Authors: Barbara Phinney
"Capable of fathering a child, though. And you said he looked familiar to you."
Sinking back in his seat, Tay felt his mouth fall open. "I won't tell you I was an angel, but there's no way I could be that kid's father. What little sex I had twenty-two years ago, I used a condom and the girl didn't get pregnant."
"They aren't foolproof and believe me, girls can be quite emotional, enough to need medical help."
He stood. "Dawna, I swear I've got no offspring floating around. I wouldn't father a child and then take-" He cut himself off, unsure if the words he'd planned to say would even be the truth. And suddenly, with this conversation, he wanted to tell the truth.
She sighed, and he noticed she'd averted her eyes. "I'm only offering possibilities. You keep telling me Martin has nothing to do with this embassy. If that's so, then why did he arrive at the same time you did?"
"I don't know. He didn't come in on the same flight. Mine was an air force flight that was delayed leaving Miami, and he came from Buenos Aires."
He stepped closer to her, taking in the soft pantsuit, the creases caused by his kiss. The urge to run his hands up under the hem of the tailored jacket-like blouse hit him square in the gut. Her skin would be warm. He remembered it from three years ago. Heat from the hot South American sun blasted through the window. Air-conditioning wasn't considered necessary in the wintertime. And after their kiss, he bet her skin wore a sheen of perspiration. Slick, smooth.
He knew he'd promised the next time he kissed her, he would finish it in bed, but he couldn't help himself. He drew her back into his arms.
They kissed again, a languid, gentle kiss as if they had absolutely nothing better to do with their time.
She was beginning to trust him again. No way would they kiss so easily if she didn't completely trust him to behave himself, and not do anything so foolish as finish this lovemaking on her desk.
It was a heady feeling, this rediscovered trust. As heady as the kiss.
A short rap cut into his thoughts and Dawna leapt away from him. Smoothing down her suit, she called out, "Come in."
The new
vigilante
opened the door and peeked in. "Sergeant Atkinson? I have a telephone call for a Mr. Hastings. Long distance."
Tay had already sat back in Dawna's chair. "Can you patch it through to here?"
"No,
señor
. I do not know how."
Dawna opened the door wider. "I can show you." She walked into the security office. A moment later, Tay picked up the phone and spoke into it, "Hello, Hastings here."
"Mr. Hastings, this is Lieutenant-Colonel Smythe."
Smythe was Dawna's CO. He ran his unit with a sharp eye for detail and penchant for heavy-handed discipline. He didn't like anything that could tarnish his image of how things were supposed to run. Tay knew by the tone of his voice, he wasn't happy.
"Mr. Hastings, I have read over Sergeant Atkinson's reports."
"Is there a problem?" Dawna's reports were thorough. He'd read a few before flying down here.
"I'm not satisfied that all is being done to preserve security at the embassy. The ambassador poisoned, shots fired, missing security guards, all after a bomb blast? Your own report to me is sketchy at best."
Tay bristled. His one and only report was sketchy because at the time he'd written it, he'd only been on the ground for a matter of hours. "Investigations aren't completed overnight."
"I'm well aware of how long investigations take, Mr. Hastings," Smythe snapped. "I am a police officer myself."
Tay doubted the man had seen any patrol work in thirty years. "My next report will be more informative, I can assure you."
"It better be, Mr. Hastings. Sergeant Atkinson, in my opinion, should never have been given this posting. She can't be trusted to follow orders and if I'd had my way, she'd still be shoveling snow off staff cars in the Arctic. As for you, Mr. Hastings, if I don't see some end results within the next forty-eight hours, both of you will be removed from the country and replaced by a contingent of RCMP officers."
Tay gripped the receiver until his knuckles ached. Police from the Ottawa area? Officers from the division where he used to work?
No damn way
.
"Furthermore, I have External Affairs on my rear end, Mr. Hastings. They want someone to hang for this mess. It's obvious that Sergeant Atkinson is at fault again, but let me tell you something. If I'm not satisfied with both yours and Atkinson's next reports, she will be removed from her post. And there won't be any more cushy instructor jobs for you, either, Mr. Hasting. Have I made myself clear?"
Chapter Nineteen
Dawna pulled the phone away from her ear, but not before accidentally catching the caller's first words. Lieutenant-Colonel Smythe. His clipped tone was unmistakable.
A single wash of dread chilled her. She could feel the tension bursting through her and hastily dropped the receiver.
It clattered onto the base, causing the
vigilante
to glance up at her. She muttered an apology.
