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  “That’s because they think I’m a cop killer,” he said. “That’s why I need to prove it wasn’t me.”

  “It was Brandon?”

  “You don’t think he’s alive?” he asked, studying her face again as if trying to gauge if she thought he was crazy for even considering it.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know what to believe about anything anymore.” She had spent the past three years believing an innocent man guilty. She could have also spent three years believing a live man dead.

  “Help me find proof then,” he said, and he passed her a file folder.

  After going through that one, she grabbed another and another. Reading through printed ledgers and bank statements, her eyelids drooped, growing almost too heavy to keep open. Maybe if she closed them for just a moment…

  She jerked awake, disoriented from a sense of weightlessness and moving, almost as if she were flying, through a dark room. She opened her lips to utter the scream choking her.

  “It’s okay,” Jed assured her. “I’m bringing you to bed.”

  Her pulse quickened and then raced.

  “You’re exhausted,” he said.

  “But I didn’t find anything to help you. I need to keep looking over the statements,” she protested, struggling in his arms.

  He lowered her to a soft mattress. “You’re not going to find anything. The son of a bitch covered his tracks very well. The transfers from my client accounts all went into my account.”

  “But the money isn’t there anymore.”

  “It sure as hell isn’t,” he replied with a bitter chuckle. “There was a transfer to an untraceable, offshore account.”

  Purpose reinvigorated her, chasing away her drowsiness. “We need to find that bank and get proof that the account belongs to Brandon.”

  Jed shook his head. “Those banks constantly change their routing and transit numbers to hide their assets as well as their clients’ assets. We’re not going to track them down.”

  “And we’re not going to track down Brandon.” She shivered. “He’s going to track down us.”

  Rowe’s safe house wouldn’t stay safe long—not if Brandon was really still alive and hell-bent on protecting himself. He had already fired at them in the woods. What would he do to them here?

  “I won’t let him hurt you,” Jed promised. “I’ll protect you.” He stepped back, but before he could turn toward the door, she reached for him.

  She clutched his hand. “Who will protect me from you?” she asked because Erica was afraid that she was going to fall for him again, and he had already broken her heart too many times.

  He shook his head. “I’m sorry about earlier—about taking advantage of you…”

  “I’m not,” she admitted. “And you didn’t take advantage of me.”

  He had given her the chance to change her mind, but she’d wanted him too much. Then. And now.

  She tugged him down onto the bed with her.

  “Erica, this is a bad idea,” he warned her. “I told you that I’ll have to go back to jail. We have no future.”

  “I know,” she assured him. And maybe that was why she wanted to make love with him so badly—because she didn’t know if she would ever be this close to him again. She didn’t have to worry about her heart; she didn’t have to worry if she should trust him.

  She only had to worry about holding on to her heart tonight.

  “You deserve more,” he said.

  “I have more,” she assured him. “I have Isobel.” Their daughter was all she needed in her life.

  The little girl was safe; Macy had assured her of that earlier. And she had believed it when she’d talked to Isobel. While the little girl had missed her mommy, she had also been thrilled to be getting to know her fun, new aunt.

  If only Isobel would be able to get to know her father, too…

  But Jed was right; there hadn’t been any clues left in those ledgers and bank statements. Nothing to clear his name, nothing to point to Brandon’s guilt or his present whereabouts if he really wasn’t six feet under.

  Jed expelled a ragged breath. “You are so beautiful,” he murmured, “whenever you talk about our daughter, you glow…like an angel…”

  She didn’t feel like an angel tonight. She reached for the bottom of her sweater and dragged it up and over her head. She tossed it onto the floor, and then she unclasped her bra.

  Jed groaned now. “Damn, woman…”

  He followed her lead but shucked off all his clothes and then dragged her jeans down her legs. He kissed her everywhere, taking his time first with her mouth. He pressed hot kisses to her lips and then parted them for his tongue. He kissed her deeply.

  She arched against him and moaned, wanting all of him. Pressure built inside her, making her ache for him. But he was pulling back to kiss her shoulders, the inside of her elbow, the curve of her hip. He dipped his tongue inside her navel and then moved it lower. She lifted off the bed. “Jed!”

  He made love to her thoroughly until tears streaked from her eyes as the pressure wound tighter, then released in a rush of pleasure. “Jed!”

  He parted her legs and thrust inside, joining their bodies as their hearts would never be joined. Except that, as she clutched him close, she felt his heart beating in perfect, frantic rhythm with hers. It was as if they shared one heart, one body.

  He kissed her passionately, as he thrust deep inside her. She arched and clutched at him, digging her nails into his back and then lower, into his butt.

  He groaned. “I can’t—” His control snapped and he came, filling her.

