Dr. Protector  

Her voice echoed and she shivered even though she knew her discomfort was foolish. The late night walk through Chinatown had her jumping at shadows; that was all. Nobody had followed her. The shadows were just shadows, the footsteps all in her mind.

"Get a grip, Kels," she muttered, tightening her grip on her handbag. "On Monday Dr. Fong will make the announcement, and all this secretive stuff will be over. It'll be time to pop the champagne."

And drink it alone. Damn it.

She raised her voice. "Hello? Guys?"

Finally, a dark head popped through a nearby door. A big grin lit BK's narrow, twenty-something face. "Hey, Dr. Sparks! There's two out in the bottom of the seventh and runners at the corners. Want to join us?"

A low hum of male voices told her there was already a crowd in the security break room watching the game. She shook her head. "No thanks, BK. I'm headed upstairs for a few minutes." She made a face. "I forgot to lock up the lab notebooks before I left for the night."

The security guard, who was working his way through pre-med at a nearby university, grinned as a cheer went up behind him. "And Dr. Fong will go ape if he comes in tomorrow and finds out."

"Dr. Fong is a brilliant clinical researcher," Kelsey replied loyally, though "ape" was a pretty good description of both Fong's reaction and his physical appearance. However, the brilliant researcher and his less brilliant but hard working second-in-command, namely her, stood to make a bloody fortune when the results of their new anti-aging drug went public and the deal with Pentium Pharmaceuticals was signed. Sure, Boston General would take a hefty cut of the money, but what was left over would put Kelsey well on her way to buying that sweet little house on Beacon Hill and letting her make some much needed changes in her life.

Like getting one.

BK arched an eyebrow. "Yeah, Fong's smart. But admit it; the guy's a little kooky." He twirled a finger near one ear.

She laughed. "I take the Fifth." But the quick conversation had driven the shadows of Chinatown back where they belonged. In her imagination. She adjusted her purse where she wore it bandolier-style across her body. "See you in a few minutes." She headed for the elevators, calling over her shoulder, "And don't let Dr. Fong catch you watching baseball when you're supposed to be at your post. He'll go ape!"

BK's chuckle followed her onto the elevator, but the light mood didn't last, because the moment Kelsey punched in her security code and stepped through the airtight doors of the fourth floor, she knew something was wrong in the lab.

Goosebumps prickled her arms. The very air seemed to ripple in warning. And in the dim lab corridor, lit only by the exit signs and the LED lights of an army of equipment, she saw a stealthy slide of motion.

Someone was in the lab!

She froze, hoping the intruder hadn't seen her. Hoping he couldn't hear her heartbeat, which was suddenly thundering in her ears. Go back downstairs, she thought. Get BK and Dave!

But she couldn't do that. The intruder might escape. She glanced at the red security button beside the door. The whole lab was wired with them — a testament to Dr. Fong's paranoia. Except this was no paranoia; this was real. But she couldn't push the panic button. Not until she was sure the lab notebooks were safe. She had left them out. It would be her head, and probably her job and her slice of the Pentium Pharmaceuticals money, if anything happened to those results. Damn it.

Taking a deep breath, Kelsey slid along the wall away from where she'd seen the shadow. The lab floor was an interconnecting maze of corridors and clean rooms, but if she could just get to —

A rush of air from the open door to her right was scant warning. She spun toward it, but too late. Strong male arms grabbed her from behind, clamping across her ribs and pinning her arms to her sides.

Panic! Kelsey screamed and thrashed against his hold. She kicked back hard and heard her attacker grunt when her sensible heel connected with his shin. Her flailing hand touched the wall and she slapped blindly for the red panic button, which would send a silent signal downstairs. Dave, BK, help!

"God damn it, hold still!" The deep, familiar voice froze her fear in an instant, and then melted it away in the warm wash of his breath along the sensitive spot beneath her jaw.

Luke?

His hold gentled and she shoved away, turned and faced him, fists clenched. "Damn it, Luke. What are you doing here? You're supposed to be in Europe. And how the hell did you get past the coded lock?" Her heart clogged her throat, blocking the questions she really wanted to ask.

Why did you leave? Why are you back?

In the dim light she couldn't see the green of his eyes. His expression was familiar, yet not. Harsher than she remembered, and edged with new lines. He tilted his head in a half shrug. "I guessed your code, Kels. You've always used the birthdays of the people you love."

Dawn. The name punched through her like pain. Kelsey held up her hand and backed away from Luke just as the elevators opened and the guards charged out, batons at the ready.

"Freeze! Hands where I can see them! Up against the wall…now!" Dave barked, his twenty-plus years as a beat cop lending strength to the commands. BK slapped on the lights, casting the situation into harsh, fluorescent reality.

But Luke didn't flinch. He stared straight at Kelsey, green eyes as hard as they'd been the day he'd left her nearly a year earlier. As uncompromising. "You're in danger, Kels. I came to warn you. Fong's wonder drug is a fake, and in three days you're going to be caught in the crossfire."

BK lifted an eyebrow. "You know this guy, Dr. Sparks?"

"He works for the competition," she answered, irritated when she had to force the words past a tightness in her throat. She hated that her heart beat double-time at the sight of Luke's familiar too-long brown hair and the strong, tanned forearms that showed beneath the rolled-up cuffs of a light plaid work shirt. His jeans were snug and worn, and it was hard to believe anything false could come from a man who was part Paul Bunyan, part college professor. She'd fallen for his oh-so-sincere act once before.

It wouldn't happen again. No matter that the aching hole in her gut didn't seem so empty now...it wouldn't happen again.

She lifted her chin and repeated, "He's the competition. He works for Cartier, and they're three months behind us in getting this drug to market. They'll do anything to slow us down."

BK scowled. "Do you want us to call Dr. Fong? Or the cops?"

It was tempting. Very tempting. But after a moment's hesitation, Kelsey sighed and shook her head. "No. Get him out of here, and don't let him in again. I'll tell Dr. Fong about this myself." She glared at Luke. "And I'm filing a complaint with your bosses."

His eyes darkened. "I'm not trying to scoop your discovery, Kels. I'm trying to protect you."

"Shut up and get moving." BK poked Luke in the ribs with his baton.

As the security guards pushed him out, Luke leaned back and pinned Kelsey with a glare. "You're making a big mistake, Kels."

He stepped into the elevator, leaving her alone in the lab with only an echo of energy to mark his presence. That, and a fine tremble that worked its way through her body when she said to the emptiness, "No, Luke. Marrying you was a big mistake. This —" she glanced around the lab and absorbed the hum of the waiting machines "— this can't be a mistake. This is my life."

It wasn't until she reached her lab bench that it all came into focus. Shock and a sense of terrible inevitability worked their way through her as she touched the empty surface of the desk. "Damn it, Luke."

Her lab notebooks were gone.

"Damn it, Luke, open up! I know you're in there, and I know you stole my notebooks out of the lab, you scheming son of a —" The furious buzzing of the doorbell drowned out the rest of the words.

Luke paused at the door to the Boston town house he and Kelsey had once shared and blew out a breath. He was a doctor. A respected scientist with one of the leading drug companies in the world. He could handle an irate brunette, even if she was his ex-wife.

Marrying you was a big mistake, Kelsey had said when she'd had him kicked out of Dr. Fong's lab over at Boston General earlier that night. But that wasn't true. The mistake had been his. He'd left her alone when she needed him. Well, not this time.

