Forbidden (28 page)

It had been exactly twenty-seven days since the night on the beach, yet the moment she heard his voice, Liz remembered how
she’d ached with the desire to kiss him. “Adam, how are you?”

He smiled. She always greeted him by asking how he was, though he detected a slight hesitancy in her tone this time. “I’m
fine. How’s your father?”

“The same.”

“And you. How are you?”

“I guess I’m the same, too.” Just more tired, less patient. Joseph was alive, yet he wasn’t, and his lingering was stretching
all of their nerves to the breaking point. The endless days and nights merged in her mind until sometimes she wanted to scream.
Her mother had grown even thinner, her face tight with stress. Nancy was a help, trying to make herself useful, but it had
been so long since she’d been a real
part of the family that there were many awkward moments and embarrassed silences. Sara alone was the bright spot in all of
their days, with her youthful sunny disposition that even living in a sick house couldn’t squelch, thank God.

“You sound tired.”

“Funny, I was going to say the same about you.”

“And you’d be right. I called to thank you for the picture of Richard and me.”

Liz found herself frowning. “Tom told me he’d found some old photos. I asked him to mail them out. I really didn’t know there
was one of you and Richard in the stack.” She chided herself for not having checked.

“I really did like the man, Liz, and I’m happy to have the photo.”

Whether he meant it or was just being kind, she’d take him at face value today. “I’m glad, then.”

He hesitated, wondering how to proceed. “I was hoping you weren’t angry with me, about the way we last parted.”

She let the silence linger while she struggled to find the right answer. “No, of course not.”

“I was out of line, and I apologize.”

On the terrace with the portable phone, Liz glanced through the open doorway and could see no one in the family room. “There’s
no need.”

“I meant every word I said. I apologize only for creating an awkward situation, one you felt you had to run from.”

“It’s better that way, truly it is.”

“Intellectually, I agree. But emotionally, I wish things were different.”

She did, too. “But they’re not.” Pressing a hand to her stomach to quell the dancing nerves, Liz sat on the two-seater. “You’re
a married man.” And apparently you intend to stay that way. For your career. For your ambition.

“Yes, I know.” Adam rubbed a hand across his face. “It’s complicated at this end, you know.”

“It always was.”

This wasn’t going well. He’d wanted to clear things between them, and he’d only made it worse. “We need to talk. I’m going
to be in California next week. Would you meet me for dinner, some place very public, where we can have a quiet conversation?”

Liz went with her first instinct. “I don’t think so.”

He felt the frustration mounting. “What’s wrong with an old campaign worker having dinner with the senator from her state?”

“I have no business to discuss with the senator from my state.”

“You’re not going to make this easy, are you?”

Liz let out a trembling sigh. “Then let me try. I can’t be around you, Adam. It hurts too much. Please don’t ask me to dinner
or lunch or a walk on the beach. It would be best if we… if we had no contact at all.”

Adam closed his eyes at the finality of her words. She was right, of course, and as usual, he was being a selfish bastard.
“You’re right. Again, I apologize. Good-bye, Liz.” Slowly he hung up the phone, swiveled around on his chair, and sat staring
out the window unseeingly.

In La Jolla Liz clicked off and swallowed around a huge lump in her throat. She felt sick at heart, but she’d done the right
thing. Didn’t Liz Townsend Fairchild always do the right thing? Then why did it hurt so damn much?

Slowly she walked into the family room and was about to go upstairs when she saw Nancy curled up on the couch, a book propped
on her bent knees. Liz’s heart leapt to her throat. She’d been so sure the room had been vacant when she’d checked. Nancy’s
eyes were on Liz, her expression thoughtful, assessing. The distance from where she’d been to where Nancy sat was perhaps
twenty feet, and she’d kept her voice low. However, her instincts told her that her sister had heard every word.

Liz dropped onto her father’s favorite leather chair and
dragged her feet up onto the ottoman. “I take it you overheard?”

“I didn’t mean to eavesdrop.”

She was frankly too bushed to pretend, to play games. “So now you know for sure that I’m not perfect.” Watching Nancy’s face,
she saw an empathy she hadn’t thought her sister capable of.

“I’m so sorry, Liz. It must be hell.”

