The Harder They Fall (Intimate Moments)

by Lovelace, Merline

  “This afternoon, in LaGrange. Did you stop for gas on your way through town? Maybe see me there?”

  His brow lifting, he took her query one step further. “Then hotfoot it out of town and stage that accident just to get you to stop?”

  Red flowed back into her cheeks. She must have heard the touch of paranoia in her question. Or the ego of a star used to being part of a brilliant galaxy. Anyone whose orbit included a small army of managers, publicists, recording executives, costume coordinators, hairdressers and a legion of adoring fans might fall into the trap of thinking she was the center of their universe.

  Evan had spent enough time in this woman’s company now to dismiss both paranoia and ego as the basis for her unexpected question.

  “If I’d spotted you when I cruised through LaGrange,” he answered slowly, “I certainly would have sat up and taken notice. Maybe even tried to engineer a meeting. But I didn’t.”

  Frowning, she worked more pleats in her skirt with nervous fingers.

  “What made you think someone was watching you?” he probed.

  She’d roused his professional as well as his personal interest now. When she didn’t answer, he pulled it out of her.

  “Come on, Lissa. You can’t hint that I ran my bike into a ditch to stage a meeting with a beautiful woman and just drop it there.”

  If the compliment registered, she didn’t show any appreciation. A frown creased her forehead when she met his eyes.

  “It was only a feeling, okay? A sort of itchy sensation.”

  Her tight, defiant tone dared him to dismiss her itch as neurotic.

  “I’m listening.”

  She chewed on her lower lip, obviously needing to talk, just as obviously reluctant to talk to him.

  “At first I thought someone in LaGrange had recognized me. I kept looking over my shoulder, thinking I’d spot whoever it was. I’d just convinced myself I was imagining things when you appeared in the middle of the desert. Then that reporter showed up…”

  The flowery fabric wadded into a ball under her nervous fingers. Evan couldn’t help himself. Stretching out a hand, he gently pried her fingers free and took them in a loose hold. The contact surprised her as much as it did him. Her startled glance jumped to his face.

  “There’s more, isn’t there?” he guessed.

  He’d nailed it. He could tell by the way her fingers trembled before she jerked them from his grasp.

  “Tell me,” he urged.

  “Why? What possible concern is it to you?”

  Evan was darned if he knew. He improvised, trying to justify his trek up to her trailer tonight to himself as much as to her.

  “I’m a good listener, and a pretty good lawyer. I’m also stuck here until Charlie fixes my bike. Maybe I can help you with whatever’s making you so nervous.”

  “Why?” she asked again, her brown eyes hostile. “What’s in it for you?”

  “Nothing. I’m just trying to make amends for almost bringing the hounds down on you.”

  “By dispensing free legal advice? I don’t think so.” She sprang up, her shoulders stiff. “If you’re thinking to cash in on some of the money that disappeared with Doc, you’d better think again. I don’t know where he is, don’t know where the blasted money is and don’t care.”

  “Lissa…”

  “I’ve paid back almost every penny,” she interrupted fiercely. “With interest! It’s taken me three years, but it’s nearly done. At this point, I don’t care if Doc and his stolen loot dropped into a crack in the earth and went straight to…to Hades.”

  He surged to his feet, not nearly as amused this time by her quaint expletives.

  “Dammit, I’m not looking for a share of this so-called loot.”

  “No? Then maybe you think you can convince me to go back into the business. Maybe you want a piece of the new, reformed Missy Marie. You wouldn’t be the first,” she said with withering scorn. “I had my fill of agents and promoters urging me to cash in on all that great publicity generated by my trial.”

  God! Her scars ran deep. Controlling himself with an iron will, he kept his voice level.

  “I’m the last person who’d urge you to exploit your trial and conviction for gain. I’m a public servant, remember? We government types don’t particularly enjoy watching outsiders make millions off cases we sweat blood over.”

  “Then what do you hope to get out of helping me?”

  “I told you. Nothing.”

  “Don’t give me that, Henderson.”

  “Evan. The name’s Evan. And I’m not asking for anything from you.”

