The Last White Knight

by Tami Hoag

  “Let me take you home tonight, Lynn,” he said, his voice a deep, husky rasp.

  Lynn met his gaze. She was trembling, she realized dimly. Trembling with need, trembling with fear. Oh, God, she wanted to say yes. She wanted to take him to her bed and let him finish what they’d started here. But if she said yes then they would be taking this relationship to a new level where the stakes were high and the odds were against her. She had told herself a hundred times she couldn’t have a relationship with Erik Gunther, but in that moment she couldn’t think of many things she’d ever wanted more.

  He lifted his hand to her face and brushed his thumb gently against her cheek. The action was infinitely tender, a poignant counterpoint to the raw desire in his expression. Lynn drew in a shallow, shuddering breath.

  “Erik, I—”

  “Lynn! Lynn!”

  Lynn’s head snapped around at the strident call. It was an alarm. Dread slammed into her with terrible force, jolting her heart up against her breastbone. She was off the bench in an instant, running toward the sound of Tracy’s voice.

  “Tracy!”

  The girl came running, breathless and wide-eyed, looking as if she’d been chased the whole way by some nightmarish beast. She pulled up just short of Lynn, holding her side and gasping for breath.

  Lynn clutched at the girl’s shoulders. “Honey, what’s wrong? What’s happened? Is it Christine? Is the baby coming?”

  Tracy shook her head, ponytail swinging. “No. It’s not Christine. It’s the cops.”

  A small crowd stood in Cyrus Johansen’s side lawn staring at the four-letter word sprayed in black paint across the wall of the garage. The wall was illuminated by a dozen flashlights, two of them held by Officers Reuter and Briggs.

  Elliot Graham stood beside Lynn at the front of the crowd, in his shirt and tie, his fanatic’s eyes burning bright with righteousness in the flickering glow of the flashlights. His son hovered behind him, looking sullen, hands stuffed deep into the pockets of a pair of baggy black shorts.

  “This is exactly the kind of thing I’ve been waiting for,” the senior Graham said loudly and bitterly.

  “Then you’re not disappointed, are you?” Lynn muttered half under her breath.

  He gave her a sharp look. “What was that, Miss Shaw?”

  Erik wedged his way in between them before she could answer. Lynn stepped back reluctantly, resentfully, wanting to take a shot at Graham’s pomposity and knowing that Erik was trying to save her from making matters worse. She was upset because of the vandalism, because of Graham, because of the emotional tug-of-war she was waging with herself over Erik. The stage was set for her to react with her feelings instead of her brain, and Erik had sensed that. Or maybe he simply thought no one could handle the situation as well as he could. Either way, it struck Lynn on a pair of raw nerves.

  “Before you make an outright accusation, Mr. Graham,” Erik said smoothly, “I would point out that there’s no signature on that wall.”

  “It’s hardly necessary,” Graham snapped. “We’ve never had this kind of trouble in the neighborhood before.”

  “The fact remains, you don’t have any proof that this was done by one of the Horizon residents.”

  “How much proof do you need?” Graham’s son sneered sarcastically.

  Erik pierced the boy with a stern, cold look that would have made a Minnesota winter seem balmy by comparison. “More than your personal prejudices, young man.”

  The boy scowled and scuttled back farther behind his father.

  To Lynn’s right, Cyrus and Edna Johansen were standing with Reuter and Briggs, giving their statement. “Edna and me had just set down to watch the news when we heard this commotion.…”

  “Oh, my,” Father Bartholomew groaned, wringing his hands. His worried gaze darted from the Johansens to Lynn, then to Graham and back to Lynn again. “I don’t want to think what the bishop is going to have to say about this,” he mumbled for her ears only.

  Lynn wanted to point out that anyone might have done the deed. Rochester certainly had more problem youths than just those living at Horizon. Vandalism was not an uncommon problem. But she said nothing. The fact was, it wasn’t going to matter to Bishop Lawrence who had done the deed. What would matter to him would be the negative light cast on St. Stephen’s. Speculation that one of the Horizon girls had done this would be enough to make him unhappy.

