Pride And Pregnancy
Sarah M. Anderson
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of good sense must not mix business with passion. Like that will keep Tom Yellow Bird from pursuing the woman who shocked his senses at first sight. Yes, the wealthy FBI special agent's job is to work a case involving the Honorable Caroline Jennings. It is his duty to protect the beautiful judge. Yet nothing stops him from acting on the attraction between them. And once he discovers Caroline is pregnant…any good sense he's ever had completely vanishes.But when a secret Caroline is keeping is finally revealed, will Tom's pride become his ultimate undoing?
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of good sense must not mix business with passion.
Like that will keep Tom Yellow Bird from pursuing the woman who shocked his senses at first sight. Yes, the wealthy FBI special agent’s job is to work a case involving the Honorable Caroline Jennings. It is his duty to protect the beautiful judge. Yet nothing stops him from acting on the attraction between them. And once he discovers Caroline is pregnant...any good sense he’s ever had completely vanishes.
But when a secret Caroline is keeping is finally revealed, will Tom’s pride become his ultimate undoing?
He stepped in closer and whispered in her ear, “Outside.”
For a second, neither of them moved. She could feel the heat of his body and she had an almost overwhelming urge to kiss the finger resting against her lips.
What was it about this man that turned her into a schoolgirl with a crush? She still had no idea what he did in his spare time or whether or not it broke any state or federal laws. And there was the unavoidable fact that acting on any lust would be a conflict of interest.
They were actively on a case, for crying out loud.
So instead of leaning into his touch or wrapping her arms around his waist and pulling him in tight, she nodded and pulled away.
It was harder than she thought it would be.
Pride and Pregnancy
Sarah M. Anderson
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
SARAH M. ANDERSON may live east of the Mississippi River, but her heart lies out west. A Man of Privilege won an RT Book Reviews 2012 Reviewers’ Choice Best Book Award. The Nanny Plan was a 2016 RITA® Award winner for Contemporary Romance: Short.
Sarah spends her days talking with imaginary cowboys and billionaires. Find out more about Sarah’s heroes at www.sarahmanderson.com (http://www.sarahmanderson.com) and sign up for the new-release newsletter at www.eepurl.com/nv39b (http://www.eepurl.com/nv39b).
To Dorliss Jones and Lynn Orr,
who were wonderful next-door neighbors
to my grandmother and have read every book.
You’ve been asking for Yellow Bird
for years—so here he is!
Contents
Cover (#u6c2ded07-a23b-5d00-9691-edd76d647202)
Back Cover Text (#ueb36a0ec-7f23-56e7-8b03-43486126d8b3)
Introduction (#u0c911399-8477-5155-8fe8-24cbee8f98f1)
Title Page (#u042d9e79-9765-566c-b696-f5f523a1cb9e)
About the Author (#u1b42b3a7-f5a8-5ea3-919d-b6b17eb41be8)
Dedication (#ub1c93ef1-2e96-5e0c-90db-49fc4d0ab9f4)
One (#u0a91fca8-450e-5b0c-8757-dae0326e6739)
Two (#u5d82af01-9417-5bcd-851f-3bc52a31455a)
Three (#u566ec8a9-b670-5abf-bfd8-4d87d8dde344)
Four (#ucc45e6d9-4b87-5f1e-ac6a-7bb528347fba)
Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
One (#u40d66ad4-ca20-5fc7-9e04-db7204e6e0b2)
“Judge Jennings?”
Caroline looked up, but instead of seeing her clerk, Andrea, she saw a huge bouquet of flowers.
“Good Lord,” Caroline said, standing to take in the magnitude of the bouquet. Andrea was completely invisible behind the mass of roses and lilies and carnations and Caroline couldn’t even tell what else. It was, hands-down, the biggest bunch of flowers she’d ever seen. Andrea needed two hands to carry it. “Where did those come from?”
Because Caroline couldn’t imagine anyone sending her flowers. She’d only been at her position as a judge in the Eighth Circuit Court in Pierre, South Dakota, for two months. She had made friends with her staff—Leland, the gruff bailiff; Andrea, her perky clerk; Cheryl, the court reporter who rarely smiled. Caroline had met her neighbors—nice folks who kept to themselves. But at no time had she come into contact with anyone who would send her this.
In fact, now that she thought about it, she couldn’t imagine anyone sending her flowers, period. She hadn’t left behind a boyfriend in Minneapolis who missed her. She hadn’t had a serious relationship in...okay, she wasn’t going to go into that right now.
For a frivolous moment, she wished the flowers were from a lover. But a lover would be a distraction from the job and she was still establishing herself here.
“It took two men to deliver,” Andrea said, her voice muffled by the sheer number of blooms. “Can I set it down?”
“Oh! Of course,” Caroline said, clearing off a spot on her desk. The vase was massive—the size of a dinner plate in circumference. Caroline hadn’t gotten a lot of flowers over the course of her life. So she could say with reasonable confidence that the arrangement Andrea was carefully lowering onto her desk was more flowers than she had ever seen in one place—excepting her parents’ funerals, of course.
She knew her mouth had flopped open, but she seemed powerless to get it closed. “Tell me there was a card.”
Andrea disappeared back into the antechamber before returning with a card. “It’s addressed to you,” the clerk said, clearly not believing Caroline would receive these flowers, either.
Caroline was too stunned to be insulted. “Are you sure? There has to have been a mistake.” What other explanation could there be?
She took the card from Andrea and opened the envelope. The flowers had been ordered from an internet company and the message was typed. “Judge Jennings—I look forward to working with you. An admirer,” was all it said.
Caroline stared at the message, a sinking feeling of dread creeping over her. An unsolicited gift from a secret admirer was creepy enough. But that’s not what this was, and she knew it.
Caroline took her job as a judge seriously. She did not make mistakes. Or, at the very least, she rarely made mistakes. Perfectionism might be a character flaw, but it also had made her a fine lawyer and now made her a good judge.
Once she’d found her footing as a prosecutor, she’d had an impeccable record. When she’d been promoted to judge, she prided herself on being fair in her dealings on the bench, and she was pleased that others seemed to agree with her. The promotion that had brought her to Pierre was a vote of confidence she did not take lightly.
Whoever would spend this much money to send her flowers without even putting his or her name on the card wasn’t simply an admirer. Sure, there was always the possibility that someone unhinged had developed an obsession. Every time she read about a judge being stalked back to his or her house—or when a judge and her family in Chicago had been murdered—Caroline resolved to do better with her personal safety. She double-checked the locks on doors and windows, carried pepper spray, and had taken a few self-defense classes. She made smart choices and worked to eliminate stupid mistakes.
But Caroline didn’t think this bouquet was from a stalker. When she’d accepted this position, a lawyer from the Justice Department named James Carlson had contacted her. She knew who he was—the special prosecutor who had been chasing down judicial corruption throughout the Great Plains. He’d put three judges in prison and forcibly retired several others from the bench after his investigations.
Carlson hadn’t given her all of the details, but he had warned her that she might be approached to take bribes to throw cases—and he’d warned her what would happen if she accepted those bribes.
“I take these matters of judicial corruption seriously,” he had told her in an email. “My wife was directly harmed by a corrupt judge when she was younger, and I will not tolerate anyone who shifts the balance on the scales of justice for personal gain.”
