True Courage, page 19
He just had to get up there alive, or alive enough, to make that connection.
With the sound of the Jeeps getting closer, he stuffed his ammunition pockets with magazine clips. He placed two M-67 grenades into the webbed pouches on his vest, and two more in his ammunition pouch. Two machine guns, one slung over his back, and a pistol in his belt.
He’d make as much noise as he could, and hope they mistook his firepower for the whole company—what was left of it, anyway.
Their CO had been killed the first day of the operation. Sergeant Perry had assumed command, then he’d taken a bullet through the leg. Fortunately, the medic was still unharmed and had been able to care for the wounded with their limited supplies.
What they needed were a few pints of blood, clean bandages, and surgical intervention. If they didn’t get medical help soon, more would die.
And if the army helicopters didn’t find them and evacuate them—they’d all be dead.
He looked around one last time at the men, all but the medic with various stages of wounds—his buddies, his comrades. Now, they were his motivation. He’d run track in high school, won the state champs in the 2,000-meter hurdles. There’d be no medal waiting at the end of this sprint, but if he was lucky, there’d be a radio signal.
He’d been lucky once before—if only his luck held one more day. Taking a deep breath, he stretched his hamstrings.
* * *
Adam woke with sweat pouring from his body. The nightmare was as sharp as ever, taking him right to the point he’d departed that fateful morning—with enemy fire chasing him all the way up the side of that mountain.
He could still smell it, hear it—rounds whizzing past his helmet, hitting the trees, splinters flying through the air. He’d flinched every time, longed to disappear into the ground, but he’d kept running.
Hunted like an animal, running as fast as he could for cover, then aiming back through the trees, hoping his zigzag pattern would fool the pursuers.
And hoping they hadn’t found the shed.
Adam shook his head, letting the memories fall back in place. It was the operation in Bhotaan yesterday that had triggered his disturbed sleep this time. Losing two men—seeing them fall on the screen as he’d watched in the Sit Room, helpless to do anything to save them.
Had he done the right thing? Would negotiations have saved the students without loss of life? He’d listened to his advisers, to the military leaders, and gone with his gut. The Bhotaan government, as well as the insurgents fighting the regime, were past the point of caring about international opinion. If American students were harmed, they wouldn’t have even bothered with a diplomatic apology—much worse was happening to their own citizens, every day.
He looked at the clock. He’d slept later than usual, but it felt good to just stay in bed.
Except, of course, for the fact that he was alone.
There are ways around that, sport. Tell your pals to find you a blond bombshell from Hollywood.
Alone, that is, if he didn’t count the voices he heard.
“Extracurricular activity” might have worked during Kennedy’s day, but Adam had a team of sniffer dogs who’d be able to track him down if he so much as wandered off the White House grounds.
He stretched under the crisp sheets, arms folded behind his head as sunlight poured through the south window on his right.
He didn’t want a blond bombshell, he wanted Ellie. He’d wanted to kiss her last night. He’d wanted to hold her and go on holding her, and to hell with the consequences.
She had to know, had to be aware of what he wanted.
And unless he was very much mistaken, she wanted it, too.
But she was right; there were many reasons why they couldn’t have what they both wanted.
You keep letting your conscience get in the way. Just go nail her, man. She’ll beg for more.
Adam sighed. Political correctness had never been Lyndon’s strong suit.
Katie and Madison were still asleep, he guessed. As soundproof as the White House was, he had heard them last night, laughing upstairs—the game room was almost directly over his bedroom—until he’d nodded off after midnight.
He should get up. He was due in the Oval Office in a couple of hours, where he was scheduled to make phone calls to the two families of the service members killed yesterday. Then he had a meeting with the National Security Council to go over yesterday’s operation. After that, his afternoon was free, and he intended to spend it making up for missing Katie’s birthday.
