The Proviso (95 page)

“Why not?”

Knox laughed, a mix of bitterness and sadness, but
no humor. “You have to ask? Use your head, Iustitia. What religious
culture in its right mind would condone what I do? I lie, I cheat,
I steal. I blackmail women into my bed. I kill people and I force
people to do what I want at gunpoint.” She swallowed heavily. “So
you tell me why I’d get my ass thrown out.”

The depth of bitterness was unexpected from a man
like Knox, who thrived on his reputation. “Would you go back if you
could?”

“No.” The answer was swift, like the sharp blade of
a guillotine through a soft neck. “I don’t want the
responsibility.”

Responsibility . . . what an odd choice of words. A
choice that implied too much for Justice to sort through all at
once.

. . . as attached as you are to theology.

“You still believe in it, though, don’t you? I mean,
the religion?”

There was a long pause. Justice held her breath in
wait for his answer, and waited for a while. “Yes,” he finally
murmured, then cleared his throat and spoke a little louder. “But
not enough to change my life.”

“But, Knox—”

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore, Iustitia.
It’s a very demanding religion and an even more demanding culture
and I’ve made my choices. For better or worse. Porter Rockwell,” he
said, reaching over her to flip the book back to where it was, and
that, his body wrapped around hers like that—oh, that!—nearly
disengaged her brain. She wanted him to stroke her and caress her
the way he had their wedding night; she wanted him to tuck his hand
under her shirt and undress her, kiss her . . . “Was a very
powerful man. He was called the Destroying Angel of Mormondom. He
did things no one else could or would do in order to protect his
people and his prophet.”

His reverence brought her mind back from her need.
“You admire him.”

“I do. Very much. I absolutely believe that there’s
a place in society for men like him, for people like us, me and
Sebastian and Giselle. Bryce. Justice at all costs. And since I
showed you mine, you show me yours.”

Justice thought for a minute, because she’d never
been asked this question that she hadn’t replied, flippantly or
otherwise, “There is no God.”

“I believe in the republic and capitalism. The
Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, Federalist Papers,
Democracy in America—that’s my holy writ. Neil Peart writes my
hymns and Rush is my choir. Ted Nugent is my Porter Rockwell. You
have your prophets and I have mine: James Madison, Alexis de
Tocqueville, Walter Williams, Morgan Ashworth. I follow no other
faith.”

Knox pulled her even closer and ran his fingers
through her hair. He didn’t seem to be inclined to speak, but—

“Why did Sebastian and Bryce call you Lucifer?”

He tensed and his arm tightened around her, then he
sighed. “In Mormon theology, Lucifer thought it would be a good
idea if everyone had no choice but to be perfectly obedient, so
then everyone’s salvation would be assured. Nobody liked that idea,
so he got pissed off and left. Or got kicked out. I’m sure it would
depend which side you asked. Theoretically, in our hierarchy of
sins, taking away someone’s ability to choose—anything—is probably
the worst.”

“Huh. Well, I don’t do Judeo-Christian myth. Or any
other myth.”

He combed his fingers through her hair. “Okay.”

“That doesn’t bother you?”

“Why would it? I’m a man without a God.”

For some reason, Justice found that simple
statement, said without a trace of emotion, terribly sad.

“Knox?”

“Mmmm?”

“Did Giselle do something to that girl, Sherry
Quails, who made fun of me?”

“Yes. I asked her to.”

Justice felt a warmth blossom throughout her body,
but after the weekends she’d spent with her new family, she should
be used to feeling so cared for.

“I don’t know
what
she did to her, though.
She never told me and I never asked. You have to understand
something about Giselle. She falls in love with the people who need
her protection. If she thought you needed her—and you did right
then—she would’ve gone to the ends of the earth to make sure you
were protected, that you had a smooth path to walk.”

Justice looked at that, took it apart and put it
back together again seventeen different ways.

“Bryce— She protects him, too?”

“Oh, no. She wouldn’t have married any man she felt
she needed to protect, which is one reason she would never have
married me even if I’d wanted her to. Bryce Kenard is the last man
on earth who needs anyone’s protection.”

