Masters looked at her, clearly surprised, making Evyn feel like a bigger jerk for even thinking about leaving her to fend for herself in the middle of the night. But Wes made her so damn uncomfortable—she didn’t know what she was doing. “I’ve got a car.” Now there was a fairly brainless statement. “Let me take you.”

“Thanks,” Masters said. “I’m okay. I’ll grab a cab. I’m just going across town to a hotel.”

“It’s almost twenty-three thirty, Captain. Not a great time of night to get a cab in this part of town, and definitely no time to be out and about alone.”

Masters laughed. “It’s Wes, remember? Do you think I need protection?”

Glad for the cover of dark to hide the flush that heated her cheeks, Evyn said, “I’m positive you don’t. But I can’t see any reason for you to freeze your ass off out here.”

“It’s twenty-five degrees,” Wes pointed out. “Not that cold.”

Evyn snorted and watched her breath frost in the air. Obviously, Wes was from somewhere north of the Mason-Dixon Line. “It’s about fifty degrees colder than I like it.”

Wes laughed harder, a deep, mellow sound that warmed Evyn’s stomach in a totally unexpected and not unwelcome way.

“What are you doing up here, if you hate the winter so much?” Wes asked.

Evyn jammed her hands into the pockets of her coat. The conversation was verging on the personal, and she was out of her element in more ways than the weather. She didn’t even talk about this sort of thing when she was trying to connect with a woman for the night. And this was twice in one day with Wes. She shrugged. “This is the detail I wanted, so the weather is part of the job.”

“The president is something of a skier too, isn’t he?”

“POTUS, his daughter—regular snow bunnies. It’s unnatural.” God, she hated those ski trips, not that she’d ever let on.

“Obviously, you love your job.”

“Yeah,” Evyn said, meaning it, but Wes didn’t need to know that. Wes didn’t need to know anything at all about her. Time to shut down the information highway.

“Are you hungry?” Wes asked.

“Uh—yeah, for me, it’s dinnertime.”

“Well, I left my quarters at zero six hundred this morning, and the only thing I’ve had all day is coffee and little things that look like food but are really just a tease.”

Evyn grinned. “Hors d’oeuvres. I don’t even think they count as food.”

“How about dinner somewhere, then?”

“I could eat.” Evyn had the sudden sensation she was walking into a landmine, but Wes was just smiling at her. Friendly. Just a simple meal between coworkers. Safe enough. “Okay. Sure.”

“Good. You know the area. You pick the place, Agent.”

“It’s Evyn.”

“Okay. Evyn.”

“Come on, I can’t feel my feet.” Evyn led the way to her ’57 T-Bird, keying the alarm as they approached.

“Nice car,” Wes said.

“The last of the classic design. I inherited it from my older brother.”

Wes shot her a concerned look.

“Not that way—Aaron is fine. He just decided the T-Bird wasn’t dignified enough for a feeb.”

“He’s FBI?”

Evyn climbed behind the wheel and started the engine, waiting for Wes to belt up before backing out. “Yeah. The shame of our family, but we still love him.”

“Ah, let me guess. Government service is a family thing?”

“You could say that.” Evyn hesitated, impressed by and a little wary of Wes’s ability to hear more than she said. She’d have to be careful around her. “My father’s ATF, my aunt’s IRS, my younger brother’s ICE, and the next oldest went army. We’ve got a few more agencies covered with the cousins.”

“That’s a heavy legacy to inherit.”

“Not so much.” Evyn shrugged and turned onto Pennsylvania Avenue, passing by the House, leaving the glowing lights behind, and headed north toward Dupont Circle. The streets were dark, nearly deserted. “Wasn’t hard for me—I always knew what I wanted to do.”

“And you love it.”

“Yeah I do, except—”

“—for the cold.”

Laughing, Evyn looked over and tripped into Wes’s eyes. Under the streetlights, the green of her eyes darkened to the deep hues of a hidden glade in the heart of the forest. Splinters of moonlight carved out the elegant arch of her cheekbones and pooled in the hollow of her throat. Jesus. She was beautiful. Fixing back on the street, she said tightly, “You want fancy, or plain, simple, and good?”

“I don’t need frills,” Wes said. “But good, yeah. That matters.”

“Not one for show, is that it?” Casual, she could do casual. And distant. She needed distance. She had to train her, for Chrissake, and don’t forget Peter. What the fuck was wrong with her?

“The only thing I care about,” Wes said as Evyn turned up Connecticut, “is getting the job done.”

“So how come you’re teaching and not…you know, doing?” When silence ensued, she glanced over and figured from the rigid set of Wes’s jaw she probably could have phrased that a little more diplomatically. Well, she’d wanted distance. Now she had it. How come it didn’t feel so good? “Sorry. I take it that was an insult of some kind?”

