A tight feeling spread through her chest. Whoever had taken those samples had known what they were taking. There were only two reasons to take Oxycontin. To sell, or to use.

To use, she decided, remembering Ty’s words. It was an act of desperation to steal them, and addicts were desperate.

Karen had been desperate, and Mallory had failed her. Badly.

Who else was she failing?

She went back to the ER heartsick. She was in the middle of teaching some brand new firefighter paramedics how to start IVs when she was summoned to Bill’s office. She headed that way, expecting to get her hair blown back.

She didn’t expect to face several board members, including Jane and her mother.

“Tell us how this could have happened,” Bill said, tone stern.

Mallory drew a deep breath. “We received samples early yesterday for the weekend health clinic. I stocked the cabinet myself and locked it.”

“Exactly how much is missing?”

He already knew this. He knew everything. He just wanted to hear her say it. “Four boxes,” she told him. “Each was a week’s supply.”

“So a month. You’ve lost a month’s supply of Oxycontin.”

Mallory nodded. She was pissed, afraid, frustrated. She’d gone over the inventory a hundred times in her head, hoping she’d just miscalculated.

But she hadn’t.

The meds were missing. Someone had stolen them from beneath her own nose. An anguished, distraught, frantic act, by someone she most likely knew by name.

“We’d like the list of everyone who came through the HSC yesterday,” Bill said.

This was what she’d been dreading. She didn’t know what she wished for the most, that Ty hadn’t shown up at all, or that someone else she knew and cared about had. “Bill, we’re supposed to be anonymous.”

“And you were supposed to make sure something like this never happened. The list, Mallory. I want it by tomorrow morning.”

“I can fix this,” she said. “Let me—”

“The only way you can fix this is by trusting me to do my job,” Bill told her. “And that job is the bottom line. I’m in charge of the bottom line. Do you understand?”

“Of course. But—”

“No buts, Mallory. Don’t make this come down to your job being on the line as well as the HSC.”

Mallory’s heart lurched, and she ground her back teeth so hard she was surprised they didn’t dissolve.

“And I’m sure this goes without saying,” Bill said, “but until we solve this, the HSC stays closed.”

A stab to the gut. “Understood.” Somehow she managed to get out of there and through the rest of her shift. All she wanted was to be alone, but her mother caught up with her in the parking lot. “What aren’t you telling us, Mallory?”

Mallory was good at hiding her devastation. She’d had lots of practice. “What do you mean?”

“Honey, it’s me. The woman who spent thirty-six hours in labor with you. I know when you’re hiding something.”

“Mom, I have to go.”

Ella looked deep into her eyes and shook her head. “Oh, no. Oh, Mallory.” She cupped Mallory’s jaw. “Who are you trying to save this time?”

“Mom, please. Just go back to work.”

“In a minute.” Ella cupped Mallory’s face and kissed each cheek and then her forehead. “You can’t save them all. You know that, right?”

“Yes.” Mallory closed her eyes. “I don’t know what happened yesterday, but whoever it was, it was my fault. Someone I know is in trouble. And it’s like Karen all over again.” The sob reached up and choked her, shutting off her words, and she slapped a hand over her mouth to keep it in.

Her mother’s eyes filled. “Oh, honey. Honey, no. What happened to Karen wasn’t your fault.”

Mallory closed her eyes. “She came to me that night.”

Ella gasped. “What?”

“Karen. She came into my bedroom. She said she needed me.” Mallory swallowed hard. “But I’d been…I’d been needing her and she hadn’t been there for me. Not once. So I lashed out at her. I said terrible things to her. And you know what she did? She gave me her necklace. She told me she loved me. She pretty much said good-bye, Mom, and I missed it.”

“Mallory, you listen to me,” her mother said fiercely, giving her a little shake. “You were sixteen.”

“She felt like she was alone, like she had no other options. But she wasn’t alone. There were lots of options.” Mallory let out a breath. “I failed her. I have to live with that. And now I’m just trying to make sure I don’t fail anyone else. I need to make sure no one else falls through the cracks.”

“But at what cost?” her mother asked softly. “You’re the one who said it, Mallory. There are just some things that people have to do for themselves. They have to find their own will, their own happy. Their own path.”

“Yes, and this is mine.”

Ella sighed and hugged her. “Oh, honey. Are you sure? Because this one’s going to cost you big. It’s going to cost you your job and your reputation.”

“It already has. And yes, I’m sure. I have to do this, Mom. I have to figure this out and fix it.”

Ella nodded her reluctant understanding, and Mallory got into her car and drove straight to Ty’s house. His house, not his home. Because this was just a stop on his life’s path, a destination, not the finish line.

She’d admired that about him.

Now it scared her.

Lots of things scared her. Not too long ago, she’d asked him what he was frightened of, and he’d said he was afraid of not living.

They weren’t so different after all, and God, she needed verification of that fact right now.

He didn’t answer her knock. The place was quiet. Empty. She put a hand to her chest, knowing damn well that last night had been a good-bye. For all she knew, he was already gone. For a minute, she panicked. After all, she had asked him not to tell her when he left. A very stupid, rash decision on her part. But when she peeked into the garage window and saw the Shelby, she sagged in relief.

Her relief was short-lived, though, because she had no idea where he might go on a night like this. None. And that didn’t sit so well.

She was falling in love with a guy that she was afraid she didn’t know at all.

Talk about taking a walk on the dark side…

Frustrated and annoyed, she went home. She didn’t bother with her usual routine. Screw the flowers. Screw everything, even the cat. She simply strode through her place, intending to get into bed and pull the covers over her head and pretend the day hadn’t happened.

Denial. She was thy Queen.

