Roan

by Jennifer Blake

  He pointed the monitor at her. “If you think you can get out of wearing this by that kind of accusation, you’re dead wrong. I need to know where you are at all times. I especially need to know when you go wandering off at night.”

  She stared at him a long moment. Then abruptly something clicked in her mind. She’d read a magazine article a while back that had described devices like this being used for paroled convicts to confine them to a limited area in and around a halfway house. With this thing on her ankle, she’d have no chance to run, no way to get away from Dog Trot without its owner, the good sheriff, knowing it before she was out of sight.

  She swung her legs off the chaise and surged to her feet. Fighting to keep the panic from her voice, she said. “You can keep your monitor.”

  “It’s for your own good.”

  “Sure it is. You’re taking this way too far. Just because you’re the law doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want.”

  Roan rose slowly to his full, commanding height. “What I want has nothing to do with it.”

  “Doesn’t it? You control where I sleep, what I eat, what I can and can’t do. Now you want to control every move I make. I think you like having me helpless and under your thumb.” He’d shown that he could be affected by what she said. Since words were her only weapon, she had to use them regardless of how much she hated it.

  His high color receded, leaving a white line around his mouth. “You’re about as helpless as a stinging scorpion. But it’s my job to keep you safe. I can’t do that if I don’t know where you are.”

  “Isn’t having me under surveillance around the clock enough? I can hardly go to the bathroom by myself. You’ve even set your son to watch me!”

  “You’re a prisoner,” he said with deliberation as he moved around the end of the chaise. “What do you expect? Or is something else going on here? Maybe you had plans to slip out on me, maybe that’s why you’re so set on avoiding this substitute ankle bracelet.”

  She backed away a hasty step. “Don’t be ridiculous. Where would I go? I just don’t like the invasion of privacy. Would you want someone following your every move?”

  “No, but I don’t make a practice of holding up convenience stores.”

  “Neither do I!” He was closing in on her. The door to the hall was somewhere behind her. She risked a quick glance over her shoulder to locate it.

  “Don’t,” he warned, his voice hardening. “Don’t make me hurt you. This is a fight you can’t win, I promise.”

  “You promise?” Her rejection of the word was scathing. “You also swore you wouldn’t touch me while I was here. So much for promises.”

  “You haven’t been harmed so far. But I can’t vouch for what might happen if you force me to pin you down for this little ceremony.”

  That he would admit to such a thing was so startling that she made the mistake of meeting his eyes. The pupils were wide and dark, almost obscuring the gray of his irises, and layered with bitter self-knowledge that was more disturbing than all his implied threats.

  Her poise deserted her, as did her arguments. She spun around and dived for the door.

  He was upon her in two long strides. Fastening his fingers on her good arm, he jerked her to a halt, and swept her around so she stumbled toward the chaise once more. He tripped her then with a quick hook of a booted foot behind her knee. As she tumbled to the cushioned surface, he fell with her, supporting her so his elbow took the jar as they landed, instead of her shoulder. Still, the fast movement took her breath. As she lay winded, he covered her with his body, holding her immobile with a long leg across her knees and her good arm pinned uselessly under his armpit.

  “Now,” he said softly. “Where were we?”

  No triumph was reflected in his face. Still, outrage feathered along her nerves and settled in some deep, untouched corner of her brain. No one had ever dared treat her like this in her life. That this hayseed sheriff had the temerity made her long to do desperate things to him.

  “Let me up,” she said in a hoarse whisper.

  He eased away from her a fraction. “Are you all right?”

  “Other than being crushed and having all Doc Watkins’s good work undone, you mean?”

  “I did warn you,” he said, his voice even. At the same time, he glanced down to where her bandaging lay under her T-shirt, as if checking for damage.

  There was none, and Tory knew it. The fall hadn’t exactly made her shoulder feel good, however, which added to her resentment. “Do you treat all your women suspects this way, or is it just me?”

