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“You intimidated my cat into behaving,” I say when Murphy lies down without a single complaint.

“He recognizes competent leadership,” Andrei says, and I hear the amusement in his voice.

I laugh before I can help it. The sound surprises me, and Andrei looks over quickly before returning his attention to the road. One corner of his mouth twitches, almost a smile.

I wait until we have passed the turnoff for the gas station. “How did you know the SUV would come beside us?”

Andrei’s hands remain on the wheel. “He stayed behind Drew until the passing lane ended. After that, he accelerated across the center line when the road ahead was clear.”

“That explains how you saw him coming. It doesn’t explain how you knew what he planned to do.”

“The guardrail gave him an opportunity.”

“And you knew how to take it away?” I turn in my seat to face him. “You told Drew exactly where to put his vehicle, and you kept that driver from reaching my door again.”

“I told you I’ve dealt with security threats.”

“You own a vineyard. There’s a difference between knowing someone might damage your property and knowing how to handle a car trying to push us off a road.”

He drives for a while before speaking. Rain begins again, fine drops gathering on the windshield. “Before I came home, I spent years around dangerous men. I learned what they do when they believe they have an advantage.”

“Who were they?” I ask.

Andrei mutters a curse under his breath, keeping his eyes on the road. “I’m not giving you names tonight.”

“Of course you aren’t.” I face forward and watch the wipers clear the glass. “Do you hear yourself when you say these things? You tell me enough to make me worry, then expect me to stop asking.”

“I know you won’t stop,” he says, his jaw tense.

“That isn’t an answer.”

“No.” His accent grows more pronounced on the word. “It isn’t.”

A mile passes before he speaks again. “I learned to survive the life I was living, Cassie. I learned to recognize when someone intended to hurt me and when he wanted me frightened enough to make a mistake. What happened today looked familiar.”

The cuff of his dark shirt has slipped above his watch, exposing the scar across the back of his left hand. “Were you working in the wine business when you learned all that?”

“I was learning the wine business at the same time.”

It sounds carefully chosen, which makes me want to pull it apart. “You know more about my family now than most people I’ve known for years. I don’t even know what you did for a living before you came back to the vineyard.”

He glances toward me. “I understand what I’m asking you to accept.”

“Then stop asking me to trust a blank space.”

His fingers close more firmly around the wheel. “There are people from that time whose names would matter if you heard them. Once you know who they are, you could be put in the position of answering questions about them. I won’t give them another reason to look at you.”

“That sounds like you’re involved with dangerous people,” I accuse.

“I was,” he admits.

The plainness of it takes some of the force out of my next question. “And now?”

“Now one of them, or someone connected to them, may be threatening my family.” He watches the road as he speaks. “I’m trying to learn who it is before he hurts anyone else.”

I think of the date mailed to him, the man caught near his fuel storage area, and the vehicle that came after us. He’s told me more than he did at the produce stand, but there’s still a great deal he can fit inside the word dangerous.

“When you decide what I can know,” I say, “you leave me to guess how much danger I’m already in.”