True love or blind justice. Only she can decide.

Coworkers, acquaintances and former lovers know Rourke Kilpatrick as a dashing district attorney who doesn’t let emotions get in his way. If he breaks a heart or bends the law to prosecute a criminal, he does so without apology. That’s why he is the first person twenty-four-year-old Rebecca Cullen calls for advice when the younger brother she’s been forced to raise by herself gets arrested on trumped-up drug charges.

To her surprise, Rourke returns her call, and displays a sympathy that seems totally at odds with his reputation. One night, their lips finally meet, and all Rebecca wants is to feel Rourke’s arms around her—forever. But is she the one woman to break through Rourke’s protective barriers, or is the man she’s falling in love with just using her to investigate a crime? Does Rebecca dare trust someone who has the power to destroy her family…and break her heart?

Praise for New York Times bestselling author

“Palmer demonstrates, yet again, why she’s the queen of desperado quests for justice and true love.”

—Publishers Weekly on Dangerous

“The popular Palmer has penned another winning novel, a perfect blend of romance and suspense.”

—Booklist on Lawman

“The dialogue is charming, the characters likable and the sex sizzling.”

—Publishers Weekly on Once in Paris

“Sensual and suspenseful.”

—Booklist on Lawless

“Diana Palmer is a mesmerizing storyteller who captures the essence of what a romance should be.”

—Affaire de Coeur

“Nobody tops Diana Palmer when it comes to delivering pure, undiluted romance. I love her stories.”

—New York Times bestselling author Jayne Ann Krentz

Night Fever

Diana Palmer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Linda

Dear Reader,

I wrote Night Fever back in 1990, when my memories of working in law offices were a little more recent than they are now. I had the opportunity to do revisions, but elected not to, since the law has changed so much in these many years.

I have a great respect for the law and its enforcement. My great-grandfather was a U.S. Marshal who was shot and killed in the line of duty. Two of my great-uncles were peace officers, and I have in-laws and friends today who work for various law enforcement agencies.

I am very proud of the justice system in my small north Georgia county, and I salute the judges and district attorneys and defense attorneys, the state, county and local police officers and sheriff’s personnel, the parole and probation officers, and the other law enforcement personnel who keep us all safe and dispense justice fairly.

In this book there is an African-American defense attorney who has a link to Atlanta. This character is my way of paying tribute to my favorite mayor, Maynard Jackson. When I was a very small-time young reporter, I wrote him a letter in which I expressed my admiration for his courage and sense of civic duty—and then as a postscript asked about his solid waste management plan, because I was doing a series of articles on the subject for my paper. He had the head of his department call me on the phone the day he received the letter. That’s the sort of person he was. It made me very proud that they gave his name to the airport. He was, like the other fine mayors of that great city, a very special sort of politician. The character in my book is pure fiction, but he salutes a person I greatly admired.

I hope you enjoy Night Fever.

Love,

Diana Palmer

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter One

1990. The elevator was crowded. Rebecca Cullen was trying to balance three cups in a box without spilling coffee all over the floor. Maybe if she learned to do this really well, she thought, she could join a circus and go on stage with her performance. The lids on the foam cups weren’t secure—as usual. The man who worked the counter at the small drugstore downstairs didn’t look twice at women like Rebecca, and who cared if coffee spilled all over a thin, nondescript woman in an out-of-style gray suit?

He probably figured her for Ms. Businesswoman, she thought—some rabid man-hater with a string of degrees after her name and a career in place of a husband and kids. Wouldn’t he be shocked to see her at home on Granddad’s farm, in cutoff jeans and a tank top in summer, which this wasn’t, with her mass of gold-streaked light brown hair down to her waist, and barefoot? This suit was pure camouflage.

Becky was a country girl, and the sole support of her retired grandfather and her two younger brothers. Their mother had died when she was sixteen and their father only stopped in to visit when he was broke and needed money. He’d moved to Alabama a couple of years back and none of them had heard from him since. Becky didn’t care if she never did again. She had a good job. In fact, the law firm’s recent relocation to Curry Station worked to her favor because her office in the industrial complex right outside Atlanta was now only a short drive from Granddad’s farm where they all lived. It was just like coming home, because her people had lived in Curry County for more than a hundred years.

She didn’t have a complaint about her job, except that she wished her bosses would remember to buy a new coffee urn before much longer. This several-times-daily trip down to the drugstore snack counter was getting to be a grind. There were three other secretaries, a receptionist, and two paralegals in the office, but they had seniority. Becky got to do the mule work. She grimaced as she headed for the elevator, hoping she wouldn’t run into her nemesis on the way up to the sixth floor.

Her hazel eyes scanned the area quickly. She relaxed as soon as she was able to conclude that the towering figure was not waiting around the elevators. It wasn’t bad enough that he had a stare like black ice, or that he seemed to hate women in general and her in particular. But he also smoked those god-awful thin black cigars. In an elevator, they were pure hell. She wished somebody would tell him that there was a city ordinance against smoking in crowded public places. She meant to, but there always seemed to be a crowd around, and for all Becky’s toughness of spirit, she was shy in crowds. But one day it would be just her and that man, and she’d tell him how she felt about his extremely smelly cigars.

Her mind drifted as she waited for the slow-moving elevator to descend. She had worse problems than the cigar man, she reminded herself. Granddad was still recovering from the heart attack two months ago that had brought his career as a farmer to an abrupt halt. Now Becky was feeling the increased burden keenly. Unless she could learn to run the tractor and grow crops, in addition to working as a legal secretary six days a week, Granddad’s truck farm was destined to be a total loss. Her oldest brother, Clay, was a senior in high school, constantly in trouble these days, and no help at all around the house. Mack was in the fifth grade and failing math. He was a willing helper, but too small to do much. Becky herself was twenty-four, and she’d never had a social life at all. She’d just barely finished school when her mom had died and her father had taken off for parts unknown.

Becky allowed her thoughts to drift for a moment, wondering what her life could have been like. There might have been parties and nice clothes and men to take her on dates. She smiled at the thought of not having people depend on her.

“Excuse me,” a woman with an attaché case muttered, almost upending the coffee all over Becky.

She came out of her daydream in time to pile aboard the elevator, already crowded from its trip to the garage in the basement. She managed to wedge in between a woman who reeked of perfume and two men who were arguing, loudly, the benefits of two rival computers. It was a blinding relief when they, and almost everyone else, including the abundantly fragrant lady, got off on the third and fourth floors.

“Oh, God, I hate computers,” Becky sighed out loud as the elevator slowly began climbing to the sixth floor.

“So do I,” came a gruff, disgruntled voice from behind her.

She almost upset the coffee as she turned to see who had spoken. She had thought she was alone in the elevator. How she could have missed the man was the real question. She was only slightly above average height, but he had to be at least six foot two. It wasn’t just the height, though—it was the man’s build. He was muscular, with a physique that would have done a professional athlete proud. He had lean, beautiful, dark hands and big feet, and when he didn’t smell of cigar smoke, he wore the sexiest cologne Becky had ever smelled. But his masculine beauty ended at his face. She couldn’t remember ever having seen such a rough-looking man.

His face was all sharp angles and fierceness. He had thick black eyebrows and deep-set, narrow black eyes with a peculiar piercing quality. His nose was straight and elegant. He had a cleft chin—not terribly cleft, but noticeable. His face was kind of long and lean, with high cheekbones, and he had the kind of dark complexion that was natural and didn’t come from sitting in the sun. His mouth was wide and well-formed. She’d never seen it smile. He was in his midthirties, but there were some hard lines in that dark face, and he had a coldness of manner that chilled her. His very best quality was his voice. It was deep and clear and very resonant—the kind of voice that could caress or cut, depending on his mood—and it projected easily.

He was well-dressed, in an obviously expensive dark gray pin-striped suit, with a white cotton shirt and silk paisley tie beneath it. And she thought she had avoided him, for once. Maybe it was her karma.

“Oh. It’s you again,” she said with resignation. She pushed the jolted foam coffee cups back into place. “Do you by any chance own the elevator?” she asked. “I mean, every time I get on it, here you are, scowling and muttering. Don’t you ever smile?”

“When I find something to smile about, you’ll be the first to see it,” he said, bending his dark head to light a pungent cigar. He had the thickest, blackest, straightest hair she’d ever seen. He looked rather Italian, except for his high cheekbones, and the shape of his face.

“I hate cigar smoke,” she said, to break the silence.

“Then stop breathing until the doors open,” he replied carelessly.

“You are the rudest man I’ve ever met!” she exclaimed, turning back, infuriated, to watch the floors light up on the elevator panel.

“You haven’t met me,” he pointed out.

“Oh, lucky, lucky me,” she said.

There was a muffled sound from behind her. “Do you work in this building?”

“I don’t really work for a living.” She glanced at him over her shoulder with a venomous smile. “I’m the kept woman of one of the attorneys at Malcolm, Randers, Tyler, and Hague.”

His dark eyes slid down her trim figure, in its extremely conventional suit, to her small-heeled shoes, then back up again to her face, which had not a trace of makeup on it today. She had nice hazel eyes that matched her tawny hair, high cheekbones, a full mouth, and a straight nose, but her face was rather quiet. He guessed that she could look more attractive when she made the effort.

“He must have failing vision,” he said finally.

Becky’s eyes sparkled and narrowed as she got a firm grip on the cup holder and her own temper. Oh, the joy of dousing him with steaming black coffee, even if she had asked for it. But that might have unfortunate consequences. She needed her job, and he might know her bosses.

“He is not blind,” she made a half turn toward him and replied haughtily. “I make up for my lack of looks with a fantastic bedroom technique. First I smother him in honey,” she whispered conspiratorially, leaning forward, “and then I bring in specially trained ants...”

He lifted the cigar to his mouth and took a draw from it, blowing out a thick cloud of smoke. “I hope you take his clothes off first,” he said. “Honey is hard to get out of fabric. This is my floor.”

She stepped back to let him off, glaring at him. This wasn’t their first encounter. He’d been making terrible remarks and scoring off her since the first day she’d been in the building, and she was heartily sick of him—whoever he was.

“Have a nice day,” she drawled sweetly.

He didn’t even turn. “I was, until you came along.”

“Why don’t you take your cigar and stick it up your...?!”

After the doors closed off her last word, the car carried her unwillingly up to the fourteenth floor, where a man and woman were waiting to go down.

She noticed the floor number with a sigh. He was ruining her life. Why did he have to work in this building, when there was all of Atlanta for him to get lost in?

The elevator descended, and this time it opened on the sixth floor. Still fuming, she went into her bosses’ lavish office, glancing as she walked at Maggie and Jessica, the other two secretaries, hard at work on opposite sides of the office. Becky had a cubbyhole adjacent to Bob Malcolm’s. He was the junior partner, and her main boss.

Without knocking, she entered the big office to find Bob and two of his junior colleagues, Harley and Jarard, impatiently waiting for their coffee while Bob talked irritably on the phone.

“Just put it down anywhere, Becky, and thank you,” he said brusquely, with his hand over the receiver. He glanced at one of his colleagues. “Kilpatrick just walked in the door. How’s that for timing?”

Becky passed the cups of coffee quietly and received mumbled thank-yous from Harley and Jarard. Bob began to speak into the telephone again.

“Listen, Kilpatrick, all I want is a conference. I’ve got some new evidence I want you to see.” Her boss banged his fist on the desk and his swarthy face reddened. “Dammit, man, do you have to be so inflexible?!” He sighed angrily, “All right, all right. I’ll be up in five minutes.” He slammed the receiver down. “My God, I’m praying he won’t run for reelection,” he said heavily. “This is only the second week I’ve had to deal with him, and I’m already sweating blood! Give me Dan Wade any day!”

Dan Wade was the Atlanta judicial circuit’s D.A. Becky knew he was a nice man. But here in Curry County, the district attorney was Rourke Kilpatrick. Perhaps, she thought optimistically, her employer had just gotten off on the wrong foot with Kilpatrick. He was probably every bit as nice as Dan Wade when you got to know him.

She started to point this out to Mr. Malcolm when Harley broke in. “Can you blame him?” Harley asked. “He’s had more death threats in the past month over this drug war than any president. He’s a hard man, and he won’t back down. I’ve had a couple of cases down here before, and I know Kilpatrick’s reputation. He can’t be bought. He’s a law-and-order man from the feet up.”

Bob sat back in his plush leather chair. “I get cold chills remembering how Kilpatrick once eviscerated a witness of mine on the stand. She actually had to be tranquilized after she testified.”

“Is Mr. Kilpatrick really that bad?” Becky asked with soft curiosity.

“Yes,” her boss replied. “You’ve never met him, have you? He’s working here in this building now, temporarily, while his office is being redecorated. It’s part of that courthouse renovation the county commission voted in. It’s pretty convenient for us to go up a floor rather than over to the courthouse. Of course, Kilpatrick hates it.”

“Kilpatrick hates most everything, including people.” Hague grinned. “They say that mean temperament comes from his heritage. He’s part Indian—Cherokee, to be exact. His mother came here to live with his father’s people when Kilpatrick’s father died. She died pretty soon afterward, so Kilpatrick became the ward of his uncle. The uncle was the head of one of the founding families of Curry Station and he literally forced Kilpatrick down local society’s throats. He was a federal judge,” he added, smiling. “I guess that’s where Kilpatrick learned his love of the law. Uncle Kilpatrick, you see, couldn’t be bought.”

“Well, I’ll go up anyway and offer him my soul on behalf of our shady client,” Bob Malcolm said. “Harley, get the brief ready for the Bronson trial, if you don’t mind. And Jarard, Tyler’s down at the clerk’s office working on that estate suit you’re researching.”

“Okay. I’ll get busy,” Harley said with a smile. “You might send Becky up to work on Kilpatrick. She might soften him up.”

