The Last White Knight

by Tami Hoag

  Erik put a hand on Lynn’s shoulder and gave a little squeeze of reassurance. It was far less than he wanted to do, but he didn’t think taking her in his arms and kissing her in front of Father Bartholomew, the girls, and Elliot Graham’s band would be advisable or appreciated.

  “I’ve made a few phone calls,” he said. “I haven’t gotten a lot of feedback yet, but I hope to hear something in a day or two that could be of help. In the meantime, I’m offering dinner. How about it, Father? All the pizza you can eat and antacid floats for dessert.”

  The priest perked up at the sound of that, but his expression quickly slid into hesitancy. “Oh, my, well, that sounds like fun, but I don’t know if I should—”

  “Aw, come on,” Erik prodded, his heart going out to the priest. Father Bartholomew was like a mouse taking on a lion. Erik admired the man for finding the courage to stand up for his beliefs. There weren’t many people willing to do that these days. “In for a penny, in for a pound, as they say. Besides,” he joked, flashing the priest a sheepish grin, “I need another man around. All these females intimidate me.”

  Father Bartholomew wrung his hands, visibly screwing up his determination. “Well … all right,” he said with a nod and a gleam of adventure in his eyes.

  “Let’s go, gang,” Erik announced. “My rod can wait,” he said, straight-faced, looking straight at Tracy and Michelle. “My stomach can’t.”

  The girls choked on their giggles. Lynn chuckled and shook her head as she let Erik usher her toward the door with a hand at the small of her back. Lillian helped Christine up from her chair, Martha struggled to her feet and lumbered after them, scooping her purse from the coffee table and turning off the boom box.

  At the front door, Lynn jerked herself to a halt and looked sharply around, brows drawing together. “Where’s Regan?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “She was here a minute ago.”

  Their departure was delayed as Lynn and Lillian made a quick search of the house. Regan was nowhere to be found.

  “She must have slipped out through the back while we were talking,” Erik said, biting his tongue on any further comment. While the other girls at Horizon had managed to melt his reserve toward them, Regan had made no effort. In fact, she seemed bent on antagonizing him. He couldn’t seem to stop himself from thinking the girl was a brat deluxe who needed a good spanking more than anything else. But he kept that opinion to himself.

  “Well,” Lynn said with a shrug, “she loses out on the fun.”

  She didn’t like the idea of letting Regan go off on her own, but she liked the idea of tracking her down and dragging her back home even less. Force wasn’t the key to knocking down Regan’s defenses. She only hoped the girl came around emotionally before she got herself into more trouble.

  “I’m glad we decided to walk,” Lynn said, stuffing her hands into the deep pockets of her skirt. The entourage had jockeyed around until she had gotten shuffled to the back of the pack—with Erik. The girls had decided Erik was cool, and they were being none too subtle in their efforts to pair their counselor off with him. Lynn caught the furtive, bright-eyed looks being snuck back over shoulders at her, and a smile pulled at her lips.

  “Me too,” Erik said on a long sigh. He patted his stomach. “I need to walk off those last ten slices of pizza.”

  Evening was sliding into night. The sun was sinking beyond the trees to the west, spilling its last few drops of warm orange light across the placid surface of Silver Lake. The park on the small lake’s banks was dotted with people out for evening strolls with their dogs, feeding cracked corn to the hundreds of big Canada geese who made the lake their year-round home.

  The crowd was thinning as darkness descended. Soon the lake would be moonlit and the park benches would be empty, inviting lovers to sit and gaze up at the stars. The romantic thought slipped through Lynn’s wall of hard practicality before she had a chance to squelch it, making her even more acutely aware of the man beside her.

  His stride was slow and relaxed, as if he didn’t care if it took until midnight to get back. He had his hands stuffed in the pockets of his jeans, snugging the fabric against his maleness. Lynn felt her cheeks heat as her gaze caught ever so briefly on that masculine bulge. She cleared her throat and tried to quicken her pace, but Erik lagged back and the girls rushed on ahead, herding Martha and Lillian and Father Bartholomew with them. She was left with the choice of running to catch up with them, or behaving like a calm, rational adult and staying in step with the senator.

