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accept defeat gracefully. But then, I’m not altogether certain I’ve been defeated.”
    That was when the first raindrop fell. They looked toward the darkening sky at the same moment.
    Her growl of exasperation earned her a lopsided grin.
    “Right on cue,” he said, as if he’d masterminded the entire scenario.
    “Nice trick,” she said drily. “What do you do for an encore? Walk on water?”
    He laughed, and despite the autumn chill, January felt the same warm and intensely intimate sensation she’d experienced the first time she’d heard that sound.
    “Too easy,” he said. “I go for the really tough stuff . . . like rescuing stubborn women from themselves.” He looked again toward the sky as a rapid succession of fat, splattering drops bombarded them. “Come on, Counselor.” He grabbed her briefcase in one hand and her elbow in the other. “Like it or not, you’ve lost both the opening and the closing arguments on this case. My car’s right over here. Let’s make a run for it.”

Three
    Michael’s younger brother, Rob, took affectionate sibling pleasure in pointing out that much of Michael’s success was predicated on sheer dumb luck. As Michael guided a slightly wet, slightly prickly January Stewart into the passenger seat of his Jeep Wrangler, he was—and quite happily—inclined to agree. Besides, at this point he’d accept any help he could get. If it took an autumn rainstorm to get the lady’s undivided attention, hey, who was he to argue with Mother Nature?
    He didn’t want to argue with anyone. Especially not with January. He had other things in mind for her.
    “You okay over there?” he asked, settling in behind the wheel.
    She smoothed her wet skirt over her knees and looked straight ahead. “Fine.”
    “We’ll have some heat here in a second,” he promised, cranking on the ignition, then fiddling with the heater. “It’ll take the chill off and dry us out a bit.”
    She fussed with her hair, not, he guessed, because she was concerned with her appearance, but because she needed something to do with her hands. He just knew she was afraid of him, and what frustrated him, what had him thoroughly irritated, was that he didn’t have a clue as to why.
    Dragging his fingers through his own wet hair, he tuned in the radio and watched her. She was as tense as a sinner in confession. For some reason, knowledge of that tension provoked him to increase it. He reached across her for her seat belt. She almost sprang through the roof when his arm “accidentally” brushed her breasts.
    “Relax,” he said, all innocence, as he fastened the belt at her hip. He paraphrased the signs posted on every major highway in the state. “It’s the law. Can’t have an officer of the court breaking the law, now can we?”
    He was not surprised that she didn’t smile. The quick, electric flash of panic in her eyes, however, momentarily stunned him. Then it was gone, and he was left wondering if he’d imagined it.
    “So,” he said, sliding back behind the wheel, “where’s home?”
    She blinked slowly. “Given the fact that you know my unlisted home phone number and my schedule well enough to show up at the courthouse, do you honestly expect me to believe you don’t know where I live?”
    He grinned. She had him there. Did he know where she lived? You damn betcha. And before he was through with her, he’d know a lot more. Like what it took to make her smile. And what the hell she was afraid of.
    Turning on the windshield wipers, he set the Wrangler in gear and pulled out of the lot. Hanging a left off Pearl, then eventually easing into the flow of traffic on the turnpike, he was content for the moment simply to have her in a position where she couldn’t throw him out or run away.
    The next fifteen minutes of silent driving gave him time to regroup and sift through his feelings. Since first seeing her at the conference, he hadn’t been able to get her out of his head. When he’d gone to her