Blowing out a long breath, he jingled the change in his pants pockets. He should go out and join the impromptu celebration Carrie had organized to celebrate the indictment. Champagne corks and pizza carton lids had started popping the moment the D.A. wound up his press conference. As lead attorney on the case, Evan intended to claim at least two or three slices of pepperoni.
He’d try one more call first, this one to Charlie.
He was reaching for the phone when Carrie strolled in carrying two plastic cups. The thrill of victory still tinted her cheeks and sparkled in her green eyes.
“I brought you some bubbly.”
“Thanks. I’ll be out to join the fun in a minute.”
Ignoring the unsubtle hint, Carrie bumped the door shut an agile hip and found a perch on the corner of Evan’s desk. With a slither of nylon, she crossed her legs. Her slim navy skirt rode up on her thighs. A spiked heel swung from one stockinged toe.
“I thought we might conduct our own private celebration,” she purred. “Very private.”
Evan replaced the receiver and mentally braced himself for another round in the battle of wills that had broken out during the drive back from Paradise.
“We talked about this, Carrie.”
“I’ve decided that’s the problem,” she told him with a smile. “Instead of talking, we should do what we did so well together.”
“Why don’t we just drink to what we do best together?”
Reaching for one of the plastic cups, Evan tipped her a salute.
“Nice summation this afternoon, Counselor.”
Perfectly outlined red lips pouted, but she raised her glass to his. “Thanks.”
She took a slow sip, eyeing him over the rim. A flinty edge of anger had replaced the pout by the time the cup lowered.
“You’re not going to give our relationship another chance, are you?”
He refrained from pointing out that one brief encounter did not a relationship make.
“It wouldn’t work for either one of us, Carrie.”
“Funny, you didn’t seem so sure of that until your little side trip through the desert.” An oval crimson nail tapped plastic. “Does your change of heart have anything to do with that blonde who…?”
A sharp rap on the door interrupted her interrogation. She flushed with annoyance when Evan’s assistant stuck her head inside.
“Sorry to interrupt. The mayor’s on the boss’s private line. He needs you in his office to answer a few questions.”
“Okay.” Setting his cup on the desk, Evan nodded to Carrie. “I’ll be right back, and we’ll finish this conversation.”
Tight with anger, Carrie tossed back her champagne and reached for Evan’s. The set of his jaw told her their conversation was already finished. They were finished, not that they’d ever really begun. All that remained was the wake.
It stung her pride that he’d been the one to put the skids on what could have been a helluva ride for both of them. She’d known all along she was pushing him too hard. Known, too, he wasn’t the kind of man who could be pushed. That in itself had represented a challenge, and Carrie thrived on challenges.
She’d pulled every string in the book to wrangle this special detail. Including, she recalled with a grimace, making nicey-nice with a particularly repellent DOJ regional director. The director was only a means to an end. She’d had her sights set on Evan from the first time she’d met him at a conference. Getting to work with him on a high-profile case was a double bonus.
Evan didn’t know it, but he’d been her prime target from the day she’d landed at the San Diego airport. She’d wanted to add the lean, handsome assistant D.A. to her trophy rack almost as much as she wanted to add an indictment in the Mendoza case to her impressive list of credits.
She’d bagged one of her quarries, but the fact that the other had sidestepped her snare destroyed much of her pleasure in the victory.
She slid off the desk, forgetting about the cup in her hand until it sloshed champagne onto a stack of files. Cursing, Carrie tore a couple of sheets off a notepad to blot the spill. She was dabbing at the champagne when the handwritten label on the top folder caught her attention.
“Lissa. Well, well, well.”
Without a qualm, she flipped the folder open and skimmed its contents.
The call to the mayor dragged on for a good half hour. Worried about the fact that he’d unknowingly hired one of Mendoza’s customers as a nanny for his children, the politician tried to pin Evan down as to whether he’d be called to testify during the trial.
