“Dance with me, Maria.”

She turned toward Jake, her body already betraying her with a jump in her heartbeat. A distracting sense of warmth made her feel slightly light-headed, in danger.

Then she was in Jake’s arms. “I was looking for you,” he said, his voice an irresistible mix of dark mood and confession. His breath brushed Maria’s ear and her throat. Hot. Tempting. Sinking against him would be so easy. So damn good.

Maria feared she couldn’t hide her vulnerability. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done to my life?”

Something had to be wrong between two people who could hate each other and yet yearn to make love. She found the strength to push him away. “You have what you want.” And she’d been a fool.

Jake turned toward the door, but paused. “I didn’t get what I want. And neither did you.”

Dear Reader,

I have the best job. I get to write romance for Harlequin Enterprises. At about the age of twelve, I read my first Harlequin book, set in a coastal town in Canada. I’ll never forget a scene where the heroine ran down a wooden staircase to the beach and ended up in the hero’s arms. Before my grandma gave me that book I’d read only the classics or history or mystery. As I read that first romance, I kept waiting for a body to fall. But how cool—this book was all about love growing between a man and a woman.

I’ve never stopped reading everything else, but I love romance. From that first book, I moved on to Harlequin Presents. When Anne Mather had a new release, I hurried it to the cash register. In college, after analyzing lit all semester, I’d rush to the bookstore for a break filled with romance.

Finally I sold my own first novel. Then, one surreal day, one of mine appeared on the Mills & Boon site on the same page as a Betty Neels release! I took a screen shot that follows me to each new laptop.

I’ve tried to bring all the passion I love reading about to Judge Jake Sloane and Dr. Maria Keaton’s story. While Maria reels with relief that Jake hasn’t betrayed her, he’s torn by guilt because he should have. Being Jake’s conflict of interest isn’t enough for Maria, but how can she learn to trust him? Visit me at annaadamswriter.blogspot.com to share your thoughts on the story.

Happy 60th anniversary, Harlequin! Happy reading to all of us who seek out our favorite books each month.

All the best,

Anna Adams

A Conflict of Interest
Anna Adams

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Anna Adams wrote her first romance on the beach in wet sand with a stick. These days she uses modern tools to write the kind of stories she loves best—romance that involves everyone in the family, and often the whole community. Love between two people, like the proverbial stone in a lake—the ripples of their feelings spread and contract, bringing conflict and “help” from the people who care most about them.

Anna is in the middle of one of those stories, with her own hero. From Iceland to Hawaii and points in between they’ve shared their lives with children and family and friends who’ve become family. Right now they’re living in a small Southern town, whose square has become the model for the one where much of the action happens in Honesty, Virginia. In fact, Anna wrote much of A Conflict of Interest in a coffee shop looking out at the courthouse that features in the story. All this living and loving gives Anna plenty of fodder to dream up stories of real love set in real life. Come along and live them with her!

To Missy, because the roads are empty without you.

And to June, Alan, Adam and Brandon,

good friends who’ve become family.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

BITS OF ICE PLINKED against the courtroom windows, to the odd accompaniment of whispering fans that dispersed the heat of too many bodies packed into one small space. The defense attorney, a walking cliché of paunch and righteous anger, set a composition book in front of Dr. Maria Keaton on the witness stand.

“Do you recognize this diary?” Buck Collier pointed with his thick finger.

Maria stared at the marbleized cover, rubbed almost gray. Her patient, Griff Butler, had scrawled shapes into the cardboard, bearing down so hard he’d drilled red and blue ink beneath the surface. He’d written words and then crossed them out with heavy marker. He’d drawn muscle-bound men firing guns that sprayed bullets across the mottled cover.

And he’d tried to make her read the pages, swollen with his secrets.

He’d had a crush. Sometimes patients got them, but as they healed, they also found out they didn’t truly love their therapists.

But one look at the man behind the judge’s bench, just above her, made her reconsider. The man whose gaze she’d avoided because his black eyes made her painfully aware that inappropriate, nearly mind-drugging attraction could also afflict her. Judge Jake Sloane didn’t even have to move to capture her attention.

Soon after she’d moved to Honesty, he’d said hello at a party and taken her hand just as someone else called to him from across the buffet table. She’d let go, but the low timbre of his voice had touched her. She’d dragged her hand out of midair to hold it close to her stomach. With a nod, Jake had strode away, his lean body cutting a swath through the crowd.

Attraction that felt more like instant addiction made her wary. After that, she’d hung back, watching Jake at town meetings and the food bank where they both volunteered. She’d waited for her ridiculous crush to wane.

Since the moment she’d answered the bailiff’s summons to the courtroom, she’d been uncomfortably aware of Jake, leaning back in his chair, his sharp features focused, totally belying his body’s false image of indifference.

“Dr. Keaton?” Buck’s imperious tone cut through Maria’s thoughts. “The journal. What’s in it?”

“I don’t know.” She forced her attention back to the defense attorney’s sweating face.

Buck waited, letting her reply echo in the room. “You may be ashamed to answer my questions, but the court demands you tell us what’s in that book.” The man’s beady blue eyes glittered with anticipation.

“I didn’t read the journal. Your client insisted he killed his parents. I had to call the police. That’s everything I know.”

He stared at her, his skepticism a big show for the jury. “You’re trying to make us believe you never opened that book?”

“Griff never let it out of his reach.”

Buck Collier continued to watch her, but again he didn’t speak. She’d used that same method too many times to be felled by it, and matched his silence with her own. He cracked first.

“You never asked to read it? He never asked you to?”

“He did.” He’d tried to make her, pulling it out of his book bag, hauling it out of the back of his pants, letting it slip from his folded jacket. He’d shoved it to her floor the day she’d finally called the police. “I couldn’t.”

“You couldn’t? You were too involved with him to read aloud his intimate feelings?” Collier waved his hand as bitterness crept, acidlike, into the pit of Maria’s stomach. The attorney performed a slow, surprisingly graceful twirl toward the jury box. “Didn’t you tell him to write those entries?”

“I suggested that writing about his feelings might clarify them. Writing about them with me in mind as a potential reader would have made the exercise pointless,” she said, her tone emphasizing that the journal had been a kind of prescription.

Collier gave her a smile that felt like a pat on the head for a troublesome child. A wordless That’s the best you can do?

It damn well was, because it was the truth.

Buck glided closer, a magician setting up his best trick. “You know what that book contains?”

“I do now.” Movement at her side drew her glance. Jake Sloane, deceptively relaxed, stared at her, and her throat tried to swell shut. She gave herself a mental shake.

She’d called the police because Griff had insisted he’d shot his parents. To this day, she doubted he’d actually done the crime. Regardless of whether he’d confessed to get her attention or truly had killed his mother and father, he needed help, and she had to get Jake out of her head and concentrate on her former patient.

“Dr. Keaton, why won’t you answer me?”

Behind Collier, Gil Daley, the prosecutor, leaned around his opponent’s body and shot her a warning glance.

“It’s your client’s journal, Mr. Collier.” Sitting back, Maria folded her hands in her lap, careful to erase all signs of tension. “I never opened it.”

“Uh-huh.” He took it back, weighing it in his hand, his glance filled with disdain. “Review it for us. A stirring tale of young love on the psychologist’s couch?”

Subtle as an anvil to the skull. Tittering rustled among the citizens of Honesty, Virginia, who’d arrived at court in time for tickets to this circus. Maybe they didn’t need proof.

Maria stifled a compulsion to face Jake and declare her innocence. Instead, she stared at the boy with the cold, blank eyes. Buck had dressed him in a nice black suit of mourning, but no one could show Griff how to pretend he felt—anything.

“I’ve never touched it. I haven’t opened the cover.”

“What did you touch, Dr. Keaton?”

On the raised bench, the judge moved in his squeaking leather chair.

Daley sprang from his seat. “Your Honor, I—”

Buck waved a dismissing hand at Gil. “Question withdrawn. I’m sorry, folks, but I get hot under the collar when justice is perverted.” Buck shook the book at Maria. “You know how Griff used this.”

The prosecutor spoke out for the eighth time during Maria’s cross-examination. “The defense asks the impossible. How does he expect the witness to testify to the contents of a journal she’s never read?”

Buck turned on Gil.

Scowling, Daley sat.

