More Than a Hero

by Marilyn Pappano

  Shelves and cabinets lined most of the walls, and thick carpet covered most of the floor, except in the craft corner, where cabinets, a sink and worktables shared space, and the dance corner, with its mirrors and ballet barre. In both those areas the floor was hardwood. Cushy leather chairs were grouped around a large-screen TV, video games and a stereo, and a solid oak table, salvaged from some long-razed library, provided a study area, a row of yellow glass lamps marching down the middle to gleam warmly on the wood.

  Jake saw it all from his place in the center of the room, then moved to her favorite area. It was the outside corner, with large windows on each wall that bathed the space with light. Her easel stood there, balancing a painting done long ago, and her supplies filled a battered armoire. She’d kept a canvas drop cloth on the floor to protect the aged wood, but the senator had instructed the housekeeper to get rid of it ages ago. She would have expected him to get rid of the painting, as well.

  She was surprised to realize that she wasn’t nervous when Jake stopped in front of the easel. Showing one of her pieces to her father had always made her queasy. But Jake wouldn’t be critical. Whether he liked the landscape or thought she was a no-talent hack, he would be encouraging. He understood creative longing and the need to express it.

  He studied the canvas a long time before glancing at her. “You shouldn’t have stopped.”

  Had she told him she hadn’t painted since college? Or did he just know it intuitively, because she was so good at taking orders from the senator? “Maybe I’ll take lessons again,” she remarked lightly as she joined him.

  “You don’t need lessons. You need to paint. You need to pick up a brush and create. You have the space. You have the brushes. Buy some paints and paper and do something, and if your father says anything, tell him to go f—”

  She cut off his words with a kiss, hard but brief, then smiled. “Maybe I will.”

  For a moment he looked as if he wanted to argue, but instead he turned to gesture around the room. “This is where you grew up, isn’t it? In these four walls. Where you had your tea parties and read your books. Where you were safe from the world, from behaving like a normal kid, from fun.”

  “It wasn’t so bad.” She would rank her childhood as average in quality. She wished a few things had been different, but overall she had no resentments.

  He shook his head. “I was luckier being poor.” Taking her hand, he led her out into the corridor again. “What else is there?”

  She waved her free hand in the direction of the smaller stairs that led to the third floor. “More rooms, mostly used for storage. Generations of Colbys living in the same house have amassed an unbelievable amount of stuff, and they’ve kept it all for posterity.”

  “And what is that?”

  She’d hoped he wouldn’t notice the door at the end of the hall. It was closed—always was—and was the one room in the mansion where permission was required to enter. “That’s the senator’s study.”

  Interest lit Jake’s eyes. He looked from the heavily carved door to her, then back again. He wanted to go inside. She could feel it in the tension radiating from him, along with her own tension. Don’t ask. Please don’t ask. She couldn’t invite him into her father’s domain. It would be a violation of his privacy, a betrayal…but hadn’t she already betrayed him? Just thinking that the senator was involved in wrongdoing in the Baker case, that he could be guilty of sending an innocent man to prison, was a betrayal, wasn’t it?

  Not if it was true.

  Her nerves were stretched taut when Jake’s fingers tightened around hers and he started toward the stairs. “It’s an impressive place, but I see why you live out back.”

  Relief danced through her, easing the knots in her muscles.

  “Of course, you’ll have to move in here eventually,” he went on. “When you marry. Have kids.”

  Her foot slipped, and she grabbed the banister to stop from falling. “Sorry,” she murmured, face red, when he helped her catch her balance. “I suppose that’s the plan.” In fact, her father had pointed it out when she’d announced she was moving into the guest cottage. If that’s what you want. But of course you’ll be back to raise your family here. It’s family tradition.

  Raise her children in a showplace instead of a home. Raise them in rooms filled with furniture they couldn’t bounce on, climb on, eat crackers on. Spend the first three years of their lives saying No and Don’t touch. Send them to the playroom so often that it became the center of their worlds.

