and chose to ignore the comment.
Mike Stone, often her detail partner and unrequited suitor, stepped into the booth next to hers. She wouldn’t characterize their relationship as adversarial but it was often tense. Mostly because Avery was damned good at every aspect of her job, she had seniority and she didn’t fall under his questionable charms.
Mike was accustomed to having what and who he wanted. The fact that he couldn’t live out what he believed to be his manifest destiny with Avery irked him to no end. It didn’t, however, stop him from challenging her whenever it suited him. Quite frankly she was tired of his bullshit male ego and planned to ask to be reassigned.
She’d been hired under the first female head of the Secret Service. Avery didn’t have the same rapport with her replacement and she didn’t want to play the victim card. But the fact was she didn’t trust Mike and that could prove tragic if placed in a life or death situation. She didn’t want to pull her trump card and ask for favors from her senator father. She needed to work this out on her own. That or simply shoot Mike and put them both out of their misery.
“Ever think about just wounding?” He put on his goggles.
“You. I have, yes.”
He laughed and plugged his ears. “Dead suspects tell no tales.”
She rolled her eyes, holstered her weapon and detached her target sheet. “Have a good day, Mike,” she said. The drip of sarcasm pooled at her feet.
The sound of gunfire followed her out of the target range.
* * *
When Avery pushed through the heavy steel door and entered the long corridor that led to a row of offices, she ran into her friend Kerry Holt.
She and Kerry had trained together when they first joined the service six years earlier and they became fast friends. Kerry was the one person in whom she could confide without it coming back to haunt her.
They exchanged a quick hug.
“I thought you were off today,” Kerry said.
“I am. Just getting some practice in.” She tipped her head toward the range.
“How was that party the other night?”
“I thought it would be the typical stuffed-shirt event, but if I wasn’t on duty I would have had a ball.”
“Really?”
“Mmm-hmm.” She lowered her voice. “I met Senator Lawson’s son, Rafe.”
Kerry’s green eyes widened. “I’ve only seen pictures. Is he as gorgeous in person?”
“That would be an understatement.” She pushed out a breath. “There’s something about him.” Her gaze drifted off.
“Did you give him your number?”
“No! Don’t be silly. I was on duty.”
“So.”
“So? I’m not going to lose my job for a turn-on.”
“You need a turn-on. When’s the last time you got some?”
Avery made a face. “Is that all you can think about?”
“Yes.”
They laughed.
“You’re a mess.”
“Maybe but you still should have given him your number.”
“For what? I live in DC and he’s in Louisiana.”
“Hmm. True. Anyway, what are you doing later?”
“Heading to the gym, then home. Stop by and I’ll fix us some mimosas.”
“Don’t have to ask me twice. I’ll bring Chinese from that place we like.”
“Sevenish?”
“See you then.” Kerry’s pager went off. She pulled it from the clip on her hip and checked the number. “Duty calls.”
“Always. And don’t forget the extra hot mustard.”
“Got it.”
They parted and headed in opposite directions.
Maybe she should have given Rafe her number, but now that she thought about it he hadn’t asked. Just as well. Relationships were difficult in the best of circumstances. Long distance was worse. Beyond that, her career didn’t make for the best in partnerships. At any given time she could be called on to travel halfway across the globe. She’d lost count of how many dinners, getaways and “sleepovers” she’d had to either cancel or end abruptly. Compound that with being the daughter of Horace Richards, the ranking senior senator, and she was never quite sure if a man was with her because of genuine interest or to get close to her father.
Kerry was right, though. It had been a long time since she’d been with a man—in every sense of the word. She did miss being touched, waking up with someone beside her, having doors opened, being told that she was beautiful, having someone to look out for and protect her for a change. Wishful thinking.
She got behind the wheel of her Navigator and headed away from headquarters. The imposing images of democracy stood firm against the horizon; the Capitol, the White House and in the distance the Lincoln Memorial. A surge of pride filled her. This was the life she chose—to protect and defend. It was the life she’d been groomed for since college.
* * *
Avery spent a full two hours in the gym, part of her weekly regime. She not only worked out to stay fit but for health reasons, as well. Her mother had died of a massive heart attack when Avery was only fifteen. The doctors had warned Linda Richards that if she kept up the fried foods, didn’t quit smoking and lose the weight, her outlook was not good. Linda remained stubborn and determined to hold on to her southern-style soul-food cooking, brushing all well-meaning advice aside.
Avery remembered Sunday dinners being more of an extravaganza than a meal. Two kinds of meats—one of which was always fried—collards and string beans seasoned in fatback, six-cheese baked macaroni, sweet tea and pies that would set off diabetic alarms.
Eat up were her mother’s two favorite words.
Growing up Avery believed that everyone ate the way her family did, even as she put on the pounds herself. By the time she turned fifteen, shortly before her mother’s death, she was 190 pounds at five foot five.
Instead of tears Avery mourned with food, pushing beyond two hundred and ten pounds by her seventeenth birthday. It was her own brush with a health scare that finally turned her around.
It was three months before her high school graduation. For about a week she’d experienced shortness of breath and mild dizzy spells. She wouldn’t tell her father. It was bad enough that he looked at her with a mixture of disgust and sadness. The decision was taken out of her hands when she collapsed in the school stairwell.
Two
