Tami Hoag - Heart of Gold

Shane looked away, raising a hand to rub the back of his neck, his own anger thoroughly doused by shame. She was telling the truth. He could hear it. Her voice rang with it. He could see it in her eyes. It cut through the barrier of his cynicism and made him face the fact that he had wanted her to be guilty because it was easier for him to deal with lies and deception than with innocence. Lord, what had he become?

“I wanted my husband to love me. What’s the penalty for that, Mr. Callan?” she asked him in a voice soft with tears and pain. She sniffed and added on a bitter note, “Besides having to put up with you, I mean.”

“That seems to be punishment enough,” he murmured, turning to stare out the window.

Fog obscured the view, but he didn’t really care. In his mind’s eye all he could see was Faith standing there in her silky nightgown, her bare toes peeking out from under the hem, her full breasts rising and falling with each jerky breath, her eyes shining with tears, her mouth swollen from the kiss he had forced on her.

Glancing down, he could clearly see the imprint of her heart pendent on the skin of his chest where he had all but crushed her against him. His cheek still stung from the slap she’d given him, but it didn’t burn in quite the same way as the mark on his chest did.

Once upon a time he had been a man of honor and principles. Somewhere along the way he had stopped believing in innocence. He had submerged himself in a gray world where there were only the guilty and the less guilty. And his strongest motivation had become staying alive so he could put the worst of the lot behind bars.

Faith Kincaid wasn’t a part of that world, but when he turned to tell her so, she was gone.

“I’m not being a coward,” Faith mumbled to herself as she fussed with Lindy’s covers.

Her daughter had dropped off to sleep. There was really no reason for Faith to sit by the bed. Lindy had come down with a normal case of childhood chicken pox, not malaria. Now would have been the perfect opportunity to slip out for a while and get a few things accomplished in the house. Still, she lingered, as she had lingered all morning.

No matter how many times she told herself otherwise, she knew she was avoiding Shane. She had spent the night alternately reliving their kiss and reliving her fury. Much of her anger had been directed at herself for that brief moment when she had surrendered to him and her own desire. Shame burned in her cheeks every time she thought about it. This time, though, she headed it off at the pass.

What did she have to be ashamed of? It was Shane’s fault. He had taken advantage of her when she had been startled and confused. She had no reason to hide from him. This was her home. She was going to have to put up with him skulking around, but she’d be damned if she was going to jump behind a door every time she saw him coming.

Her resolve sufficiently bolstered, Faith marched to the bedroom door and stepped out into the hall-directly into the path of Shane Callan. His arms went around her in an automatic reaction to save her from falling. The contact of body against body was brief, and yet Faith felt as if she had run directly into the sun, the heat was so intense. Sexual awareness exploded through her, shattering her sense of calm into a million shards.

“I’m sorry,” Shane mumbled. He felt knocked off balance. Not by Faith’s slight weight, but by the instantaneous rush of feeling their collision had brought on. It overrode even the burning pain in his shoulder. He shook his head to clear it, then fixed his gaze just to the left of Faith’s head.

Business. They had things to discuss that had nothing to do with the way she felt in his arms. “I need to speak with you about certain aspects of the surveillance. Agent Matthews has arrived to tap the phones. He’ll need an operations base, and I would prefer it be outside the main house. The caretaker’s cottage would be ideal.”

“You’ll have to take that up with Mr. Fitz. He owns the cottage outright,” Faith said, struggling not to notice how sleekly handsome he looked in navy trousers and a blue striped dress shirt, a silk tie neatly knotted beneath his square chin.

She knew for a fact that she looked like a bag lady. She hadn’t gotten a moment’s sleep and had been waiting on Lindy since before dawn. Her clothes were rumpled, her hair looked like a squirrel’s nest. It irked her that Shane didn’t seem to notice, and it irked her that she cared.

“We also need a list of the guests you’ve booked in advance as well as a list of any household help you’ve hired,” he went on.

Faith pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. “You’re going to check them all out? It was a man who called. With the exception of Mr. Fitz all the help I’ve hired are women.”

“That doesn’t mean they couldn’t be connected in some way. Someone had to tell him where you are.”

“Do what you have to,” Faith said tiredly, wishing with all her might she could just close her eyes and will all this mess away.

Something in Shane ached at her expression. She looked so small and fragile… and innocent. He cursed himself again for having been such a bastard toward her. Her life was complicated enough right now without having the man who was supposed to protect her harassing her as well.

He cleared his throat in a rare show of nerves. What the hell did he know about relating to a woman like Faith? “Um-how’s Lindy? Ms. Jordan mentioned she’d come down with something.”

Faith shrugged, glad for the change of subject and touched by his show of concern. “She’s resting for the moment. She’s uncomfortable. I’m sure you remember how it was to have the chicken pox.”

“Actually, no. I never had them.”

“Figures,” Faith mumbled.

“Faith.” Apologizing was something he’d never been good at. The words stuck in his throat like peanut butter. “About last night, I-”

“I think we said everything that needed saying.” Her voice was a little shaky, but she managed to look him square in the eye as she took another step back from him.

“Mama?” Lindy’s voice drifted out from her room.

“If you’ll excuse me, Agent Callan, my daughter needs me.”

Shane nodded, sighing in frustration as Faith went back into Lindy’s room. Maybe it would be for the best if he let her go on thinking he was an obnoxious jerk. Ordinarily the opinion of others mattered little to him. He conducted himself as he saw fit, and to hell with the rest of the world. But it bothered him that he had treated her badly. Deep down, in a place inside him no person had touched in a very long time, it mattered what Faith Kincaid thought about him.

Swearing under his breath, he stalked off down the hall.

It just wouldn’t do for him to become attached to her in any way, and still he could feel the pull, the attraction. He had felt it the instant he’d first seen her, even though he had believed she was involved in the DataTech scam. Now that he knew she wasn’t, the desire was only going to be stronger.

He’d lain awake imagining what it would be like to go into her room and take her gently in his arms, to hold her and kiss her fears away. Every inch of his body had throbbed as he’d thought of what it would be like to make love to her until she forgot she’d ever known William Gerrard. And he had cursed himself to hell and gone for being so foolish. Faith Kincaid was a job. For both their sakes she could be nothing more.

Shane wandered through the halls of the big silent house, trying to unwind. In one hand he cradled a snifter of cognac, the other hand he stuffed into his trouser pocket. His shoulder throbbed with hot, sharp pain that defied mere aspirin. He was bone tired, as if he had spent the day doing hard physical labor under a hot sun. And yet an aching restlessness snaked through him, keeping him from falling into his bed.