He hadn’t felt alive since that explosion, but he had drifted through pain and daily living, not caring if he was numb to everything, not caring if he was only half alive and in danger or about anything else that came his way. Only this past year had he decided he wanted out of Washington, away from the military and all authorities. He wanted peace and quiet, and a simple life. He didn’t want to hurt his family further or to bring danger to them.
The last thing he’d planned to do before going into his isolation was to warn his buddies of the danger they might be in.
Now he was on fire with longing he hadn’t felt in years. This kid sister of Boone’s had stormed into his body, making his heart pound harder, awakening him to needs that he thought were dead and over. Little Izzie. But she wasn’t “little” Izzie any longer. She was a beautiful, desirable, stubborn woman.
He didn’t want to be on fire with longing. He didn’t want to think about her kiss that had all but melted his insides.
But Colin suspected he wasn’t going to be able to forget her kiss anytime in the near future. He wiped a hand across his mouth, wishing he could erase her kiss, wishing they hadn’t goaded each other into such a heated confrontation.
She was like a miniature tiger. There should have been warning signs. Do Not Surprise Or Taunt. Big blue eyes and hair in a pigtail. Deal With At Your Own Risk. She should have been sweet and pleasant and afraid of him as most young women were.
Maybe that gutsy daredevil blood in Boone ran in his whole family. Boone. Isabella was his kid sister. “Just keep reminding yourself,” Colin whispered to himself. He needed to keep his hands off Boone’s sister. He would never have thought this would be a problem.
Instead it was a monumental dilemma—one that kept his pulse racing even now, long after she had sashayed out of the room with that sexy walk of hers.
He groaned, raked his fingers through his hair, then rubbed his knee. His old injuries were acting up after the earlier struggle with Isabella. But he also ached in places he hadn’t hurt in years. And the desire, hot and elemental, angered him.
She had brought him back into life like igniting a fire—Could he put out the flames? Could he go back as he had been, numb, unemotional, not caring? He swore under his breath and walked through the downstairs of Mike’s mansion.
Colin switched off lights until the entire lower floor was bathed in darkness. His eyes adjusted, and he strode to the window he had broken, gazing outside. But his mind was still on Isabella and her kiss.
She was the first woman since Danielle to get through to him. He didn’t want Isabella Devlin clouding his thinking or stirring him to yearnings he thought were long dead. He wouldn’t be here long. He was here to pass on a warning and to vanish once more.
From what she had told him, she didn’t know anything about love. She knew plenty about kissing. And fighting. And shocking him into awareness.
“Dammit, get out of my thoughts!” he whispered. Raking his fingers through his hair again, he remembered combing his hand through her long, silky hair. She had smelled delectable…tasted luscious…and he wanted to forget every second he’d spent with her tonight. He heard a thump overhead and looked up. Everything had to be all right.
Uneasy, he turned and went to the foot of the stairs. All was dark at the top and he climbed slowly, carefully, not making a sound. In seconds he could see the upstairs hall where one small wall lamp burned. Doors opened off the wide hallway in both directions. He knew there was a third floor to the mansion. He hadn’t asked Isabella where she was sleeping.
He climbed a couple more steps and saw a door open a crack, light spilling out. He moved to the top of the stairs.
“Isabella?” he called quietly.
The door opened wider and she stepped into the hall. She was wearing a pale pink cotton nightgown and he could see her figure outlined through the backlighting from the bedroom. He inhaled deeply.
“Are you all right?” he asked, unable to prevent the husky note in his voice.
“I’m fine,” she replied, sounding puzzled. “Did something disturb you?”
Before he could answer, a baby started crying and Isabella hurried to the room next to hers, opening a door. He walked down the hall, every step telling himself to turn around and go back downstairs, to keep distance between himself and Boone’s sister.
He paused in the open doorway. She was holding a little girl in her arms. The baby’s arm was around Isabella’s neck as she tried to comfort the crying child.
As she patted the little girl’s back, the child stopped crying and snuggled closer to Isabella. Isabella turned around and her eyes widened.
“Is she all right?” he asked.
“She’s fine. She’ll go back to sleep. This is Jessie. Jessie, love,” she said softly, “this is—What rank are you, Colin? The last I heard was Colonel Garrick.”
“Colin is enough for a baby to deal with. She doesn’t talk yet anyway, does she?”
“Yes, she talks,” Isabella replied with a smile. “She has a limited vocabulary, but she talks. She’s seventeen months old now.”
Isabella looked beautiful in the nightgown, her hair tumbling over her shoulders, the baby in her arms. He was staring and had momentarily forgotten they had been talking.
“Did something disturb you?” she asked.
“I heard a thump,” he replied, telling himself to leave her alone. Yet he could only stand and stare.
“We’re fine. I dropped my book. Maybe you heard that.” She looked down at Jessie who had gone back to sleep. “See, she’s fine.” She put the toddler back into the crib and turned to go. “She’s gone back to sleep.” She looked up at him. “Shall we go?”
The neck of the nightgown was high, but the top two buttons were unfastened and he couldn’t keep from staring, wanting to reach out and push open the gown. It was cotton and opaque, covering her, but he knew there was nothing under it and he wanted to pull her into his arms.
He turned abruptly and left. “Just wanted to see that you were all right.” He flung the words over his shoulder without looking back. He rushed down the stairs as if a demon were after him; he certainly felt as though one were. A devil of desire. Something he hadn’t had to deal with in so long and that he didn’t want to cope with now.
He stretched out on the sofa. While he had traveled across country for nights on end, he had been going with little sleep and catching it any way he could. Tonight, he had a plush, comfortable sofa and he should have been asleep immediately, but he knew that as long as images of Isabella tormented him, slumber would elude him.
He didn’t want back into the land of the living. He put his hands behind his head, stared at a fixture and blanked out his mind as he had learned to do in prison. He repeated passages committed to memory, going over them without thinking, but keeping his mind blank until sleep overtook him.
Upstairs, Isabella sat in her darkened bedroom, her thoughts stormy as she went back over every minute of the evening.
And Colin’s kiss. They had taunted each other. She shouldn’t have said the things to him that she had, but she was disappointed with the man he had become. If he had been antisocial and mean, she would have left him alone about his future. But he’d once been so alive, the change seemed like a betrayal of the old Colin.
His plans for the rest of his days were grim. Going into seclusion. Giving up love and friends and family.
She touched her lips lightly,