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Evie waited for the door to close before she dropped her head in her hands. Her paper needed the revenue desperately. They were walking a fine line between solvency and bankruptcy, again. Lord, I’m trying to do the right thing here. I’m not asking for wealth beyond measure. Just enough to pay the bills.
When she’d first bought the paper, she’d fought hard to get them on solid ground. But things had slowed and The Daily was getting a good cut of their advertising customers. It was human nature that people would rather read gossip than human interest stories or exposés on slave labor. But she’d been there, done that. No going back. Even if they published community hero stories all the way into foreclosure.
* * *
“Thanks for distributing these, Lana.” Gavin handed over an armful of posters on pertussis prevention.
“Anything we can do to help, you know that.” The secretary laid the posters on the desk and cocked her head. “You look exhausted.”
“No, I’m fine. Just running a little low on sleep.” The low end of empty.
“Take care of yourself. We wouldn’t want you to miss Christmas.” She gave him a look that meant business and he nodded obediently. He would rest when there was time. If he didn’t keep working, the Mission would have to cancel all public gatherings anyway. It wasn’t something he wanted to say out loud.
Gavin’s phone buzzed in his pocket and he stepped away from the desk with a wave of apology. Lana smiled, making a shooing motion with her hand.
He snapped the phone open. “Allison, everything okay?” He hated the note of anxiety in his voice. She was a grown woman, with a son she’d taken care of all by herself, but he would always be her big brother. They weren’t related by blood, but he’d given up the step word a long time ago. She was his sister, end stop.
“Everything’s fine, Gav.” He could hear her smile and felt the muscles in his neck relax. “Just wanted to let you know we’re headed into Denver tonight. We made good time through Kansas. Nothing there to see but corn.”
Gavin leaned against the lobby wall and grinned. “Can’t wait to see you. Are you heading straight for my place?” Office workers wandered in and out of the double doors, staring at their smartphones or chatting with colleagues.
“No other place to go, is there?” Her tone was light, but the words held a lot of sadness.
Gavin knew what she meant. She’d been on her own for so long. Moving back to Denver was a big step, and hopefully it was one in the right direction. As long as Sean’s father didn’t make trouble, they would probably do just fine.
“I think it will be a whole new start for you both.”
“You’re right.” She paused, as if choosing her words. “Because I’m tired of hiding.”
Gavin straightened up. “What does that mean?”
“I’m just...ready to be honest about who I am and what happened.”
He felt his eyes widen.
“But let’s talk about it when I get there.”
Gavin took a breath, calming his thoughts. Allison didn’t need to explain everything, especially while driving. “Right. Be careful. See you real soon, sisty ugler.”
“Watch it. There’s still time for me to turn this rig around.” There was the brief sound of her laughing and she disconnected. Gavin snapped the phone closed. He’d wanted her to move here for years, right after he’d found out about Sean. But she’d been determined to make her own way. Maybe she was stubborn. Maybe it was shame. Whatever it was, he was glad she’d finally given in. His sister needed family around her, and his godson needed his uncle.
His brows drew down as he thought of her words. She was ready to be honest. How honest? To everyone? To the media? The idea of another bout of newspaper scandal made him ill. He never wanted her to go through something like that again.
But now wasn’t the time to worry about it. He strode out into the bright winter sunlight and headed for his car. God willing, they would get the whooping cough cases under control and he could really focus on welcoming her to Denver.
Of course, getting the epidemic under control involved a certain collaboration with a certain newspaper editor. Evie Thorne’s beautiful face passed through his mind. If he could just ignore those flashes of humor, that quick wit, those bright blue eyes, then he wouldn’t mind so much that he had to deal with a journalist. He had an unsettling feeling that his calm, predictable life was veering into completely unknown territory.
* * *
Yanking the cord that released the long window shades, Evie pressed the palms of her hands to her eyes and gritted her teeth. Her office had a heart-stopping view of Wolf Mountain, but the bright winter sunlight was making her head throb. Sometimes she wanted to be someone else, anyone else. Getting a call from another advertiser who’d rather pay The Daily than The Chronicle had her feeling like she should just pack her bags and head out of town.
