by Julia London
“He needs to firm up his platform on health care and insurance. He’s too dangerous when he just shoots from the hip,” Matt said.
“We’re working with him,” Doug assured him. “Just be patient. In the meantime, let me tell you what we’ve talked about,” he said, and proceeded to give Matt a rundown of the platform issues.
When at last Matt hung up, he glanced at the clock—he was going to be late for the campaign meeting, and debated going. But they had started up the phone bank, which interested him, and supposedly, they had begun the roll-out of thousands of yard signs across the state.
There was, he supposed, one other little reason for going, and that was to learn the status of his wager.
Matt buzzed Harold, who almost instantaneously appeared at Matt’s door. He strode through, his hand extended for the files Matt was holding. “Pass these on to staff, will you? And I need this brief finished by the end of the week.”
Harold took the files, cocked his head to one side. “If you don’t mind me saying, sir, you look exhausted. You might want to try a cucumber press for your eyes,” he added as he pivoted sharply. “If that doesn’t work, do what the pageant contestants do and try a little hemorrhoid cream under the eyes to take the puffiness out.”
Matt raised his head as Harold moved briskly for the door. “You’re kidding.”
“Of course I’m not.”
“But that’s disgusting!”
“Perhaps. But it works!” Harold sang as he sailed out the door.
Hemorrhoid cream? Still shaking his head, Matt gathered up his things, loosened his tie, and left, headed for the campaign offices.
On his way over, he got caught in a little traffic and tuned in the radio to catch some news. “If you want the best value for your money, then bring any deal over to Reynolds Cadillac and Chevrolet and we’ll meet it or beat it! We’re right here on the motor mile . . .”
Damn ads. Was it his imagination, or did they pump the volume up on those things? He punched to an AM station. “Reynolds Cadillac and Chevrolet cannot be beat! We’ll meet or beat any deal you find in Texas . . .”
He switched to a jazz CD.
Traffic was moving at a snail’s pace: a wreck or something ahead had mucked up the works, so Matt veered off, took the neighborhood route. Only when he turned down a well-traveled side street in West Austin—a notoriously political side street—he noticed several of Tom’s yard signs (Vote for Tom Masters . . . now there was a brilliantly snappy little slogan) were stuck up against the houses and complexes. Stuck up so close that he literally had to turn his head away from the road to see them. Honestly, sometimes it seemed if he didn’t do it, it didn’t get done right. Matt pulled over into an apartment parking lot, rolled up his shirt sleeves, and fished in his trunk for something to pound with, found a golf club, and jogged up the street, pausing in each of the twelve yards to pull up the signs and put them out by the street where they would be seen. Facing oncoming traffic. Who could not know that?
When he reached the campaign offices, he strode quickly through the front door and almost collided with a desk someone had put there that all but consumed the little entry. On top of the desk were several stacks of hand-addressed envelopes, the handwriting flourished and cursive, and it struck him as a waste of free manpower—a simple keystroke would have produced labels in a fraction of someone’s time.
He stepped around the desk, made his way to the back, noticing the new additions to the walls (springlike things, along with some new, campaign banners—Vote for Tom Masters for Lt. Governor, which, incidentally, looked like they had been finger-painted). He could hear several voices coming from the conference room—it didn’t sound as if anything had started up yet, save another bashing of the Republican Phil Harbaugh—but somewhere, a phone was ringing. Gilbert stuck his head out the door, saw Matt. “Oh hey, we’re getting started. Would you mind getting that?” he asked, and Matt nodded, headed on back to the phone bank.
He walked into a room full of gun-metal gray desks, on top of which were legal pads and pencils, phone books, and the old-style putty-colored hard-wired phones.
The phone had stopped ringing. No one was in the room, except, surprisingly, Rebecca, who, not surprisingly, looked lovely in a dove gray blouse and skirt. Her hair was bound up at her nape; two small diamond earrings glistened from her earlobes. She hadn’t yet noticed Matt; her brow was creased with concentration as she listened intently to someone on the phone.
