Radclyffe - Honor Reclaimed

"Because I insisted. Because she put herself between you and the assailants, and had she been involved with the assassination attempt, she never would've done that."

Because she took a bullet meant for you.

Blair sank down on the sofa and rested her head against the back, staring up at the ceiling. "I'm going home. I can't stay here like this."

"Your apartment isn't secure. Hell, New York City isn't secure." Cam settled next to her and clasped Blair's hand. "Just give it a few weeks, please. Just until we have a better idea of the scope of these attacks."

Blair turned her head and stared at Cam. "While I'm living here under twenty-four-hour guard, where are you going to be?"

"I'll stay in my DC apartment. Your father wanted me to investigate the assault at the Aerie, and I'm still going to do that, one way or the other."

"What about us?"

"I'm not letting you go anywhere without me. If you travel, I'm coming."

A faint smile flickered across Blair's mouth. "Kind of like a groupie?"

"Your number one fan."

"What about at night?"

"With the press corps downstairs?" Cam's gaze flickered around the room, and she sighed. "I can't stay here every night."

"Then I'm staying with you at your place."

Cam groaned. "Jesus, if you can just be patient a few-—"

"No."

"Blair," Cam sighed and brushed her mouth over the top of Blair's hand. "All right, as long you promise to stay here if I'm out of town."

"Until I go home."

"Agreed."

Blair smiled. "There, see? That wasn't so difficult, was it?"

"Perfectly painless." Cam leaned forward and kissed her, sliding her fingers into Blair's hair. She let herself linger in the soft, warm comfort of Blair's mouth, savoring the press of Blair's body along the length of hers. The connection steadied her, centered her, and she would need that in the days ahead.

Chapter Five

S o what about that suggestion?" Blair slipped her fingertips inside the waistband of Cam's trousers and brushed the back of her fingers over Cam's abdomen.

"You mean the one where we ignore the fact that I'm out of a job and that we're in the White House where someone might notice if we never leave the bedroom?" Cam curled both arms around Blair's waist as they swayed together, hearts and bodies attuned. "God, you smell so good."

Blair laughed softly and pulled Cam's shirt free. Her laugh became a soft purr when her hand met skin, and Cam stiffened, emitting a throaty growl. "I was thinking more along the lines where we have a quickie, short but intense. Maybe right here on the sofa. I seem to remember you liking it quite a bit when I knelt between your le—"

The phone rang, and they both cursed simultaneously. With a sigh, Cam stepped away, automatically tucking in her shirt.

"Don't be so quick to give up on that idea," Blair muttered as she snatched up the phone. "Blair Powell...Hi...Yes, she's here... When?...Okay, fine." She clicked off the phone and tossed it onto the sofa, then faced Cam with a frustrated expression. "I feel as if I'm in that groundhog movie. The same goddamn scene keeps replaying."

"Your father?" Cam was already on her way to retrieve her jacket and weapon.

"Just about. Lucy Washburn."

Cam turned as she shrugged into her shoulder harness. Lucinda Washburn was the White House chief of staff and the second most powerful person in the nation. Others might assume that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs or the head of the State Department might hold that position, but Lucy Washburn was the president's confidante and his oldest adviser. She was also an accomplished politician in her own right and somehow always managed to juggle the simmering Capitol Hill rivalries, shifting loyalties, and internecine power struggles to the president's advantage. "She wants to see me?"

"Both of us."

Their eyes met in silent acknowledgment that a command appearance in Washburn's office was never good news.

*

When they arrived in the West Wing, they were shown directly into the chief of staff's office. Lucinda Washburn, an imposing auburn-haired woman in a double-breasted, charcoal pinstriped suit, stood at the windows overlooking a lush garden, her back to the room. She turned at the sound of their entrance, the lingering remnants of sadness softening the strong lines of her jaw and deepening the shadows beneath her hazel eyes. She squared her shoulders and strode to greet them, indicating the seating area in front of her desk with a sweep of one arm. A thin gold filigree bracelet that matched her earrings encircled her right wrist. "Blair, Cameron. How are you?"

It was the first time the three of them had been together since Blair's evacuation from her makeshift sanctuary in Maine upon Marine One the day before. Blair still found it hard to believe that it had only been two days since the world had exploded. So much had happened in those forty-eight hours to alter the landscape of an entire nation's existence that time itself seemed to have been altered, each moment somehow stretching toward a point in a future that was clouded with questions and uncertainty. Blair reached for Cam's hand, instantly comforted by the warm, solid strength of the fingers that closed around hers. She glanced quickly at her lover, whose eyes said that the connection mattered to her too. Blair felt a wash of appreciation, because Cameron made it so easy to love her. She never let her unshakable strength diminish her tenderness, or her need. Blair smiled her thanks and turned to the woman whom she'd known since childhood.

"We're alive, Luce, and that's what counts." Blair sat on the floral brocade love seat in front of a wide, glass-topped coffee table, her hand still clasping Cam's. "But everything else has gone to hell. Cam's been taken off my security detail."

"Yes, I know," Lucinda said, settling into a chair across from them.

"So I guess my father does too?"

Lucinda nodded. "There really wasn't anything to be done. Considering everything that's happened, all we've been trying to do is follow protocol in an effort to reestablish some kind of order."

"That's ridiculous," Blair snapped. "My personal security detail has nothing whatsoever to do with national security. It has nothing to do with what happened—"

"It does, Blair," Cam interrupted gently. "The assault on the Aerie was timed to coincide with the airliners hitting the Towers. Those hijackings and the gunmen at your building were two arms of a single assault."

"Yes," Lucinda said, regarding Cam intently. "That seems to be the only conclusion." She looked at Blair. "Which means that you played a key role in a terrorist plan to destabilize the nation. Obviously, your ongoing security is now of the utmost importance."

Blair's fingers tightened around Cam's. "So we're going to high priority coverage."

Lucinda nodded.

"An agent physically in the room with me twenty-four hours a day. Doubling the number of agents on every detail. Limitations on social appearances and foreign travel." Blair shivered nearly imperceptibly, then held Lucinda's gaze. "For a few days, maybe. But for weeks? Maybe months? I can't take it, Luce. I just can't."

"We don't know what kind of time frame we're looking at." Lucinda's tone was kind but unyielding. "We don't know anything yet, Blair. We don't know if this was an isolated terrorist cell acting alone on orders from outside this country or if this represents just one faction of a highly organized national network that may be planning another attack right now on Chicago or Los Angeles or Dallas." She leaned forward, her expression intent, but her eyes gentle. "All we know is that you were singled out for elimination. We must assume that you are still a target."

"What makes this any different than any other day? The entire focus of my security team is to protect me from the potential of attack. And they do it very well." Blair looked at Cam. "Just like they did on Tuesday."