“If the prosecutor would maintain his seat and the peace, we could drill to the truth.” Like a powerful figure on a Michelangelo ceiling, Buck pointed at Maria. “This woman made my client write the diary. Not only has she read it, they’ve read it together. With every entry, they relived their sexual encounters. She thought up new—”

Maria froze. The packed courtroom erupted in whispers of “I told you so,” and shrill “No’s,” all backed by a slithering undercurrent of gasps, which Jake cut off with a curt, “Order.”

Maria heard and saw it all through a revolted haze.

The prosecutor leaped to his feet. “I object—”

Jake lifted his hand. “Hold on, Mr. Daley.” He hit a key on the laptop in front of him. “Step forward, gentlemen, and not another word out of anyone, or I’ll clear the gallery.”

As he sat forward, he glanced at Maria, searching for the truth. Every false indication of indolence fled as he raked her with his eyes. Shame—unexpected, unwelcome and totally unwarranted—made her skin sizzle.

Determined to face him down, she willed Gil aside when he stepped between her and Jake to have his say in furious whispers. Buck drawled a response, but he grabbed the ledge of Jake’s desk with his fists and betrayed the hard-fighting lawyer behind his mellow, country-boy mask.

Jake covered the microphone. Control vibrated in his husky tone, though Maria couldn’t discern most of his words. When she heard him say her name, she became even more uneasy, but Gil still blocked her view.

Jake’s low voice emphasized his warning to the attorneys with the words “personal attack” and “contempt.” He finished with a louder “Stand back.”

A red flush slowly spread from Collier’s collar. Gil turned away, saying respectfully, “Thank you, Your Honor.”

Collier retook the podium at the end of his table. “What’s in the notebook, Ms. Keaton?”

“Doctor,” Gil said.

Jake swung calm but killing eyes toward the prosecutor, who sat. Jake prompted Buck with raised brows. All the while, Maria either sensed or imagined the judge’s focus on her. And she could barely breathe.

“Dr. Keaton?” Distaste dripped from Buck’s tone.

Maria refused to act the defensive, sex-crazed, older woman part he’d dreamed up. “Griff offered me the notebook.” Now that the accusation was out in the open, she kept her voice calm and rational. The law required her to report a crime, but she didn’t have to throw away her client or her own reputation. “I never read it.”

Buck laughed as if she’d told a joke that wasn’t in the least funny. “You’ve seen these pages how many times?”

“Asked and answered,” Gil said. “Ad nause—”

“Gentlemen,” Jake said, as if nothing about this situation troubled him in the least, “I’ve warned you.”

Buck’s complacent expression faltered. “You can’t deny Griff wanted you to see what he’d written.”

She’d come to this courtroom with one goal in mind, to make the jury see the kid needed help, not a prison sentence. Instead, she was defending herself against Collier’s plan to make her seem like a pervert on the prowl in her own practice.

“You opened Griff up to his feelings, didn’t you, Dr. Keaton?”

Revolting filth of a man.

The courtroom spectators whispered. Jake’s chair squeaked, like nails raking a chalkboard, and she felt him looking at her. She refused to meet his gaze. She’d put distance between herself and Jake after she’d begun to treat his daughter, Leila. The last thing Leila Sloane or any of Maria’s clients needed was for their therapist to be suspected of seducing an under-aged teen.

“My clients don’t walk out of textbooks. Textbook answers won’t always help them.”

Gil leaned forward, warning her again.

“I hear you took a suicidal teen mountain climbing,” Collier said.

“We climbed the side of a ridge at a camp.” And she’d been scared half out of her wits.

“You also ran a marathon?”

“A half one.” With a woman who couldn’t stand still for fear her father’s sexual abuse would catch up with her.

For another client too afraid of public speaking to make a simple speech in his own boardroom, Maria had listened to late-night rehearsals on the phone until her ear was as cauliflowerlike as the most inept boxer’s.

She’d cooked meals and walked labyrinths and finally gone to the police when Griff Butler had refused to retract the confession she still doubted.

“You know how to make people comfortable. You make them trust you.”

She eyed him but said nothing.

“And you used what Griff Butler said in this notebook to make him your—”

She planted both business-casual heels on the floor. This man would not make her look incapable, even to save a kid she cared for. “I don’t know what he wrote.”

“Open it,” Buck said. “Read the pages you shared with my client at each meeting—including the ones outside your office.”

“I’ve never met Griff outside my office, Mr. Collier.”

“You’re formal with me, Dr. Keaton.” He made her title an insult. “But you dropped the decorum with Griffy, didn’t you?”

She let herself smile. The prototypical Southern lawyer had made an error. “Griff claims I called him that?” Insecurity plagued the boy. He’d feared that no one, not even his own mother and father, had loved him.

“Open the book, Dr. Keaton.”

She stared at Buck, pretending his peremptory tone amused her.

“Objection,” Gil said. “The defense is harassing Dr. Keaton. She has sworn under oath several times that she never read these pages. How can they be relevant?”

Jake’s exaggerated stillness was a warning. His bland expression suggested he’d expected Gil to come up with something more effective, which troubled Maria. At last, Jake looked at the defense. “Get to the point, Mr. Collier. Skip the commentary.”

“Did you have an affair with my underage client, Dr. Keaton?”

It hurt. Against her will, she glanced at Griff, who stared at nothing.

“Answer me, Dr. Keaton. Don’t look at that boy.”

“I did not have an affair with Griff. I wanted him to be well. I’m his psychologist. Nothing more.”

“You were his so-called therapist. After you broke doctor-client privilege, I believe his aunt fired you?”

His aunt was the only one left to fire her after his parents died. “Griff, you know why I told the police what you said.”

Jake’s seat came upright with a scream of springs. “Dr. Keaton, you will not—”

Buck pointed a vindictive finger. “You can’t control this boy now that he’s come to his senses. He understands you abused him.”

“Your Honor.” Gil went off like a rocket.

Maria turned to the jury, Griff’s last hope. He needed treatment, and they held the power. But Buck had come up with the perfect offensive defense. If the jury thought she’d seduced a kid in her care, they could set a possibly murderous boy free on their own unsuspecting community, on his younger cousins and their parents.

“I never hurt Griff. He and I discussed only the problems that brought him to my office, and none of those problems included an inappropriate relationship between us. I care about this boy as I care about all my clients, but I did not sleep with him.”

Jake banged his gavel once. “Dr. Keaton, Collier, Daley, this remains my courtroom, and you’re all perilously close to contempt.”

“I’m sorry.” She turned to him. His black gaze was a wall that bounced her back. “No one seems to realize what’s at stake for that kid.”

“You were telling us how deeply you care for my client, Dr. Keaton.” Collier leaped on her apparent weakness. “Enough to ruin his future after he rejected your sexual advances?”

Jake turned in his chair, silent, menacing. Behind Maria, the jury rustled like debris swept up in a tornado.

“Stop, Mr. Collier, or I’ll walk you to a cell myself.” Jake’s voice seemed to shatter Collier’s bloated confidence. “Bailiff, take the jury out.”

The men and women stepped on each other’s heels, trying to size up Maria. She glanced at Jake. His thoughts were as plain as Buck’s. Griff’s defense had already created at least one instance of reasonable doubt.

She turned to stare after the jury. Would her word be enough for them? What would happen to the rest of her clients when word of Griff and Buck’s story got out? She was no martyr. What would happen to her and her practice? Her future?

The soft thud of Jake’s fist dropping onto his desk made Maria jump, but she couldn’t look him in the eye. She didn’t want him to think the worst of her.

For two years she’d been trying to make this small town her home, ignoring speculative looks from new neighbors who were reluctant to accept someone they considered unconventional. But she’d had compassion on her side. Over time, she’d helped enough loved ones to be allowed her place in Honesty, and she’d grabbed it with both hands and all her heart.

And then her heart had drawn her toward Jake Sloane. After the party, she’d remembered only him, exuding power borne of his comfort in his own desirable skin.

They’d met many times. She’d sneaked glances at him as they’d worked together on food lines and discussed changes on the Friends of the Library board. She’d cleaned litter on the edges of town with a group that included him. But before any relationship could develop, he’d become off-limits.

One morning, his daughter Leila had made an appointment with Maria. During her sessions Leila had revealed arms and thighs scarred from the cutting she’d started after her parents’ acrimonious divorce.

Leila didn’t want her father to know she needed help. According to her, he thrived in his own detached world, and he didn’t care to be disturbed. She swore her father was so neutral he’d try to argue both sides of sin at the pearly gates. A bad quality in a father, but it guaranteed he’d run an objective courtroom.

