The 14th... And Forever

by Merline Lovelace

  “Will do.”

  Jack nodded a farewell to the detective and followed Angela outside. They stood on the steps for a moment, scanning the multistory parking garage across the street.

  “I hope to heck the attendant knows where we’re parked,” she muttered. “After all these delays, I don’t want to spend another hour searching for the car.”

  They discovered the midnight-blue sedan parked conveniently just inside the entrance. Angela fumbled with the keys, then stretched out her arm and clicked the remote. The door locks snicked loudly. She clicked again, and the engine turned over with a low growl.

  “Remote-control ignition? That’s handy,” Jack commented.

  “It is if you want to make tracks,” she replied with a toss of her head. “And we do.”

  Twenty minutes later, Angela flashed her ID at the Capitol Building security checkpoint, then drove into the underground parking garage reserved for legislators and their senior staff. When she pulled into the choice slot situated right beside the elevator, she sat back with a sigh of relief.

  She’d delivered—finally!—the man the senator had set his sights on. The one both she and her boss suspected could prove the existence of a raw, festering wound in a system that badly needed reform. Now all she had to do was sit back and watch the fireworks.

  She pressed the concealed switch she’d installed along with the remote ignition system. The engine subsided into well-mannered silence. Beside her, her passenger calmly stuffed the papers he’d been studying back into a side pocket of his carryall.

  “You can leave your coat and bag here,” she told him, reaching for her purse. “We’ll make sure that they get to your hotel with you.”

  He joined her outside the car and smoothed a hand down his tie. “I take it that means you won’t be driving me to my hotel?”

  “No, I won’t.” Her rubber soles squeaked on the slick pavement as she led the way to the elevator. “The senator has an engagement this evening. He’s rearranged his schedule to accommodate our unexpected delay, but he can’t miss this appointment.”

  “In that case,” Merritt said quietly, joining her at the polished brass door, “I’d better thank you now for dragging me down, out of the line of fire.”

  She leaned on the elevator button. “You’re welcome.”

  “And for the cannoli.”

  “You’re welcome again.”

  “And for the kiss.”

  Her startled glance flew up to his. The overhead floods cast his face in strong lines and angles. Angela couldn’t miss the path his gaze traced to her lips.

  “For that,” she said with a touch of asperity, “you’re not so welcome.”

  “Did you keep your eyes open?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “When we kissed. Did you keep your eyes open?”

  “Yes. No.” Her hand cut circles in the air. “Mostly. But I told you, whatever that kiss was supposed to prove, it missed its mark.”

  “Maybe we’d better try it with your eyes closed next time.”

  The calm rejoinder took Angela’s breath away. She’d been right about Jack Merritt the first time, she thought in disgust. Despite his serious shoulders, his misty gray eyes, and a kiss that put him off the scale in the technique department, he was entirely too analytical about what had happened between them on the bridge. Too removed from the whirling emotions that had held her motionless. Like so many of his profession.

  “There isn’t going to be a next time,” she said shortly.

  He didn’t appear convinced, but the elevator swished open at that moment. Shifting his briefcase to his left hand, he held the doors for her with a strong right forearm. She brushed past him and stabbed at the button for the second floor.

  As the oak-paneled cubicle whirred upward, he gave her a slow smile, so similar to the one she’d seen on his face when she first opened her eyes at the airport that Angela’s pulse jumped.

  “You know,” he said conversationally, “a major part of my job involves calculating returns on investments. We both invested something in those few moments on the bridge. Something I estimate will return substantial dividends.”

  “Don’t hold your breath,” Angela muttered.

  His smile followed her out of the elevator.

  Chapter 4

  As Jack accompanied his escort through the capitol’s vast, soaring rotunda, a familiar tension gathered at the base of his skull. Once more, the questions that had plagued him since the senator’s phone call played and replayed in his mind.

  What was behind this sudden invitation to testify before his subcommittee? Was the timing just coincidence? Or did Coon Dog Claiborne have a hidden agenda, one that went beyond his proposed legislation on medical reform?

  Tightening his grip on his briefcase, Jack matched his stride to Angela’s as she skirted a knot of gawking tourists and led the way to a broad marble staircase. Despite the tension, or perhaps because of it, he found himself absorbing her fluid grace and sure, confident movements with heightened awareness. She knew her way around the corridors of power...just as she knew her way around police headquarters.

  If no other good came of this summons to Washington, Jack thought grimly, at least it had brought Angela Paretti into his plane of existence, or him into hers. Whatever infinitesimal odds had placed them together on that bridge at that moment in time, the kiss they’d shared owed nothing to chance. He’d wanted it. More than he could remember wanting anything in a long time. She’d wanted it, too. For that brief moment when their breath had mingled and their lips had joined, she’d taken all he gave.

  There’d be a next time. Jack didn’t know where, or when, or how. But there’d be a next time. First, though, he had to beard her wily boss in his den.

  Feeling as frazzled by the day’s events as by the man at her side, Angela pushed open a massive mahogany door and ushered her passenger into Senator Claiborne’s small kingdom. The cadre of aides and interns who manned the outer office peppered them with excited exclamations.

