by Gina Wilkins
Tara had actually talked very little with Blake since Doren had grabbed her backstage last night. And all he’d done when they were together was to fill her in on the details of the case, as if nothing at all personal had passed between them during that week together.
They hadn’t even spent the night together. Claiming he still had loose ends to tie up, Blake had left Tara in his sister’s care after he’d been reassured that Tara wasn’t seriously injured. He hadn’t even seen her off when she’d left Savannah on Jeremy’s private plane this morning. He’d told her goodbye on the telephone, his voice as stilted and polite as if he was talking to a mere passing acquaintance.
He’d broken her heart as painfully as Doren had broken her arm.
Realizing she was crying, Tara dashed angrily at her wet cheeks. She expected to shed many tears over Blake, but she wasn’t ready to begin just yet. Her telephone rang and she considered letting the machine pick it up. But then she answered it, instead, deciding that she could use the distraction.
“How are you?”
Blake’s deep voice almost started the tears up again, but Tara fought them back. “I’m okay. Stephanie left a few minutes ago, and I was just thinking about taking a pill and going to bed for a while.”
“Sounds like a good idea. Are you in much pain?”
“No. Not really,” she fibbed, shifting her arm.
“I don’t like the thought of you being alone there. Would you like me to call your mom for you? Maybe you should have reconsidered her request for you to spend a few days with her—Jeremy was just as willing to deliver you to your mom’s house as to your apartment.”
“I really wanted to come home. My own home,” she replied, her voice as carefully controlled as his. “And I’m perfectly capable of calling someone if I want company.”
“Tara, I—” He paused for what seemed like a long time before speaking again. “I have a new case,” he said finally. “I need to start immediately. I’ll be out of the state for a while.”
It hurt, so badly she had to close her eyes and struggle for composure before she could reply. “Good luck with it,” was all she said.
“If you need anything—anything at all—just call Stephanie, okay? She usually knows how to reach me in an emergency.”
“I’m sure I’ll be fine.”
“I’ll, er, call you when I’m back in town, okay? We’ll talk then.”
“You’re always promising to talk later, but it never seems to happen, does it? There will always be an excuse. Another case. Something else to hide behind. I think—I think it would be better if you didn’t call me again.”
Her words seemed to echo hauntingly through the telephone lines.
“Tara, I—”
“I’m afraid I would never be content with what little you’re willing to share of yourself, Blake. And I won’t resort to dragging reluctant answers out of you one question at a time. I’ve already tried that. I found it very uncomfortable.”
She thought she heard him swallow. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I wish...well, I wish I could offer everything you deserve. But I can’t. I don’t know how.”
He sounded weary. Defeated. But instead of feeling sorry for him, she got angry. “You know how, Blake,” she disputed. “You just weren’t willing to try.”
She sensed that he wanted to argue with her. But all he said was, “You’ll be all right?”
“I’ll be fine,” she said, lifting her chin and trying to make herself believe it. “Whatever impression you might have gotten last week, I’m not a quitter. I just needed some time to regroup. I’m going to start looking for a new position immediately.”
“You’ll find one, if that’s what you want. There’s nothing you can’t do, Tara.”
Except make you love me. She swallowed those words and settled for a simple, “Goodbye, Blake. Take care of yourself.”
“That’s what I’m best at,” he replied with a hint of bitterness in his voice.
“For what it’s worth,” she added quickly, “I don’t have any regrets. It wasn’t all fun—but it was definitely interesting.”
“Tara—”
“I think you’re a very special man, Blake. And whatever it is that keeps you moving from place to place, always alone, never able to really share yourself with anyone—whatever it is you’re looking for—well, I hope you find it someday. I’m only sorry you couldn’t find it with me.”
“Tara,” he said again, and this time there was a catch in his voice.
She hung up quickly, instantly regretting her impulsive words, knowing she’d revealed much more than she’d intended. She half expected the phone to ring again immediately, for Blake to try to convince her that she was better off without him, or some such nonsense to ease his conscience.
He didn’t call back.
Tara drew a long, deep breath, dried her eyes and reached for her pain pills. Just one more brief escape into oblivion before she had to face reality, she promised herself. When she woke up, she had some calls to make.
Blake might be content to spend his life hiding from whatever demons drove him. Tara refused to follow his example.
SEVEN WEEKS LATER, Tara sat once again on the couch in her living room. A pile of file folders and computer printouts were scattered across the coffee table in front of her, along with two rapidly cooling cups of coffee, a half dozen pencils, two calculators and a laptop computer.
“There’s no doubt that Mr. Washington has a case,” she said, rubbing her temple with one finger. “This is obviously an IRS mistake. He should in no way be responsible for all these penalties and interest.”
“That’s what I told him.” The plump, pleasant-looking woman sitting next to her smiled in satisfaction. “Looks like we’ve got ourselves a new client, partner.”
Tara smiled weakly. “Bringing the number to a grand total of three.”
“Hey, we knew we’d have to start slow, right?”
“Right.” Tara tossed her pencil onto the table and flexed her left arm, which was still a bit stiff after the weeks in the cast. “Want me to freshen your coffee?”
