This Side of Heaven

Casey.

Cyn slipped the smooth, creamy chocolate concoction into her mouth, savoring the rich, sweet taste. She dipped the spoon in again and again as she devoured her edible nerve-soother. That's what Mimi called Cyn's addiction to sweets, especially ice cream.

Mimi. That's it. She needed to talk to Mimi. Checking her watch, she saw that it was after midnight. She couldn't call the elderly woman at this hour, no matter how badly she needed a motherly shoulder to cry on. The heart-to-heart talk she so badly needed would have to wait.

While Cyn finished almost a third of a carton of ice cream, she tried to figure out just what she would do if Nate should appear at her door tonight. She'd tell him to get lost. No. She'd thank him again for coming to her rescue, then she'd say a polite goodbye. Or maybe she would invite him in for coffee.

Without even thinking about what she was doing, Cyn got up and prepared her coffeemaker. Just as she flipped on the switch, she realized what she'd done. What was wrong with her? Did she actually want Nate Hodges to come by for coffee? A man like that? A man who carried a deadly knife. A man who had subdued a muscular young man half his age with the ease of a wolf overpowering a rabbit.

She took a deep breath, groaning at the pungent odors her own body and clothes emitted. God, she smelled like a sweaty, smoky, whiskey-perfumed streetwalker. Running her fingers over her face, she realized she probably didn't look much better. She'd overdone the makeup just a bit to­night in the hopes of fitting in at the Brazen Hussy.

Forget about Nate Hodges, about phoning Mimi, about where Bobby and Casey are, she told herself. What she needed was a long soak in the bathtub and a good night's sleep.

Maybe she wouldn't dream about a man with incredible green eyes. * * *

Nate prowled around the den, feeling like a caged ani­mal. If he let himself, his feelings for Cynthia Porter could close in, corner and trap him. He didn't know why, now of all times, she had come into his life. He'd been alone most of his forty-two years. He didn't want or need the compli­cations of a permanent relationship—now or ever. He'd never been in love, had never believed the crap about that undying, forever-after emotion.

Love was only a word. His mother had loved his father, but that love had given her nothing but grief. The man for whom she'd borne a child hadn't cared enough about her to marry her. For all Nate knew, his mother had been one of countless women his father had loved and left behind.

And when his mother had died, he'd been handed over to his uncle, a man who'd taught Nate, early on, that love was for weaklings and only the strong survived. Nate was strong. He'd lived through years of physical and verbal abuse from the man who'd taught him to trust and depend on nothing and no one except himself. Hate was a powerful teacher. And Nate hated Collum Hodges—almost as much as his uncle had hated him.

He didn't want or need a woman in his life, depending on him, caring for him, demanding more of him than he could give. Oh, he'd had his share of women over the years, but he'd never allowed one to mean more to him than a tem­porary pleasure. No woman had ever pierced through the painful scan that protected his heart—except her. The woman from his dreams, the woman with the warm, rich brown eyes, the woman who gave his heart and soul sanc­tuary within her loving arms.

And for some stupid reason he had allowed himself to think, for a few crazy minutes, that Cynthia Porter might be that dream woman come to life. What had given him such delusions? Even if his beautiful neighbor did have the same hypnotic brown eyes, it didn't mean that she was—Stop it! He cursed himself for being a fool. He had more important things to worry about than a woman—any woman.

Ryker was in Miami working for one of the most notori­ous drug families in the country. Nate knew his days were numbered. Soon, maybe sooner than he'd planned, Ian Ryker would go hunting, searching for a man he blamed for the death of his lover and the loss of his eye and hand.

Nate had relived that day a hundred, no, a thousand times, and he knew there was nothing that he or any of the other SEAL team could or would have done differently. They had all regretted that the woman had been killed, ac­cidentally, in the crossfire when she'd tried to protect Ry­ker. Momentarily paralyzed by the sight of his Vietnamese lover's lifeless body, Ryker's reaction to Nate's attack had been a second off, costing him his eye, his hand and per­haps, over a period of time, his sanity.

