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  Everybody was happy but her. She felt a full-blown pity party inviting her to open its doors and stay until dawn. Tempting.

  She dragged her thoughts back to the Madison case. I've been away too long. Things have changed. I've –

  "Claire?"

  She stopped. Glanced toward the door. Great. Now I'm hallucinating.

  ***

  She looked fragile in her silk-white blouse, her slim skirt showing enough leg to make Dillon's chest tighten. Her dark whisky eyes fixed on him like a deer in headlamps and the air in the room stilled, making it hard to breathe.

  He should say something. Explain himself. What if she didn't want to see him? A boulder lodged in his stomach. "Am I interrupting?"

  "It's really you."

  "Guilty."

  She took a halting step toward him, stopped. "What are you doing here?"

  Looking for you. That was the easy answer. But his reasons for coming to Portland were a hell of a lot more complicated than his need to see her. "I'm through hiding."

  "Good." She tucked at her hair, a gesture he found achingly endearing. "That's good."

  He accepted her hesitation, knew he deserved it. Pulling in an uncertain breath, he asked, "Is there a boyfriend or husband I should know about?"

  She gave a weak laugh. "God no."

  "Then would it be alright if I kissed you?"

  The small cry she made was the answer he needed. The heaviness in his stomach lifted and he met her in two strides. He pulled her close, taking her lips with his as a hint of lavender seduced him. A new fragrance. It suited her. The girl clothes suited her. His callused hands snagged at the back of her blouse, her slim curves achingly familiar beneath the whisper of fabric.

  "I've missed you," he said and kissed her again, tasted the coffee on her mouth.

  He felt her breath hitch. Her fingers fisted the front of his shirt. "I've missed you too, damn it. Three months without a word."

  "I'm sorry I shut you out."

  "I don't need you to protect me."

  "I know." He brushed her hair back from her face. "It's one of the things I love about you."

  A shine of tears came into her eyes. "You said yourself, love was never the problem."

  "I've been working on that."

  ***

  She wanted to believe him. Wanted it desperately. Still handsome in the rawboned way she remembered, he looked rough around the edges, as though he'd had his share of sleepless nights. His physical presence pulled at her. His smell. His heat.

  But she wasn't ready to bare her heart to him again. Not until she had some answers. She forced herself to move out of his arms, went to her desk and called Maggie in the front office. "I'm going to be unavailable for the rest of the afternoon."

  "Shall I cancel your dinner appointment?" Maggie asked.

  "No. Dinner's still on."

  Maggie exhaled an audible whoosh of relief. "Excellent."

  Claire hung up and gestured Dillon to the couch. "Have a seat."

  "You've got a dinner date?"

  "No. That's a code Maggie came up with. If I'd told her to cancel dinner, she'd have security in here so fast you wouldn't know what hit you."

  He arrowed a sharp look at her. "Has that happened?"

  "Once." Claire resisted the impulse to smile at his chivalrous stance. It felt nice, his wanting to defend her. Maybe some day she'd tell him about the client who scared the crap out of her and Maggie, but now wasn't the time. She joined him on the couch, sat on the edge so she could face him, close but not quite touching. She didn't need to touch him to feel the tension in his body. "Tell me what's going on."

  He hesitated, as though uncertain where to begin, his gaze focused on the space of cushion between them. "Things fell apart. I fell apart. Nightmares. Insomnia."

  She didn't know how to ask if he'd started drinking again without sounding accusatory, so she held her tongue, took shallow breaths and waited.

  The look in his eyes when they lifted sliced her heart. "I wanted a drink so damn bad it scared me."

  "What stopped you?" Because it was clear now he hadn't given in to the craving.

  "Vic. He knew something was wrong. Hell, everybody did. He dragged me to a place in Nome that helps people with PTSD."

  "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder."

  "You're familiar with it."

