Lady Liberty (14 page)

A man grabbed her, pinned her arms to her sides, shoved a pungent cloth over her nose and mouth. Chemicals. She smelled chemicals.
Don’t breathe. Don’t breathe. Don’t breathe.

One of the men went upstairs. Linda’s head throbbed, her dread doubled.

“Noooooooo, stop! Leave me alone!”

Katie’s screams pierced the mental fog and stabbed straight through Linda’s heart. “Please,” she whispered into the cloth, staring straight into a man’s brown eyes. “Don’t hurt my babies. Please!”

Yet another man appeared at the top of the stairs and two of them headed down, carrying something lumped in Katie and Kenneth’s bedspreads. “Got 'em. Let’s go, go, go!”

Limp and unable to move, Linda felt herself being lifted.

“She’s not out.”

Someone shoved the pungent cloth back over her nose and mouth, pushed down hard. Terror slithered through her veins. By their accents, these men were all foreigners. This had to be about those Geneva peace talks. Ken’s warning again replayed in her mind.
Oh, God, his journal. Why hadn’t she immediately noticed the journal?
He’d put it with her cookbooks to make sure she found it quickly, and, being out of place, she would know to read it.
He had expected this!

“Mom!” Katie cried.
“Mommieeeee!”

Linda struggled against the man holding her, fought to free herself to help Katie.

The man dodged her feeble blows. “Screw drugs.” He spat from between his clenched teeth, raised a beefy fist, and slammed it against her jaw.

Pain exploded in Linda’s face. Certain she and her children were about to die, she slid into the dark abyss of unconsciousness.

“Sybil, you okay?”

“I’m fine, Westford.” Leaning back against the rock, she lifted her gaze to the canopy of wet, dripping leaves. Her voice sounded foggy and thick and as weary as she felt. “Just fine.”

He reached over and stroked her shoulder. “You don’t have to be strong all the time.”

“Oh?” She shot him a challenging look. “When do you recommend I be weak? When negotiating with Peris and Abdan? When a decision I make kills seven people? You jumped out of a plane without a parachute, for God’s sake. You could have died, Westford.” Pain exploded in her chest and tears welled in her eyes. She blinked hard and fast to
keep them from falling, crushed a fistful of leaves, then tossed them to the ground. “Oh, God. You could have died.”

“Every rose needs its thorn.”

Confused, she snapped. “What?”

“You can let go right now,” he said, his voice gruff and raw. “It’s not being weak, Sybil. It’s being human.” He opened his arms.

Everything inside Sybil wanted to go to him, to feel the solid warmth of his chest against her face, his arms close around her. But it had been so long since she’d dared to allow herself the luxury of being comforted by a man. What if she accepted that comfort and let go, and then she couldn’t stop letting go? What if she found solace in it, needed it, and she couldn’t go back to burying her feelings? “I—I can’t.”

“It’s okay. I can.” Westford let her see the sadness in his eyes. “I lost two of my men. I’ve been a guest in Ken Dean’s home. I know his wife and kids—and Cramer’s wife, who
is
just a kid. And Julie’s dad. Jesus, Sybil. He lived through three wars. Three of them. And now because of some damn terrorist, he’s lived just long enough to see his only daughter murdered.” Westford slid across the wet ground and wrapped his arms around her. “Damn it, I can.” He swallowed hard. “I hurt from the bone out.”

Pain flooded through her so strong and intense she couldn’t tell where it began or ended, only that no part of her escaped its agony. Tears spilled down her face and burned hot against her cold skin. “Me, too, Jonathan.” She lifted her arms, cradled his head in the crook of her neck, and whispered, “Me, too.”

He looked up at her. The grief ravaging his face split and surprise filled the crevices. “You know my first name.”

“Yes.” Her voice trembled. “But I have to wish I didn’t.”

“Why?”

Because I like you. Because with your rose petals and thorns, you make me think and feel things I don’t want to
think or feel. Because you make me want to forget I have lousy judgment and I shouldn’t trust men. Damn you, you get to me, and I don’t want anyone to get to me ever again.

“Sybil?” He tightened his hold on her and what had begun as a search for comfort shifted to a sensory assault. Unable not to, she explored it, discovered a pure and simple joy and gratitude that she was alive, felt the assault deepen and then shift again, conjuring tender feelings of closeness, intimacy, and an intense awareness stronger than anything she’d ever experienced.

“Why, Sybil?”

Awed and humbled and amazed by the onslaught of emotions yawning inside her, she couldn’t for the life of her remember anything, much less why she shouldn’t want to be familiar enough to know his first name. “Because.”

“Because,” he said against her shoulder, his lips brushing against her skin.

Oh, God, how was she supposed to remember when she couldn’t think?
“It—it’s important.”

“Not to me.” His breath fanned against her neck, warm and inviting. He lowered his hands to her waist, lifted her onto his lap, then held her against him and caressed her back.

Too intense!
Her heart skipped a beat then thudded against her ribs, and every instinct in her body conspired, urged her to gravitate toward him, to seek out his touch. “Am I important to you?”

“Would I risk my life for you if you weren’t important to me?”

Cryptic. She really didn’t know what she needed to hear from him, but she knew anything cryptic wasn’t it. “You risk your life for a lot of people.”

He hesitated and something in his eyes changed, hardened. “You’re pushing, Sybil. But are you sure you want me to respond to that?”

