Love by Association

Chantel was pretty much certain that the woman was lying to police. And medical personnel. And, by doing so, putting her and her son’s lives at risk.

“You still think she’s trustworthy?”

His shrug was frustratingly noncommittal. He sipped his bourbon and kept both hands around the glass.

She’d thought he was coming over for sex.

Off her mark again.

It wasn’t that she’d been looking forward to another night of incredibly mind-blowing sex, but...she’d been curious to know if something like that could happen twice.

Had definitely been willing to find out.

But she was there for the job. Of course.

Maybe she was lucky he was there at all.

“You don’t trust Leslie?” she pressed. Leslie Morrison was the reason she’d met Colin Fairbanks. She and Julie were the reason she was still there.

“I feel comfortable that Leslie has Julie’s best interests at heart.”

But... “You don’t trust her?”

He looked at her then. “I don’t trust anyone,” he said. “Not even myself sometimes.” His look grew more direct.

“You don’t trust yourself with me, do you?”

“I’m uncomfortable with how fast things are growing between us.”

She couldn’t have him backing off. “We can slow down if you need to.” Just as soon as he gave her definitive proof that Leslie Morrison was being abused.

And preferably after he made love with her one more time...

No. No! No! No!

They’d had sex. Out-of-this-world, best-there-ever-was sex. Love had had nothing to do with it...

“That’s just it,” he said, smiling for the first time since he’d come into the room that night. “I don’t want to slow down. I want to speed up. Have you naked with me between your legs. Now. For the rest of tonight. And whatever tomorrows you have to give me.”

Okay, fate. If you’re still out there, I could use a little help here.

“I want that, too.” The words must have been ordained. She had no idea why she uttered them. Or who uttered them. Harris? Johnson? Some power that had overtaken her senses?

“And it doesn’t scare you?”

“It’s completely unhinging me.” A 100 percent honest response. She took her first sip of whiskey. Just a sip. Because she was Johnson. Any other night, feeling as she did, she’d have downed the shot.

Or gone straight for the ice cream instead.

He moved so slightly that she couldn’t prove it was on purpose. His knee pressed against hers.

“Why do you think Julie talked to Leslie?” she blurted.

And then she was afraid she’d exposed herself, her true reason for being there, with the bald question.

“It’s overwhelming, isn’t it?” He was grinning now. “This need to know each other in the biblical sense and not let go. So much you’re forced to bring up the bad just to get your mind off how great last night was and how much all you want to do is repeat it. Again and again.”

Okay. Fine. “It is a bit,” she allowed. He was going to know soon enough that he was having the effect on her that he thought he was.

“I think Julie talked to Leslie, and still does, exactly for the reason she told you she does. Because she listened to our mother’s advice.”

Not the answer she’d hoped for.

“Before Julie told me who’d done this to her, she made a comment, something about sensing that I’d been through something similar. It just made me wonder...you know, if Leslie has been...hurt, as well...especially considering how she thought the commissioner’s wife was on the committee because of similarities between what happened to Julie in the past and someone else.”

His eyebrows drew together, not with suspicion but with concern, as he shook his head. “You’re referring to the rumors,” he said. “The ones Julie alluded to in the car that first Saturday. About James hurting Leslie. Funny how, when something heinous happens, everyone is mum, but when someone points a finger at a good man, tongues can’t wag fast or often enough.”

“You’re saying there’s no truth to them?”

“Yes, that’s what I’m saying.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I’ve known James Morrison my entire life.”

“You’ve known Smyth your whole life, too.”

“Exactly.”

He knew what the men were made of.

“You trust him, then? You trust James Morrison?”

He didn’t go that far. And any idea Chantel might have been forming that she was wrong—that Leslie Morrison wasn’t in any danger from her husband—disappeared.

“Like I said. I don’t trust most people.”