by Marie Force
“It’s no big deal. It’s nothing compared to what could’ve happened today.” He dropped his head onto her chest.
Sam ran her fingers through his silky dark hair.
“Why are you all cut up?”
“He wrapped me in razor wire so I couldn’t move.”
“Fucking hell,” he whispered.
They kept their voices down so their conversation wouldn’t be overheard. Thankfully the loud sirens made it easy to keep their words private.
“I was surprised you were out there when I heard your voice. Afterward. I didn’t think the Secret Service would let you come there.”
“They didn’t. I’m on Brant’s shit list big-time.”
Sam chuckled, imagining the scene he must’ve made. “So you laid down the law, huh?”
“There was swearing involved.”
“You never swear!”
“I do when my precious, beloved wife is in danger and someone is trying to keep me from going to her.”
She reached up to touch his hair and then his face. “Thinking of you was the only thing that kept me from losing my shit in there. I thought about you constantly.”
He burrowed into the space between her head and shoulder, and despite the lingering pain in her stiff muscles and the burn from the cuts, Sam wrapped her arms around him.
“I’m sorry to have put you through this.”
“Not your fault, babe, so don’t go there.”
“It was my fault. I went in there by myself with no one knowing where I was. It was stupid and not like me at all. But I didn’t get any alarm bells from Marissa when I was there earlier. She really played me, and now I’m questioning everything. If Freddie had done something like this, I’d be ripping him a new one right now.”
“From what I heard, you were shorthanded today and were working the case like you were supposed to. Don’t beat yourself up.”
“I could’ve gotten myself killed.” She had to fight to swallow over the lump in her throat. “I thought for sure I was going to die. I even thought about my mother and how I should’ve made things right with her when I had the chance.”
“Wow.”
“I know, right? I was really scared this time in a way I never have been before.”
“We’ll have plenty of time to talk it all through after the docs do their thing.”
“They better not come at me with needles.”
He raised his head to meet her gaze. “Do what they tell you to do so you can come home where you belong.”
“You called my dad?”
Nodding, he said, “I talked to him and Celia.”
“I haven’t even asked you about your first day at the White House.”
He cracked up laughing. “Who the fuck cares about the goddamn White House?”
“What’s happened to you? You’re swearing like I do.”
He lowered his head so he was speaking directly into her ear. “You happened to me. You make me crazy and frantic and out of my mind with fear and desire all in the same day.”
Sam smiled with pleasure and gratitude for him, for the second chance she’d been given and all the blessings in her life. “I do what I can.”
“I love you so much,” he whispered. “So fucking much.”
“Love you just as much. Maybe even more.”
“No way.”
“Yes way.”
He looked down at her for a long moment, smiling softly before he kissed her.
They were giving the EMT one hell of a show, but Sam couldn’t be bothered worrying about it. She was back in Nick’s arms, and she didn’t care about anything else but him.
Chapter Twenty-Two
They came at her with needles—lots of them. The cut on her neck and two on her legs required stitches, which in turn required several shots. After a couple of predictable jokes about punching her frequent-flyer card, Dr. Anderson got down to business, insisting on an IV to get antibiotics into her to prevent infection. And then there was the tetanus shot he’d given her because God only knew what kind of germs were on the razor wire.
By the time they were done with her, Sam felt like a tired, sore, cranky pincushion. Nick never left her side for a minute, holding her hand through each needle stick, wiping her tears when the pain became too intense. Once the tears started, she couldn’t seem to stop them as it came down on her how much worse this day could’ve been.
Though she desperately wanted to go home to her own bed, Anderson insisted on admitting her for observation.
“We need to call Scotty,” Sam said once she was settled in her room and the tears had stopped—for now.
“I already called him and told him something happened today at work and you were hurt but you’ll be fine. He said to tell you he hopes you feel better, and he’ll come see you tomorrow. Graham and Laine are staying with him tonight. Everything is all set.”
“You’re sure you told him it was nothing to worry about?”
“I did.” He brushed the hair back from her forehead, tucked it behind her ear and wiped away more tears with the sweep of his thumb over her cheek. She wanted to purr from the sweet pleasure of his touch. Even with everything hurting, she couldn’t get enough of him.
“Come closer.”
He’d removed his suit coat and tie hours ago and had rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt. “How much closer?”
“All the way up here with me.”
“We’ll start a scandal if they catch me in your bed.”
“Since when do we care about scandals?”
“True.” He worked his way around the IV tube and onto the bed next to her. Somehow he managed to get one arm under her neck and another around her middle without causing her a second of pain. He was just that good.
Sam settled into his embrace and breathed in the scent of him greedily. “God, you smell so good. You always smell so good. Have I ever told you that?”
“I think you have.”
