Outcast. Joan Johnston

even though she felt a frisson of … something … pass between them.

      “Would that counseling be with you?”

      “I’m available.”

      “Really?” he said, the sneer becoming a leer.

      Anna flushed. She should be immune to the sort of look she was getting from Agent Benedict. It was a form of attack, when the patient felt defenseless. “ICE makes my services available to anyone who needs them.”

      “I don’t need them,” he said flatly. “Are we done?”

      “We’re done.”

      He stalked to the door, yanked it open and headed down the hall without looking back.

      Anna released a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. That is a dangerous man. The thought was disconcerting, considering the fact that she’d made up her mind to clear Agent Benedict for duty. However, she would recommend additional counseling.

      She realized something else equally upsetting. She still desired him. Still imagined what it might be like to have him hold her in his arms. Still imagined being possessed by him.

      Anna sighed. She’d been single too long. Alone too long. Human beings had a physiological need for sex that was as basic as their need for food, water and sleep. A need she realized she would have been happy to fulfill with Ben Benedict.

      Unfortunately, if he became her patient, Agent Benedict would be off-limits as a potential sex partner. Anna was glad he’d shown such animosity for her. Sessions with him would have been fraught with inappropriate sexual tension.

      Anna felt a fleeting moment of regret for what might have been. If his behavior today was anything to judge by, she wouldn’t be seeing Agent Benedict again.

      10

      “It isn’t easy being rich,” Ben said.

      “Tell that to the next poor man you meet,” Waverly replied.

      Ben changed gears in his bright red 1963 Jaguar E-Type Roadster and accelerated. He and Waverly had spent an exhausting afternoon filing reports on the gang killing with their respective law-enforcement agencies. Now they were racing to Waverly’s wedding rehearsal and dinner at one of the several homes owned by the bride’s family, a former plantation called Hamilton Farm southeast of Richmond.

      Racing was probably the wrong word for how they’d left D.C. Crawling fit better. They’d gotten caught in the crush of traffic on I-95 South close to the city. Ben knew they’d never arrive on time unless he kept his foot on the gas now.

      “You’re going to get a ticket,” Waverly warned.

      “You can flash your badge and get me out of it.”

      “Flash your own badge,” Waverly retorted.

      “You’re changing the subject.”

      “Which is?”

      “Being rich is a curse.”

      Waverly snorted. “You’re not going to get any sympathy from me. I earn a living wage. Period. I’d give my left nut to have a car like this.” His hand brushed the black leather interior of the long-nosed, ragtop, six-figure Jag.

      “After you marry my sister tomorrow afternoon,” Ben said, “you’ll be rich enough to afford any car you want.”

      Waverly frowned. “I don’t want Julia’s money. If I didn’t love her so much, her family connections would have scared me off.”

      “I had no idea when I introduced the two of you that you’d take one look at each other and go off the deep end. You’re not the kind of rich preppie she was used to dating. Which I suppose was the attraction,” Ben mused.

      “I didn’t want to fall in love with her,” Waverly said, “for precisely that reason. There’s a lifetime of experience separating eighteen and thirty. And I’m a cop. I was afraid she would get tired of me and want to move on.”

      Ben might have agreed that Waverly was right—that Julia was still a relative babe-in-the-woods—except she’d grown up with a senator for a father and a doyenne of the Washington social scene for a mother. Julia had probably experienced more socially and intellectually in her eighteen years than other women did in their entire lives.

      And he knew for a fact that she’d been sexually active since she was fifteen, because she’d come to him for advice when he was home for a few days on leave from the army. He’d told her to wait, but she’d sworn she was in love forever. So he’d told her what he knew about the use of condoms and birth control pills.

      Julia had been in love at least twice more, but he suspected she’d had more than two other sexual partners. So she probably had a pretty good idea what she liked in bed and what she was looking for in a man.

      Ben had been as worried as Waverly at first that Julia would tire of him. But it hadn’t happened. Instead, she’d encouraged Waverly to propose. And he had.

      “I guess if anything worries me, it’s that this is all happening in such a hurry,” Ben said. He eyed his friend and watched as Waverly shifted nervously. “Oh, shit. There’s a baby on the way.”

      Waverly shot him a guilty glance. “We were being careful. The condom broke. But I’m glad she’s pregnant.”

      “What about college? She’s already started the fall term at Georgetown.”

      “She can still go.”

      “Who’s going to take care of the baby?”

      “We can get a babysitter.”

      “You have any idea how much it costs for child care these days? For diapers and baby food? You have a one-bedroom apartment. You’re going to need a bigger place.”

      “We can’t afford a bigger place right now, especially with the doctor’s bills,” Waverly said.

      “You’re damned lucky Julia has money of her own.”

      “Julia has agreed to live on my income,” Waverly said.

      Ben shook his head. “How long do you think that’s going to last?”

      “The rest of our lives.”

      “Do you really think Julia can live without all the luxuries she’s grown up with? That she’ll want her child to grow up without a bedroom of his or her own? Even if Julia were willing, her parents won’t be.”

      “Julia promised me she won’t ask her parents to buy her stuff once we’re married,” Waverly said.

      “She won’t need to ask. All she’ll have to do is mention she needs something and Ham or my mother will get it for her. Which is a moot point, because Julia can buy anything she wants for herself in three years, when she turns twenty-one and inherits the fifty-million-dollar trust fund that’s waiting for her.”

      “Fifty million?” Waverly blurted.

      “I thought you knew.”

      “She told me she had a little money coming when she turned twenty-one. I knew your family had money, but … She never said—Damn it all to hell!”

      “I wish I’d never introduced the two of you,” Ben muttered.

      “Don’t say that. I love her.” Waverly rubbed his palms dry on his tuxedo trousers. “I can’t believe this.” He stared at Ben, his eyes wide, as though they were ten thousand feet in the air and Ben had just told him both engines had flamed out.

      “See what I mean?” Ben said. “Right now you’re thinking, ‘Why on earth would you take a regular job when you have that kind of money, Ben?’ Tell me I’m wrong.”

      “You’re not wrong,” Waverly said. “Why did you take a regular