Those words came back to her now as Caroline continued to stare at the flowers and then at the unsigned note. Those flowers were trying to tip the scale, all right.
Damn it. Of course she knew that people in South Dakota would not be less corrupt than they were in Minnesota. People were people the world over. But despite Carlson’s warning, she’d held out hope that he was wrong. He had stressed in his email that he didn’t know who was buying off judges. The men he’d prosecuted had refused to turn on their benefactors—which, he had concluded, meant they either didn’t know who was paying the bills or they were afraid.
Part of Caroline didn’t want to deal with this. Unknown individuals compromising the integrity of the judicial system—that was nothing but a headache at best. She wanted to keep believing in an independent court and the impartiality of the law. Short of that, she didn’t want to get involved in a messy, protracted investigation. There was too much room for error, too much of a chance that her mistakes might come back to haunt her.
But another part of her was excited. What this was, she thought as she stepped around her desk to look at the flowers from a different angle, was a case without a resolution. There were perpetrators, there were victims—there was a motive. A crime needed to be solved and justice needed to be served. Wasn’t that why she was here?
“How long do we have before the next session starts?” she asked, returning to her chair and calling up her email. She had no proof that this overabundance of flowers had anything to do with Carlson’s corruption case—but she had a hunch, and sometimes a hunch was all a woman needed.
“Twenty minutes. Twenty-five before the litigants get restless,” Andrea answered. Caroline glanced up at the older woman. Andrea was staring at the bouquet with an intense longing that Caroline understood.
“There’s no way I can keep all of these,” she said, searching for Carlson’s name and pulling up his last email. “Feel free to take some of them home, decorate the office—strew rose petals from here to your car?”
She and Andrea laughed together. “I think I will,” the clerk said, marching out of the office in what Caroline could only assume was a quest to find appropriate containers.
Caroline reviewed the emails she and James Carlson had exchanged before she opened a reply and began to type. Because one thing was clear—if this were some nefarious organization reaching out to her, she was going to need backup.
Lots of backup.
* * *
Sometimes, Tom Yellow Bird thought, the universe had a sense of humor.
What other explanation could there be when, the very morning he was scheduled to testify in the court of the Honorable Caroline Jennings, he had received an email from his friend James Carlson, informing him that the new judge, one Honorable Caroline Jennings, had received a suspicious bouquet of flowers and was concerned it might be connected to their ongoing investigation into judicial corruption in and around Pierre, South Dakota?
It would be funny if the situation weren’t so serious, he thought as he took a seat near the back of the courtroom. This trial was for bank robbery, and Tom, operating in his capacity as an FBI agent, had tracked down the perpetrator and arrested him. The robber had had the bank bags in his trunk and marked bills in his wallet. A cut-and-dried case.
“All rise,” the bailiff intoned as the door at the back of the courtroom opened. “The court of the Eighth Judicial Circuit, criminal division, is now in session, the Honorable Caroline Jennings presiding.”
Tom had heard it all before, hundreds of times. He rose, keeping his attention focused on the figure clad in black that emerged. Another day, another judge. Hopefully she wasn’t easily bought.
“Be seated,” Judge Jennings said. The courtroom was full so it wasn’t until other people took their seats as she mounted the bench that Tom got his first good look at her.
Whoa.
He blinked and then blinked again. He had expected a woman—the name Caroline was a giveaway—but he hadn’t expected her. He couldn’t stop staring.
She took her seat and made eye contact across the room with him, and time stopped. Everything stopped. His breath, his pulse—everything came to a screeching halt as he stared at the Honorable Caroline Jennings.
He’d never seen her before—he knew that for certain because he’d remember her. He’d remember this pull. Even at this distance, he thought he saw her cheeks color, a delicate blush. Did she feel it, too?
Then she arched an eyebrow in what was a clear challenge. Crap. He was still standing, gawking like an idiot, while the rest of the court waited. Leland cracked a huge smile, and the court reporter looked annoyed. The rest of the courtroom was starting to crane their necks so they could see the delay.
So he took his seat and tried to get his brain to work again. Caroline Jennings was the judge on this case and she was his assignment from Carlson—nothing more. Any attraction he might feel for her was irrelevant. He had testimony to give and a corruption case to solve, and the job always came first.
Carlson’s email had come late this morning, so Tom hadn’t had time to do his research. That was the only reason Judge Jennings had caught him off guard.
Because Judge Jennings was at least twenty years younger than he had anticipated. Everyone else who had sat on that bench had tended to be white, male and well north of fifty years old.
Maybe that was why she seemed so young, although she was no teenager. She was probably in her thirties, Tom guessed. She had light brown hair that was pulled back into a low ponytail—but it wasn’t severely scraped away from her face. Instead, her hair looked like it had a natural wave and she let it frame her features, softening the lines of her sharp cheekbones. She wore a simple pair of stud earrings—diamonds or reasonable fakes, he noticed when she turned her head and they caught the light. Her makeup was understated and professional, and she wore a lace collar on top of her black robe.
She was, he realized, beautiful. Which was an interesting observation on his part.
He had no problems noting the physical beauty of men or women. For Tom, the last ten years had been one long observation of the human condition. Looking at an attractive person was like studying fine art. Even if a woman’s physical attributes didn’t move him, he could still appreciate her beauty.
But his visceral reaction to a woman in shapeless judge’s robes was not some cerebral observation of conventional beauty. It was a punch to the gut. When was the last time he’d felt that unmistakable spark?
Well, he knew the answer to that. But he wouldn’t let thoughts of Stephanie break free of the box in which he kept them locked up tight. He wouldn’t think about it now. Maybe not ever.
He sat back and did what he did best—he watched and waited. Judge Caroline Jennings ran an efficient courtroom. When Lasky, the defense lawyer, started to grandstand, she cut him off. She wasn’t confrontational, but she wasn’t cowed by anyone.
As he waited for his name to be called, Tom mentally ran back through the email Carlson had sent him. Caroline Jennings was an outsider, appointed to fill the seat on the bench left vacant after Tom had arrested the last judge.
She was from Minneapolis—which was a hell of a long way from South Dakota. In theory, she had no connection with local politics—or lobbyists. That didn’t mean she was clean. Whoever was pulling the strings in the state would be interested in making friends with the new judge.
Once, Tom would’ve been encouraged by the fact that she had already contacted Carlson about an unusual flower delivery. Surely, the reasoning went, if she was already willing to identify such gifts as suspicious, she was an honest person.
Tom wasn’t that naive anymore. He didn’t know who was buying off judges, although he had a few guesses. He couldn’t prove his suspicions one way or the other. But he did know that whatever group—or groups—was rigging the courts in his home state, they played deep. He wouldn’t put it past anyone in this scenario to offer up a beautiful, fresh-faced young judge as a mole—or a distraction.
“The prosecution calls FBI Special Agent Thomas Yellow Bird to the stand.”
Tom snapped to attention, standing and straightening his tie. He should’ve been paying more attention to the trial at hand than musing about the new judge. The prosecutor had warned him that this particular defense lawyer liked to put members of law enforcement on the spot.
As he moved to the front of the room, he could feel Judge Jennings’s gaze upon him. He didn’t allow himself to look back. He kept his meanest gaze trained on the accused, enjoying the way the moron shrank back behind his lawyer. It didn’t matter how intriguing—yes, that was the right word. It didn’t matter how intriguing Judge Caroline Jennings was—Tom had to see justice served on the man who’d pulled a gun on a bank teller and made off with seven thousand dollars and change.
