“Is my father all right?” Blair asked as they reached the rear deck of the house.

“I have no reason to think otherwise,” Stark said in her official voice. “Lucinda Washburn put the call through. She said there was no urgency, but the president would like to speak to you at your earliest convenience.”

Blair rolled her eyes. At your earliest convenience was Lucinda-speak for call immediately. Lucinda Washburn was President Andrew Powell’s chief of staff, as well as his lifelong friend and adviser. No one was closer to him, not even Blair. Lucinda had helped him win the governorship of Massachusetts, the vice presidency, and finally the presidency. She was an astute politician and managed far more than the day-to-day workings of the White House staff. If someone wanted the ear of the president, they needed to court Lucinda Washburn first.

“Lucinda wants something.” Blair glanced at Cam, who smiled ruefully. Lucinda did not make social calls. She also was not the president’s secretary, which meant that she probably had an agenda of her own. “Give me a few minutes to have a cup of coffee, Paula, and then I’ll call her back.”

“I’ll be in the command center.” Paula kept her voice neutral and her face expressionless. The makeshift command center was actually part of the first floor of the smaller guest house that sat partway between the main house and the beach. Her scaled-down security team stayed there when they were off shift. Right now there were only three other agents with her—Greg Wozinski, Patrice Hara, and Felicia Davis. There was also one other inhabitant, her FBI agent lover Renée Savard, who was recuperating from a bullet wound. She and Cam had sustained their injuries during the same action. “Please call me when you’re ready, and I’ll scramble a line for you.”

Blair halted with her hand on the handle of the back door and regarded Paula quizzically. “Is something wrong?”

“No ma’am.”

“Am I supposed to guess why you suddenly sound like an android?”

Paula smiled. “Sorry. I was asleep when the call came in and I haven’t had time to recharge my batteries. I’m running on auxiliary backup packs.”

“Ha ha. Come inside and have some coffee, then.”

Paula checked in with a quick glance at Cam, who signaled for her to follow them into the house.

“I’m going to grab a quick shower,” Cam said, heading in the direction of the staircase leading to the second floor. “Be right down.”

Blair led Paula through to the kitchen, while Patrice Hara took up a position just inside the rear door and Greg Wozinski walked through to the front of the house. “How’s Renée doing?” she asked casually as she began to assemble the morning coffee.

“Restless.” Paula settled into a chair at the rectangular oak table in the center of the room.

“Tell me about it.” Blair turned on the automatic coffee pot, put a kettle of water on for tea, and sat down next to her. “Renée is just like Cam—neither of them is happy unless they’re working.” She touched Paula’s wrist lightly. “You should understand that. You’re all the same, really.”

There had been a time when the slightest touch from Blair would have made Paula blush. She could not believe that eight months had passed since the few ill-advised hours she’d spent in the intimate company of the first daughter. The lapse was one of a potentially career destroying magnitude, and although she regretted her irresponsible behavior, she did not regret the private moments they had shared. Now, it seemed like the interlude had taken place in another lifetime, when she had been another woman. In the few scant months since then, she’d seen Cameron Roberts almost die, Blair narrowly escape assassination, and the nation that the entire world had considered unassailable become the victim of terrorism. She didn’t blush.

“I do understand. But the doctor said she needed another few days before she could start walking, and the inactivity is wearing on her.”

Blair knew the problem was more than just inactivity. Renée, along with many of the New York based FBI and Secret Service field agents, had been in the World Trade Center at the time the towers had been hit. She’d seen the devastation and horror firsthand. “It’s going to take some time, Paula. She’ll heal.”

Paula’s eyes revealed what she couldn’t say. Wouldn’t say, out of respect for her lover’s privacy. “I know.”

“She has the one thing she needs most of all,” Blair said gently. “You.”

“Oh, man,” Paula said softly. “I hope that’s enough.” She wished she could feel certain, but she feared that something in Renée’s soul had been irreparably broken and neither time nor love would heal it.

Blair stood. “Trust me, it is.” She set a mug of tea at an empty place for Cam. “I think right now the people we care about might be all that matter.”

