A Man of Privilege

by Sarah M. Anderson

  She remembered something Rosebud had said. James’s great gift was seeing people as they were, not as they had been or were supposed to be. Maybe that’s all he really wanted, the same common courtesy.

  “Your father—he was a secretary of defense, right?”

  “Yup. And my mother has family money dating back centuries.” He rolled his eyes, as if this was embarrassing.

  She couldn’t resist needling him. It felt good to have a little power, to be in control of a conversation for once. “You must be really rich.”

  “Not me. My family.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “I don’t have much money. Most of it is in a trust until I get married.” She must have given him a stunned look, because he added, “Really. I have to get married first. My mother has picked out my future first lady. Then I get the money to fund my campaigns. That’s the plan.”

  “Says who?”

  “My grandfather, in his will.”

  “That sucks.”

  He managed an amused grin. “It’s not that unusual. Not in my world.”

  Maybe this was the world she saw depicted in all those reality-TV shows. James was living in some weird Real Political Dynasties of D.C.–world. “You have to get married to get your inheritance?”

  “Correct.”

  “And you haven’t married the woman your parents picked yet.”

  “I’ve been building my career.” Then he exhaled again. Was this another crack in his presidential armor? “Pauline is a lovely woman, but…”

  But what? Then Maggie realized what the but was—the angle. Everyone in his world was working one—and that most likely included future First Ladies. “If you don’t marry her, you get nothing.”

  “You have a firm grasp on the situation.”

  “So don’t marry her. There are worse things in the world than being poor. My family lived on a few thousand of welfare while I was growing up.” The moment the words left her mouth, she felt stupid. Who was she to be offering advice to a future president of the whole freaking country? He probably had professional advisers he paid to tell him what he should and should not do.

  “Never had a better offer.” His plastic smile was back—not a crack to be seen in his armor right now. The man sitting across from her at this exact moment was presidential material, plain and simple.

  “What about Rosebud?” Maggie was on thin ice here, and she knew it.

  He shrugged. “She held out for a better man.”

  “Better than you?”

  She shouldn’t have said that, because James’s eyebrows jumped up as he looked at her. Then his eyes drifted down to her lips, then over the expensive suit Rosebud had picked out for her. “You think I’m a good man?”

  Oh, the ice she was on was so thin as to be nonexistent. Maggie realized she was wrapping her fortune around and around her fingers. She had to choose her words carefully here. She couldn’t leave herself open. “We’re friends. You said so yourself.”

  He leaned back, folding his hands together on the tabletop. “That’s true. It would be highly unethical of me to act on an attraction to a witness. It could result in that witness’s compromised testimony being thrown out of court and the attorney being disbarred.”

  That’s what he said, but what she heard was, “I’m interested in you.” Suddenly, she was having trouble breathing and her heart was doing cartwheels. “That would be bad, right?”

  “It would end a political career, true.” But the way he looked at her said, not so bad—might even be good.

  She wanted it to be good. A part of her, a part that she’d locked away, was screaming for something that might be good. She wanted him, in a way that involved little clothing and even less talking. With everything he was and everything she wasn’t, she still wanted him. And given the way he was looking at her—that respect mixed with desire, and a little hope thrown in for good measure—made it perfectly clear he wanted the same thing.

  And the problem with that was… Oh. Right. She was a poor Indian woman with a messy history, living with a wanted fugitive, and he was—well, everything Tommy had said. Blue blood, East Coast, rich. He said he played by the rules—but did he? Or did he do whatever he wanted and justify it later? Was he really different, or was he like that dishonorable judge?

  “What are you going to do, James?” She braced herself for some load-of-crap answer, the kind designed to make her feel sorry for him—sorry enough to sleep with him.

  “I’m going to win this case, get married and run for office. That’s the plan.”

  “Plans can change, but only if you want them to.”

  He regarded her for several seconds, and Maggie was afraid she’d crossed some line. “What I want is to do the right thing. I always do.” And then, as if he had to prove it to her, he stood and offered her his arm again, ever the gentleman. “Let me walk you to your car.”

  As they headed for the door, he called out to the little old lady his thanks for another wonderful meal, and then they were outside, safely on the sidewalk. Clear, crisp air—the smell of a South Dakota night in the early summer—cleared her head. What was the “right” thing here? Was it right to like him? To want him to like her? To imagine what it would be like to kiss him? Was it right to want to see him again—without testimony or lawyers, without messy histories or future campaigns involved? Was it right to want those things without any other expectations?

  At this exact moment, the right thing to do was to be polite. “Thank you for dinner.”

  “Thank you for joining me.”

  They walked toward the car side by side without touching. If he was so concerned with doing the right thing, he wouldn’t see her again—would he? “Will you need to interview me again?”

  He didn’t answer until they reached her Jeep. Maggie was between him and her door. Suddenly, the space felt small. James turned to face her, his body close enough to touch. She could feel the electricity between them, carrying with it the promise of something good. Even though she knew she shouldn’t trust him, she wished she was the kind of woman who would pull James down into a passionate embrace. And she wished James was the kind of man who didn’t care about morals, because then he might kiss her back.

