Indecent

by Tori Carrington

  Lucky rubbed her finger against the S in Stay and it came back with her paint-covered skin.

  Her gaze shot to the mirrored windows of the van next to her. Could the person who had done this be in there watching her?

  A woman holding shopping bags stepped between the two vehicles without acknowledging her then got into the van and drove away.

  Lucky stood stunned for several minutes, then made her way back to the driver’s side. She realized that the words hadn’t been placed randomly. Rather she guessed they were meant to be read as a sentence.

  He’s my man, whore, stay home!

  “Lucky?”

  She heard Renae’s voice but really didn’t register it.

  “What’s the…holy shit.”

  Renae stopped next to her, taking in the graffiti that stood out like a police siren on a dark night.

  “Jesus, who the hell would do something like this?”

  Renae fished her cell phone out of her pocket and dialed 911, then disconnected. She picked up Lucky’s right hand. “Are you hurt?”

  Lucky shook her head. “It’s from the paint.”

  “It’s still wet? Good. Maybe we can rub out the worst of it before it dries. Here, give me your bag. I’m going to go get some towels. You stand here and wait for the police.”

  Lucky nodded, feeling as if her tongue had grown to twice its normal size in her mouth.

  Who would do something like this? She tried to remember if Colin had mentioned anything about another woman. An old girlfriend. Any trouble he’d had in the past. Then her mind homed in on what had happened during their second encounter in his office. She’d been a breath away from finding out how well he would fill her when he’d grabbed her jaw and demanded to know whether someone named Jamie had put her up to the seduction.

  She hadn’t questioned him then. There really hadn’t been any reason to. They hadn’t had a relationship and she’d barely known him.

  But she knew him now, didn’t she? And he had never told her who Jamie was.

  It seemed she wasn’t the only one keeping secrets.

  “JAMIE ISN’T an old girlfriend, Lucky. He’s an ex-patient.”

  Hours later, back at Colin’s place, after he’d told her his car had also been targeted at around the same time as hers, Colin answered her questions as directly as he could.

  “He?” Lucky repeated. “The person who did this is a guy?”

  “Yes. An ex-patient is suing me in civil court for sexual indecency.”

  She was looking at him closely. He knew the instant she put two and two together because her beautiful green eyes widened. “That’s why you were so careful with me in the beginning.”

  Colin felt as if his grimace went all the way down to his bones. “Yes, that’s why. Although by all rights I should have been anyway.”

  The apartment was quiet, both of them sitting in the kitchen at the island counter drinking coffee.

  “Did you have an affair with him?” Lucky asked.

  Colin squinted at her. “What?”

  She shrugged. “It’s a legitimate question.”

  “Maybe to you. But not to me.” He was suddenly agitated. If he couldn’t convince Lucky that he’d made no improper advances toward Jamie, what were his chances in convincing a judge if it came down to that.

  “Look, Colin, you don’t have to be gay to be curious.”

  “Trust me, if something had happened between Jamie and me, I would be the first to own up to it.”

  She smiled and reached out to cover his hand with hers. “I know.”

  Colin felt some of the tension drain from him.

  “So what do the police say?”

  Therein lay the rub, didn’t it? “They said there’s no evidence the two incidents are connected.”

  “Oh, both our cars just happened to be randomly vandalized?”

  “That’s about the thrust of it.”

  She was shaking her head.

  “Look, Lucky, I’d like to pay to replace your car.”

  She stared at him as if he’d just told her he’d been the one to paint the offensive words on her car. “You’re joking, right?”

  He shook his head. “No, I’m not. It’s my fault this happened. I want to do the right thing.”

  “And the right thing would be to buy me a new car?”

  He grinned at her. “Yes.”

  She laughed, although there was something a little dark in her eyes. “It was spray paint, Colin. Not a wrecking ball.”

  He shrugged. “You need a new car anyway so—”

  “I don’t need a new car. There’s nothing wrong with the one I’ve got. As for the paint, Renae and I rubbed off a lot of it. And I called a repair shop and they said they could probably spot-paint over the rest.” She reached for the cream, her movements a little jerky. “I think you should be more worried about your own car. Those key marks are deep.”

  “My insurance will take care of those.”

  A tense silence settled over the room. Colin opened his mouth to continue making his case when Lucky held her hand up.

  “Drop it, doc. I’m not letting you get me a car.”

  Colin sat back, his sails effectively deflated. He watched her tap her short, unpainted fingernails against her mug in an angry staccato then saw her knuckles whiten as she gripped the handle.

  “You know I don’t mean any harm, don’t you?” he asked quietly, not understanding why she was getting so worked up.

  “Do I?”

  She immediately looked regretful so he knew her response had been a knee-jerk reaction.

  He also realized she had just revealed something very important about herself.

  “I’m sorry. Of course I know you don’t mean any harm,” she said quietly.

  Colin knew she’d been sorry for her harsh comment but was surprised by her one-eighty.

  “But I don’t want your help, Colin. Really, I don’t.”

  “But what if I want to help you?”

