Protecting His Beautiful Lover (Southern Soldiers of Fortune 3)

Except everything had changed, hadn’t it? She stared across the room to where poor little Ashley looked far too small in that adult-size hospital bed. Her shoulders sagged and she hung her head. If only the kid wasn’t involved. But no. She stopped her thoughts short. No. God, why would she even think something like that? She knew what it was like to be Ashley. Hell, she was Ashley. When she was that age, she’d been the one in everyone’s way with everyone thinking she was nothing but a nuisance. Or at least, that was how she’d been made to feel. She refused to be like her mother. She refused to think of Ashley as a burden, regardless of what it cost her.

“They think you’re too close to the situation to see things clearly.” Clint placed his hand on Tara’s shoulder and gave a small squeeze that was probably meant to be reassuring, but right now all she felt was frustrated. And angry. Mainly at herself.

“Maybe I am.” She shrugged. “But if we can just catch whoever’s behind this, then that will solve the problem. Why don’t you have your guys at SSoF focus on that instead?”

Clint didn’t say anything, just stood there for a beat, then walked over to click on the TV. Grateful for the distraction, Tara did her best to focus on that and not the growing sick feeling inside her that her whole life was spinning out of control and she was powerless to stop it. The news was on and wouldn’t you know it, they were covering the story at her house. Perfect.

The volume was too low for her to hear over the bustle in the ER, but from reading the closed captions across the bottom, it was clear that they’d framed her as some progressive nut who only wanted free love and world peace. She rolled her eyes as she realized the TV was tuned to the conservative station, which had been railing against the legislation ever since it had first been proposed. Arms crossed, she scowled and continued to read the captions, now listing all the reasons why the bill wouldn’t pass. Too liberal. Too expensive. Too hard on local manufacturing.

Her frown deepened at that last one. Huh. Something clicked in her head and she pulled up her emails again, focusing on Jacob Bartlet’s. One of the reasons she’d never gotten along with him was the fact that his family business was one of the largest manufacturers in the area. Her suspicions grew and she started to wonder if he’d been the one to tip off the media, using them as leverage to pressure the board to make their support for the legislation drop. Maybe he’d even…no, he couldn’t be behind the attacks. Could he? She didn’t want to think it could be someone she actually knew, but they needed to consider every possibility, didn’t they?

“Hey,” she said to Clint, gesturing him over to see Bartlet’s bio page from his company’s website. “You should look into this guy. He’s on the board, but I feel like he’s just doing it for good press. I’m pretty sure he’s actually against the bill. And he was the first one to pipe up tonight, saying GGE should drop our public support of the legislation. Could he be the one behind all of this?”

“Maybe.” He gave an aggrieved sigh. “I’ll pass it on to Levon and Noah because, unfortunately, I’m not allowed to investigate any of this.” The words ground out like rocks in a blender, tinged with a level of frustration equal to Tara’s own. He pulled out his cell phone and called it in to the guys. When the call was done, he turned back to Tara, “The guys are gonna look into it.”

Tara glanced over at Ashley, who was thankfully otherwise occupied with the iPad one of the nurses had brought in for her to use. “Since you’re off the official investigation, maybe you and I should start an unofficial one ourselves, eh?”

At first Clint only blinked at her. But then as he seemed to consider the idea more, that small smile of his grew to a full-blown grin. “Maybe we should. That would keep me busy and keep you occupied, since the board won’t let you work on the campaign right now.”

“True enough,” she said, feeling lighter than she had all night. Tara stood and smiled. “Great. Then let’s get started, shall we?”

15

Clint sat outside the headquarters of Bartlet Manufacturing the next morning, determined to get to the bottom of who was behind these attacks before anyone else got hurt. It had been going on too long, and much as he hated to admit it, the slow progress was his own fault. He’d allowed himself to get distracted by Tara and Ashley and playing house with them. Yes, it was fun and way nicer than he’d expected, but that was no excuse for not getting the job done. It was time to get his head on straight and catch the bastard who’d tried to hurt Tara and his daughter.

