"Oh, sure." The little huff of air she exhaled said otherwise. "I am just super-dandy." But her spine relaxed a bit against his stomach and chest and her shoulders lost some of their stiffness.
"The carrion-eaters are coming to town, huh?"
"To pick this carcass clean." Her back settling a little more firmly against him, she shot him a puzzled glance over her shoulder. "How did you find out?"
"Joe told me." Right after he had cornered the guy at the end of his break and demanded to know what the fuck he had said to make Hayley go whiter than Mother Voodoo's bleached bones. After hearing the explanation, he had wondered when Beal had gotten so cozy with the staff at the Royal Inn. But since that was hardly his main consideration , he hadn’t asked. Instead, he had kept a wary eye on Hayley, biding his time until closing. “Along with some Senator from New Hampshire?”
"Wonderful. He chatted up the entire bar."
"No, he told me. Period." Cautiously, Jon-Michael slid his arms around her, taking it as a good sign when she didn’t immediately head-butt his teeth down his throat. "But Hayley, honey," he felt compelled to caution her, "I wouldn’t go holding my breath if I were you. I doubt a motel full of vultures and a hot-shot senator will pass unnoticed. Not in this burg."
"No, I certainly mustn’t hope for that," she agreed bitterly. It was the gravity-laden resignation in her voice, however, that had Jon-Michael tightening his hold on her.
"The official countdown has begun," she said, staring straight ahead. "It is now less than thirty days to the execution. You know what, Johnny?"
"Don't call me—"
"I sort of hoped if I wasn't available the media would move on to something else—or at least find another angle to pursue. Out of sight, out of mind, or some such optimistic bullshit." She sat quietly for a moment, then emitted a sound like a balloon leaking air. "No such luck, I guess. I'm a hot commodity."
He didn't know what to say to her, so he remained silent. What could he say? She had been living in a goldfish bowl for a couple years now and her hopes of escaping it had just been blown to hell. He rubbed her cool, bare arms with his warm hands.
"The television journalists are the worst," she said in a low voice. "Not that they aren't all equal opportunity hounders, but at least most of the newspaper people end up writing a fairly complete, factual account." She stared out over the water. "News on TV, though, has been reduced to nothing more than thirty second sound bites. And let's face it, even those are slanted in whatever direction will draw the most ratings."
Jon-Michael hated the resignation in her voice. Sure, she had a right to her distress. But the Hayley he knew had never simply rolled over to accept whatever bad luck came her way; she had fought back. She could be reserved at the oddest moments, but she sure as hell had a mouth on her when it counted most. That was an ironclad guarantee. The defeat he heard now made him crazy.
"We interrupt your local programming to bring you this special bulletin," he burst out and tightened his hold when she jerked in his arms. "A recess has been called in the latest Lawrence Wilson appeal after both lawyers were called to the bench. We take you live to the county courthouse for an in-depth interview with Hamm Blowdry, our trial-watch specialist. Hamm?" Jon-Michael stuck his fist out, a mock microphone. "Can you tell us why the recess has been called?" He felt Hayley go very still within the cradle of his body.
"The lawyers consulted with the judge in a manner that can only be described as highly secretive," he replied in a deeper, smoother voice. “So all I can say is the recess could have been called for any number of reasons." He paused one beat and then two. "Hayley Prescott may well have broken down under cross examination and admitted to something nefarious. I was in the john at the time, but I always did think there was something just a lit-tle too goody-two-shoes about that woman. Or it is always possible there was evidence of jury-tampering. Odds are decent an ancestor of Wilson's changed his name at Ellis Island. He's probably connected clear back to Sicily.”
He brought the fist-mike back to his lips. “Well! Whatever it turns out to be, you can rest easy knowing this Nose for News will stay on the job until the last rock has been overturned and its seamy underbelly thoroughly examined."
Hayley wanted to be insulted he was mocking her misery. She wanted to hang onto her sense of being misused.
But she couldn't help it; she laughed.
"It is not funny, you know," she said sternly…then ruined the effect by snickering. "You may think your little improvisation is a joke, Jon-Michael, but you are actually not that far off the mark."
"Yeah, I know. But you can't let the assholes get you down."
She twisted around to stare up at him. "Oh, easy for you to say. You haven’t had them dogging your every footstep for the past too many years."
He did not reply, but rather stared down at her with those inscrutable chocolate brown eyes. Hayley felt his hard chest shift against her shoulder as he shrugged. She twisted back to face front. A few minutes later, his chin lowered to rest atop her head and they sat in silence, staring out at the dark, impenetrable lake, each thinking their separate thoughts.
Eventually, she made a subtle movement that caused Jon-Michael's legs to go lax on either side of her, his arms to drop away. She flipped over until she was on all fours, her knees between his thighs, her hands braced against the dock next to his hips. She craned her head back to stare up at him.
"Thanks," she said softly. And stretched to peck a soft kiss on his lips.
For an act intended to be merely friendly, the effect was dizzyingly electric. Her head froze in the act of pulling back. Her gaze snapped up to meet his.
Jon-Michael sucked in a sharp breath.
Then he wrapped his fingers around a fistful of her thick, warm hair and tugged to tilt her head back further yet, exposing the vulnerable arch of her throat. He lowered his head to kiss her.
He fully expected to control it, thought he could just kiss her socks off for a few red-hot minutes, then stroll away, unaffected.
Funny how it didn't work that way.
Not when her lips were incredibly soft and the inside of her mouth hotter than a crucible. The instant her lips parted and he slid his tongue into a humid cavern that felt like home, he realized he was in deep, deep trouble.
Too damn late to do him a bit of good.
With an involuntary rumble deep in his throat that sounded suspiciously like a growl, he lay back, pulling Hayley atop his chest. Immediately he rolled them until her backside kissed the dock's worn planks and he was propped on his side half beside and half over her. His kiss grew fiercely urgent against soft, receptive lips.
With forearms flat against the deck and his hands in her hair, he hemmed her in, not trusting her to stay with him all the way. Sure, she clung to him now, twisting to rub her breasts against him as she kissed him back with that furnace-hot mouth and supple tongue. But who was to say she wouldn’t come to her senses any second now and kick his sorry butt right off the dock? Before that happened he intended to experience as much of her as possible.
He unbuttoned her vest one handedly and smoothed it open. He started to pull his mouth away but she made a sound of protest and thrust her hands in his hair to bring him back.