On the Record (Record #2)(60)

Liz chewed on her lips as she waited. The wind picked up and tore through her hair, whipping it into her eyes. She tried to brush it out of her face, but the wind was relentless. She could empathize with its ferocity tonight.

Jogging the last few feet in her knee-high brown boots, Liz made it to her car and quickly ducked inside out of the cold. She was still shivering as she waited . . . and waited . . . and waited. Would he answer? She hadn’t spoken to him since her birthday in April, and it was now the end of October. Had she made a mistake in calling?

The clock told her it was only nine o’clock. Last summer felt like so long ago. Just as her mind drifted to nights at his lake house, stolen nights in hotel rooms, and fancy cocktail dinners, where mere looks across the room were enough to push them into deliriously dangerous circumstances, the line clicked over.

“The Congressman will be right with you,” the woman said, pausing briefly, before adding, “Ms. Carmichael.”

A second later, Liz heard a buzz on the line. Her heart leaped out of her chest with anticipation, and she felt a stirring between her thighs. She was already turned on, and she hadn’t even heard his voice. It was wrong, so wrong that just a buzz on the other line could make her throb. She didn’t want to admit that the waiting riled her up as much as he did. She had tried to forget all of these things.

“Sandy?” Brady’s intoxicating voice murmured the name they had always used in public. She almost groaned aloud at the seductive quality it carried. He didn’t talk like this on the radio. She started to squirm and pressed her legs together.

“Brady.” She sighed into the phone, forgetting all of her worries with the sound of his voice. She slumped back against the seat and closed her eyes, remembering easier times.

“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice showing what she knew was a hint of desperation. She hadn’t called in months; of course he would be concerned.

Or would he? God, she didn’t know right now. All she knew was that she wanted to forget her argument with Hayden. She wanted to get lost in Brady. If all she could have was his voice to soothe her aches, then she would take it.

“Yeah . . .” Tears fell down her cheeks unbidden. Where had they come from? How had just his voice opened the floodgates? She choked back a sob, bringing her knees up to her chest. She was overreacting. She knew it, but it all felt like too much with Hayden right then. She wanted something . . . else.

“Where are you?” he demanded.

“At the newspaper,” she choked out.

“I’m coming to get you.”

“What?” she cried jumping out of her seat, her legs smacking the steering wheel.

“You don’t call me crying in the middle of the night after not speaking with me for months, and then tell me I can’t see you. I can’t handle it, Liz,” he growled. She gasped lightly at the way he said her name. “I said I’m coming to get you.”

The phone went dead in her hand.

Chapter 16

NOTHING ELSE EVER HAD

Liz crashed back heavily into her seat.

What had she done? Brady couldn’t come here. Over a year had passed since they had last been together like that. She felt as if she was losing her mind even considering it.

Her head snapped to the still-closed newspaper door. Hayden was inside. He had acted like a total ass**le and pushed her away. The way he had treated her was completely unacceptable and it just set her off. How could he act like that after the last year? She was clearly motivated, independent, hardworking, and a dozen or so other power adjectives. The thought of him saying otherwise to her just infuriated her further.

She ground her teeth together. She had to make up her mind. If she decided to go with Brady, then she needed to move her car. Hayden would know something was wrong if it was still parked in the lot after she had told him she was leaving. And at the moment the last thing she wanted to do was talk to him.

Liz turned over the engine without thinking more about the consequences of her actions and drove her car into the parking deck. It was located behind a row of dorms off the back of the Union, which was good, because Hayden would never think to check there. The only problem was that she couldn’t see the main newspaper parking lot from her new location.

That was where she had told Brady she would be, so unfortunately it looked as if she would have to suffer through the cold again. Liz didn’t understand how it felt like a winter storm was about to rip through North Carolina any second when it was only October. It didn’t help that she had mistakenly left her jacket in the office. Rummaging through her backseat, she found a Patagonia pullover, threw that over her button-down, and added a pair of gloves out of the glove compartment.

As she eased the door open, the wind whistled through the opening, stinging her eyes. It was too damn cold.

Grunting, Liz shoved the door open all the way and locked her car up tight. She walked briskly across the pavement and took a seat on the damp hill that led to the Union. From her vantage point she could see everything—the main parking lot, the newspaper entrance, the entrance where she would anticipate Brady . . . if he actually showed.

Light streamed out of the back entrance to the Union and Liz’s eyes darted to the brick building partially obscured by century-old trees. Hayden walked out and into a circle of light from overhead. He ran his hands back through his hair and looked disgruntled . . . maybe even pissed off. She had never quite seen him look like that. It was sexy, and that made her angry. They wouldn’t even be in this position if he wasn’t acting like such an idiot.