Landry's Law (7 page)

Seth felt the words jab him like a knife. “I was just doing my job.”

“I know,” she agreed easily.

More easily than he would have if their positions had been reversed.

“If you didn’t think I was guilty, why put me through that?” she asked softly.

“I’m sorry, Savannah. But I can’t write a report saying I failed to follow procedure because I
personally
don’t think the suspect is guilty.”

“Okay,” she relented quickly.

When he drove past the Mountainview Inn, he
noticed Savannah suffer a nervous jolt. Not knowing what to do, he simply placed his hand on her denim-clad knee. Almost instantly, Savannah laced her fingers through his. Seth wasn’t sure how to handle this. Part of him knew that he should be hands-off, yet that other part of him begged for this to be the beginning of something.
But what?
Could he stand being with a woman who could be killed or could disappear as abruptly as his mother? Was it worth it? And what guarantee did he have that once she testified, she wouldn’t go running back to Connecticut? Another possible form of abandonment. Could he stand it? He glanced over at Savannah’s exquisite face and the answer came to him in a flash.
Yes.

Seth showed her inside his home. It was a western-style brick two-story. For some reason, it mattered to him what she thought of it. He didn’t have to wait long.

“Who knew you could decorate in roadkill and hide?” she asked with false sweetness.

“I used to hunt back in the days when it was politically correct,” Seth explained a little defensively.

Savannah pointed to the mounted animals and said, “In honor of giving up that barbaric sport, have you considered taking down the glass-eyed heads that follow you everywhere?”

“I don’t recall me making fun of your fake birdcage.”

She seemed stunned that he had noticed the
detail. “The important word there is
fake.
I have all fake furs, nothing had to die for me to decorate.”

“Well, maybe I’ll get around to it. Come on upstairs. The second floor is a dead-thing-free zone.”

“Okay.”

Hearing her soft chuckle was a salve for his unusually frazzled nerves. He hadn’t felt this self-conscious since the tenth grade when he’d lured Melanie Yount beneath the bleachers at a high school football game. What was it about this woman that had him forever off-kilter?

He had the oddest conflicting emotions when Savannah entered his bedroom. She was the first woman ever to be in the room
not
for the specific purpose of seduction. It was strange. It got worse when she made herself right at home by climbing up on his high iron-and-post bed and tested the mattress. Her wriggling body in the center of his bed raised his blood pressure, among other things. Her green sweater had ridden up so that he could see the outline of her rib cage as well as a glint when her belly button ring caught the light.

“This is comfortable,” she sighed, testing his mattress.

Not for me.
Seth began throwing clothing into a bag. He was so flustered that he had to stop, dump everything out and start again.

“Need help?” Savannah called from his bed.

“No.”

She rolled over, slid to the end of the bed and rested her chin on her hands, watching him intently. Though he was a big man, there was nothing at all bulky or awkward about him. In fact, watching muscle strain against the fabric of his tan uniform reminded Savannah of watching a prized thorough-bred going through its paces.

He was graceful, yet very powerfully built. One of his thighs was probably an equal circumference to her waist. But there seemed to be a gentleness about him that belied the raw strength. Or perhaps there was just something totally nonthreatening about watching a man fold his boxer shorts, she thought with private humor.

Savannah was a little surprised when he went to his closet and collected some civilian clothes to add to the duffel-shaped bag. Well, soon enough she’d know whether it was the uniform or the man that so attracted her.

Seth zipped the bag and hoisted it onto his shoulder as if it were weightless. Turning to her, he asked, “Hungry?”

Not necessarily for food,
she thought. Prudence made her respond with a polite and prim, “Yes.”

He led her down into a kitchen she could only describe as masculine and rustic. Judging from the thin layer of dust on the sideboard, he didn’t entertain much. Which could mean he didn’t date much.
Which could mean I’m obsessing about this man!

Seth opened the freezer, then the refrigerator compartment. He emerged holding a bag of preprepared salad and a bottle of white wine. “How does chicken Caesar salad sound?”

“Fine,” she answered.

