The Dark Gate. Pamela Palmer

holding a cell phone to her ear. She was laughing as she stepped outside, her chin-length hair glowing golden in the summer sunshine.

      Jack swallowed. “Who’s that?”

      “Larsen Vale. Bleeding-heart lawyer and Ice Bitch extraordinaire. Forget about her. She don’t give it up for no man.” Duke’s words were too loud for the small distance between the boats, but he didn’t seem to care.

      The woman glanced up. The laughter drained from her features as though someone had pulled a plug. All emotion fled. Her gaze slid over the men, one after the other, as if they were nothing more than inanimate objects unworthy of her notice…until her gaze slammed into Jack’s. His heart bucked in his chest, a physical jolt like he’d been sucker punched. She held his gaze, then dropped it, shattering it as she turned away.

      She clicked her cell phone closed and started across the boat’s narrow deck with quick, confident strides, a briefcase swinging at her side. Without another glance his way, she hopped lightly onto the dock and strode away.

      Jack exhaled. “Wow.”

      “She’s cold, dude,” Duke insisted. “Ice cold. Don’t waste your time.”

      “Dad.” Henry’s ten-year-old son, David, ran up the stairs from below, making enough noise for three kids despite his slight build. “When are we sailing?”

      “You don’t sail a motorboat, moron.” His sister, Sabrina, flounced up the stairs behind him.

      “Sorry, you two. We’re not taking the boat out,” Henry told his kids. “This is a marina party, not a river cruise.”

      “What party?” David asked. “This is boring.”

      “David…”

      Jack set his half-empty Coke can on the railing. “Who’s up for a walk?” He had too much on his mind to make small talk. If he had to take the afternoon off, he’d rather spend his time with the kids, anyway. He sure as hell wouldn’t have any of his own. Not after what his dad had put his own family through.

      “Me, Uncle Jack, me,” David exclaimed, jumping up and down. “Can I get the football out of the car, Dad?”

      Henry nodded and Jack turned to Sabrina. “You coming, beautiful?” At fourteen, the girl was already showing signs of the heartbreaker she was destined to become. Unlike her brother, she’d inherited a healthy dose of the exotic from her mother’s ancestry. Her skin was a light coffee color, her intelligent eyes slightly tilted and her hair silky black as she flicked it behind her back with a toss of her head.

      He held his breath, waiting for her reply, wondering if this would be the time she’d finally grown too cool to have anything to do with her “uncle” Jack. But she flashed him a smile full of braces and youthful exuberance, and he knew today wasn’t that day. They found a patch of grass in front of the marina to pass the football.

      “You suck,” Sabrina shouted as David ran for the ball he’d missed.

      “You suck,” the boy called back, laughing. If there was a natural athlete lurking in the kid somewhere, he had yet to show himself. David grabbed the ball and started running toward them.

      Jack held up his hands. “Throw it, pal.” But the boy kept running. Jack laughed, happier out here with these two than he’d been in weeks.

      “Throw it, David.” Sabrina waved her hands in the air.

      The boy finally heaved the football, getting a nice spiral on it, at last. Unfortunately his aim was off. Way off. The ball sailed directly at the door of the marina office and the woman exiting through it—the Ice Bitch, Larsen Vale.

      Jack cringed as the ball hit her square in the arm, knocking her briefcase out of her hand. The briefcase hit the wall and clattered to the sidewalk, snapping open. Papers spilled everywhere.

      Hell. She was going to tear the kid to pieces. As David started toward her in his loping run, Jack headed after him, determined to save him from a tongue-lashing that would make his sister’s impatient comments sound like sweet nothings.

      “Sorry,” David called good-naturedly as he approached the she-devil.

      The woman picked up the ball. To Jack’s amazement she gave David a rueful smile and cocked her arm as if to throw it.

      “Go long,” she told him.

      David grinned and started running. The woman threw an admirable pass with only a slight wobble, right into the boy’s arms.

      “Yesss!” David did his own little version of the touch-down shuffle.

      Jack looked at Larsen Vale thoughtfully as she knelt to gather up her papers. He’d heard her name before today. He knew she’d earned herself a reputation for ruthlessness in the courtroom, particularly in defense of women abused by their high-profile husbands. Duke wasn’t the only one who called her the Ice Bitch. Yet she’d just been exceedingly kind in a situation that would have provoked most people to anger.

      Jack joined her. “Let me give you a hand with those.” He knelt beside her and began picking up the loose papers. He’d thought her attractive on the boat. This close, she was stunning. Her mouth was wide and lush, perfectly framed by a strong, stubborn jaw. Her eyes had a natural, heavy-lidded appearance that was sexy as hell. And her skin was lightly tanned and flawlessly smooth.

      Heat tightened things low in his body. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been hit with this kind of lust at first sight. Too bad she was ignoring him.

      “Thanks for being patient with David. He’s a little careless sometimes.”

      She looked up and gave him the same expressionless look she had on the boat. Her eyes were a clear golden-brown beneath a thin layer of frost.

      “Were you afraid I’d shatter him with my ice wand?”

      Jack winced. So she’d heard Duke’s comment. “You had a right to be angry with him. I appreciate your patience.”

      She stopped in her gathering and glanced toward the kids. “He was just being a boy.”

      “Yeah. I apologize for my friend’s rudeness back there, too. His comments were out of line.” Jack tapped the papers he’d collected on the sidewalk to neaten the stack. “He’s a little too cocksure of his success with women.” He handed the stack to her and their fingers brushed. A bare slide of flesh on flesh.

      Inexplicably the chatter in his head went silent. Silent. For the first time in…forever.

      She jerked, dropping the papers. “Damn.”

      The voices rushed back as if they’d never left at all. Jack’s heart slammed in his chest. Had he imagined it?

      She gathered up the last of the papers and put them back in her expensive-looking briefcase. As she started to close the lid, the breeze caught a loose sheet. Jack grabbed for it at the same time she did. Their hands brushed again.

      Silence. It was her.

      Larsen Vale clicked her briefcase shut and rose. She met his gaze, briefly, as dispassionately as before. “Thanks,” she said, and turned away.

      Jack stared after her, stunned. She’d quieted the voices.

      Hope roared through his veins like a flood through a parched gully. She’d quieted the damn voices.

      She was his salvation. His cure.

      He hurried after her as she started across the parking lot. “Wait.”

      She stopped and turned to look at him, a hint of a question in her eyes.

      “I’m…Jack.” He thrust out his hand, partly from habit, partly from an intense desire to touch her again. “Jack Hallihan.”

      She glanced at his hand, but made no move to take it. “I know.” Then she turned and walked away as if she hadn’t just changed his life.

      “You’re