“Hopefully, he wasn’t the kind of lawyer who kept everything in his head,” she finished.
“When did you start wearing glasses, Red?”
Annoyed that she was suddenly concerned with the way she looked, Landis set the file aside and glared at him over the rims. “They’re reading glasses, and I got them the last time I went to the eye doctor.” Her voice was firm, but she felt like squirming beneath his scrutiny.
“You look really good in them,” he said.
She knew better than to be flattered. But she was. Ridiculously so. “We don’t have much time, Jack. It’s late, and we’ve got about four hours of paper to go through. I’d appreciate it if you’d just—”
“Shut up and get to work?” One side of his mouth pulled into a smile.
She couldn’t help but grin back. “Well, yeah.”
“Yes ma’am.”
Landis handed him a stack of paper, then set to work. She tried to concentrate on the documents in front of her, but her attention kept drifting to Jack. She watched him covertly as he peeled off his coat and draped it over the back of his chair. Elbows on the table, he opened the file and began to read. The hard-edged desperation she’d seen the day before had been replaced by cool determination. Even with the cut above his eye and the bruise on his cheek, he was attractive. He was tall and lean, and it was damn near impossible for her not to notice how good he looked in the flannel shirt and faded jeans. She’d forgotten a man could look that good.
Unhappy with the direction of her thoughts, Landis rose and refilled her cup. At the table, Jack scowled at a particularly complicated-looking legal document. He still looks like a cop, she thought. A career-minded detective hell-bent on solving a case. Taking in the tough facade, she never would have guessed his life was the one on the line. Or that the odds of the situation working out in his favor were slim to none.
Worse, however, was the knowledge that she cared a lot more than was wise—and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about any of it.
Chapter 8
“N obody said this was going to be easy.” Jack slid the last document into the file, shoved away from the table, and rose. Needles shot up his calf where his leg had fallen asleep. His shoulder ached dully where the bullet had grazed him, keeping time with the headache thundering behind his eyes.
Across from him, Landis lowered her face into her hands and rubbed her eyes. “That appears to be the theme we’ve been keeping.”
Jack watched her flame-colored hair cascade down and felt the familiar tightening in his belly. She’d worked alongside him through the night, guiding him through some of the more complicated legal documents. Her knowledge and attention to detail impressed him, and he couldn’t help but think if he ever needed a lawyer, he wouldn’t mind having her in his corner.
Too bad she was the prosecutorial type.
He stretched and looked out the window. It was still dark, but dawn was only a couple of hours away. Exhaustion and frustration and the very real fear that he wasn’t going to find the proof he needed to clear his name taunted him with renewed vigor. They’d gone over every piece of paper with a fine-toothed comb right down to Chandler’s documented telephone conversations and handwritten notes. After risking their lives breaking into the lawyer’s office, the file had yielded exactly zilch.
The disappointment came with a vengeance, a rabid animal tearing into him with sharp teeth. He hated feeling so hopeless. But he was getting damn tired of hitting brick wall after brick wall.
Landis leaned back in her chair and sighed. “There’s no proof of anything in this file. There has to be another one that we missed.”
“Even if there is another file, we’re not going to be able to get our hands on it,” he said. “Not after what happened. Chandler’s office is going to be locked down tighter than a prison.”
“Maybe the police confiscated it. Maybe Chandler was working on it and took it home—”
“We’re running out of time.”
“Maybe I could go to the presiding judge and—”
“I need to get some air,” he cut in, sudden anger at the situation making his voice sharper than he’d intended.
“Look, I know you’re frustrated, but—”
“That’s not the right word for what’s going on inside me right now.”
“Jack—”
“For God’s sake, Landis. You’re a prosecutor. You know good and well what I’m facing. Think about it!”
Her expression turned fierce. Never taking her eyes from his, she rose and approached him. “If there’s something to be found, we’ll find it. You have to believe that.”
“Forgive me if I don’t share your optimism right now.” Snagging his coat off the chair, he started for the door.
“Jack?”
He didn’t answer, didn’t even pause as he crossed through the mudroom. He needed a few minutes alone. A few minutes where he didn’t have to sit across from a woman who made him want all the things he knew he could never have.
He went out through the back door. The cold sank in all the way to his bones, but he welcomed the diversion. Anything was better than the hopelessness and utter bitterness churning inside him. He walked to the old pickup parked beneath the carport a few yards from the cabin. Because he didn’t want to go back inside any time soon, Jack figured now might be a good time to see if it ran.
Climbing into the truck, he stuck the key in the ignition and twisted. The motor groaned like a sick cow. Cursing, he pumped the gas and tried again. On the third try the engine sputtered to life. White exhaust billowed into the cold air.
He should have been relieved that at least he had transportation. But the knowledge did little for his frame of mind. If the truck was registered, the police would soon know about it—if they didn’t already. If luck was on his side, he figured he had another day before they started looking for it.
He sat in the truck and watched the moon set over the jagged line of trees to the east, and tried not to think. He tried not to think about the injustices that had been inflicted upon him. Of what those injustices had done to his life.
