The Last White Knight (11 page)

“Come on, Lynn,” he said softly. “Give me a break here, will you? I want to do the right thing.”

The gravel crunched beneath his sneakers as he shuffled nearer, closing the distance between them. Lynn felt his approach as clearly as she heard it. Her body had tuned in to his the first time he’d come within two feet of her. Standing there, bracing
herself against retreat, she had the odd and terrible feeling that she would be acutely aware of Erik Gunther for the rest of her life. She almost flinched when he lifted a hand and gently brushed her hair back from her cheek.

“Come on, Lynn,” he whispered. “Give me a chance.”

Despite the heat of the day, Lynn shivered. One look at his face told her he was asking for something more than an opportunity to spar with Elliot Graham on her behalf. But it wasn’t his entreaty that frightened her. It was the powerful, painful need inside her to say yes. To let him get that close would be the height of folly—for both of them. But she looked up into those Nordic-blue eyes and wanted … wanted so much, so badly. To be free of her past, free to have the kind of future that could include a man like Erik.

Silly
, the cynic in her sneered, sending her tender heart back into hiding. He wasn’t asking for a future, he was asking for a date. He was asking for a chance to prove himself by helping her. She would have to have been a fool to turn that down.

“You want your chance, Senator Gunther?” she said, her eyes sliding away from his to the green cinder-block rental office building. “Fine. You’ve got it.”

This wasn’t quite what I had in mind, Erik thought two nights later as he hoisted a drapery rod into place above the living room window. He’d been given his “chance,” all right—his chance to do manual labor from sunup to sundown. Lynn had worked him like a horse and watched him like a hawk, gauging his every word and action. She had let him prove himself with a hammer and nails, had used his interaction with the girls as a measure of his character. But, whether by chance or design, he hadn’t been given much of an opportunity to woo her.

They hadn’t had a moment alone. The days had been filled with work and worry, getting things settled in the house and dealing with the problems
being laid on Horizon by Elliot Graham’s Citizens for Family Neighborhoods. By the end of each day Lynn had looked so exhausted, Erik hadn’t had the heart to pursue her. His libido had taken a backseat to the need to simply comfort and hold her, but he hadn’t had the chance to do that either. It was getting damned frustrating.

He shot a look at her over his shoulder. “How’s this?”

Lynn stood back rubbing her chin, her expression grave as she considered the question of the drapery rod. She looked fresh and pretty in an apricot tank top and a filmy summer skirt that blossomed with blue and peach flowers. A wide leather belt accented her small waist and a pair of fine gold necklaces drew his gaze to the delicate hollow of her throat. This was the first time he’d seen her in something other than jeans and a T-shirt. The effect was wreaking havoc on his hormones.

“A little higher on the left,” she pronounced at last, shouting to be heard above the rock music blasting out of the boom box on the coffee table. Erik inched the rod up. She narrowed her eyes in scrutiny. Lillian was called into consultation. Tracy and Michelle joined the audience.

“I like it there.”

“I think it was better before.”

“I think the senator has a cute butt.”

Michelle and Tracy fell into giggles at Tracy’s proclamation. Erik felt his cheeks heat, but he wiggled his backside at them, drawing another round of giggles. What he hadn’t had to endure in the last two days during the course of toting, hammering, reaching, and lifting. The girls had lost whatever initial shyness they’d had and had progressed to teasing him the way they would have a big brother. His embarrassment threshold had been sorely trod upon, his male ego poked and prodded relentlessly.

His initial reaction had been an inclination to sternness, a desire to reprimand, but he’d held himself in check. This was Lynn’s territory, and she had raked him up one side and down the other the one time he had dared challenge her authority. Instead of asserting himself, he had decided to look at this as a test of his tolerance and an opportunity to gain insight into on-the-job sexual harassment.

He gritted his teeth as the muscles in his shoulders began to cramp, and he shot another look at Lynn. “Will this decision be made anytime in the next millennium? I’m hungry.”

