She made a quick, jerky motion with the hand that had touched her face. Cleared her throat and said huskily, “I know about Brooke. It was on the news-about her getting arrested for killing her husband, and the mountain lion and all that.”

“Then you know-”

“I know she’s okay, that she’s got a kid. She looks good-looks like she’s doing okay.” She whirled on him, suddenly, her face flushed and angry. “Look, what do you want me to say?”

Her sunglasses were in his shirt pocket. She looked so defenseless he was tempted to give them back to her, but instead he folded his arms over the pocket and the glasses and said softly, “She’s got a new man in her life-a good man. I imagine she’d love to tell you about him…seems like the kind of thing sisters do.” He paused. “She’s dying to see you, Billie. Brenna. She misses you.”

She turned her head and stared hard at nothing. He could see her throat work as she swallowed.

“And you have three brothers-real brothers, good, decent men, all of them. You have a family.”

Her eyes came back to him, bright with anger, and her lips curved in a smile of derision. “Family? You say that like that’s supposed to be something great, right? Look, as far as I’m concerned, families are the reason for most of what’s gone wrong in this world.”

“Come on, Billie.”

“Don’t. Okay? Don’t give me pretty speeches, because you just don’t know.” Her eyes were shimmering, fire and rain, although no tears fell. She paced a step closer to him, one hand upraised. “When I was on the street, all those other kids who were out there with me-why do you think they were there? Guess what? They had families. Families that sucked. Moms on drugs, dads on booze…I knew kids that had to leave home to get something to eat, or to keep from getting raped, beat up-or worse.”

“Nobody said all families are perfect,” Holt said evenly. “All the more reason to be grateful when you’ve got a good one. And you’ve definitely got that. Now.”

“Yeah? So you say.” She paused, studying him thoughtfully, lips still curved in that mocking little smile. “What about you, Kincaid? You got a family? A ‘good’ one?”

She was good at reading faces, and his was kindergarten-easy. Once again she didn’t miss the slight flinching around his eyes when he replied.

“No. No family.”

“None?” She jerked back in feigned surprise, and inside she was gleeful…triumphant. Aha-gotcha. So you have a skeleton or two in your family cupboard, Holt Kincaid. “Come on. No parents? No brothers and sisters? Nobody?” She felt no guilt for taunting him. As far as she was concerned he deserved it for making her expose her emotions so cruelly.

Tight-lipped, showing none of his, he shook his head. “I was raised by my great-aunt, but she’s gone now.”

“Really.” She watched him narrowly, her head tilted to one side. “So…what happened to your parents?”

He didn’t reply, and his eyes had gone flat and gray as stones.

She stepped closer, and touched one of the arms that criss-crossed his chest. That, too, seemed hard as stone, but seemed to vibrate from some force deep within, and when she touched it, she felt the same vibration inside her own chest.

She looked up at him. “Hmm…So what was it? They die? Abandon you? Come on, Kincaid, I’ll bet there’s one helluva story there.”

“I don’t know you well enough to tell you that story,” he said coldly, looking down at her without lowering his head so that his eyes were hidden by his lashes. His lips looked stiff and uninviting.

How could I ever have kissed them?

How could they have felt so good?

A shudder ran through her, and she shrugged to hide it. She went on smiling, too, although she was seething inside.

I think…I hate you, Kincaid. Nobody makes me cry-nobody. But you came close. I’ll make you pay for that.

She didn’t know how, but she would find out what his story was, where he was most vulnerable. And she would make him pay.

And in the meantime, she still had an ace or two to play.

“That’s easily remedied,” she murmured, swaying seductively as she moved even closer to him, letting her hand slide upward along his arm, feeling the shape of warm, firm muscle beneath soft cotton.

Holt grasped her wrist hard. He couldn’t seem to stop his body’s response to her touch; all he could hope for was to keep her from feeling it. His smile felt hard and mean, but what else could he do? It was the only defense he had.

He hadn’t expected this. Hadn’t expected to be so attracted to her. Not just physically-he was confident he could have handled that easily enough-but in ways he couldn’t explain. Ways that made him feel weak and vulnerable, even while some masculine instinct deep inside him kept wanting to protect and defend her.

As if, he thought wryly, this woman needed protection from him, or anyone.

“Is that something you learned on the street?” he drawled, hanging on to his smile with grim determination, even when hers wavered and he knew he’d hit a tender spot.

She wrenched away from him, the words she muttered under her breath a well known retort that invited him to perform a physically impossible act upon his own person.

“Billie-wait.” Cursing himself silently, he managed to snag her arm before she reached the door. The look she shot him made a strange thrill ripple through his insides-something primitive, an irresistible challenge…a hurled gauntlet. His heart began to beat faster. He found himself recalling with uncomfortable clarity the way her mouth had tasted.

“Give me back my glasses,” she said very softly, while her eyes seared him like molten gold, “and I’m outta here.”

He released the breath he’d been holding. “Okay, look-that was out of line. I apologize.” He waited for some sign she was willing to accept that, while the seconds thundered by in heartbeats he felt in his throat. “Don’t go, okay? I really am sorry. And I do want to get to know you better…”

She glanced down at his hand, the one holding on to her arm, then angled a quizzical look up at him. And he realized his thumb was moving back and forth on the soft skin of her upper arm, stroking it. Caressing it.

