by Paula Graves
“Zachary’s such a great kid. I’m starting to get why aspies believe it’s the rest of us who have the problems. We’re the ones who lie about our feelings and try to temper everything. Zachary just says what he thinks and lets the chips fall where they may. World might be a better place if more people just told the damned truth.”
He wasn’t just saying that to make her feel better, she realized. He wasn’t trying to play an angle or manipulate her the way Anthony might have done in the same situation.
The tears she’d been fighting ever since the run-in with Trevor burned their way into her eyes. She blinked, trying to keep them at bay a little longer. “I hope he always has people in his life who feel the same way about him. I think if he does, he’ll be okay.”
Harlan lifted his hands to her face, his thumbs brushing over the moisture seeping from her eyes. “As long as he has you, he’ll be okay.”
Unable to bear the gentle sympathy in his gaze, she pulled away from his grasp. “I should get back to work.”
“What’s left to do for tonight?”
Nothing, really. Harlan had helped her out more than he knew by taking care of Zachary while she was tackling the last-minute calls to finalize the arrangements for the party the next evening. “I’m sure I can find something that needs doing-”
He caught her hand as she tried to turn away, his grip warm but strong. “Anything to avoid being alone with me?”
A low groan of frustration escaped her throat. “Why do you have to make it so much harder? I told you how impossible it would be for us.”
“Why?” He caught her other hand, tugging her closer.
The pull of him was like a powerful undercurrent, dragging her inexorably further out to sea no matter how hard she fought against it. “I have to think of Zachary.”
“Zachary likes me.”
“Too much,” she protested. “He’s too attached to you already, and the more time I let you spend with him, the harder it’s going to be when you’re not here any longer.”
“What if I’m not going anywhere?”
Hope jolted through her at his words before she could squelch it. “You won’t be here after the party, will you?” she argued. “You’ll be going back home and Zachary and I will be alone again.”
“I’m not Anthony,” Harlan growled.
“I didn’t say you were-”
“That’s how you treat me,” he shot back, dropping her hands and pacing away from her, his movements quick and full of pent-up frustration. “‘I can’t let Zachary get close to you because you’ll hurt him.’” He whipped back to face her. “Just like Anthony, right?”
She took a couple of quick steps toward him before she could stop herself. “You’re nothing like Anthony.”
Closing the rest of the gap between them, he cradled her face between his hands again. “Then don’t treat me as if I am.”
She tried to remember what it had felt like when she realized her husband of seven years was leaving her because she’d given him what he’d considered a defective son. The pain had been crushing, though in retrospect, she could admit that most of the hurt was for what he was doing to their son.
But all she could remember was the sound of Harlan’s voice, full of affection and appreciation for her beautiful, difficult son. All she could see was the fire smoldering in his eyes right now, as he gazed at her as if she were the most desirable creature in the world.
She closed her hands over his wrists, sliding her fingertips lightly over the muscles and tendons there until her touch elicited a soft gasp from his lips.
Rising to the tips of her toes, she brushed her lips against his, a shaky breath escaping her throat.
Fingers tangling in her hair, he brought her closer, deepening the kisses until she felt drunk and fevered. She felt something hard and flat against her back-the wall, she realized in a haze of heat and need. He’d pushed her up against the wall. And she liked it. The fierce passion of what they were doing, the reckless abandon, the promise of fire and pleasure.
Why had she fought so hard against this? As Harlan’s hands dropped to her hips, tugging her flush against his hardness, she knew she couldn’t keep fighting something she wanted so much.
She dragged her lips away from his long enough to say, “We can’t wake Zachary up.”
Harlan nuzzled his way to her ear to whisper, “Umm, how hard a sleeper is he, anyway?”
Arching her neck to give him better access, she slipped her hand between their bodies and released a soft laugh as he uttered a low groan in response to her touch. “You’re a Marine. You know how to be stealthy, don’t you?”
He caught her hand, threading his fingers through hers and tugging her toward the hall to the bedrooms. “So we’re at war?” His blistering gaze met hers.