“Sounds good.” Carmen Reyes began to gather papers as she spoke, shuffling them into neat stacks that she stowed in an inexpensive briefcase. “I hope our new office will be ready on Monday like they promised. I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to work at a real desk for a change instead of in your living room or at my kitchen table.”
Tara smiled. “Me, too. Who would have believed it would take so long just to paint a few...”
She was interrupted by the sudden chime of her doorbell. Her eyebrows rose. She wasn’t expecting anyone at this hour on a Saturday morning.
And then someone began to tap on the door. A recognizable rhythm. Shave and a haircut—two bits.
She could almost feel the blood drain from her face. “Oh, God.”
Carmen was instantly on her feet. “Tara? What’s wrong?”
Smiling a weak reassurance at her friend and new business associate, Tara crossed slowly to the door. She had to brace herself for a moment before she could open it.
Dressed in a pale yellow shirt, baggy gray slacks and black suspenders, his gray felt fedora tilted to a cocky angle on his golden head, Blake held a single, dazzlingly red rose in his right hand. His bright blue eyes went immediately to her hair, which was still a bold, dark red, but he didn’t comment.
“Got any coffee?” he asked, his expression unreadable.
She stepped back to let him in. She didn’t try to speak yet; she couldn’t trust her voice not to break.
Blake smiled at the dark-haired, dark-eyed, oliveskinned woman who had stepped protectively to Tara’s side, sensing Tara’s distress. “Hello,” he said. “I’m Blake Fox.”
Tara blinked. Blake Fox? Was that his real name, or just another one he’d pulled out of the air? And then she remembered his tattoo, and she thought that maybe this time he’d spoken the truth.
Carmen studied him with the wary eyes
of a woman who’d had all too much experience with charming, good-looking men. “Carmen Reyes. Tara’s law partner.”
Blake’s left eyebrow rose. He turned to Tara. “Law partner?”
She nodded, finally finding her voice. “We’ve just opened our own law firm. I’m tired of fighting the IRS on behalf of huge, wealthy corporations. It has occurred to me that ordinary citizens sometimes get shafted by the system, too. Carmen and I met a few years ago through a professional organization and when she found out I was available, she called and asked if I was interested in going into business with her.”
Blake nodded thoughtfully. “It sounds ideal for you,” he said simply.
Tara turned to Carmen then. “I know you have plans for the evening. We’re finished for the day, aren’t we?”
Carmen nodded, looking doubtfully from Tara to Blake. “You don’t need me to stay?”
“No. Blake is an old...friend.”
Carmen glanced at the rose. “Mmm-hmm.”
“It was nice to meet you,” Blake told Carmen as she left. “We’ll be seeing each other again.”
“Will we?” Carmen murmured, looking one more time at Tara before stepping out the door. “I suppose that remains to be seen.”
Tara closed the door behind her partner and then smoothed her palms down the legs of the navy slacks she wore with a short-sleeved cream sweater. At least this time Blake hadn’t caught her looking grubby and hopeless, she thought with a fleeting sense of relief.
Blake offered the rose. “This is for you.”
She took it carefully, as though worried about hidden thorns. “Thank you.”
“Your hair is still red. I’d have expected the color to wash out by now.”
“It did. I had it dyed again. I like it red.”
“So do I. Er...how’s your arm?”
“It’s fine. The cast has been gone for a week.”
“No lingering pain?”
“No. Is that why you’re here, Blake?” she asked, deciding not to waste any more time playing games. “Did you suddenly feel the need to make sure that I’m all right? I am, you know.”
“I can see that. A new look. A new job. What else has changed?”
“I have,” she answered simply. “I’m doing what I want to do now, not what everyone else expects me to do. My new career won’t be high-powered or prestigious, and I won’t make the money I’d have made in corporate tax law, but I think I’m going to be much happier doing it.”
“Good for you. I never had any doubt that you would land on your feet, Tara. That you would find what you wanted.”
She nodded, looking down at the rose to hide her expression—afraid that it would reveal that the one thing she’d wanted most was the one thing she hadn’t been able to get.
“Now that you’ve satisfied yourself that I’m all right, there’s no need for you to hang around,” she said, abandoning her manners for the sake of her pride. She really didn’t want to fall apart in front of him, and she was afraid that the longer he remained, the greater would be her chances of doing so.
“There’s something I need to tell you before I go.”
She steeled herself. “What is it?”
He drew a deep breath. “My last name is Fox,” he said. “That’s the real one. Stephanie uses it, too. Our parents were carnies—circus performers. We grew up on the road, both of us part of the act by the time we could walk. My parents died when a heavy piece of equipment crashed down on them while they were setting up for a performance. I’ve blamed myself ever since, because I was supposed to be there to help them, but instead I was off flirting with a pretty tightrope walker.”
