The Intelligence Unit Series

Xander had never had a picture-perfect life. But with Tara lying next to him, warm and curled in at his side, he couldn't think of a better word to describe the feeling that was coursing through him.

It wasn't just that she was perfect, although, damn, she really was. But with her, he felt perfect, too. Like his past didn't make him. Like all of those bad things he'd seen and done had been part of getting him where he was rather than part of who he was now. Like he was worthy of this, lying here with a woman like Tara in his arms.

I want all of you, Xander. No matter what.

His heart clattered at the memory of her words. It would be easy to believe she'd said them in the heat of the moment-after all, the moment had been f*****g scorching. But she'd looked at him so reverently, her fingers on his scar and her beautiful brown eyes wide open, that he knew she meant it.

All he had to do was trust her.

"You're very quiet," Tara murmured, her breath soft on his neck. "You want to talk about whatever's going on up here?"

She reached up to glide her fingers over his temple, and the simple touch unlocked him. "There's a reason I always tell you I'm not a nice guy."

She stilled, but didn't shrink back. "Okay."

Xander knew she wasn't agreeing as much as giving him space to talk to her, and God help him, he took it. "North Point might not be all that far from here in terms of miles, but it might as well be another galaxy in other ways. You've kind of only got two choices growing up in The Hill. You either survive, or you don't. And you learn pretty quick that everyone there will do anything to survive."

"How old were you when you learned?" Tara asked.

"Seven." He didn't even have to think about it. F**k, but he'd know this memory-one of his first-until the day he died. "My dad was never in the picture, really, and my mom worked three jobs, so she left me with Kennedy most of the time. Kennedy's only five years older than me, but she was more like a mom than a sister." All those nights she'd done her best to distract him from how cold their shitty, one-room apartment was, or used all her creativity to tape up the holes in his shoes so they could last just a little longer before she had to cave in and scratch together the money for a new-to-him pair from the thrift store three blocks over.

Xander set those memories aside in favor of the one Tara had asked for. "It was dinnertime, and I was so hungry. School was out, so we didn't have a guaranteed breakfast or lunch. That day, Kennedy and I hadn't been lucky enough to get either. We scrounged for change, but there's nothing you can do with forty cents when you're as hungry as we were. Kennedy even went next door to ask our neighbor if he could spare anything-just a couple pieces of bread and some peanut butter, a can of beans. Pizza crust, God, we'd have taken anything. But all the guy had was cheap beer."

"I'm so sorry," Tara said quietly, her tone turning the words genuine rather than oh-you-poor-charity-case-you. "No one should ever be hungry like that, let alone a child."

She wasn't wrong, and yet... "It was our normal. Kennedy knew we had to eat. She knew we were out of options." Xander took a breath, knowing he couldn't go back once he told her the rest.

But he felt steady in her arms. He trusted her. So, he said, "We walked about four miles-far enough to get out of The Hill, proper-until we got closer to a more decent part of North Point. We waited in the alley behind this bakery for what felt like forever, until the woman working there took out their trash for the night. There were probably a dozen pastries and bagels that hadn't sold mixed in with all the rest of the trash. They were as stale and soggy as hell, barely edible, really, but Kennedy and I didn't care. We dug through the trash to find them and we didn't miss a crumb. We were that f*****g desperate."

"Oh, Xander. You were just trying to survive," Tara said, and the truth of it snapped under Xander's skin.

"That's just it, though. I was always just trying to survive. It starts with things like picking through the trash, or sneaking into the YMCA just to get a shower with hot water. But then you start to realize you'll do anything. You'll toss your moral compass out the f*****g window. You'll lie. You'll steal. You'll hate the people who have more than you. And I did all of those things."

The words poured out of him now, unstoppable. "When you grow up like I did, when you are who I am, the lines start out blurry and they only get worse as you go. Good and bad are all second to surviving, and pretty soon, you just forget that there's a right and wrong. All you know is trying to get through another day, no matter what you have to do to make that happen. I did"-he broke off, his heart pounding so hard he was sure it would break free from his rib cage-"f**k, Tara, I did terrible things. I pushed Kennedy away when she found a way out of The Hill. I let a madman convince me that revenge would make me happy, and I lied and stole and worked the system to try and get it. I let myself believe that the bad things I did were justified, that it was all just the way things worked when you lived like I did. Other people were hurt-badly-by what I did, and I'm never going to be able to erase that."

Pulling back, Tara turned to her side, her eyes bright on his even in the shadows of his bedroom. "No, you're not," she said, and her honesty hit him with an odd sense of relief. "But that doesn't make you a bad person."

"I'm not so sure about that," Xander said, but Tara remained completely firm.

"I am one hundred percent sure of that. Look, if there's one thing I know above all others, it's that you can't change the past. But all those things you did, even the bad ones, are part of you. They got you here. They made you who you are, and who you are is a good man." Christ, how he wanted that to be true. He ached for it from his breath to his bones. But, still... "It's hard for me to believe that sometimes."