  Feeling neither calm nor rational, she deliberately slowed her pace. They were on a public thoroughfare. What could possibly happen?

  I could fall for him.

  The answer came without a second’s hesitation, sending goose bumps chasing over her skin despite the warm summer evening. She had spent the last two days testing him, cynically certain he would fail.

  But he hadn’t. Erik had passed her tests with flying colors. He had worked without complaint, suffered the teasing of her girls, given unselfishly of his time and his talents. He’d spent tireless hours on the phone trying to drum up support for Horizon House. Not once had he tried to capitalize publicly on his efforts. His name was displayed prominently in the articles and reports about Horizon’s situation, but he wasn’t actively seeking out reporters or calling news conferences as she had expected him to do.

  He had offered her his aid, his encouragement, his strength. Lynn had told herself she would be a fool to turn him down. She had told herself she would be able to take what he was willing to give coolly and cynically, without her heart becoming involved at all. But as she’d watched his stiffness with the girls melt away into genuine caring, she’d felt her cynicism about Erik Gunther melt too. The one buffer that had kept her safe from falling into something foolish was crumbling around her like a stale cookie.

  A burst of laughter floated back from the group ahead of them and penetrated Lynn’s trance. Tracy and Barbara broke into song, then giggles.

  “They’re really pretty good kids, aren’t they?” Erik said, not quite able to keep all the astonishment out of his voice.

  Lynn smiled gently as he ducked his head and flashed her a sheepish look. “They have problems. They’ve made mistakes. But they’re good kids. They’re trying hard to get their lives back on track.”

  “Except Regan.”

  “She’ll come around.”

  “Do they all?”

  No, Lynn thought. She’d lost the battle more than once. Each time it happened it broke her heart, but sometimes it was an inevitability. She couldn’t reach every girl, no matter how badly she wanted to, no matter how hard she tried. But she wouldn’t lose Regan, she vowed. She couldn’t lose Regan. Regan was like looking into a mirror and seeing herself fifteen years ago, hurting, bitter, afraid, wanting people to care but batting their hand away every time they reached out to help.

  “I don’t like this disappearing act of hers, Lynn,” Erik said. “If she gets into trouble it’s going to come down on Horizon like a ton of bricks. Right now public support outside the neighborhood is running slightly in your favor, but that pendulum can swing overnight.”

  “I know,” Lynn admitted glumly. “I’m going to have a talk with her tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, if she’s around,” he muttered sarcastically. “Maybe she’ll even listen.”

  Lynn bristled instantly, stopping in her tracks and glaring at him. “If you don’t like the way I’m doing my job—”

  “Whoa!” Erik held up a hand to cut her off. “I never said—”

  “You implied—”

  “I did not.” He reined back what seemed to be a natural urge to spar with her and took a deep breath to calm himself.

  It was amazing. He had never been the argumentative sort with his dates. With Lynn he actually enjoyed debating whatever issue was at hand, whether it was politics or pizza—not in an angry way, just debating. He liked seeing that green fire in her eyes, enjoyed her sharp wit, c
ared about what she had to say. Caring. That was the key, he realized with a jolt. What he felt for Lynn Shaw went beyond what he’d ever felt for any other woman. He’d known that from the first night, but it still startled him every time it hit him anew.

  “Look,” he said, settling his hands on her rigid shoulders. “Let’s not fight. Let’s not talk business. It’s time to turn our attention to more enjoyable things.”

