Chapter 10 #2
But that would open a door she didn’t want opened. Would give him an excuse to call. To demand she come home. To send Martinez to haul her in himself or whatever other extraction plan he’d been cooking up since she hung up on him.
So she didn’t respond, just turned off the phone and shoved it into her pocket. Then she grabbed her bag and walked back into the main room.
Coco was packing up her laptop. The stolen phone sat on the table, disconnected now. “Got it,” Coco said to West. “Full access. Everything’s uploaded to Ham. You should have a complete picture within the hour.”
“Good work.” West’s voice. He stood by the window. Arms crossed. Staring at the ocean.
He turned when he heard Britta. His gaze swept over her—quick, assessing. Lingered on the shorts. The tank top. Her easy, off-duty look.
Something flickered across his face. He didn’t comment.
Good. She hadn’t asked for his approval.
“I’ll get the car,” he said.
“Great.” Britta moved to the table. Grabbed a doughnut from the box. Chocolate frosted. Took a bite. “Let’s go.”
“You sure you’re ready? It’s a long drive. Six hours if we don’t hit traffic.”
“Do I have a choice?”
West’s mouth twitched. Nearly a grin. “Sure. You can ask your dad to send a chopper, pick you up at the Key West airport—”
“I’m ready.” She gave him a look.
Coco grabbed her equipment bag. “I’ll send the full report to your phone once Ham’s finished analyzing. Should be before you hit Melbourne.”
“Thanks.” West moved to the door. Held it open.
Britta walked through. Coco followed. West came last.
And there was Chávez, standing outside the room. He nodded at her.
She gave him a wan smile. “Good morning.”
“Ma’am.” Then he followed her down the hallway.
They took the elevator down in silence. Coco studied her phone. Britta ate her doughnut. West stared at the floor numbers counting down. Chávez stood by the doors, his eyes on Britta.
The lobby was busy. Tourists checking out. Families heading to breakfast. No one seemed to notice the president’s daughter.
She, however, noticed Patterson emerging from the shadows, talking into her radio.
Martinez was outside, sitting in an SUV.
They crossed the lobby and stepped out to the waiting sedan. West clicked the key fob. The locks disengaged. He moved to the passenger side. Opened the door for her.
Britta slid in. West got in the driver’s side. Started the engine. Adjusted the mirrors.
Britta reached for the stereo controls before he could.
“If we’re road-tripping,” she said, pulling up her phone’s music app, “I get to pick the music.”
West’s hand paused on the gearshift. He looked at her.
She lifted her chin. Dared him to argue.
One side of his mouth lifted. Almost a real smile. The first crack in the professional facade since last night.
“Oh, you think so?”
His tone wasn’t angry. It was…amused. Affectionate, almost.
“I know so,” she said. “Driver picks the route. Passenger picks the soundtrack. That’s the rule.”
“I don’t remember agreeing to that rule.”
“You agreed when you let me in the car.”
West shook his head. But the smile stayed. “This is going to be a long six hours.”
“Buckle up, pal.”
She connected her phone to the car’s Bluetooth. Scrolled through playlists. Found one. She pushed Play and the intro piano notes filled the car.
He had pulled out of the parking lot, now looked at her. “Really?”
Journey. She launched into the opening line, the bit about a small-town girl and a lonely world, and didn’t stop.
He rolled his eyes.
“‘She took the midnight train going anywhere…’”
“Just to be clear, I’m not a city boy. Iowa, mostly…”
But his hands tapped a beat on the steering wheel. She rolled down her window and turned it up, singing the next lyrics.
“This does not bode well for the rest of the trip,” he said, but he smiled.
“‘Don’t stop believin’…’”
The cloudless sky arched blue and bright overhead, the ocean a deep indigo. A gorgeous day, and maybe she’d survive this.
The song ended and she scrolled for another one.
He looked over at her as the synthesizer played the intro. “Really?”
“‘Top of the World.’ I love this song.” She sang the first line.
He grinned. “My mother loved this song.”
“‘I’m on the top of the world…’”
To her surprise, he joined in, his deep tenor rumbling through her.
Oh, she might not survive this trip after all.
“When I was a kid, I took the bus to school, and our driver loved the seventies. He’d play the full Carpenters album every morning. I know all the songs.”
“Such a tragedy to the world to lose Karen Carpenter so young.”
“Yeah, well, being in the public eye can be devastating for some people.”
He glanced over. “You seem to handle it—even when it’s hard.”
“That’s because I long ago learned how to put on a mask. I learned what to say, how to smile, and that you can’t let the world see the real you.”
