A Conflict of Interest (8 page)

“I’d have failed miserably.”

“Funny how you grew up in the country and ended up in the big city. I grew up in the middle of the city and ended up craving the wilderness.”

She glanced around. “You must love this.”

He did. But not for the reasons she meant. They were all alone for the entire night, and his imagination was working overtime on the implications.

Six

C
andlelight bounced off the polished cherrywood table. The leather dining chairs were deep and luxurious, the fire crackled and popped in a soothing backdrop and the expensive crystal and china shone in the flickering light.

The only thing out of place was the instant oatmeal where a five-star dinner should have been. Cara’s was apple cinnamon, while Max had gone with maple sugar.

Cara wasn’t about to complain. Though they had no power and no heat, Max had dug out the propane barbecue on the balcony. He’d cleaned it up, got it running and boiled some water in the kettle. The hot water, along with the few provisions in the villa’s kitchen, had yielded both oatmeal and tea. Left to her own devices, she wouldn’t have had even that much.

Jake had sent another message from town, with the encouraging news that a group of children with only minor injuries had been rescued from one of the slopes. Work would go on all night, bringing stranded people down from the Apex Lounge at the top of the gondola. Cara had texted her boss, letting them all know she was safe, but with the warning that she was conserving the battery in her phone.

She and Max had then shut down their communication devices, and now, except for the distant glow of the town below, they were cut off from the world.

“You really were a Boy Scout,” said Cara, as she blew gently on a first spoon of oatmeal.

“What makes you say that?” Max was seated directly across from her at one end of the long table. She had a view out the glass wall at the far end, and heat from the living room fire warmed her back.

“You lit the fire. You thought to use the barbecue to boil the water. I bet you know first aid and how to whittle.”

“Yes to the first aid, but there weren’t a lot of Boy Scouts in my neighborhood.”

Cara knew Max had grown up in south Chicago, and she knew his single mother had worked as a waitress. “So how did you learn all that?”

“Trial and error. Mostly error. While I was in college, I took some adventure vacations, embarrassed myself, nearly got people killed. When you grow up in a basement apartment without so much as a hammer or a screwdriver, never mind camping equipment or a father to show you how they’re used, you hit your eighteenth birthday with a bit of a handicap.”

Cara was sorry she’d asked. “I didn’t mean—”

“I’m not upset with you. I’m not upset with anybody. Life is what it is sometimes. I can’t control how I grew up. I can only control what I do from here on in.”

She knew she shouldn’t ask, but she couldn’t help herself. “Is that why you don’t want a family? Because of your bad memories?”

“There are a lot of reasons why I don’t want a family. Experience, yeah. I wouldn’t wish my childhood on anyone. And I wouldn’t wish my mother’s life on anyone. Every single day of her life was a grind.”

“Poverty was a big part of that,” Cara pointed out.

Max didn’t respond to her comment. “Don’t even get me started on genetics,” he said. “I’m the product of a father who was willing to walk out on the mother of his child, walk out on his own son, walk out on his responsibility. You think the world needs more people from that particular gene pool?”

“You’re not like him.”

“Oh, yes, I am. I’m here today, but I’ll be gone tomorrow. I may use a jet plane instead of a bus, but I’m living in my own, selfish world, following my own, selfish dreams.”

“But you’re not leaving anyone behind.” Cara knew it was a completely different situation.

“Exactly,” Max agreed. “That’s the beauty of the system. I’m not hurting anyone. I could get shot and killed in a conflict zone or swept down a waterfall and drown and it wouldn’t matter one little bit.”

“It would matter.”

“Yeah, well, NCN’s ratings might drop. But that would be a temporary—”

“Your
friends
would miss you.” She couldn’t stand to hear him talk that way. He was loved and respected by his friends, his peers, even his viewers.

“Hey, I don’t mean that as a bad thing. I mean it as a source of freedom. Of course my friends would miss me. If they died, I’d miss them, too. But losing a friend is nothing compared to losing parents or a spouse. I’m not going to be the guy who leaves loved ones behind to fend for themselves.”

“Let me get this straight. You’re protecting your potential wife and your potential children by never allowing them to exist?”

Max gave a thoughtful nod. “Yeah, that’s pretty much it.”