She closed the bedroom door behind her and turned to face him, unable to stop a smile of sheer exhilaration. “Not anymore. Now we’re just negotiating the terms of surrender.”
Harlan reached for the top button her blouse. “Who won?”
“Who cares?” She kissed the curve of his jaw.
Laughing, he picked her up and carried her to the bed.
Chapter Fifteen
A trilling sound woke Harlan from a dead sleep. Instantly awake, he oriented himself with the ease of a well-trained Marine. Nighttime. Indoors. Beautiful woman sleeping naked by his side. The ringing continued, louder by the second.
Easing himself from Stacy’s bed, he grabbed the cell phone from his discarded jeans. “Yeah?”
“Why are you whispering?” Vince Russo asked.
Harlan tucked the phone under his chin and pulled on his jeans. Once outside the bedroom, he spoke in a more normal voice. “Sorry-I wasn’t in a position to talk.”
Russo was quiet for a second. Harlan could only imagine what he was thinking.
“Is something up?” Harlan prodded.
“Yeah, something big. I can be at the ranch in ten-”
Harlan glanced toward the hallway, a flood of sizzling memories swamping his brain for a second. When she’d finally fallen asleep in his arms, spent and trembling, she’d looked so happy. Somehow at peace for the first time since he’d met her. He wanted that feeling to last for her.
“No.” Holding a CSI strategy meeting in the middle of her living room would definitely be a mood-killer. “We’ll meet at the office-twenty minutes.”
Grabbing a clean set of clothes from the hall closet where he kept his things, he headed to the bathroom.
“THE GUY HAS KEPT a low profile for the past ten years,” Vince Russo told Harlan a half hour later in the CSI conference room. Parker McKenna was there, along with Nick Cavanaugh and Nolan Law. Cavanaugh was a silent, thoughtful man in his mid-thirties, though Harlan knew there was a lot more to him than his demeanor might suggestion. In Iraq, Cavanaugh’s recon talents had been legendary, though his last scouting expedition had ended in a deadly ambush.
“But?” Harlan prodded.
“But we finally reached a family member who didn’t close ranks,” Nolan Law told Harlan. He passed along an enlarged photograph. “This is a photo from the Transworld Trade Partnership summit two years ago.”
The photo showed a group of young men and women dressed in black. Most wore balaclavas or scarves over their faces, but the camera shot caught one man in the middle of donning his mask. Harlan recognized the stable groom immediately. “Lewis.”
“He was part of a black bloc protest at the summit, and you know what kind of trouble those guys can cause,” McKenna said.
Harlan nodded. Black bloc tactics were often part of antiglobalization protests, designed to create havoc and thwart the efforts of law enforcement to control crowds of protestors.
“According to his cousin, he’s very much involved in anarchistic antiglobalization protest groups, including Planet Justice,” Nick Cavanaugh answered.
Harlan raised an eyebrow. “The group protesting the fundraiser tomorrow?”
McKenna glanced at his wristwatch.
“Tonight, you mean.”
Harlan eyed the clock on the wall. Almost two in the morning. Man, he’d give almost anything to be back in bed, cuddled up to Stacy’s naked curves. But he pushed the tempting thought away, focusing on the job at hand. Keeping the governor safe would keep Stacy and Zachary safe, as well. “I’ve tried to talk the governor into enlarging the buffer zone between the protesters and the ranch, but she won’t have it.”
“Either speech is free or it’s not,” McKenna murmured.
Harlan knew he was quoting the governor; he’d heard her say it enough times. “And if it’s not, why the hell do we pretend to be Americans?” he finished the governor’s favorite saying.
“I appreciate the sentiment,” Law said, “but I don’t think we can be stupid about it. I don’t like the idea of a Planet Justice operative working on the governor’s staff.”
“How do we know he’s still with the group?” Russo asked.
Harlan gave him a look. “What are the odds he’s not?”
“Not good,” Russo conceded. “But how do we get him out of there, given what happened today? The governor fires him, he’ll say it’s to keep him quiet about your assault on him.”