  Raise her children…with someone else. Not Jake.

  Subdued, she retraced their steps, turning off lights, leaving only the ones the housekeeper normally kept burning. While Jake waited on the steps, she reset the alarm, locked the door, then pulled the hood over her hair before facing him. “I believe I’ll take you up on your offer now.”

  “What offer was that?”

  “‘Show me where you learned to be such a prim and proper woman,’” she mimicked, “‘and I’ll show you a few ways to be improper.’” She wet her lips, tasting lipstick, rain and a faint hint of him. “I want to be improper. Show me, Jake. Please.”

  Chapter 7

  The sky was still dark when Jake lifted his head with a groan. He knew immediately where he was—Kylie’s bed—and knew, too, it was an ungodly hour to be awake. What had awakened him, though, he couldn’t say. Everything was still, quiet, except for the drip of rain outside the window.

  Then the mattress shifted behind him, and he realized the heat against his back had been gone for some time. He rolled over and saw Kylie sitting on the edge of the bed. She was dressed in light colors—pants, shirt, both fitting snugly, and a loose jacket—and her hair was pulled up in a ponytail. She was tucking something from the night table into her jacket pocket, but she stilled when he moved. “Sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  “What are you doing?” he whispered back.

  “Getting my pepper spray.” She held up a narrow canister. “Ten percent. It’s kind of illegal, but Chief Roberts gave it to the senator for me, so I don’t think I’m going to get into trouble.”

  “Why do you—” Breaking off, he cleared his throat and spoke aloud. “Why do you need pepper spray at—” he squinted at the clock on her side of the bed “—five forty-five in the morning?”

  “I’m going for a run. Go back to sleep. I’ll be back in less than an hour.”

  Sleep sounded really good. His heart didn’t even develop a normal rhythm until sometime after nine in the morning. But instead of settling in again he pushed back the covers, sat up and rubbed his face with both hands. “I’d better go.”

  Rising, Kylie pressed a button on the wall that brought the lights up a few watts. “You don’t have to get up just because I am.”

  He eased to his feet, stretched out the kinks, then tried to remember what he’d done with his clothes the night before. His shirt was somewhere near the front door, along with his jacket, and he distinctly recalled leaving one boot in the hall.

  “I trust you alone in the house,” she said. “I have no secrets.”

  Grinning, he turned to face her. “You’ve been keeping at least one secret, darlin’. Despite your cool, elegant exterior, you’re not prim and proper at all. The heart of a wicked woman beats inside your body.”

  She retorted, “Only when there’s a wicked man inside there, too,” flushing deep scarlet. Increasing the lighting another twenty watts, she bent to scoop up his jeans and hand them over.

  He found his boxers dangling from the doorknob and stepped into them, aware she was watching, then tugged on his jeans. “Chief Roberts’s goons have probably noticed I haven’t been at the motel all night. Hopefully they don’t know where I am. If I leave now, while it’s still dark and sane people are still asleep, maybe they won’t find out. And if they don’t find out, they can’t tell your father.”

  She bent again and this time came up with one boot and two socks. “I don’t care—” Abrupt
ly she broke off, her nails digging into the scuffed leather upper of the boot.

  “I care.” He gently pried the boot from her fingers, sat down and put on both socks and the boot. She was standing just a few feet in front of him, stretchy fabric encasing her body like a second skin. He slid both hands over her thighs, the fibers slick and cool, then gripped her hips and pulled her close. Nuzzling the hem of the tank top from the waistband of the pants, he pressed a kiss to her middle.

  “What we’re doing out there—” he jerked his head in the direction of the windows “—Riordan and Roberts and everyone else is going to know about. But this…” He kissed his way to her breast, then mouthed her nipple through the heavy material, making it harden, making her stiffen and catch her breath. “Right now this is between you and me.”

  She threaded her fingers through his hair and tugged him closer, her body radiating heat and tension as a tiny whimper escaped her. At the moment he wished there was nothing between him and her—no clothes, no reputations, no privacy issues. But with a sigh, he released her, gently pulled her hands free, then stood up. “I’d better go while I’m still able. Is it still raining?”