Maria might have kept her distance from her patient’s father like a good little psychologist, but she sure as hell didn’t want Jake Sloane, the man she’d wanted from across many rooms, to think she’d seduce a kid who depended on her.

“Buck,” the judge said, “I don’t want any more of your opinions. If you have a theory with merit, share that, but no more innuendo.”

“Your Honor, I’m allowed—”

Jake held up his hand. “To argue an alternative theory, which you are not doing. You’re not suggesting Dr. Keaton murdered the Butlers?”

“No, sir,” Buck spluttered.

“You’re not allowed to slander a witness. Stop testifying for your client. If he has something to tell the court about Dr. Keaton, the jury wants to hear it from him.” Next, he turned to the prosecutor. “Mr. Daley, we’ll take a brief recess so you can instruct your witness on protocol, and so she can regain her composure. All of you, remember why you’re here, or you’ll be giving me your excuses from jail.”

Jake rose, impossibly tall, his face as harsh and fine as a sculpture. His long, capable fingers grazed the desk, just inches from Maria.

Her heart beat in her throat.

He stared at her as if she’d grabbed him, as if he could see all the unsettling images in her head, of his hands on her, of her whispering, I’ve wanted you so long.

Maria almost laughed. She was a freaking casebook. Young woman whose father had died when she was too young. She’d searched for authority, even while she’d rejected it.

Falling for Jake was a cliché, and yet she couldn’t breathe as he walked away. His robes ballooned, and the scent of clean male brushed her. He left through a door behind the paneled wall, and she fought with sheer will to stay upright.

CHAPTER TWO

GRIFF SCRAPED BACK his chair and followed a deputy out of the courtroom. Buck walked behind his client, glowering at Maria.

Gil headed to the witness box then hustled her to the hall, bending close to her so no one in the gallery could hear his anger. “What are you thinking? I warned you Buck would pull something. You should know how to handle him.” With a hand at her elbow, he urged her toward the office he was using during the trial. He shut the door behind them.

“I didn’t expect what they said.” She could hardly explain that she didn’t want Jake to see whether Griff had spun credible fantasies in that diary. “Who would believe I’d—”

“The jury,” Gil said. “Buck’s hoping they’ll believe you ratted Griff out to get back at him for not wanting a relationship with you. You’ve even got Sloane looking uncertain.”

“He’s not supposed to choose a side.”

“That’s how bad you’re hurting my case. You’ve got a guy who never sides with anyone, giving you the once-over because you have an urge to nurture a kid who killed his parents.”

“He doesn’t belong in prison, Gil. He needs care.”

“He needs bars and round-the-clock guards. If a kid his age can kill his parents, what comes next?”

“What if he didn’t do it? He tried every way he could think of to make me read that journal. What if his confession is one more trick, but it got out of hand?”

“What if you’re the most gullible human being ever born? You’d better stop letting your heart bleed for Griff and think about where you belong.”

“I’m no idiot. I know I could lose my job.” Even innocence couldn’t wash away the stain of suspicion in a small town. “But this kid came to me for help, and I feel responsible.”

Gil pulled out a chair at the room’s lone table and, after she sat, took the seat across from her. “Are you kidding? You’ll have so many calls tomorrow you’ll have to find a partner. This town hardly ever gets a good look at a harlot.”

“That’s hilarious,” she said, as if she were talking through ground glass. “I’m not a harlot, and getting that reputation won’t pay my mortgage.”

“Then calm down and let’s get back to our plan. Collier has you on the run, but use the skills that make you a good therapist. You can see where he’s leading you. Don’t follow.”

She pressed her hands to her cheeks. She had to get Jake out of her head.

Gil sat back, folding his hands between his legs. “I have to ask you the question.”

“Did I sleep with Griff?”

“Thanks. I didn’t know how to phrase it.”

“You don’t have to use kid gloves.”

“You look rattled.”

“He’s a kid. I’m twice his age.”

“I wish you’d told me how he felt about you.”

“It was a kid’s crush. Any first-year psych student has heard of transference. I figured he’d get over it.” Just as she was supposed to get over this crazy thing for the judge.

“Do you think his parents might have found out about—”

“There was nothing to find out. I shouldn’t have to explain that to you. Griff said they argued when his parents canceled his senior trip to Cancun because they found ecstasy in his room. It had nothing to do with me.”

Gil walked around the table, scanning her face. “You may never know for sure what caused the violence in that home. Griff’s obviously a liar, but we found no drugs when we searched the house.”

“He was living with his aunt and uncle for over a month before you executed the search warrant.”

“My point is, I can’t have him searched daily unless he’s in jail. If we don’t get him put away, he’ll be in constant contact with his little cousins and the kids at school.” Gil turned toward the window. “And anyone he passes in the street.”

Maria saw exactly how naive she’d been—with the district attorney. “Does everyone get away with lying to me these days?” Talk about losing her touch. “You tricked me into testifying, when you planned to lock him up all along.”

“I’m responsible to Channing and Ada Butler, and the family they left behind. You, of all people, should understand the kind of violence that kid’s got in him if he shot his parents.”

They’d reached an impasse. “I do, but something caused all this.”

“Other than just plain evil?” He shrugged. “Don’t let Collier throw you and we’ll get this kid off the streets. Deny the affair, but stay calm. Don’t make Griff look like a victim.”

“I know how to handle the truth.” She tugged at the neckline of her blouse, trying to cover any curves that made her look like a woman.

He assessed her. “I believe Griff’s dying to take you down because you didn’t sleep with him, but that version of the story isn’t as salacious as a woman wanting revenge against a kid who’s dumped her.”

“Is Buck going to read that journal out loud?”

“I would if I had it.” He shook his head. “I don’t know what he’ll do. If they read it in the jury room and believe it, we’re still sunk.”

“I didn’t do it.”

Not even Gil would look her in the eye. “Answer only Buck’s questions. Don’t put Griff’s future before yours—and don’t give the jury an excuse to burn my evidence.”

“I am most of your evidence.”

“Exactly.” He opened the door, but checked to see if anyone else was near. Only the bailiffs, impervious as marble. “Griff can explain away the blood on his shoes and clothes by saying he was checking on his parents. You’re the only proof against him that he can’t explain without calling you bad names, so I’d prefer you take the high road and not get arrested for contempt.”

“At least I won’t be alone.”

Nor were they now. The women’s room door opened and a tall, tired woman came out, stumbling when she saw Maria.

She took glasses from her pocket and slid them on, the better either to stare with scorn at her nephew’s doctor, or to shield her own doubt.

But Angela Hammond couldn’t hide her pain, and Maria’s instinct was to reach out to her. Angela huffed and made her deliberate way back to the courtroom.

“Don’t let that bother you,” Gil said.

“Because she won’t be the only one turning her back on me?” She tried not to sound as frightened as she felt. This town was her first real home. She wanted to help Griff Butler, but at the cost of everything that made her who she was?

Gil took her arms and spun her around to face him. “I don’t like that tone. You’re not thinking of backing out?”

At that moment, Jake came out of another door. He stared from Gil’s grasping fingers to Maria’s face. One dark eyebrow went up, and the cold father Leila had described disappeared.

The silence grew thick and hot, but Maria, adept at feeling another person’s pain, could not read Jake.

Did he think she’d been flirting with the prosecutor? Working her apparently irresistible wiles?

Without seeming to move, Jake ended up toe to toe with Gil. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” His furious question had the power to shake the building on its foundation.

Gil took a step back then looked embarrassed about backing away from another man. “Talking to my client.” He stared at Jake. “Your Honor.”

“Which led you to put your hands on her?” Jake glanced at Maria. “Are you all right?”

“I’m…” She meant to say fine, but she went blank.

No one had ever protected her. She was the product of freewheeling nomads…a mother who’d perfected her skills for any job that came with a chance to attract a man, and a father who’d dropped in once in a while, always promising Maria and her sister, Bryony, they’d be a family. Someday.

Their dad had “borrowed” from their piggy banks, talked their mother out of their minuscule college funds and eventually died in a boating accident with his latest squeeze, bolting across a lake with the money they’d snatched off a poker table in a so-called friendly, floating game.

Maria remembered everything about his last departure, down to the smear of mud on his rounded shoe heel and the stitching on his carry-on bag.