  “Ha!” She flung her head back. Her hair swept her shoulders. Eyes bruised by the public scorn she’d endured glared at him. “I might have believed that three years ago. Now, I know better. Tell me the truth, Evan. What do you want from me?”

  He hated that she saw him with a clearer vision than he saw himself. Digging deep inside himself, he was forced to admit that he wanted a heck of a lot more from Lissa than he’d wanted from any woman in a long, long time, Carrie Northcutt included.

  “All I was hoping for was another smile,” he tossed back. “You’ve got one heck of a smile, lady…when you unbend enough to let it off the leash.”

  Her brows slashed down. Disbelief and scorn rang in her voice. “You expect me to believe that’s all you want? A smile?”

  “It was until a few moments ago.”

  “I thought so!” Folding her arms across her chest, she glowered at him. “All right. Spell it out in layman’s terms, Counselor. What’s the real charge for this legal advice you’re offering?”

  “A kiss, for starters.”

  “What?”

  She took an involuntary step back, startled out of her scowl by his blunt reply. Her fish-eyed surprise sparked a streak of pure deviltry in Evan. She wanted the truth? He’d give it to her, without spit or saddle polish.

  “A long, slow kiss. With mouths open. Teeth knocking. Tongues tangling. The kind my brother Marsh used to call a Saturday Night Special.”

  She backed up another step. “You’re out of your mind!”

  “Could be.”

  He followed, noting with great interest the flush that started at the V of her pink vest and surged upward. Noting, too, the stab of pulse at the base of her throat.

  “A man would have to be crazy to wrap his arms around a woman as prickly as a cactus,” he murmured, fascinated by that throbbing pulse. “Or ache for her to wrap hers around him.”

  Considerably encouraged by the fact that she didn’t haul off and slug him, Evan planted a palm against the faded pecan paneling beside her head.

  “But holding you is high up there on the list of what I want from you, Ms. James. Right alongside a Saturday Night Special.”

  The man was insane! Lissa couldn’t believe he was standing there—no, leaning there—smiling down at her while he laid out those outrageous conditions! Any more than she could believe she was standing here with her back to the wall, shaking like a knock-kneed ninny at the mere thought of sharing a long, slow, tongue-tangling kiss with this stranger.

  A moment ago, she was ready to toss him to the wolves. Or at least to Wolf. She didn’t trust his offer of help. Wasn’t sure she believed his too-ready explanation of the reporter’s unexpected appearance. Nor could she bring herself to accept Charlie’s gruff endorsement, which had surprised the heck out of her.

  Yet here she was, torn by the same need for human contact that had pierced her at Charlie’s this afternoon. Aching with a need that curled low in her belly. Wanting to reach up, wrap her arms around Henderson’s neck and deliver one doozy of a Saturday Night Special.

  The sad fact was that she’d only kissed one man in her life. Two, if she counted the affectionate pecks on the cheek she’d given Reverend McNabb. Maybe three. She’d probably planted some childish kisses on her father before he’d deposited her on the road outside the Baptist Children’s Home.

  But Doc… Doc had played her like a twent
y-dollar fiddle. Looking back, Lissa cringed inside whenever she remembered how eagerly she’d accepted his careless kisses. How she’d forced herself to ignore the teachings of a lifetime and respond to his hands on her young, untutored body. How hard she’d tried so hard to convince herself she was in love with him.

  Yet never, ever, had she felt this wild, sweet need to touch, to taste, to simply lose herself in the thrill of wanting and being wanted.

  “I think…” She forced the words through a throat gone tight and dry. “I think you’d better leave.”

  Okay, Evan told himself sternly. He could do this. He could drop his arm. Pull away from her. Walk out of the trailer.

  It was harder than he could ever have imagined. His jaw ground so hard it ached. Sweat filmed the back of his neck. Desire burned in his belly.

  Somehow, he made it to the door. A series of warning growls issued from under the trailer when he pushed it open.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Lissa waited until the door had closed behind him to slump back against the wall, as boneless as a bowl of Jell-O and twice as shaky.

  “Not if I see you first, Counselor.”

