Jake’s voice took on more confidence and the nasty edge returned. “Are your clothes torn? Did I even kiss you!” He stood up. “This asshole, though...he has a violent streak.”

“Yeah,” Lucas said. “I do. I’m from the South Side of Chicago, and don’t you forget it.” He stepped forward, forcing Jake to step back. “If I see you within fifty feet of her, you’ll see just how violent a Southie can get. Me and a hammer. You and a new orifice. You understand?”

Granted, being protected wasn’t really Colleen’s thing, as she’d never needed it before, but damn. Jake’s eyes grew comically round with terror.

“I asked you a question, you little shit.”

“I understand,” Jake said, his voice shaking.

“Is there a problem here?” It was the limo driver, followed by Chris.

“This as**ole grabbed me by the throat!” Jake said, his tone immediately sullen.

“Sounds like you deserved it,” the driver said. “At least, according to him.” He gestured to Chris, who gave her an ashamed nod. “Now get in the limo, rich boy. Party’s over.” The driver looked at Colleen. “Are you okay?” he asked.

She hesitated, then nodded.

“If you ever touch her again, Jake,” Lucas said, his voice soft and matter-of-fact, “you’ll be eating through a straw for weeks.”

“Oh, yeah?” Jake said. “Just because you snuck up on me—”

Lucas made a small movement toward him, and Jake screamed and jerked back.

“Come on,” the driver said.

“Oh, Jake?” Colleen said sweetly.

He gave her a lethal look.

“You wet yourself.”

Jake looked down at his crotch, froze a second, then shuffled off the dock. He yelled at Jase, shoving him as he walked past.

“Stupid little dick,” the driver muttered. He turned to them. “You guys all set?”

“Yeah. Thanks,” Lucas said.

“Sorry, Colleen,” Chris muttered, following the driver down the dock.

It was only when they were gone that Colleen looked at Lucas. “Thank you,” she whispered.

“Sure.” He took a few steps down the dock to his cousin. “Bryce, you okay?”

“Hey, dude,” Bryce said. “What was that yelling all about?”

“What did I say about drinking tonight, huh? Someone almost got hurt, and you’re shit-faced.”

“Sorry, man. I had a little too much, I think.”

“Get up, buddy.” He helped his cousin to his feet.

“Remember when I saved you?” Bryce said.

“Yep.”

Bryce took a weaving step toward her. “Oh, hey, Coll. How you doing?”

“Hey, idiot,” she said gently. She put her arm around him, steering him down to the shore.

Delayed terror kicked in then, and she started shaking. “You cold?” Bryce asked.

“Little bit,” she said.

Tanya was sleeping on the sand, and without bothering to try to rouse her, Lucas simply picked her up.

“I’m tired,” she whined. No one bothered to answer.

A mountain bike was parked behind the Mustang. Lucas dumped Tanya in the backseat, then popped the trunk and loaded the bike in. “You rode here on your bike?” Colleen asked, though the answer was obvious.

“Yeah.” He glanced at her. “Where’s your car?”

“I was playing chauffeur. Tanya can’t drive, and Bryce was already pretty sloppy.”

He nodded once, then opened the car door for her.

No boy had ever held a car door for her before.

She gave him directions to Tanya’s house, then walked Tanya to the door. Mrs. Cross was waiting up, her mouth falling open when she saw her daughter’s less-than-sober state, then thanked Colleen for seeing her home and began laying into Tanya for her stupidity. Colleen waved and went back to the car.

Bryce was sound asleep in the backseat, his snoring soft and rhythmic.

“Does he drink this much all the time?” she asked.

“Once in a while.”

Colleen nodded. Maybe she shouldn’t have asked, because Lucas seemed tense. Then again, this had been a tense night, hadn’t it? Holy Mary. There’d be fallout—Jake was not the forgive-and-forget type. She might have to make sure everyone heard about his pants-wetting. Then again, that could make matters worse. Don’t poke a wounded snake and all that.

“You’re gonna have to watch your back,” she said, stealing a look at her driver’s profile.

“Yeah.”

