The Kingmaker (All the King's Men, #1)(58)

“We’re about a mile out,” the pilot says. “We’ve identified the ice floe large enough for us to land. Have you marked it?”

“Roger that. The wind died down enough for the part of our team out on that ice floe to leave their tents and mark it with coffee beans.” I wink at Grim, whose agile genius had led to that idea.

“Coffee, huh?” The pilot laughs, providing the only measure of comfort I’ve felt since ice pierced our ship. “As long as I can see it in the snow, we should be fine, but we gotta be fast. Satellite projects those storms will be swinging back soon. And with the size of your team, even with five helicopters, it’ll take several trips.”

“I know you’re doing us a huge favor with this,” I say carefully, “and at great risk to your crew, but I have to ask. Any chance you have the means to repair this ship at least enough so it doesn’t sink before somebody can come back and retrieve it when the ice shifts?”

“We got a team of engineers with us,” the pilot says. “If it’s one thing we know how to prevent, it’s oil spills, Maxim.”

Maxim? How does he know me?

“That’s good to hear,” I reply, smiling and frowning, pleased and confused. “You guys are prepared. Who are you anyway?”

“Oh,” the pilot says, surprise evident in his words. “I thought you knew. It’s Cade Energy, sir. Your father sent us.”





31





Lennix





“We have an update on that ship stranded in the Antarctic. An American oil company was able to fly in and has rescued the team.”

Rescued.

The news anchor’s words leave me slumped in my seat at the bar, limp with relief. Our team is having drinks after a day of barnstorming Oklahoma’s most economically depressed rural areas. I’ve been checking for news constantly since The Chrysalis crisis was reported, but there had been little news and no change for hours. Now, surrounded by the people who have become as close to me as family over the last few months of the campaign, I hear the news that Maxim is going to be okay.

“Thank God,” I whisper, pushing a trembling hand through my hair. Tears leak from the corners of my eyes and burn my cheeks. “Dammit.”

I swipe at my face, trying to keep my composure, but I’m undone with the unfathomable relief of knowing Maxim has been rescued. I give up. I can’t stave off the sobs that wrack me right in the middle of the bar. After Mama and Tammara and so many losses, I had braced my heart for another, but one I wasn’t sure I could handle. To lose Maxim before I ever really even had him would have devastated me. I may have no right, and he may not even want to see me, but I’m already devising a plan to find him, to go to him. To hug him and kiss him and slap him across the face for putting me through that hell.

“You okay?” Mena asks softly, sliding a glass of whiskey toward me. “Kimba told me about Maxim.”

“Yeah, I just . . .” I struggle to evict the words from my throat, to pull myself together, but I’m distracted by the coverage on the large screen mounted over the bar.

LIVE from DFW International.

Dallas?

Two tall, dark-haired men emerge from a private plane, coming one after the other down a short bank of steps. A swarm of reporters closes around them. Shock rips through my body. How could I have been so blind?

I’m a fool and Maxim is a liar.

Warren Cade, dressed in his tailored suit and wearing his usual privilege like a mantle, grins at the circle of cameras and microphones. Beside him is a man who, now that I see them together, looks exactly like him. Maxim is a younger, more casually dressed version of his father with his longer hair, Berkeley sweatshirt, and dark jeans. Little dots of blood show stark leaking through the square bandage on his forehead.

“Mr. Cade,” a reporter calls.

Both men look toward the camera, the same patina of arrogance stamped on the handsome set of features.

“Um, Maxim Cade,” she says with a chuckle. “Sorry. How’s it feel to be back in the States after such a harrowing adventure?”

Impatience flashes in those peridot eyes I thought I knew so well.

“Uh, great,” he says, pushing a shoulder through the crowd.

“And you were scheduled to go to the Amazon next,” another reporter shouts at his back. “After such a close call, will you be rethinking that?”

Not breaking stride, his long, lean legs taking him closer to the luxury SUV waiting on the tarmac where his father stands, he glances over his shoulder and shoots the crowd that pirate’s grin. “Hell, no. I’m still going. Why wouldn’t I?”

Too many emotions roil in my belly. Too many thoughts whisk in my head. Betrayal. Fear. Relief. Something tender, an unopened bud that I crush before it can fully open.

“That’s him?” Mena asks, her eyes fixed on the screen as Maxim climbs into the vehicle behind his father.

“No,” I say, blinking dry eyes and knocking back her whiskey. “I don’t know who that man is.”





32





Maxim





“I wanted to thank you for everything, Dad,” I say, sipping the water served with the elaborate meal my mother had our chef prepare. I haven’t been in this house in years, and wasn’t sure I’d ever return.