Liz brushed back her hair and closed her eyes, feeling like a raw wound, open and bleeding. For years only Molly had known.
And now Nancy. She might as well take out a damn billboard ad. Drawing in a deep breath, she met Nancy’s eyes. “You mustn’t
say anything to anyone, please, Nancy. Too many people could get hurt.”

“I won’t. You can trust me, really.” For the first time since her early teens, Nancy felt close to Liz. “If you want to talk,
I’m not a bad listener.”

“Thanks, but I think I’m all talked out for today.” She got to her feet. “I think I’ll go for a walk on the beach.” Liz left
the room and headed for the outside stairs, wishing she could replay the last half hour of her life.

“I’m telling you, he’s clean,” Barry said into the phone as he nervously scanned the empty office and out into the hallway.
“I wish you wouldn’t call me here. Did the switchboard operator recognize your voice?”

“Relax, sugar,” Diane told him. “My own mother wouldn’t recognize my voice if I didn’t want her to. I’m calling because I
haven’t had a report from you in over two weeks. More like three. I just came from a luncheon where one of my
dear
friends tells me she ran into my husband a while back having lunch in a San Diego restaurant. There were six in his party,
and one of them was a woman. A woman with dark red hair. Get my drift, Barry, honey?”

One of the secretaries returned to her desk in the office he shared with several of Senator McKenzie’s aides. Barry
slouched down on his seat, swiveling his chair so his back was to her. “I know about that. It was Anthony’s Fish Grotto, a
meeting with some San Diego City Council members. The woman was newly elected to a council seat.” He cupped his hand around
the mouthpiece. “I told you that you can trust me. I’m on top of things. He hasn’t seen her except publicly in years. Or any
other woman, for that matter.”

Diane’s eyes narrowed shrewdly. She wished she could believe Barry, but her instincts told her he was taking her money and
not delivering. Adam was away oftener than last year and many times without Barry along. He and Fitz were more secretive than
before. And when he was home, his brooding silences were lengthier. Something was going on. She could smell it. It was time
to call someone who had more connections than Barry and fewer scruples. “Okay, sugar. Keep your eyes peeled.” She hung up.

After slipping off her shoes, she stretched out on the couch and lit a cigarette, then picked up the phone again.

It was time to call her brother, Harlan.

In a cramped Los Angeles newsroom, Harlan Cramer propped his feet on his battered desk, leaned his two-hundred-pound-plus
bulk back on his squeaky swivel chair, and stuck an expensive cigar into the corner of his mouth. He settled his black felt
hat more comfortably on his head and scratched his nose. He had bought the hat with money from his first byline, and he was
seldom without it. Glancing through this week’s edition, he turned the pages, perusing this story and that.

When the phone on his desk rang, he grabbed it in a large, beefy hand and stuck it under both his chins. “Harlan, here.”

“Harlan, honey,” Diane drawled. “Long time, no see.”

Harlan had been born in the same southern backwater town in the same run-down trailer as Diane. Like his sister, he could
hardly wait to leave. But there, their similarities ended.

Although he was proud of how far Diane had climbed from their early beginnings, her way wasn’t his. Harlan had a deep-rooted
contempt for rich people, politicians, and superstars. He knew he was a good enough journalist to carve a career with a respectable
paper in almost any big city, but he took greater pleasure in exposing the high mucky-mucks, the cheaters, and the schemers.

That was why he worked for the
National Examiner,
a tabloid newspaper sold mostly at drugstore and supermarket checkout stands. Diane, he was certain, wouldn’t be caught reading
his paper these days. He didn’t care. He knew she cared about him, in her own way, as he did about her. The fact that he hadn’t
seen her since Keith’s funeral and only talked with her every few months didn’t matter. What did matter was that she was family.

“Hey, babe,” he greeted her, smiling around his cigar. “How you doing?”

“Getting by. How about you?”

“Can’t complain. What’s up?” He knew she wasn’t calling just to inquire about his health or to chat. Diane always had a hidden
agenda.

“I’ve got a favor to ask of you, sugar.” She took a deep drag on her cigarette, then told him what she wanted.

Harlan shifted his cigar to the other corner of his mouth. “You think Adam’s playing around?”

