Leave Me Breathless (3 page)

“You watch too much television.”

“And you don’t understand just how dangerous this situation is.”

“Really? Let’s see.” He sat up straighter and started ticking off a list on his fingers. “I have my brother up my ass, Emma’s calling every two seconds, journalists want quotes for the newspaper, the administrative judge is insisting I take a vacation, and you’re falling asleep in my courtroom.”

Ouch.
“You saw that, huh?”

“It was tough to miss.” Ben’s mouth broke into a sexy little smile. “I heard you snore.”

“That’s not true.” At least she hoped it wasn’t.

“And why do you think I stayed awake? One of us had to know what was going on in there.”

She cleared her throat. “Either way, no meeting with Rod.”

“I’m willing to placate Mark, but I need to be able to run my office.”

“Let me shortcut the meeting for you. Rod is going to complain about my presence here. He feels threatened and pushed out. He wants to be the one sitting in that courtroom with you, although I have no idea why, because it sucks.”

“Thank you. I aim to please.”

She ignored the sarcasm. “Rod definitely doesn’t like the fact that my desk is in here with you.”

Ben exhaled loud enough to be heard on the next floor down. “You’ve been here less than a half day and already you’re making trouble.”

“Imagine what will happen if I have to put a bullet in the kid.”

“He’s twenty-four. You can’t be that much older.”

“Thirty, and there is a world of difference between a kid like that who has had everything handed to him and me.” Rod had every opportunity open to him. She tripped through the past two years and was only now getting back up off her ass again.

“Feeling judgmental today, are we?”

“I’ve done some background research on you and everyone who works for you.”

“Interesting.” Ben smacked his lips together as if he had gone into deep contemplation. “When did you find time for that?”

“Last night.”

“Very enterprising of you.” He shifted his weight, edged a little closer.

She could smell the citrusy scent of the soap on his skin. “I have my talents.”

“I’ll bet you do.”

The room shrank. Callie knew that the laws of physics made that impossible, but the air grew thin and his hand now rested just inches from her knee. “Uh…?”

His eyebrow kicked up. “Yes?”

“Are you flirting with me, Your Honor?”

“Of course not.” The hitch to his voice said differently.

That would be a disaster. Fun but dangerous. She knew how this scenario played out. She went through these cycles of attraction. Someone would appeal to her, they’d connect, the sex would consume her, and then she’d lose.

One of them had to exercise some common sense. From the way her palms started sweating and the rush of excitement that just shot through her stomach, it better be her before she lost all control. “In addition to the fact I don’t like you all that much and have been tempted to shoot you several times since meeting you—”

“Thanks again, this time for refraining from homicide.”

“—it would be a conflict for you to be involved with anyone who works for you.”

“Well argued. You could be a lawyer with that reasoning. Except that you’ve forgotten one very important fact.”

That was quite possible, since she couldn’t remember anything at the moment. “Which is?”

“You work for my brother, not me.”

“T
ell me Callie’s story.” Ben took the cap off the bottle and slid the beer across his kitchen counter to his brother. With dinner over, Mark fired up the laptop. That meant Ben had a short window to grab his brother’s attention before he drifted off into law enforcement worker mode.

“What do you want to know?” Mark shuffled his papers, scanning them for something, but didn’t bother to look up.

“Why isn’t she with the FBI now?”

“You’ll have to ask her.”

“I’m asking you.”

Mark glanced up then. He leaned his elbows on the counter and passed the bottle back and forth between his palms. “She chose to move on.”

“That’s not a real answer. Hell, I could get that information without much digging.” Ben wanted something more. Something personal that would give him a little insight into Callie.

“Need-to-know only.”

“Don’t give me that. Was it an assignment gone bad? She swore at the director? She shot a witness who pissed her off, which I could absolutely see her doing, by the way. Or was it something worse?”

“You might want to be careful. She’s considered excellent with that weapon.”

“So noted.”

“And she’s very private. She took on this job as a favor to me. I wanted someone smart and tough to watch over you. Someone from the outside who you couldn’t boss around or intimidate.”

“You make me sound difficult,” Ben joked.

“You’re a complete pain in the ass about all of this.”

“Apparently you’re not alone in thinking that. She’s already threatened to put a bullet in me.”

“No surprise there.”

