Extreme Exposure (7 page)

No wonder Mr. Marsh was so afraid. An environmental crime of this magnitude could easily land someone—or several someones—in prison, to say nothing of the fine the company itself would face. Whoever was behind it would likely go to some lengths to keep it secret.

A shiver that had nothing to do with the wind ran down her spine. She needed to get these shots and get out of here.
She held up her camera, and sparing a moment’s thought for photographic composition, clicked as fast as her camera allowed.

Someone would pay for this. She would make certain of it.

Then, struck by an inspiration, she reached into her pocket for the empty sandwich bag that had held her lunch. She’d eaten her sandwich while driving and thankfully hadn’t thrown the bag away. Treading carefully, she worked her way to the edge of the ice and, using a stick to break off a chunk, slipped it into the bag. A good chem lab ought to be able to tell her exactly what this stuff was and whether it was truly toxic. It certainly smelled terrible—like brake fluid, only stronger.

She zipped the bag shut, hurried back to the car, slipped into the driver’s seat, and handed the plastic bag and the camera to Holly. “Let’s get out of here.”

In silence, Kara turned the car around and drove back the way they’d come. She made a left turn back onto the paved road and saw the checkpoint ahead of them.

A uniformed security guard sat at his post, checking the ID of someone trying to enter the facility.

“Don’t look this way,” Kara muttered under her breath. “You don’t even see us.”

Slowly, casually, she guided the car through the checkpoint and heard Holly’s relieved sigh as they passed unchallenged.

“Smooth as silk.”

When they reached the highway, Holly finally found her tongue. “What was that?”

“What was what?”

“You know. ‘Don’t look this way. You don’t see us.’ ”

“Don’t tell me you never saw
Star Wars
.” Kara smiled, feeling the heady aftereffects of adrenaline. “That was a Jedi mind trick.”

CHAPTER 5

R
EECE GLANCED
at his watch as the Legislative Audit Committee hearing dragged on. He was supposed to leave to pick up Kara in twenty minutes, but testimony was running long. Although he’d be only too happy to excuse himself—there were more than enough members present for a quorum without him—he didn’t want to tilt the majority in favor of Devlin, who, as Senate president, had appointed himself chairman of the committee. Devlin had the ethical standards of a snake-oil salesman. There was no rule the man wouldn’t bend, nothing he wouldn’t sell. His bottom line, as far as Reece could tell, was whatever increased the size of his ego.

Yet if Reece canceled his date with Kara, he knew in his gut he wouldn’t get another chance. He was surprised she hadn’t already called him to cancel. He knew she wasn’t entirely enthusiastic about their date. Was it only the possible conflict of interests that held her back, or was she truly uninterested in him?

“The bottom line, Mr. Chairman, is that there are more than a handful of senators who seem to be charging expenses to the state inappropriately.” Carol, director of Senate Services, was clearly growing short-tempered with Devlin’s constant stonewalling.

“It seems to me this is a matter best taken up with those senators who are causing the problem. Why waste this
committee’s time?” Devlin’s voice held a strong note of condescension.

His words drew nods of agreement from his fellow party members.

An expression akin to outrage hardened Carol’s face. “Our efforts thus far have been ignored, sir. Clearly the system is not working. It is the task of this committee to hold lawmakers and government agencies within the state accountable. I suggest the committee do so with regard to this problem. Or are senators reluctant to scrutinize their peers?”

Reece felt the tension between them and realized that for Devlin this issue was personal. Perhaps he was abusing the system. Reece decided to test that theory. “Are you suggesting the committee audit every senator’s spending, ma’am?”

Devlin’s head jerked around, and Reece didn’t miss the alarm in his eyes. “She hasn’t said any such thing. Don’t put words in her mouth, Sheridan.”

In the front row, reporters who’d all but drifted into a coma seemed to wake up and scribble furiously. They were, Reece knew, hoping for another confrontation between the two of them.

But it was Carol who spoke next. “That is exactly what I’m suggesting, Senator Sheridan. All we need is this committee’s authorization—and the cooperation of each and every senator.”

