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South Riverside Plaza, Chicago

Ten days later…

The warm, rich scent of roasted coffee beans mixed with the smells of spiced chai and freshly baked pastries. The hum of conversation blended with the hiss of the expresso machine and the clatter of ceramic mugs.

Julia welcomed the familiarity of her favorite coffee shop as she shuffled forward in the slow-moving line.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow , she hummed to herself as she glanced out the window. Flurries danced in the air and landed on the shoulders of the passersby. The forecast called for another six inches of the white stuff, and she mentally braced herself for more of what had already been a long, hard winter.

Tucking her hands into her coat pockets because the biting chill of the outdoors still lingered in her fingertips, she couldn’t wait to wrap her hands around the cup of hot coffee. Anticipation of the liquid warmth as it slid down her throat and the zing she’d feel once the jolt of caffeine hit her bloodstream had her eagerly stepping forward when it was her turn.

“Good morning, Chaz.” She smiled at the barista.

He flashed her an easy grin, showing off his perfect teeth and even more perfect dimples. “Morning, Julia. The usual?” His voice was warm and teasing because they went through this every day.

“Some day, I might surprise you and order something different. But today is not that day.”

“I like a woman who’s consistent.” He wiggled his eyebrows as he rang up her order. “In fact, it’s one of my favorite qualities.”

She chuckled and shook her head, handing over her credit card. “Why are you working here? Seriously, with that jawline and that hair, you should be doing commercials for luxury shampoos.”

“And miss the chance to see your beautiful face every morning?” He blinked dramatically. “Never.”

She could almost hear her sister-in-law Annie’s voice in her head, urging her to live a little .

Annie had been the first person in her family to realize it was something other than the bullet wound that, for weeks, had made Julia putter around her house in a blue funk , as her mother called it. One evening, after Annie had come by to drop off groceries, Julia had confessed what happened between her and Britt Rollins. When she’d shown Annie Britt’s letter, Annie had held her while she’d cried in self-pity and disappointment.

And it was Annie who, just last night, pulled her aside to brazenly inform her that the only way to get over someone is to get under someone else .

A guy like Chaz wasn’t the type Julia would take home to meet the parents—he wasn’t the type to want that—but he sure seemed like he’d make a great distraction.

Distraction.

That was the ticket. She needed to distract herself. To move on. To forget.

Unfortunately, all she could think about as Chaz turned to make her drink was Britt.

No matter how hard she tried, the memory of him refused to fade. When things were quiet, she heard his laugh, that low, delicious rumble. When she closed her eyes, she saw how his brow furrowed in concentration, how those three perfect lines on his forehead went wonky at the edges because of his scar. She remembered feeling the weight of his presence in a room, how it seemed like gravity itself shifted around him.

Go away! she silently cried to the memories. Go away and give me some damned peace!

But it was useless. The way she felt about Britt lingered just as her memories of him lingered. He was a song she couldn’t shake. An earworm of the heart, and she was sick and tired of trying to?—

“Voila!” Chaz pulled her back to the present as he slid a paper coffee sleeve over her freshly poured beverage.

“Thank you.” She grinned at him. “You’re a lifesaver.”

“You say that every day.”

“It’s true every day.”

He chuckled. “So if we’re keeping things consistent, now’s when I ask you out. And now’s when you crush my spirit by refusing.” He leaned on the counter, all confidence and charm and perfect looks.

The usual words hovered on the tip of her tongue. But instead of her pat refusal, she heard herself say, “You know what? Yes. How about we meet for drinks tonight?”

Chaz blinked. “You’re joking.”

“Serious as a heart attack,” she assured him.

“The Drawing Room on Michigan Avenue? Seven PM? I’ll make reservations,” he blurted, like he worried she might change her mind if he dared to hesitate.

“The Drawing Room it is.” She nodded, her heart pounding for reasons she didn’t dare unpack.

As Chaz scribbled something on her coffee cup, she felt it again. That prickle of awareness that made the hairs on the back of her neck rise.

She was being watched. Or at least that’s what her lizard brain told her.

It had been months since she’d last felt the odd sensation. But this past week, it had returned with a vengeance.

She craned her head over her shoulder, quickly scanning the room.

No one stood out. The place was packed with the usual morning rush—a mix of office workers looking for their liquid wakeup call, students typing furiously on laptops, and the occasional country tourist who seemed overwhelmed by the sea of people.

She glanced toward the front door just as it closed behind a man stepping out onto the snowy sidewalk. Broad shoulders, hair so dark it was almost black, an easy, loose-hipped stride.

Britt? Her heart stuttered.

Don’t be ridiculous , her inner voice scolded. You’ve been imagining him everywhere lately.

That was true. Every time she turned a corner, she thought she got a glimpse of his profile. She thought she spied his leather jacket every time she peeked behind her.

But it was never him.

Still, the prickle on her neck remained as she took the coffee from Chaz and promised him, “I’ll see you this evening.”

