Protecting His Beautiful Lover - Leslie North Page 0,6
or something when she’d fallen. The EMTs had told her later that it was probably the shock kicking in. It had felt like a scrape, a pinch, nothing more. They said that her brain had blocked out the pain to focus on the fight or flight syndrome. It hadn’t been until she’d gotten to the ER that the throbbing and real pain had started. And that had just been a flesh wound. She couldn’t imagine what getting seriously shot would be like.
Tara shivered and tried to focus on other things. Like how strange it was that she couldn’t remember any initial agony from her wound, but she sure as heck remembered other things just fine. Things like the brush of the grass against her cheek once Clint had pushed her to the ground and covered her body with his. Things like the warmth of his muscled chest pressed to her back, the soft tickle of his breath against the nape of her neck, the firm, comforting press of his hand as he’d held her in place. Things like the clean, fresh scent of soap and sandalwood from his skin or the faint hint of dark stubble beneath the skin of his jaw, or how soft his lips had looked and how close they had been to hers. Close enough that if she’d turned her head a little more and risen up, she could have touched her mouth to his and found out for herself just how much…
“How are you doing today, Tara?” her assistant, Judy, asked, sticking her head in through the open office door. “Feeling better?”
“Fine, thanks,” Tara said automatically, flashing the woman her brightest polite smile and shoving her inappropriate thoughts about kissing Clint aside. She had no business thinking about his lips. Not now, not ever. She had way too much else on her plate at the moment. Hands clasped on her desk, she raised her chin for Judy to enter. “And you?”
“Good,” Judy said, walking in and plopping down in the empty chair in front of Tara’s desk. Tara liked the woman. She was funny and smart, if a bit of a gossip. Good old Judy always had the scoop on everyone in the place. The last thing Tara wanted was for her situation to become watercooler fodder, but Judy seemed to have other ideas as she narrowed her gaze on Tara. She’d hired the woman on as her administrative assistant after letting the old one go shortly after taking over the position. It wasn’t that John Berger hadn’t been good at his job. Tara had just wanted to start fresh, that was all. She’d heard he'd moved on to another position with a different environmentalist group, so it had all worked out in the end for everyone. “I wondered if the legal situation was getting to you.”
Tara frowned, blinking. “You mean the legislation we’re trying to get passed? No. It’s fine. We’re getting a lot of public support, and the legislators seem to be getting on board. I’m hoping we’ll get it taken care of soon—maybe even before the board finishes its search for a permanent E.D. Onward and upward, right?”
“Hmm. Right, I suppose. Sometimes I forget that you’re just E.D. on a temporary basis.” Judy leaned forward a bit and dropped her tone to a near-whisper. “Between you and me, the things I’ve heard about the last director’s murder sound shady as hell. No leads and no suspects, according to the cops? C’mon. Someone had to have seen something, right? Steinman was shot in broad daylight on a busy street.” Judy shrugged and sat back again, crossing her arms. “I don’t know. Maybe it was another activist group, wanting to take him out so their group could get credit for pushing through the bill. I mean, everyone knows the environmental leagues are rampant with competition.” She chuckled. “Everyone calls us tree huggers, but this shit gets ruthless sometimes.”
Ruthless, yes, but murderous? Tara knew that Judy liked her conspiracy theories, but this seemed to go a little too far. “Hmm,” she said noncommittally, then clasped her mug with both hands, taking a moment to really ponder the idea. She didn’t like to think about someone purposely trying to do her in just because she wanted to make the world a better place, but she knew it happened. Growing up with a mother in politics, Tara knew better than most what kind of crazies were out there. She’d never let it stop her, but the awareness