Something lurched in his insides and he knew he was in big trouble. What he really wanted was to lift up his other hand and touch her cheek…then curve his hand around to the nape of her neck, cradle her head in his palm and kiss her-really kiss her, the way such a beautiful and fascinating woman should be kissed. He didn’t do that, but he didn’t stop stroking her arm, either. He watched his thumb caress the smooth, tanned skin for a moment longer, then lifted his eyes to hers and let his lips curve in a smile of genuine regret as he released her.

“…But not that way.”

Liar.

She didn’t say it out loud; she didn’t have to. She could see the lie in his eyes and on his lips, written there plain as day. Plain as the numbers on a deck of cards.

She shrugged, folded her arms and sauntered past him, relieved to once again be far enough away from him so he couldn’t feel her heart thumping. She flung herself into the only easy chair and said, “Okay…so I’m here. What do you want to know?”

He pulled out the hard-backed chair in front of the small table that served as both desk and TV stand, turned it around to face her and sat. For a moment he just looked at her, then leaned forward with his hands clasped between his knees. She found herself bracing-for what she didn’t know.

“Tell me what it was like,” he said in that quiet, almost whispery way he had that made her think unwillingly of lovers trading secrets in a tumble of sweaty sheets. “Out there-on the streets.” He paused. She laughed nervously and looked away. His voice reached out to her…compelled her to respond even though she didn’t want to. “How did you survive? How did you get off the street? Was it this guy, Miley Todd-your partner?”

“Yeah, I guess.” She cleared her throat and shifted in the chair.

I don’t want to do this. Don’t make me go back there. Damn you, Kincaid.

But she knew she’d have to, if she wanted to win this game. Tell him everything. Go back there and live it all again. The pain, the loss…

Tell him, Brenna. It’s the way you’ll get him to go “all in.”

She took a breath. “He found me at a bad time, I guess you could say. Or maybe a good time, I don’t know.” She forced a smile. “I’d just had a baby. Gave the kid up for adoption. So I was-”

He uttered a sharp obscenity and sat back in his chair. He didn’t know what he’d expected to hear, but it sure wasn’t that. Of all the things she could have said…

She was watching him, a smile playing around her lips but not even coming close to her eyes.

He rubbed a hand over his mouth and muttered, “How did it happen? I mean, were you-”

“Oh, it was consensual-more or less.” She shrugged. “It was a cold winter…what can I say? You take warmth where you can find it, if you know what I mean. Things happen, okay?”

“I’m not judging-God, no.” He exhaled, then shook his head. “I just can’t imagine what it must have been like, to be out there alone, on the streets and pregnant besides.”

“It was one of the better times, actually. I went to a clinic, and they got me into a shelter-a women’s shelter, so it was pretty safe. Better than the others, anyway…I learned to stay clear of those.”

“But you didn’t stay. After…”

She seemed to have shrunk, somehow, sitting hunched in that big chair with her hands fisted on her thighs. Her face had a pinched look. She shook her head and he had to lean closer to hear her as she mumbled, “I got to hold her-just for a minute. It was a girl. Then they took her and I signed the papers and got the hell outta there. I just wanted to get as far away from that place as I could. Maybe you can’t understand that, but that’s just the way it was.”

Maybe he didn’t understand-how could he?-but he ached for her anyway. His throat ached. He cleared it, but still didn’t think talking was a good idea, so he got up and paced restlessly to the window. It wasn’t a spectacular Vegas view; his room did not face the Strip. Just an anonymous cityscape, darkening already to dusk, this late in November. He wondered if that cold wind was still blowing. In Vegas it was easy to lose touch with the world outside the hotels and casinos, but he knew there was a different world out there. Beyond the glitter and glamour of the Strip, Las Vegas was a city like any other, with its share of ordinary people leading ordinary lives, and criminals preying on both the innocent and each other.

“Miley Todd brought me here, to Vegas,” Billie said, as if she’d read his thoughts. “I met him in Biloxi. He was playing poker in a tournament in one of the Gulf casinos, and I was working the main drag, picking up food money from the tourists doing card tricks…scams, actually. I guess Miley thought I had a good head for cards.”

He turned back to her, discovering he’d lost his taste for asking questions. The images she’d already painted in his head were going to be tough enough to forget; he didn’t need any more.

Funny-he’d never really thought about the term empathy, not until he’d run into the first of Cory Pearson’s siblings, the Portland homicide cop, Wade Callahan, and the woman who’d recently become his wife. Tierney Doyle Callahan was an empath, a psychic who could read other people’s emotions, and she’d met Wade while working with the Portland P.D. to catch a serial killer.

Meeting Tierney had gotten Holt to wondering whether he might have a wee touch of the empath himself, since he’d always had kind of a knack for getting inside the heads of the people he was searching for. An ability to think: If I were that person, what would I do? Where would I go? Not that he’d lay any claim to being psychic, but the fact was, a lot of the time he’d be right.

Brenna Fallon’s story had grabbed him by the throat from the first time he’d heard it. He remembered vividly the clenching in the pit of his stomach when Brooke told him her twin sister had run away at fourteen to escape their adoptive older brother’s sexual abuse. The photos Brooke had given him then had become burned into his brain, filling his nights with dreams of that fragile child-woman out there somewhere on some cold, mean street, vulnerable to every kind of predator and peril. Until a couple of days ago he’d all but given up hope of ever finding her, and then he’d had the incredible good luck to catch that poker game on late-night television.

Now…he slept no better, although it was a thirty-year-old woman’s face that haunted him. Haunted him in ways he hadn’t counted on.