Night Fever

by Diana Palmer

  “Are you?” she asked softly, searching his eyes.

  Those eyes, he thought achingly. Those soft, seductive eyes. They played havoc with his nervous system. “I have law on my mind most of the time,” he murmured dryly. “Sex has its place, I suppose. But I’ve already told you that I have evil designs on you, haven’t I?”

  She laughed delightedly. “So you have. Honesty above all?”

  “That’s right. I plan to lure you to my secret hideaway and have my way with you.”

  “How exciting. Do we take your car or mine?” she asked.

  He glowered at her. “You aren’t supposed to go willingly,” he said. “You’re a girl of high principles and I’m a rake.”

  “Oh. Sorry.” She tilted her chin. “Which car would you like to abduct me in, yours or mine?” she amended.

  He whacked her over the head with the drying cloth. “Get to work, you unbalanced female.”

  She giggled—something she hadn’t done since childhood. “That puts me in my place.”

  “Be careful that I don’t put you in your place,” he mused. “Honest to God, I never dreamed that you’d try to seduce me over a sink of dirty dishes. Don’t you have any finesse?”

  “No. Is there a better place?”

  “Certainly. I’ll explain it to you one day. You missed a plate.”

  “So I did.” She washed and he dried in silent contentment for several minutes. “Was Granddad hard going?” she asked eventually.

  “Yes. He doesn’t like having me here. I can’t say I blame him. I’ve been instrumental in unsettling his life several times, even if it was unavoidable.”

  “You were just doing your job. I don’t blame you,” she said.

  He smiled down at her. “Yes, but your grandfather doesn’t enjoy kissing me as much as you do, so he blames me more.”

  She flushed and then hit him. “No fair.”

  He chuckled. “Do you know that I laugh more with you than I ever have with anyone else?” he asked. “I thought I’d forgotten how. Prosecution is a dark job. It’s easy to lose your sense of humor after a while.”

  “I used to think you didn’t have one,” she said, grinning up at him.

  “Because I baited you in the elevator?” He smiled back. “Oh, I had a ball doing that. It got to the point where I deliberately tried to run into you. It was such a refreshing change.”

  “From what?”

  “From having women tear their clothes off and throw themselves across my desk,” he told her with a straight face.

  “I’ll bet!”

  “You were a ray of sunshine, Becky,” he said then, and he didn’t smile. “The nicest part of my day. I wanted to ask you out the day you told me the truth about your home situation, but I didn’t want complications in my life.”

  “And now you do?”

  He shrugged. “Not really.” He glanced at her while he dried the last plate and put it on the stack. “But I don’t have a choice anymore. Neither do you, I imagine. We’ve gone beyond the point of no return. We’re getting used to each other.”

  “Is that bad?” she asked.

  “I’m a target,” he reminded her. “Doesn’t it occur to you that being seen with me could make you one?”

  “No. I wouldn’t care anyway.”

  “It could also have consequences in other ways,” he continued. “The Harris boys might think Clay was feeding me information, since I spend so much time with you.”

  She caught her breath. That possibility hadn’t occurred to her.

  “Don’t brood,” he said gently. “I think Clay could convince them otherwise. But I can see things you don’t. Then, too, there’s the stress I’m putting on you by creating dissent in your family. Your grandfather and your brothers don’t want me around. That’s going to make life harder on you.”

  “I have a right to go out when I like, and I’ve told them so,” she said firmly. “The one thing you’ve done is show me that people can make slaves of you if you let them. I’ve been a slave here most of my adult life, because I allowed my family to become totally dependent on me. Now I’m paying the price. Guilt isn’t a nice weapon, but people will use it when all else fails.”

  “You can bet on it,” he agreed. “What do you want to do when we finish here?”

  “Well, if we try to sit and watch television, Granddad will come back in and smoulder through whatever we watch.” She finished the last plate. “I could show you around the farm. There isn’t a lot to see, but it’s been in our family for over a hundred years.”

