The Gathering Dusk. Cynthia Eden

wasn’t an easy scene.” He stepped closer to her. Instantly, she seemed to feel the heat that swept out from his body. “Taking a life is never easy.”

      No, it wasn’t. Her gaze slid away from him and went back to that house. Except for that broken window out front, the place looked so normal. But it isn’t normal. George Farris probably killed two women in that house.

      I killed him in that house.

      Blake’s hand rose and touched her shoulder, such a light, careful touch. “Samantha?”

      She swallowed. “It’s just a house.” She turned away from the house and began walking back toward the SUV that waited. They’d driven over together when her profile had paid off and she’d been so sure that George was the man they were after. So sure...

      “It’s just a house,” she murmured without looking back again. “Just a house on a street.” And I killed a man inside.

      She made it to the vehicle. Samantha was reaching for the driver’s-side door, but Blake’s hand rose, and his fingers—slightly callused—curled over hers. Startled, she glanced up at him.

      “Why don’t I drive?” He smiled at her, what she thought of as his million-dollar smile. The smile Samantha was sure had charmed too many women.

      She wasn’t in the mood to be charmed.

      Before she could speak, he leaned in closer to her. “It was...your first, wasn’t it?”

      Samantha gave a jerky nod. It was her first time to kill in the line of duty. She’d shot a suspect before, but it had been a flesh wound. Nothing like this. “I didn’t have a choice.”

      “No.” His voice was even rougher. “You didn’t.” His smile slipped away. “Why don’t you let me drive?” Blake said again.

      “You’re such a nice guy.” That was what everyone said about him. She knew exactly what he was trying to do. Take care of the agent before she falls apart. “I promise you, I’m in no danger of breaking.”

      “Never thought you were.” He held her stare. “But leaning on someone else isn’t a crime.”

      No, it wasn’t. “Drive,” she ordered and Samantha hurried around the vehicle. She jumped into the passenger side. Pulled on her seat belt, then she just shut her eyes. She didn’t want to see the reporters. Bass could keep dealing with them. She’d do her paperwork, close out the case, and she wouldn’t focus on the way George Farris’s eyes had looked when she shot him. The way the life had just drained out of them at the end. She wouldn’t think about that.

      A few moments later, she heard the engine crank. The vehicle backed up and moved away.

      “You’re wrong about me.”

      She didn’t open her eyes. Samantha felt so weary. The adrenaline in her system had to be crashing—and the crash was taking her down with it. “Haven’t you heard? I’m a profiler. I know people.” She knew killers.

      But then, she’d known all about killers for a very, very long time.

      Since she’d been thirteen and she’d survived a night of blood and hell.

      “You don’t know me, Sam.”

      Sam. Just the way he said her name was palpable. Her eyes opened. They were walking a very thin line, she knew it. The attraction was there, just simmering between them. But FBI partners couldn’t get personally involved. They couldn’t sleep together. They couldn’t give in to a hunger that had been there, right from the first touch.

      “You’re a former soldier,” she told him. “Enlisted when you were eighteen. Then went to college, studied criminal justice. You fought the bad guys in the war, then you came home to fight the bad guys on our own soil. You requested to work in Violent Crimes because you’re not afraid of a challenge—you want to take down the worst of the worst. A good-guy mentality at its finest.” A hero mentality.

      He drove in silence.

      Her gaze slid to him, and she realized that his hard jaw was tightly clenched. A muscle jerked in his cheek. Uh-oh, someone didn’t like being profiled.

      Someone looked pissed.

      “Sorry,” she said. Sometimes, she just did that. Couldn’t turn off her brain when she met someone. “People are like puzzles to me. I always... I have this need to figure them out.”

      He pulled off the road—just pulled right off that quiet highway until they were sitting on the shoulder. He shifted the SUV into Park and then turned to stare at her.

      Her brows rose. “Blake?”

      “You have me squared away in your head, don’t you? The safe guy? The rule follower?”

      “Um...there isn’t anything wrong with that.”

      His fingers tapped along the steering wheel. His gaze had turned dark. Turbulent. And that hard stare of his drifted down to the bandage on her arm. “I don’t like you getting hurt.”

      “I don’t like being hurt.” She tried to lighten the sudden, thick tension between them. She could almost see the line between them—a line they couldn’t cross.

      “When I saw your blood, I wanted to rip George Farris apart.”

      Tread carefully.

      “The dead don’t feel pain,” she said. She’d given herself comfort with those words so many times over the years.

      “No, that luxury is just for us, isn’t it?” Now his gaze had come back to her face. “You’re damn good when it comes to killers. Don’t know that I’ve ever seen anyone work quite the way you do. Bass and the other agents on our team—they weren’t looking at Farris.”

      No, they’d focused their attention on another man, one county over. A man who was recently divorced, a loner now, but... He didn’t fit my profile. He still had too many strong ties. He hadn’t been pulling away from society. Not like George.

      “You see things that others don’t...” A slight pause. “When it comes to killers.”

      “You’re saying I don’t understand you?”

      His fingers stilled. “Do you think I’m a killer?”

      Oh, yes, she would need to tread very carefully here. “Just because you fought and fired in the line of duty, it doesn’t mean—”

      “You read my fucking confidential files.” Anger thickened his voice. It was the first time his anger had been directed at her. She didn’t like it.

      “No.” Samantha fought to keep the emotion from her voice. That was one of her talents. When it came to locking down her feelings and giving the world a perfect mask to view, she was at the top of the class. “I didn’t.” But his words had just confirmed what she’d suspected when she’d begun to build a profile on him.

      I profile my friends. I profile my lovers. I can’t turn it off. I wish that I could.

      She cleared her throat. “We need to get back to the office.” They were just outside of Richmond, and the drive back to DC wouldn’t be an easy one, not at this time of the day. “Let’s just go, okay?”

      He hesitated, and Samantha thought that he was going to push her to determine just how much she really knew about him. She tensed, but he gave a grim nod. He cranked the engine once more. Shifted to Park and—

      “Just because you have to fire,” Blake said, not looking at her, “in order to save yourself and your partner... That doesn’t make you a killer, either.”

      No, but it did make her someone...who had killed.