Rogue Hearts

by Tamsen Parker

  “You of all people shouldn’t be self-doubting.”

  “Can’t help it. It’s congenital.”

  “Well, work on that. You’re going to take over the world.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Damn it, I’m so tired.”

  His eyes were troubled but not shadowed. He looked entirely too good to be tired.

  She reached up and gently prized his hand from his face. His fingers under hers were solid and warm. “I appreciate your hard work.” I appreciate you. The words were too on the nose to say.

  Or at least she thought so until his eyes flicked to their linked hands, then back to her face. “Maddie.”

  He said her name as if it had been tugged from deep within him. The two syllables crackled with desire, and the force of it unmoored her from her skin.

  He wanted her. Badly. Every bit as much as she did him.

  It had felt like a silly crush, a reflex from her teenage years that was cropping up again inconveniently. It had kept burning, though, fueled by very real, very adult respect. She liked him, and he was competent, smart, funny. The timing was bad, sure, but it had been so long since a man had made her feel dizzy and frivolous. Had made her feel seen.

  Now she was almost igniting from Adam’s gaze on her face, her breasts, her hips.

  “Tell me I’m imagining this,” she whispered.

  “Imagining what?”

  “You’ve been avoiding me all right. But it’s not because I don’t need you.” Because she did. She so did. “It’s because you’re attracted to me.” Saying the words didn’t make them feel less impossible.

  His free hand flexed, like he wanted to reach for her. “You’re my client.”

  Which wasn’t an issue at all. She eased closer to him. “So?”

  “There are lines we shouldn’t cross.”

  “Because political consultants are such an ethical bunch?”

  “I promised Chad I wouldn’t.”

  She almost hiccupped in surprise. Chad…knew. Chad had known before she had. Maddie reeled back, but Adam tightened his grip, keeping them roped together.

  “Chad knows?”

  “He’s not an idiot. But if he knows, everyone probably does.”

  “That’s…not great.”

  “No.”

  “People would probably be judgy if we started—” She wasn’t certain what they were talking about. A fling? Dating?

  “Exactly. You don’t need any part of this. You need to focus on the race.”

  She exhaled. “Well, it did seem unbelievable you would want me.”

  He made a dismissive noise and tugged her into his arms. “That’s the only believable part. And I don’t just want you.” He tossed that off, then dropped his voice to the deep, confessional, sexy as fuck register. “I’m pretty gone for you.”

  With his breath coasting over her face, her head went balloon-light and even the spaces between her toes tingled. “No way.”

  “Yes way. Since forever.”

  “See, that’s odd because I’m pretty gone for you too. Since forever.” She still couldn’t see his features clearly, but the last bit of twilight reflected in his eyes was knee melting.

  She could read the conflict in his body. His hands sliding along her curves were all for it. His tense abs couldn’t decide. “This isn’t a good idea. You’re a rising star and I’m—”

  “The guy who’s helping me fly.” At least when he’d been around.

  “Maddie.” There it was again: the sound of her name in his mouth making her want to cry. He set his free hand at her nape. The skim of his fingers against her scalp was painfully intimate. “There are things you don’t know.”

  “Clearly. But I know I want to kiss you. So how about for the next thirty seconds we just pretend I’m not a candidate and you’re not my consultant?”

  “Thirty seconds won’t be enough.”

  What she hadn’t expected was that when Adam kissed her, it would be playful. His mouth was cool like the Montana summer night outside, and his aftershave smelled of aloe. He kissed her open mouthed again and again and again until she wanted to laugh and the release from finally touching him made her dizzy.

  He paused and put a few inches between them. For a long moment, they stared at each other. The air almost pulsed. Then they came together, no longer playfully. It was a long, wet slide of a kiss and it shook loose everything she’d shoved away when they’d been together and everything she’d buried under work in the last few years.

  Her body wanted. Holy wow did it want. And it wanted Adam.

  Their clothes rustled as they worked to get closer. She ran her hands over his chest, his shoulders, his neck. Everywhere she touched, he was solid and hot and her fingers weren’t satiated. Until she repeated the exploration preferably horizontal and with less clothing there would be no fullness, no sufficient. She needed his hands and his mouth on her everywhere.

  His answering groan let her know he had the same thought. The pull between them was a needy, greedy thing. A panting, hip-rocking thing, but not enough. Not nearly enough. A weak pantomime for what they both craved.

  “Maddie Clark.” Adam moved his mouth down her neck. “What am I going to do with you?”

  She had a few suggestions. The briefest was, “Take me to bed.”

  “Hmm.” He lifted his head, untangled his arms from her, and took an unsteady step backward. “On election night.”

  Cold air smacked her in the face. “Excuse me?”

  “This is…you’re amazing. You’re smart and you’re sexy and—”

  “All of these sounds like compliments. Drop the other shoe.”

  He chuckled. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”

  She closed her eyes and exhaled. These things never worked out for her. “Right, I—”

  But before she could throw him out, he pulled her into him and brushed his mouth over her forehead. “I’ve imagined kissing you since we were fifteen.”

