Midnight Heat Read Free Page A

her eyes. “Nice tux.” She reached out to straighten his rose. “Hot pink is definitely your color.” Then she turned and left the room without another word.
    The back of his neck grew warm with embarrassment, but it was the idea that she didn’t expect him to help her that stuck in his mind. Why? He was her main if not only chance of exoneration. Was she the sort that didn’t rely on others? Did she always fight her own battles? If so, why hadn’t she defended herself on her past two reprimands? She didn’t strike him as the kind to take anything silently. Was the Adria Burke he’d dealt with tonight the rule, or the exception?
    Another mystery for him to solve. If he wanted to.
    And he discovered he did.
    He shook his head. Crazy thoughts. Crazy night. Maybe it was just some strange reaction after watching his twin sister marry one of only two people in the world he’d ever gotten close to. He was still having a hard time adjusting to the fact that Zach Brogan, his childhood buddy, was now his brother-in-law. Jarrett McCullough, the other member of their childhood trio, had tied the knot just over a month ago. Now Dane was the last of the Three Musketeers left single. And he couldn’t escape the fact that it left him feeling oddly, irrationally, abandoned.
    As adults, the three had gone their separate ways, but had never been truly apart. Not in the ways that counted. Months would pass when he didn’t know where either of them were, but he was certain that, no matter what, they’d be there for him when it counted. Just as he’d always be there for them no matter what.
    Dane sighed and headed to the door. Part of him, the rational part he’d always relied on, knew that their recent marriages wouldn’t change that fact.
    But the other part, the emotional one, the part he rarely acknowledged and only then when he was forced to, wasn’t sure of anything right now.
    “Ah hell,” he muttered. Maybe Dara was right. Maybe he just needed to get laid.
    But as he picked up the phone to call a cab for a ride over to his office in L’Enfant Plaza, he couldn’t help but wonder if what he really needed was to get a life.

TWO
    The phone rang just as Adria pulled the bandanna off of her head and mopped her face and neck. The late-summer humidity made the air feel almost liquid. She brushed the dirt from her knees and dug her knuckles into the knot in her lower back as she dashed into the house.
    She was more out of shape than she’d thought if a short jog to the house was winding her. And if the sorry shape of her garden could be used as a measuring stick of how often she got out, she’d been out of shape for some time.
    Maybe it was Pete Moore calling her to finally express gratitude for the flak she’d taken for him twice. He hadn’t been too happy with her after their little talk yesterday. He was so wrapped up in the misery of going through adivorce, nothing much was getting past the thick fog of his self-pity.
    Then again, Pete hadn’t asked for her help, she admitted.
She
had hurt for Pete, feeling all the pain she’d felt during her own divorce.
    Skidding to a stop beside the kitchen counter, she scooped up the receiver on the fourth ring. Her voice was a bit breathless as she said, “Hello?”
    There was a pause, then a deep voice said, “Ms. Burke?”
    Her heart beat faster and her hand tightened on the receiver. It wasn’t Pete.
    It was the man she’d last seen almost two days before in a small office. Two days. Forty-eight hours. Not very long really. Unless you were used to working fourteen- or fifteen-hour days.
    “Yes, it is.” She took a moment to steady her nerves. “Mr. Colbourne?”
    “Yes.” One word, bitten off so sharply she wondered if she should check her ear for blood. The man was not happy. So what else was new?
    “What can I do for you?”
    “You can stop talking to the media, that’s what you can do.”
    “What?” For the second time in as many meetings, he’d caught her