Brenda Jackson - The Danforths - Wesley, Ian & Imogene

When he had gotten home last night, images of her naked, standing in the middle of the bedroom while talking to him on the phone had taken over his mind. Trying to get some work done had been out of the question and he’d ended up taking his own shower and going to bed.

But he hadn’t been able to sleep. All he could do was think about her. Instead of locking horns with her, he wanted them to lock bodies. He’d tossed and turned in bed all night. Who would have thought that one kiss would have driven him to such a state? One kiss and he was dying for another one. The thought of never kissing her again was tying his stomach into knots.

He sighed deeply. Although the sun was out, the air was sharp and chill, unusual for a Savannah day in April. But then he needed the sharp chill to ward off the heat in his body. It was a heat he could not get rid of thanks to Jasmine.

Jasmine snapped her cell phone closed and placed it back in her purse. She had finished her last interview for the day and was headed home. She had awakened that morning with high hopes of interviewing Abraham Danforth but he had left town unexpectedly on a business trip. The reporter in her wondered what had been so urgent about the trip to Atlanta and why he’d gone instead of his son Ian, who was now in charge of the business.

She was about to exit off the interstate but a quick glance in her rearview mirror showed Wesley’s car was following in the lane behind her.

She sighed in frustration. The man was getting on her last nerve. She glanced at her watch. It was still early and if Wesley was determined to shadow her every activity then she wouldn’t make things easy on him. Actually, she hoped to make things nearly impossible. She hadn’t finished doing all her errands yesterday and decided now was a good time to complete that task and hoped that Wesley was up for it. She glanced back in the rearview mirror and smiled. First she would stop by the dry cleaners, then the car wash, and from there she would go to the butcher and the florist to pick out a plant to sit on her desk.

If the man had nothing better to do with his time than follow her around, that was his business.

What in the hell was the woman up to ? Wesley wondered a short while later as he continued to follow her. She had told him she would be taking care of most of her errands yesterday, but so far she had made five stops at various places, parking her car, going into stores and either coming out with nothing or little at all. He released a frustrated sigh but was determined to stay on her tail.

He heard his stomach growl, reminding him it was past dinnertime yet here he was, sitting in the parking lot of Wal-Mart waiting for Jasmine to come out. Moments later, she walked out carrying a small bag. But the bag wasn’t what caught his attention. Once again his gaze was drawn to her skirt and how it stretched against her bottom, and the way her hips swiveled when she walked. Damn. Sexual frustration was taking a toll on him and there was no excuse for it when all he had to do was to pick up his phone and call any number of women who’d be glad to relieve him. But he wasn’t interested in any other woman other than the one crossing the parking lot at that very moment.

He closed his eyes and tried to remember that the woman was Jasmine Carmody. Jasmine the piranha of a reporter. Jasmine who was determined to dig up dirt on those he cared about. But then he also was reminded that she was Jasmine, the woman he had kissed senseless a couple of nights ago.

When he opened his eyes she had gotten into her car and was driving off. He hoped she was heading home but when she turned her vehicle in the opposite direction of her home, he knew that was not the case. Didn’t she plan on going home at some point today ?

Forty minutes later and she was finally headed toward home. It had taken Wesley a few hours to figure out just what Jasmine had been doing and the game she’d been playing with him.

He frowned. If she thought the joke was on him she had another thought coming. If nothing else, he had shown her that he intended to stick to her like glue. Eventually, she would realize that he was not someone she could toy with.

An hour later, Wesley opened the door to his home at the same time his answering machine clicked on. “Wes, this is Kim. Give me a call when you get in. Zack and I want to invite you over for dinner tomorrow night.”

Wes smiled when he heard Kim’s voice. He was glad Abraham’s daughter, Kim, had found Zack, a man to give her the love and happiness she deserved.

He would call her back and confirm dinner after his shower—a shower he needed to calm his overheated body. At this point whether he was hot from anger or sexual frustration he wasn’t sure. All he knew at the moment was that one part of him wanted to put his hands around Jasmine’s neck while another part of him wanted to put his hands on other parts of her.

A few minutes later he was stepping inside the shower stall and under the spray of cold water in an effort to quell the sexual tension and anger that had overtaken him most of the evening. Since getting home, nothing he’d done had helped him to relax.

Warning bells went off in his head. No woman had ever affected him this way and he didn’t like it worth a damn. By the time he had finished his shower and dried off, he decided he would spend a quiet evening at home reading. He was determined not to indulge in foolish fantasies like he’d done the night before.

Drawing in a calming breath he walked downstairs. He’d eaten dinner, but there was another hunger deep within him. He needed to get a firm grip or he was going to be in serious trouble.

He was about to walk outside on the terrace when he heard the doorbell. Remembering he had left his security gate unlocked, he figured his visitor was probably Jake. He made his way to the door and opened it to find Abraham Danforth standing there instead.

“Abraham, come in,” Wesley greeted, smiling. He’d always had deep respect and admiration for Abraham Danforth and knew that his political aspirations were genuine and sincere.

Wesley knew that Abraham truly loved his children, but he also acknowledged that following the death of Abraham’s wife in an automobile accident, the young widower had felt unable to give them the care they needed. Ian had told him that Abraham had sent them all off to boarding schools. He knew that Ian still held a lot of resentment regarding his childhood years of having to spend much of his youth trying to impress his father and feeling that he had failed to do so.

“Hi, Wes, I hope I’m not catching you at a bad time.”

“No, not at all,” Wesley said. From the first time he had met Abraham, he’d always seen the same depth of kindness and caring in Abraham’s blue eyes that was always there in his brother Harold’s. “Can I get you anything to drink?” he asked.

Abraham shook his head. “No, I’m fine. I got a message that you wanted to see me. I just got back from a short trip to Atlanta.”

Wesley nodded. “I was wondering if you’ve received any more threatening e-mails?”

A few months ago, three separate e-mails had been sent to Abraham through his computer. Each had contained a cryptic message and had been signed “Lady Savannah.”

The first e-mail had read, “I’ve been watching you.” The second, “I’m still watching you.” The last e-mail that had read, “Expect the unexpected. This isn’t over,” and had contained a virus that had wiped out Abraham’s entire computer system. Because of the signature, everyone was assuming the person who had sent the e-mails was a woman and was wondering why she was targeting Abraham. The only people who knew about the e-mails were members of the Danforth family and they intended to keep it that way. The last thing they wanted was for the information to get leaked to the media. He could just imagine what Jasmine would do with information like that at her disposal. Abraham had hired a security specialist to secretly work on the case by the name of Michael Whittaker.