  Lynn looked up at him warily, taking in the soft light in his eyes, the secretive smile canting his mouth. His fingers moved gently on the bare skin of her shoulders, igniting fires deep inside. When he looked at her that way she got the feeling he knew everything good about the world, that he could shelter her from the bad, lift her up to a plane where only the two of them existed and no one could ever touch them or hurt them. She wanted to be mesmerized, wanted to be drawn in, wanted to let Sir Erik the Good sweep her away into the sunset. And that scared the hell out of her.

  She cast a nervous glance at the rest of their group, now a distant moving knot of color.

  “Let them go,” Erik said softly. “I want some time alone with you.”

  “And do you always get what you want, Senator?”

  He grinned. “If I work hard and live right.”

  Lynn gave a little sniff of derision, but she let him take her hand and lead her off the sidewalk and down the slope to a park bench. The bench was tucked between the bank of the lake and a bower of pine trees and lilac bushes, isolated from the main park area and partially secluded. What few people remained in the park were oblivious to them, giving Lynn the fanciful feeling that this was an enchanted spot reserved for white knights. She chided herself for being foolish as she sat down and arranged her skirt around her. It had been a very long time since she’d believed in enchantment; she wasn’t about to trust in it.

  Erik settled in beside her, stretching his arms along the back of the bench so she either had to touch him or perch herself on the edge of the seat like a skittish virgin. Her heart boomed in her chest like thunder as she eased herself back and allowed him to curl his fingers around her shoulder.

  “Relax,” he whispered, shifting his position deftly so that Lynn found herself suddenly snuggled against his side.

  She looked up at him with wry amusement. “That was slick. I’ll bet you caught a lot of cheerleaders unawares with that move back in high school.”

  “Naw.” He looked across the lake, the expression in his eyes a little wistful. “I didn’t have a lot of time for dating back then. I worked nights and weekends. It was either that or miss out on college. I was counting on a scholarship or two, but that doesn’t pay for everything.…” His voice trailed away, as if the memory of those times cost him too much. After a moment of silence, he flashed her an endearing little smile and said, “Besides, I was kind of shy around girls.”

  “You? Shy?” Lynn laughed her disbelief. She’d never known anyone as solidly self-assured as Erik. The image of him as a big coltish teenager baffled by his appeal to girls tugged at her heart. He must have been too cute for words. And his shyness would only have made matters worse for him, drawing girls like a magnet, the poor kid.

  “What about you?” he asked, turning the tables on her. “What were you like at seventeen?”

  “Me?” It was Lynn’s turn to stare off across the darkening lake. “Every man with a daughter has nightmares about girls like I was.”

  She stopped herself from saying more. The memories were there as always, but beneath the surface, dark and unhappy, and a part of her wanted to let them out. She had kept her past bottled inside her for so long. It was a constant pressure in her chest, waiting to be released, but always she held it back, clinging to it, hiding it. A part of her wanted to confide in Erik, to lean on him, to unburden herself. He was so big and so solid and so strong. But he was also good and pure and she could easily see the disillusionment and disappointment that would come into his eyes. He had softened his attitude toward her girls, but that new understanding was a fragile coating over old judgmental attitudes. They would have only the summer together as it was, then Erik would be back in St. Paul, on to other issues and other causes and the business of running the state. What was the point in spoiling the time they had?

  “It’s a long, sad story,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around herself to ward off a shiver. “You don’t want to hear it.”

  “I do.” He bent his head and brushed his lips against her temple. “I want to know everything about you.”

  Lynn shook her head, her gaze still focused on the middle distance. The gracefully arched limestone footbridge across the way was holding the last faint glow of dusk. The water below had already gone dark and glassy. The sky to the east was velvet black above the dense forest of Quarry Hills.

  “Kiss me,” Erik ordered, his voice so soft Lynn thought for a moment she’d imagined it.

  Pulling away from her past, she looked up at him and managed a little laugh. “I thought you were shy.”

  Erik slid his hand up to the back of her neck and lowered his mouth toward hers. “I got over it.”

