The Last White Knight (14 page)

“I’m afraid to look,” she answered glumly, and followed Lillian out to the kitchen.

Left alone with Lynn, Erik leaned against the doorway and watched her carefully as she plumped
the couch pillows and brushed crumbs from the cushions. Her lush mouth was set in a fierce line. Hostility rolled off her in waves. He closed his eyes for a second and thought about how good she’d felt in his arms as they’d sat beside Silver Lake. And he wondered how long it would be before he had her in his arms again. When hell froze over, by the look of things.

“We don’t know that she didn’t do it,” he said, wanting to get this fight over with as soon as possible.

Lynn straightened away from the couch, shoulders squared, jaw set, emerald eyes glittering. “We don’t know that she did.”

“It was certainly a word from her vocabulary,” Erik said, pushing himself away from the doorjamb. He pulled his hands from his pockets and propped them on his hips as he took a step toward Lynn.

She advanced a step as well. “It’s a word from my vocabulary, too, Senator,” she said sarcastically. “And I believe I heard you use it the other day when you hit your thumb with a hammer. Does that mean we should be searching your things for a can of spray paint?”

Erik sighed. He really didn’t feel like butting heads. He only wanted her to see reason for once where Regan Mitchell was concerned. “Lynn, I’m
not accusing her. I just think you should face the possibility that she might have done it. She hasn’t exactly been shy about her feelings. She hates it here. She said she didn’t care what happened to Horizon. She could see getting you closed down as a way out.”

“You don’t understand,” Lynn said, calling on the phrase that was the anthem of teenage girls everywhere. But she
did
understand, and she wanted Erik to understand as well. She looked up at him, her expression begging eloquently for her cause. “That’s a challenge. Regan wants us to care about her,
really
care, but she’s going to make it as tough as possible so she can be sure that it’s the real thing.”

“Well, she does a bang-up job of that.”

“Yeah.” Her shoulders sagged under the weight of it all. She wandered past Erik and into the hall, where she leaned against the stair railing and stared up into the darkness of the second floor. “Well,” she said wearily, not even sure if he could hear her, “it’s a lot easier to be an expert at doing it than an expert at dealing with it.”

Erik slid his arms around her waist and hugged her, dropping his head down to press a soft kiss against her temple. “I’ll leave that to you. You’re damn good at what you do, honey. I just don’t want
to see you pin your hopes on this kid and have her let you down.”

“I don’t want that either,” she murmured, wishing with all her heart that so much wasn’t resting on Regan, because, despite her need to defend the girl, in her heart of hearts she knew there was a chance Erik was right. She turned in his arms and looked up at him, dismissing the subject for the moment. “I suppose you feel compelled to spend the night again, Sir Galahad?”

He nodded gravely.

Lynn made a face. “We’ve really dragged you into something here, haven’t we? I’m sure you’d rather be spending your nights somewhere other than our lumpy couch.”

His eyes warmed to a deep, vibrant shade of sapphire. There was no mistaking what he was thinking about as his gaze held hers and a slow smile turned up the corners of his mouth. “Yeah. In fact, I was kind of counting on it tonight.”

“I don’t know if
you
should pin your hopes on
me
, Senator,” she said, regret striking a poignant chord inside her. “I might have to let you down.”

“Why?” Erik demanded. His expression changed in the blink of an eye. Suddenly he had the look of a man used to getting answers, a man who didn’t settle for anything less than what he was after. “And
don’t give me that conflict-of-interest crap. We could have something really special, Lynn. We both know it. We both feel it. Why won’t you let it happen?”

“It won’t work out,” she said defensively, digging up every trite-but-true answer she could find. “We’re busy people. We’re dedicated to our careers—”

“I’m dedicated, but I’m not a slave. You shouldn’t be either. You deserve to have a life outside of this house.”

The look in Lynn’s eyes told him she wasn’t sure she did deserve it. Erik wondered what might seed that kind of doubt, but he didn’t probe for the answer. When she was ready, she would tell him. Instead, he set himself to the task of railroading her. He was, indeed, a man used to getting what he wanted. Lynn wasn’t going to be the exception to the rule.

“Friday night,” he said firmly. “We’re going out on a real date. You and me. No teenagers. No grandmothers. No excuses.”

“But—but what about the house?” Lynn stammered. “What if something happens? What if—”

“Lillian and Martha are perfectly capable of handling things for a few hours. They managed to live sixty-some years without you or me to watch out for them.”

She scowled at him. “That’s just because they didn’t know any better,” she muttered crossly.

“Come on, Counselor,” Erik cajoled, eyes twinkling like stars in the dim light of the hall. “A date. Even us white knights deserve a little time off from the cause once in a while.”

Lynn looked at him sideways, naturally resistant to being bullied. She told herself she would have walked away from him if it weren’t for the fact that he had his arms around her … and his thighs pressed to hers … and that adorable sparkle in his eyes …

A date. One date. He wasn’t asking for the moon. He wasn’t promising it, either. She closed her eyes for a second and thought back to the way she’d felt as he’d held her in the moonlight by the lake. She ached to feel that way again—whether she deserved it or not. They could have their date. They could have their night together. As long as she knew in her heart that a night or two was all they would have.

“All right, Senator,” she conceded, giving him a smile that was unintentionally wistful and a little bit sad. “It’s a date.”

Friday was a long time coming.

Lynn had her promised talk with Regan and was less than pleased with the results. Regan accused her once again of caring more about Horizon than her. She flatly refused to reveal her whereabouts the night of the vandalism and was openly hostile to Officers Reuter and Briggs. They scowled at her with jaundiced eyes, but as they had no witnesses and could produce no physical evidence linking Regan with the crime, they had to give her the benefit of the doubt. They made it clear, however, that she was their prime suspect and that they would be keeping tabs on her. This news went over like the proverbial lead balloon, sending Regan into a tantrum. The situation
was not improved by the announcement from the Horizon staff that Regan’s nocturnal forays would stop.

