“What’re you doing here?” Tory demanded. Her voice was surprisingly calm, probably from going over the scene a thousand times in her mind, she thought.
Trask climbed the two weathered steps to the porch, placed his hands on the railing and balanced his hips against the smooth wood. His booted feet were crossed in front of him. He attempted to look relaxed, but Tory noticed the inner tension tightening the muscles of his neck and shoulders.
“I think you know.” His voice was low and familiar. It caused a prickling sensation to spread down the back of her neck. Looking into his vibrant blue eyes made it difficult for her not to think about the past that they had shared so fleetingly.
“Keith said you were spreading it around Sinclair that you wanted to see me.”
“That’s right.”
“Why?”
His eyes slid away from her and he studied the starless sky. The air was heavy with the scent of rain. “I thought it was time to clear up a few things between us.”
The memory of the trial burned into her mind. “Impossible.”
“Tory—”
“Look, Trask,” she said, her voice trembling only slightly, “you’re not welcome here.” She managed a sarcastic smile and gestured toward the pickup. “And I think you’d better leave before I tell you just what a bastard I think you are.”
“It won’t be the first time,” he drawled, leaning against the post supporting the roof and staring down at her. His eyes slid lazily down her body, noting the elegant curve of her neck, the burnished wisps falling free of the loose knot of auburn hair at the base of her neck, the proud carriage of her body and the fire in her eyes. She was, without a doubt, the most beautiful and intelligent woman he had ever known. Try as he had to forget her, he had failed. Distance and time hadn’t abated his desire; if anything, the feelings stirring within burned more torridly than he remembered.
He had the audacity to slant a lazy grin at her and Tory’s simmering anger began to ignite. Her voice seemed to catch in her throat. “Leave.”
“Not yet.”
Righteous indignation flared in her eyes. “Leave, damn you...”
“Not until we get—”
“Now!” Her palm slapped against the varnished wooden arm of the swing and she pushed herself upward. “I don’t want you ever to set foot on this ranch again. I thought I made that clear before, but either you have an incredibly short memory, or you just conveniently ignored out last conversation.”
“Just for the record; I haven’t forgotten anything. And that was no conversation,” he speculated. “A war zone maybe, a helluva battle perhaps, but not idle chitchat.”
“And neither is this. I don’t know why you’re here, Trask, and I don’t really give a damn.”
“You did once,” he said softly, his dark eyes softening.
The tone of his voice pierced into her heart and her self-righteous fury threatened to escape. “That was before you used me, senator,” she said, her voice a raspy whisper. One slim finger pointed at his chest. “Before you took everything I told you, turned it around and testified against my father!”
“And you still think he was innocent,” Trask said, shaking his head in wonder.
“I know he was.” Her chin raised a fraction and she impaled him with her flashing gray-green eyes. “How does it feel to look in the mirror every morning and know that you sent the wrong man to prison?” Hot tears touched the back of her eyes. “My father sat alone, slowly dying, the last few years of his life spent behind bars, all because of your lies.”
“I never perjured myself, Tory.”
Her lips pursed together in her anger. “Of course not. You were a lawyer. You knew just how to answer the questions; how exactly to insinuate to the jury that my father was part of the conspiracy; how to react to make the jury think that he was there the night that Jason found out about the swindle, how he inadvertently took part in your brother’s death. Not only did you blacken my father’s name, Trask, as far as I’m concerned, you took his life just as certainly as if you had thrust a knife into his heart.” She took a step backward and placed her hand on the doorknob. Her fingers curled over the cold metal and her voice was edged in steel. “Now, get off this place and don’t ever come back. You may be a senator now, maybe even respected by people who are only privy to your public image, but as far as I’m concerned you’re nothing better than an egocentric opportunist who used the publicity surrounding his brother’s death to get him elected!”
Trask’s eyes flashed in the darkness. He took a step closer to her, but the hatred in her gaze stopped him dead in his tracks. “I only told the truth.”
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,