Malcolm laughed gently. “He’d eat her for breakfast,” he told the other man. He turned to Becky. “You can help Maggie while I’m away, if you don’t mind. There’s some filing to catch up.”

“Okay,” she said, smiling. “Good luck.”

He whistled, smiling back. “I’ll need it.”

She watched him go with a wistful sigh. He was a caring kind of person, even if he did have the temper of a barracuda.

Maggie showed her the filing that needed doing with an indulgent smile. The petite, thin black woman had been with the firm for twenty years, and she knew where all the bodies were buried. Becky had wondered sometimes if that was why Maggie had job security, because she had a sharp tongue—she could be hard on clients and new secretaries alike. But fortunately, she and Becky got along very well—they even had lunch together from time to time. Maggie was the only person she could talk to except Granddad.

Jessica, the elegant blond secretary on the other side of the office, was Mr. Hague and Mr. Randers’s secretary. She enjoyed her status as Mr. Hague’s after-hours escort—he wasn’t married or likely to be anytime soon—and she primped a lot. Tess Coleman was one of the paralegals—a just-married young blonde with a friendly smile. Nettie Hayes, a black law student, was the other paralegal. The receptionist was Connie Blair, a vivacious brunette who was unmarried and in no hurry to change her status. Becky got along well with the rest of the office staff, but Maggie was still her favorite.

“They’re going to buy a new coffee urn, by the way,” Maggie mentioned while Becky filed. “I can go shopping for it tomorrow.”

“I could go,” Becky offered.

“No, dear, I’ll do it,” Maggie said with a smile. “I want to pick up a present for my sister-in-law while I’m out. She’s expecting.”

Becky smiled back, but halfheartedly. Life was passing her by. She’d never even had a real date, except to go to a VFW Club dance with the grandson of a friend of her grandfather, and that had been a real bust. The boy smoked pot and liked to party, and he didn’t understand why Becky didn’t.

The word around the office was that Becky was an old-fashioned girl. In such a confined society, eligible bachelors were pretty rare anyway, and the few who were left weren’t looking for instant matrimony. Becky had hoped that when the law firm moved to Curry Station, she might have a little more opportunity for a social life. For a suburban area, it did at least have a small-town atmosphere. But even if she found someone to date, how could she afford to get serious about anybody? She couldn’t leave her grandfather alone, and who’d look after Clay and Mack? Daydreams, she thought miserably. She was being sacrificed to look after her family, and there just wasn’t any way out. Her father knew that, but he didn’t care. That was hard to take, too—that he could see how overworked she was and it didn’t even matter to him. That he could go away for two years and not even call or write to see how his kids were.

“You missed two files, Becky,” Maggie said, interrupting her thoughts. “Don’t be careless, dear,” she added with an affectionate smile.

“Yes, Maggie,” Becky said quietly, and put her mind to the job.

She drove home late that afternoon in her white Thunderbird. It was one of the older models with bucket seats and a small, squarish body with a Landau roof. But it was still the most elegant thing she’d ever driven, with its burgundy velour seats and power windows, and she loved it, car payments and all.

She’d had to go downtown to pick up some files from one of the attorneys who’d left before the firm moved. She hated midtown Atlanta, and was glad not to be working there anymore, but today it seemed even more hectic than usual. She found a spot in a car park, got the files, and hurried back out—just in time to get in the thick of rush hour.

The traffic going past the Tenth Street exit was terrible, and it got worse past the Omni. But down around Grady Hospital, it began to thin out, and by the time she passed the stadium and the exit to the Hartsfield International Airport, she was able to relax again.

Twenty minutes down the road, she crossed into Curry County, and five minutes later, she rounded the square in Curry Station, still several minutes away from the massive suburban office complex where her bosses had their new offices.

Curry Station looked pretty much the way it had since the Civil War. The obligatory Confederate soldier guarded the town square with his musket, surrounded by benches where old men could sit on a sunny Saturday afternoon and pass the time of day. There was a drugstore, a dry goods store, a grocery, and a newly remodeled theater.

Curry Station still had its magnificent old red-brick courthouse with the huge clock, and it was here that superior court and state court were convened during its sessions. It was also here that the district attorney had his office, which they said was being remodeled. She was curious about Mr. Kilpatrick. She knew of the Kilpatricks, of course—everyone did. The first Kilpatrick had made a fortune in shipping in Savannah before he had moved to Atlanta. Over the years, the wealth had diminished, but she understood that Kilpatrick drove a Mercedes-Benz and lived in a mansion. He couldn’t do that on a district attorney’s salary. Curious, some said, that he’d chosen to run for that particular office when, with his University of Georgia law degree, he could have gone into private practice and made millions.

Rourke Kilpatrick had been appointed by the governor to fill the unexpired term of the previous D.A., who’d died in office. When his term ended a year later, Kilpatrick had surprised everyone by winning the election. It wasn’t the usual thing in Curry County for appointees to garner popular support at the polls.

Even so, Becky hadn’t been interested enough to pay much attention to the district attorney before. Her duties didn’t involve courtroom drama, and she stayed much too busy at home to watch the news, so Kilpatrick was only a name to her.

Her mind drifted as she stared out her windshield at the residential area she was passing through. There were a number of stately homes on the main street of town, ringed by big oak and pine trees, and dogwoods that spread their petals wide in the spring in white and pink splendor. On the back roads to town were several old farms whose tumbledown barns and houses gave silent testimony to the stubborn pride of the Georgians who had held on to them for generations, no matter what the sacrifice.

One of those old farms belonged to Granger Cullen, the third Cullen to inherit it in a genealogy that dated to the Civil War in Georgia. The Cullens had always managed somehow to hold on to their hundred-acre possession. The farm was ramshackle these days, with a white clapboard house that needed everything done to it. There was television, but no cable because it was too expensive. There was a telephone, but on a party line with three neighbors who never got off the phone. There was city water and city sewerage, for which Becky thanked her lucky stars, but the plumbing tended to freeze up in winter and there never seemed to be enough gas in the tank to heat the house until money was saved to buy more.

Becky parked the car in the leaning shed that served as a garage, and then just sat and looked around. The fences were half down, rusted, and held up with posts that had all but decayed. The trees were bare, because it was winter, and the field had grown up with broom sage and beggar lice. It needed turning over before spring planting, but Becky couldn’t operate the tractor and Clay was too wild to trust with it. There was plenty of hay in the loft of the old barn to feed the two cows they kept for milking, plenty of mash to feed the hens, and corn to add to the bulk of food the animals ate. Thanks to Becky’s tireless efforts last summer, the big freezer was full of vegetables and the pantry had canned things in it. But that would all be gone by summer, and more would have to be put up. In the meanwhile, Becky had to work. Her whole life was one long, endless sequence of work. She’d never been to a party, or to a fancy dance. She’d never worn silk against her skin, or expensive perfume. She’d never had her long hair professionally cut or her nails manicured, and probably she never would. She’d grow old taking care of her family and wishing for a way out.

She felt guilty at her own horrible self-pity. She loved her grandfather and her brothers, and she shouldn’t blame them for her lack of freedom. After all, she’d been raised in a way that would prevent her from enjoying any kind of modern life-style. She couldn’t sleep around because it was against her nature to be that casual about something so profound. She couldn’t do drugs or guzzle booze because she had no head for alcohol and even small amounts put her to sleep. She opened the car door and got out. She couldn’t even smoke, because it choked her. As a social animal, she was a dead loss, she mused.

“I was never meant for jet planes and computers,” she told the chickens staring at her from the barnyard. “I was meant for calico and buckskin.”

“Granddad! Becky’s talking to the chickens again!” Mack yelled from the barn.

Granddad was sitting on the sunny side of the porch in a cane-bottomed chair, grinning at his granddaughter. He was wearing a white shirt and sweater with his overalls, and he looked healthier than he had in weeks. It was warm for a February afternoon, almost springlike.

“As long as they don’t answer her back, it’ll be okay, Mack,” he called back to the grinning, towheaded youngster.

“Have you done your homework?” Becky asked her youngest brother.

“Aw, Becky, I just got home! I have to feed my frog!”

“Excuses, excuses,” she murmured. “Where’s Clay?”

Mack didn’t answer. He disappeared quickly into the barn. Becky saw Granddad avert his eyes to toy with his stick and pocketknife as she climbed the steps, purse in hand.

“What’s wrong?” she asked the old man, placing an affectionate hand on his shoulder.

He shrugged, his balding silvery head bent. He was a tall man, very thin and stooped since his heart attack, and brown from years of outside work. He had age marks on the backs of his long-fingered hands and wrinkles in his face that looked like road ruts in the rain. He was sixty-six now, but he looked much older. His life had been a hard one. He and Becky’s grandmother had lost two children in a flood and one to pneumonia. Only Becky’s father, Scott, of all their four children, had survived to adulthood, and Scott had been a source of constant trouble to everybody. Including his wife. It said on the death certificate that Becky, Mack, and Clay’s mother, Henrietta, had died of pneumonia. But Becky was sure that she had simply given up. The responsibility for three children and a sick father, added to her own poor health and Scott’s ceaseless gambling and womanizing, had broken her spirit.

“Clay’s gone off with those Harris kids,” her grandfather said finally.

“Son and Bubba?” she sighed. They had given names, but like many Southern boys, they had nicknames that had little to do with their Christian appelations. The name Bubba was common, like Son and Buster and Billy-Bob and Tub. Becky didn’t even know their given names, because nobody used them. The Harris boys were in their late teens and they both had drivers’ licenses. In their case, it was more like a license to kill. Both brothers were drug users and she’d heard rumors that Son was a pusher. He drove a big blue Corvette and always had money. He’d quit school at sixteen. Becky didn’t like either one of the boys and she’d told Clay as much. But apparently he wasn’t taking any advice from his big sister if he was out with the scalawags.

“I don’t know what to do,” Granger Cullen said quietly. “I tried to talk to him, but he wouldn’t listen. He told me he was old enough to make his own decisions, and that you and I had no rights over him. He cussed me. Imagine that, a seventeen-year-old boy cussing his own grandfather?”

“That doesn’t sound like Clay,” she replied. “It’s only since Christmas that he’s been so unruly. Since he started hanging around with the Harris boys, really.”

“He didn’t go to school today,” her grandfather added. “He hasn’t gone for two days. The school called and wanted to know where he was. His teacher called, too. She says his grades are low enough to fail him. He won’t graduate if he can’t pull them up. Then where’ll he be? Just like Scott,” he said heavily. “Another Cullen gone bad.”

“Oh, my goodness.” Rebecca sat down heavily on the porch steps, letting the wind brush her cheeks. She closed her eyes. From bad to worse, didn’t the saying go?

Clay had always been a good boy, trying to help with the chores and look out for Mack, his younger brother. But in the past few months, he’d begun to change. His grades had dropped. He had become moody and withdrawn. He stayed out late and sometimes couldn’t get up to go to school at all. His eyes were bloodshot and he’d come in once giggling like a little girl over nothing at all—symptoms, Becky was to learn, of cocaine use. She’d never seen Clay actually use drugs, but she was certain that he was smoking pot, because she’d smelled it on his clothes and in his room. He’d denied it and she could never find any evidence. He was too careful.

Lately, he’d begun to resent her interference in his life more and more. She was only his sister, he’d said just two nights ago. She had no real authority over him, and she wasn’t going to tell him what to do anymore. He was tired of living like a poor kid and never having money to spend, like the Harris boys. He was going to make himself a place in the world, and she could go to hell.

Becky hadn’t told Granddad. It was hard enough trying to excuse Clay’s bad behavior and frequent absences. She could only hope that he wasn’t headed toward addiction. There were places that treated that kind of thing, but they were for rich people. The best she could hope for, for her brother, would be some sort of state-supported rehabilitation center, and Granddad wouldn’t agree to that even if Clay would. Granddad wanted nothing that even looked like charity. He was too proud.

So here they were, Becky thought, staring out over the land that had been in her family for over a hundred years, hopelessly in debt, and with Clay headed for trouble. They said that even an alcoholic couldn’t be helped unless he realized he had a problem. Clay didn’t. It was not the best ending to what had started off as a perfectly terrible day anyway.

Chapter Two

Becky changed into jeans and a red pullover sweater and gathered her long hair into a ponytail to cook supper. While she fried chicken to go with the mashed potatoes and home-canned green beans, she baked biscuits in the old oven. Maybe she could straighten Clay out, but she didn’t have a clue as to how. Talking wasn’t going to do the job. She’d tried that herself. Clay either walked away and refused to listen, or flew off the handle and started cursing. And to make matters worse, lately she’d noticed bills missing from the jar containing her egg money. She was almost certain that Clay was taking them, but how could she ask her own brother if he was stealing from her?

In the end, she’d taken the remaining money out of the jar and put it in the bank. She hadn’t left anything around that could be sold or pawned for easy cash. Becky felt like a criminal, which added to her guilt about resenting her responsibility for her family.

There was no one she could talk to about her problems except Maggie, and she hated to bother the older woman with her woes. All her longtime girlfriends were married or out on their own in other cities. It would have helped if she’d only had that. She couldn’t talk to Granddad. His health was precarious enough already, without taking on Clay. So she’d told Granddad that she’d handle it. Maybe she could talk to Mr. Malcolm at work and have him advise her. He was the only person outside her family who might do that.

She put the food on the table and called Mack and her grandfather. He said grace and they ate as they listened to Mack’s complaints about math and teachers and school in general.

“I won’t learn math,” Mack promised her, staring at her with hazel eyes just a shade lighter than her own. His hair was much lighter, almost blond. He was tall for a ten-year-old, and getting taller by the day.

“Yes, you will,” Becky told him. “You’ll have to help keep the books one of these days. I won’t last forever.”

“Here, you stop talking like that,” Granddad said sharply. “You’re too young to talk that way. Although,” he sighed, staring down at his mashed potatoes, “I reckon you feel like running away from time to time. What with all of us to look after...”

