She wouldn’t even tell him that she could have done without the Girl Scout comment, that she had enjoyed being a Girl Scout and she didn’t see what was wrong with them.
“We’ll sit you down with a table arrangement,” she continued, balancing the schedule folder, calendar and her briefcase as she walked. “Even if you ordinarily are the sort of man who requires a seven-piece place setting with every meal, I’m sure you could use a refresher on manners. Conditions at the Baghdad prison were primitive, I’ve heard. By the way, I wanted to tell you that I saw you on television as you were taken to the Wiesbaden military hospital and, literally, I felt tears of pride welling up in my eyes. You really prove that Americans can overcome any...hey, where’d you go?”
She whirled around to see...nothing.
Nothing but an empty hallway that stretched the length of two city blocks. The State Department was big, with a total of twelve acres of office space spread out over eight floors.
If he had taken a wrong turn, it could take her hours to find him!
“Lieutenant McKenna?” she asked. “This way. I’m over here! Lieutenant? Lieutenant?”
Master of escape.
That’s what the news had called him, noting that after months of planning and several failed attempts, McKenna had slipped all thirty-two of his men out of the jail without a trace and had even gotten a day’s lead on the manhunt that followed.
He hadn’t taken a wrong turn—he had given her the slip.
But the corridors of Washington office buildings were Chessey’s home turf, and she had an advantage. She stilled. And listened. And shook her head.
The telltale echo of cowboy boots treading on stone-cold government-issue linoleum.
“Lieutenant McKenna, you get back here right now!” she exclaimed, trotting down the hall at the fullest speed possible in her heels. She ignored the shocked stare of a secretary coming from the opposite direction. She knew, she knew...as a Banks Bailey she was ordinarily so dignified.
But dignity shmignity, that man was her future! Without him, she’d be stuck in a basement closet of an office until she reached the age of retirement! Without him, Winston Fairchild III would never look at her again and he’d certainly never bring his suitable self to the Banks Bailey compound for holidays. She’d still be the black sheep of the Banks Baileys, without the approval and respect of her family. This job, this lieutenant, this assignment meant a lot.
“Lieutenant McKenna, you’re not leaving! We have work to do.”
She ran down the stairwell at top speed. With a half-dozen frantic excuse me’s, she pushed her way through a crowd of schoolchildren and their chaperones gathered in the Diplomatic Lobby. Out on Twenty-third Street, she looked left and right.
And then she saw him.
“Lieutenant McKenna, I said we have work to do!”
She trotted after him, regretting her heels, desperate not to lose him as a Japanese tourist group clogged the sidewalk. He walked away with no more regard for her frantic shouts than he did for any other street distraction. The cabdriver leaning on his horn and bellowing at the driver in front of him. The jackhammer grinding cement on the next corner. The youth with a boom box playing heavy metal.
Still, he was not the type she could lose in a crowd. He stood out—taller than anyone on the street He wore a pair of worn-out jeans that fit low on his hips and a button-down shirt that showed the wrinkles of a twelve-hour transatlantic flight. It was white—the kind of white that reflects that dazzling sun. He had a muscular build, surprising given his time in prison, but Chessey remembered reading somewhere that he had required all his men to maintain absolutely peak physical conditioning. And had required nothing less from himself. His hair was cut a little longer than regulation. His skin was ruddy and sunburned, which only accentuated his blue eyes.
He garnered his share of second looks from women in his path, but not a flicker of recognition since, courtesy of an Army shave and a haircut, he bore little resemblance to the ragged hero who had led his men to the Turkish border.
“Derek McKenna, you stop right there!” Chessey shrieked, grabbing his elbow as he came to a stop at the crosswalk.
He glanced at her with a sorrowful expression that made her back off. Made her think, right then, right there, that maybe it was cruel to take a man like this and parade him around the country for a month. But then he followed his haunted-eye look with something approaching a leer and then pridesmashing dismissal.
“I’m not going with you,” he said. “Save your animal-training tricks for some other sucker.”
“They’ll call the President.”
He tilted his chin thoughtfully. For a scant second, as the sun played across his face, Chessey thought she saw warmth and longing in his eyes. On the other hand, it could have simply been glare.
“I’ve been giving the President some thought. I don’t think he will reinstate me. He can’t afford the bad publicity. So I’m going to do what I’ve wanted to do since the moment I got captured by the Iraqis. I’m going home.”
The light changed. He stepped forward. She held her ground in front of him. He took another step, invading her space with the natural scent of bay leaf and musk. She tilted her chin up, balanced on her toes, rued the fact that even with her heels he was a good six inches taller than she was. It was hard to look like an authority figure when she could hardly keep her balance and she still had to look up at him.
His mouth was scant inches from her, his sweet minty breath a whisper at her forehead. She wondered if he was going to kiss her again.
She wondered what she would do if he did.
“You have a problem with me going home?”
“I do. What about the enlisted men?” she asked, remembering how he had been thrown off balance by the general with just the same concern.
His eyes narrowed.
“What about ’em?”
“Their morale.”
“If the men don’t know that their officers will stick by them, then the military’s got a bigger problem on its hands than I could ever solve in a month of stump speeches.”
“You can’t go!”
She didn’t realize until he looked at his chest that her fingers, perfectly manicured in ballet slipper pink, were splayed along the rock-hard definition of his chest muscles.
“Darlin’, I didn’t know my kiss could affect you like this,” he drawled.
She jerked as if he were a hot stove. He reached to the sidewalk and handed her the schedule she had dropped. He lingered a nanosecond at her long legs.
“I’m just trying to do my job,” she said stiffly. “It’s nothing personal.”
He stood up.
“Then you’ll understand that it’s nothing personal, but I’m going home.”
He stepped around her and walked across the street.
“But you’re a hero!” she cried, scrambling to keep up with him.
“I’m done with this hero business. Want nothing more to do with it.”
He held his hand straight in the air. A cab screeched to a halt in front of him.
“Where are you going?” Chessey demanded.
“The airport. It’s faster than walking to Kentucky.”
“I’m going with you.”
“Oh,