From the Heart (38 page)

“You shouldn't be alone.” He was frowning at her when she handed him his drink.

“Why not?” With a laugh, Jessica tossed back her hair. “I couldn't stand being treated like an invalid. I got enough of that in the hospital.” Sipping her drink, she turned to the fire. She wouldn't let him see the hurt. Every day that she'd been confined in that sterile white room she had waited for his call, watched the door for his visit. Nothing. He'd cut himself out of her life when she'd been too weak to prevent it. Slade stared at her slim, straight back and wondered how he could leave without touching her.

“How are you?” The question was curt and brief.

Jessica's fingers tightened on her glass.
Do you care?
she wondered. She sipped the vermouth, making the words slip back down her throat. Turning, she smiled at him. “How do I look?”

He stared at her until the need was a hard ball in his stomach. “You need to gain some weight.”

She laughed shortly. “Thank you very much.” Needing to do something, Jessica wandered over to toy with the keys of the piano. “Did you finish your book?”

“Yes.”

“Then everything's going well for you?”

“Everything's going just dandy.” He drank, willing the liquor to dull the ache.

“Your mother liked the figure?”

Confused, he drew his brows together. “Oh, yeah. Yeah, she liked it.”

They lapsed into silence, accented by the crackling wood and drifting notes. There was too much to say, Slade thought. And nothing to say. Again, he cursed himself for not being strong enough to stay away.

“You've gone back to work?” he asked.

“Yes. We've had a stream of customers since the publicity. I suppose it'll taper off. Have you resigned from the force?”

“Yes.”

Silence fell again, more thickly. Jessica stared down at the
piano keys as if she were about to compose a symphony. “You'd want to tie up loose ends, wouldn't you?” she murmured. “Am I a loose end, Slade?”

“Something like that,” he muttered.

Her head came up at that, and her eyes fixed on his once, searingly. Turning away, she walked to the window. “Well then,” she whispered. With her finger, she drew a maze on the glass. “I think I've told every proper authority every proper thing. There was a steady stream of men in dark suits in my hospital room.” She dropped her hand to her side. “Why didn't you come to see me . . . or call?” Her voice steadied as she stared at the reflection of the lamp in the window. “Shouldn't there have been a final interview for your report—or is that why you came tonight?”

“I don't know why the hell I came,” he tossed back, then slammed down his empty glass. “I didn't come to see you because I didn't want to see you. I didn't call because I didn't want to talk to you.”

“Well, that certainly clears that up.”

He took a step toward her, stopped himself, then thrust his hands in his pockets. “How's your arm?”

“It's fine.” Absently, she reached up to touch the wound that had healed while she thought of the one that hadn't. “The doctor says I won't even have a scar.”

“Great. That's just great.” Slade pulled out a pack of cigarettes, then tossed it on a table.

“I like the idea,” Jessica returned calmly. “I'm not fond of scars.”

“Did you mean what you said?” It rushed out of him before he could think to prevent it.

“About the scar?”

“No, not about the damn scar.” Frustrated, he dragged a hand through his hair.

“I try to mean what I say,” she murmured. Her heart was in her throat now, so that she forced herself to say each word carefully.

“You said you were in love with me.” Every muscle in his body tensed. “Did you mean it?”

Taking a deep breath, Jessica turned back to him. Her face was composed, her eyes calm. “Yes, I meant it.”

“It's your warped sense of gratitude,” he told her, then paced to the fire and back again.

Something began to warm in her. Jessica felt simultaneous sensations of relief and amusement. “I think I could tell the difference,” she considered. “Sometimes I'm very grateful to the butcher for a good cut of meat, but I haven't fallen in love with him . . . yet.”

“Oh, you're funny.” Slade shot her a furious glance. “Don't you see it was just circumstance, just the situation?”

“Was it?” Jessica smiled as she crossed to him. Slade backed away.

“I don't want any part of you,” he told her heatedly. “I want you to understand that.”