Matt moved farther into the room; his movement startled her, and she jerked her head up, her wide blue eyes arresting him and unexpectedly pinning him to the wall with their brilliance. She lifted her hand, waved stiffly at him.
He nodded, thought he was intruding and should go back to the meeting, but couldn’t quite bring himself to do it. He couldn’t break free of the mesmerizing hold her eyes had on him.
“Yes, I understand, it’s really awful,” she was saying.
Matt lifted a questioning brow, but she glanced away.
“I know, I can’t bear to think of it, either—it’s appalling. I will do whatever I can, I promise. Yes, I’ll do just that and call you first thing,” she said, and was suddenly looking around for a pencil. “I am sure Senator Masters will want to know about it.”
Matt quickly moved forward, pulling a pen from his breast pocket and holding it out to her. Rebecca glanced up with surprise, smiled as she took it. That smile trickled right down to Matt’s toes, and he realized, a little numbly, that he was standing there staring at the slender curve of her neck like an awestruck kid as she jotted down a number and a name. “Thank you for calling,” she said. “I’ll speak with you soon. Take care.” She put the phone down and stood a moment, staring morosely at the legal pad.
“Is everything all right?” Matt asked.
“Not really,” she said sadly as an elegant hand fluttered to her collarbone. “Actually, it’s horrible.”
“So what is it? Can I help?” he asked, now truly concerned.
“Oh Matt . . .” She glanced up, smiled sadly. “There’s nothing you can do. I just need to set something up with Tom as soon as possible. He’ll know what to do.”
What was that he detected—the faint smell of a big fat rat? Matt slowly folded his arms across his chest. “So who is it that Tom will be meeting with?”
“The Citizens for the Humane Dispensation of Hill Country Deer.”
Matt waited for the punch line. But Rebecca just stood there, her gorgeous eyes blinking up at him. She was not kidding. Nope, there wasn’t even the slightest hint of a joke on her pretty face. She really, truly was an alien. “The humane dispensation of deer,” he echoed aloud, just to hear that fatuous term spoken out loud.
Rebecca nodded. “They are shooting them in the hill country to reduce the population. These folks would rather see them moved somewhere and they want to talk to Tom about it.”
Matt could not believe what he was hearing. On a cold call, she had picked up a clan of bark-eaters who wanted to save a bunch of deer? He stared at her; but oblivious, Rebecca leaned over, picked up her briefcase, and slung it over her shoulder. “I guess we should join the others. Here’s your pen.” She held it out to him with a sunny smile. “Thanks so much.”
“Are you nuts?” Matt asked as he took the pen and shoved it into his breast pocket.
Rebecca’s thick lashes fluttered. “I beg your pardon?”
“Nuts. Or do you just do this sort of thing for fun?”
Dark, perfectly sculpted brows dipped crossly over blue eyes. “Do what for fun?”
“Seriously, now . . . all kidding aside. Did you just have an emotional conversation about deer, or are you jerking my chain?”
“Do you honestly have something against deer?” she asked, her voice full of a woman’s indignation.
“As a matter of fact, I do, and here’s what: They aren’t a problem for Texas. They’re a problem in a couple of counties where big houses back up to golf courses, but they are really not
a problem for the state as a whole.”
“So?” she demanded, her eyes flashing.
“So, why should Tom waste one second of his valuable time on deer?”
“Because,” she said, marching around the desk, “Tom is a humanitarian. I know that’s not something maybe you aspire to be, but Tom is a nice guy, and it’s obvious there are a lot of people in Texas who think animal rights are important.”
“God no, tell me it’s not so,” Matt groaned to the ceiling. “Is this the dog thing again? Or are you seriously thinking about making a pitch to take up animal rights in this campaign?”
