Thanks to all who read the first chapter and reviewed and/or alerted! I really appreciate the encouragement.

Please let me know if I have Eliot right . . .


Eliot slowed down for the third time as Jo—and he was sure now it was Jo and not Joe—lagged behind.

She was light on her feet for a woman of her apparent bulk, and anyone who had the strength to break someone's elbow with one swing of a damaged Louisville slugger shouldn't have any problem keeping up with his casual amble. Which meant there was some other reason she was dragging her feet.

If she'd changed her mind, he wouldn't complain— this was the worst possible time to take on a student. The current job wasn't going quite to spec—at least, he hoped it wasn't part of Nate's master plan to have his hitter get shot in some back alley. Wharton was proving to be a relentless hardass, even if his goons were tie-wearing idiots who monologued first and shot too late.

He didn't even know what exactly Jo wanted from him. She couldn't be serious; it would take a lifetime—Eliot Spencer's lifetime, to be specific—to learn to fight like him. It was tough to tell her age underneath the dirt and grimy layers, but he was betting she was too old to start. And anyone with any fire left in them wouldn't be living like she did.

But . . . she was quiet on her feet and alert enough to follow the directions he'd sent her . . . and there was something about the way she'd said clarity, like he'd know just what she meant . . .

He looked back and caught her expression as she passed the open door of an Italian restaurant, moving through the scent of wood—fired ovens. The last time he'd seen longing that intense, he'd had to stop Parker from lifting the Dresden Green Diamond in the middle of a job.

Jo stopped short as a couple cut her off to go inside, their faces turning away as though she didn't exist in their world, or shouldn't. He saw resignation on her face as she wiped her hand down her dirty jacket. She glanced at him, met his eyes, and her entire face went blank and empty. She stuck her hands in her pockets and moved on.

Well, hell. He ought to be hit with the damned bat.

There was a hot dog vendor down the street. He joined the short line and she waited for him against the nearby building, back to the wall, eyes flicking over people and cars. He'd seen ex-cons fresh out of prison who were less cautious about their surroundings.

Then again, it wasn't like he didn't assess his immediate area for potential threats. He was more subtle about it, maybe, but that was just training. The habit was ingrained, from years of necessity. He'd bet hers was, too.

He traded some of the cash he'd liberated for a bag of food and a couple of drinks. He walked up to Jo and handed her a bottle of water. "How 'bout a picnic?"

Her eyes went to the bag and she nodded.

"Wanna walk with me this time? You're givin' me a complex." He kept his voice friendly, but firm.

She studied him for a second, then nodded again.

Jo stayed at his side all the way to the park, even when he stepped up the pace, just to see. She wasn't out of breath, either, when they reached an empty table under a tree. They sat across from each other—she took the downwind side, which was a very good thing, he couldn't lie— and he set a foil-wrapped package in front of her. He opened a bag of organic veggie chips for something to do while she ate.

She unwrapped the hot dog carefully, reverently, her entire attention on the food in front of her. If he hadn't had some idea how hungry she was, he would have figured it out from the way her hands shook as she picked up the dog, keeping the foil between it and her dirty fingers. Figuring she'd bolt it down in three bites, he reached into the bag for another one so she wouldn't have to ask.

But she surprised him. She took a small bite and chewed, eyes half-closed. When that was gone, she took another bite, a little larger this time. She ate half of it that way, while he watched. Slowly, carefully.

So she had self-control . . . interesting.

"You got a place to stay?" he asked, popping a purple chip into his mouth.

She nodded, mouth full, not looking him in the face.

"Inside?"

She swallowed. "Shelters are full right now," she said in her hoarse voice. "It's not that cold."

"It will be soon." But he figured she knew that—there was nothing like living outdoors for couple years to make you truly understand that Mother Nature was a homicidal psychopath.

She shrugged.

He let it be. For now.

She finished the hot dog and he pushed the second one to her. She touched the foil, stopped, took a breath, and pulled back. "Thanks," she said. "Maybe later."

"Go ahead and eat it now," he said. "There are two more in the bag if you want 'em."

"You aren't hungry?" She didn't wait for his answer to start unwrapping.

He held up the bag of chips, not wanting to tell her that nothing short of starvation would make him eat a generic hot dog. "Can I ask you a couple things?"

"Okay."

"What exactly do you want me to teach you?"

She blinked. "Everything," she said, like it was obvious.

He waited, but there didn't seem to be any more coming. "Can you be more specific?"

She set her food aside and folded her grubby hands in front of her. For the first time, she met his gaze square on. In the dim alley, her eyes had looked as muddy as the rest of her, but they were actually a clear, sharp green. "I want to learn how to fight, Mr. Spencer."

"Why?"

A small smile appeared and was gone. "Because it's time."

When she didn't say anything else, he shook his head. "You know that ten-minute demo back there ain't exactly the norm, right?" It was for him, but that wasn't the point. "Most people are better off just learning some self-defense—" she shook her head and his frustration spilled over. "Well, what do you think learning to smack people down is gonna give you?"

She leaned forward and damned if there wasn't a sparkle in her eyes. "Balance. Control. Confidence. Precision. Purpose. I want to do what you do, Mr. Spencer."

