He did know how he felt about her-that had been an unwelcome surprise. He’d thought thirteen years would have dulled his bewitchment, but it hadn’t. Not in the least.

Since he’d left to join the army, he’d seen her a few times in ’14, and then again over the past six months, but always at a distance with family, both his and hers, all around. Nothing remotely private. Tonight, he’d come upon her unexpectedly alone in his house, and desire had come raging back. Had caught him, snared him, sunk its talons deep.

And shaken him.

Regardless, it was unlikely there was anything he could do to ease the ache. She’d finished with him thirteen years ago-cut him off; he knew better than to hold his breath hoping she’d change her mind. She was, always had been, unbelievably stubborn.

They would have to set that part of their past aside. They couldn’t entirely ignore it-it still affected both of them too intensely-but they could, if they had to, work around it.

They’d need to. Whatever was going on, that matter he’d been sent to investigate and that she, it seemed, had already discovered, was potentially too dangerous, too threatening to people as yet unknown, to treat as anything other than a battlefield. Once he knew more, he’d try to separate her from it. He didn’t waste a second considering if she, herself, was in any way involved on the wrong side of the ledger; she wouldn’t be, not Penny.

She was on the same side he was, but didn’t yet trust him. She had to be protecting someone, but who?

He no longer knew enough about her or her friends to guess.

How long before she decided to tell him? Who knew? But they didn’t have a lot of time. Now he was there, things would start happening; that was his mission, to stir things up and deal with what rose out of the mire.

If she wouldn’t tell him, he’d have to learn her secret some other way.