Despite the hum of police activity, Jake’s adrenaline still ran high. He’d tackled situations in the desert during war that had rattled him and he’d dealt with them as best he could. You didn’t handle the mall situation as well as you could, Frasier. Not well at all. He knew why. Kathleen McSwain had turned him upside down this week. When bullets started to fly, his first thought was to reach Kathleen and protect her. His first and only thought. Hell, it didn’t make any damn sense. Sure, he’d want to protect a woman in danger, or anyone for that matter. With Kathleen the drive had been almost painfully acute. He hadn’t seen her in years. He’d been in the army since he was eighteen, with no time to mull over his teen years. He gritted his teeth. He’d made serious mistakes when they were adolescents and he didn’t care for how he’d handled meeting her again at Danelle and Patrick’s party last weekend. Seeing her hammered one reality home—she made his blood run hot.
