Each Precious Hour

by Gayle Wilson

  She climbed out of the car, stepping back far enough to allow her uncle room to exit from the same door, using her body to shield him from the revealing eye of the cameras. Getting into and out of a car was always awkward for him because of the prosthesis he wore in place of the leg he had lost in Vietnam.

  The questions from the press had already started, she realized, watching the familiar procedure her uncle employed to get himself onto his feet as smoothly as possible. Robin could recognize some of the voices because she had come to know the reporters who covered the campaign beat so well.

  When McCord was standing, he took her elbow and, limping slightly, guided her over to the out-thrust microphones. She tried not to hear the shouts coming from the demonstrators. Tried to consider them simply background noise.

  At least she wouldn’t have to think about what to say tonight. They were all here to listen to James McCord, hoping, she supposed, that he would commit to the race here and now. If he did, that would be scoop enough to interrupt the talking heads broadcasting the nightly news.

  McCord released her arm and raised both hands, palms turned outward in a request for silence. The reporters gradually complied. As the noise died down, the shouts from the darkness on either side of the hotel entrance became clearer, penetrating the cold, thin air.

  The comments and accusations were nothing Robin hadn’t heard before. Baby-killer. Armageddon. Doomsday. Murderer. Tonight they blended together in a cacophony of hate. In the blaze of lights set up for the camera, she could see the reporters’ faces. Despite the fact that McCord was about to speak, the eyes of too many had tracked over to where the swell of discordant voices originated. From out of the darkness.

  “I’m afraid I don’t have an official statement for you all,” Senator McCord said, Texas twang in place, his voice booming loudly enough to cover most of those shouts. “I want to thank you, however, for coming out in the cold to meet me tonight.”

  “Are you still planning to announce your candidacy on New Year’s Eve. Senator?” one of the reporters asked.

  “All I’ll say about that is that we’ll have something very exciting to tell you then. Long about the stroke of midnight,” he said, smiling. “You all be sure you’re here to hear it.”

  As soon as his answer faded, a chorus of questions followed.

  “How do you think the fact that you killed your team leader in Vietnam will affect your candidacy, Senator?”

  “Do you really think that, next November, people will be able to look past what happened in Nam?”

  “Someone has suggested that Congress might look into the possibility that your Medal of Honor should be taken away, given the facts that have just—”

  “Please!” McCord shouted, holding up his hands. “Please,” he said again, as the questions began to die down once more.

  Then, into the sudden stillness that had fallen as the reporters dutifully awaited whatever the senator wanted to say, another voice could be heard, high pitched and a little strange, but the words clear and sharp.

  “Hey, Jimmy-boy! Remember me? I sure as hell remember you, you murdering bastard.”

  McCord’s head jerked around, his eyes frantically searching the darkness. Robin’s gaze followed his, but it was impossible to see who had shouted. Given the other things that had been said tonight, she didn’t know why those particular words would have attracted her uncle’s attention.

  It must be obvious to everyone, however, that they had. At the senator’s distraction, the reporter’s rapid-fire questions began again, bringing McCord’s attention back to them. He turned once more toward the cameras, reluctantly, it seemed.

  “I need to get my niece inside and out of this cold,” he said bluntly, his voice raised enough to bark out that excuse over the continuing clamor.

  Then his trembling hand closed around Robin’s upper arm, dragging her away from the bank of mikes and toward the glass doors that led to the lobby. Shocked by the abrupt departure of the usually garrulous McCord, she looked up at her uncle’s face.

  His cheeks were blanched, and his forehead, despite the temperature, was covered with sweat. Even as he hurried her inside, his eyes continued to probe the darkness from which that taunting voice had come. “I sure as hell remember you....”

  Chapter Seven

  There had always been other options. Jared knew that. It was not something he had ever mentioned to Robin. In the back of his mind, he supposed, had always been the notion that he could wear her down. Convince her that she was wrong. Now, however, his options were more limited. And so was his time. She was carrying his baby, a baby he very much wanted.

  His child. And Robin’s. That was the way it was supposed to be. He had known that since the night he’d met her. He and Robin were supposed to be together. A family. Making a family.

  And it looked as if none of that was going to come to pass unless he did something to make it happen. He had accused Robin of being selfish, scared, immature. All of those might just as easily be applied to him. That was also something he’d acknowledged during the long Christmas Day he spent alone.

  As luck would have it, he hadn’t had to work. This was one holiday when he would have welcomed the distraction, but Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Men had prevailed. This year, apparently, even the terrorists had taken that admonition seriously. Which had given Jared lots of time to think. About Robin. The baby. And especially about those options.

  He could teach the skills it had taken him fifteen years to perfect. There was nothing dishonorable about instructing the next generation of technicians. He could truthfully say that he’d served his time on the front lines. He wouldn’t have to make that argument to anyone but himself, of course. There wasn’t a man on the squad who wouldn’t respect that decision.

  Or he could move strictly into the investigative phase, maybe even at the FBI’s state-of-the-art lab. Putting back together the pieces of a bomb someone had built and using what those pieces revealed to catch the bomber. There was nothing dishonorable about that, either.