The girl was furious, but Lynn detected a hint of something else in her mood beneath all the bluster. It might have been panic of a sort. She couldn’t quite tell, couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but she would have bet her last dime that Regan’s nighttime activities consisted of something more than sitting around the Peace Plaza fountain harassing passersby.

She fully expected Regan to rebel and try to leave, but no rebellion ever came. After refusing dinner, Regan spent the evening sequestered in her room in utter, absolute silence.

As Erik had predicted, the News 10 crew, as well as a full complement of newspaper people, had arrived in the neighborhood the morning after the garage incident. Elliot Graham stayed home from work for the occasion, mustering his troops behind him as he stood before the camera and made angry declarations against “the terrible tide of violence against decent people.”

It was nearly enough to incite Lynn to violence. The man made it sound as if people weren’t safe in their beds at night. And the worst part of it was, there seemed to be more and more people siding with him. The day shift of demonstrators on the
sidewalk increased by a dozen or more and the phone rang off the hook with calls from angry citizens blaming Horizon House residents for everything from trampling flower beds to perpetuating the national debt.

By the time Friday night rolled around, Lynn was more than ready for a break from it all. As dedicated as she was to Horizon, the constant strain of the last two weeks was beginning to wear on her. The idea of being swept away from it all for a night held so much appeal it almost scared her.

She dressed for the date with too much care. A very bad sign, the cynic in her sneered as she stood before the mirror in her bedroom. She had fussed too much with her hair, arranging her long, silky black tresses with a pair of mother-of-pearl combs and spritzing her bangs into place. She had taken too long applying her makeup with the painstaking care of an artist, playing up her eyes, accenting her cheekbones, painting her lips a warm, delicious pink. The dress she had chosen was a little too nice—emerald-green silk, sleeveless with a full skirt. Gold-rimmed mother-of-pearl buttons marched down the front from throat to hem and a wide woven belt emphasized her narrow waist.

“You look like you’re expecting a proposal,” she accused.

Her feelings were a complicated tangle of disgust and dread as she turned from the mirror toward the closet in search of an outfit that didn’t look so … so … 
hopeful
. She cringed at the word. This was a date, a night out, a meal with a little interaction afterward, that was all. There was nothing to be hopeful about, she told herself as she flung a blue cotton sundress onto the bed and turned back to the closet to dig for her espadrilles.

The doorbell rang when she was up to her elbows in shoes. Cursing under her breath, she stumbled out of the closet and picked her way across the bedroom, tiptoeing over the discarded dresses that littered the floor. She pulled the door shut behind her and took a deep breath, then forced herself to walk calmly across the living room as the bell chimed again.

Erik stood in the hall looking devastatingly handsome and clutching a small nosegay of violets. He wore a crisp blue dress shirt with a trendy tie and neatly pressed, pleated gray trousers. Lynn actually felt his gaze pour down over her, from the top of her head to the tips of her stockinged toes. Goose bumps raced down her arms as a budding warmth opened in the center of her like a new rose.

“You’re beautiful,” he murmured, that wise, secretive smile crinkling the corners of his eyes.

Lynn’s heart did a somersault in her chest. “You’re early,” she blurted ungraciously.

Erik grinned at the accusation as he stepped into the apartment. “I didn’t want to give you a chance to duck out on me.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” she said dryly, taking the delicate tissue-wrapped flowers from his grasp. She stepped around the service bar into the tiny yellow kitchen and reached up into the cupboard for a vase. “And thanks for the flowers,” she added softly, more touched by the gesture than she wanted to be.

“They were growing wild in the woods behind my house,” Erik said. He roamed the living room, searching for personal touches, things that might give him more clues to the lady he found himself falling so hard for. There wasn’t much. A nubby-weave, oatmeal-colored sofa and chair. A coffee table buried under neatly arranged stacks of file folders. A wall unit crammed with textbooks, a stereo, and three dying plants in ceramic pots. A framed photo on the television showing her with Lillian, Martha, and a crop of Horizon alumni on a camping trip. He touched a finger to the dusty frame, then turned and shot her a grin. “I’m pretty sure I broke the law picking them.”

Lynn gasped and pressed a hand to her heart.
“Senator, such scandalous behavior! I hope no one saw you.”

“Me too. I was out there in my underwear while my pants were in the dryer.”

She laughed, and he felt that warm sliding feeling in his belly. God, she was beautiful. The dress made her eyes look even greener than emeralds. It clung in all the right places, enhancing her femininity. Her face lit up with that inner fire that made her so vibrant, so tenacious, and Erik wanted to take her in his arms right there and then. It took an effort to rein in his desire.

“I’m not too worried,” he said, his voice a little huskier than usual as his gaze lingered on her breasts. “I live out in Buckthorn. I think maybe a couple of squirrels saw me.” He pulled his eyes off her and gestured to the room at large. “So do I get the grand tour?”

“You’re looking at it,” Lynn said. She shoved a stack of unopened mail aside and set the flowers in the center of the counter. “You can see the whole apartment from where you’re standing.”

“I can’t see the bedroom,” he said, his gaze sliding back to her, dark and glowing with insinuation.

Another burst of warmth showered through Lynn. “Trust me, you don’t want to. It looks like a bomb went off at Casual Corner.”

“I’ll close my eyes.”

“Then you won’t see much.”

“I told you before,” he said with a devilish smile, “I’m good with my hands.”

“Forget it, hotshot,” Lynn drawled, grabbing up her keys. “You promised me a night on the town.”

“I
coerced
you into a night on the town.”