Chapter 37
What the ever-loving hell are you doing, woman?
The thought ripped through Lura’s head the instant she launched herself at Graham Coleburn.
Her only excuse? She’d been thinking about him pretty much nonstop since leaving Chicago. Plus, she was grateful for the easy out when it came to Bryan. Or did he say his name was Ryan? And also, Graham smelled really, really good. Like charred vanilla and warm leather and…
Okay, so fine. Those were three excuses. But still.
Stepping back, she carefully arranged her features and tried to cover her blunder by quickly asking, “What in the world are you doing here?”
“Came to see ya.” His growly voice cut clean through the hum of clinking glasses, bluesy music, and the chatter of three dozen conversations.
“Me?” Her chin jerked back in surprise.
“Mmm.” He nodded once, his green eyes sliding toward Bryan/Ryan/Whoever.
“Right. Uh…Graham Coleburn, this is…” She wrinkled her nose at the guy in the Brioni suit. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch it earlier over all this noise. Did you say your name was Bryan or Ryan?”
“Doesn’t matter now, does it?” The guy’s eyes flicked between her and Graham like a man conceding the field.
“Sorry,” she offered, but the apology in her smile was wasted on the back of the guy’s head as he ambled away.
She took a quick swig of beer to drown the butterflies in her belly before her gaze locked back on Graham.
Graham, who was looking way too yummy in jeans that hugged his tree-trunk thighs. Graham, who towered over everyone else. Graham, who was attracting the notice of every single female eye in the room—and some of the male eyes, too—simply by existing.
He’d always had an outsized presence, even back in high school.
“Is this a personal or professional visit?” she asked with a teasing grin.
He didn’t return her easy expression. In fact, he looked as grave as a battlefield. “Can we step outside for a minute?”
The butterflies in her belly grew lead wings and plummeted. Apprehension tickled the hairs at the nape of her neck. But she nodded. “Of course.”
She headed for the front door, but his hand closed around her wrist. It was so big and callused that it made her forget her name for a half-second.
“This way.” He steered her toward the back of the bar. Past the people lined up for the bathrooms. Past the little storage closet. Past the pyramid of empty beer kegs.
Outside, the back alley was dim and close, smelling faintly of spilled liquor and crumbling concrete. The brick walls trapped the thick night air until she felt like wet hands pressed against the back of her neck. And somewhere above, an AC unit rattled like it was about to give up the ghost.
He scanned both ends of the alley, making sure they were alone. Then, he turned back to her. “How ya been?”
She blinked. Small talk? From Graham? “Uh…fine?”
“Is that a question or a statement?”
“Fine.” She shook herself. “I’ve been fine. You?”
“Right as rain.”
“Good.”
They stood there for a beat, the silence stretching between the faint thump of the jukebox inside and the wail of a siren a few blocks away.
Eventually, she lifted an eyebrow. “Are we just going to stand here staring at each other all night? Not that I mind. You’re not hard to look at. But I feel like we could do that inside, away from eau de dumpster.”
That got a twitch of his mouth. Then, in a low voice, he told her, “We’d like you to be our eyes and ears inside the West Wing. We want your help uncoverin’ Bishop’s true identity.”
Her breath stuttered. The beer in her stomach turned sour, and she deeply regretted that last sip.
“You think he’s someone in the White House?”
“We think he’s more than that. We think he’s someone very close to the top.”
A cold shiver slid down her spine despite the sticky heat. “My boss?”
A slight pause. Then… “We haven’t ruled him out.”
She pressed a hand to her forehead as her mind raced.
Could Leonard Meadows be Bishop?
But why? What did he gain by the subterfuge? And why would he try to set up the Black Knights?
Aloud, she said, “My god. What does Eliza think?”
“She’s devastated by the idea. Naturally.” He shrugged one massive shoulder. “But if Bishop ends up bein’ her dad, she’ll help us take him down.”
“I always thought they had an odd relationship,” she muttered.
“It might not be him,” Graham cautioned. His bearded jaw was cut close enough that she could still appreciate the depth of his dimples when he firmed his lips.
Those dimples had launched a thousand lady boners back in Georgia.
She suspected they did the same in Chicago.
“Why do you think it’s someone close to the president?” she asked carefully.
And then he told her. All of it. About the assassin they’d caught.
About the intel they’d pieced together. About the chaos Bishop had been orchestrating from the shadows for years.
Chaos that could only be set up by someone with a top-notch security clearance and knowledge of things only someone intimately acquainted with Sandra J. Stevens would know.
By the time he was finished, the fine hairs on Lura’s arms stood on end.
“I’m not a spy,” she breathed. “I have no training.”
“That’s why I’m here.” He looked down at her, all solid muscle and quiet determination. “And I’ll be here with ya the whole way through if you say yes. But ya should know…this is a dangerous game. Secrets have weight. The more you keep, the longer you keep ’em, the heavier they get.”
“Like pushin’ a wheelbarrow full of shit up a steep hill, as my daddy says.” She purposefully thickened her accent to impersonate her father.
His expression was grim. “You can say no, Lura. Ya probably should say no.”
He was right. She should. She wasn’t cut out for this sort of thing. And yet…
“There’s no fun in that. Plus, playing the detective has been my dream job since I read my first Nancy Drew novel at age eight.”
She’d meant to lighten the mood. She failed.
A muscle ticked in Graham’s jaw when he stressed, “Bishop, whoever he is, is a powerful man. A dangerous man. A murderous man. One with a lot to lose.”
A ghostly hand of apprehension trailed cold fingers up her spine.
“All the more reason to unmask him,” she declared staunchly, hoping she looked more confident than she felt.
His gaze flicked down the alley before zeroing back to her. “Okay. Then let’s get started.”
“Now?” She blinked rapidly. “Tonight?”
“Ya got somethin’ better to do? Ryan/Bryan maybe?”
She pressed her lips into a thin line. “Don’t be a dick.”
He grinned. And he was standing close enough that she could smell that impossible mix of leather and vanilla. It made her knees go weak.
It occurred to her then that Bishop wasn’t the only danger she faced. Working so closely with the likes of Graham Coleburn might be her ultimate undoing.