Ben looked down at the bottle in his hand. He picked at the edge of the label, trying to get lost in the mundane activity rather than let his mind wander to memories of how tight Callie’s ass looked in those pants today. “But her accuracy on the gun range doesn’t really answer my question.”

Mark didn’t say anything. He just let the quiet fill the room, as if silence somehow answered his brother’s question. Finally he spoke up. “Let me ask you something.”

Ben swallowed a groan. “Can I stop you?”

“Why the intense interest in her personal life?”

“She’s in my office.”

“You know everything about Elaine or that Rod kid?” Mark punctuated the remark with a knowing smile. “Don’t remember you insisting on a background check when those two came to work for you.”

Ben thought about throwing his brother’s laptop out the window. “This is different. I couldn’t move two inches today without tripping over Callie.”

And then there was the part where he wanted her until his mind blanked on everything else around him. The woman had a smart mouth and sweet curvy body. He’d never had a preference for blondes versus brunettes. Now he did.

She pretended to despise him, said all sorts of shit he’d never let anyone else say to him at the office. More than once he caught her staring up at him from her seat in the courtroom. Sometimes he saw a soft awareness in her eyes. Other times she threw him a want-to-squash-you glare.

The reality was her feigned disinterest drove him to his knees. There was something pretty damn hot about a woman who acted as if she could live without him, who didn’t care about the rumors of his bedroom skills or how fast he could get tickets to whatever event she wanted to see in the area. Independent and feisty. Yeah, Callie appealed to him on a fundamental level. Rubbed him raw and had him thinking up new uses for his desk.

And despite the not-interested act, there was a “got the green light” vibe zapping off her that had made it tough to concentrate on the middle-aged men parading through his courtroom all afternoon. He called two extra breaks during the afternoon session just to have a few seconds alone to think. Of course, she followed him everywhere, so he had to go to his only private space anywhere at the moment—the bathroom. The second time he stood in there with one hand against the wall mirror and mentally listed out all the reasons making a move on a prickly woman who carried a gun was a dumb idea.

Mark clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “You can’t sleep with her.”

“Whoa.” Ben held up his hands and tried to deliver his best shocked look. “Where did that come from?”

“Thirty-eight years of seeing that stupid smile on your face and the past twenty plus watching how you operate with women.”

Ben balanced his hips against the counter and swished his drink around in the bottle. “Despite what everyone in the courthouse thinks, I’ve never had a relationship with someone who works for me.”

“So?”

“What, you don’t believe me?” That possibility hit Ben like a sucker punch. Through everything that happened in the past, they believed in and supported each other. They owed the lives they had now to that fact.

“I mean ‘so’ as in Callie works for me. Your impressive statistic isn’t relevant.”

Ben relaxed, but not fully. He had hoped Mark would miss that distinction. “What’s your point?”

“She’s there to protect you.”

She excelled at distracting him. Ben didn’t buy into the rest. He could watch out for himself. Had been doing it for years no matter the cost. “So you keep saying.”

“I am not paying her to slide all over you.”

“I’m not sure which one of us is the whore in that scenario you’re describing, but for the record, I’m outraged on Callie’s behalf,” Ben said in his most sarcastic voice.

“She’s off limits.”

“Come on. She’s a grown woman and can make her own decisions.”

All the humor faded from Mark’s face. “Not her, Ben.”

Ah, shit
. All the oxygen sucked right out of the room. Ben could handle Mark’s interference at work. Ben understood where the concern came from and forced back his refusals to let Mark win that one. But Ben refused to fight his brother over a woman. They’d never done that before, despite what Mark might think, and were too old to do it now.

“You want her,” Ben said.

“What? No.” Mark’s eyes grew wide enough to take over his face. “I mean, she’s
fine
. Don’t get me wrong. I have a pair of fucking eyes, so I can see how good she looks.”

Mark could get off that subject damn quick, as far as Ben was concerned. “So?”

Mark squirmed in his seat as he picked up his bottle and set it back down again. And then repeated the exercise four more times.

The fog cleared from Ben’s brain. He got it. “This isn’t about Callie.”

“It’s just that—”

Ben forced his hands to unclench from the counter behind him. “You’re stuck on someone else.”

Mark’s anger came fast. “That’s over.”

“It doesn’t have to be.”

“We’re not talking about my love life. We’re on yours.” Mark shoved the laptop and everything in front of him off to the side and then started to pace. “Look, there are about a hundred women who would love to say they got nailed by the popular young judge. You’ve got power, and that stupid robe seems to drive the courthouse ladies wild. You need a good time? Pick one of them.”