Savannah pulled out one of the chairs to sit at the long, battered pine table and accepted the corkscrew and bottle from Seth. He then went back to the freezer and pulled yet another bag of precooked food out.

While he prepared to heat the grilled chicken strips on the stove, Savannah went in search of wine-glasses. She started at the sideboard and went still when she saw the collection of photographs up close.

“I don’t think I fully understood seven children until this instant.” She picked up an eleven-by-fourteen group shot and guessed it was close to twenty years old. Sam, Chance and Seth were easily recognizable, even though twenty years ago Dr. Landry hadn’t had his prematuring gray temples or eyebrows.

“Just think herd,” Seth joked. “I’ll never know how my mother stood all of us.”

She reached out and touched the only female face in the picture. “What is her name?”

“Pricilla,” Seth said.

Hearing the slight catch in his voice broke her heart. Savannah could relate. It was the reason she
kept all reminders of her family carefully stored out of sight. She couldn’t bear seeing their images, knowing she couldn’t contact them.

The woman was incredibly beautiful and you’d never know she’d given birth to seven boys. She was tall, elegant, with dark coloring and the same half smile she had passed on to her offspring.

She remembered Seth telling her his father’s name was Caleb. He, too, was an attractive man. He had his hands on the shoulders of two of his sons. “Who are these?” she asked, holding up the picture and pointing to them.

“Chandler and Clayton,” Seth answered.

Savannah wanted to kick herself. She’d asked two simple questions and both had caused Seth varying degrees of pain. Clayton was in prison, and she knew from his earlier blowup that it wasn’t something Seth liked to think or talk about.

The youngest child was Shane. He stood in front of his mother, smiling even though he had a big bruise on the side of his face. Savannah wondered which one of his older brothers was responsible for that.

Though he had changed a great deal in twenty years, by process of elimination, she knew the one standing next to Chance had to be Cody. She smiled. He was stiff and rigid, even as a child.

“Dinner is served,” Seth called.

She turned to see that he had set the table, poured
the wine, and had two plates full and waiting for consumption.

“Sorry, I should have helped.”

“You did. You opened the wine.”

Savannah rolled her eyes. “Oh, major contribution,” she responded with good-natured sarcasm. She took her seat and Seth grabbed the end chair. The one closest to her. It was a huge table, but having him so near suddenly made the table feel about the same size as a matchbox.

She tasted the salad and had to admit, it was a lot better than anything she could have thrown together in less than ten minutes. She told Seth as much. “I’m basically dependent upon takeout and Olive for sustenance,” she confessed. “She’s forever bringing over baked goods. Or sending Junior out with whatever leftovers they have.”

“Olive’s a nice lady,” Seth said. “Junior is a little weird, but then that’s to be expected, given his past.”

Savannah peered over at him. “His past?” she asked before taking another bite of food.

Seth nodded. “He was always a bit of a dork growing up. But his father seemed to keep Olive’s…
smothering
tendencies at bay. Until he died in a hunting accident when Junior was thirteen.”

“How terrible!” Savannah said. “That’s a very difficult age for a boy to lose his father.”

“Especially since he saw the accident,” he said, then shrugged off the memory.

His eyes were fixed on her face. Suddenly, the temperature in the room seemed to go up a few degrees Fahrenheit. His hand snaked out and she felt the startling thrill of the pad of his thumb against her lower lip.

She was so shocked by the unexpected contact, all she could do was suck in a hurried gasp of air.

“You have dressing here,” he said. His voice was deep, sensual and as mesmerizing as his dark eyes.

His thumb ran the full length of her lip as his palm cradled her jaw. He did it once, twice, increasing the pressure each time. By the third pass, Savannah was perspiring. His simple action had been more seductive, more intimate than a kiss. She felt abandoned when he pulled his hand back. More than that, she felt an overwhelming urge to reach out and drag him to her.
That
would be even better.

“Better?” Seth asked.

Her eyes were pools of unspent blue-brown passion. Seth should have known better than to touch her that way. His initial motivation had been pure, but the instant his thumb felt the full softness of her rosy lip, he just couldn’t help himself. Nor could he help his body’s quick response.