Rubbing her gloved hand absently over her nape, she turned and headed outside.

The cold hit her like a slap, and she pulled her stocking cap tighter over her ears. The sidewalk bustled with people bundled in coats and scarves, their breath visible in the air as it crystallized into white mist.

Despite knowing it would amount to nothing, despite telling herself she was a fool, she glanced up and down the sidewalk, scanning the river of flowing humanity.

There.

The broad back. The dark hair. The—her breath caught and then leaked out of her on a slow sigh—cowlick.

The same damn cowlick I’ve been dreaming about for months.

It was Britt.

Before she could think, her feet were moving. She started off at a fast walk. But soon, she broke into a run, dodging pedestrians and sloshing her coffee so that liquid burst through the little hole in the lid to spill down the sides of the cup.

She didn’t care that it wetted her favorite pair of leather gloves.

“Britt!” she called, her voice cutting through the city's noise.

The cold bit into her cheeks as her boots crunched over the salt-dusted pavement. Snowflakes swirled around her, carried by the sharp Chicago wind. But all she could see was Britt. His brisk steps, his jean-clad ass, the way his leather coat stretched tight against his back.

“Britt!” she called again. But he didn’t stop. He didn’t stop until she caught up with him and made him stop by grabbing his arm and spinning him to face her.

The sight of him sent warmth rushing through her veins despite the frigid air.

His hair was longer than the last time she’d seen him. It was like he’d forgotten to tame it in the intervening months and had let it grow wild. His beard was longer, too, flecked with snow as it framed his square jaw. But it was his eyes that had her breath sawing from her lungs. Their piercing blue was made even more vivid by the cold light of the winter day.

“Didn’t you hear me calling you?” she asked breathlessly. Although, she wasn’t sure if she was breathless because she’d run down the sidewalk or because of the way he was looking at her.

He was so completely still that it was unnerving. And the expression he wore was…what was the word? Acute? Intense? Voracious?

Instead of answering her question, his eyes scanned her face. “What was different about today?” His deep voice and Lowcountry accent licked at her ears.

“What do you mean?” She blinked her confusion.

“Why did you decide to go out with that tiny-dicked barista today when you’ve turned him down every other day?”

Her chin jerked back at his bluntness. “He doesn’t have a tiny dick,” she countered automatically.

His expression darkened, and she was reminded of a thunderstorm moving across Lake Michigan. “How would you know he doesn’t?”

She crossed her arms over her chest, careful not to smash her coffee. “How would you know he does ?”

Then it hit her. That strange, nagging sensation she’d felt for the last week, like someone was watching her. And then more pieces slotted into place. Like his comment months ago about her driving. Like his comment about her pets and other things she hadn’t paid much attention to until, suddenly, in that moment, it all made sense.

Her eyes widened at the realization. “It was you !” She pointed a finger at his face. “You’re the one who’s been following me, making me think I’m going crazy. And not just the last few days, either. Before, too. Before your brother came to town.”

She searched his face, expecting him to deny it. Instead, he remained silent. His jaw clenched. His eyes steady on hers.

His lack of response was all the confirmation she needed.

“Why?” she demanded, her heart pounding so hard that it drowned out the din of the city.

When he still refused to answer, she grabbed his sleeve and yanked him into the nearest alleyway, away from passersby's prying eyes and eavesdropping ears.

The hum of humanity, traffic, and conversation faded as she dragged him toward the dumpsters at the end of the alley. By the time she stopped, all she could hear were her ragged breaths and the distant rumble of a train.

Now that they were alone, she became acutely aware of him. Of the heat radiating from his body—it rose from his collar as steam. Of the exotic, spicy scent of his aftershave as it wafted in the air between them. Of their connection, that live wire of awareness that snapped taut whenever they were within five feet of each other.

She saw something that made her stomach flip as she searched his gaze. It was a strange mixture of guilt and longing and…something darker. Something she didn’t have a name for.

“Why?” she asked again. Her voice was softer than it’d been on the sidewalk, though it was no less insistent.

Instead of answering, he asked, “How are you?”

She blinked.

“After your injury, I mean,” he clarified. “Have you regained full movement? Are you still in any pain?”

She might have ignored him and demanded he answer her question first. But she could hear the deep concern in his voice, see the sharp anxiety in his eyes.

“I’m fine.” She lifted her arm above her head to prove it. “I’m still working on regaining strength in this arm. And my shoulder aches when there’s a change in the weather. But that’s it.”

“Good.” He nodded, his relief clear in the way his shoulders relaxed. “That’s good. I wanted to check in on you after you got back from the hospital. But I wasn’t sure you’d want me to after…the letter. I reckoned we’d put a period on things, and it was best to leave it at that. But I’ve thought about you. Worried about you.”

“We’ll talk about the letter later,” she told him, her voice sounding stronger than she felt. Her breaths were coming short and quick, and her knees felt like they were made of whipped cream. “For now, I want to know why you’ve been following me. And don’t try to say it’s because you wanted to assure yourself I’d recovered. You were watching me before.”

