Rogue Hearts

by Tamsen Parker

  Get it together, Clark. You aren’t doing this to flirt.

  She took out the notes Kendra had jotted down for her. They’d agreed she shouldn’t sound too polished and she should ad lib as much as she could, but the news cameras would be there. Mike Hoagland would probably be the one yelling at her on TV tonight. Served him right.

  In many ways, her life hadn’t changed: too much time at work, too much stress, not enough sleep. There was just the added anxiety about the election on top of it. All of this would only be worth it if she won. If all of Adam’s candidates did.

  “Are you nervous?” he asked, glancing over.

  “A little. It’s not the public speaking, it’s more that court is so…boring.” She was rarely surprised during trials. She knew all the judges and district attorneys, and she could predict, almost down to the word, what they’d do or say. The impersonal grind of court coupled with the fact that people’s lives were at stake was almost too depressing to contemplate. “This isn’t like that at all. I have no idea what to expect here.”

  “You’re going to be great. You nailed that intro video, and you’re raising money faster than anyone else we’re managing.”

  “At first you thought I sucked.”

  “Only because you weren’t being you.” He watched her for a few beats. His eyes were such a deep brown. “I didn’t ask you to do this because I wanted some robo candidate. I want you.”

  It was nerves, she knew it was nerves, that had her wanting those words to be about her and not about the politics, the job. He was cute, smart, vaguely annoying—she’d always thought that. And only stress had her turning it into some hopeless crush. She had to cut it out.

  But instead, she made it worse. “You’re different than you used to be. More…intense.”

  “Mm. You’re different too.”

  “When I was seventeen, I wanted…” She wasn’t sure how to finish that. She hadn’t looked ahead much. She probably had seen herself leaving at least for a bit. But when she’d only gotten as far as Bozeman, she’d seen how every Christmas, fewer and fewer of her friends came back. Then they didn’t even bother to send cards or return calls or come home at all.

  “I think I was sort of selfish then.” She played with the notecard in her hand. “Kids are narcissists. I was too. But now…I really want this to work.” She hadn’t realized how much so until she said it aloud. But she wanted to win this seat. She wanted to have a real impact on policy. She wanted to change this state.

  “That makes two of us.”

  She held his gaze. On the other side of the curtain, the music finished and Garrett took the mic and introduce her mom, who was her campaign manager on paper.

  All the while, Adam looked at her. Just looked at her. The corners of his mouth were tipped up, not in a smile—it was too hot, too intense for that—but in an acknowledgement.

  She could taste it, the ambition, the wanting between them. She knew hers was personal and professional and messy and the result of too many lonely nights.

  His she couldn’t parse at all.

  “Go get ’em,” he finally whispered.

  He pushed off the wall and held the curtain open for her.

  With a confidence she didn’t feel, she stepped under his arm, into the light and the applause. The crowd had grown when she’d been hiding. She couldn’t believe she knew this many people and that they all supported her. Her dad was wiping his eyes, and her brother had the video camera out, and her mom was beaming.

  There were two steps up to the stage, and Adam held out a hand to help her. She took it without thinking, then immediately drew a sharp breath. Nerves, it was nerves. But it was also the first time she’d touched him, and his skin was warm and his grip strong. He gave her hand a bracing squeeze and then released her.

  Maddie hugged her mom, and then she gave her spiel from the intro video. Her voice sounded strange, high and taut with a metallic echo from the PA system. She’d probably get used to that.

  “This is not something I expected for myself,” she finished. “I wish I didn’t feel like I had to do this. But Montana needs leadership, and this district needs a different vision, a better one. So that’s why I’m running, and I’m going to win.”

  She locked eyes with Adam, who gave a firm nod. She was in it now for real.

  And he was with her.

  4

  Maddie was incredible on the trail. That wasn’t, like, shocking—Adam had known she was brilliant when he’d begged her to run. Every list they sent of doors to knock on, she worked through, often personally. The volunteers loved her, understood her platform, and sent glowing reports about her conversations with voters. She was persuasive as heck, even with Republicans.