Typical. The mind under stress returns to a similar episode and handles the new stress the same way. “I’m fine,” she said, as she had then, over and over again.

She wrapped her hand around Gil’s upper arm to show Jake that the prosecutor wasn’t the problem. “We were just going back.”

“Daley.”

Gil turned weary, slightly petulant eyes on Jake. “Sir, this case is getting to all of us, but you don’t have to be suspicious of me.”

“I’ll agree Buck can be persuasive when he plays good old boy, but I’m not sure you want to intimidate your own witness.”

“You’re on the verge of saying something inappropriate to a prosecutor and his witness in a case you’re hearing.”

Jake rounded on Gil again. “I don’t give a damn if you’re planning to try my grandmother next. Touch a woman in my courthouse and I’ll give you plenty of reason to ask for my recusal. Again, I ask, are you all right, Dr. Keaton?”

“Fine.” Her tongue seemed mostly stuck to the roof of her mouth. “You misunderstood.”

Jake’s twisted smile managed to suggest she made a habit of protecting violent men. “Gil isn’t dragging you into court?”

She overreacted, as would any woman who cared for a man she hardly knew and didn’t want him to think she’d let…“I’m not some sick woman who only hangs around with kids who kill their parents and guys who manhandle women.”

“Excuse me, but will you both shut up, and let’s get on with this trial?” Gil grabbed at the knot of his tie as if he were fighting its grip. “I beg your pardon, Judge, but I’ve come too far with this case to risk a mistrial now.”

“The prosecutor is right, Dr. Keaton.” Jake looked faintly startled at having to be reminded. He crossed in front of them and opened the door to his chambers.

His absence left a vacuum, as if the force of his personality had taken all the good oxygen with him.

“Why did he come this way?” Maria asked.

“I’ve seen him pace this hall before when we’ve had troubling cases. You’re surprised this one bothers him?”

Trembling threatened to take her legs out from under her. “He thinks I might be the guilty one.”

Gil nodded. “But you can fix everything.”

“Don’t try to play me anymore. I came to you because the law required it, and I thought you might see that Griff was in trouble. You just want me to help you lock him away for life.”

He nodded. “Now you’re seeing the light. Let’s go.”

The instant she set foot inside the courtroom, every head turned. A wave of disdain slammed into her.

For a second, she was back in elementary school. One of the Keaton girls, whose mother, Gail, showed up in big hair, brilliant-colored flowing faux silks and excesses of fake gold—when she remembered to attend parent conferences at all. Maria breathed in, preparing to run the gauntlet. She lifted her chin and pretended that nothing could touch her. She’d made peace with her mother and her past. She didn’t fight that kind of battle any longer.

She walked to a seat behind Gil’s table. Within moments, the jury returned. A door behind the bench opened and Jake came in. His eyes scanned her face, and she felt as if his fingers had followed.

She shuddered.

Her whole body went hot and then cold. She didn’t enjoy feeling out of control. People considered her nonconformist, maybe even quirky, but she managed risk by knowing her boundaries exactly.

Jake nodded to the bailiff, who asked the room to rise. Jake waved them back into their seats.

“Defense?”

Buck took his spot behind the podium. “Will you return to the stand, Dr. Keaton? That is, if you’re able to continue.”

“Mr. Collier.” Jake had clearly had enough.

Maria squared her shoulders, needing no rescue. “I’m happy to go on.”

“Why did you give the district attorney this ridiculous—All right, Your Honor, I’ll rephrase. Why did you tell the D.A. that Mr. Butler had anything to do with his parents’ deaths?”

“The law requires me to report crime. I had to tell the police when Griff confessed that he’d killed his mother and father.” She paused. Wisdom required her to shut the hell up. Years of practice and caring for people in need ripped the words out of her mouth. “Even if I didn’t have to report the crime, this child’s in trouble. He needs help.”

Gil straightened in his chair. Maria refused to look at him but swore inwardly that she’d do herself no more harm.

“Griff Butler is in trouble because of you,” Collier said. “We’ve explained all the so-called evidence linking him to these crimes. They brought a grieving young man to trial on the strength of a lie told by a woman fifteen years his senior, who fought back after he ended their illicit affair.”

“Objection.” Gil’s voice cracked across the courtroom. “At the least, the defense assumes facts not in evidence. We have only Mr. Collier’s innuendo as proof that an affair occurred.”

“I’d like to enter my client’s journal into evidence, Your Honor.”

“My objection stands. Maybe the defendant wrote these stories, but their existence does not make them truth.”

“We disagree and we want the jury to have all the evidence.”

“The prosecution has never seen this notebook.”

Jake gestured for the defense attorney to pass it to the court clerk. “As you well know, Mr. Daley, the defense is not required to disclose. I’ll allow the journal with the stipulation the jury understands no claims in this document have been proven as fact. The entries go to state of mind.”

Maria watched it move across the room as if no actual hands were holding it.

“Your Honor, I’ve marked the passages where Griff talks about how reluctant he is to hurt Dr. Keaton by ending their alliance. He also notes the day she swore she’d make him pay for leaving her.”

Maria sat perfectly still, hiding her shock.

But Gil had found his feet again. “…is testifying for the witness. Perhaps Your Honor could instruct him to wait until closing before he sums up his case full of lies.”

“I suggest you both stick to the facts at hand.” Jake’s tone remained utterly calm. “Mr. Collier, have you any more questions for this witness?”

“No, Your Honor. I think we all know—”

“Mr. Collier, I gave you a break earlier. Are you asking for a contempt charge?”

Buck attempted a defiant look, but his squarish jaw wobbled. “No, sir.”

“Thank you. Mr. Daley, any redirect?”

“Yes.” Gil grabbed his notepad, but didn’t even glance at the yellow pages as he stepped to the podium. “Dr. Keaton, did you have an affair with Griff Butler?”

“No.”

“Did you read his diary?”

“No.”

“If he claims in his journal that you were in love with him, or that you and he had a sexual relationship, will that be a lie?”

“Yes.”

“Did you threaten to accuse him of murder?”

“No.”

“Did he confess to shooting his parents?”

“Yes.” She couldn’t afford a second of hesitation. Her future did matter—desperately.

“Have you been honest in giving your testimony?”

“Yes.”

He stepped back, flaunting his pleasure at ending on a rational note. “Nothing more, Your Honor.”

“Anything from you, Mr. Collier?”

“One question, Your Honor.” He danced with the silence for maximum effect. “Miss—Dr.—Keaton, do you love Griff Butler?”

Did he honestly think he could unnerve her now? “No.”

Buck exaggerated his disappointment, as if he’d expected her to find the moral strength to confess her sins.

“Mr. Collier?” the judge asked.

“I’m done with her.”

Maria looked at Jake. His gaze was troubled, and yet, a deep down kindness made him look like Leila, who swore he did not know how to care. About anything.

Leila had been wrong.

Like everyone else in this room, Judge Jake Sloane wanted to know if Maria had seduced Griff Butler.

THE NEXT MORNING, Jake lifted the collar of his black overcoat and yanked the cashmere collar around his ears. Normally, he hurried to work, certain he had the reins tight in his courtroom, but today, he didn’t know how to be objective. He also didn’t know whom to suspect, but the thought of Maria Keaton seducing that kid half enraged him and half filled him with dread.

He was ready with rage for a woman wrongfully accused. The dread came from his own confusing attraction to Maria, who’d ducked his every approach. He might not be the only man in town, but he had a mirror. He was okay to look at.

He had a good job. The evidence informed him women found him attractive. Since he’d finalized his divorce, the available ladies of Honesty had offered comfort in his so-called loneliness.

But the only woman he wanted had shied away from more than simple conversation.

He shoved his hands in his pockets and shrugged, his collar now seeming to choke him. Maybe he finally understood why Maria had been so uninterested.

A flake of early November snow blew into his eye, and he yanked his bare hand out of his pocket to brush it away. Overnight the snow had covered the streets and piled up against the Victorian buildings on the square. With plenty more storm on the way, the sky was about as light as at sunset. Veering toward the courthouse, Jake had to pass the relatively new shops, all made to look weathered, in the recently misnamed Old Honesty Market.

Men in thick coats and gloves were swagging holiday lights from storefront to storefront while a woman watched, leaning on one of the cement posts that prevented traffic from entering the shopping area.

He sucked in a cold breath, but was it the air that froze his lungs?