“There’s something wrong with that logic.” More than she would tell him. More than she could ever tell him.

“Not from where I’m sitting.”

“You can’t live in a bubble, Max.”

She tried to tell herself that none of this was a surprise. She’d known all along Max wasn’t father material. He wasn’t even relationship material. She had no right to get all maudlin now just because he’d laid it out in no uncertain terms.

Nothing had changed in the last five minutes. She still had a couple of months before she’d even have to hide her pregnancy. She’d decided to ask Lynn about an international posting. There was an ongoing need for communications support in the embassies. She’d like London, or maybe Sydney, or even Montreal. Her child could learn French while he or she was growing up.

“I’m not living in a bubble,” Max countered. “I jump out of airplanes, climb mountains, ford rivers. I even wrestled a crocodile once.”

“Ah, the infamous crocodile story.” She forced herself to lighten things up, taking another bite of her oatmeal.

“Okay,” he said. “In the interest of full disclosure—but I warn you, what happens while trapped by an avalanche, stays in the avalanche.”

She managed a smile at that. “Good grief, what are you about to confess?”

“My guide on that trip? He was nearby in the boat. And I think, well, I know, he conked the gator on the head with his paddle before the wrestling match started.”

Cara worked up a censorious frown, her tone clearly disapproving. “Are you saying the crocodile was incapacitated?”

“I’m guessing. But Jake got the footage, and we all kind of agreed to pretend it was a bigger deal than it was.”

“You fought a punch-drunk crocodile?”

“And won.”

“And parlayed it into the he-man, adventurer reputation you now enjoy amongst your innocent and apparently duped fans.”

There was a twinkle in his eye. “I never claimed to be a Boy Scout.”

“Okay. I guess I’m in no position to be snooty. I’ve never wrestled any kind of crocodile.”

“Just the vultures in the press.”

“Some days, I wish somebody would clonk them on the head with a paddle.”

Max turned thoughtful. “There’s nothing in Fields for either of us. I mean about Eleanor.”

Her guard went up. “You know I can’t discuss that with you.”

“I’m not asking for information. I’m just making an observation. Nobody’s talking. Nobody admits to remembering anything of significance. Which means either there’s a conspiracy going on here worthy of the CIA or people truly don’t remember.”

“I think they don’t remember,” Cara put in before she could stop herself.

“I agree,” Max returned. “And doesn’t that beg the question of how Angelica Pierce and ANS found the story?”

Cara had to agree that it did. “Do you have a theory?”

Max leaned slightly forward. “Are you offering quid pro quo on an information exchange?”

“You know I can’t do that.”

“Then I don’t have a theory.” He paused. “Except that I do. And it’s a good one.”

It was her turn to lean forward. “You’re bluffing.”

“Only one way for you to find out.”

There were, in fact, two ways for her to find out. But the second one was worse than the first.

“I can tell what you’re thinking,” he taunted.

“No, you can’t.”

“You’re thinking that if you got naked, I’d tell you anything.”

“I am
not
going to bribe you with sex.”

He seemed to consider that. “Too bad. Because it’d work.”

* * *

Max knew he had to keep himself busy for the rest of the evening. Because if he let his attention get stalled on Cara, he’d go stark, raving mad.

He’d cleaned up the dishes, refilled the wood box and checked the walls for damage where the avalanche snow had piled up. Now he was methodically working his way through the drawers and cupboards in the living area, looking for anything that might be useful to them if they were stuck here for a couple more days.

Cara had hung her blazer in the closet, commandeered a fuzzy robe from the powder room to help her keep warm and borrowed a pair of Max’s socks to use as slippers. She should have looked comical, curled up in a corner of the sofa with a magazine in her hand, but she was sexy.

“What did you find?” she called across the room, having noted he was staring vacantly into the bottom of a cabinet.

He stopped himself from turning to look at her again. “Board games.” He pulled one out at random. “Monopoly?”

“I haven’t played that in years.”

“What do you play?
Angry Birds?
” he asked her.

She laughed. “Angry voters.”

He couldn’t help but smile at that. “Are you winning?”

“Hardly ever.”