Rebecca glared at him. “FYI, Mr. Big Pants, all these people want is a resolution against killing deer and for relocating them. I don’t think that is outside the realm of Tom’s influence.” She began marching from the room, the heels of her flimsy little sandals making a staccato click click click across the linoleum floor.
“Yes, but is it practical?” Matt asked, following close behind, even more irritated that in spite of his frustration, he could not help but watch the jiggle of her magnificent tush. “You don’t think that it’s asking a little too much to take up Tom’s time with something that has absolutely no bearing on his candidacy or running this state, just because you feel sorry for a bunch of deer?”
That got her—she gasped, stopped in her march and whirled around so quickly to retort that Matt almost collided with her. “What sort of man are you?”
“The sort of man who would like to help Tom get elected and not become the poster child of Save Bambi.”
“Oh. My. God,” she muttered, whirling about and marching again. She made it three whole steps before she stopped and pivoted again, forcing him back on his heels. “You know what you are? You are . . . you are . . . I can’t even say it!” she snapped with a wave of her hand, and abruptly whirled about again with a little too much force. Matt stopped her from banging into the wall by catching her arm, but blocked her exit by planting his arm against the wall, just next to her head. Rebecca was effectively trapped. And he liked that.
She folded her arms across her middle and glaring at him. “What do you think you are doing?”
Matt’s gaze dipped to her pouty lips while his head filled with the scent of Chanel. “Giving you the opportunity to say it,” he said. “Speak your mind, Rebecca; let’s hear it.”
“Okay. You’re infuriating.”
“I’m infuriating?” he snorted. “You’re playing a little fast and loose with that word, aren’t you, Miss Priss?”
“You know, you’re right, Popinjay. I meant to say that you are impossibly arrogant—”
“That’s nice, coming from someone all puffed up over a couple of flags,” he interjected, smiling a little now, because the woman was really stunning when she was all charged up.
“And you’re overbearing.”
“Determined,” he corrected her with a lazy grin as his gaze drifted to her lips again.
Rebecca didn’t say anything for a moment, but then surprised him by laughing low and lifting up, so that her face was just below his, so close that he could have, were he insane, kissed her without much effort. What alarmed him a little was that he was sorely tempted to do so. “I know what you are doing,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“So what am I doing?” he asked, actually a little curious as to what he was doing, because he was feeling just on the edge of out of control.
“You,” she said, poking a finger at the knot of his tie, “are trying to get to me.” She smiled softly, inched up on her toes so that her lips were even closer to his. One teeny-tiny millimeter away. “You don’t think I belong here, and you think you can scare me away,” she murmured, her breath warm and sweet.
Those lips, those smiling, full and lush lips . . . Matt’s smile deepened. “I’d be a fool to try and scare you away. But I am trying to put a little sense in that pretty head of yours.”
“Well, guess what, Matt?” she asked, her gaze languidly wandering his face. “It’s not working.” And he suddenly felt a sharp pain on the top of his foot at the precise point where her heel had come down on it. Matt instantly dropped his arm and fell back, wincing. “And I’m not going anywhere,” she added pertly, walking on.
“I was afraid of that,” he muttered, and still grimacing from the pain, he followed her.
They burst through the door where the others were meeting so that everyone looked up in surprise. “Sorry we’re late,” Rebecca said, striding forward, and sat down hard at the table. Matt sat down hard next to her. Both of them looked expectantly at Tom, and both of them made a concerted effort not to look at each other.
Tom looked at Pat, then at Matt and Rebecca. “Okay . . . well, then! We’ve got a lot to cover, folks. So! Let’s hear some reports! Angie? That’s some nice red hair you have today. What else have you got?”
“The phone bank went well today,” Angie reported. “We had five volunteers from the university, me, Gilbert, and Rebecca. We made a little over one hundred calls in two hours.”
Pat and Gilbert cheered and clapped. “That’s great!” Tom exclaimed. “Gilbert? What about the yard signs?”