The door to her office opened and Tay stepped out. His expression was cool, calm, but by no means relaxed.
She wouldn't ask him what the call was about. The last few days, she'd begun to see him as a person struggling with problems of his own. She wouldn't put him in a position of lying to her again.
Or didn't she want to hear the truth? Because she was scared?
Lifting her chin, she said, "I have a few things to finish up this afternoon, but after that, I'm going to drop by the ambassador's house. Would you like to tag along?"
Tay glanced up at her, as if surprised she was there. "Yeah, sure." He paused. "Do you think we could swing by your apartment to get the embassy's cell phone?"
Alone in her apartment with Tay? No, that wasn't going to happen. "I'll send an
escolta
over to get it."
He nodded absently. She ached to ask him what was on his mind, but pushed it away. "Give me about an hour and I'll be ready to leave." Before she gave in to any temptation, she walked into her office and shut the door.
Tay ran his fingers through his hair. He must have sighed loudly, for the new
vigilante
peered up at him. Clearing his throat, he stalked into the corridor.
He had to do something. Glancing up fervently, he strode to the back mantrap and out to the glaring brilliance of the courtyard.
He shut his eyes, feeling the warmth of the sun penetrate his skin. One deep breath. Two deep breaths. Three. The urge to run faded.
Dawna was right. He did want to run away. He still wanted to run away.
No damn way!
What the hell was wrong with him? He couldn't leave her with this mess. Not again. This wasn't how a decent cop did things. Since when did he become such a coward?
Since he was able to camouflage the running away behind switches in assignments, new jobs, other things that would come up.
He spun around and stormed back up the broken steps into the rear mantrap. In the corridor, he hesitated, Smythe's words still echoing in his head. Should he mention the ultimatum the Colonel had dropped on him? Would Dawna believe him if he added that he had no intentions of letting her take the blame anymore?
Probably not, even considering her fledgling trust in him.
He found Lucy alone in her office. She looked up at him questioningly. "Can I help you with anything?"
He opened his mouth, then shut it. Lucy lifted her eyebrows expectantly.
He began again. "Has the Assistant Ambassador taken over the ambassador's duties?"
She smiled. "Mr. Taylor is the ambassador's assistant, not the Assistant Ambassador. There's a difference. He can fill in some of the duties, of course, but certainly not the majority of them. What Mr. Taylor's doing now is mostly damage control, I'm afraid. I've been typing up press releases and cancellation letters all morning." She sagged. "I'm thankful that Ambassador Legace is better, and not just for our workload. But still..."
Tay folded his arms. "How much tea does he drink?"
She pondered his question. "A lot. He has one cup of coffee in the morning, and tea the rest of the time."
"Normal tea?"
"Oh, no. Herbal teas, too. He likes mint tea."
"Where does he get the tea from?"
Lucy blinked. "The States and Canada, mostly. We have it shipped in for the embassy."
"And does Dawna drink it, too?"
She smiled again. "Only if it has caffeine in it. At least most of the time, anyway."
"Does she normally keep her tea in her desk?"
"I suppose," she said slowly, shrugging her shoulders. "Just for convenience and not to hoard it or anything. I mean, I have some and so does the ambassador."
"And he has access to Dawna's office, correct?"
"He can go anywhere in the embassy he likes."
"Does he normally take other people's teas?"
She stiffened, her words cooling. "You'll have to ask him that."
Tay nodded, thanking her. Lucy was loyal to her boss, all right. But Dennis Legace was the kind of man to whom loyalty came easily. He was fair and honest. He'd hired Dawna because he believed in her, despite what was on her record. In return, he had her loyalty, too.
Feeling frustrated, Tay went down to the coffee room. What was taking Dawna so long? They had a job to do. And only forty-eight hours to do it in.
He searched all the cupboards for a tea that matched the open box he'd seen in Dawna's office. While he had been waiting for her earlier, he'd memorized the brand.
He couldn't find any. All that was here were individually wrapped packages of Canadian teas. The one in Dawna's desk was local. The coffee was freshly opened, too, he noticed with a sniff to it.
He would ask her about it.
Dawna found Tay at the entrance to the coffee room a short time later. She'd hurried through the rest of her work, skipping the things that could wait and purposely deleting from the computer screen the rows of letters and numbers she and Tay had created with their passion.
No evidence. There must never be any evidence of inappropriate behavior. Nothing as long as her position here was so tenuous. Nothing even the other staff members could suspect.