Full Bloom

for my own good, I will promise not to strangle you before we get to Seattle."
    Jacob smiled his slight, faintly menacing smile. "It's a deal."

TWO
    « ^ »
    I t was a long drive to Seattle. Emily wanted to nap and found it impossible to relax. Her thoughts were churning in the caldron of her mind as she tried to sort out the wholly unexpected twist her life had taken this evening. She had assumed she would probably never see Jacob again. She simply had not been prepared to encounter him tonight. Most of all, she found it difficult to believe that he actually wanted her the way she had been longing for him all these years. It was too much to absorb in one night.
    Jacob drove with an expert's smooth touch, but Emily was still uncomfortable. It was his presence in the car, not his driving, that kept her awake. He dominated the small vehicle, filling it with his quiet male power. Emily's only means of retreat was into silence.
    When he realized she was not going to respond to his efforts to continue the conversation, Jacob, too, fell silent. It wasn't until he neared the city that he spoke again.
    "I have your address. It's downtown somewhere, isn't it? You'd better give me directions," he said.
    Emily stirred and told him the route to her apartment building. He followed her instructions without comment. But when he drove the compact into the yawning mouth of the underground garage he glanced around disapprovingly.
    "This isn't a good place for you to be arriving alone late at night."
    "You sound like my parents and Drake. They came to visit once shortly after I moved in, and all they could talk about was the garage. I'll give you the same answer I gave them. I've survived so far."
    She opened the car door as Jacob drove into the parking slot she'd indicated. As she pulled on her coat and retrieved her purse, she acknowledged privately that the garage did seem more than a little forbidding at this hour. Footsteps rang hollowly and the lighting was rather dim. But she was not about to admit the place made her nervous on occasion.
    "You can't blame your family for wanting you to be safe," Jacob said as he climbed out of the car.
    "My family has tried to protect me since the day I was born. It gets a little wearing at times."
    "Sometimes you need protection. You've always had a talent for getting yourself into trouble." Jacob walked beside her toward the elevators. "Take this situation with Damon Morrell, for example."
    "Stop worrying about Damon Morrell." Emily stabbed the elevator call button and then shoved her hands into the pockets of her green wool coat.
    "When are you going to tell him you won't be seeing him again?" Jacob asked calmly as the elevator doors slid open.
    Emily raised her eyebrows above the black frames of her glasses and asked smoothly, "Who says I'm not going to be seeing Damon again?" She was proud of the easy way that came out.
    Jacob surveyed her with a cool-eyed gaze. "Don't play games, Emily. You're a little too innocent and naive for your own good at times, but you're no fool. You know that what you heard on that tape tonight wasn't faked. Nor was any of the other evidence your family produced."
    "You mean the evidence
you
produced at their request. Why should I trust you, Jacob? Give me one good reason."
    "You may not like me very much, Emily, but I think you know I wouldn't manufacture a pack of lies."
    She eyed his stark features, vibrantly aware of the cold pride in his voice. "I don't know you very well at all, Jacob. At one time I thought I did, but that was a long while ago. Back in my innocent and naive days."
    "You should know your own family well enough to know they wouldn't resort to lies. They may not be very subtle at times, but they're honest. And they wouldn't have asked my help if they didn't think they could trust me. Stop looking for excuses." His expression softened slightly. "And stop pretending you don't trust me. You know damned well I'd never do anything to hurt you."
    "Unless, of course, it was necessary for my own good," Emily retorted smartly as she stepped off the elevator and into the gray-carpeted hall. She reached into her purse for her keys.
    "Emily, I know you've had an upsetting evening, but that's no reason to act like this. Face facts and admit you got hoodwinked by Morrell."
    Emily turned the key in the lock, pushed open the door and then turned to confront him from the safety of her own threshold. "It wasn't Damon who misled me, Jacob. It was my honest,