Love on Trial

by Diana Palmer

  For Siri, as she stepped out of the car and looked around at the neatly kept grounds, at the massive oaks with their beards of Spanish moss, at the river beyond the garden, there was a sense of belonging. It was strangely like coming home after a long absence. And when she turned and met Hawke’s intent gaze, the feeling was complete.

  The three of them were introduced to Mr. Simms’ wife, Mary, who’d kept house at Graystone ever since Mr. Hawke was a lad. She was a buxom woman with gray hair neatly coiled at the back of her head, and Siri had a feeling that she could set a table like no one else.

  As they climbed the steps to the wide, immaculately scrubbed portico, Siri noted the big rocking chairs and settees that lined the walls. In the distance, the soft watery sound of the river could be heard along with the swish of the tree limbs touching and the mingled birdsongs. It was like something out of another world; a bower of peace in the world full of turmoil.

  “Oh, Hawke, it’s heaven,” she murmured as they went into the house behind the Hallers.

  “It can be lonely,” he remarked quietly.

  She met his dark eyes. “Any place can be.”

  Hawke gave them a grand tour, and Siri was flooded with impressions of an elliptical stairway, curved walls, rounded banisters of pure mahogany, and large paintings of previous owners of the house.

  “Graysons have lived here for over 200 years,” Kitty told Siri, as they followed along behind the men. “In Hawke’s den, there’s a portrait of the first owner, with a bayonet tear in the center of it. They say a Union soldier used it for target practice when federal troops camped here during the Civil War.”

  “You and Randy have been here before, haven’t you?” Siri asked.

  “It was a long time ago,” Kitty replied softly, and Siri knew somehow that it had been when Hawke’s mother died.

  When the luggage was arranged in their rooms, and they’d had a light lunch, they got the tour of the farm. Hawke walked beside Siri, his arm brushing against hers as they first went to the big barn, where a prize polled Hereford bull pranced proudly in a paddock surrounded by a white fence.

  “Gray’s Fancy,” Hawke mused, gesturing toward the huge animal. “The pride of my stock, and he knows it. He’s sired five champions already.”

  Siri cocked her blond head at him. “He does have a macho look about him,” she observed.

  “You’d have the same look if you carried the price tag he does.” Randy laughed. “That’s a very expensive ton of beef.”

  “Don’t say that,” Kitty cautioned, “you’ll hurt his feelings!”

  The next stop was the spacious stretch of green pasture where the polled Hereford main herd dotted the countryside with their red and white coats. Siri leaned back against the white rail fence and watched them moving lazily back and forth against a horizon of trees.

  “The farm covered two counties over a century and a half ago,” Hawke told her, while he smoked a cigarette. “Now there are barely a thousand acres left. We raise a few crops, but cattle are our main interest.”

  Siri gazed up at him. “You haven’t been here in a long time, have you?” she asked, so softly that the Hallers, who were several yards away, wouldn’t hear.

  He studied the glowing tip of his cigarette. “No,” he said finally, “I haven’t wanted to come near the place until now.”

  “Could we see the gardens? I got a glimpse of them…”

  “Come on.” He caught her elbow and turned her with him, calling to the Hallers to join them.

  The gardens were on the banks of the Ashley River, amid towering magnolia and expansive oak trees with curling lavender-gray strands of Spanish moss trailing down from their lofty branches. The mixing of colors was perfect; the white and pink of the hydrangeas, the violet crepe myrtle, the white snowball bushes, and the pale purple wisteria hanging like grape flowers. It was enough to take an artist’s breath away.

  “You should see it in the spring,” Kitty sighed, “when the magnolias are blooming along with the dogwoods and rose bushes. It’s a symphony of color.”

  “It must be lovely,” Siri murmured, her eyes on the lazy current of the river as it wound through the cypress trees at its banks. “What a lovely place to have a picnic.”

  Hawke turned on his heel, his face taut. “We’d better be getting back. I’ve got some calls to make about a temporary overseer.”

