Loving Evangeline Read online

  He bent her backward over his arm, the position thrusting her breasts upward. Her shirt was pulled up to completely bare them, she realized, wondering when that had happened. She saw her nipples, as red as berries; then his mouth closed over one, and her eyes closed as her head fell back.

  He was going to take her right here, on the counter. She felt his determination, his own rampant desire. Panic surged through her, combating the heat that undermined her own will and common sense. He would take her here, where anyone could walk in and see them. He would take her without any thought for birth control. And she, besides risking her reputation and the chance of pregnancy, would lose the last bit of protection she retained for her heart.

  His mouth was tugging at her nipple, drawing strongly on it before moving to the other one. And his hands were working at the waistband of her jeans, unsnapping and unzipping.

  Desperately she wedged her arms between their bodies and stiffened them. “No,” she said. The word was hoarse, barely audible. “Robert, no! Stop it!”

  He froze, his muscled body taut as he held himself motionless for a long moment. Then, very slowly, he lifted his hands from her and moved back, one step, then two. His breathing was fast and audible.

  Evie couldn’t look at him as she slid from the counter and hastily fumbled her clothing back into presentable shape, fastening her bra, smoothing her shirt down, snapping and zipping her jeans. Her own breath was coming light and fast.

  “Don’t look so scared,” he said calmly. “I gave you my word that I’d stop, and I did.”

  No, the problem wasn’t with his willpower, she thought wildly, but with hers. Had they been anywhere else but in the marina, she didn’t know if she could have made herself say no.

  “Nothing to say?” he asked a moment later, when she remained silent.

  She cleared her throat. “Not yet.”

  “All right.” He still sounded far too calm and in control. “We’ll talk tomorrow. I’ll pick you up at seven o’clock.”

  “Seven,” she echoed as he left.

  Robert was on the secure mobile phone in the Jeep by the time he had pulled out of the marina’s parking lot. “Did you follow him from the time he left work?” he asked as soon as the phone was answered.

  “Yes, sir, we did. We saw your Jeep at the marina and pulled back.”

  “Damn. I was out in my boat. He rented a boat and met someone out on the lake, possibly Evie, because she left the marina in her boat, too. Was he carrying anything when he left work?”

  “Not that we could tell, but he could easily have had a disk in his coat pocket.”

  “He didn’t fish in his suit. Where did he change clothes?”

  “At his house. He was there for not quite five minutes, then came out carrying a tackle box and a fishing rod.”

  “If he had a disk at all, it would have been in the tackle box.”

  “Yes, sir. We didn’t have a chance to get to it.”

  “I know. It wasn’t your fault. First thing, though, I’m going to have a secure phone put in the boat. That way, if I’m out on the water, you can get in touch with me.”

  “Good idea. We went through his house again while we had the chance. Nothing.”

  “Damn. Okay, continue to watch him. And send someone out to Evie’s house tonight.”

  “The matter we discussed?”

  “Yes,” Robert replied. It was time for the pressure to begin.

  Chapter Nine

  The next morning was awful. Evie hadn’t slept well—had scarcely slept at all. She had set the alarm for four-thirty, and when it went off she had been asleep for less than two hours. Dreaming about Robert was one thing, but she had been wide-awake and hadn’t been able to get him out of her mind. Her thoughts had darted from the seething passion of his lovemaking, incomplete as it had been, to the unease she felt every time she thought of how he so skillfully manipulated people. She tried to analyze what he did and couldn’t find any time when he had been malicious, but that didn’t reassure her.

  Sometime after midnight, lying in the darkness and staring at the ceiling, she realized what it was that so bothered her. It was as if Robert allowed people to see and know only a part of him; the other part, probably the closest to being the real man, was standing back, inviolate, carefully watching and analyzing, gauging reactions, deciding which subtle pressures to apply to gain the results he wanted. Everyone was shut away from that inner man, the razor-sharp intelligence functioning almost like a computer, isolated in a sterile environment. What was most upsetting was to realize that this was how he wanted it, that he had deliberately fashioned that inner isolation and wasn’t about to invite anyone inside.

  What place could she hope to have in his life? He desired her; he would be perfectly willing to make her the center of his attention for a time, in order to gain what he wanted: a carnal relationship. But unless she could break through into that fiercely guarded inner core, she would never reach his emotions. He would be fine, but she would break her heart battering against his defenses.

  She, better than others, knew how important emotional barriers were. She had propped herself up with her own defenses for many years, until she had slowly healed to the point where she could stand on her own. How could she condemn him for staying within his own fortress? She didn’t know if she should even try to get inside.

  The thing was, she didn’t know if she had a choice any longer. For better or worse, this afternoon he had slipped through her defenses. Such a little thing: playing with a baby. But it was the little things, rather than the watershed events, on which love was built. She had softened toward him when he had saved her and Jason’s lives, but her heart had remained her own. Today she had fallen in love; it wasn’t something she could back away from and ignore. It might be impossible to breach Robert’s defenses and reach his heart, but she had to try.

  Finally she drifted into sleep, but the alarm too soon urged her out of bed. Heavy-eyed, she put on the coffee and showered while it was brewing. Then, as she absently munched on a bowl of cereal and poured in the caffeine, a dull cramp knotted her lower belly. “Damn it,” she muttered. Just what she needed; she was going out with Robert for the first time that night, and her period was starting. She had thought she had another couple of days before it was due. She made a mental note that in a few days she should begin taking the birth-control pills the doctor had just prescribed.

  Normally her period didn’t bother her, but the timing of this one, added to lack of sleep, made her cranky as she left the house in the predawn darkness and climbed into the truck.

  The sturdy pickup, usually so reliable despite its high mileage, made some unfamiliar noises as she drove along the dark, deserted side road. “Don’t you dare break down on me now,” she warned it. She was just getting on a firm financial footing; a major repair job right now was just what she didn’t need.

  She reached U.S. 431 and turned onto it. The truck shuddered and began making loud clanging noises. Startled, she slowed and swept the gauges with a quick glance. The temperature was fine, the oil—Oh God, the oil gauge was red-lining. She slammed on the brakes and started to veer toward the shoulder, and that was when the engine blew. There were more clanging and grinding noises, and smoke boiled up around the hood, obscuring her vision. She steered the truck off the highway, fighting the heavy wheel as, deprived of power, the vehicle lurched to a halt.

  Evie got out and stood looking at the smoking corpse as it pinged and rattled, the sounds of mechanical death. Her language was usually mild, but there were some occasions that called for swear words, and this was one of them. She used every curse word she had ever heard, stringing them together in rather innovative ways. That didn’t bring life back to the motor, and it didn’t make her bank account any healthier, but it relieved some of her frustration. When she ran out of new ways to say things, she stopped, took a deep breath and looked up and down the highway. Dawn was lightening the sky, and traffic was picking up; maybe someone she knew