Warrior Without A Cause. Nancy Gideon

      A sudden surge of melancholy stole her aggressive thunder. He didn’t have to be so mean about it.

      Closing the book, she flopped down on the bed and gathered a briefly resistant Tinker up in her arms. As she stroked his scarred head, he magnanimously issued his rumbling purr of approval.

      Even in the daytime it was quiet. She was a city girl, born and bred, used to the city’s vibrant, jarring cadences. It was the music that scored her daily activities. She’d always been in a hurry, darting from the office to the court to dinner meetings and social galas. Working, always working, even in her pajamas late at night, curled on the couch in front of “David Letterman,” a volume of appellate law on her lap, absently shooing Tinker out of her bowl of Frosted Cheerios.

      Her planner was always full, her voice message light blinking and her bathroom mirror covered with multicolored sticky notes reminding her of errands to be prioritized. And what fueled most of her hours, nearly 24/7, was her father. Arranging his schedule, proofing his speeches, writing his motions, picking up his dry cleaning, always busy behind the scenes so he would look together and unharried. What was she going to do without him in her life to provide that driving force? Even now she couldn’t believe she would never hear his voice over the intercom asking if she knew where to find the Pellingham brief. Her days, her nights, her focus all funneled into Robert D’Angelo and his charismatic climb from prosecutor to D.A. and on into a political arena. Phones ringing, cabs honking, file cabinet doors rattling open, the constant gurgle of coffee being brewed. Those were the sounds that had filled her life with meaning.

      Here, in this isolated silence, her thoughts echoed. And the last thing she wanted was time to think, time to second-guess, time to doubt. Was she doing the right thing? Would her father approve of the steps she was taking? If he was innocent, he would.

      If?

      She hadn’t meant if. The Freudian slip horrified her.

      She was the only one who knew for certain that her father wasn’t guilty. Even if she hadn’t heard another man’s voice—The Voice—in the inner office just before the fateful shot, she’d have been sure. How could her father turn against all the things that mattered to them, all the things that pulled them together, as close as father and daughter could be when striving for the same cause?

      But that wasn’t quite true, was it?

      They’d never been close as father and daughter. She’d put her own ambitions aside, pushed her way into his world, tried to find a place for herself in his busy professional life since he’d never had time for her in his personal one.

      Why hadn’t she been able to earn his love the way she’d claimed his respect?

      Closing her eyes against the fresh pain stemming back through her childhood, Tessa braced her forearm across her brow as if to hold the hurt away. And with eyes closed, cocooned in silence, her weary body surrendered while her tormented mind continued to spin.

      You won’t like what you find. Stop now…

      She surged into an upright position, the cry of panic and pleading still on her lips. Hands caught her wrists as her arms flailed, gently restraining her. Fingers cupped the back of her head, pulling it in against the warm, sheltered lee of a broad shoulder. Once released, her arms whipped around the solid support of the last man she’d expected to find upon waking in her bed.

      “Daddy?”

      But the voice that soothed away all the agony and terror of her dreams belonged to Jack Chaney.

      “It’s all right. I’m not going to let anyone hurt you.”

      Too late.

      He wore a black T-shirt, heated by the filtered sun and by the skin beneath it. He smelled of the woods, fresh laundry soap and some deeply masculine aftershave. For a time she was oddly content to ride the comforting rise and fall of his breaths. He held her carefully, as if he feared she might break, or as if he was afraid too tight an embrace would serve to frighten her more. And for the first time in longer than she could remember, she felt protected and safe.

      Her father had never come into her room to chase away the fragments of childish nightmares. Her mother had.

      And now here was a man she wouldn’t have thought had any soft edges, soothing her hair and quieting her hitching sobs.

      Her hands opened, spreading wide and not coming close to encompassing the breadth of his shoulders. Soft edges? Hardly. He might well have been hewn of warm granite under the snug pull of cotton. Her thumbs shifted, tracing the swell of muscle and in one breath, her sob dissolved into something suspiciously like a sigh.

      Fearing he’d heard it, Tessa started looking for a graceful way to escape his arms. How could she let him see her so achingly vulnerable and still demand his respect? She rubbed her face against his chest to erase the tears before struggling to lean away. His arms gave gradually, almost with reluctance. She couldn’t quite meet his gaze, afraid of what she’d see there.

      “I’m sorry. Just a nightmare.”

      “I heard you cry out. I came down when you didn’t show up for your lesson.” His words petered out until an awkward silence pushed between them more forcefully than physical distance. She snagged a quick breath as he rubbed away the last damp trail of evidence from her cheek with the slow drag of his thumb. Calloused yet unbearably tender. She sat back so fast the top of her head came up under his jaw, snapping his teeth together like a trap. She did glance up then, fatalistically drawn to see the quizzical knitting of his dark brows. He seemed bemused. Somehow, that was all too intimate.

      “You shouldn’t be here. What if your wife—”

      She hauled in the blurted statement when his expression froze over.

      “I don’t have a wife,” he said at last, enunciating with surgical precision. “I don’t belong to any woman or any career. I am my own man, Ms. D’Angelo, and I like it that way.”

      The strange choking sensation building up from her chest to wad in her throat made her next words rumble.

      “That’s the way I like it, too, Mr. Chaney. You’ve made it perfectly clear that the only thing on your agenda is not to get involved, with my mission or my motives. And I will not allow any intrusions into my search for justice, especially from a man who knows nothing about honor.”

      For a moment he said nothing, then, oddly, he smiled. “Well, since it seems you’re so eager to get started with full contact, let’s get to it.”