Snow dotted Maria’s honey-brown hair. She crossed her arms over the top of the pillar and rested her chin on her hands. A long deep-burgundy coat cinched her narrow waist. She lifted one calf, rubbing it against the other as if to warm herself, and Jake imagined walking up behind her, sliding his arms around her, breathing in the scent of her silky hair.

Could she molest a client? A sixteen-year-old boy who’d needed her as much as any patient in Honesty could have?

As if Maria sensed his near-savage need for an answer, she turned. Jake stared through the fat, falling flakes. She looked back, her eyes anxious as if she had something important to say. It was the way she always looked at him—until she pulled a strange coat of touch-me-not around herself.

Was it that kid who stood between them?

She opened her mouth but then only nodded.

He looked toward the courthouse windows. “Are you going?”

“I can’t stay away.”

He walked to her. As usual, she searched for anywhere to go, but he refused to get out of her way. “Why?”

“He needs help.” She grabbed the tails of the soft ivory scarf knotted at her throat. Matching mittens covered small hands that trembled. Fragility beneath her strength made him want to cover her hands with his and rub warmth into her fingers. “You could help him,” she said.

He turned, but her hand caught his forearm. Hell, he’d imagined touching her for damn near a year. He’d talked to her for the sheer sensual jolt of hearing her voice.

She was a witness in a trial in his courtroom.

“I can’t discuss the case with you.”

“You can see he’s in trouble. Just flavor your instruct—”

“Maria, do you want to look guilty?” He tugged her hand off his arm, but she wrapped her fingers around his, and he found himself tugging her closer. “You don’t seem to realize your doggedness makes Griff’s side of the story seem more plausible. Why does he matter so much to you?” He raised his face to the sky as if he were reaching from under water for breathable air. “Don’t tell me what you’ve done, and stop incriminating yourself.”

“You mean, stop helping someone who needs me.” She tried to pull away, but her wrist ended up beneath his thumb. The ribbing on her thin mitten slid aside, and he could have counted her racing pulse.

“I cannot do this.” He eased her away from him. God, she smelled good. He wanted to breathe her in. He wanted—“If you say another word, I’ll have to recuse myself.” He turned away. His coat brushed at his legs. He ached with frustration and need stoked by the brief touch of her hand.

“I didn’t touch Griff. He was my patient, and he’s a sick kid. You know how to see both sides of any story. Why can’t you see his?”

How did she know that about him? He pretended not to hear, though the slow fall of snow buffered them from everyone else on the square.

He wanted to believe her concern was just that. Concern. But women could lie, even women whose seeming innocence somehow infused the air they breathed with sex. Especially women like Maria.

She couldn’t control her anxiety for Griff, who’d called her a monster in front of a courtroom. She might be so driven by her own needs that she couldn’t turn her back on that kid.

This case was getting to Jake. He yanked at his lapel. This kid and Maria Keaton had nothing to do with his private life. He’d once had a wife who’d lied to him over and over and expected him to believe her every time. Kate wasn’t every woman. Maria wasn’t Kate.

He had to reclaim his objectivity.

“Damn.”

Closing arguments would start by this afternoon. They could have a verdict before morning.

And then he’d have to take a disinterested look at Griff Butler’s story and at Maria’s—Dr. Keaton’s. One of them was lying.

If she’d hurt that kid, he’d have to report her to the Psychology Review Board.

CHAPTER THREE

TWO DAYS LATER, just past 2:00 p.m., the jury filed in, all staring at their feet.

Jake avoided looking at the gallery where Maria was sitting. While everyone else in the courtroom had wondered if Maria was guilty, she’d studied the jurors with a pleading face, as if she could will them to see Griff through her eyes, as a sick child.

A sick child might not survive prison.

Jake gripped his chair arms, but somehow, he was remembering the silky seduction of Maria’s skin beneath his fingers. He had to stop thinking about her. Her self-destructive refusal to back down reinforced his career-long commitment to keeping his personal feelings out of the courtroom.

He’d heard the gossip. As Buck had said, Maria’s practice was anything but traditional. Apparently, she didn’t believe in the conventional therapist’s tools—a couch, a knowing smile, a “How did that make you feel?”

The obvious question nagged at him. How big a jump was it from meditating on mountains to making so-called love in her office?

Jake had to read that journal. Forcing his attention from Maria’s face, he dragged his mind back to the task at hand.

The jurors sat. Jake nodded to their foreman. “Have you reached a verdict?”

“Yes, Your Honor,” she said.

“Bailiff?”

The uniformed officer took the verdict slip from the foreman and handed it to Jake. He opened it, glanced over it. It wasn’t a total shock. But, completely out of character, all he could think was that he had to decide what to do next about Maria.

Jake handed the slip back to the bailiff, who returned it to the foreman, a woman old enough to harbor grandmotherly sentiments toward Griff. She unfolded the paper and cleared her throat before she gave the boy a warm smile.

“In the matter of the Commonwealth versus Griffin Samuel Butler, on the first count of first-degree murder, in the murder of Channing Butler, we find the defendant not guilty.”

Voices surged like background sounds in a movie. Half the gallery agreed with the verdict. Half definitely did not.

The foreman continued, “On the second count of first-degree murder, in the murder of Ada Butler, we find the defendant not guilty.”

Griff looked stunned, as if he’d been imagining prison walls and found himself transported out of this musty room to the middle of fresh new snow and the twinkling lights blinking holiday colors on the square. That kid had plenty to be grateful for.

Jake picked up his gavel. Conversation ceased except for muffled sobbing as he turned to face the jury.

“Thank you for your service to the Commonwealth,” Jake said. “You may speak to the press if you wish. If you prefer not to discuss this case or the verdict, follow the bailiff, and he’ll escort you to an alternate exit.”

He turned to Griff, who’d reached behind him, turning over his chair as he grabbed at his family.

His aunt, still crying, held out her arms. His uncle extended a strong hand. Griff tried to take both.

Far from gloating, as the guilty tended to do when they got off, he just looked like a kid. Happy to be going home to the people he was supposed to love.

Supposed to. That was the problem. No matter what a man might see in his job, day in and day out, he assumed a sixteen-year-old kid loved his mother and dad.

At least Jake assumed. And unless Griff was adept at a sociopath’s crocodile tears, he was grateful and glad to wrap trembling arms around his aunt and uncle.

Jake searched for Maria. Perched on the edge of her seat, her hands folded in her lap, she might have looked the part of a prim schoolmarm, but Jake felt a grim compulsion to get her out of here before anyone else saw how deeply she cared for the kid who’d thrown her to the wolves.

It was surreal being one of two still people in a room boiling with activity. Usually, a verdict freed Jake of responsibility. His job stopped at making sure the defendant got a fair trial.

Not this time. Juries were made up of humans. For the first time, he allowed himself to contemplate the possibility that twelve humans had made a mistake.

That skinny boy might have taken the gun from his father’s safe and loaded the shells. Gil Daley theorized Griff had then walked up two twisting flights of stairs in his right-side-of-Honesty house and stood over his sleeping parents. He’d had all that time to rethink his plan. Could a kid kill his parents because they’d grounded him?

What about his aunt and uncle? Jake studied the last two adults in the Butler family. With their arms around Griff and each other, they still reached with outstretched fingers, seeking even more contact, as if they all feared a cop was going to show up and drag Griff back to his cell.

Angela Hammond had lost her sister. Were she and her husband covering for Griff because he was all that remained of his mother?

Gil hadn’t found the least whiff of violence in the Butler household. However, at the high school, the teachers and principal had described several escalating incidents, from shoving in the hall to a more dangerous infraction in the boys’ room, when Griff had shoved a freshman’s head into the toilet.

Which any kid might do if his therapist were abusing him.

Jake straightened, searching inwardly for his customary sense of justice served. Time and the law moved forward, and Jake had no choice. The jury’s decision ruled.

“Mr. Butler, you are free to go.”

Shouting and laughter clashed. A couple of groans layered in an undertone. The boy and his relatives started hugging all over again, still stunned and even happier.

Holding his gavel loosely in his hands, Jake eyed Griff Butler with Maria’s doubt, but Griff was oblivious. He wriggled toward the aisle, past his attorneys, but then he saw Maria.

She leaned toward the kid, her face vulnerable, soft with concern.

She opened her mouth, as if to speak. Jake almost lifted his hand, to warn her. Griff’s aunt saw her nephew’s confusion, and she spun, a look of chilling rage freezing her face.

