Her hand hovered above the dead bolt to her apartment. She’d never brought anyone here. Not the team. Not anyone, but bringing Declan here seemed too...intimate. As though she were inviting him into her life. But he’d been a large part of her life, part of her, too.
Kate shoved the key into the lock and twisted. Automatically reaching for the light beside the door, she braced for his reaction.
Stark white walls and furniture, no personal effects, packing boxes everywhere. It’d been nine months since she’d moved in, but the thought of making it permanent had almost been too much. The two-bedroom, two-bath high-rise apartment had gotten her as far across the city as she could get and still stay within range for the team if they needed her.
Beautiful mountain views commanded attention through the wall of ceiling-to-floor windows. The sun had yet to come up, so only the twinkling lights of Anchorage were visible from here. But in a few hours, red, pinks and yellows would crest over the peaks and light up this entire room. She’d never missed a sunrise in this apartment, in love with the idea of starting a new day, a new life. Then again, sunrises were hard to miss when she spent most of the night awake anyway.
He couldn’t go back to the shelter, and the thought of getting him a hotel room for the night while there was a shooter on the loose pooled dread at the base of her spine. At least here, she could protect him. Kate tossed her keys onto the small table near the door as Declan stepped inside.
Stress lines, deeper than she remembered, etched across his face. He’d spent the last year in a shelter. Hadn’t really known much else since losing his memories. She couldn’t imagine the thoughts running through his head right now. In the past three hours alone, he’d inexplicably been drawn to a house he’d never consciously stepped foot inside, gotten shot, discovered he’d been married and met a partner he hadn’t known existed. The brain could only take so much before it cracked. She understood that from experience.
“I think I have a box of your old clothes in my bedroom closet,” she said. “Feel free to clean up while I look for it, and then I can make us something to eat.”
“That sounds great.” He studied the space, nodding, then headed toward the hallway off to the left with a backpack in tow. “Thank you.”
She heard the bathroom door close, but instead of the stiffness draining from her neck and shoulders, Kate let herself slip down the wall and onto the floor.
For the first time since she’d seen him back in their old house, reality set in. Declan was here. Against all odds, he’d survived, and the breath rushed out of her.
The floor sucked at her, urging her to sink heavier into its supportive cradle, but the blood from Declan’s wound had destroyed his clothes. Unless he felt comfortable walking around completely naked, she had to get up, had to find that last box full of his things she’d held on to.
Kate tapped the crown of her head against the door. “Can’t stop now, Monroe.”
The rain-like fall of shower water hitting tile grew louder down the hall as the bathroom door swung open. Pressure built in her chest as Declan appeared in nothing but a towel wrapped around his lean waist. Concern etched his expression as he caught sight of her on the floor, but she didn’t have the strength to move. His dirty blond hair was thick and mussed as though he’d run his fingers through it. His mouth, full and sensual, pressed into a thin line. “Kate.”
“I’m fine. I’m just...tired.” The confession barely escaped her lips. These last few hours had ripped apart everything she’d worked for over the past year. She’d fought to control the anger pent up at having him taken away, she’d thrown herself into work in an attempt to distract herself, convinced herself she was finally moving on. She’d taken her wedding ring off before coming back to work for Blackhawk Security, but the truth was, she still kept it close.
Diving one hand into her jacket pocket, she showed him the thin gold band. She studied the inscription on the inside, their wedding date. “I thought taking this off would make it easier, but my finger feels naked without it. I feel unconnected.” She closed her eyes. What she wouldn’t give for a full night’s sleep. “That doesn’t even make any sense.”
“It doesn’t have to.” Declan came toward her, his bare feet padding across the hardwood floor, and she couldn’t help but admire the view. Wide, muscled shoulders, the ridges and valleys of his six-pack, the outline of powerful thighs through the towel.
Lowering to sit down beside her, he chased the cold from her bones as he brushed against her. “You don’t have to control anything. Not with me. You’ve been through hell as much as I have. You want to yell, cry, punch me in the face, hate me for coming back into your life? Do it. Do whatever you have to to work through this. Suffering in silence will only tear you apart.”
A small laugh burst from her chest. “Repressing things is one of my favorite hobbies.”