  And she joined him, her scream of ecstasy echoing his shout. She didn’t let go, didn’t let him go, but fell asleep holding him close…until she wouldn’t be able to hold him anymore…

  * * *

  A RINGING NOISE JERKED Jed awake. He hadn’t heard a phone ring in three years, but he recognized the sound and fumbled for the phone that lay atop his jeans beside the bed. He glanced at the woman lying beside him. Maybe she slept as soundly as their daughter because she didn’t so much as shift or murmur over the noise or his moving beside her.

  He had to pull his arm out from under her. It tingled, asleep even from her slight weight. He slipped out of bed and took the phone with him out to the living room. Studying the high-tech screen on the cellular, he pushed a button but didn’t say anything.

  “Jed?”

  He grunted as he recognized Rowe’s voice. “Yeah…”

  “Sounds like I woke you up,” the DEA agent mused. “I didn’t think you would be able to sleep.”

  If not for making love with Erica, he wouldn’t have been able to close his eyes…not without the fear of seeing Brandon’s face.

  “I haven’t slept since I broke out,” he admitted. “Actually not since the riot started.”

  “Guess you haven’t had a safe place to sleep until tonight,” Rowe remarked.

  “I have to wonder how safe any place is,” Jed said. “It’s him, isn’t it?”

  “Yes!” Rowe said with triumph. “I had an FBI tech rush the DNA report from the old crime-scene evidence. We got what we need to get a new trial, Jed!”

  “I don’t want a new trial,” he said. “I want justice. He’s not dead?” Yet.

  “It wasn’t Brandon Henderson in the burned-out vehicle,” Rowe confirmed. “The dental records used at the trial were obviously fakes.”

  “Why wasn’t DNA used then?” Jed wondered.

  “It was ordered but the results weren’t back before the trial,” Rowe said. “And your lawyer agreed with the D.A. that the dental records were confirmation enough of the dead body’s identity.”

  Jed cursed Marcus and himself for so blindly trusting him. Hell, he’d trusted Brandon, too—not much but enough to go into business with the man. Brandon Henderson had been smart and ambitious; Jed had had no doubt that theirs would be a successful firm.

  He just hadn’t realized exactly how smart and ambitious Brandon was.

  And h
ow criminal…

  “You could have had a new trial at any time,” Rowe said, the triumph replaced with the hard edge of anger, “if anyone had bothered to follow up about the DNA.”

  “I don’t want a new trial,” Jed repeated.

  “But just because Brandon wasn’t in the car doesn’t make him the killer.”

  “Bullshit,” Jed replied, his frustration growing. “If he wasn’t the killer, why hasn’t he come forward before now?”

  “He came forward in the woods today,” Rowe said. “There were shells found from a gun that wasn’t police issue.”

  “So shouldn’t that help clear me or at least get the shoot-on-sight order rescinded?”

  Rowe cursed now. “Those unidentified shells prove to the police that you’re armed and dangerous because they think that gun was yours. I have to bring you in, Jed. Or you’ll get shot for sure. But until we can get that new trial, the DNA evidence will be enough to cast doubt on your convictions. You’ll be safer now.”

  “No.” He wouldn’t be safe until Brandon was six feet under for real. The man had gone to a lot of trouble to take away from Jed everything that had mattered to him—his reputation, his freedom.

  Erica…

  He glanced toward the bedroom and jumped when he noticed her leaning against the doorjamb. She was wearing his shirt with only half the buttons done up, displaying her slender legs and the hollow between her full breasts. His body hardened again, wanting her.

  Rowe was still talking. “I’m not giving you a choice, man. I’m going to be back there in a couple of hours, and I’m bringing you in.”

  “No,” Jed repeated. Instead of arguing with him, he just clicked off the cell. He wouldn’t be there by the time Rowe arrived.

  “No?” Erica asked. “It wasn’t him?”

  “It wasn’t him in the car,” Jed confirmed.

  She sucked in a sharp breath of air and fear. “So Brandon’s still alive?”

  He nodded. For now.

  “Do you know where he is?” she asked.

  He forced a shrug. But he knew. Brandon was waiting for him. Just like Jed, he would have realized that it was time for them to end this. Their rivalry had begun in elementary school and had lasted too damn long. Jed had always considered it a healthy, competitive rivalry that had made them both stronger and more successful.

  That hadn’t been the case. It hadn’t been healthy for either of them, or for anyone who had come into contact with them. Erica had been hurt. Marcus Leighton and the witnesses were all dead…

  “You know where he is,” Erica said, with that insight into him that no one but Macy had ever had. “And you intend to kill him.”

  He had to kill Brandon before the man killed him. Or worse yet—her and Isobel.

  * * *

  DESPITE THE LATE HOUR, the jail was alive—excitement dancing in the air and in Jefferson’s lawyer’s eyes. Something had happened.