All the same, Tom wanted to look at her. Would she still have that challenge on her face? Or would he see suspicion? He was used to that. He’d been called inscrutable on more than one occasion—and that was by people who knew him. Tom had a hell of a poker face, which was an asset in his line of work. People couldn’t figure him out, and they chose to interpret their confusion as distrust.
Or would he see something else in her eyes—the same pull he’d felt when she’d walked into this courtroom? Would she still have that delicate blush?
Smith, the prosecutor, caught Tom’s eye and gave him a look. Right. Tom had a job to do before he dug into the mystery that was Caroline Jennings.
Leland swore Tom in, and he took his seat on the witness stand. Roses, he thought, not allowing himself to look in her direction. She smelled like roses, lush and in full bloom.
Smith, in a forgettable brown suit that matched his equally forgettable name, asked Tom all the usual questions—how he had been brought in on the case, where the leads had taken the investigation, how he had determined that the accused was guilty of the crime, how the arrest had gone down, what the accused had said during questioning.
It was cut-and-dried, really. He had to keep from yawning.
Satisfied, Smith said, “Your witness,” and returned to his seat.
The defense lawyer didn’t do anything for a moment. He continued to sit at his table, reviewing his notes. This was a tactic Tom had seen countless times, and he wasn’t about to let the man unnerve him. He waited. Patiently.
“Counsel, your witness,” Judge Jennings said, an edge in her voice. Tom almost smiled at that. She was not as patient as she’d seemed.
Then the defense lawyer stood. He took his time organizing his space, taking a drink—every piddling little thing a lawyer could do to stall.
“Today, Counselor,” Judge Jennings snapped.
She got a lawyer’s smile for that one before Lasky said, “Of course, Your Honor. Agent Yellow Bird, where were you on the evening of April twenty-seventh, the day you were supposedly tracing the bills stolen from the American State Bank of Pierre?”
The way he said it—drawing out the Yellow Bird part and hitting the supposedly with extra punch—did nothing to improve Tom’s opinion of the man. If this guy was trying to make Tom’s Lakota heritage an issue, he was in for a rude awakening.
Still, Tom was under oath and he responded, “I was off duty,” in a level voice. This wasn’t his first time on the stand. He knew how this gotcha game was played, and he wasn’t going to give this jerk anything to build off.
“Doing what?” That smile again.
Tom let the question linger in the air just long enough. Smith roused out of his stunned stupor and shouted, “Objection, Your Honor! What Agent Yellow Bird does in his free time is of no importance to this court.”
The defense attorney turned his attention to the judge, that oily smile at full power. “Your Honor, I intend to show that what Agent Yellow Bird does on his own time directly compromises his ability to do his job.”
What a load of bull. That perp was guilty of robbing a bank, and his defense team was throwing everything and the kitchen sink at the prosecutor’s witnesses in an effort to throw the trial. Tom knew it, the prosecutor knew it and the defense attorney definitely knew it.
But none of that mattered. All that mattered was the opinion of Judge Caroline Jennings. She cleared her throat, which made Tom look at her. Then she leaned forward, elbows on her desk. “How so, Counselor?”
“Your Honor?”
“You’re obviously building toward something. My time is valuable—as is yours, I assume. Someone’s paying the bills, right?”
It took everything Tom had not to burst out laughing at that—but he kept all facial muscles on complete lockdown.
The defense lawyer tried to smile, but Tom could tell the man was losing his grip. Clearly, he’d expected Judge Jennings to be an easy mark. “If I could ask the question, I’d be able to demonstrate—”
“Because it sounds like you’re fishing,” Judge Jennings interrupted. “What illegal activity are you going to accuse Agent Yellow Bird of?” She turned her attention to Tom and there it was again—that pull. “Any crimes you’d like to admit to, just to save us all the time?”
Tom notched an eyebrow at her, unable to keep his lips from twitching. “Your Honor, the only crime I’m guilty of is occasionally driving too fast.”
Something changed in her eyes—deepened. He hoped like hell it was appreciation. All he knew was that he appreciated that look. “Yes,” she murmured, her soft voice pouring oil on the fire that was racing through his body. “South Dakota seems made for speeding.”
Oh, hell, yeah—he’d like to gun his engine and let it run right about now.
She turned her attention back to the attorney. “Are you going to make the argument that violating speed limits compromises an FBI agent’s ability to investigate a crime?”
“Prostitutes!” the flustered lawyer yelled, waving a manila envelope around in the air. “He patronizes prostitutes!”
An absolute hush fell over the courtroom—which was saying something, as it hadn’t been loud to begin with.
Shit. How had this slimeball found out about that?
“Your Honor!” Smith shot out of his chair, moving with more animation than Tom would have given him credit for. “That has nothing to do with a bank robbery!”
This was ridiculous, but Tom knew how this game was played. If he displayed irritation or looked nervous, it’d make him look shifty—which was exactly what the defense wanted. So he did—and said—nothing. Not a damn thing.
But his jaw flexed. He was not ashamed of his after-hours activities, but if Judge Jennings let this line of questioning go on, it could compromise some of his girls—and those girls had been compromised enough.
“That’s a serious accusation,” Judge Jennings said in a voice that was so cold it dropped the temperature in the courtroom a whole ten degrees. “I assume you have proof?”
“Proof?” the lawyer repeated and waved the manila envelope in the air. “Of course I have proof. I wouldn’t waste the court’s valuable time if I couldn’t back it up.”
“Let me see.”
The defense lawyer paused—which proved to be his undoing.
Judge Jennings narrowed her gaze and said, “Counselor Lasky, if you have evidence that Agent Yellow Bird patronizes prostitutes—and that somehow compromises his ability to trace stolen bills—I’d suggest you produce it within the next five seconds or I will hold you in contempt of this court. Care to start a tab at five hundred dollars?”
Not that Tom would admit this in a court of law, but Caroline Jennings had just taken that spark of attraction and fanned it into a full-fledged flame of desire, because the woman was amazing. Simply amazing.
Lasky only hesitated for a second before he strode forward and handed the manila envelope over to Judge Jennings. She pulled out what looked to be some grainy photos. Tom guessed they’d been pulled from a security camera, but at this angle he couldn’t see who was in the pictures or where they might have been taken.
He knew what they weren’t pictures of—him in flagrante delicto with hookers. Having dinner with hookers, maybe. He did that all the time. But last he checked, buying a girl dinner wasn’t illegal.
Even so, that the defense lawyer had the pictures was not good. Tom had a responsibility to those girls and his tribe. But more than that, he had an obligation to the FBI to make sure that what he did when he was off the clock didn’t compromise the pursuit of justice. And if Judge Jennings let this line of questioning go on, Tom’s time at the truck stops would be fair game for every single defense attorney in the state. Hell, even if this criminal wasn’t found guilty, another defense lawyer would try the same line of attack, hoping to be more successful.
“Your Honor,” Smith finally piped up into the silence, “this entire line of questioning is irrelevant to the case at hand. For all the court knows, he was meeting with informants!”
Not helping, Tom thought darkly, although again, he didn’t react. If people suspected those girls were turning informant, they’d be in even more danger.
Judge Jennings ignored Smith. “Mr. Lasky, as far as I can tell, this is proof that Agent Yellow Bird eats meals with other people.”
