Maggie looked at him from underneath heavy eyelashes. When she saw the look on his face, her eyes got wider.
“Mr. Carlson, glad you could join us today.” Thank God Rosebud was able to focus. Someone had to be the grown-up in the room. “Shall we get going?” At the words, the court reporter’s fingers were flying.
The next hour and a half were the worst in his life as he listened to Maggie recount each and every time she’d been hauled off in cuffs and brought before Maynard’s court. The first time, Maynard had just demanded oral sex. After that, Maynard’s demands had grown more depraved, and every time, Maggie had capitulated. With each retelling, James grew more enraged. He found himself wanting to protect her—even though he never let himself get emotionally involved in a case. Witnesses were just that—witnesses. But as he sat here and listened to Maggie’s story, he wanted to do everything in his power to make sure no one would ever use her like that again.
Finally, they made it to the last encounter. For the first time all day, James truly didn’t know the answer to the next question. What had changed? What had prompted Maggie to leave?
“I couldn’t take it anymore,” she said. “What kind of life did I have? I couldn’t go home. I couldn’t go back to Low Dog. I couldn’t…” Her voice trailed off. “I couldn’t live anymore.”
“You attempted suicide?”
“Not consciously. When I left the courthouse that last time, I stole a car and drove. After a while, it started to snow. I’d driven off into a blizzard. No one knew where I was. I’m sure nobody cared. I kept driving until the car slid off the road and got stuck in a drift. I didn’t know where I was, but it didn’t matter. I got out of the car and started to walk.”
“In the middle of a blizzard?”
“Like I said—I wasn’t aware of what I was doing. It was cold, but the cold felt…good, you know? The pain was something real, something that I could say was honest and true.” Her voice grew distant, as if she wasn’t in Rosebud’s office anymore, but was back out in the middle of a blizzard. “The cold was going to kill me, and it didn’t want anything in return. It couldn’t hurt me again and again. Just…slip off into the snow, and it was all over.”
“Except it wasn’t.” They were done. This part held no relevance to his case. But he had to know.
“I saw a white light, and I knew I was dead. Except I still hurt. I didn’t want to go to all the trouble of dying if it was still going to hurt. Then the snow changed. It solidified, and took on a shape. I thought it was Iktomi, the trickster spider from Lakota mythology, but it wasn’t.”
“Nanette Brown.”
“Yes.” Maggie’s face brightened. Suddenly, she looked more like herself. “She said the spirits had told her I was out there, so she came looking for me. I had gotten really close to her house without knowing it. She’d tied a rope around her waist and to the house and come looking for me. She took me in. She helped me get clean, taught me how to bead and quill, gave me a life. My life.”
That’s why Maggie had wanted Nanette Lincoln’s record expunged. She owed the older woman.
To think, when James had called up Nanette Lincoln’s file and seen that she was wanted in a bank robbery in the late sixties, he’d seriously considered not agreeing to the condition. Now, instead of wanting to arrest Nan, he wanted to hug her. So she’d been in with a revolutionary crowd back in the turbulent sixties. She’d started over and redeemed herself by giving Maggie the same chance.
His admiration for Maggie grew. She’d not only survived, but she’d thrived. James had seen people—men and women—who let one bad relationship, one bad job, one mistake drag them down. Not Maggie. She’d come through the fires of hell a stronger, better woman. James had never been tested like that—would he be able to weather the storm and come out on the other side a better person? He wasn’t sure. The only tragedy in his life was being the son of his parents, and that had left enough scars.
The deposition took almost two hours. Maggie looked drained but relieved. She smiled up at him when he stood, and he was surprised to see that she looked grateful. She didn’t seem to hate him for making her relive those horrors. That didn’t make any sense to him. He came from a world where people nursed grudges and exacted revenge years after the fact. No one in D.C. ever forgave and forgot.
