Caroline wanted more than a wild weekend with him and, despite the ghosting, she was sure he wanted more, too. She just had no idea when she might get it because, aside from the flowers she’d received almost two months ago—and the constant sweeps of her home and office—she had no other indication that there was any sort of nefarious activity happening. She got up, exercised and went to work. She came home and slept. Then she did it all again.
Which was fine. Being with Tom had been a whirlwind of impulse and attraction, one that had led her to take crazy risks. At least there hadn’t been any lasting consequences from her time with Tom—except that she missed him.
All she could do was hope that he missed her, too.
Ironically enough, a few weeks after she called in sick to work, she started to get sick for real. She’d been feeling draggy, which she’d chalked up to the stress of, well, everything. She had no idea where she stood, both with the corruption case and with a certain FBI agent.
She slept more on the weekends, but she couldn’t get caught up with her rest. Then she got sick to her stomach in court and barely called a recess in time to make it to the bathroom. Afterward, she felt fine. It must have been something she ate? She threw out the rest of the chicken salad she’d taken for lunch. It smelled funny.
Then the same thing happened the next day—she felt fine until right after lunch, when her stomach twisted. Again, it was a close call, but she made it to the bathroom in time. As she sat on the floor, waiting for her stomach to settle, she realized something.
It hadn’t been the chicken salad.
She’d been tired. Now she was sick, but not with the flu or anything. Caroline did the math. It’d been three weeks since her whirlwind weekend with Tom. And her period...
Oh, crap.
She should have gotten her period last week.
Caroline was sick again. The whole time, she kept thinking, No.
No, no, no, no. This couldn’t be happening, not again. She’d dodged this bullet once before. She’d missed a period due to stress and it’d made her see that she shouldn’t marry Robby, that she couldn’t prove her stupid brother right—she wasn’t a mistake.
Oh, God. She’d lost her head and her heart to Tom Yellow Bird. For one amazing weekend, she’d thrown all caution to the wind and put her selfish wants and needs before rational thought and common sense.
Had she really been stupid enough to think she’d managed to avoid the consequences of her actions? Idiot. That’s what she was. Hadn’t she learned that anytime she stepped outside the safety of making the correct choices—every time—fate would smack her down?
Now she was most likely carrying Tom’s child.
Oh, God.
She sat on the floor of the bathroom, the tile cool against her back, and tried to think. The first time her period had been late, all the way back in college, her life had flashed before her eyes. She’d been terrified of telling Robby, then her parents. They would have gotten married and she would’ve had to notify the law school that she’d have to defer a year—or withdraw completely. Her career prospects, all of her plans—all of it would have been wiped away by a positive test result. She’d been sick then, too—but with sheer dread as she waited on the pregnancy test results.
No. She’d known it then and she knew it even better now. Marrying Robby and having his baby would have been the biggest mistake of her life.
Now? Oh, she was still panicking. Unplanned potential pregnancies were an anxiety attack waiting to happen.
But instead of filling her with dread, this time when her life flashed before her eyes, she felt...hopeful. Which was ridiculous, but there it was.
She saw her body growing heavy with Tom’s baby. Instead of ghosting through her life, she saw Tom coming home to her at the end of the day, cuddling a little baby with his dark hair and eyes. She saw nights in his arms and trips to visit both his friends on the reservation and the Rutherfords and...
Oh, no.
She wanted that life with Tom. She didn’t want this to be a mistake.
She needed to talk to him immediately. Or, at the very least, as soon as she had peed on a stick.
Okay. She had a plan. After work, she’d go buy a pregnancy test. And then she was tracking down Tom Yellow Bird if it was the last thing she did.
* * *
“Judge Jennings.”
The silky voice pulled her out of musing about baby names in the parking lot on her way home from work that day. She found herself standing a few feet away from a man in a good suit wearing mirrored sunglasses. But it wasn’t Tom. This guy was white with light brown hair that he wore stylishly tousled. He was tall and lean—much taller than she was—but due to the cut of the suit, she could tell he had plenty of muscles.
He could’ve been attractive, but there was something in the way his mouth curved into a smirk that she didn’t like. Actually, that wasn’t strong enough. There was something about this guy that was physically repulsive.
“Yes?” she said, trying to gauge how far she was from her car without actually looking at it. Too far. She’d have to go back into the courthouse. Which was fine. The security guards were still there and they were armed.
“I’m glad we’ve finally met,” the stranger said, his smirk deepening. “I’ve been looking forward to getting acquainted with you for quite some time now.”
Oh, crap. “If that was supposed to sound not creepy, I have to tell you, it didn’t make it.” She smiled sympathetically, as if he were socially awkward and doing the best he could instead of scaring her.
“Excellent,” he said, the smirk widening into a true grin. “A sense of humor. It makes everything so much easier, don’t you think?”
Oh, she didn’t like that smile at all. She took a step back. If she kicked out of her heels, she could run a lot faster. And screaming was always a viable option.
