Her smile faltered then resurrected into a blinding vision. "Charlee. With two e's."

Charlee. His future had a name.

He ground his teeth. She was on her way to see a man.

An unfamiliar pressure ballooned in his chest and boiled the blood in his veins. He locked his knees, forced himself to remain where he was. He knew where she worked. He would square his shit. Then he would come back and win her. "Charlee what?"

She shook her head. "Charlee of Kilroy Tattoo."

His anguish over letting her walk away was overpowered by his determination to make her his future.

Purpose girded his spine, gave him strength. "Catch you later, Charlee of Kilroy."

Chapter Two.

Why the hell did she give him her real name? Charlee practiced her alias daily, owned it for a year.

The tattoo was another stupid move. In the short session, she'd only started the outline, but the finished design would've been an unerring compliment to his masculine beauty. And exactly what he did not want.

An hour's worth of anxiety had whooshed out of her when he didn't check her work, and she wanted to get the hell away from him before he did.

Oh, he would catch her later. In a courtroom when he sued her ass for willful negligence. A problem she would've avoided if she'd turned him away to begin with. That was her first mistake. She never allowed a stranger in her shop after hours. She had been in St. Louis a year, the longest she'd stayed in one town, and she'd grown too comfortable with her business, with Noah. It was making her sloppy.

She'd always been good at reading people, and there was something identifiable about Jay. The perpetual dread that troubled his dark eyes reflected her own.

His eyes seared the spot between her shoulder blades, so she picked up her pace. She wouldn't look back. In her four years of running, always looking over her shoulder, there wasn't a single day she hadn't thought about the shackles, the servitude, and the beatings. But she thought of those things in past tense. Freedom was forward, and Noah was waiting.

She approached the corner of the building. Her rusted out Gremlin sat alone in the lot. She chose that lot for the lighting. Enclosed on three sides by tall buildings, there were no shadows. No hiding places.

Keys in her right hand, she slipped her left inside her bag and gripped the Bodyguard 380, finger beside the trigger. One more scan of the street, and she ran to the car, circled it, checked the locks, and swept the interior. All clear.

Safe inside and on the road, she allowed herself a calming breath and dialed Noah.

"Hey, you." Warmth flushed his voice.

Since the bars were shutting their doors for the night, the traffic closed in on all sides. She up shifted, building speed. "Hey. On my way. Still at the station?"

"Yep."

"See you in five."

"Don't speed. Safety first, sweetheart."

"Always." She opened the messenger bag on her lap, the strap tugging at her shoulder, and tucked the phone inside. Dozens of headlights bobbed in the rearview mirror. She couldn't distinguish one pair from another. Were any of them following her?

Did paranoia award safety? She wasn't paranoid. She was aware.

The police station emerged up ahead. The bleached brick facade glowed under high-powered flood lights. She slid her rust-bucket to the curb and tucked it between two police cruisers.

The rear and side mirrors reflected the well-lit terrace, the empty visitor lot, and more police cruisers. No loiterers. She hurried to the entryway and paused inside the protection of the alcove, staring at the door.

Noah would propose again. He'd become predictable in his resolve, and her defenses were thinning.

When she'd met him a year earlier, the excuses flowed easily.

The relationship's too new. I'm too young. There's no rush. And the time-honored, It's not you, it's me.

The proposals didn't stop until she suggested he let her go and move on. His broody silence lasted two days.

She should've run when she met him, but his occupation ensnared her, soothing her need for protection. Their year together hadn't been easy. He coaxed and wooed and devoted himself to earning her trust, and she let him. Must have been her bullheaded stand against victimhood. But she held that final wall in place for his own safety and kept their recent engagement debates trivial and remote.

Spend the rest of your life with me.

Don't need a court document for that.

Honor me by wearing this ring.

I'm allergic to jewelry.

Be my wife.

Not tonight, honey. I have a headache.

That morning, she was ready with her next retort. He sat her at the counter with a box of her favorite cereal and kissed her thoroughly. Then he walked out the door and drove away.

Stunned by his proposal-deficient retreat, she poured her cereal. A note tumbled out.

Dance with me at our wedding.

The longing that had been simmering inside her had burst, showering her oatmeal squares in tears. She was wrong, wrong, wrong for him. The stain inside her was deeply embedded. She couldn't scrub it off. If she accepted his proposal, it would taint him, too.

Dammit, Noah. Snapping back to the present, she turned the door handle and armed herself with the ugly truth. Marrying him was an expensive dream. If Roy found her-or worse, he found her married-the cost would be dear.

The station door swung open. Officer Blaire looked up from the screen on his cell phone. He tugged at the duty belt constricting his ample gut-that which followed his wife's good cooking-and stepped aside to let her through.

She smiled. "Good evening, Blaire."

The big guy's grin puffed his cheeks. Then, without warning, he dropped to his knees.

Shit. She reached for him. "Are you okay?" Was he having a heart attack?

He slapped a beefy hand over his heart. "Marry me."

Her shoulders shot to her ears. "What?"

His grin stretched wider. "Marry me."

