Her Detective's Secret Intent. Tara Taylor Quinn

she wasn’t just aware that it happened, she understood how it happened. In the most personal way possible.

      “I don’t get it,” he said. “How can a woman marry a man after he’s already abused her? It makes no sense to me.”

      He was talking about Marie, whose boyfriend had hit her a couple of times back in high school. Once, he’d also shoved her up to a wall with his hands around her neck.

      He’d also loved and adored her when no one else had, making her vulnerable to him, and he’d scared her into thinking that marrying him was the only way to keep herself safe. And happy.

      The incidents had been isolated. She’d understood that he hadn’t been himself for various reasons—usually involving alcohol. But she’d believed him when he promised never to lift a hand to her again when she’d dropped charges against him the previous year.

      She’d hoped.

      Right up until he’d been thundering behind their son, trying to catch up to him to give him a spanking for not packing a suitcase as he’d instructed. He’d panicked Danny, who tore out of their house so fast he’d tripped and fallen on a stake she’d just put up in her garden.

      “Our job is to follow the safety plan and do what we can to see that Devon doesn’t have a chance to hurt either of them again,” she reminded him. “You heard Chantel. As soon as he violates that protection order, his ass is in jail.”

      Chantel Harris Fairbanks, a Santa Raquel detective on the High Risk Team, might be married to a millionaire banker and live in one of the town’s most impressive mansions, but she was all cop when it came to her job. Even to the point of keeping her previous small apartment in town so she didn’t ever lose sight of who she was and what she knew. So she wouldn’t ever forget where she came from.

      Miranda envied her—being able to keep her old self alive. Nothing about Miranda’s former self lived on with her. Not even her name.

      “And then the prosecutor can call for a dangerousness hearing,” she said. It wasn’t technically called that in California, but it meant that if Devon was arrested and was considered a danger, he could be held without bail.

      The man had threatened to kill his wife. Twice in the past eight weeks since she’d told him she wanted a divorce. He’d actually told her how he’d dispose of her body. He’d been drinking again. And quit his job. When he’d gone to their house the week before to insist that Danny come to his apartment and stay with him for the weekend, the boy suffered his fall. And then he’d blamed his wife for that, too, taking his anger out on her face. On a list of nineteen risk factors pointing to the danger of death, Devon Williams ranked at thirteen. It only took eight for the case to be referred to the High Risk Team.

      Marie was changing her routine, her working hours. Her newly married sister and brother-in-law were moving in with her for a while. She and Danny were going to stay around crowds when they went out. She wouldn’t be going to her usual church, grocery store or hairdresser. Not until Devon was under control.

      It wasn’t just to keep her and Danny safe, but because she truly wanted Devon to succeed. She wanted him to come through this. To find a good life for himself. To be happy.

      She loved him.

      And that was the part Miranda got that many others, most others, couldn’t. How a heart could still feel love for someone who beat them.

      The secrets she held close inside kept her emotions in check during that afternoon coffee with Tad Newberry though she desperately wanted to talk to him about them.

      She couldn’t. She wouldn’t.

      No matter how badly she hurt.

      Ethan’s life depended on her keeping her secrets to herself.

      And the second she’d given birth to him, his life had become more important to her than her own.

       Chapter 2

      Miranda was fine right up until Tad walked her out to her car. His, an older-model black SUV, was parked down the street. He’d bought it used, he’d told her during one of their coffee sessions with a couple of others after a High Risk Team meeting. He was only in town for a year while he was on leave from his detective job back east. Michigan, she figured. That was where he’d said he’d grown up. A suburb of Detroit.

      He was using his time off, he’d said, to learn more about the High Risk Team with the thought that he could help implement a version of it in his hometown.

      Other than that, she knew so little about him.

      And wanted to know much more.

      Almost as soon as they drew up to her car, that vision of his pants around his ankles hit her again—like there was some kind of mental video player attached to her vehicle. Maybe she should buy a new car; maybe that would fulfill her wants, if not her needs. The inane thought came and went.

      To be replaced by a sense of panic. Tad was different from any man she’d ever known. The way she responded to him was different.

      But she couldn’t be an honest half of a partnership. Any partnership.

      When she’d run, the idea of having a lover, or a boyfriend, or anything along the lines of a male companion, hadn’t even entered her mind. She spent two years in a women’s shelter outside of Santa Raquel before moving to the city four years ago, and it hadn’t been a problem since.

      But now it was.

      She didn’t want to live the rest of her life alone.

      Did she have a choice?

      “Ethan’s, what, six?” Tad asked, startling her out of her reverie.

      “Yeah,” she said. She must be tired. Working too hard. Spending too much time identifying with Marie.

      The woman’s case spoke to her on a personal level more than most. Probably because of Danny.

      “He’s in the first grade,” she said, forcing herself back into the moment. Tad had met Ethan twice. Brief introductions both times.

      After the second time, her son had teased her, saying she should go out on a date with Tad. They’d run into Tad at the grocery store one evening and she’d stopped to chat. Ethan’s reaction had surprised her. She’d never thought of her son as thinking about her personal situation. She was Mom. That was all.

      But maybe it had been her son’s grinning little push that was her problem here. Was he missing a male figure in his life? Had that prompted his teasing remarks?

      And was her current fascination with Tad merely reaction to that?

      Just thoughts that Ethan’s comment had put in her head?

      Yeah, if life were that simple.

      “Could I take the two of you out to dinner?” Tad asked, while her mind continued to fly off course.

      Her stomach flip-flopped. She almost dropped her keys. Struggling to find a way to say no when what she wanted to do was ask how soon, she said nothing as he continued. “I’d like to spend some time with Ethan, since he’s so close to Danny’s age. Just to observe. It would help me get a better feel for things. In case I ever need to speak with Danny again. Dropping my drawers was a little extreme and I don’t think it would work a second time.”

      She nodded, trying to school her features—feeling she managed, at best, a cross between a frown and the grin that was trying to break through.

      Dinner was all he’d asked. To observe her son. No big deal.

      And complicated as hell.

      “I’m sorry about that, by the way,” he said when her feelings continued to flay around inside. “The dropping of the pants thing. And thank you for not mentioning it.”

      “It