“Who are known prostitutes!” Lasky crowed, aiming for conviction but nailing desperation instead.
Smith started to object again, but Judge Jennings raised a hand to cut him off. “That’s it? That’s all you’ve got? He ate—” She turned to face Tom and held out a photo. “Is this dinner or lunch?”
Tom recognized the Crossroads Truck Stop immediately—that was Jeannie. “Dinner.”
“He ate dinner with a woman? Did she launder the stolen money? Drive the getaway car? Was she the inside woman?”
“Well—no,” Lasky sputtered. “She doesn’t have anything to do with this case!” The second the words left his mouth, he realized what he’d said, and his entire face crumpled in defeat.
“You’ve got that right.” Amazingly, Judge Jennings sounded more disappointed than anything else, as if she’d expected Lasky to put up a better fight. “Anything else you have to add?”
Lasky slumped and shook his head.
“Your Honor,” Smith said, relief all over his face, “move to strike the defense’s comments from the record.”
“Granted.” She fixed a steely gaze on Lasky.
Tom realized he’d never seen such a woman as Judge Jennings—especially not one for whom he’d felt that spark. He wanted nothing more than to chase that fire, keep fanning those flames. Stephanie would have wanted him to move on—he knew that. But no one else had ever caught his attention like this, and he wasn’t going to settle for anything less than everything. So he’d stayed faithful to his late wife and focused on his job.
Except for now. Except for Caroline Jennings.
There was one problem with this unreasonable attraction.
She was his next assignment. Damn it.
“Agent Yellow Bird, you may step down,” she said to him.
Tom made damn sure to keep his movements calm and even. He didn’t gloat and he didn’t strut. Looking like he’d gotten away with something would undermine his position of authority, so he stood straight and tall and, without sparing a glance for the defense attorney or his client, Tom walked out of the courtroom.
There. His work on the bank robbery case was done. Which meant one thing and one thing only.
Caroline Jennings was now his sole focus.
He was looking forward to this.
Two (#u40d66ad4-ca20-5fc7-9e04-db7204e6e0b2)
As Caroline headed out into the oppressive South Dakota heat at the end of the day, she knew she should be thinking about who had sent the flowers. Or about James Carlson’s brief reply to her email saying he had contacted an associate, who would be in touch. She should be thinking about the day’s cases. Or tomorrow’s cases.
At the very least, she should be thinking about what she was going to eat for dinner. She had been relying heavily on carryout for the last couple of months, because she hadn’t finished unpacking yet. She should be formulating her plan of attack to get the remaining boxes emptied so she could have a fully functional kitchen again by this weekend at the latest and make better food choices.
She wasn’t thinking about any of those things. Instead, all she could think about was a certain FBI agent with incredible eyes.
Thomas Yellow Bird. She shivered just thinking of the way his gaze had connected with hers across the courtroom. Even at that distance, she’d felt the heat behind his gaze. Oh, he was intense. The way he’d kept his cool under fire when that defense attorney had gone after him? The way he’d glared at the accused? Hell, the way he’d let the corner of his mouth twitch into a smile that had threatened to melt her faster than ice cream on a summer day when he’d said he was guilty of speeding?
So dangerous. Because if he could have this sort of effect on her with just a look, what would he be capable of with his hands—or without an audience?
She hadn’t had the time or inclination to investigate the dating scene in the greater Pierre area. She assumed the pool of eligible men would be considerably smaller than it was in Minneapolis—not that she’d dated a lot back home. It’d been low on her priority list, both there and here. Messy relationships were just that—messy. Dating—and sex—left too much room for mistakes, the kind she’d dodged once already.
No, thank you. She did not need to slip up and get tied to a man she wasn’t even sure she wanted to marry. Her career was far more important than that.
Besides, she spent most of her time with lawyers and alleged criminals. Her bailiff was married. It wasn’t like an attractive, intelligent man she could date without a conflict of professional interest just showed up in her courtroom every day.
Except for today. Maybe.
Because there was that small matter of whether or not he patronized prostitutes. That was a deal breaker.
Lost in thought, she rounded the corner of the courthouse and pulled up short. Because an attractive, intelligent man—FBI Special Agent Thomas Yellow Bird—was leaning on a sleek muscle car parked two slots down from her Volvo. Her nipples tightened immediately, and only one thing could soothe them.
Him.
She shook that thought right out of her head. Good Lord, a man shouldn’t look this sinful—and in those sunglasses? He was every bad-boy fantasy come to life. But she’d watched him on the stand and seen flashes of humor underneath his intense looks and stoic expressions—and that? That was what made him truly sexy.
Was secretly lusting after an FBI agent in a great suit a conflict of interest? God, she hoped not. Because that suit was amazing on him.
“Agent Yellow Bird,” she said when he straightened. “This is a surprise.”
One corner of his mouth kicked up as he pulled his sunglasses off. “Not a bad one, I hope.”
It wasn’t like they’d had a personal conversation in court today. There’d been several feet of plywood between them. She’d been wearing her robes. Everything had been mediated through Lasky and Smith. Cheryl had recorded every word.
Here? None of those barriers existed.
“That depends,” she answered honestly. Because if he were going to ask her out, it could be a very good thing. But if this was about something else...then maybe not so much.
His gaze drifted over her, a leisurely appraisal that did nothing for Caroline’s peace of mind right now. She’d thought she’d been imagining that appraisal in the courtroom when she’d met his gaze across the crowded courtroom and everything about her—her clothes, her skin—had suddenly felt too tight and too loose at the same time.
No, no—not lusting after him. Lust was a weakness and weakness was a risk. The heat flooding her body had more to do with the July sun than this man.
As his gaze made its way back up to her face, a look of appreciation plain to see, she knew she wasn’t imagining this. When he spoke, it was almost a relief. “I wanted to thank you for having my back today.”
She waved away this statement, glad to have something to focus on other than his piercing eyes. “Just doing my job. Last time I checked, eating dinner wasn’t a conflict of interest.” Unlike this conversation. Maybe. “I have no desire in being perceived as weak on the bench. I run a tight ship.”
“So I noticed.”
This would be a wonderful time for him to assure her that he didn’t patronize prostitutes—in fact, it’d be great if he didn’t eat dinner with them at all. She tried to keep in mind what Smith had said in his objections—perhaps Agent Yellow Bird had been meeting with informants or some other reasonable explanation that could be tied directly to his job.
Strangely, she wasn’t feeling reasonable about Agent Yellow Bird right now. She steeled her resolve. She couldn’t be swayed by a gorgeous man in a great suit any more than she could be influenced by cut flowers. Not even loyalty could corrupt her. Not anymore.
Everything about him—his gaze, his manner—was intense. And, at least right now, they were on the same side. She’d hate to be a criminal in his sights.
“Well,” she said, feeling awkward about this whole encounter.
“Well,” he agreed. He shoved off his car—an aggressive-looking black thing with a silver stripe on the hood that screamed power—and extended his hand. His suit jacket shifted, and she caught a glimpse of his gun. “We haven’t been formally introduced. I’m Tom Yellow Bird.”
“Tom.” She hesitated before slipping her palm into his. This didn’t count as a conflict of interest, right? Of course not. This was merely a...professional courtesy. Yes, that was it. “Caroline Jennings.”
