The night was too peaceful to spoil by talking, especially when all he wanted was to make love, so he was surprised when he felt his lips move. Even more surprised by what he said.
“Mrs. Case?”
“Yes?” She turned automatically.
13
FOR ONE ETERNAL second, Nealy stood there with an idiot smile on her face waiting to see what he wanted. And then, when she realized what she’d said, she felt as if the ground had fallen away beneath her.
A thousand thoughts raced through her head, a jumble of images—her hopes . . . her dreams . . . her lies . . .
Too late, she said, “You’ve . . . you’ve really got this fixation with . . . Cornelia Case, don’t you?”
He didn’t respond. Didn’t move.
She tried to brazen it out. “W-what’s wrong?”
Only his lips moved. “This is . . . this is crazy.”
She began to push her hands into her pockets, but her arms were as stiff and creaky as the Tin Man’s, and they wouldn’t move. “Did you get Button settled?”
“Don’t.” The word was softly spoken, intense.
She tried to conjure up something to say that would make everything right again, but came up empty. She turned away and crossed her arms over her chest as if that would contain her secrets.
“It’s true.” There was no doubt in his voice.
“No. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“It’s been all over the news since last night.”
“What?”
“The fact that Mrs. Case . . . that you disappeared from the White House.”
She hadn’t bought a paper this morning—hadn’t even glanced at them in the grocery. She didn’t want to know. Now she remembered the way he’d been fiddling with the radio while he drove.
The mantle of the First Lady was enveloping Nell Kelly like a magician’s cape. But she didn’t want Nell to disappear. Nell was a new person being born inside her, the person she might have been if she hadn’t allowed herself to become a tool of her father’s ambition. Nell had Cornelia Case’s strengths, but not her insecurities.
“I’m sure you’re aware that everyone in the country is looking for you.”
She heard formality in his voice. That awful formality people used when they addressed the First Lady. He’d never once sounded like that with Nell, and she knew right then that she’d lost him. Before they’d ever had a chance.
The secret fantasy she hadn’t known she was weaving unraveled. The fantasy of Mat and Nell traveling around the country in a battered Winnebago with two kids. Fishing in the Great Lakes, visiting Disney World, seeing sunsets over the Rockies, making love in the Arizona desert. An endless road trip.
“The wind’s picking up,” she said in a creaky old woman’s voice.
“I think you should call someone.”
“Lucy’s showers take forever. I hope there’s enough water in the tank.”
“We need to talk about how best to handle this.”
“I’m glad we used paper plates for dinner. Less to wash up.”
“Nell—Mrs. Case, we have to discuss this.”
She whirled on him. “No! No, we don’t need to at all. I’m going to check on Button.”
He shot in front of her, blocking her path without touching her. His features were stony in the moonlight. “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to insist.”
She gazed at the mouth she’d kissed only last night. It looked grim and forbidding. They’d planned to make love when they got to Iowa, but now they wouldn’t. Even men as confident as Mat Jorik didn’t make love to icons.
She struggled against a wrenching sense of loss. “Insist? Insist on what?”
“I need to know what’s happening. What you want.” That awful formality.
“That’s simple. I want you to forget about this.”
She slipped past him, and he didn’t try to stop her. He’d had no qualms about manhandling Nell, but he wouldn’t touch the First Lady.
Mat stared at Nell’s back as she disappeared inside the motor home. Nothing in his experience had prepared him for this. She hadn’t admitted she was Mrs. Case, and for a moment he tried to convince himself he had it all wrong. But there was no sidestepping the truth. Despite that pink rose tucked behind her ear, the woman he knew as Nell Kelly was Cornelia Case, the widow of the President of the United States and the country’s First Lady.
He felt as if he’d taken a sucker punch right to the gut as he moved blindly toward the old farmhouse and sagged down on the crumbling front step. He tried to sort it all out. For three days, they’d traveled together. They’d laughed, argued, taken care of Sandy’s kids. They’d been friends. And they’d almost been lovers.
He remembered those blood-boiling kisses, the caresses. His skin grew hot, as much from embarrassment as arousal. The things he’d done . . . the suggestions he’d made. To the First Lady.
He was suddenly furious with her. From the very beginning, she’d lied. She’d toyed with him like Marie Antoinette amusing herself with a peasant she could enjoy and then discard. And he’d been sucked right in. She must have been laughing her ass off.
He swore and began to rise, only to feel as if he’d been hit again. He sagged back down onto the step. Drew a ragged breath.
He’d just been handed the story of a lifetime.
The First Lady was on the run, and he was the only reporter in America who knew where she was.
Through his daze, he realized he’d just been given back his professional pride.
He jumped to his feet, began to pace, tried to think, but anger kept getting in his way. She’d broken a trust—broken his trust—and he wouldn’t forgive that.
The story, he told himself. Think about the story. He wouldn’t tell her he was a reporter, that was for damn sure. She’d lied to him from the beginning, and he didn’t owe her anything.