  “Angela! We heard about the shooting!”

  “The senator’s already expressed his outrage to the mayor.”

  “Have you called your mother?” an anxious intern asked. “I don’t want to be the one to tell her about this!”

  “Come on, Angela, give us the details.”

  “I will, I promise. Later. Let me get the senator’s guest settled first.”

  “Dr. Merritt, your office called to verify your arrival,” one of the aides volunteered. “Your assistant couldn’t believe it when I told her what had happened. She asked that you give her a call when you can.”

  “Thanks, I will.”

  With Jack at her side, Angela crossed the acre of red carpet to the inner suite of offices. At their entrance, the senator’s legislative director shoved his glasses up on his forehead and rose. He strode forward, his thin, intelligent face creased with concern.

  “Angela! I couldn’t believe it when I heard about the drive-by shooting. Are you all right?”

  She plunked her purse on the desk reserved for her use during the long hours she waited for her boss.

  “I’m fine, Marc. Still furious at the idea of being used for target practice, and still a little sticky from my whipped-cream facial, but fine.”

  His sandy brows arched, pushing the wire-rimmed glasses higher on his forehead. “Whipped-cream facial?”

  “I’ll tell you about it later.” She made the necessary introductions. “This is Jack Merritt. Jack, this is Senator Claiborne’s legislative director, Marc Green.”

  If the staffer was surprised that she and her passenger were on a first-name basis, he didn’t show it.

  “Dr. Merritt...Jack.”

  Angela watched with some interest as the two men engaged in the curious male greeting ritual that consisted of one part introduction and three parts sizing each other up. While they measured each other, she did a little sizing up of her own.

  They both wore the trappings of a
uthority, she thought, contrasting Jack’s tailored gray suit with Marc’s crisp white shirt and the power suspenders that were the standard uniform for senior staffers on the Hill. Both sported short, ultraconservative haircuts, although Marc’s was designed to disguise his thinning sandy hair, while Jack’s had been ruthlessly trimmed to a neat black pelt. Both carried themselves with a cool confidence that came from having achieved success in their chosen professions.

  Yet for all their similarities, Angela sensed a vital difference in the two men. Jack exuded a quiet, confident authority that came from within. Marc’s authority stemmed from his association with the powerful senior senator from South Carolina. It was a subtle difference, one that Angela was surprised she even noticed.

  Just when and how had she let herself become so darned aware of Jack Merritt as a man? she thought irritably. And why couldn’t she shake the memory of those brief moments in his arms?

  “I feel as though we should apologize for that deplorable shooting,” Marc said smoothly, pulling her away from the kiss that insisted on lingering in the back of her mind. “You wouldn’t have been on that bridge if the Senator hadn’t enticed you into coming to Washington.”

  “Enticed?” Cynical amusement colored Merritt’s deep voice. “How about coerced? Your boss has a way with threats.” .

  The aide permitted himself a smile. “True. I’ll admit that I tried to talk the senator out of bringing you here. As you yourself pointed out, your data is as yet untested. But now that you’re here, I’m anxious to hear what you have to tell us. The system of audits you’ve instituted at Children’s could very well be the model we’re looking to include in our medical reform legislation.”

  “Perhaps the senator should wait until he hears what I have to say before he decides that.”

  If Angela hadn’t worked with Marc Green for almost three years, she might have missed the tiny ripple of annoyance that crossed his face. Obviously he didn’t like the subtle reminder that the senator was the one who wielded the power, not him.

  Score one for the goat.

  “Where is the senator?” she asked, stepping into the breach.

  “He got called to the floor for another vote.”

  “Thank goodness! I figured he’d be chewing his mustache with impatience by now. It took me longer to do that composite than I’d anticipated.”

  “Composite?” Marc slid his glasses onto his nose. “What composite?”

  “I caught a glimpse of the shooter. Barely enough to form an impression, but enough for the police to do a computerized sketch. I’ll tell you about it later. In the meantime, why don’t you take Jack into the boss’s office? I’ll join you in a few moments.”

  She didn’t miss Jack’s flicker of surprise at the way she included herself in the meeting. Nor did Marc.

  “Angela is more than just Senator Claiborne’s driver,” the aide explained, giving her the private smile that always set her teeth just a little bit on edge. “She often serves as his personal confidante and sounding board.”

  With an inner sigh, Angela waited for the sudden speculation she knew would spring into Jack’s eyes at this vague definition of her duties. She’d seen that look often enough since she began working for the senator. Sometimes she could almost hear the wheels clicking as casual visitors and a disappointing number of insiders mentally translated “driver and personal confidante” into “driver and very personal confidante.”

  Once again, Jack surprised her. Instead of the sly speculation she half expected, his gray eyes reflected only glinting approval.

  “It’s good to know our elected officials discuss the issues with someone besides other politicians. I’d hate to think their entire view of the world is through these narrow windows.”

  He was doing it again, Angela thought. Going human on her. If she wasn’t careful, she could really start to like this man. The smile she gave him was a few degrees warmer than she’d intended.

  “Thanks. I’ll be right back. I just have to get the bill for the window replacement to the chief of staff for processing.”

