Night Fever (20 page)

Rourke nodded. He wanted so much to ask Mack what he knew, because the boy obviously had something on his mind that was really bothering him. But it was too soon. He didn't dare risk it now.

“I'm ready,” Becky called from the door.

Rourke glanced at her, his dark eyes smiling as he took in the picture she made in her leisure clothes, with her hair loose around her shoulders. She looked young and carefree, and pretty, freckles and all.

“Mr. Kilpatrick likes trains,” Mack said.

“He sure does,” Rourke agreed. “He just might go out and buy a set of his own, too.”

Mack and Becky chuckled. Kilpatrick then caught her hand in his and knocked the laughter right out of her, replacing it with heated excitement.

“We're going out to look at the farm,” Rourke told Mack. “Want to come?”

“Sure. But I have to listen out for Granddad,” Mack said importantly. “I'm the doc when Becky's not here. I know how to give him his medicine and everything.”

“I know he's glad to have you around,” Rourke said. “Thanks for letting me see the trains. They're neat.”

“Any time,” Mack told him. “Uh, if you get some,” he added hesitantly, “think I could come and watch you run them?”

“You bet,” the man said easily, and he smiled.

“Wow!”

“We'll be within yelling distance,” Becky told Mack. “Call if you need me.”

“I will.”

Becky led Rourke out back, where the chickens and the two cows shared the barnyard. Hay from last year dribbled down from the hayloft onto the floor of the ramshackle barn, but it was almost all gone now. Becky stared at it worriedly, wondering how she was going to get the fields hayed without Granddad to help.

“Do you milk the cows?” Rourke asked.

“Yes. Mack helps. He's pretty good at it, too. We churn and make our own butter and buttermilk.”

He stopped and looked down at her, still holding her soft hand in his lean, strong one. “By choice?” he asked.

She smiled and shook her head. “Necessity. We have to budget like mad, even with Granddad's pension. I used to make most of my own clothes, but now it's cheaper to buy them, with the cost of material so high. I can food in the summer and put it up in the pantry. We buy a side of beef for the freezer. I make my own breads. We get by.”

“I can imagine that keeping the boys in school clothes is a full-time job,” he said.

“Mack's, yes. Clay's buying his own now,” she said with unexpected bitterness. “Designer things. He wasn't satisfied with the things I could afford for him.”

“He's old enough to buy his own,” he reminded her. “And that's one financial burden you don't have.”

“Yes, but…”

His eyes narrowed speculatively. “But, what?”

She looked up. She wanted so much to trust him, but she couldn't tell him her suspicions. Whatever else Clay was, he was her brother. “Oh, nothing,” she said, and forced a smile. “The barn dates back to the early 1900s. The original one burned about 1898. We have a photograph of it, and so does the local historical society. This one is a duplicate of the original, but not quite so old.”

He let her change the subject without an argument, smiling to himself as she walked alongside him. There was time, he thought. Meanwhile, he was enjoying himself. Most Sundays he spent alone, working. This was a refreshing change.

She led him through the dry brush of the field and into a grove of pecan and oak trees to a small creek. An old oak stump sat near it, and Becky patted it.

“This is Granddad's pouting stump,” she explained as she sat on it, tugging Rourke down beside her. There was plenty of room, because it had been a huge tree. “He cut it down because he wanted someplace to sit and fish from, but he used to tell us that it was his pouting stump. He'd come out here and sit when Grandma made him mad. Eventually he'd get hungry and come back to the house,” she added with a laugh.

“What was your grandmother like?” he asked.

“Like me, mostly,” she recalled. “She wasn't pretty, but she had a good sense of humor and she was a terrific cook. She liked to throw things at Granddad when she got mad at him. Pots, pans—once she threw a bowl of oatmeal and hit him with it. He was a walking mess.”

He threw back his dark head and roared. “What did he do?”

“He took a bath,” she replied. “Afterward, he and Grandma went off into their room, and it got quiet for a long time.” She sighed. “They were so happy. I think the fact that my father and mother were so miserable together hurt them. My father was always in trouble with the law or somebody he owed money to, or some woman's husband. He ran around on Mama. That was what killed her, I think. One day she got pneumonia and she just lay there and died. The doctor came and we gave her the medicine, but she had no will to live.”

“Some men don't take to marriage, I guess,” Rourke said gruffly. He lit a cigar and blew out a cloud of smoke. “It's a pity he didn't realize it before he took the plunge.”

“That's what Granddad used to say.” She smiled wistfully. “He's still my father, you know, no matter what he's done. But I used to dread having him turn up. He always needed money and expected us to cough it up. Sometimes, he took the very food out of our mouths, but Granddad never refused him.” She studied her jeans-clad legs, unaware of Rourke's murderous expression. “I guess I'd feel that way about my children, so I can't really blame Granddad.”

He didn't say anything. He was looking at Becky, trying to imagine how hard it had really been for her. She never complained about her lot in life, and she could even defend a man like her father. Incredible. He was less forgiving and far less understanding. He'd have enjoyed putting the man away for life.

“You do blame him, don't you?” she asked suddenly, looking up to see the hardness in his face, his dark eyes. “You're very rigid in your principles, Mr. Prosecutor.”

“Yes, I am,” he agreed without argument. “Inflexible, I've been called. But someone has to take a stand against lawlessness and not back down, Becky. Otherwise, criminals would rule the world. These bleeding-heart liberals would have you believe that we'd have a better world if we made everything legal. But all we'd have is a jungle. Do I have to tell you who comes out on top in any jungle or wilderness?”