“I think I understand.” She lifted a hand to his cheek. “I think I understand very well.”

He caught her wrist, but couldn't force himself to toss it aside. “Do you know how I felt, having you unconscious—your blood on my hands? Do you know what it did to me, seeing you in that hospital bed? I've seen corpses with more color.” She felt his fingers tremble lightly before they dropped her wrist. “Damn it, Jess,” he breathed before he spun away to pour himself another drink.

“Slade.” Jessica wrapped her arms around his waist. Why hadn't she thought of that? she demanded of herself. Why hadn't she realized that he would blame himself? “I was the one who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Don't.” He put his hands on hers, firmly pushing them away. “I've got nothing for you, can't you understand? Nothing. Different poles, Jess. We barely speak the same language.”

If he had faced her, he would have seen the line form between her brows. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Look at this place!” He gestured around the room as he whirled to her. “Where you live, how you live. It's got nothing to do with me.”

“Oh.” Pursing her lips, she considered. “I see, you're a snob.”

“Damn you, can't you see anything?” Infuriated, he grabbed her shoulders. “I don't want you.”

“Try again,” she suggested.

He opened his mouth, then relieved his frustration by shaking her. “You've no right—no right to get inside my
head this way. I want you out. Once and for all I want you out!”

“Slade,” she said quietly, “why don't you stop hating it so much and give in? I'm not going anywhere.”

How his hands found their way into her hair, he didn't know. But they were sunk deep, and so was he. Struggling all the way, he gave in. “I love you, damn it. I'd like to choke you for it.” His eyes grew dark and stormy. “You worked on me,” he accused as she gazed up at him, calm and composed. “Right from the beginning you worked on me until I can't function without you. For God's sake, I could smell you down at the station house.”

Pushed as much by fury as by need, he dragged her into his arms. “I thought I'd go mad unless I could taste you again.” His lips covered hers, not gently. But then Jessica wasn't looking for gentleness. Here was the hard, bruising contact she had longed to feel again. Her response came in an explosion of heart, body, and mind so that her demand met his and fulminated. They clung for one long shimmering instant, then they were tangled together on the hearth rug.

“I need you.” The words shuddered from him as two pairs of hands struggled with clothes. “Now.” He found her naked breast and groaned. “It's been so long.”

“Too long.”

Words were no longer possible. Beside them the fire sizzled, new flames licking at wood. Wind rattled at the windows. They heard nothing, felt nothing, but each other. Lips sought, then devoured; hands explored, then possessed. There was no time for a slow reacquaintance. Hungry, they came together swiftly, letting sharp pleasure cleanse all doubts. They remained close, body to body and mouth to mouth, until need drifted to contentment.

Jessica held him against her when he would have shifted to her side. “No, don't move,” she murmured.

“I'm crushing you.”

“Only a little.”

Slade lifted his head to grin at her and found himself lost in the cloudy amber of her eyes. Slowly, he traced the slanted line of her cheekbone. “I love you, Jess.”

“Still angry about it?” she asked.

Before he buried his face at her throat, she caught the grin. “Resigned.”

On a small gasp, she punched his shoulder. “Resigned, huh? That's very flattering. Well, let me tell you, I didn't picture myself falling in love with a bad-tempered ex-cop who tries to order me around.”

That musky, woodsy fragrance of her skin distracted him. He began to nuzzle at her neck, wallowing in it. “Who did you picture yourself falling in love with?”

“A cross between Albert Schweitzer and Clark Gable,” she told him.

Slade gave a snort before raising his head again. “Yeah? Well, you came close. Are you going to marry me?”

Jessica lifted a brow. “Do I have a choice?”

Bending, he nibbled on her lips. “Aren't you the one who says a person always has a choice?”

“Mmm, so I am.” She pulled him closer for one long, satisfying kiss. “I suppose we both have one to make, don't we?”

Their eyes met, then they spoke together. “You.”

