Why she felt so threatened, so afraid, she had no idea. Maybe she didn’t really want Lily to be a living, breathing person. Dahlia couldn’t bear to be disappointed. To find Lily different than the illusion she’d built up. Or maybe it was more than that. Dahlia rubbed her chin harder on her knees. Maybe the thought of Lily alive and well and happy in the world while Dahlia had to be alone was too much to bear. Dahlia hoped she wasn’t that petty, but suspected she was. “Did anyone say if Jesse was going to live?” she asked, determined to try to appear normal.

Kaden shook his head. “He’s in intensive care. They operated on his legs and gave him massive amounts of blood. The doctors couldn’t believe he was still alive, but he’s hanging in there. I think he has a good chance.”

“And Ryland was warned not to trust any of the agents from the NCIS, right?”

“He’s been alerted. How in the world did the Naval Criminal Investigative Service manage to recruit you? You weren’t twenty-one when you began working for them nor did you have a bachelor’s degree, which I believe is essential to fulfill the requirements.”

“That’s true, but I’d been in training since I was a child and I was tutored, so yes, in spite of not having attended college, I could pass anything they threw at me. And the bottom line was, I could provide a service no one else could.” Her fingers slid over and around the set of spheres, moving them continually, not noticing when they took to the air above her fingertips.

Kaden tried not to stare at the spinning balls levitating just above her hand. She was in a great emotional turmoil, and he had the feeling she might bolt at any moment. “What do you do for the NCIS?”

Her dark gaze moved over his face. “All of you have security clearance. Didn’t Lily find that out when she was researching me?”

“Not exactly. We knew Calhoun worked as an agent for them so the natural progression was that you did as well. Your identity is buried a whole lot deeper than Calhoun’s.”

“That’s good to know.” But it meant she was right. No one had discovered her identity; they’d found her because someone in the NCIS had betrayed her as well as Jesse. Jesse had suffered for it and could very well die. She sighed and kept the balls spinning in the air above her fingertips, concentrating on them so that the energy rising from her confused emotions could be used as fast as she produced it. “I do recovery work mostly. I retrieve things that belong to the government. If we can’t get them back any other way, or secrecy is imperative, I’m their woman.”

Her heart hurt. Actually hurt. She had to keep from pressing her hand against her chest. She could barely breathe. It took all of her concentration to appear normal to the GhostWalker when the energy pouring into her and around her was building to explosive levels a second time. She remembered sitting so many hours on the roof of her home, wondering why she wasn’t like everyone else. She remembered moving through the streets at night and stopping to listen to mothers crooning to babies. One woman in particular had caught her attention. She rocked her baby on the front porch and sang softly to the child. Dahlia had gone home and wrapped her small raggedy blanket around her and sang the song to herself, rocking to try to feel whole just once. She detested pity parties, and she was in a full-blown one, unable to rise above it.

“Lily’s very anxious to meet you. She sent you a letter.”

Dahlia looked up quickly. “A letter from Lily?”

“Yes.” He fished inside his shirt pocket and pulled out a small scented envelope.

Dahlia stared at it, inhaling sharply. The writing was small and neat and very feminine. Her heart lurched inside of her and a pain began somewhere in the region of her stomach. Her emotions were already unstable, and just the idea of a letter from Lily terrified her. Shaking her head, she stood up and backed away from Kaden, heedless of the danger on the steeply pitched roof.

“Dahlia.” Kaden stood up as well. “I didn’t mean to upset you.” His gaze shifted to a spot behind her, the only warning she had.

Nicolas’s hard body pressed tightly up against hers, his arms sliding around her as he reached for the envelope. “I’ll take it. You didn’t upset her, Kaden. It’s the energy buildup. We need to give her a break.”

“Dahlia, you should have told me,” Kaden said immediately. “I’ll leave you two to do whatever works to make you more comfortable.”

Nicolas held her to him, caging her like he might a wild bird. “Don’t do this, Dahlia,” he whispered against her neck when Kaden made his way off the roof. “Stay with me. I know it isn’t easy, but we can find a way.”

“How?” She wanted to be angry, but all she could feel was despair. “Damn it, Nicolas, I hate to whine and feel self-pity. It’s useless. But I can’t do this. I can’t be with all these people and not overload. How in the world do you think there’s going to be a happily ever after? You’ll have to go your way, and I can’t go with you. And there’s Lily.” Her voice broke off and she leaned into him. “I don’t want to read her letter or see her. I don’t. I can’t. She’ll be everything I ever wanted in a sister. Everything I ever remembered, and I won’t be able to have her. I should never have started anything with you. Never.”

Nicolas moved his mouth over her bare neck, kissed his way along her shoulder. “You’re afraid, Dahlia. That’s natural, but it isn’t like you to run from a problem.”

“I can’t do this, Nicolas. You know what could happen. I’m so close to losing my mind it’s unbelievable. I can’t control my thoughts or my emotions. It’s a dangerous state for me to be in, especially around so many people. They can’t go without feeling anything. It isn’t possible.”