But then, no one in D.C. ever seemed to have this much purity, this much peace. How was it possible? How could she have risen above the horrors of her past? There was only one possible conclusion. Maggie Eagle Heart was the strongest person he had ever met. Stronger than he was. He’d lived a clean, careful life, all in preparation for the presidency, but he couldn’t claim the moral high ground that she could.
It was six in the evening now. He wasn’t hungry, but he could tell that if he didn’t eat something soon, he’d crash.
“We should get some dinner,” Rosebud said, clearly reading his mind. “My treat.”
“I should get home…” Maggie stood and smoothed out the cream skirt. “It’s sort of a long drive.”
“You need to eat. James, you in?”
“Only if Maggie is comfortable with that. We won’t talk business.” Be comfortable, he thought. He didn’t want her to associate him only with a day of hellacious testimony. He wanted to give her something good to remember him by—even if it was just dinner. Dinner could be good.
As long as he didn’t cross any line, that was.
“Then it’s settled,” Rosebud announced into the silence, blatantly denying the reality that nothing had been settled. “Chinese or Italian?”
Maggie grinned, her pink lips twisting off to one side. “I do like General Tso’s chicken…”
“Done. Yu’s it is.”
Five
Maggie brought up the end of their little caravan as they pulled into a run-down strip mall about a mile from the court buildings. Rosebud’s elegant sedan and James’s expensive SUV looked grossly out of place, but at least her Jeep fit in.
This dinner thing was a mistake. She knew it, but here she was anyway. She should not be doing anything even remotely social with James Carlson. Even if she ignored the fact that she was horribly out of practice at small talk with people in general and men in specific, she couldn’t forget everything that he now knew.
That wasn’t all she couldn’t forget. She didn’t think she’d ever forget the look of anger on his face as she’d told her story. Maybe he’d been having semiharmless fantasies about slumming with someone so beneath him. Maybe he’d thought she was cute. Maybe he was into Native American women—she’d put money on him and Rosebud having been involved. None of that mattered because everything had changed.
If the Dishonorable Maynard had been in the room during the deposition, Maggie was pretty sure that James would have killed him. For her.
Her head was spinning, even though the car was no longer moving. In such a short time, her world had not just been turned upside down, but had also been knocked into a different orbit. Nan had been the only person to ever do anything for her—but suddenly, she had Tommy telling her he’d locked Low Dog up for her, and Rosebud getting Nan’s ancient record cleared and buying expensive suits and paying for manicures for her.
What would James Carlson do for her? He’d already cleared two records and promised to keep Low Dog at a distance forever and ever—but that was before he knew everything. She’d expected the deposition to make her feel like the nothing she’d once been, but instead, a weird lightness made her want to smile. She had nothing left to hide now, she realized. In a strange way, saying the words out loud was almost freeing. She didn’t have to pretend to be someone else anymore.
But the question was, how would James Carlson treat her now?
This whole situation would be easier to deal with if the man wasn’t so attractive. Maggie sat in her car and watched him through the windshield. This was a different suit, a charcoal-gray with a faint pinstripe. She wasn’t sure, but it might fit him even better than the first one she’d seen him
in. She didn’t know suits could look that good on a man, but his did. Not for the first time, she caught herself wondering what he looked like without all the fancy wrapping. He was only a few inches taller than she was, solid and fit. He would be something amazing.
Maybe he wouldn’t look down on her now that he knew the truth. He hadn’t during the deposition. If anything, he’d looked angry on her behalf. As if he cared about what happened to her, if that was even possible. Men like James Carlson didn’t care about women like Maggie.
With a warm smile that spoke of his deep affection for his friend, he opened Rosebud’s door with a gallant flourish. The two of them laughed, and a small part of Maggie hurt. Even in the waning light, James’s smile was bright.
She had history with Tommy, but he wasn’t the kind of man who laughed often. Laughing with Nan at their silly TV shows wasn’t the same.
Wow. She couldn’t tell if she was lonely or jealous or what, but it wasn’t good. She should bail. Dinner was the worst idea possible.