Reece smiled. This meeting was about to end—and he was about to send Devlin from the room with a bad case of heartburn. “Then I make a motion that this committee conduct an audit of senators’ spending to be completed within thirty days. Does this address your concerns, ma’am?”

Carol’s face radiated triumph. “Yes, it does, Senator.”

Two seats down from him, Senator Miguel de la Peña leaned toward his microphone. He and Reece had entered office the same year and had quickly become allies and then close friends. “I second the motion, Mr. Chairman.”

Reece met Devlin’s furious gaze. “Mr. Chairman, a motion has been made and seconded. I believe it falls to you to call for a vote.”

K
ARA GAZED
at her reflection and fought with the zipper of her skirt, her stomach filled with butterflies. She ought to have called Reece to cancel. Then she’d be free to enjoy a quiet evening with Connor instead of feeling anxious and wasting time trying to look pretty for a man who probably only wanted to go out with her because he thought she was an easy lay. And who could blame him? After the things she’d said to him last time, he’d be more than justified in making that assumption.

I sure learned a lot about you, sweetheart.

She would set him straight on that score. He didn’t know anything about her.

Unable make the skirt’s zipper lie flat, she stripped it off and tossed it on the floor beside the other outfits she’d tried on. Then she turned to face the catastrophe of her closet. It wasn’t like her to fuss over clothes. But then she hadn’t felt much like herself all day.

She’d barely been able to concentrate at work. The lab results on the ice she’d taken from Northrup wouldn’t be available until the middle of next week, and the state had until Monday to respond to her open-records request. She’d tried to focus on deciphering the documents Mr. Marsh had given her, only to have her thoughts drift time and again to Reece.

The hard feel of his arms around her as he’d kept her from falling on the ice. The hot kiss of his fingers on her cheek as he brushed a strand of hair from her face. His devastating smile.

No man had the right to be that sexy.

No, she corrected herself, Reece Sheridan wasn’t a man. He was a politician. As long as she remembered that, she’d be fine.

She glanced at her alarm clock and felt her stomach knot. He would be here in fifteen minutes, and she still wasn’t dressed.

“Mommy, what’s this?” Connor held up her mascara. He had long since grown bored with the
Sponge Bob
DVD she’d put on to entertain him and had taken to playing with the antique perfume bottles on her vanity.

“It’s mascara. It makes women’s eyelashes longer and darker.” She searched through the hideous assortment of work clothes hanging in her closet and reached for the black velvet dress she’d worn to last year’s Christmas party.

“Why do women want their eyelashes to be longer?”

“Because we’re silly and think longer, darker eyelashes will make men fall in love with us.” She slipped the dress over her head, pulled it down over her hips, and looked in the mirror. The soft material clung to her skin, while the plunging princess neckline made it seem like she had breasts. But would he think she was wearing it to impress him? She certainly didn’t want him to think she’d put any special effort into getting ready for this date.

“Is a man going to fall in love with you?”

She turned sideways and gazed at her profile. “Apparently not in this lifetime.”

The doorbell rang.

Her heart gave a violent leap, and she hurried to her bedroom window.

The baby-sitter.

“Come, Connor. Sierra’s here.”

Kara quickly filled Sierra in on the basics—how long to heat Connor’s mac and cheese in the microwave, which DVDs he liked most these days, how to reach her in case of trouble—while trying to ignore the way the teenager constantly flicked the metal in her newly pierced tongue against her teeth. She had just slipped into a pair of black tights and Victorian-style boots when the doorbell rang again.

Pulse racing, she took one last look in the mirror and touched up her lipstick.

What in the world were you thinking, McMillan?

She turned away from her reflection, forced herself to take a deep breath, and walked down the hallway to answer
the door, trying to pretend that she was like Holly and went on dates with gorgeous men every night.

Another man, another night.

She opened the door and forgot to be nervous, forgot to think, forgot to breathe.

He stood outside in his long gray overcoat, a smile on his firm, sensual lips. “Kara.”

Despite the cold, his coat was unbuttoned, giving her a glimpse of the crisp, white shirt, burgundy silk tie, and charcoal tailored slacks he wore beneath it.

If he ever gets tired of politics, he can always model for
Playgirl.

The thought flickered through her mind and then vanished as embarrassment set in.