  Siri hung behind with Kitty. She knew that Hawke was remembering happier times by the river—maybe picnics he’d shared with Nita in his younger days. She felt a twinge of envy at the thought of how much he must have loved Nita.

  Hawke found two possible replacements for his ailing manager before sundown, leaving the interviews to do the next day.

  The four of them sat down to a seafood supper that Hawke swore was Mary’s crowning accomplishment—stuffed crab and lobster tails. It was the best Siri could remember ever having, but she’d never eaten in surroundings this elegant. Crystal chandeliers hung overhead and old silver utensils and serving dishes adorned the table. It brought the distance between Hawke and her into vivid focus. Looking down the table at him, sitting so majestically at the end of the table in a dark suit, she understood him just a little better. The rugged aristocrat. The plantation master. He’d have been right at home in the nineteenth century.

  After the last of the crab was gone, they went into the parlor for after dinner drinks. Siri accepted a small glass of delicately aged French brandy, and sneaked away at the first opportunity to sit in one of the big rocking chairs on the porch outside.

  The atmosphere of night in this secluded green paradise was delicious. They were far removed from traffic and the smell of car exhaust. Siri sipped her brandy quietly, drinking in the serenity around her; the low murmur of the river, and the soft chirp of crickets in the thick woods around the house.

  “You’ve got the makings of a country girl,” Hawke said at her shoulder.

  “Would you rent me about six cubic inches of this and have it mailed to my house?” she asked with a smile.

  “You’d miss the sirens after the second week,” he replied, taking the chair next to hers.

  “Where are Randy and Kitty?” she asked.

  “On the phone. Kitty wanted to call her mother while she was in town.”

  “Don’t she and Randy still live in Charleston?” she asked.

  “No. They have a home in Savannah now.” He sipped his whiskey and leaned back in his rocking chair with a heavy sigh. “Mary has a way with crab,” he murmured.

  “Mary has gifted hands,” she agreed. “Hawke, I never did get to ask you what you discovered about that witness.”

  “I found him,” he replied.

  She sat straight up in her chair. “Where? Who is he? Will he testify? Did he…?”

  He chuckled heartily. “For God’s sake, one question at a time!”

  “All right,” she agreed breathlessly. “Will he testify?”

  “He’ll testify.”

  “Do you know who killed Devolg?” she persisted, leaning across the arm of her rocking chair to intently study his impassive face.

  “I think so.”

  “Are you going to tell me?” she burst out while he emptied his glass in one swallow. He set the glass down on the floor and leisurely lit a cigarette.

  He glanced at her with one eyebrow raised. “And make you an accessory?” he asked with mock incredulity.

  “Hawke!” she groaned. “You know I can keep a confidence, and you know I wouldn’t write anything until you tell me to!”

  He smiled at her eagerness. “Remember I told you that Davy Megars had an older sister?”

  “Your client Davy?”

  “The same. Well, she had a boyfriend, a very jealous boyfriend who knew she was making time with Devolg.” He leaned back in his chair and watched the path of a cricket as it crawled jerkily off the porch. “I had a feeling Davy was protecting someone. Youngsters don’t generally go around killing other men without a motive. And the fact that
his fingerprints were found in Devolg’s room only placed him at the scene, they didn’t prove he was the murderer.”

  “What would he have been doing there?” she asked, her mind nowhere near as sharp as Hawke’s.

  “Getting his sister out,” he replied.

  She blinked at him. “You think Davy’s sister did it?”

  “She had the best motive, from the information I’ve gathered. Devolg was a known womanizer, and he liked variety. Davy’s sister has a nasty, jealous temper. All I need is to get her on the stand for five minutes. I can break her.”

  It was the way he said it, the confidence in his deep, slow voice, the hardness of his face, that made her certain he could do exactly that. She studied him in the muted light of the porch, her eyes tracing his profile lovingly as he suddenly turned and caught the look in her eyes.

  “What are you thinking, Siri?” he asked quietly.

  “That I hope you never get me on the stand,” she said with a nervous laugh. She finished the brandy and set her own glass down beside the rocking chair.

