Love by Association

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  Then Chantel had asked if she could help with lunch, and Julie had been curt and had immediately sent Colin a panicked look. She wanted to have lunch ready for him and Chantel. She needed him to get Chantel out of the room while she composed herself.

  That look struck fear in his heart every single time he saw it.

  Because the first time had been that god-awful night when he’d done nothing. Nothing. To protect his little sister.

  “It’s probably just something about one of their shared committees. Maybe Leslie made some calls looking for support for Julie’s child-life funds and found out that Sunshine board members weren’t going to vote in her favor.”

  He hoped to God that was all it was, but he didn’t think so. That look wouldn’t be in his sister’s eyes.

  “I just don’t want her to think that she has to entertain me...” Chantel said.

  Colin had promised himself he’d keep his hands off her. Until midnight. But she looked so genuinely worried about Julie, and he couldn’t resist the urge to pull her to him. To kiss her tenderly. He wanted to thank her.

  “Trust me,” he ended up saying. “She wants you here. I think that, in a very different way, you’re working your magic on her, too.”

  He sent up a small prayer to the heavens, maybe running it past the parents who’d left him in charge before he was ready, that he wasn’t making a mistake where Chantel Johnson was concerned.

  Trusting just wasn’t his thing.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  LUNCH WAS AS she expected given the stereotypical perceptions she’d gained from her reach into society lifestyles. It wasn’t Chantel’s way to make conversation when there were real issues to be dealt with. Possible life-and-death situations needing attention.

  Undercover work was frustrating as hell.

  But the chicken salad was superb. And would have been even better if she could have helped herself to three times the amount she’d been served. Still, there was ice cream waiting for her at home. She’d be full before she went to work.

  She planned to have a double burger and fries on break, whether Daniel felt like hamburgers or not. He could just stop twice if it came to that. She was having her burger...

  As if thinking about the sensual pleasure derived from consuming fast food was somehow going to distract her desires away from the man whose knee had been touching hers under the table for the entire meal.

  Johnson was out of control.

  Chantel had made a mistake. She’d had sex with an informer. And now more than ever she was going to do what she had to do to see that the assignment got done. Successfully.

  She wasn’t getting out until she was certain that Leslie and Ryder Morrison were safe. And until she’d brought everyone involved in Julie’s rape—and hiding it—to justice. She also wasn’t going to tell Wayne about her and Colin.

  That would be stupid.

  “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to go,” Colin said as he was finishing off the last piece of fruit on his plate. They’d spent twenty minutes at the table together and discussed the unseasonably warm weather, the lack of rain and the effect on the California water situation.

  “You have to go already?” Julie asked, frowning at her brother. “I made strawberry shortcake.”

  One of Chantel’s favorites. Next to chocolate ice cream.

  “I’m already pushing it,” he said, standing.

  “That means I’ll need to be going, too.” Chantel gathered her things, welcoming the idea of a few hours free before work. She could change, eat and head in early. She wanted to look up the graduating class from the private school she’d heard Julie and Colin had attended. She was going to check out every male in the school, then cross-reference that list with functions Julie had attended, crossing off all boys whose families were also in attendance. Just because she’d turned down the chance for detective didn’t mean she didn’t have exemplary investigative skills.

  “I can take you home.”

  Chantel wasn’t sure who Julie’s offer surprised more—Colin or herself. It wasn’t as if the woman didn’t drive. From what she’d heard, Julie traversed LA freeways like a pro, but...

  She had to write. And...was supposed to have a few minutes alone with Colin in the car. Not that she needed them for anything...

  But a few more minutes alone with Julie could produce meaningful information and save hours of name searching.

  “I’m fine to go with Julie,” she said, dropping her purse back to the chair next to her. “You’re in a hurry, go ahead...” Strawberry shortcake sounded good.

  With a second of hesitation, Colin stood there, looked between the two of them and nodded.

  Good. He was going to go, and she could focus completely on the work at hand without wondering what might or might not happen during those few minutes she’d have had with him alone in the car.

  He came closer. Leaned over. And planted a not-so-chaste—and definitely not-society-dinner-table—kiss on her lips. “I’ll see you later.” She heard the promise in the words and tingled all the way to her expensively shoed toes.

  “See ya, sis.” He grinned at an openmouthed Julie and was gone.

  * * *

  “HE SURE KNOWS how to make an exit,” Julie said, shaking her head.

  Chantel, hot and bothered and not at all comfortable, put her napkin on the table. She didn’t need shortcake, after all. “I’m sorry about that,” she said.

  “What, the kiss? Don’t apologize!” She sounded...almost happy. Then, her hands clasped together, she sobered. “I’m glad he’s finally met someone who got through his walls of mistrust. Someone who makes him forget, at least for a few minutes, that I was hurt under his watch and he couldn’t do anything about it.”

  TMI. Too much information. She didn’t want it. Didn’t need insight into his soul to get the job done.

