Free Campaign For Seduction by Ann Christopher Page B

school? Or am I mistaken?”
    Was this about the whole secret service issue? Good. Maybe he could be blasé about his safety but she couldn’t, and she had a few more words to say on the topic.
    She’d been to the rallies, she’d seen the hatemongers, she’d heard the jeers and the slogans. There were people in this country who wanted the senator dead because he was a black man who had the temerity to campaign for the presidency. She’d stood yards away from people who, for all she knew, were capable of taking a rifle, aiming it at the senator’s broad chest and pulling the trigger.
    The thought of Senator Warner being hurt, killed…
    Ignoring the dread trickling down her spine, she gave him a cool smile.
    “So sorry, Senator. I just thought the public needed to know that the man they’re thinking of voting into the highest office in the land is too stubborn, arrogant and, frankly, stupid to take the most basic steps for his own protection.” She waved. “Have a nice day.”
    As she swept off, she got a satisfying glimpse of his face turning to stone, but then Adena materialized at her side, teeth all but bared, her resemblance to a rabid pit bull a fearsome sight.
    “Does it not occur to you, Liza,” she snarled, “that maybe it’s not a good idea to announce to the world that the senator doesn’t have secret service protection?”
    “Announce?” What? Was Adena for real? “I didn’t announce it. Everyone already knows.”
    Adena didn’t back down one inch. “You claim you’re concerned, and then you harp on it in front of millions of people to boost your ratings—”
    Liza opened her mouth to defend herself, but the senator’s quiet voice interrupted.
    “That’s enough, Adena.”
    “It’s not enough, John, and I—”
    “I said,” he repeated with the kind of quiet but vibrating anger that stopped people—even zealots on a righteous mission like Adena—cold in their tracks, “that’s enough. If you have a problem with Liza, you’ll discuss it with me. Understand?”
    Choked, her face now a vivid purple, Adena glared at the senator, then Liza. She looked as if she wanted to say something else—Lord help them all if she did—but she seemed to become aware of their audience of staffers, most of whom were now listening openly while pretending to go about their business.
    Swallowing hard, struggling for control, Adena hitched her lips into a grimacing, one-sided smile and turned back to the senator. “Oh, I understand.” She wheeled toward the door. “Much more than you think.”
    “Sorry.” The senator turned back to Liza, looking embarrassed. “Adena gets a little overprotective at times.”
    Liza was so astonished to have the senator ride to her defense that she couldn’t manage a response, but it didn’t matter anyway because he clapped his hands once and spoke to the room at large.
    “Let’s saddle up, people,” he said. “We’ve got a nomination to win.”
     
    Next on the senator’s agenda: a pancake breakfast.
    After Liza’s live appearance on the network’s morning show, during which she’d introduced the taped interview, commented on the senator’s schedule for the day and answered the anchor’s questions about life on the campaign trail, they’d all headed to a fundraiser at a tiny Cleveland diner whose booths were so overcrowded that Liza expected a visit from the fire marshal.
    The senator wore one of those heavy white aprons, rolled up his shirtsleeves and went to work behind the grill, connecting with the hardworking voters who formed his base. Then he sat at one of the red vinyl booths, listening intently to the concerns of a steady stream of working-class people.
    Liza and Takashi observed it all and Brad duly taped everything for the nightly news segment, and nothing remotely interesting happened until the end, when Liza was searching for her coat.
    A wall of bodyguards blocked her from reaching the coatrack. Peering over the nearest burly shoulder to see