  “Hmpf.” That helped. A little.

  He pressed his lips to her hair. “But I don’t want to be your consultant when I do it.”

  She wanted to make more arguments, to talk him out of this particular scruple, but that seemed wrong. What kind of jerk would she be if she couldn’t take no for an answer? His hesitation made a galling kind of sense.

  “I can’t believe you’re this chivalrous,” she said instead.

  He gave a frustrated laugh. “Me neither.”

  “I don’t like it, but I get it.”

  “Thank you. I shouldn’t have kissed you at all, but I…damn I wanted to.” There was only enough light to see the outline of his grin.

  It took some of the sting out of the situation. “Me too.”

  “So we’re good?” he asked.

  “We’re good.” Or at least they would be. If she won. If he made this up to her on election night.

  He kissed her once on the mouth, fast and hard. “Night, Maddie.”

  “Good night, Adam.”

  It took a not quite cold shower before she managed to fall asleep.

  5

  The last flush of sunset behind the Sleeping Giant was crimson and gold and probably gorgeous—but Adam didn’t have time to appreciate it. He took the steps two at a time, unlocked the door to his apartment, and dumped his briefcase inside. Then he hit Maddie’s number on his phone.

  “Hey. I’m sorry I’m calling you late.” Almost an hour late, to be precise.

  It had been an endless day: he’d had a morning meeting in Billings, a lunch with some donors in Bozeman, and an early dinner with labor leaders in Butte. He’d driven nine hours, all told, and had talked what felt like an equivalent amount of time. But the entire drive home, all he’d thought was he was going to be late to call her.

  “You should be.” She didn’t sound mad, just soft and warm. The same way she’d felt in his arms.

  Just like that, his body relaxed. He was parched from the drive and needed a shower and a nap, but three words from her, and his mu
scles loosened.

  “Were you asleep?”

  “It’s not even eight yet.” She scoffed. “This is way early.”

  But she’d been up since before dawn, had worked a full day, and then had planned to do some canvassing. She might talk a big game, but the life of a candidate was as exhausting as that of a campaign consultant.

  He should keep his distance and focus any calls they might have on her campaign. He shouldn’t phone her almost every night. He definitely shouldn’t text her little jokes and check-ins, let alone replay their kiss, and all the things he wished had happened after, in his head. But he had and he would.

  He’d said far too much the night they’d kissed. But touching her had emptied his mind. It had been all oh thank god and finally and you smell amazing and mine and please and more. Only his promise to Chad had kept him from falling into bed with her.

  Montana left him confused. That was the only explanation.

  “How did the canvassing go?” That was the ostensible point of this conversation, so he ought to ask. It maintained the veneer of professionalism.

  “Fine. The public defender thing is still a problem for some people.”

  “But it’s a plus for others.”

  “Maybe, but those people—let’s face it, the two hundred genuine liberals here—would’ve voted for anyone with a D after her name.”

  “In exchange, they’re going to get an amazing state senator.”

  She snorted. “Some of them are surprisingly ungrateful. One woman told me she doubted my ‘Montana values.’”

  “She thinks you’re insufficiently hardy and independent?”

  “I doubt that’s it.” Maddie paused for a long time. “Does it feel like the state has changed?”

  “Since when?”

  “When we were kids, Montana Republicans didn’t sound like national Republicans. Now, I feel like they’ve lost their libertarian edge. Today, they’re just garden variety conservatives.”

  “Everyone listens to the same talk radio and watches the same news shows now.” And hence they all spouted the same talking points. They were like Stepford Voters.

  “I feel like I stayed in the same place and the ground shifted under my feet.”

  He wanted to ask why she’d stayed then, but before he could, something rustled over the line—maybe her sheets. “You’re in bed?”

  “Sure, but I’m writing a memo. You aren’t keeping me up.”

  But she was keeping him up: all the questions he had, all the little ways she crept into his daydreams.

  He cleared his throat. Memo. Work. That was safe. “Were you able to stay the summary judgement?” She’d told him about it the night before.

  “Babe, you know I was.”

  She was so piqued, he had to laugh.

  Then he went into the kitchen to get a drink. “I’m not doubting your legal prowess or anything.”

  “You were, actually, but you’re forgiven.” She paused for a second. “Do you miss it?”

  He chugged half a glass of water. “You forget I wasn’t a litigator.”

  Sitting in his inbox right now were three separate emails from his firm asking if he had a precise return date and inquiring where the files were for that one case and soliciting a contribution for the retirement present of a paralegal he’d worked with. He’d sent some money, but he’d ignored the rest.

  In LA, he’d gone through the motions, working hard but never being truly engaged. Here, his work absorbed everything, and Maddie got the crumbs. The little bits that he wanted to process, to laugh about, to pick apart, at the end of the day. Those were hers.

  “You could still miss it,” she said. “Some people love business law and contracts.”

  “I…” He finished drinking his water and began stripping his shirt off. “Let me ask you this first: why didn’t you leave?” If he was going to give something up, she had to do the same in return. That was simple fairness.

