Oath Of Honor

Chapter Twenty-two

At five a.m. Blair poured two cups of coffee from the urn the valet had wheeled into Lucinda’s office in the West Wing. A minute later Lucinda walked in. Wordlessly, Lucinda hung her snow-dusted black wool coat on the coat tree just inside the door, draped her scarf over the collar so it hung down along the lapels, and placed one glove into each front pocket. She crossed to her desk and put her overstuffed briefcase on the floor beside her chair. In deference to the blizzard, she wore stylish brown boots beneath her chestnut pants instead of her usual low heels. The hems of her tailored pants were damp—she’d walked a ways in the snow.

Blair placed a coffee cup along with utensils and a small crystal bowl of sugar cubes in the center of the desk. Balancing her own cup and saucer—no mugs in sight—she turned one of the centuries-old stuffed chairs to face Lucinda, sat down, and took a sip of coffee. She closed her eyes for a moment of thanks. The White House kitchen made great coffee. She waited until Lucinda stirred in one sugar cube and took her first swallow. “Morning.”

“When did you get in?” Lucinda set a teaspoon onto the napkin Blair had provided along with her morning coffee. “Airports are a mess, I hear.”

“We caught the red-eye last night. Beat the front.”

“Where are you staying?”

“Cameron’s condo.” Blair smiled. “I’d forgotten how much I like that place. We had some of our best fights there.”

Lucinda leaned back, holding the bone china cup between the fingertips of both hands as if the small fluted handle were too delicate to use. “I can imagine.”

“Oh yeah? I never would have guessed.”

Laughing, Lucinda shook her head. “So. What’s on your mind?”

“You have to ask?”

“I can think of half a dozen things—but you might as well start with what’s at the top of your list.”

“Who do you think has betrayed my father?”

Lucinda nodded slowly, her gaze turning inward. “That’s the question at the top of my list too, and I wish I had an answer for you. We don’t know. We really don’t.”

“How bad is it?”

“We’re not sure of that either—the whole picture is still coming together.”

“Come on, Luce. Don’t play press corps with me. You have to have some good ideas—this is the president’s inner circle we’re talking about.”

“Believe me, I know.”

Lucinda’s tone was mild but her eyes flashed. She was pissed, all right. Someone—or probably any number of someones—had to have dropped the ball for something like this to even be possible. Blair said, “Okay—best guess, then.”

“What we do know is domestic protests have escalated at every one of his public venues, and we’ve observed a greater presence of individuals from radical watch-list groups in the crowds. We don’t publicize most of his calendar for exactly that reason—to limit his exposure to hostiles. That, combined with what we’re picking up from online communications, suggests extremist factions are gaining advance intelligence.”

“So he’s the specific target? We’re not talking about national security—we’re talking about his personal security being threatened, is that it?”

“That’s what we think, yes. I wish I could tell you more.”

“Do you think there’s going to be an assassination attempt?”

Lucinda set her cup down carefully, aware that the china was fragile enough to break if her grip was hard enough. She rested her hands on the desktop. “Probabilities are high—higher than we’d like. Yes.”

Blair stood and set her coffee cup on the edge of Lucinda’s desk. The icy blast of terror left her breathless. How could this happen—here, in the most advanced, sophisticated country in the world? How could they have let this happen? She paced to the wall of windows that looked out on the gardens. The carefully tended shrubs and bushes were nothing but shapeless mounds beneath snow. If she spoke now, she’d probably regret what she had to say later, and she’d learned long ago the only way to get information out of Lucinda was to keep a cool head. Lucinda was so good at what she did because she couldn’t be bullied into revealing information, or pressured into using her power to influence the president’s decisions, or coerced into paving the way for anyone who hoped to subvert channels. No matter that Blair had served as her father’s confidant and official representative countless times in countries all over the world—Lucinda still told her only what she wanted her to know. And as much as that pissed her off, she trusted Luce like she trusted few others—and Lucinda loved her father as much as she did. Calmer, she walked back around the desk and dropped into the chair. “Does he know?”

“Of course.”

