Knight in Blue Jeans (6 page)

“The kitchen’s closed?” he suggested, eyes dancing.

“You broke in,” she corrected smoothly.

“Nothing’s broken, honestly.”

“Smith.”

He took the chair opposite her. “Okay. Why I, er, ended our relationship.”

She waited.

“I didn’t want to,” he offered weakly.

She rolled her eyes—only he could prompt so rude a gesture. “Please. When’s the last time you did
anything
you didn’t want to do?”

“All the time, lately! I didn’t want to give up my business. I sure don’t want to be living off the grid. And losing you—” Mouth tight, he shook his head. “I did it. I’m not denying that. In the same circumstances, I would again. But Arden…” Smith sat forward in his seat, leaned nearer to her. “It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done, leaving you. That’s why I had to get drunk to do it. It’ll probably go down as the biggest regret of my life. You deserve to know that much.”

The words of a con man. Except…

He’d never been able to con her. Nor she, him. Their truths somehow linked them, even in their worst fights. Even now.

Only as she felt her shoulders imperceptibly relax did
Arden realize just how much she’d longed to hear similar words.
He hadn’t wanted to do it. He regretted it, too.
She had to remind herself that neither point made anything better. “So why
did
you?”

“I…” His gaze skimmed across the marble floor as if looking for the exact right balance between what he supposedly could and could not tell her. “I made some enemies.”

“You? No!”

His lips pulled into a reluctant smile. “It’s true. I had a…disagreement. With some of my associates. They had more clout than I did, and I lost. I mean—I had a choice. Give in to them, or lose everything. I made my choice.”

Arden scowled. “So this was some stupid matter of pride?”

“It was a matter of honor.” Smith scowled harder.

“How?”

“I…” He sat back, crossed his arms and his booted feet, wouldn’t meet her gaze. “I can’t tell you that part.”

And to think she’d almost begun to forgive him! Arden rose to her bare feet, backed away from him and everything he’d once meant to her, everything he’d so easily discarded. “How very convenient for you.”

“Convenient?”
Smith stood, as well. “Hell, Arden, tell me one convenient thing about this! I lost my business. I lost my money. I was all but disowned by my family. Worst of all, I lost
you.
”

She stared at him, here in her bedroom, a strange amalgam of the man she’d thought she’d loved and a complete stranger.

When he took a step toward her, then another, she refused to back away.

“I lost
you,
” he repeated more softly, and now he stood only a step away from her. Now he stood right in front of her; she could smell the dry heat of the day’s sweat—perspiration—and something else hot, like coals, like fire. Now he’d lifted a hand, warm and dry, to her cool shoulder. “None of this was
your fault, and I hurt you anyway, and I’m sorry. I’m so very, very sorry.”

Sorry.
The word that she’d apparently longed for the most.

She wasn’t ready to forgive him. And she certainly wasn’t ready to kiss him. But the apology soothed something deep inside her, something that had been raw and festering for over a year, and—foolish and weak or not—she couldn’t just ignore that. So she leaned across those last inches of space between them, leaned into the tall, hard strength of him. She tucked her head down, rested her cheek on the soft, worn cotton of his T-shirted shoulder.

And when his arms lifted tentatively around her, then drew her more firmly against him, she sighed out more pain than she’d realized she’d held on to.

Their truths. Linked.

It didn’t fix anything, of course. But it was something.

For the moment, it was enough.

A
rden seemed deceptively frail in Smith’s arms, her skin still moist from her shower, her thick black hair damp and tangled under his chin. Did she have any idea how much he loved seeing her so bare of the mask of her makeup, her fine clothes and jewels, her styled hair? It had happened so rarely in their time together—a day at the beach, an evening caught in the rain. He’d longed to someday see her like that in his bed, waking up after a night of lovemaking, but first her damned rules and then the Comitatus had gotten in the way of those hopes. Now she looked as real and vulnerable as he’d imagined. Someone he really could have had as his own. And so very, very hard to consider ever leaving again.