  “A few have hinted that they’d like to be handcuffed to my bed. I’ve never been tempted before, but I might make an exception.” His voice dropped a note and his drawl lengthened. “Who knows? It could grow on me.”

  “You’re not scaring me.” She lifted her chin in bravado as she spoke, but it was a lie. Hard purpose made the planes of his face look set in stone. She straightened her pinned arm behind him and pushed against the lounger, trying to shift from under him. He tightened his muscles to remain in place, and settled his weight more firmly against her lower body.

  “Funny, but I think maybe I am scaring you a little. And that’s interesting.”

  “I’m so happy you think so,” she said in strained derision.

  “I’d halfway expected a different reaction.”

  She was still for an instant while she accessed the expectant look on his face. There was nothing salacious about it, she realized. He was waiting for the light to dawn. “You expected…you really thought I might enjoy this?”

  “It was a possibility.”

  “So the whole thing was a test. To see how I would react to being forced, to see if I’d like it.” She’d been angry before, but that was nothing to the rage that burned through her veins now.

  “I wouldn’t say that, exactly. It was more a question of seizing the moment.”

  “Because I said your stupid monitor looked like a sex toy?”

  “Something like that.”

  She closed her eyes. The word she called him under her breath was not a compliment.

  “Agreed,” he said shortly. “But I’d say you passed. So tell me one more time how you got the marks on your wrists.”

  “Duct tape and the kind of prickly plastic rope used to tie up boats. And there was nothing the least enjoyable about it.” Did he believe her? She lifted her lashes, meeting his gaze once more in the hope of some sign, some tiny indication that he might. All she saw was her own reflection in the dark mirrors of his pupils. Then that was gone as he looked away from her.

  “For the record, I despise the kind of lawmen who take advantage of female prisoners,” he said. “I’d never do that. Never. The other night was…” He stopped, took a breath so deep that she suddenly felt, where his chest pressed against her, the points of his star and the hard thud of his heartbeat. When he spoke again, his voice was brisk and authoritative. “Let’s call it a mistake. Now, if we’ve cleared that up, we can go on the next problem. Are you going to cooperate, or do we continue as we started here?”

  What had he been about to say? She’d give a lot to know. “Your methods of persuasion need a little work. So does your technique with women,” she said in her best, bored socialite voice. “A few lessons in manners might not hurt, either.”

  “Manners,” he repeated. “You mean as in, ‘A gentleman always rests his weight on his elbows’? I’m not sure what you’re complaining about, since I’m doing that.”

  “I mean like having the courtesy to get off me now that you’ve won,” she answered with indignation caused, in part at least, by the fact that it was her turn to flush. His manners as a lover were not something she’d given much thought to, but his quip opened new vistas.

  “Yes, well, I expect my mother would have agreed with you about that one.”

  “Your mother.” The words were blank.

  “I learned my manners at her knee, of course, as most Southern good-old-boys do. Well, most of
my manners. Not the—”

  “I get the picture,” Tory said in some haste, since she really did not want or need to hear more about his habits in bed. “So?”

  “So what?” The question was distracted, as if his mind had slid off on a tangent.

  “Are you going to get off me or not?”

  “When I’m ready.”

  “And when might that be, do you think?” she demanded.

  He gave her his full attention. A slow smile curved his lips. When he spoke, his voice had a deep, silken glide. “Maybe when you agree to do exactly as I ask?”

  Her eyes widened. This was not blustering male bravado, but pure intent. Still, it was tempered by something else, a half-tender enticement that invited her to see the humor of their position, and also its unacknowledged dangers.

  The problem was that she did see. She felt it as well, felt the slow shift of change within herself that made the weight of his body less a burden and more a source of sense-gratifying contact, less a means of domination and more an intimate and alluring physical intrusion into her space.