“I barely touched him,” Harlan said with a grimace. “I think we have to do this aboveboard. I think knowing he’s recently been a member of a group protesting the governor’s fundraiser should be enough to warrant an extra look.”
“Planet Justice has been known to set explosive devices,” Russo said. “There was a protest in Chicago during a free trade conference. The cops found a couple of pipe bombs set near the venue entrance. They tied the bombs to a couple of Planet Justice operatives, though the rest of the group publically denounced their actions.”
“Would that be enough to get a search warrant for Lewis’s apartment?” Harlan asked Law.
“Worth a try.”
Jeff Appleton had given Harlan his cell phone number earlier at the sheriff’s station. He knew the man had a six-year-old kid, but Harlan didn’t think this call could wait. They had under twenty-four hours before the fundraiser.
He pulled out his cell phone and dialed Appleton’s number, wondering where they’d find a judge willing to sign a search warrant in the middle of the night.
“MOMMY?”
Stacy’s eyes popped open at the sound of her son’s voice. It took a second to reorient herself, because even though she was in her own bed, nothing felt normal. Her legs and arms felt sore, as if she’d worked out for hours, and she was completely naked beneath the tangled sheets.
She slanted a quick, panicked look to her left and saw with relief that Harlan was no longer there. Normally, after the best sex she’d had in, well, ever, she’d be a little miffed to wake up alone, but with her son staring at her from the side of the bed, she was happy to be alone.
She just hoped Harlan didn’t walk back in here from the bathroom or kitchen or wherever he’d wandered before she was able to coax Zachary to go back to bed.
“I’m hungry,” Zachary said.
“Zachary, you had a big PB &J sandwich for dinner.”
“But that was hours ago,” he complained. “I’m a growing boy and I need food.”
She couldn’t stop a smile. “What do you have in mind?”
“Why are there clothes on the floor?”
“I was tired,” she answered quickly, checking to see if Harlan’s clothes were there, as well. She didn’t see his jeans, but his shirt and underwear were on his side of the bed, thankfully hidden from Zachary’s view. “Tell you what, go get your robe on-it’s cold in here. I’ll get mine on and we can go see what we can find in the fridge, okay?”
While Zachary went to retrieve his robe, Stacy slipped on a T-shirt and a pair of yoga pants, topping them with her own fuzzy terry cloth robe. Not exactly the most flattering of looks, but if Harlan was going to be part of her life, he might as well get used to seeing her how she really was, right?
Part of her life, she repeated silently. Harlan really was going to be part of her life, wasn’t he? Why had she been so afraid of letting him in? He wasn’t anything like Anthony or any other man she’d known, except maybe her father. And her dad had been as strong and reliable as a man came.
A giddy sense of joy percolated at the back of her mind as she waited for Zachary to return. She knew it might take a while-Zachary could dither over the choice of clothes longer than a teenage girl. Something else Harlan would have to get used to, although he already seemed to be doing a great job at accepting and even appreciating Zachary’s idiosyncrasies.
Zachary finally appeared in her bedroom doorway. “I think I want a grilled cheese sandwich,” he told her solemnly, as if he’d spent a great deal of time contemplating the perfect choice. Which, knowing Zachary, he probably had.
She headed down the hall with her son, fully expecting to find Harlan sleeping on the sofa. After their lovemaking, before she’d fallen asleep, he’d asked her if she thought he should go back to the sofa, since Zachary was so resistant to any little change in his routine. She couldn’t remember her answer, but it was just like Harlan to think about what would be comfortable for her son.
Only Harlan wasn’t on the sofa. Or in the kitchen. And the bathroom in the hallway had been dark when they passed it.
Her sense of joy began to fade into unease when she glanced out the front door and saw that his truck was no longer parked out front, the way he’d left it the night before.
Where on earth had he gone?
