She looked up into his flushed face and half-closed eyes and felt an even more overwhelming rush of tenderness. 119
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"Jake," she whispered. He kissed her deeply, then covered her throat in little nibbling kisses as his hands reach under, raising her hips in preparation. Slowly he slid inside her. She matched every move he made, her hands skimming over his body to find new points to stroke as he stroked her. This time would be quick; they both sensed that. When the final burst of pleasure began inside her, it traveled swiftly throughout her body and exploded around him. "Jake," she groaned. "
Cara mia
."
"My heart," he answered hoarsely. She cried out again, and he matched the sound. He poured himself into her as she twisted beneath him, smiling, her head thrown back.
Jake wound one hand into hers and kissed her deeply as their bodies relaxed. Putting an arm under her shoulders, he held her tightly to him. She grazed his sweaty neck with kisses and wrapped her legs tighter around his hips. His mouth brushed her ear.
"My darlin' Viv," he murmured. "Feel the love and goodness in the world. It's all around us, it's here now." He raised his head slightly, and she gazed up into his face.
"I see it," she whispered.
* * * *
After a long and tender night in Jake's arms, the buzz of her clock at 7 a.m. was a stark eye-opened she didn't want. Vivian leaned off the bed and whacked the snooze button with her fist. Immediately, Jake's arms surrounded her from behind and pulled her back under the covers. 120
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"Calm down now, Tough Stuff," he rumbled, his sexy, sleep-roughened voice vibrating against the back of her neck.
"We'll have thousands of nights together. This was just the first."
Vivian sighed wistfully, hoping that it would be so. Her hips and back nestled into the curve of his body, and the arm he'd put over her tightened. His hand roamed gently over her until it found a comfortable resting spot beneath her navel.
"Go back to sleep," he urged. "I love you."
"I love you, too," she whispered into the pillow. For a second they lay in silence. When he spoke again, his tone was gruffly teasing.
"Pardon me, ma'am. My hearin's not so good in the mornin'. Could you repeat that?"
"I love you, too," she said louder, with a little twist of exasperation. He rubbed her stomach.
"It'll get easier to say as time goes by," he said dryly, and dozed off again.
Vivian gave in to the heat of his body and the bed, and went back to sleep. At 7:40 she awoke with the instinctive knowledge that she'd overslept. The clock confirmed it.
"I have to leave for court in thirty minutes!" she rasped as she leaped out of bed. He grumbled and grasped thin air trying to capture her, but too late.
When she got out of the shower ten minutes later, her bed was empty and she heard pans rattling in the kitchen. She padded into the kitchen in her slip and a dark blue pin-striped skirt. Wonderful smells filtered toward her. 121
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"How about a bacon-and-fried-egg sandwich?" Jake asked from his spot by the stove. He wore only his jeans. She whistled. He turned around and whistled back. "You wake up lookin' a whole lot better than I do." He held out his naked arms and grinned a sweet, sexysleepy grin. Vivian tiptoed over on the cold tile floor and snuggled into his arms gratefully. He kissed the top of her head.
"You goin' to feel better today, Judge Costa?"
"I'm going to feel wonderful."
A strip of bacon popped and sent grease onto his uncovered back. Yelping, he turned the stove off. The he grasped her by the waist, lifted her off the floor, and began marching out of the kitchen. She dug her fingers into his shoulders.
"I have to go to work, Jake!"
"You give me ten minutes, I'll give you somethin' to think about all day," he promised.
"
Ohhhh
," she breathed, as they returned to her bedroom. Twenty minutes later, she finished winding her hair into a French braid and wobbled through her living room, still flushed and her knees shaky, her jacket hanging over one arm. Jake strode out behind her with his ribbed top and plaid shirt crookedly arranged, his shirt tail trailing over his jeans.
"Here's your breakfast," he said softly, handing her a paper bag. He gave her hurried outfit a once-over, took her hand, and towed her onto the sun porch. Early morning light gave the plant-filled room an ethereal quality. Jake turned her 122
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to face him and began straightening the bow on her white blouse.