He got up, pulled on a pair of sweatpants, and went into the dining room, where a steward had left breakfast. He lifted the cover. Scrambled eggs, just the way he liked them, toast, and bacon. He scooped eggs on his plate and went to the kitchen for salt.
Ellie was standing there, holding a mug of coffee to her lips.
“Hi,” she said, an apologetic expression on her face.
For a minute he thought his subconscious had conjured her. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m taking Katie and Madison to the anime con at the Marriott today. Some manga artists are going to be there.”
“To the what?”
“The anime convention. You didn’t know, did you?”
“No, was I supposed to?”
“Katie said she told you about it last week.”
“Oh, crap.” Another parenting fail, this one entirely his fault. “I forgot.”
“I guess you two didn’t have a chance to talk last night.”
“Nah, I came back and crashed. Yesterday was—” He pulled a mug down from the cabinet. “A long day.”
She set her cup on the counter. “If you don’t want her to go—if you have other plans…”
“No, it’s good for her, to get out of here. She mostly hangs around here on weekends and mopes.”
Ellie looked at the doorway. “I don’t think they’re up yet. That’s why I came in here when the steward brought your breakfast. I was just going to go see if they were ready. The thing starts at ten, and it’s almost that now.”
He poured coffee from the carafe on the countertop. “I don’t know—I haven’t heard a sound from them. I slept in this morning.”
“I see.” She glanced down at his sweatpants and t-shirt. At least he wasn’t wearing boxer shorts.
He grabbed the salt. “They never salt anything around here. I think they’re worried about my blood pressure.”
“I hear salt’s bad for that.”
“Yeah. So’s this job. But quitting doesn’t seem to be an option.” He took a sip of coffee.
“You okay? Last night…” She paused. “Last night you were pretty…”
He leaned against the door jamb, leveled a look at her. “Last night I wanted to—”
But then Katie and Madison walked in, sleepy-eyed, bed hair making them look like freshly ruffled puppies.
Ellie smiled at them. “Hi. Did you forget about the con?”
Katie just made a grumpy noise.
Madison returned her smile, then turned to Adam. “Hi, Mr. Dybik—I mean, President Dybik.”
He set his plate down and squeezed her shoulders in a warm hug. “Hey, Madison. Glad you made it here okay. Sorry to miss all the fun last night.”
“That’s okay. We watched you on TV. Didn’t we, Katie?”
Katie had her head in the refrigerator and didn’t answer.
Ellie spoke up. “Why don’t I tell the driver we’ll leave in thirty minutes? That give you guys enough time to get ready?”
Madison groaned. “Can we make it an hour? I need to wash my hair.”
“Sure. Katie?”
Katie nodded.
Adam frowned. They were making Ellie and the rest of the detail wait on them. He’d talked to Katie about that—it was important for her to be on time, since so many people’s schedules were affected by hers.
“Why don’t you make it forty-five minutes, Katie? They’re waiting on you.”
“It’s no trouble—” Ellie began.
Katie slurped some orange juice. “Sure. Whatever.” Then she left, Madison following her.
“She okay?” Adam said to Ellie. “What was that about?”
Ellie hesitated, eyeing the cat as he stalked an imaginary shadow across the floor. “I think she’s still pissed she can’t make plans without involving fifty members of the US government.”
“Oh. That. I thought she was over that. She hasn’t tried to ditch you guys, has she?”
“No, but it’s still hard for her.”
“Well, yeah, it’s the nature of this thing, isn’t it? I can’t even walk across the street for a newspaper without taking along a contingent of you guys,” he said, pouring salt on his eggs. “And then God forbid I want to buy a pastry.”
Her head snapped up. “You wanna go over to Peet’s for coffee and a pastry? I can make that happen.”
“I know you can. I’m the fucking president of the United States. I can have anything I want, right? I want eggs over easy? Done. A three-layer birthday cake with fifteen candles? Best pastry chef in the country will make it. How about the latest film, before it’s released? They send me a list and I check off what I want.” He slammed his coffee cup on the counter.
