The Last White Knight (10 page)

“I don’t think you should condemn him for losing his temper with Regan,” Martha said, ignoring the question. “She would try the patience of the proverbial saint, you know. She had Lillian on the verge of a cerebral hemorrhage this morning. That girl has a positive genius for infuriating people.”

“It wasn’t just Regan,” Lynn charged, digging up every scrap of evidence she had against Erik Gunther to ward off the memory of his kisses. “He was showing his true colors. I told you he wasn’t interested in anything more than what this issue could do for his career, and he proved it. Men like Erik Gunther are all style and no substance.”

Martha rolled her eyes. “He sure looks substantial to me. The man is a hunk and a half.”

“Handsome is as handsome does,” Lynn said primly, reaching for another box.

“I’d say handsome did a pretty good job of ruffling your feathers.”

“He did not. This whole mess has done the ruffling.”

“Really?” Martha arched a brow as she accepted
the box of books, then set it aside. “Well, while we’re spouting old maxims, maybe you should try this one on for size—‘To thine own self be true.’ ”

Lynn’s retort died on her lips as a motorcade rounded the corner onto their block. She straightened slowly, one hand pressing against the sore spot in her lower back. Erik Gunther’s burgundy Thunderbird led the parade, followed by two pickups loaded with people. They pulled over to the curb behind the moving van and the passengers climbed out, looking bright-eyed and ready for action. Dressed in jeans, shorts, and T-shirts, they didn’t bear any resemblance to a news crew or any other group that might trail around after a popular politician. A mixture of men and women of various ages, some came armed with cleaning paraphernalia. One man was carrying a cooler. Some of the women held casseroles and cake pans.

Erik himself had shed any semblance of his professional image. A pair of age-faded jeans clung to his lean hips and muscular thighs. The T-shirt he wore was a shade of blue that enhanced his tan and brought out the startling color of his eyes. Stretched across his chest in black ink was an outline of the Mayo Clinic and the line
ROCHESTER
,
MINNESOTA: PREFERRED BY NINE OUT OF TEN SICK PEOPLE
. Taking in the total picture, from his tousled blond hair to
his sneakers, no one would have guessed he spent most of his life in committee meetings. He looked like a walking ad for healthy outdoor life and hard physical work.

His eyes locked on Lynn’s as he came toward the van. Lynn fought the urge to glance around in search of an escape route. She could handle Senator Gunther. Bad choice of words, she groaned inwardly as an image of the two of them entwined in a kiss floated up in her mind’s eye.

“I thought you ladies could probably use some help unloading,” he said. “So I went out and rounded some up. I called a couple of groups here in town and they were more than willing to send a few volunteers.”

In exchange for a favor or two, Lynn thought. Before this was over he would have half the special-interest groups in Rochester in his debt.

“Erik, you’re a godsend,” Martha declared, patting his arm as he took up a stance beside her at the back of the truck. “At my age I don’t even want to move my own body half the time, let along a truck-load of junk.”

“Why don’t you take a break?” he suggested. “Put your feet up, have some lemonade. Bill there has a coolerful.”

“Sounds like a plan to me.”

“Lynn, you can go, too, if you like.”

“Thanks for giving me your permission, Senator,” Lynn said sardonically. “But I’m fine right here.”

Martha snorted and headed toward the house, the stream of demonstrators parting for her like the Red Sea. The cleaning crew and kitchen detail trailed after her. The rest of the volunteers hung back by Erik’s car, awaiting instructions.

“Suit yourself.” Erik shrugged, then hoisted himself into the back of the truck with her. She wasn’t going to make this easy for him, that much was clear. She regarded him with a look that bordered on hostility, reminding him of Regan and of Lynn’s admission of her own past.

The image of Lynn, young and bitter and defiant, slipped easily past the pompous attitude he’d shown her earlier and touched his heart in a very tender spot. There was a story to her past, a reason for the rebellious teenager she had been and the cynical adult she had grown into. He wanted to know that story. He wanted to understand. He wanted her to confide in him, wanted to hold her and soothe her as she told him about her troubled youth. But he was going to have to win the right to do that. He doubted she was even going to let him near enough to apologize right now.