"Luke, let me in right now, or I'll —"

He swung open the door, only half-prepared for the desperate kick of his heart when he saw her standing outside.

In the eleven months he'd been gone, he hadn't managed to forget the way she used to purr his name at the back of her throat when they'd made love or the joy in her voice when she'd told him she was pregnant. But by the same token, he also hadn't forgotten the way she'd turned away from him in the hospital bed. The way she'd told him to leave.

And the fact that he'd gone when he should have stayed.

Scowling, Luke stepped back and waved her into the town house, which he'd reopened just that day. "Kelsey. We need to talk."

"You bet we need to talk." Her brown eyes snapped with temper and her dark hair, shorter than he remembered it, flared around her head as she stormed into the main room with its high, airy arches and natural wood. "What the hell do you think you're doing, Luke? And why aren't you still in Europe on your precious fellowship with Cartier?"

Her voice might have broken on the last question, but Luke decided it was his imagination. He'd told himself a thousand times that if she missed him, she would've answered at least one of his letters.

He ignored her questions and waved her to the fat club chair they'd picked out together. "You're in danger, Kels. Fong's new drug is a dud."

She remained standing and clenched her fists at her sides. Her voice rose. "Are you accusing me of fudging my results? Because let me tell you —"

"Of course I'm not accusing you. I know you better than that." Luke raked a hand through his hair and walked over. He leaned close to her and felt a pang when she leaned away. "You're the most honest person I've ever known. No, the drug works fine in the lab experiments. But the clinical trials…" He shook his head. "There are some really, really ugly side effects."

"Bull! You're just saying that because your team is three months behind us in developing it. We've dealt with the problems and we're ready to go to the next phase!" She strode toward him until they were nose-to-nose, eye-to-eye. Close enough to fight. Close enough to kiss. Luke felt the realization race through his body even as he saw the knowledge dawn in her eyes.

Lust had always been easy for them. It was the other stuff, like trust and dependence, that had been hard. Knowing as much, Luke stepped away and held up both hands. "Rumor has it some of the study subjects are being paid off to not report their symptoms."

"Rumor, hah!" she spat, crossing her arms and glaring. "More like libel! Don't think I'm going to let you mess with our announcement. We're going to publish our findings, sign the deal with Pentium, and voilà!" She snapped her fingers. "Our future is assured."

Her words were pure bravado, but Luke saw a shadow of suspicion in the back of her eyes, and he pressed forward. "Dr. Fong's future is assured, you mean. Fifteen minutes after the money's in the bank, Fong will be on a plane to somewhere far away, and you'll be stuck here facing the blame when it comes out that half the results with your name on them are false."

She paled and fell back a step. "That's baloney." Her tone wavered, then solidified. Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Dr. Fong wouldn't do any such thing. You're making this up to buy your team time."

"The hell I am!" Luke advanced on her, half tempted to grab her soft white blouse and shake some sense into her. "I don't give a fig about the company or the drug at this moment. It's you I'm worried about!"

She stared at him for a beat before she drew herself up and folded her arms tighter across her chest. "Don't worry about me, Luke. I'm fine. In fact, I'm better than fine. I'm wonderful, and I have been ever since you left me!"

"I didn't leave you!" he snapped. "As I remember it, you divorced me."

"Because you left me in the hospital and took an eighteen-month fellowship in another country."

"Damn it!" Luke scrubbed a hand through his hair. How had the conversation gotten so out of hand so quickly? "You told me to go."

"You should have stayed." The sudden sheen of tears in her eyes was a punch to his gut.

He turned away. "I know."

Surprise tinged her expression, but she said nothing. After a moment, Luke sighed. It was too little, too late. But if it was too late for him and Kelsey, it wasn't too late for him to save her from her boss's dishonest plans. Carefully staying half a room away from her, he spread his hands. "Kelsey, please —"

"Where are my notebooks?" she interrupted in a choked voice. "Give them to me, and then get the hell out of my life, Luke. I don't need you anymore."

The words sliced through him, leaving him raw and bleeding, but he tried not to let it show. Tried not to let it hurt. He took a step toward her. "I need five minutes in the lab to prove it to you, Kels. Surely you can give me that much?"

She held out a hand. "The notebooks…or I call the cops."

"You won't do that, Kels." When her set expression told him otherwise, Luke fell back a pace. "Your books are still in the lab. I hid them so you'd come looking for me. I wanted a chance to explain that —"

"Where in the lab?" She was already halfway to the door.

Luke took a breath. "I'll show you." When she turned on him with a snarl, he met it with one of his own. "I said I'll show you." He softened his tone. "Just give me five minutes in Fong's office, Kels. I'll prove that he's faking the test results. I swear it."

"I'm not interested in your oath or in your proof."

"Too bad, because I'm not telling you where the notebooks are without it."

Luke saw her weigh her options. She could call the cops on him, but history — and dare he hope old affection? — wouldn't let her. She could return to the lab and search for the notebooks herself, or —

"Fine. I'll give you five minutes." She stormed out the door before he could open it for her. He followed and locked up, then turned to find her at the curb looking futilely for a taxi.

He walked up behind her. "It would be faster to take the bike."

She stiffened and stepped away. Her eyes darted to the overhang beneath the porch, where he'd chained the motorcycle they'd once shared so many rides on. The turquoise-and-white helmet he'd given her on their six-month anniversary was neatly strapped to the back.

"You take the bike." She spun away from him and started walking into the night. "I'll find a cab."

Luke wasn't sure whether he was disappointed or not. Two days ago, when he'd first learned of Fong's deception and the danger to Kelsey, he'd been forced to move up the plans he'd made to win her back. He'd thought he was prepared to see her again.

He'd been wrong.

He caught up to her at the crossroads, flagged a passing taxi and held the door open for her. She didn't protest when he slid in beside her and told the driver to take them to Boston General Hospital.

She merely sat back as far from him as she could get in the small space and said, "You have five minutes, Luke, not one minute more."

"Five minutes," he agreed, hoping it would be enough.

It had to be enough.

The cabbie must have sensed the tension between his passengers, because he delivered Kelsey and Luke to Boston General Hospital in record time. She let Luke pay — the trip was his idea, after all — and headed straight for the elevators.

She didn't bother to wake BK. The security guard was sleeping peacefully across one of his textbooks, and nobody needed to know that she and Luke were searching Dr. Fong's lab in the middle of the night. Kelsey couldn't even believe she had agreed to bring Luke with her — he was the competition, for heaven's sake.

But this was Luke, she acknowledged with a heavy heart. He'd always known how to talk her into doing things she didn't want to do — like trust him…

And look where that had gotten her.

Annoyed, she scowled at him across the elevator and reminded him, "Five minutes."

He had five minutes to prove that Dr. Fong was setting her up to take the fall when their miracle anti-aging drug failed.

He nodded. "Five minutes." He lifted his hand as though to run it through his already-tousled brown hair, then hesitated and let his hand fall.

It was, Kelsey thought with surprise, the first truly nervous gesture she'd seen from him in all the time they'd known each other.

For some reason, the realization wasn't a comfort. Then again, she hadn't been comfortable since earlier that evening when she'd found Luke in Fong's lab. Luke, who was supposed to be in Europe, not Boston.