Oh, she hadn’t…Why…But now it was out. She sighed. “When my dad was running for senator the first time, I opened my big mouth and got him in trouble.”
“Yeah? What happened?”
“The press found me at school while I was waiting for him to pick me up. No security at that time—he was just a state senator working his way up, and we lived in a small town in Montana.”
“Where?”
“A little town outside Kalispell. I went to a private Christian school. And this reporter approached me, which is totally not done, but she was young too, and she asked me what I thought about my dad’s stance on gun control—I mean, who asks a twelve-year-old their opinion on the Second Amendment?”
“What did you say?”
“Apparently there’d been a school shooting in Colorado, and I don’t know…
I said that my dad had a whole collection of guns and that he’d already taught me how to shoot.
I said I loved to shoot. What I really loved was the fact that he spent time with me, but…
anyway, the press freaked out. Printed something about how he was teaching kids how to shoot.
And it was…well, Dad knew how to spin it, but he forbade me from talking to the press ever again.
And I knew then that if I wanted to survive, I needed to keep my head down, keep my mouth shut, and smile. ”
He made a face—mouth twisting, brows pulling together.
“That sounded a lot more tragic than it needed to. I mean, there is a proverb that says ‘Where words are many, sin is not absent,’ so…”
“Speaking your mind isn’t a sin, Britt.”
Aw, she liked how he called her Britt. Easy. Like they were friends.
Maybe they were.
Just friends.
“No, but the press takes it and manipulates it. You can’t control it once it leaves your mouth, so—better to say nothing. Smile, wave, and say nothing.” She affected a princess wave.
“For the record, I like your opinions,” he said.
Great. Just great. He wasn’t making this easier.
She found a new song. Keith Urban. “Blue Ain’t Your Color.”
“Now this one I can get behind,” West said. He had relaxed, started to drive with one hand, settled into the seat. Sure, he glanced at the mirrors more than usual, but overall, the stress from last night seemed to have left him.
He looked like a normal guy, road-tripping with a normal girl.
“So, are we getting road-trip snacks?”
He glanced at her. “Doughnuts are in the back seat.”
She glanced back and noticed the pink box. “Yeah. That was breakfast. I need Cheetos. Lunch food.”
He laughed. “Seriously?”
“I’ll settle for Taco Bell.”
“I can do one better than that. There’s a food truck in Miami that will make your eyes roll back into your head.”
“Better than a Crunchwrap?”
“I can’t believe you eat those.”
“Just the one time, while we were on a campaign. But I was in love.”
“You fall in love too easily.”
Oh.
And then silence. His smile fell and he swallowed. “I didn’t mean—”
“No, you’re right. Maybe. I haven’t had…well, any experience, really.”
“The K-9 story.”
He remembered that too? Wow.
“Let’s just say it’ll take a man who doesn’t mind complicated.”
He nodded, his mouth tight. Then he sighed and glanced over at her. “What else do you have on the playlist?”
Talk about falling in love too easily. Shoot.
He hadn’t counted on this Britta when he’d agreed to drive her to Melbourne Beach.
This sweet, pretty, funny Britta who had ridiculous—but okay, wide—taste in music.
From Michael Bublé to Bryan Adams to Steve Perry to Chicago, and even to Sonny & Cher.
She played the music loud, sang along, and made him sing too.
It wasn’t a hard sell.
And it didn’t feel complicated either. Here, with her…yeah, she knew how to loosen the terrible knot in his chest. That, and the fact that—so far, so good—he was on a road trip instead of answering for how badly he’d bent the rules.
Last night when her detail had shown up, he’d thought, for a long, terrible moment, that this was it.
But Chávez seemed to be a reasonable man, and when West had filled him in on what had gone down—from the yacht to the fight at Hawk’s place to Britta’s late-night clandestine swim—Chávez had seemed to get it.
Seemed like running was becoming a pattern with her, though.
West and Britta rock-and-rolled their way up the Overseas Highway, stopping at a gas station for a bag of said Cheetos and some root beer. Of course, Chávez and his team pulled in behind them—not too close, but enough that Britta noticed them as she went into the store.
Patterson, the female agent, followed her in.
Frankly, if anyone was going to recognize Britta as the First Daughter, they’d need to be on their game, because with her hair down, wearing that baseball cap, a pair of aviators, cutoff shorts (her legs…
good grief, she might cause a national incident), and a T-shirt, she looked like, well, just the girl next door.
Simple. Uncomplicated.
North of Key Largo, they hit the highway to Miami, and he called it in that he was headed into the city.
The escort car followed him, a couple blocks behind when he hit the barrier island and slowed, winding through the old neighborhoods.