Then he turned to her, the surly mood he’d been in all morning turning his voice into a bayonet. “Sure, I can have anything I want. Except the thing I really want.”
“What do you really want?”
“We both know that.”
She looked at his plate. “I don’t think it’s a pastry.”
“No, it’s not.” Just in case she wasn’t aware, he lowered his gaze to her lips, which were currently pursed like a schoolmarm’s.
She crossed her arms, gazing at him steadily. “You wanted to go save them yourself, didn’t you?”
He gripped the salt shaker as if it were a hand grenade. “What?”
“You didn’t want to send the SEALs in. You wanted to go yourself. Some part of you thinks you failed because you couldn’t save them yourself. You couldn’t save those two servicemen.”
Adam pretended he was fascinated with the cabinetry. Then he spoke slowly: “I did not want to go to Bhotaan and scale down the walls of that school and face enemy gunfire to rescue fifty American students.”
She tilted her head, narrowed her all-too-perceptive eyes. “Oh, I think you did. You want to save the world, Adam. It’s why you agreed to run for president. It’s why you can’t quit, even though you say you hate this job.”
She was wrong. He didn’t want to save the world. He’d never wanted to be a hero. He’d hated every goddamned minute of that race up the mountain.
He walked to where she stood, put his arms on either side of her, and whispered in her ear. “You’re wrong. I want to go on a date.”
She shook her head. “You want to change the subject.”
“Why, because you’re messing with my head again?”
“Again?” Her eyes widened.
He lowered his gaze, from her eyes to her mouth.
“Yeah. You do this all the time. It’s like…” He glanced back at her eyes, brown pools of innocence. “That’s it, isn’t it? Your job with the agency is to examine the head of POTUS and make sure he’s not about to do something crazy. Right?”
She laughed, a breathy laugh that had him wishing he could drag her off into his bedroom again. “No, that’s not my job.”
“Come on, admit it. You were sent here to psychoanalyze me.”
“No. But if you feel you need psychoanalysis…might I suggest the doctors at Walter Reed?” With a quick move she’d probably practiced at Rowley, she ducked under his arm.
He smiled. They were still dancing around this attraction, but he didn’t mind. It was fun—the most fun he’d had since being elected president and having his whole life turned upside down.
“Come on, share some breakfast.” He picked up his plate and motioned toward the dining table. “There’s enough for two.”
“No, thanks, I already ate.” But she joined him at the mahogany table, sitting across from him where she could keep an eye on him, in case he did anything crazy like dump a kilo of salt on his eggs.
“What’s this thing today?” he asked. “An anime convention? That’s something to do with manga, right? They have conventions for that?”
Ellie let him change the subject. “They do now. Apparently it’s a big deal. Madison had heard about it in Chicago.”
“Hmm.” He swallowed. “Sounds like fun. I really am sorry I missed her birthday last night. I’ll have to make it up to her.”
“You got her a gift?”
He grimaced. “I didn’t know what to get her. I was going to go buy something yesterday—thought I might find something at a bookstore. Then the thing in Bhotaan ruined that plan. And also the pastry problem.” He nodded toward the window, which overlooked the twelve-foot-tall security fence around the White House.
“I told you, we can fix the pastry problem. Anytime you want to go out, just let someone on your detail know. They’ll make it happen.”
“I know.” He shoveled eggs onto his fork. “And it will involve fifteen explosive detection dogs and a few dozen cars full of agents. I’m trying to save the taxpayers some money.”
Ellie shook her head. “Don’t worry about that. It’s our job. We get paid whether we’re handling EDT dogs at Barnes and Noble or sitting in vans waiting for something to happen.”
“All right then. I’ll start hanging out at malls on the weekends. How’s that?”
“I didn’t know you liked malls, sir.” The grin she gave him was just a little bit flirty.
“You know what I really want to do?” He pointed his fork at her. “And don’t say scale walls in Bhotaan.”
