was anything but impulsive about this.” Her gray eyes were as calm and serious as her tone. “I methodically researched everything very carefully and—”
“That’s…that’s so premeditated, so calculating,” Luke cut in. He almost had to gasp for breath. “No, demented is what it is.”
“You’re the one who’s demented! You wouldn’t condemn me for a series of one-night stands or for not knowing who the father of my child is, but you’re scandalized that I went to a sperm bank to—”
“Shhh!” he hushed her. “Unless you want to broadcast this to our fellow jurors, I suggest you keep quiet.”
Brenna looked up to see the eight older jurors filing into the box. “You’re right. I wouldn’t want to shock anybody else,” she murmured caustically.
“I’m not shocked, I’m just…” Luke’s voice trailed off.
What exactly was he, then? He didn’t know, couldn’t identify the weird feelings roiling within him.
“Shocked,” Brenna insisted. “And you don’t like the sensation because shocking people is your specialty, right? You want to be the one to shock people, not the other way around.”
“All right, guilty as charged. Now, can I ask you a personal question?”
She sighed. “You’re going to ask it anyway, aren’t you?”
“Are you gay? Is that the reason you’ve gone the, er, test-tube route? Because your, uh, significant other is a…a woman?”
“You should hear yourself, stammering like a shocked and disapproving candidate who is trying extra hard not to be politically incorrect.” Brenna grinned. “Were you this tactful when you worked in politics?”
“Of course not—which is why I no longer work in politics. Well, are you?”
“No, I’m not gay. I don’t have a significant other of either sex, and I don’t want one. There’s just me and my baby, and that’s all either of us will ever need.”
The two Jasons came shuffling in and had to climb over everybody to get to their seats at the end of the box. Both wore short-sleeved T-shirts, providing a clear view of the long and colorful identical dragon tattoos on their respective arms.
The sight was enough to break anyone’s train of thought. Brenna and Luke stared in silence at the two dragons, then at each other. Seconds later the lawyers trooped into the courtroom with their clients. A moment after that, the judge reentered.
“Proceed, Counsel,” the judge ordered.
Brad’s attorney continued to explain how his client had been wronged by the duplicitous, avaricious Amber.
Luke gripped the arms of his chair.
Just me and my baby, that’s all either of us will ever need. Brenna’s statement swirled in his head. She sounded so sure, yet he knew she was wrong.
He had three brothers and three sisters, along with a myriad of cousins; all were married with children. He’d seen firsthand that a new mother and a newborn baby needed a lot more than each other. They needed a support system.
At the very least they needed one other committed person involved—first, with the pregnancy, and then with the infant itself. The baby’s father ought to own that role. Every child deserved a good father.
Brad’s attorney sat down, and Amber’s counsel, a young woman who looked to be right out of law school, rose to her feet with an impassioned declaration about women’s rights and jealous-male greed.
Luke wasn’t listening. He was too astounded by his own unexpected thoughts on parenthood. It sounded as if they’d been lifted directly from one of his brother’s family-values speeches.
He knew Matt believed all that stuff, but Luke didn’t. At least, he thought he didn’t. He’d always considered himself to be an anything-goes kind of guy.
But the thought of Brenna Morgan and her baby, alone except for each other, struck something deep within him, summoning beliefs and feelings he hadn’t been aware of harboring.
Luke looked up at the high ceiling, at the old-fashioned windows that looked as though they hadn’t been opened in the past century. This courthouse really was a strange place, where his brother’s speeches played inside his head. Where he couldn’t stop thinking about a pretty, young pregnant woman whom he didn’t even know.
Except it felt as if he knew her well. From the moment they’d started talking yesterday, something had clicked, as if they’d known each other for a long, long time. As if there had never been a time when they hadn’t known each other. They were open and frank and honest with each other; conversation between them came too easily for them to be total strangers.
But they’d never met…not in this lifetime.
Luke was unnerved. Now he seemed to be channeling his youngest sister, who believed in all that past-life nonsense. Luke didn’t. He was a live-for-today kind of guy who tried not to think of next year, let alone a next lifetime. Or a past one…with Brenna Morgan?
A diversion was definitely in order before he lost his mind completely. Luke tried to redirect his thoughts to his new book, which was coming along fantastically well.
His newest serial killer, a charming land developer, was on the trail for fresh victims, and a small town hosting a national pageant for teenage beauty queens had invited him there, in hopes of becoming the site of his next lucrative mall….
Luke shifted in his chair, picturing the calculating killer and the teen beauties, especially the one about to meet her doom….
And his mind abruptly went blank.
If he leaned to the right, he nearly choked on the heavy scent of musk oil emanating from one of the dragon twins. But if he leaned to the left, his shoulders brushed Brenna’s and he inhaled the light, fresh scent of soap and shampoo and powder, a wholesome yet somehow alluring scent.
Luke sat straight up, suddenly, wildly alarmed. It couldn’t be happening. His body was acting as if he was aroused.
He was aroused!
His pulses thundered in his head, drowning out the lawyers’ voices, the whir from the heating vent in the wall, the dried fallen leaves being blown against the glass window-panes by the wind. Brenna Morgan, sitting next to him and oblivious of the effect she was having on him, completely commanded his senses.
He could see her and smell her, but that wasn’t enough. He needed more. He was filled with a faint sense of anger at his involuntary response. This would not do!
But he could barely stop himself from reaching over to touch her, right here in the middle of the courtroom. He desperately wanted to feel if her hair was as silky as it looked, to run his fingers along the lines of her beautifully shaped mouth. To insert his thumb inside.
Luke pictured her lips parting, then allowed his imagination free rein, erotically expanding the scene in every way….
He bent forward, straining and aching and pulsing with need.
Jason