  She smiled at him. “Every time you want to help me, put an extra few dollars into the cup of the next homeless guy you come across.” She stared into her mug. “Trust me, that’ll be much easier for you than bringing this subject up with me again.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “You know, I don’t get you,” he thought aloud.

  She reached out for his mug then pushed both of them off to the side of the counter. She scooted to sit on top and he leaned back so she could settle in front of him with her legs on either side. “Trust me, doc, it’s all by design.”

  Colin’s blood began a slow simmer that turned into a quick flash fire when she hiked up her skirt to reveal she wasn’t wearing panties.

  He swallowed hard as he laid his hands on her supple thighs, his thumbs pointed toward home base. “Have I ever told you that you have a hell of a way of changing the topic?”

  She smiled and linked her hands together behind his neck, tugging him forward so she could kiss him. “Mmm. All the time.” She leaned her head to the right, then the left, leisurely kissing him. “And I keep telling you that no topic is more important than this.”

  Colin wholeheartedly disagreed, but he wasn’t up to telling her that just now. Not when his thumbs hit home and he found her hot and slick and ready for him.

  But rather than looking for penetration, he pushed her so she was lying back down on the counter, then bent to taste the evidence of her need of him.

  Five minutes, involving heated panting and a screaming orgasm, later he was about to pick her up to take her back to his room and his supply of condoms when he paused and stared down into her face.

  “Why?” he asked, his fingers cupping her bare bottom almost roughly. “Why won’t you let me see the real you, Lucky?”

  A shadow so dark, so enormous, appeared in her vivid green eyes it nearly stole the air from his lungs. “Nothing personal, Colin, but it’s been so long that I don’t even know who the real me is anymore.” She leaned her head against his shoulder then kissed his n
eck. “Just let it rest, okay? And trust me.”

  As Colin picked her up and walked toward his bedroom at the other side of the apartment, he didn’t know what to think. The simple truth of the matter was he didn’t think Lucky trusted herself. And if she couldn’t trust herself, how could he trust her?

  12

  THE FOLLOWING Monday, Colin sat back and listened as his attorney laid out the facts for him.

  “Look, Colin, I wish there was some way to connect the events happening around you lately. But we have no solid proof to say Jamie is behind anything.”

  Colin fisted his hand where it lay in his lap. After the car incidents on Saturday, Don Maddox had agreed to move their appointment to that morning before he was due in court. But given that the prominent attorney was distracted at best, irritated with him at worst, the meeting was not going exactly as Colin had hoped it would. As an old friend of his father, Don was the first person he’d thought to turn to when Jamie Polson had sent him the original intent to sue. Don had managed to convince him that this was better than Jamie filing a formal complaint with the police, because that would have opened the case up to the public.

  He was beginning to wonder if he shouldn’t look elsewhere for an attorney.

  “But you believe he is,” he asked Maddox.

  “Behind what’s happening, that is.”

  “What I believe or don’t believe bears no relevance here.” Don sighed heavily then looked at his watch. “I have to be in court in a little over an hour, so let’s go over what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  He opened a file on his desk, then turned it so Colin could view the contents. An eight-by-ten-inch glossy photograph of him and Lucky at the restaurant last week leapt out at him.

  He picked it up, shocked to see the moment caught on film. In the shot he was leaning forward talking to her while under the table she was rubbing her bare toes against his ankle.

  “I thought we agreed you’d keep a low profile when it came to your, um, social activities,” Maddox said, his chair squeaking as he reached for his coffee cup.

  Anger, sure and swift, roared through Colin as he thumbed through the remainder of the shots. Him at Women Only. Lucky entering the outer doors of his apartment building. Lucky sitting in the waiting room of his office. “Where did you get these?” he demanded.

  “They were couriered over last Friday. Thus the reason I asked on Saturday to meet with you today.” He stared at Colin over the edge of his coffee cup. “So you understand my concern?”

  “I understand that I’m being held hostage by a egomaniacal ex-patient who feels spurned because I didn’t return his feelings.”

  Don shook his head. “You’re still not getting it, are you?” The older man leaned forward, folding his hands on his desktop. “Colin, in cases like these the truth is a secondary consideration. We’ve talked about this. The damage to your career, your reputation, if this suit goes public…it will be irreparable.”

  “I don’t care. File the countersuit.” He closed the file and pushed it back across the desk.

  One of the options all along was to answer Jamie’s claims with a countersuit alleging libel and willful tort. Don had managed to talk him out of it so far, mostly with a lot of counseling from Colin’s own father. But it was long past time for him to make a stand. Take some kind of action.

  “I haven’t been able to live my life since Jamie started all this bullshit and I’m tired of it,” he told Don.

  The seasoned attorney didn’t blink. “And you think countersuing and taking this into the courts is going to end it quickly? Or how about your being tried in the court of public opinion? Even if criminal charges aren’t brought, and you win your suit, do you think your partners want to be associated with someone who’s been accused of improper sexual conduct against not only a patient, but a male patient?”

  Colin winced. The older attorney’s reasoning had managed to sand off the sharp edge of his anger.

  But the anger was still there.

  And, damn it, he intended to do something about it.