“Reece. Come in out of the cold. I’ll just get my coat.” She opened the door for him and walked down the hallway to the coat closet. She had just pulled her dress coat from its hanger when Conner came bouncing out of her bedroom and down the hallway with something in his hand.

“Mommy, what’s this jiggle stick?”

She looked up to see her son standing not two feet away from Reece with her purple jelly vibrator in his hand. And he was shaking it, making it waggle back and forth.

“Oh, my God! Connor!” Blood rushed to her face, and she grabbed it from her son’s hands. “Give me that!”

If she could have vanished from the face of the earth in that instant she would have gladly done so. Unable to meet Reece’s gaze and ignoring Sierra’s amused giggles, she hurried down the hallway, feeling utterly and completely humiliated.

Beautiful, McMillan! Now Senator Reece Sheridan has seen your vibrator!

There was absolutely no chance that he had mistaken it for anything but a sex toy because the damned thing looked just like a penis.

A huge, purple penis.

A huge, purple, veined penis, for God’s sake!

Her insides withered and shrank, and she wondered for a moment if she could barricade herself in her bedroom and stay there forever.

Then she saw that her sock drawer was open. It wasn’t hard to figure out what had happened. Connor had been with her while she’d been putting on her tights. She must have left the drawer open. And he’d found her vibrator lying on top—right where she’d left it last night after fantasizing about a certain state senator.

She dropped the device back into her drawer, slammed it shut, and sat on the edge of her bed.

She was never going to be able to face Reece Sheridan again.

R
EECE BIT
his tongue and vowed not to laugh. He’d seen the look of horror on Kara’s face and knew she was embarrassed beyond words.

Jiggle stick
.

“Mine’s black,” offered the teenage baby-sitter with a shrug before walking over to the television and shuffling through a pile of DVDs.

Reece kept a straight face and knelt down until he was eye to eye with Kara’s son. “You must be Connor.”

The kid was adorable, with his mother’s elfin facial features and her dark hair, paired with big, brown eyes. He eyed Reece curiously and nodded. “Who are you?”

“My name is Reece, and I like the Broncos, too.” He pointed to Connor’s Denver Broncos T-shirt. “I bet you have your own football.”

Connor smiled, nodded. “Do you want to see it?”

“You bet.” Reece found himself wondering who the boy’s father was and why Kara had never married the man.

Connor turned and scampered down the hallway just as his mother reappeared.

She was dressed in a black velvet dress that seemed to be airbrushed onto her slender body. It was cut low enough to
reveal the soft curves of her breasts. Her long dark hair was pulled back from her face in a barrette. Simple pearls adorned her ears. The faint scent of perfume floated gently in the air around her.

Classy. Elegant. Sexy as hell.

Reece’s gut instinct was to skip dinner and focus instead on satisfying a more basic hunger. He wanted to get her out of that dress as quickly as possible, to peel away the black velvet and let his hands savor the silk of her skin. But first he would use his mouth to smear that glistening red lipstick of hers all over the place.

Unfortunately, he could tell that was not what she had in mind.

“Reece, I’ve been thinking maybe this isn’t a good idea.” She didn’t look him in the eye, and he could tell she was mortified.

“I think it’s the best idea I’ve had in a long time. You look beautiful.” He took her coat from her arm, and held it up for her, refusing even to consider leaving without her. “Come to dinner with me. We’ll talk. Nothing more.”

She looked into his eyes as if measuring the sincerity of his words, then turned her back to him, and slid her arms into her coat sleeves. “All right.”

Just then Connor dashed into the room, an orange and blue Nerf football in hand, and threw a wobbly pass straight for Reece’s groin. Reece caught it and tossed it gently back. “That’s a nice football, buddy. You’ve got a strong arm. Next time I come over, we’ll throw a few passes.”

The boy smiled, then roared and ran across the room as if heading for a touchdown.

“Call my cell if you need anything, Sierra. Have fun, Connor. Can Mommy have a kiss?”

K
ARA WAITED
until they were seated at the restaurant—an upscale Italian place called Laudisio Ristorante Italiano—
before bringing it up. “The way I acted the night we met—you should know I’m not really like that.”