Not that he had any invitation to stay.

Not that he could accept, if she extended one. And yet…

“I’ve missed you,” he admitted softly, wishing his words didn’t sound so thick with emotion.

She sighed again, into his collarbone, and Smith tried to
remember why he’d come to see her. He tried to remember why he’d decided to wait here, after checking her condo and then slipping into her father’s empty home. He’d wanted to ask something…to ask…

But hell. He’d never been that honorable.

His face burrowed into her jetty, damp curls. He breathed in the sweet scent of her—magnolias and shampoo and woman—until his lips found the bare column of her neck, between her throat and her nape, and he had to taste her, to drink her.

She moaned quietly, drawing her spread hands slowly up his chest and toward his shoulders. He continued kissing her jaw, tasting her ear, and groaned his own contentment as she wove her fingers into his hair, guided his head as she tipped her face toward his.

He first noticed the smudges as he bent to meet her lips with his own.

He ignored it. Nowhere
near
that honorable.

He claimed her as he’d hesitated to do for too long, too long ago. And the kiss was perfect. Right. At first their lips teased across each other’s, an echo of the game that they’d played together so often. Then, in another honest echo, they lost control of any games and opened to each other, parted their lips, opened their souls. Their tongues didn’t spar, they caressed. The taste of her, oh, Lord, the taste…

He tipped his forehead against hers only to catch a breath, only to admire the naked pleasure in her thick-lashed, deep green eyes. But then he saw the smudges again, across the otherwise clean, creamy perfection of her heart-shaped face. Nothing so dramatic as coal, or soot. But something had bruised or dirtied her, nevertheless…

His confusion didn’t last long enough.

It was him.

He hadn’t washed up after installing Greta’s new security
system. He’d worn the same old T-shirt, the same jeans, heedless of their dusty afternoon job. Now he’d dirtied her with it.

Even he couldn’t miss the symbolism.

Arden made an impatient, kittenish noise and stretched upward for his lips. Not being an idiot, he gave them. So sweet. Such treasure.

But not for him.

He ignored the inner protest, bent even closer against her, embracing her in his filthy arms as he kissed the living sin out of her.

And kissed her. And kissed her. Exiled no more.

Until something—a door, a floorboard, a window—creaked.

Smith jumped, overly alert from his months of living underground, and the moment ended. After a quick glance around them, noting the complete lack of danger—
old houses settle, idiot
—Smith’s gaze returned to Arden’s in time to watch the moment ending in her eyes. They’d focused from hazy wonder into slow realization, and now they narrowed into annoyance.

Probably at herself as much as him. But it was probably better for her if he took her share of that, too. So he deliberately grinned, devil-may-care, as he said, “Sorry ’bout the dirt.”

Her cute nose wrinkled in confusion before she followed his dipped gaze to see the smears of dust across her creamy arms, her once-clean shirt.

He expected anger.
Deserved
anger. Her anger would free him to get back to doing what he had to do: destroy the Comitatus, even her father.

Even his.

He didn’t realize just how desperately he needed the release of her fury until he didn’t get it. Instead, Arden Leigh smiled her beauty-queen smile, poised and artificial as manufactured sweetener.

“Don’t you fret yourself about it,” she purred. “It’s nothing a little soap and water can’t fix.”

The contrast between this controlled, public Arden and the
real
Arden he’d just been kissing stabbed through Smith’s gut. That had to be why he taunted her, grinning more widely. “Well, hell, sweetness. If you like it dirty…”

All he got was a flash, a bare moment of green-eyed annoyance, before her laugh usurped it. “Now you behave yourself, Smith Donnell, or I’ll have to call my Daddy on you.”

They locked gazes, her smile as grim as his glare felt desperate.

She didn’t know how badly it would endanger him—maybe both of them—to be found together. This would be no casual trespass between acquaintances to her Comitatus father.

This would be treason.

