At Home in Stone Creek (Silhouette Special Edition) by Linda Lael Miller

couldn’t help it. He’d had a lot of practice at staying alive, and his survival instincts were in overdrive.
    Chad Lombard couldn’t have tracked him to Stone Creek; there hadn’t been time. But Jack was living and breathing because he lived by his gut as well as his mind. The small hairs on his nape stood up like wire.
    Using one foot, the Glock clasped in both hands, he eased the sewing room door open by a few more inches.
    Waited.
    And damn near shot the best friend he’d ever had when Tanner Quinn strolled into the kitchen.
    â€œChrist,” Jack said, lowering the gun. With his long outgoing breath, every muscle in his body seemed to go slack.
    Tanner’s face was hard. “That was my line,” he said.
    Jack sagged against the doorframe, his eyes tightly shut. He forced himself to open them again. “What the hell are you doing here?”
    â€œPlaying nursemaid to you,” Tanner answered, crossing the room in a few strides and expertly removing the Glock dangling from Jack’s right hand. “Guess I should have stuck with my day job.”
    Jack opened his eyes, sick with relief, sick with whatever that goon in South America had shot into his veins. “Which is what?” he asked, in an attempt to lighten the mood.
    Tanner set the gun on top of the refrigerator and pulled Jack by the arm. Squired him to a chair at the kitchen table.
    â€œRaising three kids and being a husband to the best woman in the world,” he answered. “And if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to stick around long enough to see my grandchildren.”
    Jack braced an elbow on the tabletop, covered his face with one hand. “I’m sorry,” he said.
    Tanner hauled back a chair of his own, making plenty of noise in the process, and sat down across from Jack, ignoring the apology. “What’s going on, McCall?” he demanded. “And don’t give me any of your bull crap cloak-and-dagger answers, either.”
    â€œI need to get out of here,” Jack said, meeting his friend’s gaze. “Now. Today. Before somebody gets hurt.”
    Tanner flung a scathing glance toward the Glock, gleaming on top of the brushed-steel refrigerator. “Seems to me, you’re the main threat to public safety around here. Dammit, you could have shot Ashley—or Sophie or Carly—”
    â€œI said I was sorry.”
    â€œOh, well, that changes everything.”
    Jack sighed. And then he told Tanner the same story he’d told Ashley earlier. Most of it was even true.
    â€œYou call this living, Jack?” Tanner asked, when he was finished. “When are you going to stop playing Indiana Jones and settle down?”
    â€œSpoken like a man in love with a pregnant veterinarian,” Jack said.
    At last, Tanner broke down and grinned. “She’s not pregnant anymore. Olivia and I are now the proud parents of twin boys.”
    â€œAs of when?” Jack asked, delighted and just a shade envious. He’d never thought much about kids until he’d gotten to know Sophie, after Tanner’s first wife, Katherine, was killed, and then Rachel, the bravest seven-year-old in Creation.
    â€œAs of this morning,” Tanner answered.
    â€œWow,” Jack said, with a shake of his head. “It would really have sucked if I’d shot you.”
    â€œYeah,” Tanner agreed, going grim again.
    â€œAll the more reason for me to hit the road.”
    â€œAnd go where?”
    â€œDammit, I don’t know. Just away. I shouldn’t have come here in the first place—I was out of my mind with fever—”
    â€œYou were out of your mind, all right,” Tanner argued. “But I think it has more to do with Ashley than the toxin. There’s a pattern here, old buddy. You always leave—and you always come back. That ought to tell you something.”
    â€œIt tells me that I’m a jerk.”
    â€œYou won’t