Maria stared at Angela, her eyes soft with pity. Jake swore silently as Angela’s mouth straightened into a bitter slash. He didn’t have to read lips to guess at the words she spit at Maria. David, her husband, regarded his wife with the dismay of a man confronting a stranger.

Maria stood her ground—sat it—without wavering. David gathered Angela and Griff into his arms and dragged them toward the exit.

The fight seeped out of Maria. She lowered her head as if she couldn’t hold it up. Her shoulders hunched. Light glittered in the curls that framed her pale cheeks.

Her air of submission startled Jake more than any other move she’d made. He slammed the gavel onto its rest. “Court dismissed.”

He turned to the doors behind him and the bailiff, a friend since the first time Jake had defended a client in this building, opened the door.

“Over at last, sir,” he said.

“Yeah, Joe.”

“You should go out that back way, too. Those guys are going to want your opinion on the verdict.”

“I have no opinion, Joe.” It was the way he lived. Objective. As Maria had said, determined to see all sides of any argument.

Camera flashes lit up the back of the courtroom. Some of the press had come from D.C. and beyond. Griff Butler’s father had been a congressman before he’d resigned to make money building strip malls. Griff’s arrest had made big news because of his family name, as well as the depraved nature of his alleged crime.

Jake would like nothing better than to go to his chambers, hang up his robe and spit the taste of this trial out of his mouth. Instead, he had to decide whether to ruin Maria’s career and turn her into a pariah in Honesty. No one would ever trust her again if one of the town’s leading judges believed she’d seduced a patient.

“What do you think, Joe?”

“I’m with you. The jury does all the thinking. That’s our system.”

So why did Jake feel as if he were trying to find steady ground with one foot on either side of a fissure? All his assumptions were suspect.

“I hope you’re right, Joe.” He must be.

“Don’t worry. You’ll do the right thing.” The bailiff held the door and nodded before he went on to his next task.

In his office, Jake took a bottle of Scotch from his desk drawer. On a normal verdict day, it would have been celebratory Scotch. He entered a trial entirely on the fence, but he usually had a gut feeling before the verdict came in.

His gut had deserted him. He shoved the drawer shut and dropped into a leather chair that rocked backward.

He couldn’t ask Maria if she was a liar. He had her reply. Couldn’t ask her clients. He didn’t know who they were, and how could he trust their answers?

He spun his chair to face the window and the snow that had blanketed the courthouse square.

Wait a minute. He knew someone whose teenage son had seen Maria.

Jake picked up his phone and dialed Aidan Nikolas. A businessman and a friend of Jake’s since he’d moved to Honesty, Aidan had mentioned that Maria was his stepson’s therapist. She’d also worked for Aidan when he’d still lived in D.C.

Aidan answered his cell, out of breath. Behind his harried hello, a voice on an airport PA system called all passengers to board.

“Jake? I only have a second. What can I do for you?”

A second? He resisted a damn-near compulsion to back down and hang up. “I have some questions about Dr. Keaton.”

“Maria? She’s great. Remember when Eli was so depressed? He depended on her, and he still sees her occasionally for what she calls refreshers.”

“What kind of refresher? Why would she insist on seeing a kid after he was well?” Jake felt dirty and angry. He got himself under control. “Why should he still need her?”

“Insist? Did I say that? What are you talking about?”

“Just getting a little information. Why does she still see Eli?”

“He tried to commit suicide a year and a half ago, and he’s in the midst of adolescence. He’ll talk to her, even when he clams up on Beth and me.”

“Okay, but why doesn’t she wait for you to call her?”

“Sometimes she does, but depression doesn’t make a kid instinctively ask for help.”

“And she worked for you in Washington?”

The phone filled with airport noise. “What is this?” Aidan asked. “You heard that I had to fire her?”

“What?” The room closed in.

“Why are you butting into Maria’s business? Is something wrong with Leila?”

“It’s not Leila, but I need information.”

“Maria’s testifying in the Griff Butler case. What’s gone wrong?” Again, the PA voice demanded that passengers board. “Jake, did you just ease me into saying something I shouldn’t have about Maria?”

“Like what?” The years that had passed since he’d done investigative work had made him clumsy. Inconvenient attraction to Maria had nothing to do with his heavy hands.

“She does not lie. Is that what you’re asking me?”

To hell with subtlety. “The defendant made troubling accusations.”

“You mean, the guy who confessed he’d killed his parents and then decided he hadn’t?”

“The guy’s a sixteen-year-old kid.”

“Who shot both his parents in cold blood.”

“You believe her? I guess that’s an answer.” Jake took solace in the familiar law books, stacked wall to wall in his office. Nothing came before justice. Not even his own need to believe that Maria was not the woman Griff Butler and Buck Collier had painted her in that courtroom. “Why’d you fire her?”

“I’m not supposed to—”

“I have to know, Aidan.”

Heavy silence stretched between them. Jake let it go on. Aidan would answer if he kept quiet.

“I was fixing problems before they started. When I hired her, there had been several incidences of office rage in the news, and investments are high pressure at the best of times. We tried her out as someone the staff could talk to, but I have a company full of corporate types. Maria encouraged them to relax, rather than stress. That didn’t work with my people. They thrive on structure. When she left, it was more mutual than me firing her.”

“I’m not prying into your company’s business, but did she ever do anything you considered inappropriate?”

“Inappropriate? What the hell are you talking about? What’s Maria done?”

“You’re quick to assume she has done something. I thought you trusted her.” Man, he felt like a jerk. He’d rather not help Griff and Buck ruin Maria’s reputation, but what could he do, short of getting the cops to plant some undercover “client” in her office?

“I’ve known you for two years. You don’t jump to conclusions without evidence.”

“I don’t know what to—” In the background, a man spoke Aidan’s name. What the hell? There was no time. “You’re going to hear this anyway. Griff Butler says he and Dr. Keaton had an affair.”

This time, the silence from Aidan’s end of the phone damn near blew out Jake’s eardrum.

“Not a chance,” the other man finally said.

“Because you don’t want to think she might have hurt Eli?”

“She’s a beautiful woman and Eli’s a teenage boy. He developed a crush on her when he began to feel better. If she’d done anything to encourage it, Beth and I would have taken him to someone else and reported her. Maria pretended it wasn’t happening, and she kept working with him until he saw her as his doctor again.”

“She might have been oblivious with Eli. He’s younger than Griff.”

“Do you know what you’re suggesting? That she preys on certain victims?”

“I’m not.” He was. He had to, but—“It kills me to ruin someone’s career like this because of assumptions that might be lies.”

“Don’t kid yourself. You wouldn’t just be ruining her career—you’d be ruining her life. And don’t move on this until I get back.”

“What can you do for her, Aidan? If I think she might harm her clients, I have to have her investigated.”

“She kept my son alive when he wanted to die.”

“That’s why I can’t ignore the accusations I heard in court. She has other underage clients.” He had to call the Psychology Review Board. “I’m not sure she’s done anything wrong, but I have to ask someone to investigate because of kids like your son. For the sake of anyone she’s treating.”

“Don’t jump to this conclusion. Take some time to get at the truth.”

“Discovering the truth is an investigation. Have you ever been concerned about leaving Eli alone with her?”

“My God. Look, they’re going to shut the doors. I’m holding up the plane. Call Beth and tell her not to let Eli see Maria until I talk to her.”

He clearly believed in Maria, but even the possibility of abuse made him cautious.

“Jake,” Aidan said, annoyed.

“Yeah?”

“I don’t believe you want to do this.”

“I don’t, but I have a duty to this town—to the law.”

“You could bend a little. Be human.” Aidan’s voice changed again. “Yeah, yeah, I’m coming. Gotta go, Jake. Think about what I’ve said.”

Jake pushed the off button on his phone, his stomach muscles clenched.

He found the number for the licensing board and stared at it. No matter what he thought of Maria, he had to do it. His very weakness made him certain he had no choice.

At last, he dialed the numbers, but then hung up and stared at his own shaking hands. One thing he knew for certain. Maria Keaton led with her heart. He didn’t even understand that kind of person. The heart could not discern.

Jake set the phone down and pushed the heels of his hands into his eyes.

“Damn it,” he said to the room and the world and his own conscience.

Shoving his chair back, he jammed his phone into his pocket. Then he grabbed his coat and made for the door. The cold air of November promised cleansing. But once he was outside, he was just cold.

