Hold on to Me by Linda Winfree

false. Caitlin didn’t want him near her right now, but they’d been as into one another as two people could be. That level of physical need didn’t just go away.
    He hated the knowing look that crossed his sister’s face. Tori tossed back her hair. “Trust me. She’s very attracted to you.”
    Attraction wasn’t the issue. Trust was. He was finally figuring that out, now that the anger and hurt over her rejection was receding a little. The physical tug between them was too strong to ignore, but something kept her from letting it go deeper than that. The puzzle was driving him nuts.
    Tori nudged his arm. “C’mon, Lamar Eugene, you’re staring into space. What’s going on? Tell little sister all about it.”
    “I’m not discussing this with you. Nothing’s going on.” He shook his head, walking away. Yeah, Caitlin was attracted to him. He’d have to be blind not to see that. During the myriad interviews they’d conducted last night, he’d looked up and caught her watching him more than once, a hunger in her eyes that made him burn.
    Damn it all, none of this made sense.
    He jerked the truck door open, gaze straying to Jeff’s flaring brake lights as the unit pulled out of the parking lot. Footsteps crunched on the gravel behind him.
    “You know what you need?” Tori leaned against his hood.
    “Don’t say it.” He dropped his tone to the stern warning he’d used when she was a teenager. It hadn’t worked then, so he didn’t hold out a lot of hope that it would work now. She was like a runaway semi when she got on a tear, and she always felt she had to try to fix everyone’s problems.
    “Oh, get your mind out of the gutter, Lamar. I was going to say an afternoon fishing, but what you’re thinking would do wonders for your mood.”
    “Tori, go away. Do your job. Help somebody.”
    “Good Lord, you’re a grouch. And I’m trying to help somebody. I just…I want you to be happy, and I think you could find so much with her.” Her expression turned sober. “What happened to her, Tick?”
    His nerves jerked in response to the quiet, simple question. “What makes you ask that?”
    She shrugged, brows drawn together in a puzzled frown. “She’s…different. Tense, withdrawn. Doesn’t look like she’s had a decent night’s sleep recently, either.”
    “She has a tough job, Tor.”
    She pinned him with a cynical look. “No one’s job is that tough. She looks like she can’t stand to be in her own skin.”
    She had to say that. Tick shuddered. He’d heard it before—Tori had screamed the same words at him in an agonized rage mere weeks after Reese had raped her. His stomach pitched and he lifted a hand to wipe beads of sweat from his upper lip. It was one thing for him to see changes in Caitlin, quite another for Tori to see the same. If Tori saw it, too, it might be real.
    “Tick, what is going on?” Her worried voice penetrated the icy dread gripping him. “I haven’t seen you look like that since—”
    “I don’t know.” The raspy whisper hurt his throat, but the horrific possibilities rolling through his mind hurt worse. He pushed his hair away from his forehead, fingers pressing against his skull. Lord, what secret was Caitlin keeping locked up inside? “She hasn’t said anything. Look, we’re just speculating. Like I said, it could be nothing more than job stress.”
    Even he didn’t believe his reassurances.
    “If I were you, I’d keep an eye on her. I know that look.”
    He expelled the air from his lungs in a harsh breath. “Yeah?”
    “Yeah. I used to see it in the mirror every day.”
    * * *
    From the nature CD, the soft strains of Mozart’s “La Clemenza di Tito” blended with a pattering rain and croaking frogs. Eyes closed, Tick sat in his darkened office, glad the thick blinds and sheltering oak trees cut the insistent sunlight. Head tilted back, he pushed his shoulder blades into the chair and concentrated on breathing in and out in a slow rhythm. The