Into the valley of death rode the 600, she thought as she pushed open the door. Her path was immediately blocked by a tall man in dark livery. He looked like a solid wall of muscle and he wasn’t about to go anywhere.
“Can’t go in there,” the bailiff warned. “Court’s in session.” He motioned for her to remove herself voluntarily. Or he would do it for her.
In her head Callie was aware of some giant time-piece, ticking the minutes away. Ticking away the minutes of Rachel Montgomery’s life.
She had her identification out in less time than it took to think about it. Callie held it up to the bailiff, who stared at it with a note of skepticism in his eyes.
“I realize it’s in session,” she said as patiently as she could, “but Judge Montgomery is going to want to hear this.”
Still the man was not about to go anywhere. Or let her go, either. “Tell me, Detective. I’ll tell him.”
“It’s about his housekeeper. And his daughter,” she added, unwilling to reveal anything further. If she’d wanted a third party to take care of this, she would have phoned the courthouse and brutally left a message.
Just as she uttered the word daughter, Brent raised his penetrating blue eyes away from the face of the youthful offender before him and looked toward the back of the room.
Right at her.
Chapter 2
He knew her.
Brent looked at the woman in the light-gray suit who’d just walked into his courtroom. Recognition set in instantly. In the space of one extraordinary moment, the entire scenario returned to him in total. From beginning to end.
He’d been at a charity fund-raiser, one of those boring things he was obligated to attend. He hadn’t been appointed a judge yet, but there were whispers, rumors. And he knew he couldn’t displease the gods in charge even though he would much rather have been home, dressed in his oldest clothes, standing over his daughter’s crib, watching her breathe.
It seemed like little enough to ask, to stand in awe and watch a miracle breathe.
Besides, he and Jennifer were riding the cusp of another one of their eternal disagreements and he hadn’t felt like putting on his public face, the one that appeared unperturbed by anything. He hated glad-handing, hated being anything but genuine.
But there was the pending judgeship to consider, and Jennifer would have given him no peace if he’d declined the invitation to the event. So he’d accepted and made the best of it. Making small talk with even smaller people.
His wife was off somewhere in the huge ballroom, politicking. Rubbing elbows and who-knew-what-else with men she thought might further her life and his career. Or maybe just her life.
He remembered feeling completely cut off from everyone and everything, and longing just to go home.
And then he’d seen her.
Surrounded by men who bore vague resemblances to her, leaving him to guess, to hope, that they might be family rather than ardent admirers. As if that could possibly matter to him in his position. He was hopelessly married.
That had been the word for it. Hopelessly. Because there seemed to be little hope that his marriage could transform into what he’d first thought it might become. Happy. Fulfilling. Tranquilizing.
A surge of all three feelings, plus a host of a great many more shot through him the first time he looked in her direction. In the direction of the most exquisite creature he’d ever seen.
Her hair wasn’t pulled back the way it was now, in a thick braid the color of wheat the instant it first ripened. It had been loose about her bare shoulders then, sweeping along them with every movement she made. Creating havoc in his gut as he found himself wanting to do the same with his fingers.
She was wearing something light and gauzy and blue. It seemed to be held against her body by magic. Certainly not gravity, which should have been on his side and sent the garment pooling down to her strappy, high-heeled sandals.
He remembered there was music. The first he’d become aware of that night, even though the band had been playing all evening and would continue to do so for the remainder of the event.
He wasn’t quite sure how he came to find himself standing in front of her, or where he unearthed the courage to introduce himself to her. He didn’t normally do things like that. He was given to hanging back and observing. It was both his failing and his strength. Standing on the perimeter of life where he felt he could do the most good. Impartially.
Maybe he’d come forward because he recognized the man standing to the woman’s left. Andrew Cavanaugh, the retired police chief of Aurora. Her father, he was to learn later. The others were her brothers and cousins.
Whatever the reason that had prompted him to shed his cloak of silence, he was suddenly standing before her. Introducing himself and asking her if she would like to dance. Something else he didn’t do willingly, even though he’d been instructed in the fine art of dancing only recently. Jennifer had insisted on it. So he wouldn’t embarrass her, she’d said.
He had no desire to embarrass Jennifer. Had no thoughts of his wife whatsoever. For the space of a score of heartbeats, she was completely excised from his brain, if not his life.
He vividly remembered the way Callie Cavanaugh’s smile had gone straight to his head as she’d raised her eyes to his and accepted the hand he held out. Remembered how low her voice was, like fine, hundred-year-old brandy being reverently poured into a crystal glass. Low and sexy.
Remembered, too, the electricity, the tension, the indescribable feeling of lightness that came over him as he held her in his arms and danced.
One small dance, a simple exchange of words, and a connection was made that felt as if it had been forged out of steel in the beginning of time.
Before.
He’d looked down into her eyes and gotten lost.
But he had a child and a position and a wife—who intruded into the moment the instant the music faded away. Like an avenging hawk, jealous that her cast-off had attracted someone else’s attention, Jennifer had swooped down from wherever it was that she had been roosting to reclaim what was hers.
And he was obliged to let her.
Even though his eyes followed Callie as she moved from the floor.
He had no idea what they called it. A connection, chemistry, kismet. Some term invented by inert poets who had nothing better to do than to bury people in rhetoric. He couldn’t put a label to it himself. All he knew was that he’d felt something nameless. Something wonderful. Something he’d never felt before. Or since. Something that whispered into his ear “If only” long after the dance, the fund-raiser itself, was over.
If only…
But the timing then had been all wrong.
As it was now.
Brent roused himself, realizing that he’d paused and that his secretary and his aide were both unabashedly staring at him.
“Court is in session.” He shot an accusing look at the bailiff in the rear of the room. The latter raised his hands helplessly.
Callie circumvented the man, her attention on Brent. God, but he had only gotten better looking since she’d seen him. The next moment, she upbraided herself. How could she even think something like that? She was here to give him awful news, not appraise his appearance.
“Excuse me, Your Honor.” She took another step toward him, only to find herself in a dance now with the bailiff who tried to get in front of her. “I need a word with you.”
Brent hated disruptions. “Can’t it wait, Officer Cavanaugh?”