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  He snapped on cuffs. Eddie groaned.

  “Call an ambulance,” Matt ordered tersely. “Tell them we’ve got an officer down and a suspect casualty.”

  Nodding, Clare pushed to her feet and ran for the phone. But before she even reached for the receiver, she could hear the rising wail of sirens converging on her house like banshees announcing a death.

  ***

  Clare’s kitchen boiled with activity like a broken ant hill. EMS personnel in white rubber soles rushed through with gurneys and medical bags. Police officers in flat black shoes swarmed with guns and notebooks and questions. Lots of questions. The telephone rang constantly.

  Clare tried to manage the traffic flow, but she was only a civilian. Swept to one side of the torrent, she answered the politely repeated inquiries of a female officer with short, curly brown hair and cynical eyes. It was a sign of Clare’s own shock and distress, she supposed, that when she tried to recall the scene later she retained a very good memory of the police woman’s appearance and forgot most of her questions.

  Matt, in professional mode again, was talking to another detective across the room. Clare tried not to resent his easy immersion in the operational whirl that had invaded her home. Every so often he’d look up and catch her eye, and a little warmth would steal into her veins.

  A tearful Letitia Johnson came to collect her grandson, to cry on Clare’s shoulder and embrace Matt. With boyish awkwardness, Richie shared the tears and echoed the thanks. As he led his grandmother away, however, Clare noticed Letitia supported herself on his young arm. He bent his neck to talk to her. Clare’s own eyes misted.

  Eddie Boothe was the next to go, flat on his back on a high, wheeled stretcher, arrested for first degree kidnapping, attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder, four counts of assault with a deadly and dangerous weapon and unlawful possession of a firearm.

  “That should be good for life,” one officer remarked.

  “If he lives,” the curly haired police woman said with fierce satisfaction.

  Hugging her elbows tight, Clare retreated to the living room with Tyler.

  “Are they gonna arrest me?” he asked, huddling on the couch beside her.

  “I don’t know,” she answered honestly.

  “No,” Matt replied, looming over them. “I’ve talked to the investigating officer. On the strength of Clare’s statement, you’re free to go. You have an appointment with your court counselor tomorrow.”

  Tyler stood, his face slack with relief. Clare hugged him before he left.

  “I’m so proud of him,” she said.

  “I’m proud of you,” Matt replied, his dark eyes meeting hers. “If you hadn’t trusted in him, if you hadn’t given him a chance, things could have gone the other way tonight.”

  His regard, his words, warmed her. She felt her cheeks heat with pleasure and looked away.

  “It was Tyler’s choice,” she said. “He really tried to protect me.”

  “I believe you. I had a word with Shirley Dickson. They won’t bring charges.” His brows flicked together, and his professional face returned. “I’ve got to make another call,” he said.

  Clare nodded, her hungry eyes searching for assurance that he was truly all right. Matt dropped to the couch beside her, cautiously stretching out his right leg as he pulled out his cell phone. Fatigue marked his face and slowed his movements. Sweat darkened his hair. But he was whole, and with her, and she was content with that for now.

  She listened as he made the call to Joe Stewart’s wife, Millie. Yes, Joe was alive. Yes, he was hurt, but the paramedics were optimistic. A complete recovery, Matt quoted one of them as saying. He murmured more reassurances and promised to send a police car to drive Millie to the hospital. The gentleness in his voice made Clare want to cry. His bleak expression as he hung up the phone broke her heart.

  “I hate this part of the job,” he muttered.

  “That’s because you know what it’s like to be on the other end of the phone,” Clare offered.

  ***

  So did she, Matt thought. Tonight’s violence must have been a painful reminder of her loss, a potent warning of the risks of getting involved with a cop.

  With him.

  Concern and regret filled him.

  “You do, too.” He shifted to look at her. “How are you doing?”

  She smiled bravely. “I’m okay.”

  “Clare...I’m sorry. I had to go.”

