Each Precious Hour

by Gayle Wilson

  Jared hadn’t understood why McCord had told him about the voice he’d heard last night or about what he had thought when he heard it. And he sure didn’t understand why McCord was showing him this. Politicians at the level McCord operated on must be used to stuff like this. Jared would think that someone running for president might get dozens of such warnings.

  “How many threats about your candidacy have you gotten?”

  “All together?” McCord asked. “Hell, I’ve lost count.”

  “And none of them turned out to be serious.”

  There was a long silence before McCord answered. Long enough that Jared’s eyes lifted again from the paper he was holding. McCord was looking down into his glass, swirling the liquid slowly.

  “You think I’m making a mountain out of that molehill,” the senator said, looking up and nodding toward the paper.

  “When you do what I do for a living, Senator, you take any threat seriously,” Jared said, folding the photocopy and handing it back across the table. “No matter how ridiculous it seems. And Robin’s been worried about the approach your campaign is using. She thinks it attracts nuts.”

  “It seems she’s right,” McCord admitted. “What does Doomsday mean to you, Mr. Donovan?” he asked after a moment, repeating the word used in the note.

  “End of the world, I guess,” Jared said, shrugging.

  “Yeah, me, too. And I haven’t figured out how they’re planning to bring that about.” McCord smiled. “They may kill me, but how the hell are they gonna make the world end?”

  “I’LL JUST PHONE ON AHEAD and let ’em know I’m coming,” McCord said. “It’ll shock the staff that I’m gonna be early. I have to confess to a slight propensity to talk too long when I meet folks. Throws my campaign team’s precious little timetable out of kilter and irritates the hell out of the person who does my scheduling,” the senator admitted sheepishly, as he punched in a number on his cell phone.

  “That’s Whitt Emory?” Jared asked.

  They were in the senator’s limo, heading back to the hotel because McCord said he had a meeting with the president of one of the teachers’ unions. The meeting was supposed to start at nine o’clock, and by Jared’s watch, it was twenty minutes till. After a quick assessment of their present location and the traffic, made through the tinted windows, Jared estimated the senator would make it back to the hotel with plenty of time to spare. So whoever had scheduled this one should be pleased, he thought.

  “No, actually, that would be Robin,” McCord said. His eyes, which had been on Jared’s face, were suddenly alight with amusement. It faded as he turned his attention to whoever had answered his call. “On my way,” he said into the phone. “I told you we’d be back in time. ETA in about...?” He paused, looked at Jared and raised his eyebrows in question.

  “Ten minutes,” Jared supplied.

  “In about ten minutes,” McCord repeated into the receiver. Then he listened briefly, his lips quirking once. “Okay. See you then,” he said, expertly flipping the phone closed and slipping it back into his inside coat pocket. “Ain’t technology grand?” McCord said mockingly, his eyes meeting Jared’s.

  In them was an invitation to share his amusement over the public’s perception of him as some backwater Texas rube who was uncomfortable with the trappings of power. Obviously a flawed perception, Jared acknowledged, but one McCord himself had cultivated. And used to his advantage.

  He wasn’t viewed by the public as a member of the old boy network on the Hill, in spite of the fact that he certainly was. He wore his Texas persona with grace and the same easy charm Jared had recognized from the first. It was no wonder that A New Leader for the New Millennium motif was playing so well with the public. McCord portrayed as a breath of fresh air really worked, and it would probably work with voters in the fall.

  McCord had suggested Jared ride with him to the hotel, arranging for his limo driver to take him back to his apartment after dropping off the senator for his meeting. “Saves you cab fare and gives us more time to get acquainted,” McCord had said.

  Since it was near enough to his apartment to walk, Jared hadn’t taken a cab to the bar where the senator had suggested they meet. He hadn’t argued with those arrangements, however. Was he falling under McCord’s spell? he wondered. Or simply desperate for advice on resolving things with Robin? In any case, he had found himself agreeing to the ride, despite the fact it was a roundabout way to get home.