He forced himself to organize his jumbled thoughts. Why had she fled and how had she done it? He tried to figure out how much time had lapsed between her disappearance from the White House and the moment he’d picked her up at the truck stop. But nothing would come together. Instead he found himself thinking about the way they’d planned to make love when they got to Iowa. Another deception. She’d known it would never happen.
He remembered her silly story of a gay husband. It was laughable the way he’d actually believed her. But her lies had been so convincing, the way she’d manipulated him with those coy hesitations so that he’d drawn an entirely erroneous conclusion. He’d been used by a master.
He began to outline a plan. Sooner or later, she would have to tell him at least part of the truth—why she’d done it, how she’d managed to get away. The conspiracy nuts were already having a field day with this, but—
Every muscle in his body tightened, and for the third time that night he felt as if he’d been struck. Her gay husband . . . What if she hadn’t been lying? What if she’d been telling the truth?
For a moment he was actually dizzy. Dennis Case, America’s squeaky-clean young President, had been the perfect antidote to years of Clinton’s womanizing. What if the reason Case hadn’t looked at other women was more complicated than strong moral character?
A thousand caveats blasted through his head. He needed facts, not speculation. This was too big a story to ruin with even a single mistake. Truth. Accuracy. Fairness. What he wrote would go down in the history books with his name attached to it, and he couldn’t let anything screw that up.
At least an hour passed before he let himself inside the Winnebago. The door at the back was shut, even though it was too early for her to have gone to bed. She couldn’t have made it clearer that she didn’t want to talk.
He kicked off his shoes, pulled a root beer from the refrigerator, and began to plan. But even as he sorted and organized, he felt a bone-searing anger. There was nothing he hated more than being played for a chump.
Nealy woke at dawn. For a few seconds she simply lay there
, content to the tips of her toes, and then it all came crashing in. Mat knew who she was.
She wanted to curl up next to Lucy and stay there forever, but she forced herself to get out of bed. Button was still asleep on the floor. She stepped around her and let herself in the bathroom to shower and dress. So far he’d kept the news to himself. If he hadn’t, the Secret Service would already have pounded on the door this morning. She tried to feel grateful for these past four days instead of bitter because they were being snatched away, but she couldn’t quite manage it.
Lucy was still asleep when she came out, and Mat was holding Button while he made baby cereal. Although the baby still wore her sleeper, he’d added her pink cap. This morning the bill was turned to the side, giving her a Little Rascals look. For a tough guy, he had a big soft spot. But not for her. That had ended last night.
Her throat tightened. They’d all grown so precious to her. How was she going to leave them behind?
“Gah!” The baby pumped her legs and regarded Nealy happily from her perch in his arms.
Nealy smiled back. “Gah yourself.” She reached for the box of baby cereal. “I’ll fix it.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
His formality hadn’t faded. If anything, it seemed to have settled in deeper. Now, however, she heard the angry edge behind it. Mat was stiff-necked and proud. In his eyes, she’d made a fool of him.
She gazed at his messy hair and the wrinkled T-shirt he’d thrown on with a pair of shorts. His jaw was unshaven, his feet bare. He looked disheveled and gorgeous, so thoroughly at home in his oversized body that the act of making baby cereal seemed as masculine as growing a beard.
“I’ve made coffee if you want some.” He usually made the coffee, but this was the first time he’d felt the need to announce it. She’d become a houseguest.
“Thank you.”
“There’s not much for breakfast.”
“I know. We went shopping together, remember?”
“If you need anything—”
“I’m fine.”
“There’s some cereal left, a little milk, but I don’t think there’s any—”
“Stop it! Just stop it!”
His expression stiffened. “Excuse me?”
“I’m exactly the same person today that I was yesterday, and I don’t need you tiptoeing around me.”
“I didn’t mean to offend you,” he said stiffly.
She turned away and went outside.
Mat cursed himself for letting anger get in his way. The story was the only thing that counted now, and he had to put his own feelings aside so he could do his job. He grabbed a teething biscuit from a box on the counter, shoved it in Button’s hand, and carried her outside with him.
The day was gloomy, humid, and overcast. Weeds, wet with morning dew, brushed his bare feet as he walked toward the orchard where she stood with her arms wrapped around herself. For a moment he felt himself weakening. She looked so damned vulnerable. But the moment passed.
“Mrs. Case.”
“I’m Nell!” Wisps of light brown hair fluttered as she whirled around. “Just Nell.”
“With all due respect, you’re not. And that’s a problem.”
Her hands slammed on her hips. “I’ll tell you where you can put your due respect!”
“I need to know what’s going on.”
“No, you don’t!” And then her arms fell. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound imperious.”
“You owe me the truth,” he said stonily.
He was right, but she’d lost the habit of confiding in anyone. First Ladies couldn’t afford to tell their secrets. Still, she owed him something.
“I had to get away. I just—I just wanted to be ordinary for a while.”
“Isn’t this a little extreme?”
“I’m sure it seems that way to you, but—”
“Hey, where is everybody?” They both turned as Lucy stuck her head out the door. The T-shirt she’d slept in came to her knees, and her hair must have been wet when she’d fallen asleep because it stuck up in a rooster tail. Just the sight of her lifted Nealy’s spirits. At least there was one person who thought of her only as Nell.