Ben tried to think of something less appealing. “I can’t date anyone who works for me or in the same building.”

Mark stopped. Even gave a forced smile. “Then you have your answer.”

“To what?”

“Callie works there. Right in your office, in fact. By your logic, she’s in restricted territory.”

“She doesn’t really.”

Mark shrugged. “Besides, she probably isn’t interested.”

“What about my aphrodisiac robe?”

“You’re not her type.”

Ben refused to ask. This amounted to brotherly warfare. He set his empty bottle in the sink and thought about…
Hell.
He turned back around. “What’s her type?”

“A guy who’s smart enough to take a bodyguard without whining when one’s offered,” Mark said as if he’d been waiting to fire off that response.

“You’re wrong.”

“About?”

“Almost everything, but mostly about Callie’s feelings. She wants me back.” Ben was counting on being right about that important fact.

“She better not.”

Ben was thinking the exact opposite.

T
he next day, Callie stepped off the elevator and rushed down the hallway leading to the private judges’ chambers. That was her deal with Mark. They would exchange the responsibility for Ben no later than seven thirty each work morning. The fact the plan worked a bit like a kid’s day care drop-off made her smile. She bet Ben loved that.

But funny or not, she vowed to arrive even earlier each day and get settled in. Since she didn’t have any real paperwork to do, getting ready for work consisted of walking through the office’s four rooms and reception area to make sure no one else was there. The only barrier between the elevator and the office was a sign at the top of the hallway that read “RESTRICTED AREA” and warned of electronic monitoring. Yeah, that would stop the bad guys. Stern written warnings
always
scared men who liked to blow things up.

Idiots.

She made a mental note to go a second round with Sheriff Danbury over the need for a guard station on each of the floors where the judges had offices. She knew the man would ignore her, but there was an “I told you so” moment coming and she planned to be ready for it. The truth of looming disaster gnawed at her gut.

Her shoes tapped against the marble floors as she walked past the stupid sign. There was something unsettling about knowing security guards sat in a room somewhere in the building watching her walk. Kind of made her want to do something inappropriate, but since the gossip about her new position with Ben had already started rumbling in the women’s restrooms and at the tables in the cafeteria she skipped the offensive gestures. It had been hard enough to make a salad under all those watchful eyes at lunch yesterday. No need to make people think she had an insanity issue on top of having a mysterious job.

She stopped at the far end of the hall near the emergency door to the stairwell. The locked door on the right side led to Ben’s offices. The one directly across on the left led to Emma Blanton’s space. A very convenient arrangement for their so-called friendship and for anyone who might want to take the judges out together.

Callie swept her key card through the reader and heard the door click open. On her second step, her heel hit on something that made her leg slide a few inches. She noticed the envelope with Ben’s name on it. Reaching out, she closed the door behind her.

The air in her lungs started to whirl, but she refused to panic. The man was a judge. He probably got messages under his door all the time. It could be work or personal. It didn’t mean anything. Because her stomach kept jumping around, however, she decided to ignore the rational theory and explore.

She slipped her gun out from under her arm and swept through the office, stalking around the reception area, then down to Rod’s tiny room and across the hall to Ben’s airy office. She led with her weapon, waiting for someone to jump out and attack. With her back to the wall she checked under desks and behind curtains, even pushed open the suite’s closet with the tip of her foot before peeking inside the courtroom from Ben’s private entrance. No one else was in there.

Her head said everything was fine. The dropping sensation inside her convinced her to remain wary. She returned to the reception area and grabbed a tissue off Elaine’s desk. With the mysterious envelope pinched between her fingers, she walked back to Ben’s office. Careful not to drop it or smudge any prints, she carried the paper and placed it on his desk. Studied it for anything unusual.

She grabbed for her cell phone to call Mark.

“What are you doing?” Ben’s amused voice rang through the room.

And scared the hell out of her. She almost wasted all her careful efforts by putting her hands on the envelope when she jumped. “Where’s Mark?”

“Good morning to you.”

“I’m not kidding. We need Mark.”

“I saw you in here and told him to go. He’s over in Emma’s office.” Ben dropped his briefcase on the couch and walked over to stand beside her. “Why?”

“We may have a problem.”