He crunched a bite of bacon, swallowed. “I want to go to a movie. Not here—there’s a great theatre downstairs, but I want to go see a movie, at the cinema, and order popcorn and a Coke and nudge my date when something funny happens.”
“Seriously? That’s what you want?”
He shrugged. “I want some semblance of a normal life.”
“Did you have that before? Did you go on dates to the movies? And nudge your date when something funny happened?”
“A few times.”
“With the girlfriend who spelled Katie’s name wrong on her birthday cake?”
He almost spit out his toast. “She told you that?”
Ellie studied the potted plant in the corner. “I might have overheard.”
“She was a colleague. We dated. Nothing serious.”
“She wasn’t your girlfriend?”
He frowned. “We had a fling.”
Ellie pursed her lips. “I’m not judging.”
“No?”
She narrowed her gaze. “Really, couldn’t you have a fling with a woman who knows how to spell your daughter’s name?”
“She spelled it with a Y. It’s a common mistake.”
“Now you’re defending her.” The dimples came out. Ellie’s dimples were deep enough to hold a couple of kittens.
He swallowed a forkful of eggs. “Is Katie still upset about that?”
“I can’t tell you what I might have heard her say. You know that.”
He drained his coffee cup, eyeing her over the rim. “What are you doing tonight?”
“Tonight?”
“We’re watching a film. The new Ryan Reynolds rom-com. Come by.”
“I…can’t.” But she didn’t look too sure of that.
“Katie has Madison here—I need another adult or I’ll be outnumbered. Two adolescent teenagers—I could be in real danger.”
She laughed. “Danger? I think we both know the danger isn’t from those two teenagers.”
Their gazes couldn’t seem to stop clinging to each other, something Lyndon seemed to notice: Come on, boy, you’ve almost caught her! Let her play out the line a little bit…then reel her in.
“Damn it, I’m not fishing!”
“What?” Ellie looked confused, and he couldn’t blame her. He’d just answered a president who’d been dead fifty years.
“I don’t like fish. Raw fish. Sushi.”
“You told me. Last night.”
“Yeah, I meant it, too. Hate the stuff. Never eat it.” He popped the last piece of bacon in his mouth just to prove it.
“Oh. All right then.” But her brows were creased like one of those sniffer dogs detecting sodium nitrate.
He was saved from any more embarrassment by the steward, returning to remove his plate. Adam kept his gaze averted from Ellie. Despite her perceptiveness, she hadn’t seemed to discern yet that he heard dead presidents.
When the steward left, Adam continued, this time with a little less intensity. He didn’t want Lyndon butting in again.
“So how about it? Movie night at the White House? I invited the speaker, but he’s going to visit his constituency this weekend.”
“That’s too bad.”
“To be honest, I’m relieved. The last time he talked all the way through Batman. You’d think continuing resolutions were more important than overcoming the criminal elements of Gotham.”
Ellie laughed. She didn’t seem to notice that he sounded desperate, but Katie had just come into the room, and she was no fool.
But maybe he could enlist her in his plans.
“Hey, Katie, I’ve invited Ellie to the residence tonight to watch the film. After dinner, say around eight o’clock?” He turned to Ellie, “Or would you like to share pizza with us? Saturday night we order out.”
“I know. I’ve checked out Trevino’s Pizza, just in case they’re harboring any would-be assassins.”
“Ah. So you know they make great pies. Chicago-style, not that there’s any other kind.”
Her gaze slid to Katie and back to him. “I shouldn’t. It’s…” Doubt flickered in her brown eyes, but Adam had rolled over more serious objections. He was a pro at this.
“I think there’s cake left, too, isn’t there, Katie? We’ll have a little belated celebration, since I missed the fun last night.” He looked at the balloons, sagging in a corner. “Someone gave you balloons?”
Katie nodded toward Ellie. “They did. The detail. Maybe because they remembered my birthday.”
