Chapter 1

"Yeah, I'll see you in a little while. Ok. Bye."

Snapping his phone shut Eric placed it back in his jean's pocket and turned his attention back to gathering up the files from their last case. Looking at his watch he realized it was going on 5:30. Calleigh had just finished up with her part of the case file, and called to let him know she would see him at her place. The last twenty-four hours had been intense to say the least. Not that fast-paced, high-pressure intense days were unusual for any of them, but it wasn't every day that it was discovered during the course of an investigation that the entire team was being targeted by the Russian mob.

Of course for him, being tracked by the Russian mob wasn't even an unusual occurrence. He had been targeted by them many months before because of the inquiries he had made about his real father. As tiresome as it was his days and nights had been filled with ducking and dodging them ever since. Unfortunately, for all of them the Russian mob had become like cockroaches and worse than the Mala Noche. For every one they took out or put in jail three more cropped up in Miami. He was at least glad that the rest of the team didn't have to deal with the threat alone. Living through that by himself for months on end had turned him into a bit of a paranoid insomniac. He would be the first to admit he had a temper, but there were days where he could be as easy going as the next guy. Unfortunately, that side of his temperament had become non-existent as he dealt with the stress of solving cases at work and the constant awareness that everywhere he went he was being followed, watched, hunted like some sort of animal. That fact alone had made him wary of going anywhere with friends or family just for the sake of protecting them. It had also stopped him from going after what he desired most in the world.

Turning out the lights to the lab Eric waved to a few of his co-workers as he headed to the locker room to get his stuff, still deep in thought. As he reached his locker he leaned his head against the cold metal for a few minutes, sighing deeply. He lifted his hand and pressed it to his forehead as the pounding in his head increased. Because of the bullet stuck there it seemed that most days he had the misfortune of having to walk around with a pounding throb in his head. When he realized it would probably be a permanent thing due to his injury he had learned to suffer these excruciating headaches in silence. The pain always magnified when he internalized and stress began to overwhelm him…well at least emotional stress. Stress generated by the beautiful, petite, curvaceous blonde, Calleigh Duquense. The woman he loved more than life itself. The woman he had almost lost again just that morning because of the Russians. The woman he had been angry at for most of the day. So much so he was actually taking his own sweet time about getting out of there and driving over to her place.

For the first time since the two of them had finally become an official couple he had found himself wanting to be away from her for a little while. Shaking his head, Eric moved his head away from the door, took his bag out of his locker smiling slightly as he thought that at least he was making progress. A second didn't go by that she wasn't in his thoughts. A minute never went by without him wanting to see her. So he took his not wanting to see her for even a few minutes as a good sign that he didn't have to add "obsessive psycho" to his "paranoid insomniac" status.

Heading out to his car he stole another quick glance at his watch. Thirty minutes had passed and he decided to take another half an hour and go for a run. He needed to clear his head and despite the pounding headache that grew more insistent with each passing minute he knew the exercise would help him organize his jumbled thoughts. He knew that he and Calleigh were going to talk about the picture of her and that horse trainer together. When the conversation took place he wanted to be calm and rational. For that to happen he had to get himself together in order to figure out what he was feeling and what was really behind his jealousy. Since the shooting he had developed a bad habit of internalizing his emotions. Emotions that had gotten the better of him earlier in the day and had threatened to boil over when he had seen that stupid picture. Ryan's goading remarks hadn't helped the situation and then when he saw that Calliegh still had the guy's number in her phone it was all he could do not to bite his tongue. His bad habit of internalizing had come in handy otherwise he might have said something in the heat of the moment that he would have regretted. It was bad enough that he had asked her why the guy's number was still in her phone.

He wasn't happy about his little outburst in the morgue as he knew all to well that it had come out sounding like an accusation. Unfortunately, when it came to Calleigh his more primitive instincts seemed to simmer just underneath the surface. She was his and he was hers. As far as he was concerned now that they were together he intended to do whatever it took to keep her. He didn't like another man being in the picture. It was bad enough Jake had come between them and that had taken him a long time to get over. Losing her to someone else wasn't an option, unless of course she wanted to leave him. If that ever happened he would have to find the strength to let her go, and the thought of actually having to do that brought him an almost physical pain. He had never felt like this before and while everyone else talked about love being this wonderful, joyous thing, there was also a vulnerability to it that he didn't like. He had never fallen this hard, this fast for anyone, and there were times, like today, that there was a part of him that wasn't sure if Calleigh felt the same. Then he realized that Calleigh would have never gone down this path if she wasn't as serious about their relationship as he was.

It was those moments of uncertainty that made him crazy. Always confident he had never had someone keep him on his toes like Calleigh did. It probably served him right for playing so many women for so many years. Years before he had gone through one woman after another and once the relationship was over it was over. He just moved on to the next one without really thinking about the emotional turmoil, if there was any, that he left behind. No matter how he looked at it he had been pretty arrogant and heartless in his previous flings and he wasn't proud of his actions. The one thing about himself that he wanted to forget and his memory lapses wouldn't cooperate in that area. Natalia was probably the first relationship he had been in where he had harbored a slight regret at how it had ended. If he were honest that was just because he hadn't been the one to walk away. Thankfully, the two of them had been mature enough to move past it and they had become pretty good friends in spite of it. He would like to think the second chance he had been given also included his chance to get it right in the love department. That meant he had to take the good with the bad and work out every situation as it arose. Now he had Calleigh and what he felt for her was much more than what he had ever felt for anyone…including Natalia. There was no way he would screw it up over something as trivial as an afternoon spent with a horse trainer who apparently didn't matter much in the grand scheme of things.

As he approached the track that was right outside his condo, he completed a few stretches and then set an easy pace, and resolved to remember the conclusion he had come to when he and Calleigh finally had their talk.