"It's nice to be looked after," she admitted, her eyes gleaming.
He stroked wisps of hair back from her forehead, then caught her face between his hands and greedily studied her.
"Be at my place right after work. Ready to spend the night. Oops. Sorry. Not meaning to order you around, Your Honor. Call it a polite but really, really hopeful invitation, awright?" She stood on tiptoe and kissed him. "Awright." She mimicked his drawl.
"Say it one more time. Please."
"What?"
"You know."
She grinned. "I love you, Jake."
"Now git," he said gruffly. "And practice sayin', 'I love you, Jake.' You still put too much worry in the words."
"Because we still have lots of issues to discuss..."
"You'll be late for court. And I've got an apartment building to renovate." He kissed her to stop the conversation. She sighed. "You win. For now."
* * * *
She found the bulky package wrapped in white paper and blue ribbon on her desk when she came back from the morning session. Callender trailed into the office behind her.
"Jake Coltrane, you sweet boy," Vivian said under her breath as she glanced at the small card tucked into the package's bow. To Cal, who looked at the mystery gift with 123
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envy, she added, "Aren't men wonderful? Isn't life wonderful?"
"No."
"Bad day?"
"Yes."
Cal stalked out and, shrugging, Vivian tore into the present. She peeled the paper back, took a hurried look through the contents, and burst into laughter. Tom stuck his head in the door.
"What's wrong?"
"Why would anything be wrong?"
"I never heard you laugh before." She held up a pair of cut-off jeans and a frilly white blouse.
"My
Dukes of Hazard
farm-babe outfit."
"Your
what
?"
"Never mind." Still laughing, she put the clothes down and pulled two books from the package. "And I got these. Look,
Dairy Technology and Livestock Management
and
A Day at
the Farm
, 'For ages eight to eleven.'" She stacked them on top of the clothes then retrieved something else, something she cupped in her hand. Her laughter faded to a soft smile.
"What's that?" Tom demanded. "A corncob crack pipe?"
"No." When she showed no sign of telling him what she held so protectively in her palm, he exhaled in disgust and left. Her eyes gleaming, Vivian held the tiny perfectly whittled wooden rose up and admired it.
"I love you, Jake," she whispered. "And I'm going to find a way to make it work."
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She finished with the afternoon docket by three-thirty and had just plopped down to study a legal tome at her cluttered desk when Roberto, escorted by Barney Washington, appeared at the office door.
"Vivvy, you gotta go see about Jake!" Fear raced through her, and she leaped to her feet.
"What's wrong with him?"
Roberto's rough hands twisted his red sock cap into a wad.
"Oh, I wasn't supposed to tell, he's gonna be mad..."
"Roberto Marino, you tell me what you're not supposed to tell, right now!"
"Oh, Vivvy, he's gone!"
"
Where
?"To Tuna Creek?" she asked immediately, paralyzed.
"About an hour east of here, I think he said. It's on CNN. A bunch of farmers got together and barricaded themselves around a guy's place to keep the sheriff from servin' an eviction notice. One of Jake's buddies called him to come help out. They've got machine guns and everything! They fired shots into the air!"
Vivian was already shucking her robe and reaching for her coat.
* * * *
The low, rolling pastureland gave her a long-distance view of the Melrose farm as she approached it down a country two126
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lane. Vivian winced at the beehive of flashing lights and news vans bearing satellite dishes. She got within a few hundred yards before a local sheriff's deputy blocked the road. Vivian parked the Prius to one side, jerked her credentials from her purse and ran up to a officer.
Still, it took ten minutes of pleas before the deputy let her walk into the area. Reporters seemed to be everywhere, mingling with dozens of heavily armed officers, including SWAT teams. A few curious local citizens had sneaked onto the premises, and a minister was singing "Amazing Grace." Vivian angled her way through the crowd.
