Twist of Fate (24 page)

"It's a bitch that we live in a world where safety means always having to be alert, but that's the way it is," Kendra added.

Rob smiled wryly. "You are two tough chicks. Can't I wallow in my inadequacy for not defending you the way a macho man should?"

"No!" the women said in chorus.

"Fear and alertness are more natural than feeling secure," Val mused. "Ancestors who didn't dodge saber-toothed tigers became lunch. They were the quick or the dead."

All very articulate, but Val's small body still felt chilly in his embrace. "I like to think we're evolving beyond that."

"It's a slow process," she said wearily.

Too damned slow.

∗ ∗ ∗

Home was like safe, sheltering arms. Val sighed with relief when she stepped inside. As she bent to pet Lilith, who was stropping her ankles, Rob said, "I hope you don't want me to go, because I do not want to leave you alone tonight."

"I don't want that either." She turned gratefully into his arms. "One lousy little failed purse snatching, and I'm still shaking. What a wimp."

"Violence is like a stone in a pond that sends ripples in all directions." His comforting hand stroked down her back. "It cracks the world."

She guessed he had learned that too early from his stepfather. He'd dealt with violence as a child, in the Marines, with his brother, and in the work he did on Baltimore's meaner streets. Her life had been mercifully sheltered by comparison. She raised her head. "Would you like a glass of wine? I'm tempted to stress the air-conditioning by lighting a fire even though it's high summer. Fires are comforting."

"And they keep the saber-tooths away. Do you need help treating those brush burns on your hand?" When she shook her head, he continued, "Then I'll get the fire going while you take care of the wine and bandages."

Nerves unwinding, she went to the kitchen. None of her scrapes were deep, so she spread salve on the raw skin, covered it with a light dressing, and poured two glasses of wine. In the den, flames were starting to lick at the logs in the fireplace. Rob was crouched on one knee, watching, the flickering light playing across the planes of his face.

She realized that she no longer felt that he was an elusive chameleon. Whether he was a bearded cuddle bear or a chiseled executive, she was coming to understand him pretty well. A man of conscience and integrity, humor and guilt. A man who was complicated and very human.

Glad he was here, she turned the lights down and settled on the sofa, shoes off and one leg tucked under her. "This is nice. Thanks."

His gaze still on the fire, Rob said, "Would you like to live together?"

She choked on her wine. "Where did that come from?"

He glanced up, his expression somber. "It seems like the next logical step. My apartment is too small, so I could buy a house here in Homeland to prove that I'm not just after you for your real estate. There's a For Sale sign on a terrific looking place over on Springlake. It's another Tudor house and has a nice view of the ponds. You could move back here if you decided you couldn't stand living with me."

She stared at him. "You are definitely moving too fast for me."

"I'd love an excuse to buy a house. I had a condo in California because I didn't want to be responsible for anything except my business." He adjusted a log with the tongs, then uncoiled from his spot by the fire. "You're looking at me as if I'm nuts. Do you hate the idea of living together that much?"

She hesitated, trying the idea out for size and wondering why his suggestion made her want to bolt. "I've never lived with anyone before, though a couple of times in the midst of a hot and heavy affair, there was a sort of de facto cohabitation."

"How very legalistic."

Regretting her choice of words, she asked, "Isn't this a bit sudden?"

"Perhaps." He began pacing with short, taut steps. "I've never felt like this with anyone else, Val, and I've wanted to get it right. Not too quick, not too slow, but just right, like Goldilocks. Then that mugger went after you, and now I have this enormously primitive desire to stay close and defend you, sort of like a glorified Doberman pinscher."

"The cats wouldn't like that." Though she had imbibed feminism with her mother's milk, his desire to take care of her was appealing, not to mention sexy. "But I like the idea of having a protector. I've always been responsible for my own defense."

His expression eased. "Then I'll try for attack tiger. It's not just protectiveness, of course. I love being with you. I love the idea of spending all my available time with you. And...I want to give this relationship every chance."

Beginning to feel uneasy with his seriousness, she said, "It's a scientific fact that people who live together before marriage are more likely to divorce than those who don't, so if you're looking at the long-term, shacking up is probably not the way to go."

He looked startled. "Maybe in that case we should..."

She cut him off, afraid of what he might say. "It's too soon, Rob, and there's too much going on. If we moved in together, it would take time and thought and energy, all of which are in short supply now. Ditto on buying a house. How about we revisit the subject after...after Sept. ninth?" The date scheduled for Daniel Monroe's execution.

Rob hesitated, then nodded. "Okay. This is too important to treat casually."

"But in the meantime, dating is good. Becoming a couple is good." Wanting to move the conversation to more comfortable territory, she set her wine aside and rose from the sofa to corner him by the bookcase. "I think my subconscious had a hidden agenda when I decided a fire would be nice." She wrapped her arms around his neck and murmured, "The rug in front of the fireplace is very comfortable."

Gently he lifted her left hand and brushed his lips across the dressing that covered the abraded skin, his touch so light it caused no pain. "Are you sure you're up for this? You had a bad experience tonight."

"Nothing would make me feel better or safer than making love with you, Rob." Before he could suffer another attack of nobility, she rose on her toes and kissed him.

The tensions of the evening flared into passion, and in moments they were ripping at each other's clothing. Her lingering distress over the mugging vanished, seared away as she pulled him down on the fireplace rug.

She gasped as his mouth found her breast. She might not be sure about living together or marriage, but this sweet, fierce passion--
this
she was sure of.

∗ ∗ ∗

Rob propped himself up on one elbow and studied his sleeping bedmate. Val's curving form was silvered by moonlight and her hair rioted darkly across the pillow. The sex, as always, had been phenomenal, maybe even better than usual because of the scariness of her being attacked.

