Lawman Lover Read online

  Erotic fantasies of him inundated her....

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Books by Saranne Dawson

  Title Page

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Epilogue

  Copyright

  Erotic fantasies of him inundated her....

  Electricity shot through Amanda: a bolt of lightning that jolted every nerve ending in her body.

  In the half second she had to anticipate Michael’s kiss, she expected harshness, an aggressive demand. Instead, a soft, subtle persuasion parted her lips and then made her tongue curve sensuously around his.

  He held her now carefully, almost uncertainly. For a moment she stood there, arms down at her sides, reveling in a helplessness that wasn’t really her, but belonged instead to the schoolgirl she had been.

  “I want you,” he rasped against the throat she had bared to him.

  Years ago the young girl had daydreamed about Michael Quinn, not really knowing what she wanted. But now the woman knew.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Saranne Dawson is a human services administrator who lives deep in the woods of central Pennsylvania. Her hobbies include walking, sewing, gardening, reading mysteries—and spending time with her grandson, Zachary.

  Books by Saranne Dawson

  HARLEQUIN INTRIGUE

  286—IN SELF DEFENSE

  307—HER OTHER HALF

  356—EXPOSÉ

  472—RUNAWAY HEART

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  Lawman Lover

  Saranne Dawson

  TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON

  AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG

  STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN • MADRID

  PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  Amanda Sturdevant—District attorney. Branded by a man she can’t forget and a long-ago accident she never understood, she’s now faced with another mystery from the past—and that same man.

  Michael Quinn—Police lieutenant. He’s never forgotten Amanda, either, and now he’s forced to deal with her again, and with a twenty-year-old murder that threatens to tear them apart.

  Jesse Sturdevant—Amanda’s sister. Beautiful, vivacious, mentally unstable. Does she know something about the crime?

  Judge Thomas Sturdevant—Amanda and Jesse’s father. A man about to realize his most cherished dream: a seat on the Supreme Court.

  John Verhoeven—A patrician investment banker and lifelong friend of Thomas Sturdevant. Does he know something about the mystery?

  Tina Jacobs—A former client of Amanda’s from her public defender days. She holds the key to unlocking the mystery, but she won’t talk.

  Mary Walters—-A saint to the poor she worked for, but a woman with a past.

  And The island—Remote, serene. Home to generations of old-monied families. But also the ultimate keeper of their secrets.

  Prologue

  The expensive champagne turned to vinegar in Amanda’s mouth. One minute, she was chatting with the mayor’s wife, quietly savoring her own victory in the midst of the mayor’s birthday celebration—and the next minute, the victory became hollow.

  What was he doing here?

  Politics, she told herself, answering her own question. Mayor Teddy was big on supporting the police, and Michael Quinn had received a lot of publicity recently when he broke up a major drug ring.

  She watched Michael move easily through the crowd, grateful that at least he hadn’t seen her yet. By all rights, he shouldn’t want to see her, instead of the other way around.

  Was there a Michael Quinn in every woman’s girlhood? she wondered, suspecting that to be the case. Somewhere during that time when sexuality first surfaced with all its attendant blushes and giggles and daydreams made vague by inexperience, every girl surely developed a crush on the wrong boy. She knew she should count herself among the lucky ones whose longings had gone unfulfilled—but the memory lingered.

  He seemed perfectly at ease, even in this high-powered crowd, flashing the smile that was all the more devastating for being so rare. He’d always been comfortable with himself. She was startled to realize suddenly that perhaps that had been part of her attraction to him then: that supreme self-confidence, even though his father had been serving a long sentence in Attica and his mother was rumored to be a prostitute and an alcoholic.

  Amanda resolutely turned her back on Michael and resumed her conversation with the mayor’s wife. With luck, he wouldn’t even notice her among the noisy crowd of birthday celebrants.

  IT WAS THAT SWINGING MANE of champagne gold hair that alerted Michael to her presence as she turned to the mayor’s wife. He wasn’t surprised to see Amanda here, of course; she’d grown up next door. Michael smiled as he lifted the glass of champagne to his lips.

  Amanda Sturdevant had laid him out before God and the judge and twelve jurors—strung him up to dry—but still he smiled. She was perfect in court: cool, but not cold enough to turn off the jury; very competent, but not arrogant; finely balanced between femininity and too-cute-to-be-taken-seriously. She’d go far, he thought, though she’d have done that anyway, simply by virtue of being a Sturdevant. No doubt she planned to follow in her distinguished daddy’s footsteps.

  Michael could afford to smile at her victory. His own reputation was intact Everyone on the squad knew that Wilson scumbag was guilty, and they would get him sooner or later. Michael had just tried to make it sooner—and Amanda Sturdevant had caught him at it.

