The Proviso (80 page)

“You will not color, straighten, curl, or otherwise
chemically alter her hair. Take out all that bulk, cut it so it
flatters her face, and for crying out loud, give her a hot oil
treatment or three and a good shampoo.”

When he turned Justice around an hour later to look
at herself, she gaped.

Her hair was short but very full, very shaped, and
didn’t look as short as it felt. Where before was frizz, frizz, and
more frizz, there were fairly large, smooth, sleek curls all over
her head that bounced. It was long enough in the back to barely
brush her collar, then it curved softly up around her face. Where
before was a dark red mahogany was a burnished red-copper that
gleamed. She would have never suspected that her hair could look
like that, that
she
could look like that.

Justice wondered how she could have gone her whole
life without thinking to do this herself, never mind that she’d
never had the money to do it or maintain it.

“Makeup.”

The cosmetologist and Giselle were giddy with the
abundance and rich copper color of the freckles on her cheeks and
over her nose, but Justice was mortified.

“You can’t be serious,” she said when they both
agreed that she should never, ever cover those up ever again. But
Giselle would have her way and Justice knew it would be pointless
to argue—

—but when she saw the finished product, she couldn’t
stop staring at herself. “That’s me?” she whispered.

Giselle swung down and got in her face, a wide grin
on her face. “Yes! Aren’t you gorgeous?”

Yes, that girl in the mirror was gorgeous. Justice
didn’t know that girl.

“Lingerie.”

Justice thought she would die of embarrassment at
the things she picked out.

“Justice,” Giselle finally said, frustrated, “you
cannot wear cotton granny panties for the rest of your life. No
matter how good you look on the outside, cotton granny panties will
kill your confidence every time. It’s just not—” She looked for the
right word. “It’s just not
done
.” She shuddered.

“Tomorrow, clothes,” Giselle said as they dropped
into her car, bags of shampoos and conditioners and oils and
lotions and lingerie having been dumped in the trunk. “I’ll loan
you something to wear tomorrow. Tonight, you get to sleep without
dreading working for Knox in the morning.”

Justice shifted uncomfortably, because she still
wasn’t sure that everything she said wouldn’t get back to Knox.
Giselle laughed. “Knox is a bastard. I sure wouldn’t work for
him.”

Giselle lived in a beautiful house, pale yellow,
white trim, with an iridescent green barrel-tile roof and three
gables. She parked in the back and they walked up flagstone stairs
onto a deep covered veranda that spanned the width of the
house.

“This is beautiful,” Justice whispered, looking at
the stonework that defined flower beds in front of the porch. She
could only dream about living in a house like this.

“My husband built the flower beds. He likes to play
in the mud on the weekends.”

Once inside, the entire expanse on Justice’s left
was open, front to back. Three different areas were delineated by
rugs and furniture placement. Closest to the back was a desk. In
the middle was a grouping of leather sofas, club chairs, and a
coffee table in front of a fireplace over which was a TV no thicker
than a painting. At the front of the house was a black grand
piano.

But the most wonderful thing about that room was the
fact that the entire wall, save the fireplace and the TV, was
covered in floor-to-ceiling bookcases filled with books of all
types. The ceiling was twelve feet high and so there was a ladder
and track to reach the higher books. There wasn’t one spot of blank
wall or shelf that could be seen, and Justice stood and stared in
awe.

“Pick anything you want,” Giselle said as she
bustled by to dump some of Justice’s bags on the stairwell landing.
“Bryce will be home in a bit and I asked him to pick up dinner. I
guarantee it’ll be Greek.”

I see Kenard hasn’t managed to put a collar on you
yet.

Justice shot a look at Giselle, unable to believe
what she thought she just heard.

“Bryce? As in, Bryce Kenard?”

Giselle released a resigned chuckle. “Oh, please
don’t tell me you’re a groupie too.”

“Yes! How—? He’s all anybody talks about at
school.”

“Tell me about it.”

“You can’t have told anybody. You didn’t have people
hanging off of you all the time.”

Giselle burst out laughing then. “Nobody knew I’m
related to Knox, either, did they?”

Justice released a breath, unable to hide the stars
in her eyes now. Bryce Kenard. Never in a million years had she
thought she’d ever encounter him.

