Books by Nora Roberts

by Roberts, Nora

  "Where did he hit you?"

  "Everywhere. In the face, in the stomach. Mostly my face. He just wouldn't stop."

  "Did you call for help?"

  "I couldn't. I couldn't hardly breathe."

  "Did you try to defend yourself?''

  "I tried to crawl away, but he kept coming after me, kept hitting me. I passed out. When I woke up, Suzanne was there, and her face was all bloody. She called an ambulance."

  Gently Deborah continued to question. When she took her seat at the prosecutor's table, she prayed that Marjorie would hold up under cross-examination.

  After almost three hours on the witness stand, Marjorie was pale and shaky. Despite the defense counselor's attempt to destroy her character, she stepped down looking young and vulnerable.

  And it was that picture, Deborah thought with satisfaction, that would remain in the jury's mind.

  "Excellent job, Counselor."

  Deborah turned her head and, with twin pricks of annoyance and pleasure, glanced up at Gage. "What are you doing here?"

  "Watching you work. If I ever need a lawyer…"

  "I'm a prosecutor, remember?" He smiled. "Then I'll just have to make sure I don't get caught breaking the law." When she stood, he took her hand. A casual gesture, even a friendly one. She couldn't have said why it seemed so possessive. "Can I offer you a lift? Dinner, dessert? A quiet evening?"

  And she'd said he wouldn't tempt her again. Fat chance. "I'm sorry, I have something to do."

  Tilting his head, he studied her. "I think you mean it."

  "I do have work."

  "No, I mean that you're sorry."

  His eyes were so deep, so warm, she nearly sighed. "Against my better judgment, I am." She started out of the courtroom into the hall.

  "Just the lift then."

  She sent him a quick, exasperated look over her shoulder. "Didn't I tell you once how I felt about persistent men?''

  "Yes, but you had dinner with me anyway."

  She had to laugh. After all the tense hours in court, it was a relief. "Well, since my car's in the shop, I could use a lift."

  He stepped into the elevator with her. "It's a tough case you've taken on here. And a reputation maker."

  Her eyes cooled. "Really?"

  "You're getting national press."

  "I don't take cases for clippings." Her voice was as frigid as her eyes.

  "If you're going to be in for the long haul, you'll have to develop a thicker skin."

  "My skin's just fine, thanks."

  "I noticed." Relaxed, he leaned back against the wall. "I think anyone who knows you realizes the press is a by-product, not the purpose. You're making a point here, that no one, no matter who or what they are, should be victimized. I hope you win."

  She wondered why it should have unnerved her that he understood precisely what she was reaching for. "I will win."

  She stepped out of the elevator into the marble lobby.

  "I like your hair that way," he commented, pleased to see he'd thrown her off. "Very cool, very competent. How many pins would I have to pull out to have it fall loose?"

  "I don't think that's—"

  "Relevant?" he supplied. "It is to me. Everything about you is, since I don't seem to be able to stop thinking about you."

  She kept walking quickly. It was typical, she imagined, that he would say such things to a woman in a lobby swarming with people—and make her feel as though they were completely alone. "I'm sure you've managed to keep busy. I noticed a picture of you in this morning's paper—there was a blonde attached to your arm. Candidate Tarrington's dinner party." She set her teeth when he kept smiling. "You switch your allegiances quickly, politically speaking."

  "I have no allegiances, politically speaking. I was interested to hear what Fields's opposition had to say. I was impressed."

  She remembered the lush blonde in the skinny black dress. "I bet."

  This time he grinned. "I'm sorry you weren't there."

  "I told you before I don't intend to be part of a horde." At the wide glass doors, she stopped, braced. "Speaking of hordes." Head up, she walked into the crowd of reporters waiting on the courthouse steps.

  They fired questions. She fired answers. Still, as annoyed as she was with him, she was grateful to see Gage's big black limo with its hulk of a driver waiting at the curb.

  "Mr. Guthrie, what's your interest in this case?"

  "I enjoy watching justice at work."

