Betrayal of Trust by Tracey V. Bateman Page B

hand, it’s gonna be me,” came the voice of outrage from the back seat. “Did you two forget I’m the kid? You can’t go off holding hands and leave me in a park with a million, jillion people hanging around.”
    Raven let go of his hand. “The kid’s right,” she mumbled. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
    A strong sense of satisfaction spread through Matt at her discomfiture. The fact that she’d let Jamie gain theupper hand on this one proved she was feeling things that unnerved her. That was a good thing for Matt. Maybe before this day was over she’d realize that things weren’t finished between them. Maybe she’d be willing to open up and tell him what had happened to rattle her enough that she could walk away from the strongest love either had ever known. Maybe by the end of the day, she would abandon her goal to achieve an exclusive (if what Kellie had implied was true) and once again be the love of his life.
    Hope burned in his heart.
    Maybe.
     
    Keeping at least two cars between them, he nevertheless remained close enough to watch the Strong car swing off the interstate and onto the exit ramp. He took a long drag of his cigarette and held his breath as smoke fill his lungs. With a calm sense of satisfaction he released the smoke and flipped on his blinker. These two were starting to annoy him. What was next—an engagement?
    Now, he couldn’t allow that to happen, could he? The senator and the reporter. An unlikely couple, but when he factored in the kid in the back seat, everything took on a whole new dynamic. They were more than just a couple on a date. The kid, the amusement park…One happy little family.
    He watched as they found a parking place and swung into a spot close by. They got out and Matthew Strong took the little girl by the hand. As they walked toward the gate, Strong looked over the kid’s head and smiled at Raven Mahoney. Not that he blamed the guy. Raven was a looker. Better-looking than any girl he’d ever seen.
    Pulling in another drag of smoke, he seethed inwardly and kept his gaze riveted on his target. The threeof them looked for all the world like a family. A family. A family .
    No. He couldn’t allow that.

Chapter Nine
    H igh-pitched squeals permeated the sky one-hundred and ten feet above St. Louis as the Screeching Hawk rose to its maximum height, then dropped at a rate of sixty miles an hour.
    Raven raised her arms, closed her eyes, and relished the danger, excitement, the feeling of being totally out of control. She fought the urge to stand up. To see if she could maintain her balance while the world sped by. Mentally, she knew it was an ignorant thought. Still she couldn’t keep from picturing it…Raven Mahoney, the king of the world—or queen as the case may be.
    She hadn’t been on a roller coaster in at least fifteen years, not since the last time she and Matthew had gone to Worlds of Fun in Kansas City. They’d been dating only a few weeks back then. Old memories. Bittersweet.
    Was that the reason Matt had chosen to drive four hours to Adventure Park rather than take his daughter to the more local amusement park?
    Don’t analyze this, Raven. But the thought had already started to needle at her, pricking her thought processes, the part of her that needed to probe, dig, get tothe bottom of every issue, every story. That part of her had driven her to be an ace reporter. And she couldn’t deny the part of her that had brought her success.
    She could still picture her first day as a rookie reporter. Shaking in her boots, standing in front of an enormous metal desk. Jonesy’s cluttered office—the tough-guy station manager, a hulking bear of a man, three hundred pounds of pure attitude, with a voice to match. She’d always joked to herself that he led a secret life as a mob heavy. Pay attention to the little details. The things no one else considers very important. File everything away in the back of your mind and hang onto it, ’cause you never know