At Any Cost (29 page)

“What about you?” she asked through chattering teeth.

“I'm okay. We need to get you to the hospital to be treated for hypothermia and whatever is wrong with your leg.”

“I don't need the hospital. Just let me warm up.”

Tom belatedly noticed the towels stocked behind the driver's seat and wrapped her hair in one.

“Tom …”

He saw unmistakable love in her pale face. It was so raw and unshielded that it nearly broke his heart. She never had to say another word; he knew what she was thinking, what she was feeling because he felt it too. He thought of all the time and energy he'd spent trying to keep her at bay, keep himself apart from her, and he felt like a fool. Never again. Now that he had her, he was going to keep her close to him, forever and always.

A teary smile came to her face. Tom was getting the feeling back in his hands. Painful, searing feeling, but it was something. He pulled the blankets tighter around her shaking body, trying to keep her warm.

Fallon reached from beneath the folds and laced her fingers through his.

He held on tight, all the way to Washington.

Tom had been in the Oval Office many times, but never as a guest. He stood outside in the busy vestibule, watching the goings-on with an outsider's interest. The new president had brought in a new cabinet; only two days into the Hughes administration, everyone appeared flush with excitement and eagerness. A young female with square glasses and her hair in a knot on top of her head marched importantly behind the new Chief of Staff, nearly stumbling over herself to keep up as they turned down the hall.

Tom wondered if all this activity was genuinely constructive and these young guns were focused on the right things. The entire US intelligence apparatus was still in disarray, with secrets spilling forth to the open market. It would take years to figure out who knew what, and even longer to repair the damage.

A studious young guy whose eagerness reminded him, grimly, of Travis Hill appeared at his side. Tom blinked, trying to steady his aim.

“Sir,” the young man said, “the president is ready for you.”

Tom stepped inside the Oval, sensing that Hughes had called the meeting in this storied place because it was still a novelty to have it at his disposal. Elizabeth Hughes had redecorated the Oval in pale blue, beige and pale yellow. He took in the blur of art and bronzes, the subtle signifiers of rugged Montana individualism that Hughes had run on.

Tom stared blankly at the man across the room, unsure of what was about to happen.

President Hughes stepped from behind John Kennedy's desk and indicated a powder-blue sofa. “Have a seat.”

Tom sat.

“How are you feeling?”

“Well, sir.”

Hughes sat across from him. “I really want to know.” His gaze met Tom's candidly.

Tom was suddenly at loss. It had been a long time since anyone asked him that question. And it wasn't something he spent a lot of time pondering in the dark of the night. Self-pity wasn't his style. But the president wanted an answer. Auditing himself, he would have to say physically he was in top form; he'd escaped Malkhazi's goons unharmed. His emotions, however, were a morass of confusion and angst. After he delivered Fallon to Gwen at Georgetown University Hospital, she'd declined to see him. He'd been abruptly pulled off her detail, ostensibly at Fallon's request. Now he was back on VP Claudia Wells's rota. But none of that was the president's business.

“I'm fine, sir,” Tom repeated.

The president's expression didn't change. “You've been put on administrative leave for six weeks. After the administrative leave, you will decline to return to protection.”

“When did I decide that, sir?”

“Then,” the president continued as if he hadn't heard him, “I would like to personally offer you a position on a new task force.”

Tom frowned. “Sir?”

“It's a new program under the direction of the office of the National Intelligence Director. The short version is that you'll have an opportunity to play a little offense instead of defense. You'll be working with Omar Koss.”

Preston Hughes let that sink in for a moment. At first glimpse, it was damn attractive; Tom rather liked the way Omar Koss played at national security.

When Tom didn't reply, the president continued. “There is a lot to clean up after Fallon's kidnapping. Djvebe Malkhazi and Collin Whitcomb are at large. They've managed to disappear in the last twelve hours. We need them found and punished.”

The notion that the men who killed Antoine Campbell and kidnapped Fallon could still be at large sickened him. And inspired him. “I accept, Mr. Hughes,” Tom said.

Preston Taylor Hughes smiled his seductive TV smile, and in that moment Tom could see a trace of Fallon. It pained him.

“Good. There is one other item I need to speak to you about. Something else that I consider more important.”

“Fallon.”