  “It’s been real nice meeting you, Mr. Donovan. I’m gonna be hoping that you and Robin work this out. It isn’t easy raising a baby alone. Not even with a lot of family support, which I can promise you Robin will have, no matter what happens. You don’t strike me, however, as a man who doesn’t want to be part of his son’s, or his daughter’s, life.”

  “I’m not. I’d appreciate any...suggestions you might make, Senator. Any advice on how I can convince Robin—”

  “Call me Jim,” McCord said, interrupting the hesitant request. “And you better know up front that I don’t anticipate being able to change Robin’s mind about the dangers of what you do. Seems to me she’s got a point, son.”

  McCord’s tone wasn’t unkind, but the words weren’t encouraging. And the sentiment was nothing Jared hadn’t already acknowledged. Given Robin’s past, her father’s death, she did, indeed, have a point, he admitted as the limo glided to the curb.

  “Thanks for the drink,” Jared said. The bleakness he felt must have been reflected in his voice. McCord’s big hand squeezed his shoulder, applying enough pressure to be painful.

  “Gotta run,” he said. “Gotta go convince the teachers that I’m the one who can take us all safely into the new millennium. That’s a big responsibility.” Again his eyes were filled with self-mockery. “But we’ll talk some more later, I promise you. Now that I know where to find you.”

  Jared nodded, and McCord opened the door on his side of the limousine. Jared could tell that there were a lot of people standing on the sidewalks, apparently waiting for the senator’s arrival. Given the darkness of the windows and his position on the opposite side of the car, Jared couldn’t identify who they were. He could hear the senator talking to someone as he climbed out. McCord didn’t close the limo door, and the driver was obviously waiting for that signal before moving off.

  His mind working over the things the senator had told him, including the wording of that crudely put together threat, Jared turned to look out the window on his side, where a group of protesters were gathered. They had apparently escaped the control of security, but other than crowding the car, they didn’t appear to be causing any trouble. He could hear their shouts, but even as close as they were standing, those were muffled by the solid construction of the big limousine.

  Jared realized that someone was sliding into the seat beside him. He turned his head toward the door McCord had left open, expecting to see the senator climbing back in. Maybe a mistake in the location of his meeting?

  Instead, he found himself looking into a pair of blue eyes that were more like McCord’s than Jared had ever realized. And why shouldn’t they be? he thought.

  It was obvious that Robin was as surprised to see Jared as he was to see her. She had already turned, apparently planning to get out of the car again, when McCord leaned down, sticking his head in through the still-open door.

  “There’s nothing like talking things through,” he said. “And you two have got some tall talking to do. You got a baby on the way. It’s about time you started thinking more about that than about your own feelings. Drive around awhile,” he suggested. “Gus can’t hear a thing with the partition up.”

  “Uncle Jim—” Robin began. Her voice revealed her anger at being tricked. And she probably thought Jared had had a hand in the tricking.

  “I don’t want to hear it, Robin,” the senator said. “The two of you damn well got yourselves into this mess. It’s your responsibility. And talk’s free,” he added. “It ain’t gonna hurt you to talk to the man.”
/>
  With that, he closed the door of the limo, effectively shutting off her protest. And leaving the two of them alone—together again—in the sudden silence.

  The limousine began to move as soon as McCord shut the door, inching its way among the protesters. Several of them slapped the sides of the car or pounded the roof as it pulled away from the curb and out into traffic. Robin hadn’t looked at Jared again. Not after her first startled recognition.

  “I had nothing to do with this,” he said.

  Her lips set, she turned to face him then, obviously angry. After she spent a moment studying his eyes, however, the tenseness around her mouth relaxed. “I believe you. Only because I know he’s capable of thinking this up all on his own.”

  “He called me,” Jared said, still feeling the need to defend himself, despite her on-target assessment of her uncle’s high-handedness. “He asked me to meet him.”