“Well, don’t have an orgasm, Justice,” Giselle said
wryly. “He’ll be home in a bit and you can fawn all over him in
person. But come upstairs for a minute. I’ll loan you some clothes
and a robe. I want you to take that dress off right now because it
needs burned.”

Justice’s mouth dropped open, stunned out of her
delight. “Burned?” she squeaked. “This is my favorite dress!”

“You’ll get a new favorite tomorrow.”

“No! I worked hard to buy this dress!”

“Fine. I’ll get it framed. Hand it over.”

“I will NOT!”

“Oh, leave her alone, Giselle,” came a deep hoarse
voice from the archway to the kitchen. “How would you like it if
someone took your favorite dress away from you and burned it just
because they didn’t like it?”

Justice gasped and her hand went to her mouth at the
sight of the man in the doorway, his head down as he sifted through
mail. He was badly disfigured, the entire left side of his face
matted with scars, as was his left hand. And he was huge, bigger
than Knox. She took a step back from him, but he’d turned and set
the mail on the kitchen island, walking out of sight while taking
off his coat and tie.

This
was Bryce Kenard?

She’d never had to do a class assignment on him, but
she’d heard enough lectures, enough stories, to know his name and
respect his genius. No one had
ever
mentioned this.

Justice knew Giselle hadn’t missed her reaction to
her husband and also knew she had every right to be offended at
her. She sighed and turned to Giselle. “I’m so sorry,” she
murmured. “That wasn’t kind of me.”

“You’re right,” Giselle agreed readily, but without
anger. “Lesson number one: Don’t let appearances deceive you—good
or bad. You miss getting to know a lot of good people that
way.”

“Lesson number two,” called that gravelly voice from
the kitchen, though she couldn’t see him. “Never, ever let people
know your first impression, good or bad.”

“Especially since he just saved your dress for you,”
Giselle muttered, that undertone of humor back in her voice. “Come
on. Let’s go eat.”

And as Justice turned, she caught a glimpse of a
very large painting over the staircase and she sucked up a breath,
her mouth opening slowly as she looked up, up, up.

Her eyes wide, she studied it. She knew Giselle was
watching her, but she didn’t care. Her hostess was laid out nude on
a bed, strapped to it, but that wasn’t what got her. What got her
was the symbolism of the locks and the keys and the books.

She put her hand to her mouth and she could feel
tears begin to roll down her face. “Oh,” she whispered. “Oh.”
Justice swallowed. “Oh my. You— It
didn’t
come easy to
you.”

Giselle went to her and hugged her. “No, it didn’t,”
she murmured and led her to the table where dinner awaited. “It
still doesn’t.”

* * * * *

71:
WHAT A GIRL WANTS

Justice sat up in the most luxurious bed she had
ever seen, much less slept in, reading a Georgette Heyer novel
Giselle had given her.

“Why don’t you give her
Sleeping Beauty
,
Giselle?” Mr. Kenard had drawled slyly, which, to Justice’s
astonishment and delight, made Giselle choke on her food and blush
furiously.

“The fairy tale?” Justice had asked doubtfully.

“Anne Rice’s interpretation,” Mr. Kenard offered
helpfully, almost eagerly. “Google it.”

“No, don’t,” Giselle muttered.

Justice watched her in astonishment, never having
seen her flustered before this evening, which Mr. Kenard seemed to
do with ease and great regularity. As soon as she got to her room
that night, she pulled out a piece of paper and wrote, “
Sleeping
Beauty
, Anne Rice.”

Justice didn’t feel like cracking her laptop open;
she simply wanted to enjoy this sudden and welcome break from the
blogs, the writing, the constant analytical thinking. She was a
warmly welcomed guest in a beautiful home that she imagined could
only be superior to the best hotel in the world, a large library at
her disposal, no work, no school, no farm chores.

When she’d called her father to tell him she was
staying with a friend for a week, she’d expected to be given the
silent treatment at best and a good drubbing at worst. Instead,
he’d said simply, “Okay.”

That was suspicious.

But she’d forgotten it as they ate and then the
evening deepened. The three of them sat around the table for hours
talking about politics and constitutional theory, both as
interested in her opinion as she was in theirs. The subject of
Kevin Oakley appeared to be off limits, though, which disconcerted
Justice to no small degree.