  She hung on to it, anyway. Tightly. Her heart hurting for the way she was deceiving him.

  It was a major danger of going under, getting involved with a subject. She had to be able to wall off the tenderness to get the job done.

  The job.

  “What could he have done?”

  “Absolutely nothing. I went to a party my parents would have allowed me to go to. It would have happened just the same if they’d both been alive and home waiting up for me.”

  More insight.

  Colin had told her he’d taken his sister to the emergency room that night.

  “He was waiting up for you, wasn’t he? When you came in?”

  Julie nodded.

  Chantel needed to know who did it. Who was guilty of the crime that had irrevocably changed the lives of two very special people? Robbed at least one of them of the freedom to love openly. And the other of the ability to trust.

  Julie wasn’t running away. Hadn’t left the table. Chantel waited. She couldn’t risk pushing her away with an ill-timed question.

  Waited and felt the ache growing in her heart. So maybe being undercover didn’t mean you didn’t feel. It just meant you were strong enough to do the job in spite of what you felt.

  In spite of the fact that you were going to have to walk away from incredible joy.

  The joy was only momentary, anyway. She knew that. Men like Colin, macho alpha males with that overdose of testosterone, men who were eaten alive by the fact that they hadn’t been able to protect someone even when it would have been impossible—those kind of men didn’t go for women who’d push them to the ground to protect them.

  Men like Colin went for decorous women like Johnson.

  “I heard today that the guy who raped me is going to be at the library function.” Julie’s voice didn’t break, but it shook with emotional tremors.

  Every nerve Chantel possessed was on alert.

  �
�It’s the first time he’s openly responded with acceptance to any function with which I’m directly involved,” Julie continued.

  The obvious effort it was costing her to speak—and the fact that she was doing it, anyway—brought the threat of tears to Chantel’s eyes. She stiffened her backbone—not her tone of voice—and said, “You were in charge of the guest list.”

  “I know.”

  Wow. Maybe Julie was farther along in her healing than Colin thought. “And you invited him?”

  “No. Neither did Leslie. But Patricia saw that they’d been left off. She invited them.”

  Shit.

  “And they accepted.”

  “Yes.”

  Okay, they were dealing with something big here. Something that stunk. She didn’t like it at all.

  “Is that why Leslie called you back in this morning? To tell you?”

  “Yes. Patricia had told her earlier. She said she’d noticed the oversight and corrected it quickly and quietly so no one would be embarrassed. She said she wouldn’t have said anything if they’d been unable to attend, and they hadn’t ever formally accepted the invitation, but now they have and since they were going to be there, they’d need place cards.”

  Julie was in charge of them.

  “She knew Leslie would tell you.”

  “Yes.”

  Julie thought Patricia was on the committee because of her to watch her. Were they afraid she wasn’t going to keep her vow of silence regarding the past?

  And another unsavory thought occurred to her. Was Patricia there to make certain that Chantel didn’t suspect anything?

  Did that mean the commissioner knew about the cover-up? Knew there was a mole? Knew the mole?

  Julie must think they knew the mole, or she wouldn’t have thought Patricia was there to watch over her. Question was, did Julie know who the mole was?

  Colin was sure Julie was being paranoid and would admit as much herself.

  But what if Colin was wrong?

  Wayne had said they had to be careful. That they shouldn’t go to the commissioner until they had facts. Did he suspect the commissioner?

  Did he know more than he was telling her?

  “They’re testing you,” Chantel said, not because she was convinced of that yet, but because she had to know Julie’s reaction to the possibility. She needed all of the information she could get because it might just end up being her against the world on this one.

  It wasn’t going to stop her. But she’d like to live through it.

  “I think they are,” Julie said, as though choosing her words carefully. “But if you asked Colin, he’d probably tell you that I’m just being paranoid.”

  “He seems to have your back, to believe in you—why would you think he’d blow you off on this one?”

  Harris’s words. Not Johnson’s. She had to be more careful.

  “He doesn’t think Patricia knows anything about...that night.”

  “But you think she does.”

  “Not until she started showing up on all of my committees. And after this...I’m sure of it. They’re pushing me. Forcing me to accept the fact that if I’m going to stay here, I have to live side by side with the man who raped me and not say a word.”

  Julie’s voice wobbled. Her eyes filled with tears. But she blinked them back.

  The entire Santa Raquel Police Department could be corrupt—if their leader was. She and other beat cops could be risking their lives every day, for very little pay, trusting their brothers to have their backs, when the only thing there was was power and greed. Backstabbers, not savers.

  “Colin said that you and Leslie are friendly. She knows, doesn’t she? About that night?”

  Julie nodded. “She’s the only one I’ve ever told.”

  Had Leslie said something to someone? Patricia, maybe? Thinking she was helping?

  “Did you tell her before or after you signed an agreement never to speak of that night again?”

