Love on Trial

by Diana Palmer

  She wasn’t naturally antagonistic toward anyone, except her father’s famous partner. It had been that way from the beginning, as if she’d sensed in Hawke an adversary the first time she saw him. There had been the occasional pleasant time, as Marty had hinted earlier. But even those fleeting moments of affinity had been laced with tension, because she could never relax completely with Hawke. No matter how congenial he was on the surface, she always felt the tingle of deep fires burning just under his impassive exterior.

  She stepped out of the shower refreshed, and was on her way to change when the phone caught her.

  “County morgue,” she droned into the receiver, expecting to hear Marty’s voice on the other end.

  There was a brief pause, followed by an irritated masculine sigh. “Must you answer the phone that way, Cyrene? What if it had been mother, or your editor?”

  She raised her eyes heavenward. “Mark,” she explained patiently, “I’m a reporter, remember? This is the way I am.”

  “So you keep telling me. Never mind. We’re having dinner at the Magnolia Inn. I’ll pick you up at six.”

  “I know,” she reminded him. “You told me yesterday.”

  “Yes,” he said in a long-suffering tone. “But you tend to forget dates you make with me as you move from fire to murder.”

  “It was only once,” she defended herself. “And you know it was one of the very biggest fires in the city.”

  “And that’s another thing,” he grumbled, “always hanging around with men; firemen, policemen, civil defense…”

  “It’s my job, Mark,” she reminded him.

  “But, Siri, the way it looks…”

  Her temper boiled over. “That’s it,” she said tightly, “if you can’t bring yourself to accept me the way I am, you can jolly well go chase yourself!” With that, she slammed the receiver down.

  She didn’t get two steps before the phone rang again. She jerked it up. “Yes?” she asked impatiently.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s been a long day, and I’m in a rotten mood. Come out with me and cheer me up.”

  Out of habit, or weariness, she gave in. After all, she wasn’t any more perfect than he was.

  They went to a popular restaurant on the outskirts of the city, and business was booming.

  Without bothering to ask if the cigarette smoke would bother her, Mark led her straight to the smoking section of the plush, carpeted restaurant and seated her. She barely had time to scan the extensive and appetizing menu before the waitress was asking for her order. She ordered a steak, wild rice and a tossed salad bypassing the delicious but horribly fattening strawberry shortcake with its foot-high topping of whipped cream. The waitress returned a few moments later with trays laden with steaming, fragrant dishes.

  She thanked the girl—who looked as if she could press 200 pounds without any effort from the way she was handling those heavy trays—and froze as she looked past the girl’s frilly apron.

  Hawke and his current girlfriend, a darkly elegant brunette in a dress cut almost to the waist, were seated just across the way. Siri carefully rearranged her chair so that her back was slightly toward them, and hoped Hawke wouldn’t notice her.

  “It’s been a rotten day,” Mark sighed as he attacked his steak. “One of my clients had to go downtown for an audit with the tax people, and they found a mistake. My secretary,” he groaned, “typed the right numbers, but in the wrong places. So instead of getting the refund he expected, my client wound up owing money.”

  “How awful,” Siri said automatically.

  “Amen. I caught it from both sides.” He reached for his soft drink, grimacing at the steaming cup of black coffee at Siri’s right. “How can you drink that stuff?”

  She shrugged. “Habit, I guess. Dad and I always have it for breakfast and dinner—with every meal.”

  There was the sudden interruption of loud conversation just behind her, and she caught the familiar sound of a rival reporter’s voice.

  “I hear there’s some new evidence in the Devolg case, Mr. Grayson,” Sandy Cudor was probing in his pleasant voice. “Anything to the rumors?”

  “You’ll find out in the courtroom, Sandy,” came the deep, equally pleasant reply.

  “In other words, you aren’t talking,” the reporter interpreted, and Siri knew there would be a smile on the young man’s face.

  “Exactly.”

  “Well, have a nice evening,” Sandy said, and Siri instinctively leaned down to pick up the napkin she dropped on purpose, so that her colleague wouldn’t see her. It worked.