  “And call your mother,” Marc put in. “God forbid she should hear about the shooting from anyone but you.”

  Sighing, Angela nodded.

  The first chore took all of two minutes. She tracked down the senator’s busy chief of staff, gave her the details of the harrowing incident and suggested that she process repayment to the city as soon as possible. The administrator grimaced, knowing as well as Angela how little their boss would want to be under any sort of obligation to the mayor.

  The second chore took considerably longer. Maria Paretti was by turns shocked, horrified, blazingly angry and adamant in her insistence that her daughter drive up to Baltimore immediately so that her mother could see for herself that she was whole and unharmed. It took some doing, but Angela managed to pacify her with a promise to call again later.

  She entered the inner office just as the door leading to a private passageway to the senate floor opened and Henry Claiborne strode in. Not noticing the two men seated at the conference table at the far end of his office, he focused his attention on Angela.

  “Well, well, missy,” he boomed, crossing the room to take both her hands in his. “What’s this ’bout you getting caught in traffic? I never thought I’d live to see the day you stalled out in the middle of the pack.”

  As always, his presence seemed to shrink the massive proportions of his paneled office. Like Jack Merritt, the senator was a big man, if not as compactly muscled. Age and a well-known partiality for sour-mash bourbon had thickened his once spare frame and added to the heavy jowls that had spawned his famous nickname. He hadn’t allowed either time or Mother Nature to dim the luster of his wildly extravagant red mustache, however, or the carroty eyebrows that formed such a startling contrast to his shining bald pate. Now in his early seventies, he was as shrewd as he was ornery and, Angela knew from personal experience, as generous with his personal resources as he was careful with his public trust.

  Over the years, his powerful personality had found an outlet in the outrageously exaggerated image of the Suthrun senator that he turned on and off like a faucet. Angela loved his bombast as much as she loved him. Laughing, she gave his gnarled fingers a gentle squeeze.

  “I know, I know. The unimaginable has finally occurred. I got stuck in traffic. But if that logjam had happened anywhere else but on the Fourteenth Street Bridge, I would’ve found a way over, under or around it.”

  “I can surely give testimony to that.” His blue eyes skimmed her face. “I heard the car took a hit, and you hit the bridge. Did either of you sustain any irreparable damage?”

  “I’m fine, and the, ah, mayor took it upon himself to have the car windows repaired. Don’t worry,” Angela assured him hastily. “I’ve already processed the repayment.”

  “Good, good! Er, have you called your mother?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s a relief, missy! I surely wouldn’t have wanted to be the one to tell her ‘bout this little incident.” His bluff air fading, he gripped her fingers. “You sure you’re all right? No scraped knees or cuts from flyin’ glass?”

  “No scraped knees or cuts, honest. Jack...that is, Dr. Merritt, shielded me when we ducked for cover. He ended up wearing most of the broken glass.”

  “He did, did he?”

  Giving her hand a final pat, the senator turned his keen gaze on his visitor.

  “Well, well, Jack—may I call you Jack?—I invited you to Washington to discuss how your audits might fit into my medical reform program. But your courageous actions today might just give me the ammunition I need to introduce some anticrime legislation. I’m doubly in your debt, sir, doubly.”

  “I wouldn’t call my actions particularly courageous, Senator,” Merritt replied dryly. “But you’re welcome to make what political hay you can of them.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “You do?”

  At the cool lift of his visitor’s brow, the sen
ator chuckled and waved Angela to her usual seat at the conference table. Then he settled his bulk in the well-worn leather armchair he’d occupied for four decades.

  “I know a good bit about you, sir. Everything my staff could put together on short notice.”

  “Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me.”

  Leaning back in his chair, Merritt looked as relaxed as the legislator. For the life of her, Angela couldn’t see anything but mild interest in his face.

  “Did you learn anything useful, Senator?”

  “Indeed I did, sir. Indeed I did. I learned that you left home the day you turned eighteen and served this great nation of ours in the navy. That you went back to school and started as defensive end at Duke. That you turned your back on your grandfather’s communications empire and made your own way in this world.”

  “That’s pretty ancient history, Senator.”

  Smiling genially, the legislator laced his hands over his paunch. “I learned you built up the capital improvement fund at St. Joseph’s in Birmingham through shrewd long-term investments. And that you pulled Children’s from the fiscal fire when you took over there five years ago. I’ve also learned that you’re stirrin’ up a passel of interest throughout the medical community with these audits you’ve instituted at Children’s. I’m looking forward to hearin’ more about those audits, son.”

  The politely couched command hung on the air. Jack took his time responding.

  “As I told you over the phone, Senator, the audits were designed as an internal management tool to help us eliminate waste and increase efficiency. The results weren’t intended for public dissemination...particularly to outside parties who want to interpret the data in ways that will satisfy personal or political agendas.”

  Angela blinked. Merritt certainly didn’t believe in pulling his punches. Most of the men and women summoned into this office were intimidated by the power and authority of the man who occupied it. Not the chief financial officer and senior vice president of Children’s, apparently.

  A reluctant admiration for the man sitting across the table stirred in her chest, adding to the pile of emotions he’d been generating in her since she opened her eyes at the airport.