He cupped her face and wasn"t surprised that the rawness of his own voice was a close match to hers. “Rachel, don"t shut me out. Don"t close yourself down like this again.”

She gave a small laugh, a half sob. “Let me go, Jon. I don"t have the strength for what you want. Though I really, really appreciate you offering, my visit to Oz is over.

Go find the woman who has that strength. For tonight…I"m so tired. Let me go to sleep.

I need that peace. The peace of sleeping alone. I need…” Her voice broke. “I need to be numb. Please go.”

The sound of her tears, her broken voice, had footsteps coming swiftly down the hall. Giving him a despairing look, Rachel turned and slid into her apartment, closing the door decisively in his face.

* * * * *

The peace of sleeping alone. He understood what she meant. Inside that peaceful place, there was just enough room for her to fit, without touching the jagged edges of memory that hugged so close to her. If someone shared that space, she"d be forced against those painful and sharp points.

He would have persisted, except for a couple things. Mrs. Lowery had apparently fabricated the story about her son, but she appeared at his back armed with a Pomeranian. Though the armload of yapping dog wouldn"t have deterred him, he knew there was some truth to what Rachel said, that she needed time. She"d promised him she wouldn"t hurt herself, and though he knew an unstable person would say anything to placate their friends and family, she"d met his eyes, and for that one moment at least, he"d seen a quiet calm. It didn"t completely resolve his worries on that score, but he had to live with it, unless he wanted to break down the door.

And while she took the time she felt she needed, damn it all, he"d use that time to think, plan a different strategy. When they were kicked in the balls in a negotiation, they didn"t rush the field driven by pain and anger. They put some ice on it, and thought about how best to win the overall game.

So he went home. Sent Max back to the club to pick up the others, then ran the nature trails on his property twice, an eight-mile trek. He"d followed it up with an intense ninety-minute hot yoga session in his downstairs workshop. He"d kept the air off and only now had opened the windows that overlooked the screened porch.

Wearing a loose and faded pair of jeans, he turned in slow circles on the revolving stool at his drafting table, the sweat drying on muscles stretched to their limit.

Damn it. God damn double fucking shit on a brick damn it.

Everyone was nicked and dinged to a certain extent by the natural progress of life.

He"d understood that Rachel was badly damaged. The pain she"d felt from years of emotional estrangement from her spouse, then from the devastating loss of her son, had resulted in a meticulously constructed life that revolved in a peripheral way around people, passing inspection, but not attracting attention. The yoga and the physical therapy were ways she could offer parts of herself while continuing to protect the wounded center too raw for intimacy of any kind.

He remembered how she kept the photo album in her wardrobe. She had lots of acquaintances, but no real friends. She"d found her way to the center of the merry-go-round of life, where she could be dazzled by the colors and lights, enjoy watching the pretty ponies, but she was never on the ride herself. Because people saw her, most didn"t see that she wasn"t moving with them—just watching from her still point.

It made him realize that he might know her better than anyone, since the whole purpose of his weekly visits to her yoga class over the past year had been to study her, to analyze why he was increasingly more attracted to her. And she"d still been able to fool him, keep him on the outside all that time.

His fist curled on his thigh, as he again recalled that instant transformation, from the quietly wounded yet strong and outrageously sexy woman, to a cringing, insecure and pathetic creature, a version of herself he sensed she"d once been full time. He wanted to rip Cole to pieces, but it was far easier to destroy a human body than the memories it had inflicted upon her.

That was the key, wasn"t it? How to overpower those memories. He"d known from the beginning he needed to close the deal fast, that she would keep erecting shields faster than he knocked them down. As Matt had said, he"d had to break them apart, make it impossible for her to resurrect them.

So sure he would be her shield until she had the faith and confidence in his love to stand without them, he"d taken her to the club. He"d broken them apart, all right. In his arrogance, he"d never anticipated something like this. And now she was defenseless against the pain of her own soul that she"d spent years trying to survive.

Fucking hell. He"d picked up his bolt cutter and was flipping the handle out and back while he rocked on the stool. Now he tossed it back down on the workbench with a resounding clang against the metal frame. He didn"t care. He was going back over there. If he had to break down the damn door, he"d do it. She wouldn"t call the police.

He knew she wouldn"t. And if Mrs. Lowery did, Rachel wouldn"t let them haul him off to jail. Maybe. Of course, that was why Matt paid Ben the big bucks. He could bail him out.