  Chapter 6

  Lissa opened the trailer door just as dawn spiraled across the eastern horizon. Great pinwheels of red and gold soothed her gritty eyes. Clean desert air not yet heated to a sizzle by the sun filled her lungs.

  She had to get some exercise, had to clear her mind. Evan Henderson had destroyed her concentration and sabotaged any hope of finishing the lyrics she’d been working on when he came visiting last night. The memory of those insane moments when she’d ached for his kiss had kept her tossing and turning for hours. As soon as the first fingers of dawn had slipped through the blinds, she’d rolled out of bed and tugged on her trusty cotton/spandex sports bra, a comfortable top and her favorite cutoffs.

  A long run was exactly what she needed to sweep the confusion he’d generated from her mind. A very long run. Hopefully Charlie would have his bike fixed and the man would be on his way back to San Diego by the time she got back.

  With the ease of long practice, she started slow and worked her way up to a comfortable jog. The rhythm of the run helped soothe her jangly nerves. So did the familiar slap of her sneakers against hard-baked earth as she followed her favorite path along the top of the ridge. She kept a wary eye out for any snakes that might be slithering about their business in the cool dawn. She’d made it a point to bone up on the local wildlife when she’d first moved to Paradise. All the articles she’d read indicated the rattlers indigenous to this corner of the desert were defensive animals, more likely to scurry away when startled than attack. Lissa wasn’t anxious to test that particular theory.

  Thankfully nothing disturbed the still, stark landscape except the occasional hawk dive-bombing for prey. The sky lightened to a hazy blue above her. Below the ridge she ran along, the desert stretched like a rumpled carpet for miles in every direction. Night-blooming cacti displayed splashes of their summer whites and pinks and reds in the cool dawn.

  For all its seeming desolation, Lissa had come to love this vast, untamed land. Her worries faded into insignificance in the face of such awesome, empty splendor. She might have been alone in the world except for Wolf. He loped ahead of her, dodging cactus clumps and sniffing out rabbit holes. Twice, he streaked after unseen prey. Once, he disappeared for a good ten minutes, only to return with tongue lolling and a silly grin on his face that was far more playful dog than half-wild beast.

  After four miles, Lissa’s common sense had asserted itself. After five, she’d put her crazy urge to lift her mouth to Evan’s last night in perspective. She was a normal, healthy female. It wasn’t a sin to feel the kind of needs Evan stirred in her.

  Only to give in to them.

  Well, she hadn’t given in to to them last night and wouldn’t have to worry about them today. After the way she’d turned down flat both his help and his kiss, Henderson wouldn’t offer either again. He’d roar out of Paradise on that bike of his without a backward glance, aim it straight south and head back to his busy life and whoever waited for him in San Diego. A man like Evan Henderson would have someone waiting. Telling herself that was exactly the way she wanted things, she whistled for Wolf and turned to retrace her steps.

  The sun was spitting bright, dazzling rays across the sky by the time the trailer came into sight. Slick with sweat, Lissa rounded the end and came to a skidding, clumsy stop.

  The calm she’d just pumped into her system went up in a flash of surprise, dismay, and secret, silly delight at finding Evan camped on the trailer steps, eyeing the growling Wolf warily. Disgusted by her reaction, she planted her fists on her hips.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Waiting for you.”

  When he wrapped his hands around two cardboard cups and pushed off the steps, Lissa tried her darnedest to convince herself that the thump inside her heaving chest was merely the result of exertion.

  Evan was too busy keeping a cautious eye on Wolf’s yellowed fangs to notice much of Lissa’s reaction to his presence on her doorstep. He walked forward slowly, keeping his movements calm and unthreatening. To his relief, he made it past the bristling animal without losing a chunk of his flesh. That obstacle cleared, he faced the equally bristling female.

  “I brought you some coffee.”

  Her mouth pursed. She regarded the cup he held out with the same suspicion she’d regarded his offer of help last night.