“Not necessarily, but I need to be sure. He’s gone an awful lot, you know, and he and the redhead in question go back a long
way.” Other senators, it seemed to Diane, spent more time in Washington and less in their own states. Not Adam. A while back
he’d been in California because of Keith, she knew. Why he was staying so long now was the question. She was certain that
Harlan could dig up dirt, if there was any, on anyone, no man too great or too small. She also knew that Harlan would never
do anything to harm her. “Can you do it?”

“You want to hurt him?”

“No. I just want to know what he’s up to.”

“Consider it done.”

“Thanks, sugar. I’ll sleep better nights once I know.” She didn’t simply want to know if Adam was playing around. She had
to know if he was playing around with Liz Fairchild, because if he was, it meant he had deep feelings for her, feelings that
could tear him away.
That
Diane couldn’t handle, not when she was so close to the highest inner circle of Washington power. “Do it discreetly, Harlan,
honey. I can’t afford to let anyone else know I’m spying on my husband.”

“Will do. Call you soon.” Harlan hung up. Lazily he crossed his arms over his rotund belly. Interesting. Senator McKenzie,
the fair-haired boy, the prime choice for Democratic vice president, if his sources were to be believed, might be playing
footsie with the beautiful widow of a prominent California attorney.

Harlan smiled. It was just the sort of investigation that got his juices flowing. Maybe, just maybe, there’d be an article
in it down the road, provided Diane would give him the okay. He’d never print a word or leak a story that would jeopardize
his sister, even though he’d never thought Diane and Adam McKenzie were meant for one another.

Tossing down the paper, he righted his chair, took from his drawer a package of Twinkies, and glanced at the clock. Harlan
subsisted on junk food and Chivas, plenty of both. At the moment he was about a quart low on the latter. The sun was definitely
over the yardarm somewhere in the world.

Heaving himself from his chair, he decided it was time to visit his favorite watering hole and see what was happening. Unwrapping
his Twinkies, he left the newsroom.

“The truth of the matter, Adam, is that it’s time to fish or cut bait,” Palmer Ames drawled in his best down-home, good-old-boys
voice. With a manicured hand he carefully patted his thinning hair as he leaned back on his desk chair and contemplated the
junior senator from California. “I’m offering you the chance of a lifetime. Frankly, son, the boys and I didn’t think you’d
hesitate a second.”

Seated across the desk, looking deceptively relaxed, Adam hoped he hid his displeasure at the reference to his youth, which,
at forty-five, he felt was unjustified. He knew Palmer was a healthy sixty-two, tan, fit, and somewhat vain about it. He was
also vocally proud of his family, four grown children and nine grandchildren, all of whom appeared with him and his wife of
forty years on most campaign posters. A large family to Palmer proclaimed high moral values and elicited trust. Adam wasn’t
so sure.

He decided the best approach was to try to explain his feelings honestly. “It isn’t that I’m not pleased that you want
me for your running mate, Senator. It’s simply that I’m not sure I can best serve the people’s needs as vice president. There
are still so many ongoing projects in California. I don’t want the voters to feel abandoned.”

On the chair next to Adam, Fitz pushed his glasses higher on his nose. “Senator, I’m sure you’re also aware that Adam never
jumps into anything quickly. He takes his time making decisions that affect his future and that of others.”

Palmer smiled around a flash of temper. “Hell, son, you’ve had months to think this over.” He had a grudging respect for Adam’s
politics, coupled with an understandable jealousy of his youth, his looks, his charisma. If the big boys hadn’t insisted that
in order to win the election they’d need the clout of Adam’s popularity, he’d have sent the kid packing.

Inserting a toothpick in the corner of his mouth, Palmer mentally counted to ten. As a four-term senior senator from Texas,
Palmer had the South and Midwest pretty much in his pocket. However, his advisers were keenly aware that California had the
largest electoral vote of any state, and that Adam McKenzie, because of his enormous popularity, could carry a good portion
of the West Coast. Still, Palmer was getting damned tired of playing the congenial southern gentleman role. “I’m going to
be blunt. It’s time to shit or get off the pot. You tell me today or I’m moving on to my next choice.”

Adam’s facial expression didn’t change. Decision time. He’d had Palmer checked out six ways sideways and hadn’t been a hundred
percent satisfied with the man’s integrity; but, as Fitz had said before they’d arrived for this showdown, no two running
mates would ever agree on everything. And how many politicians did he know who were overburdened with principles?