Sweet Anger Page 7

  This morning Pinkie had wanted to murder the man. Tonight? The hell of it was, he believed McKee. He might be a demon in the courtroom, but he hadn’t deliberately set out to hurt Kari. Still, Pinkie’s first loyalty was to her, and he wasn’t going to let the man off easy. “Drink?”

  Hunter paused momentarily before giving Pinkie a lopsided grin. “Please.” Gingerly he laid the bouquet of yellow roses on the coffee table and unbuttoned his sport coat.

  Pinkie splashed a double shot of Scotch without ice, water, or soda into a glass and extended it to Hunter. He tossed it down in one swallow. Little did he know how that escalated him in Pinkie’s opinion. The newsman never could abide a man who drank like a gentleman.

  “Are you … uh … staying here with her?” Hunter twirled the empty glass in his hand.

  Pinkie wasn’t fooled by the seeming indifference behind the question. If he didn’t know better, he’d think the man was jealous. Hell. The man was jealous.

  This time he brought the bottle to Hunter, tipped it toward his glass, and poured him another drink. “No, I’m not staying here with her. Bonnie and I came by after work to check on her, bring her some supper.”

  “Is Bonnie your wife?” Hunter asked hopefully.

  Pinkie sputtered and choked on his drink. “God forbid. She works down at WBTV; hangs out with us sometimes. Kari likes and trusts her. She’s with her now, helping her get ready for the night.”

  “I see.” He was distinctly uncomfortable. All afternoon he had weighed the decision whether he should come to see her or not. He’d finally talked himself into it, but he wasn’t certain it was the proper thing to do. He had caused her collapse. But even if he were innocent of that, what had happened after she fainted was definitely his fault and she wasn’t going to miraculously forget it.

  And her friend or watchdog or whatever the hell this Pinkie Lewis was to her was scrutinizing him like a bug under a bell jar. He felt like a kid on his first date who was having to meet the girl’s father alone in the formal parlor.

  Feeling a need to justify himself, he said, “How could I have known about her baby?” The thought of her losing her child made him sick to his stomach. “Why didn’t she call and tell me she couldn’t come to court? I would have understood and excused her from testifying.”

  “Would you?”

  “Look, Mr. Lewis, I know what you must think of me, but—”

  “Call me Pinkie. I can’t stand that Mr. Lewis crap.”

  Behind his eyeglasses, Hunter blinked. He liked this man’s honest and abrupt approach. One never had to guess where one stood with him. “All right, Pinkie. You’re obviously very close to Kari … to Ms. Stewart.”

  “Very.”

  “So, tell me, why wasn’t I informed that she was ill? Why did she force me to put her on that witness stand?”

  Pinkie sighed. “We tried. Bonnie and I offered to call you and explain the circumstances.” He pointed toward the hallway that led to the bedroom. “That girl is as stubborn as a mule. She must think she’s Superwoman. She wouldn’t hear of having herself excused.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Is it?”

  “Yes. I wouldn’t have insisted she appear in court. Why would she do that to herself?”

  “She didn’t want to lose face with you,” Pinkie replied bluntly, watching for Hunter’s reaction.

  His blank expression showed his incredulity. “Why?”

  “Because you attacked Wynne and she was crazy about the man.”

  Hunter looked like he had taken a blow on the chin. His head went back slightly and he sank down into the cushions of the chair. “I see,” he murmured, his eyes no longer on Pinkie but staring vacantly at the roses. “Then, there was no getting around hurting her, was there?”

  Pinkie felt that itch again. Right between his shoulder blades. He was in administration now, but a field reporter never got rid of that sixth sense, that radar that tells him something’s out of sync, something’s amiss, something’s not all it appears to be.

  And, worried as he’d been about Kari this morning when he found her in that office with this man, he had begun to itch the moment he entered the room.

  Wild horses wouldn’t be able to drag what had transpired in there out of Kari. And Hunter didn’t seem the type to rap about his personal dealings with women.

  Pinkie would probably go to his grave curious about what had happened in that office before he appeared on the scene. But as sure as God made little green apples, something had happened. If his guess was right, it had had nothing to do with what had gone on in the courtroom. And whatever it was, it had knocked the socks off both of them.

