Samantha swore to herself that under other circumstances she would never have acted so...weak around Holt. But after having shock after shock piled on top of her, one after the other, she admitted that she'd probably managed to keep a good handle on herself.

At least she hadn't jumped into his arms and blubbered like an idiot. She could forgive herself for shedding a few tears as she sat beside him in the car, but by the time they reached her apartment, she hand herself under firm control.

She had a stalker to worry about, and that wouldn't leave her time to worry about her intense reaction to Holt's touches, to his kisses, to his mere presence near her.

Josh had followed them to the party—although she hadn't had a clue about it, apparently he had—and he was still there even now. More than once while she'd been standing around in an apparent state of shock, he'd come up to her and asked if she was sure she was okay. She'd told him not to worry.

But she was worried.

If that...that man had followed her here, he was probably more psychotic than she'd guessed. And knowing a psycho was chasing her around the state didn't exactly make her feel safe.

Holt parked in her driveway, and when they got out, he led the way to her front door where he stopped and waited for her to unlock it. This time, it was locked. After they'd left, Josh had apparently locked the place up for her before he'd driven to the clinic for the surprise party.

It almost seemed silly now to have Holt look the place over. Surely not even a psycho would stick around her apartment for over two hours waiting for her to return. Still...it wouldn't hurt to be cautious.

"I'll start at the far end of the house and work my way back to the living room. Why don't you wait in here for me?"

"I'd rather—"

His hard-eyed look stopped her from finishing her sentence. No, it probably wouldn't be best if she followed him through the place.

"Sure, I'll wait here," she muttered. As soon as he started off down the hall, Sam plopped down on the sofa. Then she noticed the contents of her purse, still scattered off to the side of the front door. In the excitement and anxiety of thinking someone was in her apartment, and then getting that phone call about Uncle Oscar, she'd totally forgotten that she'd dropped her purse earlier.

She heard doors opening and closing throughout the apartment as Holt scoured the place from top to bottom. Funny, but she trusted him not to skimp in his examination of the rooms. She could almost imagine seeing him look under the beds and in all the closets of the 2 bedroom apartment. It wouldn't take long, no matter how thorough he was.

Still, her nerves wouldn't stand for her to sit still for even that long, so she got up and headed over to the scattered mess on the floor. She'd picked up over half the stuff laying there when she came to the folded piece of paper. She stared at it, knowing what it was before she even opened it.

A page from her diary.

There was no logical reason for it to be torn free of the spiral bound book she kept in her room, in the bedside table. No reason at all.

She reached for the lavender colored page with a shaking hand, almost afraid even to touch it. Would the words be the same? Would the warning be written in red ink?

"Is everything okay?"

Sam jumped, startled at the closeness of Holt's voice. Twisting her head around, she saw Holt standing just behind her left shoulder.

"I think...I think I've been left a message by the stalker."

A scowl darkened Holt's rugged features. "Don't touch it. It could be evidence."

"Evidence?" she questioned softly. No. It wouldn't be evidence. The man who'd stalked her had never been foolish enough to leave evidence behind.

Holt's voice was gruff. "I want to see it."

But not before she looked at it first, she thought. It was a page from her diary, after all, and over the last few nights, she'd written some very personal things—about Holt. Before she lost her nerve, she grasped the page, flipped it open, and read.

She felt heat suffuse her face and neck.

Holt held his hand out over her shoulder. "I should take a look at it."

Uh uh. No way. "I'll tell you what it says. You don't have to look."

"Samantha, you need to trust me on this." His eyes beckoned to her, pulling her into their depths as she fought against the insane feeling of embarrassment flooding through her. Why did it have to be this page? Any page but this one would have been better. Holt continued, in a low baritone, "I'm an officer of the law. I want to help you, but I can't if you won't trust me."

She slowly raised her hand and offered Holt a piece of her heart.

He took it.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It wasn't the words of the stalker, scrawled across the page in red ink, that kept Holt's gaze glued to the page he held in his hand. Nor was it the notion that he held a sacred part of Samantha's innermost thoughts and feelings that made it impossible for him to tear his attention away when he knew good and well that he should.

Plain and simple, it was seeing his name written on the page from her diary. His name. Followed by a paragraph of words that knocked the breath from his body and sent sizzling heat straight to his groin.

"I want him. I don't think I've ever wanted a man so much. He makes me feel things. Things I haven't really ever wanted before. Given half the chance, I think I'd be more than happy to give up my virginity to Holt. Really, I've been wanting to find out what it was all about for a while now. But this, this is something more. I want more. And I definitely want him. As soon as I get the chance, I think I'm going to go for it."

She'd drawn a heart at the bottom of the page beside her signature and the date.

He raised his eyes from the page and lowered his arm. His gaze collided with Samantha's.

She slowly climbed to her feet, wrapping her arms across her chest, and then stood before him.

Holt wasn't sure what to say. He wanted to crush her to him, to hold her tight, and kiss the breath from her body. He wanted to make love to her, right then and there. But he knew he shouldn't.

"Well," he started, but had to stop to clear his suddenly tight throat. "If we go by what your stalker wrote, we can assume he read your diary."

"I'm afraid so."

Holt stepped closer to Samantha. "Even if he didn't like what you wrote...I did."

Her tongue darted out to smooth across her lips. She took a deep breath. "I meant every word."