Wes blew out a breath and eased back in her seat. “No, it’s not an insult. I’m not ashamed to spend most of my time teaching. I do my share in covering the ER in rotation, but I have a certain knack for teaching and I like it. The way things have been going the last few years, more troops see combat. War has changed. New weapons and new ways of fighting mean new types of injuries. If our medics aren’t fully prepared for the kinds of battlefield causalities they’ll face, troops die. I figure this is the best way for me to see that doesn’t happen.”

“I get that,” Evyn said softly.

“What you do is totally different,” Wes said. “For you, it’s a lot more personal.”

“Personal?” Evyn gripped the wheel harder, uncomfortable with the shift of focus back to her. Her hold on the whole night was slipping. She should be on her way home to Alexandria to get some much-needed sleep. Or maybe she just needed some human contact of the sexual variety—too late for a club, but she still had a few women in her little black book who would take her call no matter how late. Instead of either safe option, she was on her way out to eat with a woman who lured her into unfamiliar territory so smoothly she never noticed until she was floundering for direction. “I, ah, don’t know about personal. I’m doing my job. It’s what I’m trained to do.”

“True,” Wes said, “but what you do in a split second has an immediate and critical impact. Whatever effect I might have is at a distance…months, possibly years later…when a young medical student or resident saves a life because of something I taught them.”

“And that’s enough for you?” Evyn couldn’t help asking, although she knew she should be searching for some vacuous topic like the Redskins’ standing in the playoffs. She pulled to the curb in front of Circa and swiveled on the seat to face Wes across the narrow divide. “Just taking on faith that down the line, somewhere, sometime…?”

“For me, it’s the long game. I’m not looking for immediate gratification.”

“Yeah, well.” Evyn cut the engine. “I don’t look much past the moment. Not in my nature.”

“I guess that makes us different,” Wes said quietly.

“Like night and day.”

Chapter Six

Senator Franklin Russo glanced at the brass clock on his desk. Nine p.m. Headlights flickered through the trees along the approach road to his Idaho mountain retreat, alerting him to a vehicle arriving. Hooker was punctual. He expected that of those who worked for him. That and absolute, unquestioning loyalty.

The doorbell rang and a moment later a soft knock sounded on his study door.

“Come in.”

The door swung open, and his personal aide Derek Sullivan, a thin young blond in khaki pants and a starched striped shirt, said, “Mr. Hooker is here, sir.”

“Good. Have him come in.”

A heavyset middle-aged man with a thick brown mustache flecked with gray strode in. His snow-crusted work boots left muddy streaks on the wide pine plank floors. His broad, rough face was ruddy from the subzero temperatures.

“Close the door, Derek,” Franklin said, “and see that we’re not disturbed.”

“Yes, sir.” Derek backed out and pulled the door shut.

“Hooker,” Franklin said, “what do you have to report?” He didn’t offer Hooker a seat. The man was a hired gun, muscle. Necessary, but not part of his inner circle. He paid him well, and that was all that mattered.

“I’ve got a contact with the connections we need in DC,” Hooker said. “It won’t be cheap.”

“Money is not a factor,” Franklin said, “but discretion is.”

“You don’t need to worry about that. He doesn’t know who I’m working for. He doesn’t want to know.”

“All the better.” Franklin leaned back in his leather swivel chair and steepled his hands in front of his chest, regarding Hooker carefully. His presidential campaign was gaining strength in the heartland, but Andrew Powell was a popular incumbent. He needed to cast doubt on Powell’s ability to lead the country through increasingly troubled times. He needed insurance. This man promised it to him. “What about obtaining the material?”

“He’ll set me up.” Hooker shrugged. “But we might have to get in bed with the militia to accomplish the actual acquisition.”

Franklin shook his head. “I don’t like exposing ourselves to hotheads, and after the fiasco at Matheson’s compound, the whole bunch of them are going to be under surveillance. I can’t afford to be linked to them.”

“That’s what you hired me for—I’ll run interference and make sure nothing blows back on you.”

Hooker smiled, a slow just-short-of-ugly smile that set off warning blips on Franklin’s radar. If Hooker hoped to put him in his debt, he was wrong. Throughout his rapid rise to power in the senate and on the path to winning the presidential nomination, he’d had to make deals and promise paybacks, but he was always careful not to give anyone leverage on him. He never let anyone other than Nora Fleming know the whole of his plans. Nora Fleming was more than his campaign manager. She was the only one who shared his vision—not his wife, not his children, not his staff. As the leader of the Patriot Party, he was running for president on a platform of reinstating traditional American values of family, morality, and religion. His family was an essential element of his image—but Nora was his true support.