One

      Lyon hobbled away from the truck stop with as much haste and dignity as he could muster, leaving the waitress staring after him, her tired blue eyes filled with sympathy. By all rights she should have clobbered him. Instead, she’d taken one look at his stricken face, another at his cane, and started in with the, “Oh, you poor man” routine.

      Levering himself into the driver’s seat, he brushed a crumb of fried oyster off his sleeve and shifted until he found a position that was bearable. He’d been warned against driving at all, much less driving for hours at a stretch.

      Needless to say, he’d ignored the warning.

      Dammit, he’d tried to apologize to the woman. It wasn’t her fault he’d been in the process of extracting himself from the cramped booth just as she passed by with two big seafood platters.

      Lyon was no good with apologies. Never had been.

      He’d wanted to help her clean up the mess, but he knew better than to try, so he’d done the next best thing. He’d crammed a fistful of bills in her apron pocket and got the hell out of there, red face, grease-stained shoulders and all.

      At least, with the help of a back brace, a knee brace and a cane, he could do that much. Walk away. There was damned little he was good at anymore, but he’d always been good at walking away.

      Five weeks ago he had walked away from an explosion that had killed two other agents and three civilians. Crawled away, actually, after being blown clear. Miraculously, he’d suffered only minor burns, but he’d been thrown against the side of the surveillance van, injuring his back and one knee.

      At least he’d survived.

      Five days ago he had walked away from the hospital. He’d had a choice of lying there taped up like a mummy, waiting either to mend or to croak from sheer boredom—or for the bad guys to find him and put a permanent end to his career—or get the hell out.

      He’d got out. Walked away. Because if the bad guys hadn’t got to him first, the boredom would’ve done him in.

      Although there’d been a couple of nurses who’d done their best to relieve it. One, a sweet-faced, middle-aged woman, had joked about adopting him.

      Another one had been more interested in seducing him.

      He might even have considered it—the seduction—if only to prove to himself that he still had a few working body parts, but the last thing he needed was to get involved with a woman.

      It had been Lyon’s experience that men and women viewed sex from