  Otherwise why had Kari retreated into herself and barely spoken a word for hours afterward? And why would a D.A. come bearing flowers to a witness he had had to run through the gauntlet?

  In his opinion, the man looked gut-sick in love.

  Pinkie braced his elbows on his knees and leaned forward in his chair. “Why did you come here tonight, McKee?”

  “I want to see her and apologize.”

  “That’s out of the question, Mr. McKee.”

  At the ringing sound of his name, Hunter launched himself to his feet, barking his shin on the edge of the coffee table and sloshing his drink. If he had thought Pinkie Lewis was intimidating, he was totally unprepared for the sour look on Bonnie Strand’s face when she saw him. She could have been smelling last week’s garbage.

  Pinkie made the introductions. Bonnie’s concession to them was a cool nod. “You’re the last person she wants to see, Mr. McKee,” Bonnie said tartly.

  Pinkie was beginning to think McKee deserved the benefit of the doubt. Besides, he resented Bonnie’s interference. “How do you know what Kari wants?” Pinkie demanded of her.

  “I know,” Bonnie retorted.

  “Well, maybe you ought to mind your own damn business,” Pinkie shot back.

  Tossing her head, Bonnie looked at Hunter. “Did you bring the roses?”

  “Yes.”

  She sized him up with a critical eye. “She doesn’t hold you in the highest esteem, and frankly neither do I. Not if the accounts of what happened this morning are true.”

  Hunter wondered if she could know what he’d done in the office and decided that she was referring strictly to the courtroom scene. Kari wouldn’t have told anyone that they had kissed. “I’m afraid the accounts are true, though I didn’t know Ms. Stewart’s physical condition when I put her on the stand. I hope to prove to you and her both that I’m not a complete monster.”

  The faintest of smiles curved his lips, but it was enough of a smile to make Bonnie’s heart flutter. After all, she was a woman, and the first word that came to her mind after this close-up look at the charming good-looking D.A. was “hunk.” Humility was always appealing in a man so strong. But Bonnie was too jaded to be put off by a pair of broad shoulders and a set of white teeth and a self-effacing manner. “I don’t want her upset again,” she said by way of warning.

  “I swear to you that if she shows the slightest hint of getting upset, I’ll leave immediately.”

  Bonnie cast a glance at Pinkie, who shrugged in answer to her silent question. Making up her own mind about the man, she moved from the doorway leading into the hall and said, “Second door on your right.”

  “Thanks,” Hunter said. He picked up the roses and made his way to the door. He glanced back at Bonnie. “Is it all right if I just …?”

  “Yes, go on in. She’s in bed, but she’s still awake.”

  Hunter garnered all his courage and opened the door. The room was shadowed. Only one small lamp burned on a glass-topped rattan table beside the bed. The headboard of her bed was also rattan. The walls of the room had been painted a dark cream color. There were splashes of navy and cinnamon in the print bedspread, in baskets of dried flowers, in the Oriental rug on the floor. Oversize pillows covered in a ropy unbleached cotton were piled in one corner in front of a natural wicker screen from which
hung belts and scarves and one huge straw hat. A ceiling fan with caning blades was suspended from the ceiling. The room looked exactly like her, neat and tidy on the surface, but hinting at the possibility of an intriguing mystery beneath.

  He closed the door softly behind him and advanced into the room. She turned her head at the sound of his footsteps and opened her eyes. Immediately she sprang to a sitting position. “What are you doing here? How did you get in? Get out of here.”

  She spoke in hoarse whispers and he thanked God for that. From her expression she could just as easily have been screaming bloody murder.

  He patted the air in front of him in a calming gesture. “Please, Kari. Pinkie and Bonnie said I could come in. I want to apologize to you.”

  “I don’t need your apology. I don’t want it. You could apologize from now till doomsday and it wouldn’t change my mind about you. Now please leave.”

  He shook his head, and she saw the futility of arguing with such determination. She fell silent as he came forward and stood at her side. “These are for you,” he said, laying the roses on the bed and thinking what an ass he was to present her with flowers after all the antipathy between them.