That got her a real smile—one that took him from intensely handsome to devastatingly so. Her knees weakened—weakened, for God’s sake! It only got worse when he said, “Caroline,” in a voice that was closer to reverence than respectability as his fingers closed around hers.
A rush of what felt like electricity passed from where her skin met his, so powerful that Caroline jolted. Images flashed through her mind of him pulling her in closer, his mouth covering hers, his hands covering...
“Sorry,” she said, pulling her hand back. She knew she was blushing fiercely, but she was going to blame that on the heat. “I generate a lot of static electricity.” Which was true. In the winter, when the air was dry and she was walking on carpeting.
It was at least ninety-four out today, with humidity she could swim in. She was so hot that sweat was beginning to trickle down her back.
He notched an eyebrow at her, and she got the feeling he was laughing. But definitely on the inside, because his mouth didn’t move from that cocky half grin.
Her breasts ached, and she didn’t think she could blame that on the sun. She was flushed and desperately needed to get the hell out of her skirt suit to cool down. What she wouldn’t give for a swim in a cool pool right now.
Alone. Definitely alone. Not with Agent Tom Yellow Bird. Nope.
“About the flowers,” Tom said, looking almost regretful about bringing up the subject as he leaned back against his spotless car.
Caroline recoiled. “What?” It wasn’t as if the fact that she’d received the bouquet wasn’t common knowledge—it was. Everyone in the courthouse knew, thanks to Andrea passing out roses to anyone who’d take some. Leland had taken a huge bunch home for his wife. Even Cheryl had taken a few, favoring Caroline with a rare smile. Caroline had left the remaining few blooms in her office. She didn’t want them in her house.
Had Agent Yellow Bird sent them? Was this whole conversation—the intense looks, the cocky grins—because he was trying to butter her up?
Crap, what if Lasky had been right? What if Agent Tom Yellow Bird was crooked and prostitutes were just the tip of the iceberg?
Suddenly her blood was running cold. She moved to step past him. “The flowers were lovely. But I’m not interested.”
* * *
Damn, she was tough.
“Whoa,” Tom said, holding his hands up in the universal sign of surrender. “I didn’t send them.”
“I’m sure,” Caroline murmured, stepping around him and heading for her car as if he suddenly smelled.
“Caroline,” he said again, and damn if it didn’t come out with a note of tenderness. Which was ridiculous. He had no reason to feel tender toward her at all. She was his assignment, whether she liked it or not. It’d be easier if she cooperated, of course, but he’d get to the bottom of things one way or the other.
He was nothing if not patient.
She began to walk faster. “I appreciate the gesture, but I’m not interested. I hold myself to a higher standard of ethics and integrity.”
What the hell? Clearly, she thought he’d sent the flowers. The idea was so comical he almost laughed. “Wait.” He fell in step beside her. “Carlson sent me.”
“Did he?” She didn’t stop.
He dug his phone out of his pocket. If she wouldn’t believe him, maybe she’d believe Carlson. “Here.” Just as she made it to her car, he shoved his phone in front of her face. She had to stop to keep from slamming her nose into the screen. “See?”
She shot him an irritated look—which made him smile. She was tough—but he was tougher.
Begrudgingly, she read Carlson’s email out loud. “‘Tom—the new judge, Caroline Jennings, contacted me. An anonymous person sent her flowers and apparently that’s out of the ordinary for her. See what you can find out. If we’re lucky, this will open the case back up. Maggie sends her love. Carlson.’”
She frowned as she read it. This was as close as Tom had been to her and again, he was surrounded by the perfume of roses. He wanted to lean in close and press his lips against the base of her neck to see if she tasted as sweet as she smelled—but if he’d gauged Caroline Jennings right, she probably had Mace on her keys. Given the way she was holding her body, he’d bet she’d taken some self-defense classes at some point.
Good for her. He liked a woman who wasn’t afraid to defend herself.
The moment that thought popped up, Tom slammed the door on it. He didn’t like Judge Jennings, no matter how sweet she smelled or how strongly he felt that pull. This was about the case. The job was all he had.
She angled her body toward his, and a primal part of his brain crowed in satisfaction when she didn’t step back. If anything, it felt like she was challenging his space with her body. “And I’m supposed to believe that’s on the level, huh?”
God, he’d like to be challenged. She was simply magnificent—even better out of her robes. “I don’t play games, Caroline,” he said. No matter how much he might want to. “Not about something like this.”
She studied him for a moment. “That implies you play games in other situations, though.”
His lips twisted to one side and he crossed his arms, because if he didn’t, he might start smiling and that was bad for his image as a no-holds-barred lawman. “That all depends on the game, doesn’t it?”
“I put more stock in the players.”
So much for his image, because he burst out laughing at that. Caroline took a step back, her hands clenched at her sides and her back ramrod straight—which was completely at odds with the unexpectedly intense look of...longing? She looked less like a woman about to punch him and more like...
Like she was holding herself back. Like she wanted to laugh with him. Maybe do even more with him.
If he slid an arm around her waist and pulled her into his chest, would she break his nose or would she go all soft and womanly against him? How long had it been since he’d had a woman in his arms?
It absolutely did not matter—nor did it matter that he knew exactly how long it’d been. What mattered was cracking this case.
“I don’t sleep with them.”
“What?” She physically recoiled, pushing herself closer to the door.
“The prostitutes,” he explained. “I don’t sleep with them. That’s what you’re worried about, isn’t it? What I do in my free time?”
“It’s none of my business what you do when you’re off duty,” she said in a stiff voice, shrinking even farther away from him. “It’s a free country.”
That made him grin again. “This country is bought and paid for, and you and I both know it,” he said, surprised at the bitterness that sneaked in there. “I buy them dinner,” he went on, wondering if someone like Caroline Jennings would ever really be able to understand. “They’re mostly young, mostly girls—mostly being forced to work against their will. I treat them like people, not criminals—show them there’s another way. When they’re ready, I help them get away and get clean. And until they are, I make sure they’re eating, give them enough money they don’t have to work that night.”
“That’s...” She blinked. “Really?”
“Really. I don’t sleep with them.” For some ridiculous reason, he almost let the truth slip free—he didn’t sleep with anyone. It was none of her business—but he wanted to make sure she knew he operated with all the ethical integrity she valued. “Carlson can back me up on that.”
“Who’s Maggie?”
Interesting. There was no good reason for her to be concerned about Maggie sending Tom her love, unless...
Unless Caroline was trying to figure out if he was attached. “Carlson’s wife. We grew up on the same reservation together.” He left out the part where he’d gone off to Washington, DC, and joined the FBI, leaving Maggie vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.
There was a reason he didn’t sleep with prostitutes. But that wasn’t his story to tell—it was Maggie’s. He stuck to the facts.
The breeze gusted, surrounding him with her scent. He couldn’t help leaning forward and inhaling. “Roses,” he murmured, his voice unexpectedly tender again. He really needed to stop with the tenderness.
She flushed again, and although he shouldn’t, he hoped it wasn’t from the heat. “I beg your pardon?”
“You smell of roses.” Somehow, he managed to put another step between them. “Is that your normal perfume, or was that from the delivery?” There. That was a perfectly reasonable question to ask, from a law-enforcement perspective.
“From the flowers. The bouquet was huge. At least a hundred stems.”
“All roses?”
She thought about that. “Mixed. Lilies and carnations—a little bit of everything, really. But mostly roses.”
