The Boss and His Cowgirl(17)

A peal of laughter floated through his half-opened office door. Georgie. She’d been the one high point in the Thanksgiving travesty. He’d all but begged her to accompany him, his excuse that she was the best speechwriter on the Hill and he had precampaign stops to make on the way back to Washington. In truth, he’d needed her there to insulate him from the dysfunction surrounding his family. Her presence and clear head kept him centered.

A male voice rumbled in the background and Georgie laughed again. A streak of jealousy twisted through him before he clamped down on his emotions. Georgie was an employee. He didn’t fish in the office pond. Ever. Unlike many of his associates. He closed the file he’d been studying—the oil and gas production bill wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon—and wondered who was in the reception area with her. He kept a skeleton staff during December. While Congress didn’t officially break for Christmas recess until December twenty-first, the Hill effectively ground to a stop in anticipation of the holiday weeks before.

A few moments later Boone rapped on the door and stuck his head in. “Dude, enough. We need steaks. And beer.”

The Tate brothers belonged to Clay’s aunt Katherine, his father’s sister. While all of them carried the trademark Barron dark hair, they’d inherited their father’s blue eyes, and Boone’s twinkled with good humor. He stepped fully into the office and glanced over his shoulder. “I bet I can convince Georgie to come with us, since we three are the only ones still here.” He waggled his brows and Clay couldn’t help but chuckle at his cousin’s antics.

When his stomach grumbled in agreement, Clay surrendered. As long as Boone was there to chaperone, he could keep his mind on business and not on the woman whose presence had inexplicably begun to make his breath catch and his thoughts wander to places they had no business visiting. “Are you buyin’?”

A snort of laughter was quickly followed by a shake of Boone’s head. “Hell no, cuz. You’re the one who makes the big bucks. We have reservations at Max’s Steakhouse and we’re going to miss them. Now, get your butt in gear.”

The woman under discussion breezed into the room, a quiet smile on her face. She pushed the heavy black frames of her glasses up on her nose. “Did you convince him he needs beef?”

Georgie’s voice did funny things to Clay—most of them centered below the belt buckle. She interacted with the press often and he’d overheard one male journalist comment that Georgie had the voice of a phone sex operator, but the rest of her didn’t follow through. He’d studied Georgie following that crack and came to his own conclusion. Who knew girls in glasses looked so sexy? Thank goodness no one saw her the same way he did. He’d hate to start a fistfight. Which was so outside the realm of his normal behavior he now second-guessed every word, thought and action where Georgie was concerned.

She’d been a fixture in his office almost since the beginning, recruited by Boone first as a campaign assistant and then as a deputy press secretary after her graduation from the University of Oklahoma’s journalism school. Since that time, she’d worked her way through the ranks. After her comments regarding her own Thanksgiving and family, Clay had done a little covert checking. Her mother had been a Tulsa socialite who met and married Georgie’s father in college. They’d divorced when Georgie was thirteen, after living apart most of her life. Marlena Dreyfus had hated life on the ranch. After the divorce she had moved to Dallas, and effectively ignored her daughter. George Dreyfus had raised his daughter to be a cowgirl until Georgie departed for college and then joined Clay’s staff.

Putting Hunt on the trail, he learned Georgie had had one semiserious boyfriend in college, and seldom dated anyone more than a few times since coming to Washington. The idea she didn’t have many men in her past pleased Clay, and he was man enough to admit that was his ego talking because he had a whole string of women peppering his past. Clay was also honest enough to admit his sudden interest was closer to stalking than infatuation. But he didn’t care. Georgie was an important and trusted member of his staff. He should know these things. And finding out about her had nothing to do with the vivid dreams in which she starred, leaving him hard and wanting upon awaking. No, those dreams had nothing at all to do with his current curiosity.

“Who’s driving?” Boone was shrugging into his sheepskin coat as he glared out the window into the Russell Building’s inner courtyard. Snow fell thick and fast.

“Not you,” Georgie teased. “I called Hunt earlier. He’s sending an SUV for us. Four-wheel drive. And he promised a driver who knows how to navigate in this stuff.”