The man straightened. “Relax, Judge Jennings. Did you enjoy the flowers?”
Double crap. She was starting to panic—but even in the middle of that, James Carlson’s last email came back to her. If they reach out to you, play along. So she straightened and stood her ground, trying to look like she was the kind of woman who could be swayed by several hundred dollars’ worth of cut flowers. “They were lovely, actually. Am I to thank you for that?”
He waved the suggestion away. “I must say you are a very difficult woman to get a handle on,” he said, as if he had a right to get a handle on her at all. “I have been deeply impressed by your record on the bench.”
How was she supposed to play along when he was making her skin crawl? She couldn’t. “Still creepy,” she said, backing up another step. “If you’d like to make an appointment to discuss something of merit, feel free to call my assistant and schedule a time. Other than that? I don’t think we have anything to talk about here.”
“Oh, but we do. We do, Judge Jennings,” he repeated, because apparently annoying was just a way of life for this guy. “It would be such a shame to see a fine judicial career destroyed because of one naive mistake, don’t you agree?”
The world stopped spinning. At least, that was how it felt to Caroline as she suddenly struggled to keep her balance. “What? I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The protest sounded weak, even to her own ears. “I don’t make mistakes.”
He advanced on her, two quick steps. She tensed, but he didn’t touch her. She couldn’t run, though—she could barely hold herself upright.
“Excellent,” he said again. He was overly fond of that word. “Then the Verango case was intentional, was it? Terrence Curtis was your mentor, after all. It’s funny how these things work out, isn’t it?” He said that last part so softly Caroline almost leaned forward to catch the last words.
She didn’t dare. “I’ve had a lot of cases,” she said, wondering if she sounded li
ke she was on the verge of blacking out. “I can’t say for certain which case you’re talking about.” It wasn’t much of a lie, but it was all she had right now.
Tom had known this was coming. He had warned her, and she had willfully ignored his warning because...
Because she’d thought the shameful truth wouldn’t get out. No one had ever drawn a connection between her and Verango, between Verango and Curtis. Because she had convinced herself that there was no connection beyond the mentor and mentee relationship.
“Yes,” the man said in what might have been an understanding voice coming from anyone else. “I can see that you know exactly what I’m talking about. And won’t our mutual friend, FBI Special Agent Tom Yellow Bird, be interested to know about this new development?” He snapped his fingers. “Better yet, I could call James Carlson up and inform him that, despite his hopes and prayers, he has yet another judge to prosecute, hmm?”
“What do you want?” she demanded, trying to sound mean and failing miserably.
“Not much,” he said, his tone giving lie to his words. “Merely an exchange. I keep your unfortunate mistake between you and me—like friends do—and in exchange, when a case of interest to me comes before you, you’ll give me a moment of your time to make my case.” His mouth tightened, and Caroline was afraid that was the real guy, finally cracking through the too-perfect exterior. “Although I won’t be scheduling an appointment with your assistant. I’m thinking more along the lines of...dinner?”
“You want me to throw a case?” On some level—the logical, rational level—she knew this was great. This was exactly the break that Tom and James Carlson had been waiting for. Whoever was buying off judges was actively trying to blackmail her!
But there was nothing great about this. Not a damned thing. “He can’t watch you forever, no matter how hard he might try,” the man said, leaning forward and finally letting the true menace in his voice bleed through. “Do you really want him to know how easily you can be bought?”
There was no need to ask who he was.
“No,” she whispered, shame burning through her body. Because that was the truth. Tom would find out what she had done all those years ago and it would change things.
Even more than things had already changed. She might be carrying his child.
God, how she didn’t want to regret what had happened between her and Tom. She didn’t want to regret him. But he might damn well regret her.
Who would want to be saddled with a woman who’d lied by omission about her past, who’d gotten pregnant? She could ruin his career as well as her own. All because she’d lost her head for one weekend.
All because she couldn’t say no to Tom Yellow Bird.
Her stomach lurched dangerously, and she fought the urge to cover her belly with her hand. “I don’t.”
“Excellent,” he repeated yet again. “Judge Jennings, it has been a pleasure making your acquaintance.” He pulled a business card out of his pocket and held it out to her. But when she went to reach for it, he held it just out of reach. “We understand each other, don’t we? Because I would hate to see a promising career like yours destroyed over a little mistake like this.”
Caroline swallowed down the bile in the back of her throat. “We understand each other,” she agreed. Because she did. Her promising career had indeed been cut short.
She waited for this vile man to say “excellent” again, but he didn’t. Instead, he reverted back to a smirk and handed the card over. “If you have any questions or need anything from me—anything at all—I can help you. But only if you help me.”
She didn’t even look at the card. She slid it into her purse and tried to smile. She didn’t know how she would ever smile again. “Of course,” she said, impressed that she managed to make it sound good.
With a nod of his head, he turned on his heel and walked off. He didn’t get into a car. He merely walked away. When he rounded the corner of the courthouse, Caroline counted to five and then followed. If she could get a car, a license plate—something...
