There's Something About Juneau? Really?

Jessica glanced toward the committee-room corridor. “I’m carrying materials for Senator Vale.”

“And I’m moving Representative Venn’s delegation upstairs.”

“Then you’re blocking the route.”

“I’m aware.”

One of the boxes shifted beneath his aide’s hand. Jessica caught it before it slid down the stairs. The man reached for it at the same moment. Their fingers touched against the cardboard seam.

His hand was warm. Hers was cold from the rain.

Neither of them moved first.

“Thank you,” he said.

“You’re welcome,” Jessica replied, pulling away. “Now clear the landing.”

His mouth tilted - not a smile, exactly. Something more pointed. “You always give orders before introductions?”

“Only when people build a barricade in a public stairwell.”

“Robert,” he said.

She had not asked his name. The fact that he offered it felt like a challenge.

“Jessica.”

“I know.”

That stopped her. “Do you?”

“Everyone knows Senator Vale’s office is first through every door.” He took the box from her and set it against the wall. “Your senator’s popularity doesn’t create a private entrance.”

The folders pressed into Jessica’s ribs. Behind her, someone muttered about missing the morning briefing. A reporter lifted a phone, angling for a better view.

“Popularity isn’t the issue,” Jessica said. “The committee room opens in six minutes.”

“Representative Venn’s delegation has a scheduled walk-through with the chair before then.”

“Scheduled by whom?”

“Her office.”

“That isn’t an answer.”

“It’s the only one you’re getting on a staircase.”

His voice had a rough edge, softened by the faintest trace of an island cadence. Hoonah, Jessica remembered. The new representative from the small fishing town had arrived with a reputation for knowing every working harbor in her district by name. Robert was her aide, then. The opposing side of the aisle. New office, new alliances, and apparently no understanding of shared space.

Jessica stepped closer. “Your delegation can wait at the top.”

“They can’t.”

“Why?”

For the first time, his certainty faltered. It was brief, but she saw it - the flicker beneath the polished answer. He glanced toward the upper corridor, where a woman in a navy suit stood surrounded by two staffers and a fisherman still wearing a rain-darkened cap.

“Because Representative Venn has one chance to make the chair understand what this bill does to Hoonah,” he said. “If she walks in behind your senator’s packet, she’ll be treated like an afterthought.”

The words landed harder than they should have. Jessica knew what it meant to be treated as an afterthought. She had watched it happen to junior staff, to rural communities, to anyone who arrived without the right name or the right number of years behind them.

But sympathy was a luxury she could not afford on a landing crowded with witnesses.

“Then she should arrive prepared,” Jessica said.

Robert’s eyes sharpened. “She is.”

“So am I.”

“Your folders are not the same thing.”

“No,” Jessica said. “Mine are going into the room.”

A murmur moved through the stairwell. The landing seemed to narrow around them, forcing their shoulders almost level. Robert smelled faintly of cedar and coffee. A drop of rain clung to the edge of his jaw. Jessica found herself noticing it and resented him for making her notice anything at all.

He shifted aside half a step.

It was not enough.

Jessica tried to pass. Robert caught the top folder before it struck the wall. Papers fanned loose beneath the tab marked FISHERIES.

“Careful,” he said.

“Let go.”

“I’m preventing a spill.”

“You’re holding my briefing.”

His gaze dropped to her hand on the folder, then lifted again. “You could ask.”

“I did. You said no.”

Something flashed between them - anger, amusement, and the dangerous awareness that neither was willing to retreat. His fingers remained on the folder. Jessica could feel the pressure of them through the paper.

“Robert,” called the woman above. “We’re losing the chair.”

He released the folder.

Jessica gathered the pages against her chest and pushed through the gap he had finally made. Her shoulder brushed his. The contact was accidental, but his body went still beneath it. So did hers.

Then the crowd surged, and the moment vanished under boots and voices.

She reached the upper corridor with seconds to spare. The committee-room doors stood open. A staffer from the chair’s office waved her inside, and Jessica crossed the threshold before anyone could stop her.

She set Senator Vale’s packet at the front table, aligned the folders, and placed the speaking notes on top. Her hands were steady now. That was the advantage of work: it obeyed when people did not.

Behind her, Robert entered with Representative Venn’s delegation.

He did not look at Jessica immediately. He guided the fisherman toward a seat, murmured something to the representative, and handed a copy of the agenda to the chair’s clerk. His movements were efficient, almost careful. The man who had turned the stairwell into a barricade knew exactly how to make space once he decided someone deserved it.

Jessica hated that she admired the distinction.

The chair glanced between the two packets. “Which office requested the early briefing?”

“Senator Vale’s,” Jessica said.

“Representative Venn’s,” Robert said at the same time.

The chair’s eyebrows rose.

Jessica turned toward him. “Senator Vale’s office submitted the request yesterday afternoon.”

“Representative Venn’s office confirmed it with the chair’s scheduler this morning.”

“Confirmed is not requested.”

