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stormy sea as he appraised her in the icy seconds afterward.
    “I swore I wouldn’t let myself be affected by your negative attitudes,” he began, his voice low with fury. “But I am. For some reason, you don’t trust men. And whoever caused that kind of damage to you ought to be hung out to dry.” His voice became more coaxing. “The only thing that will make our relationship bearable is total honesty. Don’t project on me the images of previous men in your life.”
    “I’m sorry, Noah,” she offered, confusion in her gray eyes. “You hit a sensitive chord in me. I shouldn’t have overreacted like that.”
    He hung his head and released a long sigh. “I’ve tried to figure you out, Kit. You’re a woman in a man’s world as an undercover agent. That’s a harsh kind of life for anyone, much less a sensitive person like you. Second, I think a man has damn near destroyed you emotionally in the past.” He narrowed his eyes with concern. “Am I right?”
    Kit nodded painfully. “Right on all counts.” She turned away and went to the chaise lounge, sitting down. Noah followed and crouched beside her, sympathetically placing his hand on her knee. She accepted his gesture for what it was, and openly studied his face. It was generous and trusting, and Kit felt a desperate need to trust him right now. “What are you, an amateur psychologist?” she asked, attempting lightheartedness.
    Noah took her hands and held them in his own. “I think in our business it becomes second nature,” he offered quietly. “Level with me, will you?”
    “Why?” Just the warming touch of his strong, protective hands sent a burst of stability through her.
    “Because I care.” Far more than he should, Noah added inwardly. Far more than she would ever know. “Is that reason enough?”
    Kit looked up guardedly. Her heart ached, and need finally won out over her fear. “Okay, what do you want to know?”
    The grip of his fingers tightened momentarily. “Who made you so distrustful of men?”
    Fighting a deluge of emotions, she stammered, “Is—is this necessary, Noah?”
    “Kit, we’re going to be working closely together,” he explained, his eyes never leaving her taut features, “and I need to know your strengths and weaknesses, just as you’ll know mine.”
    She searched his face. Her heart thrashed about like a bird caught in a trap. Pain began to ebb from that tightly walled chamber. Kit withdrew her hands and buried her face in them. She felt Noah’s reassuring hand sliding across her shoulders in a gesture of support.
    A ragged breath escaped her lips, and she lifted her chin, staring blindly past Noah. “I’m sure my personnel file shows that Pete Collins was my partner for four years out of the last five.”
    Noah searched his mind; he’d read her file thoroughly, committing it to memory. “It does.”
    She gulped unsteadily. “The last three generations of my family have been police officers. I have three older brothers and they were already police graduates. I followed that family tradition. Except I had all those pie-in-the-sky dreams about helping people.”
    “You were a supercop with a high degree of patriotism, and you wanted to strike at the roots of one of our worst problems.”
    Kit winced and nodded miserably. “Supercop. You hit the nail on the head…” Gathering her courage to go on, Kit continued in a strained tone. “When I graduated and demanded narc duty, Chuck Cordeman gave me Pete Collins for a partner. He was a supercop, too. Only he had ten years experience and all kinds of commendations. He was a hotshot, just like you are. As an impressionable twenty-three-year-old, I emulated him in almost every way.”
    “Your file shows four years of impressive collars, Kit. And you’ve got a lot of commendations.”
    Sadness overwhelmed her. “My father’s proud of me. That’s all that counts.”
    Noah understood what she meant. All his life he’d striven to live up to the glorious