“You stop that,” Becky muttered, glaring at him. “I love you or I wouldn’t stay. Eat your mashed potatoes. I made a cherry pie for dessert.”

“Wow! My favorite!” Mack grinned.

“And you can have all you want. After you do your math and I check it,” she added with an equally wide grin.

Mack made a terrible face and propped his chin in his hands. “I shoulda gone with Clay. He said I could.”

“If you ever go with Clay, I’ll take away your basketball and hoop,” she threatened, using the only weapon she had.

He actually paled. Basketball was his life. “Come on, Becky, I was just kidding!”

“I hope so,” she said. “Clay is keeping bad company. I have enough trouble without adding you to it.”

“That’s right,” Granddad seconded.

Mack picked up his fork. “Okay. I’ll keep away from Bill and Dick. Just don’t bother my B-ball.”

“That’s a deal,” Becky promised, and tried not to look too relieved.

She’d done the dishes and cleaned up the living room and washed two loads of clothes while Granddad and Mack watched television. Then she supervised Mack’s homework, got him to bed, settled Granddad, took a bath, and started to go to bed herself. Before she could, however, Clay staggered into the living room, giggling and reeking of beer.

The overpowering maltish smell made her sick. Nothing in her experience had prepared her to deal with this. She stared at him with helpless fury, hating the home life that had led him into such a trap. He was at the age where he needed a man to guide him, a man’s example to follow. He was looking for a measuring stick, and instead of using Granddad, he’d found the Harris brothers.

“Oh, Clay,” she said miserably. He looked so much like her, with his brown hair and slender build, but his eyes were pure green, not hazel like hers and Mack’s, and his face had a ruddy look.

He grinned at her. “I won’t be sick, you know. I smoked a joint before I tanked up on beer.” He blinked. “I’m quitting school, Becky, because it’s for wimps and retards.”

“No, you aren’t,” she said shortly. “I’m not working myself to death to watch you become a professional bum.”

He glared at her dizzily. “You’re just my sister, Becky. You can’t tell me what to do.”

“Stand and watch me,” she said. “I don’t want you hanging around with those Harris boys anymore. They’re leading you right into trouble.”

“They’re my friends, and I’ll hang out with them if I want to,” he informed her. He felt wild. He’d smoked some crack, as well, and his head was about to explode. The high had been beautiful, but now that it was wearing off, he felt more depressed than ever. “I hate being poor!” he announced.

Becky glared at him. “Then get a job,” she said coldly. “I did. I got one even before I graduated from high school. I worked at three before I found this one, and took night courses so that I could land it.”

“Here we go again, Saint Becky,” he said, slurring the words. “So you work. Big deal. What do we have to show for it?! We’re dirt poor, and now that Granddad’s ill, it’ll get worse!”

She felt herself getting sick inside. She knew that, but having Clay fling it in her face didn’t help. He was drunk, she tried to tell herself, he didn’t know what he was saying. It hurt all the same.

“You selfish little boy,” she said angrily. “You ungrateful brat! I’m working myself to death, and here you are complaining that we don’t have anything!”

He swayed, sat down heavily, and took a slow breath. She probably was right, but he was too stoned to care. “Leave me alone,” he muttered, stretching out on the couch. “Just leave me alone.”

“What have you had besides beer and marijuana?” she demanded.

“A little crack,” he said drowsily. “Everybody does it. Leave me alone—I’m sleepy.”

He sprawled and closed his eyes. He was asleep at once. Becky stood over him in stunned agony. Crack. She’d never seen it, but she knew very well what it was from the news—an illegal drug. She had to stop him somehow before he got in over his head. The first step was going to be keeping him away from those Harris boys. She didn’t know how she was going to manage it, but she’d have to find a way.

She covered him with a blanket, because it was simpler to let him sleep where he was than to cope with moving him. Clay was already almost six feet tall, and he weighed more than she did. She couldn’t lift him. Crack, of all things. She didn’t have to wonder how he’d gotten it, either. His friends had probably given it to him. Well, with any luck, it would only be this once and she’d stop him before he could do it again.

She went into her bedroom and lay down on the worn coverlet in her cotton gown, feeling old. Perhaps things would look better in the morning. She could ask Reverend Fox at church to talk to Clay—that might do a little good. Kids needed something to hold on to, to get them through the hard times. Drugs and religion were opposite ends of a security blanket, and religion was certainly preferable. Her own faith had taken her through some storms.

She closed her eyes and slept. The next morning, she got Mack off to school, but Clay wouldn’t get up.

“We’ll talk when I get home,” she told him firmly. “You aren’t going out with those boys again.”

“Want to bet?” he asked her, his eyes challenging. “Stop me. What can you do?”

“Wait and see,” she replied, mentally praying she could think of something.

She went to work worrying about it. She’d settled Granddad and asked him to talk to Clay, but he seemed to want to hide his head in the sand about Clay’s difficult behavior. Perhaps it was the fact that he’d failed so miserably with Scott, his son, and couldn’t admit that he was failing again with his grandson. The old man had a double dose of pride.

Maggie glanced at her as she sat brooding at her desk. “Anything I can do?” she asked softly, so that nobody else could hear.

“No, but thank you,” Becky told her with a smile. “You’re a nice lady, Maggie.”

“Just a fellow human being,” the older woman corrected. “Life has storms, but they pass. Just hang on to the tree until the wind stops, that’s all you have to do. After all, Becky, no wind blows forever, good or bad.”

Becky laughed. “I’ll try to remember that.”

And she did. Right up until that afternoon when the call came from the magistrate’s office, informing her that Clay had been picked up for drug possession. Mr. Gillen, the magistrate, told her that he’d called the D.A. and they’d both talked to Clay, after which they’d sent him over to the juvenile detention center while they decided whether or not to book him. He had a pocketful of crack when he’d been picked up, drunk, in the company of the Harris boys outside town.

The decision to press charges for felony possession was up to the D.A., Mr. Gillen said, and Becky could bet that if Kilpatrick had enough evidence, he’d go for a conviction. He was very hard on people who dealt drugs.

Becky thanked Gillen for telephoning her personally and walked immediately into Bob Malcolm’s office to ask for advice.

Mr. Malcolm patted her absently on the shoulder after he’d closed the door, to spare her any scrutiny by people in the waiting room.

“What do I do? What can I do?” Becky asked him miserably. “They say he’s got over an ounce and a half on him. That it could mean a felony charge.”

“Becky, it’s your father who should do something,” he said firmly.

“He isn’t in town right now,” she said. Well, it was true. He hadn’t been in town for two years, and he hadn’t been responsible for his children ever. “And my grandfather isn’t well,” she added. “He has a bad heart.”

Bob Malcolm shook his head and sighed. He said, after a minute, “Okay. We’ll go see the D.A. and try to talk to him. I’ll phone and make an appointment. Maybe we can make a deal.”

“With Mr. Kilpatrick? I thought you said he didn’t make deals,” she said nervously.

“It depends on the severity of the charge, and how much evidence he has. He doesn’t like to waste the taxpayers’ money on a trial he can’t win. We’ll see.”

He spoke to the D.A.’s secretary and was told that Rourke Kilpatrick had a few minutes free right now.

“We’ll be right up,” he told her and hung up. “Let’s go, Becky.”

“I hope he’s in a good mood,” she said, and glanced in the mirror. Her hair was neatly in its bun, her face pale even with its hint of pastel makeup. But her red plaid wool skirt showed its three years, and her black shoes were scuffed and scratched. The cuffs on her long-sleeved white blouse were frayed, and her slender hands showed the ravages of the work she did on the farm. She was no lady of leisure and there were lines in her face that should never have been noticeable in a woman her age. She was afraid she wouldn’t make much of an impression on Mr. Kilpatrick. She looked what she was—an overworked, overresponsible country woman with no sophistication at all. And maybe that would work in her favor. She couldn’t let Clay go to prison. She owed her mother that much. She’d failed him too many times already.

Mr. Kilpatrick’s secretary was tall and dark-haired and very professional. She greeted Mr. Malcolm and Becky warmly.

“He’s waiting for you,” she said, gesturing toward the closed office door. “You can go right in.”

“Thanks, Daphne,” Mr. Malcolm replied. “Come on, Becky, chin up.”

He knocked briefly at the door and opened it, letting Becky precede him. He shouldn’t have. She stopped dead at the face she met across the big wooden desk piled high with legal documents.

“You!” she exclaimed involuntarily.

He put down the thin black cigar he was smoking and stood up. He didn’t acknowledge the exclamation or smile or make any kind of attempt at a formal greeting. He looked just as intimidating as he had in the elevator, and just as cold.

“You didn’t need to bring your secretary to take notes,” he told Bob Malcolm. “If you want to plea bargain, I’ll stick to what I tell you after I hear the facts. Sit down.”

“It’s the Cullen case.”

“The juvenile.” Kilpatrick nodded. “The boys he’s running with are scum. The younger Harris boy has been pushing drugs in the local high school between classes. His brother deals everything from crack to horse, and he’s already got one conviction for attempted robbery. That time he walked in and out of juvenile hall, but he’s of age now. If I catch him again, I’ll send him up.”

Becky had been sitting stock-still. “And the Cullen boy?” she asked in a husky whisper.

Kilpatrick gave her a cold glare. “I’m talking to Malcolm, not to you.”

“You don’t understand,” she said heavily. “Clay Cullen is my brother.”

His dark brown, almost black eyes narrowed and he gave her a look that made her feel half an inch high. “Cullen is a name I know. Another Cullen was in here a few years ago on a robbery charge. The victim refused to testify and he got off. I would have gone for a conviction without parole if I’d gotten him to trial. Any kin to you?”

She flinched. “My father.”

Kilpatrick didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to. His level stare told her exactly what he thought of her family. You’re wrong, she wanted to say. We’re not all like that. But before she could even speak, he turned back to Malcolm. “Am I right in assuming that you’re representing your secretary and her brother?”

“No,” Becky began, thinking of the legal fees she couldn’t afford to pay.

“Yes,” Bob Malcolm interrupted. “It’s a first offense, and the boy is a hardship case.”

“The boy is a sullen, uncooperative young brat,” he corrected. “I’ve already spoken to him. I don’t consider him a hardship case,” Kilpatrick said curtly.

Becky could imagine how Clay would react to a man like Kilpatrick. The boy had no respect at all for men—not with the example his father had set. “He’s not a bad boy,” she pleaded. “It’s the company he’s keeping. Please, I’ll try to work with him...”

“Your father’s done a great job of that already,” Kilpatrick said, totally unaware of the real situation at home as he went for her throat with sickening ease, his dark brown eyes stabbing into hers as he leaned back with his cigar between his big fingers. “There’s no point in letting the boy back on the streets unless his home situation changes. He’ll just do the same thing again.”

Her hazel eyes met his dark ones. “Do you have a brother, Mr. Kilpatrick?”

“Not to my knowledge, Miss Cullen.”

“If you had one, you might understand how I feel. This is the first time he’s done anything like this. It’s like throwing out the baby with the bathwater.”

“This baby was in possession of illegal drugs. Cocaine, to be exact, and not just cocaine—crack.” He leaned forward, looking more Indian than ever, his level, unblinking stare faintly dangerous. “He needs guidance. You and your father quite obviously aren’t capable of giving it to him.”

“That was a low blow, Kilpatrick,” Bob Malcolm said tautly.

“It was an accurate one,” he returned without apology. “At this age, boys don’t change without help. He should have gotten that in the beginning, and it may be too late already.”

“But...!” Becky said.

“Your brother is damned lucky he didn’t get caught peddling any of that poison on the street!” he said shortly. “I hate drug pushers. I’ll go to any lengths to prosecute them.”

“But he isn’t a pusher,” Becky said huskily, her big hazel eyes wet with tears.

Kilpatrick hadn’t felt compassion in a long time, and he didn’t like it. He averted his eyes. “Not yet,” he agreed. He sighed angrily, glancing from Becky to Malcolm. “All right. Gillen, the magistrate, says he’ll go along with whatever I decide. The boy denies possession. He says that he didn’t know how it got in his jacket, and the only witnesses are the Harris boys. They, of course, back his story to the hilt,” he added with a cold smile.

“In other words,” Bob said with a faint smile, “you don’t have much of a case.”

“Chorus and verse,” Kilpatrick agreed. “This time,” Kilpatrick said with a meaningful glance at Becky. “I’ll drop the charges.”

Becky felt sick with relief. “Can I see him?” she asked huskily. She was too badly hurt to say any more, and this man hated her. She’d get no sympathy or help from him.

“Yes. I’ll want Brady at juvenile hall to talk to the boy, and there’ll be a condition for the release. Now, go away. I have work to do.”

“Okay, we’ll get out of the way,” Malcolm said, rising. “Thanks, Kilpatrick,” he said formally.

Kilpatrick got up, too. He stuck one hand in his pocket, staring at Rebecca’s tragic face with mixed emotions. He felt sorry for her, and he didn’t want to. He wondered why her father hadn’t come with her. She was very thin, and the sadness in her oval face was disturbing. It surprised him that it bothered him. These days, very little did. She wasn’t the cocky, amusing companion he’d had several elevator rides with. Not now. She looked totally without hope.

He saw them out the door and went back into his office without a word to his secretary.

“We’ll go over to juvenile hall,” Bob Malcolm was telling Becky as he put her into the elevator and pressed the sixth floor button. “Everything will be all right. If Kilpatrick can’t prove his case, he won’t pursue it. Clay can leave with us.”

“He wouldn’t even listen to me,” she said huskily.

“He’s a hard man. Probably the best D.A. this county’s had in a long time, but sometimes he can be inflexible. Not an easy man to face across a courtroom, either.”

“I can understand that.”