“I…uh…how are you doing?” Paula asked as Blair poured their coffees.

Everyone knew how private Blair was, and it wasn’t really her place to ask personal questions. But since September 11, the world as they knew it was gone and some of the old rules no longer seemed to apply. Paula understood the necessity for viewing the subjects she protected as critically valuable individuals, while at the same time avoiding any kind of personal involvement, even friendship. But they’d all been through so much together that the usual professional detachment seemed impossible, especially when Blair had been the object of a nearly successful assassination attempt in her own heavily-fortified home. What was once considered inconceivable now fell within the realm of the probable. It could happen again, and Paula had to see that it didn’t.

“Sometimes I still can’t believe that any of it really happened,” Blair said quietly.

“I know.” Paula took a deep breath. She was still trying to understand her new role as Blair ’s security chief and what the boundaries were. Most of the time when she wasn’t certain, she followed her heart. That probably wasn’t the way the commander did things, but she would never be the commander. “We weren’t prepared for what happened in the Aerie, but we will be now. They failed, which just shows you how good your security was, even against the unexpected. Now it will be even better because we know the game has changed.”

The game has changed.

Blair suppressed a shudder. Yes, the rules of engagement had definitely changed, and she was an unwilling player in a game where the stakes were higher than she’d ever imagined. She glanced toward the door as Cam walked in. Her black hair was wet and slicked back, making the sharp planes of her face stand out even more. Even in a loose black T-shirt and blue jeans, her body looked taut and fighting ready. Blair could tell from the set of her jaw that she’d heard the last part of the conversation; she had that intense, hard expression she always got when the subject of Blair’s vulnerability came up.

“I’m not worried.” Blair said, “We have the winning team.”

Cam leaned down and brushed a kiss over her cheek, then regarded the tea with a raised eyebrow. “Is that for me?”

“Yes,” Blair said with exaggerated seriousness. “And there’s honey on the counter. Put some in. It will help your throat.”

“I think coffee will do fine.”

“Cameron.” Blair’s eyes glittered dangerously.

“But tea is probably better,” Cam amended as she retrieved the jar of honey.

Paula watched the exchange with apparent interest, then looked quickly away as Cam gave her a pointed stare. She rose without finishing her coffee. “I’ll be in the command center.”

“Wait, Paula.” Blair kept her gaze on Cam, thinking how much she loved going to sleep with her every night and waking up with her in the morning and having her around during the day. Just being with her. Not being guarded by her, not being worried over. Just being in her company. But this week had been an anomaly, and they both knew it. Softly, she said, “Ready?”

Cam nodded.

“Paula,” Blair said. “I think we better make that call.”

Chapter Two

I just sent a transport plane to Lexington for you.” In her usual rapid-fire fashion, Lucinda Washburn continued, “It should be there in two hours. Come on over to the office when you get in.”

“Hi, Luce,” Blair said sarcastically. “How’s your day going?”

“About the way they’ve all been going for the last month.”

Blair was surprised by the weariness in Lucinda’s voice. She couldn’t remember ever seeing her tired. In fact, she wasn’t certain she’d ever known Lucinda to actually sleep. “Is everything all right?”

“As all right as can be expected.” A small, impatient sigh filtered down the phone line. “Come home. We’ll talk.”

Home. The White House would never feel like home to Blair, because it wasn’t, even though her father and Lucinda were there. True, she had no other family home. Her father had sold the house she had grown up in when her mother died. Blair was twelve at the time, and after that she had lived in the governor’s mansion or whatever other house came with her father’s political position. Lucinda had always been like family. She’d been a close friend of both Blair’s parents before Blair’s mother died, and she’d been a constant figure in Blair’s life ever since. Not a mother figure, but strong and capable and comforting, for all her demands. But Blair’s home was her loft in Manhattan, and that had been nearly destroyed in an attack that had come at the same time as the devastation at the World Trade Center. She didn’t have a home now, and the memories of terror and death chilled her. She glanced at Cam, who watched her pensively. Cam. Cam was home.

Blair pushed the images of loss away. “It will take us a while to arrange transportation to the airport.”

“I can get State Troopers to escort you.”