  "It's been offered as a basis for defense. I haven't handled a case personally, but I did a little reading when I got home." She followed a hunch, spent late hours online researching websites that dealt with the disorder. Poured over books from the library. She discovered PTSD was far more prevalent in law enforcement that she realized. Police officers are expected to be compassionate yet invincible, never make a mistake, suck it up and keep going. She watched videos that made her cry. But she understood Dillon needed a patient listener more than he needed tears and condolences. "How did Vic know?"

  "He's a Vietnam veteran, been through it himself."

  "I would never have guessed. He's such a big softy."

  Dillon grunted. "Vic a softy? Are we talking about the same guy?"

  "Anybody who tattoos the name of a beloved dog on his bicep is a softy in my book."

  The look of surprise on Dillon's face made her laugh. "Reta is a dog?"

  "Ausie/husky mix, his constant companion for fifteen years." When Vic spotted Claire, lost and weepy-eyed after saying goodbye to her dad and the Sommers, he sat her down, lifted her spirits with the story of Dillon's grill fire, then had her near tears again as he talked about his Reta girl. "He never told you?"

  "I never asked."

  Claire shook her head, scooted back onto the couch, shoulder to shoulder with him, and took his hand. "He cares about you, Dillon. A lot of us do."

  "Yeah, I'm finally figuring that out." He lifted her hand and brushed his lips across her fingers. "I've been an idiot."

  "Welcome to the club." She kissed the edge of the slanted smile he gave her. "Where do we go from here?"

  Chapter 31

  He asked her to drive his rental. He'd been away from Portland too long; downtown traffic made him jittery and screwed with his concentration. Sitting in the passenger seat gave him a chance to see how the city had changed in his absence. A few new shops and eateries shared Broadway with the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall – the "Schnitz" – and Nordstrom. Rain filled gutters and pooled in potholes, dripped from awnings, streaked the sides of bus shelters. People hunched under battle-weary umbrellas or ignored the weather altogether, going about their business with a posture of indifference. The homeless and indigent continued to gravitate to Burnside. The grim edges of a city that always seemed to come up short for those most in need.

  All in all, not much had changed. Except him.

  The car's wipers cleared the windshield every three seconds. Dual metronomes. Flashes of moments surfaced then disappeared, as the city's images blurred and cleared and blurred again. His therapist talked about cognitive processing, visiting reminders of his trauma, putting his feelings in context through exposure, but the reminders came at him too fast, were too fleeting to compartmentalize.

  Claire stopped for a traffic light. "How are you doing?"

  He met her gaze. He'd missed those eyes. The look in them now calmed him. "I'm good."

  But his calm didn't last. As they crossed the river and neared the address Dillon gave her, images slowed, sharpened. Details his memory had dulled came into clarity. The crumbling mini-mall with its Laundromat, all-night convenience store and take-out pizza. The chain link fence along an embankment to the Banfield freeway. The low brick wall in front, separating the parking area from the residential street. Claire pulled into a slot reserved for guests and shut off the engine. The drum of rain on the car roof rivaled the heightened pound of his pulse.

  "Is this where it happened?"

  "Yes." He drew in a long breath and blew it out. "No."

  The building didn't look right. They say when you go back to a place after being away fo
r years, things seem smaller. Maybe that was the case. Or maybe it was the groomed landscaping, new windows and cream-yellow paint with white trim. The dingy, rundown building of his nightmares no longer existed.

  He opened the car door to the rush of traffic noise from the freeway and waited for a brief flare of anxiety to subside before getting out. Claire followed, pulling the hood of her rain jacket over her hair. She hooked her arm in his and walked the length of the building with him, to the last apartment on the end. Number six.

  Details sped up again, bombarded him in quick flashes: a woman's scream, her torn blouse. Two men struggling. Lewis firing. Intense ringing in his ears. A third man reaching into his pocket.

  Naked fear.

  The force of the realization hit him like a stomach punch. He fought to keep from vomiting, locked his knees to remain upright.

  Claire's hold on his arm tightened. "Talk to me, Dillon."