  Unsurprisingly, Mike Hoagland was freaking out, and by July, the race had become testy and expensive. They weren’t worried. Maddie was six weeks ahead of schedule on their outreach targets. She’d even completed all of the donor call sheet they’d put together for her. They were going to run out of wealthy liberals for her to hit up soon.

  “She hates the fundraising, but she’s kicking ass,” Chad said while they crunched the second quarter fundraising numbers.

  “Because she really wants it.”

  Her ambition had surprised her, Adam could tell. She’d been selling herself short for years, working at a job she loved and where she made a difference but at which there wasn’t any possibility for advancement. Now she’d let herself reach for something, and she was doing it with both hands.

  His only problem with Maddie was personal. He couldn’t canvass with her without noticing how retail politics lit her up. He couldn’t sit on strategy calls with her without falling a little bit more for how her mind worked. He couldn’t promote her in interviews or to donors without sounding like he adored her. Probably because he did.

  The way her nose crinkled when she was thinking, or the gleam when her amber eyes caught the sunlight, or the foul, sarcastic things she’d say when no one else was listening: everything about her intrigued him, attracted him.

  He was here to cool down, to be a professional, and to do some good and then he was going to go back to his real life. Reaching for her would get in way of every one of those goals.

  Plus, it wouldn’t help her a bit. The sky was the limit for Maddie—and this was Big Sky Country. After a few terms in the legislature, she’d be a perfect candidate for lieutenant governor or as a challenger for the House of Representatives. She didn’t need him weighing her down.

  By the time she’d finished climbing, he’d be back in LA, hopefully having slaked this resistance impulse and getting back on track with his career. He’d be telling people he knew her when—but from the distant coast.

  “Is Kendra staffing Maddie at that thing?” he asked Chad. Maddie was in Helena along with several other first-time candidates for a mixer with the legislature’s Democratic leaders and some lobbyists.

  “Nah, I sent Kendra to Billings with Garrett. Ted needs all the help he can get.”

  The guy they’d recruited for District 22 was struggling; they only wished all of Montana Tomorrow’s clients were as good as Maddie.

  “She’ll be okay?”

  Chad scoffed. “Maddie’s a well-oiled machine.”

  He was right, of course. Maddie didn’t need to have staffers with her. She’d be fine, probably better than fine. But she was right across town. Alone.

  Adam checked his phone. “It’s 5:30 on a Saturday night. Why are we doing this?”

  “The filing deadline is tomorrow.”

  “Aren’t we done?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Then I’m going to go watch our golden girl in action.”

  Chad looked up from his laptop. “Is that a good idea?”

  “Um, yeah.”

  He made a face. A “you’re seriously going to make me explain this?” face.

  Adam didn’t get it. “What?”

  With a deep sigh, he canted back in his chair. “I see how you look
at her. And listen, man, I like Maddie, and I can see why you would. But you promised me you’d help me for one cycle and you told your firm you’d be back in a year.”

  Shit. So much for keeping his crush on the down low—though he hoped Chad was the only one who’d noticed—but his business partner didn’t need to worry. It wasn’t like Adam couldn’t hear the tick-tock counting down the minutes he had left in Montana.

  “I didn’t realize it was obvious. Look, I’m not going to pretend I don’t…sure, if things were different and if she wasn’t, you know—”

  “Your client?” The bastard found this amusing.

  “Yes. But they aren’t and she is. I wouldn’t do that.” Okay, sometimes he imagined asking her out, kissing that smart mouth of hers…but those were just fantasies. He knew to leave them in the dark corners of his mind.

  Chad picked a pen up off the desk and spun it around his thumb a few times. They’d worked for weeks to perfect that trick freshman year of high school, thinking it made them look cool during debate rounds. They’d been such dorks, which was precisely why he knew his interest in Maddie was one-sided. She’d known him as a punk kid, and it was almost impossible to come back from that.