* * *

Becky went to juvenile hall to see her brother after work. She was ushered into a tiny meeting room to wait for him. Clay walked in fifteen minutes later, looking frightened and belligerent all at once.

“Hi, Becky,” he said with a cocky grin. “They didn’t beat me, so you don’t need to worry. They won’t send me to jail. I’ve talked with two other kids who know the ropes. They say juvenile hall is just a slap on the wrist because we’re underage. I’ll beat this rap sitting down.”

“Thank you,” she told him, stiff-lipped and cold-eyed. “Thank you for your generous consideration of your grandfather’s feelings and mine. It’s nice to know that you love us enough to become notorious on our behalf.”

Clay was wild, but he had a heart. He toned down instantly and dropped his eyes.

“Now, tell me what happened,” she said shortly, sitting down across from him after Mr. Brady, the juvenile officer on Clay’s case, joined them.

“Didn’t they tell you?” Clay asked.

“You tell me,” she countered.

He gave her a long look and shrugged. “I was drunk,” he muttered, twisting his hands over his jeans-clad legs. “They said let’s do some crack, and I just nodded. I flaked out in the back seat and didn’t come to until the police stopped us. My pockets were full of the stuff. I don’t know how it got there. Honest, Becky,” he added. His sister and brother and grandfather were the only people on earth he loved. He hated what he’d done, but he was too proud to admit it. “I sobered up real good after Kilpatrick talked to me.”

“Possession of illegal drugs alone could get you a prison term of up to ten years, if the D.A. decided to try you as an adult,” Mr. Brady interjected with a level glance. “And you may not be out of the woods yet. Mr. Kilpatrick, the district attorney, would very much like to nail you to the wall.”

“He can’t. I’m a juvenile.”

“Only for another year. And reform school wouldn’t appeal to you, young man. I can promise you that.”

Clay looked subdued, and a little less belligerent. He twisted his hands in his lap. “I won’t go to jail, will I?”

“Not this time,” the juvenile officer said. “But don’t underestimate Kilpatrick. Your father was pretty arrogant when he beat the robbery charge, and that didn’t endear your family to the D.A. He’s a very moral man. He doesn’t like lawbreakers. It would do you good to remember that. He still thinks your father threatened that victim to keep him from talking.”

“Dad was arrested?” Clay began.

“Never mind,” Becky said, stiffening her features.

He glanced at her, noticing reluctantly the strain in her face, the sadness. He felt a twinge of conscience.

“I’ll say this once,” Mr. Brady told Clay. “You’ve got a chance to keep your nose clean. If you throw it away, no one is going to be able to help you—not your sister or me. You may beat the rap for a while, as long as you’re a juvenile. But you’re seventeen. And if the crime is severe enough, the district attorney would be within his authority to have you prosecuted as an adult. If you keep messing around with drugs, inevitably you’ll serve time. I wish I could show you what that means. Our prisons are overcrowded, and even the best of them are hellholes for young offenders. If you don’t like being ordered around by your sister, you sure as hell aren’t going to like being some older boy’s imitation girlfriend.” He stared at Clay. “Do you understand what I mean, son? They’d pass you around like a new toy.”

Clay reddened. “They wouldn’t! I’d fight...!”

“You’d lose. Think about it. Meanwhile, you’re going to get some counseling,” the juvenile officer said. “We’ve set up appointments for you at the mental health clinic. You’ll be required to go. I hope you understand that this is Kilpatrick’s idea, and that he’ll check on you periodically. I wouldn’t advise you to miss a session.”

“Damn Kilpatrick,” Clay said harshly.

“That’s not a good attitude to take,” Brady warned quietly. “You’re in a lot of trouble. Kilpatrick can be your worst enemy or your best friend. You wouldn’t like him as an enemy.”

Clay muttered something and averted his eyes to the window. He looked as if he hated the whole world.

Becky knew exactly how he felt. She wanted to cry. She clasped her hands together to keep them from trembling.

“Okay, Clay, you can go with your sister for now. We’ll talk again.”

“All right,” Clay said tautly. He got up and reluctantly shook hands with the man. “Come on, Sis. Let’s go home.”

She didn’t speak. She walked to the car like a zombie and got in behind the wheel, barely waiting for Clay to shut his door before she drove away. Inside, she felt sick all the way to her soul.

“I’m sorry I got caught,” Clay said when they were halfway home. “I guess you’re having a pretty hard time of it, being stuck with Granddad and me and Mack.”

“I’m not stuck with it,” she lied. “I love you all.”

“Love shouldn’t make prisons of people’s lives,” Clay said. He glanced sideways at her, with a crafty look in his eyes that she didn’t see. “Really, Becky, I didn’t know what I was getting into.”

“I’m sure you didn’t,” she said, forgiving him anything, just as she always had. She managed a smile. “I just don’t know what to do, how to cope. The district attorney was pretty rough.”

“That Kilpatrick man,” he muttered icily. “God, I hate him! He came to see me at that juvenile hall. He stared right through me and made me feel like a worm. He said I’d wind up just like Dad.”

“You won’t,” she said stubbornly. “He had no right to say such a thing!”

“He didn’t want to let me go,” Clay said hesitantly. “He tried to talk Mr. Brady into putting me in reform school. He got upset when he couldn’t get him to agree. He says anybody who fools with drugs deserves to go to jail.”

“Mr. Kilpatrick can go to hell,” she said fiercely. “We’ll get by.”

“Look,” he began. “I could get a job—after school, you know. I could make some money...”

“I’m doing fine,” she said, almost choking on the words. “You don’t need to get a job,” she added, missing the flash of anger on his face. “I’ll take care of you, just like I always have. You finish school and go to work then. You’ve only got this year to go. That’s not so much.”

“Look, I’m seventeen!” he burst out. “I don’t need looking after anymore! I’m sick of nothing but working around the farm and never having any pocket money. There’s this girl I like and she won’t give me the time of day. You won’t even let me get a damned car!”

“Don’t you cuss me!” she flashed at him. “Don’t you dare!”

“Let me out.” He reached for the door handle, his eyes daring her. “I’ll do it, I swear. Stop this car and let me out!”

“Clay, where are you going?!” she demanded when he was on the pavement.

“Somewhere I can be what I want to be,” he said harshly. “I’m not your little boy, Becky, I’m your brother! You just don’t get it, do you? I’m not a kid you can order around! I’m a man!”

She slumped a little, stretched toward the open door, her hazel eyes weary, her face heavily lined. “Oh, Clay,” she said heavily. “Clay, what am I going to do now?” She broke down, and tears ran down her cheeks.

He hesitated, torn between standing up for his independence and erasing that look from Becky’s face. He hadn’t meant to hurt her, but he wasn’t quite in control of himself these days. He had these violent mood swings....

He slid back inside the car and closed the door, eyeing her warily. He felt suddenly older as he realized how much an act her strength really was. Guilt sat on him like a rock. He should never had added to her burden by acting like a stupid kid.

“Look, it will be all right,” he began hesitantly. “Becky, please stop crying.”

“Granddad will die,” she whispered. She dug for a handkerchief in her purse and wiped her eyes. “He’ll find out, no matter how hard we try to keep it from him.”

“Hey. How about if we move to Savannah?” he suggested, and smiled. “We could build yachts and get rich.”

That brightness lifted her spirits. She smiled back. “Dad would find out that we had money and come looking for us,” she said with graveyard humor.

“They said he’d been arrested. Did you know?” he asked her.

She nodded her head.

He leaned back in his seat, glancing out the window. “Becky, why did he run out on us when Mama died?”

“He ran out on us long before that. You wouldn’t remember, but he was always out with the boys, even when you and Mack were being born. I don’t think he was ever around when we really needed him. Mama gave up eventually.”

“Don’t you give up, Becky,” he said suddenly, turning his gaze back to hers. “I’ll take care of things, don’t you worry.” He was already thinking of ways that he could make enough money to take some of the financial burden off her shoulders. The Harris boys had made one or two suggestions. He didn’t have Becky’s conscience, and there was plenty of money to be made. What she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her, and he’d be careful not to get caught twice.

“Okay.” She turned into the driveway, wondering how to break the news to their grandfather, how to cope with the future.

She hoped Clay would do what the juvenile officer had told him to. She hoped that being arrested had scared him. Maybe it would keep him straight.

She didn’t know what to do. Life had become too complicated. She wanted to run away.

“What are you thinking?” Clay asked with dark perception.

“I was thinking about the chocolate cake I’m going to bake for supper,” she hedged, and smiled at him. The smile took more effort than Clay would ever know.

Chapter Three

Granddad took the news of Clay’s arrest better than Becky had expected him to. It was a blessing that Clay had been arrested in town, and not at home. To his credit, he didn’t balk at going to school, for once. He got on the bus without an argument, with Mack right behind him.

Becky settled Granddad in his armchair in the living room, concerned at his silence.

“Are you going to be all right?” she asked after she’d given him his pill. “Should I ask Mrs. White to come and sit with you?”

“I don’t need fussing over,” he muttered. His thin shoulders lifted and fell. “Where did I fail your father, Becky?” he asked miserably. “And where did I fail Clay? My son and my grandson in trouble with the law, and that Kilpatrick man won’t stop until he’s got them both in jail. I’ve heard all about him. He’s a barracuda.”

“He’s a prosecuting attorney,” she corrected. “And he’s only doing his job. He just does it passionately, that’s all. Mr. Malcolm likes him.”

Her grandfather narrowed one eye and looked up at her. “Do you?”

She stood up. “Don’t be silly. He’s the enemy.”

“You remember that,” he said firmly, his stubborn chin jutting. “Don’t go getting soft on him. He’s no friend to this family. He did everything in his power to put Scott away.”

“You knew about that?” she asked.

He sat up straighter. “I knew. Saw no reason to tell you or the boys. It wouldn’t have helped things. Anyway, Scott beat the rap. The witness changed his mind.”

“Did he change it—or did Dad change it for him?”

He wouldn’t look at her. “Scott wasn’t a bad boy. He was just different; had a different way of looking at things. It wasn’t his fault that the law kept hounding him, no more than it’s Clay’s. That Kilpatrick man has it in for us.”

Becky started to speak and stopped. Granddad couldn’t admit that he’d made a mistake with Scott, so he certainly wasn’t going to admit that he’d made one with Clay. It wouldn’t do any good to have an argument with him over it, but it left her holding the bag and Clay’s future in her own hands. She could see that she’d get little help from Granddad now.

“Becky, whatever your father did or didn’t do, he’s still my son,” he said suddenly, clenching the chair hard with his lean old hands. “I love him. I love Clay, too.”

“I know that,” she said gently. She bent down and kissed his leathery cheek. “We’ll take care of Clay. They’re going to give him some counseling and help him,” she said, hoping she could make Clay go to the sessions without too much browbeating. “He’ll come through. He’s a Cullen.”

“That’s right. He’s a Cullen.” He smiled up at her. “You’re one, yourself. Have I ever told you how proud I am of you?”

“Frequently,” she said, and grinned. “When I get rich and famous, I’ll remember you.”

“We’ll never get rich, and Clay’s likely to be the only famous one of us—infamous, most likely.” He sighed. “But you’re the heart of the whole outfit. Don’t let this get you down. Life can get hard sometimes. But if you see through your troubles, think past them to better times, it helps. Always helped me.”

“I’ll remember that. I’d better get to work,” she added. “Be good. I’ll see you later.”

She drove to the office, inwardly cringing at the thought of the ordeal ahead. She had to talk to Kilpatrick. What Clay had said about Kilpatrick trying to put him in reform school frightened her. Kilpatrick might decide to pursue it, and she had to stop him from doing that. She was going to have to bury her pride and tell him the real situation at home, and she dreaded it.

Her boss gave her an hour off. She phoned the district attorney’s office on the seventh floor and asked to see the man himself. She was told that he was on his way down, to meet him at the elevator and they could talk while he got his coffee in the drugstore.

Elated that he’d deigned to at least speak to her, she grabbed her purse, straightened her flowery skirt and white blouse, and rushed out of the office.

Fortunately, the elevator was empty except for the cold-eyed Mr. Kilpatrick in his long overcoat, his thick black hair ruffled, and that eternal, infernal choking cigar in one hand. He gave her a cursory going-over that wasn’t flattering.

“You wanted to talk,” he said. “Let’s go.” He pushed the ground floor button and didn’t say a word until they walked into the small coffee shop in the drugstore. He bought her a cup of black coffee, one for himself, and a doughnut. He offered her one. But she was too sick to accept it.

They sat down at a corner table and he studied her quietly while he sipped his coffee. Her hair was in its usual bun, her face devoid of makeup. She looked as she felt—washed out and depressed.

“No cutting remarks about my cigar?” he prompted with a raised eyebrow. “No running commentary on my manners?”

She lifted her wan face and stared at him as if she’d never seen him before. “Mr. Kilpatrick, my life is falling apart, and I don’t care very much about your cigar smoke or your manners or anything else.”

“What did your father say when you told him about your brother?”

She was tired of the pretense. It was time to lay her cards on the table. “I haven’t seen or heard from my father in two years.”

He frowned. “What about your mother?”

“She died when the boys were young, when I was sixteen.”

“Who takes care of them?” he persisted. “Your grandfather?”

“Our grandfather has a bad heart,” she said. “He isn’t able to take care of himself, much less anyone else. We live with him and take care of him as best we can.”

His big hand hit the table, shaking it. “Are you telling me that you’re taking care of the three of them by yourself?!” he demanded.

She didn’t like the look on his dark face. She moved back a little. “Yes.”

“My God! On your salary?”

“Granddad has a farm,” she told him. “We grow our own vegetables and I put them up in the freezer and can some. We usually raise a beef steer, too, and Granddad gets a pension from the railroad and his social security. We get by.”

“How old are you?”

She glared at him. “That’s none of your business.”

“You’ve just made it my business. How old?”

“Twenty-four.”

“You were how old when your mother died?”

