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gunfire.
    Davy dropped his cone and wailed.
    PJ stood stock-still as the man dove in after Hoffman.
    She’d just known, if she returned to Kellogg, she wouldn’t escape the bright lights and sirens.

CHAPTER THREE
    “Well, if it isn’t NBT. I should have figured I’d find you here.”
    PJ didn’t have to turn from her crouched position on the wet deck around the pool to recognize Director Buckam’s voice. She heard the derision in the nickname he’d bestowed upon her   —Nothing but Trouble   —as if he’d sworn out the restraining order yesterday.
    She finished wiping Davy’s face, sighing. “Hey, I’m just here because my sister got married. I’m leaving right now. And I really don’t think that’s fair   —”
    “Sure it is. Because whenever there’s trouble, you’re not far away,” Buckam said, apparently not pulling any punches.
    Davy wiggled away from her grasp and she took another swipe at him, hoping to vanquish one foe before she faced another.
    “I think that you should check your facts because it was your son   —”
    But it wasn’t Director Buckam. And it seemed cosmically unfair that she might be in Kellogg only five hours and thirty-six minutes before Daniel “Boone” Buckam walked back into her life.
    He stood over her, hands on his narrow hips, the dark silhouette of a superhero, complete with broad shoulders framed against the late afternoon sun and the barest hint of a smug smile on his clean-shaven face. Probably she should be glad she couldn’t see his eyes behind those dark sunglasses. Her gaze dropped to the dark weapon slung in an arm holster under his suit coat and the shiny silver badge on his belt.
    Look who’d cleaned up his act.
    “Boone.”
    “Oh, PJ.” He said it softly, like he’d been holding his breath for years and only her name came out on exhale. He shook his head, taking off his sunglasses, unleashing now the full power of those pale blue eyes on her. “PJ Sugar.” This time her name emerged with a singsong lilt, flecked with danger, the same tone he used when she’d met him behind the garage after sneaking out of the house years ago. “I knew you’d come back.”
    “You knew nothing of the sort.” The edge in her voice, laced with more desperation than she would have liked, surprised even her as she shot to her feet. She reached for Davy, who twisted away from her, licking his hands. “I . . . My sister got married and I’m watching Davy while she’s on her honeymoon. Otherwise, I’d be back in . . . where I lived. Live .”
    Boone’s eyes connected with hers with the power to part her lies and zero in on the truth, and for a long moment he just grinned.
    Then he laughed low, and she felt it rumbling right below her breastbone.
    Until that very moment, she’d thought she might someday be able to find a cure for this dark hold he had on her heart. To inoculate herself from his charm and expunge the memories of being the center of his world.
    Apparently, however, there was no Boone antidote. Every cell in her body revived, alive, tingling, remembering his smell on a crisp fall day as she dug herself into the cleft of his embrace, his leather jacket cool against her cheek, his arms the one safe place to hide.
    And to prove it, her gaze went straight to his left hand. His ringless left hand.
    Her hands shook as she reached out to grab Davy’s before he could flee. “I’m not back for you,” she said, wishing her voice could work with her a little. “In fact I’m hoping that maybe we could just ignore each other.”
    “You’ve always been a little tough to ignore, Peej.”
    “Don’t Peej me. I’ve moved on. I mean, it’s been ten years, Boone. Good grief, don’t look at me like you’ve been staring at the horizon all this time, waiting for me to appear.”
    “Feels like it.” But he continued to smile, unfazed.
    “I’m serious.” She put everything she hoped she believed in her expression. “I’m just here to babysit. I