She went around the block and turned in the direction of the rec center. Danny Gates’s ugly yellow car was still in her parking space. She pulled to the curb half a block away and got out, locking the cruiser and pocketing her keys.

She was just going to meander inside and poke her nose into Ron’s office for a moment. She’d been volunteering here for two years; she was in and out of Ron’s office all the time. So why did she suddenly feel nervous and guilty about it?

Because, she thought, she didn’t want Danny Gates with his devil’s grin and sexy, not-quite-definable air of danger to catch her at it this time. And Fran might be around somewhere. Sometimes she came in early to set up for bingo. For some reason Molly realized that she didn’t want Fran to know what she was up to, either.

Molly slid into the vestibule and waited for a moment, listening. There were no basketballs thumping in the gym. He was probably upstairs. She stepped into Ron’s office and closed the door quietly behind her. The resulting clicking sound seemed furtive even to her own ears. She moved over to his desk and found what she was looking for right there, on top, in the center of his blotter: Danny Gates’s application.

It was typed. That was very weird.

She pulled her cell phone from her trouser pocket again, and this time she hit in the number of the Department of Motor Vehicles. She ran his Social Security number.

“He just registered a car today,” the woman at DMV said after a moment. “All the paperwork hasn’t caught up yet, but his last known address was the state penitentiary.”

Molly felt her legs fold suddenly. She turned around fast and sat in Ron’s chair. “The pen?”

“Please tell me, Officer, that you’re not standing at the side of the road with this guy pointing a gun at you.”

“Oh, no. It’s nothing like that.”

“Well, good. Anything else I can do for you?”

“Not a thing.” Molly disconnected.

She would make one more phone call, she decided. She looked at her watch. It wasn’t quite five o’clock yet. Ralph would still be at his desk.

She’d dated Ralph Bunderling once, eighteen months ago. He was a probation officer. He was the kind of man who normally went for lady cops. Not a Danny Gates kind of man. She’d known better, she chided herself. She’d known from the start, when her stomach had somersaulted and she hadn’t been able to get her air, she’d known that a man like Danny coming on to a woman like her was just…well, flat-out too good to be true.

He was the bad-boy-hero type and she was no big-breasted bimbo. She was a woman who was a whole lot smarter than to get goofy-eyed over an ex-con.

“Damn it.” Molly dropped her forehead briefly against the desk.

Ralph was more her speed. Ralph and his kind adored her. Ralph was quiet, timid—basically spineless. He craved an authority figure in his life. Maybe it was her badge, or maybe it was her stubborn strength or her nonstop mouth, as Beau Maguire had said earlier. Maybe it was even the fact that her physical attributes were all—to her way of thinking—just a tad on the side of average. Either way, the Ralph Bunderlings of the world flocked to her while the Danny Gateses…well, the ones who didn’t have records just pretty much ignored her.

She’d let Ralph down gently so he was glad to hear her voice when he picked up his line. “Molly! It’s been a long time.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I’ve been very busy. Listen, I need a quick run on a Social. I’m on the city’s clock right now.” She winced a little at the inferred lie.

“Certainly. Absolutely. Anything. Just read it to me.”

Molly did. She could hear Ralph’s fingers clicking on the computer keys in the background.

“Got him,” Ralph said. “Daniel Gates. He was released today, parole for good behavior after six years. He ran a basketball program at the prison. He’s not part of my caseload. The parole department has him.”

“What did he do?”

“Armed robbery.”

Her stomach wanted to heave. She pressed a hand to it.

“Oh, now, here’s something interesting,” Ralph continued. “His parole officer got him a job at that rec center you help out at. Hey, he’s living there, too.”

“No kidding.”

“You’ll keep him on the straight-and-narrow, Molly. I have faith in you.”

“Thanks,” she said hollowly. “Anything else?”

“Well, they finally got him on the convenience store holdup but prior to that he had a rap sheet going back to the time he was eleven. Those were just loitering and vagrancy charges when he was a kid, though. You know how it is, they don’t want to go home for the night, they hang out somewhere else. And good cops like you get them.”

“Like me. Right.”

“By his late teens, he was already wrapped up with the Mercados.”

“The Mercados?” How much worse could this get? Her head spun. “Any charges there?”

“No, none. It’s just in his backup bio. A rumored association is what we call it. He was clean from his last vagrancy charge at sixteen until six years ago when he held up the store.”

“Thanks, Ralph. That’s what I needed to know.” She fumbled her thumb over her phone buttons, disconnecting, and stood unsteadily from Ron’s desk. Then the door opened.

The ill-fitting clothes he’d worn earlier—prison issue, she understood now—were gone. Danny stood there, the doorknob in one hand, those dangerous dark eyes of his steady on hers. He wore navy-blue gym shorts and a T-shirt emblazoned with—of all things!—TEXAS A & M.

These clothes fit. Nicely. He must have gone shopping, she thought inanely.

“Great legs,” she said hoarsely, trying to smile.

He ignored that. “You really put in the hours here, don’t you…Officer?”

So he knew she was a cop. He must have done some digging on her, too. It made absolutely no sense that that should please her, especially under these new circumstances.

Molly licked her lips. “That’s me. Dedicated. Ron called me and asked me to stop by to…ah…check on something.”

“Something like me?”

He noticed that she had the good grace to flush. Her gaze slid away. A cop. Damn it, it still burned at him two hours later.

The law had been his enemy for too many years. He might be starting over with a clean slate, but damned if he wanted to snuggle up to a narrow-minded, handcuff-toting police officer who wouldn’t know a guy was being set up if the proof jumped up and bit her on the nose. And he had been thinking about snuggling up to her. Life had been starting to look good for a little while there. That was the pity of it.

“Were you with Mission Creek six years ago?” he asked sharply, then he heard his own question and fought off the urge to wince. What difference did it make?

“No,” she said stiffly. “I was in Laredo back then.”

“Were you a cop there, too?”

She nodded.

“Got it in your blood, have you?”

It drove into her heart like a knife. “No. It didn’t start out that way.” Mickey had changed everything.

So she hadn’t been one of those in that interrogation room with him six years ago, Danny thought. They hadn’t heard a word of explanation he gave, just stared at him with contempt in their eyes. Then again, he’d known she hadn’t been a part of that. There was something about her…something vibrant and vital and worn stubbornly on her sleeve. He’d have remembered her, Danny knew, if she had been there.

“What are the odds that you’ll end your involvement with this place?” he asked evenly.

She brought her chin up. “Because of you?” She gave a little snorting laugh. “Slim and none.”

“That’s what I thought. But I don’t want to cross paths with you.”

“Finally we agree on something.” And he couldn’t leave the center, at least not without seriously ticking off his parole officer, she thought. Whatever else he was, he didn’t seem stupid.

“Then here’s how we’re going to do this,” he said. “From now on, you just stay on your side of the gym and I’ll stay on mine. I changed my mind. I don’t like you after all.”