HER SECRET, HIS DUTY

by Carla Cassidy

  “Good morning,” she said as she carried her cup to where the two men were located near the pool.

  “Back at you,” Thad said with a smile.

  At least he was here to serve as buffer, she thought as Trey murmured a greeting, his blue eyes far too intense as his gaze remained on her.

  Was he thinking about their last moments together, a flickering fire, a red throw rug and desire spiraled out of control? Certainly she’d been thinking about it since then, every single day for the last week.

  But, she refused to think about it now. It was done. They were finished, and this morning’s breakfast was all about Kate. “Where is the lady of the hour?” she asked.

  “She hasn’t made an appearance yet,” Thad replied.

  “Neither has Sam,” Trey added.

  They all turned to look as Myra and Tiffany came back outside, each carrying metal baking pans that they placed in the awaiting electric warmer.

  “Your mother and Sam should be out here any minute,” Myra said as she and Tiffany disappeared back into the house.

  “I have a fairly good idea that I’m not going to like what I hear here this morning,” Thad said.

  “I’m sure you’re probably right,” Trey agreed.

  Debra sipped her orange juice, wishing Sam and Kate would come outside so things could get underway and she could get back home.

  She wasn’t even sure why Kate had included her in this family gathering. It wasn’t like Debra was really a part of the family.

  Sam was the next one outside and once he’d joined them with a cup of coffee in hand, he pointed to the glass of juice Debra held.

  “I’m glad my niece or nephew is getting a dose of vitamin C this morning instead of a cup of caffeine,” he said.

  The shadows that always darkened his blue eyes were gone for now and Debra was grateful that he appeared to be in a fairly good mood. Hopefully nothing that occurred during the breakfast would bring the terrible darkness back into his eyes.

  “What are you all doing over there when I have this lovely table set beautifully for everyone?” Kate’s voice pulled everyone’s attention toward her as she stepped out of the back doors and onto the patio.

  “We were making plans to overthrow the monarchy,” Thad said with a wicked grin.

  Kate laughed. “I know Debra isn’t a part of such a plan and it would take far more than three big men to get the job done right.”

  She looked stunning in a pair of tailored black slacks and a red blouse with a black cardigan sweater flung over her shoulders. “Come on, come on. Let’s fill our plates and get this party started.”

  It took some time for all of them to serve themselves and then get seated. Debra was grateful to find herself across the table from Trey rather than seated next to him. Instead she sat next to Thad with Sam across the table next to Trey, and Kate at the head of the table.

  The conversation remained light and easy as they ate. Debra was pleased to discover that it was late enough in the day that the food tasted delicious and she suffered no nausea or belly rolling.

  As the conversation turned to the brothers’ childhood, stories began to roll out that had Debra both relaxing and laughing. The stories of brotherly antics and love also made her realize how much she’d missed out on by being the only child of an alcoholic mother.

  She also realized that she didn’t want her baby to be an only child. Siblings weren’t just brothers and sisters; they were also friends and support systems for lifetimes.

  But she couldn’t be sure what the future held. Right now she just wanted to have a healthy pregnancy and baby, deal with the co-parenting issues with Trey and figure out what the next step in her personal life might be.

  The breakfast talk went from old memories to the mildness of the weather and finally to Kate’s upcoming speech for the chamber of commerce event the following Saturday night on Valentine’s Day.

  It seemed ironic to Debra that she was pregnant and yet had nobody to send her flowers or chocolates for the special lovers’ day. But she’d never gotten flowers or anything from a man on Valentine’s Day.

  Barry had been one of few men she had dated in her lifetime and they hadn’t even known each other last Valentine’s Day.

  Throughout the meal she was acutely conscious of Trey’s gaze lingering on her. Dark and unreadable, something about his unwavering attention made her uncomfortable.

  What was he thinking? Was it possible that he might fight her for full custody when the baby was born? Certainly with the Winston power, influence and money, it would be a battle she’d lose.

  Her hand fell to her stomach, as if to somehow protect her baby from such a confrontation. Surely that couldn’t be what he was thinking. They’d spoken about co-parenting. But what might happen when he married? Once he had a wife, might not he want his child to live with them full-time?

  Stop borrowing trouble, she reprimanded herself. Without a magical crystal ball there was no way to see what the future might hold, and she’d just have to deal with everything one day at a time from here on out.

  She definitely didn’t want to think about the fact that the investigations into the attacks on her had yielded nothing. At least with her new security in the townhouse she felt completely safe when she was there.

  It wasn’t until they had all finished eating, their plates had been removed and their coffee and juice refilled that Kate raised a hand to get everyone’s attention.

  “I’m sure you’re all wondering why I asked you to come here for breakfast this morning,” she began.

  “Not really,” Thad muttered under his breath.

  “Before I make my final decision about what my future is going to hold, I wanted to give you all a chance to talk about your concerns,” she said.

  Debra stared over Trey’s shoulder to the distant tree line, knowing that she didn’t have a pony in this show. Kate needed to hear from her sons, not from one of her son’s baby mama. Besides, Kate already knew that Debra was up for whatever she decided.