  He smiled. “I’d enjoy it. I like the outdoors, but I’ve lived in town for a long time. If it wasn’t a quiet neighborhood, I think I’d go stir crazy. I feed the birds and put out birdhouses. When I have time, I look after my roses.”

  “Ah, that’s the Irish in you,” she teased gently. “The love of the land and growing things, I mean. My great-grandmother was an O’Hara from County Cork, so I come by mine honestly.”

  “Both my grandmothers were Irish,” he replied.

  “One of them was Cherokee, wasn’t she?” Becky asked.

  “My grandfather was Irish. He married a Cherokee lass, and my mother was the result. But she looked more Cherokee than Irish. I barely remember her, or my father. Uncle Sanderson said they loved each other very much, but my father wasn’t a marrying man.” He sighed heavily. “I don’t mind so much being illegitimate now, but it was hell when I was a kid. I wouldn’t want that to happen to a child of mine.”

  “Neither would I,” Becky replied. “Here, I’ll hang that cloth up. Then we’ll go out and wander around.”

  “Don’t you need to change first?” he asked, nodding toward her pretty jersey dress.

  She laughed. “And leave you at Granddad’s mercy?” she exclaimed.

  “It’s okay, Becky, I’ll protect him,” Mack volunteered as he appeared in the doorway. “Do you like electric trains, Mr. Kilpatrick? I’ve got some real old Lionel O-scale cars and a locomotive that one of Granddad’s friends gave me.”

  “I like trains,” Rourke said, noticing again how much Mack looked like Becky. “Nice of you to sacrifice yourself on my account, young Mack.”

  Mack laughed. “That’s okay. Becky sacrificed herself for me a time or two. Come on.”

  Becky watched them go, pleased with Mack’s attitude. She went off to her room to change into jeans and a yellow knit pullover sweater that had seen better days. She didn’t mind now, though. Kilpatrick didn’t seem to mind what she wore, or how often she wore it.

  Mack started up the trains, and Rourke sat in the chair by the table and watched them with gleaming eyes.

  “They’re beauts,” he told the boy. “I used to love trains when I was your age, but my Uncle Sanderson ran a tight ship. He didn’t think a boy needed things to divert him from his studies, so I didn’t get many toys.”

  “Didn’t you live with your parents?” Mack asked, curious.

  Kilpatrick shook his head. “They died when I was pretty young. Uncle Sanderson was the only relative I had who wanted me. It was that or live on the Cherokee reservation. I don’t know, it might have been more fun living with my mother’s people, at that.”

  “You’re an Indian?” Mack exclaimed.

  “Part Cherokee,” he nodded. “On my mother’s side. The rest is pure Irish.”

  “Wow! We’re studying about the Cherokee! They had these blowguns to hunt with, and Sequoya gave them their own alphabet and written language.” He sobered. “They were forced out of Georgia in 1838 on the Trail of Tears. Our teacher said they were just gotten rid of because there was gold on their land and the greedy white men wanted it.”

  “Simplified, but accurate enough. The Supreme Court decided in favor of letting the Cherokee stay in Georgia, but President Andrew Jackson forced them out anyway. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall attacked the president publicly for refusing to obey the law. It was quite a story.”

  “And President Jackson’s life had been saved by a C
herokee Indian named Junaluska,” Mack added, surprising Kilpatrick with his knowledge of the subject. “Some gratitude, huh?”

  Rourke chuckled. “You’ve got a sharp mind,” he murmured.

  “Not sharp enough,” Mack said, his shoulders hunching as he absently ran the train around the tracks. “Mr. Kilpatrick, if you know somebody’s doing something wrong, and you don’t tell, are you really as guilty as they are?”

  Rourke studied the boy quietly for a long moment before he answered. “If somebody’s commiting a felony, and you know about it, that makes you an accessory. But remember, Mack, there are extenuating circumstances sometimes. The court takes those things into consideration. Nothing is truly black and white.”

  “Billy Dennis was my friend,” he said, lifting concerned hazel eyes to Rourke’s dark face. “I never even knew he used drugs. He didn’t seem the type.”

