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“Okay, I guess.”
“Shouldn’t take too long,” she assured him. “Oh, and wear a light blue shirt, red tie. The cameras love that combination.” She didn’t wait for his assent before adding, “I’ll have a list of questions prepared by the time you show up, and I’ll review them with you while they’ve got you in the makeup chair.”
He chuckled. “That’s unusual.”
Carly was surprised by the touch of anger that darted through her, and she wanted to leap to her profession’s defense. But...there was some truth to his statement. “No surprises, Senator. This isn’t an adversarial interview.”
“Shane. If we’re not going to be adversaries, just call me Shane.”
“Shane,” she agreed. “And my friends call me Carly.”
“Thanks, Carly.” Her name sounded different coming from him. Or was that sexy undertone just the way he spoke normally?
Out of the blue she remembered her chaotic dream earlier this morning. Something about Shane and her and a tropical island. But just as they’d been about to make love a platoon of US Marines had landed on the island with one of those landing craft from WWII and swarmed Shane to protect him. He’d immediately ordered the marines to protect her, not him.
But I’m not targeted for assassination, she’d protested as the marines promptly shifted at his command. Think again, Shane had said in that deep voice that sent shivers down her spine. You saw him. You can identify him. He’ll be coming after you—count on it.
* * *
Shane glanced apprehensively at the array of cosmetics, brushes and spray cans on the counter before him, then at the makeup artist draping a large cotton bib over his chest and tucking a towel around his throat, pushing the edges into his shirt collar to keep it from accidentally getting smeared. “Do your worst,” he said in the resigned voice of a man going to the guillotine.
The fiftysomething woman chuckled and patted his arm. “Don’t worry, honey, I’m the best in the business. When I’m done, you won’t look as if you’re wearing makeup at all.”
Shane tried to ignore whatever it was she was doing to him and focus on Carly sitting on the stool next to him. She’d obviously already been worked on—her face still looked like her but...polished. That’s it, he thought. She looks polished. Her long, dark hair had been braided and coiled into gleaming perfection, her bright blue eyes were huge and thickly fringed with dark lashes, and her mouth—holy crap, her mouth!—curved sweetly with the barest hint of gloss to add color. He shifted in the chair, grateful for the expansive bib that hid his body’s obvious reaction to the woman he’d known he wanted two days ago—from the first moment he’d met her.
“... At that point I’ll ask you to describe the symptoms that caused you to contact the Mayo Clinic,” Carly was saying, her eyes on her script, and he forced his attention away from his sudden fantasy of the two of them alone on a desert island. “Keep it short. And don’t use any fancy words our viewers might not understand.”
“Got it.”
She went through the rest of the questions, none of which Shane considered anything but softballs that would allow him to hit home run after home run with his answers. Only once did he object—when she brought up how he’d received the traumatic brain injury the doctors theorized had been the trigger for the seizures.
“No, I’m not going there.”
She said patiently, “You don’t understand, Senator. People—”
“Shane.”
“Shane,” she amended. “You don’t understand. People are going to want to know what happened.”
“It’s not up for discussion.”
She pursed her lips, her eyes narrowing. “Okay. We won’t go there.” She crossed a line through that question in her script. But Shane was watching her closely, and he thought he saw something in the expression that fleetingly passed over her face. Something she knew, which she wasn’t going to tell him.
He opened his mouth to ask Carly about it when the makeup artist said suddenly, “There, honey, you’re all done.” She removed the towel and whipped off the bib, then patted the knot of his tie back into place.