Luke, who hadn't come back for her, but had come back to interfere with the multimillion-dollar Pentium Pharmaceuticals deal that was set for Monday. Damn him. It wasn't enough that he'd broken her heart, now he had to come back just long enough to ruin her new life.

Then he'd be gone again, no doubt.

More on edge than she'd been earlier in the evening, Kelsey keyed them into the main lab lobby and tried not to remember that her security code was the birthday of their daughter, Dawn.

The day the little girl had been born prematurely. The day she'd died.

Resolutely, Kelsey tried not to think that Luke had remembered the date and used it to break into the lab. He'd remembered. What did that mean?

Nothing, she told herself. It meant nothing.

Annoyed anew, she glared at her watch, seeing the digits glow in the dimness of the unlit lab. "Your five minutes start now."

But instead of scrambling in search of his proof, Luke turned to face her and was suddenly too near to ignore. He was so close she could see the pulse beating at his throat, so close she could smell the achingly familiar scent that reached out to envelop her in memories and regret.

"Kels —" he said softly. He lifted a hand and touched her cheek gently. "I just want you to know that —"

"What in god's name is going on here?" There was a loud bang, and the lab lights blazed on.

Kelsey stumbled away from Luke and turned toward the voice, surprise and embarrassment bringing hot color to her face. "Dr. Fong, I can explain! I was —"

She broke off, shocked fear rooting her in place at the sight of the gun in her boss's hand.

Fong gestured with the gun. "Yes, Dr. Sparks? You were saying?"

Kelsey said nothing as she grappled with the sudden realization that everything Luke had told her was true. Fong didn't care about her, and he didn't care about the patients. She had trusted him, and now he was setting her up to take the fall.

Luke stepped up beside her. "Is this your boss, honey?" His voice was friendly, his eyes anything but. "We didn't mean to disturb you, sir, but I insisted on seeing where Kelsey works."

As an excuse it wasn't bad — except that it was close to one in the morning.

Fong sneered. "Nice try, Dr. Sparks." He laughed at the surprise on Kelsey's face. "What, you didn't think I knew your ex-husband worked for Cartier Drugs? Spare me, Kelsey. I am a thorough man. When I realized some of the study subjects had been talking to Cartier…well, let's just say I've been expecting you, Dr. Sparks."

Fong's gun never wavered. It remained pointed at Kelsey's heart. When she moved, it moved. She could feel Luke vibrate with fury at her side. Afraid that he would try something stupid, she fumbled for his hand and was surprised to find that it eased her own tremors when he squeezed back.

"Dr. Fong," she began, "there's no need for drama. Luke doesn't mean any harm, and Monday's press conference will go off without a hitch, just as we've planned."

"Yes, it will," Fong agreed. "Because you two won't be there." He jerked his chin toward an intersecting hallway. "Second door on the left, and no funny business. I don't want to hurt you. I just want to make sure you stay put until after the big announcement."

Second door on the left? Kelsey balked. The empty climate-controlled room was fitted with an iron-tight mechanical lock, as were most of Fong's doors. They would be trapped, with no hope of escape except…

Except for the failsafe override codes that had been programmed to keep absentminded researchers from locking themselves in. Fong wasn't in the lab much. He might not remember the overrides.

Fong jabbed the gun toward her. "Go on. Move."

Kelsey kept a firm grip on Luke's hand, willing him not to try any stupid heroics. They could regroup in the cold room and make a plan. Fong could not be allowed to sign the Pentium deal and disappear.

"You're not going to get away with this, Fong," Luke grated as he followed her inside their temporary prison.

"I just did, Sparks." With a jaunty wave of the gun, Fong slammed the airtight door. A moment later, Kelsey heard the mechanical hum of the latches being engaged, and the overhead lights went out, leaving them in darkness, save for the illumination that came through the single window in the door.

Luke's voice came out of the dimness. "Damn it, we're trapped."

Kelsey felt him let go of her hand and was absurdly emptied by the lack of contact. She kept her attention focused on the window, watching for her boss. "I don't think so. We'll need to wait until Fong is gone, but then I think I can get us out of here. There's an override."

"Ah, good." Luke's approval warmed her, though Kelsey knew she shouldn't care what he thought anymore. "That's why you didn't struggle much."

"That, and because he had a gun." She still couldn't believe it. In the space of a night, her ex-husband had reappeared, her boss had turned out to be a villain, her slice of the Pentium Pharmaceutical money had disappeared into thin air and now…

Now, she had nothing.

Kelsey heard Luke prowling the confines of the small, dim room and knew what he would find. Not much. There were a few boxes of petri dishes under the waist-high counter. A small ladder leaned against one corner for when she needed to store samples on the highest shelves. And a single wool blanket was folded below the ladder.

"What's with the blanket?" Luke asked, as though he'd followed her thought process exactly.

"We used this as a cold room."

He cursed. "How cold does it get?"

"Minus twenty, but…" Kelsey paused. "You don't think Dr. Fong would —"

As though summoned by the mention, the scientist's shadow moved past the window. A moment later, Kelsey's stomach dropped when she heard the familiar churning boom of the air ducts realigning themselves to begin refrigerating the room.

"He would," Luke confirmed unnecessarily. "Bastard."

Fong looked through the window for a moment, a hard, evil smile turning up the corners of his mouth, then he sketched a wave and was gone. The lights in the main lab went out.

The room already felt colder.

"I'd be really worried right now if I didn't know about the override," Kelsey said as she moved over to the interior lock keypad. "I don't think it's possible to jam the failsafe codes." Please don't let it be possible. She tried not to let her fingers tremble.

Luke pressed his face to the window. "Then get us the hell out of here. When I get my hands on that bastard…"

"Yeah. Me, too." Kelsey keyed in her override code with fingers that were already feeling cold and numb, though she knew it was in her mind. The room was barely cool.

She punched in the last number. The lock buzzed but didn't open. The keypad glowed red. Code rejected. Kelsey's stomach knotted, then dropped to her toes. She glanced at Luke and saw the knowledge reflected in his eyes.

Fong had changed the codes. They were trapped.

Luke wrapped the thin wool blanket around Kelsey's shoulders and hugged her tight. She didn't push him away, their problems momentarily forgotten in the enormity of what had just happened.

They were trapped in an airtight cold room until Monday. They would be dead long before then.

The silence was broken only by the rattle of the huge commercial blowers. He tightened his arms around her and wished to hell he'd never had the bright idea of breaking into Fong's lab in the first place. Protecting Kelsey. Hell.

He might just have gotten them both killed.

"I don't suppose there's a weekend shift that will find us in here?" he wondered aloud, not having much hope of it.

Kelsey shook her head, and her thick dark hair tickled his chin like it had so many times before — back when they'd been married. "No. Dr. Fong and I are the only ones who work in this lab. He's obsessed with security…" she trailed off into the clanking silence, then sighed. "I'm sorry I didn't believe you, Luke. It's my fault we came back here tonight. My fault we're trapped in the lab's cold room. My fault that…"

She trailed off again, and this time he half turned her in his arms and tipped her chin up until their eyes met. "Hey," he said softly, "we wouldn't have needed to be here if I hadn't broken into your lab in the first place. It's my fault."

A sad, private smile touched her lips. "It's both our faults, then. Mine for not trusting you, and yours for…"

He filled in the blank. "My fault for not giving you a better reason to trust me." He lifted a hand and touched her cheek. "I'm sorry."