She picked up a brown carton labeled
LYNN’S OFFICE
and thrust it at him. He handed it to one of the volunteers from the Women’s Shelter. They worked side by side for an hour without exchanging a word, the chanting of the protestors their only accompaniment. When the back of the truck was empty, Lynn hopped down and started for the cab.

“Is there more stuff at the old house?” Erik asked, falling into step beside her.

“No. This was the last of it. I have to return the truck.”

“I’ll ride along with you.”

Lynn lifted a brow as the Channel 10 news van turned onto the block. “And miss a golden opportunity to tell the public how you’ve always been deeply concerned about the problems of America’s youth?”

Erik bit his lip and pulled the door of the truck open. “I’ll even let you drive,” he offered, swallowing the retort that had sprung instantly to his tongue. He deserved the shot, he thought as he cast a slightly longing look at the news van. The politician in him would have liked the publicity, but if he wanted to win Lynn Shaw’s respect he would have to forgo the opportunity.

Not waiting for her to agree or disagree, he climbed into the cab and slid across the seat to the passenger side. Lynn got in after him, casting him sideways glances as she started the truck and put it
in gear. They rumbled down the tree-lined street, turned the corner, and headed toward Broadway with an ominous grinding of gears.

“It’s not that I don’t appreciate the help,” Lynn said grudgingly, her conscience finally winning out over her stubbornness. “It’s the sentiment behind it I’m not so sure about.”

“I know.”

She shot him a look of annoyance as they pulled up to a stop light and waited. “That’s all you have to say—‘I know’?”

Erik’s broad shoulders rose and fell. His gaze locked on hers with that magnetic quality that still unnerved her. “Talk hasn’t gotten me very far with you,” he admitted. “I’ve decided to let my actions speak for me. I gave a lot of thought to what you said this morning. You were right about some of it. In my own defense, I have to say that I don’t usually have the opportunity to get very deeply involved in a cause. There are too many of them and too little time.”

“But we’re going to be the privileged exception?” Lynn said dryly, turning her attention back to the street as traffic began to move. She gritted her teeth and wrestled the big steering wheel around, the truck lurching and groaning as it heaved around the corner and onto Rochester’s main downtown drag.

“I want to prove to you I can care about something
besides my own popularity polls,” Erik said, raising his voice to be heard above the horrible noises coming from under the moving van’s hood.

“You don’t have to prove anything to me, Senator.” Lynn was careful not to look at him as she spoke, certain he would be wearing that expression of utter sincerity that kept suckering her in. Puppies could have taken lessons from him for heart-melting looks. She glanced out her side window instead, catching a glimpse of the latest fashions in the windows of the elegant Centerplace Galleria building.

“Besides,” she said, “isn’t that a contradiction? If you care, you care. If you’re only doing it to prove something to me, then that negates the rest of it, doesn’t it?”

“No. I
want
to care. I want to help you, and by helping you, come to understand the problems your girls are facing. Proving myself to you is a separate issue.”

“And unnecessary,” Lynn declared. She didn’t want him proving himself to her. She didn’t want to be the object of a quest.

She hit the blinker and steered the truck onto Seventh Street, bracing herself so hard her fanny came up off the seat. She bit back the groan of effort, but didn’t even try to contain her sigh of relief as they completed the turn and she was able to relax again.

“Now I know how truck drivers have room for all those tattoos,” she said. “I can feel my biceps growing even now.”

“Want me to drive?” Erik queried.

“No.”

He chuckled to himself and shook his head. “I didn’t think so. You have to do everything the hard way, don’t you? No delegating, no passing the buck, no shortcuts.”

“I don’t like being indebted to people, that’s all.”

“Afraid of how they’ll want to collect?”

Too many debts incurred, she thought, an old hollow ache throbbing anew in her chest. Debts she couldn’t ever hope to pay off for sins she wished she hadn’t committed. The weight of her past pressed down on her, feeling somehow heavier than usual, the regret that accompanied it more bittersweet. She didn’t allow herself to wonder why.

