Читать книгу The Waterfall - Carla Neggers, Carla Neggers - Страница 10

Two

Sebastian slipped off his horse and collapsed in the shade of a cottonwood. He was out on the far reaches of his property where no one could find him. Still, the bastards had. Two of them. In a damn Jeep. It was bouncing toward him. He could take his horse through the river, but the idiots would probably come after him.

He sipped water from his canteen, took off his hat and poured a little water over his head. He could use a shower. The air was hot and dusty. Dry. He hoped the dopes in the Jeep had water with them. He wasn’t planning on sharing any of his canteen. Well, they could drink out of the river.

The Jeep got closer. “Easy,” Sebastian told his horse, who didn’t look too worried or even that hot.

A man jumped out just as the Jeep came to a stop about twenty yards off. “Mr. Redwing?”

Sebastian grimaced. It was never a good sign when someone called him Mr. Redwing. Not that chasing him in a Jeep was a good sign.

He tipped his hat over his eyes and leaned back on his elbows. “What?”

“Mr. Redwing,” the man said. “I’m Jim Charger. Mr. Rabedeneira sent me to find you.”

“So?”

Charger didn’t speak. He was a new hire, probably waiting for Sebastian to get up and act like the man who’d founded and built Redwing Associates, a premier international security and investigative firm. Instead he kept his hat over his eyes, enjoying the relief from the Wyoming summer sun.

Finally, he sighed. Jim Charger wasn’t going anywhere until he delivered his message. Sebastian liked Plato Rabedeneira. They’d been friends since their early twenties. He’d trust Plato with his life, the lives of his friends. But if Plato had been the other man in the Jeep, Sebastian would have tied him to this cottonwood and left him.

“Okay, Mr. Charger.” He tipped his hat back and eyed the man in front of him. Tall, blond, very fit, dressed in expensive western attire that was no doubt dustier now than it had ever been. A Washington import. Probably ex-FBI. Sebastian could feel the blood pounding behind his eyes. “What’s up?”

If Sebastian Redwing wasn’t proving to be what Jim Charger had expected, he kept it to himself. “Mr. Rabedeneira asked me to give you a message. He says to tell you Darren Mowery is back.”

Sebastian made sure he had no visible reaction. Inside, the blood pounded harder behind his eyes. He’d left Mowery for dead a year ago. “Back where?”

“Washington.”

“What’s Plato want me to do about it?”

“I don’t know. He asked me to deliver the message. He said to tell you it was important.”

Darren Mowery hated Sebastian more than most of his enemies did. Once, Sebastian would have trusted Mowery with his life, with the lives of his friends. No more.

“One other thing,” Charger said.

Sebastian smiled faintly. “This is the thing Plato said to tell me if I didn’t jump in your Jeep with you?”

No reaction. “Mowery has made contact with a woman in Senator Swift’s office.”

Jack Swift, now the senior senator from the state of Rhode Island. A gentleman politician, a man of integrity and dedication to public service, father-in-law to Lucy Blacker Swift.

Damn, Sebastian thought.

At the reception following Lucy Blacker and Colin Swift’s wedding, Colin had made Sebastian promise he’d look after Lucy if anything happened to him. “Not,” Colin had said, “that Lucy will want looking after. But you know what I mean.”

Sebastian hadn’t, not really. He didn’t have anyone in his life to look after. His parents were dead. He had no brothers and sisters, no wife, no children. Professionally, though, he was pretty damn good at looking after people. That mostly had to do with keeping them alive and their pockets from getting picked. It didn’t have to do with friendship, a promise made to a man who would be dead thirteen years later at age thirty-six.

Colin must have known. Somehow, he must have guessed he would have a short life, and his wife and whatever children they had would end up having to go on without him.

When Sebastian had made his promise, he’d never imagined he’d have to keep it.

“What do you want me to tell Mr. Rabedeneira?” Charger asked.