  “I’m considering announcing formally my decision to run for president of the United States next Saturday night at the chamber of commerce event.” She looked at her sons expectantly.

  Debra focused her attention back to the table. “You know I’ll support that decision,” Trey said.

  “You’re going to do what you want to do anyway,” Sam added, his voice holding resignation.

  Thad frowned. “I just don’t understand why you’d want to do this given what politics has done to our family in the past.”

  “If you’re talking about when you were young and your father was a senator, the only thing I can tell you is that our family fell apart because of your father’s bad choices, not because he was in the Senate,” Kate replied.

  “You should have left the bastard,” Sam said, his eyes taking on the darkness that they held far too often.

  “I did what I needed to do to keep the family together,” Kate replied with a steely note. “Things weren’t so terrible for all of you when I served as vice president and as an ambassador.”

  “That’s because nobody ever cares that much about the vice president,” Thad said. “But as President of the United States every move you make will be in the spotlight and a lot of that spotlight is going to bleed over onto us.” He raked a hand through his shaggy brown hair. “But I guess we can all handle that if this is what you really want.”

  “Sam?” Kate looked at her middle child with affection.

  He shrugged. “I know you want to do this and I’m not going to be the one who stops you from pursuing what you want.”

  “So I have tentative blessings from everyone?” Kate asked.

  “I think you can say that you have complete blessings from everyone,” Trey replied.

  Kate turned and motioned
to Myra, who stood just inside the door and held a silver tray with flutes of champagne. “Then this calls for a celebratory toast.”

  Thad laughed dryly. “You’ve already got the champagne poured. You weren’t worried a bit about getting our blessings.”

  Kate beamed a smile around the table as Myra stepped outside. “I knew my boys would only want my happiness and this is something I feel destined to do.”

  Myra went around the table, handing each of them a glass of champagne. “No bubbly for you,” she said when she got to Debra. “You have a flute of nice white grape juice.”

  “Thank you, Myra,” Debra said as she accepted the delicate, thin glass.

  Kate stood and held up her glass. “Bear with me, I have a rather long toast to make.”

  Debra smiled inwardly as she saw all three of her sons roll their eyes, as if they were accustomed to “bearing with” their strong, assertive mother.

  The rest of them remained seated, giving Kate her moment to shine even at a family breakfast.

  “First of all to Debra, who will forever be a part of this family and hopefully continue to play an important role in my professional life as well as my personal one.” Kate smiled at Debra and then looked at Sam.

  “To my middle son, Sam. You awe me with your bravery, with your honor and duty you showed by serving your country. I only pray that your heart and soul eventually heal as your body does. I love you, Sam.”

  Debra felt herself getting a bit teary as Kate honored each of her children.

  “Thaddeus,” Kate continued. “I’m so proud of the life you’ve made for yourself as a part of law enforcement. You honor the family name with your work as a public servant. I love you, Thad.”

  She turned her attention to Trey. “And to my firstborn, who has not only driven the family business to new heights, but is also about to discover the insane world of politics and parenthood. I love you, Trey, and wish only good things for my boys in the future.”

  She raised her glass. “Cheers.”

  “Gun!” Thad suddenly screamed and pointed to the trees in the distance.

  And then the world exploded.

  Chapter 15

  A thousand things occurred almost simultaneously, creating wild chaos. A shot sounded. The glass table shattered, cups and glasses crashing to the ground. Trey dove across the broken table to reach Debra who sat in her chair stunned.

  He scrambled to her, yanked her from the chair and pulled her to the ground. Sam grabbed his mother’s hand and pulled her down also as Thad and half a dozen Secret Service men raced in all directions. Thad and a couple of men ran to the side entrance gate and out of the backyard.

  Two other agents rushed to stand next to the shattered table, their backs to each other and their weapons drawn as they protected everyone on the ground. Several more agents raced to the back of the yard, their guns pointed up at the tree where the shooter was no longer visible.

  “Are you okay?” Trey asked as he covered Debra’s body with his on the hard concrete near the pool.

  Around them chaos continued to reign as men yelled to each other and another gunshot split the air. Trey could feel the frantic beat of Debra’s heart against his own.

  Her breath came in gasps of terror against his collarbone and his brain worked to try to make sense of what had just happened, what was still happening. “Yes,” she replied, her voice small and scared.

  There was no question that somebody had been in those trees, that Thad had spied what apparently had been a man with a gun. The gun had been fired, shattering the table, but had the bullet been meant for his mother or for Debra?

  His body shuddered at the thought of either woman being shot. He looked over at Sam, who had their mother down against the concrete, a look of anguish on his face.

  Trey knew his brother was probably wishing he had his weapon on him, but Sam had been deemed unfit for duty and all of his weapons had been taken from him by the army brass who had released him.

  Trey’s body jerked as another gunshot exploded and then Thad’s voice rose in the distance. It had a triumphant tone and Trey felt the muscles in his body begin to relax a bit.

