In silence, his thoughts churning, he put the medical supply box away and doubled-checked the cage latches for security. He couldn't keep the whole world safe, but he could take care of these animals. And Mitchell, too, if the kid would only let him.

Mia tugged on the front of his coat. Her hair blew softly back from her face as she looked up at him. "Stop fretting. You can't always be with him. But Jesus is."

"'He'll never leave you nor forsake you,'" he quoted softly, the words of his keychain making more sense at that moment than they ever had.

"Exactly."

If he was indeed blessed to have avoided the curse of drugs, was Jesus the reason? Had God been with him through everything? "Do you think it's true?"

"I know it is." She pulled her hood up and shivered against a sudden gust of wind.

Collin draped an arm around her shoulders and drew her against his side. She fitted beneath his arm as if curved in exactly the right places for that purpose.

They started back toward the house. Collin reined in his long stride to accommodate her shorter one.

"Mind if I ask you something?" His words were deep and thoughtful.

"Anything." And she meant it.

"I can't believe how much I've laughed tonight."

She bumped him with her hip. "That's not a question."

"After hearing about Drew-" He stopped. Talking about his brother's death was still too fresh and cut too deep.

Mia slipped an arm around his waist and squeezed. She prayed he could feel her compassion and somehow gain comfort. From the time she and Adam had come up with the idea to bring Thanksgiving to him, she'd prayed. Thankfully, he'd responded well to their invasion and had even seemed to enjoy himself in spite of the awful sorrow in his heart.

"I want to ask you something," he said, stopping in a wind break next to the front porch. From inside the house Mia could hear one of the first Christmas commercials of the season.

"Sounds serious."

"It is. I've spent most of my adult life coming to terms with my crazy life, but I'll never understand Drew's death. That's where I'm confused about God. I want to believe He cares but the evidence isn't too strong. I don't mean I'm angry at Him or that I blame Him. But He doesn't seem too involved in my life so far."

His words were not bitter. Instead, they held a yearning, a seeking to understand. Somehow in all the past rejections, Collin had come to see himself as unlovable.

Mia looked up at him, at the strong, manly profile illuminated by the moon. She admired so much about Collin Grace that he didn't even recognize as good. He'd overcome some incredible odds to become a man with so much depth of character, so much rich emotion that he didn't know how to express all that was inside him.

She shifted against the wall and gazed off into the darkness, praying for wisdom. She'd been a Christian since she was twelve years old. She had a strong, healthy family and many friends. Though she'd had hurts and struggles, nothing in her experience could compare to what this good and decent man had lived through. How could she make him understand that God was here, caring? How could she make him understand that he was loved and loveable?

Her heart filled with realization. Tonight was the night he needed to know.

"I don't have any easy answers. I wish I did. But there's something I want to share with you. Actually, three somethings."

Collin peered down at her, his expression sincere and curious. She saw a trust there that gave her courage.

"First of all, I don't pretend to understand why terrible things happen to innocent people, especially kids. But I do know that God cares. So much that He sent His son to give us hope of a better place than this. A perfect place called Heaven.

"Secondly, He knew Drew's death would devastate you. He kept the news from you until you were ready to handle it. Until you had met a crazy bunch of Caranos who would try their best to help you through the grief."

"Why didn't he just give me back my brother? That's the only thing I've ever wanted."

"I don't know, Collin. I wish He had. But God has a plan for you. And even if Drew isn't a part of your future, he'll always be a part of who you are and what you've become-a good cop, a caring man, a dear and trusted friend."

A gust of wind whipped her hood back. Collin caught each side and tugged the hood up around her face. When she thanked him with a half smile, he moved a fraction closer.

Mia's skin tingled from his nearness. As hard as this was going to be, she had to tell him the truth-all of it.

In the narrow space between them, her breath mingled with his, moist and warm. They really should go inside.

She could see he wanted to kiss her again. And she wanted that too, but she wouldn't follow through. The first time had been unplanned reflex, completely understandable and forgivable. This time would be premeditated.

"Wasn't there a third thing you wanted to tell me?" he murmured, wonderfully, painfully near.

She wasn't scared of the truth, but she didn't know how to predict Collin's reaction. Was she doing the right thing by telling him? She fidgeted with the string on her hood but held Collin's gaze with hers. His expression might not change, but his eyes would tell her what he wouldn't.

"Yes. There is. Something very important. Something that I hope will make you realize how special and valuable you are. At least to me."

Inside the house, Nic's voice shouted "Touchdown!" Neither she nor Collin reacted.

She had his full attention now.

Throat thick with emotion, Mia bracketed Collin's face in her gloved hands. And then, her voice sure, she said, "The third thing is this: I'm in love with you, Collin."

Chapter Thirteen.

Collin blinked into her eyes, stunned. She loved him?

A thousand responses thundered through him as wild as mustangs. He didn't know what she expected him to say. He had feelings for her, wanted to kiss her, to be with her, but love? He wasn't even sure what that was.

"You don't have to respond to that." She gave his jaws a final caress and dropped her hands. "I just wanted you to know."

She started to slip under his arm and move away, but he caught her. "No, you don't. You don't drop a bomb like that and walk off."

She stopped and looked up at him, her gaze as clear and honest as a baby's. Something dangerous turned over inside Collin's chest. She was serious. She loved him.

Oh, man. How did he deal with that? And why had she chosen to tell him now in the midst of a conversation about God and Drew?

If her intention was to distract him, she'd succeeded. The idea of kissing her had been on his mind since she'd bopped out of that yellow Mustang and sashayed across his front yard with her family in tow.

