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  "Why me?" she repeated.

  Tanner took a seat in the chair across from her, then slid down and slung one leg over the padded arm. Only when he was comfortable did he turn his attention to her question.

  "It probably has to do with the fact that Joe and Coker were some kind of rivals back in their wild and woolly days. For the past twenty or thirty years, Joe has been using Amos Roach over in Kliester, but since Amos is one of the ones who dropped dead, he decided to give you a shot. He wants you to start with the will and see how that goes, then maybe he'll turn over the rest of it to you."

  "That doesn't explain why he asked for me. There are plenty of other lawyers in town for him to choose from. Jake Watkins. .. Obie Jennings . .. Doesn't T. J. Goolsby specialize in agricultural law?"

  "Now I see why you don't have any clients," Tanner said wryly. "I'm sure there are a lot of reasons why he picked you, but the main one is, using you will put Coker's big fat nose out of joint."

  His grin was slighdy malicious. "You have to admire Joe. It's a neat, unmistakable insult. By tomorrow morning everyone in Welch County will know Joe would rather use an outsider, a female to boot, than go to Donnie Lee Coker."

  Now that sounded like something Joe McCallister would do, Rae conceded silently. Back in his heyday, the elder McCallister's feuds had been as famous as his extramarital affairs.

  "John Joseph McCallister wants me to revise his will," she murmured aloud, shaking her head in amazement.

  Tanner chuckled. "Now you're getting it. And here's a bonus for you: If you take your time with all the legal mumbo jumbo, draw out the whereases and heretofores, you might even get to stay for dinner. Does the thought of sitting at the same table with Drew make you hot, Rae?"

  At the change in Tanner's tone she glanced up sharply. He had moved and was now leaning across her desk. Before she could stop him, he reached out and began to twine a single auburn curl around his forefinger.

  Rae flinched, jerking her head away. And then uneasiness gave way to anger. He had no right. He had no right to stand there casually touching her hair. Casually touching her private thoughts and feelings.

  As he kept his gaze trained on her face, Tanner's dark eyes narrowed, and he let out a long, low whistle.

  "Voodoo woman," he said, his normally husky voice growing deeper. "When you get mad, you don't look like somebody's kid sister anymore. Those baby-blue eyes look like opals ... like lightning in the tropics. You ought to get mad around Drew sometime, Rae. Then he might actually see you."

  Swearing a silent curse, Rae exhaled a short, exasperated breath. She knew better than to let him see her anger. Any reaction at all from her would only add to his enjoyment.

  Gritting her teeth, she watched in silence as Tanner moved around to her side of the desk and leaned against it, his long legs inches away from hers.

  "You know what your problem is?" he asked, still watching her.

  She tilted her chair back, raising her head to meet his dark gaze. "Yes," she said flatly, "men who are dense enough to think I'm interested in their opinions."

  He chuckled softly. "No, your problem is you. You've got the wrong idea about yourself. Somewhere along the line—it probably started back when you were still in the cradle—somebody told you that you were a good little girl, and like an idiot, you bought it. Which is why you've spent your whole life living a lie, wondering why you don't feel easy in your own skin."

  "You know nothing about me," she said tightly.

  "Maybe, maybe not. Sometimes I get this crazy idea about you. Sometimes I think maybe there's fire in you. And not a tame little Girl Scout fire either. Wildfire, Rae. Burning hot and hard ... like on the night I first saw you."

  He paused just long enough for the memory of a starburst-charged moment to fill the space between them.

  "Lone Dees madness," he murmured. "It was all right there in your eyes for anyone to see. Do you know how many babies are born nine months after Lone Dees? Is that what it was, Rae? Do we have to wait another ten years for what's inside you to come spilling out? Or is it always there, waiting for the rest of the world to catch up?"

