He mustered up a smile as she neared, then kissed her cheek. “Hiya, doll.”

“Good to see you. Jack told me you have someone to protect? A friend.” Kimber was way more than that. Racing across a hundred miles of Texas, wondering if she was dead or alive, had slammed that fact into him like a fastball to the stomach.

For Morgan’s benefit, he shrugged. “Something like that. Jack here?”

“Inside turning on the generators and security equipment.” She laid a comforting hand on his arm. “You know Jack’s cabin is one of the safest possible places, right?” Deke agreed with a slight nod. “Yeah. No one in their right mind travels this deep into the swamp unless they know their way around.”

“Or the gators swallow them up,” Morgan agreed, easing her arms around his neck and giving him her sweet brand of comfort in a gentle squeeze. “It’ll be fine.” Damn it, he hoped so. Deke didn’t want to think about the alternative, didn’t want to relive the pure cold-sweat terror of wondering if some sick bastard had ended Kimber’s life. Suffering the painful, gaping hole in his chest at the thought she might be gone forever.

The thought of putting a name to the emotions those symptoms pointed to made him sweat.

“Hey, you pervert,” Jack called, stepping out the rustic cabin’s door. “Get your hands off my wife. You’re not getting the opportunity to fuck her again.” Behind him, Deke heard Luc help Kimber up on the dock at that moment. And he couldn’t miss Kimber’s little indrawn breath of shock.

Shit! Deke closed his eyes. Something cold and sludgy and dreadful washed over him. Shame. He recognized it for the first time in years. In that moment, knowing that Kimber could see firsthand exactly what his life had become… Suddenly, he hated the choices he’d made.

“Jack!” Morgan scolded her husband and flushed twenty shades of angry red.

“Oh, hell. I’m sorry.” Jack slapped him on the shoulder, his face contrite. “I feel like such an ass.”

“You are,” he growled. What else could he do? Jack hadn’t known his someone to protect was a female. He hadn’t known Kimber was within earshot when he’d opened his mouth. At the end of the day, none of this shit was Jack’s fault, Deke acknowledged. It was his own.

Jack reached out a hand to Kimber, steadying her as she stepped onto the little wooden dock. “Welcome, miss. I know you’re going through a tough time, but Deke is one of the best in the personal security business. Here, in the middle of nowhere, with him…there’s nowhere safer.”

With a reluctant, wide-eyed nod, Kimber shook Jack’s hand. He reached around to her elbow to guide her up the little platform, illuminated in the humid, hazy evening by a single sixty-watt bulb.

“Thank you,” she said finally.

Jack shook Luc’s hand briefly, then helped Kimber inside. Deke watched the little party head indoors and wondered what the hell would happen next. Now that he had Kimber away from this bomb-building asshole, he had to face reality. One, he cared about her far more than he should. Two, she’d apparently broken off her engagement, which his hungry cock told his easily duped brain made her fair game.

Three, he and Luc were going to be confined to this four-room cottage with her for days, perhaps weeks. Four, he wanted Kimber more than he had ever wanted anything or anyone in his life.

This has disaster written all over it.

Wiping a hand across his weary face, Deke reluctantly moved toward the cabin. A soft hand on his forearm held him back. Morgan.

At one time, Deke had wondered if he wasn’t half in love with the vivacious, submissive redhead, even though she was strictly Jack’s and they’d been married nearly three months. In the past, anytime he entered a room Morgan occupied, she’d get a rise out of him, and he’d feel the bite of desire in thirty seconds or less.

Three minutes ago, watching Kimber, despite her wariness and shock, he’d forgotten Morgan was even in the same state. Again, it spoke volumes—and he absolutely didn’t want to know what those tomes said.

“God, I’m so sorry Jack opened his big mouth. That girl, she’s more than a friend.” He looked away from Morgan’s searching blue gaze. “It doesn’t matter.”

“The hell it doesn’t. Do you love this girl?”

“I can’t.”

“You don’t want to. But do you?”

Deke cursed, refusing to even think of the answer. Damn, why did Morgan insist on dredging this up? He’d rather string himself up by the balls with barbed wire.

“You’re turning slightly green, so I’ll take that as a yes,” she said dryly. “Does she know about you and Luc and…?”

“Yeah, she knows.” He swallowed. “And I’ve got to stop thinking about Kimber.

It’s just wrong for me to want her.”

“If you recall, I thought the same about Jack not too long ago. As it turned out, he was exactly what I needed.”

True, but happy endings weren’t going to happen for him. He’d been around the block enough to know that fairy tales could turn to nightmares in the blink of an eye.

“I’m not what she needs.” Far from it. He sighed. “It might be hours, or if I’m really strong, days before I can’t resist anymore. But this bastard threatening her has put me in a corner too, and it’s not likely she’ll be a virgin much longer. Once that happens…I’ll destroy her.”

Surprise filtered across Morgan’s sweetly freckled face. “Or you might make each other whole. If your heart is drawing you to her, there’s a reason. Maybe you should just see where it leads.”

Kimber woke after a few hours of sleep in the cabin’s lone bed, cuddled against Luc’s solid warmth. Deke was nowhere in sight. Last night, like the days she’d stayed with the guys in East Texas, he’d slept elsewhere.

He wasn’t detached; he was scared. Something, feminine instinct maybe, told her that. He wasn’t avoiding her as much as he was trying to hold himself at arm’s distance. She wished to hell she knew why and what to do.

But now that the guys had brought her out to the middle of nowhere, she had lots of time to figure it out, she supposed. As soon as she could find some peace of mind. As soon as she had some news about her dad.

