Never Look Back [Paperback]

A hungry attraction. A hidden enemy.

Devoted defense lawyer Clare Westbrook, used to working for others, can now call the shots on her own terms. A multi-million-dollar inheritance from the father she never knew has allowed her to start her own practice. And with her teenage niece, Emma, whom she's raised as a daughter, on a school trip to Europe, Clare has been able to focus on turning a storefront in a tough Phoenix neighborhood into the legal firm of her dreams and offering her services to the troubled community. But just as she opens for business, explosive shots take out her street-level windows -- and nearly take her life. Someone clearly has targeted Clare, though she doesn't know who or why. All she knows is she must surrender to Tony Sonterra's protection if she wants to survive....

Sonterra has designs on a career move to the FBI -- and on rekindling his scorching, no-strings-attached affair with Clare. But can the man who sparks her passion be trusted with her life? Or is someone using Clare, the one person Tony has dared to get close to, to get tohim?Chapter One

If there's a maniac or an ax murderer within a hundred-mile radius, he -- or she -- will come straight to me, Clare Westbrook, hapless attorney at law, like steel filings to a magnet.

Guaranteed.

Take Peter Bailey. Please -- take Peter Bailey.

The very day I opened my new storefront office, in one of Phoenix's less sought-after neighborhoods, he wandered over from the mental health clinic next door and peered at me through the glass door, hands cupped around his face. It was a childlike stance, reminiscent of a little boy yearning after puppies gamboling in a pet store window.

Of course I didn't know his name yet. Nor did I know he was under psychiatric care, though it wouldn't have taken a nuclear physicist to figure it out. He had that look -- eyeballs spiraling in two directions, lean body seeming to hum with that frenetic elã$