were to be kept closed during sleeping hours. And during the time either of them were using the facilities, both pocket doors would be locked from the inside, thus avoiding any chance of privacy invasion.

  The plan was a good one. And didn’t factor in the part where he’d been considered a pariah for months and so, had been without female companionship. To suddenly thrust him—a healthy heterosexual male—into a situation where there was only four feet and a very thin, medium-density-fiberboard wall between him and an intriguing naked woman...not the most comfortable happenstance.