  “This is exactly the kind of thing that happens when you welcome delinquents into a neighborhood,” Graham droned on.

  “We were hardly welcomed,” Lynn snapped, turning on her adversary, her temper fraying down to the nub. She leaned around Erik to glare at the man.

  “Nor should you have been,” Graham said, lifting his nose to a superior angle. “The families living here don’t want to be subjected to this kind of upheaval,” he said. Then, gesturing dramatically toward the wall, he added, “Or this kind of language.”

  “Oh, give me a break—”

  “Lynn.” Erik turned toward her with a pained smile and took her by the shoulders, steering her back away from Graham. He looked down at her, a plea for common sense plain in his eyes. “Why don’t you take everyone to the house and wait? Turning this into a brawl isn’t going to help the cause,” he said in an anxious whisper.

  Lynn frowned at him. It galled her, but she knew he was right. The less hoopla, the better for them. With a few brief words to Lillian and Martha, she turned and led them down the street toward the house, where the girls waited anxiously on the porch steps for some word. Everyone was ushered in. Martha went to the kitchen to brew a pot of tea. Lillian paced the living room, worrying at her pearls. Father Bartholomew sank into an armchair, looking like a reluctant martyr. The girls hovered in a knot in the doorway, their eyes on Lynn as she stood at the front window looking out.

  “They’re going to get rid of us, aren’t they?” Barbara said.

  Tracy’s eyes narrowed angrily. “We didn’t do anything. They’re nothing but a bunch of jerks.”

  Lynn sighed and walked across the room to the girls, reaching up wearily to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear as she went. “Don’t lump them all into that category, honey,” she said wearily. “They’re not all bad. No more than all kids with problems are bad.”

  Tracy’s mouth fell into a pout and she glanced away. Lynn’s gaze moved over the quartet, settling on Christine. The girl held one hand pressed to her rounded belly. Her dark eyes were enormous and shining with worry as she turned toward Lynn.

  “I’m scared,” she whispered in a tiny voice.

  Lynn slid an arm around her and squeezed her shoulders. “Don’t worry, sweetie. We’ll pull through this.” She flashed them all a grin she didn’t feel. “We’ve got Senator Hunk on our side.”

  “Yeah. All they have is Elliot Graham,” Michelle said, grinding out his name as if it left a bad taste in her mouth.

  “And that weird geek kid of his,” Tracy added. “Have you seen that guy?” She gave a shudder of disgust. “He gives me the creeps.”

  As Lynn ushered the girls upstairs to their rooms, the conversation gravitated from geeks to hunks to Erik. She found herself blushing a little as they probed for details of the time she’d spent alone with him at the lake.

  “We sat and talked,” she hedged, dodging Michelle’s inquisitive gaze as she turned down the covers on a bed.

  “Yeah, right,” Tracy said, chuckling wickedly as she dragged a brush through her mop of burnished brown curls.

  “He’s sooo cute,” Barbara groaned, leaning against the doorjamb in her nightgown as if the mere thought of him sapped the strength from her knees.

  Lynn plumped one last pillow, then stood back with her hands on her hips, regarding the girls with a serious expression. “Look, I know you guys think Senator Gunther is choice, but don’t look for too much to come out of this. Erik is a busy man, and I don’t have time for a relationship either. We’re enjoying each other’s company for a while, but that’s all.” />
  Tracy slanted her a look as she settled on the bed and crossed her legs yoga fashion. “Really, Lynn, you ought to have more to your life than just us.”

  That sage comment hit Lynn like a brick and rocked her back on her feet a bit. Out of the mouths of babes … She recovered with an effort. “Maybe when we’re out of danger of being thrown into the street,” she said dryly.

  She bid the girls good night and trudged slowly back down the stairs, not eager to deal with the police—or Erik, for that matter. Tracy’s words echoed in her head and she seized on them, diverting herself from one problem with another.

  She didn’t have a life outside Horizon. Even though she didn’t live here, this was her home and these people were her family. Martha and Lillian were her friends, but they were also surrogate mothers. The girls were residents, here for her to help through counseling, but they were also her foster daughters, the children she didn’t have. They afforded her the chance to be a mother without running the risk of a romantic involvement.