  He turned in his chair to face her, catching the side of her neck with his big, warm hand to hold her eyes level with his, as she raised back up. “I’d never hurt you,” he told her. “Not on the witness stand, or in any place on earth.”

  Her pulse ran wild at the slow, caressing touch of his fingers. She looked into his eyes, and everything she’d ever wanted was within the reach of her arms.

  “Woman,” he whispered huskily, “I didn’t mean for this to happen. But, I need you…”

  He gently tilted her face and reached across the scant inches that separated them to touch his mouth lightly to hers. She caught her breath as he increased the pressure, shifting his hand to the nape of her neck to force her closer.

  “God, it’s not enough!” he said in a rough whisper. He moved suddenly, rising to lift her out of the rocking chair, his mouth claiming hers again as he crushed her body against his, burning all thought of protest out of her whirling mind. She locked her arms around his neck, straining closer, returning the fervor of his kisses without reserve.

  She felt him drop back down into his own chair, carrying her with him. He draped her over his knees, allowing her head to fall weakly back into the crook of his arm, as he looked down at her with eyes laden with passion.

  His chest rose and fell unsteadily against her soft, yielding body, but for all the passion in his eyes, his face was like chiseled rock. Her own breath came quickly, unsteadily, and her lips trembled as she stared back at him.

  Sanity returned all in a rush. She vividly remembered the last time he’d kissed her, and what he’d said to her. She had made up her mind that he wasn’t going to hurt her again like that.

  “May I get up now?” she asked in a rusty whisper. “You…you said last time that you were through giving me lessons.”

  Something came and went in his eyes, but he erased the hardness from his expression with a slow, lazy smile. “I don’t think you need many more, do you?” he countered.

  She lowered her eyes to his massive chest in the pure white shirt. “Why?” she asked gently, and he knew she wasn’t talking about “lessons.”

  “If you need a reason,” he said quietly, “because of this.” He caught one of her slender hands and pressed it palm down to his chest just above his heart. The beat was heavy and erratic. “Do you feel it, Siri?” he asked deeply.

  She drew a shaky breath. “I…a lot of women must have affected you that way.”

  “A few.” His own hand slid up from her waist to rest not quite intimately at the curve where her own heart was running wild. “I seem to have the same effect on you, sparrow.”

  “Don’t make fun of me,” she pleaded in a ghostly voice.

  “I don’t want to make fun of you. I want to make love to you,” he said in a low, quiet voice that made shivers race down her spine.

  “You know I’ve never…”

  He laughed softly. “Maybe I’d better clarify that, little innocent. I want to hold you, and kiss you, and touch you. I can do that without taking you into my bed,” he whispered at her ear.

  “Hawke Grayson, you are the most…”

  His mouth brushed against hers slowly, tasting hers in a tender, leisurely encounter that instantly quieted her. Meanwhile, his thumb was tracing delicious patterns on the bodice of her dress, touching and lifting with a strange rhythm that made her tense with unknown sensations.

  “You’re tense,” he murmured. “Are you afraid of me, or is it that good?”

  “Hawke…” she protested weakly.

  “Tell me, honey.”

  She twisted, trying to escape the maddening caress of his fingers, but the arm behind her gripped like steel and held her captive, and she moaned sharply, her nails digging involuntarily into his hard chest through the soft fabric.

  His cheek slid against hers caressingly. “Your nails are sharp, little cat,” he murmured, a smile in his voice.

  “I’m…sorry,” she managed unsteadily, her eyes closing as she yielded, trusting him even against her will, drugged with pleasure.

  “I’m not. Here.” He unbuttoned the top three buttons of the silky shirt and slid her cool hand inside it. “Anything goes, Siri,” he said quietly. “Anything.”

  “But…you said…” she faltered.

  “To hell with what I said,” he growled as his mouth opened on hers. “I want you.”

  Before she could react to the words, he was teaching her how agonizingly sweet a kiss could be, and she gave up trying to think.