  “I wanted you to go,” she reminded him, laying her small, neat hand on his. “I was glad for you to go. I was grateful you were a policeman, Matt, and knew what to do. Thank you for rescuing Richie.”

  “Richie was okay. Scared, more than anything. I should never have left you alone.”

  Her eyebrows raised. “I don’t remember that I gave you much choice. Besides, you didn’t leave me alone. You got Joe Stewart to baby sit.”

  “I got Joe Stewart shot.”

  Her grip tightened. “Matt, stop it. You can’t assume responsibility for everyone else. Joe chose to come over, he chose to go outside. He made the decision, he made the commitment to his job. You have to accept that.”

  God, she was good for him. An antidote for his overdose of detective ego. But her words only underlined his deeper disquiet.

  “What about you?” he questioned, hating his need to ask, helpless in his need to know. “Can you accept it?”

  Her gaze fell to their hands, linked on his thigh. And then she raised his hand in both of hers and kissed his knuckles.

  Embarrassed, delighted, he protested. “Hey! What’s that for?” But he left his hand in hers, ignoring the speculative looks from his fellow officers and a big grin from Defective Shirley Dickson.

  “Does ‘thank you for saving my life’ sound too melodramatic?”

  Matt winced.

  Clare nodded. “I thought so, too. But how else do I say it? The dangers you face are part of the job you do. The job you do is part of the man you are. And I was never so glad to see any man in all my life as I was to see you burst in that back door tonight.”

  He didn’t want her gratitude to his uniform. “Any cop would have done the same.”

  She nodded. “I know. But I’m not in love with just any cop. I’m in love with you.”

  Her gift humbled him. Her trust scared him. “I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

  Steadily, she met his gaze. “What we have is worth the hurt. We each choose our risks, Matt. If you can choose the risk of your job, I can choose the risk of loving again.” Her smile flickered. “Maybe this time I’ll get lucky.”

  His chest swelled. He cleared his throat. “Clare. Clare, listen.”

  He turned that dark, intense gaze on her, and Clare’s heart caught in her throat. The activity in the rest of the room just faded away like a black-and-white television set with the volume turned down.

  “You really scared me today,” he said.

  Clare sighed and shifted on the overstuffed cushions. She’d hoped her declaration this time would break through his stubborn determination to protect her. She should have known better. “I know. But—”

  He held up his large hand. “I was scared for you. Richie said Tyler was gunning for you, and I knew Eddie Boothe was out there, too, and I was afraid I couldn’t get to you in time. But what I’m trying to say is...” he drew a deep breath “I trusted you. I knew you would do everything you could to get out of that situation alive. Because in addition to this Joan of Arc complex you’ve got—”

  “This what?” she asked, diverted.

  “Let me finish. In addition to being calm and smart and gutsy, I trusted you to do what you needed to to keep yourself safe, because you love me.”

  He took both her hands. She couldn’t have looked away now, or interrupted him, if her life had depended on it. “You’ve got to trust me like that, sugar,” he said in his brown velvet voice. “I can’t control the circumstances of my job. I can’t promise it will never be dangerous. But I swear to you, I�
��ll do whatever is in my power to get the job done and get back to you. Because I love you like that.”

  And he leaned forward and kissed her.

  When he finally raised his head, most of the police officers in the room were openly watching. Two applauded. Matt swore and stood, pulling Clare with him.

  “So, now what?” she asked him, her heart high and light as a lark in the morning.

  “Pushy, pushy,” he complained, but the dents at the corners of his mouth deepened, as if he held in a smile.

  He dragged her through the front door, down the steps and out into the yard. The slender branches of the maple tree were black against the moon. Crab apple, hawthorn and forsythia scented the air.

  Matt wrapped warm arms around her. She rested her head on his chest. His heartbeat thudded, strong and sure. “If I’d thought about doing this...”

  “Which you haven’t,” she prompted, smiling.

  “Hell, no. If I thought this out I probably wouldn’t have the guts to go through with it. Any way... I’d have figured you deserved it done right. In the garden. Moonlight and roses, you know?”