  “Thank you,” she said, thinking what an ass she was for accepting flowers from a man she loathed.

  His eyes sought hers and when they captured them, refused to let them go. “I’m sorry about your baby.”

  Those softly spoken words seemed to prick her like a needle deflating a balloon. She fell back against the pillows. “You can’t know what sorrow is, Mr. McKee.”

  “I can’t know yours, no. But I’m very sorry I didn’t know about your miscarriage when I put you on the witness stand this morning.”

  She looked at him then and her eyes belied the paleness of her complexion. They were smoldering with an inner fire. “Would it have made a difference if you had known?”

  “You wouldn’t have been called to testify.”

  “But then your case might have suffered, Mr. McKee,” she said with sarcastic sweetness.

  He glanced down at the floor. “Perhaps. But not significantly.”

  “You still think you’ll get a conviction?”

  His eyes speared straight into hers through the dim light. “I’ll get a conviction.” It was a firm statement that left no room for doubt. Her chest began to heave with agitation. He recalled his promise to Bonnie Strand, but nothing could make him leave her now.

  “If you were so sure of the outcome, why was it necessary to attack Thomas and me?”

  “I wasn’t attacking you. Never you. I told you from the beginning that I didn’t want you to be hurt. I meant it.”

  She threw back her head and laughed bitterly. “You don’t think your lying implications about Thomas hurt me?”

  They weren’t lies! he wanted to shout back. But he held his tongue. Wynne had died her hero and her hero he would remain. He couldn’t hang Wynne without hanging himself, too. “I publicly humiliated you. I realize and admit that. I’m sorry I had to do it, but I did.”

  As the memory of the morning assailed her she clamped her top teeth over her lower lip. Hunter swiftly moved closer. “Are you in pain?” he asked.

  “No, no,” she said, shaking her head miserably. “Just leave me alone. I don’t want you here.”

  Even twisted in anguish, her face was one of the prettiest he’d ever seen. He longed to lay his palms on her cheeks, to soothe away all her heartache. He wanted to touch his lips to hers once again. God, why had he kissed her? Not knowing what she tasted like had been hell, but now knowing and not being able to have it again was worse.

  He straightened and moved away, cramming his hands into his pockets to keep from touching her. She smelled delicious, like dusting powder. In the soft lamplight, her skin glowed with a pearly luminescence. Her hair looked alive and healthy enough to crackle. The bedcovers were pulled up only waist-high. Beneath the blanket he could see the outline of her thighs and the merest suggestion of the delta between them. The nightgown she had on was chaste, but soft and clinging. It molded to her shape. He couldn’t really see her breasts, but he could imagine them.

  In fact, his vivid imagination was causing him a great deal of discomfort.

  Damn, he cursed himself, ashamed of his arousal. She had belonged to another man. For all practical purposes, she still did. This was a hopeless infatuation. It was a dead end. She obviously couldn’t stand the sight of him; indeed, hated him.

  What the hell was he doing here, making her more antagonistic with each passing second, and torturing himself? But he couldn’t leave without apologizing for one more thing.

  So he could think more clearly, he put distance between them, going to stand in front of her dresser. He itemized the articles she used every day, the personal things she touched without thinking about them. A hairbrush. A gold wristwatch. A bottle of scent. He was tempted to lift the crystal bottle to his nose and breathe deeply of the perfume, but he didn’t dare.

  “I owe you another apology.” His quiet voice vibrated across the room.

  She reacted as though he had actually touched her. Her stomach was sucked in on a sharp breath. She knew what was coming, but talking to him about it was unthinkable. “I don’t want to hear it,” she whispered. “Just go.”

  “I’m sorry I kissed you.”

  She groaned and covered her mouth with her hand. “Go away. Leave me alone.”

  “Or, more honestly, I’m sorry for doing it when you had no choice in the matter. I’m not sorry I kissed you.”