And they both knew he wasn't apologizing for what had happened in the lab.

Her eyes clouded and she pushed away from him. She walked to the far side of the cold room, trailing the blanket like a lost child. "Why did you come back here, Luke? It wasn't just because of the drug, was it?"

"Yes." He stood. "Well, no. I came back now because of the rumors, but I'd planned on coming back all along."

He took a step toward her, and was surprised when she held her ground in an obvious challenge. "Why?"

It seemed he wasn't the only one who'd gotten tougher over the past year.

He looked down and was caught in her too-familiar, not-familiar-enough brown eyes, in the sorrow at the backs of them and the go-to-hell in the front. The cold air swirling around them felt like loneliness. "Because I was wrong to take that fellowship overseas after you miscarried our daughter. I shouldn't have left you."

She tore her eyes from his and turned away. "I told you to go." And from her grudging admission, he knew that she'd done some soul searching, as well.

"True, but I shouldn't have listened. I should have stayed and toughed it out instead of running off to Europe where I could be alone. And miserable." He risked reaching out to cup her shoulders with his hands. "I missed you every goddamn day, Kels. I'm so sorry."

She didn't pull away, but she didn't turn into his arms, either. She stood staring at the dim, blank wall of the lab cold room, and he wondered whether she was seeing the simple headstone she'd picked out for their daughter. He'd visited it for the first time the day before, and he was surprised to find not tears, but rather a simple peace. A knowledge that he was doing the right thing.

Finally, she asked, "Why didn't you come back sooner?"

The easy answer was his fellowship and the professional responsibilities that had gone with it. But that was cheap, and they both knew it. Luke sighed. "I wasn't ready to, at first. Then, when I was…you didn't answer any of my letters."

She stiffened beneath his hands and her breath puffed out on a cloud of icy vapor. The room was edging toward minus twenty, where it would stay for the rest of the weekend until Fong returned, expecting to find their cold, stiff corpses.

"So you're here because of the drug," she finished flatly. She turned to face him. "You wouldn't have come back if you hadn't heard that Dr. Fong —"

"Damn it, I would have come back!" Luke interrupted fiercely. "I want my life back. I want our life back. Don't you get it?" He advanced on her, crowding her into a dark corner of the frigid room. "I want this back."

Even as he bent and caught her lips with his, Luke cursed himself. This had always been the easy part for them. The flash and the fire were cheap, the emotions wary and tricky. But then her lips opened, almost involuntarily, beneath his —

And suddenly, nothing was simple or easy at all.

Luke flinched as the heat whiplashed through him, mocking the cold of the room. Her fingers clenched in his shirt, though he couldn't tell whether she intended to pull him close or push him away. Then that thought was gone. Their tongues touched, hesitantly at first, and Kelsey's flavor, rich and uniquely feminine, exploded in Luke's brain.

This is what he'd come back for. Kelsey. His Kelsey.

Wrong, his brain reminded him from the back of a lust-fogged corner. He'd come back to protect her. To, hopefully, work things out with her.

Lust was easy. Communication was not.

He framed her face with his hands and eased his mouth away, feathering the lightest of kisses across her lips and feeling the power punch through him and leave him weak. "Kels. We shouldn't. We can't. I didn't mean —"

He saw the moment she realized what they were doing. Her eyes darkened and she ducked under his arm to stand alone. She crossed her arms protectively over her chest. "You're right." Her voice was as unsteady as his legs felt. "I'm sorry. You're here for Fong, not me."

He cursed. "That's not what I said." But he was speaking to her stiff spine. "I'm here for you, Kelsey, but not to pick up where we left off in bed. That part was too easy for us. But Dawn's death…" He had to force the little girl's name out between clenched teeth. "Dawn's death and what happened after showed us that we need more than just sex, Kels. We need to talk more. Communicate." He spread his hands and waited for her answer, heart pounding both in fear and anticipation of her answer.

It came out of the darkness on a puff of freezing air. "Then I guess you already have your answer, Lucas. If I'd wanted to communicate, I would've answered your letters."

Disappointment was an icy knife in his chest, but he wouldn't let the slice be a fatal one. A year ago he might have cursed and walked away. Now he merely strengthened his resolve. They were going to hash this out one way or the other.

He bent and scooped the blanket off the floor. "Here, you'd better stay warm. I don't think the vents are going to quit anytime soon."

But she wasn't paying attention to him. She was staring up at the gaping grill in the center of the ceiling. Subzero air gushed from it, the humidity adding an eerie layer of sticky, sterile fog.

Luke draped the wool over her shoulders. "Kels? You okay?"

"The vents!" She grabbed his wrist. "Luke, the vents are big enough for the maintenance crew. We can use them to escape."

His first jolt of excitement was quickly followed by an image of Kelsey crawling into a giant, churning fan. He caught her by the waist when she dove for the ladder in the far corner.

"Whoa! Slow down. Let's think this through. Those ducts lead from here to the blowers, right? It's a straight shot, Kels. No detours." But it got him thinking. Could they escape? Was there still a chance that they might defeat Fong and live to work out their problems?

Kelsey shook him off and dragged the flimsy ladder to the center of the room. "Everything here is interconnected, Luke, and the rooms are flexible. I've used this room as an incubator and as a cold room. There are hot and cold ducts going to this room and to the room next door where I have an experiment going. If we can get from here to there…"

"Freedom!" Luke grabbed her by the waist, lifted her up, and planted a triumphant kiss on her lips.

She stilled. He froze. Realizing that he'd done just what he'd sworn not to do, he let her slide down his body until her feet were safely on the floor. He stepped away. "Sorry about that."

Her eyes darkened. "Yeah. Me, too. Come on." She turned away and bent down for the ladder. "Let's get out of here."

They tore strips from the wool blanket to protect their hands and faces from the freezing metal. But as Luke led the way into the ducts, hoping his body would protect Kelsey from the worst of the arctic blast, he wasn't feeling the full effects of the chill. His body retained the warmth from her touch, and his heart carried the knowledge that at the very least, they still had lust, the easy thing, between them.

Now he needed to convince her to believe in it long enough to figure out the rest.

That is, if they survived the weekend.

The air ducts echoed hollowly. The freezing metal bit into Kelsey's hands through the thin strips of wool blanket, and her knees were numb from the cold that seeped through her jeans. Up ahead of her in the vent shaft, she could just make out Luke's silhouette as he inched forward to the junction where it seemed the hot and cold shafts interconnected.

If they could just get into the hot vent, they could drop down into the unlocked warm room where she'd set up an experiment the day before. They could escape Dr. Fong's imprisonment and alert the authorities to the clinical data he had falsified to make the new drug seem foolproof.…

And then what?

Luke had come for Fong, not for her. A few kisses didn't change the fact that he hadn't come for her before. And it certainly didn't ease the sting that he'd found it so easy to push her away. Perhaps he was right that the sex had always been easy between them — maybe too easy.

But it didn't mean that talking about Dawn's death was the way to solve anything.

"I think I'm there." His words echoed back to her, distorted by the refrigerated gale being pumped past them and by the tight metal shaft they were scrambling through. The cold room was set to minus twenty, the air in the duct probably colder. Kelsey was almost numb. Luke, who was taking the brunt of the blast, had to be hypothermic.

"Can you break through?" He'd better be able to, or they were both dead, which was exactly what Fong wanted.

