Night's Landing by Carla Neggers

New York and back to Amsterdam again would be hard on him. And, no,” she added, “I’m not making excuses for him or my mother. It’s just the reality we all have to deal with.”
    “Does he advise the president?”
    “As a friend, if asked.”
    “He was an assistant secretary of state—”
    “For about five minutes for an administration that was not John Wesley Poe’s.”
    “They get along?”
    “Very much so.” She sat back, studying the man across from her. “Special Agent Collins asked me many of these same questions, you know.”
    Nate surprised her again by smiling. “But he was asking them because he’s conducting an investigation. I’m asking because I’m curious.”
    “I think you’re looking for distractions.”
    “Maybe. I’ve worked with your brother for four months. I didn’t have a clue he was pals with the president. I need a little time to adjust.”
    Sarah doubted he’d needed more than a half second to adjust, but she didn’t call him on it.
    “Rob visited your folks in Amsterdam a few weeks ago. Were you there?”
    She thought of the man in the park and felt her stomach tighten, even as she reminded herself it had to be a case of mistaken identity. “I flew in from Scotland. We don’t get that many opportunities to be together as a family.”
    “I’ve never been to Amsterdam.” Nate finished the last of his beer. “What’s it like?”
    “Narrow streets, a mix of old and new buildings, crowded, fascinating, more diverse than you might think.
Lots
of bicycles. The canals are beautiful—we all did a canal tour.”
    She didn’t mention the Rijksmuseum, because if she did, her anxiety would show, Nate would see it, and she’d have to tell him about the man in the park and what a nutcase she was for thinking she’d recognized him from the museum. But that had been such a strange day, her, Rob, their parents, playing tourist, trying to be a family in that foreign city because that was where they’d found themselves together.
    She couldn’t eat any more and took one last sip of beer, her glass still half-full. She offered Nate money for the tab, but he refused. As he pulled out his wallet, she noticed that he favored his injured arm and saw him wince in pain. She regretted how close she’d come to losing it in the park, to the point that he’d obviously felt he’d had to whisk her off for a beer and something to eat. However bad the past day and a half had been for her, they’d been so much worse for him and her brother.
    The evening air had turned chilly, but Sarah felt hot, agitated. Nate was watching her closely—too closely, as if he believed she was trying to hide something from him. Not a pleasant position to be in. But she didn’t consider herself to be hiding anything. She’d been mistaken about the man in the park.
    And Nate was recovering from a bullet wound and a shocking attack that could have killed him.
    She had no business reading anything into his actions, his questions, the way he looked at her.
    “I should get back to the hospital,” she said. “It really was serendipity that you followed me. Thanks.”
    He stepped off the curb to flag a cab. “I don’t believe in serendipity.”
    She smiled at him. “Of course not.”
    When they arrived back at the hospital, Rob was out for the night—and Nate was done for. Sarah could see it in the dark smudges of fatigue under his eyes, the hollow look to his cheeks. “Do you have a car?” she asked him when they returned to the waiting room. “Do you want me to drive you home?”
    “That bad, huh?” He grinned at her, a sudden spark in his eyes. “You can drive me home another time, Dr. Dunnemore. When I don’t look and feel like death on a cracker.”
    Her mouth snapped shut.
    He laughed, and although he sounded exhausted, she felt a tingle of pure sexual awareness dance up her spine.
    After he left, Juliet Longstreet put down the magazine she’d been staring at and shook her head. “That man.