Radclyffe: Price of Honor

“Like a Modigliani,” Dusty murmured.

“I’m sorry?” The woman stood, her deep green jacket and skirt draping perfectly over a model’s body, slender and sleek.

Dusty froze in her tracks and Atlas sat obediently at her side. Feeling a flush creep up her neck, she self-consciously cleared her throat and said a prayer of thanks that her utterance hadn’t been clearer. “Ms. Elliott?”

The woman walked around the table and held out her hand. “Yes. Vivian Elliott.”

Conscious of her calloused palm meeting smooth cool flesh, Dusty shook her hand. “Dusty Nash. This is Atlas.”

Vivian glanced down, smiled. “Gorgeous.”

Dusty couldn’t shake the disquieting sense that Vivian Elliott wasn’t quite real. She’d never seen a woman so beautiful before, not in real life or in any of the dozens of museums and hundreds of paintings she’d viewed over the years.

“He probably prefers handsome,” Vivian said, making no move to touch the dog. He was, indeed, handsome. Quick, intelligent eyes, glowing mahogany coat shot through with black over his shoulders and hips, a broad strong head, and tapered snout. “How old is he?”

“A year and a half.”

“Young for this work, isn’t he?”

“Not for his breed.”

“Belgian Malinois?”

“Yes.”

Vivian mentally sorted through the research she’d done when prepping for the interview, searching for something that would help her connect to the handler. Agent Nash appeared far less communicative than her dog, whose liquid eyes spoke volumes as he tilted his head and appraised her. Nash’s eyes, a startling shade of true green with tiny flecks of brown-gold that matched her windblown collar-length hair, were wary and intense. On most people a green that pure screamed contact lenses, but nothing about Nash suggested artifice or vanity. Her hair was casually cut, her fair, faintly freckled face without any kind of makeup, her uniform standard, well-worn BDUs, unadorned except for the ID hanging around her neck and the unit patches on her sleeves and chest. Agent Dusty Nash was not a people person. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance we could talk outside, where I could see him work a little?”

A spark flared in Nash’s eyes, and Viv congratulated herself. Bingo. It was all about the dog with this one. Not so different from some of the breeders she’d known growing up. “After all, he’s the star, right?”

“You do know it’s twenty-five degrees out there,” Dusty said.

“Does he mind the cold?” Viv teased.

Dusty laughed, and the transformation was breathtaking. Her stoic expression softened and heat melted the coolness in her gaze. “He’s bred to work in the mountains. He loves the cold. He’d much rather be outside than inside.”

“Does that go for you too?” Viv knew the answer, but she needed to keep Nash talking so the freeze didn’t set in again. Not an unfriendly, arrogant disinterest, but something else. A rare air of self-containment, a subtle barrier that provoked Viv’s curiosity.

“Yes.”

“Then that’s what we should do. Let me get my coat.”

Viv retrieved her dark green wool topcoat and shrugged into it. She extracted her tape recorder from the left pocket and held it up. “I can’t take notes while we’re walking, so I’ll be taping. Are you all right with that?”

Dusty shrugged. “Sure.”

She held up her camera with the other. “Photos, of course.”

“Can you just take him?”

Viv considered her approach. Nash wouldn’t care about personal publicity. “You’re a team, right?”

“Sure.”

“He wouldn’t work as well with anyone else, or you either, for that matter. Right?”

Dusty’s left hand dropped to Atlas’s head and he pushed against her palm. “That’s how we train. I have to be able to read his actions and the signals he gives when he alerts to something. No one else knows him that well.”

“Exactly, and that’s what readers really want to see. The teamwork.”

“I thought this was about using dogs on protective details.”

“It is, some,” Viv admitted. “But you know most of that is classified. I’ll get some photos on the train to tie in with what we do here.”

“You’re going?”

“White House press corps,” Viv said, pointing to her ID.

“I’ll grab my jacket, and we’ll go out the back,” Dusty said, oddly pleased to hear Vivian Elliott would be traveling with the press on the upcoming trip. “I’ll show you some training exercises.”

“Wonderful.”

Vivian smiled, and Dusty was reminded of her favorite, enigmatically beautiful paintings again.

*

Blair woke slowly, nestled in the curve of Cam’s body, Cam’s arm looped around her waist, holding her close. Cam’s chest and belly were warm against her back and hips. She laced her fingers through Cam’s, drew up her hand, and kissed her fingers. “You awake?”

“Mm,” Cam murmured. “Sort of.”

“We’re going to have to get up.”

Cam sighed and kissed the back of Blair’s neck. “I know. Five more minutes.”

Blair laughed. “You’re getting lazy, you know. This cushy desk job of yours might make you soft.”

“Nah.” Cam burrowed against Blair’s shoulder. “Just spoiled. Married life agrees with me.”

Blair caught her breath. Married. They were, as of just a few weeks before. She felt the ring on her finger that matched the one on Cam’s. Thought about the future, a future so very different from the one she’d imagined a year ago when she’d rarely considered the next day, let alone anything beyond. Her father wouldn’t be the president forever, and she wouldn’t be an object of public speculation or a potential target any longer. She could have a life like other people. They could have a life without danger around every turn.

Cam would probably always have the kind of job she did now. She was driven to serve, driven to protect, but when the administration inevitably changed, she might actually spend more time behind her desk. She’d never completely leave the field, no matter what she said her intentions were. It just wasn’t part of her. But there might come a time when someone else really did take the risks. Blair tried to imagine how they would live and thought of the house they’d purchased on Whitley Island. Remote, wild, beautiful. Where they could be alone and she could paint and…

She jolted at an unexpected, nearly frightening image.

“What?” Cam murmured, kissing her again.

“Just thinking.”

“Thinking what?”

Blair turned onto her back and found Cam leaning on an elbow regarding her with that serious look she got when she was waiting for Blair to decide to share a secret. Or not. “I was thinking it might be nice to have a child.”

Cam’s pupils widened. “A baby, you mean.”

“Maybe. Or a toddler. Or an older one.”

“Adopt?”

“I think so. There’s so many kids who need homes.” Blair pushed a dark lock from Cam’s forehead, searched the storm-gray eyes, and waited. Cam was an only child, they both were, and neither had had an easy childhood—losing parents far too soon. They’d barely begun their life together. Her timing was pretty terrible.

“We have pretty busy schedules,” Cam said slowly, carefully.

Blair laughed and kissed her. “I don’t mean right away.”

The tension in Cam’s shoulders eased and her breath came out in a long sigh. “No? When then?”

“I don’t know, four or five years. When our life is a little more normal.”

“Adoption is fine with me,” Cam said. “You don’t want to be pregnant?”

“I don’t feel any burning need to be. Do you?”

“No. Never pictured it.”