  Her head came up and she sought his reflection in the mirror. “Wasn’t it enough that you crucified my husband’s reputation? Wasn’t it enough that you exposed me to public ridicule and caused me to lose my baby?” Her small fists were balled at her sides and she thumped the mattress angrily. Tears slid down her cheeks. “But aside from all that, you had no right to touch me, much less … touch me the way you did.”

  His eyes closed briefly in a spasm of guilt. “I know.”

  “Then how could you have kissed me?” she demanded.

  He spun around. He wasn’t entirely to blame. She wasn’t faultless and by God he wasn’t going to be branded as the only culprit in the crime. “I’ll tell you how I could.” His new tone stopped her tears and snatched the breath out of her lungs. “I’ve wanted to kiss you from the first time I saw you. Now you can kick and scream, pitch a fit, summon your watchdogs out there to come in here to haul me out, but that’s a fact. I wanted to kiss you. And you didn’t seem to mind. In fact, when I tried to pull away, you wouldn’t let me.”

  “Wouldn’t let … You outweigh me seventy-five pounds!”

  He looked properly chagrined. It was absurd to suggest that she could physically best him. But resolutely he came forward until he stood at the foot of the bed. “Your arms embraced me. Your hands caressed me. You pressed your mouth against mine. You—”

  “Stop!”

  “—opened your lips and—”

  “No more, I said.”

  “—you kissed me back!”

  She was breathing hard, laboring for every breath. “I was dreaming, practically unconscious. I wasn’t kissing you. I thought you were my husband!”

  Frustrated in his own right, Hunter whipped off his eyeglasses. He leaned forward and trapped her feet and lower legs between the straight arms that braced him up over her. He spoke softly, enunciating each word. “Well, I’ll tell you something, Kari Stewart. If I were your husband, I wouldn’t do something so stupid as to risk losing you.”

  His meaning was clear. Thomas Wynne had been that stupid.

  “Get out.” She pushed the words through her teeth.

  “And you can deny it to me and to yourself till hell freezes over, but you participated in and enjoyed that kiss.”

  “I did not!”

  Then, with his eyelids partially closed as he studied her mouth, he leaned closer and said in a soft, declarative whisper, “Liar.”

  “Get out!”

  H
er shout brought Pinkie and Bonnie on a run. They arrived in time to see Hunter calmly putting on his glasses. Apparently the bouquet of yellow roses that were hurled at his retreating back didn’t faze him. He shouldered past them muttering “Excuse me,” and seconds later the front door slammed.

  Chapter Five

  HER CONVALESCENCE WAS LIKE A SENTENCE, BUT SHE served it. When she passed the doctor’s muster and was allowed to go back to work, she had to admit that the time of complete rest had been to her advantage.

  She felt renewed. It had been almost five months since Thomas’s death. It was time to get on with her life. Before her miscarriage, she had felt she was moving in limbo, but now she had a definite goal—to see that the acting D.A. got his comeuppance.

  Hunter McKee had won his conviction of councilmen Parker and Haynes. Even though Thomas Wynne was dead and unable to defend himself, he had been sentenced in shame just as the other two had been. Kari Stewart Wynne was not going to forgive and forget that.

  She had been back at work for three weeks when she heard a rumor that sent her flying out of an editing room and straight to Pinkie’s desk in the newsroom.

  “I just heard that Dick Johnson is leaving to go to KABC.”

  Pinkie blew a cloud of cigarette smoke ceilingward. “The grapevine around here is shorter than a hooker’s timer,” he said crossly. “I just heard it from the horse’s mouth not fifteen minutes ago.”

  “I want his beat.”

  Pinkie frowned up at her. His eyes stayed hard on her face even as he shouted to a passing videotape photographer to get his camera and meet a reporter at the heliport. “It’s a chemical explosion, so take plenty of equipment,” he shouted. Then to Kari he said, “Let’s talk.”

  Eagerly she followed him into his private office, which he rarely frequented. The glass-walled room sat adjacent to the newsroom and provided the news director a view of what was going on, who was available, who was busy, who wasn’t. When Pinkie summoned someone into the inner chamber, it was usually for a serious discussion. After closing the door, he sat behind the desk and Kari took the chair across from it. “Why?” he asked without preamble.