Page 32 of Delta Force Defender

Which should not have made her chest feel too tight, like a sob was building up in there and making it hard to breathe.

Isaac skirted the two-story main building, then led her down a walkway that led toward a large cabin set away from the rest.

Halfway along the cabin’s walkway, she heard a sharp bark. Then Isaac’s dog was bounding down the path, cavorting about with more energy and joy than she’d ever seen him display in Grizzly Harbor.

Everyone knew Horatio. He was usually Isaac’s shadow in the village, waiting outside the Fairweather when it was warm and sitting next to his master’s barstool when it was cold. He accepted some patting and the occasional treat, but mostly he watched. And judged, Caradine had always thought. Harshly.

She had to fight to keep her expression blank when Isaac broke into a smile as Horatio reached him. He bent over and took the dog’s face in his hands, making low, crooning noises that spoke of love and companionship and a part of him that had nothing to do with sex or controlled violence or the battles they’d waged against each other for years.

It made her want to cry.

And not in the shower this time.

Caradine tried to tell herself she was tired, but she couldn’t, because she was fine. Disconcertingly fine, in fact, when she really should have been riddled with anxiety and panic. Instead, she’d slept for most of the long flight here, because she felt, if not safe when Isaac was near—safer than she did at any other time.

Something she could seem to admit only to herself when she’d constructed an actual blanket fort, like a toddler, and then hid in it.

She’d had to bite his head off to regain her equilibrium, and her reward for that had been to watch his gray eyes get hard and dark.Congratulations,she’d snapped at herself.You’re the actual, literal worst.

Watching the way he openly, happily lavished affection on his dog made her hurt.

She was so sick of herself in that moment that she felt weak with it. Andthis closeto doing something she would regret forever, like telling this man exactly what it did to her to watch him love on something. This tough, dangerous man, whose face lit up when he saw his dog.

While all she ever seemed to do was make him go grim.

Which is exactly what you should do,she rationalized.So he’ll wash his hands of you the way he should.

Isaac murmured something as he straightened, and Horatio sat down, then tilted his head and regarded Caradine with those odd eyes of his, one blue and one green. Isaac did much the same.

And she didn’t get to do what she wanted. Forgetting that only hurt more, in the long run. How many times did she need to learn that lesson?

She glared at him. “I’m allergic to dogs.”

“Then I guess you’ll sneeze a lot,” Isaac replied, andindicated with the jut of his chin that she should move in front of him and carry on down the walkway.

Like walking the plank, though at this point she would have preferred to fling herself into the icy cold water of the sound. It would feel like a vacation.

Instead she walked forward as commanded, because her other alternative was throwing a temper tantrum. And she had the very distinct impression that just because she couldn’t see anyone around this morning, that didn’t mean they weren’t all there. Watching Isaac escort her back to Alaska like she really was the person who’d blown up half a building in Grizzly Harbor.

They made it down to the cabin at last. Isaac reached from behind her to open the door, but Caradine made a noise of... protest, maybe.

A last-ditch effort.

“I can’t decide what will be worse,” she said, delaying the moment when she would have to cross this last barrier. When she would have to be in his space. His home. Something she’d made no effort to do, ever. And would have deliberately avoided if she’d ever thought it was a possibility. “What am I about to walk into here? What does the private soul of Isaac Gentry look like? Frat boy central? Or a whole lot of redneck?”

“You can call it whatever you want,” Isaac replied, and she realized he was using that genial tone of his on her. A calm, pleasant lie. She hated it. “Just so long as you accept the fact that it’s home sweet home from now on. Until we find out who’s coming after you and make it stop. Okay?”

But that wasn’t really a question, and he didn’t wait for an answer. He threw the door open, and then his hand was on her back.

If she resisted at all, he would feel it. So she couldn’t let herself. Caradine strode inside, shocked to find that her pulse was flipping out and her head felt light. Almostthe way it had when she’d been standing in that dark room in Maine, staring at the doorknob on that locked front door while her past tried to break in.

Though she wasn’tafraidnow. There were no wooden boats and red canoes dancing before her eyes. There was only the looming horror of intimacy, which was worse. Caradine would have rather had to fight off more thugs with guns.

Isaac slammed the door behind her, and it felt like doom. It took every bit of self-control she had not to flinch as if she’d been electrocuted. Or as if she’d been tossed headlong into a prison cell.

She didn’t want to look around. She didn’t want to see histhings. And she really didn’t know if it was because she expected she would think less of him once she knew how he lived, or if she didn’t want whatever extra information there was to be found about him here. The apartment she’d lived in on the other side of the island hadn’t borne any signs of anything but the life Caradine Scott was meant to be living. But this was Isaac’s actual home.

Was it that she didn’t want to look? Or that she wanted, desperately, to look?

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