CHAPTER FOUR

JAKE BURST OUT of the courthouse’s side door and ran straight into Maria. She stood as she’d sat, frozen, her hair whipping around her face. She was holding her coat, but her fingers must have been numb. The wool slipped through her fingers to the ground.

He stared from the burgundy cloth to the woman who’d managed to grab a piece of him from the day he’d first glimpsed her. He’d done the wrong thing. For the first time in his adult life, he’d chosen to ignore responsibility.

He’d really like to blame Maria for his lapse. Shouting This mess is all your fault would have felt so much better than dithering over doing the right thing.

Instead, he reached for her coat. “Can I give you a ride?”

Her eyes flickered with barely a hint of recognition.

“Let me help you.” He draped the coat over her shoulders. “You should get out of the cold.”

She reached for his hands, and the coat dropped again. He looked down. Her palms brushed his, her skin ice beneath a fine sheen of adrenaline-induced sweat. Touching her was more personal than a kiss.

Her desperation got inside his better judgment. He forgot about guilt and innocence or responsibility.

“You have to trust the jury,” he said, his voice feeling rusty.

Life came back to her face. She snatched her coat off the ground. “Whether he’s guilty or innocent, he’s in trouble, but you can still help that family. Talk to his aunt and uncle,” she said. “They’ll listen to you.”

“What is it with you and this kid?”

“Not you, too,” she said. “Caring that he gets help and no one else gets hurt doesn’t make me a pervert.”

“I can’t discuss his case with you.” Perfect. How many times had Leila suggested he come out from behind the bench and feel something? Now her wish was coming true, to a degree she never would have dreamed. Not only did he feel too much for a woman who’d thus far ducked any contact that didn’t include taking a ladle from his hand at a soup kitchen, he also sounded like an idiot—an experienced jurist who didn’t even understand the concept of double jeopardy.

“Stop saying you can’t talk about Griff. You couldn’t bring him back to trial if he hired a skywriter to confess this time.”

“We only have your word that he confessed the first time.”

She flinched and tucked her hands behind her back. “You think I lied?”

Her hair blew around her face. The wind kissed her slender, exposed neck. He wanted to pull her close and tell her he’d think anything she asked him to if she’d just let him explore that creamy skin.

Unwelcome passion could blind a person. He’d learned early in life to resist it, because it never led anyone to a rational decision.

“Jake, are you listening?” She backed away. “I feel as if I’m shouting, but no one hears me.”

“You made sure you were heard. Can’t you see everyone in that trial wonders what the hell really happened between you and Griff?”

“I’m not a liar. I wouldn’t risk everything I’ve worked for if I didn’t believe he could be saved.”

“You have to put yourself ahead of that kid and stop making me wonder whether Griff’s journal is the truth. If I wonder, so will the police and the Psychology Review Board.”

Maria sucked in a breath. Her face flushed as she struggled into her coat. “Don’t threaten me.”

“You’re in real danger.”

“Yeah.” She pushed her hand beneath her hair to free the coiling strands from her collar. He swallowed, relieved that she was too distracted to see what she did to him with a move so innocuous as pushing her fingers through her hair. She reached into her pockets and pulled out those freaking mittens, but gave up before she got one on. “A normal kid neither kills his parents nor claims he has. That’s the danger.”

Bunching the lapels of her coat in her fists, she jerked past him. A hint of sweet flowers and precious spice caught him by surprise. Jaywalking across the street, she seemed to have only one goal. To escape him.

She cut around the square, toward the Old Honesty shops. He couldn’t move and he forgot how to breathe until, finally, she was out of sight.

Slowly, he turned in the opposite direction, fighting for control. A white square on the sidewalk caught his eye. Moving toward it, he felt as if he were trying to walk on legs he’d never used before.

He should have made that call. Griff wasn’t Maria’s only underage patient, and his family wouldn’t be the only one coming after her.

The white square was Maria’s other mitten. He picked it up and glanced back the way she’d gone. Scanning the cluster of men and women easing between one another, in and out of the shopping area, he couldn’t see her. He started to put the mitten in his pocket.

Then, without thinking, he lifted the soft material to his face. Maria’s enticing scent made him want her. Bad.

Sweat beaded on his forehead. He shoved the mitten into his pocket as far as it would go. Too bad the town had no community lost and found so he could get rid of it without seeing her again.

FOR ONCE, Maria wished she’d hired a receptionist. She managed her own schedule to keep overhead down. But, on Monday morning, three days after the verdict in Griff’s trial, she opened her office door to face an answering machine that was blinking like an angry, red eye. She’d anticipated cancellations, but deep down, she’d hoped her clients would hang in with her.

Dumping her keys and coat in the visitor’s chair, she stared at the machine. Her neighbors were angry. Yesterday, she’d been waiting to pay for groceries when she’d overheard nothing good about herself from two ladies talking about her in the checkout line.

“She’s the one.” The woman clutching a quart of milk and a pineapple had nodded Maria’s way, her whisper loud enough to set off seismic detectors.

“That poor Griff. You know, he was in my class back when he was in second grade. You couldn’t find a sweeter boy.” The second woman had sniffed. “Outsiders, you know? This town used to be ours. We knew everyone. Everyone knew us. When a family had a problem, we took care of it at home.”

“The chamber of commerce insists we need growth. This should teach those young intruders about small towns.”

“You are canny, my friend.” The teacher had plunked a massive box of instant potatoes on the conveyor, choking out a cough as white powder wafted into the air.

Maria had pulled her cart closer, unsurprised by their concern for a kid from one of the town’s oldest families. But they obviously hadn’t seen Griff in years. They couldn’t guess at the truth.

Now, she walked around the office, pausing to open the blinds before she dropped into her chair and swung around to her desk. Both Gil and Jake had warned her. Time to face the bad music and work on preserving the job that had given her independence and respect.

She’d given the practice her time and her hard-won skill, and she’d powered through the days, believing she could do some good. She cared about her clients, but she was also vitally interested in eating three squares and wearing clothes. Loss of income meant insecurity.

She’d been the black sheep in her family because she was the one who accepted responsibility. Images from the past clicked through her mind like frames in a movie. Her mother’s “friends,” all male, moving into one of their temporary homes for what had amounted to extended sleepovers. Her mother’s never-ending search for a new hometown and a new friend. Maria’s sister Bryony’s progress down their mother’s blazed trail.

Maria had barely been out of middle school when Bryony had graduated from senior high. But even then, she could see that—like their mom—Bryony had never been careful enough when she gave her body or her heart.

Instead of clinging to sanity and each other, the sisters had argued constantly. Bryony wanted the same things that made their mother feel safe, while Maria had never craved security in some guy’s arms.

As Maria had worked her way through school, Bryony had crashed with her between what she termed “life episodes.” Maria had tried over and over to persuade Bryony she could be healthy and whole without a man. She had taken Maria’s concern for disapproval and often suggested she wasn’t Maria’s personal psychological lab rat.

In the end, their mother had descended on Maria’s tiny college apartment to referee the fight. The three of them had eventually forged a tentative truce that reminded them they were family, but Maria still believed a woman should only rely on herself. When Bryony had announced she’d rented a friend’s RV and had begun working as a clown at children’s parties, Maria had sincerely congratulated her on following what Bryony said was a “calling.”

If only her mother and Bryony could see Maria now. They were too kind to enjoy the last laugh, but Maria wouldn’t have blamed them. All those years of preaching caution and respectability. All that sensible life she’d lived.

A tight sob nearly escaped her throat. Panic. Before she listened to her voice mail, she sent an e-mail to her mother, begging off Thanksgiving dinner. She couldn’t face her family yet. That done, she hit the play button on her answering machine.

“Dr. Keaton? Vince Dunne, here. You know, I’ve been seeing you to quit smoking? I gotta cancel my appointments.” A female voice spoke in the background. “All of them,” he said, sounding harassed. “Yeah, I told her. My wife taught Griff Butler in second grade.” The female voice added something that sounded like, “Will you shut up.” Maria strained to place the voice of the boxed-potatoes lady from the market. “Okay, okay, I’m hanging up,” Vince said. And he did.

Maria pulled a legal pad out of the desk drawer and wrote Vince’s name. Next to it, she noted, “All.”

The next message started. “Dr. Keaton? This is Meg Lacey. I need to reschedule my appointment this week. You don’t have to call me. I’ll call you when I have some available time.”

