Radclyffe - Oath of Honor
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
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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.”
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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.”
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“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.”
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“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.”
v
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?”
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“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,
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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
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workout. Thinking of the way Wes had made her come, more times in