“Sixteen.”

He took a draw from the cigar and turned his head to blow it out. His dark eyes cut into hers, and she knew now exactly how it felt to sit on the witness stand and be grilled by him. It was impossible not to tell him what he wanted to know. That piercing stare and cold voice full of authority would have extracted information from a garden vegetable. “Why isn’t your father taking care of his own family?”

“I wish I knew,” she replied. “But he never has. He only comes around when he runs out of money. I guess he’s got enough; we haven’t seen him since he moved to Alabama.”

He studied her face quietly for a long time, until her knees went weak at the intensity of the scrutiny. He was so dark, she thought, and that navy pin-striped suit made him look even taller and more elegant. His Indian ancestry was dominant in that lean face, although he seemed to have the temperament of the Irish.

“No wonder you look the way you do,” he said absently. “Worn out. I thought at first it might be a demanding lover, but it’s overwork.”

She colored furiously and glared at him.

“That insults you, does it?” he asked, his deep voice going even deeper. “But you yourself told me that you were a kept woman,” he reminded her dryly.

“I lied,” she said, moving restlessly. “Anyway, I’ve got enough problems without loose living to add to them,” she said stiffly.

“I see. You’re one of those girls. The kind mothers throw under the wheels of their sons’ cars.”

“Nobody will ever throw me under yours, I hope,” she said. “I wouldn’t have you on a half shell with cocktail sauce.”

He lifted a dark eyebrow. “Why not?” he asked, lifting his chin to smile at her with pure sarcasm. “Has someone told you that I’m a half-breed?”

She flushed. “I didn’t mean that. You’re a very cold man, Mr. Kilpatrick,” she said, and shivered at his nearness. He smelled of some exotic cologne and cigar smoke, and she could feel the heat from his body. He made her nervous and weak and uncertain, and it was dangerous to feel that way about the enemy.

“I’m not cold. I’m careful.” He lifted the cigar to his mouth. “It pays to be careful these days. In every way.”

“So they say.”

“In which case, it might be wise if you stopped smearing honey over the mystery man who keeps you. You did say,” he reminded her, “that you were the kept woman of one of your employers?”

“I didn’t mean it,” she protested. “You were looking at me as if I were totally hopeless. It just came out, that’s all.”

“I should have mentioned it to Bob Malcolm yesterday,” he murmured.

“You wouldn’t!” she groaned.

“Of course I would,” he returned easily. “Hasn’t anyone told you that I don’t have a heart? I’d prosecute my own mother, they say.”

“I could believe that, after yesterday.”

“Your brother is going to be a lost cause if you don’t get him in hand,” he told her. “I came down on him hard for that reason. He needs firm guidance. Most of all, he needs a man’s example. God help you if your father is his hero.”

“I don’t know how Clay feels about Dad,” she said honestly. “He won’t talk to me anymore. He resents me. I wanted to talk to you because I wanted you to understand the situation at home. I thought it might help if you knew something about his background.”

He nibbled the doughnut with strong white teeth and swallowed it down with coffee. “You thought it might soften me, in other words.” His dark eyes pinned hers. “I’m part Indian. There’s no softness in me. Prejudice beat it out a long time ago.”

“You’re a little bit Irish, too,” she said hesitantly. “And your people are well-to-do. Surely, that made it easier.”

“Did it?” His smile was no smile at all. “I was unique, certainly. An oddity. The money made my path a little easier. It didn’t remove the obstacles, or my uncle, who tolerated me because he was sterile and I was the last of the Kilpatricks. God, he hated that. To top it all off, my father never married my mother.”

“Oh, you’re...” She stopped dead and flushed.

“Illegitimate.” He nodded and gave her a cold, mocking smile. “That’s right.” He stared at her, waiting, daring her to say something. When she didn’t, he laughed mirthlessly. “No comment?”

“I wouldn’t dare,” she replied.

He finished his coffee. “We don’t get to pick and choose, and that’s a fact.” He reached out a lean, dark hand devoid of jewelry and gently touched her thin face. “Make sure your brother gets that counseling. I’m sorry I jumped to conclusions about him.”

The unexpected apology from such a man as Kilpatrick brought tears into her eyes. She turned her face away, ashamed to show weakness to him, of all people. But his reaction was immediate and a little shocking.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said curtly. He got her to her feet, purse and all, put the refuse in the appropriate container, and hustled her out of the coffee shop and into one of the elevators standing open and empty.

He closed the doors and started it, then stopped it suddenly between floors. He jerked her completely into his arms, and held her there gently but firmly. “Let go,” he said gruffly at her temple. “You’ve been holding it in ever since the boy was arrested. Let it go. I’ll hold you while you cry.”

Sympathy was something she’d had very little of in her life. There had never been arms to hold her, to comfort her. She’d always done the holding, the giving. Not even her grandfather had realized just how vulnerable she was. But Kilpatrick saw through her mask, as if she wasn’t even wearing one.

Tears tumbled from her eyes, down her cheeks, and she heard his deep voice, murmuring soft words of comfort while his hands smoothed her hair, his arm cradled her against his huge chest. She clung to the lapels of his coat, thinking how odd it was that she should find compassion in such an unlikely place.

He was warm and strong, and it was so nice for once to let someone else take the burden, to be helpless and feminine. She let her body relax into his, let him take her weight, and an odd sensation swept through her. She felt as if her blood had coals of fire in it. Something uncoiled deep in her stomach and stretched, and she felt a tightening in herself that had nothing to do with muscles.

Because it shocked her that she should feel such a sudden and unwanted attraction to this man, she lifted her head and started to move away. But his dark eyes were above hers when she looked up, and he didn’t look away.

Electricity burned between them for one long, exquisite second. She felt as if it had knocked the breath out of her, but if he felt anything similar, it didn’t show in that poker face.

But, in fact, he was shaken, too. The look in her eyes was familiar to him, but it was a new look for her and he knew it. If ever a woman’s innocence could be seen, hers could. She intrigued him, excited him. Odd, when she was so totally different from the hard, sophisticated women he preferred. She was vulnerable and feminine despite her strength. He wanted to take her long hair down and open her blouse and show her how it felt to be a woman in his arms. And that thought was what made him put her gently but firmly away.

“Are you all right now?” he asked quietly.

“Yes. I’m...I’m sorry,” she said unsteadily. She felt his lean hands pushing her from him, and it was like being cut apart suddenly. She wanted to cling. Perhaps it was the novelty, she tried to tell herself. She pushed back the wisps of hair that had escaped her bun, noticing the faint dark stains of his tan overcoat. “I’ve left spots on your coat.”

“They’ll dry. Here.” He pressed a handkerchief into her hands and watched her dry her eyes. He found himself admiring her strength of will, her courage. She had taken on more responsibility than most men ever would, and was bearing up under it with enormous success.

Her face came up finally, and her red eyes searched his broad face. “Thank you.”

He shrugged. “You’re welcome.”

She managed a watery smile. “Shouldn’t we start the elevator up again?”

“I guess so. They’ll think it’s broken and send repair crews along.” He snapped his wrist up and looked at the thin gold watch buried in thick hair over deeply tanned skin. “And I’ve got court in an hour.” He started the elevator up, preoccupied now.

“I’ll bet you’re terrible across a courtroom,” she murmured.

“I get by.” He stopped the elevator at the sixth floor, his eyes faintly kind as he studied her. “Don’t brood. You’ll make wrinkles.”

“On my face, who’d notice?” She sighed. “Thanks again. Have a nice day.”

“I’ll manage.” He pushed the “up” button and was lifting the cigar to his mouth again when the doors swallowed him up. Becky turned and went down the hall in a daze. It was unreal that Kilpatrick had said something nice to her. Perhaps she was still asleep and dreaming it.

And she wasn’t the only one feeling that way. She wore on Kilpatrick all day. He went to court and had to forcibly put her from his mind. God knew how she’d managed to get under his skin so easily. He was thirty-five years old and one bad experience with a woman had encapsulated him in solid ice. His women came and went, but his heart was impregnable, until this plain little spinster with her pale freckled face and wounded hazel eyes had started fencing with him verbally in the elevator. He’d actually come to look forward to their matches, enjoying the way she faintly teased him, the pert way she walked, and the light in her eyes when she laughed.

Amazing that she still could laugh, with the responsibility she carried. She fascinated him. He remembered the feel of her body in his arms while she cried, and a tautness stirred limbs that had banished feeling. Or so he thought.

The one thing he was certain of was that she wouldn’t be a tease. She had a basic honesty and depth of compassion that would prevent her from deliberately trying to kill a man’s pride. He scowled, remembering how Francine had created feverish hungers in his body and then laughed as she withheld herself, and taunted him for his weakness. The rumor was that she’d run away to South America with their law clerk, reneging on their engagement. The truth was that he’d found her in bed with one of her girlfriends, and that was when he had understood her pleasure in tormenting him. She had even admitted that she hated the whole male sex. She wouldn’t have him under any conditions, she’d said. She was only playing him along, enjoying his pain.

He hadn’t known such women existed. Thank God he hadn’t loved her, or the experience might have killed his heart. At any rate, it kept him aloof from women. His pride was lacerated by what she’d done to him. He couldn’t afford to lose control like that again, to want a woman to the point of madness.

On the other hand, that Cullen woman was giving him fits! He only realized how blackly he was scowling when the witness he was cross-examining began to blurt out details he hadn’t even asked for. The poor man had thought the scowl was meant for him, and he wasn’t taking any chances. Kilpatrick interrupted his monologue and asked the questions he needed the answers to before he went back to his seat. The black defense attorney, one J. Lincoln Davis, was laughing helplessly behind some papers. He was older than Kilpatrick—a big man with café au lait skin, dark eyes, and a ready wit. He was one of Curry Station’s richest attorneys, and arguably the best around. He was the only adversary Kilpatrick had been beaten by in recent years.

“Where were you in court?” Davis asked him in a whisper after the jury had retired. “God, you had that poor man tied in knots, and he was your own witness!”

Kilpatrick smiled faintly as he gathered his material into his attaché case. “I drifted off,” he murmured.

“That’s a first. We ought to hang a plaque or something. See you tomorrow.”

He nodded absently. For the first time, he’d lost his concentration in court. And all because of a skinny secretary with a mane of tawny hair.

He should be thinking about her brother. He’d had a long talk with his investigator at lunch, and there were some solid rumors that a drug-related hit was about to go down. Kilpatrick was working on a case involving crack peddling. He had two witnesses, and his first thought was that they might be the targets. The investigator had said that he was fairly certain Clay Cullen was involved somehow with the dealers because of his friendship with the Harrises. If the boy had that much crack on him, was it possible that he was starting to deal it?

Having to prosecute the boy wouldn’t really bother him, but he thought of Rebecca and that did. How would she react to having her brother in jail and knowing that Kilpatrick had put him there? He had to stop thinking like that. Prosecuting criminals was his job. He couldn’t let personal feelings get in the way. He only had a few months to go as district attorney. He had to make them count.

He went back to his office deep in thought. Would the drug dealers risk obvious murder to keep their territory intact? If they started blowing up people in his district, it was going to fall to him to get the goods on the perpetrators and send them away. He scowled, hoping that Rebecca Cullen’s brother wasn’t going to wind up back in his office as part of that fight over drug territory.

Rebecca was going through the motions of working herself. She typed mechanically, doing briefs on the electronic typewriter while Nettie fed precedents for another case into the computer. Nettie was a paralegal, qualified to do legwork for the attorneys as well as secretarial work. Becky envied her, but she couldn’t afford the training that was required for paralegal status, even though it would have meant a salary increase.

She was worried about Granddad. His silence at breakfast had been disturbing. She phoned Mrs. White at lunch and asked the widowed lady to go over to the house and check on him. Mrs. White was always willing to look in on the old gentleman when she was needed. Besides that, she was a retired nurse, and Becky thanked her lucky stars for such a good neighbor.

If only Clay would straighten himself out, she thought. It was enough work trying to raise the boys without having to get them out of jail. Mack adored his older brother. If Clay kept it up, it might be only a matter of time before Mack emulated him.

It was quitting time almost before she realized it. She’d had a busy day, and had been grateful for it. Slow days gave her too much time to think.

She gathered up her purse and worn gray jacket and said her good-byes. The elevator would be full at this time of day, she thought, her heartbeat increasing as she went down the hall. Probably, Mr. Kilpatrick was still upstairs working, anyway.

But he wasn’t. He was in the elevator when she got on it, and he smiled at her. She couldn’t know that he’d timed it exactly, knowing when she got off and hoping that he’d encounter her. Amazing, he thought cynically, how ridiculously he was behaving because of this woman.

She smiled back, feeling her heart drop suddenly, and not from the motion of the elevator.

He got off with her on the ground floor and strode along beside her as if he had nothing better to do.

“Feeling better?” he asked as he held open the door for her on the way to the street.

“Yes, thank you,” she said. She’d never felt so shy and speechless in all her life. She glanced up at him and blushed like a girl.

He liked that telltale sign. It made his spirits lift. “I lost a case today,” he remarked absently. “The jurors thought I was deliberately badgering a witness and threw their decision in the defense’s favor.”

“Were you?”

“Badgering him?” His wide mouth pulled into a reluctant smile. “No. My mind was somewhere else and he got in the way.”

She knew that black glare of his very well. She could certainly understand how a witness might feel under its pressure.

Her hands clutched her purse. “I’m sorry you lost your case.”

He stopped on the sidewalk, towering over her, and looked down at her thoughtfully. He hesitated, wondering what kind of chain reaction he might start if he asked her out. He was crazy, he told himself shortly, to even contemplate such a thing. He couldn’t afford to get involved in her life.

“How did your grandfather take the news?” he asked instead.

She was disappointed. She’d expected a different question, but it was probably just wishful thinking. Why would he want to take out someone like her? She knew she wasn’t his type. Besides, her family would raise the roof—especially Granddad.