First up, questioning Jacob Bartlet.

After running the gauntlet of security desk, receptionist, and administrative assistant, Clint was finally escorted back to a cushy corner office with lots of sunny windows and bookcases filled with pricey knickknacks that probably took the poor cleaning staff ages to dust each night.

“Mr. Bartlet,” Clint said, walking into the room with his hand extended. “Thank you for seeing me.”

The fifty-something guy behind the desk gave him a quick chin hike, then swiveled away in his leather executive chair to finish up the phone call he was on. Obviously dismissed, Clint lowered his hand and took the opportunity to look more closely at some of the framed photos hung on the walls. Most of them featured Bartlet hobnobbing with an assortment of powerful politicians and celebrities, grinning and glad-handing. Then there were also a few of Bartlet with women, all pretty and perfectly made up. Given that there was also a family portrait on the wall—Bartlet, a woman who seemed to be his wife, and three teenaged children—he wondered what the man’s wife thought of all the pictures with other women. He imagined being married to a man like that meant turning a blind eye to quite a lot.

“Mr. Buckman,” Bartlet said from behind him. “Sorry about that. Business takes no breaks, you know?” He got up and came around the desk to join Clint near the wall of photos. “What can I help you with today?”

“I had some questions about your past associations with Clean Futures Consortium,” Clint said, rounding on the guy. He was a few inches shorter than Clint, with greying hair slicked back and narrowed brown eyes. That suit he was wearing probably cost more than a month’s rent for the SSoF offices. He took pleasure in the flicker of surprise across Bartlet’s face quickly morphing into uncomfortable wariness. Good. Let the bastard squirm a bit. “I mean, having associations with other organizations that support the same goals yours does isn’t unusual, but the fact that you’re so de

eply involved with them is. I’d think Go Green Energy might consider that a conflict of interest.”

Bartlet’s dark brows drew together. “Oh well, not really.” He stepped back and returned to the desk. “I mean, environmentalism is a small world. Much smaller than people on the outside imagine. I don’t exchange confidential or proprietary information with anyone over there, if that’s what you mean.”

“Huh.” Clint took a seat in one of the chairs in front of Bartlet’s desk, his gaze pinning the other man in his seat. The guys at SSoF had emailed him all the dirt on this guy before the meeting. “It’s interesting you say that, because a former employee of Go Green Energy who now works for Clean Futures says he had lunch with you just last week, and you shared all sorts of things with him.”

“Really?” To his credit, Bartlet barely reacted. The only tell was a tiny muscle in his cheek twitching. “Who is that?”

“John Berger. He worked as an assistant to the former director of Go Green Energy. Started working with Tara Crumb too, before she let him go.”

“Oh. Tara.” Bartlet’s small, smarmy smile raised the hairs on the back of Clint’s neck, along with the same surge of alpha territorialism from earlier. This asshole had no right to even think about Tara, let alone react in that way when her name was mentioned.

Mine.

Clint shifted his weight and tamped those thoughts down fast. “Are you denying the meeting?”

Concentrate, dude. Stay focused on the task. Don’t get distracted now.

Bartlet snorted. “No. Not at all. I just think you’re taking the whole thing out of context. And John Berger is nothing to worry about. In fact, he was one of the best people working at GGE. I was honestly shocked when Tara laid him off. He knew that legislation inside and out and could’ve been a real asset to her in getting it passed. Took John quite a while to get back on his feet after he was let go so unfairly.” Bartlet sighed and tapped his fingers on his desk. “I’m not saying John Berger carried hurt feelings about it, but it did dent his reputation. Made it harder for him to get his next position. Maybe you should do a little more digging into him, while you’re at it.”

The last thing Clint needed was this guy giving him investigation advice and trying to pivot attention off himself. So Clint kept the spotlight directly where it was. “Tell me about the manufacturing process here at your company, Mr. Bartlet. Exactly how expensive would it be for you to retrofit your operations here if this legislation gets passed?”