her lap as she sat beside one of the desks in the squad room, waiting to discover her fate. The police officer who’d ordered her to sit there was talking to a handful of other men and women at the far end of the vast, open room. It seemed like every cop in Gatlinburg was here. The place was buzzing with anger and excitement as they studied maps and gathered flashlights, preparing to hunt her brother down like a rabid dog.
She wanted to scream, shake them, somehow make them realize what she couldn’t all those years ago: her brother was innocent. The only thing stopping her was that there was no denying what she’d seen with her own eyes—Brian, standing in her kitchen five years before his sentence was up. They were right that he’d broken out of prison. But they were wrong about the horrible, evil thing they also claimed that he’d done—killed a Memphis police officer after the escape.
Brian had always been headstrong and rebellious, with anger and impulse-control issues that had had him seeing a therapist from the time he was ten years old. But he was also sweet and sensitive. Never a bully, he was the kid who got picked on by his classmates because he was so awkward and shy. He adored animals and had gotten in trouble countless times for bringing home strays. The brother who cried after watching a sad commercial could never have set fire to a building with two people inside. That was the reason she could never, ever believe in his guilt. And that was the reason she knew that he hadn’t shot that police officer in Memphis.
“Is that why you came back to Gatlinburg? Because you knew your brother was planning to escape and you wanted to be here to help him?”
She jerked around to meet Colin McKenzie’s accusing stare as he stood beside the desk. It pained her that his deep voice, angry or not, sent the same jolt of longing through her that it had since they’d both turned fifteen and discovered their friendship had blossomed into something more. The cute boy who’d made all the girls’ hearts flutter in high school had matured into a mouth-wateringly gorgeous man. But all that physical perfection was spoiled by the look of hate blazing from his stormy blue eyes.
The hate was definitely new.
“I suppose from your viewpoint I deserve that. But, no. Why I came back has nothing to do with my brother. Even though he was wrongfully convicted, I would never help him escape from prison.”
“You’d just help him escape from your kitchen when a law-enforcement officer placed him under arrest. Is that the line you’ve drawn in the sand?”
She curled her fingers against her palms. “Okay, I definitely deserved that. And I completely understand that it looked that way to you. But from my viewpoint, my innocent brother was being threatened with a gun. I was protecting him.”
He jerked his shirt sleeve up a few inches on his left arm, revealing a smattering of puckered burn scars. “I pulled two people out of a burning barn after your brother set the fire. Innocent isn’t a word I’d use to describe him.”
Threatening tears burned her eyes but she viciously held them back. “I’m sorry, Colin. About everything. I truly am. I hate that you were hurt. But the truth hasn’t changed. Brian didn’t set that fire.”
He jerked his sleeve back down. “Do you want to go to prison?”
She stared at him in surprise. “What?”
“You’re in a precarious position, Peyton. If I officially arrest you and the DA decides to press charges, you could end up in prison for aiding and abetting a felon.”
“But, I didn’t mean—”
“Why did you do it? Why did you help him?”
She spread her hands in a helpless gesture. “I told you. I was protecting him. It was instinct. A choice—family or...” She chewed her lip.
“Or me. And once again, you didn’t choose me.”
The bitterness in his voice made her ache. But there was nothing she could do, nothing she could say that could ever fix what she’d destroyed so many years ago.
Because he was right.
“Give me a reason not to arrest you.”
She slowly shook her head, no longer able to hold back the tears. “I can’t. What I did today was wrong. I know that. But it was automatic, without any rational thought behind it. I’d probably do the same thing again if I had a do-over. Protecting my family is as ingrained in me as breathing. Can’t you understand that?”
Every muscle in his body seemed to tense, as if he was debating what to say but didn’t trust himself to speak.
She brushed the tears from her cheeks.
He swore softly and turned away, his ground-eating stride quickly taking him across the room to one of the groups of officers talking by a window.
Sniffing, she breathed deeply, willing the tears to stop. And all the while, she watched him, unable to look away. Her gaze caressed his profile the way her fingers once had. She knew every angle of his chiseled face, had traced the stubble across his jaw to his hairline, had kissed the barely there mustache. He still maintained that same look, like a man who hadn’t shaved in three days. But where she’d loved and adored the boy, she didn’t know what to make of the man. He was a stranger, with the power to destroy the fragile new world she’d created. And she couldn’t even give him a reason not to.
He nodded at something one of the men said, then strode back to the desk. “Get up.”
Her face flushed hot with embarrassment. She stood and smoothed her jeans and blouse into place before holding her wrists out in front of her.
He frowned. “What are you doing?”
“Hoping you won’t make me put my hands behind my back to put the handcuffs on. This is humiliating enough as it is.” When he only stared at her, she lowered her arms. “Aren’t you arresting me?”
“That depends on whether you’ll give me what I want.”
She drew in a sharp breath, his words awakening memories of the two of them together. His mouth, hot against her neck. His tongue tracing the valley between her breasts. His teasing smile as he slid down her body and hooked his fingers into the top of her jeans.
His breath hitched. “Don’t look at me that way, Peyton.”
She shivered and ruthlessly fought back the erotic images that had goose bumps breaking out all over her suddenly hypersensitive skin. Trying to pretend ignorance, she asked, “What do you mean?”
His eyes narrowed. “Like you’re remembering how good it was between us.”
She swallowed, remembering exactly how good it had been.
His blue eyes darkened, but not with passion. “The past, what you and I shared, died the day you left Gatlinburg without so much as a goodbye. A lifetime of growing up together, four years of dating, of sharing everything two people supposedly in love can share, and you couldn’t bring yourself to answer any of my calls, respond to even one of my texts. Well I got the message from you, loud and clear. And nothing could ever make me go down that road again.”
Her face flamed at his cruel, unnecessary rejection. She cast a surreptitious glance around the room before sinking back down into the chair so she could put some space between the two of them. Thankfully, no one seemed to be paying any attention to her and Colin at the moment. They were all too busy making plans to go after her only sibling.
Wait. Phone calls? Texts? What was he talking about? He’d never called her, not once. “Colin, I don’t understand. What are you—”
“What I want is to make a deal with you. Your cooperation in exchange for your brother’s life.”
She pressed a hand against her throat, unable to reconcile his shocking words with the man standing before her. This wasn’t the Colin she remembered, not even close. Had she ever really known him at all? Or was this hard, unyielding man the result of what she’d done?
“You’re