скачать книгу бесплатно
“You don’t know that she’s his daughter.”
“Do you think the terrorists care? I was convinced by those pictures. And I’m pretty sure the rest of the nation was convinced by them, too. Do you think the president will take the chance that’s she’s not?”
Max’s body became alert. “So, you’re saying the president slept with Eleanor Albert.”
Lynn’s face paled a shade. “I’m saying nothing of the kind.”
But Max pounced on her small misstep. “If he hadn’t slept with her, this couldn’t possibly be a matter of national security.”
For a moment, Lynn was speechless.
Cara stepped in. “Who told you Ariella was going to Potomac Airfield?”
Max twisted his head to look at her. His eyes were cool, his expression a perfect, professional mask.
Cara pressed him. “Come on, Max. You don’t want Ariella hurt any more than we do. She’s innocent in all this. She needs Secret Service protection.”
“No kidding,” said Max. “And did you tell her that last night?”
Cara blinked, her insides clenching up.
He continued, “Did you tell her she needed the Secret Service?”
There was only one way for him to have known Ariella had come to Cara. “Of course I did. I begged her to let me help. I just finished explaining that to Lynn.”
Max turned back to Lynn. “You want to know my source? Ariella is my source. I know she went to Potomac Airfield because I drove her there. She’s gone, Lynn.”
Lynn sat up in her chair. “Why on earth didn’t you stop her?”
“Because the power of the press doesn’t extend to kidnapping and forcible confinement. She’s a grown woman. She’s an American citizen. And she’s free to come and go as she pleases.”
“Is she still in the country?” Cara asked.
“She told me she had her passport.”
“You didn’t report on any of that last night.”
He slowly turned back to Cara, his expression reproachful. “I didn’t, did I?”
“You want points for that?” Cara demanded.
“It would be nice. A little credit. A little consideration. Maybe a scoop or two. I ran into Ariella. I offered her assistance. And I put her safety and the good of my country ahead of my own interests. She was determined to leave D.C. without notice. I thought it was best to give her a fighting chance at successfully doing that.”
Cara found herself nodding in agreement with his words. She knew from personal experience that there’d been no talking Ariella out of her plans. She only hoped she came back soon. A DNA test was in everyone’s best interest.
Lynn’s demeanor changed. “The White House appreciates your efforts,” she told Max.
“I would imagine you do.” He came to his feet. “I’m not the bad guy here. But I do have a job to do.”
As he left the office, Lynn’s phone rang. Cara quickly took the opportunity to jump up and go after him.
“Max?” She hurried down the hall.
He stopped and turned back, and she canted her head toward her own office.
He followed her inside, and she closed the door. Sure, he’d done the right thing. But he wasn’t completely off the hook.
“Where did you run into Ariella?” she fired off.
“Logan Circle.”
“My apartment.”
“Yes.”
“You stalked her.”
He moved toward Cara, making her heart reflexively race and her breath go shallow. It didn’t seem to matter how hard she fought or how much logic she sent through her brain, over and over again. She was compulsively attracted to Max Gray. It seemed to be embedded in her DNA.
“Really?” he demanded. The distance between them was far too small. “That’s what you think? That I was staking out your apartment on the off chance that Ariella would come by?”
Cara admitted the mathematical odds had been low on that happening. She took a step back, bumping against the edge of her desk.
His eyes glittered meaningfully as he moved again, keeping the distance static. “You can’t think of any other reason? None at all?”
“I told you no, Max.”
“I was there for my watch.”
“We both know that was a ruse.”
“Yeah. We do. But you won’t let me play it straight, Cara. I have no other choice.”
“Your choice is to stay away.”
“That’s not working for me.”
There was a shout in the hallway and the sound of two sets of footsteps going swiftly past.
“We can’t do this here,” she told him.
“When and where?”
“Never and nowhere.”
“Wrong answer.”
“It’s the only answer you’re going to get. I have to go to work, Max. In case you missed it in the papers, we’re having a crisis.”
His tone went suddenly soft. “I’m sorry for that. I truly am.”
“But you have a job to do, too,” she finished for him.
“And I better get to it.”
He brushed the backs of his knuckles against hers, sending a spike of awareness ricocheting through her system, squeezing her heart and tightening her abdomen.
Before she could protest, he’d turned and was gone.
Cara made her way around her desk, dropping into her chair. She gave a reflexive glance at her computer screen, knowing that a million things needed her attention, but the email subject lines didn’t compute inside her brain.
Her hand dropped to her stomach and rested there. She was barely pregnant. If not for her ultraregular cycle and modern, supersensitive home pregnancy tests, she wouldn’t even know it yet.
But she did. And she was. And Max’s baby was complicating an already dicey situation. Max was one of the ten hottest men in D.C. She didn’t need a magazine to tell her that. He was also smart, funny, innovative and daring.
He wanted her. That much was clear. But what he didn’t want, what he’d never wanted and never would want, was home, hearth and family. He’d told her about his single mother, how his father walked out on them, how he was no genetic prize and had no plans to carry on his questionable family legacy.
He’d found his niche in broadcasting. He had an incredible instinct for a story, and he was absolutely fearless about going after it. It didn’t matter if it was in Africa or Afghanistan, flying high in the air or on the bottom of the ocean. He’d chase a story down, and once he caught it, he’d bring it home and broadcast it to the awe and attention of millions of Americans. Max had everything he’d ever wanted in life.