"Well, then let me help you out." Reaching toward him, Tara ran her fingers over his forearm until she found his scar. "This may be part of you. But this"-her hand slid to his temple-"gave you what you needed to get back to your sister. And this"-her palm unfolded over the center of his chest, so warm and sweet and good he could f*****g cry-"made you want to become a cop so you could help people. It's the part that loves your sister and brings Amour dinner and chills me out with random stories about rubber ducks. Yes, you've done bad things. But you're still a good man, Xander. You deserve good things. I will always believe that. Maybe it's time you did, too."

And right there, in the dark of his bedroom with Tara's arms around him, for the first time ever, he did.

***

Tara's stomachlet out a growl that could've roused a dead man. She folded both hands over her belly in an effort to hush the thing-hello, body betrayal-but Xander was a cop. Sharp. Intuitive. Trained to notice every detail. Her cover was totally blown.

"Hungry?" Xander asked, looking up from his spot at the other end of his couch, where he'd been watching security footage on a closed-circuit loop on his laptop.

"No, I...well, maybe," she admitted, because he knew her well enough by now to know when she was bending the truth, and she knew him well enough to know he'd totally call her on it. "I kind of skipped lunch. But we're less than two weeks from the trial now, and we still haven't found the guy who attacked Amour."

"It is frustrating that we can't pin down the a*****e who hurt her, and it also sucks that we can't tie Sansone to the attack yet," Xander agreed. "But they're both lying low. That's not entirely bad. The longer they're quiet, the safer Amour is." "Unless Sansone is just biding his time, looking for a way to hurt her," Tara said, worry twisting in her chest.

"He's not going to find one," Xander said. "Amour is as safe as we can possibly make her." He lifted his laptop as proof. "We're monitoring the building with video and in-person surveillance. She's got a panic button with her at all times, and a tracking monitor that will make an unholy racket if she gets more than four feet from the threshold of the apartment. Capelli's keeping tabs on her cell, her email, even her place in North Point. If anyone tries to hurt her, they're going to get caught before they even get close." Tara blew out a breath. "I know. You're absolutely right. I just can't help but feel like there isn't so much as another shoe that's going to drop as a two-ton boulder."

"No boulders," Xander said, putting his laptop aside and leaning in to kiss her. "Anyway, you've been working even harder than we have over in Intelligence. There's no way Sansone isn't going down for murder, and we're still working the case as hard as ever on our side. We'll find the guy who hurt her."

Tara looked at the various legal pads and files scattered over the coffee table by her own laptop, and okay, he wasn't wrong about her channeling pretty much all of her waking time into this case over the past week. "I hope you're right."

Her stomach chose that moment to sound off again, and Xander stood, reaching for her hands. "Okay, that's it. Come on."

"Where are we going?" she asked, although she placed her hands in his and let him pull her to her feet without pause.

"You've been working non-stop. Yes, it's for the best reason," he added, as if he'd anticipated she'd argue (which, okay, she'd planned to). "But you still need to take a break and eat, and I just so happen to know a great place nearby."

Returning her stare to the pile of work on the coffee table, Tara hesitated. But her temples throbbed and her eyes burned from alternating between the glare of her laptop and the Mount Everest of notes she'd taken. Plus, Xander was right. She did have to eat eventually, no matter how badly she wanted to catch a break in this case.

"Sounds great."

They made their way from his apartment to the street, which was finally cool enough to make the two-block walk to his car comfortable. Tara's nerves unwound with each passing second they walked hand in hand, although her mind still swam with thoughts of the trial. The short trip into downtown Remington had barely registered before it was behind them, and Xander pulled up in front of a brightly lit bar and grille.

"You ready for the best onion rings of your life, fresh out of the fryer?" he asked, and Tara's gut panged behind her jeans. God, had she really been distracted enough by this case not to realize he'd take her to his sister's restaurant?

"Are you sure about this?" she asked, eyeing the bustling dining room through the large front windows. "I mean, your sister and her husband and, like, everybody is all in there, right?"

"Probably." He nodded. "The crew at Station Seventeen isn't on shift tonight, and it is Friday. Everyone from the Thirty-Third is bound to be here, too. One big, happy family."

The thought should overwhelm her, she knew. Such a big, tightly knit group of friends, all of them caring for each other-honestly, it should scare the hell out of her. Yet somehow, with Xander sitting right there beside her, it didn't. Nothing did.

But this was Xander, guarded and tough, so she said, "Yeah, but they're your big, happy family. I know you like to keep your personal stuff close to the vest, so if you think-"

"I think," he said, pulling her close for a kiss that hushed her words in the best possible way, "that you are my personal stuff. Unless the thought of meeting everybody makes you uncomfortable."

His eyes flickered with concern, but Tara shook her head. "No. I'd actually really like that."

"Good. Me, too."

They got out of the car and headed through the front door. The wait for familiar faces was short, a chorus of voices bursting up from a table by the front window.

"Hey!" Isabella stood, her eyes twinkling in welcome as she tugged first Xander, then Tara, into a pair of hugs. "We were hoping you two would show up tonight." Posted by FindNovel.net; visit us for more free novels.