“And you plan to resolve it with a tissue?”

She glanced up at him. His black suit and bright blue tie highlighted his dark good looks. The joking smile on his lips gave him a younger and softer look than the one he wore while sitting on the bench listening to cases. On the job he wore his stern judge face, never unfair but not one to take any crap, either. In this office he seemed more…human. Right now he was a stalked human.

“You got a letter,” she said.

“I get mail all the time.”

“Who opens it?”

“Elaine.”

“Well, this is different.”

Ben stared at the envelope and then back at Callie. “Because?”

“It was on the floor by the door when I came in.”

“And?”

“That’s a problem.”

His eyes narrowed. “Is it possible you’re overreacting?”

No way was she agreeing to that. “It’s just as possible I’m not.”

“Hard to argue with that logic. Let me open it.” He reached for the envelope, but she pulled it out of reach by body-blocking him with her hip.

“No.”

The touch of her thigh against his stopped them both, but she shook off the shiver and focused on the problems in front of her—the paper and the knucklehead standing next to her. For some reason Ben refused to see the danger around him. She didn’t understand his blockage. Nothing in his file explained how a man who once thrived on the adrenaline rush of carrying a gun and fighting for his country could be so cavalier about his own safety. She would figure it out eventually, but not today. The job right now was to keep him alive long enough to smack some sense into him.

Callie tried reason first. “We need to have a forensics team come in here and—”

“We need to open it to make sure it’s not a regular letter from a lawyer. An admirer.”

“You get a lot of fan mail, do you?”

He shrugged. “Other people like me.”

It was the one guy who wanted Ben dead she worried about. “I find that really hard to believe.”

He exhaled. “I’m opening it.”

“We need Mark.”

Ben’s stance changed. The lazy smile disappeared and his shoulders tensed. “I’m a grown man. I can open my own mail.”

So this was a guy thing. The big bad judge didn’t want the little woman saving his ass or calling in reinforcements. Yeah, well. Tough. “This isn’t a test of your virility. Something could be in there. You could destroy evidence.”

“Then we’ll do it another way,” he said.

“What do you—” Words caught in her throat when he slid his arm between her stomach and the slim top drawer of his desk. The sleeve of his jacket brushed against her and his scent filled her senses as he leaned with his mouth so close to her breast.

Visions of being with him in a different time and place danced in her head. What he was doing was mundane. What his presence did to her deep inside could only be described as violent. She wanted to feel the hot rush of his breath against her. Shook with the need to run her fingers through his hair and watch as his head turned from the desk to her body.

She inhaled through her nose, trying to calm her breathing and pull her mind back to the job. She had to at least pretend to be professional, but her heartbeat had taken off at a full gallop. In her head, she struggled to like Ben. To ignore his stubbornness and obvious need to control everything and everyone around him.

Her body arrived at a very different conclusion about the man. He got close and she turned to pudding. Her muscles strained and her mind spun with ways to get him out of his suit.

“What was your assignment before this?” he asked in a husky tone that broke her out of the sexual fantasy spinning in her head.

“Why?”

“It made you paranoid.” He stood back up holding a letter opener. “I’ll slice the top. You can hold the paper the entire time.”

“I don’t—”

“So that you’re clear for the future, that was a statement and not a request.” He held the very edge of the envelope and cut it open. “See? No need for a recon team.”

“Uh-huh.”

His smile fell. “What’s wrong with you now?”

Other than the fact seeing the guy with a letter opener got her all hot and bothered? Nothing. “What does it say?”

She read over his shoulder. Heard a gruff rumble hit his chest right before he swore. Tensed when he tensed. The big bold letters written in blue ink didn’t say much, but they said enough:
It’s Your Turn
.

He slapped the desk before he backed up and paced to the window. “Son of a bitch.”

“We have to get Mark.” She started to dial but Ben folded his fingers over hers.

“No.”

“Ben, this is a direct threat against you. Maybe the bomb had Judge Blanton’s name all over it, but this person, whoever it is, is dropping a not-so-subtle warning about the next time. It could happen in a minute or next week. We don’t know, but we have to be ready.”

The idea of Ben being in that much danger sent a shot of anger spinning through her. She vowed to keep him safe. No one was going to kill him but her.

“Callie.” He stepped in close, blocking out her view of the rest of the room. His palms brushed her upper arms in a gesture so intimate she froze.