  “To try to pressure you into marrying me?”

  “I think he had already figured out who needed pressuring before he made that call.”

  Again, her eyes held on his a long time before she nodded. “I guess he’s smart enough to do that as well,” she agreed. “Did he offer you another job?”

  Jared laughed at the accuracy of the question and was relieved to see a little more of Robin’s tension melt away in response to his amusement. Finally, almost reluctantly, her own lips tilted upward at the corners.

  “Not yet,” he said.

  “He will. He likes to manage people’s lives.” Despite Robin’s smile, there was a hint of bitterness in the words.

  “I don’t think I’m equipped to handle any staff openings the senator might have.”

  “And if you were? Would you take a job he offered you?”

  “That’s not exactly how I had planned the rest of my life. I can’t see myself bought and paid for by your rich uncle.”

  “I work for him You think I’ve been bought and paid for?”

  “You’re family. And I don’t know why we’re even talking about this. He didn’t offer me a job.”

  In the back of Jared’s mind, however, was the senator’s comment about running the ranch for him. Technically, that hadn’t been an offer, since McCord said he thought he had someone lined up for that. But still...

  Robin laughed. “He will. So be prepared.”

  “He’s worried about you,” Jared said.

  “He’s always worried about me. Or about Levi. He wants to smooth every bump in the path for us. That’s why he wanted to meet you. So he could figure out how to get us married.”

  “Like putting us together in the back seat of a moving car?” Jared asked. “Do you suppose the driver has instructions not to take us back to the hotel until we kiss and make up?”

  The question charged the atmosphere between them. He could sense the flare of sexual tension engendered by those simple words—kiss and make up. The images they evoked moved, hot and powerful, through his body.

  “I wouldn’t put it past him,” Robin said. “I wouldn’t put anything past Jim McCord. Not once he makes up his mind.”

  “Maybe he’s got a point,” Jared suggested. “I don’t want to be shut out of our child’s life, Robin. I can’t believe you really want that, either.”

  “What I really want is not to have to argue with you about this again. It never gets us anywhere. And it hurts.”

  “I never meant to hurt you,” Jared said softly.

  That was the truth. He had never intended to hurt her or to make her unhappy. He only wanted to love her. That’s all he had ever wanted. To love her. To take care of her and the baby.

  “But you do, Jared. It hurts a lot when you tell me I need to grow up because I don’t want you to die. I don’t understand why you’re so damned determined to put yourself in a position where that might happen on any day you go to work. There are a hundred other jobs you can do. Things that are just as valuable to society. Things that would do just as much good.”

  “I know,” he said.

  Her eyes widened at his admission. Since it was the first time he had conceded that much, he supposed she had a right to be surprised. What she had just said, however, echoed the conclusions he’d come to in the days they had spent apart. There were a lot of jobs he could do that were just as meaningful as what he did now. And not half as dangerous.

  “Does that mean you’re considering something else?”

  Somebody else would do it. Was he egotistical enough to think that if he weren’t there, the bomb squad would cease to function? Or was he addicted, as Robin had suggested a long time ago, to the adrenaline rush walking up on a bomb always produced? You learned to ignore it, to focus totally on the task at hand with a kind of tunnel vision, but still, it was always there. And everyone acknowledged that the feeling could be addictive.

  “I’ve been thinking about some other options,” he admitted.

  “And you never thought to mention that to me.”

  “I didn’t say I’d made any decisions.”

  Her eyes held his. “You’re just...considering them.”

  He wasn’t sure what was in her voice, but he didn’t like it. He hesitated, trying to be honest. Trying not to make a commitment that he wouldn’t be able to keep. Or one that he would resent having to keep.

  Suddenly, Robin tapped on the glass that separated them from the front seat of the limousine. When the driver turned, looking over his shoulder, Robin pointed outside the car, making jabbing motions toward the curb. Obligingly, the driver began to work his way through traffic and over to the sidewalk.

