Each Precious Hour

by Gayle Wilson

  For the first time, he looked down at his hands, pulling his eyes away from her face. It was going to be hard enough saying this without watching her reaction. He didn’t know whether it would make things better or worse between them. He just knew—suddenly knew—that he had to tell her.

  “I know now that it could,” he admitted. “It could happen to any of us at any time. Despite the skills we bring to the job. Despite the equipment. Despite all the precautions.”

  “Something happened,” Robin said softly.

  He nodded, eyes still downcast.

  “And you realized you weren’t indestructible.”

  He looked up at her tone. The only thing that had changed about her expression was a tenseness around her mouth.

  “I never thought that,” he denied.

  “What you never thought was that it could happen to you. Not even when Jeff was killed.”

  “If you think about it, you couldn’t do it.”

  “And now you are,” she said. “Now you’re thinking about it.” With anyone else there might have been a note of triumph in that realization. With Robin, there wasn’t, of course. If anything, there was sympathy in her voice. Understanding even. “So what does that mean for us?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said honestly.

  He didn’t know. And the reason he didn’t was all tied up with the way those kids had looked that day on the sidewalk.

  “There was a bomb,” he said softly.

  The image of it was suddenly in his head. He wondered about whoever had put it there—and they still didn’t have a handle on that. Someone had called in the threat, but even the warning had been ambivalent. The whole scenario had been strange. And if he hadn’t been there... He shivered. The physical reaction was unexpected and involuntary. He knew that if he moved his hands from his lap, they would be trembling. And Robin would see that.

  “And it almost went off?” she asked.

  He hadn’t realized until she spoke how long he had been silent. “One of the floors of the building was a day care center. I don’t know if the bomber knew that, but...there was more than enough plastic to blow the whole place. And it was too late to get equipment up there.”

  “You disarmed it,” she said. “Without any protection.”

  “The whole time, I thought it was going to go off. I thought the son of a bitch had booby-trapped the setup. The whole time I was looking at it, I was expecting it to go off. I didn’t even know about the kids then. But I’d already decided...”

  He stopped, hesitant to make that confession.

  “You had decided to get out,” she said. “To quit the squad. To let somebody else walk up on the bombs from now on.”

  “And then I came outside, so scared I almost couldn’t walk, and I saw those kids. They had them lined up on the sidewalk across the street. They were holding hands. Just this long line of little kids. It was all some great big game to them. Being outside, watching the fire trucks, and the patrol cars, listening to the sirens. A game. Except they were almost dead. All of us were almost dead. If I hadn’t been there—”

  “Someone else would have done it,” Robin interrupted.

  Those were the same words he had been saying to himself. Only they didn’t work any better with Robin saying them than they did when he had.

  “But I was the one who was there. The one whose hands were in the guts of that...monster.” He didn’t tell her about the second initiator. He wasn’t sure she would understand. And he knew it would make her more afraid.

  “It doesn’t have to be you,” she said.

  “And what if one of those kids on the sidewalk had been ours? Would you have wanted me there? Or would you still be able to tell me just to walk away?”

  Her pupils dilated a little, maybe in shock that he would ask her that. They had never even talked about having children. Maybe he was making an assumption that was way off base. He came from a big family, so he had taken it for granted that he would have kids. Lots of them. Maybe Robin, who had been orphaned so young, didn’t want children. He knew she wouldn’t want them if he was still in the business of separating detonators from bombs when their kids arrived. And remembering those small, shining faces that morning, he couldn’t blame her.

  “Jeff Matthews had kids,” she said softly. “Who thought about taking care of them when he died?”

  They all had, of course. Everyone on the squad bad pitched in to play surrogate dad. Jeffs kids had probably been to more ball games and carnivals and fishing trips in the last year than they’d ever been to in their entire lives. None of it made up for the fact that they no longer had a father.

  “I don’t have any answers,” he said.

  That was one thing he had finally realized. There were no easy solutions for what lay between them. He was good at what he did. People had even said through the years that he was the best. He wasn’t sure he believed that, but he did believe the skills and experience he brought to the job were important.

  Those were needed. So he was needed. And if he had ever doubted that, all he had to do was remember the little kids that had been lined up on the sidewalk that morning.

  And what about his children? His and Robin’s? Children who would never be born if he didn’t give up his job. Robin would never bring a child into this world to have it suffer the loss she had suffered. The loss Jeff Matthews’ kids had suffered. Jared understood that. There just didn’t seem to be anything he could do about it. Nothing he could say to change her mind. Or his.

  “I better let you get some sleep,” he said instead of trying. He could tell by her face she hadn’t been expecting that. He supposed he was just running away again. She had accused him of that, but he couldn’t bear the endless repetition of the same old arguments.

  It didn’t matter that he finally had a lot more insight into hers than he used to. Because if he did leave the squad, of course, that would only be another form of running away. He would always know that. And, he thought, so would she.

  “I have another long day tomorrow,” she said.

  “Christmas Eve.”

  She had promised she’d think about spending Christmas with him, but he didn’t ask her what she’d decided. She knew how to reach him. He’d done enough begging for one day.