  And yet he had never even mentioned those possibilities to Robin. Deliberately hadn’t mentioned them because he had known she would seize on them as a possible out. Somebody else will do it. The phrase seemed to haunt him, and every time he thought it, he saw that line of little kids holding hands, out on the sidewalk where they should never have been.

  He took a breath, realizing he was just going around in circles. And realizing that after this weekend, Robin would be gone. Off to Iowa and New Hampshire. Off to work more sixteen-hour days that would leave her exhausted. And she would be carrying his baby with her. A baby she didn’t intend for him to know or to have any role in raising. And Jared had already come to the conclusion that that particular scenario wasn’t an option.

  The sudden ringing of the phone was unexpected. He had talked to his mom and the rest of his family on Christmas Day. All his brothers and sisters had been at home, everybody but him. Maybe his mother had picked up on something in his voice. Her radar had always been very good where her children were concerned. And it would be like her to wait until everyone went home before she called to check on what she’d heard.

  He didn’t allow himself to imagine that it might be Robin phoning him. He had expected her to call all Christmas Day. She had told him she’d let him know about spending the holiday with him, and he had never known her to break her word. He also couldn’t believe she wasn’t as concerned as he was about finding a solution that would allow them to raise their baby together. So he had waited all day for a phone call that never came.

  His hand closed over the receiver on the second ring, and he brought it to his ear, concentrating on keeping whatever his mom might have heard during their Christmas Day conversation out of his tone. “Hello,” he said.

  “Jared Donovan?”

  He didn’t recognize the voice, but he knew the accent. It was a broader version of Robin’s, and when that realization kicked into place, he suddenly had a pretty good idea
who he was talking to. “This is Donovan.”

  “James Marshall McCord, Mr. Donovan. I think you and I need to have us a little talk.”

  “ROBIN’S DECISION,” Jared said quietly. “Not mine. Not ever mine. But I can’t change her mind. Believe me, I’ve tried.”

  “McCord family tradition,” the senator said. “Being bullheaded. Her daddy was the most stubborn jackass I ever knew.”

  “Your brother?” Jared asked. He knew the answer, of course, but it kept the conversational ball rolling. Jared was finding it hard to believe he was having a drink in a small neighborhood bar not far from his apartment with the man who would, in all likelihood, become the next president of the United States.

  For some reason, he had been prepared to dislike James McCord. It surprised him to find that he didn’t.

  “My brother,” McCord said softly. “Best damn law enforcement officer Star County, Texas, ever had. And they’ve got a pretty good one now.”

  Finding that those blue eyes had lifted from their contemplation of the drink the senator was holding in one big hand to focus on his face, Jared nodded.

  “’Course, I might be just a tad prejudiced about both of those,” Robin’s uncle said. There was a spark of amusement in his eyes now, which had, only moments before, been full of memories, seemingly on the verge of filling with moisture.

  It was a rare man who could allow his more tender feelings to show and then be just as comfortable mocking the fact that he had felt them, Jared thought. And a rarer man who could do it all without exhibiting the least trace of embarrassment. No wonder McCord was the front runner. He exuded charisma and a down-home charm it was almost impossible not to respond to.

  “Robin probably thinks you’re just like her daddy,” the senator said. “I expect that’s why she fell in love with you in the first place, so that’s not necessarily a bad thing. But allowing herself to love somebody doesn’t come easy. I’ve always been sorry about that. I did the best I could to help her heal after her parents’ deaths. It just wasn’t enough, I guess.”

  “She admires you a great deal,” Jared said carefully.

  “I kinda liked being the only man in her life. Deep down, I knew it wouldn’t last. And wanting to protect my girls from every hurt is just a form of selfishness, I know. Guilty as charged. To tell the truth, I’m looking forward to having some grandchildren,” McCord said, and then his voice softened. “I just wasn’t expecting to have to play daddy to the first one.”

  A surge of jealousy swept through Jared, followed swiftly by anger. What Robin was doing wasn’t fair. Even McCord seemed to understand that. And who told you life was fair, bucko?

  “That wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, either,” Jared said.

  “After I did some checking on you, I figured that’s the way it was. But I still wanted to meet you myself. You never know nowadays. People have strange ideas about responsibility.”

  “After you did some checking?” Jared questioned.

  “That doesn’t sit too well with you, does it? Mind you, I’m not making apologies for having done it. Robin’s like my own daughter. I wanted to meet the man she’d gotten herself tied up with. When I talked my daughter into giving me your name—”

  “So Robin didn’t tell you?” Jared interrupted.

  “Robin knows me too well for that. She’d know I’d want to talk to you myself. She was right.”

  “But you didn’t know why she refused to marry me?”

  “I knew that part, son, when they told me what you do. A whole lot of things fell into place right about then.”

  “Because of Robin’s father.”

  McCord nodded, his eyes briefly losing focus again as he became lost in the past. “I tried to talk him into running the ranch for me. I’d make that offer to you if I could, but...I think I’ve got that position filled.” McCord’s lips tilted into a half smile.

  “I appreciate the thought, Senator, but I don’t know anything about running a ranch.”

  “Just about bombs.”