She wasn’t sure of anything right now. To her, these
shifts between them seemed so evident and personal and intimate, but maybe to him they weren’t. Maybe he was holding her seeking comfort from grief and nothing more. Maybe he was holding a wounded veep, not a wounded woman, and she’d crossed the proverbial line alone. “I— I’m sorry, Westford.” She reverted to his last name to create distance between them and tried to scoot off his lap.

He held her firmly in place. “Jonathan, Sybil.” He cupped her chin in his hands and kissed her lightly on the lips. “Jonathan,” he whispered against her mouth, then kissed her again. Sweetly… softly… gently… opening a door in her heart she had feared and believed would forever remain closed. His lips parted, he cruised over her face, pressed touches of kisses to her temple, her forehead, the line of her jaw, and then brushed the tips of their noses. “You’re important.”

She dragged in a sharp breath, and he kissed her again, this time letting her feel his hunger and heat. She reveled in the knowing, in the slumbering sensations awakened: the eager meshing of mouths and lips and tongues, exploring, straining to deepen their union; the clutching of hands, trembling with urgency, needing to be everywhere at once, to carry the heady blend of pleasure and longing to places hiding far beneath the skin touched; the clinging of wet clothes to skin that was suddenly sensitive and aware; the heat of pressed bodies seeping through rough fabric, warming them, welcoming them. Tempting them.

You’re important.

In her mind, Sybil heard him again, and for the first time in a very long time, she felt important to a man. Maybe they would regret this. Maybe she was important, but to the agent and not to the man. Maybe he was attracted to the vice president, the position, and not to the woman. But whatever the truth proved to be, she would deal with it… later. Now she just wanted to feel again. To hold and be held. To be more than her job, if only for a little while. She
wanted to feel her body melt into liquid heat, to get lost in the dizzying sensual haze so long absent from her life. She wanted to know a man ached to touch her, to feel her touch. She wanted, just once, to be loved by a man knowing he didn’t care what job she did, or how much power or money she had, or how big a shadow she cast. A man to whom none of that mattered. A man to whom only she mattered.

And, like it or not, she wanted to know if Jonathan was that man.

He broke their kiss, rested his chin on her shoulder, and circled his arms around her shoulders. “I probably shouldn’t have done that. But I won’t apologize, Sybil.”

Thank God.
“Me, either.” Nose to his chest, she inhaled his tangy scent. Not bitter, but definitely dangerous. “I’m not sorry”

“You will be,” he predicted, regret tainting his tone.

Surprised, she reared back. “Are you planning something nasty, Westford?”

“Jonathan, Sybil.”

“Whatever. Are you?”

“Would I do that to you?”

“I didn’t think you would, but you’re giving me second thoughts.”

“You’ll be doing the damage,” he predicted. “I’ll be a passive victim.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I told you. I know how your mind works.”

He thought she would beat herself up over this. She opened her mouth to deny it but stopped, innately knowing he was right and she would. That truth totally soured her mood. “Your timing for sharing these insights really sucks, Jonathan.”

“Yet another flaw. I’d say I’d work on it, but I won’t.” He released her, leaned back against the tree, and stared her
right in the eye. “You’re going to look at whatever happens between us and consciously decide what it means to you. You’re going to consciously choose what you want. No excuses. No delusions. And no distractions.” He stared up through the trees. “Personally, I’d opt for making love with you, but I know what that’ll cost. Eventually you’ll cool down and start thinking, though I’m guessing that could take a while.” The look in his eyes warmed. “I’ve never seen you dazed before. I like it.”

“Quit confusing me.” She was dazed, damn it, and her senses were still rioting. “Are you saying lust isn’t enough for you, or I’m not worth the complications?” Just how important was important?

“I’m telling you I know how your mind works.” He lifted a hand. “Now, come here and let me hold you.”

“I don’t think I want you to,” she said, but then slid into his arms and snuggled to his side anyway.

“I know you don’t.” He closed the circle of his arms around her and let out a sigh, rich and deep and reeking of contentment. “I don’t want to hold you, either.”

They didn’t want the same thing: to care or matter to each other.

Somewhere in that revelation, she found solace—and she accepted that she’d become wickedly twisted.

How the hell had he gotten into this mess?

Sayelle stared across the
Herald’s
conference room table at Commander Conlee, folded his hands on the tabletop, and dropped his voice. “Let me get this straight. You want me to broadcast scripts you provide me, on the radio?”

“That’s correct.”

Sam’s mind reeled. “Why?”

“I’d rather not say, Mr. Sayelle.”

“I’m sure you would, but it’s people in my position who think they’re performing a service that end up doing a couple years in jail.”

“This isn’t like that.”

Sam was losing patience. “Listen, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that you want me to pass some kind of messages. If you want me involved, then you’re going to have to trust me and prove it. I want details, or you’ll find yourself another reporter. It’s that simple.”

Conlee covered a frown by swiping a fingertip down his blunt nose. “All right, but trust works both ways. I want your word that nothing said here leaves this room, and I’m telling you now, if it does, I’ll kill you. I’ll also kill everyone you tell.”

This wasn’t a threat, just a fact. Conlee was a no-nonsense kind of man who meant exactly what he said. “I protect my sources.”

“I know you spent three months in a Chicago lockup protecting a source. That’s one of the reasons I’m here.”

“There are others?”

“Yes. I think you’re misguided, Mr. Sayelle, but basically a straight shooter. That’s important to me. And you carry a personal referral I respect.”