  Remember all the pieces to process the trauma and heal.

  Warm rain soaked his cotton shirt, plastered his hair and ran into his eyes, a baptismal rite, as the marrow-deep terror he'd blocked condemned him. "I thought I was going to die," he said, his voice raw.

  He regretted taking the life of a nineteen-year-old, would carry the burden of it to his last breath. But it was the instant before he pulled the trigger, when he came face-to-face with his own mortality, that tortured him more.

  He'd masked his fear behind a lie so he could live with himself. The support of his coworkers turned the lie into an insatiable animal eating at his conscience. He drank to kill the beast. But the beast hadn't died; it stowed away and followed him to Alaska, lay in hibernation, waiting for the delusion to be exposed.

  "I panicked and was treated like a hero." Saying it aloud made it something concrete he could face instead of cower from.

  Claire didn't offer empty platitudes or attempt to console him. He appreciated her silent witness.

  "I had no right to drag you into this," he said. "But I'm glad you're here."

  "Me too." She looked up at him, rain flipping from her lashes. "Did it help, coming here?"

  "Yes." It surprised him how easy the admission slid from his mouth.

  A baby cried and a woman shouted, "Are you people lost or something?"

  Dillon's attention swung to the source. Apartment six's door stood open and his knees jerked.

  But the woman watching them with a baby on her hip, her stance defensive, wore a baggy Oregon Ducks t-shirt, not a torn blouse. She was younger. Cleaner. The room behind her looked lived-in and comfortable. Carpeting where there had been stained linoleum. Toys where there'd been trash. Framed photos hung on the wall where a small man with a gun in his waistband had once been pinned and choked.

  More nightmare images evaporated, replaced by a lightness Dillon felt in his shoulders and in his psyche.

  It was Claire who answered the young mother. "No, ma'am, just taking a walk down memory lane."

  "Did you use to live here?"

  Her instant frown told Dillon she was aware of the apartment's history. Or maybe she was simply protecting her home. Either way, she wanted them to leave. "No, nothing like that," he said. "Sorry to have bothered you."

  "Well, okay then." She moved back a step and began to swing the door shut. "Have a good afternoon." Get lost.

  "Thank you." He looked at the number on the closed door, really looked at it this time, and realized the peeling stick-on from his nightmare had been replaced with a shiny brass plate. How had he missed that earlier?

  The curtain at the window stirred. Dillon saw the woman peek out at them. "We better get out of here," he said, "before she calls the cops."

  Claire gave a light laugh, reached up and kissed him. "Let's go to my place and get out of these wet things."

  ***

  They left a trail of discarded clothes from the front room of her apartment to the shower. The hot water felt good on Claire's chilled skin. Dillon's touch felt better. Love washed over her as his hands lathered and caressed. No one had ever affected her the way this man did. She ached to reach him in the same way. Her earlier hesitation no longer existed as his weather-roughened hands explored her with such sweetness and open desire. She longed to comfort him, soothe him, give herself to him.

  She took him to her bed, drew him into her body and heart, moved with him, raced with him, watched his eyes lose focus as he said her name and climaxed. She shuddered over the edge after him.

  "Thank you," he whispered.

  Not just for the sex, but all of it. She heard it in his voice, felt it in the way he held her. Claire cuddled against him, every bone, muscle and hair follicle relaxed, even as her heart still banged in her chest. "You're welcome."

  They lay wrapped together for long, sated minutes. Then she felt his body succumb to sleep, listened to the slow rhythm of his breathing. She held him and waited for the nightmare.

  She was still waiting as she drifted off.

  Chapter 32

  Claire opened her eyes to the half-light of early evening and the smell of coffee. Dillon wasn't in bed. She pulled on her pink terry robe and found him in the kitchen, wearing a dry change of clothes and setting plates around a pizza box that engulf her miniscule dining table. Another step in his recovery? He'd torn off several paper towels and stacked them next to the plates. The coffeemaker gurgled on the counter behind him.

