“I told the principal who I was. She let me talk to Lucy for a few minutes.”
“I see.” Icicles dripped from her words.
“I have presents for everybody out in the car,” he said quickly, “but the Service wanted to go through them before I brought them in.” He gazed at Nealy. “I didn’t know what color roses you liked, so I brought you an assortment.” An assortment of six dozen roses, in shades ranging from vermilion to a peach-tipped white. He’d hoped to use them as a distraction when he’d walked in the door, but the Secret Service had spoiled that.
Her lips barely moved. “How thoughtful.”
A ginger-haired woman in her forties poked her head around the corner. “Dinner’s on.” She regarded Mat curiously.
“This is the friend I told you I invited to eat with us tonight,” Lucy told her.
The woman smiled. “You high school kids get bigger every day.”
He smiled back. “Hope I didn’t disrupt anything.”
She flushed. “No . . . no, of course not. Come on, everybody, before the chicken gets cold.”
Lucy grabbed his arm and steered him past Nealy toward the kitchen. “Wait till you taste Tina’s chicken. She cooks it with all this garlic.”
“I love garlic.”
“Me, too.”
“Did you ever eat jalapeños?”
“Plain?”
“Yeah, plain. What are you, some kind of a wimp?”
Nealy listened to their chatter as Mat disappeared through the family room with an arm around each of her daughters. Both of them were looking at him as if he’d hung the moon and stars just to entertain them. She realized she was shaking and drew a deep breath before she headed for the kitchen.
He was lowering Button into her high chair as she came in. He looked completely at home in the cozy kitchen with its cherry cabinets, shiny copper, and collection of bright orange pumpkins on the counter. The round table sat in a bay overlooking the garden at the side of the house. It was set with pottery plates, chunky green goblets, and Button’s special Alice in Wonderland dishes.
“Sit here, Mat!” Lucy indicated her own chair, directly to Nealy’s right. “Usually Andre and Tamarah eat with us, but Andre got his shots this afternoon, so he’s cranky, and Tamarah’s trying to study for a math test.”
“I’ve got a hockey stick for Andre out in the car,” he said. “And some skates.”
Nealy stared at him. He’d bought a six-month-old baby hockey equipment?
“Cool.” Lucy sat on the other side of Button’s high chair, safely out of spill range. “Since Button’s so messy, we don’t eat in the dining room unless we have important company.” She pulled a face. “Like you-know-who.”
“No, I don’t.”
Lucy rolled her eyes. “Graaaandfather Liiiitchfield. He calls me Lucille. Doesn’t that blow? And he calls Button Beatrice, even though she hates it. She threw up on him once. It was hysterical, wasn’t it, Mom?”
Nealy watched Mat’s expression change as he heard Lucy call her Mom, but she couldn’t identify exactly what she saw there. “It was definitely one of Button’s finer moments,” she managed.
Mat leaned back in his chair and gazed at her. Had he noticed how much they looked like a family?
“How did your meetings go today? Did you jiggle any change loose from those corporate high rollers?”
“A little.” She couldn’t carry on casual conversation with him, so she turned to Button. “Do you like your potatoes?”
The baby pulled a food-smeared fist from her mouth and pointed at her sister. “Woos!”
Lucy giggled. “That’s what she calls me. Woos. She just started it a couple weeks ago.”
“Ma!”
Nealy smiled. “You’ve got that one down pat, don’t you, cupcake?”
“Da!”
Mat looked at Nealy instead of the baby. “She’s got that right, too.”
Nealy wouldn’t let him do this. He couldn’t worm his way into their lives because he’d finally decided he missed the girls. She might have to come to terms with letting him see them, but that didn’t mean she had to accept those leftover, lukewarm feelings he was tossing at her and pretend they were something more.
She folded her napkin, set it next to her plate, and stood. “I’m not feeling well. If you’ll excuse me . . . Tina, would you bring Button upstairs when she’s done eating?”
“Sure.”
