“Don’t ask me to stay because you’re worried about my feelings. But don’t tell me to leave for that reason, either.”
“I don’t mean now.”
“Fine. We can worry about later…later.” He closed the remaining distance between them.
AS DEEPLY AS SHE ACHED for his kiss, the instant his lips brushed hers, Laurel knew she couldn’t do this. Not now. She pulled back, out of his arms completely.
He masked his surprise quickly, but remained where he stood as she crossed the room toward the floor-to-ceiling bookcase that filled the entire left wall of her office.
“I’m not…we shouldn’t—” She stopped, gathered herself, willed her heart to slow down long enough for her to get her head on straight. She turned, faced him. Steadier, but not as steady as she’d have liked. Just looking at him did funny things to the pit of her stomach. He’d come for her, like a shining knight. She knew better than to trust white knights, which should have made her feel twice the fool for trusting him. It didn’t. Not yet, anyway.
“I appreciate that you want to help me,” she said carefully. “And I don’t want you to walk away. I am glad you found me. But I need a clear head to handle…what needs handling. And I don’t know if I can have you around and not want—”
“No one walks through life alone, Laurel. We all need help from time to time. Sometimes it’s the stronger person who knows when to ask for it.”
She stared at him. “You speak from personal experience, do you?”
He stared back, then finally relented. “From observation of others.”
“Ah.”
Then his lips curved. “How is it you know me so well, Laurel?” he asked softly. “Ask yourself that.”
She had, a million times since she’d left St. Thomas. Had almost convinced herself their time together had all been a dream. But the man standing in front of her was no fantasy. Or maybe he was, and that was the problem. He was the perfect knight, in the perfect dream. And her life was anything but perfect at the moment. Made it kind of hard to trust in dreams.
“Well, I understand the notion,” she told him. “And you might be surprised to learn I’ve even been known to ask for assistance from time to time.” He looked so earnest, she thought, so steadfast, standing there offering himself up to her for whatever she needed to take from him. The hunger that ignited inside her was surprisingly powerful. Yet the enormity of what hung in the balance once again descended upon her shoulders like a too big cloak that might suffocate her if she wasn’t careful. Very, very careful.
She’d become mixed up in something that fell well outside of the law she’d sworn to uphold. She would not drag him, a man who was also sworn to uphold and protect, into the middle of this. It would be putting him in the same predicament Alan had put her in. Asking him to ignore his duty, his moral—and possibly even legal—obligation because of whatever feelings he might have for her.
“Are you so certain this isn’t one of those times?” he asked quietly.
“It’s not the help I’m rejecting. And it’s not that I don’t want—”
His eyes flashed and she thought for a moment he was going to come to her desk. But he remained where he stood. “That you don’t want me? We’re past claiming we don’t want each other. Neither of us is going to buy that one.”
Her body vibrated, the look he sent her was so potent. “No, I don’t suppose so. But what I’m trying to say is that I can’t…act on that. Not now. Not here. What we had, that was a thousand miles from here, in a place where no one—”
“Where no one cared what you did…or who you did it with?” he supplied mildly. The tone was very deceptive, until she noted the look in his eyes.
And she noted every detail where he was concerned. As if she was tuned into some private frequency that was theirs and theirs alone. “Yes. I’m home now, and while I’d like nothing more than for those things not to matter…they do matter.”
“We’re both home now,” he reminded her. “And what does it matter if people know about me? About us?”
“Us?” It took her breath away, that tiny little word. Amazed her with the impact of it, of how badly she wanted it to apply to her, to them. So much so that she almost missed the tiny flash of hurt that crossed his face at her surprised response.
“Well, I guess that answers that question,” he said flatly.
She shook her head. “We can’t always have what we want, Sean.” Or who we want, she thought, hating Alan more than she’d thought possible, for taking even more from her than he realized. “I’m glad you came here, that you want to be here, and I don’t want you to leave. But I can’t have you in my life—in that way—not right now. Things are…complicated.”
