Killer Countdown (Man on a Mission 6)

“Would you?” Shane asked now. “We’ve got that policy paper she can use as a starting point, and the press release you wrote two months ago. If she can put something together for my review by tomorrow night, that would be great. I know tomorrow’s Saturday, but—”

“Don’t worry,” Mike interrupted. “She’s not doing anything special.”

“How do you know that?”

“Well, uh...” Mike fumbled for words. “Because she and I were just going to hang out together. Maybe take in a movie. But this is more important.”

Well, well, well, Shane thought, amused. His press secretary and his speech writer. They were perfect for each other, he realized now, but it had never occurred to him before. “If you’re sure Denise won’t mind...”

* * *

Carly gripped the counter, holding back the tears with effort. You can’t, she told herself. You can’t ask Shane to be less than the man he is. Less than the man you love.

She’d come close this evening. Horribly close. Just because she was afraid of losing the man she loved—again—she’d wanted to diminish him. Wrap him up safe and secure and tuck him away where he couldn’t get hurt so her heart wouldn’t break.

But just as he’d known he couldn’t ask her not to take any risks, especially where her job was concerned, she couldn’t expect that of him, either. In his mind this was a necessary risk, because by his very nature he was a protector...and because he loved her.

Carly wiped the tears from her eyes with the heels of her hands—she’d cried more in the past week than she’d cried in the eight years since...Jack. Since she’d encased her heart in ice after Jack’s death.

Loving Shane had melted that ice. Had drawn her emotions back to the surface from the dark place where she’d buried them, and now the least little thing seemed to set her off.

Not that this was a little thing. It wasn’t. But she had to love Shane as he was. Which meant being vulnerable again. Which meant letting him do what he needed to do because of who he was. Which meant...risking everything.

On that note she set her mouth in determined lines. Then she went looking for Shane.

* * *

Shane hung up the phone on his fifth and last call. After locking down the speech invitation with Mike, he’d called the four men on the suspect list. He’d let them know exactly where he’d be Sunday afternoon. Exactly when. One of them—he didn’t know which one—would get the ball rolling. Would contact the would-be killer...and set Shane up to be assassinated.

Which one? he wondered. It hurt not knowing because he’d trusted these men. Laughed with them. Strategized with them. Except for Terry, they’d all been with him since the beginning. Not that long as political careers went, but still...

He didn’t know what—if anything—the FBI had uncovered so far on the four suspects. Suspects? he asked himself, but was forced to admit that’s what they were. And that reminded him that when this was all over, things wouldn’t be the same. There was no way the other three wouldn’t learn they’d been suspected, right along with the man who was guilty. Which meant it would be a long time before trust would be restored...both ways. If it could ever be restored.

A tap on the door interrupted his thoughts, then the door opened and Carly stood there. “We need to talk,” she said. And from the deadly serious expression on her face, he feared the worst, mentally girding his loins against what he thought she might try to convince him to do.

“Come on in.”

She walked in, not bothering to close the door behind her. She glanced around the room, then took a seat in front of the desk, facing him. “Why do I feel as if I’ve entered a time warp into the future?” she asked, her lips curving upward with a touch of humor.

Shane’s lips twitched in response. “Maybe because Niall was always hooked on sci-fi and fantasy?” He relaxed slightly. “Niall and I used to tease Liam that he was born in the wrong time—that he was a swashbuckling twelfth-century knight-errant who somehow ended up in the twentieth century. But Niall was just the opposite. He was born to roam the stars as a kind of intergalactic Wyatt Earp, bringing law and order to lawless galaxies...but the technology doesn’t exist yet.”