He rose. “Nealy . . .”
“Good-bye, Mat. I’m sure Lucy will keep you entertained.” She turned her back on all of them and left the kitchen.
24
NEALY SEALED HERSELF away in her bedroom with her briefing book and a laptop computer, stopping work only long enough to read Button a bedtime story and tuck her in when Tina brought her upstairs. As she returned to her room, she heard Mat talking to Lucy downstairs. The low intensity of his voice made her want to strain to listen. Instead, she hurried into her room, put on some Chopin, and turned up the volume.
Lucy came in an hour later. Her eyes were bright with excitement, but she must have known Nealy wouldn’t appreciate hearing how happy she was to see Mat again, so she gave her a fierce good-night hug and disappeared.
Now that Mat had left, Nealy felt even more depressed. She changed into her favorite baby blue flannel pajamas. They were printed with fluffy white clouds and smelled like fabric softener. She tried to return to work, but hunger pangs distracted her. It was nearly eleven o’clock, and she’d barely eaten all day. She set aside her laptop and padded downstairs barefoot.
Tina had turned on the stove light before she’d left, and Tamarah and Andre were settled in for the night. Nealy went into the pantry and leaned down to pull a box of cereal from the shelf. As she straightened, a hand clamped over her mouth.
Her eyes flew open. Her heart hammered.
A muscular arm wrapped around her waist and pulled her against a very hard, very familiar chest. “Just pretend I’m an enemy of the state,” he whispered, “and consider yourself kidnapped.”
Only as she felt herself being dragged toward the back door did she realize Mat wasn’t just messing around.
He didn’t even grunt when her bare heel caught him in the shin. Why hadn’t she put on shoes before she came downstairs?
Somehow he managed to maneuver the back door open. She felt his breath, warm against her cheek. “The only way I can talk to you is to get you away from this house, so that’s where we’re going. You can try to scream if you like, but if you get away with it, your friends in the Secret Service are going to come running, and they won’t ask a single question before they shoot. Now, how bad do you want me dead?”
He had no idea!
She tried to bite his palm, but she couldn’t sink her teeth in.
“That’s right, sweetheart. Fight all you want. Just, please, don’t make too much noise while you’re doing it because those buddies of yours play for keeps.”
One of her feet made a furrow in the fallen leaves as he half carried, half dragged her across the terrace and through the grass without loosening his grip on her mouth. He was strong as an ox, and she was beside herself with frustration. She could probably manage to make some kind of noise, but she didn’t dare try. Although she definitely wanted him to die a brutal and bloody death, she intended to do the job herself. She was even afraid to kick him again for fear one of her barefoot blows would inflict enough damage to make him cry out. Oh, this was impossible! What an infuriating, miserable, depraved man!
She twisted against him, fighting as hard as she could without making a sound. Then she saw a familiar yellow shape ahead. Mabel! He was taking her to Mabel! That was good. That was wonderful! He couldn’t get inside because she’d locked up the motor home herself and left the key—
He unlocked the door.
Lucy! That vile little matchmaking monster! She knew exactly where Nealy kept the key, and she’d given it to him.
He hauled her into the musty interior, dragged her towar
d the back, opened the bathroom door, and pushed her inside.
She opened her mouth to blast him. “I’m going to —”
“Later.” He shut the door in her face.
She lunged for the knob, but he wedged something against the door, and she couldn’t open it. Moments later, she heard the engine grind away, then turn over.
She almost laughed. He wasn’t nearly as smart as he thought he was. Did he think he could simply drive through those electronic gates? Apparently he didn’t know that only a guard could open them without one of the special remotes—
She sagged against the shower door. Of course he had one of the remotes. The teenage traitor was in his corner, and Lucy wanted a family more than anything. It would have been child’s play for her to swipe the remote from the Town Car and give it to him.
Mat was going to do it, she realized. He was going to kidnap the former First Lady of the United States, and there wasn’t a thing she could do about it.