“You’re always hungry,” Lynn countered, a wry smile curling one corner of her mouth. “It’s a good thing Horizon isn’t a home for boys. We’d go broke buying groceries.”

“Just for that, I’m ordering double dessert.”

“I have no objections, since you’re picking up the tab.”

Lynn turned toward her residents. Erik had done plenty of observing in the past two days, and one thing he’d noticed right away was that Lynn almost always tried to include the girls in the decision-making. He had questioned the practice at first, but he’d quickly seen the wisdom of it. Giving the girls a voice in where the furniture went made them feel more a part of the home than just inmates in it, and debates over various issues taught them valuable communications and thinking skills. And it was done so skillfully, so matter-of-factly, Erik doubted the girls realized what was happening. His admiration for Lynn was growing even more quickly than his desire. That surprised him a little, humbled him a lot.

Lynn turned toward the sofa, where Regan was sprawled in insolent repose, her arms crossed tightly over her chest and her combat boots on the table. “Regan?”

The girl’s expression was the consummate look of teenage boredom. “Who gives a rip?”

Lynn made no comment, but bent over and turned down the radio as Regan pushed herself to her feet and began roaming restlessly around the room. Lynn
turned next to Christine Rickman, the painfully shy, very pregnant fifteen-year-old with honey-blond hair and big brown eyes. “Christine?”

The girl blushed a bit, a tiny smile curving her mouth. She glanced up at Erik but her eyes darted quickly back down and her blush deepened. “I don’t know.”

Tracy elbowed Michelle and said, “I think the senator should put his rod wherever he wants.”

Lynn arched a brow in silent reproach.

The doorbell rang and Erik groaned as Lillian went to answer it. “I don’t think this vote needs a quorum.
Somebody
make a decision!”

“Nail it to the wall, Erik,” Martha called from where she knelt on the floor with Barbara, sorting through stacks of books.

Barbara groaned. Tracy and Michelle burst into another round of giggles.

“Oh, my, it’s so good to hear laughter after the day I’ve had, I can tell you,” Father Bartholomew said. He followed Lillian into the room, wringing his hands and looking his usual disheveled self. A spike of brown hair stuck straight out from the left side of his head. Behind his crooked glasses, his eyes were bright with worry, and there was a telltale flush of color on his cheekbones. “I spent most of the day in
Winona, with Bishop Lawrence bending my ear but good.”

Lynn’s heart gave a lurch as she turned toward the priest. “What did he have to say?”

“Plenty. God love him, he’s a wonderful man, but he can get on such a tear. Oh, my, you just don’t know.” Hands folded against his belly, he rolled his eyes heavenward and offered up a few muttered words in Latin.

“He’s seen Graham’s petitions?” Lynn asked.

“Yes, and the news on television and in the papers.” He flashed Lynn a look of apology. “And I’m afraid I had to tell him about the refrigerator.”

“Of course.”

“Though I assured him it was not your fault at all, Lynn, dear. He wasn’t a happy man, but I managed to work the news in nicely with the biblical story of casting the first stone. He thought it would make an excellent homily.” His face lit briefly with a glow of pride.

“What did he have to say about Horizon House?” Erik asked. He lowered the drapery rod and left it balancing on the step stool as he gave his full attention to the priest.

Father Bartholomew gave a dramatic little sigh. His brows pulled together above his nose in a worried peak. He shoved his glasses into place and tried
in vain to straighten them. “Well, he’s none too pleased with me about letting the house out without the permission of the parish council, but he’s backing me up for the moment.”

“Thank God,” Lillian intoned, one hand worrying the pearls at the collar of her crisp summer-print dress.

“Indeed we should,” Father Bartholomew said, nodding enthusiastically. His forehead crinkled and he sucked in a little gasp of air as he shuddered at the memory of the afternoon he’d just spent cloistered with the bishop. “Oh, my, we went around and around about it. I feel like I’ve been wrestling a bear. He agrees with me that as Christians we are obliged to offer help and refuge, but he’s not too crazy about the bad publicity. Pardon me, Senator, but he really doesn’t want the diocese to get embroiled in anything political just now.”

