Kate Stevenson - Witness… And Wife?

His bantering caught her by surprise, and even knowing he wasn’t serious, she couldn’t stop the onslaught of tactile memories. The crispness of his chest hair grazing her swollen nipples. A tangle of legs as they sprawled across a bed, laughing. Hot kisses. Building passion.

Heat crept up her neck. If such a display weren’t guaranteed to inflate his ego, she’d have covered her breasts in a virginal attempt to shield herself from his gaze. Silently she cursed her unruly senses and wished she dared kick Luke in the shins for not playing fair. Their relationship was history. Dead history. And no amount of playacting on his part could convince her otherwise.

The thought, repeating itself like a mantra, enabled her to pin him with a quelling glance that wiped the amusement from his face. “I don’t plan to take risks,” she announced firmly. “I’m perfectly willing to play the game your way—cautious and careful. What I’m not willing to do is run scared.”

“It’s not running scared to give us time to do our job.”

“I don’t have time. I have a deadline. Eckhart has guaranteed me lead-story status if I wrap everything up within the week. Waiting will only give people the chance to cover up.”

“It’ll give us a chance to solve the case without you messing things up,” Luke retorted, his impatience getting the best of him.

“Me?” She turned and widened her eyes in pretended innocence. “You’re forgetting who trained me. You should have more faith in the job you did.”

She was playing with fire. She knew it from the familiar look of exasperation that narrowed his eyes and wrinkled his brow. Then, amazingly, his expression softened. Leaning forward, he covered her hand with his much larger one. “Let me do my job, Cassie,” he said softly.

Let me protect you.

The unspoken message was so seductive, Cassie was tempted to give in and do it his way. But she couldn’t. She’d battled too hard, too long, to yield now and let others dictate what was best for her.

She wasn’t asking much, and she knew she wasn’t being reckless. She’d agreed to delay action until he could be with her. He was just being bullheaded.

“I have to do this,” she insisted. “Now, not later.”

Luke jerked back his hand as though burned. “You haven’t changed a bit, have you?”

Stung by the bitterness in his voice, she thrust out her chin. “Neither have you. You still issue orders and expect everyone to jump.”

“Maybe if you’d jumped instead of insisting on having your own way—” He clamped his mouth shut, then catapulted from his chair, as though he couldn’t bear looking at her one minute longer.

Cassie felt the blood drain from her face. She didn’t need to hear the words to know what he’d almost said.

If you hadn’t insisted on having your own way, Danny wouldn’t have died.

Her heart twisted in agony, the same agony she’d lived with for two years: because she’d tried to have it all, do it all, their child was dead.

She would carry the guilt to her grave.

Everyone had warned her to slow down—Luke, her father and brothers, even her boss—but she’d thought she knew better than any of them. She was young and strong, a modern woman. And her doctor had backed her up, giving his approval to continue working as long as she felt like it.

Six months pregnant, she’d jumped at the chance to show them all she was capable of juggling career and motherhood as easily as any other female reporter. She begged for the assignment of interviewing a man being held at the county jail for murder. Everyone had a theory about why he’d killed his wife, then calmly turned himself in. Cassie planned to get the story from his own lips.

The meeting itself seemed to pose no risk. Held in a secured room under the watchful eyes of two guards, it had promised to be as tame as an afternoon tea. How could she have known the man would take her hostage in a desperate bid for freedom? And who could have foreseen the results of the police chase that followed, the chase ordered by Luke to rescue her?

She still had nightmares of the car careening off the highway, trees rushing at her and the bone-jarring impact. The ride to the hospital was blurred by pain, and it was only the next day, when she saw the pity on the nurse’s face, that she knew for certain she’d lost her baby. She’d wanted to scream denial, but one look at Luke’s stricken expression had silenced her. He was having enough difficulty dealing with the death without her falling apart.

Maybe she should have followed her first instincts and loosed her tears. At least then, Luke might have acknowledged her pain. Instead he’d acted like the loss was his alone, a grief she couldn’t possibly share because she hadn’t wanted to be pregnant—at least not initially.

And when his despair left no room for hers, she’d done the only thing she could—hide her sorrow and crowd the hollow in her life with activity.

In silence Cassie cleared the mugs from the table and carried them to the sink, sneaking a glance in Luke’s direction. Hands thrust into jeans pockets, he stood at the kitchen door, seemingly absorbed with something in the backyard, though the rigid set of his shoulders and his widely spread legs betrayed his inner tension.

For an instant Cassie felt an urge to step close, to wrap her arms around his waist and lay her cheek against his back, to whisper she was sorry, the way she’d done in their early days together. Things had been so easy then. One simple gesture and Luke would shake off his irritation and laugh at himself. He’d gather her close and tell her he loved her just the way she was—ornery and contrary and too damned independent.

Not for long. After they’d married, he called her headstrong, foolhardy, and she’d found his attempts to protect her stifling. Maybe people were right when they said the things you loved best about a person were what chafed the most as time went by.

No, she told herself, picking up a wet sponge, their differences couldn’t be settled with a simple apology.

She blotted a coffee stain from the countertop, wishing it were as easy to wipe out past mistakes. But hers had seeped into the very fiber of their marriage, like printer’s ink across a sheet of newsprint.

The curtains at the open window stirred briefly, and the hot, dry air seemed to suck all moisture from her body, leaving behind an empty, brittle husk. She closed her eyes and wished Luke would leave. She had enough to deal with without resurrecting the past. Things like a throbbing head and weary muscles.

Shifting her weight from one leg to the other, she felt a nudge against her bare calf. Even before she turned, she knew Duffy was regarding her with a hopeful look. Grateful for the diversion, she joined in the familiar game by cocking her head skyward and pretending not to notice. Duffy settled back on his haunches, pricked his ears and whined.

Though Luke turned at the sound, Cassie avoided meeting his gaze. Focusing, instead, on playing out the ritual with the dog, she stared at the ceiling and feigned indifference to his whimpers. He gave a sharp bark—her signal to look astonished and ask, “What’s the matter, fellow?” In response, he balanced on his hindquarters and raised his front paws, unashamedly begging.

Cassie dipped a hand into the cookie jar, all too aware that Luke now leaned against the counter, arms crossed over his chest, narrow hips outthrust in a flagrantly male posture.

Watching.

His pose was so achingly familiar, she hesitated, her fingers curled around a dog biscuit. Memories flooded through her, memories of other times when he’d assumed the same stance, following her every movement with such passion-filled intensity, she’d grown faint with longing.