She’d dropped her purse in the living room. Kicked off her shoes in the hallway. She walked into her bedroom struggling with the buttons on her sweater. Giving up, she yanked the thing over her head and got her hair tangled in the buttons. “Dammit!” She was standing there arms up, face covered by the sweater, when two strong arms enveloped her.

She let out a startled scream and was immediately gathered against a warm, hard form that her body knew better than her own. “Ty,” she gasped.

He pressed her back against the bedroom door. “You expecting anyone else?”

“I wasn’t expecting anyone at all. Help me, I’m caught.”

Instead he slid a thigh between hers.

“Ty.” She struggled with the sweater some more and succeeded in catching her hair on a sweater button. “Ouch! I can’t get loose.”

“Hmm.” His hands molded her body, everywhere. “I like you a little helpless.”

She fought anew. “That’s sexist.”

“Sexy,” he corrected, untangling her, tossing the offending sweater over his head while still holding her captive against the door. “What were you trying to do?”

“Strip.” Crash. Forget. “I went looking for you.”

“You found me.” He tugged, and then her scrub pants were gone.

She gasped. “What are you doing?”

“Helping you strip.” He slid a hand into her panties, his eyes dark and heavy lidded with desire. “Tell me why you went looking for me.”

There was something in his voice, something edgy, dark. “I wanted to see you.” It was God’s utter truth. She knew in her heart that he wouldn’t have taken those meds. He wouldn’t do anything to hurt her, ever. She knew that, just as she knew that her time with him was limited. Too limited.

She was going to be brave about that, later. “I want you,” she whispered.

In the dark hallway, his eyes gleamed with heat and intent, and then his mouth was on hers, hard. She sucked his tongue into her mouth, swallowing his rough groan, savoring the taste of him. “My bed,” she said. “I need you in my bed.”

They staggered farther into the room and fell onto the mattress. “Hurry, Ty.”

“Take everything off then,” he demanded in that quiet voice that made her leap to obey. She pulled off her top and unhooked her bra. She was wriggling out of her panties when she got distracted by watching him strip. He tugged his shirt over his head, and then his hands went to his button fly, his movements quick and economical as he bared his gorgeous body. In two seconds he was na**d, one hundred percent of his attention completely fixed on her. And apparently she was moving too slowly because he took over, wrapping his fingers around each of her ankles, giving a hard tug so that she fell flat on her back.

He was on her in a heartbeat. “I was working on a car, but all I could see was you, running your fingers over the brake line, holding onto the wrench. It made me hard.”

She slid her hands down his sinewy, cut torso, planning on licking that same path as soon as she got a chance. “Me touching your tools makes you hard?”

“Yeah,” he said silkily. “Your hands on my tool makes me very hard.”

She laughed, and he nipped at her shoulder. “Your scent was there, too,” he said almost accusingly. “In the garage, lingering like you were right there, pestering me with all your questions.”

“Well—” She frowned. “Hey.”

His lips claimed hers in a hungry, demanding kiss. “I kept hearing your voice,” he said between strokes of his tongue. “Pretending to be all sweet and warm, when really you had me pinned to the wall and were drilling me.”

“Return the favor,” she said breathlessly. “Pin me down and drill me, Ty.”

He looked torn between laughter and determination to do just that. “You’ve had me in a f**king state all day, Mallory Quinn.”

“How bad is this state?”

“Bad,” he said, grinding his h*ps to hers to prove it. “So bad I couldn’t function.”

“Mmm,” she moaned at the feel of him so hard for her. “So what did you do?”

“Jacked off.”

She choked out a laugh. “You did not.”

“Did.”

The air crackled with electricity, and he kissed her again. His hands were just as demanding as his mouth, finding her breasts, teasing her nipples, sliding a hand between her legs. Finding her already hot and wet, he groaned.

“Please, Ty. I need you. I need you so much.”

“Show me,” he said.

“Show you?”

“Show me.”

Knowing what he meant, she bit her lower lip. He’d just admitted to touching himself while thinking about her; surely she could return the favor. In the end, he helped her, entwining their fingers and dragging their joined hands up her body, positioning them on her breasts, urging her to caress her own nipples. When she did, he pulled his fingers free and watched with a low groan. Then, apparently convinced she would continue on, he slid down her body, kissing his way between her thighs. Slowly, purposefully, he sucked her into his mouth, making her writhe so much that he had to hold her down. Her toes curled, her eyes closed, her fingers abandoned her br**sts and slid into his hair to hold him to that spot because God, just one more stroke of that tongue—

But he stopped. Just pulled his mouth away until she looked at him.

“Keep your eyes open,” he said, and when he lowered his mouth again, she did as he’d told her, watching as he took her right to the edge again. It was the hardest thing she’d done so far with him. But nothing about Ty was in her comfort zone, not his life’s experiences, not the way he made her feel, and certainly not how he got her to behave in the bedroom. It felt so absolutely wicked to keep looking at him, to be a voyeur in her own bed, but try as she might to hold on, her vision faded when he pushed her over the edge with shocking ease.

When she could open her eyes again, he easily held himself just above her, making room for himself between her thighs as he cupped her face, his own now struggling with control.

She knew he’d never intended for things to go this far. She hadn’t either. But as she tugged him close and kissed him, she felt their co-mingled best intentions go right out the window.

Taking control, he slid his big hands to her bottom and pushed inside her with one hard thrust. “Oh, fuck,” he said. “You feel amazing.”

It was just the passion of the moment, she tried to tell herself, but she felt him to the depths of her soul. And in her heart of hearts, she knew he felt far more for her than he let on. It was in his actions, and she wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders and melted into the hard planes of his body. Emotion welled up within her, and she had to clamp her mouth closed to hold in the words that wanted to escape.