Trouble with the Law (4 page)
Justine stared at him. A sharp gust of reality tore through her passion, like an autumn breeze that strips a tree bare of its leaves. “You just happened to have that in your pocket?” She forced the question past her lips while her heart seemed to thud in slow motion inside her chest.
“In my desk drawer,” Sheriff Taylor said calmly as he sat on the edge of the bed and sheathed himself.
“You thought…you expected…” Her brows drew together. She recalled how he had opened the desk drawer and fumbled in his pockets before they left his office.
He reached his hand up to her and traced her lips with his fingertips. “Every mile we drove through the night to get here, I was willing to barter my soul if I could have you.” He shook his head at her wary expression. “Don’t be angry,” he told her, his tone soothing.
“I’m not sure I like what it says about the kind of woman you think I am.”
“It has nothing to do with the kind of woman I think you are. It has to do with you sitting in front of me, dressed in nothing but a few scraps of silk and lace, and then wrapping yourself in my shirt as though you belonged in it.”
Justine released a shaky breath. “I was cold. And your shirt was clean.”
“So what is it to be?” His finger stopped tracing her lips and drifted down, resuming the teasing stroking around her breasts. “Do you want me to leave, or do you want me to stay?”
She raised her gaze to his, felt herself falling into the dark green shadows of his eyes. “Stay,” she said, and something clenched inside her chest, a longing she tried to push aside but failed. “But I want you to stay until I go to sleep. Hold me, and keep me warm.”
He tipped her onto her back, murmuring the words against her lips as he kissed her. “I promise to stay and keep you warm until you go to sleep.”
Then his body descended over hers, hard and heavy. All hesitation left Justine in an aching rush of need. Her hands clutched his shoulders, her fingers digging into the muscular contours as he slowly inched inside her, stretching her, shaping her to fit around him.
“Tell me if it’s too much.” He raised his shoulders to look at her. “Tonight is for you. Tell me what you want. My pleasure comes second.”
“Slowly,” she breathed at him. “Just do what you’re doing. Slide in and out, slowly and gently.”
“Like this?” he withdrew, and then eased back inside her.
“Yes.” She rocked her hips around him, heard him catch his breath.
“Steady,” he murmured. “If you keep doing that, I’ll end up breaking my promise.”
She searched his amused expression. “Breaking your promise?”
“Slow and gentle.” He arched his dark brows at her. “Why do I feel like I’ve been set a challenge I won’t be able to meet?”
“I don’t know.” Justine offered him an innocent smile. Suddenly the strain of her encounter with screaming Mrs. Harper fell away, and laughter bubbled up inside her. She’d never had a one-night stand before. Her attitude to sex was actually quite puritan, and a wave of liberation swept over her, leaving her giddy. “Let’s see,” she murmured. She arched her back, clenching the muscles inside her until she gripped him tight.
“You must be like the sirens that lured the seamen of ancient
Greece
to their deaths,” he murmured, and thrust back into her with a quick jolt of his hips.
“Slowly,” Justine reminded him.
“Sorry,” he said with a rough edge to his voice. “I’m not very good at taking orders.” Then he slipped one arm beneath her waist to anchor her in place and wound his other arm around her shoulders. Bracing his weight over his forearms, he settled into a steady rhythm of advance and recoil that rocked her body on the bed and sent the frame pounding against the wall.
“Tell me if it’s too hard,” he said through gritted teeth, his face a mask of effort as he fought to maintain his control.
A sense of inevitability swelled inside Justine. She felt him deep in her center, stroking her, becoming part of her.
“Don’t stop,” she told him, her body coiling tighter and tighter, until she snapped. With a cry of relief, she arched up on the bed, falling into a dark chasm of pleasure at the same time as she lay safe and warm in the circle of his arms.
And then, Sheriff Taylor threw is head back, his eyes closed, his jaws clenched to contain a roar of triumph as he bowed and shuddered over her. His eyes drifted open and he lowered his weight on top of her, enveloping her, closing out the world around them.
“Sorry,” he breathed into her ear. “Let me rest a while. Then we’ll do slow and gentle.”
Justine pressed her face into the curve of his neck, frightened by the unfamiliar emotions that surged through her, making her fear the dawn when he would be gone, and she would wake up alone.
The bright morning rays peeked in through the window. Justine stirred on the unfamiliar bed, feeling warm and languid and totally relaxed. Like a dream the night came back to her, the aching need and the passions that had soared, leaving her spent.
But not a dream.
Reality.
Her eyes blinked open. The covers fell to the floor as she flounced to sit up on the mattress. She surveyed the austere room bathed in the slanting morning light.
He was gone.
On the table lay a neat bundle of clothing, and over it a sheet of paper stood folded into a steeple. Justine swung her legs down from the bed and tiptoed over.
