All the Possibilities (18 page)

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…

"Yes, miss," he answered without thinking. The phrase had been so perfectly apt.

"I was afraid so," Shelby murmured.

"I beg your pardon, miss?"

"What?" Distracted, Shelby glanced up, then shook her head. "Nothing, nothing at all. Thank you, McGee."

Shelby sipped, wondering why she had bothered to ask when she had known the answer. Alan would always win in whatever aspect of his life he concentrated on. For a moment, she stared into the pale gold tea. That was exactly what she most feared.

"What's the current price for a thought in these days of inflation?" Alan wondered aloud as he paused in the doorway. She'd looked so beautiful, he reflected. So distant. Then she glanced up with a smile that enhanced the first and erased the second.

"That was quick," Shelby complimented him and avoided the question with equal ease.

"I'm afraid I admired your tea set a bit too strongly and made your butler nervous. He might be wondering if I'll slip the saucer into my bag." Setting down the cup, she rose.

"Are you ready to go be charming and distinguished? You look as though you would be."

Alan lifted a brow. "I have a feeling
distinguished
comes perilously close to
sedate
in your book."

"No, you've lots of room yet," she told him as she breezed into the hall. "I'll give you a jab of you start teetering toward
sedate
."

Alan stopped her in the hall by slipping his arms around her waist. "I haven't done this in one hour and twenty-three minutes." His mouth covered hers, slowly, confidently. As her lips parted and offered he took, taking the kiss just to the border, but no further, of madness. "I love you." He caught her bottom lip between his teeth, then released her mouth only to change the angle and deepen the kiss. He felt her heartbeat sprint against his, felt that long, lazy melting of her bones he knew happened just before she went from pliant to avid. "Tonight, no matter who you dance with, think of me." Breathless, she looked up. In his eyes, she saw that banked brooding passion she could never resist. He'd overwhelm her if she let him; absorb her. He had the power. Shelby tilted her head so her lips stayed within a whisper of his. "Tonight," she said huskily,

"no matter who you dance with, you'll want me." Her arms stayed around him when she rested her head on his shoulder. "And I'll know."

Just then she caught a glimpse of them in the long beveled mirror framed on the wall. Alan, sleek and sophisticated, was as conventional in black tie as she was unorthodox in the snug velvet jacket and narrow rose-hued skirt she'd found in a shop that specialized in cast-off heirlooms. "Alan." Shelby nudged him around until he faced the mirror with her. "What do you see?"

With his arm around her waist, he studied their reflections. The top of her head came to the base of his jaw. He wondered what other redhead could have not only worn that shade of rose, but looked so stunning in it. She might have stepped out of that antique looking glass in the century in which it had been fashioned. But there was no cameo at her neck. Instead there was a thick twisted gold chain that probably came from a narrow little Georgetown shop. Her hair curled riotously, untamedly, around her pale angled face. The faint shadow of trouble in her eyes made her look more like the waif he'd first compared her to.

"I see two people in love," he said with his gaze fixed on hers in the glass. "Two very different people who look extraordinarily well together."

Shelby leaned her head on his shoulder again, unsure if she was glad or annoyed that he read her so perfectly. "He would look very good, and much more suitable, with a cool blonde in a very classic black dress."

Alan seemed to consider for a moment. "Do you know," he said mildly. "That's the first time I've heard you sound like a complete ass."

She stared back at his image, at the faintly interested, fully reasonable expression on his face. She laughed. There seemed to be nothing else for her to do. "All right, just for that, I'm going to be every bit as dignified as you are."

"God forbid," Alan muttered before he pulled her out the front door. Elegant lighting and the sparkle of crystal. White linen tablecloths and the gleam of silver. Shelby sat at one of the more than two-dozen large round tables with Alan on one hand and the head of the Ways and Means Committee on the other. She spooned at her lobster bisque and kept up a flowing conversation.

"If you weren't so stubborn, Leo, and tried an aluminum racket, you might just see an improvement in your game."

"My game
has
improved." The balding bull-shouldered statesman shook his spoon at her. "We haven't had a match in six months. You wouldn't beat me in straight sets now." Shelby smiled, sipping from her water glass as one course was cleared and replaced by the next. "We'll see if I can't squeeze out a couple of hours and get to the club."

"You do that. Damned if I wouldn't enjoy whipping you."

"You're going to have to watch those foot faults, Leo," she reminded him with the grin still in her eyes.

She thanked fate for seating her next to Leo. With him, she could be easy, natural. There were dozens of people in the huge high-ceilinged room she knew, and a handful she'd have been genuinely pleased to spend an hour with.

Ambition. It wafted through the room like expensive perfume. She didn't mind that, but the stiff, unbending rules and traditions that went hand in hand with it. Hand in hand with Alan, she remembered, then pushed the thought aside. She'd promised him she'd be on her best behavior. God knows she was trying.

"Then there's your weak backhand

"

…

"Just leave my backhand alone," he told her with a sniff. Leaning forward a bit, he frowned at Alan. "You ever played tennis with this hustler, MacGregor?"

"No, I haven't

" his eyes skimmed over to Shelby's "

yet."

—

—

"Well, I'll warn you, this little girl takes a vicious delight in winning. No respect for age either," he added as he picked up his fork.