  He glanced up and smiled. "Hope you're hungry."

  She felt herself blush. "Famished." She took a seat and looked at the unfamiliar logo on the box. "You ordered delivery?"

  "No. I drove to a little place I remembered on Halsey and waited in a God-awful long line. So it better be good."

  He had also picked up their wet clothes and washed the dishes. "Did you get any sleep?"

  "Like a baby, until a craving for pepperoni pizza woke me." He poured two cups of coffee and brought them to the table, opened the box and sat across from her. "Dig in."

  The aroma of spicy cured meat, savory tomato sauce and melted cheddar made her stomach rumble even as the significance of the moment had her looking at him. "This is huge."

  "The largest one they had."

  "That's not what I meant."

  "I know." He took a slice and filled his mouth, groaned as he chewed. Took another bite and wiped the grease running down his chin with a paper towel.

  Claire chuckled at his sensory bliss and pulled a slice from the box. Hot cheese, salt and a tang of Italian seasonings hit her taste buds. "Oh," she said around a full mouth. "Oh, this is good."

  "Better than barbequed potato chips."

  She grunted. "Not even close." And reached for a second slice.

  "You haven't finished the first one yet."

  "Just making sure I get my share before you wolf it all."

  He gave a slanted smile and grabbed another slice for himself.

  They consumed three quarters of the pizza before pushing their plates aside. Claire made space in the refrigerator for the box, tossed the pile of used paper towels in the garbage, and brought the coffeepot to the table. "Refill?"

  "Please."

  A feeling of rightness settled over Claire as she poured him coffee, her knotted, restless anxiety gone. It struck her that the missing element she'd struggled with earlier in the day had been herself. The Madison case was solid, but the defense attorney had checked out. She'd give Maggie a call in the morning and move forward.

  "Did you know Dad and Helen have been writing?" she asked, returning the pot to the counter.

  "It's all she talks about. She's going to be mad as hell when she finds out I came here without saying anything."

  Claire pictured Dillon confronted by Helen's daunting bosom thrust in anger and smiled. "Believe it or not, Dad's talking about another visit to Alaska."

  "Tell him the sea ice is melting."

  She let out a hoot of laughter. "He'll be relieved to hear it."

  "This is nice," Dillon said as she rejoined him at the table. "You and me."
<
br />   "Yes. It is." She sipped her coffee, the question of their own uncertain future together pushed to the forefront of her thoughts. "When's your flight back?"

  "I don't have one."

  Her coffee mug paused mid air. "What do you mean?"

  "I didn't buy a return ticket." He reached out and set her mug on the table, then took her hand. "I love you, Claire. If living in Portland is what it takes to have you in my life, I'm willing to stay."

  It was sweet of him to offer. Totally unnecessary and impractical, but sweet. She'd fallen in love with an Alaskan man. He may have come from Portland, but the Last Frontier was in his blood as much as it was in hers.

  "This isn't where my sled is parked," she told him. She didn't remember who said it, that a musher's home is where their sled is parked. Hers was in Alaska. She knew that much for certain now. It may have happened when she looked up and saw Dillon standing in her doorway this afternoon. Her heart told she'd known it much earlier. It didn't matter.

  He released her hand and sat back. "What about the law firm? Your career?"

  "The firm will survive without me. As for my career..." She shrugged. "I can practice law pretty much anywhere, if that's what I decide I want to do." Though at the moment it didn't hold any appeal.

  "You've been thinking about this awhile."

  "Just the part about hating it here. The rest I'll take a checkpoint at a time."

  He smiled a little, but she saw the hesitation in his eyes. "I won't lie to you. I'm not over it yet...the past."

  A warning. Giving her the chance to change her mind. She knew he was closer to being over it – the trauma – than he gave himself credit for. The bar, the dogs, the support group, coming to Portland and owning his fear. All of it added up to a hell of a healing process. She felt a stab of resentment that he would try to put the entire load on himself.