“
I don’t have anything else to give you. Happy birthday. Mark
.”
Mark.
She tasted the name on her lips, and a blush crept all the way to the roots of her hair as she recalled the things she’d done with a man she had only known as Sheriff Taylor.
How could she have been so wanton? With a rising panic, Justine raked her gaze around the room, checking her meager belongings, her mind dredging up scenarios for how he could embarrass her, should he wish to boast about the easy conquest.
He knew her name. He knew where she lived. He knew where she worked.
Justine shook her head, angry at the irrational thoughts. So what? She had slept with a stranger. A quarter of the girls in her office did it on any given Saturday night. Most of the world she moved in didn’t burden itself with her antiquated moral standards.
Justine squared her shoulders. So, she had indulged in steamy sex with a handsome man for her birthday, and good luck to her.
She pulled on the jeans and white cotton shirt she’d worn for the drive from
Philadelphia
. Her room shared a bathroom down the hall, but she decided not to bother with a shower. She brushed her teeth and rinsed her face and returned to her room. It only took a couple of minutes to pack her toiletries and the few items of clothing.
She left the folded shirt on the desk until last. Picking it up, she pressed her face into the fabric and filled her lungs with the scent. It didn’t smell of her perfume. It carried the musky odor of a male, and when she lowered the shirt to examine it, she spotted a dark line on the collar, and wrinkles where the sleeves had been rolled up.
It wasn’t the shirt she had worn. Sheriff Taylor had taken the clean shirt, and had left her the one he’d been wearing. As she made her way down the stairs, Justine couldn’t help wondering if he had followed his usual practice of starting the week with a clean shirt, or if he wanted her to possess a lingering memory of him.
Downstairs, the tall man from last night stood behind the reception counter. Justine racked her brains for his name. “Good morning,” she said, giving up the effort.
He nodded at her. “Breakfast will start in a minute.”
“I don’t usually eat breakfast.” She gave the man a guarded glance, trying to pick up some signs to figure out if he knew that Sheriff Taylor had spent the night. “How much do I owe you?” she asked. “I agreed with Mr. and Mrs. Simmons that I would pay here, and they’ll pay at the motel on Route 54.”
“It’s been taken care of.” The man kept his eyes on the stack of postcards he was straightening by thumping the edges against the counter. “No charge.”
Justine frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“I guess it’s because of all the trouble you had last night.”
“Trouble?” she repeated slowly.
“Mrs. Harper,” the man explained, after a cautious glance around the empty hallway.
“Oh,” Justine drawled out. “There’s no need. It was my fault. I’m quite happy to pay.”
“No,” the landlord said as he crammed the stack of postcards into a slot on the plastic display rack. “I didn’t mean it’s on the house.” He smiled at her. “Sheriff Taylor will take care of it. He left a note on the desk when he drove you back last night.” The landlord regarded her with curiosity. “I guess he feels the Sheriff’s Department should pick up the tab after the inconvenience they caused you.”
“Inconvenience?” Justine echoed, heat creeping along her skin. Too embarrassed to risk taking the conversation any further, she retreated to the door and bolted out, leaving the insect screen swinging in her wake.
It wasn’t until she realized she didn’t have her car keys that Justine remembered she’d left her belongings on the bench under the wisteria before setting off on the climb up to the open window. She dropped her overnight bag on the ground and raced over to the wall.
The bench wasn’t visible from the front drive, so she assumed Sheriff Taylor hadn’t noticed her belongings last night when he stopped to pick up the coins and lipstick and the credit card on the gravel ground.
Her watch and evening bag and sandals remained intact, but the morning dew had painted water swirls on the grey silk of her Dior dress. Justine expelled an annoyed sigh. Maybe dry cleaning would remove the stains. She turned the fabric over in her hands, shaking her head in defeat as she inspected the damage.
Two thousand bucks. She’d never owned a more precious garment.
Then she recalled the khaki shirt packed away in her case, and realized that now she did.
Sheriff Mark Taylor sat in his office, trying to focus on the columns of figures in front of him. The rising fuel costs were killing him. In some cities, they were issuing police officers bicycles instead of cars. If the long distances in rural areas hadn’t made it impractical he would have liked to do the same.
He rubbed his tired eyes and glanced at the clock on the wall. Only four in the afternoon, but he was ready to go home. Sleep had eluded him last night, just like it had the night before, and the night before that.
He’d lain awake every night since he fell victim to bad judgment and sampled the charms of the glamorous woman his deputies had hauled in. Hadn’t his divorce taught him anything? He didn’t want to think about Justine Whitmore. He didn’t want to remember her face, or imagine her slender body writhing beneath his, and he certainly didn’t want to call her.