“We don’t start discovery for another two weeks,” Evan replied to the disembodied voice coming through the speakerphone. “I want to see who the defense intends to call before I decide who I’ll put on the stand.”
“You’ve got all the ammunition you need with Smallwood,” the mayor protested.
“His testimony helped bring in the indictment, but I’m going to drive home every nail I can to convict that bastard.”
“Don’t screw with me, Henderson. You know damn well I plan to announce my candidacy for a second term during the President’s visit next month.”
The mayor left unsaid that U.S. district attorneys were appointed by the President, but the message came through loud and clear. If Evan harbored any ambition to move into his boss’s office when he retired next year, he’d better tread carefully. Very carefully.
Evan didn’t particularly care for either the message or its sender.
“I’ll let you know,” he said coolly.
The sound of a phone crashing down reverberated through the speaker. R. Harrison Burke laced his fingers across his shirtfront, propped an Italian loafer on a desk drawer and angled back his chair.
“You’re not going to score many points that way, Ev.”
“I’ll worry about scoring points after we send Mendoza down.”
“Well, if anyone’s going to do it, you will. Tell me who you want on your trial team.”
“Teresa Lopez, for sure. And Lowenstein. If we extend Carrie Northcutt’s detail through the trial date, that should give me enough brainpower.”
Burke lifted a shaggy brow. “You want Northcutt’s detail extended? I got the feeling things had cooled off between you two.”
Whatever his personal feelings for Carrie, Evan would never deny her skill or her professionalism. She’d jump at the chance to follow through with the case she’d already put so many weeks of intense work into.
“She’s one of the sharpest minds in DOJ, Harry. If we can keep her, let’s do it.”
“Good enough.” The Italian loafers hit the floor with a thump. “We’d better get back to the party before the pizza’s gone, then blow this place. You need to lift your face to the sun while you can. It’s probably the last time you’ll see daylight until after Mendoza’s trial.”
Evan shagged a hand through his hair, knowing Harry had that right. Knowing, too, he needed to talk to Lissa before the trial engulfed him.
“Listen, Harry, I need to go out of town for a couple of days.”
“Again? You just got back.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“What’s the problem?”
“No problem. Just some personal business I need to take care of.”
Burke didn’t like it, but he was all too aware of the fact that Evan forfeited twice as many weeks of unused vacation time each year than anyone else in the district. The director of personnel in D.C. chastised the D.A. regularly for failing to ensure his people took the time they were entitled to.
“All right, but leave me a number,” he grumbled. “If the mayor calls again, I’ll have him transferred to you at wherever it is you’re heading. Where are you going, anyway?”
“Paradise,” Evan replied with a grin. “I’m on my way to Paradise.”
“I’ll find no greater love
This side of Hea-’vn.
I’ll seek no greater joy,
This side of Par-a-dise.”
Grima
cing, Lissa ended the last bar two beats short of a full measure. The B-flat wasn’t enough of a stretch, didn’t deliver the emotion she wanted. Grabbing her stubby pencil, she erased the scribbled notes and tried another variation.
There. A quarter note, two eighths slurred together, and a soaring, joyful E half note tied over to a whole in the final bar.
Her fingers curved over the keyboard, she found the d.s. that marked the beginning of the refrain and cleared her throat. It felt more than a little raw from the hours she’d been hammering away at the refrain, but she hit the keys with single-minded determination.
For the first seventeen bars, she blended chords, melody and lyrics perfectly. On the last syllable, her voice cracked and she missed the E completely.
“Well, horsefeathers!”
Fisting her hands, she thumped the keys in frustration. The discordant jangle did little to soothe her frazzled nerves.
She’d been trying to finish this blasted song for almost a week now. Henderson’s presence in Paradise had proved too distracting for Lissa to work on it while he was here. To her profound irritation, his absence was proving even more unsettling.
Why couldn’t she put the man out of her head? Why in thunder did that kiss at the dam keep snaking back into her thoughts? Henderson had just been killing time. The green-eyed cat who’d sharpened her claws on Lissa had made that perfectly clear. He’d been playing with her, and like a fool, she’d joined right in his games. Disgust rolled through her every time she remembered the way she’d practically melted in his arms.