  “What are you doing?” Jared asked. Maybe like McCord, Robin had a meeting to get to. After all, she had obviously gotten into this car in the first place for a reason.

  “I’m getting out,” she said. “Gus will be glad to take you wherever you want to go. It’s been nice seeing you again, Jared. Even if Uncle Jim had to arrange it.”

  “So we’re through talking,” Jared said, angered by her refusal to give him credit for having come this far. He’d thought she would be pleased by his willingness to discuss other options, pleased to hear that he was considering them. Instead...

  “I am,” she said. “This isn’t getting us anywhere, and it’s just too hard. Hoping something will change. Hoping you’ll change. Thinking you’d finally understand how I feel.”

  “I understand how you feel,” he said defensively.

  “But you’re still not willing to do anything.”

  “That’s not—”

  She held up her hand, palm toward him. Her voice was strong enough to override the protest he had begun. “I’ll plead guilty to anything you want to accuse me of,” she said. “Cowardice. Immaturity. Whatever you say. But the bottom line is I can’t live with the other,” she finished softly, her tone almost defeated. “And I just can’t talk about this anymore.”

  “What do we do about the baby?” he asked.

  The limousine was coming to a stop. The corner Robin had chosen was deserted. Jared wondered if she really intended to get out of the car and stand there until a cab came by. This time of year, there was no guarantee of how soon that would be.

  “I don’t know what we do,” she said, her hand hesitating above the door handle as her eyes met his again. “I only know what I’m going to do. I’m going to get this baby here safely, and then I’m going to love it. And raise it the best I can. Other than that, I don’t have any answers. I truly wish I did.”

  As she said the last words, she opened her door and began to climb out of the car. He reached for her, but she evaded his fingers, pulling her arm away. She slammed the door behind her and walked around the front of the vehicle.

  “Damn it, Robin,” Jared said under his breath. Furious, he jerked up the handle of his own door, throwing it open.

  “Robin,” he called, hurrying after her. There was no visible response. She didn’t even slow down, and that made him angrier. You aren’t in Texas anymore. He remembered telling her that. Maybe there were
some places where a woman could go walking alone at night, but not here. Not in this neighborhood, Jared thought, taking stock of his surroundings. “That’s far enough, damn it,” he yelled. “You’ve made your point.”

  He had just gotten the words out when he felt the explosion. The force of the shock wave hit him in the back a split second before he heard the sound. Or felt the searing heat. The pressure of the moving air propelled him forward. By that time his brain had told him to run. After he found his balance, it took him only a couple of long strides to catch up with Robin, who had stopped, riveted in shock.

  He threw himself against her, wrapping his arms around her and carrying her to the ground. Then he lay on top of her, pressing her flat. Using himself as a shield to protect her from the rain of hot metal and melting glass that had already begun falling around them—almost all that was left of the limousine they had been sitting in only seconds before.

  Chapter Eight

  “I’d say you’re very lucky, Mr. Donovan,” the doctor said.

  You don’t know the half of it, Jared thought, wincing as the nurse slid home the needle that would deaden the area around the cut. They would set a dozen stitches in that gash, the doctor had told him, tend to the minor burns, and he’d be on his way.

  Lucky, he thought again, his mind reliving the last few seconds before the bomb, which had apparently been attached to the underside of the limousine, had gone off. They had been having another meaningless, repetitious argument from which Robin had uncharacteristically decided to stalk off. And he had followed her, determined to put her back into that very car.

  The timing was...chilling. There was an incredibly narrow window of opportunity between the time they had gotten out of the limousine and the time the bomb had exploded. So narrow he still had a hard time believing they had escaped.

  Gus hadn’t been so fortunate. When Jared had asked the emergency room personnel, he’d been told that the driver was still in surgery. No one seemed willing to offer much hope that he would survive. Yeah, Doc, Jared thought again, real lucky.