"We were..." He cleared his throat. "We were going to leave the kids with a friend of ours while we went shopping. We got everyone into the car, and then I remembered I'd left the diaper bag by the front door. I went back to get it..." He swallowed painfully. "I was halfway up the walk when the car bomb went off."

Emma closed her eyes, wishing she could somehow make this all go away for both of them.

"A piece of debris. .h.i.t me in the back," he continued, his voice completely expressionless. "I fell facedown in the snow and couldn't move. I heard the roar of the fire behind me, I knew ... but I was paralyzed. I couldn't help. Something hot fell on my jacket and set it on fire, and there wasn't anything I could do for them... It was too late, anyway, they told me later. They all died instantly..." His voice broke, and he fell silent.

Presently Emma drew a shaky breath. "And the screams?" she asked, remembering what he had told her.

"My own," he said. "A neighbor managed to kick snow on me and put out the flames. I understand I didn't stop screaming for three days. I don't remember most of it." He drew a long, rough breath. "I do remember looking at the car when they carried me away. I remember-" His voice broke. "I remember knowing my life was gone."

Emma flew across the kitchen and slipped her arms around him from behind, knowing only that enough was enough. No one should have to bear such things alone. No one should have to be so utterly without comfort.

"Emma, I told you..."

"It's all right, Gage. You told me. I heard you. That doesn't mean I don't care. That I won't care." She pressed her cheek to his back, feeling the line of keloid tissue that defined one of his many burn scars. She drew a shaky breath, trying to ease the tightness in her throat, and blinked back helpless tears. "Did they catch the person who ... bombed the car?"

"Yeah."

"Who was it?"

"You know, Em, that's the really great thing about it. It was one of the brothers of a drug kingpin I helped put away."

"Why is that so great?" His sarcastic use of the word puzzled her.

"Because I was directly responsible for the deaths of my wife and three children."

Emma gasped, stunned. The bitterness of his voice left her no doubt that he meant it, and she began to see very clearly the depth of the problem here. "How ... how do you figure that, Gage?"

"It's simple. They died because of my job. No two ways about it. If I'd been a mechanic or a carpenter, they wouldn't have-they would have-" He couldn't go on. One more word and he would start crying. He'd cried enough.

"Oh, Gage, no!" The words were a horrified whisper. He couldn't believe that. He couldn't!

"Believe me, I've had a lot of time to think about it. I knew the dangers. I was just a d.a.m.n fool to believe they would be directed only at me. And there are still a few people out there who would like to get at me. So that's it, Emma. I killed my family. And I'll be d.a.m.ned if I'm going to put anybody else in that position. Or put myself through that again."

She longed to argue with him, to insist that bad things just happened, that no one was to blame except the perpetrator. Her own life was proof of that. But she sensed that Gage wouldn't believe it. Couldn't believe it. He felt guilty for the deaths of his wife and children, and no simplistic argument was going to alter his feelings.

She told herself to turn away now, that this briefly born relationship was doomed for too many reasons, beginning with his guilt and ending with her infertility. But it was already too late.

Sometime in the last two days she had pa.s.sed the point of no return. She had given him what she had given no one else, but that giving had been merely symbolic of a commitment she had already made. For her, it was already too late. Since the pain was going to be unavoidable, she made the decision to take what she could from the moment.

She stepped back from Gage and took his hand. "Come on," she said, tugging gently. "Come back to bed."

"Emma-"

"I know," she said softly. "I know. It's just a one-night stand. Maybe a two-or three-night stand. Nothing more. I know. It's okay, Gage. I promise."

Even as he was letting her drag him back toward the bedroom, he knew he was making a mistake. For her sake, for his, he ought to go upstairs right now. But she kept whispering that she understood, that he wasn't to worry, that no harm could come from a few stolen moments together. Like a siren, she drew him.

And, like a man, he followed.

Chapter 11.