Arden could never know that, though, not even if Smith longed to forget it. He’d taken a stupid damned vow.

If he destroyed the Comitatus, would it still matter?

But he couldn’t destroy her father without destroying her, could he?

Hell. At least her society-girl mask made that thought a little easier. Just not a lot.

He’d come here for something, hadn’t he?

“How’s your brother doing?” Smith asked, relieved to see her lovely mask crumble, unexpectedly, behind honest and protective fury.

“Jeff is none of your business!”

“Whoa—I didn’t say he was. Just being sociable,” he lied. Through his teeth. “How old is he now? Thirteen?”

“Almost fifteen.” But she withheld more details.

To ask
really? when?
would further rouse her suspicions. But with a big Comitatus meeting coming up, what better time to swear the boy into his ancestral obligations? And once Jeff had taken vows to the organization, he would be trapped, just as Smith, Mitch and Trace had been trapped.

“Have you considered taking a long vacation with him? You can get some really affordable last-minute deals overseas…” Right. Like she needed affordable.

“You need to go now,” declared Arden, since Smith wasn’t taking his social cue. “Whatever you came for, you can ask me tomorrow.
Somewhere else.
”

Smith remembered Jeff, an open, idealistic, curly haired kid. Someone who could do some
good
in the world, if he wasn’t hijacked to the dark side first.

Smith had liked him.

He also liked how Arden dropped her pretenses when things concerned Jeff. She’d all but herded him out the door onto her balcony, overlooking the back gardens, before he realized what she was doing.

He liked that side of her a lot.

“Oh, that,” he agreed, pausing for the afterthought as if that, and not Jeff, had been his excuse for coming here. “Tomorrow. I’d like you to set up a meeting with this Vox07 person, the conspiracy buff who offered to trade information—”

“Tomorrow,”
she insisted, outright cutting him off. Goodbye, southern belle. Hello, lover.

“Shall I pick you up here?” He wouldn’t dare; he just wanted to keep her riled. To spend a few more minutes with her in this mood.

“
No.
Come by the rec center.”

“Isn’t that for girls?”

She planted both hands on his chest and pushed. “We don’t have cooties.”

“If you insist.” Now he was just being ornery…but it was so fun!

“I do.”

“Because—”

“Smith!”
She leveled her dark green gaze at him. “Get
out.
”

Grinning and feeling as if he’d won some kind of contest, Smith slipped out onto her dark balcony, jumped to the lawn and headed back toward his crappy, pay-by-the-week apartment.

The next morning, at breakfast, Jeff looked up from his egg cup and asked, “Whatever happened to that guy you used to date? The sarcastic one?”

Arden’s surprisingly sunny mood stuttered to a halt.
What did he know?
“Smith?”

“Uh-huh.” Jeff’s dark eyes seemed innocent enough, but…could she ever see her brother as anything else? Even a few weeks short of fifteen, he would always be a baby to her.

Their father’s gaze held a lot more weight. “Donnell and Arden parted ways over a year ago. Isn’t that right, bunny?”

“Yes, Daddy.” She felt as if she were lying. But she
wasn’t
…except by omission. Just because she’d seen Smith. And lied about it. And kissed him. And dreamed about him….

But that had been Smith’s fault. And they certainly weren’t dating anymore!

“Good riddance.” Her father patted her shoulder affectionately. “You can do much better than that one.”

Arden almost didn’t challenge that. She didn’t care enough about Smith for it to matter, and why disturb their pleasant family morning? But maybe last night’s sparring—or the kissing—had left her more quarrelsome than usual. She paused only long enough to dimple a smile at her father and take a sip of fresh orange juice before she asked, “Why is that, Daddy?”

Donaldson Leigh blinked. “Pardon?”

“Why are you so sure Smith was beneath me?”

His own smile brightened the already sunny breakfast nook in what he clearly thought was understanding. “Because, my darling, all men are beneath you. You outshine every last sorry one of them.”