Jack Cole, the cabin’s owner, had explained last night that getting a cell phone signal in the middle of the swamp was nearly impossible, so she was welcome to use the cabin’s phone.

Rolling away from Luc, who grunted in protest in his sleep, Kimber rose and padded into the kitchen. Predawn filtered dingy gray light through the cabin’s huge picture windows. Deke wasn’t on the couch he’d insisted sleeping on last night. But she spied him out on the patio, looking out over the swamp, coffee in one hand.

A frown dominated the sharp angles of his face.

She sighed. Later. She’d have to deal with him—her heart wasn’t going to let her turn her back on the problem, but first things first.

Lifting the receiver, she called Logan’s cell phone. He answered on the first ring.

“Kimber?”

“Hi, Logan.”

“You okay?”

“Fine. How’s Dad?”

“Stable so far, thank God. His injuries would have killed a lesser man, but he’s proven very hardy these first critical hours. They’re cautiously optimistic.” Kimber let out a huge sigh of relief. “Oh, that’s fabulous news. Wonderful. I worried all night.”

“No need. Deke called me a few hours ago to check status. He didn’t tell you?”

“I…” She wasn’t about to admit to her brother that Deke did everything humanly possible to avoid her. “I was asleep.”

“So you’re where? I’m getting no display on my caller ID.”

“Somewhere in Louisiana. In the middle of a swamp. That’s all I know.”

“Deke said something similar when I talked to him. Honey, I know it’s none of my business, and I had no right to treat you like a teenager, but I have to know…are you going to be okay with the two of them?”

Who knew? It all depended on how badly Deke broke her heart. Tears stung her eyes, squeezing out the corners. She was tired and overwrought and ached so badly for a man who refused to want her and wouldn’t say why.

“Fine. If anything changes with Dad’s condition, call here.”

“Ten-four. Likewise, call me if you need anything. Anything.” His offer of counsel was implicit, but impossible. With a murmured thanks, she hung up the phone. Even her sigh shook, she noted wryly. This week had been a killer…and it wasn’t over yet.

“Everything okay back home?”

Luc. Kimber whirled to face him. He looked sexy and sleep-tousled, and her heart melted like chocolate in sunshine when she saw him. More tears filled her gritty eyes.

“Fine,” she managed to get out between sniffles.

“Come back to bed, sweetheart. You need more sleep.”

Maybe. But she didn’t think it was that simple. “Would you just hold me?” His face softened. “Anytime.”

Tucking her hand in his, he led her back to the darkened bedroom, eased her onto the soft, creamy sheets, and cuddled her against his body. This close, chest to chest, legs tangled, she couldn’t miss his erection.

She tensed.

“I’m not going to touch you,” he promised. “Not if you don’t want to be touched.” Relaxing against him again, Kimber couldn’t deny that she was oddly relieved. It wasn’t Luc. He was sexy, sweet. In bed, compelling. He had this…intensity she saw flashes of—so far removed from the nice guy he seemed to be on the surface. There were layers here. Hidden but so obvious. Lord knew he could make her dissolve, set her on fire, make her feel as if she’d crawl out of her skin for satisfaction…right before he delivered. But at the moment, Kimber had another man on her mind.

“You’re thinking too hard and not sleeping.” He kissed her temple. “What is it?” She hesitated. Would talking too much about Deke and her confusion hurt Luc’s feelings?

“Okay, I’ll fill in the blanks,” he said into her silence. “Your dad is going to be okay, based on your phone call. Right?”

“I think so. It’s a big relief.”

“Good. So the next thing screwed up in your life is all this crap with Jesse. But you left him; he didn’t leave you. If you ended the engagement, it’s because you don’t love him. It doesn’t seem like you had a hard time giving up Jesse as a potential life partner.”

“I didn’t. His life… I couldn’t live like that. I quickly realized that he didn’t love me; he loved the idea of me. My purity and innocence was somehow supposed to save him from his out-of-control, rock-star existence.”

“And you knew better. Smart girl.” He kissed her mouth gently, almost in praise.

“So once the press latches onto the next bit of celebrity gossip, the reporters hounding you won’t be an issue anymore.”

“Probably true.”

“You’re not upset about Logan’s reaction to Deke and I being with you at the hospital. You told him that your personal life is none of his business. You’re too smart to take any guilt he might give you.”

“He’s fine with it now. He more or less apologized this morning.” Luc nodded sagely, soft fingers brushing her hair away from her face. “I doubt the status of your nursing exams would have you near tears.”

“No,” she admitted, trying to hold back even more tears.

“So, you’re not telling me that you love Deke because you’re afraid it would hurt my feelings.”

Kimber bounced a shocked gaze up to Luc’s indulgent smile. Damn, the man was smart.

“It’s fine. You’ve known him longer. It stood to reason that you’d fall for him first.

In time, I think you’ll come to love me, too. For now, I take your feelings for Deke as a good sign.”

“It’s bad!” she cried against his chest. “My feelings don’t matter. Once the immediate crisis of the explosion was over, Deke went back to business as usual.

He refuses to be in the same room with me, so what does it matter if the man has my heart?”

“You know he wants you. I’m pretty damn sure he loves you, too.” God, how she wished that was true. But wishing wouldn’t make it reality, and she had to come to grips with the chasm he purposely kept between them. “I think he cares. But he’s not going to act on it. Something…some fear, it stands in his way.” Luc nodded. “Yes, but you can make him face it and get over it.” Had he suddenly turned stupid? “How? I don’t know what it is.”

“You don’t have to know,” he soothed. “He’ll tell you. Get him to make love to you, and before too long, he’ll tell you everything.”