Sebastian tilted his hat back over his eyes. A year ago, he’d shot Darren Mowery and thought he’d killed him. It was carelessness on his part he hadn’t known until now whether Mowery was dead or alive. In his business, that kind of lapse was intolerable. There was no excuse. It didn’t matter that Darren had once been his mentor, his friend, or that Sebastian had watched him send himself straight into hell. When you shot someone, you were supposed to find out if you’d killed him. It was a rule.

But this was about Jack Swift. It wasn’t about Lucy. Plato would have to handle Darren Mowery. Given his personal involvement, Sebastian would only muck up the works.

“Tell Plato I’m retired,” Sebastian said.

“Retired?”

“Yes. He knows. Remind him.”

Charger didn’t move.

Sebastian pictured Lucy on the front porch of his grandmother’s house, and he could almost feel the Vermont summer breeze, hear the brook, smell the cool water, the damp moss. Lucy had needed to get out of Washington, and he’d made it happen. He’d kept his promise. He no longer owed Colin.

He decided to stop thinking about Lucy. It had never done him any good.

“You’ve delivered your message, Mr. Charger,” Sebastian said. “Now go deliver mine.”

“Yes, sir.”

The man left. Sebastian suspected he hadn’t lived up to Jim Charger’s expectations. Well, that was fine with him. He didn’t live up to his own expectations. Why should he live up to anyone else’s?

He’d quit, and that was the end of it.

* * *

Barbara Allen fumbled for the keys to her Washington apartment. Acid burned in her throat. Sweat soaked her blouse, her dozens of mosquito bites stinging and itching. Part of her wanted to cry, part to scream with delight. Incredible! At last, she’d acted. At last!

She unlocked her door and pushed it open, gasping at the oppressive heat. She’d turned off the air-conditioning before she’d left for Vermont. Vermont had been cooler than Washington, wonderfully exhilarating. She quickly shut her door and leaned against it, letting herself breathe. She was home.

She had no regrets. None. This surprised her more than anything else. Intellectually, she knew what she’d done was wrong. Her obsession with Lucy was even, perhaps, a little sick. Normal people didn’t spy on other people. Normal people didn’t stalk and terrorize other people.

But if anyone deserved to live in fear, it was Lucy Blacker Swift. She was the worst kind of mother. Self-indulgent, impulsive, reckless. Colin had provided a necessary check against her worst excesses, but with his death, there was no one to rein her in.

For more than a year, Barbara had taken a secret thrill in sneaking up to Vermont on a Friday night to watch Lucy, heading back to Washington on Sunday. She was Jack Swift’s eyes and ears, his confidante, his trusted personal assistant. She’d given twenty years of her life to him, suffered every loss with him. The ups and downs of his political career, the assassination attempt, the long, slow, painful death of his wife, the sudden death of his son.

Then, Lucy’s galling decision to move to Vermont. It was the last straw. Barbara knew Jack was appalled at how she was raising his son’s children. Madison, aching for a real life. J.T., running wild with his dirty little friends. But Jack would never say anything, never do anything to force Lucy to wake up.

Well, Barbara had. At last, at last.

Let people underestimate her. Let them take her for granted. She knew. She had the courage and self-discipline to do what needed to be done.

With one foot, she nudged her suitcase into the corner by the coat closet. She’d unpack later. She turned the air-conditioning on high and went into her living room. Like the rest of her apartment, it was simply decorated in contemporary furnishings, its clean lines and clean colors reflecting her strength of character. She despised anything cute or frilly.

She sat in a chair by the vent. Her apartment was in a nondescript building on the Potomac; it was one of the smallest units, with no view to speak of. Not that she spent much time here. She was in the office by eight and seldom out before seven.

She closed her eyes, feeling the cool air wash over her. She’d worn long pants and a long-sleeved shirt to hide her bug bites. Each one deserved a tiny Purple Heart. They were her badges of courage. It wasn’t weakness that had made her act—it was strength, courage, conviction.

She’d been meticulous. She wasn’t an idiot. She hadn’t felt the need to do anything dramatic to conceal her presence. She’d stayed at a Manchester inn and driven a car she’d rented in Washington. She’d had a plausible cover story in case she had been discovered.