  The sound of voices made him raise his head. He looked searchingly down into her misty, amber eyes.

  Her fingertips traced a tiny pattern on the warm, bronzed flesh of his chest through the mat of dark hair. “Are you trying to seduce me?” she whispered lazily.

  “Not yet,” he murmured, “but if you keep that up, I may damned well try.”

  “Oh!” she breathed. She withdrew her hand with a shaky sigh. “Sorry.”

  “You still don’t know what you can do to me, do you?” he asked quietly. “You sweet, little witch, I step into an inferno every time you touch me.”

  She searched his face quietly as the voices inside the house drew nearer. “If it’s any consolation, you do the same thing to me,” she admitted.

  “Any experienced man could, Siri,” he told her. “Don’t let it go to your head.”

  She dropped her eyes to his chest. “I won’t.”

  “I like the taste of you,” he said, holding her close for a moment, “and the way you feel in my arms. But when we get back to Atlanta, nothing will have changed. Nothing, Siri, do you understand?”

  She looked up and met his eyes solemnly. “Dad always used to tell me to live one day at a time.”

  There were shadows of some deep, private sadness in his eyes for just an instant. “That’s what I mean, sparrow. For the next two or three days, we’ll forget the rest of the world and enjoy being with each other. But the minute I land that plane in Atlanta, I’m going to walk away from you. And I won’t look back.”

  She bit her lower lip. “I…I won’t have an affair with you, Hawke,” she said self-consciously.

  “You’re damned right you won’t,” he said roughly. “I told you before I wasn’t going to play fast and loose with you, and I meant it. I won’t promise not to kiss you, you impudent little minx, but it isn’t going any further than that. I don’t want your innocence on my conscience. I’ve got enough to haunt me without that.”

  She shifted in his arms, feeling the tension drain out of her to be replaced with a strange, easy comradeship. “Does that mean,” she asked, “that I have to promise not to seduce you, either?”

  He grinned down at her. “It’s only fair. But would you know how?”

  “I’m learning. In a few years, look out.”

  “My God, you’ll be devastating,” he agreed. He leaned back in the chair and pulled a cigarette out of his pocket, holding it lightly in his fingers. “Will
the smoke bother you? If you’re going to mind it, you’ll have to get up, because it’s either this or a shot of whiskey.”

  She linked her hands behind his head. “Do I unnerve you, Mr. Grayson?” she asked with a smile.

  “Yes, Madam,” he replied, “you do.”

  She nuzzled her cheek against his jacket, loving the solidness, the warmth of his body, the deep sound of his voice in the darkness. He was, she thought drowsily, so easy to love.

  To love. Her eyes flew open. She gazed across the breadth of his chest to the long porch with darkness at its end. She loved him. For the first time, she let herself admit it, feel it, drown in it. She loved Hawke. And what good was it going to do when he’d already told her how it was going to end? He wasn’t a loving man. He could want a woman, true, but Siri wanted more than desire from him. She wanted a thousand nights like this one to lie in his arms listening to the night, and feel a security that had never been hers to enjoy until now, with this man. She wanted children with thick black hair and dark eyes. Her eyes closed. Behind her eyelids, she could feel the warmth of tears brewing.

  The Hallers came out onto the porch unexpectedly, and Siri started and sat up. Hawke pulled her down again and held her with one big arm.

  “Be still,” he murmured over her head, “they’re family.”

  “But you said…”

  “Damn it, will you be quiet?” he growled. “Are you ashamed to be seen like this with me?”

  “Oh, no!” she said involuntarily.

  He smiled gently down at her, and the look in his dark eyes made her want to cry. “Then stop trying to escape. Just act naturally.”

  “How can I, when I’ve never been in a man’s lap before?” she asked.

  The smile broadened. “You felt right at home a few minutes ago,” he reminded her.

  She blushed. “Beast!”

  “That isn’t what you were whispering under your breath, either,” he whispered as the Hallers came into view. “Come on out,” he called to them before Siri could think of a reply. “I’m rocking my ‘niece.’”