One Summer’s Knight

please, Mr…um…”

“Riley.”

“Please, Mr. Riley, can we go swimming? We’ll be careful, I promise. We’re real good swimmers-I’m even on a team. And we won’t run on the deck, and we won’t splash…much. Can we? Please?”

“Yeah,” Helen echoed, “can we?”

Riley stared down at the two upturned faces, one flushed with hope, the other squinched up with what he could only have described as glee. Oh, Lord, he thought. These two blueeyed urchins squealing and splashing in his beautiful pool, which he’d had designed, situated and landscaped to create the most harmonious and tranquil environment possible? He hadn’t planned for such a circumstance-hadn’t considered it would ever come up. Couldn’t even imagine it.

And how could he possibly say no?

Fully aware that he was stalling for time, he folded his arms on his chest and said sternly, “Well. It appears you’ve already answered most all of my objections-except for one big one. Don’t you think you should ask your mother?”

“She’d just tell us we have to ask you,” David said quickly, as Helen’s head bobbed in rare agreement.

“Hmm…” Riley rubbed his chin. “Okay, what about suits?” He was rather pleased to have thought of that; of course all their clothing would have been burned in the fire. Naturally, buying replacements, including bathing suits, was one of the first items on his list of priorities, but right now what he needed most was to buy himself some time. Time to get used to this…invasion. Time…

“We have suits,” said David eagerly. For an exclamation point, Helen added a jubilant little hop. “They’re in our backpacks. We were gonna go swimming at Jason’s, but then stupid-head here, had to go and squirt him with grape juice-”

“Am not a stupid-head! You are!”

“-and then our house burned down.” For once even Helen had no punctuation to contribute. Both children gazed at Riley in round-eyed silence.

Seconds ticked by while Riley gazed back at them. Dammit, he didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t account for the fact that his chest suddenly felt as if it had been filled with gravel. Finally he cleared his throat. “Well, okay, then. Go put your suits on. You can swim after breakfast. But only if someone’s with you. And if your mother says it’s okay…”

But the children were already beyond earshot as they rocketed through the French doors and into the house, their gleeful shouts flung back at him like pebbles from under a spinning tire. “Mom! Mom! Mr. Riley said we can go swimming! He said we can go in his pool! Where’s my bathing suit? Mom-where’s my backpack? Mom-”

All the noise and excitement, of course, brought the dog at a dead run. She came in at warp speed, carrying a golf ball in her mouth, and skidded to a stop on the flagstones. Finding herself left behind and apparently forgotten, she stared intently for a moment or two at the closed French doors. She looked over her shoulder at Riley. Then, on paws so tiny and delicate they hardly seemed to touch the ground, she trotted over to him and dropped her trophy at his feet.

Even Riley had to admit that was pretty cute. “Well, okay, thank you very much,” he said magnanimously, and was bending down to retrieve the golf ball when, to his annoyance, the little mutt snatched it up in her jaws and pranced away with it, stopping just beyond his reach.

He swore under his breath. The dog looked at him, then opened her mouth and once more let the ball drop. It made a small “pock…pock…pock” as it bounced on the patio flagstones. The dog-Beatle-watched it until it had stopped rolling, then cocked her head and looked up at Riley. Her eyes were huge and round, and every muscle in her body seemed on hair-trigger alert, as if she were about to speak.

Riley, however, was not about to be suckered a second time. He folded his arms on his chest and growled, “Okay, what do you want, a medal?”

“A simple ‘good girl!’ would absolutely make her day,” Summer said with a soft laugh as she stepped out onto the patio.

Riley turned, a whole string of stock “good morning!” phrases in his mind. But the words seemed to hang somewhere between there and his lips, run aground on the shoals of feelings he hadn’t know were there, lurking just beneath the smooth-flowing surface of his conscious thoughts.

She did look like summer personified, all right, standing there in his old blue bathrobe-a former favorite of his, coincidentally, which had become so threadbare and worn he’d banished it some time past to one of the guest room closets. Now he wondered why. It didn’t look like a ragbag candidate, not on her. It matched her eyes. It draped softly over her body. She looked like blue sky and sunshine, fresh breezes and flowers. And her eyes had a misty look.

She said softly, “I hope you know you just made their day.”

Riley cleared his throat. “Oh, yeah?”

She nodded. “I don’t know if I mentioned it, but David was on a swim team in California. It was so good for him-he’s not a naturally active child, you know, like Helen is. It was good for his self-esteem, too. I know he’s been worried about keeping it up…keeping fit…” Her voice trailed off, and she gave herself a little shake. “Anyway, thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Riley said absently. He was watching her as she bent down to scoop up Beatle, who had gone into raptures at her appearance, dancing on her hind legs and frantically jabbing the air with tiny front paws. He frowned as Summer endured, with eyes and lips firmly closed, the same treatment he’d gotten earlier from that lightning-quick tongue, then gave the dog’s ears a scratch and set. her back on the flagstones. He frowned because, for what may have been the first time in his adult life, he felt ill at ease with a woman.

The problem was, he couldn’t place her, not here, not in this setting. Something like running into your dentist’s receptionist in the grocery store-he couldn’t quite figure out who she was. Summer Robey in court had been one thing to him-the adversary. In his office yesterday morning she’d been something else-the prospective client. He was well-experienced in dealing with those. A little less experience with last night’s incarnation, the traumatized client, perhaps, but still a role he was reasonably comfortable in. But who in the hell was she now, standing here barefoot and sun-kissed in his old bathrobe, on a morning that smelled of honeysuckle and roses? His houseguest? Well…yes. And still his client, too-he couldn’t let himself forget that. But somehow, it seemed to him, more than either of those. As hard as it was to admit it to himself, he didn’t have the faintest idea how to treat her.

Talk about the children, he decided. That was usually safe. He cleared his throat and remarked, “Seems to me that boy worries a lot.”

The words hadn’t been meant as a criticism, Summer knew, but they pricked her heart just the same. Instead of answering, she scooped up the golf ball and tossed it onto the lawn, then watched with Riley as Beatle bounded after it, keeping her smile firmly in place. When she glanced at Riley, she saw that he hadn’t bothered to make even that effort.

“I hope you don’t mind,” she said, hunching her shoulders and plunging her hands deep into the pockets of the blue flannel robe-movements that felt stiff and unnatural to her as a puppet’s. “I found this in the room next to mine. I thought, since-”

“No, of course I don’t mind-you’re welcome to it.” His tone was polite but aloof, and his gaze slid only briefly toward her before returning to Beatle, who, having run down his “quarry,” was now growling and shaking it violently to insure a quick “kill.” “I’m sorry-I should have thought to find something for you last night.”

“No, no-that’s all right. We were all tired.”

Once more silence fell between them and was instantly filled with the hum of morning… and miniature canine snarls. Summer listened to it all for a few moments, then forced an unsteady laugh. “You have no idea,” she said in a low voice, “how awkward this feels.”

His eyes flicked back to her, and this time, before he could veil them with his usual grace and faultless courtesy, she caught a look of surprise-surprise, and a glimpse of something darker, something that told her how wrong her statement had been. Not only was Riley Grogan feeling the same awkwardness she was, but it was a state he abhorred. Naturally, she thought, remembering the way he’d faced her in a courtroom and in his office, with the quiet confidence that had made her think of jungle cats. The way he’d faced down the FBI man on his own turf and promptly taken charge. Riley Grogan was not a man who would ever be accustomed to feeling at a loss.