She dutifully banged on the siding as the motor home rolled forward, even though she knew it was hopeless. In addition to the video surveillance at the gates, there was a microphone, but it would never pick up her thumps over the rough noise of Mabel’s engine. Still, she thumped away, just so Mat would know she wasn’t going peacefully.
The motor home came to a brief stop, and she could imagine Mat giving the surveillance camera an innocent wave, knew exactly what Lucy would have told them. Mom is letting Mat borrow the Winnebago for a couple of days.
She thumped louder, then gave it up as they pulled away from the gates. She slumped down on the toilet seat. Her feet were cold, the cuffs of her pajamas damp. Why couldn’t she have fallen in love with an ordinary man? Some nice Ivy Leaguer who courted women with moonlight dinners instead of a moonlight kidnapping. Some nice Ivy Leaguer who’d love her for herself and not just for everything attached to her. She concentrated on her anger so she’d be ready for him when he opened the door.
Middleburg was a rural area, dotted with celebrity horse farms and large estates. Mat wouldn’t have any trouble finding a deserted spot for their confrontation, and she wasn’t surprised when he turned off a paved road onto gravel. Gradually the road grew rougher. She grabbed the edge of the sink as Mabel lurched along before finally shuddering to a stop.
She set her lips in a grim line, straightened her shoulders, and waited for the door to open. It didn’t take long.
She vaulted to her feet. “If you think—”
He scooped her up by the shoulders, planted a hard kiss on her mouth, then pulled her out of the bathroom. “Before you say any more, I’m sorry for a lot of things, but I’m not sorry for this. How am I supposed to talk to you when you can snap your fingers and have your palace guard throw me out?”
“You could have—”
He thrust her down on the couch, then knelt in front of her. “I’d like a more romantic setting, but we started out in Mabel, so I guess this is where we’ll settle it.” He picked up her cold feet and cradled them in his hands. “I’ve got things to say to you, and I want you to listen. Okay?”
She realized he looked more upset than triumphant. The warmth from his hands began to sink in. “I don’t have much choice, do I?”
“No, you don’t.” His thumbs massaged her instep. “I love you, Nealy Case. I love you from the very bottom of my soul.” He drew a deep breath. “Not just from my heart, you understand. I love you from my soul.”
Her toes curled into his palm.
“I’ve been getting an awful feeling that you don’t love me back, but that doesn’t change what I feel about you or make it any less real. Even if you throw me out of your life forever, I want you to know that you’ll always be the best part of me.”
His voice turned into a whisper so full of feeling she felt as if she could touch it. “You’re the air I breathe, the food I eat, the water I drink. You’re my shelter and my refuge; you’re my energy and my inspiration; my ambition, my enthusiasm. You’re my resting place.”
She felt boneless as he bathed her in poetry. He smiled. “Just looking at you shines sunlight on every moment I live. Before I knew you, I wasn’t even alive. I thought I knew what I wanted, but I didn’t have any idea. You barged into my life and changed it forever. I love you, I admire you, I lust after you, I adore you . . .”
His words enfolded her—sonnets of love, a rhapsody of devotion. This brusque man who’d tried so hard to separate himself from the feminine was every woman’s dream.
“You make me see the world in new ways. You’re the first thing my heart greets when I wake up in the morning. You’re the last thing I see in my mind before I fall asleep.”
He let go of her feet and took one of her hands in both of his. “Sometimes I daydream about this, just holding your hand. That’s all. Just holding it. And I get a picture of the two of us going through life like that. Hand in hand. I even sometimes think about us having this colossal argument—hand in hand. Or just sitting on a couch together. Or—” Now a trace of aggression emerged as he reasserted himself.
“I know this is corny, but I don’t care—those rocking chairs people talk about.” He narrowed his eyes, just to let her know he wasn’t a complete wimp. “I see that. I see this big front porch and these two rockers side by side, and you and me all old and wrinkled.” His voice softened again. “The kids gone, grown up, only us, and I want to kiss every one of those wrinkles on your face and just sit there and rock with you.”