  “I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said, the inflection questioning, despite his resolve. He stood up, his eyes finding her face. She nodded, but he couldn’t tell if that was permission or resignation. “Unless you don’t want me to.”

  And then he held his breath. What a dumb-ass thing to say, he thought in disgust. Don’t issue ultimatums, he had told himself over and over. Don’t force her to give answers, because he knew he might not like them when she did. And yet here he was, giving her the opportunity to tell him she didn’t want to see him again.

  “Things will be really hectic during the next few days,” she said. “I told you that.”

  He nodded, disappointment crawling through his stomach, but he didn’t release her eyes.

  “I’ll be in and out,” she continued. “I have meetings all day tomorrow, and there’s the mayor’s reception tomorrow night.”

  “Want me to leave a message?”

  “That would probably be best,” she said.

  He nodded again and then forced his feet to move. Not toward the bed, where he wanted to go, but toward the door.

  “Come put the chain on,” he said when he reached it.

  “I will,” she promised.

  “Sleep tight,” he said.

  He had already opened the door when her voice stopped him. “Thanks for the foot massage. It helped.”

  “Get some boots,” he ordered softly. Being bossy again.

  “Maybe I’ll just become a card-carrying End of the Worlder,” she said. “I’d fit right in.”

  Puzzled, he glanced back at her. She was smiling. He shook his head.

  “They wear sandals,” she explained. “Even in the snow.”

  “I guess if you bel
ieve the world’s coming to an end, you don’t worry much about catching a cold. You, however...”

  “I know,” she said, still smiling.

  “I’ll call you,” he said again. Unnecessarily.

  This time she didn’t stop him. He closed the door behind him and leaned against it for a moment. Still reluctant to leave. Maybe it was something to do with thinking about Jeff’s kids. Or thinking about his. His and Robin’s.

  He took a breath and expelled it noisily. At least that wasn’t something he had to worry about. Leaving some little kid without a father like Jeff had. And until he figured out what he was going to do, that thought was somehow very comforting.

  Chapter Five

  “So, did you get everything done?” Katie asked.

  Robin looked up from the ginger ale she was nursing and realized she’d been a hundred miles away again.

  “I think so,” she said noncommittally.

  She had methodically crossed items off her list during the day, determined Whitt would have no grounds for complaint. And if he hadn’t insisted she be here tonight, she would have skipped this reception. In this mob no one could possibly know whether or not Senator McCord’s niece was in attendance.

  She fought the urge to slip her right foot out of her high heel and rest it on the carpet. Probably no one would notice that, either. Just as she hoped they wouldn’t notice that the only cocktail dress she had brought with her was now too tight in the waist. She had had to struggle to get the zipper up, afraid the whole time that the seam would give.

  She was either going to have to invest in some new clothing for the campaign or tell Whitt and Uncle Jim that she was bowing out. Even thinking about doing that still felt like a desertion. Robin had worked for Jim McCord, in one capacity or another, for over ten years, and she couldn’t imagine not being involved in his long-anticipated campaign for the presidency.

  She knew Whitt wouldn’t want her to be in front of the cameras much longer, however. Having McCord’s pregnant, unmarried niece as his spokesperson wasn’t exactly the tone she thought Emory was trying to set, but there were other behind-the-scenes jobs she could do. That wasn’t really the problem.

  The problem was her uncle. She knew how he would feel about her pregnancy and her decision not to marry. She dreaded having to tell him, which she would have to do fairly soon. The sooner the better, actually. Jim McCord valued honesty, one of the many lessons he had tried to instill as she and Levi grew up.

  “I don’t envy you,” Katie said.

  Robin must have looked startled, unconsciously fitting those words, which had seemed so apt, into what she had been thinking.

  “Dealing with everybody who wants a piece of McCord,” Katie explained. “It must be difficult deciding who’ll get one.”

  “Sometimes. I always know what Uncle Jim will think is important. Sometimes I’m not sure about Whitt’s priorities.”

  “That should be easy,” Katie said. “Where the votes are.”

  “I think I heard votes mentioned,” Whitt Emory said, his voice coming from behind Robin.

  “Robin was trying to figure out how to spread the senator’s time around. I was just offering a suggestion to schedule him wherever the most potential voters are gathered,” Katie said.

  She smiled at Whitt, as Robin half turned to include the campaign manager in their small circle. Katie’s explanation hadn’t exactly reflected the discussion they’d been having, but the impression she had just given Emory wasn’t worth correcting. If Katie needed to score points with the campaign manager, it couldn’t matter to Robin. Jim McCord was still in charge, and Robin’s position on his staff was secure as long as she wanted it to be. Blood was always thicker than water. In Texas, at least.

  Fly-over country, she thought, remembering Jared’s teasing comment last night. That’s all it would be for these two as well. For Robin and her uncle, however, the Altamira and family were the heart of their lives. Bonds that would never be broken. Not even if her pregnancy by a man she refused to marry wasn’t exactly what the senator had had in mind for his niece’s future.

  Robin would willingly step out of the campaign if she felt she were an embarrassment to her uncle. Or when it was time for someone with more experience to come in. However, she didn’t have to worry about being maneuvered out by someone like Katie.