But by the time she could see around the corner, he was gone. Not a car in the street, not the back of his head—nothing.
Her stomach rolled. She was going to be sick.
And it was no one’s fault but her own.
Fifteen
The only reason Tom didn’t leave flowers for Caroline at her house after every time he swept it was because he didn’t want to freak her out. After all, she didn’t exactly have positive associations with random floral displays in South Dakota.
But he was tempted. After the initial sweep, he hadn’t found any other bugs in her house or office. Which was good. He probably didn’t need to be checking things on a regular basis. He should return her key to her. But he couldn’t stop. He had to make sure she was safe.
But it was the only thing he could do while keeping his distance. In the meantime, he and Carlson waited for the other players to make their next moves. He knew from a career of waiting that counting each tick of the clock wouldn’t make it move a damned bit faster.
He hated not having the ball in his court. Whoever had bugged her house knew that Tom had pulled the devices. They probably knew Tom was doing regular checks. And it was safe to assume that the bad guys had put two and two together and knew that Tom and Caroline had spent at least part of that weekend together. They were no doubt plotting their next move, and all Tom could do was wait to react defensively.
The wait was going to kill him. Slowly.
Because he missed Caroline. That, in and of itself, was new. He didn’t miss people, not like this. The only other person he’d felt this consuming loneliness for was...
Well, Stephanie. But she’d been dead and he’d been grieving the loss. Caroline was pointedly not dead. In fact, she was within an easy drive. All he’d have to do was park in her driveway and knock on the door.
He couldn’t. He was on a case—several cases.
As the days passed, he couldn’t stop thinking about what Mark Rutherford and Carlson had both said—that maybe it was time to move on. Maybe Tom already had, but he hadn’t realized it until the moment he’d seen Caroline across the crowded courtroom.
He’d spent an electric weekend with her. He’d kicked back and relaxed. He’d enjoyed the explosive sex. He’d taken her to meet the Rutherfords. All of those were things he didn’t normally do. That was the only thing that was messing with him. He’d tried something new.
That was all it should have been.
But it wasn’t. Because he missed her.
He’d wanted...he wasn’t even sure what he’d wanted with Caroline. Sweeping her house and keeping his distance wasn’t it, though.
If he were being honest, he’d wanted to see her more. A lot more. But doing that would jeopardize the case.
Spending more time with Caroline...
It had felt like a betrayal of Stephanie. But the thing that Tom couldn’t get his head around was the fact that no one else seemed to think that. Not Stephanie’s parents. Not Carlson—and they’d all known Stephanie for a much longer time than Tom had. Every single one of them had said the same thing—Stephanie would have wanted him to move on.
Was that what Caroline was? Was Tom finally moving on?
These were the thoughts that occupied Tom constantly as the days dragged on. Tom was tracking down a lead on a different case—sadly, crime waited for no man—when his phone buzzed and he answered it. “Yellow Bird.”
“Tom.” It was Carlson.
Tom felt a flare of hope. Had someone made a move on Caroline? He hoped like hell they had so this case could end—although he was irritated that she would have gone to Carlson instead of him.
Carlson went on, “There’s been a development. You need to come in to the office.”
“When?”
“Now.”
The last of the lunch rush was thinning out, so it only took Tom twenty minutes to make it over to Carlson’s office. He called Caroline to make sure she was all right, but she didn’t answer.
He had a fleeting moment when he wished that he had called her at some point during the last few weeks or come up with some sort of excuse to stop by the courthouse and see her. Texting hadn’t been enough. He knew there were solid reasons why he hadn’t. He didn’t want anyone to make a connection between them. He didn’t want to compromise the case any more than he already had, so he’d kept his distance.
A growing sense of dread was building inside him and he wasn’t sure why. A development should be exciting—another step closer to finishing this case and finding out who was behind the corruption. This was what he lived for, right?
As he thought about what he lived for, though, it wasn’t slapping cuffs on a dirty judge that came to mind. It was Caroline. The way she looked curled up next to the fire pit, wineglass in hand. The way she looked curled against his chest the next morning, a little smile on her face as she slept.
He could hear Mark Rutherford asking him if the job really was the most important thing. And suddenly he knew—it wasn’t. He could give everything he’d ever had and ever would have to the job, but what could it give him in return? The promise of more criminals committing crimes. The certainty that the job would never be done.
The realization that he might have given up his dreams of living a long and happy life with Stephanie, but he hadn’t given up those dreams of a home, a family.
A wife.
After this, he was going to take some time off, he decided as he walked into Carlson’s office. He needed to start over with Caroline. She was probably furious with him—and she was well within her rights to be so, considering he hadn’t seen her in much too long. But he knew now that he couldn’t keep putting the job first, because it would never return the favor.
And then, as if he’d summoned her just by thinking about her, there she was, standing up from the chair in front of Carlson’s desk. Carlson, sitting behind the desk, didn’t move at all.
Pride and Pregnancy Page 13
