Taken by Midnight (Midnight Breed 8)

Brock probably should have been thinking about that, too, but he was more interested in knowing if Gideon had turned up anything more about Jenna's blood work results. As he entered the stretch of corridor that would take him to the lab, he heard movement in another of the compound's meeting rooms.

Following the sound of shuffling papers, he drew to a pause outside the open door of the Breedmates' mission command center.

Jenna was alone inside the room.

Seated at the conference table, several manila file folders fanned out before her and a couple more stacked neatly at her elbow, she was bent over a pad of paper, pen in hand and thoroughly engrossed in whatever she was writing. At first, he didn't think she knew he was there. But then her hand paused halfway down the page, her head lifting. The soft brown layers of her hair shifted like silk as she pivoted to see who was standing in the doorway.

That had been his cue to duck away fast, before she saw him. He was Breed; he could have been there and gone before her mortal eyes could register his presence. Instead, for some idiotic reason he had no interest in examining, he took a step inside and cleared his throat.

Jenna's hazel gaze went wider when she saw him.

"Hey," he said.

She gave him a brief smile, looking more than a little caught off-guard by him. And why shouldn't she be, after the way he'd left things with her the last time he saw her? She pulled one of the file folders over and set it on top of her notepad. "I thought everyone had gone to bed."

"They have." He walked farther into the room and made a quick visual scan of the information spread out on the table. "Looks like Dylan and the others have managed to recruit you already."

She shrugged, a weak denial. "I was just ... looking at a few things.

Comparing notes on some of the files, jotting down a couple of my thoughts."

Brock took a seat in the chair next to her. "They'll appreciate that," he said, impressed that she was lending a hand. He reached for the notes she'd been writing. "Can I have a look?"

"It's nothing much, really," she said. "Sometimes it just helps to have a fresh pair of eyes."

He glanced at her crisp, precise handwriting that filled most of the page. Her mind seemed to operate in the same organized manner, based on the logical flow of her notes and the list of suggestions she'd made for investigating the missing persons cases that Dylan and the other Breedmates had been pursuing for the past few months.

"This is good work," he said, not flattery, just fact. "I can tell you're a damned good cop."

Again the denying shrug. "I'm not a cop anymore. I've been out of it a long time."

He watched her speak, heard the regret that lingered in her voice.

"Doesn't mean you're not still good at what you do."

"I stopped being good at it a while ago. Something happened, and I ...

I lost my edge." She looked over at him then, unflinching. "There was a car accident four years ago. My husband and my six-year-old daughter were both killed, but somehow I survived."

Brock nodded faintly. "I know. I'm sorry for your loss."

His sympathy seemed to fluster her somewhat, as though she wasn't quite sure what to do with it. Maybe it would have been easier for her to talk about the tragedy on her own terms, without the knowledge that he'd already been privy to the information. Now she looked at him uncertainly, as though she feared he would judge her in some way. "I ... struggled to accept that Mitch and Libby were gone. For a long time--even now--it's hard to know how I'm supposed to move on."

"You live," Brock said. "That's all you can do."

She nodded, but there was a hauntedness to her eyes. "You make it sound easy."

"Not easy, necessary." He watched her pick idly at a broken staple on one of the reports. "Is that why you resigned from law enforcement, because you didn't know how to live after the accident?"

Staring at the cluttered table space in front of her, she frowned, silent for a long moment. "I quit because I couldn't perform my duties anymore.

Every time I had to report for a traffic violation, even a fender bender or a blown tire, I would be shaking so badly by the time I reached the scene, I could hardly get out of my vehicle to offer help. And the truly awful calls, the serious accidents or the domestic disturbances that often ended in violence, left me sick to my stomach for days afterward. Everything I'd learned in training and on the job had been shattered when that tractor trailer full of timber crossed the icy highway and plowed into my life." She glanced over at him then, her green-brown gaze as tenacious and unflinching as he'd ever seen it. "I quit being a cop because I knew I couldn't do my job the way it needed to be done. I didn't want anyone who relied on me to possibly pay for my negligence. So, I resigned."

Brock had respected Jenna's courage and resilience from the moment he first laid eyes on her. Now the meter on his opinion of her had just climbed up another notch or ten. "You cared about your work and the people who depended on you. That's not a sign of weakness. That's strength. And you obviously had a great deal of love for your job. I think you still do."

Why that simple observation should strike a nerve in her, he didn't know, but he'd have to be blind to miss the flare of defensiveness that sparked in her eyes. She glanced away as though realizing her slip, and when she spoke, there was no anger in her voice. Only a flat sort of resignation.

"You know a lot about me, huh? I guess there isn't much that you and the Order don't know by now."