  “There isn’t really a type,” Rourke replied. “Anyone can get into a state of mind that makes them vulnerable to crutches like drugs or alcohol.”

  “Not you, I’ll bet,” Mack said.

  “Don’t you believe it. I’m human, too. When my Uncle Sanderson died, I spent half the night in a downtown bar and drank myself into a stupor. I don’t drink, as a rule, but I was fond of the old buzzard. I hated losing him. He was the only family I had, by that time. None of my mother’s people are still alive, and Uncle Sanderson was the last of my father’s line.”

  “You mean, you’re alone in the world?” Mack asked, frowning. “You haven’t got anybody?”

  Rourke got to his feet and stuck his hands in his pockets, absently watching the train run. “I had a dog, until that bomb went off in my car,” he said. “He was my family.”

  “I’m real sorry about that,” Mack told him. “We were all sad when the mailman ran over Blue. He was part of our family.”

  Rourke nodded. He wanted so much to ask Mack what he knew, because the boy obviously had something on his mind that was really bothering him. But it was too soon. He didn’t dare risk it now.

  “I’m ready,” Becky called from the door.

  Rourke glanced at her, his dark eyes smiling as he took in the picture she made in her leisure clothes, with her hair loose around her shoulders. She looked young and carefree, and pretty, freckles and all.

  “Mr. Kilpatrick likes trains,” Mack said.

  “He sure does,” Rourke agreed. “He just might go out and buy a set of his own, too.”

  Mack and Becky chuckled. Kilpatrick then caught her hand in his and knocked the laughter right out of her, replacing it with heated excitement.

  “We’re going out to look at the farm,” Rourke told Mack. “Want to come?”

  “Sure. But I have to listen out for Granddad,” Mack said importantly. “I’m the doc when Becky’s not here. I know how to give him his medicine and everything.”

  “I know he’s glad to have you around,” Rourke said. “Thanks for letting me see the trains. They’re neat.”

  “Any time,” Mack told him. “Uh, if you get some,” he added hesitantly, “think I could come and watch you run them?”

  “You bet,” the man said easily, and he smiled.

  “Wow!”

  “We’ll be within yelling distance,” Becky told Mack. “Call if you need me.”

  “I will.”

  Becky led Rourke out back, where the chickens and the two cows shared the barnyard. Hay from last year dribbled down from the hayloft onto the floor of the ramshackle barn, but it was almost all gone now. Becky stared at it worriedly, wondering how she was going to get the fields hayed without Granddad to help.

  “Do you milk the cows?” Rourke asked.

  “Yes. Mack helps. He’s pretty good at it, too. We churn and make our own butter and buttermilk.”

  He stopped and looked down at her, still holding her soft hand in his lean, strong one. “By choice?” he asked.

  She smiled and shook her head. “Necessity. We have to budget like mad, even with Granddad’s pension. I used to make most of my own clothes, but now it’s cheaper to buy them, with the cost of material so high. I can food in the summer and put it up in the pantry. We buy a side of beef for the freezer. I make my own breads. We get by.”

  “I can imagine that keeping the boys in school clothes is a full-time job,” he said.

  “Mack’s, yes. Clay’s buying his own now,” she said with unexpected bitterness. “Designer things. He wasn’t satisfied with the things I could afford for him.”

  “He’s old enough to buy his own,” he reminded her. “And that’s one financial burden you don’t have.”

  “Yes, but…”

  His eyes narrowed speculatively. “But, what?”

  She looked up. She wanted so much to trust him, but she couldn’t tell him her suspicions. Whatever else Clay was, he was her brother. “Oh, nothing,” she said, and forced a smile. “The barn dates back to the early 1900s. The original one burned about 1898. We have a photograph of it, and so does the local historical society. This one is a duplicate of the original, but not quite so old.”

  He let her change the subject without an argument, smiling to himself as she walked alongside him. There was time, he thought. Meanwhile, he was enjoying himself. Most Sundays he spent alone, working. This was a refreshing change.

  She led him through the dry brush of the field and into a grove of pecan and oak trees to a small creek. An old oak stump sat near it, and Becky patted it.