“And he doesn’t care, right?”

Lucinda smiled. “He told me we have plenty of people whose task it is to see he isn’t bothered. He intends to do his job and let others do theirs.”

Blair rolled her eyes. “Doesn’t he drive you crazy sometimes?”

“Frequently.”

“And you can’t change him. Can you get him to change his itinerary for a while? Travel less, limit his public appearances?”

“Even if it weren’t an election year,” Lucinda said wearily, “he wouldn’t. If we don’t give in to terrorism, we can hardly give in to vague threats and uncertain possibilities.”

“I take it that’s a direct quote?”

“More or less. It’s business as usual—which means we have to do our jobs even better.”

“So you called Cam.”

“I need someone I can trust,” Lucinda said softly. “There isn’t anyone I can name close to Andrew who I don’t trust—and that’s the problem. Because it must be one of them. I need Cam on this, Blair, I’m sorry.”

“Why?” Blair asked, surprised. Lucinda never apologized for or qualified any decision she made.

“I know it’s not what you want Cam to be doing, and you just got married—”

“Cam decides for herself what she wants to do.” Blair laughed and shook her head. “Okay, to be fair, she does think about what I want, you’re right—and that still amazes me. That she would do that for me.”

“You’re lucky.”

“I know.” Blair turned her wedding ring with her other hand, a comforting reminder of what she knew in her heart. Cam loved her. “All the same, she’d already decided to do this before she told me. You knew she would.”

“I thought she would—and like I said, I know it’s not what you would’ve wanted.”

“I don’t want Cam getting hurt. I don’t want my father getting hurt either.” Blair rose. “That means you have two people to worry about, because if anything happens to either one of them, I swear to God, Lucinda, I’ll make someone pay.”

Lucinda studied her steadily, her deep gray eyes unblinking. “Averill and I think the most likely source is in the military office—the duty officers know his schedule in advance and are in a perfect position to provide intel on last-minute changes, exit strategies, emergency routes—everything.”

“You’ll tell Cam?”

“Now that she’s in town, I’ll brief her formally. Is she still at the condo?”

“No, she and Paula went to the range. They’re meeting me here a little later and we’re going out to breakfast. I thought I’d try to catch my father. Is he up yet?”

“I imagine he’s in the gym.”

“Thanks. I’ll go hunt him up.”

“Congratulations again, by the way. The wedding was lovely.”

“Thanks. It was everything I wanted, only I never knew it.”

“That’s the wonderful thing about love,” Lucinda murmured.

“So how much time do we have before we travel?”

“He starts his first campaign sweep the first of the year.”

“Oh good—I’ll be able to spend my birthday on a train.”

“Things have changed in the last few years,” Lucinda said dryly. “We’ll fly.”

*

Wes woke, twisting in the unfamiliar, too-small bed—senses alert to danger. As the remnants of sleep fled, she became aware of the body pressed close to hers. Evyn. Evyn’s back was curved against her chest, her ass tucked neatly into the curve of Wes’s hips. Wes’s cheek rested on the pillow an inch from the back of Evyn’s neck. When she breathed in she could smell the faint hint of lemon in her hair. She’d never awakened next to a woman before, and she lay very still, cataloging every sensation. The front of her thighs rested gently against the back of Evyn’s, the delicate melding of skin to skin a fragile connection she didn’t dare sever. Her breasts grazed the arch of Evyn’s shoulder blades, her nipples electrified by the whisper of contact. The moments they’d spent making love kaleidoscoped through her mind, one after the other, in vivid breathless images. Carefully, so as not to awaken her, she slipped her arm around Evyn’s waist and gently spread her fingers over her abdomen. Evyn pushed back against her, setting their bodies more firmly together.

Wes held her breath, but Evyn only murmured, “Stay,” as she grasped Wes’s hand and pressed it to her flesh. Wes’s heart hammered harder, a wave of tenderness and unanticipated heat strobing through her. She wanted Evyn again. Her body vibrated with the urge to stroke, taste, savor. The only thing keeping her from waking Evyn was the exquisite pleasure of holding her just exactly the way they were. She nuzzled her face in the curve of Evyn’s shoulder.