  “Disgusting,” Mark was grumbling.

  “What is?” she asked.

  “Reporters,” he replied with a glare after Cudor’s retreating back. “And grandstanding lawyers,” he added for a good measure.

  “Just hold it right there,” she told him icily. “If there’s any grandstanding, it’s usually done by young lawyers trying to make reputations. Hawke’s a long way past the struggling stage. And Sandy may be impetuous, but he’s young and learning, and bound to be a little overeager.”

  “I didn’t think you cared a fig about either one of them,” Mark recalled, his own voice cool.

  “I don’t,” she agreed. “But then you aren’t attacking personalities, you’re attacking two professions that I know intimately.”

  He drew a harsh sigh and tossed down the rest of his soft drink. “You don’t even have to work,” he said unpleasantly. “I don’t know why you insist on pursuing that job—”

  “Because I like it!” she shot back.

  “You like associating with all those men, and showing your legs,” he retorted.

  “You go to hell,” she said in a furious whisper, her amber eyes shooting flames toward him, as she crumpled her napkin and threw it down to the right side of her plate.

  “I didn’t think it was so easy to keep secrets in a newsroom,” Hawke remarked from behind her.

  She turned, flushed with anger, to meet the taunting light in his dark eyes as he paused beside their table with the impatient brunette on his arm.

  “It isn’t,” Siri managed, irritated at the breathless tone of her usually steady voice, hating the effect Hawke always had on her nerves. “I don’t suppose Bill’s told any of them yet.”

  “If he does, you’d better check under your hood every afternoon before you leave there,” came the cool reply. “Hello, Holland,” he added, finally acknowledging the younger man’s presence.

  “Hello,” Mark grumbled. His eyes speared Siri. “What’s all this about?”

  “Siri hasn’t told you?” Hawke asked, and even though he didn’t smile, the mocking amusement was there in those unfathomable eyes. “She’s going with me to Panama City for a week to research some new evidence in the Devolg case.”

  Mark’s thin face flushed red. “Is she? It’s new to me!” He glared at Siri. “Does your father know?”

  “I’m twenty-one years old, almost twenty-two,” she replied. “I don’t need Daddy’s permission!”

  “My God, how am I going to explain it to mother?” he groaned.

  “No dessert?” Hawke remarked, noticing Siri’s barely touched dinner. “You’re thin enough, aren’t you?”

  “She’s just fine the way she is, thanks. I don’t want her to look like a cow,” Mark replied hotly, with a speaking glance at the well-endowed brunette beside Hawke, who bristled visibly at the insult.

  Hawke didn’t say anything, but his eyebrows went up as if the remark astonished him.

  “Enjoy your dinner,” Hawke said pleasantly, and escorted the brunette out of the spacious dining room.

  “I don’t like that man,” Mark grumbled, glaring at the retreating broad back. “What business is it of his how you look or what you eat? And what the devil did he mean about you going with him to Panama City?”

  “Just what he said,” Siri replied coolly. “You don’t own me, Mark. Not now, not ever, and I can’t think how you’ve convinced yourself that you did. I
don’t have to apologize to you for the job I do. And that’s precisely what the trip concerns—my job. I won’t be sharing Hawke’s bed, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

  The way he averted his eyes told her what he’d thought.

  “I should think you’d be too young to interest a man like that anyway,” he finally said. “He must be at least forty.”

  That bothered her for some reason, but she bit her lip to keep from making a reply. “Hawke’s got all the women he needs, I imagine,” she said finally.

  “I don’t doubt it.” He laughed humorlessly. “Wasn’t his father a shipbuilder, or owned a fleet of ships or something in Charleston?”

  “Something like that.”

  “And his mother was an heiress. There was some horrible scandal before he left there.” Mark frowned, trying to remember.

  “Was there? I don’t keep tails on Hawke, I never have. He’s Dad’s partner, not mine, and I like it that way,” she said harshly.

  “If you dislike him so much,” he protested, “why do you start changing color the minute you see him?”