Except it was too late. James turned and headed to where she was still sitting in her Jeep.
“Allow me,” he said with a bow as he opened her door.
What the hell. If she was here, she might as well have a little well-deserved fun. She bit back a giggle. “Such chivalry!”
“One should always be chivalrous when one is in the company of a lady. May I?” Still bent over at the waist, he held out his hand and looked at her, a grin that bordered on goofy plastered on his face. He was waiting on her.
She hesitated. When she did, all the goofy disappeared right out of him. “Please, Maggie.”
“Not too many people accuse me of being a lady.” Why had she said that? Was she trying to make herself look stupid? Boy, she was out of practice.
“I’d like to think I’m not like too many people.” He moved his hand a few inches closer. “This is just dinner with some friends.”
When he put it like that… “Friends?”
“Friends.”
She took his hand and swung her legs out of the car. His hand was warm and firm against hers. Strong. Why on earth did that make her feel so weak?
He held on to her as she stood, as if he understood she wasn’t used to heels this high. As soon as she was balanced, he let go of her hand—and then offered her his arm. “Shall we?”
Oh. My. A lawyer and a gentleman. Did such things exist? As they crossed the parking lot, they saw that Rosebud was on her phone.
“What’s wrong?” James’s arm tensed under her hand, and then he stepped away from her. “What’s the matter?”
Rosebud held up a finger. “Are you taking him to the hospital? Why the hell not?”
“What?” James stood right next to Rosebud. Strong, Maggie thought again. Someone who was there for his friends.
“Lewis ran into the table and cut his head. He’s bleeding like a stuck pig.” Rosebud turned her attention back to the phone. “How do you know he’ll be fine? Dan, I’m not kidding. Take him to the emergency room. I’ll meet you there. Yes. Okay. Love you, too. Bye.” She snapped the phone shut and headed for her car.
“Head wounds bleed a lot,” James called after her. “He’ll be fine.”
“Thanks.” Rosebud didn’t sound as though she believed him. “Sorry about dinner. You two enjoy. Bye!”
Maggie watched Rosebud drive off, her stomach doing disorganized backflips. Just like that, she was all by herself with James at a restaurant. She wanted to believe he was the kind of man she could trust. But she couldn’t. “Maybe we should call it a night.”
“Are you kidding? If Rosebud finds out I let you drive home on an empty stomach, she’ll rake me over the coals. Hell, Nan would chew me out.” He sounded lighthearted, but there was no mistaking the intent in his eyes. “I’m buying you dinner, and that’s final.”
“Nan’s not home tonight. She has bridge club.” The moment she let that little nugget slip, she wished she hadn’t. That was the last possible excuse she could have hidden behind.
“Dinner it is, then.” He opened the door for her. She had no choice but to go on in.
The restaurant’s eight booths were a red, white and blue plastic that had gotten cracked and torn in the thirty or forty years they’d been bolted to the walls. Only one other table was occupied, seemingly by the employees of the place. The floors and walls were grimy without being dirty, and each of the tabletops was completely bare—not even salt and pepper shakers.
She felt way overdressed for the place. She would have been happier in jeans and a T-shirt, but James didn’t seem to mind. He greeted an older Chinese lady by name and slid into a booth in the middle of the restaurant. “Min, we’ll start with the crab rangoon and spring rolls. The lady will have General Tso’s chicken, and I’ll have the usual.”
The little woman nodded and smiled at Maggie before she tottered off to the back and yelled out things in Chinese.
He’d remembered what she’d said. She’d be lying if she said she wasn’t flattered. “You come here a lot?”
He nodded, perfectly at ease. He had one arm draped over the back of the booth, and his tie was loose. He fit in everywhere—this mom-and-pop restaurant, his cramped office, Rosebud’s spacious one, even in her tiny kitchen. He belonged everywhere, and she didn’t fit anywhere. “I don’t cook. I can say without reservation that this is the best Chinese joint in South Dakota.”