“Do I still smell like gas?” The nurses had helped her to take a shower but the hospital soap hadn’t been scented and wasn’t able to do much against the pungent odor of gasoline.
“A little.”
“I need my stuff from home.”
“We’ll worry about that tomorrow.”
“I don’t like smelling like gas,” Sam said as new tears filled her eyes. She didn’t like being a weepy female either, but in light of what she’d been through that day, she’d decided to give herself one day to wallow in it before she got on with her life.
“It’s okay, baby. Everything is okay now. Why don’t you try to sleep?”
“I don’t want to sleep. I want to lie here with you and smell you and talk to you and touch you.”
“Samantha, sweetheart, you’re so tired. It’s okay to sleep. I won’t leave you for a second.”
“You must be hungry.”
“No way could I eat. Not yet.”
“Your reception at the White House! I totally forgot. I’m such an awful second lady.”
Laughter made his chest rumble. “Stop it. You’re exactly what I want, just the way you are.”
“I was going to be there. I swear I was.”
“I know that.”
“I want to see your new office as soon as possible.”
“We’ll do that. We’ll do everything you want.”
“I want to go back to Bora Bora for our anniversary.”
“I already scheduled the plane.”
“Damn, that’s right. We’ve got our own plane now. Maybe this new job of yours won’t totally suck.”
“Maybe not.”
“Do you like to ski?”
“Do I like to ski? What does that have to do with anything?”
“When
I was in that basement, I was thinking about all the things I don’t know about you. Skiing was one of them.”
“I love to ski. I don’t get to do it as often as I used to when I lived in New England, but we can go sometime if you want to.”
“I suck at it.”
“I’ll teach you all the tricks.”
“So what happened with Scotty that you said you’d tell me later?”
“We can talk about it tomorrow when you’re feeling better.”
“I’ll never sleep worrying about whatever it is.”
His deep sigh put her immediately on alert. Then he told her about Andy’s investigator finding Scotty’s biological father and how the man hadn’t known he had a son. “He wants to meet him before he’ll sign away his rights.”
“That can’t happen! If he meets him, he’ll want him. Anyone would!”
“Babe, settle down. You don’t want to tear open your stitches and have to go through that again.” He settled her back against the pillow. “As I told Scotty when we talked about it earlier, he’s old enough to tell the court what he wants. And he wants to be with us. He was quite adamant about that. But he also wants to meet his biological father. I answered a lot of questions about how it’s possible a man could not know he fathered a child.”
“I hate that he has to deal with this after everything he’s already been through.”
“I do too.” He caressed her arm, his fingers moving lightly over her skin, setting her entire body on fire for him, as if she hadn’t withstood a major trauma that day. It didn’t matter. If he was close to her, she wanted him. “He got quite upset when I made the mistake of referring to the guy as his father. ‘You are my father,’ he said. He almost made me cry.”
“That’s so sweet,” Sam said, blinking back tears. “He chose you as much as you chose him. Don’t ever forget that.”
“It makes me crazy to think of him having another father,” he confessed. “Which makes me feel like a jealous child.”
“I don’t blame you for feeling that way. I do too. I don’t want any other parents in his life either, but we’re going to have to take him to meet this guy, aren’t we?”
“Yeah. Andy said the other option would be to continue as his legal guardians without formally adopting him.”
“That’s not an option. I want it legal.”
“So do I and Scotty does, as well. Besides, now the guy knows about him. We don’t want him making trouble for us later. Better to deal with it now on our terms rather than later on his.”
“He can’t take him away from us, can he?”
“Not with Scotty wanting to be with us. Andy was very clear that the courts listen to kids his age on these things. I’ll tell you what he told me—try not to worry. This is procedural stuff and we have to deal with it to get what we want. We’ve got a great lawyer looking out for us.”
“So you’re not worried?”
He paused, long enough to tell her his true feelings. “I don’t want to be, but I am. A little.”
“Me too.”
Nick’s phone buzzed with a text message. He pulled the phone from his pocket to read it. “Your dad, sisters and entire squad are here waiting to see you. Can they come in?”
“My dad is here? He hasn’t left the house in weeks!”
“His baby girl was taken hostage. Where else would he be?”
Goddamn tears! She swiped at them and then regretted it when her bruised face protested. “My dad and the girls can come in. Ask the squad to come back tomorrow. And tell them thanks for everything today.”
He typed the message and returned his phone to his pocket. When he started to get up, Sam stopped him.
“Stay right here.”
“Your dad is coming in.”
“He knows we sleep together.”
“But does he want to see it?”
“I don’t care. I need you right here.”
“Then I’ll stay right here.”
The whir of her dad’s wheelchair was audible through the closed door. Sam would know that sound anywhere after three years of listening for it. They could hear her family members speaking to Brant before Tracy came in first, took one look at Sam and burst into tears.