Justice remained silent for a moment. “Do you know
he’s afraid of the dark?”

She felt Knox start behind her and the hand that
stroked her curls stopped abruptly. “Afraid of the dark?”

“Well. Maybe that’s not the right word, ‘afraid.’
She said after his fire that he doesn’t like to be alone after
dark. So she always makes sure to be home before the sun goes
down.”

There was a long silence before the tension left
Knox’s body and his hand began to play in her hair again. “No, I
didn’t know that,” he murmured. “That puts an interesting spin on
things.”

“Like what?”

Knox drew a deep breath. “Do you know anything about
his fire?”

“Not much.”

Justice listened as he spoke and her skin began to
tingle and warm most unpleasantly. Her body tensed with phantom
aches when she visualized Bryce’s scars while listening to Knox’s
words.

“So what do you find interesting about it?” she
asked when he had finished.

“His thing about the dark— That could be a symptom
of PTSD. I didn’t pick up on it, but I should’ve. We’ve had enough
victims come through the office with it, enough defendants with it.
You know what it looks like.”

“But he doesn’t act like those people do.”

“People snap under different stressors. I doubt he’s
had his trigger tripped, but when he does—” He shuddered.

They lay quietly for a long time, Justice attempting
to work up her courage to ask—

“Why haven’t you been home for the last three
weekends?”

Knox took a deep breath. “I—” He stopped. She felt
his shrug against her shoulders. “I had to take care of a few
things.” She swallowed at that, feeling a bit of grief at what he
wasn’t telling her, like
I had to get away from you
. What he
didn’t say, like
I did it so you’d have to go to my family so
they could love on you
. He cleared his throat. “I won’t leave
you alone on the weekend again, Iustitia,” he murmured.

“You didn’t do it on purpose so Giselle would come
get me?”

“No. I didn’t think about how that might hurt your
feelings or that my family might take it upon themselves to fix it.
I’m sorry.”

“Did Sebastian or Giselle make you apologize?” she
asked, more bitterness in her voice than she meant to show.

“Apologize? No. I thought you would be more
comfortable if I left and they did let me know that wasn’t the
case.”

She huffed. “I wish you’d just talk to me. Ask me.
Quit assuming things. Sebastian and Bryce both told me I needed to
learn how to live with you, to learn how to have a relationship
with you. I don’t know how to do that, but I can’t even try if
you’re not here, if you don’t talk to me.”

He said nothing to that, but she felt his
acquiescence. Then, “Okay.” At that, she began to wonder what
tomorrow would bring, or possibly tonight . . .

“Knox?” she finally said, working up her courage to
ask what she came to ask. Maybe.

“Mmmm?”

“Why haven’t you— Er, um . . . ”

He waited, but she couldn’t bring herself to finish
the sentence, she was so embarrassed.

“Why haven’t I made love to you?”

Justice closed her eyes and sighed, her body
responding to even that little bit and relieved that he hadn’t made
her say it. “Yes, that.”

He started to speak, then stopped. Finally, “Do you
want me to?”

Yes!
“I’m not sure what I want.”

“Well, Iustitia, I know what I want, so go back to
bed before I decide for you.”

She did, slowly, but she lay awake the rest of the
night, spinning everything he’d told her.

Do you want me to?

Suddenly, she didn’t care how she’d gotten into
Knox’s bed. She just wished she’d had the courage to answer his
question differently and that he were in his own cherished bed with
her.

* * * * *

87:
BATTLE FATIGUE

McKinley! I want you in court in half an hour.”

Justice looked up at Knox, At-Work Knox, the one who
hadn’t told her all those revealing, wonderful things last week
when she’d snuggled with him on the couch,
Pinky and the
Brain
on in the background—

—the one who hadn’t spent the past weekend on the
basement floor in front of the TV with her cocooned between his
legs and snuggled up against his chest, introducing her to his
favorite 1980s movies and sharing a tin of cheese popcorn, with
nothing but a bare ten sentences between them and not so much as a
kiss.

We’re all weak and easily seduced.

“My butt,” Justice muttered.

