The Last White Knight

by Tami Hoag

  “Will he get his meeting with the bishop?” Lynn asked quietly, her gaze homing in on the priest who had so valiantly come to their rescue.

  Father Bartholomew huffed a little breath and pushed his glasses up on his nose. “Not for a few days, he won’t, thank the angels. The bishop has gone to Chicago for a conference on the new age of miracles.”

  “Maybe he can bring one back for us.” Lynn said dryly.

  She turned toward the media spectacle just as the reporters swung their attention to Erik. He was looking stern and senatorial, a far cry from the man who had held her in his arms all night. The contrast made him seem remote, separated from her by a gap that couldn’t be bridged. She cynically told herself to get used to it.

  He wielded his charm like a sword to ward off Graham’s accusations, striking back with a sense of conviction and compassion that managed to subdue the crowd somewhat. He restated the fact that no one had been charged with the vandalism, that people in this country were supposed to be protected by the presumption of innocence. Lynn listened, her heart swelling with love and pride as Erik demonstrated a depth she hadn’t thought him capable of the first time they’d met. She listened, awed by his charisma and the power of his personality, and all she could think was that he was a man destined to go a long, long way … without her.

  To distract herself from the hollow ache in her chest, she forced her gaze away from Erik and placed it on Elliot Graham. Anger had always been an effective defense for her against sadness, hurt, and loss, and anger was definitely what she felt when she looked at that mild-mannered engineer who had the soul of an unscrupulous evangelist. Graham had set his sights on the city council, and he was bent on using Horizon as his stepping-stone to get there. She wondered if he ever gave a thought to the lives he was affecting with his slam campaign. She wondered if he ever gave a thought to the son he was pulling along in his wake of venom.

  E. J. Graham stood slightly behind his father, obviously fresh from the shower, his hair slicked into a duplicate of his father’s nerdish do, his hands stuffed into the pockets of a pair of suit pants that were just a fraction too big for him. His gaze was riveted on the back of his father’s head, as if he might somehow be able to reach the man telephathically if he concentrated hard enough.

  Lynn’s gaze narrowed as her mind picked up the thread of an idea and slowly began reeling it in. Young Graham turned away then and followed his father toward their garage as the party broke up and the crowd began to disperse.

  “This isn’t good, Erik.” Rob William’s low, clipped voice intruded on Lynn’s thoughts. Erik took up a stance in front of her, blocking her view of the Graham garage. She looked up at him, her gaze locking with his. There was a private message in the depths of his blue eyes, an intimate warmth, a possessiveness, a protectiveness, an expression that resurrected the need within her. She had to fight the urge to go into his arms and lean against his strength.

  “We’re losing ground,” the aide said, his attention darting back and forth from Erik to the retreating flock of reporters. He was a spare, wiry young man with round wire-rimmed glasses and a regimental striped tie, his sleeves rolled neatly to his elbows as if he were prepared to stick his hands into something messy—like the situation his boss was involved in. Nervous energy hummed in the air around him as he swung an arm in the direction of the graffiti. “This kind of thing doesn’t go over well with the Minnesota masses, you know. If the situation deteriorates any further, we’ll be at the point of having to effect some kind of damage control, image-wise.”

  Erik shot his employee a piercing look. “I’m not in this for the sake of my image, Rob,” he said, his voice as sharp as the crack of a whip.

  The aide flinched a bit in response, his eyes rounding. He came to heel like a repentant bird dog, visibly stepping back over the line he’d crossed. “Of course not, Senator.”

  “I’ve got a call in to Judge Gunderson. Get back to his office and see if we can set something up for later today.”

  “Yes, sir.” William ducked his head deferentially and trotted off to see to his boss’s orders.

  Erik held Lynn’s gaze for a moment, obviously weighing his choice of words. At last he said, “This is not good, Lynn.”

  Lynn bridled at the subtle implication that it was the fault of one of her girls and therefore her fault. “Well, don’t look at me, Senator,” she said tightly. “I have an alibi for last night.”

  His cheeks colored slightly, but he didn’t back down. “Can all your girls say that?”

  No, and he knew it. Lynn’s jaw tightened. Her hands curled into fists at her sides. Martha and Lillian had greeted her that morning with the news that Regan had managed to ditch them at the movies and had come sneaking back into the house at two in the morning. The girl had had plenty of time to do the deed, and God knew it wasn’t beyond her, but Lynn just couldn’t let herself believe Regan was guilty.

  “If Regan is the one doing this, then Horizon will have to take responsibility,” Erik said gravely. “You can’t just go on hoping she isn’t the problem and let her shenanigans ruin everything for the home and the rest of the girls.”

  “Erik is right,” Lillian said, stepping forward, hands folded primly against her flowered voile skirt, her expression both earnest and apologetic. “We’ve given her so many chances, Lynn, and she isn’t showing any sign of coming around. If she’s not only resisting us but trying to get us shut down besides, we’ll have to send her home.”

  Lynn looked from Lillian to Martha. Lillian was all rules and regulations. Martha was the one who went on instinct. Martha was the one who could always see past a show of bravado. Martha was meeting her gaze with a look of regret.