  For a long time she had been perfectly content with those roles and the feelings that accompanied them. She had broken her relationship with her own family beyond repair. She had taken her shot at romance long ago and had been betrayed utterly. Her second chance at family life had been delivered to her in the form of Horizon House, and she had accepted it gratefully as more than she deserved. But suddenly she caught herself wanting something else.…

  “They’ve promised not to use thumbscrews. You don’t have to look quite so doomed.”

  Erik’s voice jolted Lynn from her thoughts. He took her by the hand as she moved away from the stairs, then led her slowly toward the living room, where the two police officers were sitting on the sofa sipping Martha’s tea and eating Fig Newtons. Lynn did her best to ignore the tingles racing up her arm, did her best not to think about how warm and strong his hand was around hers.

  “Did you get yourself on the news, Senator?” she asked, sending him a wry smile.

  Erik shook his head. “There isn’t a crew to be had at that station this time of night,” he muttered, his mouth drawn into a grim line and a little crease of concern digging in between his eyebrows. “But Graham will have them out here first thing in the morning. You can bet on that.”

  They took their places on chairs that had been dragged in from the dining room. Lillian refused to sit, her nervous energy propelling her around the room like a butterfly flitting from perch to perch. Martha and Father Bartholomew occupied the two overstuffed chairs, looking like a pair of giant gloom-and-doom bookends.

  Lynn regarded the officers carefully. They would side with Graham. Police had a natural suspicion of teenagers, especially those who had track records of trouble. It would also make their job much easier if they could simply pin this on one of her girls and close the case. The idea brought her protective instincts rushing to the fore, and she took the offensive without a second’s hesitation.

  “Our girls didn’t do this.”

  “You can account for them at the time of the incident?” Officer Briggs asked. He tried to discreetly dust cookie crumbs from his mustache, then took up his notepad and pencil.

  “We had just returned from dinner out,” Lillian said, hovering momentarily behind Lynn.

  “You were all out together?”

  Erik turned to Lynn, bracing himself for her reaction. “Everyone except Regan,” he said hesitantly.

  Lynn couldn’t have looked more hurt if he’d slapped her. She stared at him, feelings of betrayal written plainly across her delicate features. Erik cursed himself for being too honest, and he cursed Regan for being such a source of contention between Lynn and himself. The girl was trouble, no two ways about it, but Lynn had a blind spot where Regan was concerned, seeing too much of herself in the girl.

  “Regan didn’t do it,” Lynn stated baldly, her attention solely on Erik.

  “Where is this Regan now?” Reuter asked.

  “She went out on her own earlier,” Martha said. “She likes to hang out at Peace Plaza.”

  “So she could have done it,” Briggs said.

  Lynn went on glaring at Erik. “But she didn’t.”

  “Pardon me, Miss Shaw, but you have no way of knowing that. We’ll want to talk to her tomorrow.”

  After a few more questions and another cookie each, the officers took their leave, assuring Lynn they would be back in the morning to talk to Regan. Father Bartholomew followed them out the front door, saying the rosary under his breath as he went.

  The house fell as quiet as a tomb as the others turned away from the door and set about the business of getting the living room back in order. Tension and dread hung in the air, amplifying sounds like the rattle of china, the scrape of a chair.

  “See anything promising in those teacups, Martha?” Erik asked, needing to break the silence.

  “I’m afraid to look,” she answered glumly, and followed Lillian out to the kitchen.

  Left alone with Lynn, Erik leaned against the doorway and watched her carefully as she plumped the couch pillows and brushed crumbs from the cushions. Her lush mouth was set in a fierce line. Hostility rolled off her in waves. He closed his eyes for a second and thought about how good she’d felt in his arms as they’d sat beside Silver Lake. And he wondered how long it would be before he had her in his arms again. When hell froze over, by the look of things.

  “We don’t know that she didn’t do it,” he said, wanting to get this fight over with as soon as possible.