It seemed as if he’d spent his entire life on the outside looking in. As a young orphan, all he’d wanted was a family to love him. To be like other kids, with parents that cared. But shuffled from family to family, Jack had learned the sting of abandonment at a very early age. Then along came police officer Mike Morgan and his wife, Pat. Two good people who’d taken in a troubled boy and turned his life around.
Mike had taught Jack how to be a man. He’d taught him what was important in life. Family. Career. Love. Mike had taught Jack not only how to give love, but how to receive it. Mike had believed in him when no one else had. Jack had worked hard for that love, even harder for Mike’s respect. Sitting in the truck with the world crashing down all around him, he wished like hell Mike were alive today to tell him what to do.
He watched a silver cloud skid past the moon, and his thoughts shifted to Landis. A dangerous topic considering the electricity that snapped between them every time they were within shouting distance. He’d known he would have to deal with his feelings for her sooner or later.
It was then that Jack realized that Landis was at the root of his despondency. As hard as he’d tried not to let her get to him, she had, like a sliver of bamboo being shoved slowly under a fingernail. She was the best thing that had ever happened to him. She’d influenced his life in ways she would never know, pulled him back from a dark edge when he’d needed it badly. Landis was decent and kind and still saw that indelible line between right and wrong; she still believed in doing the right thing. She represented light and laughter and proved to him that good still prevailed over evil.
Jack had known she would help him. He’d known she would risk everything to do it. And just as he’d known it was wrong of him to manipulate her and drag her into this mess, he’d done it anyway. He’d used her. He’d just about gotten her killed.
He couldn’t ask her for anyt
hing more.
As much as he needed her—as desperately as he wanted to be with her—he knew that asking her to do more was a line he would never cross. He had to send her away. Before he ruined her life. Before she got hurt.
The thought cut him with unexpected sharpness. The pain that followed came so hard and fast that for a moment he couldn’t breathe. A week ago when he’d been lying in his cell planning his great escape, he’d believed fate would cooperate, that he could make it happen.
Reality had proven him wrong.
The best he could hope for was a safe trip through Mexico to a country where nobody spoke English. There weren’t extradition laws in Colombia. He’d give himself another twenty-four hours. If he couldn’t turn up any solid evidence, he’d drive the truck as far south as it would take him and try like hell not to think of all the things he’d left behind.
The cabin smelled of coffee and burning pine when he entered. He hung his coat on the rack in the mudroom. Mild surprise rippled through him when he found the kitchen empty. He walked into the main room fully intending to tell Landis to get in the Jeep and forget she’d ever seen him. But the moment he caught sight of her curled on the sofa, his mind blanked.
She’d loosened her hair at some point, and it spread out in a halo of shimmering silk. Her lashes lay dark and thick against her pale complexion. He noticed the dusting of freckles on her nose, and a rush of affection engulfed him. She’d always disliked her freckles. He couldn’t imagine why when they charmed him so completely.
His eyes traveled to her mouth and a different kind of tension quivered through him. Her full lips were slightly open and wet. The memory of the kiss they’d shared the night before drifted through his mind and he went instantly hard. He remembered every sigh, every touch, every subtle shifting of hips with stark clarity. It hadn’t gone unnoticed that in the end, she’d wrapped her arms around him and kissed him back.
The sudden need to touch her, to run his fingers through her hair, to hold her lovely face in his hands and kiss her mouth was as powerful as his need for his next breath. But because he couldn’t do any of those things, he simply stood there, aching for her, and put every detail to memory because he knew that all too soon it would be all he had left.
Jack didn’t want this to go any further. It was bad enough wanting her on a physical level. But to care for her was something else altogether. He didn’t want his emotions getting in the way of what he had to do.
He closed his eyes against a sudden, wrenching pang of loneliness. As much as he wanted to go to her, as much as he wanted to touch her and lose himself in the soft warmth of her body, he knew that for sanity’s sake he couldn’t. He wouldn’t do that to her. Wouldn’t do it to himself.
Logic told him to wake her and send her back to her cabin right now. But the part of him that wasn’t feeling quite so logical wanted just one more night. Acquiescing to that stronger side, Jack walked into the bedroom, pulled the quilt and pillow from the bed and carried them to the living room. He covered Landis with the quilt, then eased the pillow under her head.
He had every intention of going back into the bedroom. Of climbing into the cold, empty bed, and getting some badly needed sleep. But his willpower failed him. Kicking off his boots, he lay down beside her. Hands laced behind his head, he watched the fire flicker against the ceiling and tried to concentrate on the dull pain in his shoulder, on all the things he needed to do the next day. But nothing could take his mind off the sweet ache of being so close to her. Of feeling the soft warmth of her body next to his.
He didn’t know why he was subjecting himself to this.
But for a few short hours, he would be with her. And in the morning, he would tell her goodbye for the last time.
Fog rolled over the casket like a billowing, white blanket. Landis watched as two police officers donned in full dress uniform folded the American flag in a neat triangle and handed it to Evan’s widow. Her two nieces stood quietly by their mother’s side, their young faces confused and streaked with tears.