Adjusting his napkin in his lap, he knew a change of topic was the only thing that would distract him from the unimaginable desire he felt for Savannah. Unfortunately for him, it wasn’t just the physical attraction that worried him.

It was knowing, deep down, that he was beginning to feel something that he’d never before felt. And that was scary as hell.

Abandoning his plate, he grabbed his wine and took a fortifying sip. “So, since you know all about my family, why don’t you tell me about yours?”

He had hoped his tactic would distract her. Instead, his question left an unmistakable glint of sorrow in her exquisite eyes. Despite whatever private emotion she might be feeling, Savannah offered him a smile that made him glad he was sitting down.
Lord but she was ravishing when she smiled.
It had to have something to do with the way her unusual coloring came together to form exotic perfection. Her skin was pale, but had a faint olive tinge, suggesting one of her ancestors was Latin or maybe Italian. Her shoulder-length hair was several shades lighter than his own, maybe medium brown, and parted on the left side.

There were times he was sure she wasn’t aware that her hair fell forward, nearly covering her right eye. It gave her a sexy look—sort of like a dark-haired version of the popular forties actress Veronica Lake. In the correct light, her hair had some auburn highlights, the type he knew many women paid dearly for. Hers were definitely natural, just like her innate beauty.

“Hello?” he heard Savannah’s voice question.

“Sorry,” Seth mumbled, not realizing that he had been ignoring her while cataloging her many assets. “Please tell me about your family.”

“Savannah is my real first name,” she explained.
“My parents named me after the city where they met.”

Seth smiled. “Then I’m sure you can guess why my one brother’s name is Chance—my folks took one.”

She laughed. The mere sound of her laughter filling his home seemed somehow comforting, right.

“I have three younger brothers. All of them are in college now.”

“Then I don’t need to bother checking out the picture I took from your cabin of you standing with your family at one of the boy’s high school graduation.”

Savannah’s expression changed instantly. Her eyes blazed. “You took one of my photographs?”

He reached for her hand, but she snatched it out of reach. “At the time, you were the prime suspect in three murders. I’ll get it back to you tomorrow. Chill out.”

She did, but slowly. “The boys are, in descending order, Matthew, Mark and Luke.”

“Your family is religious?” Seth guessed.

Savannah shrugged. “They go to church. But the names came about because after me, my parents were told they couldn’t have any more children. So, six years later, when the boys all came within twenty months, they figured the boys were gifts from God, hence their names.”

Seth gave a half laugh. “My parents started out
giving us names beginning with
S,
because Pop always called mom Silla in stead of Pricilla. But when we kept coming and coming and coming, they switched to
C
s, for my father, Caleb. Except for Shane. I suppose by the time he came along they had run out of names beginning with the letter
C.
” Seth took another sip of wine and felt himself relaxing for the first time since they had fished Fowler’s body out of Brock Creek. “You said you called your mother’s office. Is she a secretary?”

Now Savannah gave a chuckle. “Not
my
mother. Not that there’s anything wrong with secretarial work, but Patricia Hale-Smythe is just one of those hold-overs from the feminist movement. She believed and wanted it all. She owns her own interior decorating business. Makes almost as much a year as my father.”

“Who is…?”

“Conway Smythe, M.D., one of the busiest OBGYNs in Norwalk, Connecticut.”

Seth whistled. “So we have something in common.”

Her brows wrinkled. “What?”

“We both come from financially…
comfortable
backgrounds.”

Savannah huffed. “I’d hardly relate the Smythe family with the vast holdings of the Landrys. By the way, do you know Junior’s only wish in life is to handle your family’s finances?”

“That wouldn’t sit too well with Sam,” Seth
remarked. “I don’t see my financial-analyst brother turning over the family business to a CPA.”

“Junior’s good with money,” Savannah defended mildly.

“How do you know?”

“When they put me into the Witness Protection Program, my father liquidated a small trust fund he’d set up for me. So Savannah Wyatt has to pay quarterly taxes on Savannah Smythe’s money. Junior helps me.”

