A Profiler's Case for Seduction - By Carla Cassidy Page 0,74

for the last week I’ve heard nothing but how amazing the bonfire is, how the burning of the effigy isn’t to be missed, and I can’t think of anyone I’d like to share the evening with more than you.” There were so many more things he wanted to say, but she looked beaten and bruised from her walk down memory lane.

“It’s foolish for us to have anything more to do with each other,” she countered.

“I don’t want it to end like this, Dora. Come to the bonfire with me. Let’s have one more night with no past and no future between us, just the here and now. It will be a night to enjoy together as friends.”

Her eyes filled with a swift yearning, only there a moment and then hidden as she blinked it away. “Won’t that somehow compromise your investigation if I’m a person of interest?”

“You’re only a person of interest to me, and that has nothing to do with the crimes,” Mark said truthfully. He held his breath, wanting, needing her to give in to this final wish. He needed one last night with her, a night of laughter and fun before she kicked him to the curb to get on with her new life.

“Okay,” she said, although it hurt him that there was no joy, no sweet smile accompanying the word. She stood as if to indicate that she was done, fried to a crisp and more than ready for him to leave.

“Why don’t you come by here at seven on Friday? The bonfire is lit at nine and that will give us a couple of hours to mingle and hang out with the crowd.” She looked at the door, an obvious indication that she had said her piece and now it was time for him to leave.

Reluctantly he got up from the sofa and walked to the front door. “Then I’ll see you Friday night at seven,” he said. She nodded and he realized that was all she had left.

He stepped outside her door and gently closed it behind him. Failure. Somehow he knew he’d failed Dora and for the life of him he didn’t know how to fix it.

Chapter 15

Dora awoke Thursday morning after a night of bad dreams. In her dreams she had been back in Horn’s Gulf and she’d awakened with the bitter dredges of memory in the back of her throat.

Buck Grayson had been a brutal man, but through the first ten years of her life Dora had learned what set him off, how to dodge and weave most of the physical blows he tried to deliver to her. By the time she was fourteen she was spending almost no time around Buck at the family ranch, rather she spent most all of her time with her mother at the Daisy Café.

She now recognized that her mother had been as, if not more, abusive than Buck. Her mother hadn’t hit her or broken any bones, but she’d bound Dora to her and her lifestyle through threats and guile, through manipulation and guilt.

She’d stopped asking herself a long time ago why, when she was young, nobody had stepped in to save her from her father, from her mother or from herself. She knew most of the people in the small town had been afraid of Buck, which made it easy for them to turn blind eyes when Dora showed up with yet another bruise or a broken bone.

She rolled out of bed and headed for the bathroom. Minutes later as she stood beneath a hot spray of water, she thought about the night before and Mark. The questions he’d had to ask her as part of his job hadn’t really surprised her, although she didn’t like the fact that by mere accident of birth she was now on some sheet of paper in the war room of the courthouse.

What had surprised her had been Mark’s gentleness, the compassion she’d seen in the depths of his eyes as they talked about the childhood that should never have been. There had been none of the revulsion she’d expected to see, no judgment of her at all.

Of course, it was easy to feel compassionate for somebody who wasn’t going to be a permanent fixture in your life, she told herself as she got out of the shower and dressed for the day.

He hadn’t run for the hills; rather he’d renewed his desire to spend the homecoming festivities with her. And she wasn’t sure why she’d agreed