When they were married, she’d kept it all bottled up. To the point she didn’t know whether she truly was experiencing emotion or if she only thought she should. She still didn’t know sometimes. Declan had dealt with so much pain, so much sorrow on the job hunting the monsters, she hadn’t wanted to add to any of it. Their marriage had depended on it. She had to stay strong, be there for him when he’d needed it the most, but that left no one there for her.
“Not anymore.” Declan raised his hand, fingers sliding through a strand of hair that had fallen loose from her bun. He studied her from forehead to chin.
What did he see? How empty she’d become since his death? How much she’d missed him? How it took every ounce of control she possessed not to compare the man in front of her with her husband? She gave in to the way his dimple only showed up when he smiled at her, the way the scar on the tip of his left middle finger glided across her jaw.
“I’m starting to see why you’re the only one I remember,” he said.
The flood of pain and repression broke through the dam she’d built over the past few months. Her control vanished as he leaned into her, setting his lips against hers.
Warmth snaked through her. Every cell in her body intensified in awareness as he framed her face between his large hands. Her heart was beating too fast, all the blood rushing to her head. His scent filled her system. Everything that had happened over the past year vanished as he deepened the kiss. The blood, the horror, the mystery behind the why. With him, right here in this moment, she let it go—all of it. And she’d never felt so free in her life.
A small moan escaped her mouth as he pulled her close, close enough her body pressed against the hard, muscled heat of his chest.
Kate fisted one hand low in his hair as pure need clawed through her. It’d been too long since she’d let someone touch her, care for her, hold her...she’d forgotten what it felt like.
He gripped his hand higher up on her arm, and she flinched as pain zinged down to her fingers.
“What is it?” he asked.
She pulled back, pulling her arm free of his hold. Studying the small hole in the arm of her cargo jacket, Kate sat back on her rear end. She pulled her sleeve to center the hole and studied the light ring of blood.
A bullet hole?
She’d been running off pure adrenaline, trying to catch up with the new reality that had crashed through her world in the past few hours. She hadn’t noticed the burn of a bullet graze across her arm. “I literally didn’t know that was there until this moment.”
“What?” Declan surged to his knees, concern clear in his voice. His hand wrapped around her arm, careful to avoid the wound as he studied it closer. Violence gleamed in the sea-blue depths of his eyes. “That SOB is going to pay. Here, take off your jacket. Let me see how bad it is.”
Kate diverted her attention to the hardwood floor as his towel shifted, and she pressed herself flat against the wall. She’d seen her husband naked countless times, but this...this was different. “That’s okay. I just realized how very naked you are.”
Declan glanced down, righted the towel with a hint of pink climbing up his neck and into his face. Nice to know there were still some things that could get to him. “Right. Okay, first, clothes, then we’ll have a look at that wound.”
“I’m fine.” She’d recovered from far worse injuries. A bullet graze was nothing compared to the three rounds she’d taken in the past. “Go. Finish your shower. Nothing I haven’t handled before, remember? I can—”
“Let me.” His fingers brushed over her arm, raising goose bumps even through the thick fabric of her jacket. “Please.”
A tugging at the base of her spine had her nodding at his request. He looked at her as though he needed to do this for her, as though he needed to make up for something. Which didn’t make sense. None of this—the shooting tonight, the amnesia, the fact she’d been grazed—was his fault. He was just as much a victim as she’d been.
Kate settled her hand in her lap. She hadn’t been fully hit. The wound wasn’t bleeding anymore. Shouldn’t be too hard to apply some ointment and bandage the area. “Okay.”
“Don’t move. I’ll be right back.” Declan straightened, disappearing down the hallway. The bathroom door clicked once more, and the flood of heat he’d generated inside of her drained.
Shoving to her feet, she cringed against the now constant pain burning down her arm and headed toward her office. Saved by a bullet. How original. What had she been thinking, kissing him? How had she given up control so easily? The stranger currently in her guest bathroom was not her husband.
Kate located the box she needed from her office and hauled it out to the front room. Tearing away tape and flimsy cardboard, she held her breath against the sight of her husband’s old things, items he’d cherished for years. She pulled the University of Alaska T-shirt from the top, the worn feel of the fabric still smooth in her hands, and stilled.
Declan had looked at her, and everything she’d worked to build to protect herself vanished. There was so much more in that blue gaze than she remembered, a warmth that hadn’t ever been there before—a hardness.