A soft knock on her door brought her head up with a start. Gavin Sawyer stood in her office doorway, a concerned expression on his face, brows drawn together. His suit was nicely pressed, as if he was just starting his day, instead of heading into the afternoon. He had a badge clipped to his shirt pocket. Warm brown eyes and softly wavy hair made him seem casual despite the business wear. It was as if he always walked into The Chronicle on a Friday morning. Her mind stuttered to a stop.
“Are you all right?” His low voice brought her back to reality. Delusions weren’t usually concerned with your welfare.
She nodded, struggling to smile confidently.
“I’m sorry I didn’t call ahead, but I have the main issues we need in the article, along with the most recent statistics from this week.” He took a few steps into her office, set the folder on her desk and looked out the large glass window to his right. “Nice view. Sure beats looking at posters on diphtheria.”
“Probably anything would be better than that. Does your lab have windows? Or are you a basement dweller?”
His lips tilted up a bit, as if she’d said something charming. “I don’t usually work in the lab. I have degrees in microbiology and epidemiology, but I get to spend my days in the fresh air. Mostly.”
“Until something awful comes along, like whooping cough.”
“Right.” He sighed. “It would be nice if we spent all our time trying to get kids to drink water and not soda, but it doesn’t always work that way.”
“Do you have an idea which languages need to be on the inserts?” She gestured to the chair across the desk.
“There’s a federal handout in there with brief guidelines in fifteen languages.” He settled into it, stretching out his long legs. He looked tired, a small frown between his brows. “Did you hear Calista and Grant had a little boy?”
“Sure did. I got a call from Jack, who heard it from Lana, who heard it from Jose, who got a visit from a deliriously happy Marisol.” News traveled fast in the Mission community. Plus, it seemed the entire group had been holding their breath until that baby was born.
“I peeked in at the hospital. Grant seemed to be back to normal. Proud as can be and mentally sound. We had a good laugh about him not being able to walk across the lobby that night.”
He looked around, still taking in the small office. Evie was painfully aware of the teetering piles of papers and the jumbled books haphazardly tossed onto shelves. She felt the heat rush to her cheeks. His office was probably neat as a pin.
“They say a messy desk is a sign of a tidy mind.”
“Do they?” Evie glanced around, wondering if the perpetual mess had anything to do with her mental state, or if it had everything to do with her organizational skill. “One of my employees says I use the EAS filing system. Every Available Surface.”
He grinned, tiny lines appearing around his eyes. “I would never survive in this office. How do you find anything?”
“Strangely, it doesn’t seem to be a problem.”
“So, if I moved something, right now, you could probably tell?”
Evie bit her lip, staring at the piles of papers and Post-its scattered like colorful snowflakes. “Depends on what it is.”
He stood up, leaned over her desk and wiggled his fingers. “Let’s try it.”
She fought to keep from laughing. They were going to play a game with her messy desk? Something about that grin made her want to play along. “Fine, I’ll close my eyes. Try to be very quiet.” She was almost surprised at her own flirting, but then that smile made her forget a lot of things.
She scrunched her eyes closed and put a hand over them for good measure. As if someone had thrown a switch, all her other senses went on high alert. She could hear the rustle of his shirt against his suit jacket, his slow breathing. The scent of his aftershave was deep and woodsy. She could hear, no feel him, moving very close to her. There was a tiny sound and then he said, “Done.”
She peeked between her fingers and frowned. Maybe she didn’t know where everything was. Maybe not even half of it. And then she saw the change and triumph surged through her. “You moved my pen.”
The look of shock on his face made her laugh out loud. His eyes had gone wide. “Well, I guess that proves it. Messy doesn’t mean disorganized. But how did you know?”
“I’m left-handed. I keep my pens on this side.” She waved with her left hand.
“I hadn’t noticed that.” He cocked his head, appraising her.
“Why would you?” Evie felt her face flush under his gaze.
Gavin ran a hand down his tie and cleared his throat. “So, how much space can you spare for tomorrow’s article?”
