The Senator's Daughter (18 page)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

K
AT
DIDN
'
T
KNOW
how she'd gotten through the week. She walked through campaign headquarters and sat at her desk numbly. Staffers were buzzing with their usual energy, but the air felt different. The senator had resumed his campaign schedule, and the media had moved on from both Kat and Alex. The story of his disappearance had lasted only one news cycle. Kat was writing policy memos and talking points on the IED bill to lend a hand. She seemed to be the only one who didn't care about the campaign anymore. Everyone else was going about their business, marching forward with life; she was the only one standing still.

They had a daily briefing with the base in Iraq, but the calls had gotten shorter and shorter, with yesterday's not even lasting five minutes. There were only so many ways to say “There's no news. He's likely dead and there's not much more we can do.”

It seemed the only two people who were holding on to hope were Kat and Mrs. Santiago.

“Kat.”

The tone in Crista's voice made Kat pause before she turned in her chair. Her hand flew to her face, tears welling in her eyes.
It can't be!

Crista lowered her gaze. “I'm moving into Alex's office.”

Kat's head snapped up. “How could...?” She barely got the words out.

“Someone has to sign checks and make decisions. If he comes back...”

“If?” Kat put a hand to her stomach, trying to calm the storm raging in her body. There was no point in taking it out on Crista; she hadn't created the circumstance they were in. They had no idea how long it might take for him to be found, and it wasn't Crista's fault they had no leads. “I guess I work for you now,” she said testily and turned to face her computer. She heard Crista leave and blinked against the sting of tears in her eyes.

Kat stabbed at the keyboard, trying to focus on the inane document she was working on. Crista put a hand on her shoulder and Kat turned to see her green eyes shining.

“I haven't given up on him, Kat—I'm just trying to make sure he doesn't come back to a big mess.”

Kat blinked. “He'll be back,” she said, unsure whether she was trying to convince Crista or herself.

“Are you looking forward to dinner at the senator's?”

Kat closed her eyes. She'd almost forgotten about it. Senator Roberts had invited her and Emilia to dinner at his house to meet his other children. She'd been so focused on Alex that she hadn't figured out what was going on with her mother and father. Whenever the senator stopped by campaign headquarters, their conversations were perfunctory, and talks with her mother were no better. Even yesterday, when her mom informed her that the date for dinner at the senator's had been set for tomorrow, Kat hadn't had the energy to get into it. Of course Crista knew about the dinner.

Kat shrugged. “I just hope my mother doesn't get hurt in all this.”

“She still loves him, doesn't she?”

Kat nodded. It was a fact made painfully obvious by the glow in her mother's face every time she talked about him.

“For what it's worth, I think he cares about her. I haven't seen him this happy, ever. And he's down in the polls—usually that makes him unbearable.”

She knew Crista was trying to make her feel better, but somehow the knot in Kat's stomach just grew bigger.

She finished her work with record speed and tore out of headquarters. When she saw the senator tomorrow, she would tell him she was quitting. She didn't care if she didn't have enough to write her book. The book, her faculty job, nothing meant anything anymore. Academic discourse wouldn't change the lives of people like Reza or save those babies on Guam.

She'd parked on the street, and as she reached her car she stopped, her hand frozen on the handle. The back of her neck prickled. Her heart exploded in her chest, the release so intense she wasn't sure her legs would carry her any more. Then his arms were around her, supporting her, just like she knew they would be.

“I knew you were alive,” she whispered as he held her, her back to his chest. He pulled her closer, propping her up as every muscle in her body released the tension of the past ten days.

“I came back for you, Kat.”

Something pulsed inside her and she spun, lifting her face to meet his waiting lips. He moved his hands to her face and kissed her with a sweetness that melted her core. She let his lips warm hers, savored the feel of his scratchy face as he kissed the salty tears from her cheeks. She leaned against him, needing to feel the beat of his heart, the strength of his touch. In that moment she understood that she'd never loved anyone this way, had never seen into another soul or been connected with a force so strong that breaking it would shatter her very being.

When she finally pulled back to look at him, she felt a stabbing pain in her chest. It wasn't the stubble that had scratched her skin or the wild hair that caught her eye. It was the bandage on his forehead and the scabbed cut above his cheekbone.

She ran her fingers over it. “Alex...”

“Shh, it's okay. I'm fine. I'm alive.”

He bent and picked up her keys; she hadn't even realized she'd dropped them. He opened the car door and helped her get in.

“Will you wait while I go tell everyone I'm all right? Then I want to take you out to dinner.” He grinned, and a fresh volume of tears filled her eyes. She must have nodded because the next thing she knew, he was kissing her on the forehead and then walking into headquarters.

She rested her head against the seat and took some deep breaths before calling her mother to tell her she wasn't going to be home until very late tonight. There wasn't a late-night nurse scheduled, but she didn't care. Alex was safe and they were having dinner together. Her mother had been doing well and perhaps it wouldn't be the end of the world if Kat took a night off.

It seemed like forever before Alex returned and climbed into her passenger seat. Her phone buzzed and she turned it off.

Alex grinned at her. “It could be important.”

She shook her head. “For one night, the world can take care of itself. I need you.”

* * *

H
E
DIRECTED
K
AT
to a 24/7 diner where he knew the owner wouldn't mind them sitting in a booth all night talking. Kat ordered them both burgers and fries even though he wasn't hungry.

“You look like you've lost weight,” she commented, touching the heart-shaped pendant on her neck. She wore it all the time even though it was often tucked underneath her shirt. He'd found himself wondering what she cared about enough to keep so close to her heart.

“Who gave you that necklace?”

She looked up, obviously surprised he'd asked. He pinned her with his eyes, letting her know he wanted the full story, not whatever standard answer she had on her lips.

