She puffed another laugh against his chest.
Gooseflesh rose across his skin under her hands. “Mmm.” He groaned. “Let’s get questions out of the way so we can find a hotel.” He leaned away, tipped her chin up with his fingers and smiled into her eyes. “Because I’m ready to put the past behind us, too. I’m ready to move on.”
Mitch glanced at his watch. Again. 10:36 A.M. He rocked his shoulders to ease the electric tightness surrounding his chest.
“Thirty seconds later than the last time you checked,” Owen murmured beside him in the hospital elevator.
“Shut up.” Mitch shifted on his feet. Stared up at the numbers tick, tick, ticking off as they traveled the floors. Sighed. Glanced at his watch. Damn thing didn’t move.
“Christ, you’re worse than an expectant father.”
Mitch shot a scowl at Owen, but inside, his stomach made a slow roll.
Owen’s gaze lowered from the numbers flashing through the floors, a grin on his face. “Where’s your suit?”
“In the car.”
“The ring?”
“Teague has it.” He ran a hand through his hair, wiping his palm across his forehead to catch the sweat. “Or I’ll choke him with my bare hands.”
“Everyone’s blessings?” Owen asked.
“More like threats if I don’t.”
“Who did you get to preside?”
“Chief Justice McMillan.”
“On such short notice?” Owen’s brows shot up and he whistled softly through his teeth. “You do have friends in high places, Foster.”
“He’s a closet romantic,” Mitch said just as the elevator dinged and the doors slid open. “All it took was a two-minute rendition of our story and he adjusted his schedule to fit ours.”
“Where?”
Mitch cleared his throat as he stepped off the elevator, his nerves mounting as he pulled up the frantic details he’d thrown together just hours ago. “Superior Court, main library. They’re closing it for an hour.”
“Apropos.”
Mitch and Owen paused and turned toward the nurse’s station down the hall, where four cops were staged along the corridor alongside two FBI agents, including Special Agent Seville. From the corner of his eye, he noticed Owen zero in on Seville. Saw the way he grinned.
“Are you planning on entering this institution again anytime soon?” he asked.
Owen started. Turned to Mitch with a frown. Then, caught staring at Seville, laughed wryly. “I’m not opposed to marriage. I just didn’t have the right match first time around.”
“Should have been matched to her all this time?” Mitch asked.
Owen lifted a shoulder. “You’re getting a little intrusive, counselor. And we need to focus elsewhere right now. I’ve never seen you so distracted at such a critical moment.”
Mitch smiled, straightened his blazer, and started forward alongside Owen. “I’ve never had the right match waiting for me at the altar, changing all my priorities. So let’s just get this over with.”
“Foster,” Owen said, his voice lowered, “hold your tongue, will you? We don’t need to give this guy any loophole—”
“Believe me, he won’t get any. Anything I say will either be legally binding or inconsequential in a court of law. You’ll know which is which. Relax, Colonel. I know the law the way you know a battlefield.”
Agent Seville stepped forward, gave both of them a professional smile, then met Mitch’s gaze. “Ready to slay your demon, counselor?”
“Born ready,” Mitch said. “And I’d like to slay quickly.”
“Understood.”
She turned to a man dressed in a black suit, black tie, and white dress shirt. The earbud tucked into his ear and the line hugging his neck nailed him as Secret Service. He met Agent Seville’s gaze, nodded and murmured into his microphone. Three of the four police officers and the other FBI agent set their stances wide, shoulders back. The second FBI agent pulled out a small camera and pushed buttons. The fourth officer pulled cuffs from his duty belt and stepped toward the still-closed hospital room door with Agent Seville. All the nurses vanished but for one who stood off to the side.
“I want to go straight home.” Schaeffer’s grouchy order penetrated the door and made Mitch smile. “And I don’t want to be bothered. There will be reporters and FBI and others calling. You’re to tell them my doctor ordered me on bed rest and I can’t be disturbed. Do you understand?”
The door opened and another Secret Service agent stepped out first. He glanced at the man Mitch assumed was his boss, who nodded; then the first agent moved forward and stood beside the other.
Schaeffer waddled through the door, still looking back at the agent behind him. “Has anyone called my chef to tell him I’ll be back at home? I don’t want any delay in my meals.”
He turned, then took one more step into the hallway and stopped short with a startled look and a gasp. Widened eyes made one sweep of the people in the hallway, his gaze lingering an extra second on Mitch. Blackness fell over his gaze, pure vivid fury lit the mud beneath his eyes, and he exploded.
“What the hell is this?”
Seville spoke first. “Senator Schaeffer, I’m Senior Special Agent Seville of the FBI—”
“I don’t give a fuck who you are.” He approached her as if he planned on mowing her down. Owen stepped forward, but the police officer was closer and stopped Schaeffer first with a hand flat against his chest. Schaeffer pushed against it as he yelled at Seville, jabbing a pointed finger at her as he barked. “This is an invasion of privacy. I’ll have your ass up on harassment charges. I’ll have your badge. You’ll never work in law enforcement again. If Foster put you up to this, you’ll be sorry you ever met the man—”
“Senator,” Seville said, her voice remaining congenial, but authoritative, “stop now or I will add threatening a government agent to the long list of charges I’m here to arrest you for committing.”
“You little bitch.” That’s when the spittle started to fly. When his face turned red and the veins on his temples bulged. When the whites of his eyes pinked up. “Who the fuck do you think you are? You don’t have the authority to—”
The cop restraining him dropped his free hand to Schaeffer’s wrist and swiftly twisted the man’s hand behind his back. Then grabbed the other and did the same. “Yes, she does.”
Schaeffer howled in fury, twisting and jerking from the cop’s grasp. Two others stepped up and pushed Schaeffer’s round belly against the wall. He actually bounced off, still ranting about all those jobs that would be lost once he got done taking names, et cetera, et cetera.
Mitch crossed his arms, more irritated than amused. As long as he’d been drooling for this chance to feed Schaeffer his own head on a stick, all he wanted to do now was get back to Halina. Mitch couldn’t care less about this waste of oxygen other than putting him away for the rest of his natural life—times three.
Mitch shot a God-the-drama look at Young. Young slanted a what-a-psycho look back at Mitch.
By the time the cops had linked three pairs of cuffs together to accommodate Schaeffer’s sausage-like arms behind his back, the man was huffing and puffing as if he could barely draw air. Mitch turned to the nurse whose name tag read Peggy and murmured, “Can you put a pulse ox on his finger, please?”
She nodded and clipped a portable monitor to one of Schaeffer’s index fingers. The red LED readout was clearly visible to everyone, and registered ninety-nine. The bastard had plenty of oxygen in his blood.
“You’re not faking your way back into a hospital room, Schaeffer,” Mitch said. “No passing go, no collecting two hundred dollars. No way out.”
When the cop turned Schaeffer around, his face was a sickening fuchsia. “That’s it, Foster. This is the last straw. I’ll have you up before the bar by week’s end. You’ll never practice again.”