“The predator who's the strongest and most bloodthirsty,” she said without thinking, and shivered inwardly at the images that ran through her mind. “It's hard for me to imagine the kind of person who can kill without compunction, but I guess you've seen plenty of them.”

He nodded. “Fathers who've raped daughters, women who've strangled their own children, a man who shot and killed another man for taking his parking space.” He smiled at her striken expression. “Shocked? So are most decent people when they hear about such crimes. In fact, some of them sit on juries and bring in a verdict of innocent in those kinds of cases, because they simply can't believe that any human being would do that to another human being.”

“I can understand that.” She felt a little sick. “It must be hard for you sometimes, when you prosecute some of those people and they get turned loose.”

“You can't imagine what it's like,” he said. His eyes kindled with memories. “King Henry the Eighth had a Star Chamber—a group of men who were thought of as the law beyond the law. They had the power of life and death over criminals who were turned loose even though they were guilty. I don't approve, but I can see the rationale behind such courts. My God, the corruption you see in public office is almost beyond belief.”

“Why doesn't somebody do something?” Becky asked innocently.

“Now, that's a good question. Some of us are trying to. But it can get hairy when the power and wealth is all in the hands of the people you're trying to convict.”

“I begin to see the light.”

“Good. In that case, let's talk about something more cheerful,” he said, taking a puff from the cigar. “Where do you want to eat tomorrow?”

“Lunch, again?” she asked softly.

He chuckled. “Tired of me already?”

“Oh, no,” she said with such fervent emotion that he felt ashamed for baiting her. He stared down into her soft eyes, and felt himself being pulled into them. Bedroom eyes. Hazel fires that could burn a man for life. He had no desire to escape them anymore.

He got up slowly, grinding out the cigar under his shoe. The woods were so quiet that only the bubbling of the creek could be heard above the pounding of Becky's own heart as he reached for her. She went willingly, her hands flat against his broad chest under his jacket, feeling warm muscle beneath his knit shirt. She could feel his heartbeat, almost as hard and quick as her own. She lifted her face, unnerved by the fierce darkness of his eyes, the hardness of his lean face above her.

His hands bit in at her waist, holding her against him. He prolonged the look until she felt as if she'd caught a live wire in her hands. “No, don't look away,” he said roughly when she tried to.

“I can't bear it,” she whispered shakily.

“Yes, you can.” His breathing became audible. “I can almost see your soul.”

“Rourke,” she ground out.

“Bite me,” he whispered against her mouth as he took it.

He'd kissed her before, but this hunger was new. He made her want to bite and claw. He aroused something inside her that he hadn't been able to touch before. She obeyed him, nipping his lower lip, catching it in her teeth. Her nails scored down his knit shirt and he shuddered.

“Get it out of the way,” he said huskily. “Touch me…”

His mouth bit into hers with a ferocity that might have frightened her only a week before. But now she was hungry, as he was—hungry to know him in every way there was, beginning with this way. She tugged at his shirt until the hem came out of his slacks. Her hands fumbled their way under it and up until they tangled in the thicket of curling black hair that covered his warm, hard chest. She moaned at the intimacy of it, her mind scrambling for reason as her body denied the need for it. She moved closer without the urging of his hands, her legs against his, her stomach registering the sudden hardness of him, the urgency of the mouth invading hers.

“Becky,” he groaned in anguish. His hands slid to the back of her thighs and pulled, lifting her into total contact with his blatant maleness.

She gasped, but she didn't protest. She couldn't. It was like pure electricity bonding them there, sending her into a sensual oblivion that made her tremble in his arms.

He let her slide to the ground all at once and turned away to lean his hands against a big oak trunk. He dragged her into his lungs and shivered with frustrated desire. It was getting harder and harder to draw back. He couldn't remember ever having to before, except with his damned fiancée. But Becky wasn't like her. Becky would give him anything he wanted—right here, right now, standing up if he wanted it that way. She was his for the taking. But she wasn't that kind of woman and he didn't want to force her into doing something that would torment her later. He could keep his head, if he just recited points of law until the pain stopped.

Becky sat down heavily on the stump with her arms wrapped around herself, staring down at the leaf-littered ground. She knew that they were headed for disaster. It was hurting him to deny his need, even though he respected her enough not to ask her to satisfy it. She felt guilty. It certainly wasn't fair to him to continue a dead-end relationship with her. Friendship wasn't going to be enough. He'd said he hadn't been with a woman in a long time, and that fact alone was going to fan the fire until he couldn't bear it any longer.

“You shouldn't see me again, Rourke,” she said in a barren tone, and without looking at him. “This isn't going to work.”

He pushed himself away from the tree and turned to face her. He was pale, but well in command of himself. “Isn't it? I thought I'd just proved that it would.”

“It isn't fair to ask a man to torture himself, just for companionship.” She kept her eyes on the ground. “I've got all I can handle right now, you know. Granddad and Clay—and Mack. If it was just myself, principles and all, I don't think I'd be strong enough to deny you. But…”

He sat beside her and turned her to face him with gentle hands. “I'm not asking you for anything, Rebecca,” he said softly. “We'll muddle through.” He smiled crookedly. “I've never enjoyed anything as much as I enjoy your company. Except maybe your cooking,” he added ruefully. “I can handle my glands. When it gets too much for me, I'll say so.”

She frowned, unconvinced. “It's hurting you,” she said. “Don't you think I know? Rourke, I'm a dinosaur. I wasn't ever prepared for the real world, and I've lived like a recluse all these years. You deserve so much more than me.”

“Do I?” He framed her face in his hands and kissed her warmly, his smoky breath mingling with hers. “You'll do, thanks. But we'd better not spend too much time alone, from now on.”