Kate swallowed. She was almost afraid to find out what that more could mean. She closed the box, clean shirt in hand...afraid to hope.
* * *
STRENGTH. DARKNESS. The woman was an enigma he hadn’t been able to read since confronting her in that house, but for a brief moment, it had been right there in her eyes as she’d kissed him. Desire. Warmth. The need to be cared for. And hell if his body hadn’t responded. It’d been one of the most intense experiences he’d remember for years to come. Something no way in hell he’d forget.
For those fifteen seconds, Kate Monroe had let her guard down.
But even with that physical anchor to his past, nothing about her or that kiss had given him more information on the man he’d been before. Documents could only get him so far. His memories. They were all that mattered.
Declan toweled off, careful of the bullet wound, and dressed quickly, leaving his bloodied shirt in the small garbage can beside the pedestal sink. He’d taken wipe showers, eaten nothing but soup, slept on an uncomfortable cot after escaping from the hospital. But here, here in her too-white apartment, with her too-modern furniture and white tile, he felt more at home than he had anywhere else.
Because of her. What that meant, he had no idea.
Stepping out of the bathroom door, Declan’s gut growled. When was the last time he’d eaten? Twenty-four hours? More? He couldn’t remember the last thing he’d put in his mouth. Didn’t matter; he didn’t care if she planned on microwaving a frozen dinner. Whatever she’d started cooking had his full attention. Until he set sights on her.
Standing in front of the stove, she struggled to tape a bandage over the bullet graze on her arm. Kate bit down on the roll of tape to secure the adhesive over the graze but dropped the entire thing into a pot of boiling water in front of her. “That’s not good.”
“Should give it a nice, glue-like flavor, don’t you think?” Declan rounded the granite-top island, taking in the shrimp, mushrooms, herbs, cream cheese and garlic already prepared and waiting on its gleaming surface. She’d cooked for him. Or...had tried to cook for him.
Gripping the tongs beside the stove, he dove in for the roll of tape, extracted it from a mess of pasta and set it on the counter. “Trust me, I won’t be able to tell the difference.”
Her laugh reverberated through him, and he followed the hint of pink into her cheeks.
Studying her injury, she placed a hand over the graze and stepped back. “You’d think after making this dish so many times, I’d get it right someday.”
“Give me your arm.” He reached for her hand, smooth skin gliding over the calluses in the center of his palm. Heat lanced through him, straight down his spine at the contact. Touching her—kissing her—might not have brought back any past memories, but he sure as hell didn’t regret it. He just had to be careful from here on out.
He cleared his throat around the sudden swelling constricting his airway. “You cook a lot?”
“I think my pasta boiling skills already answered that for you.” The weight of her attention bore into him as he worked to save the roll of partially melted medical tape. “I mostly live off the protein bars Sullivan provides for the office, but after the day you’ve had, I thought you might like something comforting. Cream cheese and carbs always hit the spot for me.”
“Can’t argue with that.” He placed the gauze over her arm and ripped a piece of adhesive from the roll with his teeth. Securing the bandage in place, he tossed the first-aid supplies back into the open kit he hadn’t noticed spread on the counter until now.
First getting him to the doctor, then offering her home to clean up in, and now she was making him dinner. What was it about this woman? Aside from the fact she hadn’t just crossed his mind over the past year, she’d practically set up a permanent residence, he had no reason to trust her. Yet every time he thought of getting what he needed from her and leaving, of finding that shooter on his own, his gut clenched. “You’re officially patched up.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“No problem.” He cataloged the rest of the ingredients across the counter and rubbed his palms together. “I’m not sure how good I’ll be, but I’m happy to help with whatever it is you have going on here. It’s the least I could do since, you know, you saved my life.”
“You’ll have to put a shirt on.” Jerking her chin toward the living room, she pointed out a gray T-shirt draped over one of the chairs. Her smile increased his blood pressure. She rubbed her hand over the bullet’s graze in her arm, then motioned to his bare chest. “No telling what other kinds of accidents are going to happen while I attempt to cook. Wouldn’t want all those pretty muscles to get burned in the process.”