The farm was a small, homey place with several outbuildings and a handsome split-level house at the end of a graveled driveway. The entrenched farm owner had built a barricade of farm equipment reinforced by sandbags around the house. Vivian strained her eyes to pick Jake out from the dozens of men and women behind the makeshift defense.
These must be forty people back there
, she thought in amazement.
And many of them held rifles.
"You can't just walk up there!" a reporter called.
"Watch me," she muttered calmly.
A burly, bearded man in faded overalls peered over the sandbags at her. "Ma'am, what's your business?"
"Jake Coltrane," Vivian said coolly. "Tell him Vivian is here."
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He turned to a group nearby, gesturing and talking on cell phones. They peered at Vivian and nodded. The bearded man came back and held out a hand.
"Climb over. He's in the house, having a cup of tea and being interviewed by some news folks." Vivian pressed through a crowd of people into a corner of the home's living room and watched a television reporter from one of the south Georgia stations talk to Jake and four other people. The room was bright with the harsh, white light that accompanied the video camera. Jake looked very satisfied to be at the center of the attention.
"What if this standoff leads to violence?" the reporter asked.
"No, nobody expects that," he assured her. "That's just not the point."
"But you believe public opinion is quietly on your side?"
"Absolutely. People all over this country are losing their jobs, their homes, their hope. The laws are set up to benefit the bankers and the rest of the big money types, not the small farmer, the small business person, the ordinary citizen. We hand over billions in taxpayer money to bail out big companies but no money to bail out the small guy. It may be how the law calls it but the law isn't always sacred." Vivian shifted uneasily. The reporter turned to interview other farmers, and Vivian caught Jake's eye. She crooked a finger at him then worked her way out of the room, stopping in a paneled hallway lined with family portraits.
I'll quietly
whisk Jake out of here. Then I'll kick him off his milk stool
and jab him with my horns
.
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"Viv!" He grabbed her around the waist. "I'm hauling you out of here. This isn't a safe place..."
"Then why are
you
here? Why didn't you tell me? Don't lecture me about danger when
you're
involved in an armed stand-off with the police."
"The local mayor is right over there. And two local preachers, and see that little gray-haired lady? President of the chamber of commerce. I don't think there's enough room in the jail to hold all of us for long." She pulled out her cell phone. "I'll make a couple of calls and get you out of here without being arrested."
"Darlin', I can't leave. This is what's right. I barely saved my own land, and I
did
lose the dairy business on that land, and it took the help of a lot of people to make the bank cut me even a little slack. I owe it to other farmers to support them. The laws are against us."
"That may be true, but you're supposed to work to change the laws, not resort to anarchy."
"This isn't anarchy. It's real well organized. At any rate, I'm not leaving."
"Oh, yes you are. It's very easy." Her voice became extremely patient. "You just put one foot in front of the other, and put your hand in mine..."
"No, no. Everything's settled. We've got it all negotiated. We're fixin' to let the deputies cart us off peacefully. Better publicity that way."
The front door burst open, and a dozen sheriff's deputies, SWAT team members and state patrol officers calmly stepped inside.
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"Time to go, folks!" their leader yelled. "You ladies follow Officer Jenkins here."
"Scoot on out the back door, Viv," Jake urged.
"Nobody's going to arrest
me
," she said with complete assurance. "I'm obviously just a visitor." Officer Jenkins came toward her. "How do, ma'am," he said somberly, and tipped his wide-brimmed trooper's hat. "Come along."
"But you can't ... I'm not..." Vivian sputtered. "I'm a municipal court judge in Atlanta."
"Yeah, right. And I'm Judge Judy." Her eyes flew to Jake.
He gazed down at her with grim regret. "I'm sorry. I'll see you later, when we make bail."
"Come on, folks, let's move it!" a deputy shouted. Officer Jenkins guided Vivian toward the door. She backed along, staring numbly at Jake, who blew her a somber kiss.