“No one talks about Fight Club.” She spread her fingers wide and rested her palms on her skinny jeans. Her nails were painted a pale blue. She had a tattoo on her inner wrist he was dying to get a better look at. “I gave up on online dating years ago. I get a little obsessive with running background checks and worried I might get caught hacking police databases. Plus, I never met anyone particularly compatible and there are some real creeps out there.”

He bristled at the thought of what those creeps might have done to make her so leery. Cleared his throat. “Dating strangers is always a risk.” Intimacy was always a risk. “It pays to be careful.”

Her eyes hit his. “Yet you persuaded me to get into your truck.”

He checked his mirrors and took a left turn away from her home address. Her eyes widened in alarm.

“Firstly, I’m not a stranger. You know that I’m a member of the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team. Secondly, my teammates saw me leave shortly after you did. If you disappeared or wound up—” he cut himself off. “Anyway, you can trust me and you can trust them. We are the good guys.”

She turned toward him, back pressed against the door as she asked, “So why aren’t we heading straight to my place?”

He was glad she had a good grip on the town’s geography even though she’d only recently moved here. He checked his mirrors again and took another left.

“You’re making sure no one is following us.” She relaxed as the words rushed out and pressed her hand to her chest. “See, this is why I don’t date people I don’t already know. Or hook up with strangers. People are crazy.”

She really didn’t trust easily. Which made his mission more difficult, but not impossible. He liked a challenge. “Not all of us.”

The sound of her laugh raced unexpectedly down his spine. “Oh, please. You guys are crazier than most. You jump out of airplanes and helicopters and go after bad guys when the rest of us run and hide.”

“We’re US law enforcement’s only full-time counterterrorism unit,” he said quietly. “We train non-stop so we can do our jobs as safely as possible. We’re not reckless crazy. We’re prepared crazy.” He raised his broken arm in annoyance. “Which is why snapping this when helping someone down a few stairs is so damn annoying.”

She flinched slightly. “That fall probably saved your life.”

A wave of guilt and grief washed over him.

“It wouldn’t have happened to me.” He’d have set the blasting caps on the wall or noticed the strange quiet and known something was off. It wasn’t Scotty’s fault. He’d been filling in for Shane. It was Shane’s job.