  "You enjoy watching gorgeous D.A.s at work." Wisner pushed his way through his associates to shove a recorder into Gage's face. "Come on, Guthrie, what's happening between you and Darling Deb?"

  Hearing her low snarl, Gage put a warning hand on Deborah's arm and turned to the reporter. "I know you, don't I?"

  Wisner smirked. "Sure. We ran into each other plenty in those bad old days when you worked for the city instead of owning it."

  "Yeah. Wisner." He summed the man up with one quick, careless look. "Maybe my memory's faulty, but I don't recall you being as big a jerk then as you are now." He bundled a chuckling Deborah into the limo.

  "Nicely done," she said.

  "I'll have to consider buying The World, just to have the pleasure of firing him."

  "I have to admire the way you think." With a sigh, she slipped out of her shoes and shut her tired eyes. She could get used to traveling this way, she thought. Big cushy seats and Mozart playing softly in the speakers. A pity it wasn't reality. "My feet are killing me. I'm going to have to buy a pedometer to see how many miles I put in during an average day in court."

  "Will you come home with me if I promise you a foot massage?"

  She opened one eye. He'd be good at it, she thought. At massaging a woman's foot—or anything else that happened to ache. "No." She shut her eye again. "I have to get back to my office. And I'm sure there are plenty of other feet you can rub."

  Gage opened the glass long enough to give Frank their destination. "Is that what concerns you? The other… feet in my life?"

  She hated the fact that it did. "They're your business."

  "I like yours. Your feet, your legs, your face. And everything in between."

  She ignored, tried to ignore, the quick frisson of response. "Do you always try to seduce women in the back of limos?''

  "Would you prefer someplace else?"

  She opened both eyes. Some things, she thought, were better handled face-to-face. "Gage, I've done some thinking about this situation."

  His mouth curved charmingly. "Situation?"

  "Yes." She didn't chose to call it a relationship. "I'm not going to pretend I'm not attracted to you, or that I'm not flattered you seem to be attracted to me. But—"

  "But?" He picked up her hand, rubbed his lips over her knuckles. The skin there smelled as fresh and clear as rainwater.

  "Don't." Her breath caught when he turned her hand over to press a slow, warm kiss in the palm. "Don't do that."

  "I love it when you're cool and logical, Deborah. It makes me crazy to see how quickly I can make you heat up." He brushed his lips over her wrist and felt the fast thud of her pulse. "You were saying?''

  Was she? What woman could be cool and logical when he was looking at her? Touching her. She snatched her hand away, reminding herself that was precisely the problem. "I don't want this—situation to go any further, for several good reasons."

  "Mmm-hmm."

  She knocked his hand away when he began to toy with the pearl at her ear. "I mean it. I realize you're used to picking and discarding women like poker chips, but I'm not interested. So ante up with someone else."

  Yes, she was heating up nicely. "That's a very interesting metaphor. I could say that there are some winnings I prefer to hold on to rather than gamble with."

  Firing up, she turned to him. "Let's get this straight. I'm not this week's prize. I have no intention of being Wednesday's brunette following Tuesday's blonde."

  "So, we're back to those feet again."

  "You might con
sider it a joke, but I take my life, personally and professionally, very seriously."

  "Maybe too seriously."

  She stiffened. "That's my business. The bottom line here is that I'm not interested in becoming one of your conquests. I'm not interested in becoming tangled up with you in any way, shape or form." She glanced over when the limo glided to the curb. "And this is my stop." He moved quickly, surprising them both, dragging her across the seat so that she lay across his lap. "I'm going to see to it that you're so tangled up you'll never pull free." Hard and sure, his mouth met hers.

  She didn't struggle. She didn't hesitate. Every emotion she had felt along the drive had been honed down to one: desire. Irrevocable. Instantaneous. Irresistible. Her fingers dived into his hair as her mouth moved restless and hungry under his.

  She wanted, as she had never wanted before. Never dreamed of wanting. The ache of it was so huge it left no room for reason. The lightness of it was so clear it left no room for doubt. There was only the moment—and the taking.