In other words, it hadn’t been cheap. He tried to visualize how big a vase with a hundred stems would be. “But you’re not taking any home with you?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t want them. My clerk got rid of most of them. Leland took home a huge bunch for his wife.”
“Leland’s a good guy,” Tom replied, as if this were normal small talk when it was anything but.
“How do I know I can trust you?” she blurted out.
“My record speaks for itself.” He pulled a business card out of his pocket and held it out to her. “You don’t know what you’re up against here. This kind of corruption is insidious and nearly impossible to track, Caroline. But if there’s anything else out of the ordinary—and I mean anything—don’t hesitate to call me. Or Carlson,” he added, almost as an afterthought. He didn’t want her to call Carlson, though. He wanted her to call him. For any reason. “No detail is too small. Names, car makes—anything you remember can be helpful.”
After a long moment—so long, in fact, that he began to wonder if she was going to take the card at all—she asked, “So we’re to work together?”
He heard the question she didn’t ask. “On this case, yes.”
But if it weren’t for this case...
She took the card from him and slid it into her shirt pocket. He did his best not to stare at the motion. Damn.
She gave him that look again, the one that made him think she was holding herself back. “Fine.”
He straightened and gave her a little salute. “After this case...” He turned and headed to his car. “Have a good evening, Caroline,” he called over his shoulder.
She gasped and he almost, almost spun back on his heel and captured that little noise with a kiss.
But he didn’t. Instead, he climbed into the driver’s seat of his Camaro, gunned the engine and peeled out of the parking lot as fast as he could.
He needed to put a lot of distance between him and Caroline Jennings. Because, no matter how much he might be attracted to her, he wasn’t about to compromise this case for her.
And that was final.
Three (#u40d66ad4-ca20-5fc7-9e04-db7204e6e0b2)
For a while, nothing happened. There were no more mysterious flower deliveries—or, for that matter, any kind of deliveries. The remaining half dozen roses on Caroline’s desk withered and died. Andrea threw them away. People in the courthouse seemed friendlier—apparently, handing out scads of flowers made Caroline quite popular. Other than that, though, things continued on as they had before.
Before Agent Tom Yellow Bird had shown up in her courtroom.
She got up, went for a jog before the heat got oppressive, went to the courthouse and then came home. No mysterious gifts, no handsome men—mysterious or otherwise. No surprises. Everything went exactly as it was supposed to. Which was good. Great, even.
If she didn’t have Tom’s card in her pocket—and that electric memory of shaking his hand—she would have been tempted to convince herself she had imagined the whole thing. A fantasy she’d invented to alleviate boredom instead of a flesh-and-blood man. Fantasies were always safer, anyway.
But...there were times when she could almost feel his presence. She’d come out of the courthouse and pull up short, looking for his black muscle car with the silver stripe on the hood, but he was never there. And the fact that disappointed her was irritating.
She had not developed a crush on the man. No crushes. That was that.
Just because he was an officer of the law with a gun concealed under his jacket, with eyes that might be his biggest weapon—that was no reason to lust after the man. She didn’t need to see him again. It was better that way—at least, she finally had to admit to herself, it was better that way while his corruption investigation was still ongoing. The more distance between them, the less she would become infatuated.
Tom Yellow Bird was a mistake she wasn’t going to make.
It was a good theory, anyway. But he showed up in her dreams, a shadowy lover who drove her wild with his hands, his mouth, his body. She woke up tense and frustrated, and no electronic assistance could relieve the pressure. Her vibrator barely took the edge off, but it was enough.
Besides, she had other things to focus on. She finally finished unpacking her kitchen, although she still ate too much takeout. It was hard to work up the energy to cook when the temperature outside kept pushing a hundred.
Still, she tried. She came home one Friday after work three weeks after the floral delivery, juggling a couple of bags of groceries. Eggs were on sale and there was a recipe for summery quiche on Pinterest that she wanted to try. She had air-conditioning and a weekend to kick back. She was going to cook—or else. At the very least, she was going to eat ice cream.
She knew the moment she unlocked the front door that something was wrong. She couldn’t have said what it was because, when she looked around the living room, nothing seemed out of place. But there was an overwhelming sense that someone had been in her home that she didn’t dare ignore.
Heart pounding, she backed out of the house, pulling the door shut behind her. She carried the groceries right back out to the trunk of her car and then, hands shaking, she pulled her cell phone and Tom’s card out of her pocket and dialed.
He answered on the second ring. “Yes?”
“Is this Agent Yellow Bird?” He sounded gruffer on the phone—so gruff, in fact, that she couldn’t be sure it was the same man who had laughed with her in the parking lot.
“Caroline? Are you all right?”
Suddenly, she felt silly. She was sitting outside in the car. It wasn’t like the door had been jimmied open. It hadn’t even looked like anything had been moved—at least, not in the living room. “It’s probably nothing.”
“I’ll be the judge of that. What’s going on?”
She exhaled in relief. She was not a damsel in distress and she did not need a white knight to come riding to her rescue. But there was something comforting about the thought that a federal agent was ready and willing to take over if things weren’t on the up and up. “I just got home and it feels like there was someone in my house.” She winced. It didn’t sound any less silly when she said it out loud.
There was a moment of silence on the other end of the phone, and she got a sinking feeling that he was going to tell her not to be such a ninny. “Where are you?”
“In my car. In the driveway,” she added. Cars could be anywhere.
“If you’re comfortable, stay there. I’m about fifteen minutes away. If you aren’t, I want you to leave and drive someplace safe. Understand?”
“Okay.” His words should have been reassuring. He was on his way over and she had a plan. But, perversely, the fact that he was taking this feeling so seriously scared her even more.
What if someone really had been in her house? It hadn’t looked like a robbery. What had they been after?
“Call me back if you need to. I’m on my way.” Before she could even respond, he hung up.
Wait, she thought, staring at the screen of her phone—how did he know where she lived?
She turned on her car—all the better to make a quick getaway—and cranked the AC. She knew she shouldn’t have bought ice cream at the store, but too late now.
She waited and watched her house. Nothing happened. No one slunk out. Not so much as a curtain twitched. It looked perfectly normal, and by the time Tom came roaring down the street, she had convinced herself she was being ridiculous. She got out of the car again and went to meet him.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” she began. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”
Then she pulled up short. Gone was the slick custom-made suit. Instead, a pair of well-worn jeans hung low off his hips and a soft white T-shirt clung to his chest. He had his shoulder holster on, which only highlighted his pecs all the more. Her mouth went dry as his long legs powerfully closed the distance between them.
If she had been daydreaming about Agent Yellow Bird in a suit, the man in a pair of blue jeans was going to haunt her dreams in the very best way possible.
He walked right up to her and put his hands on her shoulders. “Are you all right?” he asked, his voice low.
That spark of electricity moved over her skin again, and she shivered. “Fine,” she said, but her voice wavered. “I’m not sure I can say the same for the ice cream, but life will go on.”
He almost smiled. She could tell, because his eyes crinkled ever so slightly. “Why do you think someone was in your house?” As he spoke, his hands drifted down her shoulders until he was holding her upper arms. A good two feet of space still separated them, but it was almost an embrace.
At least, that’s how it felt to her. But what did she know? She couldn’t even tell if someone had been in her house or not.