  “Before. Colin didn’t want us to sign them. He refused to sign one. Leslie and my mom weren’t best friends or anything, but my mom told me once that if there was ever a time when I felt like I could trust only one woman in our circle, it should be Leslie. So I went to her and asked for her advice.”

  “She told you to sign it.” Chantel didn’t even need to ask. Leslie knew firsthand that there was no protection for domestic violence victims in their midst. And date rape could be considered under those auspices.

  Julie nodded again, her lips pinched.

  Taking a chance, Chantel reached out a hand, covering Julie’s where they were clasped on the table. “Can you tell me who he is?” she asked. “I know your agreement says you can’t, and you have no reason to trust me. But maybe, if you tell me, between Leslie and Colin and I, we can make certain the man gets nowhere near you that night.”

  Julie shook her head. “I can’t go.”

  “Of course you can.” Harris blurted it right out there. And Johnson tried to soften the response with, “You aren’t alone, Julie. Not only is Colin here, but right now, I am, too. I’m a woman who’s...been through things, too.”

  Not the same things. But some similar pain.

  “I thought you probably had,” Julie said. “You’re...different. More touchable.”

  The real difference was that she wasn’t one of them and wasn’t doing such a great job pretending she was, since the two people who were spending time with her saw that she didn’t quite fit in.

  Which wasn’t her biggest concern at the moment.

  And she couldn’t get off topic by discussing her own angst—either real or one she’d make up on the spot to fit her cover.

  “You have to go, Julie,” she said now, strictly for Julie’s sake. “Because if you don’t, they win. They’ve laid down the gauntlet. They’re waiting to see what you’re made of. If you show weakness now, they’ll have won. And you’ll either end up moving away from the home you love, or you’ll live the rest of your life a shadow in your own world. You aren’t the criminal here. You don’t belong in prison—no matter how beautiful your cell might be.”

  When the other woman started to sob, Chantel broke off. She hadn’t meant to go on so much. She hoped it hadn’t been too far.

  Squeezing the other woman’s hands, she said, “I’ll be there with you. Every step of the way. If you start to lose sight of your own strength, I’ll loan you mine. We can do this...”

  She believed that with every ounce of her being.

  She got tears in her own eyes when, several minutes later, Julie nodded.

  “You’ll go?”

  The younger woman nodded again. “I can’t promise to stay. Or promise to stay out of the bathroom. I can’t promise I won’t embarrass you or myself or my brother, but...” She stopped and looked at Chantel with a warmth that touched her in places only Jill had ever touched.

  That sacred best-friend place.

  She forced herself not to look away. Or stiffen up. She’d lose her witness if she did that. Break the victim’s trust.

  “You’ve made such an impact on my brother. If he’s willing to risk breaking down his walls, to fight through the demons and be open to a real relationship, then I owe it to him to do the same. It’s my fault he’s been locked inside himself for so long. I can’t keep him there.”

  If it was possible to fall platonically in love, Chantel might have just done so.

  Johnson had.

  Harris had a job to do. “I’ll need to know who he is,” she said in Johnson’s softer tones. “If I’m going to be able to help minimize contact.”

  “David Smyth.” Julie’s face twisted as though she’d tasted bile. “Jr.,” she added.

  She probably didn’t notice that all of the color had left Chantel’s face. She felt it
go, followed by all warmth.

  David Smyth Jr. Politician son of David Smyth Sr., a nationally known neurosurgeon—and close friend to Commissioner Paul Reynolds.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  FOR THE FIRST time in his memory, Colin’s mind was not 100 percent focused on the business discussion at hand as he played nine holes of golf that afternoon with one of his most lucrative clients.

  He might just be on the verge of the best thing that ever happened to him—might be face-to-face with the woman meant to make his life complete. But he didn’t believe in such things.

  Not anymore. If he ever had.

  Something akin to fear kept pecking at his heart.

  He pulled out a nine iron. Popped his ball up onto the green. Picked up his bag and had a good five minutes to himself while he stood aside, watched his two opponents—a politician and his chief of staff—both take their shots from farther off and then walked toward the green.

  Still, if Chantel was for real—if the feelings she’d ignited so swiftly, so fiercely, within him were real—he’d be a fool to get in his own way with a truckload of mistrust.

  He had to give her a chance.

  Even when every instinct within him was reminding him of the lessons he’d learned and the prices he wasn’t ever going to pay again. It was a bitter pill of bile he’d had to swallow, again and again, as he’d realized that there was not one person on earth he could truly trust.

  He’d realized that the only thing he could count on to see him through life’s turmoil was power and money—as both were used against him and Julie in the name of justice. He’d earn the latter and wield the former with integrity. Because, in the end, he had to answer to himself.

  But he’d never lose sight of the fact that he had to rely on himself and that his family had to be able to rely on him. He was never, ever going to put someone he cared for at risk. Or be sitting on the sidelines if they were at risk.

  He knew there was nothing he could have done to prevent Julie’s rape, but he never should have signed the papers, giving up her right to fight for herself. He never should have let her sign them.