She managed a smile. “He took it on the chin,” she said. “We’re a tough lot, we Cullens.”

“Make sure you know where that boy is for the next few days,” he said suddenly. He took her arm and drew her to the wall, wary of passersby. “We’ve had a tip that something is going down in the city—a hit, maybe. We don’t know who or when or how, but we’re pretty sure it’s drug-related. There are two factions fighting for dominance in the distribution sector. The Harris brothers are involved. If they tried to use your brother as a scapegoat, considering the trouble he’s already in...” He left the rest unsaid.

She shivered. “It’s like walking a tightrope,” she said. “I don’t mind looking out for my kin, but I never expected anything like drugs and murder.” She shifted, wrapping her coat closer around her. Her eyes lifted to his, briefly vulnerable. “It’s so hard sometimes,” she whispered.

His breath caught. She made him feel a foot taller when she looked at him that way. “Have you ever had a normal life?”

She smiled. “When I was a little girl, I guess. Not since Mother died. It’s been me and Granddad and the boys.”

“No social life, I guess.”

“Something always came up—a virus, the mumps, chicken pox. Granddad’s heart.” She laughed softly. “There wasn’t exactly a stampede to my door, anyway.” She looked down at her handbag. “It isn’t a bad life. I’m needed. I have a purpose. So many people don’t.”

He felt that way about his work—that it was necessary and fulfilled him. But with the exception of his German shepherd, he felt no real emotions except anger and indignation. No love. His whole work experience was based on moral justice, protection of the masses, and conviction of the guilty. A noble purpose, perhaps, but a lonely calling. And until recently, he hadn’t realized how lonely.

“I suppose,” he murmured absently. His eyes were on her soft mouth. It was a perfect bow, palest pink, with a delicate look that made him ache to feel it under his mouth.

She glanced up, puzzled by his frank stare. “Is it my freckles?” she blurted out.

His thick eyebrows lifted and he met her gaze with a smile. “What?”

“You seemed to be brooding,” she murmured. “I thought maybe my freckles made you uncomfortable. I shouldn’t have them, but there’s just a hint of red in my hair. My grandmother was a flaming redhead.”

“Do you take after your parents?”

“My father is blond,” she said, “and hazel-eyed. We look a lot alike. My mother was small and dark, and none of us favored her.”

“I like freckles,” he said, catching her off guard. He checked his watch. “I’ve got to get home. The Atlanta Symphony is doing Stravinsky tonight. I don’t want to miss it.”

“The Firebird?” Becky asked.

He smiled. “Yes, as a matter of fact. Most people hate it.”

“I love it,” she said. “I’ve got two recordings of it—one avant garde and one traditional. I have to listen to it with earphones. My grandfather likes old Hank Williams records and both my brothers are into hard rock. I’m a throwback.”

“Do you like opera?”

“Madame Butterfly and Turandot and Carmen.” She sighed. “And I love to listen to Placido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti.”

“I saw Turandot at the Met last year,” he remarked. His dark eyes searched her face warmly. “Do you watch those specials on public television?”

“When I can get the television to myself,” she said. “We only have one, and it’s small.”

“They made a movie of Carmen with Domingo,” he said. “I’ve got it.”

“Is it good?”

“If you like opera, it’s great.” He searched her eyes slowly, wondering why it was so difficult to stop talking and say good night. She was pretty in a shy kind of way, and she made his blood sing in his veins.

She stared back at him, weak in the knees. This happened so quickly, she thought, and even as she was thinking it her mind was denying her the chance of any kind of relationship with him. He was the enemy. Now, of all times, she couldn’t afford weakness. She had to remember that Kilpatrick was out to get her brother. It would be disloyal to her family to let anything happen. But her heart was fighting that logic. She was alone and lonely, and she’d sacrificed the best part of her youth for her family. Did she deserve nothing for herself?

“Deep thoughts?” he asked softly, watching the expressions cross her face.

“Deep and dark,” she replied. Her lips parted on unsteady breaths. He was looking at her just as she imagined a man might look at a woman he wanted. It thrilled her, excited her, and scared her to death.

He saw the fear first. He felt it, too. He didn’t want involvement any more than she did, and now was the time to cut this off.

He straightened. “I’ve got to go,” he said. “Keep an eye on your brother.”

“I will. Thanks for warning me,” she said.

He shrugged. He pulled out a cigar and lit it as he walked away, his broad back as impenetrable as a wall.

Becky wondered why he’d bothered to stop and talk to her. Could he really be interested in a woman like her?

She caught a glimpse of herself in a window as she walked toward the underground garage where her car was kept. Oh, sure, she thought, seeing the thin, wan-looking face that stared back at her. She was just the kind of woman who would attract such a devastatingly handsome man. She rolled her eyes and went on to her car, putting her hopeless daydreams behind her.

Chapter Four

It was a beautiful spring morning. Kilpatrick stared out the window of his elegant brick home on one of the quieter streets of Curry Station, feeling a little guilty about spending a Saturday morning in his house, instead of at the office. But Gus needed some exercise and Kilpatrick had just shaken a bad headache. No wonder, because he’d had a late night going over briefs for upcoming trials.

Gus barked. Kilpatrick reached down to ruffle the big German shepherd’s silver-and-black fur.

“Impatient, are you?” he asked. “We’ll walk. Let me get dressed.”

He was in jeans and barefoot, his hair-covered chest and stomach bare. He’d just finished a Diet Coke and a stale doughnut for breakfast. Sometimes he wished he’d kept Matilda on, instead of giving his former housekeeper notice when she’d started leaking news out of his office to the press. She was the best cook and the worst gossip he’d ever known. The house was very quiet without her, and his own cooking was going to kill him one day.

He slipped on a white sweatshirt, socks and his sneakers, and ran a comb through his thick black hair. He stared at the reflection in the mirror with a raised eyebrow. No Mr. America there, he thought, but the body was holding its own. Not that it did him much good. Women were a luxury these days, with his job taking up every waking hour. He thought about Rebecca Cullen suddenly, and tried to picture her in his bed. Ridiculous. In the first place, she was almost certainly a virgin, and in the second, her family would come between her and any potential suitor. They had every reason not to want him around, too. No, she was off-limits. He was going to have to keep telling himself that.

He looked around at his elegant surroundings with a faint smile, thinking how odd it was that the illegitimate son of a socially prominent businessman and a Cherokee Indian woman should wind up with a house like this. Only someone as gutsy as his uncle, Sanderson Kilpatrick, would have had the nerve to push Rourke out into society and dare it to reject him.

Uncle Sanderson. He laughed in spite of himself. No one looking at the portrait over the fireplace of that staid, dignified old man would ever suspect him of having an outrageous sense of humor or a heart of pure marshmallow. But he’d taught Rourke everything he knew about being wanted and loved. His parents’ deaths had been traumatic for him. His childhood had been a kind of nightmare—school, especially. But his uncle had stood behind him, forced him to accept his heritage and be proud of it. He’d taught him a lot about courage and determination and honor. Uncle Sanderson was a judge’s judge, a shining example of the very best of the legal profession. It was his example that had sent Rourke to law school, and then catapulted him into the public eye as district attorney. Get out there and do some good, Uncle Sanderson had said. Money isn’t everything. Criminals are taking over. Do a job that needs doing.

Well, he was doing it. He hadn’t liked being a public figure, and the campaign after he’d served one year of his predecessor’s unexpired term had been hell. But he’d won, to his amazement, and he liked to think that since then he’d taken some of the worst criminals off the street. His pet peeve was drug trafficking, and he was meticulous in his preparation of a case. There were no loopholes in Kilpatrick’s briefs. His uncle had taught him the necessity of adequate preparation. He’d never forgotten, to the dismay of several haphazard public defenders and high-powered defense attorneys.

Uncle Sanderson had shocked Rourke by cultivating in him a sense of pride in his Cherokee ancestry. He’d made sure that Rourke never tried to hide it or disguise it. He’d pushed Rourke out into Atlanta society, and he’d discovered that most people found him interesting rather than an embarrassment. Not that it would have mattered either way. He had enough of Uncle Sanderson’s spunk not to take insults from anyone. He was good with his fists, and he’d used them a few times over the years.

As he grew older, he began to understand the proud old man a lot better. Sanderson Kilpatrick’s Irish grandfather had come to America penniless and his life had been one long series of disasters and tragedies. It had been the first-generation American, Tad, who’d opened the small specialty store that had become the beginning of the Kilpatrick convenience store chain. Sanderson had been one of only two surviving Kilpatrick children.

And then Sanderson had learned that he was sterile. It had been a killing blow to his pride. But at least his brother’s only son had produced an heir—Rourke. The convenience store chain had slowly gone bankrupt. Uncle Sanderson had squirreled enough away to leave Rourke well-fixed, but the Kilpatrick name and generations of respect were about the sum total of his inheritance. And since Rourke was closemouthed, that family secret didn’t get much airing. He made a comfortable living and he knew how to invest it, but he was no millionaire. Uncle Sanderson’s Mercedes-Benz and the elegant old family brick mansion, both unencumbered by debt, were the only holdovers from a more prosperous past.

Gus barked just before the doorbell rang. “Okay, hold your horses,” he said as he returned to the living room, his bare feet landing silently on the luxurious beige carpet.

Kilpatrick opened the front door to Dan Berry, who grinned at him through the screen. “Hi, boss,” his investigator said cheerily, flashing him a smile. “Got a minute?”

“Sure. Let me get Gus’s lead and we’ll walk and talk.” He glanced at the heavyset man. “A little exercise wouldn’t hurt you.”

Dan made a face. “I was afraid you’d say that. How’s the headache?”

“Better. Aspirin and cold compresses got rid of it.” He attached Gus to the lead and opened the door. Early mornings in the spring were cool, and Dan shivered. The trees still sported bare limbs that would be elegant bouquets of blossoms only a month or so from now.

Kilpatrick moved out to the sidewalk, letting Gus take the lead. “What’s up?” he asked when they were halfway down the block.

“Plenty. The sheriff’s office got a complaint this morning about Curry Station Elementary. One of the kids’ mothers called to report it. Her son saw one of the marijuana dealers having an argument with Bubba Harris at recess. It’s just been marijuana, so far—until now.”

Kilpatrick stopped dead, his dark eyes intent. “Are the Harrises trying to cut in on that territory with crack?”

“We think so,” Berry replied. “We don’t have anything, yet. But I’m going to work on some of the students and see what I can turn up. We’re organizing a locker search with the help of the local police, too. If we find crack, we’ll know who’s involved.”

“That will go over big with the parents,” he murmured.

“Yes, I know. But we’ll muddle through.” He glanced at Kilpatrick as they began to walk again. “That Cullen boy was seen with Son Harris at one of the dives in midtown Atlanta. They’re real thick.”

Kilpatrick’s face stiffened. “So I’ve heard.”

“I know you didn’t have enough evidence to go to trial,” Berry said. “But if I were you, I’d keep a close eye on that boy. He could lead us right to the Harrises, if we play our cards right.”

Kilpatrick was thinking about that. His dark eyes narrowed. If he got close to Becky, he could keep Clay Cullen in sight with ease. Was that it, he wondered, or was he rationalizing ways to see Becky? He had to think this through carefully before he made a decision.

“There’s another complication, too,” Berry went on, his hands in his pockets as he glanced up at Kilpatrick. “Your sparring partner’s getting ready to announce.”

“Davis?” he asked, because he’d heard rumors, too. Davis hadn’t said anything in court to him about it. That was like the big man, to pull rabbits out of hats at the most unexpected time. He grinned. “He’ll win, unless I miss my guess. There are plenty of contenders for my job, but Davis is pure shark.”

“He’ll be after your professional throat.”

“Only to make news,” Kilpatrick assured him. “I haven’t decided yet about running for a third term.” He stretched and yawned. “Let him do his worst. I don’t give a damn.”

“Want to round off your day?” Berry murmured with a dry glance. “One last tidbit of gossip. They’re releasing Harvey Blair on Monday.”

“Blair.” He scowled. “Yes, I remember. I sent him up for armed robbery six years ago. What the hell’s he doing out?”

“His lawyer got him a full pardon from the governor.” He held up his hand. “Don’t blame me. I don’t hide your mail. Your secretary is guilty as hell. She told me she forgot to mention it and you were too busy in court to read it.”

He bit off a curse. “Blair. Dammit. If ever a man deserved a pardon less...he was guilty as hell!”

“Of course he was.” Berry stopped walking, looking uncomfortable. “He threatened to kill you if he ever got out. You might keep your doors locked, just in case.”

“I’m not afraid of Blair,” Kilpatrick said, and his eyes narrowed. “Let him try, if he feels lucky. He won’t be the first.”

That was a fact. The D.A. had been the target of assassins twice, once from a gun by an angry defendant who’d been convicted by Kilpatrick’s expertise, and another time from a crazed defendant with a knife, right in court. Nobody present in the courtroom that day would ever forget the way Kilpatrick had met the knife attack. He had effortlessly parried the thrust and thrown his attacker over a table. Kilpatrick was ex-Special Forces, and as tough as they came. Berry secretly thought that his Indian ancestry didn’t hurt, either. Indians were formidable fighters. It was in the blood.

Kilpatrick waved Dan off and he and Gus continued on their daily one-mile walk. He was fit enough, physically. He worked out at the gym weekly and played racquetball. The walk was more for Gus’s sake than his own. Gus was ten years old and he had a sedentary lifestyle. With Kilpatrick away at the office six days out of seven—and occasionally, when the calendar was loaded in court, seven out of seven—he didn’t get a lot of exercise in his fenced-in enclosure out back.

