And Ari had no doubt he meant what he said.

Quinn wasn’t going to like what she did next, but to her way of thinking they were out of options. She glanced from Quinn’s gun pointed at her, to Damon’s gun pointed at Quinn, and she knew she had to take Damon by surprise.

“All I wanted to do was find my sister,” Ari said, and both men turned her way. “Or at least I wanted to find out what happened to my sister. But I’m a schoolteacher, not an investigator, and now I’ve gotten myself into a heap of trouble, haven’t I?” she asked, deliberately rambling.

Damon groaned. “Shut her up, Quinn.”

“You know, I thought you cared about me,” she said to Quinn. “But you’ve never stopped being loyal to him.” She jerked her finger at Damon. “Which means I’m really going to die. Even if I don’t know anything,” she said, her voice rising in pitch.

“Ari,” Quinn said in warning.

She ignored him. “But aren’t I entitled to a last wish? At the very least a last meal?”

“She’s stalling and you’re letting her,” Damon said. “Do it now.”

“I don’t want to die,” Ari wailed and dropped to her knees. “But if I have to, can I at least have a blindfold? Please?” She moved awkwardly closer to Damon, who stared at her as if she’d lost her mind. “Okay, no blindfold. Then how about a drink to numb the pain?”

“Well… wait a minute, this is ridiculous,” Damon muttered.

“Please let me live,” Ari wailed.

“For the love of-”

In the biggest gamble of her life, Ari cut him off, and with a final howl, she wrapped her arms around Damon’s knees. Laying her head against his thighs, she pushed against him with all her body weight.

At the same time, she shut her eyes and prayed.

Quinn’s blood pressure shot up as Ari begged for her life, her hysteria building with each word she spoke. Though he knew better than to fall for the act, Damon had always surrounded himself with bubbleheaded, whiny, crying women, and he obviously believed she was another hysterical female. And he went on believing it until she pushed his legs in her final supplication.

For a split second, Damon glanced down. Distracted by her caterwauling, he let his gun arm drop down.

In that split second, Quinn fired.

• • •

Just like every other case Quinn had worked on, everything that happened next was in a blur of activity. Connor burst in after the gunshot, with the feds on his heels. Damon, wounded in the shoulder, was hauled off, cursing Quinn in one breath and himself in another for being suckered by Quinn for so long. Ari had been brought to another room, where she gave her statement. And while Quinn knew he’d be busy with wrap-up and paperwork for a good long time, right now he was more concerned with his relationship with Ari than he was with this case.

Damon had taken years off his life when he’d tossed the gun at him, demanding he shoot Ari. Ari had taken at least another decade with her hysteria act. So by the time she walked back into the office hours later, he’d worked himself into a good case of impotent fury.

He took one look at her drawn face and saw the exhaustion evidenced by the dark circles under her eyes, made worse by smudged makeup. Relief at seeing her washed over him and he pulled her into his arms, letting himself inhale her familiar scent and feel her warmth. Dipping his head, he kissed her hard, thrusting his tongue into her mouth. She reciprocated, her body melding to his, her lips warm and eager, as if she too needed the affirmation this kiss held.

And though his relief was real, so too was the realization that this was the first time they’d had together without the specter of Damon hanging over them. No case, no missing sister, nothing prevented him from baring his soul to this woman. And though the time might not be ideal, he doubted he’d find a better one.

With regret, he pushed her away. He held her forearms and asked, “What the hell were you thinking, playing such a dangerous game with Damon?”

She treated him to her innocent look. “It worked, didn’t it? I didn’t see another immediate option. I knew you wouldn’t be happy, but you could thank me for saving your butt instead of yelling at me for taking a risk.” She couldn’t quite hide the smile on her lips.

He shoved his hands into his pockets. “No man likes to admit he was bested by a smartass woman with a penchant for relying on old movies to save herself when she’s in trouble,” he said wryly.

“You knew?” she asked. “You really knew what I was doing?”

“Not until you dropped to your knees like Alan Arkin, but yeah. I saw that you were acting out The In-Laws again. And this time it was pretty ingenious,” he admitted, giving credit where credit was due. “But it was still risky.”

She chuckled, obviously pleased with herself.

“Hey, your sister will be proud of you.”

Instead of making her happy, his comment dimmed the wattage on her smile.

“Maybe.”

Confused, he asked, “What’s wrong?”

Ari shook her head. “Nothing. I suppose you plan to move back to your house now?” she asked, changing the subject.

“Just like you plan to go back to Vermont.”

She licked her lips, nodding. “I have to. I just can’t leave my students.”

He drew a deep breath. Apparently even a cop needed courage every now and again. “I admire that about you. Even if I don’t want you to go.”

She sucked in a breath, visibly shaken by the admission. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Now, that’s insulting. You think I don’t know how I feel about you?” He kept his hands in his pockets, refusing to give in to the impulse to shake her until she understood. “I love you. I’ve been in love with you probably since the moment I laid eyes on you,” he said, raising his voice in frustration.

“And that’s the problem. From the minute you laid eyes on me, I haven’t been me!” Her eyes flashed indignant sparks. “First I was a watered-down version of my sister, and then I was pretending to have the hots for you in public, hoping that Maria would see I didn’t have designs on Connor, so she’d confide in me about Zoe. And since the feelings were real and you wanted me, too, you seemed to like that side of me. So you took me out and coaxed the sultry side even more. But that woman isn’t me,” she said, finally finished and out of breath.