  “Okay, then.” Chad didn’t believe him, and Adam couldn’t blame him. “Give her my best.”

  “Will do.”

  Leaving Chad to submit the reports, Adam drove a few blocks across downtown. At the hotel where the event was, he waved to the kid at the door—one of the College Dems from Missoula who was in town interning for the summer—and strolled into the ballroom.

  It was your typical fundraiser crowd: rich people smiling smugly, politicians hedging their bets, and lobbyists working both groups like double agents. Against the back wall was the buffet of crap food, sour wine, and watery beer. The only difference between this and every other one of these was that in Helena, there were more bolo ties and silver belt buckles.

  He found Maddie almost immediately. Her back was to him. She had on a clingy black suit dress and heels, and he had to drag his eyes from her legs and curves. If his attraction to her was obvious to Chad, it probably was to everyone. He owed it to Maddie to be completely professional, to show everyone she was to be taken seriously. Public lusting was off the agenda.

  He grabbed a glass of wine and walked over to where she was chatting with one of the Minority Whips. “John. Good evening, Madison.”

  She rolled her eyes. The first time he’d debated her sophomore year, she’d written Madison on the chalk board instead of Maddie. It had been adorable.

  “I didn’t know you were coming.” John gave Adam a warm hand shake.

  Eight months ago, he hadn’t known anyone in Montana politics, and now he was everybody on the left’s favorite. That would last until election night if he failed to deliver on his promises—well, they were actually Chad’s promises, but Adam had sort of become the face of Montana Tomorrow—but either way, he’d be back in LA and wouldn’t have to deal with it.

  “Well, I had to eat,” Adam said.

  Maddie held up a little plate with some fruit and hors d’oeuvres. “Pickings are slim.”

  They always were. “Have I missed anything?” He popped a cube of cheese into his mouth.

  “A solar lobbyist talking a good game. Some gossip about the supreme court race.” She gave a tight shrug because she hated the idea of electing judges.

  There wasn’t anything he could say that would make her like politics more. Not for the first time, he regretted pulling her into a world she would always hate, even as he knew she could make that world better. It was just the way it was.

  John, who’d missed all of this, said, “And I was talking to Maddie about office space—”

  Her mouth tipped up, and then she turned her attention from Adam to John. “Which is totally bad luck because I haven’t won yet.”

  “But she will.” John’s smile was confident and just a touch smarmy.

  Not liking how John was looking at Maddie, Adam asked, “How’s the debate prep going?”

  She scoffed. “My ability to debate is the only qualification I had for this thing. So, it’s fine.”

  “You have every qualification.” He looped his fingers around her wrist to tow her plate back toward him. Her skin was so damn silky. With the flutter of her pulse just under his fingers, there was the same jolt, the same rightness, he always felt when he touched her.

  But he’d promised Chad he wouldn’t pursue her, so he grabbed a few grapes and let her go.

  Maddie had stared at him through all of this, her eyes slightly wide. She was processing something. A few seconds ticked by.

  “Kendra seems pleased,” she finally said.

  “What about the 22nd?” John asked. “I don’t see Ted here.”

  “Ah. Ted.” While Adam tried to answer John’s question without throwing Ted under the bus—though Ted’s struggles were obvious—Maddie’s arm brushed against his.

  It would look causal, like an accident, like she was trying to see what was happening on the other side of the room, but it was another little zing of awareness. Of attraction. Of heat.

  When she was around, she had his attention. Hell, she had his attention when she was across the state. He was a compass, and she was magnetic north.

  “But his fundraising?” John prompted.

  “Oh, sorry.” Adam had lost the thread of what he’d been saying. “I was remembering something I needed to do back at the office.” Sure, that was close enough. “His numbers are fine. He just needs some more handholding. There are a lot of fundamentals about turnout we’re not sure about yet, but we’re still hopeful. It’s too early to throw in the towel.” Half of politics was stringing together clichés anyhow, so that was probably close enough.