  “I know a lot about bombs,” Jared said softly.

  “Takes a lot of guts to walk up on a bomb. Even nowadays.”

  “Most people think it takes stupidity. Or a death wish.”

  “You got one?”

  “No, sir.”

  McCord nodded. “I saw men who did. In Nam. Men who seemed to want to get themselves killed. And a few that seemed to want to get others killed.”

  Jared knew from the news reports about the incident in Vietnam that this was the essence of the claim McCord had made against the A-team leader he had killed—that he had gone crazy, getting his men killed unnecessarily, and as a result, McCord had been forced to stop him, the only way he could.

  “You see any of the clips from my arrival in town last night?” the senator asked after a few seconds.

  “I’m afraid I missed those,” Jared said.

  “Good for you. I wasn’t too proud of that performance. I let myself get distracted,” McCord said. “That’s not professional—or smart—when you’re dealing with the eye of the camera. Even if your mind’s a million miles away, you got to look like you’re on top of things. I didn’t do that last night.”

  He took another swig of his bourbon, and before he put the glass down, his eyes cut up to Jared’s face, the humor back in their pale blue depths. “You do much interrogation of suspects?”

  “No, sir,” Jared said. “That’s not my field.”

  “Now that’s a real shame. Here you got me dying to tell you something I was debating even bringing up. All because you aren’t asking.”

  “I figure you have enough people asking you things. But I’ll bite, Senator. What distracted you last night?”

  McCord’s eyes didn’t lose their amusement, but there was no trace of it in his words. “A voice from the grave,” he said softly. “Maybe...even from beyond it.”

  Jared held McCord’s gaze for a long, slow heartbeat, wondering if the senator could possibly be serious. People said anyone who wanted to be president these days had to be crazy. He was beginning to wonder if McCord qualified.

  “Beyond the grave?” Jared repeated.

  “I haven’t lost what little grip on sanity I had when I started this. Though truth be told...” He let the words fade without completing the thought, and when he spoke again, there was nothing cryptic about what he said. “Somebody yelled at me out of the crowd last night. From the darkness beyond the hotel lights. I couldn’t see his face, but I thought I recognized the voice. The inflection. Accent. Something. Maybe just what he called me—‘Jimmy-boy.’” There was bitterness in McCord’s repetition of the name. “Only one person in my entire life ever called me that. I hated it. And I hated him.”

  Again, Jared waited. McCord’s eyes were opaque. Shadowed. “Senator, I’m afraid I don’t understand—”

  “I always wondered if hating him played any part in killing him. I must have told myself a million times that it didn’t, but the fear that it did was always in the back of my mind.”

  “The guy in Vietnam?” Jared asked, suddenly putting this rambling discourse into some kind of context. He couldn’t imagine why McCord was telling him this, except it was obvious he’d been shaken by what had happened. What he thought had happened. Jared didn’t believe in voices from beyond the grave. He suspected that James Marshall McCord really didn’t, either.

  “That’s what I believed last night. I truly thought I was hearing Edwards’ voice. And it made my skin crawl, I can tell you. But...” McCord hesitated, taking a deep breath, his eyes again unseeing. “It’s been thirty years. How well would you remember a voice after thirty years?”

  “Maybe it was the name he used. Something you’ve always associated with him, so...you imagined it was his voice.”

  McCord nodded. “That’s the conclusion I finally came to, after missing a few hours of sleep. Somebody sure knew what would rattle my cage.”

  “To try to make you look bad in front of the cameras?�
��

  “Maybe. Or maybe just to remind me of...what happened.”

  “So who would know what he called you?”

  “Anybody in the unit, I guess. Certainly anyone who was on that team. ’Course, there aren’t that many of us left.”

  Again the words drifted away. After a long time, the senator reached into his pocket and brought out a folded sheet of paper. He held it a moment, tapping the edge of it against the fingers of his opposite hand, the one holding his glass, while his eyes examined Jared’s face.

  “I got something here I want you to see, but I don’t want Robin to know anything about it. It’ll only upset her, and I don’t think that would be good for the baby. So I want you to keep what I’m about to show you under your hat, you hear?”

  Jared couldn’t imagine telling Robin anything that might add to her stress. He also couldn’t imagine McCord sharing something of a very sensitive nature with a man he’d just met.

  “Since this is your home turf,” the senator said, “I thought you might be willing to take a look at it.”

  Home turf. That made it sound like something criminal. Jared was a cop. Or to use McCord’s term, a law enforcement officer. And the senator had said those words as if he had a lot of respect for men who bore that title.

  “Of course,” Jared said. “If you want me to.”

  McCord unfolded the paper and pushed it across the table; When Jared picked it up, he realized it was a photocopy. The original had been made up of words cut out of newspaper stories and then glued together to form a message.

  “Somebody slipped that under my door while I was asleep last night,” the senator said, nodding toward the copy Jared held. “I got the real one put away in a safe place.”

  Jared allowed his gaze to drop back to the paper he held, reading the message again, more slowly and more carefully. Somebody wanted McCord to drop out of the presidential race. More specifically, they wanted that to be the announcement he made on New Year’s Eve.