He heard her but he didn’t believe the bull she was dishing out. Quinn ran a hand through his hair. The harder he tried to reach her, the deeper into her old self she withdrew. Obviously the fear of being Ari, of being like her family, was stronger and more overwhelming than her feelings for him.

History had a way of repeating itself, and his mother had chosen drugs over him, all the while claiming to love him. So he knew too well that once something stronger than love had a hold on a person, it was nearly impossible to break.

But Ari and the life and the future they could share was worth one more try. “I understand the distinction between Ariana and Ari,” he said slowly. “Ariana is the woman I met on the beach in the conservative suit, the woman who ‘serpentined’ last week and the woman who saved my ass today. She’s the woman I love.”

Ari shook her head, finding his words impossible to believe. How could he make the distinction between the two parts of her when she couldn’t? How could he claim to know her when she’d yet to completely find and understand herself?

She pushed aside the voice in her head that begged her to listen to Quinn, to listen to her heart. Because if she accepted his words as truth, if she embraced Ari, it would be the same thing as admitting she’d willingly given up five whole years of her life, spending it in Vermont far from family and friends in order to be someone entirely different from them.

It would mean not that she was afraid to see them more clearly, but that she was afraid to let them see the real her. Afraid that even if she tried to fit in, she wouldn’t be able to do it. And where would that leave her now?

“I have to go.” She turned and started for the door, but he stopped her with a simple touch on the shoulder.

“If you care about me, don’t run anymore.”

She faced him, her entire body trembling. “That isn’t what I’m doing. I’m just being realistic. I’m saving you the disappointment of seeing the real me later on.” Tears filled her eyes, confusion and fear still holding her back. “I’m sorry.”

“No, I am. Because I figured you for many things, a beautiful woman with many facets to her personality, one I could spend the rest of my life getting to know. But I never once figured you for a coward.”

Then I guess you figured wrong, Detective Donovan, Ari thought as she pivoted and ran for the exit.

• • •

Maybe it had something to do with the fact that he’d completed the job and had put in for a department transfer, or maybe it had more to do with Maria and the unsettled state of his relationship. But for many reasons, Connor was antsy. He’d come to Quinn’s beach house to hang out, but his friend was withdrawn and morose, not providing much in the way of help or company. So while Quinn sat on the couch and stared out the window, Connor paced the floor, unable to sit still.

“What is it with women?” Connor asked at last. “They say they want truthfulness and honesty, yet when you give it to them, they want nothing to do with you.” He still cringed every time he thought about his last talk with Maria, the night the Damon case had gone down.

“Beats me,” Quinn muttered.

“For weeks, Maria wanted to know everything about me. All the while we worked on the case, even after we got close, she sensed I was holding back. ‘Talk to me,’ she said. But I couldn’t.”

Quinn propped his feet on the table and leaned further back into the cushions. “This job wreaks havoc on any attempt at a social life or an intimate relationship.”

“No shit. But the case ended and I finally gave her what she’d been asking for. And I told her everything. That I was a cop. That I’d been undercover too long and I was getting out. Wouldn’t you think that would make her happy?” Connor scratched his head.

He sure as hell had thought Maria would be ecstatic at his openness, and since most women bitched about secrecy, he’d figured she’d love not having to deal with undercover work and the hell it brought into his life.

Quinn merely grunted, so Connor went on. “Well hell no, she wasn’t happy. She said she liked that I was a simple bartender. Now she says she’s got to get used to me all over again and she doesn’t know if she can do that.” He shook his head, something he’d begun to do too much of lately. “What kind of sense does that make to you?” he asked his friend.

“None,” Quinn said, without meeting his gaze, the waves in the ocean holding him captive.

Connor didn’t care. He needed a sounding board and Quinn was only too happy to pretend to listen.

“If you ask me, she’s goddamned scared,” Quinn said, finally addressing the crux of the issue.

Connor cocked his head and stopped his pacing. Quinn’s words actually made a dent in his confusion, and he wanted to hear more. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that she’s obviously scared of a committed relationship. Want to know why?” Quinn continued before Connor could reply. “Because if she admits she’s in love, then she’s got to face herself, faults and all.”

Hell, Connor thought. Who’d mentioned love? But the notion of Maria being scared, now that made sense, and Connor mulled over the possibility.

Sure, it was easy for her to let him into the fringes of her life. It was even easier for her to take the baby steps of allowing him to spend time with her kid. She could tell herself she was making a start in a relationship. After all, that was what Connor had been telling himself, too. But he’d found himself falling for the dark-haired beauty and her son, and the simple life they lived. He even found himself wanting to experience the idea of family.

His fears of doing to them what his father had done to him were beginning to evaporate. Slowly but surely, Connor was trusting himself to do right by them. He even understood why. He’d been in foster care for years, and understood dysfunction and abandonment better than most. The more time he spent with Maria, the easier Connor found it to do the opposite of what was done to him. He liked giving. He enjoyed seeing the light in Joey’s eyes when he tossed a ball and the boy caught it in Connor’s old glove. And Connor wanted to come back for more.

But once he’d started discussing his life with Maria in the hopes of starting a deeper relationship, she’d made up excuses to run.

Damned if Quinn wasn’t right. “You got a point, man. Maria is scared.”