THE FIRST GRAY LIGHT of dawn was peeking over the flat horizon in the east when Harlan’s cell phone rang. He was sitting in front of the picture window in Jeff Appleton’s living room, wishing he were back at the Twin Harts guest ranch, skin to skin with Stacy, but he’d promised to stay at Appleton’s place to keep an eye on his daughter while Jeff went on a mission to get the sheriff and a local judge involved in the latest break in the investigation into the Austin bombing.
It was Appleton. “We got the warrant. We’re about to execute it now.”
Harlan felt a rush of relief, followed almost immediately by an anxiety chaser. What if they found nothing incriminating at Trevor Lewis’s house? Would he blame the invasion of his privacy on the governor? Call it a vendetta against him?
Harlan could very well be making things a lot harder for Stacy, he realized as he settled back down to wait for word from Jeff Appleton. And that was the last thing he wanted to do.
He wished he could call Stacy and tell her what was going on, at least to forewarn her. But it wasn’t yet four in the morning. She wasn’t likely to be awake at this hour, and if he called, he risked waking Zachary, as well. Stacy didn’t need the added stress of dealing with a sleepy, cranky little boy.
Hopefully, the search would be finished by dawn, and Harlan could wake her with a kiss and the good news that Trevor Lewis was no longer a threat to Zachary or anyone else.
Then what? After tonight’s fundraiser, his job with the governor was over. She hadn’t mentioned adding him to her permanent staff, and after the stress of dealing with the politics of her position, Harlan didn’t think he was interested in such a job.
Really, the only draw at all was being with Stacy and Zachary, and since he had no intention of leaving Freedom as long as the two of them remained there, he could see her and Zachary whenever she’d let him, couldn’t he?
After signing the divorce papers and putting his disaster of a marriage to Alexis behind him, he’d sworn he would never make the foolish mistake of marrying again. And until he’d met Stacy, he hadn’t met a woman who’d tempted him away from that vow for a second.
But Stacy was different. She was tough and loyal and as trustworthy as a woman came. And if he could just convince her that he wasn’t going to flake out on her the way her jerk of a husband had done, maybe they really had a shot at happiness.
At least, he hoped so.
But first, they had to figure out who was gunning for the governor. Because as long as that threat re
mained, Stacy and Zachary would never really be safe.
R ULE ONE, STACY THOUGHT, is to be cool about it. No crying, no recriminations, nothing that’ll make you look like a loser.
Even if you are.
The hours since Zachary woke her had passed slowly, unaided by anything approaching actual sleep. She’d tried to go back to sleep after Zachary was finished with his snack and safely tucked under the covers again, telling herself she was overreacting to finding Harlan gone when she awoke. But as the sleepless hours ticked away, the truth seeped through the barrier of self-protective lies she’d constructed.
It had been sex. Good sex-no, great sex-but that was all it had been. It hadn’t been the start of some wonderful new relationship. It wasn’t going to be the first of a lifetime’s worth of nights spent curled up in Harlan McClain’s strong arms.
And the sooner she dealt with those facts, the sooner she’d get past the pain and shame and get on with her life.
Giving up the pretense of sleep, she rose for good, directing her restless energy to the task of cleaning up the painful reminders of their brief intimacy, changing the sheets and pillowcases so that they no longer smelled like him. She picked up his discarded clothes and packed them away, along with the rest of his clothes, into the pair of large duffels he’d brought with him after he moved in.
He wouldn’t need to be here after tonight’s fundraiser, after all. He could go back to his real life-and let her and Zachary get on with theirs. Zachary wasn’t going to be happy, of course, but she’d figure out some way to distract him until he settled into the idea of Harlan no longer being around.
At 6:00 a.m., she called Charlotte Manning to make sure she could still watch Zachary during the fundraiser, but once she heard her friend’s gentle voice, she found herself blurting out the mistake she’d made the night before, giving in to the need to cry on her friend’s shoulder. She didn’t go into details, but Charlotte was a smart woman who easily read between the lines.
“Are you sure you have this right?” Charlotte asked after Stacy finished, her voice soft with sympathy and concern.
