Proof of Innocence: Yesterday's Lies / Devil's Gambit

Rage stormed through her veins, thundered in her mind. Five long years of anger and bewilderment poured out of her. “You sensationalized this story, used it as a springboard to get you in the public eye, crushed everyone you had to so that you would get elected.” The unshed tears glistened in her eyes. “Well, congratulations, senator. You got what you wanted.”

With her final remarks, she opened the door and slipped through it, but Trask’s hand came sharply upward and caught the smooth wood as she tried to slam the door in his face. “You’ve got it all figured out-—”

“Easy to do. Now please, get off my land and out of my life. You destroyed it once, isn’t that enough?”

Something akin to despair crossed his rugged features, but the emotion was quickly disguised by determination. “No.”

“No?” she repeated incredulously. Oh, God, Trask, don’t put me through this again...not again. “Well once was enough for me,” she murmured.

“I don’t think so.”

“Then you don’t know me very well. I’m not the glutton for punishment I used to be.” She pushed harder on the door, intent on physically forcing him out of her life.

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”

“What!”

“Look at you—you’re still punishing yourself, blaming yourself for your father’s conviction and death.”

The audacity of the man! She felt her body begin to shake. “No, Trask. As incredible as you might find all this, I blame you. After all, you were the one who testified against my father...”

“And you’ve been hating yourself ever since.”

“I can look in the mirror in the morning. I can live with myself.”

“Can you?” His skepticism echoed in the still night air.

“I don’t see any reason for discussing any of this. I’ve told you that I want you out of my life.”

“And I don’t believe it.”

Once again she tried to slam the door, but his broad shoulder caught the hard wood. “You’ve got one incredible ego, senator,” she said, wishing there was some way to put some distance between her body and his.

“You were waiting for me,” he accused, his eyes sliding from her face down her neck, past the open collar of her blouse to linger at the hollow of her throat.

“Of course I was.”

“Alone.”

She was gripping the edge of the door so tightly that her fingers began to ache. “I didn’t want the gossip to start all over again. Keith told me that you were looking for me, so I decided to wait. I prefer to keep my conversations with you private. You know, without a judge, jury or the press looking over my shoulder, ready to use every word against me.”

His eyes slid downward, noticing the denim skirt and soft apricot-colored blouse. “So why did you get dressed up?”

“Don’t flatter yourself, senator. I usually take a shower after working with the horses all day. The way I dress has nothing to do with you.” Her eyes narrowed slightly. “So why don’t you just take yourself and that tremendous ego of yours out of here? If you need a wheelbarrow to carry it there’s one in the barn.”

He shoved his body into the doorway, wedging himself between the door and the jamb. Tory was strong, she put all of her weight against the door, but she was no match for the powerful thrust of his shoulders as he pushed his way into the darkened hallway. “You’re going to hear what I have to say whether you like it or not.”

“No!”

“You don’t have much of a choice.”

“Get out, Trask.” Her words sounded firm, but inwardly she wavered; the desperation she had noticed earlier flickered in his midnight-blue eyes. As much as she hated him, she still felt a physical attraction to him. God, she was a fool.

“In a minute.”

She stepped backward and placed her hands on her hips. Her breath was expelled in a sigh of frustration. “Since I can’t convince you otherwise, why don’t you just say what you think is so all-fired important and then leave.”

He eyed her suspiciously and walked into the den.

“Wait a minute—”

“I need your help.”

Tory’s heart nearly stopped beating. There was a thread of hopelessness in his voice that touched a precarious part of her mind and she had to remind herself that he was the enemy. He always had been. Though Trask seemed sincere she couldn’t, wouldn’t let herself believe him. “No way.”

“I think you might change your mind.”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Tory whispered.

She followed him into the den, her father’s den, and swallowed back her anger and surprise. Trask had placed a hand on the lava rock fireplace and his head was lowered between his shoulders. How familiar it seemed to have him back in the warm den her father had used as an office. Knotty pine walls, worn comfortable furniture, watercolors of the Old West, Indian weavings in orange and brown, and now Trask, leaning dejectedly against the fireplace, looking for all the world as if he truly needed her help, made her throat constrict with fond memories. God, how she had loved this man. Her fist curled into balls of defeat.

“I’m not kidding, Tory.” He glanced up at her and she read the torment in his eyes.

“No way.”

“Just listen to me. That’s all I ask.”

Anger overcame awe. “I can’t help you. I won’t.”

His pleas turned to threats. “You’d better.”

“Why? What can you do to me now? Destroy my reputation? Ruin my family. Kill my father? You’ve already done all that, there’s nothing left. You can damned well threaten until you’re blue in the face and it won’t affect me...or this ranch.”

In the darkness his eyes searched her face, possessively reading the sculpted angle of her jaw, the proud lift of her chin, the tempting mystique of her intelligent gray-green eyes. “Nothing’s left?” he whispered, his voice lowering. One finger reached upward and traced the soft slope of her neck.

Tory’s heart hammered in her chest. “Nothing,” she repeated, clenching her teeth and stepping away from his warm touch and treacherous blue eyes.

He grimaced. “This has to do with your father.”

She whirled around to face him. “My father is dead.” Shaking with rage she pointed an imperious finger at his chest. “Because of you.”

His jaw tightened and he paced the length of the room in an obvious effort to control himself. “You’d like to believe that I was responsible for your father’s death, wouldn’t you?”

All of the anguish of five long years poured out of her. “You were. He could have had the proper medical treatment if he hadn’t been in prison—”

“It makes it easier to think that I was the bad guy and that your father was some kind of a saint.”

“All I know is that my father would never have been a part of anything like murder, Trask.” She was visibly shaking. All the old emotions, love, hate, fear, awe and despair, churned inside her. Tears stung her eyelids and she fought a losing battle with the urge to weep.