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Dr. Pargannas, the assistant medical examiner, slid the cassette into the VCR. While Karen watched the small television screen, Marc watched her. It wasn't a hardship; her profile was delicate and clear-cut, completely feminine. Viewed from the side, her mouth looked tender and tremulous. He settled back, his lids lowering over his eyes as he studied her, analyzing her as intently as if she were the prime suspect in a murder.
Dr. Pargannas spoke quietly to her. Marc knew the drill, so he didn't bother listening. Sometimes shaken family members needed to be prepared, bolstered, for what they were about to see. Miss Whitlaw squared her shoulders and in her cool, calm voice said, "I'm ready." No squeamishness about her, no sir.
He gave a mental shrug. Of course, she wasn't squeamish; she couldn't be, and do her job. He'd bet she was a real treasure in an emergency, but he had doubts about her bedside manner afterward. He'd been a patient in a hospital twice, both times courtesy of the job, and he thought it must be a hospital rule that one nurse per shift, per floor, had to be a coldhearted bitch. Maybe Miss Whitlaw wasn't a bitch, but he sure hadn't seen any signs of warmth in her. He wouldn't want her jabbing needles into his ass.
No doubt about it, though, she turned him on, with those dark bedroom eyes and that deceptively tender mouth. He shouldn't have touched her, but hell, he couldn't let her pass out at his feet. So he had held her against him, supported her, felt the softness of her body under his hands, smelled the sweet musk of her skin—and he wanted her. He didn't know if there was any passion in her at all, but he'd sure like to get her in bed and find out.
Get your mind out of her pants and back on business, Chastain, he chided himself. This wasn't the time or the place for horny thoughts, and besides, he was getting hard thinking about it.
Dr. Pargannas clicked on the tape, and the victim's pallid, waxy face filled the screen.
If he hadn't been watching Miss Whitlaw so closely, Marc would have missed her reaction. He saw the barely perceptible flinch, quickly controlled, and her graceful hands twisted together in her lap. "Yes, that's my father," she said, still calm, but her knuckles were white.
Marc looked from those betraying hands to her calm face, and the shock was like a slap in the face. Abruptly all the little details clicked into place. God, how could he have missed it? He felt like a fool, because he should have seen it from the beginning. His gaze sharpened as he studied her.
No, she wasn't as untouched by this as she wanted to be. He had noticed in his office that every time her composure cracked, she would quickly recover, her shoulders squaring, her chin going up. She didn't like being out of control, and she definitely wouldn't like breaking down in front of strangers, but suddenly he knew she was far from being unfeeling.
Maybe she felt too much. His gaze went again to her hands, locked together as she literally held herself in a tight grip. Maybe she had learned to protect herself by pretending she didn't care, by holding people at a distance so she wouldn't be hurt. In a flash of insight, he thought she must be lonely, aching with grief, but at some time in her life she had learned to hide behind a mask of unconcern, maybe when her father had walked out on his wife and daughter. Kids learned to act tough even when they were terrified inside.
If he read the signs right, she was just trying to hold herself together right now but would cry her eyes out when she was alone.
That wasn't good. A woman needed a shoulder to cry on. In this case, a man's shoulder. His, to be specific.
His reluctant sexual attraction suddenly coalesced into something much sharper, more urgent, and this time he didn't even try to talk himself out of it.
Without conceit, Marc knew he was a damn good cop. He made his living taking snippets of information and piecing them together to form a picture. His instincts were usually on target, but in this case he'd let a few misconceptions get in the way, and she had picked up on his initial hostility. Hell, if he was right about her, she was so sensitive she had probably felt blasted by his attitude. She had reacted, typically, by pulling even deeper inside herself. To get her to trust him now, and he fully intended to, he would have to overcome not just her normal wariness but her protective reaction to his wrong impression and his initial coolness.
But he wanted her, and the wanting increased every time he looked at her, every time she breathed. Getting her was something else; doing it would take all his skill. She was skittish and, given her father's example, probably didn't trust men very much. Still, there had never been a woman he'd wanted whom he hadn't gotten, and he had no intention of letting Miss Karen Whitlaw be the exception.
Marc had two big advantages when dealing with women. First of all, he respected their differences from men, and whenever he became involved with a woman, he devoted himself to discovering what she needed. Of course, the needs varied from woman to woman, but for the most part they all wanted the attention and caring that said they were important to him. When Marc was with a woman, he was hers; it was that simple. He gave each one the respect of fidelity while their affair lasted, he learned their moods and quirks, and he lavished them with attention—in short, babying them. He loved doing it, loved seeing a woman glow with happiness.
Given her background, he thought Karen was desperately in need of babying. She had spent her life being a tough little soldier, and she deserved the chance to relax, to let someone take care of her for a change. He was just the man for the job.
His second big advantage was that he was both ruthless and relentless.
He would have to move fast, because she wouldn't be here long, probably no more than a couple of days.
He didn't have time for a leisurely seduction, disguised as dinner and dancing, stretched out over several weeks. She had a job and a home to return to, and unless he forced the issue before she left, she wouldn't have any reason for continuing the relationship.
He had no doubt there would be a relationship. He was absolutely certain, more certain than he had ever been before. The shock he had felt a moment before had gone all the way through him, deep into his bones. And he was, suddenly, uneasy in a way he had never been before, because having a woman had never before felt this important, this necessary.
He didn't know how they would work out the details, with her in Ohio and him in Louisiana, but they could settle all that later. The most important thing right now was to stake his claim, and to do that he had to win her trust.
Beginning now, he thought, flicking a glance from her hands to her composed expression, then to the television screen. Despite her immediate identification of her father, Dr. Pargannas was painstakingly showing her the "Semper fi" tattoo and other identifying marks, perhaps wanting to make certain she hadn't spoken hastily, perhaps because Marc had been lost in his thoughts and hadn't moved to end the session. He swore silently to himself; he should have stopped this the second she spoke.
"Thanks, Doc," he said now, putting one hand on the back of her chair and bracing the other on the table in front of her, effectively embracing her without touching her. He saw her stiffen a little, an instinctive reaction to the subtle possessiveness of his position, but she was too upset to be consciously aware of what he had just done. Those somber dark eyes glanced at him, then quickly averted when they made eye contact, but not before he saw the relief in them.
She hid it well, managing to shift so she could slide out of the chair away from him, standing and saying briskly, "What do I have to do
now?"
"Sign some papers so we can release the body," Dr. Pargannas replied, then blinked at the narrow look Marc gave him. "Ah… that is, your father's remains." The doctor seemed bewildered; if she had been more visibly upset, he could have understood such tact, but he plainly considered it a waste of time with such a businesslike woman.
Marc had stood when she did. Noting the tension in her shoulders, he quietly said, "I'll call a funeral home for you, then take you to a couple of small cemeteries so you can pick out a plot—if that's what you want?"
"Yes, thank you," she said quickly.