Knox stared at her, his voice and face hard. “Did
you hear me?”

“Yes. I’ll be right there.”

Nobody blinked an eye when he quit the room in a
huff. Knox was always like this and he was no different with her
than he was with anybody else, so she shrugged it off.

Once seated in the gallery behind the prosecution
table, Justice forgot all about Fen Hilliard, her marriage, OKH.
All she could do was watch Knox do what he did better than
everybody in the metro area. She suddenly remembered why she’d had
a crush on him to begin with.

He was a very handsome man with his squared jaw,
golden hair, huge body, and designer suit. He was even more
handsome in jeans, bare chested. She would never forget how she’d
felt with his naked body pressed tight against hers. But that
wasn’t it.

He was a skillful interrogator, drawing facts out of
the few witnesses as if he had injected them with sodium pentothal;
but then some of the witnesses would lie, and Justice would miss
their contradictory statements and nuances, but Knox didn’t. He
zeroed in on little slips of the tongue easily, remembered verbatim
their previous testimony. But that wasn’t it either.

He was a charismatic orator, using rural vernacular
as eloquently as if he were using the Queen’s English in the House
of Lords. His normal syntax was precise and clipped but in court
here in Chouteau County, it changed. He spoke in lazily finished
words with just enough of a country twang. He could flash good ol’
boy redneck expressions and mannerisms as if he’d been born and
raised in a honky-tonk; he made the jury and spectators laugh on a
regular basis. Anyone else would have seemed to be patronizing the
jury, but not Knox. Knox had an attractive and approachable
personality when he wanted to use it—and he used it liberally in
court. Still, that wasn’t what reminded Justice of her initial
reaction to Knox.

It was his brilliance. Understated legal acumen
hidden by a pretty face and easy smile, lazy speech, and a bad
reputation. That was why she was there, to watch and learn.

And she found herself crushing on him all over
again, as if she were still in law school and he were still her
substitute professor, as if she didn’t know a thing about him and
had no chance with him.

The man on trial had a rap sheet longer than the
Missouri River, but not as long as Knox’s memory, for Knox recalled
every crime he had tried the man for. The thief was a seedy type, a
real two-bit thug—as opposed to Knox’s high-dollar operation,
whatever it was—who liked to steal cars for a chop shop.

Justice looked to her left and saw a woman with four
young children. The woman would have stood out anyway because of
the children and the way in which she wept helplessly as Knox
grilled the man on trial—but the way they were dressed . . .

Worn homespun (Justice didn’t even know homespun was
still manufactured) and calico, as if she were a prairie woman and
her man was about to be hanged for horse theft. Of course, for all
the woman knew, that was exactly what Knox planned to do. However,
Justice couldn’t begin to understand why any woman in her right
mind would cry over such a no-good thief.

Knox turned at that moment and deliberately caught
her eye; she didn’t know what he was thinking about, but his eyes
were that warm sky color they turned when he was half aroused. Her
eyes widened and she sucked in a deep breath, forgetting all about
the woman in the back. Knox went on with his interrogation, then
one of the children whispered, “Hun’ry, Mama,” and her attention
was again diverted.

The children were getting restless, and the poor
lady couldn’t comfort them because she was so distraught. Justice
felt pity for no reason that she could fathom and she decided that
maybe her troubles weren’t that bad.

Justice cast a glance at Knox and decided that she
would risk his wrath and take these people out of the courtroom in
order to fill their unnaturally protruding bellies. She rose and
went to the woman, touching her on the shoulder to get her
attention. Lanky dark hair curtained away from her dirty face, red
eyes, and drippy nose when she looked up at Justice.

“Come with me,” Justice whispered. “I want to feed
you.”

She looked back at Justice as if she’d lost her mind
or had an ulterior motive or both. Justice wondered how old the
woman was. Thirty-five? Forty? Too old to be in this situation.

“Please let me do this.”

Justice easily herded the children out with a knack
she didn’t know she had. The mother, all too willing to let someone
else take charge, shuffled along behind Justice and her newly
acquired brood. Justice put the five of them in the charge of the
metal detector guard and ran up the stairs to the office.