“I remembered it, Katie. I just couldn’t be around.”
With the sound of the Jeeps getting closer, he stuffed his ammunition pockets with magazine clips. He placed two M-67 grenades into the webbed pouches on his vest, and two more in his ammunition pouch. Two machine guns, one slung over his back, and a pistol in his belt.
He’d make as much noise as he could, and hope they mistook his firepower for the whole company—what was left of it, anyway.
Their CO had been killed the first day of the operation. Sergeant Perry had assumed command, then he’d taken a bullet through the leg. Fortunately, the medic was still unharmed and had been able to care for the wounded with their limited supplies.
What they needed were a few pints of blood, clean bandages, and surgical intervention. If they didn’t get medical help soon, more would die.
And if the army helicopters didn’t find them and evacuate them—they’d all be dead.
He looked around one last time at the men, all but the medic with various stages of wounds—his buddies, his comrades. Now, they were his motivation. He’d run track in high school, won the state champs in the 2,000-meter hurdles. There’d be no medal waiting at the end of this sprint, but if he was lucky, there’d be a radio signal.
He’d been lucky once before—if only his luck held one more day. Taking a deep breath, he stretched his hamstrings.
* * *
Adam woke with sweat pouring from his body. The nightmare was as sharp as ever, taking him right to the point he’d departed that fateful morning—with enemy fire chasing him all the way up the side of that mountain.
He could still smell it, hear it—rounds whizzing past his helmet, hitting the trees, splinters flying through the air. He’d flinched every time, longed to disappear into the ground, but he’d kept running.
Hunted like an animal, running as fast as he could for cover, then aiming back through the trees, hoping his zigzag pattern would fool the pursuers.
And hoping they hadn’t found the shed.
Adam shook his head, letting the memories fall back in place. It was the operation in Bhotaan yesterday that had triggered his disturbed sleep this time. Losing two men—seeing them fall on the screen as he’d watched in the Sit Room, helpless to do anything to save them.
Had he done the right thing? Would negotiations have saved the students without loss of life? He’d listened to his advisers, to the military leaders, and gone with his gut. The Bhotaan government, as well as the insurgents fighting the regime, were past the point of caring about international opinion. If American students were harmed, they wouldn’t have even bothered with a diplomatic apology—much worse was happening to their own citizens, every day.
He looked at the clock. He’d slept later than usual, but it felt good to just stay in bed.
Except, of course, for the fact that he was alone.
There are ways around that, sport. Tell your pals to find you a blond bombshell from Hollywood.
Alone, that is, if he didn’t count the voices he heard.
“Extracurricular activity” might have worked during Kennedy’s day, but Adam had a team of sniffer dogs who’d be able to track him down if he so much as wandered off the White House grounds.
He stretched under the crisp sheets, arms folded behind his head as sunlight poured through the south window on his right.
He didn’t want a blond bombshell, he wanted Ellie. He’d wanted to kiss her last night. He’d wanted to hold her and go on holding her, and to hell with the consequences.
She had to know, had to be aware of what he wanted.
And unless he was very much mistaken, she wanted it, too.
But she was right; there were many reasons why they couldn’t have what they both wanted.
You keep letting your conscience get in the way. Just go nail her, man. She’ll beg for more.
Adam sighed. Political correctness had never been Lyndon’s strong suit.
Katie and Madison were still asleep, he guessed. As soundproof as the White House was, he had heard them last night, laughing upstairs—the game room was almost directly over his bedroom—until he’d nodded off after midnight.
He should get up. He was due in the Oval Office in a couple of hours, where he was scheduled to make phone calls to the two families of the service members killed yesterday. Then he had a meeting with the National Security Council to go over yesterday’s operation. After that, his afternoon was free, and he intended to spend it making up for missing Katie’s birthday.
He got up, pulled on a pair of sweatpants, and went into the dining room, where a steward had left breakfast. He lifted the cover. Scrambled eggs, just the way he liked them, toast, and bacon. He scooped eggs on his plate and went to the kitchen for salt.
