Mr. Hall Takes a Bride

by Marie Ferrarella

  “Wicked,” she repeated. “As in Casanova. Romeo. Lothario. Don Juan. That kind of wicked,” Sarajane clarified.

  He laughed, shaking his head. This time he completed turning the key and his sports car hummed to life. Shifting from the brake to the accelerator, he eased his baby out of the parking spot. He’d surveyed it quickly before getting in and been relieved to see that it was still free of marks or dents. He counted that a victory.

  Jordan spared her a glance before getting on the main thoroughfare. “Spend a lot of time reading, do you?”

  Her eyes narrowed. Was that a put-down? “As a matter of fact, I do.”

  The expression on his face said he’d expected as much. What was his problem? “Maybe you should try living life instead.”

  Sarajane shot him a scathing look just as they squeaked through another almost-red light. “I am living a life. Every day when I walk through Advocate Aid’s doors, I live these people’s dramas, their heartaches. Their fears.”

  That was all just convenient rhetoric, he thought. She was hiding behind her work. Hiding from life by getting entangled in someone else’s. He wanted to find out why.

  “I meant something a little more personal in terms of living, Sarajane. Something that would require you to bring down that barricade you like to keep up around yourself, something to make you let your hair down. Be a woman.”

  Who the hell did he think he was? she thought angrily. Other than a driver who liked living on the edge of a traffic violation. They whizzed through another yellow light turning red.

  “You should talk,” she jeered.

  She liked, he’d noticed, to turn arguments around, to flip the tables on him whenever possible, taking the center spotlight off herself and turning it on to him. “Excuse me?”

  “Hell, Jordan, if you were any more removed from the people who come in, they’d have to come to see you in the next state.”

  Granted he had trouble relating to these people, but he thought he’d hidden it successfully enough. Besides, she’d said something else to him that first evening. Was that to placate him then, or was she just insulting him now? “I thought you told me that I was doing a good job.”

  One of the things that her work here had taught her was how to say things without flinching and giving away her true thoughts. One run-in with an abusive father and husband who’d come looking for his family had taught her how to lie with the best of them.

  She raised her chin now and put that talent to use, saying dispassionately, “I lied.”

  He was quiet for a moment. So quiet that she thought maybe the conversation had abruptly terminated, ending in her favor. She should have known better.

  “You always lash out like that when someone gets close to the truth?” He wanted to know just as they reached a red light. He was forced to wait behind a canary-yellow VW bug.

  He was giving himself a hell of a lot of credit. “Meaning you?” she asked coldly.

  She watched the side of his mouth. She could see it curve and felt something ripple inside of her. Sarajane dug her fingernails into her palms to divert her attention.

  “Unless there’s someone else in my car besides the two of us,” he replied.

  Sarajane didn’t like his high-handed tone, didn’t like what he was implying and most of all, didn’t like the ripple in the pit of her stomach. Survival instincts kicked in.

  “Stop the car,” she ordered.

  Looking through the windshield, Jordan glanced quickly around to make sure that the order hadn’t come because he was about to run over something, or that he’d missed seeing some sort of an illegal incident going on in the vicinity.

  But neither was the case, so he continued driving.

  “Stop the car!” Sarajane cried again, infuriated because he wouldn’t listen.

  When he still didn’t pull the car over to the curb, she reached for the handle and tried to open the door on her side.

  Seeing what she was up to, Jordan kept one hand on the wheel as he lunged over as far as he could, the seat belt digging into his shoulder, to stop her. He grabbed her by the arm and yanked her back, the sudden movement breaking her connection with the handle.

  “Are you crazy?” he demanded angrily. He was going forty. If she jumped out of the moving vehicle, she’d get hurt.

  “Probably,” she shot back, angry at being stopped. Angry that he thought he could exercise control over her. “I should have my head examined for getting into the car like this.”

  And what made him persona non grata all of a sudden? He’d been working his tail off to keep the caseload from growing.

  “What are you—some kind of bleeding heart who blindly chants mantras thought up by some feeble-minded jerk who like to stir up trouble? Rich is always bad, poor is always good, is that what you believe? Well, maybe you could try looking at the facts sometime,” he told her, his words heated, his tone cold. “My family donates a hell of a lot to those charities you’re so hot for and my sister has given up her whole life in order to help people who aren’t on the social register. And all of them—my parents, my sister—are usually flying under the radar. Nobody even knows the kind of sacrifices they make. They don’t do it for the limelight.”

  She didn’t like having that sort of sentiment associated with her. “I don’t believe rich is bad,” she informed him quietly.

  Turning down the next block, he shrugged. “Well, it’s a start.”

  Oh, but there was something about the pitch of his voice, the tilt of his head, that made her want to scream. So she fired a comeback at him. “I do, however, believe that you’re being held prisoner by the power and the allure of recognition and money.”

  Now that really made no sense. “Then what the hell am I doing here?”

  When she blew out a breath, burrowing her back deeply against the seat, the small blast of air ruffled her bangs. “As near as I can figure it, driving me crazy.”