  LUCKY SAT in the reception area of Colin’s office waiting for his associate Dr. Morgan Szymanski to welcome in her and the other three members of her group for their session. She leafed through the few pages she’d written in her journal. Mostly she’d recorded random thoughts, things the therapist might want to see, like her feelings on alcohol and the consumption of it before getting behind the wheel of a car.

  But on a couple of occasions she’d actually begun to write about those items of the most concern to her. First and foremost Colin McKenna.

  She’d had enough forethought not to include his name in the writings. But even she could tell the difference in her handwriting when she’d begun sharing her relationship with Colin, for example, thoughts about his offering up the key to his apartment. While the loops and swirls were neat in other areas, they all but disappeared when the topic turned to Colin, her mind no longer on how she was writing but rather on what she was writing.

  She wished the passages were limited to a page or two so she might tear them out, but the thoughts were interspersed with the other entries and would take extensive rewriting, something she didn’t have time for right now, even if she was moved to try.

  She glanced at the closed door, wondering if she should take the journal out to her car and leave it there, then pretend she’d forgotten to bring it.

  The problem lay in that there was already enough friction between her and the female psychologist. She didn’t want to invite more. Not when her driver’s license and possible probation hung in the balance.

  “Good morning, Dr. McKenna.”

  Lucky’s heart hiccupped in her chest as the receptionist greeted Colin. He was entering from the outer door, obviously just arriving at the office or perhaps returning from an appointment.

  And looking none too happy to be there.

  He hadn’t spotted her yet and she took the opportunity to note the deep grooves on either side of his mouth and his stern expression.

  When she’d left him a few hours ago he’d been grinning and happy and oh so sexily disheveled. What had happened since then?

  He accepted a handful of messages from the receptionist then turned toward his office, his gaze immediately falling on her. He blinked and she smiled, expecting him to return it.

  Instead his grimace deepened further as if she was not only the last person he expected to see, but the last one he wanted to see.

  “Okay, I think we’re a go.”

  Lucky glanced at where Dr. Szymanski had opened her office door. She began getting up along with her other three group members.

  Colin briefly closed his eyes and she thought she heard him utter a mild curse. “Miss Clayborn?” he asked before she disappeared into the other office. “If you have a few moments after your appointment, I’d like to have a word with you in my office.”

  She smiled at him, but the expression somehow didn’t make it below the surface. “Sorry, Dr. McKenna, but I have to get to work straight after.”

  His eyes narrowed then he nodded. “Very well then.”

  Lucky glanced at the receptionist, who was listening to the exchange with open interest, then followed the rest of her group mates into the office and closed the door behind her.

  LATER THAT AFTERNOON Colin had his elbows planted on his desktop and the telephone receiver held to his ear. He absently rubbed his closed eyelids, wondering how one day could seem so endlessly long.

  Lucky hadn’t stopped by his office following her session with Morgan earlier, just as she’d said she wouldn’t. He had hoped she would change her mind and duck in for a moment, if only so he could apologize to her. Although he supposed he couldn’t blame her. Had she looked at him the way he was sure he had looked at her when he’d first spotted her in the reception area, he wouldn’t have wanted to see her so soon afterward, either.

  He blew out the long breath that filled his cheeks and sat back hard in his chair, the memory of th
e photographs his attorney had shown him shifting through his mind. It seemed that not only was Jamie not giving up, as he and Don had hoped he would, he was upping the ante.

  Were he and Lucky at physical risk? He couldn’t be sure. But he wasn’t about to sit back and wait to see if there was even a chance that spray-painted cars and slashed tires might turn into something more serious, something more dangerous.

  “Mr. McKenna? I can do it,” Jenny Mathena came back on the line. “But you have to know that given the accelerated time frame you’ve given me it’s going to take cash and lots of it—”

  “Money’s no object.”

  Barely a pause, then, “Very good then. I’ll be in touch. Possibly as soon as tomorrow.”

  “Thanks, Miss Mathena.”

  “It’s Jenny, please.”

  Colin broke the connection soon afterward, then sat staring at the wall displaying his license to practice and his diplomas. Finally he got up and collected his briefcase and jacket, feeling more hopeful now than he had all day—in fact, than he had in a good long while.

  During the drive home he opened his windows instead of switching on the air-conditioning, embracing the signs of summer rather than rejecting them. He didn’t know how Don Maddox would feel about what he was doing, but the older attorney wasn’t going to find out unless and until Colin got results.

  He parked his repaired car in the underground garage of the building then rode the elevator up to his apartment. Immediately the elevator door opened, the smell of something cooking assaulted his nose. Usually he couldn’t tell what the other tenants were having for dinner. He unlocked the apartment door and discovered that the scent wasn’t emanating from another apartment but rather from his own.

  Lucky had used his key.

  He stood reflecting on the many implications of her actions. She’d so vehemently and mysteriously rejected the idea when he’d originally suggested it. Now she’d gone ahead and used it on her own. Did it mean something more than that she’d wanted to cook him dinner? Or was it a simple matter of control and that she needed to be the one to decide when to use the key?