Unbridled

Instead, the reason his mother had left his father had become a way of life for Carter, as well: the Corps.

And he had holes in his stomach knowing that they no longer wanted him.

Blue whined at his feet. Carter looked down at the old hound licking his drooping chops.

“What is it, boy?” He lifted the water bottle. “You want some of this?”

He opened the back door and led the way out onto the porch, where he poured a good portion into the dog’s bowl. The hound lapped it up.

Carter dropped to sit on the edge of the small landing, letting his feet dangle over the side. On the kitchen table his M16 assault rifle lay partially disassembled where he’d been cleaning it, next to a half-eaten burger he’d picked up from a nearby diner earlier.

He spotted the waxing quarter moon rising from the other side of the trees and thought again of Laney Cartwright. Wondered what she was doing right about then.

Wondered if she was thinking about him.

LANEY LAY BACK against the down pillows piled up against her headboard, her feet tucked under the soft Egyptian cotton sheets because they always got cold with the air conditioner on. The grandfather clock her father had bought her a couple of years ago chimed the hour in the front room of her two-bedroom penthouse apartment as she leafed through the MacGregor case file, trying to figure out who might want to threaten her. Laughter caught her attention and she looked up to try to catch the joke she’d just missed on her DVD of the third season of Sex and the City. It wasn’t long before her wandering attention wandered farther still and she was thinking about Carter Southard and the time they’d spent together earlier in the day.

So Carter Southard was a Marine.

She didn’t know why she was surprised. He fit all the physical requirements of the job. And certainly the mental criteria, as well.

Still, somehow she imagined him doing something else. Say, drilling for oil. Or running a cattle ranch. Something that required him to be out in the sun all day toiling away.

Of course, he could do that as a Marine, but…

She sighed. Okay, her thoughts were veering toward the ridiculous. All because she was trying to ignore the fact that she was so enormously attracted to him she’d nearly blown off her afternoon agenda on the MacGregor case and called him. Not for social reasons. But to get the name of his JAG attorney, which he’d promised to supply.

Not for social reasons, indeed.

Although that wasn’t far off the mark. She didn’t want to take him to a garden party or a symphony benefit. She wanted to share her bed with him.

Laughter caught her attention again and she forced herself to look down at the file resting against the easel formed by her knees. She should be thinking about the brief meeting she’d had with a police detective after lunch. About his questions on the MacGregor case and who might want to send her the threatening note. But she hadn’t been able to help him. MacGregor hadn’t had an accomplice. He was being charged as the lone gunman in a convenience store robbery that had left a male clerk dead.

So who would want to warn her off the case?

Well, she certainly wasn’t going to solve the mystery tonight. Not with her mind wandering to Carter every two seconds.

She closed the file and put it on the bedside table, then reached for the bottle of lotion there, smoothing a good squirt over her arms and knees before sliding farther down under the sheets.

“Do you make a habit of picking up strays?” Carter had asked her as they’d walked back to the office after lunch.

“What?”

He’d shrugged. “I can’t help wondering if taking on strange cases is something you do on a regular basis, or if I’m the exception.”

She’d stopped in front of the building and faced him, watching the way he squinted against the midday sun, causing fine lines to fan out from his granite eyes.

“Oh, you’re definitely an exception, Carter Southard,” she’d said. “And I have the feeling that this isn’t the only rule you’re going to inspire me to break.”

Laney found herself smiling faintly at the memory. It was more than Carter’s unpredictability that engaged her; it was also the way she felt when she was around him. In a life full of dull days, he’d lit a fire she couldn’t help being drawn to.

But if he’d been strictly fantasy material before, now he was very real.

She found that her hand had made its way down the silk of her nightgown, sliding over her hip bone and then back up again. Just thinking about him made her feel sexy, alive. Merely knowing that all she had to do was pick up the phone and make what her friends termed a “booty call” and he’d be over made her feel naughty for even considering it.

She bit her bottom lip. God, the way she was reacting to him, you’d think she was a virgin locked away from the world for the first twenty-eight years of her life. Not a woman who’d experienced her share of orgasms, although not as often as she’d like. Sue her, but she’d yet to find a man capable of supplying her with more than one or two. Usually after a couple of dates, the men either wanted to start staying over or wanted her to sleep at their place. And she hadn’t been interested in either.

That, or they’d expected her to fawn over them, turning from a no-nonsense, ambitious attorney to a woman who could think of nothing else but making them happy, a woman with nothing but wedding dates and dinner parties on her mind.

It didn’t take long for them to figure out that she didn’t fit into the normal Southern girl mold. At least not yet, her father occasionally liked to joke, reminding her that time had a way of changing even the strongest, career-minded women.

She couldn’t imagine herself changing, ever.

Still, even she admitted to pain when she’d spot her most recent ex with another woman. He’d make sure to introduce her to his latest conquest, who appeared to be just up his alley.

Carrie Bradshaw made a quip about men that normally would have amused her. Now she reached for the remote and shut off the television, then turned off the light, wondering if the rest of the world was out of sync with her. Or if she was out of sync with the world.

Chapter Five

“SO, TELL ME. Who is he?” Blake Cartwright asked.

Laney was suddenly incapable of swallowing the thinly sliced beef in her mouth. It had been two days since she’d lunched at Raphael’s with Carter. Still, that didn’t stop her from glancing toward the table she had sat at with him, barely seeing the older couple now lunching there.

She drank deeply from her water glass to help the food go down. “Pardon me?”

Blake pointed at her with his fork. “No pardon granted.” He took a bite of his trout and then put his utensils down and dabbed at his mouth with his napkin. Her father was so different from Carter in that he’d eaten at this and similar restaurants hundreds of times and proper protocol was second nature to him. His suit was tailored, his shirt snow-white and freshly starched, his tie silk and pierced with a clip, his hair neatly trimmed. But his question and follow-up response proved that he had more in common with Carter when it came to seeing through her.

He narrowed his gaze. “You’ve been distracted ever since you came in. By now I usually know as many details about your latest case as your associates do, as well as what you’ve had for dinner the night before.”

Laney’s mouth dropped open. Thankfully there was nothing in it to fall out. “I can’t possibly talk all that much.”

Her father’s grin warmed her. “Maybe not all that much. But enough for me to know today’s quiet is out of character.”

Laney readjusted her napkin in her lap. “I’m just a little distracted, is all. I went to see MacGregor at the county jail this morning before today’s hearing.” She gave a slight shiver, always uncomfortable with her visits to places where iron bars were the dominant décor. “He has no idea who might have sent me that note.”

“Have you heard from the detective you gave it to?”

“Yes. No fingerprints. No unique characteristics.”

“No reason to further pursue the matter.”

“His words exactly.”

Her father folded his hands on the edge of the table. “Would you like me to look into it?”

Blake Cartwright had had big shoes to fill, following Laney’s legendary grandfather. But he had never really looked at it that way. Perhaps once he might have, but that would have been long before Laney was old enough to notice. Most men with inherited wealth were happy to accept a token role in the family business, allowing their money to make money for them. Not her father. He wanted to leave his own unique mark. And he was doing just that by establishing himself as a very successful venture capitalist.

In the past ten years alone, Laney could count fifteen of his schemes that had taken off, adding significantly to his wealth, most of them in green technology. Of course, he’d had to invest in a hundred to score on those fifteen, and she’d enjoyed hearing about every one of them, including the wacky idea of a hat that allowed advertisers to buy space on it when the owner registered with the mother Web site.