"Oh." Tara blinked. "Well, we were working on the case, but decided to take a break."

Isabella squeezed Tara's arm. "I'm glad. Everyone needs a breather. While we're in here, there is no case."

"Damn, babe. You've come a long way," came a male voice from beside Isabella, and she rolled her eyes playfully even though she put a healthy swat to the guy's not-small biceps.

"Mmm. Tara, have you met my smartass husband?" Isabella asked, and the dark-haired guy flashed Tara a killer smile.

"Kellan Walker. It's nice to finally meet you."

"You, too," Tara said, her smile in return practically involuntary at his kind welcome.

"These guys have said great things about you." Kellan extended one hand in greeting as he used the other to thumb a gesture toward the group at the table behind him, where Garza and Hollister sat with Capelli and a woman with a light brown ponytail and a curious-as-hell stare. "They're all true," Xander put in, and Kellan turned toward him with a laugh.

"I don't doubt it. But I was not saying nice things about you the other night when you were kicking my a*s up and down the basketball court. You d**k."

The handshake/half-embrace/back-slap that followed took all the heat out of the words, and Xander answered just as easily. "You know I'm going to do it again next week, don't you?"

"We'll see, hotshot. We'll see."

"Oh, my God, stop drowning this poor woman in testosterone," the other woman at the table said, shaking her head apologetically at Tara. "We can't take them anywhere, really. Shae McCullough." She stood and extended her hand warmly. "It really is great to meet you, all chest thumping aside."

"Oh, you're the adrenaline junkie," Tara blurted, clamping down on her lip a millisecond too late.

But everyone at the table just laughed, Shae the loudest. "I see the rookie's been doing me justice. I knew I liked you," she said, ruffling Xander's hair.

"Hey, it's not my fault you live to rappel down six-story buildings and elevator shafts," Xander pointed out, returning Shae's hello hug with a grin.

"You really did do her justice. She'll jump off of nearly anything as long as her gear will hold," Capelli said, a rare smile on his serious face that probably had everything to do with the way the female firefighter had just leaned in to kiss him.

"Come on, honey. What else are buildings for if not to scale them?"

Oh, Tara liked her.

The group made room for her and Xander to sit down, and a passing server took their order for a much-needed dinner. The conversation flowed back and forth with ease, sometimes between the entire group, and other times among smaller side discussions. Quinn and Luke Slater wandered over from the group of firefighters hanging out in the alcove by the pool table to say hello and ask how Amour was doing, both of them seeming genuinely glad to hear of her full recovery. The pair said their goodbyes not long after, though, and Tara sat back to soak in the happy chatter around her.

"You fit right in," Garza said from the seat next to her, his voice low enough to keep the observation between them in the din of the restaurant.

"Doesn't seem too hard with this group," Tara replied. Everyone had been so nice, welcoming her into the fold with their questions and stories and jokes. She was still a little nervous to meet Kennedy, who Xander had gone to say a quick hello to but was currently working her way through the last throes of the dinner rush. Other than that, Tara had felt shockingly right at home.

"Yes and no." Garza took a draw from the beer bottle between his fingers, his dark eyes surveying the group as they chatted away. "Don't get me wrong. They're good teammates. The best I've ever had, actually."

His pause lasted for a beat, but Tara waited it out patiently. This was definitely a side of the detective she'd never seen before-he was usually over and out in under seven syllables. She didn't mind giving him space, though, and after another moment, he took it. "I guess it just depends on what baggage you bring to the table, you know? They're quick to accept the people who have their backs, but..."

"Sometimes it's hard to let them?" Tara supplied, laughing softly when Garza's dark brows lifted in surprise. "Yeah, I actually know a thing or two about that, as it turns out. But I'm slowly learning that it's worth it to trust the right people."

One corner of Garza's mouth kicked up into what Tara would bet was as close as he got to a smile. "Right people, or right person?"

His gaze shot meaningfully to Xander, who was absorbed in conversation with Kellan and Isabella, and even though Tara's cheeks heated, she didn't shy away from the question.

"The right person can change everything." At Garza's look of doubt, she added, "You don't think so?"

"No shade intended," he said quietly, lifting his hands. "For you, it's clearly true, and that's cool. You and the rookie deserve to be happy."

"But not you," she said.

If Garza minded her forthright question, he didn't show it. "For me, happy's a little more complicated. I'm more of a 'casual person' kind of guy."

Well, that was hardly shocking. Objectively speaking, Garza was good-looking as hell, with that dark and broody thing going on that made most women want to fling their panties around. He probably had no shortage of people wanting to share his bed, even short- term.

"I don't think I ever would've believed the whole 'one right person' thing before now. I'm still trying to get my head around it, to be honest," Tara admitted.

"You look like you're knocking it out of the park," Garza said, taking a long draw from his beer. "Maybe you should just run with it."

Tara looked at Xander, his expression laid back and his smile growing wide as he met her gaze from across the table and held on tight.

Yeah. It was too late to run with it. Her heart had already taken a huge head start, and being with Xander felt far too good not to let the rest of her follow.