Oh, Lucy, I was just stopping in to see you and the kids. I took a few days off to go outlet shopping, do a little hiking. By the way, did you hear gunfire? I saw someone going up the dirt road over by the brook with a rifle. They must have been target practicing awfully close to your house.

It had never come to that. She’d conducted exhaustive surveillance before implementing her plan, even something as simple as the late-night hang-up. Lucy was too self-centered, too stupid, to catch her.

Firing into the dining room had been Barbara’s supreme act. It was even better than the bullet on the front seat. That was just the proverbial icing on the cake. Barbara had waited until Lucy and the children left for Manchester. She was parked up on the dirt road, as if she were off to check out the falls. She crossed Joshua Brook, jumping from one rock to another, and dropped down low, working her way up the steep, wooded bank until Lucy’s house came into view. She lay flat on her stomach in the brush. Mosquitoes buzzed in her ears, chewed on every inch of exposed skin. Her tremendous self-discipline kept her focused.

If she’d been caught then, at that moment, with her rifle aimed at Lucy’s house, she’d have had no cover story. The risk—the challenge—was part of the thrill, more exhilarating even than she’d imagined.

Her father had taught her and her three sisters how to shoot. He had never said he wished he’d had a son, but they knew he did. Barbara was the youngest. The last, shattered hope. She’d become a very good shot. No one knew how good—certainly no one in Jack’s office. Not even Jack himself. They knew her only in relation to her work, her devotion to her job and her boss.

Only after she’d fired and lay in the still, hot, prickly brush did she decide to go after the spent bullet. It wasn’t concern over leaving behind evidence that propelled her across the yard behind the barn—it was the idea of further terrorizing Lucy, imagining her coming into her dining room and seeing the shattered window, then realizing someone had slipped inside to dig the bullet out of the wall.

The back door wasn’t locked. Lucy often didn’t lock all her doors. Perhaps, Barbara thought, this would teach the silly twit a lesson.

The acid burned down her throat and into her stomach, gnawing at her insides. The urge to scare Lucy, throw her off her stride, had gripped her for days, consuming her. With each small act of harassment, Barbara felt a little better. The pressure lifted. The urge subsided. Now, she could think straight.

“So. You’re back.”

She jumped, suppressing a scream. “Darren, my God, you startled me. What are you doing here?”

He stepped over her feet and sat on the sofa. “Waiting for you.”

Even knowing Darren Mowery, Barbara thought, was a calculated risk. She’d heard the rumors in Washington. He’d gone bad, he’d lost his company, he’d been killed in South America. He was dangerous. She knew that much. She smiled uneasily. “You could have turned on the air-conditioning.”

“I’m not hot.”

“You must be half lizard.”

They’d bumped into each other a few weeks ago at a Washington restaurant and ended up having dinner a couple of times, although Barbara had no serious romantic interest in him—or he in her, as far as she could tell. She didn’t know where their relationship would lead, but her instincts told her he was important. Somehow, Darren Mowery would help her get off the grinding treadmill that had become her life. Perhaps it was because of him that she’d finally taken action against Lucy.

“You disappeared for a week,” he said.

“I didn’t disappear. I took a few days off. I told you.”

“Where did you go?”

She didn’t answer right away. Darren was a man who’d want to believe he was in charge, that he had the upper hand. He was very handsome, she had to admit. Early fifties, silvery haired. He could have stood out in Washington if he’d wanted to. Instead, he chose to blend in with his conservative dark suits and country club casuals, his only distinguishing feature his superb physical condition. He was in better shape than many men half his age, but his reflexes were the real giveaway. This was not a man who’d spent the past thirty years behind a desk.

“I went outlet shopping,” she said.

“Where?”

“New England.” Let him think she was being evasive. She didn’t care. She wanted him to know she was strong while at the same time believing he was stronger. It was a delicate balancing act.