Ah, what was he talking about? He'd wanted to kiss her a lot longer than that.

Now that he knew she loved him, he wasn't quite so hesitant to follow through.

Drawing her closer, he lowered his face to hers.

She shrank back against the house and placed a hand on his chest. "I'm sorry, Collin. As much as I'd like to kiss you, I won't."

He frowned. "You love me? But you won't let me kiss you?"

Her eyes filled with tears, confusing him more. He'd made her cry, though he had no idea what he'd done. "I'm sorry. Let me explain."

Reluctantly, he dropped his hands and backed off. Everything in him wanted to hold her more than ever now.

The wind circled in between them. Mia shivered and hugged herself, and he had to fight to keep from taking her in his arms again.

"I could do that for you," he said with a half smile.

But they both knew he wouldn't push the issue.

She rubbed her hands up and down her arms, eyes focused on some distant point in the darkness. "Tonight, I understood something about you, Collin."

"Yeah?" He wished she'd tell him because right now he didn't understand much of anything.

"I realized that you don't know how to receive love. From God or anybody else. You've been hurt and rejected so much in your life that you think you're unlovable."

He didn't much like the idea of anyone poking around inside his head, and he liked it even less when someone thought they knew what made him tick. But he had to admit, there was validity to her words. Normally, he didn't listen to psycho-babble, but from Mia-well, Mia was different.

"Love is a gift, Collin, and unless a gift is given away, it has no value. You're valuable to me. I wanted you to understand that. I wanted to give that to you."

"Then why-?" He left the question hanging. She loved him, but she wouldn't kiss him?

He shoved his hands into his jacket pockets.

Her logic didn't make sense.

"Because as much as I love you, I love God more. And I trust Him to know what's best and right for me even when His rules hurt."

Her words were a splash of cold water in the face. One minute she declared her love and the next she shut him out. "And God says I'm not good enough for you?"

"That's not what I mean."

She closed the distance between them and rested her head against his chest. He didn't yield. He'd never let a woman get this close. And now she was telling him she loved him but he wasn't good enough?

But in his heart, he knew she was right. A foster kid from questionable bloodlines could never be good enough for a woman like Mia.

"Will you hear me out?" she asked softly. "This has nothing to do with being good enough."

He relented then, letting her tug one hand from his pocket. He couldn't seem to say no to Mia.

"You have a lot of baggage from the past to deal with, Collin. None of that scares me off. God can heal anything. But that's the key. You have to let Him."

"What does any of that have to do with me kissing you? Does God have rules against a man kissing a woman he cares about?"

Okay, so he cared about her. Maybe a lot, though love wasn't a word in his vocabulary.

Mia's full mouth widened in a characteristic smile. "God's all for kissing. He probably invented it. But he has rules about Christians kissing non-Christians. That's hard for me to accept, but I have to. I'll be your friend. And I won't stop loving you even for a second, but that's as far as we go."

"You mean if I was a Christian, I could kiss you?"

"Yes." She tilted her head to one side and gave him a lopsided smile. "But don't be thinking I go around kissing just anybody, Christian or not."

He already knew that about her.

"Okay, then. Friends. I can do that." Friendship was all he'd ever expected anyway. Just knowing she was in love with him was burden enough.

Yes, friendship was far better anyway.

Mia dropped the last gaily wrapped gift into her shopping bag and headed out of the mall. The Christmas crowd was thicker than Grandma Carano's spaghetti sauce.

She had met her best girlfriend for a late lunch and they'd talked about Collin. Sharing her concerns with a praying friend had helped. She was thinking about her cop far too much lately and though convinced she'd done the right thing by admitting her love for him, holding to the friendship rule was harder than she'd imagined.

Collin had the uncanny ability to move right on as if nothing had happened. But with a subtle difference. Last night, he'd come to her apartment, bearing a glorious red poinsettia and asked her out to dinner. When she'd refused, he'd wanted to stay and talk about the book she'd loaned him.

Not knowing if she was playing with fire or trying to be a good witness for the Lord, she'd made microwave popcorn and spent the next two hours in an interesting discussion about her faith. Collin was a bright man with a lot of questions and misconceptions about God. He was stuck on the idea that God had abandoned him along with everyone else in his childhood, and nothing she said seemed to help.

But he was seeking the truth, and that alone was a big step.

Upon leaving the crowded mall, Mia picked Mitchell up from school and took him back to her office. They had some things to discuss that couldn't be said at his home. Later, she had his mother's permission to take him Christmas shopping with the money Collin had paid him for working with the animals. No matter that she'd already spent two hours at the mall, shopping was something Mia could always do.

Mitchell looked scruffy and smelled worse. She hoped the odor was normal boy sweat and not cigarette smoke. He'd come too far these six months to regress now.

Once inside her small office, she handed him a stick of beef jerky and motioned to a chair. "Sit down. We need to talk."

He ripped into the jerky. "About Collin?"

That surprised her. "Why do you think this is about Collin?"

One shoulder hitched. He flopped into the chair. "Since we didn't go out to his place, I figure something's up. He said I don't have to come anymore."

"You don't."

"I guess he's tired of me hanging around."

Mia rounded her desk and sat down. "You know that's not true. Your official community service time is completed so nobody will force you to work on the farm anymore. Now the decision to go or not is yours to make."

"Did he and Adam find the guy who started the fire?"

"They think so."

He chewed thoughtfully, then spoke around a wad of jerky. "I don't."