  He knew that she’d had a crush on him in high school, though he’d never done anything about it First of all, she was three years younger than him—a big difference at that ago—and second, she’d given no hint then of the beauty she would become. Between the braces and the glasses and the tall, skinny awkwardness, she’d had nothing to offer him then—except for the satisfaction that he could appeal even to a girl from the Hill.

  But that was ten years ago, and somewhere in there, the ugly duckling had been transformed into an elegant and beautiful swan. The braces had done their job, leaving her with a smile that had damn near melted his holster and the 9 mm automatic in it. And the glasses had vanished, as well, baring thick-lashed, green-flecked eyes that had thrown sparks of challenge at him.

  And the body. Michael snagged a second glass of champagne as he peered through the crowd at a pair of long, slender legs exposed all the way to midthigh now—legs he’d only imagined while she was stringing him up in court. The crowd shifted a bit, and he stared appreciatively at the curves displayed to their best advantage in pale green silk.

  Ten years ago, she could have been his. He wondered what time had done to his prospects.

  “GOOD EVENING, COUNSELOR.”

  Amanda turned slowly—deliberately slowly—so that she could affix a polite smile to her face first. She knew that deep, slightly husky voice well. She heard it every time she relived her triumph in court.

  “Good evening, Detective.” Then, because she’d had two glasses of champagne and because she resented the little curls of heat that were spiraling through her, she added, “Or aren’t you a detective any longer
?”

  He chuckled, a low sound that vibrated through her and made her even angrier. “Yes, I’m still a detective. We see things differently on the other side of the plaza.”

  He was referring to the fact that the county court building that housed the public defender’s office stood opposite the police headquarters on the new plaza downtown that was the most visible sign of Port Henry’s rebirth.

  “I see,” she said, returning his steady gaze measure for measure, though not without some difficulty. “Then I suppose I can look forward to many more victories.”

  “If that’s what you want to call it,” he said, shrugging his wide shoulders. His tan raw silk jacket was quite handsome and looked expensive. She’d heard somewhere that he moonlighted, something to do with computers.

  “And what would you call it, Michael?” she challenged.

  His deep-set Celtic eyes glittered with black fire. “What I wouldn’t call it is justice. I’ll be sure to let you know the next time the defendant beats up some poor old lady for her Social Security money.”

  She flushed and hated herself for it. “When that happens—if it happens—I’d suggest that you catch him fair and square, instead of talking the victim into remembering a face she never saw clearly.”

  He leaned closer to her, and she caught a whiff of some woodsy cologne she liked. “‘Fair and square’ isn’t exactly the way of things down in the Bottom. But I wouldn’t expect you to understand that.”

  “Justice is justice, Michael—no matter where you live.” She refused to give him the satisfaction of drawing back, even though her legs were actually trembling a bit. His impact on her at close quarters was even greater than she’d feared.

  He moved back a few steps and chuckled again. “You don’t have a clue, do you? I thought your job would have opened your eyes a bit by now. What’s it called, Amanda—noblesse oblige? Is that why you’re dedicating yourself to the defense of scumbags?”

  She wanted to smash her champagne glass into his handsome face and add a few more scars to the tiny one on his cheek. Instead, she merely smiled. “Is this your way of reasserting yourself, Michael—I beat you in court, so yon feel the need to denigrate me?”

  “‘Denigrate.’ I like that word. I guess it pays to hang around Yale graduates. Sort of a self-improvement vocabulary course.”

  She knew she should just walk away. But she didn’t do it. Instead, she gave him a saccharine smile. “No doubt it’s an improvement over the Marine Corps.”

  She saw the surprised look on his face and knew immediately that she’d committed a major error: the mistake of letting him know that she knew anything about him. He’d mentioned Yale, so she’d brought up the Marine Corps. A dangerous game of one-upmanship. Two people admitting that they hadn’t completely ignored each other for ten years.

  “As a matter of fact, it is. It’s an improvement over the language at the station house, too.” He tilted his dark head, studying her through those bedroom-at-midnight eyes. “When are you going to get tired of defending scum like Wilson and move on?”

  “They deserve a competent defense,” she replied, parroting the words spoken regularly by all public defenders.

  He leaned toward her again. “What they deserve is to be tossed into the river wearing cement boots. It would cost a lot less, too.”

  “Does that include you, Michael? As I recall, you had a few run-ins with the law yourself.”

  This time, his chuckle turned into outright laughter. He was still too close to her, and she was mesmerized by the gleam in his eyes.

  “You’re right. Score one for you, Counselor. But I was just a kid, and I didn’t break into the apartments of old ladies to steal money for drugs. All I did was take a few things from some stores.”

  “If Joseph Wilson is guilty, you’re more to blame than I am for his getting away with it.”

  “Maybe so, but I’m still going to show up on your doorstep with photos the next time he beats up an eighty-year-old woman—just to share the blame a bit.”