  She touched his cheek, where the beard lurked under the smooth skin. “No roses. Not for another couple of weeks at least.”

  “Thanks for the update. So, we don’t have roses. And here I was thinking I could offer you everything all safe and tidy and perfect.”

  Love for him tightened her throat. “I don’t need safe.”

  His dark eyes searched hers. “No?”

  “No,” she assured him. “Or tidy. I like Richie and Trigger tracking dirt into my kitchen. In fact, that would be my idea of perfect, dirt and dogs. And kids. I’d like children, Matt.”

  He sucked in his breath. “Sugar, I’d like nothing better than to try to give them to you.” His arms tightened around her. “I want to give this perfect future of yours a shot. We’ve got the house and the dog and one kid already, kind of, with Richie living across the street. I can’t promise you a white picket fence, but you’ve got the garden. I’ll still be a cop, but I’ll take the promotion and permanent assignment to the neighborhood. Hell, I’ll even be home for lunch most days. What do you say?”

  The roughness in his voice tumbled the last wall around her heart, and happiness flooded in like moonlight. Tenderness radiated in her chest like a star.

  But she asked for the words anyway, wanting to hear them, knowing what it meant to him to say them. “Is this a marriage proposal, cowboy?”

  He grinned. “Yeah. Are you up for it?”

  “Are you promising me forever?”

  Suddenly serious, he vowed, “I’m promising you all of my love for the rest of my life.”

  It was enough. All that she wanted and more than she’d dreamed.

  “Partners?” she asked.

  He laughed and kissed her. “Equal partners.”

  ***

  Thank you!

  Thanks so much for reading. I hope you enjoyed The Reforming of Matthew Dunn. If you did, I hope that you will

  Look for my other books in the Sweet Home, Carolina line up. Keep reading for a short excerpt from The Passion of Patrick MacNeill, coming soon in ebook format.

  Check out my new Dare Island series from Berkley Sensation, beginning with Carolina Home, on sale July 3, 2012 in print and ebook format. You can preorder it now or keep reading for another excerpt.

  I love to hear from readers! For giveaways, excerpts, a complete book list and news of new releases, visit me on the web www.virginiakantra.com

  www.facebook.com/virginiakantrabooks

  About the Author

  New York Times bestselling author Virginia Kantra has written over twenty books of contemporary romance, romantic suspense, and paranormal romance, including her popular Children of the Sea series. She is the winner of Romance Writers of America's RITA Award and two National Readers' Choice Awards. Married to her college sweetheart and the mother of three kids, she is a firm believer in the strength of family, the importance of storytelling, and the power of love.

  Her favorite thing to make for dinner? Reservations.

  For a complete booklist, excerpts and more, visit her at www.virginiakantra.com

  And on Facebook at www.facebook.com/VirginiaKantraBooks

  The Passion of Patrick MacNeill

  The high, terrible keening of a child in pain went on and on.

  Outside in the hall, Dr. Kate Sinclair narrowed her eyes, concentrating fiercely on a stack of medical charts. She wouldn’t think, she couldn’t think, about the five-month-old baby on the other side of the door. In six days, she was leaving Jefferson University Hospital, leaving the burn center, for a fellowship in pediatric surgery at Auburn. While her mother cried and her cat protested, Kate had spent the Family Weekend from Hell packing up ten years of medical texts and mismatched dishes. If she weren’t so behind in her paperwork, she’d be loading her life into a rental trailer at this very moment.

  She rubbed two fingers between her brows, trying to erase the lines of tension that always formed over her nose. The child behind the door wasn’t even her patient, she reminded herself. He had an immunologist, the attending pediatric surgeon and the director of burn medicine pulling for him. He didn’t need her.

  One of the interns staggered out into the corridor and leaned against the wall. “Good Lord.” He blotted his upper lip with the back of his hand. “How do you stand it?”