She cleared her throat, uncharacteristically nervous. “You were really brave. Three against one.”

He glanced at her. “Three against two,” he corrected.

“Yeah, well, Bryce wasn’t much help.”

“I was talking about you.”

The words brought a nearly painful heat to her cheeks. “I am pretty good in a fight,” she said, forcing some bravado into her voice.

But she hadn’t been good. She would’ve lost that one without Lucas, and the thought made her legs start shaking again. “Take this left, and we’re the third house on the right,” she said.

He pulled into her driveway, then turned off the engine and got out. She got out as well, all too aware of his presence behind her.

The house was quiet, but Mom had left the light on over the sink, her code for everyone’s in bed. Colleen turned to Lucas. His eyes were steady on her, dark and mysterious in the moonlight.

“Thank you again,” she said briskly.

He looked at her for a long minute. “You sure you’re okay?” he asked.

“Perfect,” she said, forcing a smile.

His dark pirate eyes narrowed slightly. “Don’t do that. Don’t lie.”

Well, hell. Men—especially boys—didn’t usually call her on her bullshit. “All right, then. I’m still shaking, and I probably won’t sleep tonight, but I’m not hurt, and I’m really, really glad you came looking for Bryce.” She wiped her eyes, which appeared to be tearing up. “I could say I don’t know what would’ve happened if you hadn’t come along, but I’m afraid I know exactly what would’ve happened if you hadn’t come along. So thank you, Lucas Campbell, for coming along.” She smiled, and it felt normal again. “And for being all badass and scary when you did. It was very hot.”

He laughed.

She hadn’t expected that.

It was a smoky, ashen sound, just a low scrape in his chest, and it filled her with lightness, somehow. But at the same time, she felt a little terrified, too, because she knew, somehow, that Lucas Campbell was different. He was dangerous to her, in ways that had nothing to do with violence and everything to do with the soft, hot feelings that pulsed and burned in her chest.

“Good night,” he said. But he didn’t move.

“Good night,” she whispered.

And then he kissed her, so gently at first, as if he’d never kissed a girl before, and please, looking like that, like Heathcliff, like a pirate or a gypsy or a member of the Sharks or the Jets...please, he’d kissed plenty of girls before.

The kiss was soft and sure at the same time, and she felt his welcome heat against her cool skin, felt his hand go to the back of her head, his fingers sliding into her hair. His mouth moved against hers, testing and waiting to see if she’d respond, and she did, hoping she was doing it right, because it sure felt right. It was all instinct—all those tips and comments and methods she’d given lectures on to her classmates these past five or six years, hell, she had no idea what she was supposed to be doing. All she knew was that Lucas Campbell was kissing her, and it felt so, so good.

It took her a second to realize he’d stopped, and that his forehead was resting against hers. Her hands were on his wrists, clinging to him.

“You’re with me now,” he said softly. Then he pulled back to look at her. “Okay?”

She was too smart for all this. She had an old soul. She couldn’t picture having a boyfriend.

But his eyes were steady, and his lashes were thick and dark. “Okay,” she whispered. So much for her legendary comebacks.

“I wasn’t sure you liked me,” he said after a minute.

“It’s the whole white-knight thing.”

There was that laugh again, and just the sound of it had her stomach tightening in a warm spiral.

“I’ll see you around, hotshot,” he said, stepping away from her, and the cold and emptiness he left was a little shocking.

He seemed to read her mind, because he was back, and this time his kiss was more insistent. She grabbed his hair and answered, her mouth opening under his, and God, this was better than food, better than breathing, and a lot more important than either, the hard press of him against her, the silkiness of his hair, the taste of his mouth—

“Go inside,” he ordered finally.

“You’re not the boss of me,” she said, hoping her legs still worked. He grinned, and hell, she nearly came.

They’d be sleeping together. Soon. It was as inevitable as morning.

A long time later, she lay in bed, her fingers tracing her lips.

This night might’ve turned out horribly, horribly wrong.

Instead, she was in love.

CHAPTER FIVE

THE DAY AFTER HE SAW BRYCE AT O’ROURKE’S LUCAS PULLED UP to Joe and Didi’s house in his rental car, turned off the engine and sat for a moment.