What was he up to? Must've been a joke. She rolled her eyes. "I'll never make a fresh peach cobbler like your wife's."

His knees popped as he heaved to his feet. "Damn right." He turned to leave, flicking a finger over his shoulder. "Night, Sarah."

Sarah. Her alias. "Night, Blaire."

The squeak of rubber soles echoed down the hall. Officer Downing sprinted toward her and slid the last few tiles on his knees, panting. "Will you marry me?"

"Oh, now this is absurd." Was Noah behind this? Why would he want other men hitting on her?

"We're meant to be together." He shoved his coke bottle lenses up the bridge of his nose and sniffed.

"We hardly know each other."

Red blotches crept from his collar and spread over his face. "Love doesn't need to know. It just...is."

Sounded like something Noah would say. She crossed her arms and arched a brow. "Did Noah put you up to this?"

He squeezed the radio on his shoulder and barked ten-codes into the mic.

She cleared her throat.

"Got to...uh..." He spun, half-running, half-hopping toward the front office. "Got a...thing. Bye, Sarah." In a blur of standard issue blue, he vanished beyond the door.

She approached the hallway cautiously, wondering which of St. Louis' finest would fall upon her next. The path was clear until she reached the stairs.

Maurice Crane squatted on the bottom step, no doubt creasing his handsome black suit. She wasn't surprised to see him. He worked for Noah's brother, Nathan, who ran a private security firm two blocks away.

Nathan and his team spent a lot of time at the precinct, consulting, leveraging skills, or just horsing around. Noah and Nathan weren't just brothers by blood. They were brothers in the Marines. Nathan's entire firm was made up of their tightknit rifle squad.

"Hello." Crane grinned then wiped it away with the back of his hand. His skin, dark as mocha, tightened through his face, relaxed, tightened again. He wouldn't hold back that laugh much longer. "Will you-"

"Nope." She bent and placed a kiss atop his silky bald head. "Sorry, Crane, but you did not have me at hello."

He collapsed over his leather loafers, rolling with laughter. As she smiled with him, it made her want things. Things like friendship, good humor, and closeness that came with being part of a group.

Disillusion stripped the grin from her face as soon as she remembered the consequences of making friends. She stepped around him and climbed the stairs. She'd bet Jay's twenty dollar bill that Noah's protective older brother would be waiting at the top.

On the third floor, she eased the door open to the corridor that led to the pit, where Noah would be holed up working on case priorities, analyzing leads, or plotting next steps with fellow detectives.

Just outside the pit door, Nathan sprawled in a chair, balancing on two metal legs, shoes planted on the opposite wall. He raised his eyes and watched her close the distance. "Sarah."

Lean, hard, and soldier-boy handsome, he looked so much like Noah, it was discomfiting. "Nathan."

The chair continued its two legged poise as he stretched out his arms then twined his fingers behind his blond head. "Will you make me the happiest man alive?" The cheesy question belied his GI Joe stare down.

She shrugged. "That's a tall order."

"Marry him and you'll make us both very happy men."

Her heart gave a thump. Of course his happiness was dependent on his brother's. After Noah saved his life in Afghanistan and carried him twenty miles to safety, Nathan's loyalty to his brother knew no bounds. "He's happy now."

The chair dropped and, in the next breath, he towered over her. "He loves you, Charlee. Enough to help you carry that baggage you're dragging behind you."

She stopped breathing. He said her name...he said her name...he used her real name. "What did you call me?"

He stepped back and reclined against the wall, frowning. "Charlee Grosky."

Oh God, oh God. Her heart rate spiked. "How?"

"It's not what you think." He swiped a hand over his whiskers and spoke in hushed tones. "I have a lot of questions, but this is neither the time nor the place."

"You investigated me?" Her knees wobbled. She should've guessed. Noah was a detective, and Nathan made his living in private investigation. But she'd covered her tracks, made it impossible. Apparently not impossible. Her lungs labored.

"Calm down. Here." He moved toward her, halted the fingers twisting at her belly, and pulled her to the chair. Then he crouched before her. "Listen. I'm working on an undercover case. One that must not attract attention from anyone. This morning, my client gave me a photo of a girl. I wouldn't have recognized her..."

Her hand shot to her hair, what was left of it.

"You've made drastic changes to your appearance since the photo was taken, but your eyes...no one has eyes like yours, Charlee."

Her heart plummeted, landing like a rock in her stomach. "Does he know?" She glanced at the pit door.

He shook his head. "Undercover, remember? My involvement must remain low profile." Strong fingers interlaced hers. "I haven't been working this very long, but I've gleaned enough to know you're linked with a very powerful, very dangerous man."

She swallowed, squeezed his hand. "My gut is screaming at me to run right now, Nathan. He'll hurt me. And Noah."

"Yet you lived with him."

He was diligent in his homework, but... "It's not what it seems."

"Because he didn't let you go. You escaped."

Memories of that night forced air from her lungs in shuddering waves.

"And the bastard's been hunting you since."

"He owns me-"

His eyes fired.

She winced. "He thinks he owns me, and his jealousy is a poisonous thing." The tremble in her voice made her sick. "I can't give him a reason to be jealous."