He gave her his best stare, the one that could settle Parker down. "You don't know a thing about what I do," he said. "For all you know I'm a stone-cold killer, and those are the good guys lyin' on the ground back there."

She shook her head again. "I'll tell you what I know," she said. "You're part of a team, and you care enough about one of them to want to rip out the throat of the guy who threatened to chop her into little pieces. That threat makes him the bad guy." She took a sip of water. "And as angry as you were, you stopped me from smashing in his skull. That makes you the good guy."

He grunted, but she wasn't finished.

"I also know that the first thing you did after we left was to call someone named Nate and tell him to bring Sophie in, just in case. The call didn't take too long, so Nate didn't argue, but he did ask if you were okay at least twice. So you may be a stone-cold killer and you're probably the muscle of your group, but you mean something to them and vice versa." She coughed and took another drink, obviously not used to talking so much. She tilted the bottle. "And you feed hungry bag ladies."

He grunted again. "You caught me on a good day."

"Right. I've seen you outside your building with that dark-haired woman, the one who likes to play dress-up. You're like the secret service around her. You even seem protective of the blonde, and she annoys the cra—"

He grabbed her arm and she went still. "You been following me?" And he hadn't noticed?

"No," she said, eyes wary. "I didn't have to."

"Explain that," he said, keeping his hold. Her forearm was surprisingly solid under his fingers.

"That building is on my route," she said. "This park, too. Our paths have been crossing for almost a year."

"No," he said, tightening his grip. "I would have noticed you." Was she a plant? Had he been herded down that alley? Maybe not all of Wharton's people were idiots.

She pressed her lips together, but didn't show any other sign that she felt his fingers digging into her. "Mr. Spencer, how many street people did you see yesterday? Say, within four blocks of your building?" she added.

"Seven," he said, automatically.

"Including me?"

He frowned. "I think . . . yeah—across the street when I came out of the office."

She moved her arm a little and he let her pull free. "But I was also there when you went in through the back." She produced a neon orange poncho out of her jacket pocket and put on a sweat-stained baseball cap she'd pulled out of her back pocket. "My grocery shopping outfit," she said.

"You were the one dumpster diving," he said. "Son of a—"

"It's no big deal," she said.

"I should know when people are watching me."

"You do know," she said. "I showed up on your radar, along with everyone else. But since I'm not a threat or in your way, there was no reason for you to remember me."

"Man." He shook his head. She was right, but he still felt criminally negligent for not recognizing the possible security problem. "Hardison is never gonna let me live this down," he muttered.

"I won't tell if you don't," she said, finishing her water. It seemed to have helped her voice, which was settling into a pleasant alto. She spoke well, too, better than he did when he wasn't bothering to try.

"Yeah," he said. He wasn't sure he was going to mention Jo to the team at all, except in passing. Something else occurred to him. "You had any training?"

"I took kick-boxing classes off and on for a couple years, but after the. . . " She looked at her hands. "I, ah, couldn't keep it up."

"So, where'd you learn to swing a bat like that?"

"College softball." Her small smile appeared again. "Made it to the playoffs my senior year."

He couldn't tell if she was joking or not, so he let it slide. "One last question."

She nodded.

"What did you mean when you said clarity?"

She met his eyes again. "You may not believe this, but I have more important things to do than people-watch all day—most of them are just part of the landscape. But there was something about you that caught my attention—I thought I just envied your confidence, your readiness, but it's more than that. It was like I recognized you, because somewhere deep down, we're alike." She snorted softly. "I know that's the last thing you'd want to hear from the crazy homeless lady, but just because it's creepy and embarrassing doesn't mean it's a lie."

Her gaze held him, willed him to understand. "I wouldn't ever have bothered you—it was just something to think about. But when I saw you fight today, the way you moved, the decisions you made, the way it all came together—everything snapped into place for me. I can't explain it better than that. And when I made my own decision and that bat came down . . . it's not bloodlust, Mr. Spencer, if that's what you're worried about. It's . . ." Her brow furrowed under the cap. "I found . . .a center. A direction." She took a breath. "I haven't had either in a very long time."

He looked at her, then, really looked for the first time. He'd thought she didn't have any fire, but as he looked past the smeared filth and the face puffy and shadowed from bad food and worse living conditions . . .

"So," she said, after a long pause. "You say you owe me. But if this is asking too much, I'll understand."

. . . he could see . . .

"I'll even move on, if you want."

. . . something he maybe did recognize . . .

She nailed him with a good imitation of his own stare. "So are you going to teach me, or not?"

There it was. He offered a small smile of his own. "I think I might."

"Yeah?" She grinned back, a real, honest-to-God smile that transformed her face into something better than beauty—if he'd been a poet, he might have called it pure hope.

"I'm gonna take you to see a friend of mine in a little bit. But first things first."

The smile was dropped for a more serious expression. "What?"

"No offense . . . but we need to clean you up a little."

She snorted. "Just a little?" She rewrapped the leftover hot dog, handed it to him to stow in the bag, and swung her legs out of the bench seat. "Lay on, MacDuff," she said, gathering up their trash.

He shook his head. "Softball and Shakespeare?"

She headed for the nearby trash can. "Everyone comes from somewhere, Mr. Spencer."

He couldn't argue with that.


If you have the time to review, please do!