Double trouble

by Boswell, Barbara

  He groaned. No, it really couldn't get any worse than this.

  Three

  Still feeling nauseated, Matt picked up his clothes and put on most of them before opening the door to his brother. Luke Minteer rushed inside. At thirty, he had the Minteer coloring, dark hair and blue eyes, but his height came from his mother's side, the Hylands. He was five foot ten, the shortest of the four Minteer brothers, a fact he accepted with good humor most of the time.

  Six years ago, when he'd first won the state senate seat. Matt had made Luke his chief administrative aide. He planned to do the same when he went to Congress in D.C.

  *'Are you okay?" Luke frowned with concern as he studied his older brother.

  '*No." Matt made his way back to the bed and sat down on the edge. ''I'm not."

  Luke crossed the room to sit down beside him. *'Matt, I'm sorry I wasn't there last night. Maybe if I had been, I could have done something to stop it. Damn, I feel terrible about this!"

  Matt went rigid. Obviously his brother had found out that he'd gone to bed with Kristina McClure. He sighed. The last thing he needed was a lecture from his little brother. Because even though Luke, who had a law degree, had proven himself an invaluable counsel, he was still four years younger—which made him a kid brother in certain situations. Such as this one.

  *'Look, save the lecture, Luke. I know it was out of character for me, but we're both consenting adults and—"

  "Consenting? Huh? What are you talking about?" Luke interrupted, staring at him.

  ''About Kristina and me, of course," Matt growled.

  "Kristina?" Luke's eyes widened as comprehension dawned. "You brought a woman up here?" He looked around the room. "Where is she? Who is she?"

  "She's not here now," Matt declared, stating the obvious. "Her name was—is—Kristina McClure." He imparted the information, reluctant but resigned. Luke was like himself when it came to ferreting out facts. Neither would quit badgering until they got them all. "She's a lobbyist for PITA," he added.

  Luke's reaction was predictably on target. "You went to bed with a lobbyist?" He jumped up and began to pace the room, squawking his disapproval.

  "Luke, sit down," Matt demanded. "All that motion is making my headache worse."

  "The entire party leadership has a headache this morning," Luke said grimly. "Matt, brace yourself. I have a helluva story to tell you. Have you ever heard of a group called WINDS? It's an acronym for Windmills for Near and Distant States."

  "WINDS." Matt frowned thoughtfully. "Aren't they that bunch of lunatics who are committed to the idea that windmills will fulfill the country's energy needs? They want to begin their project in western Pennsylvania and have targeted the Johnstown area to build the first windmill farms."

  Matt smiled for the first time that morning. *'They came to my office a few months ago, I reviewed their proposition and poHteiy sent them on their way. Their idea was a real howler! Windmill farms in western Pennsylvania! The terrain is all wrong, it's mountainous, all steep hills and valleys, and what wind there is is pretty well blocked by the trees—tens of thousands of them! But WINDS didn't burden themselves with facts and statistics. They'd already decided that since windmills work in places Uke the Netherlands and parts of the Southwest, they can work anywhere, damn the terrain and the trees and anything else. The whole idea was sheer insanity."

  ''You can say that again," agreed Luke. ''Nobody in Harrisburg took WINDS seriously. They've been kicked out of everybody's office, from the governor on down." He paused and cleared his throat. "So they decided to take matters into their own hands. Matt, all the waiters working the ballroom last night were WINDS members. The manager hired them, knowing nothing of their—er—affiliation. They presented themselves as nothing more than extra banquet waiters."

  Matt felt an ominous foreboding. "But they weren't really waiters?"

  Luke shook his head. "They were the WINDS crackpots who decided that the fund-raiser—featuring you, a native son of their target area—was their big chance to get their ideas across to the party leadership. By hook or by crook."

  "What exactly did they do?" Matt asked hoarsely.

  Luke shook his head disgustedly. "As waiters and bartenders those crazies had access to all the food and drink in the ballroom. They took advantage of that access to spike everything with a hundred-and-twelve-proof vodka. I mean everything. Matt, even the water. Apparently they thought that legislators under the, uh, influence would be more amenable to their windmill scheme. Hey, you'd have to be either drunk or crazy, maybe both, to take them seriously."