Nate longed for a drink, a stiff belt of strong whiskey, not the watered-down bourbon he'd been served at the Brazen Hussy earlier tonight. He didn't want to remember Nam or any of the death-defying assignments he'd taken part in during the years he'd been a SEAL. He wanted no more vi­olence in his life. All he wanted was peace.

Running his fingers through his hair, he loosed the band that held the thick black mass into a subdued ponytail, re­leasing it to fall freely down his neck and against his face. He walked over to the three-legged pine cabinet sitting in the corner of the den, opened a drawer and pulled out an al­most-full bottle of Jack Daniel's. Undoing the cap, he tipped the bottle to his mouth and took a short, quick swig. The straight whiskey burned like fire as it coated his mouth, anesthetizing his tongue, burning a trail down his gut when he swallowed.

Hell, he shouldn't need this. He'd never been a man to use liquor to solve his problems. He recapped the bottle and shoved it into the drawer.

Cyn. He'd heard the boy named Casey call her Cyn. What a name for a church shelter worker. She looked like sin— pure, damn-a-man's-immortal-soul type of sin. All soft, female flesh, with round hips, tiny waist and full breasts. And golden-blond hair. God, a man could go crazy think­ing about that mane of sunshine covering his naked body.

But the one thing he couldn't forget about her, no matter how hard he tried, were her eyes. Those rich, warm brown eyes.

Nate took in a hefty gulp of air, then released it slowly. The heady aroma of sweat and smoke and liquor clung to his body, hair and clothes. Damn, he needed a shower—a cold shower—and about eight hours of dreamless sleep.

Within minutes, Nate had stripped and stood beneath the cleansing chill of the antiquated shower in the house's one bathroom, located just off the kitchen. For a while he sim­ply stood and let the water pour over his hot, sticky body. A body heavy with desire.

He had to focus on something besides Cyn Porter, or he'd be up half the night if he didn't settle for a less- than-satisfactory, temporary solution. Think of something pleasant, he told himself. He tried to recall the carefree shore leaves he'd shared with Nick and occasionally with John, days they'd sowed their wild oats in countries all over the world.

But his most pleasant memories were hidden deep in his heart, tucked away in a private section he had marked with No Trespassing signs. The happiest moments of his life had been spent with his mother when he'd been a small boy. Al­though she'd died when he was six, he could still remember what she looked like, what she smelled like, how she'd felt when she'd held him close.

Grace Hodges had been a beautiful woman. Tall, slen­der, elegant. She had been the only person who'd ever loved him, and in the years since her death, he'd often wondered why she hadn't hated him. After all, he'd been a child born to her from a brief affair with a man who had deserted her, and soon afterward had gotten himself killed. Nate's father had been no good. And he was just like his father. His un­cle had told him that—often.

'Your old man was some mixed-breed sonofabitch who ruined my sister's life,' Collum Hodges had delighted in telling Nate. 'If I'd had my way, she would've had an abortion. Our family had the money—we could have found a doctor. But no, she had to have you, and keep you, a constant reminder of her dead lover. She disgraced herself and the whole family. And now, I'm stuck with you, you dirty little bastard.'

Nate told himself that his uncle's taunts no longer hurt him, that he was immune to the racial slurs his dark, His­panic looks had garnered him over the years, especially as a boy growing up in an affluent north Florida Anglo neigh­borhood. The only anguish he endured now was knowing how badly his mother had suffered because she had refused to give away her lover's child.

And what about that lover? Nate had wondered about his father. Who had he been? Had he known, before his death, that Nate existed? And if he had, had he cared?

What difference did any of that make now? Nate asked himself as he stepped out of the shower and reached for a huge white towel. He had enough immediate problems without dredging up any from his childhood.

Drying off quickly, he walked down the hall, his body still damp and totally naked. His bare feet made a slight slap­ping noise as he moved over the slick stone floor. As soon as he entered his bedroom, he reached down, checking un­der his pillow for his K-Bar knife, then fell into bed. The night air felt chilly, but he didn't pull up a blanket or even a sheet. He lay there in the dark room, listening to the quiet, blessing the solitude. He closed his