Lost and Found Pieces 2

on the linoleum floor. Some nights she would be able to shake it off, roll over and go back to sleep. But about once a week she had a dream that left her in cold sweats, her heart racing and her gut churning. Those nights she had to get up to re-center herself.
And on those nights, Mac seemed to sense that something was amiss in the house. Maybe he heard the deadbolt turn on her bedroom door, or the creak of the hallway boards. Somehow, he always knew when she had to get up to chase the demons away and he was there, just on the fringes making sure she was comfortable with tea and blankets and companionship.
Mac never required her to talk, though, either. After he set the tea on the end table, he would move to his favorite chair with whatever book he was reading at the time. If she said something, he was willing to talk, otherwise he just sat with her companionably until she was ready to head back to her bedroom.
Roz watched Mac walk into the room. Right now, he wore a soft tan t-shirt and a pair of green plaid sleep pants. They were a little short for his long legs and she wondered if she could release the hem on them.
Frowning, she looked down into the cup he handed her. The tea was rich and dark and she knew it would be perfectly sweet, just like she liked it. “Thank you,” she told him.
Mac moved to the chair that he liked. The book he’d been reading the night before sat on the end table and he picked it up when he sank into the chair. He gave her a smile, his dark, stubbled cheeks moving.
Zane Mackenzie was a true gentle giant, and a gentleman. Yes, he was a former Green Beret, and she could totally see him going in and helping out a community in a war-torn country. He’d said that they’d done things that he didn’t agree with, though. She didn’t know if he meant politically or what, and she wasn’t going to ask. If he wanted to volunteer the information, he could.
Over the past few months, she’d grown used to having him in the house. He was a calming presence and helped to ease some of her paranoia. After the initial attack several years ago, she’d been hyper-vigilant about her safety. She’d bought this West Virginia mountain hideaway to get away from the craziness of real life in Atlanta, where she moved after the attack. Yes, she loved and needed the serenity, but she also knew that the chances of some man finding her up here were slim to none. And if they did find her, she always greeted trespassers with a loaded shotgun, as Mac found out.
Almost three months ago her friend Andromeda had brought Mac and Parker Quinn, a wounded former SEAL to her hideaway. Mac was a witness to a terrorist attack in a case that Andromeda was prosecuting, and she was doing her level best to keep Mac safe. Parker had been injured getting Mac out of Columbus.
It had been a chaotic day. Andromeda had been to the cabin many times, but Roz had struggled with the men being in her space. Parker’s gunshot wound had been an excellent distraction, and her skills had kicked in like she’d never left emergency care. At the time she was volunteering a day or two a week, but it was mundane stuff compared to gunshot wounds. She’d gotten excited working on Parker, and it was part of the reason why she was picking up extra hours at the health clinic now. Working on him had sparked some excitement in her. Could she walk back into an emergency department and kick ass? Probably not right this second, but she’d gotten back a tiny bit of the passion she’d lost.
Andromeda would be thrilled. Roz appreciated the younger woman’s concern, but it wasn’t like she was going to waste away on the mountain. This place, her place, soothed her like nothing else ever had.
And, she realized, Mac soothed her as well. He was former military, which she loved. If something happened on the mountain, she thought he would definitely be an asset. Already he’d taken over a lot of the day to day running of the cabin. He stocked wood and made sure the generator was full, and he did about half of the cooking and all of the shopping. The man had settled in like a roommate should, and he seemed content. He was on his computer a lot working on a biology paper he wanted to have published. There had also been mention of a book, but she wasn’t sure if he was working on it yet or not. She’d kind of been lost in her own world, dealing with the attacks and trying to maintain her sanity.
If she was honest with herself, which her therapist prodded her to do all the time, she was having issues because of him. Recently she’d been noticing things— manly things— that she hadn’t noticed in a long time. As a rape survivor, she thought it was amazing that she could even acknowledge the handsomeness of a man. Whether he meant to or not, Mac was knocking on that awareness door.
It had started when he’d walked out of the bathroom one day, his beard shaved down to a short stubble. Roz had done a doubletake, because she was so used to the grizzly man. Mac wasn’t unclean by any means— he always took care with his appearance and person— but an unkempt beard sometimes tended to make the rest of the person appear unkempt. So, it was a shock to see all the crazy reddish-brown hair gone.
The first thing her gaze had zeroed in on were his lips. Then it had been a struggle to drag it away. Mac had very nice lips, fuller on the bottom than the top. And when he grinned at