She wouldn’t be seeing Meg anymore. She added Meg’s name beneath Vince’s.

Next.

“Maria, this is Beth Nikolas.” Maria had treated Beth’s son, Eli, a couple of years ago. They only met now for the occasional tune-up. She started to write his name beneath Meg’s, but Beth went on. “I’m just calling to make sure you’re okay. Call me. Better yet, come by for dinner. And friendship.”

Maria stopped the machine to lean her forehead on her fist. If only everyone could see she’d meant no harm. And by “everyone,” she did not mean Jake Sloane.

SATURDAY, MARIA SLEPT LATE, trying to shake the hangover of losing one client after another. Maybe vodka would have helped, or at least some Christmas mulled wine, she thought as she stepped through her front door to find hers was the only house in her modest neighborhood that didn’t sparkle with lights and wire reindeer and giant Santas in snowglobes.

She wouldn’t mind a portly Santa nodding wisely in her front window, if the budget allowed. She scooped the paper off the sidewalk. Fortunately, it still cost only a quarter.

Maria started back up the sidewalk as a car veered into her driveway, crunching snow and the sand the county trucks had spewed even onto side roads like hers. She steeled herself. Wasn’t it enough for clients to call the office to fire her?

A blond woman with a sweet smile and warm eyes waved a gloved hand through her window. Beth Nikolas parked and jumped out.

“I figured if you weren’t going to call back, I’d better come by,” she said.

Maria tried to come up with a good story, but gave up and went for the truth. “I thought you might have reconsidered.”

“I understand. The phones have been busy at work?”

“You don’t have to be my friend, Beth.”

“No one believes you seduced Griff Butler, Maria.”

“A lot of people believe. I don’t have many clients left.”

Beth crossed the yard and hugged her tight. “I’m positive my son is healthy because of you.”

“Because he worked to get healthy. And don’t underestimate what you and Aidan do for him.”

“He had that crush on you, and I never thought for a second that you’d do anything to encourage him.”

“People mistake gratitude for something more sometimes, when they’re getting better, but it doesn’t mean anything dangerous until someone needs an alternative theory at a murder trial.”

“I saw you with Jake Sloane on the square after the verdict.”

Maria’s pulse went into overdrive. She turned toward the front door, concentrating on her paper. “I was still hoping someone would see Griff needed help, and he might have been able to persuade Griff’s aunt and uncle to talk to someone.”

“You looked half out of your mind, and he seemed concerned for you.”

Maria ached at the memory of Jake holding her close. How she’d wanted to lean into him. “He suggested I stop worrying about Griff. Want some coffee?”

“Jake didn’t threaten you with an investigation?”

Maria’s stomach dropped like a stone as she recalled his words If I wonder, so will the police and the Psychology Review Board. “Is he investigating me?”

“I don’t know.” Beth took the door and waited as Maria tried to plant one foot in front of the other. “As you mentioned, I’ve heard gossip. People know you treated Eli, so they try to ask Aidan and me about you, but I haven’t heard anything specific about Jake. I didn’t realize you knew him so well.”

It wasn’t just that she didn’t want even Beth to know she’d been daydreaming about Jake from afar. If it came out that she was treating Leila, she didn’t want anyone to think she’d been unprofessional with the girl’s father.

“I hardly know Jake at all.”

“That wasn’t what I thought as I watched you.” Beth shut the door.

“Do we have to talk about Jake Sloane?” She sighed noisily. “Or Griff? I could use a change of subject.” She’d never make a good actress, but Beth took the hint anyway.

“Let’s talk about dinner next Saturday. Maybe by then you’ll want to join us. We can watch Eli on the half-pipe Aidan built for him, and you can talk to me while I cook. Then we’ll fight for the best spots in front of the TV while we make the men clean.”

Maria’s first instinct was to plunge her head into the nearest pile of sand, but if someone in her situation had come to her as a client, she’d have cautioned against wallowing in a safety net of invisibility.

“Thanks, Beth. I’d like that a lot.” She stood back. “Would you like a—” she glanced down the hall toward the kitchen “—something?”

Beth chuckled. “I’ve arrived in time. You don’t even know what you have to eat or drink?”

“It’s been rough. People seem to be lining up on Griff’s side or mine.”

“For once, I can offer you good advice. Don’t hide out here.” Beth hugged her again and then inched toward the door. “I’m going to skip your generous offer of ‘something.’ I have errands to run and several guests arriving at the lodge tonight to get in some last-minute fishing before the holidays.”

Maria walked her back onto the small, covered porch. “Thanks for the pep talk. What can I bring Saturday?”

“Aidan likes your sweet-potato soufflé,” Beth said.

“Perfect.” Sweet potatoes and brown sugar wouldn’t deplete her small bank account too much. “And what time should I show up?”

“Early is good.” Beth patted her shoulder. “Try not to worry. The rats will swim back to the ship.”

Maria laughed for what felt like the first time since the trial had ended. “I know you grew up with Griff’s mother and aunt, but thanks for being on my side, too, Beth.”

“You didn’t know you could count on us?” Beth started toward the sidewalk. “Thanks to you, my son acts like any normal teen. He doesn’t lurk in his room. He gets angry with me and resents Aidan and loves his baby sister.” She peered back, her hair flying in the cold wind. “My child is interested in life because you treated him. You are a hero at our house.” Beth lifted her hand in a brief wave. “Bad stuff fades if you wait it out. Isn’t that what you told Eli?”

“I just needed someone to remind me. See you next Saturday.”

LEILA HAD stood him up again. From his colorful red chair in La Fiesta’s window, Jake watched a crew arguing over dead bulbs as they strung the last of the holiday twinkle lights in the market.

He checked his watch. Also dead. Then he pulled out his phone to see the time. He got a jolt as he read the ID of a missed caller. The Psychology Review Board. He’d dialed them and finally gone as far as letting the phone ring before hanging up.

Nice. Grown man so distracted by a need for sex that he’d betrayed the rules he lived by—do the right thing. Don’t sway justice. Don’t cheat on your wife. Don’t abandon your daughter to day care and teenage angst. Be objective and do the right thing, even when it hurts.

Calling the review board had hurt. This time, doing the right thing could destroy someone else. Maria’s practice might not survive investigation. At least in Honesty.

A sudden movement caught Jake’s eye. Outside, halting so suddenly her scarf lifted in the cold breeze to touch her face, was Maria. She was tired, and weariness only made her look more fragile. The sweet curve of her mouth made him drop the phone.

She took a deep breath and pulled her mittens out of her coat pocket. He felt hot as he recalled furtively shoving the dropped one in her mailbox after a visit to his Aunt Helen, who lived in Maria’s neighborhood. Maria watched him, with a kind of hungry concentration that reflected all his desire for her. Shaking her head, she plunged into the crowd on the street and walked away from him.

He picked up his phone. There was the board’s number—orange on black. To call, he had to push one button.

He pushed the off button instead and dropped the phone onto his folded coat. Why did he feel so damn guilty?

A FEW DAYS LATER, Maria was in her office, going over notes for her earliest appointment, when the door opened and a man she’d never seen before entered.

“Dr. Keaton?” he asked, looking official in a crisp suit, snowy shirt and thin black tie.

“Do you have an appointment?” Obviously not, but she was stalling for time to assess the stranger. The whispering that had dirtied her name in the past couple of weeks had made her wary.

“I have this,” he said, pulling a letter out of his pocket. “From the Psychology Review Board.”

Ah. Thank you, Buck Collier.

She took the envelope, willing her hand not to tremble. “Thank—” she started, but he turned and left before she finished. The ultimate show of disdain.

Instead of his face, she saw Jake’s, his expression closing as all his worst suspicions were confirmed by this letter. She tried to see what Beth had seen—his hands on hers, his head bent toward her with concern.

She shook her head, trying to free herself. Wanting too much from Jake was no answer.

She peeled back the envelope’s flap, knowing she was suspended, that the Psychology Review Board would be investigating Griff’s accusations. She had to reach the few clients who’d stood by her, reassure them that they would be all right.

The letter was brief. She was ordered to cease treatment of all clients, and not to offer her services unless and until the investigation cleared her.

Despite her assumptions, seeing it in print was a punch in the gut. The paper slipped through her fingers, onto the blotter.

Her job was everything. Opening her own practice had assured her of a chance to stay whole, never to depend on anyone else for her safety.

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