Ellie was standing there, holding a mug of coffee to her lips.
“Hi,” she said, an apologetic expression on her face.
For a minute he thought his subconscious had conjured her. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m taking Katie and Madison to the anime con at the Marriott today. Some manga artists are going to be there.”
“To the what?”
“The anime convention. You didn’t know, did you?”
“No, was I supposed to?”
“Katie said she told you about it last week.”
“Oh, crap.” Another parenting fail, this one entirely his fault. “I forgot.”
“I guess you two didn’t have a chance to talk last night.”
“Nah, I came back and crashed. Yesterday was—” He pulled a mug down from the cabinet. “A long day.”
She set her cup on the counter. “If you don’t want her to go—if you have other plans…”
“No, it’s good for her, to get out of here. She mostly hangs around here on weekends and mopes.”
Ellie looked at the doorway. “I don’t think they’re up yet. That’s why I came in here when the steward brought your breakfast. I was just going to go see if they were ready. The thing starts at ten, and it’s almost that now.”
He poured coffee from the carafe on the countertop. “I don’t know—I haven’t heard a sound from them. I slept in this morning.”
“I see.” She glanced down at his sweatpants and t-shirt. At least he wasn’t wearing boxer shorts.
He grabbed the salt. “They never salt anything around here. I think they’re worried about my blood pressure.”
“I hear salt’s bad for that.”
“Yeah. So’s this job. But quitting doesn’t seem to be an option.” He took a sip of coffee.
“You okay? Last night…” She paused. “Last night you were pretty…”
He leaned against the door jamb, leveled a look at her. “Last night I wanted to—”
But then Katie and Madison walked in, sleepy-eyed, bed hair making them look like freshly ruffled puppies.
Ellie smiled at them. “Hi. Did you forget about the con?”
Katie just made a grumpy noise.
Madison returned her smile, then turned to Adam. “Hi, Mr. Dybik—I mean, President Dybik.”
He set his plate down and squeezed her shoulders in a warm hug. “Hey, Madison. Glad you made it here okay. Sorry to miss all the fun last night.”
“That’s okay. We watched you on TV. Didn’t we, Katie?”
Katie had her head in the refrigerator and didn’t answer.
Ellie spoke up. “Why don’t I tell the driver we’ll leave in thirty minutes? That give you guys enough time to get ready?”
Madison groaned. “Can we make it an hour? I need to wash my hair.”
“Sure. Katie?”
Katie nodded.
Adam frowned. They were making Ellie and the rest of the detail wait on them. He’d talked to Katie about that—it was important for her to be on time, since so many people’s schedules were affected by hers.
“Why don’t you make it forty-five minutes, Katie? They’re waiting on you.”
“It’s no trouble—” Ellie began.
Katie slurped some orange juice. “Sure. Whatever.” Then she left, Madison following her.
“She okay?” Adam said to Ellie. “What was that about?”
Ellie hesitated, eyeing the cat as he stalked an imaginary shadow across the floor. “I think she’s still pissed she can’t make plans without involving fifty members of the US government.”
“Oh. That. I thought she was over that. She hasn’t tried to ditch you guys, has she?”
“No, but it’s still hard for her.”
“Well, yeah, it’s the nature of this thing, isn’t it? I can’t even walk across the street for a newspaper without taking along a contingent of you guys,” he said, pouring salt on his eggs. “And then God forbid I want to buy a pastry.”
Her head snapped up. “You wanna go over to Peet’s for coffee and a pastry? I can make that happen.”
“I know you can. I’m the fucking president of the United States. I can have anything I want, right? I want eggs over easy? Done. A three-layer birthday cake with fifteen candles? Best pastry chef in the country will make it. How about the latest film, before it’s released? They send me a list and I check off what I want.” He slammed his coffee cup on the counter.
