Harlan’s gut tightened with concern.
“Is she okay?” Parker’s gaze had followed Harlan’s, settling on Stacy’s slender form.
“She had a scrape on her head, but the EMT didn’t seem to think it amounted to much.” Of course, in the middle of all the chaos, the paramedic hadn’t exactly spent much time checking her out. “I’ll go check on her.”
As he stepped out onto the narrow fourth floor terrace, Stacy turned to see who had disturbed her solitude. In her pale face, her eyes looked big and haunted. “Has something happened?” she asked, her voice tinged with alarm.
“No. I just wanted to check on you.” He sat on one of the adjacent benches, squelching the urge to reach out and touch her folded hands. “You look tired.”
“Long day,” she murmured with a hint of wry humor.
“Hellish day,” he agreed. “Did you manage to get all your calls made?”
“I think so.” The humor in her eyes faded. “I just wish I were home.”
“I bet your husband does, too.” Even as the words escaped his lips, Harlan knew he was fishing for information about her marital status. He gave himself a mental kick.
She grimaced. “No. No husband.”
He quirked an eyebrow. “Um, sorry?”
She flashed a quick, humorless grin. “No, not sorry.”
So, another wounded warrior back from the marital battlefield? That was even more dangerous.
Her smile faded as quickly as it had risen. “Do we have a death tally from the blast yet?”
He shook his head. “I found two D.O.A. at the scene. At least two more who were in really bad shape.”
Her chin trembled and a sheen of moisture filled her dark eyes. “Damn it.”
The urge to pull her into a hug caught him off guard. He wasn’t a demonstrative guy. He didn’t do tea and sympathy. But something about Stacy Giordano’s vulnerability punched him right in the gut. He wanted to make things better for her.
And that scared the hell out of him.
“I’d better go see if Lila’s been asking for me.” Stacy pushed herself off the bench, wincing a little as if the movement caused her pain.
Harlan couldn’t stop himself from reaching out to steady her, his fingers closing around her upper arm. Her gaze shot up, a quizzical look in her eyes, and for a second, he felt as if his whole body had turned to liquid.
Heat quickly eclipsed that melting sensation. He pulled his hand back, disturbed by his reaction to her.
The door from the waiting room opened, and Parker stood in the doorway, his expression grim. “I just got a call from Wade,” he said. “Frank Dorian’s dead.”
Chapter Three
The governor stayed on the phone for most of the very early flight home from Austin the next morning, giving Stacy time to decompress from the past twenty-four hours. Staying busy arranging for the governor’s entourage to stay in Austin overnight had helped fill her afternoon, and the temporary drama of learning about Frank Dorian’s jailhouse death had occupied most of the early evening, as Bailey Lockhart’s fiancé, Parker McKenna, and his colleague Harlan McClain had stayed in constant touch with their counterparts at the Corps Security and Investigations office in Freedom, relaying information as it trickled in.
All evidence pointed to suicide-Dorian had fashioned a noose from his jail-issued shirt and hung himself from the bars of his cell-but Bart Bellows had selected the men who worked at CSI because they were thorough and resourceful. Stacy had tried not to eavesdrop on their conversations, but she’d gleaned enough to know that one of the CSI agents had a contact at the Freedom Police Department who was keeping them apprised of the department’s investigation. If there was anything strange about Dorian’s death, the agents of CSI were determined to figure out what it was and what, if anything, it had to do with the attack on the governor.
Stacy had found herself growing more and more impressed with the two CSI agents as the evening went on. She knew from Bailey that Corps Security and Investigations was made up of former military men. Parker had been an Army Captain, and it showed. He’d been a huge help in keeping everyone in the governor’s entourage calm and focused.
She wasn’t sure what branch of the military Harlan McClain had been part of. He wore his sandy brown hair short, but so did most of the other former military men she knew. He was hard-muscled, as she’d learned when she’d practically collapsed in his arms after tripping on their way out of the debris field. Clearly he’d kept himself in shape since parting company with whatever military branch he’d served in.
He smelled good, too, she thought, even when sweating out a bomb scare. He didn’t wear cologne like a lot of men, including her ex-husband, did. He smelled of good old soap and water, a light, clean scent that probably wouldn’t have smelled masculine on anyone else.
Harlan McClain was masculine to the core. It had showed in how he’d dealt with the aftermath of the bombing-taking charge, keeping things moving. He’d tended to the dead and wounded, delegated authority to others as needed, and jumped right in to help Stacy when they found the governor buried under the rubble.
Very different from her ex-husband, Anthony, who’d never met a problem he couldn’t analyze to death.
“Looking forward to seeing Zachary?” Lila murmured, drawing Stacy’s attention back to the cabin of the small jet.
“Yes,” she answered, even if there was a small part of her that was dreading seeing her son after the unexpected night away from home. Zachary hated changes to his routine, so he’d probably given poor Charlotte a hard time last night. Stacy almost envied Charlotte-at least a tantrum was a response. When Zachary was immersed in his own little world-a frequent event-he barely acknowledged Stacy’s presence.
They arrived in Freedom a little after 7:00 a.m. Stacy stayed with the governor for a few minutes, going over the changes to Lila’s schedule arranged in response to the events in Austin and planning ahead for a couple of television interviews to let the people of Texas see that the governor was ready to finish out her term with her usual sass and vigor.
Finally, Lila told her to take the rest of the morning off, but to come back to the ranch house for lunch. “I have something else I need to discuss with you.”
With curiosity niggling at the back of her brain, Stacy walked to the ranch guesthouse she shared with her son. She found Charlotte Manning in the middle of helping Zachary find a pair of socks to wear to school.
Charlotte looked surprised to see her. “How’d the governor get the hospital to let her go so early?”
“You know how the governor is. What doctor was going to say no?” Stacy smiled at Zachary, who looked up at her for a second, then looked away, showing no sign of interest.
He went back to his search, sorting through the socks to find the blue pair. Tuesday meant the blue socks. Always.
A cold ache settled in her chest. After a year and a half of trying to come to terms with Zachary’s condition, she now realized she wasn’t ever going to get used to it. She’d spent every available hour researching Asperger’s syndrome, reading books, blogs, dry medical journal articles and heartfelt newspaper stories from parents of aspies, as people with Asperger’s syndrome referred to themselves. She’d come across a blog by a young college student who had Asperger’s and found some comfort in how grounded the young woman seemed to be, despite her different way of experiencing life, but ultimately, she’d had to accept that life with her beautiful son would be a series of never-ending challenges.
He’d have trouble making friends. He might never fall in love and have a life partner. He might find a job he loved but he just as easily might not. She’d fight with everything inside her to help him reach his full potential, but it was impossible to tell what that potential might be right now, when he was barely old enough to tie his shoes on his own.