"I think so." Luke's words were followed by several loud bangs as he struggled for leverage. "Damn it, I — Ah!"

Suddenly, the cold air didn't seem quite so cold, as though warm was mixing in.

"Did you get it?" Kelsey called, already crawling toward him, knowing he had. "Are we in?"

"We're in. Follow me!"

The edges of the access hatch were sharp, but Kelsey didn't care. The shock of the warm air flowing over her cold body was worth the pain.

Moments later, Luke reached the vent hatch that opened out into the warm room. He kicked it open and dropped through, leaving Kelsey suddenly alone.

She closed her eyes and reveled in the hot air that scalded the backs of her legs and her scalp. Never had heat been more welcome. And when they escaped from the lab, she was going to take a very long, very thorough bath, and then she and Luke would —

She and Luke would do nothing. He would return to his work in Europe, and she'd look for another job. Maybe even another line of work. With Fong's dishonesty exposed, her own credibility would be shot. Nobody in the scientific community would believe that she had known nothing of his false clinical results.

She'd be unemployed, discredited and alone.

But she'd learned once before that alone was sometimes better. Sometimes being with someone was harder than being alone.

Luke's voice hailed her from below. "Kels? It's okay. You can come down now." When she didn't answer right away, his tone took on a note of worry. "Kelsey? Can you make it out, sweetheart?"

Sweetheart. She closed her eyes against the pain of the careless, meaningless endearment and forced herself to answer, "I'm fine, Luke. I'll be right down."

She'd drop down into the warm room; they would let themselves out into the lab, gather what evidence they could and set about destroying Fong's career.

And with it, her own.

Gritting her teeth, knowing she couldn't stay up in the air vents forever, Kelsey wormed her way forward and slid headfirst through the open vent.

Straight into Luke's waiting arms.

Where before, in the cold room chilled to minus twenty, their embrace had been a contrast of warm sizzles and cool skin, now the contact blazed through Kelsey with reckless, fiery abandon. She looped her arms around Luke's neck to brace herself and felt the heat battle with the cold, chilled core of her body. Of her heart. She stared down at his lips and at the fine sheen of perspiration that already covered his face, and she licked her lips.

"Kelsey." Her name on his lips was almost a groan. "We can't do this. We need to talk. We need to —"

She pushed away from him and dropped her feet to the floor. "We need to get the hell out of here and do what needs to be done."

She strode to the warm-room door, pulling the tattered wool off her hands as she went. There was no way she wanted to enter into any deep, meaningful discussions with her ex-husband. When they'd tried such things before, she'd always ended up feeling soul-naked, while he kept all his barriers, all his distance.

Why would she think this time would be any different?

She reached for the door handle and the heat broke over her in a wave, as the last of the cold room's chill was melted by the relentless wash of hot air. The warm room was set to 98.6° F — body temperature. She knew, because she'd set it herself nearly eleven hours earlier.

"Kelsey —"

She didn't turn at Luke's quiet entreaty, no matter how hard the plea in his voice tugged at her. She stared out the single thick window set in the warm-room door and shook her head. "It's no good, Luke. It never was." She grabbed the lever that would open the warm-room door and tugged.

Nothing happened.

"Oh, God." She yanked again. The lock didn't budge.

Luke was at her side in an instant. "What's wrong? I thought you said this room wasn't locked?"

Through the glass of the small window, Kelsey saw the room's digital timer blink 1:14. "Oh, hell. My experiment."

Luke glanced over at the neat row of labeled petri dishes on the waist-high counter circling the room. "What about it?"

"Fong, in all his paranoid wisdom," Kelsey answered in a tone laced with sarcasm, "installed timed locks on the climate-controlled rooms so we wouldn't accidentally open one during an experiment and alter the ambient temperature even a fraction of a degree." She shook her head in disgust. "I can't believe I didn't think of that."

Luke touched her shoulder, leaving a hot, itchy imprint. "It's okay. We've both got a lot on our minds." He glanced through the small window, where the digital display had changed to 1:12. "Will the lock disengage when the time's up?"

She nodded and felt a trickle of sweat dance off her brow and slide down the side of her face to her throat. She dashed it away impatiently. "Yes, damn it. But that leaves us stuck here for another hour in this sauna." She glanced back up at the vent. "God, it's hot in here." Another dribble of sweat slid down to join the first.

"And it's going to get hotter," Luke agreed with a soft growl in his voice.

Or maybe it wasn't the actual physical temperature that was rising. Kelsey slid a glance over to Luke and saw him watching her with fierce intent. A pulse throbbed at the side of his throat, and he swallowed convulsively when their eyes met and held.

"We should —" she licked her lips "— take off a few layers. There's no sense in collapsing from heat exhaustion while we wait for the door to unlock."

He nodded. "You're right. We should undress."

But neither of them moved. Kelsey swore she could hear her heart skip a beat in her ears. Finally, she wet her dry-feeling lips with her tongue. "This is silly. We used to be married."

"Used to be being the operative term there, I think," Luke agreed wryly. He looked away, stretched his arms over his head and twisted, trying to unkink his back, or maybe because he was feeling the same restless energy Kelsey was, the urge to do something. Anything. He lowered his hands and glanced back at her. "We could talk about it."

Talk. Part of her yearned to try it, while the larger, smarter part of her insisted that, once again, she would be the one talking, not him. But still…

They had an hour to kill, and the temperature was rising rapidly.

Kelsey felt her lips curve. "Okay. We'll talk. But you go first. I get to ask you a question, and if I don't think you've answered honestly enough, I don't have to answer a question from you. Fair enough?"

He held her gaze for a moment, green eyes probing as though looking for a trick. Then they lit with wicked amusement. He tugged at his shirt and opened the top two buttons. "Fair enough, but I have a condition to add. For every question that one of us answers fairly, the other one has to remove an item of clothing." His grin broke out full-fledged. "It's only sensible, given the heat."

"Only sensible," Kelsey agreed feebly, her attention focused on the now loosened buttons of his shirt, which exposed a few inches of tanned, taut flesh.

"Okay then." He dropped to sit on the floor, cross-legged. "Ask away."

Kelsey remained standing and the question popped out of her mouth before she was even conscious of having wondered about the answer.

"Why did you marry me?"

Of all the questions Luke had expected from Kelsey to lead off their impromptu game of strip-twenty-questions, Why did you marry me? was the last to come to mind.

Then again, the entire situation was bizarre. Trapped by her boss, Dr. Fong, while they'd been searching for evidence to prove that Fong was intent on selling a worthless anti-aging drug in a multimillion-dollar deal, they had escaped into this warm space only to find that the timed lock wouldn't open for another hour. Ergo, their decision to pass the time in conversation — something their previous sex-and-more-sex relationship hadn't relied heavily on.

Add in Luke's brilliant idea to up the stakes by losing a few articles of clothing — something they desperately needed to do, or risk heat stroke — and, bang! There you had it.…

A really awkward situation.

Why had he married her? Of all the things Luke had processed in the eleven months they'd been apart, since she'd miscarried their daughter and he'd taken that fellowship in Europe, that was one question he hadn't answered.

In fact, it was a question he hadn't even asked.

"Because I loved you?"