In the fourteen years since he’d left for college, Lucas had been back to Manningsport only a handful of times, and only once since he’d gotten married.

Here was the thing about Didi Nesbith Campbell, Lucas’s aunt by marriage. She had a vision of how life was supposed to be, goddamn it, and when life didn’t obey, she got mad. Was still mad, in fact.

She’d married Joe just after he’d sold the rights to a video game for a million bucks when he was twenty-four years old. Rat-Whacker got picked up by Nintendo, and Joe seemed on track to billionaire status, joining the whiz kids of that era who made their first million before they were twenty-five.

And, like most of them, Joe was a flash in the pan.

That first million turned out to be the last million, but by then, they had a big house in the suburbs and a baby boy. Much to her supreme dissatisfaction, Didi had to get a job. She found her niche at an insurance company, denying claims of horribly injured people. Even as she rose through the ranks, she never got over the bitterness of having married the guy who failed to become the next Bill Gates.

The other great inconvenience of Didi’s life was inheriting Lucas. She already had her only begotten son; she certainly didn’t want the silent child of her slacker husband’s criminal brother.

Well. Time to see Joe. Lucas took off his sunglasses and headed toward the house.

It was beautiful up here, that was certain. The leaves were fresh and green, glowing with good health, unlike Chicago, which was currently baking in a heat wave. But here, where the landscape was dotted with deep glacier lakes and waterfalls by the dozens, where green farmland spread out on the hills and the forests were thick and deep, it was cooler and more lush than the flat Midwest and its punishing summers. The air was heavy with the smell of lilacs, so painstakingly trimmed along the border of Didi’s perfectly landscaped (and somewhat soulless) yard.

Lucas would be in Manningsport for a month, maybe two. He wouldn’t be staying at Didi’s, that was certain, no matter that the house had five bedrooms and a basement apartment. No, he’d rather amputate his own foot and eat it than do that. For the moment, he was staying at the Black Swan B and B.

He knocked on the front door. Nephew or not, Didi wouldn’t like him coming in unannounced.

Sure enough, she opened the door. “Oh. It’s you.”

“Hello, Didi,” he said. “How are you?”

“I’m quite well,” she said, her lips tight. “You may as well come in.”

“Is Bryce here?”

“No, he’s at the gym.”

Bryce still lived at home, though he’d bounced around a little bit after dropping out of college. He’d tried to live in Chicago for a short time, and Lucas had even gotten him a job with Forbes Properties, which lasted five days before Bryce quit. Bryce had also tried Manhattan, San Francisco and Atlanta, but all roads led him back to Manningsport, specifically, to the basement apartment that Didi had made for her baby boy, giving him the illusion of adulthood while remaining clamped under her thumb.

“How’s Ellen?” Didi asked.

“Good,” he answered. She waited for more. He didn’t offer it.

The one thing Lucas had ever done that won approval from Didi was to marry Ellen Forbes. “Any relation to Malcolm?” Didi had immediately asked when he’d told them. No curiosity about why he was marrying someone he’d never mentioned, or what had happened with his longtime girlfriend, or why he wasn’t going to law school. Just “Any relation?” Her eyes alight with a sudden, keen interest.

The answer, of course, was, yes.

And suddenly, Lucas was a beloved nephew. Didi wanted to help plan the wedding, just loved Ellen to death within seconds of meeting her, thought of Lucas like a son, wanted so much to have holidays together, one big happy family, the Forbeses and the Campbells, wasn’t it wonderful?

Granted, Ellen and her parents saw right through her, but Didi was too busy trying to pretend she was completely at home with their vast wealth, the penthouse overlooking Lake Michigan, the maid who served dinner, the sailboat and cars and drivers and wine.

Once, Lucas had come upon her in Frank’s study, where she was slipping a little glass statue in her purse. “Please don’t steal from my in-laws,” he’d said mildly, and she’d flashed him a glare of such hatred, he’d actually smiled. She might want to kiss up to his in-laws, but it was almost reassuring to see that she still couldn’t stand the sight of him.