“We’re out here,” she replied unnecessarily.
“Are you arguing?”
“Not exactly.”
Mat seemed as glad of the interruption as she was. “Where’d you get that T-shirt?”
Lucy scowled. “I found it somewhere.”
“Yeah, in a stack of my clothes.”
Nealy had no desire to continue her conversation with Mat, so she made her way back to the motor home. She was living on borrowed time, and she intended to use every second.
Lucy stepped aside to let her in. “So do we have anything to eat for breakfast that doesn’t blow?”
Nealy restrained herself from hugging her. “Next time let’s just ask if there’s anything edible, okay?”
Lucy glowered. “I’m sick of cereal.”
“Make some toast.”
“Toast blows.”
“Lucy, don’t talk to . . . Nell like that,” Mat said from the doorway.
Nealy rounded on him. “This is between Lucy and me.”
“Yeah, Jorik, just butt out.”
“That’s enough, Lucy,” she said. “You have a . . . a . . . time out for being disrespectful.”
“A time out?” Lucy regarded her incredulously.
Nealy knew about time outs from her visits to nursery schools, and she pointed toward the back. “Fifteen minutes. And shut the door. That way you’ll have some privacy so you can think about how to address adults properly.”
“You’ve got to be shittin’ me.”
“That’s another fifteen minutes for inappropriate language. Do you want to try for longer?”
Lucy looked toward Mat as if she expected him to rescue her from what was clearly Nell’s latest insanity, but he jerked his head to the back. “You’ve got it coming.”
“This sucks! I haven’t even had breakfast!” She stomped away, then banged the door as hard as she could.
Mat set Button down. “I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have to deal with that.”
“Why not? I’ve been dealing with it since Wednesday.”
“Yes, but—”
“Stop treating me like a guest,” she snapped. “I’m going to fix Button’s cereal. If you have something intelligent to say, then say it. Otherwise, just shut up.”
As she stalked over to the sink, she decided that Nell Kelly might not be dead after all.
Mat smoldered. He was the one who’d been wronged, but she acted as if this were his fault.
The fact that his emotions were still getting in the way of his journalistic detachment only made it worse. The biggest story of his career was unfolding right in front of him, and all he wanted to do was grab his subject by her shoulders and shake her until those aristocratic little teeth rattled.
His self-control snapped a few hours later as he was paying for some groceries at a combination service station and convenience store in rural southern Illinois and realized that Nell—Mrs. Case—had disappeared. A chill shot through him. For the first time, it hit him that this woman should be protected by a cadre of Secret Service agents, and she only had him.
He grabbed the groceries and shot outside. She hadn’t gone into the motor home. It was parked right by the door, and he would have seen her. He took in a collection of dusty vehicles, a gas pump, and a mean-looking German shepherd. Where in the hell was she?
The dire predictions of all the conspiracy nuts he’d heard on the radio came rushing back to him. He hurried to the side of the building and saw a weedy field and a scrap heap of old tires, but no runaway First Lady. He raced for the other side and found her standing at the pay phone that was mounted next to an air hose.
“Damn it!”
Her head shot up as he dropped the groceries and charged toward her. She spoke quickly into the telephone, then hung up.
“Don’t y
ou ever do that to me again!” He knew he was yelling, but he couldn’t help himself.
“I hope there weren’t any eggs in those sacks. And what did I do?”
“Disappear like that! I thought you were— Damn it, Nell, when we’re not in that motor home, I want you stuck to my side, do you hear me?”
“Won’t that be a little uncomfortable for us both?”
First Lady or not, they were going to get a few things straight. He lowered his voice to a hiss. “You may think this is goddamn funny—playing the runaway princess, amusing yourself with the hoi polloi—but it isn’t a game. Do you have any idea what could happen if some kind of extremists got hold of you?”
“I have a better idea than you,” she hissed back. “And you’re the only person who knows where I am. Granted, your behavior can be a little extreme at times, but—”
“Don’t you dare start making jokes!”
She smiled at him and whispered, “This is more like it.”
His blood hit the boiling point. “You think this is funny?”
“Not funny. It’s just nice to have you back to your normal arrogant self again.” Her smile faded. “And I’m not amusing myself with the hoi polloi.”
“What else would you call it?”
“Freedom!” Her eyes flashed. “It’s the basic right of every American citizen unless she happens to be First Lady. You listen to me, Mat Jorik . . .” She stunned him by jabbing his chest. “In the past year, I buried my husband and got maneuvered into keeping a job I didn’t want. I’ve lived in the spotlight since I was born, doing the right thing, putting everybody’s interests in front of mine. If I’m being selfish now, well, that’s tough! I’ve earned it, and I’m going to enjoy every minute.”
“Is that so?”
“You bet it is, buster!”
He was the one who should be yelling, and he couldn’t figure out how he’d managed to lose the upper hand. “Who were you calling?” he snapped.
“Barbara Bush.”
“Yeah, tell me another—” He broke off as he realized it was entirely possible she had called Barbara Bush.