He scratched one side of his mouth; he always looked relaxed, at ease with his surroundings. Yet he was observant, alert to every nuance around him. Barbara knew she couldn’t make a misstep with such a man. He’d probably searched her apartment, she realized; but she’d anticipated as much.

No, she had no illusions. She wasn’t yet sure of the exact nature of the game they were playing, but she knew Darren Mowery would kill her if she crossed him. She had to be careful, strong, sure of herself. And smart. Smarter than he was.

“We’ve been dancing around each other long enough,” he said. “Let’s put our cards on the table. I want to know everything. No surprises.”

What did that mean? Did he know about her and Lucy? Barbara dodged the little needle of uncertainty and suppressed the surge of excitement that finally they were getting down to it. She shrugged, nonchalant. “All right. You first.”

He studied her. He had very blue eyes. Stone-cold blue eyes. “Lucy Swift left for Wyoming today.”

It wasn’t what Barbara expected. Another, weaker woman might have panicked, but she sat back in her chair and yawned. She was the personal assistant to a powerful United States senator, a professional accustomed to managing the unexpected. She already knew about Lucy’s trip to Wyoming; she’d found out when she’d checked in with Jack’s office yesterday. Lucy must have told Jack, and a member of his staff had left Barbara a routine message. The unexpected was that Darren knew. “Yes, I know. Something to do with her adventure travel business, I believe.”

“Redwing Associates is based in Wyoming.”

“Ah, yes. Sebastian Redwing sold Lucy her house in Vermont. It belonged to his widowed grandmother. From what Jack tells me, he and Lucy aren’t very good friends. Didn’t Sebastian once work for you?” She was tempted to pick at an itchy mosquito bite, but resisted. “I gather his company is doing very well.”

Mowery didn’t react. Barbara liked that. It meant he had self-control. According to Washington gossip, there was no love lost between Sebastian Redwing and his old mentor. There was even talk that Mowery blamed Sebastian for the downfall of DM Consultants, Darren’s private security firm.

Barbara supposed it was theoretically possible that Lucy would go whining to Sebastian about what had happened to her this week, but she doubted it. Lucy was quite determined to prove herself capable, independent—which, of course, she wasn’t. Barbara had already calculated that Lucy wouldn’t go to Jack or to the Capitol Police. Lucy wanted no part of being a Swift.

“I get the impression you don’t like Lucy Swift very much,” Darren said.

“I don’t see what concern that is of yours.”

He leaned forward. “Cards on the table, Barbie. I have a bone to pick with your boss. I want to make him sweat. And I want your help.”

“My help?”

“I think you’ve got something on him,” Mowery said, smug and confident.

“No. Senator Swift is a man of sterling integrity.”

Mowery threw back his head and laughed.

Barbara pursed her lips. “I’m serious.”

“Yeah, well, so am I. Barbie, Barbie.” He shook his head at her, sighing. “Office gossip says you threw yourself at the old boy a couple weeks ago, and he laughed you out of his office.”

Her stomach flipped over on her. “That’s not true.”

“What part? You didn’t throw yourself at him or he didn’t laugh?”

“You’re disgusting. I want you to leave.”

“No, you don’t want me to leave. You want to help me settle a score with Jack Swift. You want to see him sweat. You want him to suffer for humiliating you.”

“He—he wasn’t prepared for the level of intimacy I offered, that’s all. He was scared.”

“Scared, huh?”

“He knows I’ve been there for him. Always. Forever.”

Mowery’s gaze bored through her. “What do you have on him?”

“Nothing!”

“Barbie, I’m going to put the squeeze on Senator Jack. I’m going to bleed him. You’re going to watch, and you’re going to enjoy the show.” He reached over and touched her knee. “Revenge can be very sweet.”

She said nothing.

His eyes narrowed, and he smiled. “Only it’s not revenge you want, is it, Barbie? I get it now. You want Jack to suffer and come to you, the one woman who loves him unconditionally. This is precious. Truly precious.”

“My motives,” Barbara said, “are irrelevant.”