She stomped on the clutch, wrestled the gearshift into position with much protest from the truck, and hauled the wheel hard right, turning into the parking lot of the rental place. The truck bucked up over the lip of the driveway, slamming Erik into the passenger door and window with a thud, and jolted and rattled its way across the gravel lot. Lynn stood on the brakes and the truck rolled on like a horse with a bit between its teeth, finally coming to a
grudging halt behind the rental office where all its
compadres
were parked.

Lynn turned off the ignition and fell back against the seat, winded and drained from the physical effort of driving and from the emotional tension of having Erik so near and knowing she couldn’t allow him any nearer. She stared out the windshield, pensively watching the clouds of dust they’d kicked up floating away toward John Marshall High School.

Erik watched her as he sat absently rubbing the side of his head where he’d connected with the window. She seemed a million miles away, the weariness in her eyes old and sad. Almost certainly she had somehow fallen back into the past. Erik wanted to reach out to her and pull her back to the present and into his arms. But when he reached for her, she flung open the truck’s door and shied away, sliding down out of the cab.

Sighing heavily, he climbed out of the truck and caught up with her beside a formation of small orange rental trailers. They were still behind the green cinder-block office building, well back from the street. This part of town was an unattractive combination of industrial and retail developments put up in the sixties with little consideration for taste. The area around them was fenced in by chain link, with weeds sprouting everywhere there wasn’t gravel or a
pothole. The afternoon had remained as gray as the morning. The wind had kicked up a bit, hinting at a chance for rain later. It tossed Lynn’s long black hair behind her like ribbons and molded her lavender T-shirt to her small, round breasts.

This was hardly the time or the place, but Erik caught himself just wanting to stare at her, to drink in the sight of her. She might have seen that in his eyes because her brows dropped into a scowl and she tried to step around him. He cut her off, boxing her in between himself and a trailer.

“Everyone gets a second chance but me, is that it?” he said, dropping his hands to the waistband of his jeans.

Her lush, pretty mouth pulled down at the corners and she folded her arms defensively. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Maybe I’d stand a better chance if I’d spent time in juvenile hall for stealing cars or if I had a little problem with cocaine. Would that make it all right? Could I maybe get you to go out to dinner with me then?”

Lynn refused to take the bait. She’d counseled herself on the issue of Erik Gunther all night and half the day, turning the questions over and back in her mind, always coming up with the same solution: She couldn’t afford to get involved with him.

“I told you, I don’t mix business and my personal life,” she said, congratulating herself for her cool.

“I think your business
is
your personal life,” Erik retorted, his hold on his temper slipping a little.

She lifted her chin, green eyes glittering. “You don’t know anything about me, Senator.”

“I’m trying to remedy that situation, but you won’t let me. You’re too busy playing the reverse snob.”

Lynn’s jaw dropped. “Me? I am—”

“You’re looking down that pretty nose at me because I’m a politician, because I come from a normal family and had an uneventful adolescence,” Erik charged angrily.

This afternoon wasn’t working out at all the way he’d planned. He had thought to woo Lynn slowly and calmly as he proved himself to her, but it was fast becoming evident that where Lynn Shaw was concerned he had little control over her or himself. She provoked him in ways he hadn’t even considered before. Now he found a well of righteous indignation boiling up inside him and he couldn’t seem to stem the flow, regardless of what prudence dictated.

“I came to help you, dammit,” he said. “Maybe my motives were only ninety-nine percent pure, but it’s a hell of a lot more help than you’re getting from anyone else. And maybe I don’t understand everything
you or your girls have gone through, but you’re not giving me much of a chance to, either.”

He was right. Lynn looked up at him, wishing she could deliver a scathing rebuttal, but there wasn’t one to give. She wasn’t being any fairer to him than he had been in his assessment of Regan that morning. And while two wrongs might have kept her safe, they didn’t make a right.

She bit her lip and looked off across the ugly plane of the parking lot, where a Minnesota version of a tumbleweed was skittering along. The sky above the Highway 52 overpass was growing heavier with the promise of rain. The sounds of early-rush-hour traffic hummed in the distance. She felt caught between a rock and a hard place, with a minefield spread out around her for good measure. She needed Erik’s help, but she didn’t need a heartache. Her sense of justice demanded she give him a chance to learn and to care, while her sense of caution told her to keep her distance.