“I went through a rough patch in high school. Mom was off her meds and really difficult, and, well, you know... I had the usual teenager problems. I came to the point where I couldn't handle it anymore. I took a bottle of my mom's sleeping pills.”

His heart lit up, filled with the need to go back in time and comfort that struggling girl. He moved from his seat in the booth and slid in next to her, pulling her close, savoring the rise and fall of her breathing body next to him. She buried her head in the dip between his shoulder and arm.

“Lucky for me, I immediately puked them all out,” she continued. “My mom had the presence of mind to call 911. They kept me at the hospital for a few days and there was this nurse who took care of me. She had moved to our city from California after her twelve-year-old daughter and her husband were killed in a car crash. The only reason she wasn't driving with them was because she'd been visiting her injured sister. She gave me this necklace. It had belonged to her daughter, and she said it gave her the strength to survive after seeing the dead bodies of the two people she loved most.”

She lifted her head and touched the necklace. “She saved my life, in more ways than one.”

“I'm glad she found you.”

“She said it was time for her to give up this necklace, her safety blanket. She had recently found love and didn't need its comfort anymore.”

His heart contracted at her words. “Why do you still need it, Kat?”

“Because I don't know how to love.”

He kissed the top of her head. “Yes, you do. You've opened my heart.”

She looked at him with shining eyes. “What happened to you in Iraq, Alex?”

“Don't worry—it was nothing bad. At least, nothing worse than I've already seen. We got another flat tire on the way back and our cars got ambushed. This flat was deliberate. We fought our way out and escaped.”

She gasped and he could feel her tense. He rubbed her arm.

“One of the guys knew an informant and we hid at his house. We didn't have our phones and couldn't risk coming into the open to find communications. We were literally holed up in a dug-out basement.”

He felt a heavy breath leave her body, and she collapsed against him. “It wasn't too bad, aside from getting up close and personal with two very smelly dudes. First thing I did when we got to the base was take a shower.”

“How were you found? Why didn't anyone call us?”

“Turns out your hotshot lieutenant also knew the informant, and during one of the routine patrols, he slipped word to him. They pulled us out and shipped us home. They didn't want to tell anyone stateside until we were wheels down. Apparently the ambush was payback against the security company for killing one of the local warlords. There was a lot of heat on one of the guys I was with. The army didn't want a leak.”

“You could have called when you were in the air.”

“And miss seeing your face when I returned?”

“You had me worried sick.” She punched him playfully in the arm.

He caught her hand and held it, letting himself drown in the ocean blue of her eyes. Without the distraction of the BlackBerry buzzing in his hand, voices demanding results in his ear and the chaos of the campaign and senate staff, he'd had a lot of time to do something he'd avoided for years. Let his guard down. Trust. The informant who he'd been sure would sell them out hadn't. Not to say he hadn't taken advantage of the situation; he'd managed to squeeze money out of the army in addition to the money the security company had already promised. But he'd sold them to the good guys. Something Alex hadn't believed would ever happen.

“I didn't think love was in the cards for me,” he whispered, barely hearing the words that were coming from someplace deep inside him. A part he hadn't known existed. He'd started out as an angry young man and developed into a cold, calculating one. Aside from his mother, he didn't love anyone. He'd tried hard to get close to Crista, to find a place in his heart for her, but he'd failed. For a minute he'd thought it would be easier with a practical woman like Mellie who was okay with the fact that he didn't believe in love. And maybe, if he hadn't met Kat, it would've been.

She nestled deeper into the crook of his arm. “Neither did I.”

“So how do we do this?” He hadn't thought about what they'd do after he got home. Through the rescue and the long flight back, all he'd thought about was seeing her again.

She lifted her head and gave him a slow smile. “I already made the first move.” She rested her forehead against his. And there it was, the fire in his belly that coursed through him like molten-hot lava. He put his hand on the back of her head.

“I don't know whether I'm capable of this, Kat,” he murmured. “That's why I've kept away from you. I don't want to hurt you.”

“I can take care of myself, Alex.”

But he didn't want her to take care of herself anymore. He wanted to be the man to protect her, to make sure no one hurt her. He hoped to God he was capable of being that kind of man.

They talked well into the night, about nothing and everything. “Did you keep in touch with the nurse who gave you the necklace?”

She shook her head. “We were close initially. About a year after the incident, Jill invited me to be a junior bridesmaid at her wedding. If I took the bus, it was going to be three hours from where we lived. The morning I was scheduled to leave, Mom had a bad night and I didn't want to leave her. Jill said she understood, but our emails and phone calls became fewer and further apart and we just lost touch. It's how it always is.”

He wanted to take her in his arms and promise her that was not what it would be like with him, but an unseen force held him back, pushed him away from the shining blue eyes that still held the pain of the memory. The diner owner saved him from making promises he couldn't keep by slapping down two plates of complimentary breakfast on the table. They looked at each other and laughed.

Kat checked her watch and groaned. “I need to get home.” Her eyes were wide and full of the kind of sparkle he'd dreamed about in that hole in Iraq. “We're going to the senator's house for dinner tonight. I want you to come.”

He tensed. He hadn't figured out what he would say to the senator. He wasn't prepared to deal with the consequences of being with Kat.

“I want to tell him,” Kat said softly, as if she'd read his mind. “I want to go all the way in. The campaign staff already know how I feel about you—I'd be shocked if the senator hasn't heard.”

He took a breath. It was a big risk. The senator was very protective of his family; what if he saw this as a betrayal?
You don't mess with the candidate's family.

“What're you afraid of?”

That I'm not good enough for you.

“I need you to do this with me, Alex. Go all in.”