  Kate capped her pen. Emotion made ineffective doctors. She knew that, and the intern would learn it. “How are they doing in there?”

  “They’re almost done changing his dressings.”

  Sharon Williams, a burn unit veteran, paused on her way back to the nurses’ station. “How’s our little Iron Man?” she asked the resident.

  “Who?” Kate asked.

  “Baby MacNeill. Tough little guy. He was admitted over the weekend. How’s he doing?”

  The intern rubbed his face again. “It— He— Swaim seemed pleased.”

  Swaim was the burn unit director. If things went well at Auburn, if Kate’s evaluations were good, there was a chance he’d call her back to the burn center to complete her training. She hoped so. Burn medicine fascinated her. The power to take a severely injured survivor along all the slow steps to new life made her feel good in a way that nothing else ever had.

  She allowed herself a professional question. “Any sign of infection?”

  “No.”

  “Good. That’s good.” She hesitated, and then offered, “Typically, patients who endure this kind of pain don’t seem to remember much of it.”

  The crying broke into a series of gurgling sobs, horrible to hear.

  Kate bit her lip. “Anyway, that’s what they say.”

  The metal double doors at the other end of the hall swung open, and a tall man in green scrubs blew in like a weather system, crackling with energy, big and dark, eyes a stormy blue. In spite of his clothes, Kate didn’t think he was on staff at the hospital. He wasn’t the kind of man a woman, even a woman like her, could forget meeting. Instinctively, she straightened her spine.

  Swift, intense, he strode toward them. “Are they done yet?”

  Kate bristled at his tone, as peremptory as any surgeon’s. Before she could speak, Sharon stepped forward, smoothly blocking his way. “Let me just make sure, Mr. MacNeill.”

  He nodded once, sharply, before she disappeared into the room.

  So, Kate thought, studying him, this must be little Iron Man’s father.

  Impulsively, she spoke. “Can I get you anything?”

  He didn’t even look at her, all his attention focused on the baby’s weak cries on the other side of the door. His big hands curled and uncurled at his sides.

  “No.”

  Sharon came out, holding the door. “They’re ready for you now.”

  He brushed past her without a word, ignoring the doctor and the assisting nurse and the procedure tray. Before he was three strides from the door, Kate heard his deep voice soften and chan
ge.

  “Hey, buddy. Hey, Jack-o. It’s Daddy. They’re all done now, okay? You be tough, okay? I love you, buddy.”

  The crying stopped.

  Kate looked at Sharon. Tears stood in the nurse’s eyes.

  “That’s all that’s keeping him going,” she said. “All that’s keeping either of them going.”

  The question popped out before Kate could remind herself that she had no business inquiring into a patient’s personal life. And not even her own patient, at that. “The mother?”

  Sharon shook her head, her usually placid face set. “Killed. In the same accident that burned the boy. Same damn drunk driver.”

  Kate’s rubber ball of a heart bounced once, uncontrollably. She looked beyond Sharon into the room where the five-month-old lay swaddled and sightless, gasoline burns covering almost a third of his once-sturdy little body. His father hovered over his crib, big hands braced on the protective rails. Apparently he’d been warned not to touch his son because of the risk of infection. He bent down until he was almost nose to nose with the child in the crib.

  Like a flower turning to the sun, the baby turned his gauze-bandaged head in the direction of his father’s voice. Kate listened for the familiar strained cheerfulness of parents in a child’s hospital room and heard only strength and love.

  “You hold on, Iron Man. Daddy’s here. I love you. It’s been a tough day, huh? Maybe you should get some sleep now.”

  And before the door closed, she heard the man singing a rough lullaby in a soft, deep baritone voice.

  “Hush, little baby, don’t say a word, Daddy’s gonna buy you a mockingbird...”

  Kate wouldn’t let it get to her. She never let this stuff get to her. Turning back to her medical charts, she was dismayed to note that her hands were shaking.

  ***

  The Passion of Patrick MacNeill, coming soon from Virginia Kantra