Her eyes hardened at the uncertainty in his tone. "That's the easy answer, Luke. The sort you used to get away with before. Well, not this time. Try again, or it's not worth even trying this stupid —"

"Okay, okay." He held up a hand and felt a bead of sweat run down his back. God, it was hot. "I'm sorry. You're right." He paused. "But it's hard to think back to that time, you know? I'm not that same person anymore, so it's difficult to remember what I was thinking and feeling back then."

Her eyes softened, and Luke felt a kick of triumph. He chose his next words carefully. "We were finishing grad school and everything was going our way, remember? Post-docs at the same university all lined up, great careers all planned out, and things were…wonderful between us." And suddenly he could remember what he'd been feeling, that sense of awe that such a smart, beautiful woman wanted him, loved him. "Not just the sex, but going jogging together and shopping and just…well, just talking."

He trailed off, realizing that they had talked to each other in the beginning. What had happened to that?

Without a word, Kelsey lifted trembling fingers to her damp, flushed throat and unbuttoned her white blouse inch by torturous inch. She drew it off her shoulders to pool on the floor behind her. The simple camisole she wore beneath was a pale peach satin that cast her erect nipples into dusky relief. "Okay. What's your question for me?"

Outside the little room, the digital timer counted down past the hour mark, and as much as Luke wanted to escape and bring Fong to justice — both for the falsified clinical data and for leaving him and Kelsey to freeze to death — he also wanted the clock to slow. He needed more time with Kelsey, because something told him that what was said in the warm room would determine the fate of their relationship.

Because of it, he chose his question carefully. "Why did you tell me to take the fellowship in Europe?"

She'd been hospitalized following the late-term miscarriage. Miserable, guilty and unsure how to help her, Luke hadn't been prepared for Kelsey to turn her back on him and tell him to go. Maybe he should have fought harder, insisted on staying, but at the time he'd been hurt by her words.

And in a way, relieved to go.

She tangled her fingers together and stared at the floor. "Seeing you made it worse," she finally answered in a low, reluctant voice. "When you were around, all I could think about was the excitement of being pregnant and all the plans we'd made for our family…" When she turned her eyes up to his, they were dry. It seemed she had been doing some thinking in the past year, as well. "I wanted you to go away; then I hated you when you went."

He nodded. "Yeah, that's pretty much how I felt, too." He pulled the tails of his shirt out of his waistband and saw her eyes follow his every move. Possessed by the devil, and by the memory of eleven months of lonely, restless nights, he took it slowly, unbuttoning his shirt and shrugging it off. The air burned his chest like fire.

Or maybe that was the touch of Kelsey's eyes after so long. Caught up in a sensual spell of his own making, Luke reminded himself that this wasn't about sex. It was about communicating. About asking the questions that had gone too long unanswered. He swallowed hard. "Your turn."

Kelsey stood, as though sitting cross-legged facing each other was too vulnerable a position. Or maybe because she was as unnerved by the sight of his bare torso as he was to be sitting there half-dressed.

He wore more than he might on a beach amongst strangers, yet here he felt twice as naked.

"Why did…" Her voice faltered and she tried again, "Why did you come back?"

She'd asked him the question before, and he'd told her a half-truth about Dr. Fong. Now he gave her the rest. "I came back for you, Kels. No more, no less. I'd been doing a ton of thinking and I realized I shouldn't have left you when I did, and I shouldn't have left it alone when you didn't answer my letters. I should've camped out on your doorstep until you talked to me. I should've wooed you all over again." He stood as well, and ran a frustrated hand through his warm, staticky hair. "I should've done whatever it took to get you to talk to me." He blew out a breath. "And now look at us. Trapped in Fong's lab, almost dead of frostbite and now sweating our butts off while we wait for the door to open or Fong to come back — whichever happens first."

He started to pace, but Kelsey blocked him by stepping into his path. Eyes dark, she caught his hand and lifted it to her camisole. "We're both to blame. For all of it."

Blood rushed to his head, to his heart, to places lower down, and he slipped his hands beneath the peach satin. Her skin was smooth and hotter than the steamy air that billowed around them. She lifted her arms and let him ease the camisole over her head and off.

Bare chests only a whisper apart, he stopped. Lust was easy. Talking wasn't. "My turn," he murmured, catching hold of her hands when she would have lifted them to his face. "Why didn't you answer any of my letters?"

"Later," she murmured, and stood on her toes to close the distance between them. When their lips touched, he was lost. He'd spent too many nights remembering this, wishing she was there beside him, catching her scent on the night air and imagining he heard her sigh.

Later, he thought as he sank into the kiss and slid his hands down to cup her lower back and bring her closer. They would talk about it later.

Except there had never been a later for him and Kelsey. There was now or nothing.

The hot, steamy air slicked moisture on both their skins and made it difficult to tell where one of them left off and the other began. It was all warm, wet flesh and throaty sighs as he sampled the soft, sensitive spot behind her ear and heard her breath catch on his name.

The lust was as easy as always — and so much more complicated. He pulled away. "Kelsey —"

"Shh…" Desire made her brown eyes into deep, mysterious pools full of excitement, and maybe resignation. "It's okay. I understand."

And before his tangled tongue could ask what it was she understood and whether she could explain it to him, she had unzipped her jeans to puddle on the warm floor, then moved to do the same for him. Naked together now after so long, Luke was helpless against the fire raging between them.

He caught her by the waist, boosted her up to the edge of the counter, and stepped between her thighs to lose himself in the taste and the feel of Kelsey. His wife. The woman he loved.

When she moved to guide him home, he held back. "Kels, I don't have — "

She silenced him with a kiss. "It's okay."

To Luke, those two words were a promise, a new beginning. It was okay for them to make love unprotected. They were married. They could try again to start a family.

It was going to be okay.

And then, in an instant it was better than okay, for she drew him inside of her and Luke heard the rush and the roar of blood in his head and the pounding of his heart like a runaway train and over it all, Kelsey's cries as they brought each other home, to the place they'd belonged all along. Together.

Spent, though not drained, Luke pressed his damp, sweaty cheek to hers. Over the noise of the hot air blowers, he thought he heard a faint beeping outside the room. On the fifth beep, the door clicked.

Kelsey pushed at his shoulders and avoided his eyes as she slid off the counter. "Come on, let's get dressed, find some hard evidence to take to the authorities and get the hell out of here before Fong thinks to check up on us."

He held out a hand to stop her, to bring her back. "Kelsey."

She shook her head without turning around. "No, Luke. This changes nothing. All it proves is that we're still good in bed." She glanced over and colored slightly. "Or on a lab counter." She finished dressing and tossed his clothes to him. "Let's go."

Damn it. Luke dragged his clothes on while cursing his ex-wife in his head. Halfway through buttoning his shirt, he shifted to cursing himself.

When would he learn that sex didn't solve a damn thing? They'd been talking, communicating for the first time since before she'd gotten pregnant with Dawn, and then…

Then it had all gone to hell in a handbasket, all because he couldn't keep his hands off her. Damn it.

"You coming?" Face impassive, though still tinged with high color, Kelsey stood at the warm-room door. She peered through the single window. "Seems deserted. It's near dawn on Saturday, after all. Who would be in the lab?"

They both knew who. Fong.

She popped the lock on the door, but before she could open it, Luke caught her arm. "This isn't over, Kelsey."

Finally, she looked up into his eyes, and he saw a poignant blend of old love and new resignation. "Yes it is, Luke. I'm sorry."

