Last Night (16 page)

"I heard lots of wild stories, but all I knew for certain was that Internal Affairs had investigated a rape charge against you. Since their findings are sealed I had no way of knowing anything else, but your leaving the force so unexpectedly didn
'
t look good.
"
She tried to buffer her words with a reassuring smile; his hard stare didn
'
t waver. "Before I hired you I asked Garth Bradford. He said it was all gossip."

"
Good old Garth. At least I have one friend. Make that two. Bruce Kenae stood by me the whole time.
"

"Make that three friends.
"
She smiled, or tried to. The desire to touch him was swift and sharp. She stifled the soft gasp that rose in her throat and looked down at her hand. It was inches from his bare chest, but she couldn
'
t move it.

A strange look crossed his face.
"
I
'
m not interested in being just your friend. Hell, you
'
re smart enough to figure that out.
"

She honestly didn
'
t know what to say. Some secret part of her, the side that seldom took risks, wanted to take one now. Still, the right words eluded her. How could she say she was attracted to him, yet afraid of him? She didn't have the time to analyze what frightened her exactly. He simply wasn
'
t the type of man she usually dated.

"You
'
re worried about your career.
"

"
No, I
'
m not,
"
she responded quite truthfully, shocked by the bitterness in his voice.
"
I just don
'
t think it would work. We
'
re too different.
"

"
Why don
'
t we give it a try and see what happens?
"

Rob moved closer to her, his muscular thigh grazing her bare leg. Droplets of water clung to the skein of hair on his chest, and she had to force her eyes not to stray downward to the masculine ridge revealed by his swim trunks. His physical presence had its appeal, she realized, but his size and f
orceful personality made her war
y.

"
If I catch the blackmailer, know what my fee
'
s going to be?
"

Her pulse skittered alarmingly. Something was happening between them, and it frightened her because she couldn
'
t predict—or control—the outcome. Changing the subject seemed to be the only safe course.
"
Aren't you going to finish your story? What happened? The sperm sample you gave cleared your name, didn
'
t it?
"

14

T
he question had the desired effect. Dana had never seen a man become serious quite so quickly. "No. The sperm sample I gave did not clear me. Apparently she
'
d had sex with several men in the previous twenty-four hours.
"

"That
'
s terrible,
"
she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "The t
est should have proved you inno
cent, but with more than one partner—
"

"It was still Angela
'
s word against mine.
"
There was more than a trace of bitterness in his voice. "It was a slow news week. No hijackings, no sightings of aliens, no politicians caught between the sheets with some bimbo. The media played the story for all it was worth. The brass cowered, scared shitless of a lawsuit. I had to do something to help myself.

"I called the FBI training center at Quantico and spoke with the man who trains perp pros. I
'
d been his student, so he was glad to help me. We figured Angela Morton was a hardcase with a record— somewhere.
"

"That was good thinking,
"
Dana said, imagining how desperate Rob had been.

"
It worked. She
'
d pulled similar stunts in L.A. and Seattle, suing police departments and accusing officers of rape when they arrested her for prostitution. L.A. had settled out of court for half a mil when she sued them. That made the brass even more nervous.
"

And willing to sacrifice you, she added silently. "What became of the money? Angela must have needed more or she wouldn
'
t have been trying to steal drugs from Chang,
"

Rob shrugged, his bronzed shoulders gleaming in the afternoon sunlight.
"
Who knows? She never ad
mitted to touching the drugs.
"

"What happened to Angela?
"

"What do you think?
"

She
'
d been in law school at Stanford at the time, so she wasn
'
t familiar with the case, but she could guess.
"
The DA dropped the charges.
"

"Exactly.
"
There was no mistaking the anger in Rob
'
s voice. "Angela took the next flight to the mainland—one step ahead of Chang—and vanished.
"

"You were cleared, weren
'
t you?
"

"Yeah, IA dropped the investigation.
"
His tone told her something else was wrong. What? "I had my badge again, but things were never the same. It affected my wife, Ellen, and our son, Zach, too.
"
She wanted to ask more about them, but couldn
'
t quite muster the courage.

"
There was never a trial. IA investigations are confidential. Since Angela hadn
'
t been charged with a crime, it looked mighty suspicious—for me.
"

"
What about the papers? Didn't they run stories about Angela
'
s past?
"

"
Sure." The word came out like a curse.
"
They ran a story about her on page thirty-seven. I
'
d hoped it would clear my name. Boy, was I wrong.
"

"What about your wife?
"
she couldn't help asking.

"
We'd been having problems,
"
he admitted.
"
Ellen accepted a guest-lecturer position at Cal Tech in Los Angeles. It was supposed to be temporary, a way to shield our son from negative publicity, but even after IA cleared me she didn
'
t come home.
"
Rob
'
s tone was flat now, yet Dana sensed the hurt and anger he wasn
'
t expressing.
"
Then she filed for divorce. She claimed her career would suffer if she returned.
"

How could she? Dana wondered. Women often put their careers firs
t, but there was a child to con
sider in this situation. Then she remembered Rob accusing her of not wanting to date him because of her career. Obviously, he'd been thinking of his wife
'
s betrayal.

She was uncomfortably aware of another awkward silence. She managed to ask, "What about Zach?
"

Rob
'
s brows drew together and he studied the pattern on the beach towel for a moment before saying,
"
I asked for custody. I even tried to persuade
the judge to keep Ellen in Hawaii. She had a good job here. We could have shared custody. The judge saw it as a career opportunity though. He granted Ellen custody and allowed her to move to California."

Once again Dana didn
'
t know what to say. She could understand the judge's decision. Most often custody was given to the mother, but she felt Rob truly loved his son and Zach would have been better off with Rob.

