The Law of Attraction

“Daniel, this isn’t a good idea at all,” she said without much conviction. And even more telling, she didn’t yank her hand out of his grasp.

“Yeah, I know. That’s why I’m not going to do anything but this.” Lifting her hand, he turned it over and brushed a kiss on her palm, followed by a streak of his tongue, before releasing her. “If that’s what I have to settle for right now, then I’ll live with it.”

After a slight catch of her breath, the confidence returned to her face. “A hand kiss. And I thought chivalry was dead.”

He brushed her hair from her shoulders and rested his mouth at her ear. “Sometime in the future I’m going to kiss more than your hand, starting with that sexy mouth of yours, then I’m going to move my lips lower until—”

She pulled back and started backing to the door. “We’re going to behave ourselves during this trial, Daniel.”

“Sure. Whatever you say.” But he bit back a laugh when he realized she was trying to convince herself as well as him.

“I’m going now,” she said without making a move to leave.

“Fine. I’m not stopping you. Not this time.”

“Since when have you ever stopped me?”

He couldn’t resist getting in one last comment before she disappeared. “I sure didn’t stop you Saturday night. And I’m not going to stop you if you decide you want a repeat performance in the future. But it’s going to be your decision. You know where to find me.”

“Yes, I do. Opposing me in a courtroom.” With that she jerked open the door and rushed away, leaving Daniel assessing his total loss of logic.

For years he’d walked the straight and narrow, never veering off course, never doing anything that could ruin his aspirations, especially not with a woman. But Alisha wasn’t just another woman. She was tough. She didn’t give a damn about what his status could bring her. And most important, she was nothing at all like his mother—a woman who suffered abuse from her alcoholic husband at the expense of her own children’s sense of safety. And still she’d stayed with him, until staying had cost her her life.

But that was all in the past, where Daniel intended to keep it. He also intended to see where this thing with Alisha Hart might lead. Hopefully not down the path of destruction.

Four

As if her little encounter with Daniel Fortune hadn’t been bad enough two days ago, now she found herself at the jail for another meeting with Les Massey. She’d had very little sleep and too much to think about—namely the prosecutor. Right now she had to think about her client, who sat across from her giving her a suggestive smile that probably worked on most women but not on her.

She shuffled her notes to keep from looking at him. “Okay, Mr. Massey, we need to go over a few things before I have to go before the judge for the hearing.”

“I’m all yours, Ms. Hart. Knock yourself out.”

When she finally looked up to discover his orange prison-issue jumpsuit unzipped to his sternum, she wanted to knock him out. “First of all, in reference to the woman you pushed—”

“I told you I didn’t push her.”

“All right, the woman you allegedly pushed while making your escape down the walkway following the river-taxi incident—”

“I wasn’t escaping.”

“You were running.”

“I was sprinting. No one was after me except maybe a few girls. They were trying to take my sash.” And he looked proud of it.

“You don’t remember even accidentally nudging the woman?”

“I don’t even remember her. In fact, the last thing I remember was running headlong into the cop. He cuffed me and brought me down here.”

Alisha leaned forward and gave him the full extent of her scowl. “One of you is lying.”

“She’s lying. I didn’t push anyone. I’m not that stupid.”

Since the guy delighted in putting on a show half-naked in public, leaving himself wide open for arrest, Alisha could definitely debate that. “Next point. You haven’t been formally charged with a concealed-weapons violation, but it’s a possibility. Did you have a gun?”

Now Les scowled. “I swear I didn’t have one. Where would I have stuck it?”

Where Alisha had wanted to stick Billy Wade’s toupee on New Year’s Eve? She didn’t dare ask that for fear he might confirm her suspicions. “I only know that the prosecution has a witness’s statement that claims you tossed something into the water and it looked a lot like a gun. I don’t want any surprises if they happen to recover it from the river.”

Les sat back and rubbed his chin with one tanned hand. “It was probably the maracas.”

“Maracas?” This was the first she’d heard about that.

“Yeah. I was shaking them while I was singing ‘Jingle Bells’ on the riverboat. I was going to throw them to this group of girls standing on the riverbank, but I missed and they fell into the water.”

Good thing, otherwise he might have hit one of the girls in the head, resulting in another assault charge. “Okay, this is where we stand. I’m going to argue against the weapons charge, but my guess is we’re going to have to go to trial on the other charges.”

“There’s going to be a trial?”

Wake up and smell the coffee, you jerk, Alisha wanted to say to him. Instead she said, “Yes, and that means you’ll need to clean up your act and be on your best behavior.”