  “We can’t sacrifice everything we’ve worked so hard for, Lynn,” she said gently. “It might be time to effect some damage control of our own.”

  Lynn stepped back from them, feeling hurt and betrayed, as if she were the one they were accusing of painting swearwords on the side of Elliot Graham’s house. Sometimes they lost one. She knew that. She just didn’t want Regan to be one of those negative statistics in their books.

  “Why didn’t anybody catch her at it?” she challenged, planting her hands at the waist of her jeans and tilting her chin up to a pugnacious angle. “Elliot Graham has the cops combing this neighborhood every night. Why didn’t they catch her?”

  Her only answer was silence. The group stood regarding her intently, their brows furrowed in thought.

  “If Regan was that bent on causing trouble for Horizon, don’t you think she’d want to get caught—the same way she always wanted to get caught shoplifting and smoking dope, so she could humiliate her parents?”

  “Maybe she’s tired of seeing juvenile hall,” Erik offered.

  “And maybe she isn’t guilty,” Lynn countered.

  “You see too much of yourself in her, Lynn,” he murmured.

  The rest of the group ceased to exist for Lynn in that moment. She and Erik had moved to a different plane of understanding. He had listened to her story. He had believed her. He had offered her comfort and caring. She had watched him grow over the course of their relationship, had watched him struggle to become more understanding. If she could get him to go this one extra step, at least she would feel she’d given him something worthwhile when the time came to let him go.

  She looked up at him with her heart in her eyes, begging him to take that step with her. “If you could see a little bit of me in her, too, Erik, you might give her the benefit of the doubt.”

  Erik took a slow, deep breath of morning air, his eyes steady on Lynn’s. This was a test. She’d given him his chance to prove himself to her; now she was going to put his character to the test to see just how sincere he was. He could see the trap as plain as day, but there was nothing for him to do but step into it. He had made his decision. He would accept any challenge, pick up any gauntlet, if it meant winning his lady’s heart.

  “I hope you have a plan here, Ms. Shaw,” he sa
id.

  The smile that beamed across her face was worth whatever damage this situation might do to his career, he thought with a wry smile for the image-conscious man he had been a scant few days ago. Love was leading him down a dangerous path, especially considering that the lady holding his hand had every intention of leaving him in the dust. But as with every struggle he’d ever faced, he planned to come out of this a winner—with his heart intact and Lynn Shaw by his side.

  “This is a lot more exciting on television,” Lynn remarked, hunkering down in her seat.

  She placed her left ankle over her right knee and crossed her arms, resettling herself for what she knew could be a long and fruitless wait. She had left the house with Erik a little after eight-thirty, making it known to one and all that they were going to a late movie, but they had only driven around the corner, where they had parked Erik’s Thunderbird and left it. They were ensconced now in a musty, dusty ’69 Ford Fairlane that Father Bartholomew stored in the garage behind Horizon House. The car afforded them a clear view of the back door. If and when Regan left the house, they would follow her as best they could on foot.

  They’d been waiting nearly two hours. The neighborhood was cloaked in darkness and quiet. Even on a Saturday night, this was not an active part of town. The grills had been cooled down and put away, the lawn chairs folded. Everyone had gone indoors to escape the mosquitoes and watch television or turn in early after a long, hard day of lawn maintenance. The last of the interior lights went off at St. Stephen’s, leaving glowing only the enormous lantern that hung on a chain above the main entrance. In the dark the building looked more like a medieval castle than ever, its stone turrets rising up against the night sky.

  Father Bartholomew emerged from the side door, fumbling with his keys and trying to keep a pair of books tucked under his arm. The books slipped to the sidewalk with a thump. As he bent to retrieve them, his glasses fell off, then he dropped the keys. “Well, fiddlesticks,” he grumbled, his voice carrying plainly across the expanse of lawns. He gathered himself and his things together and trundled off toward the rectory, the shadows of the buildings swallowing him up in darkness.

  As his footsteps faded away, Erik turned to Lynn, the corners of his mouth turning up. “We could make it more exciting,” he said, his smoky voice low and suggestive as he slid an arm around her shoulders.

  “Some cop you would have made,” she jeered, elbowing him playfully in the ribs. “Making out on stakeouts while crime runs rampant in the streets. Do you think that’s how Reuter and Briggs spend their shift?”

  “God, I hope not,” Erik said with feeling.

  He settled his arm around Lynn’s shoulder and eased her against his side. She offered no protest, though she thought it probably would have been best for both of them if she had simply moved away. She didn’t have the heart to do it, not tonight, not when so much was still hanging in the balance. She didn’t want to feel alone tonight. She didn’t want to feel alone any sooner than was absolutely necessary.

  Funny, she thought as she stared at the little plastic statue of the Virgin Mary that was glued to the dashboard, she’d been alone for so long the feeling had just become a part of her. It had been absorbed into who she was: She had black hair and green eyes, she had a bad temper, and she was alone. She had ceased to think of it as an affliction. Until now. It had been so long since she had wanted something more than the life she’d carved out for herself, she’d forgotten what it was to yearn for something beyond her reach.

