Nothing could ever be proved.

He’d stayed away from her until the interrogations stopped and he was cleared, but by then Paige and her mother had disappeared.

Zach remained. And every morning he’d wonder if this was the day Paige would come back to him. I’ll make it better. Whatever it takes, anything I need to do …

He realized now, as he slammed the cargo door shut and climbed back into the driver’s seat of the Cherokee, that Paige might not even remember his vow. She’d been lying so still in that hospital bed, weeping her little heart out. Zach had wanted to tear his own flesh out, it hurt so much.

And it hurt to see her now. Wounded. Afraid. Alone.

No surprise that he still wanted, with the same fervor as he had yesterday and every day for the past seven years, to make it better for her. Would make it better for her, fuck it.

He’d worked the streets for two years, training like he didn’t have anything to live for—which, maybe, at the time he’d believed to be true. He’d gotten punched in the gut and in the face, blasted with pepper spray until he was sure he’d be blinded for the rest of his life. Then he’d moved up … and up …

And now he wouldn’t drive off, goddammit. He shut off the engine only a second after he’d powered it up, got out of the car, and slammed the door shut as his cell began vibrating at his hip.

He slapped it to his ear. “Rivers.”

The silence, the breathing behind it, had his body tightening in instant response.

“Um. Detective Rivers?”

The pink hue of sunset was creeping across the skies as he glanced up at her window, noting the sheer drapes were drawn. “Zach,” he said quietly.

“Ah, Zach …”

She seemed to be searching for words. Zach gradually followed the walkway up to her house. “Open your door, Paige. I’m here.”

“Oh.”

She hung up.

When the door opened, Paige stood wide-eyed and breathless, staring at him with the look of a woman who’d sold her soul to the devil and somehow feared he’d come to collect.

Zach braced a hand on the door frame, his heart ramming against his rib cage. He hadn’t felt like this in seven. Years.

He ached to grab fistfuls of her hair and draw her up against his body, to take her lips with his, to slide his tongue into her sweet, warm mouth and remind her what she had felt for him, to do with her everything they’d done before and everything they hadn’t.

Instead he said softly, so softly, “Did you want to talk to me?”

“No.” One nervous hand briskly tucked a strand of wayward strawberry hair behind her ear. “I mean … no, I don’t have anyone to stay with tonight.”

It took Zach one full heartbeat to absorb this.

She could’ve called Cody. Who was older, friendlier even. But she’d called him.