Double trouble

by Boswell, Barbara

  "Before you write off media consultants altogether, consider this," she injected earnestly. "Pohtical neophytes need advice on how to break the deadlock of incumbency, and a consultant can provide honest assistance there. Sometimes newcomers need to bone up on such basics as grammar and

  diction and the fine points of etiquette, and a good media coach can provide—"

  ''Media coach!" Matt hooted. *'Give me a break! Coaches are for football or basketball or hockey teams."

  *'But the same principle applies," argued Kayla. ''Media coaches give guidance and instruction, just like coaches do for sports teams. Not everyone is bom knowing how to act, dress and talk before the cameras."

  Matt shrugged. "All you have to do is to be yourself on and off camera," he said simply. "What's so hard about that?"

  Kayla regarded him with a mixture of exasperation and awe. He was clearly a natural, whose honesty and self-confidence precluded the need for "coaching." How did she explain that there were others, well-intentioned but less confident, inspired but not inspiring, who really did need extra help? It seemed futile, so she tried another tack. For reasons she didn't stop to ponder, it was imperative that she convince him that she was not creepy, slick or greedy.

  "A good, independent consultant can also keep incumbent politicians from becoming too complacent and out of touch with their constituency. Sometimes, the consultant is the only one who dares speak the truth to politicians who are surrounded by sycophants who 'yes' them to death."

  "Politicians are not always surrounded by fawning yes-men," Matt protested. "I won't tolerate anyone on my staff who doesn't have the guts or the brains to disagree with me.

  "Then you're an exception to the rule. To be honest with you, my opinion of most poUticians mirrors yours of image consultants. But unlike you, I, at least, will acknowledge that there are exceptions."

  Matt arched his dark brows. "You're very outspoken. I'm accustomed to schmoozing and smooth smiles from lobbyists, not straight talk."

  Kayla shifted uncomfortably. "So you don't approve of political consultants or lobbyists?"

  Matt frowned at the edge in her voice and blamed himself for it. Couldn't he hold a simple conversation with an attractive woman without sounding off on something? His younger sister Anne Marie's voice echoed suddenly in his head: "Lighten up, Matt. Can't you make small talk without deUvering a lecture on good and evil, according to the gospel of Saint Matthew Minteer?"

  His eyes swept over Kristina McClure. Her beautiful, appealing smile had faded. He wondered if it was too late to make amends, then decided to try anyway.

  He smiled at her, the famous Minteer smile, which effortlessly won both hearts and votes. "Let's bury the hatchet and move on to something else. Like what a maverick politician and a straight-shooting lobbyist can find to agree upon."

  "That has a Wild West ring to it," Kayla said dryly. "Odd choice of metaphor for a Pennsylvania politician."

  "You think I should work in something about iron and coke and coal and steel?" He was pleased that she was smiling again. And though he was aware that their dialogue bordered on fhTting—flirting/ at a political event!—-he couldn't resist taking the next logical step.

  "How do you feel about dessert? Not as a metaphor, the real thing," he added quickly. "Let's skip the dessert they'll be serving here tonight—it's a tasteless rubbery pudding falsely labeled chocolate mousse, an insult to both chocolate lovers and mousse lovers everywhere. We'll go over to Rillo's for some of their homemade ice cream. How about it, Kristina?"

  He was asking her out! Kayla didn't hesitate for a moment. "I'd love to."

  Later, she could fret about the foolish chance she was taking, going out with a politician while she was in the guise of Kristina. And not just any politician, but one who con-

  demned her livelihood. But for now she was acting on impulse—a rarity for her—and loving it.

  **Come up to the head table as soon as the speeches are finished," said Matt. His deep blue eyes were gleaming. '*Then we'll steal away." ,

  Kayla felt giddy. He made it sound so darkly exciting, as; if they were headed for a secret, romantic rendezvous rather than simply going out for ice cream. "Yes," she said husk-ily.

  He caught his breath, she caught hers and they gazed into each other's eyes for a long moment before the retiring congressman approached Matt and enjoined him to take his seat at the head table.