But dammit, he wanted more than sex. There was more than sex between them, a lot more, but suggesting that made Val skittish. Since she didn't cotton to living together, he had been ready to propose marriage when she had jumped his bones. A most effective means of changing the subject.

Maybe she wasn't in love with him and never would be, or maybe she just needed time to fall in love and get used to the idea of marriage. But he was a computer geek with a lot of experience in solving problems, and Val was definitely a problem, albeit a beautiful, sexy problem who made him feel more alive than he had ever felt in his life.

He smiled wryly, remembering why he had spent so many years buried in computer development. It was a simpler world, where something either worked or it didn't. If it didn't, you fixed it. Problems had solutions, if you worked hard enough.

Maybe the same was true with romance, but he wouldn't bet on it. He whispered, "I love you, Valentine."

Perhaps it was his imagination, but it seemed that even in sleep, she pulled away a little.

∗ ∗ ∗

Vale came awake suddenly. It was still dark, and a glance at the bedside clock showed that it was a little after 3 a.m. Rob slept beside her, one arm over her waist.

Lilith glided up from the foot of the bed to stand on Val's chest and give an almost inaudible
mrowrr
. To a cat, human movement meant it was breakfast time no matter what the clock said.

Knowing she was too tense and uneasy to return to sleep, Val slipped out from under Rob's arm, found her robe by touch, and descended to the kitchen, the cats circling and threatening to trip her. After dividing a can of cat tuna between them, she crossed her arms and leaned back against the counter as she regarded her pets broodingly.

The reason for her disquiet was obvious--her reaction to Rob's words had been straight out of the twilight zone. Why had she come unglued when he suggested they live together? And then cut him off when he seemed on the verge of proposing marriage? She should have cartwheeled with happiness. Instead, she had panicked and used sex to change the subject. Tacky, Valentine, very tacky.

Was she in love with him? Her heart tightened painfully. At sixteen, questions like that had been easy to answer. At her age, everything was more complicated. There were many kinds of love, and she wasn't ready to try to label her feelings for Rob.

But if in doubt, make a list. She sat down at the kitchen desk, pulled out one of her ubiquitous legal tablets, and wrote "Rob: Pro and Con" at the top.

Her felt-tipped pen raced as she listed the pros. Smart, funny, sexy, responsible, compassionate, liked her cats, reliable, wanted to get serious. She could have listed his virtues for pages, but stopped after about twenty, figuring that she'd hit the highlights.

Cons were harder to find. He had major emotional baggage, but he had survived the worst and was dealing with his issues honestly. Professionally he was rather adrift, but his dedication to helping those who were less fortunate touched her soul in a way his earlier commercial success didn't. He was a truly good man, and she found that incredibly, ravishingly, appealing.

She stared at the list, long on pros, short on cons, and came to an inescapable conclusion: The problem wasn't with Rob, but with her. Granted, the relationship was still fairly new, but considering that she was crazy about him, she shouldn't be this skittish. What was going on?

An old anecdote flickered through her mind, about a man who had spent years looking for the perfect woman. Eventually he'd found her, but to no avail because she was looking for the perfect man--and he wasn't it.

She had been looking for Mr. Right, and now that she had found him, she realized that she wasn't Ms. Right. For years she'd been telling herself that she hadn't found the right guy when the truth was she had chosen Mr. Wrongs so she wouldn't have to face what were obviously some major commitment issues. Rob had slid under her defenses almost by accident. Now that he was there, she didn't know what to do with him.

She shivered, suddenly tired and cold. She didn't want to lose Rob, but...marriage? The prospect made her want to flee to the high timber.

Smiling wryly, she stood and headed to her bedroom. When life settled down a bit, she would have to call Rachel and find out what was wrong. Rachel could always explain the twists in her friends' psyche. Better yet, she never did so unless asked.

In the meantime, she returned to her bed and rejoined Rob, burrowing as close to his warm body as humanly possible.

Chapter 18

Cal Murphy's office was a riot of papers gone mad. Val wasn't surprised. Public defenders were notoriously overworked. She knocked on the open door to let the office's inhabitant know she was there. "Cal? I'm Val Covington."

The man at the computer looked up, blinking behind thick glasses. Val said helpfully, "You said I could come by and talk to you about Daniel Monroe."

"Oh, right, right." He stood and offered his hand. Tall and angular, he had thinning hair and an engaging smile. "I'd apologize for the mess, but it's chronic so there's no point."

"Not a problem. You PDs average what, forty cases or so at once?"

He grimaced. "That's when things are going well. At the moment, I have almost a hundred. Pray for more city funding before the OPD goes under for the third time."

"I brought you some fuel." Val had checked with Murphy's secretary beforehand, so she opened a paper bag and produced two steaming containers of coffee. Handing over the larger one she said, "Your preference is for the largest white chocolate mocha latte in the Western Hemisphere, right?"

"My God, woman," he said reverently as he accepted the latte. "Are you married? Do you want to be?"

For a fleeting moment she thought of Rob's near proposal, and her bizarre reaction. He had not raised the subject since, and she had been embarrassingly grateful for that. "Sorry, I'm just opening my own office. No time for a husband."

"Just as well." He took a deep swallow of the latte, delicately licking whipped cream from his lips. "Not only would Val and Cal be ridiculous, but my wife would probably have something to say on the subject."

"A lot to say, if she's another lawyer. We never lack for words."

"Ginny is an ER doctor. I met her when one of my clients got himself shot in the gut by an angry drug dealer."