Karen Foley - Make Me Melt

“I’m heading over to the child welfare office,” she said. “One of my kids pulled a B and E overnight, but it sounds like he was beaten black-and-blue beforehand, probably by his father. I’ll be back in the morning.”

He nodded. “Very well. Just don’t let your pro bono work interfere with your other cases here.”

After she’d passed the bar exam, and been hired at MacInness, Shively and Crane as a junior attorney, Caroline had found the work exciting and challenging. But after nearly two years of working on behalf of wealthy couples battling for child custody, she had started to feel unfulfilled. It wasn’t until she’d begun volunteering her legal services in support of the city’s underprivileged citizens that she’d felt infinitely more satisfied. And when she’d begun to focus those efforts on the youngest citizens—the children—she knew she’d finally found her calling.

She would have preferred that work exclusively, but she had bills to pay. So she’d hammered out a deal with her firm to devote a portion of her time to pro bono work through the child welfare office. The work indirectly benefited the firm, as the effort made them look at least somewhat philanthropic.

Last week, the district attorney’s office had offered her a full-time position on its staff, based on the pro bono work she’d done. She’d be a child advocate, representing children who otherwise would have nobody to speak up for them. She was considering the offer, although it would mean a cut in pay from what she was currently making. It would also mean she’d be able to work full-time on behalf of the city’s needy children. The work appealed to her. In fact, it was exactly the kind of work she’d hoped to do full-time. So what was holding her back from accepting the job? She wanted to make a difference in the lives of troubled kids, but she just wasn’t sure whether she wanted to do it here in Richmond.

Lately she’d found her thoughts turning more and more frequently toward San Francisco. She’d told herself a million times that it had nothing to do with Jason Cooper, or the notion that he’d once been a kid just like Devon. She was just missing her father. On some level, the work she did made her feel closer to him...and she’d been thinking that maybe it was time she went home, this time for good.

After she’d graduated from law school, she’d moved permanently to the East Coast, determined to get a job on her own terms, without her father’s influence. At the time, he’d still been a superior court judge, and he had connections with most of the bigger law firms in the area. It wouldn’t matter if Caroline was hired strictly on her own merit; she knew there’d be people who would always say her father had helped her out. So she’d gone to the opposite side of the country, where few people had ever heard of William Banks.

She liked Richmond, but it wasn’t home. Besides, her father wasn’t getting any younger. He’d also been appointed to the Supreme Court of California several years ago, and Caroline worried about the toll his job was having on his health. But maybe they could escape to the beach house in Santa Cruz for a weekend. It would be just like old times.

Well, almost, she amended silently.

He wouldn’t be there.

She knew that Jason still kept in touch with her father and frequently made the seven-hour trip from San Diego to San Francisco to spend time with Judge Banks. Somehow, even with the demands of being a U.S. marshal, Jason managed to spend more time with her father than she did. No question about it—she was a terrible daughter.

But Jason was precisely the reason Caroline avoided going home. She’d seen him just once since that disastrous night when she’d practically begged him to have sex with her. She had just graduated college and had been accepted into law school on the East Coast. Her father had made a big deal out of the event, throwing her a party at the beach house. Jason had been there, and although she’d been acutely aware of him watching her, he hadn’t spoken to her and had left before she could gather enough courage to approach him. As a deputy marshal, he’d been even sexier than she remembered, and her heart had leaped at the sight of him.

She’d wanted him to see her as a grown woman, and there’d been no shortage of cute guys at the party to flirt with. She’d done her best to make sure that Jason knew she could have any one of them. But he’d apparently been less than impressed. When he’d taken off without uttering a single word to her, she’d felt sixteen years old all over again. After he was gone, the party had been over for her.

That had been seven years ago. While she was definitely over Jason Cooper, she had no desire to have him drop in unexpectedly while she was visiting her father. As a result, she rarely visited, preferring to have her dad come out and stay with her in Virginia. Because he had friends in Washington, he usually conceded to her requests, but she knew she couldn’t continue to expect him to travel across the country every time he wanted to see her.

Hefting her carry bag over her shoulder, she took the elevator to the first floor of the building and made her way across the spacious lobby, the heels of her shoes echoing on the polished marble. The first floor was only moderately busy at this time of day, with a few stragglers returning from lunch, laughing and shaking moisture from their hair and shoulders as they entered the building. Through the glass doors that led to the street, Caroline saw it had begun to rain. Pausing, she slid her bag around to where she could unzip the outer compartment and pulled out her umbrella.

When she looked up again, two men were pushing through the rotating doors. Caroline’s breath caught, and her feet remained glued to the floor.

The first man wore khaki fatigues, a dark blue polo shirt and a matching baseball cap. He had the distinctive bearing of a law enforcement officer. If the weapon in his hip holster didn’t grab your attention, the U.S. Marshals logo emblazoned on the breast of his shirt did.

But it was the second man who caused Caroline’s heart to skip a beat and almost stutter to a stop before exploding into frenzied overdrive.

Jason Cooper.

He wore a black sports jacket and shirt, paired with well-worn blue jeans and boots. He had an easy, loose-limbed stride that Caroline would have recognized anywhere. As he made his way across the lobby toward her, she caught a glimpse of the badge he wore on his belt—the silver star of a U.S. marshal.

The years had done nothing to diminish his good looks or the vague aura of danger that clung to him. He was bigger than she remembered, having lost the lean gauntness of his youth. Beneath the jacket, she could see his shoulders and chest were thick with muscle. He looked as if he kicked ass for a living.

His dark hair was cut short, and his skin was burnished from the sun. But it was his eyes that held her riveted. They still reminded her of tempered glass, and right now they were fixed on her with unsettling intensity. His square jaw was set in grim lines. As he met her gaze, frissons of dread fingered their way along her spine.

Raising her chin, she looked directly at Jason and forced herself to speak with a calm that she was far from feeling. Her fingers closed convulsively around the umbrella in her hands. “Marshal Cooper. You’re a long way from home.”

Caroline tried to quell the erratic rhythm of her heart. Fear caused her stomach to roll, and for a moment she was afraid she might actually be sick. She knew there could be only one reason he had flown all the way to Virginia to seek her out at work.

“Caroline.” He indicated the officer beside him. “This is Deputy Marshal Colton Black.”

His voice hadn’t changed at all, and the sound of it, low and a little rough around the edges, brought a tidal wave of memories flooding back. It seemed some things never changed, because the quality of his voice still had the ability to make her shiver. But all those years ago, his voice had been husky with arousal and then harsh with rejection; now he was all business. He regarded her as if she were a stranger.