Radclyffe - Firestorm

A lone attendant manned the counter inside the convenience store. Mallory blinked in the harsh white light that bleached everything to a monochrome. Moving mechanically, her mind a blank, she grabbed several candy bars and two sixteen-ounce bottles of soda, bundled everything into her arms, and started for the counter. A sliver of reason penetrated the fog that clouded her brain, and she took stock of what she had picked up. No Hershey bar. She spun back to retrieve one, and the headline on a newspaper in a stand next to the checkout counter caught her attention. She stopped, reread it, and her stomach plummeted.

IDAHO SENATOR FRANKLIN RUSSO CLINCHES PATRIOT PARTY NOMINATION

Underneath the headline, a picture of Jac’s father with arms outstretched, a triumphant smile on his handsome, virile face, took up the rest of the front page. Beneath the image was the caption: “Conservative nominee pledges return to American values.”

Mallory almost laughed out loud. American values. What a joke. If people only knew how he treated his own daughter, with so little respect, so little care, he wouldn’t be seen as some kind of savior. Outrage swelled just thinking about Jac being shunted aside, made invisible, when she was so brave, so kind, so generous and strong. Mallory squelched her anger. Her feelings were not what mattered. What mattered was Jac.

“Help you, miss?” the clerk asked, a note of uncertainty in his voice.

Mallory jerked, wondering how long she’d been staring at the newspaper, and went back for the Hershey bar. She piled the sodas and snacks on the counter, hesitated, then picked up a newspaper. Jac ought to know, to prepare for what was coming, if nothing else. As much as she’d love to protect Jac from any hurt, Jac did not need to be shielded. She needed to be supported. “Sorry. Just these things.”

He rang up the items with bored efficiency, ran her credit card, and with a short grunt, went back to watching the small black-and-white television perched on the front window ledge. Mallory hefted the bag with the newspaper folded up inside and headed back to the car. Her earlier tracks from the Jeep were already filled with new snow. They hadn’t managed to outrun the storm but were barely managing to keep pace with it. She needed to keep her mind on the road and away from the memory of Jac’s mouth.

Sliding into the driver’s seat, she slammed the door and propped the bag between her thighs. Carefully not looking at Jac, she pulled out the sodas, put them in the cup holders, and extracted the candy bars. She handed the dark chocolate to Jac. “Here you go.”

“Thanks,” Jac said, straightening in her seat. “I’m more awake now. You want me to drive? You’ve got to be tired.”

“I’m really okay,” Mallory said.

“Are we?”

“Sure.” Mallory finished her Reese’s cup in three bites and washed it down with her soda. She stared at the newspaper sticking out of the plastic bag, and before she could change her mind, yanked it out and handed it to Jac. “I guess you better see this.”

Silently, Jac unfolded it and held it up to the light slanting through the windshield. She sucked in a breath. “Well. That’s going to make life interesting.”

“You didn’t know?”

“No. I knew it was likely.” Jac grimaced. “That’s part of why he wanted me out of sight. Tabloid stories about his queer daughter’s escapades were not what his campaign committee wanted to see when he was trying to clinch the nomination.”

Mallory stifled her urge to curse. “He could have told you before you read it in the newspapers.”

Jac twisted in the seat, grabbed her pack from the backseat, and pulled it into her lap. She dug out her cell and thumbed through the menu. “Nora Fleming, his campaign manager, left a message last night. That’s probably what it’s about.”

“What does she say?”

“Can’t tell. No signal.”

“What will happen next?” Mallory asked.

“I’m sure I can expect a visit from the press.” Jac stared at her phone, willing Nora’s voicemail to self-destruct. “God, I’m sorry, Mallory.”

“What for?”

“You have no idea what these people can do. The last thing you and the rest of the crew need is some media circus dropping around to see what the next president’s daughter—prodigal daughter, I might add—is doing.”

“He’s not the president yet.”

“No, and unseating a sitting president is going to take some doing. Especially one as popular as Powell.” Jac’s voice was a monotone, eerily empty. “But I know my father, and he knows how to put on a show.”

“You really think the press will bother you?”

Jac laughed shortly. “Why do you think I’m here, Mal? He wanted me out of the public eye because if they can’t find something to write about him, they’ll write about me instead.”

“Well, there’s nothing much to say about you, now, is there?” Mallory hated the weary, defeated note in Jac’s voice.

“That doesn’t stop them. If they can’t find something, they’ll make something up.” Jac rubbed her face with one hand. “I don’t want you ending up a target.”

“I’m nobody’s target, Jac,” Mallory said. “And I’m not afraid of a little public scrutiny.”

“Right. Probably nothing will come of any of it.” Jac turned the chocolate bar around in her hands, staring at it as if she wasn’t quite certain what it was. “They’ll all be too busy following him around for a while, anyhow. If I stay here, out of the public eye, I just might make it through the summer.”

“I’m so sorry,” Mallory said.

“There’s no need to be. I’m used to it by now.” Jac refolded the newspaper and buried it in the bag along with the other trash. “I’m complicit to a degree. I went along with my father’s demand that I disappear to save my mother the strain of family strife and to give my sister a few more months of a normal life.”

“What about your life?” Mallory caught Jac’s hand and threaded her fingers through Jac’s. Such strong, capable hands.

Jac cradled Mallory’s hand between hers, stroking her thumb over Mallory’s knuckles. “I’m okay, really. I wanted this job long before my father decided it would be a good place to hide me. I’m just sorry you got saddled with me, and now this.”

“You’ve earned your place,” Mallory said. “I’ll admit, I was irritated when I thought you had gone around procedure to get a position, but I understand now what happened. You didn’t make it happen, your father did.”

Jac’s fingers tightened on Mallory’s. Light glanced off the knife-edge plane of her cheek, shadowing her eyes and casting the line of her jaw in sharp relief. “If I’d known this was coming, I wouldn’t have—”

“Wouldn’t have what?” A heavy weight settled on Mallory’s chest. She’d finally stopped running. Or almost. And now, what if it was all for nothing? “You wouldn’t have what, Jac? Wouldn’t have kissed me?”

“You don’t know how vicious politics can get.”

“I don’t care about that.”

“I do.” Jac clasped her hands between her knees, her face averted.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“I don’t know the answer,” Jac said softly.

“Let me know when you do.” Mallory fastened her seat belt, put the Jeep in gear, and drove into the storm.

Chapter Twenty-seven

“Looks like we have the place to ourselves,” Mallory said when she drove into base a little before six in the morning and pulled up in front of the hangar. A single light glowed over the shack door. All the windows were dark and the land vehicles were gone.

“Guess everyone’s at field camp,” Jac said, trying for a business-as-usual tone. The storm had finally tracked west, giving them clear skies for the final leg of their return trip. There wasn’t even any snow on the ground when they reached Yellowrock.