  How the heck she could pucker up like a drying prune and still look so damned sexy escaped Evan. But then, a lot about this woman escaped him. Like how the hurt she tried so hard to disguise with cynicism had kept him awake for most of the night. And how a silvery drop of perspiration trickling down the hollow between her breasts could get him so damned aroused so fast.

  Since Lissa had picked him up yesterday afternoon, Evan had gained a whole new appreciation for the sun culture…particularly when it resulted in curling, sweat-dampened hair, flushed skin and cutoffs that displayed to perfection her trim, slender thighs. With an exercise of sheer will, he managed to keep his bland gaze aimed at her face.

  “Josephine said you take your coffee with lots of cream. She also said you’re partial to spice cake. She sent some along with her, uh, egg bake. I’m not sure what’s in it exactly, but it sure smelled good when she pulled it out of the oven a while ago.”

  It still smelled good, as evidenced by the dog’s sudden interest in the paper sack Evan had left on the trailer steps.

  “Wolf! Down!”

  Tucking his tail between his hind legs, the shaggy creature abandoned the bag and slunk under the trailer. Evan watched with considerable interest as remorse instantly chased the lingering suspicion from Lissa’s face.

  “Poor baby. He’s hungry.”

  So was Evan. He swallowed an instinctive protest as she fished a foil-covered dish out of the sack and proceeded to empty half its contents into a plastic bowl. Charlie’s armadillo stew had wreaked almost as much havoc on Evan’s stomach last night as Lissa had on his peace of mind. He’d been salivating ever since Josephine pulled that steaming concoction out of the oven this morning.

  He hadn’t questioned her sly expression when she’d asked him to carry the dish up to the trailer to share with Lissa. Hard-nosed prosecutor that he was, even Evan shied away from grilling a woman about her motives when she was decked out in flamingo pink baby doll pajamas, yellow plastic hair rollers the size of orange juice cans and rhinestone cat glasses.

  The saliva he’d swallowed in Josephine’s kitchen, however, didn’t compare to the rush that wet his throat when Lissa went down on one knee. Placing the bowl on the flat rocks laid out to form a rectangular patio of sorts, she bent over to coax the animal from its lair.

  Her shorts stretched taut across her bottom. The waistband tugged down, separating from her T-shirt. The ragged hems inched up, revealing the sweet, tantalizing curve of her rear cheeks. Evan didn’t even think
about looking away.

  To his intense disappointment, Wolf required only a minimum of coaxing. Flashing a warning glance at the strange male invading his territory, the dog emerged from the shadows under the trailer and attacked the bowl’s contents.

  Lissa watched him gobble down the goodies with some satisfaction, then swiveled around on her heel just in time to catch Evan’s wry expression.

  “Oh! Was that supposed to be your breakfast or mine?”

  “Both.”

  “Well,” she conceded with something less than graciousness, “there’s still some left.”

  “I’m willing to share if you are.”

  Since he’d toted the stuff up the hill, she could hardly refuse. The prospect of sitting across from him at a breakfast table obviously didn’t thrill her, though. Frowning, she started to rise.

  Instinctively Evan reached down a hand to help her up. She hesitated for a second, maybe two. When her fingers touched his, a ridiculous sense of victory curled in his stomach. Gently he tugged her to her feet. The scent of her filled his nostrils. Sun-warmed and dusty, with a touch of the desert in her damp, curling hair.

  “Thanks,” she muttered, retrieving the remaining casserole before she reached for the door. It opened easily at her touch. “I’ll wash up. Then we’ll eat.”

  “Don’t you lock your door?” Evan asked as he followed her inside, cardboard cups in hand.

  “Not usually.”

  His urban instincts sent up an immediate red flag. “You should, even here in Paradise.”

  “Yes,” she murmured. “I probably should.”

  She disappeared down a narrow hallway that led, presumably, to the bedroom and bath. A sliding door bumped across a track to close behind her.

  Evan deposited the coffee cups on the chipped Formica counter and hooked his thumbs in his jeans pockets. Last night Lissa had absorbed him so much he’d registered only a few peripheral impressions of the dilapidated tin box she called home. Today, she absorbed him even more, but what he’d learned from his early-morning call to his assistant caused him to look around with a new eye.