  “Hmm.” For a long minute, he wasn’t certain she was going to answer, but finally she said, “I got a big scholarship to go to Bozeman.”

  “Sure, but I’d guess you got money other places too.” He didn’t know what kind of student she’d been, but she’d been an amazing debater and was clearly smart. In his experience, schools out of state were happy to poach Montanans for their geographic diversity numbers.

  “The money went further here. Then moving to Missoula for law school seemed like change enough.”

  “Enough for what?”

  “For me, doofus. It’s not like I haven’t gotten out. I’ve traveled.” That was a bit defensive. “I’m not saying this is the best place ever, but it’s the best place for me.”

  “How do you know?” Everything was riding on the question. Had he been really dissatisfied with his life in California? Could he be happy here? He didn’t know how to sort through it. How did you get to certain?

  “Knowing isn’t a thing you feel once. It grows. At first you just…suspect. That goes on for a while. And you don’t leave, and you’re content. Then one day you look back, and you know. I know I’m happy here now.”

  He went back through his apartment and opened one of the front windows. The smallest amount of light was still in the sky, and the pitch-black edge of the mountain was etched against the blue. The early September day had been hot. Humid, even. But as soon as the sun had dropped, the air went cold. It wasn’t quite autumn, but the crispness felt like it came from the future.

  He leaned against the sill and let the coolness wash over him. “It sounds easy when you say it like that.”

  “I’m not certain what we’re talking about.”

  “You asked if I miss it.” LA, presumably. Being a lawyer.

  He should tell her. He really should tell her everything: his creeping discontent, his explosion, and his fear. But Maddie was happy in Montana and in Fallow, and apparently, she had always been so. She wasn’t going to understand, and she was going to think he was an asshole.

  He’d convinced her somehow that he was a good guy. Chivalrous. An idealist. If she knew the truth, all of that would go away.

  If at the end of the election he decided to stay, he didn’t want her to look at him differently. He wanted her to always believe in him as much as she did now when she was willing to tell him how to be happy—if only he were smart enough to listen.

  “I don’t miss it,” he said. “But I got restless once, and maybe I will again.” Both of those things were totally true, and for now, they would have to be enough.

  “I get restless sometimes,” she said.

  “Really? What do you do then?”

  “Well, in case you hadn’t heard, I’m running for the legislature.”

  “What I hear is that you’re amazing.”

  “Total lies.”

  He winced but shook it off.

  6

  In early October, the local election commission held a debate in the auditorium of the high school. Camera crews were there to film it for the local access station and the news, plus a few dozen people came to see Maddie face off against Mike Hoagland live.

  With a few minutes to go, she was backstage prepping, not for the debate but for court. Her leave was scheduled to start in a week, but she was determined not to get distracted before then. Her clients deserved her full attention.

  Garrett sat next to her, loudly complaining about the Wi-Fi. “Why is it so slooooow? Is it still 1995 in Fallow?”

  “Basically, yes. This is why the legislature needs to work on high-speed access in rural areas.”

  “In a few months, you can get on that.”

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

  “Pshaw.”

  His confidence felt good, but she also knew there hadn’t been real competition for the seat since Hoagland had first won it. All summer everyone had seemed to enjoy all the pageantry of campaigning. They both had to go to the fair and the downtown concert series. They both had to pose for pictures, shake hands, and literally k
iss babies.

  Each of those appearances, as out of body and awkward as they had felt at times, had her hopeful because what she’d seen in people’s faces was investment. Sometimes she thought they were wrong—about policy or what issues they’d prioritize or how they thought government worked. Sometimes they thought she was wrong on all the same counts. But no one she talked to was disinterested. Instead, they thought the legislature could make a difference and they were taking seriously the question of who to send there. Whenever she was exhausted or wanted to quit, that kept her going.

  Montana Tomorrow had decided not to poll the race—and since no one could decide what the turnout model should look like, any numbers they might have had would have been meaningless—but both Chad and Adam had told her they were cautiously optimistic. The more she campaigned, the less she felt like she knew which way was up. Things felt close, but good.

  Also good was Adam.

  Since they’d kissed, Adam had stopped being standoffish. They’d ended up on the phone or texting most nights. They talked about the race, about the weather, about things they remembered from high school and his personal quest to eat a burger in every one of Montana’s fifty-six counties.

  Every few weeks when she saw him, the intimacy of those conversations made it hard to meet his eyes. Her entire body betrayed her: her cheeks burned and she felt like twirling her hair. Even though she was entirely too old for that giddy shit, she’d fallen into the pattern of liking him, of trusting him, of needing him too far to care. As soon as the campaign was over, she couldn’t wait to be with him, really be with him.

  The moderator stuck his head into the green room. “Show time!”

  Mike Hoagland and Maddie nodded to each other in the wings before going on stage to spotty applause, shaking hands, and then taking their places behind lecterns. The spotlights were weak, not blinding, and there was a strange calm in her stomach.

  The first questions were standard: what would they do to help education and agriculture? Why did they think the economy had stalled and how would they fix it? How would they approach the state budget? Where did they stand on abortion? On guns? On federal public land management?