  ''Drunk!" Matt gasped. ''I was drunk?" Oh, he should have known! He recognized all the signs and symptoms now. But how could he have suspected he was drunk when he'd drunk so little? Or so he'd thought. He swallowed hard. ''Then Kristina was drunk, too?"

  "Everybody was," Luke intoned gloomily. "The only thing to be thankful for is that one of those WINDS creeps saw how blitzed everybody was and panicked at the thought of all those people getting into cars and driving home. He confessed to the hotel night manager who immediately ordered that all the guests be given rooms for the night here at the hotel, free of charge, of course. Luckily this place is enormous. Nobody from the fund-raiser was permitted to leave the premises and everybody was personally escorted to the rooms to, well, sleep it off."

  Thinking hard, Matt vaguely remembered following a young bellhop through the corridors last night—to this room! He marveled now that neither he nor Kristina had bothered to question the escort or the room. It had ail seemed perfectly logical at the time; one didn't question magic in a dream or a fairy tale. And last night had contained elements of both.

  "Thank God nobody suffered anything worse than what you're suffering now—a massive hangover," Luke continued. "Damage control is already beginning. The entire incident is hideously embarrassing and everybody there last night just wants to forget it ever happened."

  "Forget it?" Matt echoed numbly. He felt his temper flare. "No way! We're going to go after those demented maniacs, we're going to make an example of them that will scare—"

  "Matt, believe me, this is no time to be thinking of revenge and retribution," Luke cut in. "Everything about WINDS, from their harebrained windmill scheme to their sabotage of the fund-raiser last night is almost too idiotic to be believed. Nobody—not the politicians or the lobbyists or

  even the members of the press who were there—want the story to get out because it makes them look like idiots, too."

  * ^Dammit, Luke, we can't let WINDS off scot-free. What if they try something like this again and—"

  *'They won't. I've already threatened them with an enormous personal injury suit on behalf of everybody at the fund-raiser," Luke stated, his demeanor as cool as Matt's was heated. *'I tossed around threats like bringing in the FBI and FDA, too. If WINDS agrees to quietly leave the state immediately and abandon any plans for future spiking incidents, we won't prosecute. They're already planning to go. They know they've done wrong and are scared to death."

  Matt began to pace the room, agitated, sweating and swearing. ''It's not right, Luke. Tliey should have to pay for what they've done."

  ''What about this woman, the lobbyist, that you spent last night with?" Luke asked shrewdly. "Do you think she'd like this—uh—incident to become public knowledge? Which is exactly what will happen if you attempt to go after WINDS."

  Matt grimaced. Kristina's flight had made it clear that she didn't care to be linked with him privately, let alone publicly. "I'm certain she wouldn't," he admitted. As much as the injustice of it rankled, he was beginning to see Luke's point. He had to pretend that last night hadn't happened at all and to make that pretense work. To forget it had ever happened. To forget her.

  Luke eyed his brother curiously. "So, are you planning to see her again?" he asked.

  "See who again?" Matt countered bleakly. "Last night never happened, remember?"

  Kayla didn't cry until she was safely inside Kristina's apartment, and then
she let all her bottled-up tears flow. She cried for a long time, overwhelmed with confusion, hurt and

  regret. Finally, exhaustion ended her tears but not the depression or the pain.

  She'd somehow deluded herself into believing that she had fallen in love at first sight and then allowed herself to be swept away by sexual passion, believing all the while that Matt Minteer shared her feelings. But he hadn't. His behavior this morning had made his feelings, or the lack of them, quite clear.

  Why, why had she done it? Kayla searched for a reason, and an appalHng one came to mind. Yesterday's date happened to mark the third wedding anniversary of Scott and Victoria Ceres. The fifth of February, a date Kayla would always remember because it was the very date she had chosen for her own wedding—to Scott Ceres himself. That he had married another woman on that precise date, after abruptly dumping Kayla, was a stunning example of how ruthless and cold-blooded Scott actually was. Everyone had told her she'd had a lucky escape from certain heartbreak.