He thought about what Dan had told him and grimaced. Blair was going to be back on the streets and gunning for him. That wasn’t surprising. Neither was the information about the Harris boys. A war over drug turf was just what he needed right now, with the Cullen boy in the middle. He remembered Cullen’s father—a surly, uncooperative man with cold eyes. Incredible, that he could have fathered a woman like Rebecca, with her warm heart and soft eyes. Even more incredible that he could have deserted her like that. He shook his dark head. One way or another, her life stood to get worse before it got better—especially with a brother like hers. He tugged at Gus’s lead and they turned back toward home.

* * *

It was midnight on Sunday, and Clay Cullen still wasn’t home. He and the Harris boys were talking money, big money, and he was in the clouds over how much he was going to make.

“It’s easy,” Son told him carelessly. “All you have to do is give a little away to some of the wealthier kids. They’ll get a taste of it and then they’ll pay anything for it. Simple.”

“Yeah, but how do I find the right ones? How do I pick kids who won’t turn me in?” Clay asked.

“You’ve got a kid brother in school at Curry Station Elementary. Ask him. We might even give him a cut,” Son said, grinning.

Clay felt uneasy about that, but he didn’t say so. The thought of all that easy money made him giddy. Francine had started paying attention to him since he’d become friendly with her cousins the Harrises. Francine, with her pretty black hair and sultry blue eyes, who could have her pick of the seniors. Clay liked her a lot—enough to do anything to get her to notice him. Drugs weren’t that bad, he told himself. After all, people who used would get the stuff from somebody else if not from him. If only he didn’t feel so guilty....

“I’ll ask Mack tomorrow,” Clay promised.

Son’s small eyes narrowed. “Just one thing. Make sure your sister doesn’t find out. She works for a bunch of lawyers, and the D.A.’s in the same building.”

“Becky won’t find out,” Clay assured him.

“Okay. See you tomorrow.”

Clay got out of the car. He’d kept his nose clean tonight so Becky wouldn’t get suspicious. He had to keep her in the dark. That shouldn’t be too hard, he reasoned. She loved him. That made her vulnerable.

The next morning, while Becky was upstairs dressing for work, Clay cornered Mack.

“You want to make some spending money?” he asked the younger boy with a calculating look.

“How?” Mack asked.

“Any of your friends do drugs?” Clay asked.

Mack hesitated. “Not really.”

“Oh.” Clay wondered if he should pursue it, but he heard Becky’s footsteps and clammed up. “We’ll talk about it some other time. Don’t mention this to Becky.”

Becky came in to find Mack glum and quiet and Clay looking nervous. She’d put on her blue jersey dress and her one pair of black patent leather high heels. She didn’t have a lot of clothes, but nobody at work mentioned that. They were a kind bunch of people, and she was neat and clean, even if she didn’t have the clothing budget that Maggie and Tess had.

She touched her tidy bun and finished fixing Mack’s lunch just in time to get him on the bus, frowning a little when Clay didn’t join him.

“How are you getting to school?” she asked Clay.

“Francine’s coming for me,” he said carelessly. “She drives a Corvette. Neat car—brand-new.”

She stared at him suspiciously. “Are you staying away from those Harris boys like I told you to?” she asked.

“Of course,” he replied innocently. Much easier to lie than to have a fight. Besides, she never seemed to know when he was lying.

She relaxed a little, even if she wasn’t wholly trusting of him these days. “And the counseling sessions?”

He glared at her. “I don’t need counseling.”

“I don’t care if you think you need it or not,” she said firmly. “Kilpatrick says you have to go.”

He shifted uncomfortably. “Okay,” he said angrily. “I’ve got an appointment tomorrow with the psychologist. I’ll go.”

She sighed. “Good. That’s good, Clay.”

He narrowed his eyes and stared at her. “Just don’t throw any orders around, Becky. I’m a man, not a boy you can tell what to do.”

Before she could flare up at him, he went out the door in time to see the Corvette roar up. He got into it quickly and it sped off into the distance.

A few days later, Becky called the principal of Clay’s school to make sure he had been going. She was told that he had perfect attendance. He kept the counseling session, too, although Becky didn’t know that he ignored his psychologist’s advice. It had been three weeks since his arrest and he was apparently toeing the line. Thank God. She settled Granddad and went to work, her thoughts full of Kilpatrick.

She hadn’t run into him in the elevator lately. She wondered if he might have moved back to the courthouse until she glimpsed him at a dead run when she was on her way to lunch. Curious the way he moved, she thought wistfully, light on his feet and graceful as well. She loved to watch him move.

Kilpatrick was unaware of her studied scrutiny as he retrieved the blue Mercedes from the parking lot and drove himself to the garage that the elder Harris, C.T. by name, ran as a front for his drug operation. Everybody knew it, but proving it was the thing.

Harris was sixty, balding, and he had a beer belly. He never shaved. He had deep circles under his eyes and a big, perpetually red nose. He glared at Kilpatrick as the younger, taller man climbed out of his car at the curb.

“The big man himself,” Harris said with a surly grin. “Looking for something, prosecutor?”

“I wouldn’t find it,” Kilpatrick said. He paused in front of Harris and lit a cigar with slow, deliberate movements of his long fingers. “I’ve had my investigator checking out some rumors that I didn’t like. What he came up with, I didn’t like even more. So I thought I’d come and check it out personally.”

“What kind of rumors?”

“That you and Morrely are squaring off for a fight over territory. And that you’re moving on the kids at the local elementary school.”

“Who, me? Garbage! It’s garbage,” Harris said with mock indignation. “I don’t push to kids.”

“No, you don’t have to. Your sons do it for you.” He blew out a cloud of smoke, aiming it into the man’s face with cold intent. “So I came to tell you something. I’m watching the school, and I’m watching you. If one kid gets one spoon of coke, or one gram of crack, I’m going to nail you and your boys to the wall. Whatever it takes, whatever I have to do, I’ll get you. I wanted you to get that message in person.”

“Thanks for the warning, but you’re talking to the wrong guy. I’m just not into drugs. I run a garage here. I work on cars.” Harris peered past Kilpatrick to the Mercedes. “Nice job. I like foreign makes. I could fix it for you.”

“It doesn’t need fixing. But I’ll keep you in mind,” Kilpatrick said mockingly.

“You do that. Stop in any time.”

“Count on it.” Kilpatrick gave him a curt nod and climbed back into his car. Harris was glaring after him with a furious expression when he pulled out into traffic.

Later, Harris took his two sons aside. “Kilpatrick’s getting to me,” he said. “We can’t afford any slip-ups. Are you sure that Cullen boy’s dependable?”

“Sure he is!” Son said with a lazy grin. He was taller than his father, dark-haired and blue-eyed. Not a bad-looking boy, he outshone his chubby, red-faced younger brother.

“He’s going to be expendable if the D.A. comes too close,” the elder Harris said darkly. “Do you have a problem with that?”

“No problem,” Son said easily. “That’s why we let him get caught with his pockets full of crack. Even though they didn’t hold him, they’ll remember it. Next time we can put his neck in a noose if we need to.”

“They can’t use his record against him in juvenile court,” the youngest Harris reminded them.

“Listen,” the man told his sons. “If Kilpatrick gets his hands on that boy again, he’ll try him as an adult. Bet on it. Just make sure the Cullen boy stays in your pockets. Meanwhile,” he added thoughtfully, “I’ve got to get Kilpatrick out of mine. I think it might be worthwhile to float a contract, before he gets his teeth into us.”

“Mike down at the Hayloft would know somebody,” Son told his father with narrowed eyes.

“Good. Ask him. Do it tonight,” he added. “Kilpatrick’s term is up this year; he’ll have to run. He may use us as an example to win the election.”

“Cullen says he isn’t going to run again,” Son said.

The older Harris glared at him. “Everybody says that. I don’t buy it. How about the grammar school operation?”

“I’ve got it in the bag,” Son assured him. “We’re lining up Cullen for that. He’s got a younger brother who goes there.”

“But will the younger brother go along?”

Son looked up. “I’ve got an angle on that. We’re going to let Cullen go on a buy with us, so that the supplier gets a good look at him. After that, he’s mine.”

“Nice work,” the older man said, smiling. “You two could swear he was the brains of the outfit, and Kilpatrick would buy it. Get going, then.”

“Sure thing, Dad.”

* * *

One afternoon Becky noticed Clay talking earnestly to Mack as she walked in after work. Mack said something explosive and stomped off. Clay glanced at her and looked uncomfortable.

She wondered what it was all about. Probably another quarrel. The boys never seemed to get along these days. She started a load of clothes in the washing machine and cooked supper. In between, she daydreamed about the district attorney and wished that she was pretty and vivacious and rich.

“Got to go to the library, Becky!” Clay called on his way out the front door.

“Is it open this late...?” she began, but there was the slam of one door, then another, then a car roared away.

She ran to the window. The Harris boys, she thought, furious. He’d been told to stay away from them. Mr. Brady had warned him; so had she. But how could she keep Clay away unless she tied him up? She couldn’t tell Granddad. He’d had a bad day and had gone to bed early. If only she had someone to talk to!

Mack was doing his math homework at the kitchen table without an argument, strangely silent and uneasy.

“Anything I can help you with?” she asked, pausing beside him.

He looked up and then away, a little too quickly. “No. Just something Clay asked me to do and I said no.” He twirled his pencil. “Becky, if you know something bad’s going to happen, and you don’t tell anybody, does that make you guilty, too?”

“Such as?”

“Oh, I didn’t have anything in mind, really,” Mack said evasively.

Becky hesitated. “Well, if you know something wrong is being done, you should tell. I don’t believe in being a tattletale, but something dangerous should be reported.”

“I guess you’re right.” He went back to work, leaving Becky no wiser than before.

Clay went with the Harris boys to pick up their load of crack. In the past three weeks, he’d learned plenty about how to find customers for the Harrises. He knew the kids who were hassled at home, who were having trouble with schoolwork, who were mad for anything outside the law. He’d already made a sale or two and the money was incredible, even with a small commission. For the first time, he had money to flash and Francine was all over him. He’d bought himself a few new things, like some designer shirts and jeans. He was careful to keep them in his locker at school so that Becky wouldn’t know. Now he wanted a car. He just wasn’t sure how to keep Becky in the dark. Probably he could leave it with the Harris boys. Sure, that was a good move. Or with Francine.

He was still seething about Mack. He’d asked him to help him find customers at the elementary school, but Mack had gotten furious and told him he’d do no such thing! He threatened to tell Becky, too, but Clay had dared him. He knew things about Mack that he could tell—like about those girlie magazines Mack hid in his closet, and the butterfly knife he’d traded for at school that Becky didn’t know he had. Mack had backed down, but he’d gone off mad, and Clay was a little nervous. He didn’t think his brother would tell on him, but you never knew with kids.

They were at the pickup point, a deserted little diner out in the boonies, with two suppliers in a four-wheel-drive jeep. The Harris boys were acting odd, he thought, noticing the way their eyes shifted. They’d left the motor running in the car, too. Clay wondered if he was getting spooked.

“You go ahead with the money,” Son told Clay, patting him on the back. “Nothing to worry about. We’re always careful, just in case the law makes a try for us, but we’re in the clear tonight. Just walk down there and pass the money.”

Clay hesitated. Up until now, it had just been little amounts of coke. This would label him as a buyer and a dealer, and he could go up for years if he was caught. For a moment he panicked, trying to imagine how that would affect Becky and Granddad. Then he got himself under control and lifted the duffel bag containing the money. He wouldn’t get caught. The Harris boys knew their way around. It would be all right. And this supplier wouldn’t be too anxious to finger him, either, because Clay could return the favor.

By the time he got to the black-clad figure in the trendy sports coat, standing beside a high-class Mercedes-Benz, he was almost swaggering with confidence. He didn’t say two words to the supplier. He handed over the money, it was checked, and the coke, in another satchel, was given to him. He’d seen dealers on TV shows test the stuff, but apparently in real life the quality was assured. The Harris boys didn’t seem bothered at all. Clay took the goods, nodded at the dealer, and walked back to where Son and his brother were waiting, his heart going like a drum, his breath almost gasping out of his throat. It was an incredible high, just overcoming his own fear and doing something dangerous for a change. His eyes sparkled as he reached the car.

“Okay.” Son grinned. He took Clay by the shoulders and shook him. “Good man! Now you’re one of us.”

“I am?” Clay asked, hesitating.

“Sure. You’re a dealer, just like us. And if you don’t cooperate, Bubba and I will swear that you’re the brains of the outfit and that you set up this deal.”

“The supplier knows better,” Clay argued.

Son laughed. “He isn’t a supplier,” he said, studying his nails. “He’s one of Dad’s flunkies. Why do you think we didn’t test the stuff before you handed over the money?”

“If he’s just one of your father’s men...” Clay was trying to think it through.

“There was a surveillance unit across the street,” Son said easily. “They made you. They couldn’t pick you up because there wasn’t enough time to get a backup and they knew you’d run. But they’ve got a tape, and probably audio, and all they need is testimony from eyewitnesses to have an airtight case against you. You bought cocaine—a lot of cocaine. Dad’s flunky won’t mind doing the time, either, for what he’ll get paid. We can always buy him out later. You won’t get the same consideration, of course.”

Clay stiffened. “I thought you trusted me!”

“Just some insurance, pal,” Son assured him. “We want your little brother to do some scouting for us at the elementary school. If he cooperates, you don’t do time.”

“Mack said no. He already said no!” He was beginning to feel hysterical.

“Then you’d better make him change his mind, hadn’t you?” Son said, and his small eyes narrowed dangerously. “Or you’re going to end up in stir for a long, long time.”

And just that easily, they had him. He couldn’t know that the so-called surveillance people were just friends of the Harrises, not heat. Or that Francine was being persuaded to be nice to him to help keep him on the string. Yes, they had the poor fish doubly hooked, and he didn’t even know how caught he really was. Yet.

