“Who cares?” She kissed the curve of his jaw.
Laughing, he picked her up and carried her to the bed.
Chapter Fifteen
A trilling sound woke Harlan from a dead sleep. Instantly awake, he oriented himself with the ease of a well- trained Marine. Nighttime. Indoors. Beautiful woman sleeping naked by his side. The ringing continued, louder by the second.
Easing himself from Stacy’s bed, he grabbed the cell phone from his discarded jeans. “Yeah?”
“Why are you whispering?” Vince Russo asked.
Harlan tucked the phone under his chin and pulled on his jeans. Once outside the bedroom, he spoke in a more normal voice. “Sorry-I wasn’t in a position to talk.”
Russo was quiet for a second. Harlan could only imagine what he was thinking.
“Is something up?” Harlan prodded.
“Yeah, something big. I can be at the ranch in ten-”
Harlan glanced toward the hallway, a flood of sizzling memories swamping his brain for a second. When she’d finally fallen asleep in his arms, spent and trembling, she’d looked so happy. Somehow at peace for the first time since he’d met her. He wanted that feeling to last for her.
“No.” Holding a CSI strategy meeting in the middle of her living room would definitely be a mood-killer. “We’ll meet at the office-twenty minutes.”
Grabbing a clean set of clothes from the hall closet where he kept his things, he headed to the bathroom.
“THE GUY HAS KEPT a low profile for the past ten years,” Vince Russo told Harlan a half hour later in the CSI conference room. Parker McKenna was there, along with Nick Cavanaugh and Nolan Law. Cavanaugh was a silent, thoughtful man in his mid-thirties, though Harlan knew there was a lot more to him than his demeanor might suggestion. In Iraq, Cavanaugh’s recon talents had been legendary, though his last scouting expedition had ended in a deadly ambush.
“But?” Harlan prodded.
“But we finally reached a family member who didn’t close ranks,” Nolan Law told Harlan. He passed along an enlarged photograph. “This is a photo from the Transworld Trade Partnership summit two years ago.”
The photo showed a group of young men and women dressed in black. Most wore balaclavas or scarves over their faces, but the camera shot caught one man in the middle of donning his mask. Harlan recognized the stable groom immediately. “Lewis.”
“He was part of a black bloc protest at the summit, and you know what kind of trouble those guys can cause,” McKenna said.
Harlan nodded. Black bloc tactics were often part of antiglobalization protests, designed to create havoc and thwart the efforts of law enforcement to control crowds of protestors.
“According to his cousin, he’s very much involved in anarchistic antiglobalization protest groups, including Planet Justice,” Nick Cavanaugh answered.
Harlan raised an eyebrow. “The group protesting the fundraiser tomorrow?”
McKenna glanced at his wristwatch. “Tonight, you mean.”
Harlan eyed the clock on the wall. Almost two in the morning. Man, he’d give almost anything to be back in bed, cuddled up to Stacy’s naked curves. But he pushed the tempting thought away, focusing on the job at hand. Keeping the governor safe would keep Stacy and Zachary safe, as well. “I’ve tried to talk the governor into enlarging the buffer zone between the protesters and the ranch, but she won’t have it.”
“Either speech is free or it’s not,” McKenna murmured.
Harlan knew he was quoting the governor; he’d heard her say it enough times. “And if it’s not, why the hell do we pretend to be Americans?” he finished the governor’s favorite saying.
“I appreciate the sentiment,” Law said, “but I don’t think we can be stupid about it. I don’t like the idea of a Planet Justice operative working on the governor’s staff.”
“How do we know he’s still with the group?” Russo asked.
Harlan gave him a look. “What are the odds he’s not?”
“Not good,” Russo conceded. “But how do we get him out of there, given what happened today? The governor fires him, he’ll say it’s to keep him quiet about your assault on him.”
“I barely touched him,” Harlan said with a grimace. “I think we have to do this aboveboard. I think knowing he’s recently been a member of a group protesting the governor’s fundraiser should be enough to warrant an extra look.”
“Planet Justice has been known to set explosive devices,” Russo said. “There was a protest in Chicago during a free trade conference. The cops found a couple of pipe bombs set near the venue entrance. They tied the bombs to a couple of Planet Justice operatives, though the rest of the group publically denounced their actions.”
“Would that be enough to get a search warrant for Lewis’s apartment?” Harlan asked Law.
“Worth a try.”
Jeff Appleton had given Harlan his cell phone number earlier at the sheriff’s station. He knew the man had a six-year-old kid, but Harlan didn’t think this call could wait. They had under twenty-four hours before the fundraiser.
He pulled out his cell phone and dialed Appleton’s number, wondering where they’d find a judge willing to sign a search warrant in the middle of the night.
“MOMMY?”
Stacy’s eyes popped open at the sound of her son’s voice. It took a second to reorient herself, because even though she was in her own bed, nothing felt normal. Her legs and arms felt sore, as if she’d worked out for hours, and she was completely naked beneath the tangled sheets.
She slanted a quick, panicked look to her left and saw with relief that Harlan was no longer there. Normally, after the best sex she’d had in, well, ever, she’d be a little miffed to wake up alone, but with her son staring at her from the side of the bed, she was happy to be alone.
She just hoped Harlan didn’t walk back in here from the bathroom or kitchen or wherever he’d wandered before she was able to coax Zachary to go back to bed.
“I’m hungry,” Zachary said.
“Zachary, you had a big PB &J sandwich for dinner.”
“But that was hours ago,” he complained. “I’m a growing boy and I need food.”
She couldn’t stop a smile. “What do you have in mind?”
“Why are there clothes on the floor?”
“I was tired,” she answered quickly, checking to see if Harlan’s clothes were there, as well. She didn’t see his jeans, but his shirt and underwear were on his side of the bed, thankfully hidden from Zachary’s view. “Tell you what, go get your robe on-it’s cold in here. I’ll get mine on and we can go see what we can find in the fridge, okay?”
While Zachary went to retrieve his robe, Stacy slipped on a T-shirt and a pair of yoga pants, topping them with her own fuzzy terry cloth robe. Not exactly the most flattering of looks, but if Harlan was going to be part of her life, he might as well get used to seeing her how she really was, right?
A giddy sense of joy percolated at the back of her mind as she waited for Zachary to return. She knew it might take a while-Zachary could dither over the choice of clothes longer than a teenage girl. Something else Harlan would have to get used to, although he already seemed to be doing a great job at accepting and even appreciating Zachary’s idiosyncrasies.
Zachary finally appeared in her bedroom doorway. “I think I want a grilled cheese sandwich,” he told her