"I've been hearing things, old son," said the gravelly voice of Sheriff Nathan Tate over the telephone. "Maybe you'd like to tell me what the h.e.l.l is going on?"

Gage leaned back in the leather chair behind the desk in Emma's study and looked out the tall window at the gray sky and blowing snow. The blizzard still raged, and the morning was waning with no sign of the storm's pa.s.sing yet apparent. "I meant to call you last night, but something came up. Are you at the office, Nate?"

"I wish. No, son, I'm at home, hiding in my shop, hoping Marge and the girls don't run out of videotapes to watch. I got a phone call from Laramie. Some Lieutenant Doherty of the LPD, wanting to know if you were really one of my people. Something about a file on an old case you asked to have expressed out here. I admitted ownership of an investigator named Gage Dalton and seconded your request to have the file come by mail, not fax."

"Thanks, Nate."

"Don't mention it. So, what's going on?"

Gage hesitated, reluctant to expose Emma, but not knowing how he could avoid it now. "I don't know if you heard what happened to Miss Emma years ago when she was a student in Laramie."

"Actually, yes, I did. The judge told me about it, but I don't think he told another soul in the county. How did you find out?"

"Emma told me."

"I was under the impression she didn't remember anything about it."

"She's begun to remember quite a bit, Nate, and she's scared."

"I don't blame her." The sheriff sighed heavily. "So why did you want the file?"

Gage hesitated only briefly. "You know all these incidents-the balloon, the rabbit, the pentagram-I don't think they're pranks. I stopped thinking that when I saw the pentagram yesterday-"

"Well, so did I," Nate interrupted. "Give me something I don't already know."

"Last night Emma told me that the b.a.s.t.a.r.d who a.s.saulted her in Laramie carved a pentagram on her stomach."

Nate swore. "It might be unrelated."

"I don't think so. There's something else that happened that you don't know about. Last week Emma received a photograph in the mail. It shook her up badly, which made me curious, so I sent it to a friend of mine back East. He says it's a poor copy of a dagger used by Turkish hashshashin in the Middle Ages."

"But-"

"By itself that doesn't mean a whole lot, Nate, I know. But why would somebody go to a lot of trouble to duplicate something like that? Why would they send it to Emma?"

Nate drew a long breath. "To scare her," he said heavily. "Just like they did with the rabbit and the pentagram."

"That's what I'm afraid of. h.e.l.l, that's what I'm convinced of. I asked an old buddy of mine to do a search on the national crime computer system for other crimes that are similar in any way to Emma's a.s.sault, and I'm waiting for information on anyone in the county who has a related criminal record. In the meantime, I don't think Miss Emma should be alone."

The silence grew protracted as Nate pondered what Gage had told him. "I'm with you," Nate said finally. "Keep a close watch on her. Is there any other information I can get for you?"

"There's probably no connection between what's been happening to Jeff's cattle and whoever is stalking Miss Emma, but I have to admit, ever since that decapitated rabbit turned up, I've been wondering about it. Anyhow, related or not, I'm still waiting to hear from the FAA about helicopters and helicopter pilots in the area. I guess I won't hear until Monday now, unless you know some cages to rattle."

"I know the district chief. Let me see if I can roust him out for you. What exactly do you want to know?"

"Whether we've got any helo pilots around here who have criminal records, and what kind of records they've got. Crooks are almost never completely clean, Nate. There's always something that's a tip-off to an investigator, if he just knows where to look."

"How's Emma taking this?" Nate asked.

"Other than a few nightmares, she's handling it remarkably well," Gage said.

"Well, you tell her I said to let me know if she needs anything at all."

"I will, Nate."

After he hung up, Gage continued to contemplate the snowy day beyond the window. At the base of his skull there was a niggling feeling of pressure. He always got that feeling when things were about to start popping on a case. It warned him to watch his step, to take extra care, because things were going to blow wide open.

Now he felt that way and didn't know if his instincts were telling him that the stalker was about to move on Miss Emma, or if he was just feeling that way because of last night.

