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parked along that stretch of road for days, hoping one of the men she’d come to kill would cruise past. Prayingshe’d recognize them, trying, without success, to think of another way to track them down.
    The newspapers hadn’t been exactly forthcoming with addresses, and they were unlisted in the yellow pages. Googling their names hadn’t produced any results, either.
    Her steps slowed as she stared at him. She hadn’t expected him to be so tall or tanned or muscular. She hadn’t expected the confidence and strength he exuded, or the subtle sense of threat. She hadn’t expected him to look so damn…capable.
    He’d hovered near death for days. Spent weeks in the hospital. But he didn’t look sick. Not like she did. But then he’d had the luxury of recovering in the hospital, or in the homes of family and friends. Nor was he on the run, sleeping in stolen cars, scrounging out of trash cans, ransacking empty houses in the hope of finding enough cash to fill his gas tank or enough food to fill his belly.
    A horn blared. The squeal of brakes followed. Jillian jumped back, realizing she’d stepped in front of an oncoming car. Not that the car could do any damage. She was already dead. A lifeless husk held together by vengeance and determination. She glanced across the pavement and found her soon-to-be victim watching her with cold detachment. He must have seen the car headed directly for her, but he hadn’t bothered to shout a warning.
    Bastard.
    Had he hoped the car would finish the job, kill her where bullets and icy water had failed? He wasn’t one of the men who’d kicked down her door, kidnapped her family, and stolen her life from her; nor one of the men who’d come after her in the hospital, after she’d reported what happened to the police. But he was involved. He was one of the bastards who’d killed her brother, and spread those lies about him.
    A flush of rage warmed her. Her fingers curled into claws. She shoved them deeper into the pockets of her poncho. When her hand bumped against the cold steel of the revolver she’d stolen from a house in San Diego, she forced her fingers to unfurl and take hold. The voluptuous folds of the poncho hid the bulge of the gun. She wouldn’t have to pull it out; she’d just point and fire through the cotton.
    And while he lay there, the parking lot filling with his lying, murderous blood, she’d shoot him again and again. One shot for each of her babies and another for her brother.
    He’d be the first to pay for what they’d taken from her, but they were all going to pay. Every last one of them. She was going to make sure of it.
    Her muscles tensed in determination and she took another step forward, the gun warming in her tense grip. She’d start with him, this murderous SEAL, and then she’d go after his friends. And before she killed the last of them, she’d force him to tell her how to find the others. Those bastards who’d broken into her house and kidnapped her family and taken her life from her.
    The rage swelled with each step, liquefying her frozen chest, warming arms and legs that never shed the chill picked up in that icy lake all those months ago.
    As her hand tightened around the gun, a cry rose behind her. A thick, sobbing wail. The sound stopped her in her tracks. Her fingers lost their grip on the gun. The cry came again. So familiar. So beloved.
    Time and space warped in and out, surrounding her like ripples on sunbaked asphalt. She turned in slow motion, the sun spinning dizzy and brilliant overhead. She stopped breathing, waiting for that familiar, beloved cry.
    A stroller rattled down the sidewalk. Her gaze locked on the fragile blond head that bounced slightly with each rotation of the wheels. On the lift and flop of wheat-gold hair.
    Blond curls, a dimpled smile, bluer-than-blue eyes.
    Don’t cry, baby. Don’t cry. Mommy’s here. Mommy’s coming.
    Jillian turned.
    Smile for me, sweetie. Smile for Mommy. Let Mommy see those