  Lynn tilted her face up to receive his kiss, letting her eyes flutter closed, letting her past drift away. She didn’t want the burden of it any longer. She wanted this—the feel of Erik’s arms sliding around her, the taste of him invading her mouth, the sensation of being overwhelmed by the power of his magnetism and sexuality. She wanted this to be her world for just a moment or two. She wanted to think of nothing else, not the girls or the house or anything beyond the two of them sitting here beside the lake sharing a kiss.

  She gave herself over to him. Her tongue arched gently against his as she allowed him access to the warm sweetness of her mouth. A delicate shiver trickled down her spine from where his fingers kneaded the nape of her neck and settled at the base in a feathery sensation that made her shiver all over again. The delicious heat of desire flowed through her like sun-warmed honey, swirling in her breasts, pooling in the aching emptiness of her femininity. It had been forever since she’d let a man touch her this way, so long that he seemed like the first. Every sensation seemed new and intense, crackling along her nerves like electricity.

  His right hand slid up from the curve of her waist to cradle a breast, squeezing gently in a rhythm that echoed the thrust of his tongue. Lynn whimpered and arched into his touch, losing her breath as his thumb flicked slowly back and forth across her nipple, bringing the sensitive nub to aching attention. She tried to press herself closer to him and Erik took advantage, trailing kisses down the exposed column of her throat.

  The heat of sexual need was burning away every ounce of sense Erik had. He was dimly aware of the fact that they were in a public park, but thoughts of being discovered were being shoved to the back of his mind by the all-consuming desire to make love to Lynn. He wanted to lay her down in the grass and kiss and caress every inch of her. He wanted to see her breasts by moonlight and suckle them until she begged him for release. He wanted to gather her beneath him and ease himself into the tight warmth of her woman’s sheath, claiming her in a mating ritual as old as time.

  Primitive. That was the base of what he was feeling. The primitive male urge to bond with a female, body and soul. And overlaying those basic instincts was the need to comfort, to ease the pain he’d seen in her eyes when she’d been lost in thoughts of the past.

  He whispered her name and stroked a hand over her hair, framed her face with his hands and pressed kisses to her eyelids and cheeks, trailed one hand down her throat and lingered at the fragile hollow where her pulse fluttered like a bird’s wing.

  “So sweet,” he whispered, each word a kiss. “So sweet.”

  Lynn tipped her chin up, seeking his mouth again, craving the taste of him. She pressed a hand against his chest, glorying in the feel of solid muscle and the hard steady pounding of his heart. Then Erik’s fingers closed around her wrist and guided her down over the taut plane of his belly to where his erection strained against the front of his jeans
. She groaned as he molded her fingers around his shaft, letting her feel the size and shape of him, the strength of his desire for her. His tongue began a slow, suggestive thrust against hers once again and Lynn’s temperature soared.

  She was burning up wanting him. The sexuality she had suppressed for so long was unfurling inside her, coming to life like a desert flower that had lain dormant waiting for rain. The feelings were overwhelming, wild, whirling through her like a strong, hot wind. She pulled her mouth from his and gasped for air as his hand found its way under her skirt and swept up her thigh to the warm, damp juncture of her legs. Her strongest desire was to open up to him. She wanted the feel of his fingers slipping inside her panties to stroke her silken heat, to caress the aching petals of her femininity, to probe and touch the core of her desire. But some small grain of sanity remained beneath the haze of passion, irritating her, prodding her to come to her senses.

  “No,” she whispered breathlessly, her hand sliding from the front of his jeans to stop his progress. Her fingers curled around his wrist and it was all she could do to keep from guiding him to her instead of away. “No,” she repeated, as much to convince herself as him.

  Need burned like a blue flame in Erik’s eyes as he looked down at her. Night had fallen around them, casting their private alcove in shadows silvered by the light of a streetlamp standing somewhere behind them. In the stark mix of light and dark he looked strikingly male, his nostrils flaring slightly with each heavy breath, the muscles in his wide, square jaw flexing as he stared down at her.