Then he turned to her, the surly mood he’d been in all morning turning his voice into a bayonet. “Sure, I can have anything I want. Except the thing I really want.”
“What do you really want?”
“We both know that.”
She looked at his plate. “I don’t think it’s a pastry.”
“No, it’s not.” Just in case she wasn’t aware, he lowered his gaze to her lips, which were currently pursed like a schoolmarm’s.
She crossed her arms, gazing at him steadily. “You wanted to go save them yourself, didn’t you?”
He gripped the salt shaker as if it were a hand grenade. “What?”
“You didn’t want to send the SEALs in. You wanted to go yourself. Some part of you thinks you failed because you couldn’t save them yourself. You couldn’t save those two servicemen.”
Adam pretended he was fascinated with the cabinetry. Then he spoke slowly: “I did not want to go to Bhotaan and scale down the walls of that school and face enemy gunfire to rescue fifty American students.”
She tilted her head, narrowed her all-too-perceptive eyes. “Oh, I think you did. You want to save the world, Adam. It’s why you agreed to run for president. It’s why you can’t quit, even though you say you hate this job.”
She was wrong. He didn’t want to save the world. He’d never wanted to be a hero. He’d hated every goddamned minute of that race up the mountain.
He walked to where she stood, put his arms on either side of her, and whispered in her ear. “You’re wrong. I want to go on a date.”
She shook her head. “You want to change the subject.”
“Why, because you’re messing with my head again?”
“Again?” Her eyes widened.
He lowered his gaze, from her eyes to her mouth.
“Yeah. You do this all the time. It’s like…” He glanced back at her eyes, brown pools of innocence. “That’s it, isn’t it? Your job with the agency is to examine the head of POTUS and make sure he’s not about to do something crazy. Right?”
She laughed, a breathy laugh that had him wishing he could drag her off into his bedroom again. “No, that’s not my job.”
“Come on, admit it. You were sent here to psychoanalyze me.”
“No. But if you feel you need psychoanalysis…might I suggest the doctors at Walter Reed?” With a quick move she’d probably practiced at Rowley, she ducked under his arm.
He smiled. They were still dancing around this attraction, but he didn’t mind. It was fun—the most fun he’d had since being elected president and having his whole life turned upside down.
“Come on, share some breakfast.” He picked up his plate and motioned toward the dining table. “There’s enough for two.”
“No, thanks, I already ate.” But she joined him at the mahogany table, sitting across from him where she could keep an eye on him, in case he did anything crazy like dump a kilo of salt on his eggs.
“What’s this thing today?” he asked. “An anime convention? That’s something to do with manga, right? They have conventions for that?”
Ellie let him change the subject. “They do now. Apparently it’s a big deal. Madison had heard about it in Chicago.”
“Hmm.” He swallowed. “Sounds like fun. I really am sorry I missed her birthday last night. I’ll have to make it up to her.”
“You got her a gift?”
He grimaced. “I didn’t know what to get her. I was going to go buy something yesterday—thought I might find something at a bookstore. Then the thing in Bhotaan ruined that plan. And also the pastry problem.” He nodded toward the window, which overlooked the twelve-foot-tall security fence around the White House.
“I told you, we can fix the pastry problem. Anytime you want to go out, just let someone on your detail know. They’ll make it happen.”
“I know.” He shoveled eggs onto his fork. “And it will involve fifteen explosive detection dogs and a few dozen cars full of agents. I’m trying to save the taxpayers some money.”
Ellie shook her head. “Don’t worry about that. It’s our job. We get paid whether we’re handling EDT dogs at Barnes and Noble or sitting in vans waiting for something to happen.”
“All right then. I’ll start hanging out at malls on the weekends. How’s that?”
“I didn’t know you liked malls, sir.” The grin she gave him was just a little bit flirty.
“You know what I really want to do?” He pointed his fork at her. “And don’t say scale walls in Bhotaan.”
