Free High Stakes by Kathryn Shay Page A

the front of her coat. Then he looped the scarf close around her neck.
    She halted in her tracks, causing people to bump into them or move around them. It wasn’t until he saw the expression on her face that he realized the intimate thing he’d done. So much for crowds of people preventing them from being alone.

 
    Chapter 7
     
    It was a slow night at Bailey’s Irish Pub. Dylan was washing glasses behind the bar, listening to some Irish music drift out from the jukebox. He was comforted by his brother Pat taking inventory at the other end and the scent of food cooked for dinner. A few stools over, Liam nursed a cup of coffee and read the newspaper.
    But this mellow mood would be interrupted by Rachel’s show, on in a few minutes; Dylan knew he had to watch it to keep an eye on her for his column. But he purposely hadn’t called her in the two days since her niece’s basketball game and she hadn’t emailed or contacted him, either. He hadn’t come up with a way of working together and ignoring his white-hot attraction to her, so distance seemed to be the best alternative.
    And must be nothing big had happened in the world of politics or pop culture, since the deal was she’d notify him about any newsworthy story she was on to.
    Patrick came down the bar with the remote. “Aren’t you gonna watch your girlfriend, boy?”
    “My
what?”
How could Pat know…? His brother’s brows furrowed. “Rachel Scott. I was kiddin’ about the girlfriend part.”
    “Um, yeah. I’m gonna watch her.”
    “Hmm.” Pat fiddled with the remote, then said, “Shouldn’t I be? Kiddin’ about that? Is something more going on?”
    “Of course you weren’t serious. Rachel Scott and I are adversaries.”
    Without saying more, thank the good Lord, Pat turned the volume up on the television. And there she was, more beautiful than Dylan had ever seen her. She wore a dark green, knit dress and dangling earrings that sparkled like real gems and probably were. Her hair was up in a knot on her head, with little tendrils escaping it. He’d never seen her style it that way.
    “Good evening, viewers. Welcome to
The Rachel Scott Show
. Tonight we bring you some breaking news. But first some background. Three months ago, after the November elections, we ran a story of how a bridge to New York from the small town of Fort Case experienced unexpected lane closures. Cars sat in gridlock nearly four days. Children could not get to school. Emergency vehicles were unable to reach their destinations in a timely way and businesses suffered.”
    Dylan knew all about the snafu, had looked into it and found nothing. He hadn’t paid much attention to its aftermath. Traffic in New York was always crazy. He wondered what she was getting at.
    The camera panned into a close-up. He caught his breath at the, well, beauty of her. “We’ve been investigating this story for a month and just discovered some interesting facts. First, the mayor of Fort Case”—his picture came on-screen—”did not support the governor’s bid for reelection in our border state, which, as it turned out, he won by a landslide, anyway. Second, an aide close to the governor was heard saying she wouldn’t want to be in that mayor’s shoes. Her boss
held grudges.
”
    Dylan had run that story down, too, but it hadn’t gone anywhere. And Rachel had never mentioned she was working on it, either.
    “However, tonight, we want you to know that the Rachel Scott team has discovered that the Port Authority official, who was appointed by the governor and is an old high school buddy of his, just resigned
because of health reasons.
Seriously? Do you believe that? Let’s ask our panel.”
    “Huh.” Liam had come down the bar and joined them to watch the show. “I can’t imagine why the governor of a state would do something so petty. He must not have known about the closures.”
    “You’re a Pollyanna, boy.” Pat poured his own java and refilled Liam’s. “He’s Italian, and