  She leaned her head against Erik’s chest and closed her eyes against the pain welling in her chest. She had Horizon—at least for the moment. She had her girls. She had Lillian and Martha. That was all she was allowed, and she felt damn lucky to have them after the mess she’d made of her early life. She wasn’t allowed to want more. She sure as hell wasn’t allowed to want this knight in shining armor sitting with his arms around her. But she couldn’t let go of him just yet.

  Tipping her head back, Lynn sought Erik’s mouth with her own, hungrily, kissing him with all the urgency of the turmoil that swirled inside her. Twisting around on the seat of the Fairlane, she sought to press herself against him, wishing she could just become part of him, a part he could keep and cherish.

  “Hey,” he whispered, feathering kisses along her jawline. “It’s all right, sweetheart. We’ll work everything out. We will,” he insisted, stroking a hand over her hair.

  Lynn settled back in her place, embarrassed at the way she had allowed her emotions to break through the surface of her control. She pulled her feet up on the seat, raising a minor cloud of dust, and wrapped her arms around her knees to keep herself from touching Erik again.

  “Just thought I’d sneak a quick one before the action starts,” she said, hoping he wouldn’t call her on her feeble attempt at lightening the situation. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. He was watching her, quietly considering. She hadn’t fooled him, but he let it slide, and Lynn had all she could do to keep from exhaling a sigh of relief. The confrontation would come, of that she had no doubt, but at least it wouldn’t come now.

  “There may not be any action, you know,” he said, relaxing back against the seat. He rested one hand on the steering wheel and stared out the windshield at the towering walls of St. Stephen’s. “Graham has put a lot of pressure on the police department to patrol the neighborhood at regular intervals. Anyone trying something tonight would just be asking for trouble.”

  “Asking for something,” Lynn said.

  “You really think Graham’s son is behind this, don’t you?”

  “I’m willing to bet he is. He’s trying so hard to be like his father it almost hurts to watch. Elliot is too wrapped up in his cause to notice. He treats E.J. like a secretary instead of a son.”

  “You think the boy is committing the vandalism to win his father’s attention.”

  “Or to help win his father’s campaign for him by ‘proving him right,’ so to speak. If he can make everyone believe the Horizon residents are as much a detriment to the neighborhood as Elliot has portrayed them to be, then he’ll help his father win that city council seat. It’s a classic case of a child seeking parental approval. They don’t always make the best choices as to how to go about it. Believe me, I know.”

  “But even if Graham’s son is the one responsible, that doesn’t solve the mystery of Regan’s clandestine journeys.”

  “No, it doesn’t.”

  Lynn’s shoulders sagged a little under the burden of that particular weight. She’d had another heart-to-heart with Regan that morning, with nothing to show for it but frustration. Regan had wedged herself into the corner of her bed, her back against the wall, and locked herself up inside a shell of hostility and distrust.

  “Why should I tell you anything? You’ll only come down on me for breaking all your freaking rules. You’re not on my side, so just cut the ‘I’m your best friend’ routine.”

  “Right now I am your best friend, Regan. In fact, I’m about the only friend you’ve got.”

  “Bull. You’re my freaking jail keeper. I’m not telling you anything, and if that screws up your plans for your precious Horizon House that’s just too damn bad.”

  “I’m afraid I’m going to lose her no matter what,” Lynn murmured, admitting her fear aloud for the first time. “I want so badly to help her, but I just can’t seem to reach her.”

  Erik listened to the pain and the bewilderment in Lynn’s voice, and he held her hand to offer what comfort he could. She seemed so genuinely puzzled by her inability to get through to Regan Mitchell. It seemed as if she were standing in front of a mirror trying to reach through it to touch her own reflection.

  “Could anyone have reached you at that age?” he ventured softly.

  “I don’t know,” she whispered, staring unseeing through the dirty windshield of the car. “No one really tried.”

  The sadness in those words went straight to Erik’s heart and stuck there, as sharp and pierc
ing as needles. He looked at Lynn and tried to picture her young and pregnant and alone, and anger burned inside him, anger toward the people who had meant so much to her who had turned her away, and anger toward himself. He wanted to think he would have protected her, defended her, been a father to her child, but the truth of the matter was he probably would have been at the head of the line to ridicule her. What a pompous, self-righteous hypocrite he was. And Lynn thought she wasn’t worthy of him.

  “I love you,” he said, needing her to hear it. It couldn’t change what had happened in her past, but somewhere in his heart he believed it could change their future. The words might bind her to him, might hold her close, might be the one thread that would keep her from breaking away. If she knew he loved her, really loved her … He wanted to have a chance with her, a chance to slay dragons for her and right wrongs and live up to the image she had of him.

  “Erik, please don’t—”

  He silenced her with a finger to her lips. His gaze locked on hers in the faint light. “Don’t tell me not to love you, Lynn. Don’t.”

  He lowered his head, intending to silence any protest with his kiss, but a movement at the back of the house caught his eye and he jerked his head around, searching the shadows, willing his eyes to see past the darkness.