assessed her. “Sorry,” he said. “I guess I forgot that you had an exciting evening. Are you sure you’re all right?”
“I’m fine. Just exhausted and a little sore. I guess I’ll see you in the morning around what? Nine or ten o’clock? So you can incarcerate me.”
He smiled and shook his head. “Nope. You’ll see me earlier than that. I’ll be staying here tonight.”
“What?” She forced a laugh. “Right. Now, that’s funny.” She walked over to the back door and reached for the knob. But before she could grasp it, he was right there, his hand out, holding it shut.
“Stop that,” she said. “Get out of the way. You need to go home. I’ve got locks. Those people are not going to do anything else tonight—if ever.”
“You can’t know that. There’s no way I’m taking the chance. I told you. The order of protection names me as the responsible party. If you kick me out, I’ll just sleep in my car in your driveway.”
Dani regarded him. His strong jaw was tight. The irritating smile was gone and his brown eyes looked positively black underneath the dark brows. He meant business. She took a step backward and threw her hands out in a helpless gesture.
“Fine, then. Knock yourself out. I hope your car’s comfortable.”
His mouth curled up on one corner. “It’s a Jeep Compass, so it ought to be.”
“Excellent,” she snapped. “I’m glad for you. Good night.”
He started to say something else, but Dani lifted her chin and pressed her lips together. He inclined his head in a brief nod, shot that irritating smile at her one more time and left, pulling the back door closed behind him.
As Dani turned the lock, her hand shook. The fact that Harte was right outside her door, making sure nothing happened to her tonight, should be comforting.
It wasn’t. All it did was provide an omnipresent reminder that, at least according to him, she was in grave danger.
IN THE DRIVER’S seat of his Jeep, Harte pressed the lever that slid the seat back as far as it would go. He held it until the motor whined, then stretched his legs. He had about two inches more room than he’d had twenty seconds before. “Guess that’s it,” he muttered. Then he reclined the seat back and wriggled his butt, settling in.
He’d bought the Jeep because it drove nicely in the city as well as on dirt roads and hiking paths. He’d never slept in it, but figured it shouldn’t be too bad.
As he searched for a comfortable position, he thought about Dani. He hadn’t expected her to actually banish him to his car for the night. That house was huge. There had to be at least one guest bedroom. Hell, she could have at least offered him a couch.
Still, he supposed he couldn’t blame her for the way she felt about him. The first time they’d met in the courtroom, she as a brand-new public defender and he trying his first case as prosecutor. He’d reacted instantly to her tall, leggy, drop-dead-gorgeous body and eyes that caught the sun just like her hair. But she’d entered the courtroom shooting daggers from those whiskey-colored eyes.
She was undeniably Freeman Canto’s granddaughter. Canto and Con Delancey, Harte’s grandfather, had both been fixtures in the Louisiana state legislature. And they’d clashed on every single issue, most notably the security and tariffs on the Port of New Orleans. Canto was fiscally conservative, while Con Delancey fought to keep both security and tariffs at a minimum to help the working people. And, as Dani had said, they’d conducted themselves as gentlemen. There had been a kind of honor among politicians back then. An unspoken agreement that while the politics might occasionally get dirty, the politicians would not.
The first time he’d faced Dani across the courtroom, Harte hadn’t been completely surprised that she’d shown up prepared for battle, ready to continue the feud between the Cantos and the Delanceys. Her client, the defendant, had been a woman who’d killed her husband, claiming self-defense and fear for her life. But there were no witnesses, no evidence of spousal abuse and the woman had shot the man point-blank.
As Harte fought to win his case, he’d discovered what a great defense attorney Dani was. She was passionate, a dedicated knight battling for her client.
Ultimately, Harte won the verdict, but he’d lost the respect of his opposing counsel. Later he’d found out that Dani had appealed and gotten her client acquitted.
Once he’d gotten more experience under his belt, he’d had to admit she was right. That first case had been a win for him, but it was a Pyrrhic victory. It had taken him a few years and more than a few cases to live down convicting a battered wife.
Their paths hadn’t crossed but a couple of times since then, which had helped keep the instantaneous attraction he’d felt for her the first time he’d seen her at bay. But he’d never forgotten how she’d looked when she’d walked into the courtroom that first day. She’d had on a short skirt and high-heeled shoes that made her legs look a mile long. He’d never forgotten her face, her body or the unconsciously sexy, confident way she moved.
But her body wasn’t all that he’d found sexy about her. She was smart and quick. Across from her in court, he’d quickly found out that as a public defender, she was as tenacious and focused as a terrier.
A cramp in his thigh interrupted his thoughts and he realized he’d been nearly asleep. Rubbing the tight muscle, he considered the irony that he and Dani were on the same side this time. Well, sort of on the same side. She still thought of him as the enemy.
His cell phone rang. It was Lucas.
“How’s your girl?” his oldest brother asked.
“My witness is all right,” Harte responded. “How were the steaks?”
“Great, as usual. We just got home.”
“Really?” He glanced at the time on the display. “Late night for you, at the folks’ house.”
“Not my idea. Ange and Mom were exchanging recipes. I watched a ball game with him.” Lucas never referred to their father as Dad. “I’d planned to talk to you about the info you asked me about.”
Harte sat up. “What’d you find out?”
“Not much. Nothing on the record. Yeoman’s got a fairly clean file. Some small-time stuff early on, but he’s managed to keep his record clean for the last twenty years.”
“His record. What about what’s not on the record?”
“Now, that’s a different story. Every detective has an anecdote about Yeoman getting away clean while one of his goons took the rap.”
“Yeah, that’s basically what I got from Mahoney. There’s got to be somebody out there that Yeoman cheated or framed, who’d jump at the chance to get back at him.”
“I called Dawson the other day and asked him what he knew. I figured he might have run into Yeoman when he was chasing down Tito Vega.”
“And had he?”
“Nope, but he made a couple of calls for me.”
“I