The twenty-one gun salute shattered the morning air until Landis thought the blasts would never end. Her mother’s high-pitched keening punctuated the profound silence that followed. Across from her, Jack LaCroix stood stone-faced, his dark eyes never leaving the glossy wood coffin.
Only when the lid panel of the casket began to open did she realize this wasn’t how she remembered Evan’s funeral. Horror engulfed her when the silhouette of a man inside the coffin came into view through the swirling fog. Not Evan, she thought. It couldn’t be her brother who now sat bolt upright within the plush interior of that dreadful box. Evan was dead.
Her heart thudded painfully as she strained to identify the impostor. A break in the fog revealed a man with dark hair, steel-blue eyes, an angular face that would have been handsome if not for the glint of cruelty. Recognition dawned, followed by a flash of disbelief. Cyrus Duke…
Her blood ran cold when his eyes met hers. She saw evil in the depths of his gaze, felt it grip her like a clawed hand. Shock enveloped her when he raised the pistol and leveled it at her chest. When he grinned, she suddenly knew he was going to pull the trigger. He was going to kill her. That he would enjoy it.
Landis turned to run, but her legs seemed to be weighted. A scream bubbled up from inside her. She braced for the hot punch of agony in her back. The blast deafened her. Her scream echoed in her head as pain streaked up her spine. Oh, God, she didn’t want to die—
“Landis!”
Heart pounding, she fought the hands that held her.
“Easy. It’s me.” Jack’s voice cut through the fog.
Landis jolted awake. The scream in her throat died as the nightmare receded. Awareness of her surroundings rushed in to calm her. She was in Aaron Chandler’s cabin. On the sofa. With Jack. She must have fallen asleep….
Shaken and embarrassed, suddenly aware that he was leaning over her, touching her, Landis pulled away and sat up. “I’m okay,” she said quickly.
“You cried out.”
His hands gripped her biceps. His fingers were warm and incredibly reassuring against her chilled flesh. For a crazy instant, she wanted to lean against him and let him hold her. It had been such a long time since anyone had held her. Since Jack had held her.
Knowing they were dangerous thoughts at a moment like this, she shook off his hands and pulled away. “Just a nightmare,” she said.
“Must have been a bad one.”
She remembered the hot punch of the bullet in her back and shivered. “It was…vivid. I never dream like that.”
“The last couple of days have been stressful.”
Slowly, her nerves began to steady. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“I’m not the one who’s scared.” When she shot him a look he added, “you’re still shaking.”
Because she didn’t want him to know just how rattled she was, Landis rose and walked to the hearth without looking at him. The room had grown cold during the night, so she tossed a log onto the embers. Thin light floated in around the heavy drapes, and she realized with mild surprise that it was dawn.
“You want to talk about it?” he asked. “Sometimes it helps.”
She looked over to see him folding the quilt he must have covered her with at some point during the night. His hair was tousled, and he had that disheveled look about him usually brought on by a rude awakening. His jaw badly needed a razor. He shouldn’t have looked appealing, but he did.
“What would really help,” she said, “is a break in your case.”
He crossed to her. She tensed when he reached out, jolted when he set his hands on her shoulders. “I don’t think that’s going to happen, Red. I think you know it, only you don’t know when to give up.”
A tremor went through her, but she knew it had nothing to do with the cold or the nightmare and everything to do with the way he was looking at her, the warmth of his touch, the finality of his words. “It’s too early in the game to give up.”
br /> A wan smile touched his mouth. “I’d wanted to talk about the other thing before you go, but I think we both can agree that it’s best if we don’t at this point.”
Landis wasn’t sure which part of the statement to challenge first, so she went with the safest. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“If you’re smart, you’ll get in the Jeep and forget you ever saw me.”
“In case you’ve forgotten, we’re trying to keep you out of prison.”
“The only way for me to avoid going back is to run.” He brushed his fingers against her cheek. “I think what we’re really trying to do here is figure out what the hell’s going on between us. Figure out if there’s anything left. If it’s worth pursuing one more time.”
Her heart began to pound. “There are more pressing issues that need to be dealt—”
“I see it in your eyes, Landis. I feel it in the way you tremble. In the way you avoid getting too close to me. There’s something between us, damn it, whether you’re willing to admit it or not.”
Holding her gaze, he glided his hands gently up and down her arms. The contact was whisper soft and so incredibly intimate it raised gooseflesh on her arms. Her breasts tightened, but she swore it was because of the cold. There was no way she was going to let his ministrations get to her. She was far too cautious to let this moment get out of hand or lead to something she would regret.
But he was standing too close; she was feeling too much. An explosive combination that would lead to disaster if she allowed it.
“I see the wheels spinning in your head,” he whispered, “but I don’t know what you’re thinking.” Raising his hand, he brushed a strand of hair away from her face. “What wars are being waged inside you, Landis? Which side is going to win?”
“I’m thinking about mistakes,” she said, but the words were little more than puffs of air.
“Making them?” His mouth curved sensuously. “We’re damn good at it.”