That thought made her laugh. Having no substance meant she couldn’t be hurt. When was the last time she’d felt like a normal person?

A lifetime ago.

No wonder she couldn’t remember much about it. Even with Jackson trying so hard to help her fit in, the truth won out: she’d been forever changed by her experiences. The past had helped to shape her into a force of vengeance.

Jackson had killed the ones who hurt her, robbing her of the revenge she’d desperately wanted.

But if it hadn’t been for him, she would have died.

So she paid it forward by helping others who would be abused by traffickers. Somehow, somewhere, it had to make a difference.

To someone.

Pulling up to the front of another bar, in plain view of passersby, she put the car in Park. Windows up and doors locked, she sat back and stewed on the plan. Jackson would want to help her, but in this, he couldn’t.

Not this time.

She needed a safe place to set up. Having no personal residence of her own, she’d have to make do with someone else’s digs.

Girlfriend’s? That might work.

But she was more familiar with Jackson’s apartment. If she got him out of there, then she’d have a clear field.

Guilt nudged at her resolve, but she shoved it aside with ruthless determination.

She dialed Jackson.

It didn’t surprise her that his cell rang only once. Jackson might sleep, but even then, he remained on alert. He was the most amazing man she’d ever met.

“Hey, sweetcheeks. It’s me.”

As if he hadn’t been sleeping at all, he said crisp and clear, “Where are you?”

Watching every car that passed, every man who peered at her, Arizona laughed. “You’re a broken record, you know that?”

“I want to see you.” Rustling in the background interrupted that command. She heard Jackson shush a sleepy-voiced woman.

His new honeypot.

Arizona curled her lip. “Am I interrupting?”

“No. Where are you?”

Relentless. “Actually, stud-o, I’m heading out to meet you.”

Paying no attention to the pet name, he asked, “Now?”

Arizona could almost picture him looking at the clock. “No time like the present, right? Unlike some people, I don’t have a warm body beside me to keep me lazing in the bed.”

He ignored that, too. “Where?”

One car moved past slowly, and even though Arizona couldn’t see into it through the windows, she tracked it until it went out of sight. Her senses prickled. Déjà vu? She didn’t recognize the car, but she recognized something.

Absently, she said to Jackson, “I was thinking of the all-important backup plan.”

“How long?”

Even with the car out of sight, her senses continued to prickle in an alarming way that somehow had nothing to do with danger. “When did you become a man of few words? Or is it that your little tootsie is listening in?”

“How long, hon?”

Oh, how that voice did her in. Jackson was the only man she knew who treated her like a very special kid sister. Even her father had never shown her that same simple acceptance. But then, her father had been a weak, sick fool. He hadn’t deserved her mom.

He hadn’t deserved her.

Jackson wasn’t weak. And unlike most men she knew, he didn’t want her as a woman. He only wanted her as a…responsibility. Sometimes a friend. But never anything sexual.

It confused the hell out of her. It also freed her to show all the affection she wanted to give. To Jackson.

He wouldn’t misunderstand. He wouldn’t take advantage of her own weakness. Pressing a fist to her heart, she cursed low.

“Arizona?”

She shook her head to clear it of overly sentimental slush. “Let’s say a couple of hours, give or take fifteen minutes, okay?” She was less than half an hour from his apartment, but she had the sudden urge to cause a little chaos. Violence always cleansed the remorse.

She flexed her fingers, clenched a fist and continued, “Later, baby.”

He tried to protest, but she shut the phone and ignored it when he called back. What was she? A child who needed constant supervision?

If he knew what she planned, he’d have a conniption, and that’d ruin half her fun.

Pausing at the open door to the bar, she peered past the smoke and darkness and saw the same depressing sights as always. Men slumped at dirty round tables. Others hung over the bar, cradling their drinks like lifelines. Some staggered about, and a few even looked sober. But it wouldn’t last.

She needed to do nothing more than walk in, and one of the foul bastards would get grabby.

It never failed.

Anxious for the relief of mindless violence, she started in—and a noise to her right grabbed her attention. Something moved, the scratching of sluggish feet, metal scraped, paper rustled.

Curious, she headed toward a dark alley that ran between the bar and a closed novelty shop. Out of nowhere, a man appeared beside a trash bin. Tall, strong. Shoulder propped against the brick wall, head held just so.

On the ground nearby lay a crumpled body.

Well, well, well. What had happened here?

Arizona tucked in her chin and studied the scene. Thanks to a faulty streetlamp, she couldn’t see the man’s face, couldn’t read his expression.

But it didn’t matter. On a gut level, she recognized him all the same.

Affecting a stance—arms crossed, hip cocked out— Arizona smiled. “You stole my wallet.”