“Because of your recent relationship with Alan Bentley?”
She felt as if she’d been sucker-punched, though in retrospect she didn’t know why she was surprised that he knew about Alan. God knows it was almost impossible not to know with the media breathing down her neck. “It wasn’t recent. And it wasn’t a relationship. It takes two people to make one of those.”
“A fact I’m well aware of at the moment.”
She stopped, caught up in the intensity of his gaze, wishing he couldn’t entrap her like that so easily…yet tantalized by the reality that he could. Almost effortlessly. What she wouldn’t have given at the moment to be free to walk right up to him, into those strong arms, into all that promise she saw in his eyes. How badly she wished it could be that simple. Even if it just ended up being some hot, torrid affair that burned out almost as quickly as it caught flame. It would be worth the scorch marks, she thought.
Even as she thought it, she knew it wouldn’t be like that at all. Sean Gannon’s appeal was hot and torrid, all right, but what they had between them was also a banked, slow-burning thing. If she let herself get tangled up with him, it would be a whole lot more than her libido that would suffer the scorch marks. Her heart would come away branded, as well.
Maybe she should be thankful the situation she was in wouldn’t permit her to take that risk, but she wasn’t. She wanted it—him—badly. Too badly, which was exactly why she had to push him away.
“Maybe the public needs to see you’ve moved on,” Sean suggested. “That would end the speculation of just how Bentley plans to win this case.”
Except he doesn’t plan on winning it, she thought, the anxiety squeezing her gut. “I’d be insulted, but—”
“I know you have integrity.”
Her stomach clenched harder. As did a part of her heart. If he only knew. Knew what she was contemplating doing…She did her best to stem the flush of shame that crept into her cheeks. But she couldn’t do that and look at him at the same time. She glanced down, hating herself almost as much as she hated Alan. “I can’t discuss this here.”
“Then tell me where you can and we’ll go there.”
Six o’clock. Our place. It took considerable will not to shudder with the unwanted reminder of where she had to go…and who she had to see. “Not…not now. Today, I mean.” She sighed, swore under her breath.
She glanced up when he made a tsking sound. His smile returned. Only this time it didn’t reach his eyes. “Such language, Judge Patrick.”
She wanted badly to have that rapport back with him, the light banter, the give-and-take that came so easily to them. That is, when stress didn’t threaten to eat its way right through her stomach lining. She ached for the flirtation they’d been so quick to indulge in when they’d met, where anything was possible and boundaries didn’t hamper everything she said, everything she did. She tried for that smile anyway, failing miserably. “In chambers I can say anything I want.”
“Except what I need to hear.” He turned and abruptly walked to the door. He stopped just as abruptly and looked back at her. “Did you tell anyone about us? Scratch that. About me?”
She flinched slightly at that, surprised he was allowing her to see how affected he was by her rejection of them as a couple. He struck
her as being more contained than that. But then, where she was concerned, it appeared he didn’t have the usual controls in place. She didn’t know how she was supposed to feel about that, but probably not intrigued, secretly delighted. Not considering she was basically asking him to walk away from whatever it was they could have had. She refused to even think about it.
“Did you tell anyone about me?” he repeated. “Meeting me on vacation? Did you mention my name, my occupation? Even just that you met a stranger who played Good Samaritan?”
From the look on his face—all business now—she didn’t think it was his ego needing a boost. No, Sean Gannon’s ego didn’t drive him. “No, I didn’t. Why do you ask?”
“Not to anyone,” he repeated, ignoring her question. “Your father? Bentley? A girlfriend?”
Now she frowned. “No.”
“Good.” He turned then, opened the door.
Ouch? But just as his proclamation stung, it occurred to her that he might have asked because—“Wait a minute,” she blurted.
She didn’t think he was going to stop, but he did. He glanced back, expression implacable.