She searched his gaze. But, as usual, his expression told her nothing about what was going on in his head. She realized he wouldn’t answer her when his lips pressed into a thin line.

If he’d been one of her brothers, she’d have given him a titty twister until he relented. But since he was Sergeant Britt Rollins, she satisfied herself by grabbing the collar on his coat and yanking his face down to hers. “Why?” she demanded harshly, her mouth mere inches from his. “Tell me the truth. I deserve it.”

His hands were jammed into his coat pockets as if bracing against the cold—or maybe he was bracing against the information she was determined to drag out of him.

He hesitated for a second more. Then he closed his eyes and admitted lowly, “Because I can’t help myself.” He exhaled, his breath curling in the cold air and brushing against her face as he slowly reopened those whirlpool eyes. “Because you’re in my blood. You’ve been in my damned blood since the first moment I laid eyes on you. And no matter how hard I’ve tried, I can’t get you out.”

Her heart pounded harder with each word. By the time he paused, her ribs ached.

“I can’t get you out, but I can’t have you.” She could see the anguish in him, the way it twisted his delicious mouth. “So…I watch. I watch because it’s the closest I can let myself get to you.”

The ache in his voice meant that it took everything in her not to close the distance that separated them and kiss him. Heavens, how she wanted to. How she wanted to kiss him and hold him and reassure him that whatever was holding him back wasn’t worth the struggle. Assure him that everything would work out if he would just give in.

Instead, a cooler head prevailed. “Explain to me again why you don’t believe in happily-ever-afters,” she demanded.

The muscle under his eye twitched. “It’s not that I don’t believe in them. It’s that they’re not for me.”

“Why?”

He pulled out of her grasp abruptly, taking a few steps down the alleyway before turning back. His hands dragged through his hair, leaving his cowlick standing straight.

Like always, the sight made her chest tighten. The urge to smooth that tuft of hair down was absurdly strong. But she didn’t move.

If she touched him, she might not be able to stop. And she couldn’t let herself be distracted. She needed answers. She needed the truth. Something very important was about to happen here. She could feel it.

“Because I know what it’s like to love someone.” His voice was hoarse. “And I know what it’s like to lose them. I know what it’s like to be the reason they’re gone.” His voice cracked and the sound opened up an answering fissure in her own heart. “I can’t do it.” He shook his head. “I can’t let myself fall in love with a woman only to lose her. It was bad enough what I went through when you got shot.”

Love…

Even though it hadn’t been directed at her—not exactly—the word still made her light-headed. She felt like the ground had dropped from beneath her feet.

“Who says you have to lose?” Her voice was barely louder than the wind threading through the alleyway.

“It’s a risk.” He made a slicing motion with his hand. “One I won’t take.”

She opened her mouth to argue. To press him. To make him see that every risk was worth it when it came to love. But something stopped her.

Instinct maybe? All her FBI training on how to handle an uncooperative witness?

They were balancing on a precipice here. She could feel it as surely as she felt the hammering of her heart.

He wasn’t ready to hear her arguments against everything he was saying. Not at this moment. Not in this place. And that was fine because she needed time to plan. Time to gather her thoughts. Time to choose her words carefully.

“Come to my house tomorrow night,” she told him.

“What?” His chin jerked back.

“My house,” she repeated. “I want to talk to you about this. I want to understand. You owe it to me to help me understand.”

He didn’t naysay her. Instead, he challenged. “Why tomorrow night? Why not tonight?”

She wished she was the type of woman to flake out on an obligation. But she wasn’t. If she said she was going to do a thing, she did the damn thing.

“You know why. You were there. You heard me make plans with Chaz.”

He hitched his chin toward her cup, where Chaz’s phone number was scrawled across the coffee sleeve.

“You’re too good for him,” he said from between gritted teeth.

“Pfft.” She rolled her eyes. “ He’s too good for me . I mean, have you seen him?”

“Enough to know he’d got more brawn than brains.”

“If he were as smart as he is good-looking, then we’d know for sure God has favorites.”

The muscle beneath his eye kept twitching. But now, it was joined by the muscles on either side of his jaw.

“You’re jealous,” she accused, trying not to sound too jubilant even though she imagined doing a happy dance complete with finger guns and hip thrusts. Feigning impatience, she added, “But I don’t have time for it; I have to get to work.” She turned and headed toward the alley’s mouth.

“Julia—” he started, but she cut him off.

“My place!” she called over her shoulder without looking back. “Tomorrow night. Seven P.M. Don’t be late!”

She didn’t wait for his excuses or protests. She kept her steps purposeful even as her legs trembled beneath her.

As she exited the alley and headed toward FBI headquarters, the city closed around her again, the noise, the cold, and the rush of bodies.

None of that could drown out the thundering of her heart, though. None of it could touch the hope in her heart.