His mother had survived the accident, only to die a few days later in a hospital, Tara remembered him saying. She reached out to him, laying her hand on his arm, aching for the pain he must have suffered being orphaned so young—and blaming himself. “I’m so sorry. I—”
He shook his head and kept talking, as though he had prepared this speech and was determined to deliver it. “I raised Stephanie on the road, supporting us by working the carnival circuits until she was eighteen. We stayed on the move, sheltered by our carnie friends who knew child-protection services would take Stephanie away from me if they ever caught up with us. I never finished high school, though I made sure Stephanie did—even if she had to change schools at least a dozen times before she finished. I wanted to send her to college, but she already had show business in her blood. She went to work for Jeremy right out of school and started getting modeling jobs not long after that. She was completely self-sufficient by the time she was twenty.”
“Blake—”
He held up a hand to silence her. “I’ve never had a real home,” he said. “I’ve never held what some might call a real job. When I was twenty-one, I needed some quick cash and I earned it by sitting on a stakeout for a P.I. in Dallas. I discovered I had an aptitude for the business, and I started training for it.
“I’ve built a career from word of mouth, taking the cases that interested me, turning down the ones that didn’t. I had the freedom to do that because I had no obligations, no one to provide for except for myself. I’ve lived for various lengths of time in twenty different states. I’ve never had a relationship that lasted more than a few months. I’ve got friends all over the country, but more than half of them don’t know my full name. I’ve never expected to settle down, get married, have kids...never thought I’d be any good at it. And, considering the way I let my parents down, I didn’t think I deserved it. When I met you—a Harvard-educated attorney from a respectable, small-town family, a woman who could have any man she wanted—well, I knew I was way out of my league.”
She wouldn’t cry, Tara thought fiercely. She wouldn’t let her suddenly precarious emotions get away from her. She blinked back the tears that threatened to flood her eyes. “Blake—”
“I knew I was all wrong for you,” he finished doggedly. “I knew I would do nothing but disrupt your life...and it turned out I was right. I couldn’t even take you out to dinner without getting you involved in something dangerous. When Doren had you...when I knew how badly he was hurting you...when I thought for just one sickening moment that he was going to snap your neck...I almost lost it. I’ve been throwing knives since I was three, and I’ve never once hesitated in a crunch...until then. I was terrified that I would miss completely. Or that I would hit you. That you would die because of my mistake. And it paralyzed me.”
Her fingers tightened on his arm. “Blake, you saved my life. You and Jeremy together. If it hadn’t been for your quick thinking, and your excellent aim, I wouldn’t be here now.”
He touched her cheek with an unsteady hand. “If you had died, I would have died with you. And no one except my sister has ever meant that much to me before. I didn’t know how to deal with that. I stayed away because I couldn’t imagine why a woman like you would want to get mixed up with a man like me. I came back because I can’t imagine living the rest of my life without you.”
“A man like you?” Tara blinked away her tears and smiled mistily up at him. “You mean a man who gave up years of his life to raise his orphaned sister? A man who sacrificed his own education to make sure that she got one. A man who has made a successful career on his own terms. A man who makes friends—good friends—wherever he goes. Who doesn’t judge them by their appearance or their circumstances or their life-style.”
She caught his hand in hers and held it against her cheek. “You came to me on that Friday afternoon after I’d been abandoned by others I’d trusted because you cared about me. Because you were worried about me. And then, when we got into trouble through circumstances you had no control over, you watched over me, and you saved my life. You believed in me when I no longer believed in myself. And even when you hurt me—when you broke my heart, damn it—you did so because you thought it was best for me. I don’t know whether to hit you or hug you for being so incredibly dense.”
“I love you, Tara. I’ve loved you for so l
ong that you’ve become a part of me.”
“And I’ve loved you since the first time you stopped by my desk, introduced yourself and told me a really corny joke,” she answered.
His eyes closed for a moment. They looked even brighter than usual when he opened them again. “I don’t deserve you, Tara McBride. But I’m going to spend the rest of my life making you happy.”
“I don’t need you to make me happy. I can do that for myself. I only need you to love me.”
“Forever,” he promised, sweeping her into his arms. “Always.”
She locked her arms around his neck. “I won’t tie you down, Blake. I have my own career, my own goals. So you keep chasing clues and solving puzzles, whatever it is you enjoy doing. But when you’re finished, when you find your answers, you come home to me.”
“Actually, I’m thinking about making a few career adjustments of my own,” he murmured against her lips. “I think it’s time I opened a real office, establish more regular office hours. Private investigation these days is done as often through a computer as through a pair of binoculars. I need a home. An identity. A family. A life.”
“That sounds a lot like a marriage proposal,” she whispered, almost afraid to hope.
His smile was sheepish. “Not exactly poetic, was it? But it came from my heart. Is it too soon to ask?”
“Oh, Blake.” She finally stopped fighting the tears, letting them slide unchecked down her cheeks. “What took you so long?”
“That had better be a yes.”
“That’s exactly what it is. I love you, Blake Fox.”
He crushed her mouth beneath his. And then he bent down to sweep her high against his chest. His hat fell to the carpet, unnoticed, his thick golden hair tumbling boyishly onto his forehead.
“Remember what I said about taking pleasure where you can find it?” he asked.
“Mmm. Are you going to juggle for me?”
A wicked smile slashed across his face. “Eventually.”
She really loved it when Blake carried her to bed, Tara thought happily. She looked forward to having him do so for many years to come.