  Kayla, suffering from heartbreak anyway, found the well-meaning words cold comfort. Three years later, she thought she'd finally gotten over Scott, thought she'd put it all behind her, but her behavior last night made her reassess her recovery. Could she have been having some sort of unconscious reaction to the anniversary of their breakup? Was that why she had been driven to find solace with another man?

  Except it hadn't seemed at all like solace. It had been hot and wild and sexy and she hadn't thought of Scott at all. She had been totally out of control. Kayla's whole body burned. She had to get out of here! The urge to escape this town and put last night's lamentable lapse of judgment behind her propelled Kayla to action. She threw her clothes into her suitcase, wrote Kristina a brief note and fairly raced to her car.

  Unfortunately, she couldn't escape her thoughts as easily as she'd left the city. During the entire drive back to Wash-

  ington, possible consequences and repercussions haunted her.

  What if he'd made her pregnant last night? Kayla's heart clenched. Pregnant by a man who didn't even know her name. Oh, it was too awful to contemplate! So she proceeded to worry about something else instead.

  Suppose Matt Minteer regaled the party boys with tales of last night's romp in the hotel bedroom? It would be akin to printing her sister's name and phone number on a men's room wall with the notation: For A Good Time, Call Kris-tina, Kristina McClure would be marked as a lobbyist who slept her way around the state capital!

  What could she possibly say to her sister? How could she ever explain?

  Later, back in her compact efficiency apartment located in one of the sprawling garden apartment complexes that ringed the city of Washington, Kayla restlessly paced the floor, trying to find the right words and the right way to tell her sister what had happened.

  But when Kristina called her on Sunday evening, Kayla used none of her prerehearsed speeches. She never had a chance.

  "Kayla, I just wanted to thank you," Kristina said breathlessly, not even bothering with a hello. ''Boyd and I spent the whole weekend together and it was the most wonderful time we've ever had. We were able to say all the things that we'd never said before and—" she broke off giggling '* —wait, he's trying to wrestle the phone from me. He wants to thank you himself.''

  ''Boyd's there with you now?" asked Kayla.

  "I'm here," Boyd himself replied. "I rearranged my schedule to stay over a few more days. I'm flying back to Atlanta on Wednesday."

  He and Kayla chatted for a few moments before he thanked her for taking over for Kristina on Friday night so

  that she could meet him. He added jocularly, ''We owe you one, Kayla. A big one."

  What could she say to that? Kayla wondered grimly. Kristina and Boyd were obviously deliriously happy, at least for now, so why spoil it for them?

  Kristina came back on the hne. ''We'll have to reschedule our weekend together soon, Kayla," she said happily. "I might not be in Harrisburg too much longer."

  "You're thinking of moving to Atlanta to be near Boyd?" guessed Kayla. "I think that could be a good career move, Kristina." Did she dare confess that under the circumstances she'd unwittingly created, it was most certainly an excellent career move?

  "Of course it isn't," Kristina said dryly. "Career-wise, it's foolish, leaving when I've finally learned all the ropes and made a large number of contacts and have achieved a certain reputation for effectiveness. But this time, I'm putting my personal life ahead of my professional one, Kayla."

  IWstina took a deep breath and pressed on, "I know Penny told us to always depend on ourselves and never count on any man, but that attitude is what wrecked everything between Boyd and me the last time. This time I'm going to take a chance on love, Kayla."

  Kayla closed her eyes as myriad emotions surged through her. Relief, for if Kristina left Harrisburg she wouldn't have to face the mess Kayla had landed her in. Happiness, because it seemed that Kristina and Boyd were going to work things out after all. And anxiety mixed with apprehension because her sister was taking a dangerous risk, giving up the security of her career for the uncertainty of love.