“It was just a feeling. The door wasn’t busted, and nothing seemed out of place in the living room.” She tried to laugh it off, but she didn’t even manage to convince herself.
He squeezed her arms before dropping his hands. She felt oddly lost without his touch. “Is the door still unlocked?” She nodded. “Stay behind me.” He pulled his gun and moved forward. Caroline stayed close. “Quietly,” he added as he opened the door.
Silently, they entered the house. Her skin crawled and she unconsciously hooked her hand into the waistband of his jeans. Tom checked each room, but there was no one there. Caroline looked at everything, but nothing seemed out of place. By the time they peeked into the unused guest room, with the remaining boxes from the move still haphazardly stacked, she felt more than silly. She felt stupid.
When Tom holstered his gun and turned to face her, she knew her cheeks were flaming red. “I’m sorry, I—”
They were standing very close together in the hall, and Tom reached out and touched a finger to her lips. Then he stepped in closer and whispered in her ear, “Outside.”
For a second, neither of them moved. She could feel the heat of his body, and she had an almost overwhelming urge to kiss the finger resting against her lips. Which was ridiculous.
What was it about this man that turned her into a blubbering schoolgirl with a crush? Maybe she was just trying to bury her embarrassment at having called him out here for nothing beneath a more manageable emotion—lust. Not that lust was a bad thing. Except for the fact that she still had no idea what he did in his spare time or whether or not it broke any laws. And there was the unavoidable fact that acting on any lust would be a conflict of interest.
They were actively on an investigation, for crying out loud. It was one of the reasons she couldn’t read romantic suspense novels—it drove her nuts when people in the middle of a dangerous situation dropped everything to get naked.
She was not that kind of girl, damn it. So instead of leaning into his touch or wrapping her arms around his waist and pulling him in tight, she did the right thing. She nodded and pulled away.
It was harder than she’d thought it would be.
When they were outside, she tried apologizing again. “I’m so sorry that I called you out here for nothing.” She didn’t enjoy making a fool of herself, but when it happened, she tried to own up to the mistake as quickly as possible.
He leaned against her car, studying her. She had met a lot of hard-nosed investigators and steely-eyed lawyers in her time, but nothing quite compared to Tom Yellow Bird. “Are you sure it was nothing? Tell me again how you felt there was something wrong.”
She shrugged helplessly. “It was just a feeling. Everything looked fine, and you saw yourself that there was no one in the house.” She decided that worse than feeling stupid was the fact that she had made herself look weak.
For some ridiculous reason, this situation reminded her of her brother. Trent Jennings had been a master of creating a crisis where none existed—and he was even better at making it seem like it was her fault. Because she’d been the mistake, the squalling brat who’d taken his parents away from him. Or so he was fond of reminding her.
That wasn’t what she was doing here, was it? Creating a crisis in order to focus the attention on herself? No, she didn’t think so. The house had felt wrong. Then something occurred to her. “Why are we outside again? It’s hot out here.”
“The place is probably bugged.”
He said it so casually that it took a few moments before his words actually sank in. “What?”
“I’ve seen this before.”
“I don’t understand,” she said, wondering if he was ever going to answer a straight question. “You’ve seen what before?”
For a moment, he looked miserable—the face of a man who was about to deliver bad news. “You have a feeling that someone was in your house—although nothing appears to have been moved or taken, correct?”
She nodded. “So my sixth sense is having a bad day. How does that mean there are bugs in my house?”
One corner of his mouth crept up. “They’re trying to find something they can use against you. Maybe you have some sort of peccadillo or kink, maybe something from your past.” He smiled, but it wasn’t reassuring. “Something worse than speeding tickets?”
The blood drained from her face. She didn’t have any kinks, definitely nothing that would be incriminating. She didn’t want people to watch when she used her vibrator—the thought was horrifying. But...
It would be embarrassing if people found out about her lapse of judgment in college. Although, since her parents were dead, she wouldn’t have to face their disappointment, and the odds of Trent finding out about it were slim, since they didn’t talk anymore.
But more than that...what if people connected her back to Vincent Verango? That wouldn’t just be embarrassing. That had the potential of being career ending. Would she never be able to escape the legacy of the Verango case?
No, this was fine. Panicking would be a mistake right now. She needed to keep her calm. “I stay within five miles of the speed limit,” she said, trying to arrange her face into something that wasn’t incriminating.
Tom shrugged. At least he was interpreting her reaction as shock and not guilt. “They want something on you so that when they approach you again and you say you’re not interested, they’ll have a threat with teeth. If you don’t want them to inform the Justice Department about this embarrassing or illegal thing, you’ll do what they say. Simple.”
“Simple?” She gaped at him, wondering when the world had stopped making sense. “Nothing about that is simple!”
“I don’t have a bug detector,” he went on, as if she hadn’t spoken. “And seeing as it’s Friday night, I don’t think I can get one before Monday.”
“Why not?” Because she couldn’t imagine this oh-so-simple situation didn’t justify a damned bug detector.
A muscle in his jaw twitched. “I’m off duty for the next four days. I’d have to make a special case to get one, and Carlson and I like to keep our investigations off the record as much as possible.”
She couldn’t help it—she laughed. She sounded horrible, even to her own ears, but it was either that or cry. This entire situation was so far beyond the realm of normal that she briefly considered she might’ve fallen asleep in her office this afternoon.
“The way I see it,” he went on, again ignoring her outburst, “you have two choices. You can go about your business as normal and I’ll come back on Monday and sweep the house.”
It was, hands-down, the most reasonable suggestion she was probably going to hear. So why did it make her stomach turn with an anxious sort of dread? “Okay. What’s my other choice?”
That muscle in his jaw ticked again, and she realized that he looked hard—like a stone, no emotions at all. The playful grin was nowhere to be seen. “You come with me.”
“Like, to your home?” That was it. She was definitely dreaming. It wasn’t like her to nod off in her chambers, but what other reasonable explanation was there?
“In a professional capacity,” he said in what was probably supposed to be a reassuring tone.
Caroline was not reassured. “If they bugged my house and I’m new here, why would your home be any less susceptible to surveillance?”
And just like that, his stony expression was gone. He cracked a grin and again, she thought of a wolf—dangerous but playful. And she had no idea if she was the prey or not.
“Trust me,” he said, pushing off the car and coming to stand directly in front of her. “Nothing gets past me.”
Four (#u40d66ad4-ca20-5fc7-9e04-db7204e6e0b2)
They had been in the car for an hour and fifteen minutes. Seventy-five silent minutes. Any attempt at conversation was met with—at best—a grunt. Mostly, Tom just ignored her, so she stopped trying.
Pierre was a distant memory and Tom was, true to his word, breaking every speed limit known to mankind and the state of South Dakota. She’d be willing to bet they were topping out well past one hundred, so she chose not to look at the speedometer, lest she start thinking of fiery crashes along the side of the road.
There was no avoiding Tom Yellow Bird. This muscle car was aggressive—just like him. He filled the driver’s seat effortlessly, seemingly becoming one with his machine. She didn’t know much about cars, but she could tell this was a nice one. The seats were a supple leather and the dashboard had all sorts of connected gadgets that were a mystery to her.
Just like the man next to her.
The landscape outside the car hadn’t changed since they’d hit the open plains, so she turned her attention to Tom. They were driving west and he still had his sunglasses on. She couldn’t read him. The only thing that gave her a clue to his mental state was how he kept tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. At least, she thought it was a clue. He might just be bored out of his mind.