“What’s the usual?” Small talk. She could do this.
His smile was the easy kind. “Pork short ribs. Min knows how I like them.”
“How long have you been in South Dakota?” After all, if they were going to make small talk, they might as well talk about him. What else could he possibly want to know about her? They’d covered all the messy stuff—which was everything.
“Two years. I go back to D.C. every couple of months.”
“To see your parents?”
“My boss—Attorney General Lenon—likes to get face-to-face reports.” He said this as if it was an everyday thing.
She got starstruck. “You’re going to be president one day, aren’t you?”
His smile got a little less honest, a little more phony-politician. She half expected him to shake her hand and find a baby to kiss. “That’s the plan. It’s what I was raised to be—the family business, if you will. I wouldn’t be surprised if my parents had Carlson for President signs stockpiled in the carriage house.”
“Is that what you want?” She had no business asking, but she wanted to know.
“That’s the plan,” he said as if that answered the question when, instead, it completely sidestepped it.
Lawyers, Maggie thought. Not to be trusted. No matter how good-looking, kind or generous they were.
Dinner arrived, and as they dug in, James went on, “The Kennedys were senators, attorneys general and presidents. The Bushes sent their sons to Colorado, Florida and Texas with orders to get elected governor and position themselves for national runs. W. was the big winner of that race. This is a tried-and-true formula. Sadly, I don’t have any brothers to help improve the odds of a Carlson as president. It’s all me.”
“That’s a lot of pressure on you.”
At that, James tensed, the chopsticks halfway to his mouth. “I can handle it. It’s all about who you know and not screwing up.”
Maggie didn’t know what to say to that. She didn’t know anyone, but she had the screwing-up thing down pat. James could give her goofy smiles and buy her dinner, but the gulf between them was too huge to cross—even for daydreaming. She might not be the smartest girl in the world, but even she knew that a future president didn’t like, kiss or—heaven forbid—fall for an ex-hooker. To do so would be screwing up in the worst way possible.
But then he looked up at her and gave her the kind of smile that made her heart do a hop, skip and jump all at once. “This is nice, isn’t it?”
What was nice? “How do you mean?”
“Usually, when people realize who I am, they start wor
king the angle—if I’m going to run for president, they need to get me on their side as soon as possible so I’ll push for more guns or less guns or more spending or less spending or…” He sat back and exhaled. For the first time, she saw a crack in his armor. He could say he could handle the pressure, but she had to wonder if he was being honest.
Of course not, she reminded herself. Lawyers, by definition, were not honest men.
“You name it,” he went on. “Everybody knows someone who wants something. Everyone has an agenda. Except you. You’re different.”
Maggie’s heart went from skipping and jumping to flat-out cartwheels. On a deeper level, she understood exactly what he was talking about. Before, people had looked at her and never seen Maggie the person. Instead, she’d always been this thing to be used, abused and cast aside. She’d only been worth what people were willing to pay. That seemed to be what James was saying. People didn’t want him—only what he could do for them. That was a hard way to live.
Min walked quietly up to the table and slipped the bill and two fortune cookies onto the table. As he fished out two twenties and handed them to the woman, Maggie picked one cookie up, weighing the easy promise of a better future in convenient dessert form. She handed it to him.
He cracked open his cookie and read the slip. “‘Happiness is next to you.’” He mouthed something—maybe two short words.
“What?”
Their eyes met, and Maggie swore she felt a spark of electricity zing between them. “Nothing.” That was what his mouth said, but his eyes were telling a different tale, one of desire. Did he want her even after hearing her story? “What does yours say?”
“‘A great pleasure in life is doing what others say you can’t.’” Her face started to heat up, and suddenly, she realized what he’d said to himself—in bed. She wished she’d saved hers for later, when she was alone. “I think I got your fortune.”
She looked up and saw that he was watching her. The intensity in his eyes was unsettling. “Maybe I got the fortune I was supposed to get.”
A Man of Privilege Page 5