  Because love was most definitely uncertain. Her own brushes with love had ended in either death—her mother when she was seven, her father three years later—or abandonment—her stepmother Penny's two failed marriages after the twins' father's death, Scott Ceres's defection to another woman. And after her recent catastrophe with Matt

  Minteer, Kayla was not at all keen on taking emotional risks. They cost too much, they hurt too much.

  But she kept her thoughts and her doubts to herself and warmly wished her sister the very best. All too often, Penny had squashed the twins' romantic dreams with a few words of cynicism, always offered with the best of intentions, yet bringing a demoralizing discouragement all the same. Kayla didn't want to put a damper on Kristina's happiness. Perhaps, deep inside her, the dream that true love really did exist, that there really were romantic happy endings, still flickered.

  She wanted to believe it was possible and maybe someday. .. someday it would happen for her. But it hadn't happened with Scott Ceres and it wasn't going to happen with Matt Minteer. Involuntarily, her thoughts drifted back to that moment in the ballroom when her eyes had met Matf s startling blue ones. Her heart began to beat faster, just as it had at that moment on that night. She felt like crying again, but this time she succeeded in holding back her tears.

  Nature wilhng, she would forget that night had ever happened. And no matter what—why, not even if she ended up pregnant with quintuplets!—would she ever see or speak to Matt Minteer again. She promised herself that.

  Matt spent a typical hectic Monday, beginning with a legislative breakfast with one of his corporate constituents, followed by a caucus meeting prior to going into session. By twelve-thirty, he was in his office to talk with Luke, his chief of staff. He went to lunch with some colleagues and then he met with an attorney for the Legislative Reference Bureau. After that meeting, he spoke with several constituents who had dropped by his office to discuss district concerns.

  But by late afternoon, his schedule was clear; his meetings and legislative duties were finished for the day. With nothing to distract him, he was forced to confront the thoughts he had been blocking. Forget Friday night had ever

  happened, Luke had advised, but Matt just couldn't let it

  go.

  He finally faced the situation squarely. It wasn't in his character to make love to a woman and then never see her again. He'd always been too discriminating to indulge in casual one-night stands. No matter how old-fashioned his views might be, he did not have sex with a woman he cared nothing about. The very fact that he'd gone to bed with Kristina McClure, WINDS tactics notwithstanding, meant that he felt something for her. He refused to speculate on how much and how deeply his feeUngs ran, he just knew he couldn't not see her again.

  Without having any real idea of what he planned to do or say, Matt arrived at PITA's headquarters and was directed to Kristin
a McClure's office by the sweetly smiling receptionist. He asked the young woman not to announce him, intimating that he was welcome anytime. Her smile never faltering, the receptionist granted his wish, and Matt strode to the door, opening it quietly.

  Inside the office, a couple stood clinging to each other in a hot embrace. The sounds of heavy male breathing and breathy female whimpers permeated the silence, burning Matt's ears. He stood stock-still, his jaw comically agape. But he found nothing funny in his untimely interruption.

  Although her long, light brown hair was bound in a tight French braid instead of flowing soft and loose down her back, though her face was almost completely blocked from view by the other man. Matt recognized the young woman in the passionate clinch as none other than his erstwhile lover of Friday night. Kristina McClure.

  Desperately not wanting to be seen, he started to back out of the office. But he was a moment too late. Somehov/ the couple must have sensed his presence—or perhaps they simply needed to come up for air—but whatever the reason, they suddenly broke apart.

  And turned toward him.

  Matt stifled the urge to curse aloud. He was not as successful in tamping the fierce wave of anger that surged wildly through him. He was a fool to have come here, he raged at himself. Wotsc yet was this feeling of betrayal that stabbed at him. How could she have given herself to him so completely on Friday, only to turn up in another man's arms the following Monday?

  **Oh!" Kristina looked startled at the sight of him.

  I'll bet she's surprised, Matt thought nastily. She'd been caught in the act. He wondered if her current paramour was another legislator about to fall victim to this spider-woman's charms. Kristina McClure had some way of lobbying! To think he had worried that she would be upset about negative publicity! Ha! She probably would have relished it as a career booster.