Love by Association

Squeezing the other woman’s hands, she said, “I’ll be there with you. Every step of the way. If you start to lose sight of your own strength, I’ll loan you mine. We can do this...”

She believed that with every ounce of her being.

She got tears in her own eyes when, several minutes later, Julie nodded.

“You’ll go?”

The younger woman nodded again. “I can’t promise to stay. Or promise to stay out of the bathroom. I can’t promise I won’t embarrass you or myself or my brother, but...” She stopped and looked at Chantel with a warmth that touched her in places only Jill had ever touched.

That sacred best-friend place.

She forced herself not to look away. Or stiffen up. She’d lose her witness if she did that. Break the victim’s trust.

“You’ve made such an impact on my brother. If he’s willing to risk breaking down his walls, to fight through the demons and be open to a real relationship, then I owe it to him to do the same. It’s my fault he’s been locked inside himself for so long. I can’t keep him there.”

If it was possible to fall platonically in love, Chantel might have just done so.

Johnson had.

Harris had a job to do. “I’ll need to know who he is,” she said in Johnson’s softer tones. “If I’m going to be able to help minimize contact.”

“David Smyth.” Julie’s face twisted as though she’d tasted bile. “Jr.,” she added.

She probably didn’t notice that all of the color had left Chantel’s face. She felt it go, followed by all warmth.

David Smyth Jr. Politician son of David Smyth Sr., a nationally known neurosurgeon—and close friend to Commissioner Paul Reynolds.

CHAPTER TWENTY

FOR THE FIRST time in his memory, Colin’s mind was not 100 percent focused on the business discussion at hand as he played nine holes of golf that afternoon with one of his most lucrative clients.

He might just be on the verge of the best thing that ever happened to him—might be face-to-face with the woman meant to make his life complete. But he didn’t believe in such things.

Not anymore. If he ever had.

Something akin to fear kept pecking at his heart.

He pulled out a nine iron. Popped his ball up onto the green. Picked up his bag and had a good five minutes to himself while he stood aside, watched his two opponents—a politician and his chief of staff—both take their shots from farther off and then walked toward the green.

Still, if Chantel was for real—if the feelings she’d ignited so swiftly, so fiercely, within him were real—he’d be a fool to get in his own way with a truckload of mistrust.

He had to give her a chance.

Even when every instinct within him was reminding him of the lessons he’d learned and the prices he wasn’t ever going to pay again. It was a bitter pill of bile he’d had to swallow, again and again, as he’d realized that there was not one person on earth he could truly trust.

He’d realized that the only thing he could count on to see him through life’s turmoil was power and money—as both were used against him and Julie in the name of justice. He’d earn the latter and wield the former with integrity. Because, in the end, he had to answer to himself.

But he’d never lose sight of the fact that he had to rely on himself and that his family had to be able to rely on him. He was never, ever going to put someone he cared for at risk. Or be sitting on the sidelines if they were at risk.

He knew there was nothing he could have done to prevent Julie’s rape, but he never should have signed the papers, giving up her right to fight for herself. He never should have let her sign them.

His client’s ball rolled within a couple of feet of his on the green. Some men would purposely miss the shot, taking a stroke to appease the client.

Colin made the shot. And increased his lead.

* * *

SHE ATE ICE CREAM. Went into work. Wayne was off. She’d known he would be and didn’t call him in spite of the fact that she now had a doctor’s name to give him. She needed time to think.

To talk to Julie again.

To see what Colin knew.

If, as she now suspected, the commissioner was in on the corruption that had allowed David Smyth to walk away from rape charges, any hint that the case was being reexamined could put both Colin and Julie in danger.

She had Leslie to look out for, too. In a crime that was ongoing. A further crime that could be prevented. James Morrison was also friends with the commissioner. She’d seen them together that first night, at the art auction.

If Julie’s word that David Smyth had raped her, coupled with a medical report attesting to the same, hadn’t been enough to get charges pressed, if strong evidence could just disappear, how was she ever going to hang a conviction on James Morrison?