  “Do I?” She searched in her purse for her compact and lipstick. “Temper, probably. He’s always telling me how inferior a woman reporter is, and this afternoon was no exception. Dad had to separate us.”

  There was a long pause while she put on her lipstick. “Siri, I’m sorry,” he said finally. “It’s just that I don’t trust him around you. You’re so…naive.”

  She almost laughed. Mark, who’d never even tried to touch her, or intimately kiss her, telling her she was naive.

  “To Hawke, I’m still the teenager he used to bring to football games when I was a cheerleader. He doesn’t think of me as a woman.” And, boy, am I glad, she almost added. She’d never seen Hawke in action, but she’d have bet her typewriter that there wasn’t a woman alive he couldn’t get with that dark, sensual charm. She didn’t really want to find out if she could resist it. Besides, she told herself silently, he was almost twice her age. Far too old to even dream about.

  “Can we go now?” Siri asked, putting away her cosmetics. “I’m really tired.”

  “Of course. Just let me finish this cigarette,” he said, lighting one up. “Won’t be a minute.”

  It was ten, and she felt like screaming before he finally stubbed it out and took her home.

  “Siri, got a minute?” Bill Daeton called from the doorway of his office.

  She left the half-finished story on her desk and joined him. “What’s up?”

  “Look, I know you don’t do family news,” he said, anticipating an argument, “but I’ve got a great feature story on my desk and no cameraman to shoot it. Can you spare an hour from that burglary wrap-up to take some pictures of an art exhibit at the museum? There are a couple of paintings by Jacques Lavelle in it—you know, our local talent who does those exquisite portraits in pastels?”

  She glared at him without speaking.

  “Think of the class that story will give the paper,” he coaxed, “an international exhibit, right here in our city, and a local artist included in it, along with some of the old masters. The arts council will love it. So will old Sumerson. Remember that? He owns 65% of the stock in our publishing company? Pays both our salaries? Siri, dammit, I haven’t got a photog. Everyone’s out on assignment, and I’ve got to have those shots today!”

  She saw a chance for some bargaining and grinned. “Remember that opinion poll you wanted me to conduct in my spare time to see how local people felt on the gun control issue? Well, if you’ll make Sandy do it instead, I’ll just be purely tickled to cover your art exhibit!”

  “Blackmailer!” he burst out.

  “It’s no worse than what you did to me,” she replied. “A week in Panama City with Hawke Grayson…one or both of us will be in shreds by the time we come home, and it’ll be all your fault. You knew I didn’t want to go.”

  “Who else was there to send?”

  She sighed. “Do we have a deal?”

  “Sandy,” he reminded her, “already has it in for you. I told him this morning about the Devolg case.”

  “He’s young,” she said soothingly. “He’ll get over it. And if he won’t, send him instead!” She grinned.

  “Can’t. I’ve already got him assigned to the lottery investigation.”

  “City editors,” she said with vigor, “were invented by God to torment the ignorant.”

  “Thanks.” He grinned. “Now get out of here and get those pictures. And don’t forget, I’m still searching for somebody to take over the ‘Dear Mother Jones’ column permanently.”

  “Sadist,” she mumbled as she walked away.

  The art exhibit was delightful to shoot. The lighting was good, the subject matter was fascinating, and, best of all, it got her out of the office. She sat down on one of the brocade benches, clutching the camera, and stared blankly at a charcoal sketch. The really wonderful thing about reporting was that it didn’t tie you to a desk for eight hours. You could get out into the city, meet people, and visit exciting places, without having to belong to any elite crowd. It was always exciting, even a little dangerous at times. Most of the women she knew would rather have suffered torture than trade jobs with her. But she knew with a certainty, that she couldn’t have endured being a secretary or a receptionist. She was only alive with a pad and pen and a camera in her hands.

  “I might have known I’d find you here,” Hawke said suddenly, and she whirled on the bench to find him leaning carelessly against one of the big round columns, his hands in his pockets, just watching her.