  Matt turned his head once as he and the congressman made their way through the crowd. He saw that she was still watching him. She looked as dazed and dazzled as he was, and he felt immensely gratified that the attraction was mutual. He smiled, and even though she was halfway across the room from him, she smiled, too. An intimate, answering smile that connected them and promised so much.

  Kayla felt a warm sweet glow stirring within her. She felt lighthearted and sensual and free, so far removed from her normal self that the everyday Kayla—that practical working grind—would have been suspicious of the sudden strange transformation.

  But she was a different person tonight, a playful, happy' Kayla who could think of nothing but Matt Minteer. Why,, she was in love, Kayla decided as she sipped the white winei the waiter had just poured into her glass. Though she^ thought it happened only in songs, movies and books, it had happened to her. She had fallen in love at first sight.

  And from the smoldering, sexy looks Matt kept sending her way, she was deliciously certain that he had fallen for her, too.

  Two

  ^^I've never had such a good time at a poUtical fundraiser," Kay la exclaimed to her nine dinner partners seated at the circular table. Though they had all been strangers when they'd sat down to dinner—only two had even a nodding acquaintance with Kristina—by the time the bad dessert was being served, Kay la felt as if they were all longtime friends.

  During dinner they exchanged jokes, quips and stories, responding to even the niost feeble attempts at humor with roars of appreciative laughter. And their table wasn't the only one to erupt with periodic bursts of hilarity throughout the evening. Everybody appeared to be having a wonderful time. Laughter and conviviality pervaded the ballroom, erasing inhibitions and enveloping them all in a happy glow.

  It seemed perfectly natural when everybody at one of the tables began to sing, despite the absence of a band. Who needed instrumental accompaniment on a night like this? It

  wasn't long before everybody was singing, including the powers-that-be at the head table. If some didn't know the words, it didn't seem to matter. People simply made up their own lyrics. Kayla's table joined in the songfest and she was i right with them, singing vigorously along to a fractured = medley of show tunes.

  When the waiter served the dessert, a glutinous concoction bearing a poor resemblance to any chocolate mousse she'd ever seen, she grinned, remembering Matt's description. And his invitation.

  ''I'm passing on this," she announced, pushing the dish aside. *'I was invited to have dessert later at... at..." She couldn't remember exactly where. ''Some place that serves homemade ice cream."

  Her dinner companions laughed uproariously. At this. point, any time that anyone said anything at all, the instantaneous response was peals of laughter.

  ''Going out for ice cream, hmm? Sounds like a hot date to me," said a jolly, fortyish, state representative from central Pennsylvania. "Who's the lucky guy, Kristina?"

  A hot date for ice cream? Kay la chuckled, amused. But they'd all become such good pals, even if they did call her by her sister's nam^e she saw no reason not to confide the "lucky guy's" identity. She playfully inclined her head toward the head table. "He's up there," she told them.

  "Since all the men but one sitting at that table are very much married, you must be going out with the lone bachelor of the group," said another lobbyist, a young woman about her age. "Matt?"

  "Minteer?" echoed the man across the table from Kayla. "That Matt?"

  "That Matt," affirmed Kayla, sending the entire table into gales of laughter over the rhy
me.

  "I don't believe you," teased one of the state representatives. "Minteer doesn't date lobbyists. If you're really his date, prove it. Go up to him and sit on his lap." A loud dis-

  pute immediately broke out among her companions. Half believed Kayla, the other half insisted she should prove her claim. Kayla was in such a good mood, she decided to indulge them.

  "I'll go over to his table to say hello but I won't sit on his lap," she said, rising to her feet. Strangely, the room seemed to lurch and she swayed, clutching the edge of the table for support. 'Tor a moment there I felt as if I were drunk," she murmured, shaking her head. ''But that's impossible. I've only had one glass of wine."

  "You had at least two or three glasses of water, though," observed the person sitting next to her. "Gotta watch that stuff."

  Again, everyone laughed heartily and Kayla trekked off, amid smiles and cheers. It didn't occur to her to feel shy or unwelcome at the head table. Everybody in this room was so friendly that Kayla felt at home with them all.