  He couldn’t do this to her. It wasn’t right or fair when he had such power over her freedom. Still, he was also susceptible to her appeal; he’d as good as admitted that much, hadn’t he? If he used sexual attraction as a weapon, he could hardly complain at retaliation in kind. How risky could it be when he’d just explained why he’d never go too far?

  She lowered her gaze to the star on his shirt that was mere inches from her breast. Shifting her injured arm, she touched a fingertip to its engraved surface, warm from his body heat, then traced its points one by one. In tentative tones, she said, “I don’t know why you’re so set on making me wear the stupid monitor. It’s not as if I have anywhere to go or any reason to want to get away from you.”

  He was quiet for so long that she thought he wasn’t going to answer. When she looked up, he was watching her with a suspended look in his eyes. Then he gave a slow shake of his head while irony tugged a corner of his mouth upward. “I seem to have made a strategic error.”

  “What?” She kept the word as innocent as possible without overdoing it. Roan Benedict was an intelligent man, much more so than Harrell who had never seen through her little ploys or realized how well she understood him. But even intelligent men had been known to underestimate feminine cunning.

  “Never mind. The monitor is mostly about protection.”

  “Why would I need it when you’re around?”

  “I’m not always. I can’t be, and that’s the problem.”

  She studied the slash of his thick brows, his square jaw and chin. Protection, he said. As she lay there against him, she could almost feel it surrounding her, enclosing her with him in a cocoon of safety. It was a sensation she could grow to depend on if she let herself, just as she could get used to reaching out to him, touching him of her own will and purpose.

  Lowering her lashes, she let her gaze rest on the firm curves of his lips. Her voice a mere thread of sound, she asked, “But who will protect me from the inside threat?”

  “That,” he said, lowering his head so that his breath teased her lips, “is something you’ll have to figure out yourself. But if you need a test, I don’t mind.”

  An alarm bell went off in Tory’s mind, but it was too late. He stroked her lips with his in the lightest of caresses, tasting the smooth and moist delicate corners, then returning to their center. With gentle courtesy, he enticed her to open to him. It was impossible to resist. She flowed against him, into him, with her lips molding to the firmer contours of his, seeking their heat and gentle abrasion. His kiss was golden fire, desire and persuasion, endless persuasion. That he wasn’t more domineering triggered surprise, then even that disappeared in the sweet magic of joined mouths.

  She smoothed her palm across his star and the resilient planes of his chest beneath it, then reached behind his neck to draw him closer, deeper. The crisp feel of his hair between her fingers sent a shiver of pleasure over her. Feeling it, he tightened his hold. She could ignore the incipient pain in her shoulder, but not the hot firmness of him against her thigh. That sign of his involvement was an incitement, and she pressed closer with a soft murmur in her throat. Lost, she was lost in the pure fascination of this backcountry man.

  The peal of a bell-like tone somewhere under Roan startled Tory so much that she jumped. He withdrew by slow degrees and with reluctance in the last clinging touch of his mouth. Releasing her, he sat up and put a hand to the pager clipped to his belt, tilting it to read the display. His chest lifted with a sigh that might have been from resignation, but could also have signaled relief.

  “Sorry, but I have to cut this short.”

  He didn’t mean their embrace, but rather the campaign to attach the monitor. Hard on the words, he clamped a hand on her ankle and slid the black plastic cuff around it. She jerked against his hold, but he pressed tighter, holding her down, while he turned his head and met her gaze with firm purpose. She stared into the faceted steel of his eyes, but could find no relenting there, no hint that anything she’d said or done had moved him an inch or ever would. She swallowed hard on a sudden knot of tears, but resisted no more.

  The rest of it took scant seconds. While she stared at his broad back, he fastened the cuff with a special tool he took from his pocket, tested it for fit and the possibility of chafing, and then gave a satisfied nod. He reached to touch her other ankle briefly, perhaps looking at the few remaining scabs that marked it. Then he pushed to his full height and stood looking down at her.

  “I’ll be back,” he said quietly. “Soon.”