  Her heart flew up in her chest, but it was just the unexpected surprise of seeing him, she told herself.

  “I…Bill bribed me,” she stammered.

  “Did he have to twist your arm that hard?” he asked. “You love these damned things.”

  “Guilty,” she admitted with a tiny smile, slinging her collar length blond hair away from her face. “But he didn’t know that. I got out of doing an opinion poll.”

  “Witch. Sometimes I think you cast spells.”

  “So does Mark,” she sighed. Her eyes brushed the beauty of the canvasses on the high walls. “You got me into a devil of a mess last night. I was going to wait until he was in a better mood to break the news to him.”

  “I’ve never seen him in a good mood. He’s a whiner, sparrow. The world’s full of them…complainers without the guts to change the things they complain about.”

  “People can’t help being what they are, Hawke,” she said quietly, avoiding those piercing dark eyes. “You can’t go around trying to change people to suit your own taste.”

  “At least your father taught you that,” he replied. “Where do you go from here?”

  “I thought I’d go steal bread crumbs from the pigeons in the park,” she replied.

  “You look like that’s what you do for lunch every day,” he said with an unappreciative glance at her slender figure. “Come on.”

  “Where are we going?” she asked, grasping her camera and purse as she tried to keep up with his long, quick strides.

  “To Kebo’s. I’m going to feed you.”

  She drew back. “Oh, no, not today. It’s Wednesday,” she told him.

  “So, what the hell does that have to do with it?” he demanded, his face leonine and faintly dangerous.

  “Middle of the week, and I owe my soul to a mechanic on Peachtree Street for repairs on the VW,” she said in a breathless rush. “I simply can’t afford Kebo’s. You’ll have to take me to the Krystal instead.”

  His eyes narrowed, and his square jaw locked stubbornly. “You damned little independent mule,” he growled softly. “I said I was taking you to lunch, and I can afford Kebo’s. Now come on.”

  “Yes, sir!” she replied smartly, and had to skip to keep up with him.

  It wasn’t until they were inside the plush restaurant enjoying roast beef au jus and perfectly cooked scalloped potatoes with a salad, that she began to wonder how Hawke had kno
wn where to find her.

  “I wasn’t looking for you,” he replied when she asked the question. “I stopped by to see Lavelle’s part of the exhibit. I represented him in a libel case several years ago. His art impressed me then. It still does.”

  “It’s surrealistic,” Siri commented.

  One dark, heavy eyebrow went up. “Yes, it is.”

  Her lower lip pouted as she added a touch of the thick cream to her coffee and stirred it. “I’m not completely ignorant when it comes to things like art.”

  “I never said you were. I thought your taste ran to Renoir and Degas.”

  “It does, but I…” She sighed. “I just like art. I don’t know all that much about it, really, but I like beautiful things.”

  “Remind me to show you my African wood carvings someday,” he said. He leaned back in the comfortable semicircular padded chair and lit a cigarette. “Or don’t you like art that exotic?”

  “I have several African pieces of my own,” she told him. “Although I’m sure mine aren’t as expensive as yours.”

  “Stop that,” he said coldly. “I don’t care for snobbery, inverted or not.”

  She bit back a retort, busying herself instead with her coffee. The lunch had been perfect, and she shouldn’t have attacked him. A twinge of color dotted her cheeks, and she let herself relax.

  “I’m sorry,” she said quietly.

  The waiter came back before he could reply and while he was ordering strawberry shortcake for them, she studied him absently. He was, she thought, a striking man. Not exactly handsome. His brow was too jutting, his face too leonine, his jaw too square. It was a strong face, not a pretty one. His build was equally strong—husky as a wrestler, and narrow-hipped with powerful legs. He wasn’t overly tall, but he didn’t need to be. There was such raw power in his big body that he was as intimidating as any man two heads taller would have been. He really was quite attractive. Darkly, sensuously attractive. Her eyes rested briefly on the wide, chiseled perfection of his mouth, and she allowed herself to wonder, just for one mad instant, how it would feel to kiss him….