He came to his feet, Monopoly game in hand. “Care to take me on?” He was about to run out of busywork, and concentrating on Monopoly was better than concentrating on Cara.

“I thought I was already taking you on,” she returned. But she closed the magazine and set it on the table.

He decided to take that as a yes.

He made his way to the dining room table, moving a couple of candles to one side, then opened the old box to see if enough of the pieces were there to play a game.

Surprisingly, the contents seemed mostly intact, if a bit dog-eared and faded.

Cara pulled up a chair. “Is the dog there?”

“We have the dog.” Max unfolded the board between them and handed her the game piece.

“What are you taking?” she asked, reaching for the piles of colored money and starting to sort.

“Top hat,” he decided.

“Not the race car?”

He frowned. “It looks like an import.”

“You’re an American muscle car guy?”

“That’s right. Nothing quite like touring a Mustang GT convertible out on Route 1.” He got comfortable in the chair across from her, then located the dice and stacked the game cards in their respective piles.

Cara paused, her blue eyes going dreamy. “That sounds nice.”

“I’ll take you anytime you want to go. Well, we might want to wait for April or May. Unless we start in Georgia.” In the winter, he always used a hardtop.

“You have a convertible?”

“I have three.”

“You don’t think that’s a little excessive?”

“They’re part of my collection.”

She gave him a knowing smile. “In my book, ‘collection’ is merely a justification for excess.”

“No argument from me.”

She looked him straight in the eye. “Now there’s a first.”

“Ouch,” he told her softly.

“How many cars do you own?”

Max did a quick calculation in his head. “Seventeen. But three of them are in the middle of restoration work. Most of them are vintage.”

“You restore old cars?”

“I do.”

“How come I didn’t know this?”

“There are many things you don’t know about me.”

“But where? How? You live in a penthouse on Connecticut Avenue.”

“I also have a house in Maine.”

“Seriously?”

“Why would I make that up?”

She went back to sorting the money. “I’m just surprised. You’ve never mentioned it before.”

“Cara, we haven’t had that many dates.” And most of their time alone together had been spent debating the political issues and events of the day. Or in bed. They’d spent an awful lot of their time alone together in bed. Which might explain his rather Pavlovian urge to kiss her right now.

Her hand slowed in the money sorting, then came to a stop on the stack of fifties. She looked up at him, and he could see the same thoughts making their way through her brain.

“What else don’t I know about you?” she asked.

“Many, many things. Most of them good.”

Her mouth twitched in a smile. “Tell me the bad ones.”

“You first.”

She drew back in what was obviously mock affront. “There’s nothing bad about me.”

“You’ve got the hots for a maverick, daredevil news reporter.”

“Ha. Me and about a million other women.”

“Thanks for the compliment.” He gave her a nod. “But you’re different, and you know it.”

“I’m not different. I’m exactly like all those other women who run panting after the famous, sexy crocodile wrestler.”

“You’re different to me,” he told her honestly.

“Only because I’m the one in front of you at this moment.”

“Beautiful women are in front of me all the time. I don’t feel this way about them.”

“Then it’s because you can’t have me.”

Max had considered that. In fact, he’d considered it quite a lot. Could the fact that Cara was off-limits make her even more appealing? Was it possible his mind was playing tricks on him? Was it possible he was that shallow?

“It’s true,” she crowed triumphantly at his silence.

“I sometimes wish it was,” he returned. “It would make things a whole lot easier.”

She tapped her index finger on the table. “If I was available. If I was, I don’t know, let’s say a bank manager. If I was nobody in public or political life. If I’d confessed my passionate, undying love for you and told you I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you, marry you, have your babies—”

“What?”
Everything inside him recoiled. “Where did that come from?”

She shook her head. “You don’t want me, Max.”

“I don’t see going from zero to a hundred in two seconds flat. I don’t see pretending you’re a completely different person than you are. If you were you, but had stayed on the dairy farm and were looking for a hick, hayseed husband to read
Farming Today
and escort you to the barn dance on Saturday night, I wouldn’t have fallen for you.”

“Well, aren’t you shallow.”

“But you’re not that. You’d never be that. I like you just the way you are, Cara. In your current life. In your current circumstances. With your current hopes and dreams and value system.”