She didn’t dare ask how Mr. Kenard had gotten his
scars, though she could see now that they were burns. She felt so
very sad and regretful that she had had a bad initial reaction to
him, that she had been so rude. It made her feel small and
undignified.

“In the interest of full disclosure,” he’d told her
wryly, his voice rough, “Giselle breaks a lot of her own rules. I
knew exactly what she thought the first time she looked at me
because she
wanted
me to know what that was.”

Giselle laughed. “It’s a little different when you
take one look at a man and all you can think about is what it’d be
like to be on top of him.”

Justice could feel the red creeping up her cheeks.
Mr. Kenard chuckled and patted her on the back.

She took the liberty of staying up late just to read
for pleasure, because that itself was such a luxury. She was in
heaven and—

Knox had done this for her.

The thought sobered her.

Why? Giselle was his cousin; didn’t he know what
would happen? Had he meant for her to be here having fun, being
pampered and cosseted by two of the nicest people she had ever
met?

Troubled, she had a hard time getting back into her
book. At midnight, she went downstairs to raid the fridge of some
blueberries she’d seen there—Giselle had told her she was welcome
to anything—poured some cream and sugar over them, and took them
back to her room.

As she passed the master bedroom door, she heard a
series of long, low moans that startled her and she stopped, unable
to not listen. She heard a sharp gasp, a giggle, and then a low,
grainy chuckle.

Low voices talking. More laughter, more gasps and
moans.

“Ares.” It was only a whisper, heavy and dripping
with desire. “Do that again.”

“Say, ‘Please do that again, Ares.’”

“Oh,
please
do that again, Ares.”

Justice closed her eyes and swallowed. She swayed,
thinking of that day in Knox’s office. She knew. For the first time
in her life, she had felt real passion, real desire. It was nothing
like she had read or imagined. She wanted what the Kenards had, but
she didn’t know how that would happen or even if it would.

Then Justice’s eyes popped open and she blushed,
deeply embarrassed for having eavesdropped on something so
intimate. She scurried back to her room and sat down on the bed,
confused, and feeling very, very young.

When had she turned into such a stupid,
stupid
girl? She lay down and curled up, closing her eyes to
relive that day in Knox’s office when he’d seduced her.

She wasn’t ashamed for wanting what the Kenards had,
but only a fool would still want it from
Knox Hilliard
after
everything he had done to her.

* * * * *

“Today, guns,” Giselle pronounced three days later,
once Justice had arisen and gotten ready for the day in a pair of
Giselle’s jeans that fit more like capris, and a tee shirt that
stretched a little too tight across the chest and revealed more of
her midriff than she liked. “You can just wear my regular clothes
until you get home.”

Giselle hadn’t bothered with such things because
every girl had sixteen dozen pairs of jeans and a billion tee
shirts, she said.

“The reason Knox wants
me
to do this,” she
pronounced on the way to the shooting range, “is because he doesn’t
trust your sheriff up there not to give you defective equipment,
which would likely get you killed. Either it won’t fire when you
need it to or it’ll misfire and kill you. And he probably doesn’t
want you anywhere near that shooting range. He’ll take you shooting
somewhere else later.”

He
would? Justice gulped with both dread and
tingling anticipation.

Justice proved to be a better marksman than Giselle
had hoped and Justice allowed herself to be proud.

“Unfortunately,” Giselle said, “I can’t teach you
anything about hand-to-hand in four days. I don’t buy into those
short-course women’s defense seminars because they just give women
a false sense of security. In my opinion, they do more harm than
good. It took me four years of martial arts for me to get half as
good as I felt I should be. So that’s why I carry a gun. No fuss,
no muss, and people get the point.”

“Why do you carry a gun at all?” Justice asked.

“Oh, it’s just one of those things,” Giselle said
airily, meaning she wasn’t going to tell her. Just like Kevin
Oakley. “A thigh holster isn’t going to help you if you’re wearing
a dress, so we’ll get you the standard shoulder holster the men
wear. You need to wear one or the other at all times along with
your badge, except when you’re in court, just like the men do.”