“Probably a good idea.” He closed in on the T-shirt she’d laid out, rubbing the material between his fingers. University of Alaska. It was a men’s shirt, and she’d said something about pulling a box of his old things before he’d taken a shower. Stood to reason that the shirt belonged to him.
Pulling the material over his head, he flinched against the sting of his stitches. “What can I do to help?”
“You can mince garlic while I clean the shrimp.” Kate grabbed a clean cutting board and a knife, setting them beside her station on the counter. Her deep purple nail polish caught the gleam of lights from overhead as she moved between ingredients, and it somehow represented everything he’d imagined her to be. Intriguing, sexy, independent.
Maneuvering to her side, he breathed her vanilla scent in a bit deeper, let it fill him with a renewed sense of appreciation. After everything this woman had been through—the shooting, the surprise of his resurrection, the exhaustion—she’d put his needs ahead of her own. Hell, if that didn’t earn his respect. A woman like that was a rare creature, one that needed to be protected. She cared, she sacrificed, she pushed through.
He was the only one standing between her and another attempt on her life. He’d be damned if he failed her again.
“Why the change to profiling?” he asked.
“What?” Her hold on one shrimp faltered, and it fell onto the counter.
“You said Brian Michaels was your patient, but you’re profiling for Blackhawk and the FBI now. Why the change?” Declan reached for another clove of garlic, brushing the edge of his hand against hers.
Awareness shot straight up his arm, of her shallow breathing, the way her beautiful green eyes widened slightly, the tightening of her fingers around the handle of the knife. Something inside him responded to her on a deep, instinctual level. It was probably due to the fact they’d been married, been intimate, that his brain refused to forget her even after the most dramatic event of his life. For all he knew, the hitch in his breathing and heart rate had more to do with muscle memory than any real connection between them. Because she’d made it perfectly clear: he wasn’t her husband anymore.
He positioned the flat edge of his knife over the garlic and slammed his hand on top. Maybe a bit too hard. “Can’t imagine putting yourself in the head of a killer like the Hunter does miracles for your outlook on life.”
“Oh.” Kate stared at the shrimp in her hand, rolling her bottom lip into her mouth. The tendons between her neck and shoulders strained. She swiped the back of one hand across her forehead, then shifted her weight onto her other foot. Obvious anxiety deepened the small indents between her eyebrows. She didn’t want to talk about it.
“Hey, I’m sorry.” He forgot the garlic, turning into her. He smothered the urge to touch her again. The intense reaction that sparked every time he laid a hand on her wouldn’t do either of them a damn bit of good right now. “You don’t have to tell me anything. We just met. We don’t know each other well enough—”
“No, it’s okay.” But she still wouldn’t look at him. The slight tremor in her hand settled as she set down the paring knife she’d been using on the shrimp. “As a psychologist, I encouraged my patients to talk in order to work through their issues. You’d think it’d be easy for me to follow my own advice.”
Only the sound of the boiling water behind them on the stove drowned the hard pounding of his heartbeat behind his ears.
“I let my personal life get in the way of helping my patient.” She busied herself by ripping a tail off the last shrimp and tossed it into the ceramic bowl with the rest. “Michaels was spiraling out of control, and I didn’t have any clue. I missed the signs. I didn’t know he’d stopped taking his medications.”
Kate raised her green gaze to his, gripping the edge of the granite countertop. “When Sullivan approached me to work for the team, to help catch the bad guys and get justice for those who the police couldn’t or wouldn’t help, I said yes.”
Everything inside of him went cold. He’d gotten a hint of her guilt back at the house, with her hands working to stop the blood flow from his wound. But this...
Declan closed the short space between them, unable to keep his distance any longer. Sliding his hand across the back of hers, he peeled her white-knuckled grip from the countertop and massaged his thumbs into her palm. “You don’t have to carry that guilt, Kate. Michaels knew what he was doing. He would’ve found a way—”
“You don’t understand. I didn’t only lose you that night, Declan.” Kate pulled her hand from his, tugging up the bottom hem of her T-shirt. Smooth, creamy skin slid beneath his fingers as he gave in to the urge to see if she was as soft as she looked. But his gaze homed in on the lump of scar tissue an inch or so under her belly button, dead center. White, puckered and angry, an exact match for the four scars he carried. “I lost our baby, too, and I’m not going to let Michaels get away with it.”