Page 25

After contactingher insurance company and filing a police report on the damage done to her Mercedes, Kayla made the humiliating drive home.

She’d put in a call to five different body shops, but all of them were closed up tight for the weekend. Moving to Plan B, she transferred her older model Audi from the third garage stall to the first, then backed her Merc into the farthest stall.

She stared at the ragged letters carved into the driver’s and passenger’s side doors.

TRAITOROUS BITCH

The sight drove her back fourteen years, to her undergraduate days as a poli-sci major, to the time she’d raised more funds for a charity drive than her fellow students. One of her classmates, who didn’t like the number two spot, decided to take his frustration out on her vehicle.

In red paint, he’d written BITCH on the hood. A parking lot camera had captured the incident, but one call from his senator father to the school’s leadership had squashed any possibility of discipline.

An act that had sparked Kayla’s political activism. Anyone who could pick up a phone and cancel repercussions for someone’s criminal act had been in office too long.

She flashed back to the moment she found the vandalism to her Mercedes, to the terror, to her knee-jerk reaction. A panicked text to Ash.

Someone vandalized my car while I was at the office.

Now, she’d give anything to pull back the message.

Another moment of indecision had passed before she dialed APD’s number. After the police had come and gone, she’d called Ash on her way home to tell him to disregard her earlier text.

He hadn’t answered, nor had he responded to her message, so she’d left him a voicemail, repeating the same. Even now, an hour later, finishing up a batch of stir fry, she still felt ridiculous for her automatic reaction.

If she hadn’t witnessed a murder, she would have reacted to the vandalism the same way she had all those years ago. Search and destroy. Not fear and uncertainty.

When Alexander Brighton had desecrated her car, he couldn’t have known the shitstorm his petty jealousy would unleash. But he found out when his father entered the Senate race for another term.

Prior to the incident, Students for a Better Tomorrow had been courting Kayla to join. She’d resisted the group’s recruitment efforts because they acted like a bunch of puppies searching for their mama’s teats. After Senator Brighton worked his phone magic and had the parking lot’s video feed deemed too grainy to identify the perpetrator, Kayla joined SBT, not as a member, but as their president.

In a few short months, she’d rallied thousands of passionate college students all over North Carolina to register, then vote for Brighton’s opponent. Stephanie Foxwood won the Senate seat by 20,933 votes.

A lobbyist was born.

Kayla removed the colander from the sink and prepared to dump the peppered shrimp in with the veggies, when her door bell chimed. Grabbing her phone from the island counter, she checked the video feed.

Ash.

She turned off the burner and engaged the intercom. “What do you want, Agent?”

“I got your text.” He stared straight into the camera’s lens, and Kayla’s heart skittered around in her chest.

“Then you also got my voicemail, telling you to disregard.”

“I came by to make sure you’re okay.”

“As you can hear, I’m alive and kicking.”

“Show me the damage.”

“Not necessary. The incident has been reported to the police.”

He moved in close to the camera. Determination bracketed his eyes. “Stop being a brat and show me your damn car.”

She thought about ignoring his command, but the reality was she’d been jumpy ever since she’d parted ways with the police. A part of her wanted Ash Blackwell close. Needed his strength to reenergize her natural confidence. Which aggravated her to no end.

“To your left,” she grumbled. “I’ll meet you at the third garage door.”

Thrusting her phone into the pocket of her gray lounge pants, she turned toward the half bath to check her appearance, then stopped and reversed course. He’d already seen her at her worst, with bed head and scaly teeth.

A cami with an overshirt and cotton pants wouldn’t blow his mind. She opened the door leading to the garage and hit the button for the far stall.

Cranks and pulleys slowly lifted the door, revealing a pair of brown shoes, widespread, then a set of thick quads in casual pants. Lean hips. Strong hands anchored on each side of his waist. Broad chest. Squared, tense shoulders. Stubbled jawline. Piercing blue eyes.

At some point, Kayla’s brain had instructed her slippered feet to halt their march to her fouled vehicle and take in the wonder being unveiled for her, inch by tantalizing inch.

Her breath had stopped, too. The only part of her body working, including her mind, was the organ thrashing against her rib cage like a wild animal desperate for a midnight snack.

The clatter of mechanisms stopped and the cool night air swept in, sending goosebumps up her legs and arms. Neither of them said anything for a potent second, then the hesitant trill of a bluebird penetrated the silence, breaking their visual connection.

Ash dropped his hands from his hips and strode to the passenger side of the Mercedes. Kayla followed like a magnet attracted to steel.