“In twenty years, has old Jack ever made a pass at you?”

“He wouldn’t. For much of that time he was a married man.”

Mowery laughed out loud. “God, you’re a riot. This is going to be fun.”

She was on dangerous ground. Deadly ground.

Her stomach heaved, and she ran to the bathroom and vomited.

Oh, God. I can’t do this.

But she had to. She’d given Darren Mowery all the signals. He knew this was what she wanted. Not just a chance to get back at Jack for spurning her, but a chance to provide him with the opportunity to come to her for help, to find solace in her strength and wisdom. She’d driven up to Vermont and harassed Lucy, hoping it would relieve the pressure of wanting to hurt Jack, too. But it hadn’t. She loved him, and she wasn’t one to give up easily on those she loved.

When she’d confided her love to him, Jack hadn’t gotten angry with her or shown any passion, any heat, any depth of emotion. He’d been kind. Solicitous. Professional. He gave her the predictable speech about how much he appreciated her, how he felt affection for her as a member of his staff, and how together, over the past twenty years, they’d done so much good for the people of this great nation.

Blah-blah-blah. He’d even offered her a way out of her embarrassment, saying they’d all been under tremendous pressure and she should take a few days off.

Well, she had, hadn’t she?

She splashed her face with cold water and stared at herself in the mirror. Her gray eyes were bloodshot from the effort of vomiting, the lashes clumped together from water and tearing. She was just forty-one, not old. She still could have children. She knew plenty of first-time mothers in their forties.

But she couldn’t have Swift children. Jack didn’t want her. Twenty years of dedicated service, and what did she have to show for it?

Lucy was the one with the Swift children.

Barbara dried her face. She could have had Colin. She could have had the Swift children. Instead, she’d waited for Jack.

Darren opened the door behind her, and she placed a hand on the sink to steady herself. “I’m sorry. My stomach’s a little off. It must be the heat.”

He was so smug. “Blackmail’s not a game for someone with a weak stomach.”

That was what they were tiptoeing around—and had been right from the beginning. Blackmail. She nodded, cool. It was to her advantage for him to think he was the security expert with the murky past, the dark and dangerous insider convinced he knew how the “real world” worked better than a super-competent, desk-bound bureaucrat possibly could.

“Colin and I,” she began. She swallowed, met Mowery’s cold gaze. “We had an affair before he died. Jack doesn’t know. Neither does Lucy. No one does.”

“And?”

“And I have pictures.”

Mowery nodded thoughtfully. “Kinky pictures?”

“You’re disgusting.”

“Well, if it’s pictures of you two on his daddy’s campaign trail—”

“By your standards, the pictures would be considered ‘kinky.’ By mine, they’re proof of the physical and emotional bond we shared.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Do you want to see them?”

He rubbed his chin. “So you fucked the son, and the widowed daughter-in-law and the innocent grandkids don’t know it.”

“Must you be so coarse?”

“Listen to you, Barbie. You’re the one who had an affair with another woman’s husband. The boss’s son. And this you tell me not two weeks after you threw yourself at the boss, presumably because you’d like to get some of him, too. Let’s talk about who’s ‘coarse.’”

She was silent. Stricken.

“Well,” Mowery said, “it’s not pretty, but it could work.”

“It will work. Jack will pay dearly to keep such information quiet.” She straightened, eyed him coolly. She wanted him to think he was in control, not that she was a complete ninny. “If you’re not convinced, walk out of here now. I’ll forget we ever had this conversation.”

He gave a curt laugh and started back down the hall to the living room. Without turning around, he motioned with one finger for her to follow.

Barbara joined him. She had to stiffen her muscles to keep herself from trembling. Goose bumps sprang up on her arms from the air-conditioning. She was cold now. Dehydrated. Not nervous, not afraid, she told herself. She was absolutely positive this was the best—the only—course of action.

“Here’s the deal, Barbie. In for a penny, in for a pound. I don’t do cold feet.”

She raised her chin and met his gaze directly. “I’m not some weak-minded twit.”