  Hopefully something good for him.

  “Looks like the DEA agent may have been right about Kleyn,” Breuker remarked. He drummed his fingers against his briefcase. “A source informed me that the agent rushed DNA from the old crime scene.”

  “It wasn’t Kleyn’s?”

  “It wasn’t the man he was accused of killing—his business partner.”

  He choked out a laugh at the irony. “He faked his death…” Like Kleyn had talked an undercover agent into faking his to save his life.

  But this wasn’t good news for Jefferson. Having an innocent man testify against him would be so much worse than having a convicted killer…

  “This is bad news,” he pointed out, wondering at his lawyer’s excitement. Maybe the man wasn’t as brilliant as his reputation claimed, just as Jed Kleyn hadn’t been as ruthless as his.

  “York and Ketchum are having a big powwow right now,” Breuker shared. “Something’s going down…”

  “A showdown,” Jefferson mused.

  Kleyn might have been an innocent man when he’d been sentenced to Blackwoods, but three years there had stolen away that innocence and his humanity.

  “He’s going to want revenge.”

  “And his partner’s going to want to protect himself…”

  Jefferson laughed again as the lawyer’s excitement tingled in his veins. “Sounds like they might wind up killing each other…”

  And that would be very good news for Jefferson James.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Erica shivered at the coldness on Jed’s handsome face. He hadn’t denied her accusation. He fully intended to kill Brandon Henderson.

  She had been right not to give him her heart. He wasn’t the man she had once known and loved. Maybe Afghanistan hadn’t changed him, but Brandon’s betrayal and Blackwoods Penitentiary had.

  “How can you just kill a man in cold blood?” she asked, horrified.

  He laughed. “You think it’ll be in cold blood? I think it’ll be in self-defense.”

  Erica shook her head, denying his claim. “No. You know where he is. You don’t have to go there to meet him. Call Rowe back. Tell him where he can find Brandon. He’ll bring him in alive.”

  “He won’t know if it’s Brandon or not. The guy’s changed his appearance,” Jed reminded her. “Rowe won’t recognize him from some old photograph.”

  He was probably right; Brandon was too smart to waltz back into the country looking like his old, dead self. “Then go with Rowe. Point Brandon out, but stay out of it.”

  “Brandon took away three years of my life. He broke into your house, probably to abduct our daughter, and then he shot at us,” he said, listing the man’s recent crimes. “I’m not giving him the chance to take anything else away from me.”

  She laughed now, just as he had, with irony and bitterness. “If you kill him, he’ll take away your humanity and your honor.”

  “He took that away when I got locked up in hell three years ago.”

  Yes. Blackwoods had changed him.

  “I’m going with you,” she insisted, turning for the bedroom to grab her clothes.

  Jed followed her in and grabbed up his clothes, too. He pulled on his jeans and shirt and then lifted the gun from the floor.

  God, why had Rowe given him a gun?

  “You’re not going with me,” he said. He didn’t point the gun at her, but there was something threatening about just the way he held it, staring down at the trigger as if he could pull it with his gaze since his finger was nowhere near it.

  “You’re not going to shoot me,” she said, calling his unspoken bluff.

  “Why not?” he asked. “According to you, I’m a cold-blooded killer.” He stared at her now instead of at the gun, but his dark eyes weren’t cold. They were full of emotion—anger and hurt.

  “Not yet,” she said. “But if you confront Brandon alone, you’re going to become one.”

  “You’re not coming along,” he insisted. “I don’t want you anywhere near Brandon ever again.”

  The man had tried to use her before to hurt Jed; he would undoubtedly have no qualms about using her again. “I don’t want to be anywhere near him,” she admitted. “And I don’t want you near him, either. I want you to wait for Rowe.”

  He shook his head. “I can’t. I’ve waited three years for justice, Erica. I can’t wait any longer.” He shoved the gun into the waistband of his jeans at his back as he turned for the door.

  She reached for his arm, trying to hold him back. Muscles bulged and rippled beneath her grasp, and he gently shook her off. But he stopped in the doorway and faced her again.

  Maybe she’d gotten through to him. Maybe he’d changed his mind about meeting Brandon alone. She breathed a slight sigh of relief.

  Then he stole her breath with a kiss. It was deep and full of passion and promise. She closed her eyes and smiled, grateful that he had changed his mind.

  For her?

  Did he want to be the man she had once fallen for, the man she had once loved?

  He lifted his mouth fro
m hers and stepped back because she couldn’t feel the heat of his body anymore.

  “Jed…” She opened her eyes. But she didn’t see his face. She only saw wood as the door snapped shut between them. She reached for the knob, grabbing it, but it wouldn’t budge.