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as the doors whooshed open. Her skin again prickled with cold and heat. The foyer was crowded with people who all looked up as she stood there, letting in the frigid air. The rushing in her brain started and her limbs shook.
    “Make up your mind, love,” a voice complained from somewhere on her right. “It’s bloody freezing and looks like this queue isn’t going anywhere.”
    Faces crowded her in. Faces with cruel, glittering eyes and sneering mouths. A low muttering penetrated the blood pounding in her brain. She had to get out, get away from all the faces with mouths and eyes hating her, wanting to push and shove her…
    She backed away, out of hell, and turned to flee.
    And slammed into a wall of uncompromising muscle.
    Hard hands grabbed her arms to stop her falling. She had to get away. She pulled against him in terror. He would throw her back in, she knew he would, throw her to the wolves…
    “Hey. Hold on. What’s wrong?”
    Dylan stared at her with his chilly gray eyes.
    “Nothing. I didn’t… I couldn’t…”
    The shaking wouldn’t stop. Try as she might, she couldn’t make her limbs obey her. “Let me go.”
    He shook his head. “Not yet. You’re coming with me.”
    *
    Dylan Andrews led the struggling woman away from the Council building, across the square to the wisteria-covered picnic area. Gray and bare, the twisting vine hung down in a dense veil, providing minimal cover from prying eyes. Luckily few people were around on this freezing morning.
    “What’re you doing? Let me go!”
    Through her struggles Dylan could see she was still gasping for breath and shaking. The dark circles under her eyes stood out in stark relief against the complete whiteness of her skin.
    “Sit down,” he ordered. “You’re having a panic attack. Just sit there and breathe.”
    She collapsed on a bench and leaned against the stone picnic table.
    “I’ll be all right in a minute,” she said in a small voice.
    He stared down at her, irritated with himself and his reaction to her. Everything he knew about Julia Taylor indicated she wasn’t the run of the mill ex-crim, yet his hackles rose when he was around her. He knew he wouldn’t have to keep an eye on her like most crims first out of jail. She wasn’t a user and murderers had a low recidivism rate. Many people thought her crime was justified and there was certainly no doubt the pedophile priest was no loss to the world.
    That was the problem. She didn’t have the right to make that decision. No one did except a court of law. Sure, she’d been young and foolish, but he’d seen first-hand what out of control vigilantism did. Some nights the vision of Dale Rowe’s dismembered limbs still visited him…
    Her breathing returned to normal and some color appeared in her face. No doubt about it, the Taylor women were stunners. Blossom was a carbon copy of her mother, but the woman in front of him was equally compelling. Instead of dark and petite like the other women in her family, Julia was taller with round curves, pale skin, and chocolate-honeycomb hair. She pulled off her woollen beanie and strands of gold flashed in the filtered winter sun. Looking into her eyes, he could get lost in that riot of color. What were they? Green, hazel, brown? Large eyes filled with pain and something else. Something he didn’t want to think too much about.
    Yearning. That’s what it was.
    Not surprising, he supposed. You don’t spend ten years in jail without yearning for freedom. But wanting was a double-edged sword, as he knew only too well. What you wanted wasn’t always good for you.
    He sat on the bench opposite her, aware his size intimidated her. That was okay in some situations but not in the midst of a panic attack. He watched her scrub her hands over her face and push back her hair. Pulling her scarf free from around her neck she took in a deep breath and let it out.
    The skin of her neck was creamy and pale. He couldn’t help following that track of