She sat stiffly on a chair and crossed her legs and arms, steeled herself against the cold of the air-conditioning, the itching, stinging bug bites, the insidious feeling that Mowery knew more about her than she realized. She had to remember the kind of work he did, remain on her guard.

Slowly, her shivering subsided.

“Did you fuck the son,” he asked, “or are you just making that up because Jack doesn’t want you?”

She remained calm, practicing the restraint she’d learned in twenty years as Jack Swift’s most trusted aide. “Men like you don’t understand loyalty and service, true commitment.”

“Damn right we don’t.” He grinned, deeply amused by his own wit. “Well, it doesn’t matter. You can have whatever little fantasies you want, Barbie.”

“I’m not a woman taken to fantasizing.”

Indeed not, she thought. She wouldn’t have gone to Jack if she hadn’t believed with all her heart, soul and mind that he wanted her to speak up, finally, after all these years. She didn’t invent this sort of thing, not after two decades in Washington. She hadn’t misread the cues. Jack Swift simply wasn’t prepared to act on his own feelings. He had run. And now she needed to turn him back in the right direction, back to her.

Darren jumped up, grabbed both her hands and lifted her onto her feet. Her breath caught. What now? What was he doing? He was very muscular and strong. She could never physically overpower him. She had to rely on her wits, her intelligence and incredible self-discipline.

There was nothing sexual in the way he held her. “How long has it been, Barbie? How long since you’ve had a man?” He squeezed her waist, choking the air from her. “Not since Colin Swift? Not ever?”

“That’s none of your business.” She kept her tone deliberately cold, in control. “Our relationship is strictly professional. We are partners in a scheme to blackmail a United States senator. That’s all.”

He squeezed harder, painfully. She couldn’t move. “No surprises, Barbie. Understand? If this is going to work, I know everything.”

“I told you—”

“Did you have an affair with Colin Swift?”

“Yes.”

This had to be a test. She didn’t know what to do to pass. Run screaming? Beg him to make love to her? Slap him?

No, she thought. Hold your ground. She wanted him to underestimate her, not to think he could roll over her.

“You stereotype me at your own peril, Mr. Mowery,” she said. “I’m not some dried-up prune pining for a man I can’t have.”

“Where were you last week?”

“On vacation. I hit outlet stores all over New England.”

“Vermont?”

“What?”

He moved his hands higher, squeezing her ribs. “Did you go to Vermont?”

“I can’t breathe—”

“You can say yes or no.”

She nodded, gasping. “Yes.”

“Did you see Lucy Swift?”

She shook her head, unable to speak.

“She decided to go to Wyoming at the last minute. She paid top dollar for the tickets. She took her kids. I want to know why.”

“I can’t—breathe—I—”

He eased up, just slightly.

Barbara coughed, gulping in air. “Goddamn you—”

“Tell me about Lucy.”

“I don’t know anything. You’ll have to ask her yourself. I went outlet shopping in Manchester one day. That’s all.”

Lying to him was dangerous, Barbara thought, but telling the truth had to be more dangerous.

He traced the skin just under her breasts with his thumbs. He had no sexual interest in her. His focus on his mission was total. He wasn’t that complicated a man, Barbara thought, and she wasn’t that undesirable a woman. Obviously his obsession with Jack Swift was something she needed to better understand.

His gaze was cold even as he released her. “Arnica,” he said.

She rubbed her sides. “What?”

“Rub in a little arnica oil for the bruises.”

She headed back to the bathroom. This time she didn’t throw up. She washed her hands, closed the lid on the toilet and sat down. She was risking everything. She had a stimulating career, a nice apartment, a fabulous set of friends. There were men who wanted her. Good, successful men.

She didn’t have to let a scummy Darren Mowery fondle her in her own living room.

After Jack had dispatched her, so politely, as if she were pathetic, she’d learned he was seeing Sidney Greenburg, a curator at the Smithsonian—fifty years old, never married, no children. Why her? Why not Barbara?

