The back door was secure.
The brush of a shoe sole against a carpet paralyzed her.
Upstairs.
Hallway.
Rowen swallowed tightly and moved back into the entry hall. She hesitated at the bottom of the staircase and took a deep, steadying breath.
There was no way to assess in which of the four upstairs rooms the intruder had chosen to hide, and there was only one way to find out.
She moved up the staircase in five seconds flat, incredibly without hitting the first creaky spot. The hall stood empty. The window curtains at the very end shifted in the early morning breeze, drawing Rowen’s gaze there.
The intruder had entered through that window.
A flurry of anticipation shimmered along her nerve endings.
There was no doubt in her mind as to whether she had locked it or not, which meant he certainly had to have broken a pane of glass. She gritted her teeth. Antique glass. Handblown. Dammit.
Now that pissed her off. The invasion of her home was bad enough, but did the perp have to go damaging a piece of history to do it?
She took a step in that direction, her gaze sweeping from doorway to doorway, right to left and back.
“Lower your weapon.”
Rowen swiveled to face the threat that had come from the landing behind her.
Her fingers tightened on the Glock. Her aim zeroed in on the intruder.
“It’s me, Rowen.”
A fine tremor quaked through her limbs, this one not motivated by concern for her immediate safety. The bottom dropped out of her stomach and the resulting sinking sensation made her knees weak.
Evan Hunter.
She moistened her lips. Surveyed his tall frame once more just to be sure she wasn’t seeing a ghost.
Wasn’t he supposed to be dead?
“What’re you doing here?” The question came out reflecting exactly how she felt—confused, bewildered.
“We have to talk.”
She slid the safety back into the On position, then lowered her weapon as he’d requested. He didn’t appear armed and she knew this man. Or, at least, she had thought she’d known him. Her palms started to sweat as more bewildering tidbits filtered into her head. She shoved the weapon back into its holster and resisted the urge to swipe her damp hands against her thighs. She didn’t want him to know he’d affected her that way. Didn’t want to ask the questions she desperately needed answers for. Then he would fully comprehend how much his leaving had damaged her.
Suddenly, in an abrupt moment of clarity, the full impact of the situation hit her and fury obliterated all other emotion.
She stared at the man who stood maybe four feet away. Dark glasses shielded his eyes, protected his thoughts. But she would know him anywhere. And that made her all the more furious.
She had only one thing to say to him. “Get out.”
Chapter Two
It wasn’t until Rowen had uttered the words, heard them echo in the thickening air, that the reality of the situation actually hit her.
This wasn’t a dream—wasn’t her imagination.
Evan Hunter stood only a few feet away from her.
The man who’d promised her things that hurt too badly to recall even now, three years later. The man who had walked away without looking back once. The same man she’d searched for, made endless calls about, only to learn that he’d either left his position with the FBI or he was dead. No one really knew for certain. She was a cop and hadn’t even been able to find out for sure.
“I came here because you’re in danger,” he said quietly, as if those three years hadn’t passed…as if he hadn’t broken her heart beyond repair.
In that pivotal instant, the full weight of her fury broadsided her with the force of a runaway dump truck. Evan was alive. He looked whole, at least as far as she could tell with him wearing dark glasses and a long black coat that almost reached the floor.
A part of her wondered vaguely why he was dressed that way…it wasn’t that cold outside.
Before any sort of reason could penetrate her mounting confusion, another, more powerful emotion regained control.
He was alive and, apparently, well and he hadn’t called. Hadn’t bothered to let her know that he’d simply decided not to come back.
For weeks and months, she’d grieved him. And then she’d gotten angry, made herself as well as those around her seriously miserable. Eventually she’d gotten over him. Filed away every single memory associated with him.
The idea that he would show up now—for whatever reason—was like a blast of the harsh wintry New England wind that swirled and snapped and stung as it slapped you in the face.
“I said, get out of my house.”
The realization that he had broken into her home and had the audacity to stand here and toss warnings at her as if he were her assigned guardian angel made her want to shoot him on the spot. Just then, she could likely do that and not feel an inkling of remorse. Might even be able to cop a temporary insanity plea.
“Think about it, Rowen,” he said. She’d always loved the way he said her name, with an emphasis on the second syllable—very French. “How do you suppose I gained access to your home? You’re not safe here. You must—”
She held up her hands and slashed them back and forth as if she could somehow erase his words, as well as his presence. She cursed herself for the weakness the resonance of his voice could evoke. He had no right to even utter her name…not now…not after what he’d done. “Don’t you dare come here after all this time, you bastard, and pretend to care what happens to me.”
The anger and hurt that filled her tone was undeniable. She hated, absolutely hated, that he would know with that statement just how badly his leaving had injured her. “I don’t know why you came back but I want you out of here. Now. Or I will call a unit to pick you up. Breaking and entering is still against the law, Hunter.”
As if she hadn’t spoken at all he moved closer. “Listen to me, Rowen,” he murmured. “That’s all I ask. Then if you still want to throw me out, I won’t resist. Just five minutes.”
She squared her shoulders and glared at him, her lips trembling in spite of her best efforts. “You don’t deserve five minutes.”
“I know what you think,” he offered, that deep, rich timbre playing havoc with her senses, quelling her anger faster than she could reignite it. “I can’t change what you think of me, but I had to come and warn you. You are in grave danger.” He inclined his head as if to look beyond her to the open window. “You’ll have to excuse my tactics, but I needed you to understand just how vulnerable you are.”
She couldn’t take this any longer. Fury driving her, she snatched the concealing eyewear from his face and forced him to look directly at her.
He squinted those pale gray eyes, held up his hand to shield them, then turned away from her, as if the dim light sifting in from the window more than a dozen yards behind her was too much to bear.
A whole new barrage of questions flooded into her brain all at once. “What’s happened to you?”
It wasn’t until he’d reached up to block the light that she noticed he wore gloves. Why? It was only October. Sure, the mornings could be chilly, but not that chilly.
And then what was wrong with the whole picture he presented meshed fully with her senses. His hair was far longer than before, but