  He looked into her eyes, his intent clear. But then he said, “Ethically, I would only be able to see you again if I needed a clarification,” in the kind of voice that men used to seduce a woman.

  He wanted to kiss her. She could tell. “What kind of clarification?” The dinner-with-a-friend kind or the bring-your-lawyer kind?

  He held her gaze for a moment longer, then took a step back. The tension between them snapped like a rubber band. “I won’t know until I need it.”

  What kind of answer was that? One that left her hanging and him with all the power. She had to admire him, though. Any other man would have not only kissed her, but tried to convince her that twenty minutes in the backseat was fine. Not him. Maybe she really could trust him.

  “You know where I live.”

  “Indeed, I do.” He opened the car door for her and waited until she was buckled in before he shut it.

  The last she saw of him in her rearview mirror, he was staring up at the sky again.

  She hadn’t seen the last of James Carlson.

  She gave him a week, eight days tops, before he showed up again.

  This time, she promised herself she’d be ready for him.

  Six

  James parked next to the post office in Aberdeen and waited. Yellow Bird had told him that Maggie came into town every Thursday to mail out packages. James should have been in the office, working on his case, but he was too distracted to focus. And that distraction’s name was Maggie Eagle Heart.

  He could not get her out of his mind, which was an odd feeling. James had always been able to maintain a laserlike focus on his job, and his track record showed it. This frenetic feeling that had him checking his cell phone every five minutes to see if she’d called or texted was compl
etely outside his realm of experience. It was almost a physical compulsion, and it left him feeling not quite in control of himself.

  Not in control? That would certainly explain why he was stalking her in the middle of the workweek.

  There was no way around the facts. He wanted to see Maggie. It was just that simple. And the fact that it really was that simple bothered him. He was accustomed to being in relationships that were complicated. Hell, complicated was a gross understatement. He’d come from a world where emotions—of any kind—were used against people. Falling in love had never been simple. Maybe that’s why he’d rarely done it.

  Not that he loved Maggie. He didn’t. This was merely an infatuation run amok. But things were different out here. He didn’t have to plan an end-run around his mother or gauge if his father would deem James’s actions good for his career. No spies would report back to his parents. Agnes was the only person who knew where he was, and he trusted her implicitly. He was interested in Maggie. He wanted to see her. So he did. How easy was that?

  He was playing with fire, of course. It was one thing to want to see her. As long as he kept it to himself, he could want that and so much more and it would never come back on him. It was another to want to spend time with her—the kind of time that built into a relationship. There could be no relationship, period. With her history, Maggie would automatically rule him out as president. The media and voters wouldn’t see the upstanding citizen she’d become. No one would be able to get beyond her record. He could always try to bury it, but even though he’d cleared it from the system, someone would come out of the woodwork. Someone always did. Then everyone would know. And that would be the end.

  But here he was anyway, wanting to see her and acting on that basic desire. Another few minutes ticked by until James couldn’t stand it. How the hell did Yellow Bird do all-night stakeouts? James got out his phone and began working through his email, keeping one eye on the post office.

  Ten minutes later, he heard the familiar sound of an old Jeep from about half a block away. Bingo. Maggie parked four spots from him. She got out of her car and went around to the trunk. She looked very much as she had that first time he’d seen her in his office—long skirt, sleeveless top, hair loose. He was again struck by her beauty—a natural, unforced thing. She wasn’t the kind of woman who spent hours in the gym or the spa every day, like Pauline Walker. She wasn’t the kind of woman who would berate her children for ruining her figure, like James’s mother had.

  Everything about her, from the way she walked to the way she tossed her hair over her shoulder, said that she was comfortable in her own skin.

  Even at this distance, he could see that the stack of boxes went almost up to the ceiling of her Jeep. No way she’d be able to get all of that in by herself. James hopped out of his car. “Good morning, Maggie.”

  She let out a little squeak as she spun around, sending the box on the top of the stack flinging off into space. James grabbed the package before it hit the ground. “James! What are you doing here?”

  That wasn’t the most encouraging thing she could have said, but James was undaunted. “I had something I needed clarified.”

  A bright pink blush shot across her cheeks, lighting up her face. She held his gaze without backing down. She wasn’t afraid of him, but she wasn’t acting all high-and-mighty. Instead, she smiled. She took his breath away. “Oh? What?”

  What he really wanted was to know if she’d be glad to see him. And he already had his answer. Yes. But he wasn’t about to overplay his hand. “Here, let me help you.”

  She held back for a second before she placed the rest of her boxes in his arms. “Thanks.” Between the two of them, they got all the packages carried in.

  “Morning, Maggie,” the middle-aged woman behind the counter said. “Missed you last week. Got a lot today?” she asked, eyeing James behind his stack of packages.

  “Morning, Jemma. I had to do something last week.” Maggie managed not to look at him, but he could see it was an effort. She cleared her throat. “How are the kids?”

  The two women chatted while Jemma weighed the packages and slapped the appropriate stamps on them. James hung around in the background, taking notes. Maggie was friendly, but Jemma did most of the talking. The personal information Maggie did volunteer was more about Nan than about herself.

