“I gathered it had something to do with water. I don’t suppose you could be any more specific?”

Evyn smiled above the newspaper. She was enjoying this, the power play, and Wes was too, even though Evyn wasn’t playing by the rules Wes was used to. She followed the commands of others and expected her own orders to be obeyed without question. She understood and accepted the reasons why. The military was a huge organization whose effectiveness was dependent upon coordinated action and instantaneous response, a hierarchy that could only function if orders were immutable. Otherwise, chaos reigned, missions failed, and causalities resulted. Part of what made the system work was accurate intel and preparedness.

In contrast, Evyn gave her no operation details—Evyn not only didn’t brief her, she purposefully kept her in the dark. Evyn was testing her without giving her the benefit of bringing her best game. She should have been pissed off, but she wasn’t really. If she’d felt she was being set up to fail, she would have resisted, but she sensed no malice from Evyn, despite Evyn’s friendship with Peter Chang. They were playing war games, a challenge Wes enjoyed, and she intended to prove herself. Evyn was enjoying herself too, and Wes liked being part of Evyn’s pleasure. That was a thought she wasn’t going to study too carefully right now. She settled back and scanned the news. The vehicle slowed and she looked up. Evyn was watching her, her expression contemplative.

Wes raised a brow. “What?”

“You look relaxed.” Evyn sounded surprised.

“Shouldn’t I be?”

“You’re not annoyed any longer.”

Wes smiled. “Would it do me any good?”

Evyn grinned. “No.”

“Then why bother?”

“You’re pretty sure of yourself.”

Wes glanced at Gary, who stared straight ahead as if he were deaf and their conversation wasn’t happening inches away. Maybe he really wasn’t listening. Privacy took on a different meaning for these two, apparently. She shrugged. “All I can do is my best.”

“Do you always bring your best game?”

Wes didn’t do humble when it wasn’t true. “Always.”

“To everything?”

“Don’t you?”

“Damn straight.”

Wes laughed. “Then we’re not so different.”

“Maybe not,” Evyn said softly.

The SUV slowed onto the airport exit, and Wes pocketed her e-reader. She grabbed her overnight bag, followed Evyn and Gary into the airport, and went through the line while they cleared their weapons with security. The flight got off on time, and one hundred and twenty-six minutes later, they landed in Charlotte.

When they walked outside, a sun-washed blonde climbed out of the driver’s side of a white Ford Explorer and approached with long, graceful strides. She looked to be mid-thirties, tanned, and was dressed in light blue cotton pants and a long-sleeved white T-shirt with a logo over the left breast reading Ocean Rescue Center. “Agent Daniels, Agent Brown—good to see you again.”

“Hi, Cord.” Evyn indicated Wes. “Dr. Cordelia Williams, Dr. Wes Masters. Cord is an oceanographer and an environmental medical specialist.”

Cord said, “Good to meet you.”

“Same here,” Wes said. “What came first—medicine or the sea?”

“Medicine—then I saw the light.” Cord grinned and shepherded them toward the vehicle. “Glad the flight was on time for a change—we’ve got a lot planned. Weather report says breezy and unseasonably warm, but a cold front is moving up the coast. Good conditions for riptides.”

Evyn grinned. “Sounds perfect.”

“Does that mean no riptides?” Wes asked as she climbed into the back after Evyn. Gary rode shotgun.

“No, it generally means strong ones.”

“Perfect all right,” Wes muttered, and Evyn laughed softly.

The cargo space behind Wes was filled with gear smelling faintly of salt and sea—wetsuits, fins, personal flotation devices, a buoy with a short length of rope attached. Evyn saw her checking it out and her eyes twinkled.

“I love water exercises,” Evyn said.

“You’ve been here before, obviously.”

Evyn nodded. “Gary and I are both water-rescue certified. Cord is the supervisor for the training. We all train down here with her.”

“You’ve probably checked my file—I’m pretty good at advanced lifesaving techniques.”

Evyn laughed. “I don’t doubt it. But when POTUS is in the water, we will be too. He likes to snorkel. If we need to evacuate from the water, that’s a little bit different than what you’re used to on shore.”

“Hence all the water gear. You weren’t kidding when you said water exercises.”

“No. You’re going to get wet today.”

“Sounds like fun.” Wes settled back and closed her eyes. “Sixty degrees is cold.”

“We’ll just have to make sure you work hard enough to stay warm.”

Wes smiled. “Never doubted it.”

*

Blair grasped Cam’s hand as they walked along the shoreline. The wind blew through Cam’s hair, the mist from the water curling the ends as they lay on her neck, softening the sharp edge of her jaw, making her look younger, more vulnerable. Blair’s chest tightened. She couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t been with Cam—no, she didn’t want to remember a time when she hadn’t been with her. Before Cam, she’d thought she was as happy as anyone in her situation could be. She’d had moments of professional satisfaction, friends—Diane and Tanner—she cherished, but at the very core of her had been a seething sense of restlessness, of never quite fitting, of unsettled searching discontent.

Cameron Roberts, someone so much like her father, was the last woman in the world she would’ve chosen. She adored her father but had spent much of her life angry with him. Cam and her father were both so dedicated to their jobs, guided by goals and principles that were so clear to them, and both so willing to ignore their own needs. What she hadn’t appreciated when she was young and had only learned after being with Cam was the personal cost that living by those goals and principles exacted from her father and Cam and others like them. What she had seen as selfishness had been exactly the opposite. Cam, like her father, was willing to forgo personal happiness, was willing to risk her life for what she believed. As much as Blair loved Cam, she couldn’t bring herself to give Cam that one thing—her permission to sacrifice herself for Blair or her father or her country. She needed Cam to be more selfish than that. She was not willing to sacrifice her, no matter the cost.

