“You want points for that?” Cara demanded.
“It would be nice. A little credit. A little consideration. Maybe a scoop or two. I ran into Ariella. I offered her assistance. And I put her safety and the good of my country ahead of my own interests. She was determined to leave D.C. without notice. I thought it was best to give her a fighting chance at successfully doing that.”
Cara found herself nodding in agreement with his words. She knew from personal experience that there’d been no talking Ariella out of her plans. She only hoped she came back soon. A DNA test was in everyone’s best interest.
Lynn’s demeanor changed. “The White House appreciates your efforts,” she told Max.
“I would imagine you do.” He came to his feet. “I’m not the bad guy here. But I do have a job to do.”
As he left the office, Lynn’s phone rang. Cara quickly took the opportunity to jump up and go after him.
“Max?” She hurried down the hall.
He stopped and turned back, and she canted her head toward her own office.
He followed her inside, and she closed the door. Sure, he’d done the right thing. But he wasn’t completely off the hook.
“Where did you run into Ariella?” she fired off.
“Logan Circle.”
“My apartment.”
“Yes.”
“You stalked her.”
He moved toward Cara, making her heart reflexively race and her breath go shallow. It didn’t seem to matter how hard she fought or how much logic she sent through her brain, over and over again. She was compulsively attracted to Max Gray. It seemed to be embedded in her DNA.
“Really?” he demanded. The distance between them was far too small. “That’s what you think? That I was staking out your apartment on the off chance that Ariella would come by?”
Cara admitted the mathematical odds had been low on that happening. She took a step back, bumping against the edge of her desk.
His eyes glittered meaningfully as he moved again, keeping the distance static. “You can’t think of any other reason? None at all?”
“I told you no, Max.”
“I was there for my watch.”
“We both know that was a ruse.”
“Yeah. We do. But you won’t let me play it straight, Cara. I have no other choice.”
“Your choice is to stay away.”
“That’s not working for me.”
There was a shout in the hallway and the sound of two sets of footsteps going swiftly past.
“We can’t do this here,” she told him.
“When and where?”
“Never and nowhere.”
“Wrong answer.”
“It’s the only answer you’re going to get. I have to go to work, Max. In case you missed it in the papers, we’re having a crisis.”
His tone went suddenly soft. “I’m sorry for that. I truly am.”
“But you have a job to do, too,” she finished for him.
“And I better get to it.”
He brushed the backs of his knuckles against hers, sending a spike of awareness ricocheting through her system, squeezing her heart and tightening her abdomen.
Before she could protest, he’d turned and was gone.
Cara made her way around her desk, dropping into her chair. She gave a reflexive glance at her computer screen, knowing that a million things needed her attention, but the email subject lines didn’t compute inside her brain.
Her hand dropped to her stomach and rested there. She was barely pregnant. If not for her ultraregular cycle and modern, supersensitive home pregnancy tests, she wouldn’t even know it yet.
But she did. And she was. And Max’s baby was complicating an already dicey situation. Max was one of the ten hottest men in D.C. She didn’t need a magazine to tell her that. He was also smart, funny, innovative and daring.
He wanted her. That much was clear. But what he didn’t want, what he’d never wanted and never would want, was home, hearth and family. He’d told her about his single mother, how his father walked out on them, how he was no genetic prize and had no plans to carry on his questionable family legacy.
He’d found his niche in broadcasting. He had an incredible instinct for a story, and he was absolutely fearless about going after it. It didn’t matter if it was in Africa or Afghanistan, flying high in the air or on the bottom of the ocean. He’d chase a story down, and once he caught it, he’d bring it home and broadcast it to the awe and attention of millions of Americans. Max had everything he’d ever wanted in life.
She’d tried to stay away from him from the very start. Given their careers, a relationship was risky during the campaign, foolish after the vote count and impossible now that the president had taken office.
On more than one occasion, it had occurred to Cara that Max might want her for the sole reason that he couldn’t have her. And sometimes, in the dead of night, Cara fantasized about giving in to him, spending as much time as she wanted in his company, in his bed. She wondered how many days or weeks it would take for him to tire of her. She also wondered how fast and far he’d run if he knew the extent of her feelings for him.
For Max, this was just another lark, another fling, another woman in the long line that formed a part of his adventurer, bachelor lifestyle. But for her, it was different. She’d all but given him her heart. And now she was having his baby.
If he’d run fast and hard from the knowledge of her true feelings, he’d rocket away from the possibility of fatherhood. He’d be on the next plane to Borneo or Outer Mongolia.
Cara gave a sad smile and coughed out a short laugh at her musings. In the dead of night, when she fantasized about Max, it was those initial few days and weeks that occupied her thoughts. She glossed over the part where he left and broke her heart. Some days, she actually thought it might be worth it.
Three
The things Max put up with for his job. He’d hacked his way through jungles, gone over waterfalls, battled snakes and scorpions, even wrestled a crocodile one time. But nothing had prepared him for this. He was slope side in the president’s hometown of Fields, Montana, among five hundred darting, shrieking schoolchildren let loose on skis and snowboards.
While the president was growing up, Fields had been a small town, mostly supported by the surrounding cattle ranches. But over the years, its scenic mountain location and pristine slopes had been discovered by skiers and snowboarders. Lifts had been built and high-end resort chains had moved in, fundamentally changing the face of the entire town.
Ranch access roads still lined the highway, but the old-guard cowboys now rubbed shoulders with the colorfully attired recreation crowd. It seemed to Max a cordial if cautious relationship. While the newer parts of town were pure tourism, the outskirts were a patchwork of the old and new. A funky techno bar had been built next to the feed store, while a tavern with sawdust and peanut shells covering the floor shared a parking lot with a high-end snowboard shop.
Max’s cameraman, Jake Dobson, sent up a rooster tail of snow as he angled his snowboard to a halt next to Max. The two men had first worked together at a small, local station in Maryland. When Max had been asked to join the team at NCN, he’d made it clear that Jake coming with him was a condition of the contract. Jake was the unsung hero in every single one of Max’s news stories.
“Another run?”