  Lynn straightened away from the couch, shoulders squared, jaw set, emerald eyes glittering. “We don’t know that she did.”

  “It was certainly a word from her vocabulary,” Erik said, pushing himself away from the doorjamb. He pulled his hands from his pockets and propped them on his hips as he took a step toward Lynn.

  She advanced a step as well. “It’s a word from my vocabulary, too, Senator,” she said sarcastically. “And I believe I heard you use it the other day when you hit your thumb with a hammer. Does that mean we should be searching your things for a can of spray paint?”

  Erik sighed. He really didn’t feel like butting heads. He only wanted her to see reason for once where Regan Mitchell was concerned. “Lynn, I’m not accusing her. I just think you should face the possibility that she might have done it. She hasn’t exactly been shy about her feelings. She hates it here. She said she didn’t care what happened to Horizon. She could see getting you closed down as a way out.”

  “You don’t understand,” Lynn said, calling on the phrase that was the anthem of teenage girls everywhere. But she did understand, and she wanted Erik to understand as well. She looked up at him, her expression begging eloquently for her cause. “That’s a challenge. Regan wants us to care about her, really care, but she’s going to make it as tough as possible so she can be sure that it’s the real thing.”

  “Well, she does a bang-up job of that.”

  “Yeah.” Her shoulders sagged under the weight of it all. She wandered past Erik and into the hall, where she leaned against the stair railing and stared up into the darkness of the second floor. “Well,” she said wearily, not even sure if he could hear her, “it’s a lot easier to be an expert at doing it than an expert at dealing with it.”

  Erik slid his arms around her waist and hugged her, dropping his head down to press a soft kiss against her temple. “I’ll leave that to you. You’re damn good at what you do, honey. I just don’t want to see you pin your hopes on this kid and have her let you down.”

  “I don’t want that either,” she murmured, wishing with all her heart that so much wasn’t resting on Regan, because, despite her need to defend the girl, in her heart of hearts she knew there was a chance Erik was right. She turned in his arms and looked up at him, dismissing the subject for the moment. “I suppose you feel compelled to spend the night again, Sir Galahad?”

  He nodded gravely.

  Lynn made a face. “We’ve really dragged you into something here, haven’t we? I’m
sure you’d rather be spending your nights somewhere other than our lumpy couch.”

  His eyes warmed to a deep, vibrant shade of sapphire. There was no mistaking what he was thinking about as his gaze held hers and a slow smile turned up the corners of his mouth. “Yeah. In fact, I was kind of counting on it tonight.”

  “I don’t know if you should pin your hopes on me, Senator,” she said, regret striking a poignant chord inside her. “I might have to let you down.”

  “Why?” Erik demanded. His expression changed in the blink of an eye. Suddenly he had the look of a man used to getting answers, a man who didn’t settle for anything less than what he was after. “And don’t give me that conflict-of-interest crap. We could have something really special, Lynn. We both know it. We both feel it. Why won’t you let it happen?”

  “It won’t work out,” she said defensively, digging up every trite-but-true answer she could find. “We’re busy people. We’re dedicated to our careers—”

  “I’m dedicated, but I’m not a slave. You shouldn’t be either. You deserve to have a life outside of this house.”

  The look in Lynn’s eyes told him she wasn’t sure she did deserve it. Erik wondered what might seed that kind of doubt, but he didn’t probe for the answer. When she was ready, she would tell him. Instead, he set himself to the task of railroading her. He was, indeed, a man used to getting what he wanted. Lynn wasn’t going to be the exception to the rule.

  “Friday night,” he said firmly. “We’re going out on a real date. You and me. No teenagers. No grandmothers. No excuses.”

  “But—but what about the house?” Lynn stammered. “What if something happens? What if—”

  “Lillian and Martha are perfectly capable of handling things for a few hours. They managed to live sixty-some years without you or me to watch out for them.”

  She scowled at him. “That’s just because they didn’t know any better,” she muttered crossly.

  “Come on, Counselor,” Erik cajoled, eyes twinkling like stars in the dim light of the hall. “A date. Even us white knights deserve a little time off from the cause once in a while.”