“I love being here alone with you,” Blair said. “You know that, don’t you?”

“I know,” Cam said, lightly swinging Blair’s arm between them. “And I love you more than you think.”

Blair caught her breath. “What are you talking about?” She couldn’t imagine that Cam didn’t know how much her love meant to her. How precious it was. How she woke up every morning a little bit in awe of how her life had changed, of how much more there was to cherish than she had ever imagined. If she had failed to let Cam know that, she’d failed the most important challenge of her life. “I know you love me. Your love means every—”

“That’s not what I’m talking about.” Cam lifted Blair’s hand to her mouth, brushed her lips over the top of Blair’s hand.

Her lips were warm, reminding Blair that she often didn’t know she was cold until Cam’s touch warmed her deeper than flesh. “Then what?”

“I won’t do anything to destroy what we have, not even for my country. I took the job with Homeland Security because I thought I could make a difference there, that I could contribute something. But there was another reason—a more personal one.” Cam smiled. “You. I know how pissed you’d be if I stayed on protection and put myself between a bullet and a protectee. I really hate it when you’re pissed at me.”

“Are you angry at me because I don’t want you to die for someone else?”

“No.” Cam faced ahead, her expression growing remote, and Blair knew she was looking back. Maybe as far back as her father’s death, when she’d watched him die and hadn’t been able to stop it. She wished she could go back to that time, to hold the twelve-year-old Cam, to comfort her as she’d never quite been able to comfort the adult woman she loved. But as much as she wished for that, she couldn’t go back in time and erase the pain and abolish the disappointment. She could only go forward and love, and hope it made a difference.

“I’m a lot more selfish than you,” Blair said. “I don’t mind admitting I’m glad you’re not doing protection anymore. I don’t want to lose you. Couldn’t bear to lose you.”

“You know it’s one in a—”

“Yes,” Blair said sharply, “I know it’s one in a million. And you know, if you’re the one, that million doesn’t matter.”

Cam laughed softly. “We’ve been down this road before, and we don’t need to re-travel it.”

Blair sighed. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to ruin our time together.”

“Baby,” Cam murmured, releasing Blair’s hand and sliding her arm around her shoulders, drawing her close. “Nothing can ruin our time together. Are you worried about your father?”

Blair rested her cheek against Cam’s shoulder. “Yes. It’s hard, wanting him to be safe and not wanting you to be the one responsible for it.”

“I’m not. That’s Tom’s job, and the rest of your father’s detail. That’s a big reason why I’m not doing protection anymore. I don’t want you to have to choose between your father’s safety or your own, and mine. I get that. But what Luce asked me to do isn’t the same thing. I won’t be primarily protection.” Cam stopped, put her arms around Blair’s waist, and kissed her softly. “All I’m going to do is tag along, keep my eyes and ears open, try to find out who has access to the information that’s getting out. I’m looking for leaks, holes in the security network, I’m not doing security. You don’t have to choose between us, Blair. I would never do that to you.”

“I’m sorry,” Blair said softly. “I know, I do, really.”

“I know you’re worried about your father. Nothing’s going to happen to him. He’s got the best people in the world around him. He’ll be fine, so will we.”

Blair threaded her arms around Cam’s neck and kissed her. Her protective detail was somewhere nearby, pretending not to watch them while keeping them in sight, pretending they didn’t see their private moments, while seeing everything in their path. Right now, she was more grateful for those agents than she’d ever been. Where she’d once thought they imprisoned her, she now understood they gave her freedom. “Sometimes, I feel like a selfish shit.”

“Nothing could be further from the truth. You know what I think?” Cam said.

“What?”

“I think we should go back to DC a little bit earlier than we’d planned. Weather reports say another big storm is moving up the coast. We won’t have to worry about flights if we leave tomorrow.”

“You’re sure? I mean, it’s our honeymoon, sort of.”

“We can have a sort of honeymoon in DC. I’m not sleeping at the White House, though.”

“Oh, really? And I so love being there with the press corps, and the valets, and the officers in the halls.”

Cam grasped Blair’s hand and resumed walking. “I’m sorry, baby. There are some things I just can’t give you.”

Laughing, Blair fell into step. “That’s okay, darling. I still adore you.”

Chapter Seventeen

Cord hadn’t been kidding when she’d said there would be currents. Wes was a strong swimmer, but in a wetsuit and gear, pulling an inert body through the water against the swirling tides that wanted to drag her under took all her strength and concentration. The instructor assigned to play POTUS wasn’t as big as Gary, but he was heavy. The third time she pulled him from beneath the surface, hooked an arm around his shoulder and over his chest, and kept him afloat while a Coast Guard helicopter dropped a rescue basket, her arms and legs were trembling and her heart hammered in her ears. Evyn circled in a dinghy nearby, waiting to assist in the transfer to the lift basket. When they got the patient secured, the helicopter lifted off, the churning wash from its rotors blasting her with icy froth. After the first time she’d gotten a faceful and nearly choked up a lung, she’d learned to turn her head away and keep her mouth closed. Wearily, she fought the water’s relentless pull, threatening to carry her out to sea.

“How you doing?” Evyn called.

“Great!” She caught a wave wrong and coughed out a mouthful of brine.

“Head in. Take a break.”

“Roger.” Wes stroked toward shore while Evyn docked the dinghy on Cord’s boat. When she made it in close enough, she stood up and waited for the rest of the team, letting the blue-green ocean swirl around her calves. Despite the painful trembling in her shoulders and thighs, she felt great. She’d managed to keep her patient alive, gotten him transferred to the medevac chopper, and avoided drowning. Not once but three times. She considered that a damn good day.