"I'm still not going to spot you points for years, Leo," Shelby stated easily. "You have a habit of adding them indiscriminately when you're behind in sets." A smile twitched at his mouth. "Devil," he accused. "You wait until the rematch." With a laugh, Shelby turned back to Alan. "Do you play tennis, Senator?"

"Now and then," he said with the ghost of a smile. He didn't add he'd lettered in the sport at Harvard.

"I'd imagine chess would be your game

plotting, long-term strategy."

—

His smile remained enigmatic as he reached for his wine. "We'll have to have a game." Shelby's low laugh drifted over him. "I believe we already have." His hand brushed lightly over hers. "Want a rematch?"

Shelby gave him a look that made his blood spring hotly. "No. You might not outmaneuver me a second time."

God, but he wished the interminable meal would end. He wanted her alone alone

—

where he could peel off those clothes layer by layer and feel her skin warm. He could watch those laughing gray eyes cloud until he knew she thought of nothing but him. It was her scent that was hammering at his senses, not the arrangement of baby roses in the center of the table, not the aroma of food as yet another course was served. It was her voice he heard

low and just a little throaty

not the tones and textures of the

—

—

voices all around him. He could talk with the congresswoman on his right, talk as if he were vitally interested in everything she told him. But he thought about holding Shelby and hearing her murmur his name when she touched him.

This sharpness of need would ease, Alan told himself. It had to. A man could go mad wanting a woman this intensely. In time it would become a more comfortable sensation

a touch in the middle of the night, a smile across the room. He glanced at

—

her profile as she continued to tease Leo. Those sharp pixie features, that tousled flame of hair

she'd never be comfortable. The need would never ease. And she was his

—

destiny as much as he was hers. Neither of them could stop it.

The conversations ebbed and flowed over the muted dinner music. A curtain of smoke rose up toward the ceiling from cigarettes and pipes and after-dinner cigars. Talk centered around politics, edgy at times, pragmatic at others. Whatever other topic that came up was invariably linked to the core of the world they revolved in. Alan heard Shelby give a concise and unflattering opinion of a controversial bill slated to come before Congress the following week. It infuriated the man she spoke with, though he maintained a tight-lipped control Shelby seemed implacably trying to break. Though he agreed with her stand, her tactics were

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diplomat she would never be.

Did she know how complex she was? he wondered. Here was a woman dead set against politicians as a group, yet she could meet them on their own terms, talk to them in their own voice without revealing the slightest discomfort. If indeed she felt any, Alan added. No, if there was discomfort, it was on the op posing side. His gaze skimmed over the other people at their table as he continued his conversation with the congresswoman. Shelby didn't have their polish, their gloss. And Alan knew it was through her own choosing. More than that, she was dedicatedly opposed to possessing it. She didn't exploit the unique, she simply
was
the unique.

The sleek brunette across from him might be more beautiful, the blonde more regal

—

but it was Shelby you would remember when the evening was over. The representative from Ohio might have a wicked wit, the Assistant Secretary of State might be erudite

—

but it was Shelby you wanted to talk to. Why? The reason was there was no reason you could name. It was simply so.

He felt her shift before her lips brushed close to his ear. "Are you going to dance with me, Senator? It's the only dignified way I can get my hands on you at the moment." Alan let the first wave of desire take him

a rush that blanked everyone else from his

—

sight and hearing for one heady instant. Carefully he banked it before he rose and took her hand. "Strange how closely our minds work." After leading her to the dance floor he gathered her to him. "And how well," he murmured as their bodies melded together,

"we fit."

Shelby tilted her head back. "We shouldn't." Her eyes promised hot, private secrets. Her lips tempted

just parted, just curved. The hand on his shoulder moved nearer to his

—

neck so she could brush his skin with her fingertips. "We shouldn't fit. We shouldn't understand each other. I can't quite figure out why we do."

"You defy logic, Shelby. And therefore, logically, there's no reasonable answer." She laughed, pleased with the structured workings of his mind. "Oh, Alan, you're much too sensible to be argued with."

"Which means you'll constantly do so."

"Exactly." Still smiling, she rested her head on his shoulder. "You know me too well for my own good, Alan

"

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He remembered Myra had used that word to describe Shelby's feelings for her father.

"I'll take the risk. Will you?"

With her eyes closed, she made a slight movement with her head. Neither of them knew if it was assent or denial.

As the evening wore on they danced again, each thinking of the other as they moved to the music with someone else. From time to time if they saw each other across the room a message would pass, too strong and too direct not to be observed by people whose livelihoods depended on the interpretation of a look or gesture. Undercurrents of all kinds were an intimate part of the game in Washington. Some flowed with them, others against them, but all acknowledged them.

"Well, Alan." Leo clamped a hand on Alan's shoulder as Shelby was led onto the dance floor again. "You're making some progress on your personal windmill." Alan settled back with his wine, half-smiling. He didn't mind the allusion to Don Quixote when it came to his housing project. That sort of tag would have certain advantages in the long run. It was human nature to at least root for the underdog even if doing nothing tangible to help. "A bit. I'm beginning to get some positive feedback from Boston on the progress of the shelters there."

"It would be to your benefit if you could get and keep the ball rolling during this administration." He flipped out a lighter and flicked it at the end of a long fragrant cigar.

"It should bring a lot of support your way if you decide to toss your hat in the ring." Alan tasted the wine and watched Shelby. "It's early days yet for that, Leo."

"You know better." Leo puffed smoke toward the ceiling. "I never wanted that

…

particular race for myself. But you

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