The Last White Knight (22 page)

“Say it, Lynn,” he murmured, lowering himself to her. His eyes locked on hers, he slowly began to enter her. “Tell me you love me.”

A fine mist of tears filled Lynn’s eyes. She wanted him. God, she wanted him! Not just tonight, but forever. She wanted to tell him, but she couldn’t let the words come. Her silence would hurt him now, but it would only hurt more if she told him she loved him and then walked away.

She ran her hands down his sweat-slicked back to the tight, hard muscles of his buttocks, pulling him into her. He filled her completely, pressing deep, throbbing inside her. She swallowed a breath and tried to move against him, but he held himself still, his gaze still hard on hers.

“Say it, Lynn. Please. Just once.”

His plea was her undoing. She watched as the ferocity in his expression cracked and crumbled and the fire in his eyes softened to pure blue need.

“Just once,” he whispered, lowering his head to press his cheek to hers.

She closed her eyes and banded her arms tightly around him, love and regret mixing inside her into a bitter pain that burned like acid in her heart. “I love you,” she said softly as the tears came and squeezed their way past her barriers to roll down her temples.

Erik almost went weak with the wave of relief that surged through him. He had a chance.
They
had a chance.

Tenderly, he brushed the tears from the outer corners of her eyes. Then he lowered his mouth and settled his lips on Lynn’s, kissing her deeply as he moved his body against hers, gradually taking them both beyond need to bliss.

I love you
. Such a simple sentence. Such a complex emotion.

Lynn sat at the table on the deck, bundled against the predawn chill in one of Erik’s sweatshirts, her rumpled jeans, and white cotton socks. She propped her feet on the other chair and hugged her arms around her knees, her gaze fixed on nothing, unfocused on the middle distance and the low-lying fog that hung like thick smoke in the still air.

She had managed to slip from the bed when Erik had finally succumbed to sleep. She’d lost track of the number of times they’d made love, determined to please each other, one wondrous moment blending into the next and the next. She had wanted to give
Erik everything she could as a final gift, a final memory. And Erik had been bent on making her see how good it was between them, how much he loved her, how much she loved him. They had been seized by a kind of aching, sweet desperation, both wanting to hang on to something that simply couldn’t last.

She would end it today. It was the logical point to make the break. They’d had their time together, brief though it had been. They had shared something special. Their paths had crossed and joined, but now they would go their separate ways again. He deserved someone better, someone without a shadowed past. And she had to be content with the taste she’d gotten of his love. White knights didn’t come along every day. She had to count herself lucky for having had this chance, then do the noble thing and let him go.

She only wished it didn’t have to hurt so much.

Why were her dearest dreams always just beyond her reach? Her father’s love, her baby, Erik … How long would she have to go on paying for the mistakes she’d made?

Forever. There was no way of atoning for the lives she’d altered. Those mistakes could never be erased. She could only go on with her life as she had been, trying to right other wrongs before other lives were ruined. Her girls’. Erik’s. And maybe one day, if she
was very, very lucky, she’d get another chance at love she could hang on to.

“I come out here to think some mornings too.” Erik’s voice sounded behind her, low and smoky. “Things seem clearer, simpler.”

Lynn looked back at him. He stood with a shoulder braced against the frame of the open glass door, bare-chested, barefoot. Faded jeans were molded to his legs and hips. His zipper was up, but the button was undone, revealing a wedge of tawny hair low on his belly. She was struck by how handsome he really was—not just when he was groomed and tricked out in one of his senator’s suits, but now, when he was just a man, when his hair was mussed and his morning beard shadowed the hard, angular planes of his face.

“Nothing’s ever really simple,” she said.

“This is.” He crossed the deck and stood beside her chair, his fierce Nordic-blue gaze boring down on her as if he could convince her by sheer force of will. “I love you, Lynn. You love me. That’s all there is to it.”

“I wish that were true.”

Erick bit back a curse and reined in his temper. He was a politician. He was supposed to be naturally persuasive and diplomatic, he reminded himself. He lowered himself to one knee beside Lynn’s chair,
bracing a hand along the back. She watched him silently, the aura of dread calm around her setting off warning lights inside him. She was resigned, she was determined, and she was nothing if not stubborn. If her mind was made up, he was going to have the fight of a lifetime on his hands. Well, so was she, he pledged as he met her even gaze.

“People make mistakes, Lynn. We’re human.”

“Some of us more than others,” she said with a wry, sad little smile.

“We don’t have to pay for them with our lives.”

“I won’t pay with yours, Erik. I could ruin you. My past—”

“Is behind you, and damn near buried,” he snapped, his patience fraying.

Lynn met his gaze with that damnable calm resignation. “It could be unearthed if people cared to dig deep enough.”

“But why should they?” he asked with a shrug. “You’ve done so much good, Lynn. Why should anyone go looking for the bad?”

She laughed, well aware that there was more cynicism than humor in the sound. “Boy, you are a democrat, aren’t you—idealist to the end.”

Erik scowled. “I’m being more realistic than you are. You’re so caught up in your martyrdom you can’t see anything else. You’d be a politician’s wife,
not a politician. No one would care to look beyond what you’re doing with your life now. And what if they did? They’d find out you made the same mistake thousands of young girls make every year. No one’s going to brand a scarlet letter on your forehead. Not even in Minnesota.

“Do you know how often this comes along, Lynn?” he asked softly but vehemently. “Do you have any idea how rare what we have between us is?”

Lynn gripped the arm of the chair, her fingers tightening and tightening until her knuckles turned white. “Yes,” she whispered, emotional pain throbbing through her as real and sharp as any physical pain. Yes, she knew how rare it was. She knew all too well.

“Once in a lifetime. Maybe,” Erik said. “How can you throw that away?”