“I know it isn’t, Dahlia, I’m not minimizing the risk, but the risk is worth it. I’m not willing to walk away and pretend we didn’t meet. You’re a GhostWalker—you belong with us. That means we find a way to make it happen. You’re not alone anymore. We’ve got good minds, and you know Lily is brilliant. We’ll find a way to ease this. Nobody was hurt and no one is upset. We have accidents happening all the time. They might not be fires, but they can be just as dangerous. We’ve all had to find ways to cope. Did you see any of them staring at you as if you were different? You’re the same as we are. We all have these things happen to us.” He repeated it for emphasis, wanting her to believe. Willing her to believe.

His mouth was melting her with heat. The energy pounding at her, swarming around her, pouring into her began to subtly change. She could feel the change. Her heightened sexual awareness. Her body coming alive and every nerve ending waiting in anticipation. She closed her eyes against the tidal wave of passion. “Do you think we can spend the rest of our lives making love when we have company?”

“I wouldn’t mind it, although I doubt if it’s very practical. But sitting on the roof isn’t exactly practical either.”

“It works.”

“So apparently does sex,” he pointed out with satisfaction.

Unexpectedly she laughed, relaxing into him. “You sound so smugly male. Honestly Nicolas, you have such a thing about sex.”

“Only with you. I’m not willing to give up, Dahlia. You’re not a quitter. You’ve fought for a life since you were a child, finding your own way to deal with the energy when you had no help. You’d never be able to live with yourself if you quit now.”

She turned in his arms, tilted her head to look up at him. “If I didn’t find a way, I knew I’d cease to exist. I knew the energy would win. This is different. I had dreams, Nicolas. Everyone has to be able to dream. If I can’t have reality, I have to be able to have dreams, and if I can’t maintain with all those people,” she waved her hand to indicate the GhostWalkers, “then I have nothing left, not even my dreams.”

“You’ll have me, Dahlia. We’ve spent days and nights together and we’ve both survived. I’m not going anywhere.” His hands gripped her upper arms. “I’ve looked for you all of my life. I never thought I’d ever have a woman of my own, but I’ve found you. You given me more than you’ll ever understand. If our visits to Lily have to be short in the beginning while we learn to handle the energy, she’ll understand. We’ll keep working until we get it right.”

She closed her eyes and buried her face against his chest. Everything he said made such sense to her. The frightening knowledge was blossoming inside of her. She was falling in love with Nicolas Trevane. She couldn’t bear the thought of losing both Nicolas and Lily. He might think they could conquer the massive amounts of energy, but he’d never seen houses on fire. “I don’t have your emotional control, and before you quote me all the Zen masters, I’ve studied their teachings. I’ve meditated in so many different positions I turned myself into a pretzel. It didn’t do me any good. My feelings are so amplified by the energy I myself produce with my emotions. I’m frightened right now, and upset. Can’t you feel the energy massing around us?”

His hands slid up her back to the nape of her neck. “Yes. Can you feel that when you’re touching me, the energy lessens in intensity? I can teach you the things my grandfathers taught me. Ways to stay above the emotion and let it dissipate naturally.”

“You do that. You’re an anchor. It isn’t your training.”

“How do you think I manage to have such low levels of energy even when I’m in a life-or-death situation? It’s training. You have the discipline, Dahlia. You’re already using it when you rotate the spheres and allow the energy to disperse through physical activity. Come on. We don’t have rooftops to leap over, or cables to run across, but we can wrestle a few alligators.”

She allowed herself a second brief spurt of amusement. “You can wrestle the alligators, Nicolas, it sounds too muddy for my liking. I really don’t like mud in my hair.”

“You’re such a girlie girl.”

Dahlia did laugh then, a genuine laugh. The sound carried out over the bayou, taking with it some of the terrible pressure in her body. “Are you trying to challenge me? Goad me into some kind of he-man competition? That is such a juvenile male thing. Women, real women do not have to prove anything to men. We already know we’re the superior gender.” She stepped away from him and moved across the roof with her easy, sure steps.

As always, Nicolas marveled at her balance. She turned her head and smiled, a particularly mischievous smile that turned his entire body rock hard and his insides to mush.

He would never get used to the effect she had on him, but it was growing on him. He could live with it. In fact, as long as he didn’t have to admit it, he liked it.

She somersaulted off the edge of the roof and landed like a cat on her feet, already running through the lush vegetation. She was small and light, barely skimming the ground as she ran, fitting onto a narrow path that would be difficult for his much larger and heavier frame.

“That’s taking unfair advantage!” he called after her, leaping from the slope of the roof to the ground.

He followed her through the swamp, pacing himself, careful not to catch up, but close enough to keep her in sight. He loved the effortless way she ran. The smooth fluid motion and the lightness of her feet. Within minutes he was watching the sway of her bottom, the way the material of her jeans stretched tight across her bu**ocks, cuddled and framed her flesh. He’d never forget that first glimpse of her na**d butt, just the briefest sight, but it had been enough to bring on a million fantasies.

Nicolas ran behind her and thought about the curve of her hip. Her smooth, flawless skin beneath the jeans. He closed his hands into tight fists, imagining sinking his fingers into her, kneading her bottom, pulling her tightly against him. It was becoming much more difficult to run as with each step his body seemed to harden into one long ache, but his mind refused to give up the erotic images. Every fallen log he ran by he visualized draping her over and driving into her over and over again. The sunlight would gleam over her skin, and he’d watch the way they joined so perfectly together.