Richard

Gunner blinked. “Uh, well, you didn’t give me a fork, so I thought_._._._” He shrugged. “Unless you want to see a grown man eat an egg with his hands.”

“Oh!” I laughed, shrill and hysterical. He probably thought I was insane. “Yeah. Sure. Um.” I pulled out three different drawers before I found the one with the utensils in it. “Here you go.”

“Thanks,” he said, plucking the fork from my fingers. He stabbed at his eggs, then dipped his bacon into the yolk. “How are you feeling after last night?”

I pulled my hair over my shoulder, nervously weaving a braid in it. “Well, I_._._._definitely wasn’t expecting that.”

“Me either,” Gunner admitted. A little stream of yolk ran down his chin, and I suddenly felt the urge to lick it off him. I pursed my lips to resist the call. “You think he’ll be back?”

It was my turn to blink. “Uh_._._._who?”

Gunner stared at me. “Your stalker. That’s who.”

“Oh, jeez.” I put on my best attempt at a smile. “I thought you were talking about our kiss.”

My stepbrother stiffened. He looked like he wanted to say something, but he also looked ashamed. My face fell as I realized that he was ashamed, even embarrassed by what we’d done.

Maybe I should have been, too. But all night long I’d thought about that kiss. About the way his lips had felt against mine. And how right all of it had seemed, despite everything I knew to the contrary. Despite what anyone else would have said about the matter.

“I gotta go,” Gunner said, dropping his fork onto his plate. “I’ll see you when I get home.”

“Wait,” I said. “Your food_._._._”

He shook his head. “Sorry sis... I’m already runnin’ late.”

“Just_._._._” I searched for a reason—any reason—to stall. “Uh, about that brick_._._._”

Gunner stopped. “What about it?”

“You noticed it had burn marks all over it. Right?”

“No, I_._._._” He turned, looking at the thing, which was still sitting on his kitchen counter. When he looked back at me, his eyes were fierce. Wild. “Hold on, baby. Are you telling me that brick came from your apartment building?”

I swallowed hard. I’d been thinking it, sure. Hell, I knew it was true. But hearing those words spoken out loud made my stomach drop to my feet. Somehow, hearing Gunner say it made it real.

“I think so,” I whispered.

“Shit.” He ran his hands through his hair, shaking his head. Then he kicked over the trash can, barked an apology, picked it up, and went after the chair instead.

“Sorry,” he said again, picking that up, too. He covered his mouth with his hand, muffling another word I couldn’t understand, but was probably four letters long.

“We gotta tell someone,” he said at last. “Gotta tell ‘em what happened. What this guy did. Shit, baby, if that fire wasn’t an accident_._._._”

He trailed off, and I let him. I was thinking about the bars on my window. The ones that had somehow gotten sealed shut. I’d blamed it on my landlord. Figured it was just Vinnie ignoring one kind of safety to satisfy another. But what if it wasn’t that at all? What if this guy, whoever he was, had been the one to weld those bars in place?

I didn’t realize I was shaking until Gunner came over to me, putting his hands on my shoulders. “Tanya. Hey. Look at me.”

His voice was so soft. So reassuring. I looked into his eyes and dammit, I just wanted to let all this pain, this worry, this terror melt away. But I had to hold onto it, because letting it go meant letting my guard drop. And I wasn’t about to be that stupid. Not ever again. Not around Gunner fucking Cole.

I pulled away. “We can’t tell them, Gun. What if they start asking questions? What if they wanna know what we did to piss this guy off?”

“Then we lie,” Gunner answered, reminding me that to him, lying his ass off was nothing at all. “We tell ‘em a half-truth. I came to pick you up from the club. Dude likes to watch you, got pissed I ruined his evening. Anything else, we chalk up to him being a psycho.” He frowned. “The hell’s that mean, anyway? The part about smiles_._._._”

“He’s a lunatic,” I muttered. “Chances are even he doesn’t know what it means.”

We stood there for a while, neither of us really looking at each other. For all his Gunner, Man of Action bravado, my stepbrother sure didn’t have a whole lot to say when it came down to it. Go to the cops. Try to get a TRO. Yeah, right. Like the police issue—or enforce—those. They don’t lift a fucking finger until some jack-off like this guy puts a girl in the fucking hospital.

Of course, my stepbrother wouldn’t know that, being a guy. They don’t think about shit like that. Guy goes out with a girl, he worries about being laughed at or goin’ home alone. Girl goes out with a guy? She’s worried about him killing her.

It’s true. Just turn on the fucking news.

“What’m I supposed to do until you get back?” I asked him. “I’m practically the perfect victim.”

Gunner fished his wallet from his back pocket. Then he pulled out a card and handed it to me. “So don’t be here. Go to the mall. Use this to get yourself some new clothes and things. Necessities, baby,” he added. “I’m not made of money. I still gotta get by a fireman’s salary, you know.”

Slowly, I took the card from his hand. My heart sank. Guys were always paying me off somehow. Maybe it was with drinks or dinner. Or shoving dollars into my G-string. To them, my company was always transactional. Just another service they could pay for, like heat or water or cable-fucking-TV.

So why the hell had I expected better from him?

“Got it,” I told him, forcing a smile. “Thanks.”

He took one long, last look at my body just barely covered by one of his shirts. Then my stepbrother turned and walked out of the room, leaving me and his credit card behind.

“There’s a key in the outside lantern,” he called over his shoulder. “Don’t forget to lock up.”

I sighed and sat down at the kitchen table. My life was in shambles. I had a stalker who was hell-bent on seeing that it stayed that way—or worse, flat-out killing me. After last night, I probably didn’t have a job.

And on top of all those very important things, the things I should have been worried about, I was way more concerned with the fact that Gunner didn’t want to talk about last night. He didn’t even want to acknowledge it had happened. He wanted to erase that memory, to let everything I’d felt, everything I was starting to feel, disappear into a void of silence.

This was just one more secret he would keep. One more lie he’d tell. Did any of his friends know I existed? Did any of them know where he’d come from? What he’d done?

Was our entire relationship based on a series of cold and calculating lies, plus an overwhelming desire to just forget?

I let the bacon and eggs cool on the stovetop. Sudden

ly, I wasn’t hungry anymore.

Chapter 9

Gunner

I didn’t like the thought of leaving Tanya after what had happened the night before. With that psycho on the loose, I felt like I needed to be watching over my stepsister 24/7 in case he decided to make another house call.

But my professional life had other plans.

The firehouse seemed a little less than boisterous when I walked in through the garage. Normally I could hear the boys from a few yards off in the dining room talking about the latest game, but not today. It almost felt like I was walking in on someone’s funeral.

I found Stoggins up in the kitchen cleaning up what must have been a big breakfast for the rest of the firefighters.