“What’s going on?” she demanded, studying his eyes for a clue, any clue, to validate her growing suspicion. “You’re planning something.” His expression didn’t even flicker. She should have realized. I don’t walk away. His words echoed in her ears as she said, “Sean, you can’t just—”
“Maybe you don’t know me as well as I thought. Because I can just. And I will just.” He stalked across the room. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. He took her face in his hands, surprisingly gentle in spite of the fierceness of his expression. He crushed his mouth to hers in a kiss that was both hot and unbearably tender. The combination undid her, had her responding before she could think things out, decide what to do, tell herself to pull away.
Then he was pulling away. He grinned, and her knees felt a bit woozy. “And I’ll do whatever it takes to earn the right to do that anytime I want. Wherever I want.”
He made it impossible to think clearly. And clear thinking, she was beginning to realize, was a must where Sean Gannon was concerned. Good luck with that. Maybe if she went to bed with him another, oh, half dozen times, she could look at him, let him look at her that way, without her body reacting like a volcano set to erupt. Okay, make that a couple of dozen times.
She struggled to regain the ground she’d so quickly lost. “I can’t have you—”
“Oh, but you can. And the sooner you realize that, the better off we’ll both be.” He walked back to the door and opened it.
“That’s not what I meant and you know it.” Her pulse was pounding and her skin all but twitching. “You have no idea what you’re getting into.”
His grin only widened. “I’m becoming more aware of that with every passing second. But did I ever mention that I love a challenge?” he asked. Then he was gone.
Laurel slumped back against the bookcase, catching a large volume on torts as it threatened to slide out and hit her on the head. “Maybe I should have let it,” she muttered. “It might have knocked some sense into me.”
She clutched the book to her chest, running her fingertips over lips that still tingled, still tasted of him. And while she was worried, about Sean’s plans, about Alan, about her father, about how in the hell she was going to get herself out of this mess…she couldn’t quite seem to get all that upset about the fact that she wasn’t going to have to do it alone.
Maybe it was because he’d taken that choice away from her. Made it not about her being vulnerable or weak. Not even about her wanting to protect him. He’d made it about caring, about refusing to leave when someone he cared about needed his help, no matter the trouble he might bring down on his head. He’d taken that responsibility on himself. And off of her.
“Blockhead,” she murmured…but she couldn’t help smiling when she said it.
8
SEAN HADN’T BEEN KIDDING when he’d said he had some training in how to take care of himself. As part of the U.S. Marshals’ Special Operations Group—SOG—he’d been sent to deal with everything from rioting World Bank protestors, to helping a multi-agency task force in a nationwide manhunt for some of the country’s most violent fugitives. Between personal experience, and stories shared with other deputies, what he hadn’t seen or done, he’d heard about.
Or so he’d thought.
Not once had he ever staked out someone he cared about.
He invested himself one hundred percent in every duty he’d been assigned to, careful to keep the personal feelings apart from the professional. It hadn’t always been easy; he’d been witness to some horrific things. This, however, was entirely different. His personal feelings in this instance didn’t stem from moral outrage or his sense of justice. Those were things you felt with your head, your intellect.
He watched Laurel walk across the backwater bridge, toward the man she supposedly wasn’t having a relationship with, and for the first time knew what it was to feel with his heart.
She didn’t run to Bentley, nor did she seem to fear him. In fact, if anything, she appeared to be angry with him. He sharpened the focus on his binoculars. Furious, even. Bully for her, he thought. He’d never even met the man and he didn’t like him very much at the moment, either.
He wished he’d known in advance the location of the meet. He could have wired it for sound. As it was, he was too far away for even his highly sensitive microphone to do more than catch the general cadence of the conversation. For his part, Bentley didn’t seem remotely perturbed by her harsh words and sharp hand gestures. It made Sean wonder at the wisdom in Laurel allowing Bentley to see that he was getting to her. Made Sean wonder if his own intrusion back into her life hours earlier wasn’t the straw that had tipped her outside her ability to control her emotions. He hoped to hell not.