  He smiled. "One thing's certain, if it's there, you don't know what to do with it. That's why you keep it hidden and pretend like it doesn't exist. But I'll tell you something, sweetness"—although he hadn't moved, when his voice dropped to a husky whisper, he seemed closer—"if it's there, and if you ever decided to let it out in the open, you'd have men howling after you like freakin' alley cats, tearing at each other's throats just to get a chance at being the one chosen to service you."

  Rae's breath caught in a soft gasp, and she closed her eyes to block out the sight of him. "Do you have to be so crude?" she asked, her voice stiff and hoarse.

  "What's your problem? 'Service' is a perfectly respectable word. I could have said they would all want to f—"

  "Stop it!"

  Rae was furious, not a new sensation in her dealings with Tanner, but this time she was more angry with herself than with him. Why in hell did she fall into every single trap he set for her?

  "Relax." There was a definite hint of laughter in his voice now. "I said sometimes I think that. The idea is too incredible to last very long. Because you really are a good little girl. Aren't you?"

  Forcing the stiffness from her spine, Rae opened her eyes and shot an irritated glance in his direction. "Don't you have something to do? Somewhere to go?"

  Instead of answering, he reached behind him to pick up the framed picture from her desk. "So this is the fabled Saint Johnny," he said slowly. "The late husband for whom you still pine." He cut his eyes toward her. "He looks more like your brother than your husband. He has that same wholesome, All-American, good-as-gold look."

  Slowly, carefully, she took the portrait from Tanner's hands and placed it on the far corner of her desk, out of his reach.

  "How do you know about Johnny?"

  He reacted with a short, harsh laugh. "That's a stupid question. You've been in this town long enough to know how it works."

  Yes, Rae knew how it worked. She had come to Dicton because she found big-city law in a big-city firm too impersonal. She had dreamed of a small practice that would allow her to give each client the personal attention he or she deserved. But one of the drawbacks of small-town life was that everyone's business was everyone's business.

  Less than a month after she had moved here from Fort Worth, Rae had run into a chatty stranger in the drugstore and had been staggered to learn that the woman not only knew what kind of shampoo Rae used, she also knew that Rae wrote to her parents every Monday without fail.

  "I know things about you that you wouldn't believe," Tanner was saying now. "You want me to tell you what you wear to bed? A pink, candy-striped cotton nightshirt. Wholesome gear. Virtuous. But I also know that sometimes in the middle of the night, the little candy-striped nightshirt starts to feel restrictive. So you strip it off. . . and for the rest of the night there's nothing but air and freedom between your body and the sheets."

  Rae felt furious heat flood her face. This time she counted to ten before she spoke.

  "I've heard a lot of rumors about you," she said slowly, "but no one mentioned the fact that you were a Peeping Tom along with all the rest."

  "Didn't they?" He raised one dark brow. "Now that surprises me. I didn't think there was any sin, any deviant behavior, that hadn't been laid on me. As it happens, I haven't been peeking through the windows of your chaste little bedroom. Not that I wouldn't like to. Oh yes, I'll have to give that idea some thought.. . because since the first time I set eyes on you, I've been wondering about that red hair of yours."

  He paused, letting his gaze travel slowly down her body. "I've been wondering if the color runs true. You know, I can close my eyes right now and see how that peculiar shade of red would look against the smooth, creamy skin of your belly."

  Rae had to grip the arms of her chair to keep from flying at him. Tanner had gone too far this time. He was standing in her
office—a place of business, for pity's sake—in broad daylight, and he was calmly talking about pubic hair. Her pubic hair!

  She wanted to tell him he had no right to imagine her naked, that he had no right to make her feel so exposed, so vulnerable. But she didn't say any of that. She didn't so much as blink an eye.

  "You mean there's actually something about me that you don't know?" she asked, leaning forward to pick up her pen. "What happened to the famous small-town grapevine?"

  This time his husky laugh held genuine amusement. "Just give me time. You never know, maybe I'll drop by Rusty's Tavern some Thursday night. I think Dr. Vaughn is usually there on Thursdays."

  Mention of the local gynecologist brought Rae's head up sharply. He wouldn't. He couldn't—

  And then she saw the look in his eyes and knew he had suckered her again.

