Tangled Threat. Heather Graham

I think I’d heard that you did go into the FBI,” she said. “And they sent you...here.” There. She had spoken in complete sentences. More or less. She’d been almost comprehensible.

      “Yes, pretty much followed my original plans. Navy, college, the academy—FBI. And yes, I’m back here. Nothing like sending in an agent who knows the terrain,” he said. “Shall we head back? I am serious. You shouldn’t be in the woods alone when...well, when no one has any idea of what is really going on. We’re not trying to incite fear. We’re just trying to get a grip on what is happening, but I do suggest caution. Shall we head back?”

      He was the same.

      He was different.

      And she was afraid to come too close to him. Afraid that the emotions of a teenager would erupt within her again, as if the years meant nothing...

      If she got too close, she would either want to beat upon him, slamming her fists against his chest, demanding to know why he had never called, never tried to reach her and how it had been so easy to forget her.

      Either that, or she would throw herself into his arms and sob and do anything just to touch him again.