  “Did you get everything worked out?” Whitt asked.

  “Some function is on the senator’s schedule for almost every hour he’ll be in New York. He’s going to hate me,” Robin said.

  Whitt laughed. “Not if he wants to go full bore into Iowa.”

  “I think you can count on that,” Robin said.

  “A lot’s happened in the last few weeks. I just wondered if any of it has affected his commitment.”

  McCord’s life had been threatened. He had even had to disappear for a few days. Only Sheriff Richards’ assurances that her uncle was all right had kept Robin from rushing home then. But that was behind them now, Robin reminded herself. Jake Edwards, the brother of the man McCord had had to kill thirty years ago, was dead, no longer capable of seeking revenge for McCord’s decision to kill a madman. A madman who was also his commanding officer.

  As far as Robin could tell, however, all that had happened hadn’t weakened Jim McCord’s resolve. If anything, the attempt to force him out of the presidential race had strengthened it.

  “I don’t believe you have to worry about that,” she said.

  “If McCord is going to back out,” Whitt said, “I’d like to know in time to line something else up.”

  “And since you will surely be one of the first to hear if he has...” Katie suggested, smiling at her.

  Katie seemed especially vibrant tonight, Robin thought. She was wearing a brilliant red silk pantsuit, which only someone with her exotic coloring and delicate features could have carried off without looking cheap. She didn’t. She looked exquisite.

  She could probably even manage a deep breath without worrying about splitting a seam, Robin acknowledged ruefully. Her heels probably weren’t half a size too narrow at the end of the day. A woman she should envy, Robin decided in amusement.

  “Well, well, well,” Katie said. The words had been uttered almost under her breath, their inflection clearly admiring.

  Reluctant to turn around and expose Katie’s fascination with whoever was there, Robin watched her colleague’s face instead. The pupils of her eyes, focused on something over Robin’s shoulder, had expanded slightly, and her lips slanted upward enigmatically.

  Whoever she had seen must be something, Robin thought, her own mouth tilting in response to that look. It had been a standing joke, especially among the males on the staff, that Katie was very interested in men. Her radar managed to immediately locate the best-looking specimen in any room. More often than not, she ended up spending the evening with him.

  “Robin?” Jared said.

  Robin recognized his voice at once, despite the fact that she hadn’t expected to hear it here. And when she turned, she realized it was no wonder-Katie had been wide-eyed in admiration. The elegance of the black tux and gleaming white evening shirt. Jared was wearing made him seem almost a stranger. An incredibly handsome stranger, she acknowledge, suddenly dry mouthed.

  “What in the world are you doing here?” she asked.

  “The department always gets a few invitations to things like this. I requested one of them for tonight.”

  His eyes seemed to be asking if she minded. And she couldn’t quite decide whether she did or not. He was here because she had told him she. would be, which should be flattering. And it was. But it was also undeniably awkward.

  Or maybe it just felt awkward because she was wearing last year’s too-tight dress, her feet were killing her and Jared had shown up looking like this. Or maybe it was awkward because Katie was still sizing him up with a great deal of interest.

  Was she jealous? Robin wondered. And if so, what right did she have to be jealous? She was the one
who had broken off with Jared. Her choice. Her decision. It was one she still couldn’t regret, given their situation, no matter how hungry for his, touch he could make her feel. Just by saying her name. Just by showing up here tonight.

  “I’m Katie Chang.” Katie’s beautifully shaped hand was extended across the circle the four of them were now standing in.

  Embarrassed, Robin hurried over the introductions she’d been slow to make. “This is Jared Donovan,” she said, just as Jared reached out to take Katie’s fingers. His long dark ones seemed to swallow them. “He’s an old friend,” Robin added. “And this is Whitt Emory, Jared. Uncle Jim’s campaign manager.”

  “Department?” Whitt asked, extending his own hand.

  “As in police.” Jared said, disentangling his fingers from Katie’s reluctant-to-release ones in order to take Whitt’s.

  “You don’t say?” Emory exclaimed, his eyebrows rising.

  Jared nodded without elaborating. He didn’t consider his job grounds for social chitchat, although most people responded just as Whitt had when Jared told them what he did. A little surprised. A little...something, anyway. Robin had never been sure what that tone, the one Whitt had used, indicated, but Jared had undoubtedly heard it a thousand times.

  “Here in New York?” Whitt asked.

  “That’s right,” Jared agreed, still reticent.

  “How interesting,” Katie said.

  Jared’s eyes came back to her face, and he smiled at her Maybe it wasn’t the same one he’d given Robin last night when he’d told her she was a long way from Texas, but this one, directed at someone else, also caused something to move inside her chest. And the reaction was surprisingly painful.

  “Not unless you’re interested in paperwork,” Jared said.

  “Is that what you do?” Katie asked, almost managing to make the question sound innocent. “Just paperwork?”

  “Most of the time,” Jared acknowledged, smiling again. “It’s only exciting in the movies and on TV, I’m afraid.”

  “Jared’s on the bomb squad,” Robin said.