“Fallon,” the president repeated, nodding his head. “I owe you …” To Tom's astonishment, tears appeared in Preston Hughes's eyes. “I owe you a great deal,” he said. “You did your job. You saved my daughter.”

To his horror, he felt himself go swimmy, the past weeks' emotion trying his limits. “I'm sorry,” Tom murmured suddenly, free-floating emotional wreckage, responding seemingly at random. “I'm sorry I did it wrong. I'm sorry about Slaney and … the others. I'm sorry I didn't stop it all.”

“You did it just fine, Agent.”

Tom inhaled deeply, trying to get hold of his emotions. Thankfully, the president charged on.

“I have to ask more of you, Tom.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Convince your friend Leah to keep what she knows about Claudia and Richard Mullinax secret. In exchange, she will have full access to my White House.”

“How do you know about Leah?”

The president smiled. “You have a lot to catch up on.”

That was no doubt true. “Anything else?”

“Yes, actually.” He looked to Tom, meeting his gaze squarely. “I owe you an apology. I was the one who blocked you from seeing Fallon at the hospital after her recovery from the boat.”

Whoa
.
Game changer
. He had not understood her refusal to see him, and it had hurt him grievously. Over the last few weeks, he'd come to accept Fallon's choice. It served him right. But it didn't make the absence any easier.

Profound happiness began to flood through him, warm and alive.

“I believed at that time that you were a bad influence on her. I wasn't pleased that you were lying to your employer, sneaking around to see her. It seemed like another bad choice she was making, driven from passion rather than reason. I've come to realize I was wrong.

“I've given up trying to understand my daughter, but I've never given up loving her. Her brief absence has made me realize just how much our family has relied on her to hold us together. I'm ashamed to say that, but it's the unvarnished truth. I realized when she was kidnapped that I had never actually asked what she wanted in her life. She was always a bit … airy-fairy, if you know what I mean. Into art and yoga and travel, things that seem trivial to me. I disregarded her wishes and pushed her toward law school, as if she was mine to conform. Because she is a bit of a people pleaser, she went along with it and has become everything I said I wanted, at least on paper. She's miserable. She doesn't sparkle like she used to when she was teaching yoga and planning trips to Thailand or the Dalmatian Coast or some other far-flung dot on the globe.”

The president's lips pinched, as if remembering something painful. He then resumed, his voice as matter of fact as before. “I'd very much like her to be happy. She deserves happiness, and I believe you made her happy.”

It took a moment to understand what Hughes was saying. Once Tom got it, he felt a little embarrassed. Hughes had been right a few weeks ago, but not now. There was no way Fallon would forgive him for abandoning her again. He was grudgingly resigned to that fact. “Thank you for your blessing,” he began, “but that is all in the past.”

Hughes squared his chin. “If that is the case, then so be it. I'm not going to mess up my relationship with Fallon more than I have by meddling in her private affairs. But you did make her happy. And I'd like to see her happy again.”

Fallon kicked off her shoes under her desk and sat back in her chair to take a sip of coffee. It was half past nine o'clock in the evening; most associates had called it a day. She, however, was still at the office, chasing an acquittal for Chambers.

But not totally. Her thoughts shifted to Tom, as they had frequently since he rescued her. She'd been delirious with cold and terror; her injury had been serious. A nasty row of stitches still crisscrossed the back of her neck where the kidnappers had teased a sword over her skin, slicing into the muscles to prove their willingness to kill.

Tom had appeared like a dream, strength and competence personified. In her state of trauma, she'd nearly told him she loved him. And he shut her down. Thank God. It was his last gentlemanly act: not allowing her to humiliate herself in that most desperate time.

He'd dutifully delivered her to Georgetown University Hospital. After her neck had been stitched and her fractured rib had been braced, and she was finally warm enough to feel her extremities, she'd asked Cameron if Tom was okay: Was he here? Was he being treated for hypothermia? Cameron informed her that he'd left but other agents had arrived.

Of course Tom had left. That's what he always did. Why should this time be any different?

It felt like she'd swallowed acid.

However, in the intervening weeks, she'd settled into a sort of dull acceptance of the facts. He didn't want her. Fine. She'd cried enough tears. It was time to move on. These words sounded like Gwen and though they had the cold, concrete quality of truth, they weren't comforting. In fact, they hurt like a bitch.