Sidney was one of Lucy’s Washington friends.

I could have married Colin. I didn’t have to wait for Jack.

“Barbara?”

Darren was outside the door. She didn’t move.

“Here’s how it’s going to go down,” he said. “I’ll approach Jack. I’ll put the squeeze on him. He’s not going to risk his own reputation or sully his dead son’s reputation. He’ll pay. And you’ll get ten percent.”

She jumped up and tore open the door. “Ten percent! Forget it. I’ll call the police right now. You’d have nothing without me. I had the affair with Colin. I have the pictures.”

“You won’t call the police,” Darren said calmly.

“I will. You’re threatening a United States senator.”

“Barbara. Please.” He was cold, supercilious. “If you make one wrong move once this thing gets started, I’ll be there. Trust me. You won’t want that.”

Her stomach turned in on itself. She clutched it in silent agony. What if Lucy went crying to Sebastian Redwing because of her harassment campaign? “Bastard.”

“Bingo. You got that one right.”

Barbara held up her chin, summoning twenty years of experience at using other people’s arrogance to her own advantage. And to Jack’s. “Jack couldn’t survive a week in this town without me, and he knows it. When he comes to me, you’d better be far away. That’s your only warning.”

“Oh, is it? Get this straight, Barbie.” Mowery leaned in close, enunciated each word clearly. “I don’t care if you fucked Swift father and son at the same time. I don’t care if you made up the whole goddamn thing. We’re putting this show on the road, and we’re doing it my way.”

Acid rose up in her throat. “I can’t believe I let you touch me.”

He laughed. “And you will again, Barbie. Trust me on that.”

He swaggered back down the hall. She spat at his back, missing by yards. He laughed harder.

“Fifty percent,” she yelled.

He stopped, glanced back at her.

She was choking for air. Dear God, what had she done? “I want fifty percent of the take.”

“The take? Okay, Dick Tracy. I’ll give you twenty-five percent.”

“Fifty. I deserve it.”

He winked at her. “I like you, Barbie. You got the short end of the stick with the Swifts, and you keep on fighting. Yep. I like you a lot.”

“I’m serious. I want fifty percent.”

“Barbie, maybe you should think this through.” He rocked back on his heels. “I’m not a very nice man. I expect you know that by now. My sympathy for you only goes so far.”

She hesitated. Her head was spinning. This wasn’t a time for cold feet, any sign of weakness. “Twenty-five percent, then,” she said.

* * *

Jack Swift poured himself a second glass of wine. It was a dry apple-pear wine from a new winery in his home state. He toasted Sidney Greenburg, who was still on her first glass. “To the wines of Rhode Island.”

She laughed. “Yes, but not to this particular bottle. I love fruit wines, Jack, but this one’s pure rot-gut.”

He laughed, too. “It is, isn’t it? Well, I’ve never been much of a wine connoisseur. A good scotch—that’s something I can understand.”

It was a very warm, humid, still evening. They were sitting out in the tiny brick courtyard of his Georgetown home. Rhode Island, his home state, the state he’d represented first in the House, then in the Senate, seemed far away tonight. This was where he’d raised his son, where he’d nursed his wife through her long, losing battle with cancer. They were both gone now. He’d been tempted to sell the house. He’d bought it in his early days in Washington; it’d go for a mint. He’d even debated quitting the Senate. Barbara Allen had talked him out of both. Over twenty years, she’d saved him from many a precipitous move.

“I don’t know what to do, Sidney.” He stared at the pale wine. He and Sidney had been discussing Barbara Allen most of the evening. “She’s been with me since she was a college intern.”

“You’re not going to do anything.”

“I can’t just pretend—”

“Yes, you can, and you’ll be doing her a favor if you do.”

