The voice behind him was nothing more than an irritating buzzing in his head. Zack would cheerfully have ignored it, but he felt the slight prick of a knife at his back. Keeping Rachel behind him, he turned and looked into the pale, sooty-eyed face of the mugger.

“How about I let you keep the babe, and you hand over your wallet? Hers, too.” The mugger turned the knife so that the backwash of the streetlight caught the steel. “And let’s make it fast.”

Blocking Rachel with his body, Zack reached in his back pocket. He could hear Rachel’s unsteady breathing as she unzipped her bag. It wasn’t impulse, but instinct. The moment the mugger’s eyes shifted, Zack lunged.

With a scream in her throat and the Mace in her hand, Rachel watched them struggle. She saw the knife flash, heard the awful crunch of fist against bone before the blade clattered to the sidewalk. Then the mugger was racing off into the dark, and she and Zack were as alone as they’d been seconds before.

He turned back to her. She noted that he wasn’t even breathing hard, and that the gleam in his eyes had only sharpened. “Where were we?”

“You idiot.” The words were little more than a whisper as she fought to get them out over the lump of fear in her throat. “Don’t you know any better than to jump someone holding a knife? He could have killed you.”

“I didn’t feel like losing my wallet.” He glanced down at the can in her hand. “What’s that?”

“Mace.” Disgusted by the fact she hadn’t even popped off the safety top, she dropped it back in her purse. “I’d have given him a faceful if you hadn’t gotten in the way.”

“Next time I’ll step aside and let you handle it.” He frowned down at the trickle of blood on his wrist and swore without much heat. “I guess he nicked me.”

She went pale as water. “You’re bleeding.”

“I thought it was his.” Annoyed more than hurt, he poked a finger through the rip in the arm of his sweater. “I got this on Corfu, my last time through. Damn it.” Eyes narrowed, he stared down the street, wondering if he had a chance of catching up with the mugger and taking the price of the sweater, if not its sentimental value, out of his hide.

“Let me see.” Her fingers trembled as she pushed the sleeve up to examine the long, shallow slash. “Idiot!” she said again, and began to fumble in her purse for her keys. “You’ll have to come inside and let me fix it. I can’t believe you did something so stupid.”

“It was the principle,” he began, but she cut him off with a stream of Ukrainian as she stabbed her key at the lock.