  There was something in her voice…Jordan shifted his focus, interested. Curious. And maybe, just maybe, a little aroused. He glanced in her direction as he slowed at another light. “Why? Why, Sarajane? Why am I driving you crazy?”

  She folded her arms protectively before her, her body language warning him to back off. “You just are.”

  But he shook his head. “Not good enough.”

  And she had a feeling he would keep at it until she gave him something. So she did. “Because you remind me of somebody.”

  Now he was really curious. “Who?”

  She didn’t even want to say his name. “Somebody I don’t want to be reminded of.”

  Too bad, he thought. She was the one who’d opened this Pandora’s box. Fascinating him.

  “Who?” Jordan pressed again. “Somebody who hurt you?” he guessed when she said nothing.

  Sarajane stiffened in her seat, her shoulders as straight as a steel girder. She was all set to tell him to go to hell, that it was none of his business and she wasn’t about to edify him with any kind of an answer.

  But somehow, that wasn’t what came out. “Someone I used to be with.”

  Jordan barely got through the next light in time. His attention was definitely shifting. “In the biblical sense?” he wanted to know.

  The very thought of her “being with” someone unsettled him—and set his imagination moving into areas he knew would infuriate her. But then, she had the body of a goddess, even though she tried to hide it beneath clothes that were one size larger than she needed.

  Instead of answering, she glared at him. Which provided him with an answer in its own way.

  “And I look like this guy?” He made what he felt was the logical leap.

  No, you’re better looking. Which is the problem. She pretended to look in his direction, but her eyes barely swept over him. “In a general sense.”

  And just what the hell did that mean? “I need more details.”

  She stared straight ahead through the windshield as she said, “He was good-looking.”

&nb
sp; When she said nothing more, he looked at her incredulously. “So that’s it? You’re just going to go around and take potshots at all the men you think are good-looking?”

  She noted that he didn’t just place himself into that category exclusively. He’d made it sound as if it was a large group strictly of her choosing and according to her own guidelines. She supposed that gave him points. At least he wasn’t conceited the way Rocco had turned out to be. Looking back, she realized that Rocco could never pass a mirror without at least a slight pause of appreciation.

  This had gone too far, she thought suddenly. She was softening toward Jordan. Not what she had in mind, she thought. “Look, we’re almost there. I can walk from here.”

  In response, Jordan hit the button that locked all four doors simultaneously. He wasn’t through asking questions yet. “How did he hurt you?”

  Sarajane bristled instantly. “I didn’t say he hurt me.”

  Did she really think he was that obtuse? “You didn’t have to.”

  She’d had enough of this. “Look, save the interrogation for the courtroom, Jordan.” And then she realized that he’d thrown her off her game and she hadn’t asked the one question that actually mattered. “How did your interview with Alicia’s brother go?”

  Jordan had left the office at four and she’d fully expected him to go home after talking to Joe Juarez. If she were being honest, she hadn’t expected him actually to go to the county jail, but he had. And when he’d returned a couple of hours later, she was even more surprised. Silently, grudgingly, she had to admit that he was working out better than she’d first thought.

  “He seems on the level,” Jordan allowed.

  His first impression of Alicia Juarez’s brother was that the man was a fighter. He’d spent most of the initial short interview looking into Joe Juarez’s eyes, and he saw a man who had been through a great deal, but who somehow still believed that, in the end, life would be fair to him. He believed that he was going to walk out of the cell a free man, his name cleared. As he spoke about what had happened to him, Joe had displayed just the right amount of anger and hope to hook him, Jordan thought.

  Sarajane looked at him, suddenly hopeful for her friend. “So you can get Alicia’s brother off?”

  It wasn’t nearly that simple. Right now, everything appeared to be tilted against them. “I didn’t say that.”

  She interpreted his inflection. “So you can’t get him off?”

  As she watched, she saw what amounted to a Cheshire-cat expression form on his face. “I didn’t say that, either.”

  Sarajane sighed, exasperated. He wasn’t letting himself be pinned down either way. She absolutely hated secrecy of any kind. It wasn’t as if she was going to post any information that came her way on the Internet, she just had an overwhelming need to know. Everything. If you knew everything, then there were no surprises to catch you unaware.

  “God, you really are a lawyer, aren’t you?” She shifted in her seat, the belt straining against her shoulder. “Okay, exactly what is it that you are saying, Jordan?”

  “That it’s not going to be easy proving he’s innocent. For one thing, he has no alibi.” For another, everything pointed to his stealing the plans. It just seemed too convenient, too neat. Nothing was ever that cut-and-dried, which in turn made him smell a setup.

  She frowned. “Most people don’t go around anticipating needing an alibi for themselves.” To prove her point, she asked, “For instance, what were you doing at eleven o’clock last night?”

  He didn’t even have to stop to think before he answered. “I was in bed.”

  “See?”

  “I didn’t say alone,” he added quietly just to see her reaction. Jordan watched in fascination as her complexion changed from ivory white to a pinker shade. Embarrassment? Or something else?

  “We’re here,” Sarajane announced tersely, pointing toward the building in the middle of the block. “Please unlock the door.”