And she was gone, leaving him in the warm room.

Alone.

The air in the main lab was a cold slap after the hot, steamy atmosphere of the incubator room. And that was just what Kelsey needed, a cold slap of reality.

She couldn't believe she'd made love with her ex-husband in the warm room. That they'd been trapped in there together by her deranged boss was no excuse. That Luke admitted he'd made a mistake when he'd left her for a fellowship in Europe right after she'd miscarried their daughter was no excuse.

That he was still, hands down, the sexiest man she'd ever met — and the only lover she'd ever taken — was absolutely, positively no excuse.

She had no excuse. It had been a mistake. Period.

"Kelsey, wait!"

She shrugged off his hand, angry with him for coming back and stirring up all the emotions she'd managed to store away over the past eleven months, angry with herself for letting him get to her with that last question he'd asked her.

Why didn't you answer any of my letters?

The honest truth was that she'd answered every damn one of them. They were in a box in the lowest drawer of her desk, not fifty feet down the next corridor. But she couldn't tell him that. It was her weakness. Her vulnerability.

And she didn't want to be vulnerable to him ever again.

So she squared her shoulders and tried to shake off the sudden surge of melancholy. They would find the evidence they needed to prove that her boss, Dr. Fong, had falsified his clinical trial results. They would use the evidence to foil his plans to sell the bogus anti-aging drug to Pentium Pharmaceuticals. Kelsey's career would be ruined by association, but it was better than the icy death Fong had consigned them to in the lab's cold room.

And once it was over? Luke could go back to his fancy European lab, and Kelsey would go back to…

Well, she'd find something. Maybe she'd adopt a dog. They were less disappointing than husbands, and when they strayed, it wasn't usually across an ocean.

Annoyed more with herself than with Luke now, she jerked her head toward the front of the lab. "Come on, my office is this way."

He followed on her heels, close enough that she could feel his breath on the back of her neck. It made her want to snarl.

They reached the small, neat office and Luke glanced around without any real interest. "We won't find anything here. We both know you didn't falsify the data."

For some reason, his confidence in her sent a warm glow through Kelsey. She immediately squashed it. "True, but I don't know how we could break into Fong's office. If you think the locks on the climate-controlled rooms are extreme, you should see the keypad he has on his door." She sat down at her computer and flicked on the monitor. "However —" she tapped a few keys and brought up the Boston General intranet "— he is something of a dinosaur when it comes to computer technology. It's possible that I can access his records from here."

Luke glanced at his watch, then at the sky outside, which was lightening to a slick, oily pink as the sun rose. "Fine. You work the computer and I'll see whether I have any luck with Fong's office lock."

Absurdly relieved she wouldn't have to share air with Luke while she hacked her way into Fong's account, Kelsey called after him, "Don't mess with the keypad, though. Two wrong codes and everything locks down and an alarm rings down at the security desk, just like with the panic button."

She glanced up at the red button just inside her office door. It made no sense to summon BK or Dave, the two overnight security guards on duty. But it was a comfort to know the button was there if she needed it. If they needed it.

Them. It had been a long time since she'd thought of herself as part of a "them." Frankly there was no use in getting accustomed to it now. Luke would be gone as soon as his company's toehold on the new drug was assured.

Wouldn't he?

"It doesn't matter. Find the data and get the hell out," she told herself sternly and began to work.

Five minutes later, just as she hit the last key and sent her findings to the printer, Kelsey heard an ungodly crash from out in the hallway.

Luke! Her heart stuttered in her chest and she raced out into the lab lobby, expecting to find him hurt, or worse, especially when a second crash followed the first.

He wasn't in the lobby. He was in Fong's office. The wooden door leaned drunkenly on its hinges. The high-tech keypad was intact, still locked to the doorframe, surrounded by a few inches of splintered wood where Luke had hacked his way around it.

Cautiously, Kelsey stepped inside. "Where'd you find an ax?"

Luke looked up from a filing cabinet and grinned like the boy she'd first met so long ago. "In the fire cabinet above the emergency hose. You said not to mess with the keypad, so…"

She nodded. "Works for me. Let's search the office quickly and get the hell out of here."

"Your wish is my command," he intoned with a small smile, and Kelsey's throat tightened. In the warm room, he'd reminded her that there had been a time that they had talked about everything and nothing, and done so for hours. When had they lost that? Why had she blocked those memories from her mind and convinced herself that he had never shared himself with her?

Maybe, she acknowledged, because blaming him for leaving had been easier than remembering the pain she'd been feeling after Dawn's death. Remembering that he'd gone because she'd told him to go.

What if she had tried to share the pain rather than shutting him out?

"Kels? You okay?"

Shaken from her fugue, Kelsey glanced at Luke and saw little that had changed on the outside. His hair was still a little too long, his eyes still a striking green. He still wore lumberjack plaid shirts tucked into faded jeans. But something about him seemed different.

Or maybe it was something in her?

She nodded. "I'm okay." Maybe. Unwilling to analyze their relationship — or their past — any further, she crouched down beside him. "Have you found anything? Because when I was in his computer network, I found —"

Out in the lobby, the mechanical door clicked open. Luke hissed, "Get down!" and shoved her beneath Fong's desk. He stood and moved away slowly. Kelsey could see his bare ankles and loafers in the eight-inch gap between the desk and the floor. Moments later another pair of feet moved into view.

"Hands where I can see them, Dr. Sparks. Nice and easy. We wouldn't want you hurt, now, would we?"

Kelsey froze as hope rattled through her. It wasn't Fong's voice. It was BK from the security desk. She could explain everything to him and he would help them escape before Dr. Fong —

"Don't even think about it!" BK's voice cracked on the words. "Dr. Fong left me his gun just in case you came back. Don't think I'm afraid to use it."

Oh, God. Kelsey's heart stuttered. BK?

"Does it even matter to you that Fong's new drug is going to kill people?" Luke asked. Kelsey saw his feet slide a half step back. BK's feet followed.

"I don't know about his research and I don't care," the young guard answered, following Luke another step across the room. "He pays me good money to look after his lab."

"And Kelsey?"

"She'll be fine. He promised." But BK's voice sounded less sure. He took one last step toward Luke.

And he was in range. Kelsey lunged forward beneath the desk and grabbed BK's ankles. Luke leapt in a flying tackle and caught the young guard in the midriff. A shot went wild and the weapon flew out of BK's hand and sailed toward the outer lobby.

Luke's fist hammered into BK's face once. Twice. And the young man went limp. Luke hunched over his fallen enemy, breathing hard. When Kelsey stood and touched a hand to his shoulder, Luke reached up, grabbed her and held on tight. "Damn it," he said. "Just damn it."

"I couldn't agree with you more, Dr. Sparks."

Kelsey whirled toward the familiar voice, barely hearing Luke's curse. Her boss stood in the doorway, holding the gun with practiced, deadly ease.

Luke spat a vicious curse. "Fong."

"It seems that I was too easy on you earlier this evening," the scientist replied calmly, though madness lurked at the back of his eyes. "I should have shot you and been done with it." He shrugged. "Well, no matter. That is an oversight that can be quickly rectified."

He lifted the gun, aimed it directly at Kelsey and fired.

Luke threw himself at Kelsey when Dr. Fong fired. He crashed against her and brought them both down, rolling to cushion the impact and dragging her behind Fong's desk for what pitiful protection it might afford.