He also hoped to hell Bentley didn’t so much as lay a finger on her. Sean would hate to blow his cover this early on. His plan, such as it was, revolved around finding out as much information as possible on Bentley to try to put together what was really going on. Laurel’s unease about renewing their relationship had stemmed mostly from her fear of putting him in danger. Which meant she was in danger. Until he discovered what that danger was, he planned to keep a very low profile where she was concerned. He didn’t want to inadvertently put her in more trouble by popping up at the wrong time or around the wrong person.
It was clear, even more so now, watching her with Bentley, that she needed help. He had asked her if she’d told anyone about him, because being anonymous could work in his favor. If no one knew she had a deputy marshal as an acquaintance, then no one would question him poking around a bit. Well, not if he was careful.
He thought about contacting her father, but had quickly discarded that idea as the fastest route to a one-way ticket out of her life forever. Besides, instinct told him that her father was somehow mixed up in this, too.
He focused in on Bentley. The longer he studied their little tête-à-tête, the more he was convinced Bentley had moved past using their previous relationship as a means to get what he wanted…and on to something else. His expressions and mannerisms were not those of a man intent on charming a woman back into his good graces. Which meant this meeting probably involved blackmail of some kind. It was true Sean didn’t know Laurel all that well, but he doubted she had any skeletons in her closet, not with her quick rise to power at such a young age.
Her father however…
Sean tucked that away and focused on the meeting.
Laurel had stopped talking. It was Bentley’s turn. There were no hand gestures, no overt signs of anger. In fact, it was the opposite. If Sean hadn’t just witnessed Laurel’s angry gesticulating, he’d think these were two people having some kind of business discussion. Bentley very calmly explaining whatever it was he needed, while Laurel stood, arms folded, listening and not seeming very impressed.
The only obvious thing was that these were not two people inv
olved in any kind of romantic entanglement.
Then Bentley smiled…and the hairs on Sean’s arms stood up. At the same time, the blood drained from Laurel’s face but was quickly replaced by two splotches of color blooming in her cheeks.
Sean’s grip tightened, but he remained where he was. He didn’t think Laurel was in any imminent danger, at least not physically. No, Bentley needed her for something. And since it didn’t appear to be sexually oriented, it was Sean’s guess that it must be legally oriented, since that was their only other common denominator.
Specifically, the Rochambeau case. Which meant Bentley needed Judge Patrick in his pocket…and had something he could hold over her head. Something, judging by the desolate look on her face, that was working.
Sean hadn’t yet had time to research the case, but it was hard not to be familiar with the basics, as the case had been one of the top news stories blaring from every radio and newsstand over the past several weeks. And from what he’d heard, the parish D.A. seemed to have an airtight case against Rochambeau. It was for that reason the media was pouncing on the juicy tidbit about their possible past relationship with such glee. It gave them something to talk about since it didn’t seem likely that Rochambeau was going to wiggle out of the noose this time. Which begged the question…what did Alan need Laurel’s help for? If he had the guy dead to rights, it should be a cakewalk.
There had been some speculation over what this would mean to the rest of the “family.” Bentley had been asked if he was afraid of retribution. He’d scoffed, certain that the Rochambeaus would do nothing that foolish.
Sean had agreed. At the time. Now however…His mind began to spin. Did Bentley have some reason to fear for his safety? And again…what could he possibly expect Laurel to do to help him there?
Sean lowered the binoculars and swore soundlessly. Could it be that Bentley was looking for a way to save his hide by losing a sure thing?
He quickly dismissed that idea as ludicrous. The media had also made big noise over the fact that Bentley planned to use this victory as the springboard into his hopeful run for the senate next year. Losing the case didn’t mean an automatic end to his career aspirations, but it would make his lock on the candidacy less of a certainty.
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