Evie struggled to switch gears.
“Half of the front and two full pages in the first section.”
“You usually have that much room on short notice?”
“Only when the lawyers tell us to shut down our biggest story of the year.” Even saying the words made her feel slightly sick. She could see the newsroom over his right shoulder, through the half-open door, and it looked like someone had hit the panic button. Her head throbbed a little, as if for extra emphasis. She sighed and rubbed her eyes. So much work, down the drain.
* * *
“Lawyers.” The word wasn’t a question, more like he was repeating her.
She nodded. “We keep them on retainer so we can pass stories by them. Otherwise we might be left open to lawsuits. It’s the kiss of death for a paper.”
“So, what exactly got shelved?” He was working on keeping his body relaxed, but he heard the tension in his own voice. Of course they’d need lawyers. Walking the fine line between getting sued and delivering the daily gossip must be a lightning rod for litigation.
“I don’t know how much you hear about the dark places in this city,” she paused, gathering her thoughts, “but there is a slave labor ring. It keeps moving. We can never quite catch them. We know some of the businesses involved. But the people we’re getting the information from are too unreliable. The lawyers said it was a no-go.”
There was a beat of silence, then another. His throat felt tight. “I do hear things, now and then. I have friends who work in the free clinics. They see girls coming in for treatment, always accompanied by men, never left alone.”
Evie raised her face, stricken. “There are those, too. Girls brought here with the promise of jobs and then enslaved. No one thinks it can happen in this city, but it does.”
“What about the police?”
“We can’t get word to the police fast enough. By the time they arrive, the groups have decamped.”
Her words hung in the air between them. So many people needed help, desperately, and sometimes he didn’t even know where to start.
“Thank you.” His voice was softer than he intended.
“For what? Failing?” Bitterness was written on every feature.
“For caring.”
She gave a small shrug and sat up a bit straighter. “Did you bring the current stats on the reported cases?”
He handed over the file.
She was busy studying the graphs and numbers. “This is bad.”
“I know. My grandmother’s been praying like crazy. She’s got the whole Women’s Guild at St. James on the case.”
“I didn’t know you went to St. James. I mean, I’ve never seen you there.” Then she paused. He knew what she was thinking. Just because someone’s grandmother went to church, didn’t mean they did. Usually grandmas held down the fort and everyone else went about their lives, sleeping late on Sunday and counting on the trickle-down effect of the prayers.
“Usually the early service.”
“Oh, I went to that one last summer when we were leaving on a trip. It was me and Jack and about forty old ladies.”
Too accurate to be funny, but he couldn’t help chuckling anyway. “Right. Just me and the old ladies. My grandmother has trained them all to treat me like their own. We have a great time at coffee after.”
Evie let out a throaty laugh that made him want to scrap his plans for the day and do something better, more fun, just the two of them. But that wasn’t really an option, in a lot of ways, no matter how that laugh tugged at him. Work was ramping up to round-the-clock shifts and Allison... Just the thought of his sister made him sit up straighter. All he could think of was how good Evie smelled and how that husky laugh made him want to take a day off work. He gave himself an internal shake. People reacted to stress in different ways, and he must be grasping at anything that wasn’t related to pertussis or fragile sisters. This was a working relationship and it needed to stay that way.
Chapter Five
His heart thudding in his chest, Gavin took the stairs down from The Chronicle’s upper floors at a quick clip. Everything would be fine. They would get the word out about the epidemic, Allison and Sean would settle in nicely and the Mission would get some big donations before the holidays. He let out a deep breath and paused in the stairwell.
It was a good thing Jolie had knocked. He had been about to make a fool out of himself, having an entire internal debate over whether to ask Evie out. So she had a heart. It didn’t mean he had to get any closer. Keep it simple and everything will be fine. Gavin took the last flight of stairs slowly, the sound of his dress shoes echoing in the empty stairwell. Timing was everything, and now was exactly the wrong time. He pushed the long metal handle and exited into the lobby. If he was honest with himself, never would be an even better time.