Too much had happened. He'd been a fool to give in to his needs, a fool to believe that he could ever simply step back and tell Miss Emma that there could never be a future for them. Of course, he hadn't counted on Emma. If he lived to be a hundred, he would never forget the way she had taken his hand this morning and urged him back to bed, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to give herself to a man who wanted to give her nothing at all. As if she understood, as if she wanted nothing in the world more than to give him whatever he needed.

How was a man supposed to resist that?

His conscience niggled at him, but at a level he had long since learned to ignore. Working undercover had numbed him to a lot of things, but in this instance he really wasn't being deceptive or taking advantage. Not now. Not after he had told Emma he had nothing to offer her.

He could, however, be a little angry at Emma for the way she was selling herself short. She deserved a whole h.e.l.l of a lot more, and he felt like shaking some sense into her, except that there was no way on earth you could really shake sense into anyone. All you could do was satisfy your own need to get things off your chest.

She was an adult, he reminded himself. A mature woman of thirty or so. She was ent.i.tled to do this, if that was what she chose. And he didn't have a d.a.m.n thing to say about it, except as it affected him. End of discussion.

Figuring he couldn't do any more investigating until some information started coming in to give him a direction, he went out to the kitchen, where Emma was making Christmas cookies.

She greeted him with a smile that said she was glad to see him, a smile he didn't feel he deserved. "Have a cookie," she said pleasantly, pointing to the cooling racks on the table. "They're pretty good even without the icing."

He poured himself a cup of coffee and stopped to watch her roll out another batch of dough. "What are you going to do with all these?"

"Serve them at the open house next Sunday. I'll probably need to bake all week just for that."

"Is it worth all the trouble?"

"Oh, I think so. It's really a lot of fun, Gage. Just about everyone comes, and the caroling is so beautiful. It's..." She hesitated, seeking words as she began to cut out tree-shapers cookies. "It's Christmasy. All the warmth and friendship and goodwill most of us a.s.sociate with the season is there at the open house. To me, it's the essence of the season."

She looked up suddenly, remembering that the season was a painful time for him. She bit her lip and glanced apologetically his way.

"It's okay," he rea.s.sured her. d.a.m.n, he didn't want the shadows of his life to blight hers. But how could he prevent it, when she insisted on caring?

Emma wished he didn't look so removed this morning. It was as if the past week had never happened, as if Gage had retreated into the frozen place he'd been inhabiting the night he walked her home. h.e.l.l's own archangel was back.

And why shouldn't he be? she asked herself as she worked the rolling pin with trembling hands. His losses were almost beyond imagining, and there was no reason on earth why he should ever again risk the cost of caring. But if ever he did take the risk again, he certainly wouldn't do it for a woman who wasn't a woman. A woman who couldn't give him a real family.

Feeling her lower lip tremble, she caught it between her teeth to still it. Lord, she hated to cry. Besides, she'd done all her crying years ago-unlike Gage, who evidently hadn't done his crying at all yet. Instead of giving in to the pain, he'd fast-frozen it in the depths of his soul.

Maybe h.e.l.l was a cold, empty place, as he'd said this morning, but maybe it was also a place a person made for himself. Grief wasn't a cold emotion, but ice wasn't any emotion at all. He would never heal until he raged, and rage was hot, a searing emotion that would surely melt all the ice he hid his feelings in. And then what?

Maybe, she admitted, he was better this way. He might never heal, but perhaps the price of healing was too high.

A long sigh escaped her, relaxing the tension that had brought her close to the edge of tears. She reached for a cookie cutter and began to make rows of bells.

Well, she'd already thrown her heart over the moon sometime in the past week, when she hadn't been paying attention and guarding her own emotions. It was too late to avoid the pain now. So, whether he liked it or not, she would just go right on giving him whatever caring she could. Everybody, no matter how frozen, needed to know that someone in this world cared.

