State Secrets Read Free Page A

president of the United States ‘Howard’?”
    Holly shrugged. “It’s his name, Skyler.”
    “Still—”
    Suddenly Holly was impatient. “I’m not going to the ball anyway,” she said, reaching for her purse, which sat on the corner of her desk. “Shall we go? The traffic will be horrendous and it’s still snowing.”
    Skyler nodded distractedly, but even as they left the kitchen, he kept casting his eyes back to the invitation. “Right,” he said.
    Once Toby and his suitcase, which also contained Holly’s things, had been tucked into the tiny back seat of Skyler’s sleek, sporty car, and the boy had been carefully buckled in by a seat belt, Holly glanced quickly at her old-fashioned brick house and felt a sweeping, dismal sort of loneliness.
    Mentally, she shook herself. Good heavens, she was acting as though she would never see her cozy home again.
    The traffic, as Holly had predicted, was terrible. The number of cars leaving the city was equaled only by the number of cars coming in, and the snow swirled and spiraled in front of the windshield, making it almost impossible to see.
    “We’re in hyperspace!” Toby cried in delight. Out of the corner of her eye, Holly saw Skyler grimace and tighten his grasp on the steering wheel.
    She let her head rest against the back of the seat andclosed her eyes. Skyler Hollis was what her mother might have called a “catch,” with his good looks and his flourishing business, but his antipathy toward Toby, carefully hidden though it was, disturbed Holly. She wondered if he felt that way about all children or just her nephew in particular.
    An hour and a half later, when they had eaten at a roadside restaurant and were again on their way, Toby asleep in the back seat, she broached the subject. “Do you want children, Skyler?”
    He glanced at her and then turned his attention back to the hazardous road. “Of my own? Most men do, Holly.”
    Holly sat up a little straighter. “Of my own,” he’d said. “In other words, you wouldn’t accept Toby?”
    Skyler’s clean-shaven jaw worked for a moment, and his narrow shoulders grew tense. “Your brother will probably come back for him one day, Holly. You told me that yourself.”
    Holly sighed and looked out the window at the fierce flurries of snow. She had told Skyler that, it was true. But now she had grave doubts that her brother would ever actually reclaim his son or be in a position to take care of him. After all, Toby’s mother was dead, and though few people knew it, Craig was a wanted man, suspected of espionage. It was possible, in fact, that he wasn’t even in the country.
    “Craig won’t come back,” she said quietly, after a long silence.
    “How could he not come back?” Skyler demanded angrily. “You’ve got his kid!”
    His kid. When Skyler said that, used those simple, everyday words, it always sounded inhumane. “And I wantto keep him, Skyler. Craig is in no position to be a real father and besides, I love Toby. I love him very, very much.”
    There seemed to be nothing to say after that. Skyler shoved a classical CD into the slot on the dashboard and the car was filled with thunderous Beethoven.
    Chris’s kitchen was a bright, warm, cluttered place. The walls were graced with shining copper utensils and a fire crackled in the huge wood-burning stove in one corner of the room. Two long shelves held the largest collection of cookbooks David had ever seen.
    Frowning, he took down a copy of Fun With Tacos and studied the colored photograph of the author on the back cover. Tousled, honey-colored hair, enormous blue-green eyes. Holly Llewellyn.
    “Taking up the culinary arts?” Chris asked mischievously, standing beside him.
    Startled, David thrust the thin volume back into its place on the shelf and shook his head.
    Chris, a lovely woman with dark hair and eyes, laughed warmly and hugged her brother. “We live in a new age, you know. Men are actually cooking, among other things.”
    A new age.