  He wasn't patient as he once had been. Instead, his mouth was fevered as it raced over her face, streaked down her throat. With an urgent murmur, she pulled his lips back to hers.

  Never before had he known anyone who had matched his needs so exactly. There was a fire burning in her, and he had only to touch to make it leap and spark. He'd known desire before, but not this gnawing, tearing desperation.

  He wanted to drag her down on the seat, pull and tug at that slim, tidy suit until she was naked and burning beneath him.

  But he also wanted to give her comfort and compassion and love. He would have to wait until she was ready to accept it.

  With real regret, he gentled his hands and drew her away. "You're everything I want," he told her. "And I've learned to take what I want."

  Her eyes were wide. As the passion faded from them, it was replaced by a dazed fear that disturbed him. "It's not right," she whispered. "It's not right that you should be able to do this to me."

  "No, it's not right for either of us. But it's real."

  "I won't be controlled by my emotions."

  "We all are."

  "Not me." Shaky, she reached down for her shoes. "I've got to go."

  He reached across her to unlatch the door. "You will belong to me."

  She shook her head. "I have to belong to myself first." Climbing out, she bolted.

  Gage watched her retreat before he opened his fisted hand. He counted six hairpins and smiled.

  Deborah spent the evening with Suzanne and Marjorie in their tiny apartment. Over the Chinese takeout she'd supplied, she discussed the case with them. It helped, pouring herself into her work helped. It left little time to brood about Gage and her response to him. A response that worried her all the more since she had felt much the same stunning sexual pull toward another man.

  Because she wanted to turn to both, she couldn't turn to either. It was a matter of ethics. To Deborah, when a woman began to doubt her ethics, she had to doubt everything.

  It helped to remind herself that there were things she could control. Her work, her life-style, her ambitions. Tonight she hoped to do something to control the outcome of the case she was trying.

  Each time the phone rang, she answered it herself while Marjorie and Suzanne sat on the sofa, hands clutched. On the fifth call, she hit pay dirt.

  "Marjorie?"

  She took a chance. "No."

  "Suzanne, you bitch."

  Though a grim smile touched her lips, she made her voice shake. "Who is this?"

  "You know damn well who it is. It's Jimmy."

  "I'm not supposed to talk to you."

  "Fine. Just listen. If you think I messed you up before, it's nothing to what I'm going to do to you if you testify tomorrow. You little slut, I picked you up off the street where you were earning twenty a trick and set you up with high rolling Johns. I own you, and don't you forget it. Do yourself a favor, Suze, tell that tight-assed D.A. that you've changed your mind, that you and Marjorie lied about everything. Otherwise, I'll hurt you, real bad. Understand?"

  "Yes." She hung up and stared at the phone. "Oh, yeah. I understand." Deborah turned to Marjorie and Suzanne. "Keep your door locked tonight and don't go out. He doesn't know it yet, but he just hanged himself."

  Pleased with herself, she left them. It had taken a great deal of fast talking to get a tap on Marjorie and Suzanne's line. And it would take more to subpoena Slagerman's phone records. But she would do it. When Slagerman took the stand in a few days, both he and his defense counsel were in for a surprise.

  She decided to walk a few blocks before trying to hunt up a cab. The night was steamy. Even the buildings were sweating. Across town there was a cool room, a cool shower, a cool drink waiting. But she didn't want to go home, alone, yet. Alone it would be too easy to think about her life. About Gage.

  She had lost control in his arms in the afternoon. That was becoming a habit she didn't care for. It wasn't possible to deny that she was attracted to him. More, pulled toward him in a basic, almost primitive way that was all but impossible to resist.

  Yet, she also felt something, a very strong something, for a man who wore a mask.

  How could she, who had always prized loyalty, fidelity, above all else, have such deep and dramatic feelings for two different men?

  She hoped she could blame her own physicality. To want a man wasn't the same as to need one. She wasn't ready to need one, much less two.