“But he’s letting us stay,” Lynn said, sounding more positive than she felt.

Father Bartholomew bobbed his head. “For the time being. We should all pray for the commotion to die down quickly. I don’t like to think what he’d do if there got to be too much trouble going on in the neighborhood.”

Lynn looked out the curtainless front window at the protestors parading up and down the sidewalk,
led by none other than Elliot Graham himself, looking proper and upstanding in his shirt and tie. Her stomach slid a little. If Graham had his way, the commotion would not die down. And if the bishop threw them out of this house, it might well mean the end of Horizon. The only other building they’d been able to find was an empty county services office building located in the floodplain along the Zumbro River. Access to it had been denied “for safety reasons,” they’d been informed that very afternoon when she and Lillian had gone downtown to the courthouse to check on it.

Erik put a hand on Lynn’s shoulder and gave a little squeeze of reassurance. It was far less than he wanted to do, but he didn’t think taking her in his arms and kissing her in front of Father Bartholomew, the girls, and Elliot Graham’s band would be advisable or appreciated.

“I’ve made a few phone calls,” he said. “I haven’t gotten a lot of feedback yet, but I hope to hear something in a day or two that could be of help. In the meantime, I’m offering dinner. How about it, Father? All the pizza you can eat and antacid floats for dessert.”

The priest perked up at the sound of that, but his expression quickly slid into hesitancy. “Oh, my,
well, that sounds like fun, but I don’t know if I should—”

“Aw, come on,” Erik prodded, his heart going out to the priest. Father Bartholomew was like a mouse taking on a lion. Erik admired the man for finding the courage to stand up for his beliefs. There weren’t many people willing to do that these days. “In for a penny, in for a pound, as they say. Besides,” he joked, flashing the priest a sheepish grin, “I need another man around. All these females intimidate me.”

Father Bartholomew wrung his hands, visibly screwing up his determination. “Well … all right,” he said with a nod and a gleam of adventure in his eyes.

“Let’s go, gang,” Erik announced. “My rod can wait,” he said, straight-faced, looking straight at Tracy and Michelle. “My stomach can’t.”

The girls choked on their giggles. Lynn chuckled and shook her head as she let Erik usher her toward the door with a hand at the small of her back. Lillian helped Christine up from her chair, Martha struggled to her feet and lumbered after them, scooping her purse from the coffee table and turning off the boom box.

At the front door, Lynn jerked herself to a halt and looked sharply around, brows drawing together. “Where’s Regan?”

“I don’t know.”

“She was here a minute ago.”

Their departure was delayed as Lynn and Lillian made a quick search of the house. Regan was nowhere to be found.

“She must have slipped out through the back while we were talking,” Erik said, biting his tongue on any further comment. While the other girls at Horizon had managed to melt his reserve toward them, Regan had made no effort. In fact, she seemed bent on antagonizing him. He couldn’t seem to stop himself from thinking the girl was a brat deluxe who needed a good spanking more than anything else. But he kept that opinion to himself.

“Well,” Lynn said with a shrug, “she loses out on the fun.”

She didn’t like the idea of letting Regan go off on her own, but she liked the idea of tracking her down and dragging her back home even less. Force wasn’t the key to knocking down Regan’s defenses. She only hoped the girl came around emotionally before she got herself into more trouble.

“I’m glad we decided to walk,” Lynn said, stuffing her hands into the deep pockets of her skirt. The entourage had jockeyed around until she had gotten
shuffled to the back of the pack—with Erik. The girls had decided Erik was cool, and they were being none too subtle in their efforts to pair their counselor off with him. Lynn caught the furtive, bright-eyed looks being snuck back over shoulders at her, and a smile pulled at her lips.