“Neither is seniority.”

The room quieted. Robert had raised his voice only slightly, but everyone heard him.

Jessica felt heat rise beneath her collar. Senator Vale was popular, experienced, and expected to lead the discussion. Robert had just made her defend the senator’s access in front of the very people who controlled it.

The chair tapped the two packets. “We have one room and two briefings.”

“Give Senator Vale the first ten minutes,” Jessica said. “Representative Venn can follow.”

Robert’s expression hardened. “That’s not a compromise. That’s a delay dressed as courtesy.”

“Your office arrived after mine.”

“Because our representative was meeting with fishermen whose livelihoods are inside this bill.”

“And my senator was preparing amendments to protect those livelihoods.”

The fisherman in the rain-darkened cap looked between them. Robert saw it. Jessica knew he did because his jaw tightened.

The chair sighed. “Five minutes each. Senator Vale first.”

Jessica should have felt victorious. Instead, the win tasted thin. Robert had not looked away. His attention remained fixed on her with an intensity that made the crowded room feel strangely private.

“Thank you,” she said.

Robert leaned close enough that only she could hear him. “Don’t thank me. You got the room.”

“You wanted it.”

“I wanted her heard.”

The quiet conviction in his voice unsettled her more than his sharpness had. Jessica had expected ambition, perhaps arrogance. She had not expected devotion.

She lowered her voice. “You could try asking without turning every doorway into a campaign speech.”

“You could try listening before deciding someone is in your way.”

Their eyes met.

For one suspended second, the argument changed shape. His face was too close. She could see the faint shadow along his jaw, the small crease beside his mouth, the restrained impatience that made him look less polished and more real. Her pulse gave a traitorous jump.

Robert noticed. His gaze dropped - not to her mouth, but near it - and returned.

Jessica stepped back first.

The chair called the meeting to order. Papers rustled. Chairs scraped. The machinery of government swallowed the moment, but not the awareness of it.

She moved to Senator Vale’s side table and opened the first folder. Across the room, Robert took his place beside Representative Venn. Their offices were separated by a narrow aisle, no more than four feet of polished floor.

Political rivals, Jessica thought, though neither of them had said the words.

The first briefing began. Senator Vale spoke with the confidence that had made him popular from Anchorage to the capital. Jessica passed him notes when the chair interrupted, marked the page where a disputed figure appeared, and watched Robert listening from the opposite side.

He did not fidget. He did not whisper. He absorbed every argument as if storing it for later use.

When Senator Vale finished, the chair turned to Representative Venn.

Robert placed the Hoonah packet before her. His hand lingered on the cover for a moment, a small gesture of reassurance. Representative Venn looked up at him, and he nodded once.

Jessica understood then why he had held the landing.

He had been protecting her from being dismissed before she ever entered the room.

The realization did not absolve him. It made him more dangerous.

Representative Venn began to speak. Her voice was steady, but her fingers trembled against the edge of the packet. Robert stood beside her, close enough to help and far enough not to take over. When a senator interrupted with a question about fishing permits, he waited until the representative answered for herself.

Jessica watched him watching Venn.

A strange ache moved through her - not jealousy, not exactly. Something nearer to recognition. He knew how to stand behind someone without disappearing. She wondered what it would feel like to have that kind of attention turned toward her.

The thought was unacceptable. She shut the folder.

Robert glanced across the aisle.

He had seen.

By the time the briefing ended, the chair had asked both offices to provide a joint comparison of the amendment language before the next session. Jessica wrote the request in the margin of her notes, already calculating the hours it would take.

Robert approached as the room emptied.

“Looks like we’re working together,” he said.

“Temporarily.”

“That’s what people say when they’re trying not to sound interested.”

Jessica slid the folders into her case. “I’m not interested.”

“Not in the work?”

“Not in you.”

The words came too quickly. His eyebrows lifted, and she felt the mistake before he answered.

“I didn’t ask.”

“No. You implied.”

“I implied you’re difficult.”

“That’s different?”

“Much.”

A laugh escaped her before she could stop it. It was small, unwilling, and entirely his fault. Robert’s expression changed when he heard it, the sharpness easing into something warmer.

For a moment, neither spoke.

Then he reached past her for the door. His sleeve brushed her wrist. “Late tonight?”

“Likely.”

“Good.”

Jessica looked at him. “Good?”

“We’ll have fewer people blocking the stairs.”

He held the door open. She walked through, refusing to hurry. Behind her, his voice followed, low and certain.

“Bring the amendment history, Jessica.”

She turned at the corridor’s end. “Bring an apology, Robert.”

His smile this time was unmistakable.

“Don’t count on it.”

Outside, rain ticked against the Capitol windows, silvering the spring morning over Juneau. Jessica had won the room, secured her senator’s briefing, and lost the clean simplicity of the day.

The next work session would be late. It would be private. And Robert would be there, waiting on the other side of the argument.

End of chapter one. 32 more chapters in the full book.