  One of the Secret Service men standing near them talked into his radio, listened a moment and then turned to face everyone on the ground. “They’ve got the shooter in custody.”

  The two agents remained on guard as both Trey and Sam rose and helped Debra and Kate to their feet. It was only as he saw Debra’s terror-filled eyes that he recognized the bottomless depth of his love for her.

  He pulled her to him and she willingly huddled in the secure embrace of his arms. Love. It flowed through him, unmistakable and undeniable. But he didn’t know what to do about it, knew there was nothing to be done about it.

  “Well, that’s the way to end a toast with a bang,” Kate said in a slightly shaky voice as Sam helped her to her feet.

  “We’d like all of you to move as quickly as possible into the house,” Secret Service Agent Daniel Henderson said as he took Kate by the arm. “It’s for your own safety. We don’t know who else might be out here somewhere.”

  As Daniel ushered Kate back into the house, Trey did the same with Debra, still unsure who the ultimate target had been. They all took seats in the sitting room and waited, the silence in the room growing more and more tense with each minute that passed.

  Had there been more than one shooter? Had this been some sort of an organized attack? Trey’s mind raced to make sense of what had just occurred.

  Thad, Jerry Cahill and Robert D’Angelis appeared at the back door. Between Thad and Robert was a thin man in scruffy jeans and a black jacket. His hands were cuffed behind him and Robert held a high-powered rifle with a scope in his hand.

  “Ms. Winston, do you know this person?”

  Trey stared at the man. He was small and slender and wore a black sweatshirt and jeans. His eyes were dark and a smirk formed on his thin lips as if everyone else was in handcuffs and he was free.

  Sam lunged toward him. “Who are you and why were you shooting at my mother?” he yelled. Kate stopped him from advancing by grabbing his arm.

  “I don’t have to talk to you,” the man said with a scowl. “I don’t have to talk to any of you. I know my rights. Besides, if I don’t talk then I get some time in prison. If I do talk then I get a bullet to the back of my head. It’s a no-brainer. I don’t have nothing to say to nobody.”

  “I’ve never seen him before in my life,” Kate finally said.

  “Get him out of here,” Sam growled. “Get him the hell out of here.”

  Thad and Cahill took the man back out the door where Trey assumed he’d be handed over to Secret Service agents and other authorities to deal with.

  Sam turned his wrath on Daniel Henderson and Robert D’Angelis. “How in the hell did this happen? How did that little creep manage to get up in a tree with a rifle without any of the agents noticing? I want to know who didn’t do their job.”

  “I don’t know how this happened, but I promise you by the end of the day we’ll have some answers,” Robert replied, his gray eyes cold and narrowed. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go find out as much information as I can right now.”

  He headed through the house, toward the kitchen and the side door that would bring him out by the guesthouse where the security operations and agents worked from.

  Trey turned to look at Debra, who stood beside him, frozen like a deer in headlights. It was only then that he saw a trickle of blood seeping from her hairline down the side of her face.

  His heartbeat spiked as he grabbed her by the arm. Had one of the bullets grazed her? “Debra, you’re hurt,” he said. Had a piece of shattered glass from the table ricocheted to her?

  “What?” She looked at him with blank eyes.

  “Your head... You’re b
leeding.” He dropped his hand from her arm.

  She raised a hand up and touched the area and then stared at the blood on her hand and then back at him. “It must be glass from the table.”

  “We need to get you cleaned up,” Kate said briskly, back in control despite the horror of what had just happened.

  Somewhere in the back of his mind Trey knew it was this very trait, the ability to function with a cool head in a crisis, that would benefit the country if Kate was elected.

  “Maddie,” Kate turned to the housekeeper who hovered in the doorway. “Take Debra into one of the bathrooms and clean up her face and check to make sure she doesn’t have any glass in her hair or on her clothes. I’m going upstairs where Birdie can help me do the same thing. Sam and Trey, you both need to make sure there isn’t any glass in your clothing or hair.”

  “Come on, honey,” Maddie said to Debra as she walked across the room and gently took Debra’s hand in hers. “Let’s go get you all cleaned up.”

  The two women left the sitting room and Kate turned to Daniel Henderson, the last agent left in the room. “You can go, Daniel. We’re good now. Just please keep me informed of anything you hear about the investigation into what just happened.”

  Daniel gave Kate a stiff half bow. “You know I’ll do whatever I can to get to the bottom of this, but I imagine by now all kinds of agencies will be moving in to take over the investigation. Of course the Secret Service will be doing most of the work.”

  “Just keep me informed.” Kate headed out of the sitting room while Daniel left by the back doors.

  Sam remained in place, his hands in fists at his sides and angry frustration evident in every muscle in his body. “I should have seen that guy in the tree. I should have been paying more attention. I was trained to watch out for snipers.”

  “Cut yourself a break, Sam,” Trey replied. “You weren’t trained to look for snipers in our backyard at a breakfast. But I’d like to know who hired that guy. From what he said he was definitely a hired gun.”