"I guess I should try to move some of that snow in the driveway," Gage remarked. He stood at the kitchen windows looking out at the whirling snow and nearly buried vehicles. The storm seemed to have let up a little. Maybe. And maybe it was just wishful thinking.

"Don't you dare," Emma said mildly. "The boys next door and I have a contract. They'll be heartbroken to lose the money."

"Oh." Probably just as well, with his back. Even after all this time, it was hard for him to accept that there were some things he was wiser not to do. Nor did it help with the caged lion feeling that was bugging him right now. He needed some good, hard physical activity. Ordinarily he would have gone for one of his endless walks, but he refused to leave Emma alone, and she was in the middle of enough dough to feed a hungry football team. She wouldn't want to stop now.

Jan had used to do this, too, at Christmas. Coming from the streets, just as Gage had, she had carried in her heart an image of what Christmas should really be, a picture postcard image that she had tried her best to create each year for him and the children.

He drew a long, shaky breath and continued to stare out the window as he allowed himself to remember. The house had always smelled just like this- baking cookies, pine needles, coffee. Secrets wrapped in gaily colored paper and foil had been hidden on the highest shelves in every closet. There had been whispers and giggles, and that last year his eldest daughter had started to grow so excited at the prospect of Christmas that getting her to sleep at night had become a ch.o.r.e. Jan herself grew as excited as any child, and the excitement had been contagious. He, too, had come to love Christmas, to love the excitement and sense of magic.

And as he stood there staring blankly out at the stormy, snowy day, a surprising thought twisted through his sad preoccupation and turned his thoughts in an utterly different direction.

Emma, too, prepared for the holidays. She, too, created a Currier and Ives Christmas with her decorating and baking, and she spoke of the good feeling and fellowship of the season. But she would never have children to create that magic for. She would never know the excitement of buying a toy that she knew, just knew, was going to bring excited shrieks on Christmas morning. She would never know the antic.i.p.ation of hiding secrets in closets, or the joy of teaching carols to her own daughter or son.

He had experienced all that. He had lost it, but he would never regret the precious episodes, the memories, the remembered joy, even if the price had been excruciatingly high. Emma would never know that. Until he had wormed past her defenses, she had always avoided men, and now he thought he knew why.

Shaken out of his self-preoccupation, he turned from the window. She might never have a family of her own, he thought, but she sure as h.e.l.l didn't have to spend this Christmas alone with a man who was acting like a total jerk.

He reached for a cookie and took a bite. "Fantastic cookies, Emma," he said.

"They're just sugar cookies."

"Well, they're great. How are you going to manage to decorate them all by yourself?"

She glanced over her shoulder. "Are you volunteering?" She expected him to deny it, given his problems with Christmas.

"Sure. Except that I've never done it before and I can't guarantee I won't mess up your cookies."

Emma slid another baking pan into the oven and laughed. "We're not painting the Sistine Chapel here. If I were making just a couple dozen for a special party, I might sweat it. Making hundreds for a crowd, a smear of icing and a dash of sprinkles will do."

"Smears and dashes are right up my alley."

Smiling, Emma faced him and wondered what had changed his mood so dramatically. h.e.l.l's own archangel was gone, replaced by a friendly-looking guy with a crooked smile. Even his gray-green eyes, only moments ago as cold as snow clouds, now looked softer, like a summer rain squall.

"I'll mix up the icing, then, and you can frost while I bake."

A couple of hundred cookies later, Gage realized that something was troubling Emma. She didn't seem to be able to hold still, and if she wiped down that counter one more time, he would be tempted to growl at her. Of course, she had plenty to worry about, and he knew the need for activity when things were worrisome.

"Why don't we take a walk?" he said abruptly. "We can finish icing these things later."

"The sidewalks will be a mess," she said, glancing out the window to see that snow was still falling steadily, though the wind had let up considerably. "I don't remember it ever snowing so much or so heavily."