Which was characteristically sweet of him, and gratifying
to hear, and yet…“So you didn’t have a problem with Smith himself, then?” At his raised eyebrows, Arden wrinkled her nose to imply she was teasing. “I would hate you to think your only daughter had been slumming.”

“Not at all!”

Good,
she thought.

“Will Donnell is a good friend of mine,” her father assured her. “He and his wife were at your soiree just the other night, weren’t they?”

Arden felt even more reassured, until he added, “Too bad that boy of his didn’t live up to the family name.”

Did
Daddy know more about Smith’s fall from society than she’d thought? Pride had kept her from discussing Smith with him, afterward, and certainly with his parents. But she’d rather disposed of pride last night, in Smith’s arms, hadn’t she?

Until you kicked him out.
She’d had enough pride for that.

Fully aware of Jeff watching the exchange too closely, Arden said, “You know, I never did understand what happened to Smith after our breakup. One week he was running a security company, the next he not only left me, but vanished out of our circle entirely. His mother didn’t even mention him to me at the Molly for Governor reception.”

Her father took a long sip of coffee.

Her suspicions flared. “Daddy—you didn’t do something to Smith, did you? I mean, to protect my honor or something?”

Her father laughed at the foolishness of her question.

So why had he seemed so startled a moment beforehand?

She was drawing breath to ask when Jeff, reaching for the salt, knocked her half-full juice glass over onto the white tablecloth.

He blinked at the mess. “Oops.”

Arden leaped to her feet and began attacking the stain with napkins. Their father called for the maid. And in the tempo
rary chaos, the moment passed. Before Arden could decide how to best approach the question, Jeff was asking to come to work with her.

“I want to see what you’ve done with the place,” he insisted. “Especially since that state comptroller lady got involved. I bet you’ve gotten all kinds of donations.”

First questions about Smith, and now the rec center—where she would be meeting Smith today? If Jeff hadn’t overheard something, the coincidence amazed her…too much. She stayed suspicious.

“And I can help protect you,” Jeff insisted. “Dad always worries about you down in Oak Cliff alone.”

“That’s true,” their father agreed.

Arden quickly prioritized her concerns. “I wish you two would stop acting as if Oak Cliff were the Gaza Strip. It’s a perfectly nice neighborhood—”

“Except for when your car radio was stolen,” her father reminded her grimly.

“Well, yes, but—”

“Twice.”

“We have better security on our parking lot now. Do you think the girls who come to us don’t have big brothers and fathers or boyfriends making sure that nobody messes with us?” Well—nobody except the occasionally abusive big brother or father or boyfriend. But Val handled problems like that very well. Speaking of which…“And mothers,” she added belatedly. “And sisters.”

“Fine! Excuse me for wanting to spend time with my big sister.” Jeff slumped dramatically back in his chair as Esperanza cleared the last of the orange-juice detritus. He folded his lanky arms, stared at the ceiling. “I try to show some interest in the things that matter to her, but does she care?”

Despite other concerns, Arden exchanged a glance of amused exasperation with their father. “How about you show
some interest tomorrow,” she suggested. “Mondays are a little chaotic for bringing visitors.”

Whatever he knew, this would be the test.

To her sincere relief, Jeff passed. “Sure. Warn everyone so they can hide your girly secrets away.”

“Thank you for enabling us.” She bent to kiss his cheek and had to lean extra far as he pulled a face and dodged the embrace. But he couldn’t have been trying too hard. He was surprisingly strong lately, but still got kissed.

“You’ll be careful,” warned her father, happy to offer
his
cheek for a kiss.

“I am always careful.” Arden sighed.

Despite that I’m investigating a secret society.

Despite that I’m meeting with Smith Donnell in secret.

And despite that I’m kind of looking forward to it.

That could be the most dangerous part of all.

Jeff was thundering down the stairs later that morning when, at the widening base of them, a heavy hand caught his arm and swung him to a stop.