His eyes strayed to the chair in the corner, and his pants instantly tightened. Goddamn the woman. Mark shuddered to think what she could do to him in person, if the mere sight of a chair she’d occupied reduced him to a nervous wreck.
The sharp ring of the telephone on his desk tore him back to reality. “Sheriff Taylor,” he barked into the receiver.
“What’s this I hear about you casting your tackle in illegal waters?” Gideon Steinberg from the State Attorney General’s office boomed into his ear.
Mark knew his boss well enough to hear the amusement beneath the gruff voice, but he didn’t get the joke. “My fishing permit is in order,” he replied.
“Not fishing, you fool. Your dick. It seems you’ve been sticking your rod into some hooker when you ought to have been booking her for soliciting.”
“What the….” Mark swallowed the curse and inhaled a sharp breath.
“I have a complaint here from a Mrs. Harper. She says your deputies picked up a woman for immoral conduct, and you released her after you enjoyed her services.”
“That’s not true,” Mark said, but his words came out on a growl and his chest tightened with worry. “She wasn’t a prostitute. It was a mix-up about rooms at Rob Thornton’s guesthouse.”
“Did you have sex with the woman or not?”
“I….” Mark stared at the empty chair in the corner. Even with the anxiety twisting in his gut, the image of Justine in her flimsy underwear sent his blood surging to all the wrong parts of his body.
“I take that as a yes,” Gideon Steinberg grunted. “I’m sorry, Mark. I have to order an official investigation into Mrs. Harper’s complaint. I can’t risk being seen as a weak leader who brushes corruption under the carpet. You’ll be hearing more soon though the appropriate channels. Good luck.”
The phone went dead with a click that sounded like a gun being cocked.
Mark tried to reach deep into his mind for a source of cold fury that he could direct at Justine, or at his own mistake of falling for her feminine charms. The only sensations he came up with were relief, and the slow wheel of excitement that began to turn inside him at the thought of seeing her again.
It was out of his hands now. The decision had been forced upon him. He had to get in touch with her if he wanted to protect her reputation and his career.
* * * *
Justine sat at her desk and watched the traffic crawl on the street below her office, trying to concentrate on the publicity shots in front of her. She couldn’t quite put her finger on what was wrong with the photographs. The apartment looked immaculate in the background, and she’d chosen the model herself. Now his casual elegance looked all wrong…too tame.
That was it. The model was too suave.
An image of the rugged Sheriff Taylor rose in her mind, and with an angry flick of her wrist, Justine slung her pen down over the advertisement. It grated that a whole week had gone by, and he hadn’t done anything to track her down. She hadn’t expected a dozen red roses exactly, but a phone call would have been polite. Or a little note, a few words of reassurance that he hadn’t forgotten her the moment he closed the front door of the guesthouse.
Perhaps he had.
Maybe he had forgotten her before he even reached the bottom of the stairs.
“What did you do? Abscond without paying or leave an unpaid parking fine?”
Justine snapped her attention from the window to Sandra Clements, who stood in the office doorway, her blonde hair tied into a messy ponytail. A plain white shirt spilled out from the waistband of her navy skirt. Not a scrap of make-up adorned Sandra’s innocent face, and once again, Justine wondered why her boss, who normally dated models and actresses, had fallen for his secretary who looked like a kindergarten teacher.
“Huh?” Justine frowned in confusion at the question.
“The law is after you,” Sandra explained. Her eyes widened with concern. “They didn’t stop you for speeding and discover that you were carrying an open container of alcohol in your car? The sheriff and the deputies can be real sticklers. If they slapped you with a fine, it would be my fault. I told you to take the bottle of champagne with you.”
“No.” Justine shook her head absently. “They didn’t fine me.”
“So you
did
have a brush with the law?” Sandra strolled into the room, inspecting Justine with a pair of curious blue eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me? What happened?”
“Nothing much.” Justine kept her focus on the advertisement in front of her, knowing that a blush covered her cheeks. “Just some confusion at the guest house. I thought it was all sorted out.”
Sandra shrugged. “It seems you’re wrong. Someone called you twice while you were in the meeting with the ad agency.” She glanced down at the note in her hand. “His name is Sheriff Taylor. He says it’s urgent.”
“Urgent?” Justine’s throat worked with difficulty as she swallowed. “Did he say what it’s about?”
“Only that he needs to talk to you as soon as possible. Here’s the number.” Sandra slipped a yellow post-it note with a scribbled string of digits in front of Justine. “Are you sure you’re not in any trouble?” Sandra leaned closer, her concern enveloping Justine, strong and warm, like a comfort blanket.