  Her reception at the head table was welcoming. "Hello, beautiful lady," chirped the state party chairman. "Would you like to join us?"

  Matt rose to his feet as Kayla approached him. His heart was pounding, and he felt as eager and taut with anticipation as a boy picking up his dream date for the prom. Taking both her hands in his felt perfectly natural to him. "Hello again," he said softly.

  She smiled warmly, her heart in her eyes. "Hi." They gazed raptly at each other. Another round of singing broke out and Kayla chuckled. "You know, usually these political affairs are deadly dull but this is the most fun I've had in ages."

  "Hey, we Pennsylvanians know how to party," boasted the lieutenant governor and the rest of the people at the head table cheered their agreement.

  "I guess I'd better go back to my table now," Kayla told Matt. "Some of my friends didn't believe that you and I are going out for dessert tonight and asked me to prove it by

  coming over to your table and talking to you. A few wanted even more definitive proof."

  She giddily confided their dare. To sit on Matt Minteer's lap.

  Right then and there, Matt audaciously accepted the dare for her. He sat down on his chair and pulled Kayla onto his lap. There was an approving roar from Kayla's table that spread throughout the ballroom. Matt linked his arms loosely around her waist. ''Now everybody in the place knows that you're my girl," he said, his blue eyes darkening possessively.

  "Woman," she corrected automatically. "It's politically incorrect to refer to females over the age of eighteen as girls." A male politician could be excoriated for that lapse; it was a lesson she immediately taught her new clients and continually stressed to the ones who had used her consulting service for a longer period of time.

  "Whatever," Matt growled. At this moment, he was incapable of appreciating the benefits of her tutoring. He was too occupied with appreciating her, warm and soft and feminine on his lap.

  Unable to resist, he moved one hand slowly upward to rest on her rib cage, just below the underside of her breast. With subtle fingertips, he could feel the provocative feminine swell. If she were to shift just a little, the whole soft weight of her would be in his hand. The desire to close that small distance between them—to cup and caress her breast, to take her soft ripe mouth in a kiss that was as hard and hungry as his body—was almost overwhelming.

  Matt was vaguely aware that he was behaving in a manner most unlike himself. In public, he was impeccably proper in the presence of women. "You're too stiff—why won't you loosen up?" had been the constant disapproving refrain of his ex-almost-fiancee, Debra Wheeler.

  Debra had been committed to spontaneous public displays of affection while his own deep natural reserve, cou-

  pled with his reluctance to expose himself and his partner to the attention such behavior would elicit, kept him firmly reined in when an audience was present.

  It crossed Matt's bemused mind that if Debra could see him now, holding Kristina McClure on his lap at this all-star political fest, she would think that he'd been bewitched. Or that he was drunk. But he knew that was impossible. He'd had only one beer and one glass of wine, not enough to even give him a buzz. He certainly wasn't stupid enough to get drunk on a night Uke this.

  Not that he ever drank himself into a state of intoxication. His Great-Uncle Arch's prodigious capacity for drink was known to every member of the family along with old Uncle Arch's well-documented trips to the hospital emergency room for injuries acquired in falls from bar stools, fistfights and a host of accidents. With an example like that, there were no hard drinkers among the younger generation of Minteers.

  So if he wasn't drunk, did that mean he was bewitched? "I think you've cast some kind of a spell on me." Matt spoke his thoughts aloud as he gazed into Kay la's limpid hazel eyes.

  Turning slightly, she laid her hands on his chest, feeling the muscular strength of him. She was achingly aware of his virile pulsing, a vital force that made a syrupy warmth flow through her veins like hot honey.

  '*I was thinking the same thing about you," she said softly. ''I've never felt this way before. Not about anybody. And I—I'm not usually this frank, either," she felt obliged to confess. ''Disclosure is normally such a risk but with you I feel I can say anything, whatever I'm thinking, and not worry about all those male-female games of strategy." With Matt Minteer, love wasn't a risky chance, it was a sure thing.