The gunshot still echoed in the room, but Luke wasn't hit. Wide-eyed, Kelsey shook her head at Luke's unspoken question. She wasn't hit either.

"Damn it, let go of me!" Fong's outraged shout brought Luke back around the desk in time to see the young security guard, BK, struggling with the mad scientist.

Luke had thought he'd knocked the guard out cold. Fong had thought BK was on his side. Apparently they'd both been wrong.

"You said you wouldn't hurt Kelsey!" the young guard shouted.

Fong smiled evilly and brought his gun up. "I lied."

Without conscious thought, Luke grabbed the heavy fire ax he'd used to bash in the office door. He leapt out from behind the desk and swung the flat of the blade in a glittering arc that slapped the gun out of Fong's hand. Not waiting to give Fong another opportunity on Kelsey's life, Luke reversed the swing and hit Fong in the temple.

The thud of metal on flesh was sickening. Without a sound, Fong collapsed across the security guard.

BK looked up at Luke with young, tortured eyes. "I'm sorry I called him, man. He said he wasn't hurting anyone. He said he'd protect Kelsey."

"We all make mistakes," Luke answered, offering the man a hand up. He tried not to let the words echo in his head, tried not to remember Kelsey's comment when she'd discovered him in the lab the night before.

Marrying you was a big mistake.

No, getting married hadn't been Luke's mistake. His mistake had been leaving Kelsey alone rather than staying with her after she'd miscarried their daughter. And since then, he'd made another misjudgment. He'd made love to Kelsey instead of talking their problems through.

He risked a look at her as she emerged from behind the desk. Was that the last mistake, then? Was it really too late for them?

She joined him in the center of the room, and he had to force himself not to reach for her hand. He'd done his best. Now the decision was hers.

BK levered himself to his feet, black-eyed and bloodied from Luke's fists. "I'll call the cops." He blinked as the first ray of sunshine glanced through the window. "Hell of a Saturday."

When he had gone to make his call, Luke and Kelsey stared down at Fong's unconscious body. Finally she said, "Should we tie him up or something? It could take a while for the police to show up and I'm not looking forward to another scuffle. Or…" Her face lit with a faint grin. "We could lock him somewhere."

They dragged Fong to the cold room and removed the ladder they'd used to escape their prison. After they dumped him inside and locked the door, Kelsey took pity on her former boss and turned the thermostat to four degrees rather than minus twenty.

"Cold enough to make him uncomfortable," she said, "but not enough to kill him."

And then there didn't seem to be anything left for them to say to each other. Afraid if he stayed any longer he'd break down and beg, Luke turned away. "I'll wait for the cops downstairs, okay?"

He was halfway across the lobby when he heard her call, "Luke?"

He didn't turn back. "Yeah?"

Her pause seemed to last a century. Then finally she exhaled a breath. "Before…you asked me why I never answered your letters."

He willed his heartbeat to continue. "Yes?"

There was a rustle of denim as she turned away. "Come into my office. I have something to show you."

He followed her and watched her pull a fat cardboard box out of the lowest drawer of her desk. "What is this?"

"See for yourself while I talk with the police," she instructed, and waved him to the desk chair that smelled of her.

Luke sat and opened the box. Pulled the first sheet of folded paper from the file. And began to read a letter dated ten months earlier.

Dear Luke…

* * *

Kelsey dealt with the detectives Peters and Sturgeon who arrived rumpled and hard-faced, having been called from a brutal attack over at the Genetic Research Building. The victim, Genie Watson, was a young researcher Kelsey knew only as brilliant and somewhat shy. The E.R. doctors weren't sure whether she would live.

The brutality was a grim reminder of what could have happened to Kelsey if Luke hadn't been there to save her. She shivered at the thought, and she wondered how many of the letters he had read by now. What he thought of them.

"This is unbelievable," Detective Peters muttered, scrubbing a hand across his handsome face as a pair of uniformed officers wrestled a still-unconscious Fong out of the cold room and carried him to the elevators. "Two attempted murders in the same day and they're not related? That doesn't make sense."

"Sure it does," replied his partner. Detective Sturgeon's cheeks worked as he sucked on a peppermint. "Medical research is big business. Big money. There's no better motive than that."

"True enough." Peters flipped to a fresh page in his notebook. "Let's get a few details from Dr. Sparks," he flicked a glance at Kelsey and amended, "the other Dr. Sparks, and be on our way."

But Luke wasn't where she'd left him. The box of letters sat atop her desk, neatly closed. The room was empty.

BK stuck his head in the door and addressed the detectives. "Luke said he'd come down to the station tomorrow to give you a report. He had something he needed to do."

The detectives grumbled but agreed that would be fine. They asked a few more questions, took copies of the falsified records Kelsey had found in Fong's online databases and departed. BK escorted them downstairs, still trying to make amends for his lapse in judgment. That left Kelsey upstairs in the ruined lab.

Alone.

Damn. Had the letters been too little, too late? Probably. She should have sent them long ago. It seemed she and Luke had both been guilty of hiding behind old patterns.

Well, no longer. Kelsey gritted her teeth and stared at her reflection in the window. Her hair was a mess, she was wearing yesterday's clothes and she had a hickey that rode low on her collarbone. But she didn't care that she looked a fright.

She was going to get her man, as she should have done months ago.

Angry and invigorated, she punched the elevator button and rode down to the lobby, planning. She had no job and no reputation, so she could follow him to Europe, if necessary.

She would do whatever it took.

She gained the curb and lifted a hand for a cab.

The familiar, beloved voice was a welcome intrusion. "Hey, pretty lady. Want a ride?"

And there he was, astride the sleek black motorcycle they'd ridden so many times together, holding out the turquoise-and-white helmet he'd given her.

"I love you," she said clearly before her nerve could fail her. "I'm sorry I told you to go, and I'm sorry I didn't follow. I'm sorry I didn't mail the letters."

He caught her hand and eased her onto the seat behind him, twisting around so he could tug the helmet over her messy hair. "You kept them. That was enough." He touched his lips to hers, and she absorbed the burn of contact, so much hotter than the warm room had been. "I love you, too. And I'm sorry I left. I'm sorry I didn't come back sooner." His lips tipped up in that old, beloved grin. "So I guess we're both sorry specimens, eh?" He turned back around and revved the bike. "Want to go for a ride?"

Her heart tripped at the question, then settled into a new, happier rhythm. "Where are we going?" she asked, not caring what he answered. To bed. To Europe. It didn't matter, as long as they were together.

He eased out into the snarled Chinatown traffic and called back over his shoulder. "I was thinking we could go sit by the swan boats and talk."

Kelsey wrapped her arms around his waist and tangled her fingers in the soft, light lumberjack plaid she would always associate with him. "Talk about what?"

He laughed, a young, carefree sound, as he swerved the bike between a pair of double-parked yellow cabs. "About us, of course. About why we should get married again. About where we're going to live and how many children we want. About anchovies and baseball teams and all those things we used to talk about. Do you remember?"

He revved up the bike, and Kelsey felt the surge of the engine between her legs and the warmth of the man in front of her. She tossed her head back as they sped away, and she laughed out loud. "I remember!"

And this time as she traveled the crooked streets of Chinatown there were no eyes following her, no stealthy footsteps in the shadows.

There was only Kelsey. And her protector.

The End