  Was it a threat or a promise? She couldn’t tell. And what did it matter anyway? He did what he wanted to do, always, and nothing and no one could stop him.

  “Don’t hurry on my account,” she answered, forcing the words through the tightness in her throat.

  He hesitated, watching her. At last, he said again, “I’m really sorry.”

  She turned her head, staring out over the water, and did not look around again until he swung away and his footsteps faded down the inside hall. A minute later, she heard his car heading down the drive.

  He was sorry.

  A hard knot formed in her throat as she digested that idea. Any other man would have been ablaze with satisfaction over his conquest, but not Roan, the almighty Sheriff of Tunica Parish. He was sorry that he had forced his will on her. He was sorry that he had crossed the line with a prisoner, an act unacceptable in his book of restrictive codes and outdated notions.

  Roan Benedict held himself to a higher ideal of what a man should be. He was a Southern gentleman, with all the pride and strength and sense of duty implied by that title. The question was, where did that leave her?

  She had not acted the part of a lady. She had tried to trick him, to use physical attraction to get what she wanted, and it hadn’t worked.

  She had been hiding behind Roan Benedict for some time now, using him to keep her safe while endangering both him and his son with her lies. He deserved better.

  She didn’t like herself all that much just now, especially with her body cooling from the sheriff’s heated weight and with the last, drugging seductiveness of powerful emotions fading from her veins. When had she grown so unscrupulous? When had she ceased to care about other people? Had she always been this way, or was it the effect of being around Harrell and her stepfather? Did she really think, as some said, that the rich were different? Did she believe, deep down, that she could get away with anything?

  Wrong, wrong, wrong.

  Still, what could she do? If she told Roan the truth and threw herself on his mercy, would it be any different? Would he believe her, or only think it was another trick? If he looked into her background and discovered what she said was true, would he not feel duty-bound to protect her all the more?

  She couldn’t allow that. No, her first plan was still best. She needed to get away the first chance she saw, needed to get to Paul Vandergraff and find out where he
stood in this fiasco. Once she had straightened out her life, then maybe, just maybe…

  Maybe what? There was no place in Roan’s quiet, useful, honor-bound existence for someone like her. No place at all. The sooner she got used to the idea, the better off she’d be. So what was left, then, except to go on as she had been, to use whatever means she could to lull him into relaxing his vigilance?

  She glared at the black plastic band around her ankle, then lifted her foot and kicked experimentally to test the weight. She hated the thing, not only for the loss of freedom it represented, but for the memories that were now attached to it.

  As she set her foot down again, the band scraped over her opposite ankle. The contact grated across her skin with much more roughness than she’d expected. She frowned as she sat up and leaned to inspect the damage.

  It wasn’t the monitor that had scratched her. It was the chain of her ankle bracelet. Roan had returned it, slipped it on her ankle while she was too distracted by the monitor cuff to notice. It glittered up at her, bearing the name that he knew her by, one as false as she was: Donna.

  She had missed it. But what did it mean that Roan had given it back to her? Had he decided it had no value as evidence? Did it indicate, perhaps, that he understood her need to have something of her own? Or had he simply returned it as recompense for making her wear the monitor?

  As she stared at it, Tory wondered what Roan would think when he knew her by her real name. Would he understand her pretense or despise her as a fraud and a coward? Would he ever learn who and what she was inside? It didn’t look hopeful.

  Depression and disquiet warred inside Tory over the next few days. She stayed in her room, reading, pacing, watching Roan come and go; refusing to admit, even to herself, that she was hiding. The cause, she decided finally, was embarrassment, yes, but also injured feelings. She had almost forgotten that she was not a guest at Dog Trot. The reminder hurt.

  She wondered if Allen and Cal and the other deputies in Roan’s office knew about the monitor. The idea made her uncomfortable, something to do with privacy, she thought, but also with a feeling that this was a personal issue between Roan and herself. She wasn’t wild about Jake being aware of it, either, though she knew he must.