Evyn drew Wes’s hand higher until her nipple nestled in Wes’s palm. “You fit.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake—”

“No.” Evyn turned in Wes’s arms and kissed her. She stroked Wes’s back, cradled her ass. “I want you too.”

Excitement blossomed in Wes’s depths and she groaned.

“Oh yeah,” Evyn whispered, tugging on Wes’s lower lip. “You tired?”

“No,” Wes gasped. “God, Evyn.”

Evyn slipped her hand between them, brushed her palm down Wes’s abdomen. “Shoulder hurt?”

“What shoulder?” Wes ached, blood thundering in her clit, her body awakening to desire.

Laughing, Evyn murmured, “All right then,” and moved her hand lower. “Here?”

“Yes.” Wes held on, breathless.

“Here?”

“Yes, please. Right there.” Spinning, tumbling, drowning in need.

“More?”

“Yes. Almost. Almost.” Wes arched, pressure building, lungs bursting, exploding—lost in pleasure, eyes wide open and unafraid.

The next time Wes opened her eyes she was alone. She skated her hand over the place beside her where Evyn had been not long before. The sheets were cool. The air in the room was equally cool and smelled faintly of industrial cleanser. Soupy gray light trickled through the slats in the blinds. Evyn might have been gone five minutes, or an hour. Wes pushed herself up on her elbows and looked around the room.

Relief surged through her at the sight of Evyn’s go bag sitting next to hers on the floor. Evyn hadn’t left. But then Evyn wouldn’t disappear in the night—no matter how she felt about what had happened between them, she would never walk away. She was far too responsible for that. Maybe she’d gone out because she hadn’t wanted a repeat of the night before. Maybe she’d gone out to let the distance say what she didn’t want to—that what they’d shared was only one night and nothing more.

The idea that the night was over, never to be repeated, sliced through Wes with unexpected pain. She didn’t know what she wanted to happen next, and she had no point of reference, other than the scent of Evyn in the dark and the silky glide of Evyn’s skin beneath her hands. Those memories and the clear and certain knowledge that she wanted both again were all she had. Pushing the covers aside, she climbed out of bed and grabbed her sweatpants and a heavy gray cotton pullover out of her bag. The hot-water radiator in the corner rattled but didn’t seem to be throwing off much heat. Dressing quickly in the cold room, she sat on the end of the bed to put on her socks. The door banged open and Evyn hurried in, bringing a gust of frigid wind and scattered snowflakes. Her face was flushed. She wore the jeans and T-shirt from the night before. She carried a cardboard takeout tray in her right hand with two large cardboard cups of coffee and a grease-stained brown bag.

Wes wanted to kiss her. “Say it’s hot and strong.”

“Oh yeah. Believe it.” Evyn grinned. “Thought you might be ready for this.”

“I am.” Wes concentrated on her socks so she wouldn’t jump up and touch her. “Have you been up long?”

“No.” Evyn set the tray down on the dresser. She shed Wes’s jacket and draped it over the back of a lone wooden chair. Water dripped from her cuffs onto the floor. She stamped snow from her boots and kicked them off, leaving them on a square of threadbare carpet that served as a doormat. She crossed to the bed opposite Wes and held out a cup of coffee.

“Black, right?”

Wes took it. “Right. Thanks. How’s the storm?”

“Dying off. The pizza place across the street doubles as a deli in the morning. There’s doughnuts there too.” She waved in the direction of the brown paper bag propped in the cardboard container. “Glazed. And cinnamon.”

“Perfect.”

“I’m having trouble making a call—I think everyone’s using the cell lines. I’m guessing it will be afternoon before we can get a flight out of here. The storm is moving up the coast. Sounds like DC is getting hammered again.”

“I guess I’d better try to call the unit and make sure there’s enough coverage.”

“Good luck. I just managed to get my neighbor across the hall to feed my cat. I couldn’t get through to the House or Tom’s cell.”

“Well, I’m sure whichever doc is around will see that we’re appropriately staffed.”

