She stared at him, unable to stop herself. Her breathing quickened, her pulse accelerated, her flesh tingled with some unknown excitement.
It isn't him, she told herself. It can't be.
Nate studied her closely as she stared at him. He didn't think he'd ever seen such a beautiful woman—every feature perfect, combining to create an unforgettable face. Large brown eyes framed by thick dark lashes. Small, tip-tilted nose, luscious, full-lipped mouth. And golden blond hair hanging in long silken waves down to her tiny waist.
He looked at her, lost in the warmth of her rich brown eyes. He knew those eyes. They had haunted his dreams for twenty-five years.
The blood in his veins ran hot and wild, some primitive longing surging through him. He couldn't, wouldn't, give a name to what he was feeling.
It isn't her, he told himself. It couldn't be.
"Could we give you a ride home, Ms. Porter?" Nick Romero smiled as he looked back and forth from Nate to Cyn.
"What?" she asked, aware of nothing and no one except the big, dark man whose green eyes held her under their spell.
"I asked if you came here in a cab and need a ride home. I'd be glad to take you." Romero grasped Cyn's hand.
"I'll take her." Placing his arm around Cyn's shoulder, Nate gave his old friend a warning glare.
Romero released her and stepped backward, grinning.
"That... that won't be necessary, thank you," she said. "I drove here. I'm parked out front."
"Then let us escort you," Romero said.
"I will." Nate pulled Cyn close to his side, completely ignoring Romero.
Before Cyn knew what had happened, Nate had escorted her outside. She felt overwhelmed. Nate Hodges was quite a commanding person.
"Where's your car?" he asked.
"It's the white van over there." She pointed down the street. "I'll be all right now. Thanks."
Nate didn't release her. Cyn sighed, and allowed him to walk her to her van. Opening her purse, she fumbled with the keys, almost dropping them. Nate took the gold initial key ring from her trembling fingers.
"Don't ever do something this stupid again," he said as he inserted the key and unlocked the van.
"What did you say?" How dare he issue her orders.
"Coming into this part of town alone was a stupid thing to do. You were asking for trouble. You were damned lucky that I was here tonight."
"I've lived thirty-five years without your help, and I think I'll make it another thirty-five. Just who do you think you are, my guardian angel?"
He took her chin in his big hand, tilting it upward so that she was forced to look into his eyes. "Tonight, that's exactly what I was."
His words sent a tremor racing through her. This man was a dominant, protective male, and for some reason she felt as if he'd staked his claim on her. "Then thank you, Mr. Hodges and... and goodbye."
Cyn stepped up into the van, inserted the key into the ignition and started the motor.
"Don't come back to this part of town even if Bobby and Casey don't show up at the shelter." Nate leaned down into the van, his face so close to hers she could feel his breath.
"Has anyone ever told you that you're—"
"I'm used to giving orders and having them obeyed," he said.
"That's obvious."
"Go straight home."
"Yes, sir!" Cyn slammed the door, then maneuvered the minivan out of the parking space.
Nate watched until the van's taillights disappeared into the traffic. He turned, walking in the opposite direction where his Jeep Cherokee was parked. When he passed the front entrance of the Brazen Hussy, he noticed Nick Romero coming out the door.
"She's quite a woman, isn't she?" Romero slapped his old friend on the back.
"Stay away from her," Nate warned.
"Well, well. I've never seen you so proprietary when it came to a woman. What is it with you and her?"
"Nothing, absolutely nothing." Nate began walking away, moving toward his car.
Nate neither wanted nor needed Cynthia Porter in his life, especially not now when just being his friend was potentially dangerous. All he wanted was peace. Blessed peace. He had longed to put the past behind him. He wanted to forget the memories of a war that still haunted him, and to come to terms with the man he had been, the man who had served his country for twenty years.
Romero followed. "You said you'd met her before?"
Nate slowed his quick strides and turned to face his old SEAL comrade. "There's a cottage across the road from the house I bought. It's the only other house within a mile. She's staying there. She was there last night and again this morning, and I've got to find a way to make her leave. She's in danger."
"Hey, pal, Ryker's coming after you, not after Cynthia Porter."
Nate tried to erase the scene forming in his mind, the vision of his woman's lifeless body in Ryker's arms. "Anyone near me when Ryker shows up will be in danger."
"Whatever your feelings are for Ms. Porter, they're mutual. I saw the way she looked at you." Romero put his hand on Nate's shoulder.
"I have no feelings for her, and if you think she has any for me, then you're mistaken." Nate unlocked his car. "She isn't going to be in my life long enough for Ryker to know of her existence."
Cynthia Porter wasn't the woman in his dreams. She couldn't be. Ryker was going to kill that woman—and destroy Nate's soul.
Chapter 3
The drive from Jacksonville to Sweet Haven seemed endless to Cyn. Her mind was racked with utter confusion, and her heart rioted with a mixture of far too many emotions. She had never experienced a night quite like this one, and she'd certainly never met a man like Nate Hodges.
Gripping the steering wheel tightly, Cyn turned east off Interstate 1. She glanced in her rearview mirror to see if he was still following her. He was. Damn him. She tried to tell herself that if he was staying somewhere in the state park he was on his way home, too, and not actually following her. But her feminine instincts told her that his Jeep would still be behind her van when she left the highway in Sweet Haven and drove down the narrow road to the beach.
While keeping her eyes glued to the road, she rummaged around in the cassette holder between the bucket seats, counted the tapes until she reached the fourth one, then pulled it out and slipped it into the player. Within seconds, fifties sound filled the inside of the very nineties van.
Cyn loved the music from the period just before and after her birth, the romantic, sentimental songs that promised love and happiness no matter how many times your heart had been broken. The song playing on the tape was "True Love," and Cyn found herself humming, then mouthing the lyrics along with the singer.
No one seeing her now would believe that the trim, attractive, mature Cynthia Porter had once been a plump, naive teenager who had lived in a world of romantic fantasies, listening to dreamy songs like the ones Johnny Mathis sang and watching movies like Love Story and Dr. Zhivago.
The songs on the tape changed again and again as Cyn raced through the dark night, her speed ten miles over the limit, as if she thought she could outrun the feelings that the man driving so close behind her had created. Nate Hodges's eyes might remind her of the man in her dreams, but he wasn't him. Nate was too big, too mysterious... too dangerous to be the gentle, protective guardian who had always come to her to offer her comfort and hope in times of greatest loss and deepest sorrow. But why, then, did she sense that she knew Nate, that it was inevitable that their lives would be joined, that sometime, somewhere, she had belonged to him?