The Last White Knight by Tami Hoag

the place, but Erik caught himself just wanting to stare at her, to drink in the sight of her. She might have seen that in his eyes because her brows dropped into a scowl and she tried to step around him. He cut her off, boxing her in between himself and a trailer.
    “Everyone gets a second chance but me, is that it?” he said, dropping his hands to the waistband of his jeans.
    Her lush, pretty mouth pulled down at the corners and she folded her arms defensively. “I don’t know what you mean.”
    “Maybe I’d stand a better chance if I’d spent time in juvenile hall for stealing cars or if I had a little problem with cocaine. Would that make it all right? Could I maybe get you to go out to dinner with me then?”
    Lynn refused to take the bait. She’d counseled herself on the issue of Erik Gunther all night and half the day, turning the questions over and back in her mind, always coming up with the same solution: She couldn’t afford to get involved with him.
    “I told you, I don’t mix business and my personal life,” she said, congratulating herself for her cool.
    “I think your business
is
your personal life,” Erik retorted, his hold on his temper slipping a little.
    She lifted her chin, green eyes glittering. “You don’t know anything about me, Senator.”
    “I’m trying to remedy that situation, but you won’t let me. You’re too busy playing the reverse snob.”
    Lynn’s jaw dropped. “Me? I am—”
    “You’re looking down that pretty nose at me because I’m a politician, because I come from a normal family and had an uneventful adolescence,” Erik charged angrily.
    This afternoon wasn’t working out at all the way he’d planned. He had thought to woo Lynn slowly and calmly as he proved himself to her, but it was fast becoming evident that where Lynn Shaw was concerned he had little control over her or himself. She provoked him in ways he hadn’t even considered before. Now he found a well of righteous indignation boiling up inside him and he couldn’t seem to stem the flow, regardless of what prudence dictated.
    “I came to help you, dammit,” he said. “Maybe my motives were only ninety-nine percent pure, but it’s a hell of a lot more help than you’re getting from anyone else. And maybe I don’t understand everythingyou or your girls have gone through, but you’re not giving me much of a chance to, either.”
    He was right. Lynn looked up at him, wishing she could deliver a scathing rebuttal, but there wasn’t one to give. She wasn’t being any fairer to him than he had been in his assessment of Regan that morning. And while two wrongs might have kept her safe, they didn’t make a right.
    She bit her lip and looked off across the ugly plane of the parking lot, where a Minnesota version of a tumbleweed was skittering along. The sky above the Highway 52 overpass was growing heavier with the promise of rain. The sounds of early-rush-hour traffic hummed in the distance. She felt caught between a rock and a hard place, with a minefield spread out around her for good measure. She needed Erik’s help, but she didn’t need a heartache. Her sense of justice demanded she give him a chance to learn and to care, while her sense of caution told her to keep her distance.
    “Come on, Lynn,” he said softly. “Give me a break here, will you? I want to do the right thing.”
    The gravel crunched beneath his sneakers as he shuffled nearer, closing the distance between them. Lynn felt his approach as clearly as she heard it. Her body had tuned in to his the first time he’d come within two feet of her. Standing there, bracingherself against retreat, she had the odd and terrible feeling that she would be acutely aware of Erik Gunther for the rest of her life. She almost flinched when he lifted a hand and gently brushed her hair back from her cheek.
    “Come on, Lynn,” he whispered. “Give me a chance.”
    Despite the heat of the day, Lynn shivered. One look at his face told her he was