"Do you see Zach often?
"
she asked.

"No. I hardly know my boy. I would have moved there to be with him, but Ellen kept promising to come back here. I had my new business already established when I realized that she never intended to return.
"

"Don
'
t you go there to visit him?
"

"Yes, but even then Ellen does her best to keep us apart.
"
The anger in his voice was barely disguised now.

Dana didn
'
t want to ask anything more about his personal life, realizing it was a wound that had never really healed and there was nothing she could do about it. Again she wished she were the compassionate type of woman who would have soothing words for moments like this.

"After the IA investigation I went into a tailspin,
"
Rob admitted. "I kept asking myself why in hell I was bustin
'
my butt for a job when everyone kept acting as if I had some contagious disease.
"

"You mean the other officers believed Angela?
"

"
Yeah, some of them did. It was the classic fall from grace. One minute I was the department
'
s golden boy, the next I was shit.
"
He shrugged as if to suggest he didn
'
t care, but she could tell it still bothered him.

She shuddered inwardly, ashamed of herself. Innocent until proven guilty. She was a judge, someone who was supposed to live by that rule. But she hadn't. She
'
d been
guilty of letting rumors and in
nuendos play on her own fears. She
had
believed there was truth in the gossip.

What kind of person was she? All week Rob Tagett had forced her to look in the mirror, and the more she looked, the less she liked what she saw. Was she uptight and cold—a person who judged others on the basis of gossip not facts?

"
Don
'
t feel sorry for me,
"
Rob broke into her thoughts.
"
I came out okay. I parlayed my experience on the force into a security company that
'
s a cash cow. I have a home on the beach, which I
'
d never have been able to afford on a policeman's salary.
"

His voice drifted lower. "The only loss is my son. Being a father is a lot more than biology. It
'
s having a relationship. I miss Zach more as time goes on, not less.
"

She studied Rob as he finished telling her about losing his son. Obviously he loved the boy and that touched the deepest reaches of her heart. And it ran counter to her preconceived notions about him. There was such a charge of emotion every time he
said Zach
'
s name that she wanted to reach out and hug him.

"
Not that I want to change the subject from anything so fascinating as my life, but our friends in the blue Toyota are back.
"

Dana resisted the urge to look up at the top of the bluff. She moved closer to Rob, feeling inadequate but needing to reassure him.
"
I want you to know that I do believ
e you. I'm sorry about what hap
pened. I don
'
t know how your wife could desert you. Loving someone means believing in them, trusting them.
"

"
Ellen thought a scandal would reflect on her and spoil her chances for a promotion. It was easier to hightail it to L.A. than to stand by me.
"

"
I would never have left you, no matter what the consequences.
"
Dana sat up straighter, amazed and very shaken. Where had those words come from? How could she have said anything so personal?

Suddenly Rob smiled, an arresting smile of approval, telling her that—for once—she
'
d said the right thing. She mustered a tentative smile. Their gazes locked and they kept looking at each other until she smiled in earnest.

"
You like me, Dana. Admit it.
"
She had no intention of admitting anything, but she couldn
'
t look away from him. He leaned closer, bending toward her mouth. "Admit it,
"
he repeated, his voice husky and low.

"All right,
"
she responded, amazed at the breathless quality of her voice.
"
I like you better—now
that I
'
ve gotten to know you—than I ever thought I would.
"

Rob chuckled, a rich, masculine sound that vibrated deep in his chest. A warm glow suddenly flared into something more. His mouth, so close to hers seemed very tempting. She had no intention of parting her lips, but she did.

He made no move to kiss her. Instead, he cupped her face with his large hand, cradling it in his palm and stroking her lower lip with the pad of his thumb. A languorous weakness flowed through her body like the lulling sound of the surf rushing softly across the sand.

She should have moved away, but she didn
'
t. She should have reminded him of the blue car on the bluff, but she didn
'
t. She should have done something—anything—to break the spell, but she didn
'
t.

They were shadowed by the umbrella, she assured herself. The men up
there couldn't see anything ex
cept their legs. Still, they were on a public beach. He wasn
'
t doing anything—exactly—but the rough pad of his thumb stroking her lip seemed unbelievably intimate.

He slid his hand across her cheek and into her hair. His fingers threaded through the damp tresses, the fingertips stroking her scalp. It was just a massage, she told herself, yet it seemed to be so much more than that.

This had to be some kind of sophisticated foreplay. He was seducing her, plain and simple, with the slow, hypnotic movement of his fingers.

The small sound that escaped her parted lips wasn
'
t a moan, was it?

"I'm the one, baby,
"
he whispered. "The one for you—and don't forget it.
"

She should have argued, but she couldn't. It was all she could do not to demand that he stop teasing her with his talented hands and kiss her. Really kiss her.

He seemed to sense that the fight had gone out of her. He caught her hair in his fist and gently drew her head back as he lowered her to the towel. His lips brushed the rim of her ear as he spoke, sending a rush of warm air with each word. "I
'
m the one. The only one.
"

He could make a woman—even the sanest woman—do anything, she thought, slow heat unfurling in her belly. She waited, anticipation welling inside her, anxious to see what he
'
d do next.

He kissed her ear, his agile tongue flicking across the sensitive skin in a light caress that was as soft as a butterfly
'
s wing. And more arousing than any X-rated movie could ever be. Push him away, her mind ordered, but her body couldn
'
t resist temptation.

With his free hand he pulled her closer until she was flush against the hard, strong length of him. Then he moved his head lower, kissing the curve of her neck while he held her head back to expose her neck and shoulders.