Her head swirled. Her heart sang. He circled her palm with his thumb.
“I can’t even talk about how much I love making love with you. Do you know that you make the most amazing sounds? And you hold me like I’m all you have, and that makes me feel like I’m some kind of god.”
He brushed her cheek, locked his gaze with hers. “I love being inside you, and touching your face, and opening my eyes so I know it’s really you.”
She shivered.
“And after we’re finished, I go into a fever thinking about a day when I can leave myself inside you. When I’ll steal the soap and turn off the water so I stay there . . . inside you . . . part of you.”
Her skin burned. He rubbed his thumb across her bottom lip, and his voice was a husky seduction. “I think about you walking around that way, talking to people, going about your business, and you and I are the only ones who know that I’m there inside you.”
She burst into flames.
“And I finally understand the whole unbelievable beauty of two people being one because that’s the way I want it to be, the two of us one.”
His eyes had begun to glisten with tears. Her own spilled over her bottom lids and trickled down her cheeks.
His voice grew fierce and raw. “You’ll never ever find a man who’ll love you as much as I do, who’ll protect you better than you’ve ever been protected—even from yourself—and who’ll be right at your side while you become the best person you can be. Because I know that’s what you’re making me, the best man I can be.”
A hiccup rattled her chest.
“And I don’t give a damn about living with all the red, white, and blue star-spangled baggage you’re carrying around. In fact, I love it because it’s made you what you are—the best woman I’ve ever known, and the only woman I’ll ever love.”
He finally stopped and simply gazed at her. It was as if all the words had run out of him, leaving raw emotion in their place.
She touched his face with the tips of her fingers, traced the moist tracks down the hard, handsome planes of his cheekbones, and absorbed the absolute rightness of everything he’d said. Yes. This was what she’d dreamed of but never believed she’d have.
When she managed to speak, she could think of only one thing to say. “Could you please repeat all that?”
He let out a ragged bellow of a laugh, pulled her into his arms, and made love with her just the way he’d imagined.
Epilogue
NEALY HAD NEVER looked more beautiful to Mat than she did that
January day as she stood in front of the United States Capitol with the sun glinting in her hair. One end of the red, white, and blue scarf draped around the collar of her wool coat caught the wind and fluttered behind her, giving the cameras another great shot.
All of their family was gathered with them. Button had one little sister on each side of her. At nine, she was just as strong-willed as she’d been as a baby and she only permitted the family to call her Button behind closed doors. To the rest of the world, she was Tracy, her own way of dealing with the name Beatrice. Her long blond hair whipped in the breeze as she kept a careful eye on Holly, since the four-year-old tended to be unpredictable at public gatherings. Six-year-old Charlotte stood on her other side. Although she was on her dignity at the moment, Mat knew it wouldn’t last. Both girls had his dark hair and their mother’s blue eyes.
Lucy, the big sister all three girls idolized, stood just behind them with Bertis and Charlie, most of his own sisters, and her pompous old goat of a grandfather, who’d slipped his hand in hers. At twenty-two, his oldest daughter had a fresh new college degree in social work and a thirst to change the world. Although she scoffed when he brought it up, he suspected it was only a matter of time before she followed her mother into political life. He was more proud of all of them than he could ever express.
Nealy’s eyes met his, and he could almost hear her thoughts. Another new adventure, my love. Are you ready?
He could hardly wait. They’d already had so many adventures together. He thought of the past eight years—the joy and laughter, the hard work, long hours, heated discussions, and even more heated lovemaking. So much happiness.
Not that there hadn’t been hard times, too. The worst had come when they’d lost their beloved nanny Tamarah to a virulent case of pneumonia, but even that had eventually led to joy. His chest filled with pride as he gazed at his only son, eight-year-old Andre.
Most families were made when sperm met egg, but his had been put together less conventionally with blood that was red, blue, and black. If families had pedigrees, his could only be classified as American mutt.