Page 3 of Robb

His fingers twitched at the pocket where his cuffs were hidden, but then he lowered his hand.

“Put those down,” he said, gesturing at her hands. Her eyes widened in surprise, the first time he’d seen her be anything other than completely put together. “For now, anyway,” he clarified. “I want to talk, and we can’t do that if you’re making a scene.”

He was suddenly, painfully aware of the stupid glasses he was wearing, and he wanted nothing more than to tear them off, but he resisted the urge. He didn’t need to show his face to any more people here than absolutely necessary – and looking like an idiot was, if anything, helping him to blend in with the crowd.

He didn’t have to like it, though.

The yacht lurched suddenly as a particularly strong gust of wind barreled across the harbor, and Robb abruptly found Tahnee pressed up close against him, her fingers splayed over his chest, her breath ghosting across his face.

Robb knew that she had better balance than that – he’d seen her pulling off some pretty impressive moves when she’d escaped him on previous occasions.

Which was also how he knew that she had to have some kind of ulterior motive for letting him catch her now – no one who wanted to get caught would have led him on such a merry chase over the highest point of the Harbour Bridge, or made her escape by hitching a ride on top of the Sydney monorail while he watched helplessly from below.

But now, though, she was pressing him firmly into the yacht’s railing, the deceptively gentle hand against his chest producing a surprising amount of force. It was nothing Robb couldn’t escape if he wanted to… but, he was coming to realize with a mounting discomfort, he wasn’t sure he actually wanted to.

Heat ran through his body, spreading from where her hand sat against his chest and moving southward.

Who was this woman, who had no fear of him – who courted danger even when there was no need for it? And why hadn’t he arrested her already?

“Talk,” he said gruffly, fighting the urge to pull her hand off his chest. Let her think it wasn’t having an effect on him.

“About…?” Tahnee asked, tilting her head slightly.

Anything, an insubordinate voice in his head wanted to say. Tell me the weather forecast, if you have to. Read the phone book to me. I just want to hear your voice.

“About why I shouldn’t arrest you,” he said, forcing himself to keep his voice level. “Tell me anything that might work in your favor.”

His dingo growled again, clearly pissed off that he was giving her any sort of opportunity to worm her way out of this.

It had been just as determined as Robb to track her down, but it clearly wasn’t having the same kind of second thoughts as he was having. Although there was the very slightest hint of doubt at the back of its mind – it wanted to arrest her, but clearly it was also feeling some sort of doubt about it as well, even if it wasn’t quite sure why.

Tahnee raised one perfect eyebrow. “Well, I already told you to arrest me, so I don’t know why you’re asking me why you shouldn’t. I’d been under the impression that you were smart, but maybe I was wrong.”

Robb felt his eye twitch ever so slightly, but kept his silence.

“As to your other question – or demand, I guess,” Tahnee went on, her hand warm against his chest, “all I can say is that I stand by everything I did, and I’d do it again. All of it.”

That was enough to snap him out of his daze – or at least somewhat, anyway. Certainly his dingo was urging him to get the cuffs out right now, and Robb had to say that he was tempted.

“You’ve helped forty-three criminals escape –”

“Forty-seven,” Tahnee added cheerfully.

“Forty-seven criminals escape,” Robb continued, his voice low and angry, even as he wondered which ones the Agency had missed. “Forty-seven shifters who’ve broken both shifter and human law. Forty-seven shifters with a range of abilities that make them incredibly dangerous. Do you really have nothing to say to that?”

Tahnee let her hand drop from his chest as her expression grew serious, and Robb felt a pang of intense regret at the loss of her touch, even through his anger.

“What do I have to say to that?” she said, her voice quiet but strong. “Just that I helped forty-seven shifters turn their lives around. That there are now forty-seven shifters who are doing good in the world, which they couldn’t do if they were locked up inside a prison, serving outsize sentences for crimes that were committed out of desperation.”

Robb’s dingo tensed, baring its teeth. Robb tensed, too, though the determination in Tahnee’s eyes was having more of an effect on him than he would’ve thought. She looked like she truly believed that she was helping hard-done-by shifters to get the lives they deserved, rather than setting hardened criminals free to do whatever they liked with a new identity.

“Forty-six,” he said, his jaw tight.

Tahnee blinked. “Sorry, what?”

“Forty-six,” Robb repeated. Or fewer, he wanted to add. He was having trouble believing that the rest of them had gone straight.

At her obvious confusion, he went on, “You remember Jenny Ballantyne? Or maybe you know her better under the new name you helped her to obtain: Rebecca Lanley.”