  Amanda wondered if he meant it. The thought of having Michael show up on her doorstep didn’t have quite the effect she assumed he’d intended. Or maybe it did. There were two conversations going on here.

  Then suddenly, they seemed to have run out of talk, leaving far too much space for the other, subliminal conversation: raw, primitive, charged with a dark and dangerous heat.

  She glanced over his shoulder; the crowd was thick and noisy. It was time to go, time to back off from this flirtation with disaster. She thought about pushing her way through the throng to say good-night to her host and hostess, then decided they’d forgive her if she just slipped away.

  “Is your coach about to turn into a pumpkin?” he asked dryly.

  She smiled and nodded, then put out her hand. “Thank you for a pleasant evening, Detective,” she said, mimicking his tone.

  He held it just a shade too long. “Is your car next door? I didn’t see it out front.”

  She nodded, trying not to feel the satisfaction of knowing that he must have been looking for her.

  “I’ll walk you over to it. You never know when Joey or one of his buddies might decide to come up here where the real money is.”

  Later, she would think about this moment and how she should have refused his offer. But she didn’t. Instead, they walked across the stretch of lawn and trees that separated the mayor’s home from her family home, the sounds of the party gradually fading away behind them. And in the silence, the imagined conversation grew ever louder, inundating her with fantasies far more erotic than those of the teenager she’d been remembering.

  When they reached her car, which was parked in the circular driveway in front of the house, he asked her to drop him off at his car, saying that he’d been forced to park several blocks away because he’d arrived late. She couldn’t refuse, of course. To do so would be a tacit admission that she was afraid to be alone with him.

  “On the right, down there—the dark blue Cherokee,” he said a few minutes later as she drove slowly along the dark street.

  She stopped in the middle of the deserted street, and he reached for the door handle. It clicked open, and then he stopped and turned to her. He seemed to be about to say something, but before any words came out he was instead leaning across the seat and his mouth was on hers.

  Electricity shot through her: a bolt of lightning that jolted every nerve ending in her body. In the half second she had to anticipate his kiss, she expected a harshness, an aggressive demand. But what happened instead was its opposite: a soft, subtle persuasion that parted her lips and then made her tongue curve sensuously around his.

  It went on that way, filling one moment and then the next. Her hands continued to grip the wheel. His were braced against the seat. Only their lips were joined—and she knew it wasn’t enough. The young girl had daydreamed, not really knowing what she wanted. But the woman knew.

  He backed off a few inches, and his breath fanned against her lips, which bore his imprint. “I don’t live far from you—at Windcrest. Follow me there.”

  His voice was as soft—and as persuasive—as his kiss. And when she looked back on this moment, Amanda would be honest enough to admit to herself that she couldn’t have refused. It was too late.

  His HOME WAS NEAT and sparsely furnished with obviously good pieces—somehow not what she would have expected. And that made her vaguely uneasy. But how could he be more of a stranger than he already was? Until tonight, the only words she’d ever spoken to him had been in court.

  He took off his jacket and holster and slung them over the back of a leather chair, his movements casual and unhurried. The air-conditioning whispered softly, the only sound in a room filled with a silent tension.

  Then he held out his arms to her. There was a touching vulnerability to his gesture, a willingness to be rejected. But there was also an unspoken promise—or threat. If she walked into his arms, she could not walk away. She went to him.

  It started as
before, his lips gentle against hers, his hands now holding her carefully, almost uncertainly. For a moment, she stood there passively, arms down at her sides, reveling in a helplessness that wasn’t really her, but belonged instead to the schoolgirl.

  Michael’s warm, firm lips teased hers, then brushed against her cheek. His teeth pulled lightly at an earlobe before he began to forge a slow path down along the curve of her neck. She moaned softly, and the sound seemed to be coming from somewhere outside her as it mingled with his low growl. His hands slid down and drew her against him.

  “God, how I want you,” he rasped against the throat she had bared to him.

  “Yes,” she whispered, the word barely out before he scooped her up into his arms and carried her to his bedroom.

  He set her down on the big bed, then switched on a low bedside lamp. In the soft light, his eyes were dark, bottomless pools of desire, dizzying depths into which she plunged willingly, with no thought of whether she could ever surface again.

  He began to undress her slowly, kneeling at first to remove her shoes. But this thing between them, created by two bodies that were already heated to the flash point, was soon commanding them both. They fumbled with buttons and zippers and even laughed a bit at their clumsiness. And then they were naked on the bed, and his hard, hair-roughened body was tangled with hers.

  His mouth was at her breast and his fingers were probing her moist warmth, and they were both beyond anything but pure sensation and an impossible greed. The thing had taken them over completely, ignoring their impulses to go slowly and savor every nuance.

  Michael plunged into her, and she arched her body to meet his thrusts, and they let it take them and weld them together and carry them beyond themselves to a pulsing, pounding climax that they clung to as they clung to each other, shuddering and gasping.