He crunched a bite of bacon, swallowed. “I want to go to a movie. Not here—there’s a great theatre downstairs, but I want to go see a movie, at the cinema, and order popcorn and a Coke and nudge my date when something funny happens.”
“Seriously? That’s what you want?”
He shrugged. “I want some semblance of a normal life.”
“Did you have that before? Did you go on dates to the movies? And nudge your date when something funny happened?”
“A few times.”
“With the girlfriend who spelled Katie’s name wrong on her birthday cake?”
He almost spit out his toast. “She told you that?”
Ellie studied the potted plant in the corner. “I might have overheard.”
“She was a colleague. We dated. Nothing serious.”
“She wasn’t your girlfriend?”
He frowned. “We had a fling.”
Ellie pursed her lips. “I’m not judging.”
“No?”
She narrowed her gaze. “Really, couldn’t you have a fling with a woman who knows how to spell your daughter’s name?”
“She spelled it with a Y. It’s a common mistake.”
“Now you’re defending her.” The dimples came out. Ellie’s dimples were deep enough to hold a couple of kittens.
He swallowed a forkful of eggs. “Is Katie still upset about that?”
“I can’t tell you what I might have heard her say. You know that.”
He drained his coffee cup, eyeing her over the rim. “What are you doing tonight?”
“Tonight?”
“We’re watching a film. The new Ryan Reynolds rom-com. Come by.”
“I…can’t.” But she didn’t look too sure of that.
“Katie has Madison here—I need another adult or I’ll be outnumbered. Two adolescent teenagers—I could be in real danger.”
She laughed. “Danger? I think we both know the danger isn’t from those two teenagers.”
Their gazes couldn’t seem to stop clinging to each other, something Lyndon seemed to notice: Come on, boy, you’ve almost caught her! Let her play out the line a little bit…then reel her in.
“Damn it, I’m not fishing!”
“What?” Ellie looked confused, and he couldn’t blame her. He’d just answered a president who’d been dead fifty years.
“I don’t like fish. Raw fish. Sushi.”
“You told me. Last night.”
“Yeah, I meant it, too. Hate the stuff. Never eat it.” He popped the last piece of bacon in his mouth just to prove it.
“Oh. All right then.” But her brows were creased like one of those sniffer dogs detecting sodium nitrate.
He was saved from any more embarrassment by the steward, returning to remove his plate. Adam kept his gaze averted from Ellie. Despite her perceptiveness, she hadn’t seemed to discern yet that he heard dead presidents.
When the steward left, Adam continued, this time with a little less intensity. He didn’t want Lyndon butting in again.
“So how about it? Movie night at the White House? I invited the speaker, but he’s going to visit his constituency this weekend.”
“That’s too bad.”
“To be honest, I’m relieved. The last time he talked all the way through Batman. You’d think continuing resolutions were more important than overcoming the criminal elements of Gotham.”
Ellie laughed. She didn’t seem to notice that he sounded desperate, but Katie had just come into the room, and she was no fool.
But maybe he could enlist her in his plans.
“Hey, Katie, I’ve invited Ellie to the residence tonight to watch the film. After dinner, say around eight o’clock?” He turned to Ellie, “Or would you like to share pizza with us? Saturday night we order out.”
“I know. I’ve checked out Trevino’s Pizza, just in case they’re harboring any would-be assassins.”
“Ah. So you know they make great pies. Chicago-style, not that there’s any other kind.”
Her gaze slid to Katie and back to him. “I shouldn’t. It’s…” Doubt flickered in her brown eyes, but Adam had rolled over more serious objections. He was a pro at this.
“I think there’s cake left, too, isn’t there, Katie? We’ll have a little belated celebration, since I missed the fun last night.” He looked at the balloons, sagging in a corner. “Someone gave you balloons?”
Katie nodded toward Ellie. “They did. The detail. Maybe because they remembered my birthday.”
“I remembered it, Katie. I just couldn’t be around.”