“
A
White House source has confirmed the imminent retirement of Secretary of State George Larkin. Secretary Larkin underwent extensive cardiac surgery last week and is currently recovering at Bethesda Naval Hospital. His health is given as the reason for his midterm retirement. Stan Richardson has an on-the-scene report from Bethesda Naval.”

Liv watched the monitor switch to the location shot before she turned to her co-anchor. “Brian, this could be the biggest thing to hit since the Malloy scandal last October. There must be five viable replacements for Larkin. The scrambling's going to start.”

Brian Jones flipped through his notes, running over his timing. He was a thirty-five-year-old black with a flare for clothes and ten years of television news experience. Though he had grown up in Queens, he considered himself a Washingtonian. “Nothing you love better than a good scramble.”

“Nothing,” Liv agreed, and turned back to the camera as control gave her her cue.

“The president had no comment today on Secretary Larkin's replacement. Speculation from a high official lists Beaumont Dell, former ambassador to France, and General Robert J. Fitzhugh as top candidates. Neither could be reached for comment.”

“A twenty-five-year-old man was found slain in his
apartment in Northeast Washington this afternoon.” Brian took over his first segment of their anchor partnership.

Liv listened with half an ear while her mind raced with possibilities. Beaumont Dell was her choice. His aides had given her the classic runaround that afternoon, but she was determined to be parked on his doorstep the next morning. As a reporter, she was accustomed to runarounds, waiting, and having doors shut in her face. Nothing, absolutely nothing, she told herself, was going to stop her from interviewing Dell.

Hearing her next cue, Liv turned to camera three and began her lead-in. In their homes, viewers saw the head and shoulders of an elegant brunette. Her voice was low-key, her pace unhurried. They would have no idea how carefully the minute and fifteen seconds had been timed and edited. They saw sincerity and beauty. In the television news game one was often as important as the other. Liv's hair was short and sculptured around a finely boned face. Her eyes were cool blue, serious and direct. A viewer could easily believe she spoke especially for him.

Her television audience found her classy, a little remote, and accurate. Liv was satisfied with the consensus on her role as co-anchor of the local evening news. As a reporter, she wanted more, much more.

A colleague had once described her as having “that wealthy, Connecticut look.” Indeed, she had come from a well-off New England family, and her degree in journalism was from Harvard. However, she had worked her way up through the ranks of television reporting.

She had started at base pay at a tiny independent station in New Jersey, reading weather and doing quick consumer spots. She had played the usual game of hopscotching from station to station, city to city—a little more money, a little more air time. She had landed a position at a CNC affiliate in Austin, working her way up in her two-year stay to an anchoring position. When she had been offered the co-anchor spot at WWBW, the CNC affiliate in Washington, D.C., Liv had jumped at it. There were no firm ties in Austin, nor, for years, anywhere else.

She had wanted to make her name in television journalism. Washington, she felt, was a perfect place to do it. She didn't
mind dirty work, though her smooth, narrow hands looked as if they were accustomed to only the silks and satins of life. She had a seeking, eager, shrewd brain under the ivory skin and patrician features. She thrived on the fast, close to impossible pace of visual news, while on the surface, she was cool, remote and seemingly untouchable. For the past five years, Liv had been working hard to convince herself that the image was fact.

At twenty-eight, she told herself she was through with personal upheavals. The only roller coaster she wanted to ride on was a professional one. What friends she had made during her sixteen months in D.C. were allowed only a glimpse of her past. Liv kept a lock on her private life.

“This is Olivia Carmichael,” she told the camera.

“And Brian Jones. Stay tuned for ‘CNC World News.' ”

The quick throb of theme music took over; then the red light on the camera facing her blinked out. Liv unclipped her mike and pushed away from the semicircular desk used by the news team.

“Tight show,” the man behind camera one commented as she started past. Overhead, the hot, bright lights shut down. Liv shifted her thoughts and focused on him. She smiled. The smile transformed her cool polished beauty. She only used that particular smile when she meant it.

“Thanks, Ed. How's your girl?”

