Radclyffe - Word of Honor

“Renee told me the commander was okay too.”

“Then I guess we can assume they’re both walking and talking.” Blair closed her eyes for a second. “You should take a break now. You’ve been on duty all day.”

Paula glanced across the room at Valerie, who stood apart from Blair’s friends talking on her cell phone. “I’m too keyed up to sleep right now.”

Blair knew she should sleep, but the bed would be too cold and empty and her mind too filled with unwelcome images of what life might have been like had things turned out differently. She announced to the room at large, “I’m going to work. Diane, Emory, you’re welcome to stay here tonight. The guest room is empty and—”

“Actually,” Valerie interrupted, “for the time being, everyone is staying here. The deputy director feels that the situation is still too unstable to decentralize our personnel, and she doesn’t want anyone left unguarded. So I suggest you all get comfortable for the night.”

Blair joined her friends while Valerie walked over to converse with Stark. “There’s food in the refrigerator and wine in the cooler under the counter. Diane, you know where all my clothes are. You and Emory can grab whatever you need.”

“I’ve got an empty guest room in my quarters,” Dana offered.

“Now that’s a lovely invitation,” Diane said playfully, “but I’m going to have to turn it down.” She raised an eyebrow in Emory’s direction. “Why don’t you take her up on it?”

“I think it’s a good idea,” Blair said, when Emory didn’t answer. “We’re all here until at least tomorrow, so everyone might as well be comfortable.”

Emory shrugged, avoiding Dana’s gaze. “Sure, makes sense.” She hugged Blair and whispered, “I’m so glad she’s okay.”

Blair returned the embrace. “So am I. Thanks for being here. And you are definitely not going back to Boston now.”

“I surrender.” Emory laughed. “One of the many advantages of living with my mother is when I’m traveling and forget something, she can send it to me. I’ll have her ship what I need out to the resort. That way, when everyone’s ready to leave, I can go with you.”

“Excellent,” Blair and Diane said simultaneously. Dana, Blair noticed, had a particularly pleased glint in her eye.

“The bedroom is down that way,” Dana said, pointing as she closed the door to the apartment. “Bathroom also. I didn’t have time to stock the kitchen, but there’s coffee, soda, and some snacks in the cabinet.”

“I’m not hungry, thanks,” Emory said, holding the bundle of clothes she’d borrowed from Blair in her arms.

Dana leaned back against the door, giving Emory as much space as she could. Emory looked tired and a little anxious. “Do I make you nervous?”

“No,” Emory said in surprise. “Why would you?”

“Well, there’s the reporter thing.”

“That’s doesn’t make me nervous. It just annoys me.”

“What about me being a lesbian?”

Emory stared, then burst out laughing. For a second, she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to stop. The entire day had had an atmosphere of unreality. She’d started out in a meeting with four uptight potential foundation donors who had the scientific knowledge of a colony of ants. It had taken her two hours just to explain what her research was all about and another two to convince them that it was worthy of their exalted contributions. Then she’d discovered that her friends had brought the enemy into their midst in the person of Dana Barnett, and try as she might, she couldn’t really bring herself to dislike her. In fact, she felt an unexpected attraction to her—or at least to her dogged determination and her absolute, unshakable sense of purpose. Then she’d been whisked out of the hotel and thrown into the midst of Blair and Paula’s nightmare, where she’d spent hours feeling alternately enraged and helpless. Now Dana was suggesting she might be worried about something as harmless as her making a pass? “In case you haven’t noticed, some of my best friends are lesbians.”

Dana grinned. “This is probably the only time I’ve ever heard that cliché when it is so not a cliché. But your best friends are, like, girlfriends.” Her eyes grew smoky. “I’m not.”

“Do you intend to seduce me?”

Dana’s heart nearly stuttered to a stop, then raced so fast she was breathless. She hoped she still looked cool and collected, because her temperature had just shot up over the boiling point. “Do you want me to?”

Emory hesitated, suddenly wanting to be very very clear. Dana watched her as if her next words were the most important words Dana would ever hear. Did she want Dana to seduce her? Was she inviting her to? The idea of being with a woman wasn’t foreign to her—how could it be, when Blair and Diane had become her friends so quickly and so deeply. She’d felt attraction to women now and then throughout her life, but the pull had never been overwhelming. She had written the fleeting feelings off as being perfectly natural and had always assumed she was heterosexual, until she married a man for whom she soon discovered she had no particular passion. What had surprised her most about her marriage was that she yearned for more. Their eventual divorce had been mutually agreeable and completely amicable, even though what underlay her discontent eluded her. “I’m sorry. I don’t know.”

“Why are you apologizing?” Dana tried to appear relaxed while every muscle in her body was vibrating. She wanted to cross the few feet between them and take Emory’s face in her hands. She wanted to kiss her, very gently and very thoroughly. She wanted Emory to say yes.

“I feel like I’ve given you the wrong impression.”

“You haven’t.” Dana smiled wryly. “You’ve been crystal clear about your opinion of me.”

“We’re not talking about you being a reporter,” Emory said.

“Sure we are.” With another woman, Dana might not have pressed the point, but Emory wasn’t just any woman. “I’m a reporter, and you might forget it for a few hours, but it will be there in the morning. It will be there between us the next time I ask Blair Powell a question you think will hurt her. It will be there when you confide in me and then wonder if you can trust me.”

“You’re right. I must be more tired than I thought to have forgotten that.” Emory ignored the pang of disappointment, and secretly thanked Dana for being honest and more realistic than she was apparently capable of being at the moment. “I’m going to go take a shower and then go to bed.”

“Good night, then,” Dana said.

“Good night.” Emory started down the hall and then slowed to look back over her shoulder. Her smile was a little sad. “You don’t have to stay out there, you know. I trust you not to seduce me.”

Dana pushed away from the door and followed her, wondering why she had not taken advantage of what she had seen in Emory’s eyes. For a moment, there had been both vulnerability and desire.

Chapter Fifteen

Before dawn, Saturday

Dana awoke to the soft sound of footsteps in the hall outside her bedroom. She wondered if Emory had had as much difficulty falling asleep the night before as she had. Knowing that only a thin wall and her own reluctance separated them had kept her in a hot sweat for hours while her conscience warred with her body. Rationally, she knew that one wrong step would destroy any chance she had of any kind of relationship, even friendship, with Emory. But her libido taunted her for being a coward and not taking advantage of the hesitation she’d seen in Emory’s eyes. For a long time she had stared into the dark, her skin as hot as it had ever been under the desert sun, her nerves jangling with the anticipation of incoming mortar fire, while she debated knocking on the bedroom door next to hers. She’d never been as aware of a woman she hadn’t even kissed.