He leaned in until his body overwhelmed hers. This close she could see the mix of anger and sadness in his brown eyes. Could smell the shampoo in his still damp hair. She should have stepped back and insisted on a separation between work and play. Instead, her fingers fondled his tie.

“Don’t ask me to ignore this, Ben. I can’t do it.”

“I’m asking you to wait.” It was a whispered desperate plea.

“Trust me on this.”

This time she found the will to push away. Two more seconds with him right there and he’d be able to talk her into handing over her gun. “I’m calling Mark.”

A half hour later Callie sat next to Emma Blanton on the sofa in Ben’s office. Rod and Elaine buzzed around on the other side of the door. Both judges had canceled their morning dockets after complaining for what felt to Callie like a month. Apparently their concession meant shifting cases and otherwise screwing up the entire courthouse calendar. For some reason, both judges viewed a schedule snafu as more important than a threatening note. Or they did until Mark overruled them.

The scheduling clerks had demanded an explanation. Ben refused to offer one and hung up the phone without delivering his usual dose of charm. Callie could just imagine the e-mails shooting around the building as the courthouse’s female employees tried to figure out what was happening with Judge Cutie Pie behind closed doors.

Callie didn’t know if that’s what had Ben sitting in a chair with his arms crossed and jaw slammed shut, but something sure had ticked him off. Rather than dwell on Ben’s reaction, Callie studied Emma. The other woman looked normal enough. Not like the fire-breathing defendant hater Callie expected. Emma’s shoulder-length brown hair and bright blue eyes gave her round face a soft glow. At forty she had reached the age where people threw around words like “handsome” instead of pretty, but Judge Blanton definitely qualified as pretty. No wrinkles, and with an open warmness that only added to her attractiveness.

Callie tried very hard not to hate her.

If Ben had shown any heated interest in Emma, Callie knew she would have wrestled the other woman to the ground. Felony charges be damned. But nothing in their body language or conversation explained what the two of them meant to each other. Ben sat across from his supposed girlfriend and hadn’t said a word in more than ten minutes. Neither did Emma’s bodyguard, Keith, who stood with his back to the door and his hands folded in front of him. From the way he frowned at Emma, Callie assumed the guy didn’t like his assignment all that much.

Mark ran the meeting. Sitting in the open chair next to Ben and across from the couch, Mark went over a new set of courthouse security procedures. “Sheriff Danbury is up to speed on the threats. He’s personally checking the security tapes to see who slid the envelope under the door. He’s also running through the morning’s recordings to see if anything unusual happened at the metal detectors downstairs.”

“He’s not going to find anything.” Callie knew that as sure as she knew the size of her pants. The real size, not the one she told people.

“Probably, but it’s worth a try. In the meantime, we need to deal with something else.” Then Mark dropped the biggest bombshell. “Judge Samson wants you both to take a vacation.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Ben said, finally speaking up but not sounding one ounce happier at being there.

“I agree.” Emma ran her fingers through her short hair. “We have work to do. Sitting at home worrying isn’t going to help you catch the person any faster.”

“But it could keep you alive,” Mark said.

Emma kept her focus on the bookshelves lining the wall perpendicular to her instead of looking at either of the Walker men. “I refuse to let this piece of garbage run my life.”

Ben stood up. “Are we done here?”

Again with the stubborn act.
Callie had just about had enough. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

Ben turned to face her. The slow-motion move carried a menacing quality. “When did I give you permission to talk to me like that?”

The fury in his voice hit her like a slap. She expected frustration about the situation, but this was different. The stupid man was actually angry with her. That realization fueled all the anxiety brewing in her gut. “Probably about the same time I agreed that I needed your okay to do anything.”

“Stop.” Mark stood up and held his hands out as if he were refereeing a fight. “Let’s all calm down.”

“Just find the guy.” Ben walked over to his desk. “In the meantime, I’m going back to work.”

Callie wanted to kick him, but she stuck with the facts instead. “Your morning caseload was canceled.”

“I’ve still got plenty of paperwork to do.”

“Right.” Mark pointed to the door. “Callie, Keith, let me see you two outside.”

Ben waited until they hit the door to fire off one last verbal attack. “Aren’t you afraid someone will attack me while you’re gone for three seconds?”

Mark pursed his lips together as if he were considering the possibility. “Unless Emma plans on stabbing you, I’m thinking you’ll be fine.”