Oath of Honor

the night before. She carried a cardboard takeout tray in her right hand

with two large cardboard cups of coffee and a grease-stained brown

bag. Wes wanted to kiss her. “Say it’s hot and strong.”

“Oh yeah. Believe it.” Evyn grinned. “Thought you might be

ready for this.”

“I am.” Wes concentrated on her socks so she wouldn’t jump up

and touch her. “Have you been up long?”

“No.” Evyn set the tray down on the dresser. She shed Wes’s jacket

and draped it over the back of a lone wooden chair. Water dripped from

her cuffs onto the floor. She stamped snow from her boots and kicked

them off, leaving them on a square of threadbare carpet that served as

a doormat. She crossed to the bed opposite Wes and held out a cup of

coffee.

“Black, right?”

Wes took it. “Right. Thanks. How’s the storm?”

“Dying off. The pizza place across the street doubles as a deli in

the morning. There’s doughnuts there too.” She waved in the direction

of the brown paper bag propped in the cardboard container. “Glazed.

And cinnamon.”

“Perfect.”

“I’m having trouble making a call—I think everyone’s using the

cell lines. I’m guessing it will be afternoon before we can get a flight

out of here. The storm is moving up the coast. Sounds like DC is getting

hammered again.”

“I guess I’d better try to call the unit and make sure there’s enough

coverage.”

“Good luck. I just managed to get my neighbor across the hall to

feed my cat. I couldn’t get through to the House or Tom’s cell.”

“Well, I’m sure whichever doc is around will see that we’re

appropriately staffed.”

“I wouldn’t worry too much. They all know what to do.” Evyn

sipped her coffee and watched Wes pull on her socks. The bed behind

her was rumpled, the sheets and blankets askew. They’d given it a

• 183 •

RADCLYfFE

workout. Thinking of the way Wes had made her come, more times in

a row than she could ever remember, made her stomach clutch. The sex

had been great—awesome—but the sleeping together had her out of

sync. She didn’t usually do that—even when she spent the night with

someone, she didn’t curl up with them, didn’t turn to them in the night

and need to be closer. Didn’t need to be inside them the way she’d been

crazy to be inside Wes.

“You okay?”

“I’m sorry, what?” Evyn was aware she hadn’t heard a single thing

Wes had said for the last few minutes. Wes looked great in faded sweats

that hugged her ass and thighs. Evyn fought the urge to tackle Wes and

pull her on top of her. She wanted Wes’s hands on her, wanted to be

under her, wanted to come for her. That wasn’t her either. She was all

turned around and—

“I asked if there was anything I could do—you’ve been taking

point all morning, it seems.” Wes’s gaze traveled over Evyn’s body,

glinting with a hunger to match Evyn’s.

“Probably quite a few things, but we’re good for now.” Evyn

glanced around the clean but shabby room, searching for a way to put

on the brakes. She needed to grab the controls, get her head back on

straight. “At least there’s TV. Hopefully it works. News okay with

you?”“Do we need to talk about last night?”

Evyn stopped on her way to check out the TV. The space between

the bed where Wes sat and the dresser with the TV on top was tight. If

she took two steps forward she’d be standing between Wes’s legs. She

mentally nailed her feet to the floor. “You don’t run from the hard stuff,

do you?”

“I don’t see any point.”

“Last night was great. If I think about it much more, I could

probably scare myself, and I’d rather not.”

“I understand.” Wes cradled the cardboard cup between her hands

and watched the coffee swirl around the rim. “If I knew enough to be

scared, I probably would be too.”

“So,” Evyn said. “Since neither of us really scares easily, this

should be simple. I don’t have a problem with last night.”

Wes heard the emphasis on last night. Sounded a lot like past

• 184 •

Oath Of hOnOr

tense, as in over and done. Okay. She could accept that. The pain in her

chest didn’t mean anything. Her turn to step up and make this simple.

“Neither do I. My number one priority is to be sure we can still work

together—that there’s no disruption to the team.”

“I don’t see why what happened should interfere with anything,”

Evyn said quickly. Wes was giving her a graceful way out of a potentially

sticky situation, just the kind of exit she usually wanted. She didn’t

feel all that happy about it, but her emotions were screwed up and she

couldn’t trust them anyhow. Better to ignore them. “We’re both adults,

both professionals.”

“Yes,” Wes said, counting on Evyn to be rational and in control.

Especially now, when she didn’t really feel that way herself. “We both

have jobs to do. And considering the circumstances, we can’t afford

any distractions.”

Evyn stiffened, hearing what Wes wasn’t saying. “You know about

the problem with POTUS.”

“Yes.”

“You have me on the short list of suspects?” Evyn had to ask, even

as her body went cold thinking Wes might consider her capable of such

betrayal.