“I thought the Feds paid all your relocation expenses. Does Junior know you’re actually Savannah Smythe?”

“Absolutely not. The Feds made Savannah Smythe’s money turn into Savannah Wyatt’s money. Junior doesn’t have the first clue. Having my own money meant I could finish college when they had me in Maryland. And continue now that I’m in Montana. I just had a lot of work to make up since I had to totally change my career plans.”

Seth recalled the sketches he had seen in her cabin. “You were an art major?”

“Fashion design,” she corrected. “I was going to be the Vera Wang of the new millennium. Which is how I got into this mess.”

Seth refilled their glasses. “Sorry, but I didn’t know that mobsters were into fashion design. Well, except for that Gotti guy, but he’ll be wearing prison issue for the rest of his days.”

Savannah’s smile reached her eyes and melted his insides. Seth downed nearly half of the contents of his glass and hoped she didn’t notice the slight tremble in his hand. This woman had him so off balance he’d probably fall out of his chair at any moment. If it registered, he could see no outward signs. Which soured his mood slightly. Was it because she knew she had this sort of effect on men? Any man?
Him?

“I was attending college in Manhattan,” Savannah began to explain. “Being the impatient type—” she paused to offer a guilty smile “—I didn’t want to wait the three months for graduation to start looking for a job. So, I applied to a small design house, hoping to get some experience before I approached Calvin Klein or one of the other fashion icons.”

“Good plan.”

Savannah sighed. “Not really. This house put me to work in cutting. Which is a logical entry-level job. Tough on the hands, though. And still being the impatient sort, I decided to stay late with my friend Brenda, who was also about to graduate.”

“Was Brenda the other witness?”

Savannah gave a slow, solemn nod. “We had delusions of grandeur. We were going to impress our boss by designing a dress using some of the beads we found rummaging around the warehouse. They were just piled in boxes as high as the warehouse
ceiling, so we figured borrowing a few wouldn’t be a problem.”

“Only the boxes were full of dope?” Seth asked.

“No, they were much too smart for that. The beads were used on a line of ethnic blouses made in a different part of the warehouse and shipped mainly to discount stores—or so we thought.”

“But the beads weren’t beads?”

“Right,” Savannah said on a quick breath. “Brenda and I had this brilliant idea to cut them in half to decorate the neckline and a matching belt for our dress. Only, when we cut them, some disintegrated into white powder and others were a sticky black goo inside.”

“Cocaine and heroine,” Seth correctly guessed.

Savannah nodded. “Like fools, instead of quitting, we went to the authorities.”

Seth reached for her hand again, this time she didn’t pull back. “You did the right thing.”

Savannah closed her free hand over his, sandwiching his big hand between her much smaller ones. “My intellect knows that, but the price we paid was too high. Brenda was gunned down in a drive-by when the Feds were moving her to a safe house. I spent a year cooped up in a Manhattan apartment. I couldn’t leave the apartment or even go near the windows. Worst of all, I couldn’t contact my family. The best I could do was send notes through the federal marshals I had with me at all times. But
it wasn’t like the post office. I later learned that they held my letters, repackaged them and oftentimes it would take more than six months for my parents to get word from me.”

“Was Cody with you all that time?” Seth asked.

“Not until they moved me west,” Savannah answered. “When I was in Maryland, I had two female agents who got to go to college with me.”

“Why?”

“Well, the Feds tell me I can’t ever go back into design because the Rossi family will be watching for me. They set me up in Maryland as a waitress in a trendy bar in Annapolis. That was supposed to be my new life. Savannah Burton, waitress.”

“Burton?”

She smiled without humor. “What can I say, the Feds like handing out new identities. They about had a fit when I refused to change my first name.”

Seth imagined his hard-line brother in such a situation and instantly understood her point. “The Feds are a rather by-the-rules group, aren’t they?”

She nodded. “Yep, but I changed the rules.”

“How?”