“Cramming for exams.” He shrugged and pulled off his headset. “Doesn't have much time for me.”

“You'll be proud of her when she gets that degree in education.”

“Yeah. Ah—Liv.” He stopped her again, and she lifted a brow in acknowledgment. “She wanted me to ask you . . .” He looked uncomfortable as he hesitated.

“What?”

“Who does your hair?” he blurted out, then shook his head and fiddled with his camera. “Women.”

Laughing, Liv patted his arm. “Armond's on Wisconsin. Tell her to use my name.”

She moved briskly from the studio, up the steps and through the winding corridors that led to the newsroom. It was noisy with the transition from day to evening shift.

Reporters sat on the corners of desks, drank coffee or typed furiously to meet the deadline for the eleven o'clock broadcast. There was a scent of tobacco, light sweat and old coffee in the air. One wall was lined with television screens, which gave the action but not the sound of every station in the metropolitan area. Already on screen one was the intro for “CNC World News.” Liv headed straight through the confusion to the glass-walled office of the news director.

“Carl?” She stuck her head in his door. “Do you have a minute?”

Carl Pearson was slouched over his desk, hands folded, as he stared at a TV screen. The glasses he should have been wearing were under a pile of papers. He had a cup of cold coffee balanced on a stack of files, and a cigarette burned down between his fingers. He grunted. Liv entered, knowing the grunt was affirmative.

“Good show tonight.” His eyes never left the twelve-inch screen.

Liv took a seat and waited for the commercial break. She could hear the crisp, hard-line tones of Harris McDowell, New York anchor for “CNC World News,” coming from the set at her side. It was fruitless to talk to Carl when the big guns were out. Harris McDowell was a big gun.

She knew he and Carl had worked together in their early days as reporters at the same station in Kansas City, Missouri. But it had been Harris McDowell who had been assigned to cover a presidential cavalcade in Dallas in 1963. The assassination of a president, and his on-the-scene reports had rocketed McDowell from relative obscurity to national prominence. Carl Pearson had remained a big fish in a sea of little fishes in Missouri and a handful of other states until he had hung up his notebook in exchange for a desk in Washington.

He was a tough news director, exacting, excitable. If he was bitter about the different path his career had taken, he was careful not to show it. Liv respected him, and had grown steadily fonder of him during her stint at WWBW. She'd had her own share of disappointments.

“What?” It was Carl's way of telling her to speak her piece once the break had come.

“I want to follow up on Beaumont Dell,” Liv began. “I've
done a lot of legwork on this already, and when he's appointed Secretary of State, I want to put it on the air first.”

Carl sat back and folded his hands over his paunch. He blamed too much sitting at a desk for the extra fifteen pounds he carried around. The look he aimed at Liv was as direct and uncompromising as the look he had aimed at the television screen.

“A little ahead of the game.” His voice was roughened by years of chain-smoking. As she watched, he lit another, though a cigarette still smoldered in his overfilled ashtray. “What about Fitzhugh? And Davis and Albertson? They might question your appointment of Dell. Officially, Larkin hasn't resigned.”

“It's a matter of days, probably hours. You heard the doctor's statement. The acting secretary won't be appointed permanently; Boswell's not the president's favorite boy. It's going to be Dell. I know it.”

Carl sniffed and rubbed a hand over his nose. He liked Carmichael's instincts. She was sharp and savvy despite the born-to-the-manor looks. And she was thorough. But he was understaffed and the budget was tight. He couldn't afford to send one of his top reporters out on a hunch when he could assign someone he could spare more. Still . . . He hesitated a moment, then leaned over the desk again.

“Might be worth it,” he mumbled. “Let's hear what Thorpe has to say. His report's coming up.”

Liv shifted in her chair in automatic protest, then subsided. It was pride that had her ready to object to having her assignment hinge on the words of T.C. Thorpe. But pride didn't cut weight with Carl. Instead, she rose to sit on the corner of his desk and watch.

