“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.