“Teams in Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio went to work this weekend and placed eighteen hundred signs. Pat and Rebecca and I split up into three sectors and placed three hundred and fifty signs just in Austin.”
At least now Matt knew which Chanel-scented beauty queen had put the yard signs in West Austin.
“Great work!” Tom exclaimed.
“Might I make a suggestion here, Tom?” Matt asked “Can we all agree to put yard signs in an area of the yard where traffic might actually see them as opposed to making them into a decorative feature of the whole landscape?” he asked, and felt Miss Priss go stiff next to him.
“Sure!” Tom said. “Everyone take note of that. Okay, Rebecca, what about our Silver Panthers?”
“Yeah, I am dying to know about the Panthers,” Matt said, turning to look at Rebecca, already imagining what he would do with the favor she owed him, and it was, after that heel to the foot thing, a deliciously nasty idea.
Rebecca sat ramrod straight on the edge of her chair, hands folded primly on the table, just like Tanya Kwitokowsky. She probably even had an apple for Tom in that bag of hers. “We’re on,” she said proudly, and beamed a big told-you-so smile at Matt. “We’ve got a hall, we’ve got entertainment, and we’ve got refreshments the night before the convention kick-off. But more importantly, we have the coveted list of attendees,” she said. “So all I need is the word go, and I’ll mail out five hundred invitations to come meet Senator Masters.”
Matt could not believe his ears. That group was as tight as a drum, and no one—certainly not a former beauty queen—could break that attendance list.
“That’s fantastic!” Tom shouted, slapping the table. “Well, now, Rebecca, aren’t you just the cream in our coffee? Folks, this is the kind of drive I’m looking for. The desire to accomplish goals, just like that poster says.” He paused, squinted at the motivational poster on the wall. “Well, I can’t read it from here, but you get the gist of what I’m saying. So Gilbert, work something up for me to say. Pat, will you get some campaign literature together? And Rebecca, if you’ve got a minute after we’re through here, there are some people I think I’d like you to meet.”
Miss Priss’s spine got, impossibly, even straighter, and she gushed, “I’d love to help in any way I can.”
If this went on much longer, Matt half expected Burt Parks would pop through the window singing “Here She Is . . .” while she took a little walk around the conference room, blowing kisses to them all.
“Is it Matt’s turn?” she asked with feigned innocence, and turned in her seat to face him, a smart little smirk glittering in her eyes.
“Yep. Matt, you’re on,” Tom said. “What did you do since our last meeting?”
Matt frowned; Rebecca actually had the
nerve to turn the smirk up a notch. Man oh man, the poor little alien had no idea what she was up against, but if that’s the way she wanted to play it, he’d be happy to engage. Just as long as she understood that if she played with fire, she definitely would get burned.
“Talked to Doug today,” he said, turning back to the group, and began to lay out the finer points of a plausible stance on health care.
Chapter Eleven
All you need in life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure . . .
MARK TWAIN
It was nothing short of a miracle that Bud actually picked up Grayson in Austin that Friday, because he’d dumped his son the last four weekends he was supposed to have had him, and because the people Tom wanted Rebecca to meet were the new media people, hired out of Los Angeles. They were going to transform Tom’s image into someone who looked like he owned the lieutenant governor’s office (Tom’s exact words).
After dropping Grayson off, Rebecca spent the day preparing herself for the happy hour meeting at the Four Seasons Hotel. The best news was that Popinjay would not be there to discombobulate her as only he could do with that body and that face and that rapacious smile.
“I really need you to come,” Tom had told her in confidence. “These are media people with offices in L.A. They know what they are doing, and I mean, Pat’s nice and all, but she’s, well . . . you know.”
Rebecca didn’t know.
“And Gilbert and Angie,” he added with a roll of his eyes. “Now there’s a pair, huh? Don’t get me wrong . . . they’re great and all that, but they just aren’t the right type. I really need you, Rebecca. You know how important appearances are,” he said with a wink. “You’re perfect for this!”