"I don't want to do this."
Carly nodded, her brown eyes brimming with understanding. "I know."
Everything in him cringed at the knowledge of what awaited inside... the blinding lights, the microphones shoved in his face, the frenzy of questions and demands for intimate, lurid detail. He'd gone down this road once, and destroyed three lives in the process.
Jaw clenched, Ryan strained to remember his ex-wife's face the last time he'd seen it. All that came to him was a blurred memory of her eyes hating him across the sea of voracious reporters who mobbed her when she tried to walk out of the courtroom.
Nor could he remember the girl, that pathetic groupie so desperate to add Ryan to her collection. The media and Ryan's own defense team had torn her into little pieces.
Could he risk putting Carly through the same thing? And her mother? Christ!
He knew what this press conference could do to Adele Samuels's re-election chances. The media would latch on to her daughter's involvement with a convicted felon and play both for all they were worth. Adele had insisted that the only way to beat the headlines was to make them, but Ryan had made too many front pages to appreciate her plan of attack.
He wasn't ready for the circling sharks to close in. He didn't want the circus that would erupt the moment he stepped inside that hangar. His fists balled, and that long, deserted road to anonymity he'd dreamed about for so long shimmered like a thin, silvery ribbon in his mind.
That long, empty road.
If he traveled that road, he'd travel it alone. He couldn't take Carly. He knew that. The threat she'd thrown at Bolt to resign her commission and take up Ryan's defense had shocked the hell out of him. Her mother, too, judging by the congresswoman's astonished face. Ryan couldn't let her do it. He'd told her over and over in the past, hectic hours that he wouldn't let her do it.
And Carly had told him over and over that she didn't allow anyone to make those kinds of decisions for her.
So here he was, relatively cleaned up, wearing another set of borrowed clothing, his stomach crawling at the thought of the media who panted eagerly for the two of them to pull up at the hangar.
Correction, the four of them. To Ryan's disgust, Carly had insisted on carting along the damned kittens. They were sleeping now, their bellies full from another infusion of canned milk, curled into each other in the cardboard box she'd appropriated from somewhere, but their earlier distempered squealing hadn't exactly soothed Ryan's lacerated nerves.
Nor did the question Carly put to him now.
"Well? Are you going to climb out of the car and walk away now, while you still can? Or are you going to face it with me?"
"There's another option. You can walk away. Or at least stand with your mother. Let me take them on alone."
"Not this time, Ryan," she said softly.
"Don't you understand?" he growled in a last, desperate attempt to make her see reason. "I don't want your association with me to destroy you or your family."
"You might as well give up. I inherited more than my red hair from my mother. In case you haven't noticed, we can both get pretty stubborn when we want to."
"Yeah, I noticed."
She cocked her head, the movement both provocative and challenging. "Ready?"
"No, dammit."
Stretching an arm along the back of her seat, he cupped her neck. His thumb found the soft hollow between her chin and her neck.
"There are a few things I want to tell you before we walk in there."
"Like what?"
"Like, one... you're a helluva a legal advisor, Major Samuels."
She smirked. "I think so. Two?"
"Two..." He leaned over, brushing her mouth with his. "You're also one hell of a woman."
"You certainly won't get a rebuttal from me on that point. Three?"
"Three..."
Ryan gave in to the need that spilled through his veins. He had to say it, had to let her know before the jackals ripped the hours they'd shared into pieces.
"I want you, Carly. I have since the first moment I saw you, all stiff and beautiful and so damned cool you burned me with it. At the farmhouse, I was sure that I could get you out of my head if I just had you once. But now..."
"Now?"
"Now," he admitted, "I ache all over with the wanting. It's in my blood. You're in my blood."
"That's funny," she got out on a shaky breath. "I ache all over the same way. So what do you say, McMann? You want to get this press conference over with and go jump in the sack? "
He blew out a long breath, wondering if he'd ever reach the point where this woman wouldn't knock him right between the eyes.
"Sounds like a good plan, Counselor." He grinned at her and the warm smile that touched her eyes made nothing else matter.
Heads high, faces solemn, they ran a gauntlet of cameras and mikes. Luckily, the harried public affairs officer who'd responded to Congresswoman Samuels's request for a news conference on Maxwell had roped off a path so they could get through the mob.
A smiling, exquisitely turned out member of Congress met them at a small platform crowded with folding chairs. Ryan caught a glimpse of a grim-faced Ed Bolt and a row of uniformed air force officers in the back row. In the front was the helicopter pilot who'd plucked them off the roof, looking slightly overwhelmed. Beside her sat a big, broad-shouldered man whose sculptured features and reddish brown hair identified him instantly as Carly's brother. Football player, Ryan guessed. Another lawyer, no doubt. Next to him was a wheelchair, occupied by an elderly gentleman with a shock of white hair and a keen, unblinking stare.
The Judge.
Ryan felt his palms start to sweat all over again. He was still dealing with the fact that the entire Samuels clan had turned out to support one of their own when Adele swept to the bank of mikes.
"Ladies and gentlemen, three remarkable people have joined me for this news conference today. You'll meet one, Captain Joanna West, a little later. The other two are standing beside me. Most of you know my daughter, Major Carly Samuels. And for those of you who don't know him, this is Mr. Ryan McMann."
She turned the full force of her brilliant smile on him.
"Mr. McMann saved my daughter's life when the river broke its banks. He's a hero, and always will be to me and my family. I'll let him and Carly tell you their story, then we'll take your questions."
Having firmly and irrevocably put the power of her charismatic personality behind Ryan, the congresswoman gave them both a kiss and stepped aside.
Carly walked up to the mikes, cool, poised, every bit as remarkable as her mother. She turned, waiting with a smile in her eyes.
Ryan took a deep breath and joined her.
River Rising Page 25