  "Will you please—" she began.

  "Or maybe I'll just leave it to my imagination," he murmured, as though he were actually giving the matter serious thought. "We could make that the ultima Thule of our relationship. They say a little mystery keeps a friendship alive, and to tell you the truth, ours could use some help, because I know so damned much about you and your worthy little life."

  "Tanner, would you please—"

  "You were nineteen when you married the boy next door. Our hero, Johnny." He nodded toward the picture. "He was twenty-three, a brilliant student, an athlete with a room full of trophies, already in law school when you married him. He was being groomed for a career in politics like his father. The next Bobby Kennedy, they said."

  He paused, rubbing his chin with a thumb, as though weighing his next words. "But then when you'd been married for seven months, your Johnny got careless. He dove into a lake, hit an underwater rock, and broke his neck."

  The words, spoken without inflection, brought back a flash flood of memories—terror and pain, guilt and rage, and the ever-present unquenchable loneliness,

  "And I know that his were the last human hands to touch you." Relentlessly Tanner went on, his deep-set eyes measuring her reactions as he spoke. "But since Johnny Anderson was a saint, you might say he doesn't count. You probably still qualify as a virgin. And I'd take a guess that he was one of the fools who perpetuated that trash about your being a good little girl."

  "Johnny wasn't a fool," Rae ground out. "Don't talk about him. Don't ever—" She broke off abruptly and clamped her teeth together as she struggled for composure.

  "Say it," Tanner urged in a low whisper.

  He was leaning close now, so close, she could feel his breath on her face and see that his eyes were ablaze with the wild, demonic light.

  "Let go, Rae," he said, his voice low and hoarse. "For once in your life, really cut loose. Let it all come pouring out, so hard and fast that it takes me under. Come on, tell me I'm not fit to breathe Johnny's name. Tell me I'm an arrogant devil who'll burn in hell for blaspheming your deity."

  She drew in several short, shaky breaths. "Johnny wasn't a god," she said finally, the words unsteady. "And he wasn't a saint, He was simply the best man I've ever known."

  Two beats later he straightened away from her with a short, contemptuous laugh. "Poor Drew. If you ever catch him, he'll always be second best. He'll never quite measure up to the ghost of love past."

  "Drew doesn't have to compete with anyone," she said tightly. "He wouldn't even try. He has too much integrity, too much sensitivity, to attack a dead man."

  He studied her face for a long moment. "You think you know Drew, don't you?"

  As he spoke, Rae thought she caught a flash of that strange, restless hunger, but it was gone too quickly for her to be sure.

  Seconds later when he pushed away from her desk, there was no emotion at all in his eyes. "I guess I'll leave you to your dusty little dreams now."

  He sounded bored, as though he had suddenly grown tired of baiting her. With a perfunctory "See you around," he turned and began to move toward the door.

  "Tanner?"

  When he paused to glance over his shoulder, Rae raised her gaze from her still-trembling fingers and met his eyes. "You've had a fun half hour, getting on my nerves, saying stupid things, but—" She moistened her lips. "You don't go around saying these things about me to ... to anyone else, do you?"

  "You mean, does Drew know that your almost-but-not-quite virginal heart beats faster for him? I don't know. Probably not. Modest is our Drew. He doesn't know he's the most eligible bachelor in the county." He raised one dark brow. "Anything else?"

  "As a matter of fact there is." She relaxed her fingers and picked up her pen again. "How did you know about the nightshirt?"

  He grinned. "Paula told me."

  "Paula? I don't know anyone named Paula."

  "She's a salesgirl at Beatty's. You were shopping there the other day, and when she tried to sell you a cotton candy-striped nightshirt, you very politely explained why it just wouldn't do for you."

  A sound of exasperation escaped her. "And now it's all over town? That's ridiculous."

  He smiled. "Not all over town. In fact I imagine Paula forgot all about it by the next day. But I just happened to see her that night. And I just happened to bring up the subject of Dicton's good little lady lawyer."

