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gripped her gun and dashed back into her office. Fishing frantically through her backpack, she searched for her cell phone. She grabbed the receiver just as a hulking man in motorcycle garb filled her office doorway.
    Definitely not Geoff or Eli.
    Her mouth went dry. Broad shoulders made larger by black leathers nearly touched either side of the frame. His neck was almost as big as his totally shaved head.
    This guy wouldn’t need a machete. He could snap her in two with his ham-fisted grip.
    Her hands started shaking. Her thumb searched for 911.
    “Stand back.” She raised her gun and her phone. She wasn’t taking her sights off the hulk for even a second.
    His eyes were so dark that from a distance she could only just see the thin ring of blue at the outer edges of his wide pupils. His whole badass look was enough to make a woman pull out her Mace in the middle of the afternoon.
    For the first time she truly questioned the wisdom of carrying the small 9 mm, because her feet were frozen and her finger was twitchy. “The clinic closed six hours ago. My gun’s loaded, and I’m not afraid to use it.”
    “Shay, put your weapon and phone down.” He raised his hands to chest level. “I just missed catching the kid when he ran out the back door, and I’ve already called the cops.”
    Something in his gravelly voice reached into her brain, probing around for a place to take hold. She could have sworn she’d never heard those deep tones before. She searched his face, trying to remember where she might have met him.
    When.
    Her trembling hands went still. She wasn’t even sure her heart still worked because of the roaring in her ears. He might not look or sound the same as the dark-haired thug who’d turned her life upside down seventeen years ago, but somehow she knew.
    Vince Deluca was back.

THREE
    Vince watched Shay cradle her cell phone in one hand and her tiny chick gun in the other, all the while studying him as if he were the same gutter scum he’d been seventeen years ago.
    Was she the same volatile train wreck? Or had she shifted into darker agendas? She definitely still didn’t give a shit about her life, if the past ninety seconds were anything to judge by.
    Vince pressed deeper into the room, biker boots thudding against scarred wood floors in this crumbling dump they called a teen center. “What the hell are you doing hanging around this neighborhood after dark, in an unlocked building?”
    Shay rested her tiny weapon on the corner of the desk with exaggerated care while tucking the phone into her jeans pocket. Faded jeans molded to lean legs with a granola girl appeal.
    “Nice to see you again, too, Vince.”
    “Not so nice to see you’re still in the middle of a mess.”
    He brushed past her to check outside the window, above the fan. A car took a token pause at the red light before roaring through. A kid smoked dope beside a grocery market—a teen shorter than the hooded guy here earlier.
    “As charming as ever.”
    “I’m sorta preoccupied with making sure you don’t get hacked to pieces.” He weighed the option of running after the kid over the risk of leaving her here alone. No contest. “The cops should arrive any second now. It’s best if we both stay put.”
    “I agree, in case you were interested in my opinion.” She hitched a slim hip on the edge of her desk, right beside the gun, as if she didn’t trust him much more than the coked-up teen who’d bolted out the back door before Vince could stop him. “You’re the last person I expected to show up. Why are you here?”
    He stalked closer, having learned long ago it wasn’t wise to take his eyes off Shay Bassett. “I’m on R & R for the next few weeks and decided to visit your father while he’s in town. Do you have any idea why that kid broke in?”
    “Drugs.” Her golden brown eyes flickered with the first signs of something other than irritation. “Is there some other reason for this R & R? Are you all