The Washington anchor was broadcasting from the studio above her head. It was a much more stylized set than the one she had just left. But that was the difference between the local and national news—and the local and national news budgets. After his brief lead-in, the screen switched to the location shot and T.C. Thorpe's stand-up. With a frown, Liv watched him.

Though it was no more than thirty degrees with a wicked
windchill factor, he wore his coat unbuttoned and had no hat. It was typical.

He had a rugged, weather-tanned face Liv associated with a mountain climber, and the streamlined body of a long-distance runner. Both professions required endurance. So did reporting. T.C. Thorpe was all reporter. His eyes were dark and intense, locking on the viewers and holding them. His dark hair blew furiously around his face, giving his report an air of urgency. Yet his voice was clean and unhurried. The contrast worked for him more successfully than flash or gimmicks worked for others.

Liv knew his visual appeal was tremendous. He had the athletic, just-short-of-handsome looks that appealed to both men and women. His eyes were intelligent and instilled trust, as did the deep, well-pitched voice. He was accessible. She knew reporters were put into slots: remote, mystical, omnipotent, accessible. Thorpe was flesh and blood, and viewers could welcome him into their living rooms comfortably and accept his word. And there was the feeling that if the world began to collapse, T.C. Thorpe would report it without missing a beat.

In his five years as senior Washington correspondent, he had built an enviable reputation. He had the two things most essential to a reporter: credibility and sources. If T.C. Thorpe said it, it was believed. If T.C. Thorpe needed information, he knew which numbers to call.

Liv's resentment against him was instinctive. She specialized in the political beat for the local broadcast. Thorpe was her nemesis. He guarded his turf with the ferocity of a dog in a junkyard. He was rooted in Washington; she was still the new kid on the block. And he wasn't giving her any room. It seemed inevitable that when she had a hot lead, he had been there first.

Liv had spent months looking for a viable criticism of him. It wasn't accurate to call him flashy. Thorpe dressed down on the job, wearing nothing to distract the viewer's attention from his reporting. His style was straightforward. His reports had depth and bite, while he remained objective. There was no fault to find in the way he worked. All Liv could criticize him for was arrogance.

She watched him now as he stood with the White House lit in the background. He was recapping the Larkin story. It was obvious he had spoken to Larkin personally, something she had been unable to do though she had pulled all the strings available to her. That alone grated. Thorpe, too, listed prospective candidates for the position. He named Dell first.

Carl nodded behind her back as Liv scowled at the screen. He felt it put a bit more power into her hunch.

“This is T.C. Thorpe, at the White House.”

“Tell the desk you have an assignment,” Carl announced, and drew hard on the butt of his cigarette. Liv turned to him, but his eyes were still on the screen. “Take crew two.”

“Fine.” She swallowed the annoyance that it was Thorpe's influence more than her own that had gained her what she wanted. “I'll make the arrangements.”

“Bring me something for the noon news,” he called after her, and squinted to focus on the next segment.

Liv looked over her shoulder as she opened the door. “You'll have it.”

 

It was eight
A
.
M
. and freezing when Liv and her two-man crew arrived at the iron gates of Beaumont Dell's home in Alexandria, Virginia. Liv had been up since five, preparing her questions. After half a dozen phone calls the evening before, she had elicited a promise from one of Dell's aides that she would be granted a ten-minute interview that morning. A good reporter could learn quite a bit in ten minutes. Sliding out of the crew van, Liv approached the guard at the gate.

“Olivia Carmichael with WWBW.” She flashed her press pass. “Mr. Dell is expecting me.”

The guard examined Liv's credentials, then his clip board, before nodding. Without a word, he pressed the button to open the gates.

Friendly sort, she decided as she climbed back into the van. “Okay, be ready to set up fast; we're not going to have much time.” She was reaching in her purse to take out her notes for a final check as the van wound up the drive. “Bob, I'd like a pan of the house, and one of the gates when we leave.”

“Already got one of the gates.” He gave her a grin as she
smiled back at him. “And of your legs. You've got some great legs, Liv.”