Special Agent's Surrender. Carla Cassidy

make you human.” He dropped Layla’s suitcase on the floor and looked at her. “Layla, would you excuse us for a minute?”

      He grabbed Jacob’s arm and pulled him toward the door. The two men stepped out on the porch and into the cold night air. “This is not a joke,” Benjamin said, a touch of uncharacteristic anger in his voice. “This isn’t about you and any issues you might have, Jacob. We’ve all pretty much left you alone out here for the last six months. We’ve asked damn little of you and hoped to hell you’d pull yourself together.”

      The cold December wind sliced through Jacob’s sweater almost as effectively as the disgust in his younger brother’s voice. He jammed his hands into his pockets and waited for Benjamin to finish whatever it was he wanted to say.

      “Layla was attacked this evening when she got into her car after work. She managed to get away but she didn’t see who was responsible. We need to stash her someplace where nobody will know where she is for a day or two while we figure out what’s going on.”

      “Why don’t you put her at your place? You could hide her there. Edie doesn’t strike me as the loose-lipped kind of woman.” Edie and Benjamin lived at the ranch house up the lane.

      “Edie isn’t, but you know Walt. He means well but he has never met a secret he could keep.” Benjamin jammed his hands into his coat pockets.

      Jacob sighed, knowing his brother was right. Walt Tolliver was Edie’s grandfather, a nice old man who had become something of a local hero after being responsible for bringing to light a scheme involving illegal experiments on the dead of Black Rock. Walt meant well, but Benjamin was right, the old man had never met a secret he could keep.

      “A couple of days at the most,” Benjamin said. “Surely you can force yourself to be civil for that long.”

      Maybe he could pretend she wasn’t there for that length of time, Jacob thought to himself. “Whatever,” he finally said, the cold seeping deep into his bones.

      He stepped back in the door where Layla stood poised for flight next to her suitcase.

      “Take off your coat. Relax, you’re staying,” he said grudgingly as he threw himself back into the recliner where he’d been seated before they’d arrived.

      “Great, this should be fun,” she said with a touch of sarcasm. She took off her coat and draped it over her arm. “Where do you want me to put my things?”

      “There’s only one bedroom,” Benjamin said. “I’m sure my brother would want you to have it.” He pointed to one of the doors off the main room.

      Layla looked at Jacob as if to see if that was okay. He nodded. Most nights he slept in the recliner or on the sofa anyway. Besides, if he was lucky she’d stay in the bedroom and out of his hair until Benjamin came back to retrieve her.

      “We’ll stay in touch,” Benjamin said to Layla as he backed toward the front door. “You’ll be safe here, Layla. Just give me a call if you need anything.”

      With that, Benjamin left. Jacob picked up the remote control to the television and turned the volume up enough that conversation would be difficult. He knew it was rude and he didn’t care.

      He’d stopped caring about anything six months ago when he’d left his job in Kansas City with the FBI and had returned to Black Rock and this cabin. All he wanted was to be left alone with the crushing guilt that never left him and the images of dead women that haunted him.

      “I guess I’ll just get settled in,” she said, raising her voice to be heard above the television.

      He watched as she pulled the suitcase toward the bedroom, unable to help but notice how her jeans cupped her curvy behind. As she disappeared into the bedroom he got up and grabbed a beer from the fridge.

      In the past six months beer had become his best friend. Although he never got falling-down drunk, he drank just enough to dull his senses and aid in a little selective amnesia.

      Hopefully it would take her at least an hour to unpack that suitcase, which had looked big enough to hold a month’s worth of clothes, and hopefully she’d only be in his personal space long enough to wear one of the outfits she’d packed.

      He took a long pull on the fresh beer and tried to ignore the scent of her that still eddied in the air. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d smelled the pleasant scent of a woman or touched warm silky skin in a fevered caress.

      The only women in his life in the last year had initially been faces on flyers who had eventually become bodies in crime scene photos. And their deaths had been his fault.

      He shook his head and took another deep swallow of his beer to dispel any horrible visions that might drag across his brain. He didn’t want to think about those women, knew that dwelling on them would cast him into the darkest of despair.

      As if this personal baggage wasn’t enough, his sister had disappeared almost four months before. He’d used what resources he could in an attempt to find any trace of her whereabouts, but had come up empty-handed, as was the case in all his brothers’ investigations.

      He had a feeling his sister was dead, otherwise they would have found something, heard something by now. It was just a new grief he refused to acknowledge.

      He frowned as Layla emerged from the bedroom and sat on the sofa. He glanced at her and she gave him an overly bright smile. “So, what are you doing here? Are you in hiding, too?” she asked.

      “Something like that,” he replied. The red sweater she wore enhanced the pale blond of her hair and the blue of her eyes. Suddenly his thoughts turned to another woman. Sarah. She’d been wearing red the last time he’d seen her. His stomach clenched tight.

      “I usually hear all the gossip but I haven’t heard anyone mention that you were back in town.” Her voice was raised to be heard over the blaring television.

      Reluctantly he lowered the volume. “Besides my family I’d prefer nobody know I’m here.”

      “Why?”

      “Because I want it that way,” he replied curtly and hoped she’d drop the subject. He didn’t intend to tell anyone what had brought him back here, the culpability he’d had in the last case he’d worked.

      She crossed one long slender leg over the other and leaned back, looking as comfortable as if she were in her own home. “So, what do you do to pass the time?”

      He sighed. She was obviously determined to have some sort of conversation with him. “I drink beer and watch television or I listen to the silence,” he replied pointedly.

      “I’ve never been a beer drinker. I like wine, especially a light blush, and sometimes a strawberry daiquiri is good. But if I’m celebrating something special I love a glass or two of champagne.”

      Shoot me now, Jacob thought as she continued explaining what drinks she liked and didn’t like. She certainly didn’t act like a woman whose life had just been threatened. It was just his luck to be cooped up with a superficial woman hell-bent on talking him to death.

      When she finally wound down her alcoholic drinks speech, she launched into a monologue about how much she liked Christmas. He tuned her out, making her voice white noise in his head.

      “Jacob?”

      He reluctantly tuned back in as he realized she must have said his name several times. “Is there anything around here to eat?” she asked. “I skipped dinner and now I’m starving.”

      He pointed toward the kitchen. “Help yourself.” He breathed a sigh of relief as she got up and disappeared into the next room.

      There had been a time when he liked nothing more than sitting with an attractive woman and indulging in a little flirtatious small talk, and if it led to something more all the better. But, that had been before Sarah, and before the case that had broken him.

      And he was broken.

      As