One of these days, she’d learn to…
A barrage of furious barking erupted under the trailer.
Lissa jumped half out of her skin. Her heart thudding against her ribs, she leaned over the keyboard to peer through the blinds. A single, powerful beam stabbed the night.
A motorcycle headlight!
Disbelief raced along her nerves, tightened her chest. She jerked upright, her fists jarring another squawk from the keys. For a moment, she considered letting Henderson duke it out with Wolf. Reluctantly she realized she couldn’t allow the dog to take a chunk out of his rear…as much as she’d like to!
The Harley roared its way up the slope. Wolf’s barking slid into toe-curling snarls.
Panicked now that she’d waited too long and the dog would launch an airborne attack on his victim, Lissa shoved away from the table. Her chair crashed to the floor behind her as she jumped for the door.
“Wolf! Down…!”
The dog froze in a half crouch. What looked like a two-inch thick T-bone dangled from his jaws.
“Let him have it,” a deep voice drawled. “I hauled the thing all the way from San Diego packed in dry ice, figuring I’d have to bribe my way past him.”
Lissa’s incredulous gaze swung to Evan. He sat astride his bike, a boot planted on either side. Dragging off his helmet, he hooked it on a handlebar.
“Hello, Lissa.”
“What are you doing here?” She pitched the question over Wolf’s whine. “I thought you and your friend had a big case to work.”
“We did. The Grand Jury returned the indictments we asked for this afternoon.”
“Congratula…” Another long, piteous whine drowned out her sarcastic response. “Oh, all right. Scarf it down. Go on, take it.”
That was all the encouragement Wolf needed. With a single leap, he and the slab of T-bone disappeared under the trailer.
“Back to my original question.” She folded her arms across her chest and treated him to a frosty stare. “What are you doing here?”
He heeled down the kickstand and swung off the bike. “Before I answer that, suppose you tell me why you haven’t answered your phone for the past few days.”
“I’ve been working.”
It was a pitiful excuse, but Lissa wasn’t ready to admit that she’d been so angry with herself for falling for his line, she’d set her jaw every time the phone rang and ignored it. Or tried to.
Obviously not any happier with her excuse than she was, he strode to the front steps. One boot rang on metal before he realized she wasn’t going to move.
“I told you I’d call.”
“There were a couple of things you didn’t tell me, Henderson.”
Light spilled over her shoulder and painted his face in sharp angles. “Such as?”
“Such as the fact that you’re involved with Ms. Legal Beagle.”
“I was involved with Carrie,” he admitted. “I’m not now.”
“Oh?” Sarcasm dripped like the battery acid that rusted the dirt under her pickup. “Is she—what’s her name…Carrie?—aware of that?”
“Yes.”
“Just out of curiosity, when did this big breakup occur? Before or after we took a detour to the Painted Rocks Dam?”
“Before, although I guess I didn’t cut the tie as cleanly as I should have.” He planted a boot on the next step. It brought him several inches closer to her. Several inches too close. “The last thread snapped when you laid that Saturday Afternoon Special on me.”
Angry heat rushed into her cheeks. “If you want to climb back on your bike with all your limbs intact, you won’t mention any kind of a special to me again.”
He laughed at her. The smooth-talking, oversexed, muscle-bound jerk actually laughed at her! Right before he took the top step.
Lissa gave serious thought to planting both hands on his chest and shoving. Hard. She wouldn’t mind seeing his butt hit the dirt, followed by his grin. Only the realization that she probably couldn’t budge him kept her arms crossed and her dignity intact.
Still one step down, Evan decided he’d found the perfect positioning. They were shoulder-to-shoulder, eye to smoldering eye. Her nose couldn’t be more than three inches from his. Her mouth…
His stomach clenched. The clamp he’d kept on his fantasies during the long ride from San Diego snapped. Greedy desire shot straight to his groin as he remembered the feel of her warm, wet mouth under his.