  It took a few deep breaths for her to regain her composure. “No. It’s just drippy.”

  Drippy. Humid. Soon into her run, she would shed that jacket, probably tying the sleeves around her waist. Sweat would collect on her skin, and her ponytail would lose its bounce as the dampness weighted it. Her clothes would get damp, too, clinging to her even more than normal, and her breathing would grow labored, just like yesterday evening. Last night. Early this morning.

  Doing his best to ignore the swelling in his groin, he went down the hall. A dim lamp in the living room cast enough light to locate his missing boot, along with his shirt and jacket. He pulled the shirt on, then braced himself against the wall to shove his foot into the boot. By the time he’d laced it, Kylie was standing near the front door, waiting.

  “What’s your agenda for today?”

  He glanced at her as he shoved his arms into the slicker. It was just one of his quirks, but he didn’t like the word agenda, not applied to him. Granted, it had once been a perfectly acceptable word, but somewhere along the way it had taken on a negative connotation. He has an agenda was no longer a simple statement but an implication of underhandedness.

  “I’d like to talk to some of Jillian Franklin’s friends.”

  She nodded. “My mother’s friends. I can introduce you to them. Do you want to meet for breakfast in a few hours or do you need more sleep?”

  Though he’d gone to bed hours earlier than normal, he hadn’t slept nearly all that time. Still, with a shower, coffee and food, he would be all right. “Breakfast.”

  “Eight o’clock? At the Pancake Palace?” When he nodded, she rose onto her toes, brushed a kiss to his cheek, then opened the door.

  He walked through the fog to his truck, watched her stretch for a moment, wondering how difficult it would be to persuade her to try exercise of another kind this morning, then drove off as she jogged away in the other direction. The gate opened as he approached, then swung shut behind him.

  He didn’t see another vehicle until a hundred yards from the motel entrance, when a police car pulled into the lane behind him. Keeping one eye on the rearview mirror, he parked next to his room, then got out and openly watched the officer, who stopped a few feet away.

  “Awful early to be out and about,” the man said as he got out of his car, the engine still running, the headlights reflecting off Jake’s truck.

  “Or awful late. Depends on your perspective.”

  “Where have you been?”

  Jake pulled his room key from his pocket and examined it a moment before lifting his gaze to the cop. “Out and about.”

  The officer bristled. He wasn’t tall—three, maybe four inches shorter than Jake-but he was solid. With broad shoulders, thick arms, thick legs, no neck and a shaved head, he looked as if he could break Jake in two without much effort. Judging by the muscle twitching in his jaw and the way his hands clenched and unclenched, he was thinking about it. “Don’t get smart, Norris—”

  “I can’t help it. I was born smart.”

  “You don’t want to mess with me.”

  “You’re right. I don’t.” He’d never been much of a fighter. He preferred to talk his way out of ugly situations—it was less painful. “If you give me a legitimate reason for wanting to know where I’ve been, I’ll tell you. But if you’re just asking because the chief told you to keep an eye on me, screw you and him.”

  He waited expectantly, but when the cop didn’t say anything, he slowly pivoted and started up the steps. Turning his back on the guy took more nerve than he wanted to acknowledge, but he made it to the stoop without incident, inserted his key in the lock and opened the door.

  “You’re not gonna find anything,” the cop said belligerently.

  “Then tell your boss to stop worrying and stop harassing me.”

  “Charley Baker was guilty as sin. He was just a no-good drunken Indian. Everybody who knew him knows that.”

  Shaking his head, Jake went inside, closed and locked the door. All of No-Neck’s last words were wrong. Charley wasn’t guilty. Even though luck had never been with him, he’d been a hardworking man, a good husband and father. He hadn’t been given to drunkenness, and nobody in Riverview had known him.