  What she needed was control, over her emotions, her life, her career. For too much of her life she had been a victim of circumstance. Her parents' tragic deaths, and the depthless well of fear and grief that had followed it. The demands of her sister's job that had taken them both from city to city to city.

  Now she was making her own mark, in her own way, in her own time. For the past eighteen months she had worked hard, with a single-minded determination to earn and deserve the reputation as a strong and honest representative of the justice system. All she had to do was keep moving forward on the same straight path.

  As she stepped into the shadows of the World Building, she heard someone whisper her name. She knew that voice, had heard it in her dreams—dreams she'd refused to acknowledge.

  He seemed to flow out of the dark, a shadow, a silhouette, then a man. She could see his eyes, the gleam of them behind the mask. The longing came so quickly, so strongly, she nearly moaned aloud.

  And when he took her hand to draw her into the shadows, she didn't resist.

  "You seem to be making it a habit to walk the streets at night alone."

  "I had work." Automatically she pitched her voice low to match his. "Are you following me?"

  He didn't answer, but his fingers curled around hers in a way that spoke of possession.

  "What do you want?"

  "It's dangerous for you." She'd left her hair down, he saw, so that it flowed around her shoulders. "Those who murdered Parino will be watching you." He felt her pulse jump, but not with fear. He recognized the difference between fear and excitement.

  "What do you know about Parino?"

  "They won't be bothered by the fact you're a woman, not if you're in their way. I don't want to see you hurt."

  Unable to help herself, she leaned toward him. "Why?"

  As helpless as she, he lifted both of her hands to his lips. He clutched them there, his grip painfully tight. His eyes met hers over them. "You know why."

  "It isn't possible." But she didn't, couldn't step away when he brushed a hand over her hair. "I don't know who you are. I don't understand what you do."

  "Sometimes neither do I."

  She wanted badly to step into his arms, to learn what it was like to be held by him, to have his mouth hot on hers. But there were reasons, she told herself as she held back. Too many reasons. She had to be strong, strong enough not only to resist him, but to use him.

  "Tell me what you know. About Parino, about his murder. Let me do my job."

  "Leave it alone. That's al
l I have to tell you."

  "You know something. I can see it." With a disgusted breath, she stepped back. She needed the distance, enough of it so that she could hear her brain and remember that she was an officer of the court and he a wrench in the system in which she believed fervently. "It's your duty to tell me."

  "I know my duty."

  She tossed back her hair. Attracted to him? Hell, no, she was infuriated by him. "Sure, skulking around shadows, dispensing your own personal sense of justice when and where the whim strikes. That's not duty, Captain Bonehead, it's ego." When he didn't respond, she let out a hiss of breath and stepped toward him again. "I could bring you up on charges for withholding information. This is police business, D.A.'s business, not a game."

  "No, it isn't a game." His voice remained low, but she thought she caught hints of both amusement and annoyance. "But it has pawns. I wouldn't like to see you used as one."

  "I can take care of myself."

  "So you continue to say. You're out of your league this time, Counselor. Leave it alone." He stepped back.

  "Just hold on." She rushed forward, but he was gone. "Damn it, I wasn't finished arguing with you." Frustrated, she kicked the side of the building, missing his shin by inches. "Leave it alone," she muttered. "Not on your life."

  Chapter 5

  Dripping, swearing, Deborah rushed toward the door. Knocks at 6:45 a.m. were the same as phone calls at three in the morning. They spelled trouble. When she opened the door and found Gage, she knew her instincts had been on target.

  "Get you out of the shower?" he asked her.

  She pushed an impatient hand through her wet hair. "Yes. What do you want?"

  "Breakfast." Without waiting for an invitation, he strolled inside. "Very nice," he decided.

  She'd used the soft cream of ivory with slashes of color—emerald, crimson, sapphire—in the upholstery of the low sofa, in the scatter of rugs on the buffed wood floor. He noted, too, that she had left a damp trail on that same floor.

  "Looks like I'm about five minutes early."

  Realizing the belt of her robe was loose, she snapped it tight. "No, you're not, because you shouldn't be here at all. Now—"