Someone to Watch Over Me by TERESA HILL

know.”
    “It seems different than when I lost my father. Harder, but how can that be?”
    “You were a child. Nobody expected you to handle it well when you lost your father. But now…How old are you?”
    “Thirty, just last month.”
    Gwen nodded. “You’re not a child anymore. I wasn’t, either. I was all grown up, and I never thought anything would come along that could shake me up so completely.”
    He nodded. “Yeah.”
    “This changes the way you look at yourself as an adult. It shows you that you’re not as strong as you thought you were. That maybe things will come along in this life that you can’t handle. At least, it was like that for me. I always thought I was so sensible and capable and strong, even. Last year showed me I didn’t even know I could be so afraid.”
    She realized she was crying and hastily scrubbed away her tears with the back of her hands. But they were dirty. She saw the dirt on her fingers a second after she touched her hand to her face.
    “Here,” Jax said, brushing her hands away before she could even try to fix the mess. “Let me.”
    She gave up on doing it herself. She’d only get his hands dirty as well if she tried. He tugged on the ends of his shirt and used it to wipe away the tears and smears of dirt on her cheeks.
    “I’m sorry. It’s just awful. I wish no one else in the world would ever have to feel like this.”
    “Me, neither,” Jax said, his hands on her cheeks so gentle, he might well make her cry again.
    He was close, too, probably closer than she’d been to any man since the attack, and she waited, wondering if that would scare her, the way it had when other men had gotten anywhere near her.
    Not that there was anything remotely threatening in his presence, and it wasn’t even dark outside. Darkness was the worst.
    “Okay, give me your hands,” Jax said, easing away ever so slightly.
    “You don’t have to do that,” she said, looking straight ahead and finding her gaze on the open V of his shirt, staring at his throat and a bit of sun-browned skin, waiting again for nerves to take over.
    “Hands, Gwen,” he demanded.
    Obediently, she held out one.
    He cupped the back of her hand in one of his, and she made herself stare at that same spot on his throat, not quite sure how she’d come to be in this place, sitting so close to him, talking to him about how horrible things could be and him cleaning her face and hands.
    Life was so strange sometimes, but that shouldn’t surprise her anymore.
    “Can you tell me about what happened to you?” he asked, as if he might have wanted to know what the weather was supposed to be like, and he didn’t look at her. He seemed completely absorbed in the task he’d set for himself.
    The gentleness of his touch, of his voice, the way his presence was somehow soothing and unsettling at the same time…She didn’t know what to make of this man.
    She’d met him three days ago, and already she felt as if he’d turned her life upside down. Her house was different. Her life was different. She’d been so alone, and now there was a warm, flesh-and-blood man sitting on her front steps cradling her hand in his, wiping away her tears and asking her to spill her soul out to him.
    Gwen was thinking, Do I really have to do this? Do I have to tell him every awful thing? While another part of her was thinking that he was a policeman, after all. It wasn’t as if anything she had to say would come as a shock to him.
    “I’ll start for you,” he offered. “It was a year ago.”
    “Nearly.”
    “And it was dark.”
    “Yes.” If she closed her eyes, she could see the darkness again. The rain. The blur of the city streetlight, so far away. She wanted to tell Jax to stop, to go away. To not be kindor understanding or sad for her. To give up on this idea of pushing her out of her shell, whether she was ready or not.
    She felt like she was losing control of her life again, this time to a kind, terribly handsome,