  He showered, checked his e-mail and made a few notes, but it was hard to concentrate for long. Every thought about the trial transcript, the visit to the houses, getting run off the road and the tour of the mansion led to a thought about Kylie, and that led to remembering and wanting and needing. She’d gotten under his skin damned fast, but he figured it would take one hell of a long time to get over her. How weird was it that they were so obviously bad choices for each other and yet not even forty-eight hours after meeting they were in bed, getting intimate, and it had felt so right?

  It was destiny, his mother would say. They were fated to be together…at least for a time.

  Problem was, he was starting to want more than a time.

  He was starting to think about the future. Long-term. Permanency. Forever.

  Rolling his eyes, he caught a glimpse of the time and hastily packed up his backpack. The Pancake Palace was only two blocks away; with a surge of energy, he slung the pack over his shoulder and set off on foot. If the cop saw him, let him follow. If he didn’t, let him sit back thinking Jake was locked inside his room.

  The emptiness in his gut started to tingle as he approached the restaurant. Hunger, the practical part of him said.

  You bet, the impractical part agreed.

  But not for food.

  It was five minutes till eight when Kylie left the house for the second time that morning. She’d picked up her car from the downtown street after her run and was halfway to it when she noticed her father’s Jag sitting in front of the garage. Alberto, the elderly housekeeper’s husband who oversaw the grounds, gave her a smile and a wave as he hosed soapy water from it.

  Mechanically she smiled and waved in return. “Good morning, Alberto. Is the senator coming home today?”

  “He’s already here, Miss Kylie. He arrived from the airport an hour ago.”

  She turned to gaze at the house. An hour ago she’d been pounding along the pavement, maintaining a steady pace, controlling her breathing…and thinking about Jake. How amazing he was. How wrong he was for her. How much she didn’t care that he was wrong. She hadn’t spared a single thought for her father, but if she had she would have been glad he was out of town, glad there were several days left on his fishing trip.

  Why had he come home early? Because Chief Roberts had told him she’d been involved in an accident? Oh, sure, fatherly concern had brought him rushing home, where he’d then made no attempt to contact her or check on her well-being.

  More likely he was here because Roberts had told him she was spending time with Jake. More likely his goal was damage control.

&n
bsp; She checked her watch, then started along the path to the house. Alberto’s wife, Rosalie, was in the kitchen when Kylie entered. She greeted the woman with a warm smile, asked about her father, then went down the hall and upstairs. The nearer she got to the senator’s study, where Rosalie had directed her, the slower her steps got. Was she up for this? Did she really want to confront him just now?

  Yes. At the ornate door she rapped, then waited for her father’s distracted command to enter. With a steadying breath, she did so.

  Of all the opulent rooms in the mansion, the study was the most opulent of all, filled with priceless antiques, art and Persian rugs. The mahogany paneling and cabinetry were so rich that they warmed the entire space, the leather chairs so buttery-soft that sitting in them was like sinking into a toasty cloud. A stained-glass border decorated every window; handmade glass tiles surrounded the fireplace; and leather-bound first editions lined the bookshelves.

  It was impressive.

  Her father sat at the centerpiece, a massive desk that had once belonged to some czar or king, his cell phone to his ear. He waved her to a chair across from him, then ignored her while he ended the call. When he laid the phone down, he fixed a stare on her.

  Resisting the urge to squirm, she smiled. “Good morning, sir. You’re back early.”

  “Of course I am. How could I finish the trip on schedule after what Coy told me?”

  “What was that, sir?”

  He leaned forward, a tactic that most people found intimidating. Kylie was no different. “That you were with Norris yesterday—all day. You were with him when I called you. You went out to the Franklin place with him.”

  And I spent last night with him, she wanted to say. I brought him into this house, showed him my room, showed him your room. Wisely, though, she kept her mouth shut.

  “What are you doing, Kylie?”

  She clasped her hands loosely in her lap, forcing them to remain relaxed. If her fingers knotted, he would notice. If anything at all was indicative of stress, he would see it and use it. “I’m keeping an eye on Jake. As I told you yesterday—”