It wasn’t fair. She hadn’t thought of the Verango case in, what—ten years? Twelve? But that was exactly the sort of thing a bad guy would be looking for, because she didn’t have anything kinky hiding in her closet. And a vibrator didn’t count. At least she hoped it didn’t.
She liked sex. She’d like to have more of it, preferably with someone like Tom—but only if it were the kind that couldn’t come back to bite her. No messy relationships, no birth control slipups, no strings attached.
Not that she wanted to have sex with him. But the man had inspired weeks of wet dreams, all because he had an intense look and an air of invulnerability about him. And that body. Who could forget that body?
She wished like hell she didn’t have this primal reaction to him. Even riding next to him was torture. She was aware of him in a way she couldn’t ignore, no matter how hard she tried. She felt it when he shifted in his seat, as if there were invisible threads binding them together. And that wasn’t even the worst of it. Although he had the AC blasting on high, she was the kind of hot that had nothing to do with the temperature outside. Her bra was too tight and she wanted out of this top.
She’d love to go for a swim. She needed to do something to cool down before she did something ridiculous, like parading around his home in nothing but her panties.
And the fact that her brain was even suggesting that as a viable way to kill a weekend was a freaking huge problem. Because getting naked anywhere near Tom Yellow Bird would be a mistake. Yes, it might very well be a mistake she enjoyed making—but that wouldn’t change the fact that it would still be a gross error in judgment, one that might compromise a case or—worse—get her blackmailed. A mistake like that could derail her entire career—and for what? For a man who wasn’t even talking to her? No. She couldn’t make another mistake like that.
Rationally, she knew her perfectionism wasn’t healthy. Her parents had never treated her like a mistake, and besides, they were dead. And she couldn’t take responsibility for the fact that Trent had been a whiny, entitled kid who’d grown into a bitter, hateful man. She didn’t have to do everything just right in a doomed effort to keep the peace in the family.
Yes, rationally, she knew all of that. But her objective knowledge didn’t do anything to put her at ease as Tom drove like the devil himself was gaining on them.
Finally, Caroline couldn’t take it anymore. She had expected a fifteen-minute car trip to a different side of town. Not this mad dash across the Great Plains. It was beginning to feel little bit like a kidnapping—one that she had been complicit in. “Where, exactly, do you live?”
“Not too much farther,” he said, answering the wrong question.
But he’d actually responded, and she couldn’t pass up this chance to get more out of him. “If you’re spiriting me away to the middle of nowhere just to do me in, it’s not going to go well for you.” She didn’t harbor any illusions that she could make an impact on him. He was armed and dangerous, and for all she knew, he was a black belt or something. She was good at jogging. She had taken a few self-defense classes. She wasn’t going to think about how long ago, though.
That got a laugh out of him, which only made her madder. “I have no intention of killing you. Or harming you,” he added as an afterthought.
“You’ll forgive me if I don’t find that terribly reassuring.”
“Then why did you get in the car with me?”
She shook her head, not caring if he could see it or not. “I just realized that when I said something felt off at my house, you trusted me. Anyone else would’ve told me I was imagining things. I’m returning the favor.” She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. “Don’t let it go to your head.”
“I doubt you’ll let that happen.”
The car slowed as he took an exit. But he was going so fast that she didn’t get her eyes open to see the name or number of the exit. They were literally in the middle of nowhere. She hadn’t seen so much as a cow for the last—what, ten or twenty miles? It was hard to tell at the speeds they’d been traveling.
“Dare I ask how you define ‘not too much farther’?”
“Are you hungry?”
She was starving, but that didn’t stop her from glancing at the clock in the dashboard. The sun was low over the horizon.
“Do you always do that?” He tilted his head in her direction without making eye contact. At least, she assumed. She was beginning to hate those sunglasses. “Answer a question with an unrelated statement?”
She saw his lips twitch. “Dinner will be waiting for us. I hope pizza is all right?”
See, that was the sort of statement that made her wonder about him. He’d clearly said he was taking her to his house. Was he the kind of guy who had a personal chef? That didn’t fit with the salary of an FBI agent.
But she couldn’t figure out how to phrase that particular question without it sounding like an accusation. Instead, she said, “So that’s a yes. And,” she added before he could start laughing, “pizza is fine. Better if it has sausage and peppers on it. Mushrooms are also acceptable. Do you have any ice cream? Wine?”
“I can take care of you.”
Perhaps it was supposed to be an innocent statement—a reflection of his preparedness for emergency guests. But that’s not how Caroline took it.
Maybe her defenses were lower because she was tired and worried. But the moment his words filled the small space between them, her body reacted—hard. Her nipples tightened almost to the point of pain as heat flooded her stomach and pooled lower. Her toes curled, and she had to grip the handle on the passenger door to keep from moaning with raw need.
Heavens, what was with her? It had been a long day. That was all. There was no other explanation as to why a simple phrase, spoken in a particularly deep tone of voice, would have such an impact on her.
She locked the whole system down. No moaning, no shivering, and absolutely no heated glances at Tom. Besides, how would she know if his glances were heated or not? He still had on those damn sunglasses.
Instead, in a perfectly level voice, she said, “That remains to be seen, doesn’t it?” She took it as a personal victory when he gripped the steering wheel with both hands.
Silence descended in the car again. If she’d had no idea where she was before, she had less now. They’d left the highway behind. The good news was that Tom was probably only doing sixty instead of breaking the sound barrier. With each turn, the roads bore less and less resemblance to an actual paved surface. But she didn’t start to panic until he turned where there didn’t seem to be any road at all, just a row of ragged shrubs. He opened the glove box and fished out a...remote?
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
He didn’t answer. Of course he didn’t. Instead, he aimed the remote at the shrubs and clicked the button.
The whole thing rolled smoothly to the side. She blinked and then blinked again. Really, her head was a mess. She was going to need a whole bottle of wine after this. “Be honest—are you Batman?”
He cracked a grin that did terrible, wonderful things to her body. Her mouth went dry and the heat that she had refused to feel before came rushing back, a hot summer wind that carried the promise of a storm. Because there was something electric in the air when he turned to face her. She wanted to lick his neck to taste the salt of his skin.
Maybe she would strip down. Her clothing was becoming unbearable. “Would you believe me if I said I was?”
She thought about that. Well, at least she tried to. Thinking was becoming hard. She was so hot. “Only if you’ve got an elderly British butler waiting for you.”
His grin deepened and, curse her body, it responded, leaning toward him of its own volition. “I don’t. Turns out elderly British butlers don’t like to work off the grid in the middle of nowhere.”
That got her attention. “I thought you said you had a home?” She looked around, feeling the weight of the phrase wide-open spaces for the first time. There was nothing around here except the highly mobile fake shrubbery. “I don’t see...”
Then she saw it—in the direction where the ruts disappeared down the drive, there were trees off in the distance. “This is a real house, right? If you live in a van down by the river, I’m going to be pissed. A real house with pizza,” she added. “And a real bed. I will walk back to Pierre before I crash in a sleeping bag.”
It wasn’t fair, that grin. His muscles weren’t fair, his jaw wasn’t fair and the way he had of looking at her—that, most of all, wasn’t fair. Especially right now, when it was pretty obvious to everyone—all two of them—that her filters were failing her.
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