In a sudden flash of insight, Justine understood why the sharp and successful Steven Chandler had fallen in love with the small-town girl Sandra Clements. When Sandra spoke to you, she made you feel that your wellbeing was the most important thing in the world, and she would go to any lengths to protect you, standing by your side no matter what. She offered the kind of loyalty that could never be bought.
“If you need help, I can call my father,” Sandra said. “He is well connected in the local community. He might be able to pull a few strings.”
“Let me return the sheriff’s call first and see what it’s all about.” Justine picked up the post-it note with trembling fingers.
Sandra paused to look over her shoulder from the threshold on her way out, but despite the worry evident in her eyes, she didn’t ask further questions. As soon as Sandra was out of sight, Justine rushed to close the door. Then she returned to the desk and dialed, standing up as she punched in the numbers.
A nasal female voice answered with an official greeting. Justine flopped in the chair. It hadn’t crossed her mind that someone else might pick up. She asked for Sheriff Taylor, and when the woman told her he was unavailable, Justine left her name and number, asking the woman to tell him she’d called.
Then she sat and waited, the advertisement swirling in front of her eyes as she wondered what could be the reason why after a week of silence Sheriff Taylor wanted to talk to her urgently. Every time the phone rang, her heart leapt. Finally, after
“Can you talk?” he asked, without bothering to exchange small talk.
Justine flicked a quick glance at the closed door. “Yes.”
“We have a situation,” the sheriff said. “Mrs. Harper has made a complaint.”
“A complaint about me?” Justine blurted out. “That’s ridiculous. Can’t you just dismiss it?”
The telephone conveyed the rustle of a heavy sigh. “The complaint isn’t about you. It’s about me.”
“About you?” Justine frowned. “Why would she complain about you?”
“She’s claiming that I caught you soliciting and let you off after I…enjoyed a free sample of your offerings.”
“She
what
?”
“I know. It’s a load of bullshit, but there’s enough truth in it to make the situation difficult for both of us.” Sheriff Taylor paused, carried on in a low voice. “I’ll be asked if I had sex with you, and I’ll have to say yes. Then I’ll be asked if I had ever seen you before or since, and I’ll have to say no. It’s going to sound like Mrs. Harper could be right.”
“Oh my God.” Justine took a deep breath to suppress the surge of nausea that welled up inside her. “Will the information remain confidential?”
“I don’t expect so,” Sheriff Taylor admitted. “I’ll try to contain it, but there is always gossip when these things happen.”
“I’ve never even had a one-night stand before.” The receiver shook in Justine’s unsteady hand. “If this thing leaks, people will get a completely wrong idea of who I am.”
“I’m sorry to sound callous, but right at the moment, I’m more concerned about holding on to my job than I am about what people think of your moral standards.”
“Holding on to your job?” Justine muttered.
“If they decide that I…took a bribe from you, I’ll be history.”
“But if you took a bribe, the implication is that I offered you one,” Justine said slowly. “That I had done something to break the law and needed you to let me off the hook.”
“That’s it,” Sheriff Taylor said bluntly. “It looks pretty bad for both of us.”
Justine clenched her fingers tight around the receiver as the seconds ticked by.
“There might be a way to diffuse this,” Sheriff Taylor said after a tense silence. “But I need your help.”
“What?” Justine leaned over her desk, her voice rising with the desperate urge to grasp at any chance, however slim. “Tell me how.”
“We’ll do it again. We can turn the whole thing around by pretending it was love at first sight. We slept together that night, but it was the start of a committed relationship.”
Justine’s mind raced ahead as she tested the angles of what Sheriff Taylor was proposing. Her PR expertise quickly concluded he was right. If she pretended Sheriff Taylor was her new boyfriend, they would both come out with their reputations undamaged. After a few months, they could simply drift apart. All it required from her was a few weekends wasted in the depths of rural Pennsylvania, and a few nights that most unattached women with a healthy sex drive would give their designer wardrobes for.
“That sounds good,” she agreed. “When do you want me to come up?” She reached for the digital organizer on her desk and tapped the keys. “My next two weekends are fully booked, but I could make it at the end of September.”
“I don’t think you realize how serious this is,” Sheriff Taylor said. “Will you be at home tomorrow night if I drive down?”
Justine tapped another key and inspected the display. “Tomorrow’s no good. I’m taking clients to dinner at Brasserie Perrier.”
“Cancel it.”
“I can’t. It’s part of my job. My boss, who is too busy to even take time off for a honeymoon, needs to attend a charity benefit at the Four Seasons. He can only come for the pre-dinner drinks. I’ll have to represent the firm.”
“If you had a boyfriend, would he be invited?”
“Yes, if he wanted to come and host the event with me. The clients will have their spouses with them.”
“I’ll see you there then.”
Justine opened her mouth to protest, but the line made a tiny click and went dead.