Chapter Five

Becky was trying to balance making photocopies for Maggie with typing a desperately needed brief for Nettie, one of the paralegals, and going out of her mind in the process. It had been a rough few days. Clay had been more belligerent than ever—withdrawn, moody, and openly antagonistic. Mack had been withdrawn, too, avoiding his brother and refusing to tell his sister why. It was worse than an armed camp. Granddad was living on her nerves. Becky was, too. She came to work vibrating, wishing she could just climb in the car, drive away, and never look back.

“Can’t you hurry, Becky?” Nettie begged. “I’ve got to be in court at one, and it’s a forty-five-minute drive in lunch-hour traffic! I won’t get to eat as it is!”

“I’m hurrying—really, I am,” Becky assured her, frowning as she tried to make her fingers work even faster.

“I’ll do my own copies,” Maggie said, patting Becky’s shoulder as she walked by. “Just calm down, darlin’. You’re doing fine.”

The sympathy almost brought tears to Becky’s eyes. Maggie was such a love. Becky gritted her teeth and put everything she had into it, finishing in good time to get Nettie off to court.

“Thanks!” Nettie called from the door, and grinned. “I owe you lunch one day!”

Becky just nodded, and paused to catch her breath.

“You look terrible,” Maggie noted as she passed by on her way back from the copying room. “What’s wrong? Want to talk?”

“It wouldn’t do any good,” Becky said with a gentle smile. “But thanks just the same. And thanks for doing those.”

Maggie held up the copies. “No problem. Don’t try to take on too much at one time, will you?” she added seriously. “You’re the junior here and that puts you in a bad position sometimes. Don’t be afraid to say no when you can’t make a deadline. You’ll live longer.”

“Look who’s talking,” Becky chided gently. “Aren’t you the one who always volunteers for every charity project the firm takes on?”

Maggie shrugged. “So I don’t listen to my own advice.” She checked her watch. “It’s almost twelve. Go to lunch. I’ll take second shift today. You need a break,” she added with a worried glance at Becky’s thin figure in the plain pink shirtwaist dress, her hair all over her face and shoulders, her makeup long gone. “And tidy up first, darlin’. You look like something the cat dragged in.”

“I look like a little green snake?” Becky asked, aghast.

Maggie stared. “I beg your pardon?”

“Well, snakes are all MY cat ever brings in.” She looked down at herself. “I can see me as a giant pink mushroom, maybe. A little green snake? Never!”

“Get out of here,” Maggie muttered.

Becky laughed. Maggie was like a tonic. Pity she couldn’t bottle her and take her home at night. Home was a worse ordeal than work had ever been, and she knew she was losing ground.

She went downstairs to the cafeteria around the corner, surprised to find herself in line with the county district attorney, Kilpatrick himself.

“Hello, Counselor,” she said, trying not to sound as shell-shocked as she felt. He was just dynamite at close quarters, especially in that watered gray suit that emphasized his broad shoulders and dark complexion.

“Hello, yourself,” he mused, glancing at her with faint interest. “Where have you been hiding? The elevator is beginning to bore me.”

She looked up at him with raised brows. “Do tell? Why not try the staircase and see if you can smoke the janitors out of hiding?”

He chuckled. He wasn’t smoking one of those hideous cigars, but she was sure he had one tucked away.

“I’ve already smoked him out of hiding,” he confessed. “Caught the trash can on fire this morning. Didn’t you hear the fire alarm go off?”

She had, but Maggie had checked and it was a false alarm. “You’re kidding,” she said, not sure how to take him.

“No joke. I was on the phone and not paying too much attention to where the ashtray was. A mistake I won’t make twice,” he added. “My secretary had the fire chief make a personal call and give me some literature on fire safety.” He pursed his lips and his dark eyes sparkled. “She wouldn’t be a relative of yours, by any chance?”

She laughed. “I don’t think so, but she sounds like my kind of secretary.”

He shook his head. “You women. A man isn’t safe.” He glanced ahead at the long line with resignation and flipped his wrist to check his watch. “I had two hours when I started, but I had to have my notes typed and pick up another brief before I could get time for lunch.” He shook his head. “Having my office halfway across town from the courthouse isn’t working out too well.”

“Think of the exercise you’re getting,” she said. “That has to be a fringe benefit.”

“It would be, if I needed to lose weight.” He studied her slender body. “You’ve lost some. How’s your brother?” he asked pointedly.

She felt nervous when he looked at her like that. She wondered if he had microscopic vision, because he certainly seemed to see beneath the skin. “He’s all right.”

“I hope he’s keeping his nose clean,” he said evenly. “The Harris boys are up to their collective necks in trouble. Running with them could get him into a scrape you won’t be able to talk him out of.”

She looked up. “Would you send him to prison?”

“If he breaks the law,” he said. “I’m a public servant. The taxpayers expect me to earn the salary I’m paid. Somebody must have told you how I feel about drug pushers.”

“My brother isn’t one, Mr. Kilpatrick,” she said earnestly. “He’s a good boy. He’s just fallen in with a bad crowd.”

“That’s all it takes, you know. The jails are full of good boys who played follow the leader one time too many.” His eyes narrowed. “Do you remember I told you that something big was going down? Maybe a hit? Don’t forget it. Keep your brother at home nights.”

“How?” she asked, spreading her hands. “He’s bigger than I am and I can’t even talk to him anymore.” She drew a hand over her eyes. “Mr. Kilpatrick, I’m so tired of holding up the world,” she said, half under her breath.

He took her arm. “Come on.”

He drew her out of line, to her astonishment, and right out the door.

“My lunch,” she protested.

“To hell with this. We’ll eat at a Crystal.”

She’d never set foot in a Mercedes-Benz in her life until then. It had real leather seats, gray ones, with a headrest and plush comfort. It even smelled like real leather. The dash had wood panels, and they were probably real, too. The car had a polished metallic blue finish, and she caught her breath at the beauty of the carpeted interior.

“You look shocked,” he murmured as he started it.

“The engine really purrs, doesn’t it?” she asked as she fastened her seat belt automatically. “And I guess the seats are real leather? Is it automatic?”

He smiled indulgently. “Yes, yes, and yes. What do you drive?”

“A renovated Sherman tank—at least, that’s what it feels like early on a cold morning.” She smiled across at him. “You don’t have to take me out to lunch. I’ll make you late.”

“No, you won’t. I’ve got time. Is your brother a pusher, Rebecca?”

She gaped. “No!”

He glanced at her as he eased into the turning lane. “Fair enough. Try to keep him out of it. I’ve got my sights on the Harris family. I’m going to nail them before I get out of office, no matter what it takes. Drugs on the street, that’s one thing. Drugs in grammar school—not in my county.”

“You can’t be serious!” she exclaimed. “In midtown, maybe, but not in Curry Station Elementary!”

“We found crack,” he said, “in a student’s locker. He was ten years old and a pusher.” He looked across at her, scowling. “My God, you can’t be that naive. Don’t you know that hundreds of grammar school kids are sent to jail every year for pushing narcotics, or that one kid out of every four has addicted parents in Georgia?”

“I didn’t,” she confessed. She leaned her head against the window. “Whatever happened to kids going to school and playing with frogs and having spelling bees and sock hops?”

“Wrong generation. This one can dissect a bee and the hops are in the beer they drink. They still go to school, of course, where they learn subjects in grammar school that I didn’t get until I was in high school. Accelerated learning, Miss Cullen. We want our kids to be adults early so that we won’t have the bother of childhood traumas. We’re producing miniature adults, and the latchkey kids are at the top of the class.”

“Mothers have to work,” she began.

“So they do. Over fifty percent of them are out there in the work force, while their kids are split up and locked up and divided into stepfamilies.” He lit a cigar without asking if she minded. He knew that she did. “Women won’t have total equality until men can get pregnant.”

She grinned. “You’d have one horrible delivery, I imagine.”

He chuckled softly. “No doubt, and with my luck, it would be a breech birth.” He shook his head. “It’s been a rotten day. I’ve been prosecuting two juveniles as adults this week and I’m bitter. I want more parents who care about their damned kids. It’s my favorite theme.”

“You don’t have any children, I guess?” she asked shyly.

He pulled into a Crystal hamburger place and parked. “No. I’m old-fashioned. I think kids come after marriage.” He opened his door and got out, helping her out before he locked it. “Feel like a hamburger or chili?”

“Chili,” she said instantly. “With Tabasco sauce on the side.”

“You’re one of those, are you?” he mused, his dark eyes teasing.

“One of those what?” she asked.

He let his hands slide down to enfold hers, and she caught her breath audibly. He paused at the door and looked down again, catching the shocked delight that registered on her soft oval face, in her hazel eyes with their flecks of gold. She looked as surprised as he felt at the contact that ran like electricity through his hand, into his body, tautening it with unexpected pleasure.

“Soft hands,” he remarked, frowning slightly. “Calloused fingers. What do you do at home?”

“Wash, cook, clean, garden,” she said. “They’re working hands.”

He lifted them and turned them in his lean, warm ones, studying the long, elegant fingers with their short, unpolished nails. They looked like working hands, but they were elegant, for all that. Impulsively, he bent and brushed his mouth softly over the knuckles.

“Mr. Kilpatrick!” she burst out, flushing.

His head raised and his eyes danced. “Just the Irish side of me coming out. The Cherokee side, of course, would have you over a horse and out of the country by sundown.”

“Did they have horses?”

“Yes. I’ll tell you all about them one day.” When he linked his fingers with hers and led her inside the hamburger shop, she felt as if she were sleepwalking.

They got their food, found an unoccupied table, and sat down. Becky spooned chili into her mouth while he wolfed down two cheeseburgers and two orders of French fries.

“God, I’m starved,” he murmured. “I never can find enough time to eat these days. The calendar’s overflowing; I’m working most weekends and nights. I even argue cases in my sleep.”

“I thought you had assistants to do that.”

“Our caseload is unbelievable,” he said, “despite plea-bargaining and guilty pleas. I’ve got people in jail who shouldn’t be, waiting for their cases to be put on the court calendar. There aren’t enough courts, or enough judges, or enough jails.”

“Or enough prosecutors?”

He smiled at her across his chocolate milk shake. “Or enough prosecutors,” he said. His dark eyes slid over her face and back up to catch her eyes. The smile faded and the look grew intimate. “I don’t want to get involved with you, Rebecca Cullen.”

His bluntness took a little getting used to. She swallowed. “Don’t you?”

“You’re still a virgin, aren’t you?”

She went scarlet.

His eyebrow jerked. “And I didn’t even have to guess,” he said ruefully. He finished the milk shake. “Well, I don’t seduce virgins. Uncle Sanderson wanted me to be a gentleman instead of a red Indian, so he taught me exquisite manners. I have a conscience, thanks to his blasted interference.”

She shifted in her seat, unsure if he was serious or teasing. “I don’t fall into bed with strange men,” she began.

“You wouldn’t fall, you’d be carried,” he pointed out. “And I’m not strange. I do set fire to my office occasionally, and stand on my dog’s tail, but that isn’t so odd.”

She smiled gently, feeling warm ripples up and down her body as she looked at him, liking the strength of his high-cheekboned face, the power and grace of his body. He was a very sensuous man. He was stealing her heart, and she couldn’t even save herself.

“I’m not the liberated type,” she said quietly. “I’m very conventional. I was raised strictly, despite my father, and in the church. I suppose that sounds archaic to you...”

“Uncle Sanderson was a deacon in the Baptist church,” he interrupted. “I was baptized at the age of ten and went to Sunday school until I graduated high school. You aren’t the only archaic specimen around.”

“Yes, but you’re a man.”

“I hope so,” he sighed. “Otherwise, I’ve spent a fortune on a wardrobe I can’t wear.”

She laughed with pure delight. “Is this really you? I mean, are you the broody man I met in the elevator?”

“I had plenty of reason to be broody. They moved me out of my comfortable office into a high-rise airport and took away my favorite coffee shop, flooded me with appeal cases—of course I brooded. Then, there was this irritating young woman who kept insulting me.”

“You started it,” she pointed out.

“I defended myself,” he argued.

She fingered her foam coffee cup. “So did I. I’ll bet you’re scary in court.”

“Some people think so.” He gathered up the remains of his lunch. “We have to go. I don’t want to rush like this, but I’ve only got half an hour to get back to court.”

“Sorry!” She got up at once. “I didn’t realize we’d been here so long.”

“Neither did I,” he confessed. He stood aside to let her precede him to the trash can and then out of the building. It was warming up, but still a cold day, and she pulled her jacket closer.

His eyes fastened on it. It was worn and probably three or four years old. Her dress wasn’t new, either, and her black high heels were scuffed. It disturbed him to see how little she had. And yet she was so cheerful usually—except when her brother was mentioned. He’d known women with wealth who were critical of everything and everyone, but Becky had practically nothing and she seemed to love life and people.

“You’ve perked up,” he commented as they drove back to the office building.

“Everybody has problems,” she replied easily. “I handle mine fairly well most days. They’re no worse than anyone else’s,” she added with a smile. “Mostly I enjoy life, Mr. Kilpatrick.”

“Rourke,” he corrected. He glanced at her and smiled. “It’s Irish.”

“No!” she said with mock surprise.

“What did you expect I’d be named? George Standing Rock, or Henry Marble Cheek, or some such outlandish thing?”

She covered her face with her hands. “Oh, my gosh,” she groaned.

“Actually, my mother’s name was Irene Tally,” he said. “Her father was Irish and her mother was Cherokee. So I’m only one-quarter, not one-half Cherokee. All the same,” he said, “I’m pretty damned proud of my ancestry.”

“Mack keeps trying to get Granddad to say he’s got Indian blood,” she mused. “His class is studying Cherokee Indians this semester, and he’s gung-ho to learn how to use that blowgun they hunted with. Did you know that the Cherokee were the only southeastern tribe to hunt with a blowgun?”

“Yes, I knew. I am Cherokee,” he pointed out.

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