If Winter Comes Read Free Page B

other commented, and they moved quickly toward her.
     
    She fumbled in her
purse for her car key, frantically digging through makeup and pens and pads
with fingers that trembled.
     
    “Nice,” the older of
the boys said, smiling at her from an unshaven face. “Where you going, baby? Me
and John feel like a little company.”
     
    She straightened
jerkily, fighting to remember her brief class in karate, the right moves at the
right time.
     
    “I don’t want company,”
she said quietly. “And if you don’t go away and leave me alone, I’m going to
scream, very loud, so that those people in the house come out here.”
     
    “I’m scared,” the one
called John laughed drunkenly. “God, I’m scared! You think the old senator’s
going to come down here and save you?”
     
    “He might not,” Bryan
Moreland said from the shadows, “but I’ll be glad to oblige.”
     
    “I ain’t scared of you,
either,” the older boy said, moving forward to throw a midriff punch toward the
big man.
     
    Moreland hardly seemed
to move, but the next minute, the boy was crumpled on the pavement. The big man
looked at the one called John. “You’ve got two choices. One is pick up this
litter from the street and carry it home. You don’t want to know what the
second one is.”
     
    John stared at him for
a moment, as if measuring his youth and slenderness against the older man’s
experience and pure athletic strength. He bent and helped his winded companion
to his feet and they moved on down the sidewalk as quickly as they could.
     
    Carla slumped against
the small Beetle, her eyes closed as her heart shook her with its wild
pounding. “That was close,” she murmured breathlessly, opening her eyes to find
Moreland very close. “Thank you.”
     
    “My pleasure. Are you
all right?”
     
    She nodded. “Sheer
stupidity. I forgot how deserted it is out here.”
     
    “You’ll remember next
time, won’t you?”
     
    “Oh, yes,” she said
with a smile. “You’re very good with your fists. I didn’t even see you move.”
     
    “I boxed for a while
when I was younger,” he said.
     
    “I didn’t know boxing
was around on theArk ,” she commented seriously.
     
    He chuckled. “That’s a
hell of a way to say thank you.”
     
    “You’re the one harping
on your ancientness, not me,” she told him. “I just do my job and catch hell
from bad-tempered public officials.”
     
    “I’m not always
bad-tempered.”
     
    “Really?” she said
unconvincingly.
     
    “Have dinner with me
tomorrow, and I’ll prove it.”
     
    She stared at him as if
she’d just been hit between the eyes with a block of ice. “What?”
     
    “Have dinner with me.
I’ll take you disco dancing.”
     
    “You’re the mayor!” she
burst out.
     
    “Well, my God, it
didn’t de-sex me,” he replied.
     
    She blushed. “I didn’t
mean it that way. It’s just…”
     
    “You can’t maintain
your objectivity, is that it? Honey, I don’t mix politics and pleasure,” he
said quietly, “and right now I don’t give a damn about your objectivity.”
     
    She felt the same way.
Something strange and exciting was happening to her. Something she felt that he
shared. It was almost frightening.
     
    “I…I was going to do a
series of articles on city officials,” she said, seizing on a chance to do some
quiet investigating about the information in her anonymous phone calls. “I
could start with you…if you wouldn’t mind,” she added.
     
    He pulled a package of
cigarettes out of his pocket and offered her one, lifting an eyebrow when she
refused. He lit one and repocketed his lighter, smoking quietly while he
studied her from his superior height.
     
    “How deep into my life
do you want to delve?” he asked finally, and she knew he was thinking about the
accident.
     
    “Into your political life,” she corrected. “I think privacy is a divine right as far as anyone’s
personal life is concerned. I wouldn’t like mine in