Claimed by the Rebel: The Playboy's Plain Jane / The Loner's Guarded Heart / Moonlight and Roses. Jackie Braun

he tried to hide. Depth. Gentleness. Compassion. Intelligence.

      More of the look in his eyes and on his face when he had said his mother was gone. She had seen who he really was then: a warrior who somehow felt he had failed, who was looking at his arsenal of weapons helplessly, not understanding how they had not worked to hold back the flow of life, to keep pain at bay from those he loved. In that moment, when he had mentioned his mother, she had seen how furiously and fiercely he loved, and she knew just why he was intent on pursuing the superficial.

      And she knew just why she wanted to be the one he finally chose to lay down his weapons for, to come home to.

      Her heart wanted it so badly. Her head said, pragmatically, never going to happen. Katie pulled her shoulders back and shoved out her chin, tucked her hair neatly behind her ears.

      She was a divorced woman, not a schoolgirl. She already knew about the daggers hidden in the cloak of love. She had known all along she should not let her defenses down, and she had thought she was succeeding. Now she saw her defenses had started to come down the first day she had given in to the impulse to watch him run.

      She had been realistic from the start, she had known he was not a man any intelligent woman should be pinning her hopes on. She had known all along she was a momentary distraction. She had known all along that some girl would come along who was his type—dumb, beautiful and built, a girl who allowed him to keep his fearless facade in place—and that would be the end of his interest in her.

      The day was gorgeous, and she needed to focus on that—on the robin singing in the tree outside her window, in the solace of her flowers. She decided to put some buckets of flowers outside the door.

      But when Katie looked at her finished display, she knew she wasn’t as done thinking about him as she wanted to be. To people walking by it would only look pretty. Not a single soul but her would know what it meant. Unconsciously she had chosen larkspur, primroses, yellow lilies. She had lined her outer windowsill with little garden-ready containers of marigolds.

      Dylan’s worst character traits were all represented: fickleness, inconsistency, false expectations. The marigolds might have been unfair. She shouldn’t really call him cruel—he had given her the Tac Revol tickets—but it did feel cruel that he had lost interest as quickly as he had gained it. That she had come to look forward to him coming by, anticipate it, live for it, and he had stopped.

      At the last moment she added a bucket of gladiolas to her display. The flower of the gladiators, of warriors, representing strength. True strength, not just physical strength, but strength of spirit. She eyed her choice wondering if it represented her or Dylan.

      Without warning, his office door flew open, and Dylan stepped out into the bright sunshine.

      For a moment Katie hoped he had seen her, fantasized that he would come over and tell her what urgent matter had kept him away for the past few days.

      But he didn’t appear to see her at all. Slighted, she went to duck back inside her own door, but something in his demeanor stopped her. He was looking vaguely frantic, his eyes scanning the parked cars, when she could clearly see where he had parked his own car.

      Dylan, frantic? She frowned. Something wrong with that picture. He never looked anything but polished—some might go as far as to say perfect—even in his jogging clothes, but he wasn’t in his jogging clothes, and he looked faintly disheveled. His shirt was white and crisp, but his tie was undone, his sleeves rolled up. He had left his desk in a hurry.

      None of her business, she told herself, but instead of stepping in to the relative safety of her shop, and away from any kind of engagement with him, some kind of automatic pilot took over. She stepped out, touched his arm.

      He started, and that’s when she realized, despite the rather gaudy outfit she was wearing for his benefit, he hadn’t even seen her.

      He couldn’t have dismissed her that completely from his life in three short days!

      “Dylan, what’s wrong?”

      He looked at her, and she knew she was seeing something she might never see again. Dylan was afraid.

      He fumbled with his keys. “The hospital just called. Tara was brought in by ambulance.”

      Tara. One of his standbys. How had she managed to forget this about him when she was inviting him for coffee?

      “They can’t locate Sam.”

      “Sam?”

      “My sister, Tara’s, husband. They wouldn’t say very much on the phone. Or maybe I didn’t hear much beyond scheduled for surgery.”

      “Tara is your sister?” she asked, flabbergasted. And then she saw the look on his face. He had his keys out, and Kate noticed his hand was shaking ever so slightly. She plucked the keys from him.

      “I’ll drive you. I’ll just let Mrs. Abercrombie know I’m leaving.”

      She expected argument, at least a token protest, but there was none.

      “Thanks, Katie,” he said, and then he looked at her. Really looked at her, and she knew she could put out all the buckets of larkspur in the world, it wasn’t going to change how she felt. The whole world could believe he was a daredevil, beyond fear, if they wanted to. In his eyes in that moment, she saw how deeply he cared for those rare people who were close to him, just as the other day she had seen how he cared about his mother. She saw that he, without hesitation, would lay down his life to protect those he cared about.

      She saw, clearly, why he was so quick to get rid of women from his life.

      Because he was the kind of man who, when he gave his heart, it took every single thing that he had. Caring so much was the place that weakened him, that made him afraid. No one could understand that fear of being destroyed by love as well as a woman who had lost a baby.

      Katie understood she had a job to do. She unlocked the doors of his car, and they got in. She had never been in a car where she felt so low to the ground. She looked at the gear shift, tried not to let her trepidation show.

      “I think the quickest way to the hospital—”

      She nearly stalled the car getting it out of the parking spot. Gamely she gave it gas, and was astonished by how the amount of power sucked her back into the seat. She slammed on the brakes, adjusted the amount of gas she gave it, tried again. A car behind her honked.

      “Have you ever driven a car like this?” he asked uneasily.

      “A car’s a car,” she said grimly, trying to force it into second. The gears ground, and he winced.

      “That shows what you know. Katie, pull over. I’ll drive.” As annoying as it was that her Good Samaritan act had been accepted for less than thirty seconds, at least his preoccupation with her driving was keeping him from being overtaken by worry about his sister.

      She wanted to ask exactly what the hospital had told him about his sister, but it seemed like a wiser course just to keep his mind on her driving. And not let him behind the wheel! If she did that, she had no doubt they would be racing through the streets of Hillsboro at record-breaking speeds. He’d probably get pulled over before he got anywhere near the hospital.

      “You’re not safe to drive right now,” she informed him, pulling into the stream of traffic on a busier road. Another horn honked.

      “Sheesh, and you are? Did you know sometimes you have this holier-than-thou way of speaking that drives me crazy?”

      That could be a good thing, too, right? Lots of women would like to be the ones driving Dylan McKinnon crazy. Or just driving him. “At least no one will get hurt if we crash at this speed.”

      “There’s that tone again. My sister will be transferred to the old folks’ home before we get to the hospital.”

      She decided to keep with her plan to keep Dylan’s mind off his worries. “Tell me about your sister. Are you the only two children?”