  “We really need all those seats.”

  Adam swallowed something about why they’d been running crap candidates and weak get-out-the-vote efforts for years. “I didn’t get in this to lose,” was all he said.

  Maddie cleared her throat. “None of us do. But if you don’t mind, John, I have a question for Adam about strategy.”

  “Sure, sure.”

  “Good night.” Then Maddie gave Adam a pointed look and turned.

  He trailed her across the room, trying to smile and nod at everyone they passed and not to stare at the sway of Maddie’s hips.

  When she reached a small high-top table in a quiet corner, she set down her plate and gave him a sweet smile. “You having a good time?”

  “Um, it’s fine.” He didn’t trust the expression on her face.

  “Good, good. I want to ask you something.”

  “Uh-huh?”

  She speared him with her gaze. “Have you been avoiding me?”

  Adam’s brows shot up at the question Maddie had wanted to ask him for a month.

  “Have I what?” he asked.

  “Been avoiding me? No, I know you have. I just want to know why. Am I fucking up?”

  This probably wasn’t the right place to ask, except she wasn’t certain when she was going to see him again.

  Her campaign seemed to be going fine unlike Ted’s, which even she could tell was floundering. She was raising what Chad told her was a lot of money, Kendra and Garrett seemed happy with her public appearances and social media, and she had a steady stream of high school and college volunteers who were helpful and idealistic and made her feel like she was doing some good.

  The only problem was she hadn’t seen or heard from Adam in weeks, and she missed him. Everyone else at Montana Tomorrow was nice and helpful, but he was the only one she trusted not to bullshit her. Which was bizarre since he’d been Mr. Bullshit in high school, but it was true. He wouldn’t lie to her. She knew he wouldn’t.

  When she had doubts, which was surprisingly often, she wanted to talk to him about them. When she wanted to take apart something that had happened on the campaign, she wanted to do so with Adam. When Hoagland was an ass, she wanted to laugh about it with Adam.

 
And lately, he hadn’t been there.

  Okay, sure, he was easy on the eyes and sort of flirty, sort of handsy. But she knew that was just his personality. She could handle a little inappropriate longing on her part since it was all in her head. She only wanted to know why he hadn’t been around because she needed him.

  “Are you driving home tonight?” he asked.

  “No, I sprang for a hotel room.” It had been a long week between her crowded trial schedule and the campaign. She hadn’t been able to face the late-night drive back to Fallow.

  “Where are you staying?”

  “The Comfort Suites just off I-15.”

  “I’ll meet you there. We need to talk.”

  Well, didn’t that just sound ominous?

  Ten minutes later in the lobby, Adam would scarcely meet her eye. His jaw was set, his movements rigid.

  “There isn’t a bar,” she apologized. “We could talk here.” She gestured to the seating area by the front desk. “But there’s no privacy. You know what? This is dumb. Just come up to my room.”

  After a second of hesitation, he mumbled, “Uh, sure.”

  He followed her up the stairs. She keyed into her room and then tossed her purse on the bed. “Okay, tell me what’s wrong.”

  He lingered in the threshold for a minute before stepping inside and closing the door.

  She blinked as her eyes adjusted to the dimness. The twilight out the window was purple and gray. She could see Adam’s outline smudged gold around the edges, an erotic Instagram filter. Why did he have to be so attractive?

  “I’m not avoiding you.”

  She didn’t want to argue with him, so she tried to home in on his motive. “Are you unhappy with how I’m doing?”

  “You couldn’t be doing any better than you are. It’s just…you don’t need me. That’s why I haven’t been around.”

  All his attention had been because she’d required extra help at first? Well, that was the confirmation she hadn’t wanted.

  “Okay.” She tried to sound cheered. She failed. “I’m sorry I was sensitive. The campaign has me all self-doubting and shit.”