Sidney set her glass on the garden table. That she had such affection for him was a constant source of amazement. He was an old widower, a gray-haired, paunchy United States senator who wasn’t eaten up with his own self-importance. She was a striking woman, with very dark eyes and dark hair liberally streaked with gray. She wore little makeup, and she complained about carrying more weight than she liked around her hips and thighs; Jack hadn’t noticed. She was intelligent, kind, experienced and self-assured, comfortable in her own skin. She’d worked with Lucy’s parents at the Smithsonian and had known Lucy since she was a little girl, long before Lucy had met Colin.

“Listen to me, Jack,” she said. “Barbara is not a pathetic woman. You are not to feel sorry for her because she’s forty and unmarried. If she’s given herself to her job to the exclusion of her personal life, that was her choice. Allow her the dignity of having made that choice. And don’t assume just because she doesn’t have a husband and children, she must not have a full life.”

“I haven’t! I wouldn’t—”

“Of course, you would. People do it all the time.” She smiled, taking any edge off her words. “If Barbara Allen’s feeling a little goofy and off-center right now, accept it at face value and give her a chance to get over it.”

Jack sighed. “She practically threw herself at me.”

“And I suppose you’ve never had a married woman throw herself at you?”

“Well…”

“Come on, Jack. If Barbara’s nuts unmarried, she’d be nuts married.”

He held back a smile. As educated and refined as Sidney was, she did know how to cut to the chase. “I didn’t say she was nuts.”

“That’s my point exactly.” Her eyes shone, and she spoke with conviction, laughing at his frown. “You are a very dense man for someone who has to go before the people for votes. Jack, the woman made a pass at you. It’s been three years since Colin’s death, five years since Eleanor’s death. You’ve only just begun dating again. I see her actions as—” She shrugged. “Perfectly normal.”

He drank more of his wine. The damn stuff all tasted the same to him, whether it was made from pears, apples or grapes. “Maybe so.”

“But?”

“I don’t know.”

“The unmarried forty-year-old in the office makes people nervous. They never know if she’s a little dotty, living in squalor with twenty-five cats.”

“That’s archaic, Sidney.”

She waved a hand dismissively. “It’s true. If Barbara were married and made a pass at you, you’d be flattered. You wouldn’t sit here squirming over what to do. You’d think she was a normal, healthy woman.” She grabbed up his hand. “Jack, I’ve been there.”

“No one could ever think you were off your gourd.”

She smiled. “I have two cats. I’ve been known to feed them off the china.”

He saw the twinkle in her eye and laughed. That was what he treasured about Sidney most of all. She made him laugh. She was quick-witted, self-deprecating, irreverent. She didn’t take her job, herself, or life inside the Beltway too seriously.

But Jack couldn’t shake a lingering sense of uneasiness. “There’s still something about Barbara.”

“Then there’s something about Barbara. Period.”

“I see what you’re saying—”

“Finally!” Sidney fell back against her chair, as if his denseness had exhausted her. “Now, can we change the subject?”

He smiled. “Gladly.”

She gave him an impish grin. “Let’s talk about my cats.”

Sidney didn’t stay the night. They both had unusual Saturday meetings, but Jack knew that really wasn’t the issue. “I’m just not ready to hang my panty hose in a senator’s bathroom,” she said breezily, kissing him good-night.

He remembered her counsel the next morning when he arrived in his office at eight and Barbara Allen, as ever, was at her desk. Before he could say a word, she gave him a bright smile. “Good morning, Senator.”

“Good morning, Barbara. I thought you were still on vacation.”

She waved a hand. “It was a few days off, not a vacation. I always planned to be back for this meeting. I know it’s important.”

He smiled. “Well, then, how were your few days off?”

“Perfect,” she said. “Just what I needed.”

She flipped around in her chair and tapped a few keys on her computer. She looked great, Jack thought—relaxed, polished, professional, with none of the wild desperation that had made them both so uncomfortable the week before.

Relief washed over him. A little time away had done the trick. He would follow Sidney’s advice and pretend nothing had happened. It wasn’t just a question of doing Barbara a favor—he was doing himself a favor, too. He needed her efficiency, knowledge and competence, her long years of experience.

He headed into his private office. Thank God, she was back to her old self.