“You missed our usual post-club midnight dinner. Giuseppe had some outstanding limoncello tonight.”

Jon turned toward the open window to the porch and the familiar voice, finding Matt sitting on the sill. His boss was still wearing slacks and dress shirt, but he"d lost the coat, the collar of the shirt open and sleeves rolled up. He dropped the takeout bag on the floor and brought both legs inside, bracing them in a comfortable splayed position as he tossed Jon a cold import from the small cooler he also had with him.

Even immersed in a project, Jon usually detected any visitors pulling into his drive, no matter the hour. But he expected his senses were a bit off tonight. He"d called Peter after leaving her place and filled him in, and had known Peter would pass the current status on to the others, but still he was surprised to see Matt.

“I"m going fucking insane. I can"t stay here and do nothing.”

“You aren"t doing nothing. You"re thinking. And from what I know of your mind, that"s the energy equivalent of a full army on the march. She"s all right for now.” Reaching into his pocket, he produced a small black revolver, and laid it on the nearest worktable. “She keeps it tucked between her towels in her linen closet. From the bluing on the muzzle, Max thinks she probably hasn"t pulled it out of there since…since she used it last.”

Jon stared at it, then at his boss and mentor. “I saw how she reacted to Savannah at the club,” Matt continued. “So when Peter told me what happened, I had Max take Savannah over. Rachel didn"t want to talk, but she let Savannah in. She let her tuck her in and sit by her bed until she fell asleep. My baby"s spending the night on her couch, keeping an eye on her through an open door.” Matt gave him a faint smile. “You"ll owe me for that. I don"t sleep without her. Once Rachel was asleep, Savannah looked through her things, found the gun. I could have sent Max in to do it, but Savannah knows her way around firearms. Plus, a woman would have a better idea where another woman would keep a gun. Once she found it, she gave it to Max and he brought it to me.”

Jon found his voice at last. “How did you know about it? I hadn"t told anyone.” Matt lifted an unapologetic shoulder, pulled out a bread stick and pushed the bag toward him with his foot. “I watch after my people, Jon. When you started getting invested in Rachel Madison months ago, I knew the signs. So when you made your move last week, I had her name run through a couple of my contacts.”

“Wow.” Jon ran a hand over his tired face, digesting that. “Some part of me feels like I should be pissed off. But considering you were able to step in where I fucked up, I guess it would all be ego.”

Matt snorted. “Of all of us, you"re guided the least by your ego. It"s why you excel at diplomacy when things get really heated. But you do have one, Jon.” He lifted his beer, quirking his brow. “Despite our teasing, we all know you have as big a dick as the rest of us. And you didn"t fuck up, by the way. You couldn"t have anticipated what happened tonight.”

Jon surged off the stool, moved restlessly around the workshop. “I should have.

That"s the way these things work, Matt. We both know that. We"ve seen things crop up during a strategy session that bug us, but because of other priorities we don"t cover them the way we should. Then, sure enough, they bite us in the ass when we least expect it. I"ve been racing against a clock, and the whole time I"ve had that niggling feeling I was missing something vital by taking things at that speed, and sure enough, there it was.” He gave a short, harsh chuckle. “There"s a reason for those seemingly contrived coincidences we see in the movies. Fate doesn"t like deception or loose ends, and has a way of putting them right in your face.”

“So you had a setback, that"s all. You fall back, regroup, plan a different strategy.

Do you think she loves you?”

“She wants to. And I know I love her.” Jon stopped at one of his unfinished projects, a modification to a CNC arm that, if he figured out the right programming, might be able to increase their production rate at the plant in Honduras. He laid his hand on the cool metal, stared at it. “It"s been growing in me this whole year, since I met her. As great a life as I have, the hour or two a week I spent in her classes made it all ten times better. I think I"ve memorized every expression she has, the way she moves, the way she smells…

“That first class, when she laid her hands on my forehead during the nidra—a closing ritual for yoga,” he added, knowing Matt preferred boxing at a gym for his workout regimen, “I swear everything in me just went still. She works me up, gets me hard and hot with a look, but she can also make everything in me go still and quiet as well, a sense of absolute peace, a balance. She walks the same paths I do. She"s the one.

But I"m afraid that waiting so long to bring that to fruition has made me push things too fast, and I"m using how it was for all of you to justify my own impatience. And as a result, this has happened.”