She shut her eyes, struggling to maintain her equilibrium.

There were times when she could still feel him, as if they were connected by invisible magnets. Even now, she felt him. For just one deliciously sinful moment, she sank into the sensation, imagining the air was charged with his rich cologne and the electricity of his powerful body, feeling the air altered as if a jet had just zoomed through the room.

Fallon suddenly stilled as goose bumps rose on her skin. She really did feel like she was being watched. She felt the subtle electromagnetic pulse of another human being in her vicinity.

She opened her eyes, all suspense and expectation, and stared at the empty office where she had illogically believed that Tom would be. The conviction of his presence was so acute that she felt his absence with such a sudden intensity that she could have wept.

He had always shown up when she most needed him. He was so expected, so rooted in her heart that she could scarcely believe that he wasn't there, waiting for her too.

She hadn't given any thought to what she would say or do if he were actually there. All she had seen in her mind was that one second when she would see him and nothing else would matter because he made everything—her whole life—brighter.

She exhaled shakily and looked back at the work on her desk: the stacks of documents to vet, the research that had leeched hours of her precious and singular life and would leech yet more. A pit in her stomach settled and felt like despair.

The sudden detachment she felt for her work repelled her.

She began to type again, forcing words onto the page, wishing she believed the passionate arguments she put forth. The stubborn fact was Chambers was guilty. In private consultations, he'd come close to admitting his guilt himself. Even so, Fallon was obligated to design sophisticated legal arguments that would negate this reality.

“Garbage,” she muttered to herself and deleted the latest paragraph. Weak legal thinking mixed with lackadaisical writing would just result in more fallow hours of soul-breaking labor.

She glanced up; her vision skewed. There, in the doorway, stood Tom Bishop.

He stood with his hands in his pockets, slouching sexily against the doorframe, looking so damn gorgeous it made her heart thud.

She could have laughed at the timing. But she only gazed, afraid that any sudden moves would ruin the very pleasant hallucination.

“I thought I'd find you here, working late,” he said.

Okay, not a hallucination. She nodded dumbly, mentally scrabbling for ballast.

He smiled softly, teasingly. “Why do you work so much, Fallon?”

“To get ahead,” she answered, finding her throat suddenly dry.

“Do you get paid more if you work more?”

“No.”

“Sounds like a scam.”

Fallon cracked a smile. It
felt
like a scam. Since being discharged from the hospital, her job seemed like a vast façade, something to occupy her time so she didn't think too deeply about the joylessness of her days. She'd always assumed that lawyering would become more fascinating the more senior she became. But she never seemed to achieve big goals, and the small achievements she did manage didn't bring anything like satisfaction. That Tom should see her unhappiness made her heart hurt.

He dropped that sexy pose against her doorframe and sauntered her office. “How is your neck?”

“I'm okay. Healing.”

“Really?”

She met his eyes candidly, surprised at the prompt. “Yes,” she answered carefully, suddenly feeling as tight and constrained as if she were wearing a whalebone corset. “I'm fine.”

Tom nodded thoughtfully—not really believing her, but allowing his question to be dismissed. He sat in the seat across from her. “I came here to apologize.”

She began to shake her head—to head him off because she couldn't bear an emotional scene at the office—but protestations would not come.

“I'm sorry for a lot of other things,” he said matter-of-factly. “I have a list of violations that dates back to Paxos.”

She sat mutely, remembering the similar shock she'd felt when she saw him for the first time in five years. Same head-spinning awe. Same sense of wonder.

Her whole body felt like she was standing on a fault line, like anything could happen.

Tom's gaze met hers squarely, pupil to pupil. “I owe you some answers as part of my apology. So here goes. I left you on Paxos because I was still hurting for my wife who had died and I wasn't ready for … well, for you. I should have told you that I was unprepared instead of acting like an ass and leaving. But to do so would have meant my feelings for you were more serious than I wished to credit.

“Mostly I'm sorry for having been such an indecisive jerk these past weeks. I wasn't sure what I wanted, and you showed up again, this new happiness … and I panicked. I felt like happiness would be a betrayal to Bethany, my wife. I know now that she would hate the way I've behaved. I know it is hard to believe but I'm not always a selfish, uncommunicative oaf. I'm capable of being a good husband and partner, though I can't blame you for being skeptical.”