  The whole thing took almost half an hour. James fell into step beside Maggie as she left. “You do this every week?”

  “Unless it’s snowing. Or I have someplace I have to be.” She favored him with a glance out of the corner of her eye.

  “What do you do next?”

  “Is that what you needed clarified?”

  “Not really.” They were outside now, away from the prying ears of the postal service. He took a step closer to her.

  Maggie rounded on him, her hands on her hips. She would have looked stern except for the playful smile on her lips. “I’ll make a deal with you. You tell me what you need clarified, and I’ll tell you what I do next.”

  That made him smile. “I wanted to ask you if you would be able to come down to the office next week.” A look of panic crossed her face, so he hurried to add, “Not to testify. I have a list of other potential witnesses that Yellow Bird has been unable to locate. I was wondering if you would recognize any names, know anything about what happened to them.” Which was an excuse, plain and simple. But it was possible that Maggie had information he needed. He was just following up on a lead.

  “I don’t know…”

  “It’s just one afternoon. I have openings on Tuesday or Friday, if either of those works for your schedule.” Nan had bridge club on Tuesdays, if he recalled correctly. And Agnes worked a half day on Friday.

  “Oh.” A small smile brightened her face—cautious, but still engaged. “But we’re just friends, right?” Her tone made it clear that she’d caught on.

  “Absolutely. And, as this is for the case, it would be unethical of me not to follow up on the lead. However,” he said, clearing his throat, “if you’d prefer to decline further involvement, we can leave it at that.”

  Then he stood back and waited. There couldn’t be a more complicated way of asking a woman out—he would know. He’d negotiated dates around corporate takeovers and international incidents. Those were the hazards of growing up with his parents. But this was different. These complications were entirely his own doing.

  It didn’t matter how much he wanted Maggie or how different she was from any other woman he’d ever known. He’d pushed this as far as he could while remaining under the umbrella of legal. Whatever she said would have to stand.

  Integrity sucked sometimes.

  She looked up at him through thick lashes. Her beauty hit him high in the chest, momentarily paralyzing his lungs. Say yes, he thought. One afternoon. Maybe nothing would happen, but maybe something would. He wanted to know what that something would be. He shouldn’t want to know, but he did. He couldn’t help himself.

  “I can come in on Friday.”

  He couldn’t fight the grin, and was rewarded with one of her sunny smiles. It lit up her whole face. He wanted to bask in that warmth, but he knew he couldn’t push his luck any further. “I have to get going, but I’ll see you then, around two?”

  * * *

  James’s office seemed less intimidating today than it had a few weeks ago. The woman behind the desk looked up and greeted her with a friendly smile. “Ms. Eagle Heart, how are you today?”

  A momentary spike of panic flooded Maggie’s system. Was she supposed to remember the secretary’s name? And if so, what the hell was it? But then she remembered—she had presents. Chocolate chip cookies could smooth over any social bump. She’d brought two boxes for this very reason. She fished out the smaller package. “Fine, thank you. I brought cookies.”

  “Why, isn’t that sweet of you!” As the secretary stood, Maggie finally saw where the nameplate was on the desk. Agnes. “Thank you so much!”

  “Do I smell bak
ed goods?” James appeared in the doorway behind Agnes. His gaze locked onto Maggie, and he gave her a smile that walked the not-so-fine line between warm-and-friendly and hot-and-heavy. His tie was loosened and his sleeves were cuffed at the elbows. Some combination of warmth and heat rushed down her back. That was all it took for her to realize she was glad she’d come.

  “Cookies,” she said, offering up the box. “I made them this morning.”

  For an agonizing second, James looked at her—the kind of look that made it clear that he’d been waiting all week for this exact moment. Maggie felt a flush creeping down her chest, and she regretted the low scoop neck on her top.

  “Come on in,” he said, stepping back so that she could enter the office. “Agnes, before you leave, could you get us some coffee to go with these?”

  Agnes was leaving already? It was only two in the afternoon. On a Friday. The full weight of this fact and all assorted implications hit Maggie so hard she almost stumbled. She was going to be alone with James—no prying eyes, no listening ears. Just her and the man she was infatuated with. He’d set this up. He’d known they would be alone.

  She shouldn’t have trusted him.

  James motioned for her to follow him into the office, where she found a stack of files and a list of names waiting for her. The chair she was supposed to sit in was on the opposite side of the desk from where James’s chair was. And just like that, she was confused again. He’d gone to great lengths to make sure they’d be completely alone—and he was still going to keep his hands to himself? What kind of game was he playing?

  Part of her was relieved she wasn’t going to have to deck him. But a different part of her was disappointed. Would one kiss be so wrong? How was it possible that she wanted him not to make a move while also desperately wanting him to make a move? She didn’t know what the hell she wanted. When had that become such a problem?

  James left the door open and came around the desk, passing close enough to her that she could pick up the smell of his aftershave. It was woodsy, which she found amusing. James didn’t exactly strike her as an outdoorsy kind of fellow. She must have grinned at this thought because when James glanced up, he shot her a full-power smile and said, “Yes?”