  “I didn’t say I was alone,” he repeated. “But as a matter of fact, I was.”

  So, what was he doing? Baiting her? Trying to get a reaction from her? Just what was he trying to prove, anyway? “I don’t care.”

  The look on his face told her that he didn’t believe her protests. “Could you say that under oath?”

  For two cents, she’d push him out of the car—except that it was his car. “No more games.”

  “Okay.” Jordan eased his vehicle into a space that was almost directly in front of her building and then pulled up the hand brake. “No more games.” But instead of unlocking the doors as she’d expected, he leaned over the console and framed her face with his hands. “I was never into games anyway.”

  She felt his breath on her face, felt her pulse suddenly go haywire. “I…have…to…” The words dribbled from her lips, abruptly stopping as they went nowhere.

  “Yes?” he coaxed helpfully, his lips barely inches away from hers. Her pulse was beating so fast, it was close to breaking the sound barrier. “You have to—”

  Her mind was a blank, a complete blank, burned away by what was going on inside of her. Bedlam. Bedlam with a bonfire.

  “I forgot,” she whispered the confession.

  Were she more lucid, she would have been embarrassed, or even angry that Jordan had this kind of an effect on her. Were she in more control of her faculties, she would have died before she allowed him to see that he was scrambling her brain. But the pure truth of it was, he was scrambling her brain.

  This was even worse than with Rocco or with Andrew. Despite the suspicion and distrust she brought with her to the table, she couldn’t seem to use it as a weapon, couldn’t seem to set up a barrier to hide behind. Not that it probably would have done any good, she realized ruefully. If there was a barrier, she’d be leaping over it to get at him.

  But pride demanded at least some sort of a rally, some sort of a show that she hadn’t been reduced to a mindless puddle of desire.

  “So,” she asked, “are you going to kiss me or stare at me all night?”

  A lesser man would have been put off by the flip remark. But then, a lesser man wouldn’t have seen through it. And he did. She was scared, he realized. She’d been burned and she was scared. He could understand that. Moreover, right now, he could even relate to it a little, because part of him was a little unnerved at the level of attraction he felt every time he was in this woman’s presence. Every time words were exchanged. It was almost completely overwhelming—and unsettling.

  Just for now, because he felt like celebrating, because he had survived the week and only had two more to go, he didn’t bother thinking about why he found her so attractive, or that feeling so might be dangerous to his self-preservation. He just went with the flow.

  “I’ll opt for the kiss,” he told her, his voice soft, caressing her.

  And his lips found hers.

  Her mind shouted Mayday just before it completely ceased to function.

  Chapter Nine

  It was, Sarajane realized, as if she were drowning in chocolate. Dark, sweet, thick, rich chocolate. And oh, the rush that overtook her was almost not to be endured. The world around her had gone into slow motion and disappeared.

  The second kiss was even better than the first.

  She lost her breath. Completely and utterly. She found herself gasping just to draw in enough to sustain her.

  Sarajane had never experienced anything like this before. Not from a kiss. Lovemaking was a different story, but Jordan wasn’t making love with her—

  Or was he?

  They didn’t actually have to be lying in bed, their bodies naked and tangled, in order to make love. Sarajane was one of those people who believed that someone could make love to you with their eyes, with their hands, with their lips.

  Like now.

  Oh, she was sinking fast.

  Within another moment, she was going to completely forget all the promises she’d ever made to herself about getting involved, about setting hers
elf up to be abandoned emotionally and physically, and surrender to this man with the lethal mouth that was to die for. The hunger within her was growing at an alarming rate.

  Battling a huge wave of reluctance, Sarajane managed to separate herself from him, pulling back as far as she was able.

  Only then did she realize that the ache she was feeling around her midsection didn’t have so much to do with the longing a woman felt when she hadn’t made love for a very long time as it did with the transmission shift that had been digging into the lower portion of her ribcage.

  Jordan was looking at her and for the life of her, Sarajane couldn’t read what was in his eyes. Amusement? Longing? The knowing look of a man moving in for the kill on a sure prey?

  One coaxing syllable out of his mouth and she knew she’d succumb, that her last shred of resistance would dry up and just blow away. She had to say something first, squelch any hope that something was going to happen tonight—no matter how much she wanted it to.

  “I have a roommate.”

  “I don’t.”

  The two words echoed within the interior of the vehicle, buzzing around her head like a honey bee.

  So this was temptation, she thought. Temptation in its rawest form. She knew Jordan was asking her, without actually putting it into so many words, to come to his place. To go home with him and be with him in every sense of the word.

  Every fiber of her being screamed: “Let’s go!”

  Only her brain, that tiny fragment that was maddeningly given to common sense in times of crisis, shouted, “No.” As much as she wanted to be with him, as much as she wanted to make love with him until she figuratively and maybe literally came apart at the seams, Sarajane knew that her brain was right and that everything else was wrong.

  Wrong never looked so good to her before.

  “You earn more money than I do,” she said, sucking in air. Trying to find herself amid the ruins. Trying desperately to think so that she could mount a defense. Because if she gave in, there would be hell to pay in the morning.

  Maybe sooner.