“I don’t see that I have a choice.”

“Of course you have a choice. You’re just too damn stubborn to see it.” His temper boiled up inside him again and he had to struggle to subdue it with the calm control that usually ruled his arguments. “You can choose happiness or sacrifice. We could have a life together, Lynn, a home, a family—”

Lynn held up a hand to cut him off, tears filming her eyes. “Don’t,” she said, her voice choked with emotion. She doubted he had any idea how cruel he
was being, holding that image up to her—of the two of them with a child. She couldn’t have wanted anything more than she wanted that: a chance at a real family, a second chance at motherhood. But she was already a mother, she reminded herself. She had a son in Indiana.

“I can’t, Erik,” she whispered. She pushed herself out of the deck chair and walked away from him to lean against the railing. She stared out at the woods as the fog began to lift and the first rays of dawn began to filter through.

“You
won’t
,” he said angrily. “You’re too busy running from your past. First you ran physically. Now you do it in subtler ways, but you’re still running, throwing good deeds back in the path of that demon chasing you. If you’d stop and face it and deal with it once and for all, maybe you’d see things for what they really are. You’re not a monster, Lynn. You’re a woman, and you made some mistakes. You’re always preaching for other people to understand the mistakes of youth. Why don’t you take a little of your own advice?”

“I
am
taking my own advice!” she shouted, whirling on him. “My advice to not screw up any more lives than I already have!”

Erik’s eyes narrowed suddenly in speculation. He propped his hands on his hips and shuffled closer to
her, trying to see past her defenses. “That’s what this is really all about, isn’t it? You think you’re not good enough for me. You’re afraid to try for happiness with me because you’ve painted me as some kind of knight in shining armor, someone too pure to touch.” He shook his head in amazement. “God, and you accused
me
of being a snob. Look at what you’re doing, Lynn.”

Her trembling chin lifted a defiant notch. “I’m doing the right thing.”

Erik swore viciously, turned, and batted at a chair, sending it toppling with a crash to the deck. “I don’t get a say in this?” he demanded, stepping toward her aggressively. He backed her up against the railing and leaned over her, trying to intimidate her any way he could. “It’s
my
life you’re so damned worried about! What about what
I
want?”

Lynn gulped a breath, fighting tears of anger and pain and frustration. With the little scrap of strength she had left, she turned belligerent. “You wanted a career in politics. You’ve got it. You wanted to help Horizon and get yourself a little publicity in the process. You got that. You wanted to screw the counselor. You did that too. You ought to be happy.”

Pure, raw fury burned through Erik. His face reddened with it; his muscles trembled with it. He grabbed Lynn by the shoulders. “Don’t you dare try
to cheapen this,” he snarled through his teeth. “Don’t you dare give me that street-kid bull. You’re not that lost little girl anymore, Lynn. You’re a woman; you can make your own choices. And I’m not some snow-white public savior. I’m just a man, and I want you, Lynn. Not only in bed, but in every way. I want us to have a life together.”

“Well, take it from someone who knows, Senator,” she said, stubbornly clinging to her resolve. “It’s like what the Rolling Stones said—You can’t always get what you want.”

That was it, Erik thought. Lynn’s life philosophy in a nutshell. She couldn’t have it all because she could never fully atone for the sins of her past. No matter how much she might want it, she wasn’t going to let them have a future. Nothing he could say would change her mind.

He let go of her and stepped back. He wasn’t accustomed to losing. Defeat didn’t sit well on his shoulders. All his life he’d believed that if he worked hard enough, if he wanted it badly enough and covered all the angles, he could have anything he set his heart on. Well, he’d set his heart on Lynn Shaw, and all it was getting was broken.

Lynn watched Erik prowl the deck, his hands jammed at the low-riding waist of his jeans. The muscles in his big shoulders were bulging with tension.
The expression on his face was almost one of amazement, as if he couldn’t quite believe he wasn’t going to win the debate.

She’d done the right thing. She knew she had. But that didn’t make Erik’s pain any easier to take. Guilt loomed up behind her and swamped her like a tidal wave. She never should have gotten involved with him in the first place.

She wanted to say something. That she was sorry, that it had been great while it lasted … something. But no words seemed appropriate. At any rate, they had probably said enough.

“I’ll walk home,” she mumbled.

Erik made no reply—not that one was necessary. Lynn crossed the deck to the sliding glass door. She would get her shoes, take off his sweatshirt, and walk out of his life. They would probably have to see each other later in the day. There would be a press conference to announce Elliot’s arrest. But they wouldn’t have to have any real contact. Then life would settle back to what passed for normal at Horizon House and Erik would move on to some other worthy cause to occupy his summer. The wounds would heal and eventually the scars would fade.

“I never had you pegged for a coward, Lynn.”

Her fingers tightened on the handle of the door. Coward? No. He had no idea how hard it was for
her to walk away from his golden, shining love. Maybe that was just as well.

“You’re not afraid for me,” he said. “You’re afraid for yourself—afraid to face your past, afraid to face your family, afraid to give yourself a shot at something other than penance. You forgive everyone else, Lynn. How long will you go on punishing yourself?”

Lynn looked at his reflection in the window. This would be all she would ever have of him—a memory, an insubstantial image in her mind. How long would she punish herself? Until that image and the image of what might have been faded completely away. A long, long time.

Shoulders sagging with the weight of that knowledge, she stepped through the door into the bedroom.

News of Elliot Graham’s arrest went through Rochester like wildfire. The tide of sentiment that had been flowing hard against Horizon died abruptly. Citizens for Family Neighborhoods went dead in the water. The protestors slinked away in embarrassment, dragging their signs behind them. Doors within the circle of well-heeled charitable groups in the community that had previously been
closed to Horizon opened to the irresistible pressure of good publicity.