  Matt groaned. Her sweet confession marked the end of his self-restraint. It was just too much to fight his own in-

  stincts, his own needs. The iron self-control that had been both his blessing and his curse, dissolved. He wanted this woman more than he could ever remember wanting anyone, even Debra. He wanted to kiss her, to touch her, to brand her as his. The presence of hundreds of people was, amazingly, no deterrent at all.

  Matt lowered his head to hers. Kay la watched him, her eyes smoldering with a hunger she didn't think to hide. He was going to kiss her and she wanted him to, desperately. What did it matter that they were at the head table in the hotel ballroom with the party's political elite, a gaggle of lobbyists and members of the media as eyewitnesses? She and Matt were in love, and as that old song went "Everybody Loves a Lover." In fact, somebody had tried to sing a rendition of that very song tonight.

  ''Senator Minteer!" The sharp nasal voice of the waiter pierced the intensely private moment, leaving both Matt and Kayla oddly disoriented. "Sir, do you dig the planet Earth?"

  Already badly jarred by the untimely interruption, Matt could only gape and mutter, "Huh?" Kayla was too dazed to say a word.

  "There is a way to supply energy naturally, without polluting our mother planet " the waiter continued. His.

  voice seemed to be fading in and out. But he was definitely ' talking about—

  ''Windmills?" Kayla repeated incredulously. The room was starting to spin again. Or maybe she was the one who was spinning, whirling by lights and tables filled with loud, laughing people. "I—I'm starting to feel as if I'm on a windmill, going around and around." She stared at Matt in confusion.

  "It's all right, sweetheart," he soothed, standing up and taking her hand. "It's getting too hot m here. There are too many people and not enough air. Let's get out of here."

  She and Matt left the ballroom hand in hand and were approached by a uniformed bellboy as they headed toward the lobby. 'Tollow me, please," he said.

  Kayla and Matt exchanged conspiratorial grins, pleased that this perceptive young man was aiding their escape. They followed him along a quiet carpeted corridor, pausing to steal quick, hungry kisses along the way. The bellboy waited patiently, motioning them onward with a polite, ''ITiis way, please."

  They trailed after him, stopping when he did, in front of a door. "Here's the room," the bellboy said and opened the door.

  ''Oh, the room," Kayla repeated, stepping inside. It was very dark. She heard a quiet, ''Good night," and then the door closed behind her, blocking out the light from the hall. Now i
t was pitch-black.

  "I can't see a thing," Kayla said. "I have my hand right in front of my face and I can't even see it." She heard someone giggle and realized with astonishment, that it was herself. She was as confused by the sound as she was by the total darkness. Heavens, she never giggled!

  "Where are we?" she asked, taking a step into the black void. She stumbled a little. "I could use a Seeing Eye dog," she murmured. "Could we turn on a light?"

  "No." It was Matt's voice, deep and husky and whiskey-smooth. Kayla sensed his presence behind her. "If this is a dream, it's the best one I've ever had in my life and I don't want to wake up. Come here, sweetheart."

  He reached for her, found her a few steps ahead of him and cupped his hands around her shoulders. The feel of her, her softness and her scent, went to his head like hundred-proof whiskey. His mind was reeling; his body, already taut with arousal, hardened to a level of pleasure so intense it bordered on pain.

  He wasn't sure if he'd turned her around or if she had done so herself. Now, however, she was facing him, her

  body touching his, the warm thrust of her breasts against his chest, her thighs brushing his. He couldn't see her, but he could touch her and smell her perfume, a sultry scent that stirred him deeply. He could hear the soft quick breaths she took and knew that she was as aroused as he was.

  "You're my dream girl," he whispered. His lips brushed the top of her head. Her hair was silky and smooth and smelled and felt wonderful. "I mean, my dream woman," Matt corrected himself, chuckling softly.

  "Very good, you remembered," Kay la said with a light little laugh of her own. It was natural and easy and right for her to nestle closer to him. She felt so emotionally attuned to him, that being physically close to him was a necessary and natural extension of this mystical meeting of their minds.