The senator walked toward them. "Are you dragon-boy, Alex?" he asked the younger man.

Alex shrugged, looking faintly uncomfortable. "I told her I was the dragon at the gate."

The senator put a hand on Alex's shoulder. "You do a good job, too. So is this young lady causing trouble?" He turned to Dani and smiled. "You don't look especially threatening."

"I'm not," she managed.

"Don't be so sure," Alex told him.

Dani glared. "You're being a little judgmental here."

"You're going to make trouble with your ridiculous claims."

"Why are they ridiculous? You don't know for sure, yet."

"Do you?" Alex asked.

The senator looked at both of them. "Should I come back at a better time?"

Dani ignored Alex and turned to the senator. "I'm sorry to barge in like this. I've been trying to make an appointment to see you but every time they ask me why, I can't give them the real reason. I…"

The enormity of what she was about to do crashed in on her. How could she just blurt out what she'd been told? That twenty-nine years ago he'd had an affair with her mother and she was the result? He would never believe her. Why would he?

Mark Canfield frowned at her. "You look familiar. Have we met before?"

"Don't even think about it," Alex told her. "You don't want to mess with me."

She ignored him. "We haven't, Senator, but you knew my mother. Marsha Buchanan. I look a little like her. I'm her daughter. And, I think, maybe yours."

Mark Canfield's face barely showed any reaction at all. Must be all that political training, she thought, not sure what she was feeling herself. Hope? Terror? A sense of standing on the edge of a cliff, not sure if she should jump?

She braced herself for rejection because it was crazy to think he would just accept what she said.

Then his expression softened as he smiled. "I remember your mother very well. She was…" His voice trailed off. "We should talk. Come on in to my office."