  “This is Granddad’s pouting stump,” she explained as she sat on it, tugging Rourke down beside her. There was plenty of room, because it had been a huge tree. “He cut it down because he wanted someplace to sit and fish from, but he used to tell us that it was his pouting stump. He’d come out here and sit when Grandma made him mad. Eventually he’d get hungry and come back to the house,” she added with a laugh.

  “What was your grandmother like?” he asked.

  “Like me, mostly,” she recalled. “She wasn’t pretty, but she had a good sense of humor and she was a terrific cook. She liked to throw things at Granddad when she got mad at him. Pots, pans—once she threw a bowl of oatmeal and hit him with it. He was a walking mess.”

  He threw back his dark head and roared. “What did he do?”

  “He took a bath,” she replied. “Afterward, he and Grandma went off into their room, and it got quiet for a long time.” She sighed. “They were so happy. I think the fact that my father and mother were so miserable together hurt them. My father was always in trouble with the law or somebody he owed money to, or some woman’s husband. He ran around on Mama. That was what killed her, I think. One day she got pneumonia and she just lay there and died. The doctor came and we gave her the medicine, but she had no will to live.”

  “Some men don’t take to marriage, I guess,” Rourke said gruffly. He lit a cigar and blew out a cloud of smoke. “It’s a pity he didn’t realize it before he took the plunge.”

  “That’s what Granddad used to say.” She smiled wistfully. “He’s still my father, you know, no matter what he’s done. But I used to dread having him turn up. He always needed money and expected us to cough it up. Sometimes, he took the very food out of our mouths, but Granddad never refused him.” She studied her jeans-clad legs, unaware of Rourke’s murderous expression. “I guess I’d feel that way about my children, so I can’t really blame Granddad.”

  He didn’t say anything. He was looking at Becky, trying to imagine how hard it had really been for her. She never complained about her lot in life, and she could even defend a man like her father. Incredible. He was less forgiving and far less understanding. He’d have enjoyed putting the man away for life.

  “You do blame him, don’t you?” she asked suddenly, looking up to see the hardness in his face, his dark eyes. “You’re very rigid in your principles, Mr. Prosecutor.”

  “Yes, I am,” he agreed without argument. “Inflexible, I’ve been called. But someone has to take a stand against lawlessness and not back down, Becky. Otherwis
e, criminals would rule the world. These bleeding-heart liberals would have you believe that we’d have a better world if we made everything legal. But all we’d have is a jungle. Do I have to tell you who comes out on top in any jungle or wilderness?”

  “The predator who’s the strongest and most bloodthirsty,” she said without thinking, and shivered inwardly at the images that ran through her mind. “It’s hard for me to imagine the kind of person who can kill without compunction, but I guess you’ve seen plenty of them.”

  He nodded. “Fathers who’ve raped daughters, women who’ve strangled their own children, a man who shot and killed another man for taking his parking space.” He smiled at her striken expression. “Shocked? So are most decent people when they hear about such crimes. In fact, some of them sit on juries and bring in a verdict of innocent in those kinds of cases, because they simply can’t believe that any human being would do that to another human being.”

  “I can understand that.” She felt a little sick. “It must be hard for you sometimes, when you prosecute some of those people and they get turned loose.”

  “You can’t imagine what it’s like,” he said. His eyes kindled with memories. “King Henry the Eighth had a Star Chamber—a group of men who were thought of as the law beyond the law. They had the power of life and death over criminals who were turned loose even though they were guilty. I don’t approve, but I can see the rationale behind such courts. My God, the corruption you see in public office is almost beyond belief.”

  “Why doesn’t somebody do something?” Becky asked innocently.

  “Now, that’s a good question. Some of us are trying to. But it can get hairy when the power and wealth is all in the hands of the people you’re trying to convict.”

  “I begin to see the light.”

  “Good. In that case, let’s talk about something more cheerful,” he said, taking a puff from the cigar. “Where do you want to eat tomorrow?”

  “Lunch, again?” she asked softly.

  He chuckled. “Tired of me already?”