Jackson's Woman. Maggie Price

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      He ordered himself to snap back into control. Now. He couldn’t have her. Logically he knew that. Shouldn’t still want her. Didn’t want to want her. He bit back on frustration. Too much was at stake for him to let the emotional baggage he’d dragged around since she’d walked out get in the way. Right now, Claire Munroe was a job—that’s all she was. All she could be. Ryker had seen to that.

      When she clutched the arms of the chair, Jackson crouched, putting them at eye-level. “Do you want some water? Something stronger?”

      “I want an explanation.” She let out a long breath, but it didn’t steady her voice. “Who wants to kill me?”

      He had found out less than twenty-four hours ago that she was in danger from a man he’d once considered his closest friend. He was still trying to come to grips with that. And everything else.

      “Frank Ryker.”

      “I don’t know him. Why would someone I don’t know…” Her forehead furrowed. “Ryker. Isn’t that your partner’s last name? The man you consider your mentor?”

      “Frank Ryker’s my ex-partner, as of a little over a month ago.”

      “A federal cop, your partner, wants to kill me?” There was dismay in her voice now and color was returning to her cheeks. The tight grip she had on the arms of the chair had turned her knuckles white.

      “Ex-partner, yes.”

      “Why?”

      Because of me. His gut twisting, Jackson rose. After Claire had left him, he’d tried to put her out of his mind, and sometimes succeeded. But then he would come off an assignment and let go of the tight control necessary to survival on the job. It was at those times when he eased back his focus that thoughts of her closed in. They hovered around him like ghosts, whispering to him, brushing against him during the night until he thought he might go mad with wanting her.

      Those tormenting thoughts had prompted his occasional casual mention of her to Ryker. Although Jackson would like to use the excuse that it was natural for personal feelings to spill out when two friends decompressed after a life-and-death assignment, he was realistic enough to admit he had never dealt with Claire walking away. Hadn’t wanted to. Still didn’t want to. Knowing she’d moved on, was planning to marry a man who could give her the life he never could, had been sufficient reason to stay away.

      But Ryker had put Claire’s life on the line, which left him no choice but to face her. And the emotions he’d refused to deal with. Head-on.

      He scrubbed a hand over his stubbled jaw. “It’d be best if I lay out what happened from the beginning.”

      “Fine.” Claire rose sharply. “You talk, I’ll listen.”

      He watched as she tugged open a door on the pine armoire. She wore a soft denim shirt tied at the waist and slim jeans that molded tightly to her hips and legs. He knew what it felt like to have those legs part for him, wrap around him.

      Two years of missing her, of wanting her with him, hit him like a ton of bricks.

      Get a grip. He fought to repress the hungry, possessive storm inside him while watching her retrieve a rag and a bottle of cleaning solvent. Knowing he would waste his breath, he bit back the urge to suggest she wait until she felt steadier to clean up the dusting of fingerprint powder the cops had left on numerous items. Whenever she got nervous or upset, Claire was on the move. The night she’d told him goodbye, her pacing had almost worn a path in the carpet of their Cairo hotel room.

      He retrieved the mop out of the bucket he’d filled with water and pine-scented disinfectant, then went to work on the bloodstain.

      “A little over a month ago,” he began, “terrorists kidnapped an American attaché in Singapore. We got intel he was being held in a warehouse, so Ryker and I set up surveillance until a team from our Mobile Security Division—the equivalent of SWAT—arrived. MSD went in first, then Ryker and myself. Or so I thought until I hit the doorway and realized he’d hung back. A second later, the warehouse exploded.”

      “The gash over your eye.” Claire looked up from the brass candlestick she’d plucked off a shelf. “Is that how you got hurt?”

      “Yeah, shrapnel clipped me at the same time the blast blew me out of the doorway.” Jackson put his back into the mop as dark anger brewed in his gut. “The attaché and all members of the MSD team died. Turned out the terrorists weren’t inside the warehouse—they detonated the blast by remote.”

      “Ryker?”

      “Didn’t hang around to check on his pals.”

      “And you think, because he held back, he knew the warehouse was going to explode?”

      “He and I have gone through a lot of doors together over the years. He’d never hesitated until Singapore. In the split second before the blast, I saw it in his eyes—he knew the place was about to go up.”

      Claire set the candlestick she’d dusted aside, then went to work on a cobalt vase. “What happened after that?”

      “I woke up in the ER, got my boss on the phone and told him I suspected Ryker had sold us out. He’s like every other DSS agent, has connections all over the world, so it was anyone’s guess where he’d go.”

      Just thinking about what Ryker had done—what he intended to do—filled Jackson with a rage so strong he wanted to slam his fist through a wall.

      “I remembered Ryker mentioned a place he used as an off-the-book safe house in Kuala Lumpur,” Jackson continued. “Getting from Singapore to Malaysia only takes a couple of hours, so the house was worth checking. Another MSD team got there just as dusk fell. When they burst in, a shadow dashed from around a corner, and they opened fire.”

      Jackson’s insides bunched. If he’d known who the MSD team would find there, he wouldn’t have told his boss about the damn safe house, just gone there on his own and dealt with Ryker. But he’d had no way of knowing.

      “Was Ryker in the house?”

      “No, but his wife and daughter were.”

      The rag in Claire’s hand went still against the deep-blue vase. “You wouldn’t take me into Malaysia because it was so dangerous for Americans. Especially women.”

      “Still is. Which is why the MSD team had no expectation an agent would risk his family that way.”

      The thick-planked floor now clean of blood, Jackson replaced the mop in the bucket. Next on his agenda was the building’s security. He’d already arranged with Liz Scott to have OCPD do hourly patrols, but that was just the beginning of what needed to be done.

      “Why was Ryker’s family at the safe house?” Claire asked.

      “Emily, his daughter, was ill.” Jackson moved to the shop’s expansive front window. It was mullioned with large diamond-shaped panes. The panes wouldn’t open, which was good, but someone armed with a glasscutter and pry bar could make a silent entry in seconds. Shatter sensors, he determined, before looking back at Claire.

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