The Secret Son by Tara Taylor Quinn

Author:Tara Taylor Quinn
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2002-08-16T22:00:00+00:00

“HI.”

“Hi.”

“I didn’t expect to find you there.” It was after seven in Washington. Jack had just called out of a need to hear her voice, even if only on an answering machine.

“Jeff and Pamela have Kevin for the night. I’m using the opportunity to catch up on things here.”

Erica didn’t often speak of her ex-husband’s girlfriend. “She’s moved in with him, then?”

“No. She’ll go home. Kevin sleeps in Jeff’s room when he stays over there.”

“You sound down. And don’t tell me you’re just tired.”

“Jeff told me last week that he’s going to ask Pamela to marry him.”

Sitting in a motel room in South Dakota, Jack winced. “You know that has no reflection on you, right?”

“I know that I’m playing him up as a man who, when given the opportunity to parade around a young wife, chose love and a woman of his own age, instead. And it’s more than the image, it’s the truth. Jeff’s values aren’t shallow, and his constituents deserve to know that.”

If Jack had been capable of falling in love, he might have done so in that moment. “That’s pretty selfless of you,” he murmured.

“I don’t think so,” she said softly. “I betrayed him. He’d done nothing but treat me with love and kindness. He cared for me, gave me everything I’d ever asked for, and I thanked him by…well, you know how I thanked him.”

Yeah. He knew. And much as he hated what they’d done, what that night in New York had done to her, he couldn’t regret the memory. And couldn’t seem to keep himself from thinking about making another one…with her.

“So what’s up? Are you as tired as you sound?”

“I am.”

“Where are you?”

“South Dakota. There was an attempted imitation of the Oklahoma City bombing. An entire day care in a government building was being held hostage by this guy after his bombing failed. Apparently he’d been trying to get someone to listen to him for more than a year about a problem he’d had with city water out on his farm. This week his wife was diagnosed with cancer and he’s certain the water she’s been drinking is responsible.”

Sitting on the edge of his bed, Jack leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and rubbed his face. He’d just been through the most impossible fourteen hours of his career. He couldn’t seem to shake them.

“So what happened?” Erica’s voice was more than just soft. It reached out to him, pulling him toward her as though she was there in the room, not half a country away.

“I almost lost one.”

An image flashed before his eyes in slow motion, as it had been doing for most of the past hour. The smoking gun. The little boy lifted off the ground with the force of the shot. Blood. In the air. On the wall behind him.

“What happened?”

“I talked for hours, but there was no reaching this man. He wasn’t going to be talked down. We had his wife come. She couldn’t make a difference, either. He was just

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