  Pausing at the door, he turned to look her over one last time. The demonic light had been extinguished, and now there was nothing more than superficial interest in his eyes.

  "You won't get Drew, you know. That's a shame, really. You might be a good match for him, and having you out at Ashkelon would definitely make the place more interesting. But the fact is, sweetness, you haven't got a prayer. If you stay for dinner tonight, you'll see why."

  And then he walked out, leaving Rae torn between curiosity and exasperation.

  Chapter 2

  The white rock road threw up clouds of dust behind the Volvo as Rae drove west toward Ashkelon.

  Today she was putting her professional life on the line. It was that simple. If Old Joe liked her, she had it made, because others in town would automatically follow his lead. But—and this was probably the most important but in Rae's career— if the elder McCallister decided he didn't like her, she might as well pack up her law books, take out her knitting, and start living on the money Johnny had left her. Because although Joe McCallister wouldn't tell people not to use Rae, word would quickly get around that he had found her unsatisfactory, and then not even eccentrics like Seraphina Rodale would bring her their business.

  Drawing in a bracing breath, she loosened her grip on the steering wheel. It was too late to worry about it now. And as Johnny used to say, the sweetest apples were always out at the end of the shakiest limbs.

  For the past couple of miles Rae had been driving alongside the white board fence that marked McCallister property. Now she spotted the gate with a tall white arch over it. A single word, ASHKELON, was painted in neat black lettering on the crosspiece of the arch. There was nothing ostentatious about the McCallister standard. It was simple and clean. Aristocratic.

  Slowing almost to a stop, she turned onto the paved milelong drive that led to the ranch house. The drive was also bordered by white board fence, tied into occasional barbed-wire cross sections.

  A quarter of a mile up the drive, she passed a wooden side gate that gave access to the gravel road leading to the ranch's outbuildings. In the near distance she could see a handful of men working together to put up a new section of corral fence.

  As Rae drew nearer, one of the men straightened and moved away from the others.

  Tanner.

  He was shirtless, his tanned, muscular flesh glistening with perspiration in the bright June sun, tight jeans following the outline of his lean hips.

  It was incredible. Even from this distance Rae felt that Tanner was seeing things he couldn't possibly see, looking through the metal of the car, through flesh and bones, right to the center of her.

  Catching her gaze on him, he brought his index finger to his forehead in a mocking salute, laughing wh
en she acknowledged him with a short nod.

  As she drove past, she had to fight the urge to look in her rearview mirror to see if his attention was still turned toward her. She cursed him silently for being Tanner, for disrupting her thoughts on this important day.

  Moments later, when a two-story white house with green shutters and precise landscaping came into sight, Rae shoved Tanner West out of her mind. She didn't have time to worry about him today.

  "Don't go to the front door," Glenna had warned. "Even the governor uses the side door at Ashkelon."

  Parking in the small, paved lot at the side of the house, Rae stepped from the Volvo and reached in for her briefcase. After taking a moment to smooth one hand over the skirt of her navy-blue suit, she started up the walk.

  On the other side of the tall hedge bordering the walk was the pool. Rae couldn't see it, but she knew it was there. Glenna had told her.

  In the past the McCallisters had been gregarious folk, every weekend an occasion for a party. Movie stars and world leaders had been entertained in this house. Since Joe's stroke, there weren't so many parties, but Rae could tell that the house remembered. The memory of its encounters with fame was evident in every immaculate line.

  Before Rae reached the side door, it was opened by a stout woman in her early fifties. Feena Tease, the McCallisters' housekeeper, attended the same church as Rae, and they had spoken on several occasions, but now a brisk nod was the only indication the older woman gave that they had ever met.

  "Mr. McCallister is in his study," Mrs. Tease said, turning to lead the way.

  As she followed the housekeeper through a vast family room, Rae caught a glimpse of the pool through a long row of windows. Next they traveled down a hall, making a couple of turns before her guide stopped outside an open door.