“Working as a waitress or in Olive’s shop is good, honest work. Work I don’t mind doing until I can earn my Ph.D. in forensic psychology. It’s called self-direction. Since I’m going to have to be someone else,
I’m
going to define that someone,
not
the federal government.”

He was impressed. “Is that how you know Taylor?”

“Taylor Reese?” Savannah asked.

“Yes.”

Savannah eyed him cautiously. “So, when you thought I was a killer you had me followed? Yes, I know Taylor. We have the same classes and the same advisor, Molly Jameson.”

“I didn’t have you followed,” Seth told her. “Taylor is the housekeeper out at the ranch, remember?”

Savannah appeared to be a touch embarrassed. “Sorry, I forgot. I guess I just don’t think of you as a rancher.”

“Good,” Seth sighed. “Don’t get me wrong, I love the land and the heritage that goes with it. I’m just not cut out for the day to day of managing the place, which is why I was thrilled when Shane came back.”

He checked his watch, recorked the half-full bottle of wine and put it into the fridge. “We’d better head back to your cabin.”

When he turned around, he brushed against her body as she attempted to pass him, her arms loaded with dishes. For Seth it was like being hit with a stun gun. His whole body tingled.

“See,” Savannah said, her eyes lowered, “those waitressing days paid off. I didn’t drop your plates.”

Plates?
He would have given anything if she’d
pitched them to the floor and leapt into his arms.
I have got to get a grip!

S
AVANNAH COULD HEAR
the telephone ringing as she put the key in the door, opened it, then made a dash for the phone. “Hello?”

“Miss Wyatt, this is J.D. Is the sheriff there?”

“Right here,” Savannah said. She offered the phone to Seth, simply saying, “J.D.”

Secretly, she was glad for the few moments to collect herself. As her brother Matthew liked to say, she was thinking impure thoughts. Glancing over her shoulder at Seth, she figured it was no wonder. The man gave new definition to the term
gorgeous.
He had a kind of subtle sensuality that had her hormones racing at Indy 500 speeds. If they were going to occupy the same space for the foreseeable future, she was going to have to learn to control herself.

Easier said than done, she thought as she watched him rake his hand through his thick black hair. In spite of his efforts, several ebony strands fell forward to mingle with his inky lashes. Even when his jaw went taut suddenly, his expression becoming rather fierce, Savannah still found him dangerously attractive. Seth was an odd combination of gentleness and blatant sexuality. He didn’t even have to touch her in order for her to feel the awakening of her desires.

It had been forever since she’d been in a man’s arms, so she tried to tell herself that was the sole reason she found Seth so appealing. It had nothing to do with the fact that the more she got to know him—know the little chinks in his armor—the more attracted she was to him.

Unlike his brother Cody, Seth wasn’t a blob of macho values. He was strong, yes. She’d even seen him get physical with Cody, but she couldn’t find one reason to be afraid of the big man.

Except for the fact that in all probability, she’d be leaving him behind at the whim of the government. Her heart actually hurt at the thought. Montana was temporary; thus, anything she started with Seth would be temporary.

She couldn’t risk falling in love with someone when she might be whisked out of his life at any second. She’d disappeared once, to keep her family safe, and it still caused her pain. Savannah didn’t think she could do it again in this lifetime and survive.

It seemed natural to have him in her home. It was as if he belonged there, she thought as he hung up the phone. Belonged with her. Good Lord, maybe it was already too late.
Was it possible to fall in love with someone in a matter of days?

“Don’t look so frantic,” Seth said, his tone soothing.

“I’m not,” Savannah told him, pushing the fright
ening thoughts from her head. If only she could talk to her mother. Get some advice on what she was feeling. She forced a smile. “How is J.D.?”

“Dusty,” Seth answered with a wicked but very, very sexy half smile. “Apparently the Mountainview Inn doesn’t routinely clean out the ventilation system.”

Savannah tried not to think about sex or sexy. “Is that good or bad?” she asked with feigned brightness.

“Good,” Seth said. “The only shafts they found dust free were those around Grayson’s room. The bad news is the vents are made of a material we can’t dust for prints because the surface is too rough.”