lower living-room ambient light to fifty percent. And how about a little Chopin? Piano nocturnes, I think.”
On cue, the lights dimmed to a sexy glow and the haunting strains of a concert piano came out of the walls in perfect surround sound. She whirled in alarm to face Gabe. He’d better not be trying to seduce her! Her fists fell back to her sides when she spotted him sitting on one of the sofas watching her.
“What?” she demanded, to cover her embarrassment at how her fists had flown up like that.
“You’re quite a beautiful woman, Willa.”
She shrugged, desperately wishing in that moment that she was as ugly as some warty old toad. “Don’t compliment me. My parents’ genes get all the credit.”
He stretched a disconcertingly powerful arm out along the top of the sofa. “It’s more than that. Beauty starts inside a woman. It breathes through her skin and shows in her eyes and the way she moves. It surrounds everything she does and everything she is.
“Are you sure it’s just not my overpowering perfume you’re describing?”
He laughed quietly. “What is that scent, anyway? I know it’s floral, but I don’t recognize it.”
“Gardenia.”
“It fits you. It’s old-fashioned. Soft. But with a note of mystery.”
“It’s all of that?” she asked skeptically.
“Definitely.”
Dammit, did he have to keep saying things that chipped away at her defenses like that? He was supposed to be a bad guy. Self-serving. Dishonest. Untrustworthy. But the man seated before her was nothing like the villain her father had painted.
She turned back to the window. Gabe let the silence lie between them and seemed content not to disturb it. As much as she tried to focus on the events of the day, and to gather her thoughts for tomorrow, she couldn’t get past her blazing awareness of the man behind her.
This room fit him. It was modern and sophisticated, and frankly, intimidating. She tilted her head and realized she could see his reflection in the dark surface of the glass. He was studying her with shocking intensity.
She spun quickly to face him, but his expression was bland, his eyes masked, by the time she got turned around. A shiver of apprehension chattered up her spine, rattling her bones. Who was this man whose home she was effectively trapped in? Which face that he showed her was the real one? What did she really know about him?
“You know, Gabe, I think I’d be better off just getting a hotel room tonight. If you’ll call me a cab, I’ll get out of your hair.”
He gazed at her for a long time and then finally broke the silence. “That bastard really did a number on you, didn’t he? How come your daddy didn’t kill him?”
Chapter 4
Gabe hung on to his temper by a thread. Only the undisguised terror on Willa’s face had him fighting to rein it in. But still, a need to do violence on her behalf roiled hotly in his gut.
“Kill him?” Willa whispered.
He couldn’t tell if it was dismay or hope vibrating painfully in her voice.
He answered roughly, “If someone hurt my little girl, they’d damn well be eating the business end of my shotgun.”
She shook her head, and he couldn’t contain the beast any longer. He surged to his feet. “Hell, Will. I’ll go kill him for you right now if you want.”
“No, no. The scandal.” Her hands fluttered in the air like the broken wings of a bird.
“When did Ward attack you?” he demanded.
“A month ago.”
“A month? Why in hell didn’t you go to the police before now?” Fury ranged freely through him, heating his extremities until they burned to damage someone. James Ward, specifically.
“The campaign…” she murmured in distress.
Of course. John Merris’s precious political campaign. The bastard had failed to protect his baby girl because his damned Senate seat was more important to him than his own family. Hot coals commenced burning their way out of Gabe’s gut by slow inches.
“That goddamned sonofabitch,” he snarled. “I’ll bet he made you stay home until the bruises faded, didn’t he?”
Her nod was so small, so stiff and unwilling, that he barely saw it. But it was enough. Gabe strode over to her and swept her into his arms, holding her tight against him. “I take back everything I said. I don’t care if he was your father or not, John Merris didn’t deserve to live. If he weren’t already dead, I’d start by shooting him first.”
“Gabe,” Willa mumbled from the folds of his dress shirt, “you can’t just run around shooting people.”
“Why the hell not? This is Texas. I wouldn’t be convicted in any court in the state for taking out either man after what they did to you. Juries in this state don’t take kindly to people who harm women, children or cops.”
Muffled words floated up to him. “You still could go to jail.”
“It would be worth it.”
“Don’t do it on my account. I’ll be okay.”
“You’re not okay,” he answered forcefully. “You flinch whenever I touch you, and that haunted look keeps creeping into your eyes. You’re scared. Admit it.”
She struggled weakly against his arms and he loosened his grip enough for her to lean back and stare up at him. Her blue eyes were huge in her face. Too big. Too scared. Too damned vulnerable. A surge of protectiveness swept over him so hard it almost knocked him off his feet.
“Okay, fine. I’m scared. Is that a crime?”
“Hell, no. So let me get this straight. Ward attacked you. You told your father about it, and he told you to suck it up. To pretend it never happened. Not to cause trouble with his business partner, to save the Merris family reputation and not make waves right before a tight election. Am I right?”
She nodded. Her gaze fell miserably.
“What happened to your clothes? Did your old man take some pictures of your scrapes and bruises or gather some evidence to corroborate your claim later? Or at least to blackmail the bastard with?”
Her lips quirked. “Blackmail, huh? You have a vicious mind, Mr. Dawson.”
“You have no idea. At this very moment, I’m trying to choose between several horrible and painful forms of death by slow torture for young James.”
A flicker of humor passed through her gaze for just an instant. It was gone almost before he saw it, but it was enough. A spark of the old Willa Merris, the one who’d dared him to a horse race, was still in there. Now all he had to do was find that spark again and nurture it into a flame.
“There’s no evidence,” she said, disrupting his train of thought. “My father destroyed everything. He took all of my clothes and burned them himself. And I wasn’t allowed out of the house until every last scratch and bruise was totally gone.”
“Willa, Willa.” He sighed. “You’re what, twenty eight-years old? Why did you let your father bully you like that?”
“Because he was John Merris. When did he ever not get his way?”
Gabe pursed his lips. “I told him to go to hell, and I’m still standing. In fact, I’ve done moderately well in spite of John’s best efforts to wreck me.”
That glint of humor flashed again in her eyes. But he understood her response. John Merris had been known for his frightening temper and razor-sharp tongue that flayed anyone who dared