He dragged his gaze from her lips, only to grind his teeth at the way her hair feathered her shoulders. If she’d been wearing something besides those cutoffs and a spaghetti-strap tank top, he might not have gotten so hard so fast. But she was, and he did.
He knew darn well she’d put a good-size dent in both his ego and his manhood if he leaned forward and kissed her smooth, creamy shoulder the way he ached to. That would come, he promised. After he’d regained her trust…and after she’d recovered from the bomb he was about to drop on her.
“Let me come in, Lissa. We need to talk.”
“We don’t need to do anything, Henderson.”
She had that one hundred percent wrong, but he didn’t argue.
“It’s Evan,” he reminded her with a calm that tightened her jaw. “Let me come in. I have some information you’ll want to hear.”
The stubbornness he suspected was bred into her along with her incredible talent held her rooted for another few moments. Finally, grudgingly, she dropped her arms and retreated a few paces.
Only a few. She didn’t invite him to sit down. Didn’t offer him a cool drink.
“Well?”
“I told you I’d run some queries. I was curious to see if the databases we have access to would turn up any shady characters in or around LaGrange.”
“Besides me, you mean?”
He didn’t bother to reply to that. “Do you remember the attendant at the convenience store? The one who helped you pump gas last week?”
“Vaguely.” Her brows slanted. “Why?”
“The tag on his uniform gave his name as Arlen,” Evan said slowly. “I ran that against the tattoo on his left arm and came up with a hit. A man matching his description has been arrested a half-dozen times in almost as many states for drunk and disorderly conduct. His last arrest occurred two and a half years ago.”
“And I’m interested in this because…?”
Evan dragged in a deep breath. There was no way to soften the blow. “Arlen�
�s his middle name, Lissa. One of two, as a matter of fact. His full name is Robert Stockton Arlen James.”
Shock flooded her eyes. She stumbled back, shaking her head in a wild arc. “I don’t believe it!”
“I double-checked with the Oklahoma Bureau of Vital Statistics. The birth dates, blood type and names all match. He’s your father.”
Chapter 10
A helpless sympathy grabbed at Evan as he watched emotions rain down on Lissa like hail. Shock, disbelief, denial all bombarded her. For a moment, only a moment, he glimpsed a pain so raw it sliced the breath right out of his lungs.
Coming from a large, rambunctious family, where everyone shared everyone else’s joys and sorrows, he couldn’t begin to imagine the hurt of knowing your only blood relative was a stranger living just ten miles away. A stranger who either didn’t recognize or didn’t want to acknowledge you. Evan ached to comfort her, to lessen her shock and hurt. But Lissa, being Lissa, rejected the pain just as she tried to reject him.
“I…” Her throat working, she struggled to find her footing after the body blow he’d just dealt her. “I appreciate that you rode all the way back to Paradise to tell me about this.”
That was only one of several reasons he’d come back, but she didn’t need to hear the rest of them now.
“If you don’t mind, I need to—” lifting a shaky hand, she swiped back her bangs “—think.”
No way Evan was leaving her alone to deal with this. Not until her eyes lost their bruised look, anyway.
“Think sitting down,” he suggested as a tremor shook her and she reached unsteadily for the back of a kitchen chair.
“No, I…”
“Sit down.”
He enforced the order with a gentle tug on her arm that deposited her in the chair.
A tiny spark of annoyance cut through Lissa’s suffocating emotions, but she couldn’t deal with Henderson right now. She could hardly deal with the fragmented images that spun through her mind like an out-of-control Ferris wheel. Over and over she saw the gravel road outside the Baptist Children’s Home, still wet from the spring rain that had fallen the morning her father drove off. The ragged Pooh Bear she’d clutched in her arms. The McNabbs’ faces when they tried to explain why Lissa had been left with them.
The Harder They Fall (Intimate Moments) Page 10