“I wouldn’t worry too much. They all know what to do.” Evyn sipped her coffee and watched Wes pull on her socks. The bed behind her was rumpled, the sheets and blankets askew. They’d given it a workout. Thinking of the way Wes had made her come, more times in a row than she could ever remember, made her stomach clutch. The sex had been great—awesome—but the sleeping together had her out of sync. She didn’t usually do that—even when she spent the night with someone, she didn’t curl up with them, didn’t turn to them in the night and need to be closer. Didn’t need to be inside them the way she’d been crazy to be inside Wes.

“You okay?”

“I’m sorry, what?” Evyn was aware she hadn’t heard a single thing Wes had said for the last few minutes. Wes looked great in faded sweats that hugged her ass and thighs. Evyn fought the urge to tackle Wes and pull her on top of her. She wanted Wes’s hands on her, wanted to be under her, wanted to come for her. That wasn’t her either. She was all turned around and—

“I asked if there was anything I could do—you’ve been taking point all morning, it seems.” Wes’s gaze traveled over Evyn’s body, glinting with a hunger to match Evyn’s.

“Probably quite a few things, but we’re good for now.” Evyn glanced around the clean but shabby room, searching for a way to put on the brakes. She needed to grab the controls, get her head back on straight. “At least there’s TV. Hopefully it works. News okay with you?”

“Do we need to talk about last night?”

Evyn stopped on her way to check out the TV. The space between the bed where Wes sat and the dresser with the TV on top was tight. If she took two steps forward she’d be standing between Wes’s legs. She mentally nailed her feet to the floor. “You don’t run from the hard stuff, do you?”

“I don’t see any point.”

“Last night was great. If I think about it much more, I could probably scare myself, and I’d rather not.”

“I understand.” Wes cradled the cardboard cup between her hands and watched the coffee swirl around the rim. “If I knew enough to be scared, I probably would be too.”

“So,” Evyn said. “Since neither of us really scares easily, this should be simple. I don’t have a problem with last night.”

Wes heard the emphasis on last night. Sounded a lot like past tense, as in over and done. Okay. She could accept that. The pain in her chest didn’t mean anything. Her turn to step up and make this simple. “Neither do I. My number one priority is to be sure we can still work together—that there’s no disruption to the team.”

“I don’t see why what happened should interfere with anything,” Evyn said quickly. Wes was giving her a graceful way out of a potentially sticky situation, just the kind of exit she usually wanted. She didn’t feel all that happy about it, but her emotions were screwed up and she couldn’t trust them anyhow. Better to ignore them. “We’re both adults, both professionals.”

“Yes,” Wes said, counting on Evyn to be rational and in control. Especially now, when she didn’t really feel that way herself. “We both have jobs to do. And considering the circumstances, we can’t afford any distractions.”

Evyn stiffened, hearing what Wes wasn’t saying. “You know about the problem with POTUS.”

“Yes.”

“You have me on the short list of suspects?” Evyn had to ask, even as her body went cold thinking Wes might consider her capable of such betrayal.

“No, Evyn,” Wes said softly, “I don’t.”

“Why not? You should.” Evyn knew she sounded angry. She was angry. The whole situation made her crazy. The president was at risk, and it was her job to protect him. She couldn’t do that effectively when someone she thought she could trust was a traitor. Her impotence stoked her fury. “You don’t know me. A roll in the hay isn’t exactly a great judge of anything.”

Wes jolted. She didn’t run from reality, she never had, and Evyn was making their reality very clear. Last night was a physical encounter and nothing more, and really, why would she think it was anything more. “So we keep doing our jobs.”

“No reason it can’t be that simple.” Evyn shrugged, relieved to settle back into her comfortable pattern again. “We aren’t the first two people to spend the night together and then go back to business as usual the next day. In fact, around here, it’s more business as usual than not.”

Wes might not have indulged in battlefield trysts, but she knew plenty did. Evyn apparently had. “No reason for last night to change anything.”

“Right.” Evyn quickly turned to switch on the TV. “None at all.”