Twenty minutes later, with a tray of hot coffees in hand, Gavin punched in the code to the top floors of the Center for Disease Control. The building was humming with activity and not in a pleasant way. Gavin didn’t know if this epidemic was going to be something they could control. Babies got the first diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccine at two months, and most of these babies were newborns. The older ones had one of the vaccines, but not the whole series. It wasn’t enough to keep them from developing the disease if they caught it from an older sibling or a parent. The most fragile infants were falling victim.
At the first door, Gavin peered in and saw Tom’s desk was empty. Piles of papers were strewn around. It reminded him of Evie’s desk, which made him think of the way she’d covered her eyes during their impromptu “spot the difference” game. His lips tugged up.
“How many more cases?” Tom asked from just behind him. His voice was quiet, subdued. He reached around and took a cup of coffee from the tray, raising an eyebrow.
“Three more confirmed, total of eleven babies in the NICU, and there are two isolated in the emergency area.”
“Well, if we’re trading bad news, Senator McHale is in your office.” Tom took a sip and nodded down the hallway.
Gavin felt like ice had dropped into the pit of his stomach. His first thought was of Allison, and the next was of Sean. The door to Gavin’s office was almost closed, revealing nothing, but they both stood watching it anyway.
“He didn’t say why he was here. I also didn’t ask. I didn’t figure he’d want to share his business with a lowly administrator.” Tom was more than that. He could run the whole local organization in a pinch. There were few things he didn’t know, and that Gavin was connected to McHale in a very ugly way was one of them.
“He’s been waiting about an hour.” Tom tossed the last bit over his shoulder as he wandered back to his desk, but the look they exchanged said it all. The senator never waited. Ever.
McHale had visited the CDC before. It was part of his election year rounds. Gavin had been struck by his utter arrogance. There were people who loved power. It happened in every profession. Unfortunately, McHale was determined to keep his power at any cost. Anything that made him look bad was blacklisted, no matter the reason. And an uncontrolled pertussis epidemic could certainly be considered a negative.
Allison was another. She’d ruined his presidential aspirations once. Revealing that he’d fathered a child out of wedlock and refused to acknowledge him might be the final nail in his political coffin.
Gavin steeled himself before opening the door, resisting the urge to knock. It was his office, after all. McHale was sitting behind Gavin’s desk, looking right at home. His dark hair was perfectly combed, manicured hands casually flicking through a stack of papers. Gavin wasn’t overly territorial, but if he hadn’t already had a bone to pick with the man, he certainly would have at the sight of McHale reading his personal notes.
“Finally back.” The man didn’t even have the good grace to pretend he hadn’t just been rifling through Gavin’s desk. He took one last peek and then tossed the stack down. Expensive suit perfectly pressed, silk tie straight as an arrow, a light tan that was more California than Colorado. He’d aged well since the last time they’d been in the same room. Or hadn’t aged at all, really. Politicians and celebrities seemed to hang at thirty for a few decades before they got wrinkles like the rest of humanity.
Gavin itched to straighten the papers, but he was so angry he forced himself to remain perfectly still. If he started moving toward the desk, he might just keep going until he grabbed McHale by the tie.
“How can I help you today?” He was proud of his easy tone and wished he could force a smile to go with it, but that was too much to ask of any man.
“I need copies of every outreach program, every vaccine push and every community education session you’ve put together. This outbreak is unfortunate, but it’s spreading unchecked.” He leaned forward, black eyes narrowed. “That’s your job, in case you didn’t know. And when you don’t do your job, it makes me look like I’m not doing my job.”
Gavin had known what was coming, had prepared for it, and it still made his blood pressure skyrocket. McHale wouldn’t know one end of a graph from another; the papers wouldn’t do him a bit of good. He was blowing hot air. And Gavin was in no mood to be bullied.
He bought a few seconds to calm himself by slipping off his coat and hanging it on the rack behind the door. His face felt hot, his collar too tight. He lowered himself into the guest chair. “I can do that. And we’re starting a new series in The Chronicle tomorrow.”