She’d tried to stay away from him from the very start. Given their careers, a relationship was risky during the campaign, foolish after the vote count and impossible now that the president had taken office.
On more than one occasion, it had occurred to Cara that Max might want her for the sole reason that he couldn’t have her. And sometimes, in the dead of night, Cara fantasized about giving in to him, spending as much time as she wanted in his company, in his bed. She wondered how many days or weeks it would take for him to tire of her. She also wondered how fast and far he’d run if he knew the extent of her feelings for him.
For Max, this was just another lark, another fling, another woman in the long line that formed a part of his adventurer, bachelor lifestyle. But for her, it was different. She’d all but given him her heart. And now she was having his baby.
If he’d run fast and hard from the knowledge of her true feelings, he’d rocket away from the possibility of fatherhood. He’d be on the next plane to Borneo or Outer Mongolia.
Cara gave a sad smile and coughed out a short laugh at her musings. In the dead of night, when she fantasized about Max, it was those initial few days and weeks that occupied her thoughts. She glossed over the part where he left and broke her heart. Some days, she actually thought it might be worth it.
Three
The things Max put up with for his job. He’d hacked his way through jungles, gone over waterfalls, battled snakes and scorpions, even wrestled a crocodile one time. But nothing had prepared him for this. He was slope side in the president’s hometown of Fields, Montana, among five hundred darting, shrieking schoolchildren let loose on skis and snowboards.
While the president was growing up, Fields had been a small town, mostly supported by the surrounding cattle ranches. But over the years, its scenic mountain location and pristine slopes had been discovered by skiers and snowboarders. Lifts had been built and high-end resort chains had moved in, fundamentally changing the face of the entire town.
Ranch access roads still lined the highway, but the old-guard cowboys now rubbed shoulders with the colorfully attired recreation crowd. It seemed to Max a cordial if cautious relationship. While the newer parts of town were pure tourism, the outskirts were a patchwork of the old and new. A funky techno bar had been built next to the feed store, while a tavern with sawdust and peanut shells covering the floor shared a parking lot with a high-end snowboard shop.
Max’s cameraman, Jake Dobson, sent up a rooster tail of snow as he angled his snowboard to a halt next to Max. The two men had first worked together at a small, local station in Maryland. When Max had been asked to join the team at NCN, he’d made it clear that Jake coming with him was a condition of the contract. Jake was the unsung hero in every single one of Max’s news stories.
“Another run?” asked Jake.
“I don’t think so,” Max scoffed, glancing at the multitude of children on the slope. “I was scared to death out there.”
Jake laughed at him. “They’re quite harmless.”
“I’m not worried about them hurting me. But it’s like dodging moving pylons. Pylons that bruise easily. I’m not about to have running over an eight-year-old girl on my conscience.”
“We could do a black diamond run.”
They had a couple of hours left before dark.
“Sure. Up there, I can take out a twelve-year-old. That’ll help me sleep better.” Max bent down to pop the clips on his own snowboard.
“It’s a statewide outdoors club jamboree,” Jake put in helpfully as he released his own bindings. “They’ll be here for a week.”
“We’ve got work to do anyway.” Max stood his board up in the snow, removing his helmet and goggles.
The two men had spent the morning in the older part of Fields, talking to the ranching crowd. So far, they’d met a number of people who’d known the president when he was a teenager. Unfortunately, none of them were willing to go on camera. And none would admit to knowing anything about Eleanor.
“I think the ranchers have all headed home by now,” Jake observed. “Early to bed and early to rise.”
“Maybe. But their kids and grandkids will be at clubs dancing with the tourists. Who knows what kind of stories have been passed down about the Morrows?”
“You’re going to play the tourist and mix and mingle?”
“Why not?” Max had been pleasantly surprised by how respectful the people of Fields seemed to be. It was obvious many of them recognized him from his television show, but they mostly smiled and nodded and kept their distance. Few even asked for autographs.
Back in D.C.—and in New York and L.A.—people were much more aggressive. It was impossible for him to walk into any restaurant, lounge or club in D.C. without being approached by a dozen people. Being in Fields was quite refreshing.
“Can we get a burger first?” Jake asked, brushing the snow off his board with the back of his glove. “I’m starving.”
“Works for me.” Max started to walk back to the lodge. “Are those pip-squeaks really going to be here all week?”
His and Jake’s rooms were uncomfortably close to the indoor pool complex. There’d been a steady stream of shrieking and stomping children up and down their hall both last night and this morning.
“Yes, they are,” Jake responded. “I talked to one of their leaders up top.”
“Lovely,” Max drawled.
He wasn’t a kid person. Some people seemed to see right past the noise, the mess, the smell and the irrationality to the cute, lovable little tykes beneath.
Max was in awe of those people. He preferred rationality. Or, at least, predicable irrationality. If there was one thing he’d learned about adults, it was they could always be counted on to act in their own best interests.
“I called down and asked the hotel manager to move us,” said Jake.
Max brightened. “You did?”
“I’ve got your back, buddy.” Jake smacked him on the shoulder. “We’re each in a one-bedroom villa up on the hillside. It’s adults only.”
“I love you, man.”
Jake chuckled. “It was the hot spring pools that made up my mind. Well, that and the fact that Jessica walked out on me last week. I don’t want to spend my first assignment as a bachelor surrounded by grade-schoolers.”
“Jessica walked out on you?”
Jake pulled off a glove with his teeth. “She’ll be back. But until then, I am under no obligation to be faithful to her.”
“She’s clear on that?”