“Oh my God, Sam!”
Angela was right behind her and held the door for Skip.
“Goddamn,” Angela said, covering her mouth with her hand when she saw Sam in the bed.
“Do I look that bad?”
“Worse than the pistol-whip,” Tracy said bluntly.
“Much worse,” Skip added after taking a shrewd, assessing look at her. “Stahl did this to you?”
“Dad...”
“Don’t Dad me. Tell me what happened.”
“You’ve already heard.”
“Not from you.”
Knowing she’d have to do it again for the record probably tomorrow, Sam took them through the whole thing, beginning with Lori Phillips’s murder and culminating with her return trip to Marissa Springer’s house. “I’m so freaking pissed with myself,” she concluded. “I did everything wrong today.”
“How so?” Angela asked.
“She never should’ve gone back there without telling someone where she was going, and she shouldn’t have gone in there alone—once, let alone twice, knowing the beef the Springers have had with the department,” Skip said.
Sam shrank into the bed, hating that she had disappointed him.
“That said,” Skip continued, “it happens. We get shorthanded with a hot case to contend with, and we do what’s got to be done. And that’s what you were doing today. Working the case. Doing your job. Trying to help to free your colleagues from the veil of suspicion. You did what anyone would’ve done.”
“I didn’t get any hint of anything to be worried about with Marissa the first time,” Sam said.
“That was probably part of their plan—play the part of the wounded mother and lure you back there on the guise of something that would help the case. I could fucking murder that bastard Stahl for this.”
“Someone else will take care of that for us when he gets to prison,” Sam said.
“That’s a small comfort when I look at your bruised face and smell the gas he planned to burn you with.”
Sam shuddered at the reminder as both her sisters sniffled.
“Close call today, baby girl. You’re going to need to take some time to process what happened and deal with it before you go back to the job. You won’t be any good to anyone if you go back too soon.”
“I know,” Sam said with a sigh.
“So you’re actually going to take time off and not argue about it?” Tracy asked, incredulous.
“Yeah, I am. I’ve got some things to take care of and Dad’s right. If I’ve lost my edge, even temporarily, I’ll be no good to anyone.” She could only hope her edge would come back at some point or she’d be totally fucked on the job. “Gonzo is coming back. He can cover for me for a while.” She looked at Nick. “Tell them about Scotty’s biological father.”
“What about him?” Skip asked. He and Scotty had become close pals and the alarm in her father’s voice wasn’t lost on her.
Nick filled them in on what was going on.
“He can’t take him away from you,” Skip said.
“We won’t let him,” Nick assured him. “Andy says everything is on our side here, especially the fact that Scotty wants to be with us.”
“Does he know?” Tracy asked.
“Yeah, I talked to him earlier. He was upset but determined to do what’s necessary to finalize the adoption.”
“I can’t believe his father didn’t know he existed,” Angela said. “Imagine what a shock that must be to find out about a kid that way.”
“We have to hope he�
��ll be satisfied to meet him once and let that be that,” Nick said.
“What if he isn’t satisfied?” Tracy asked.
“I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Nick replied grimly.
Sam didn’t even want to think about that possibility.
“On another note,” Nick said, “I made some calls today and found out about a spinal cord research study that’s underway at the NIH. They’ve had some breakthroughs with spinal cord patients who experience painful sensation in their limbs. I told them about you,” he said to his father-in-law, “and they’re very interested in seeing you.”
“Are they?” Skip said.
“Dad, that’s amazing,” Angela said. “They might be able to help you.”
“Thank you so much, Nick,” Celia said.
“Yes, thank you,” Sam added with a warm smile for her husband.
“They want you to come in next week. Is that possible?”
Everyone watched Skip expectantly. “Yes, that’s possible. Thank you, Nick. Even if nothing comes of it, it’s nice of you to try.”
“Something will come of it,” Sam said. The alternative was unacceptable.
* * *
They let Sam leave the hospital late the next afternoon and by dinnertime, she was settled on the sofa at home, surrounded by family, friends and colleagues. The abduction and rescue of the nation’s second lady had dominated local and national news all day. Unfortunately, it had also drawn unwanted attention to the fact that she had chosen to forgo Secret Service protection.
“It shouldn’t be up to her,” one pundit declared. “This is a national security issue. Once the crackpots hear that the vice president’s wife is unprotected, she’s going to be a target for every lunatic who has a beef with the United States.”
“Turn it off,” Nick said. “I’ve heard more than enough.”
“Wait, I want to know more about how I’m a national security issue.”
“Samantha.”
“Fine.” She hit the power button on the clicker. “He ruins all my fun.”
Nick scowled at her playfully, trying to hide that he was deeply concerned about all the same things the newspeople were talking about. Before yesterday, no one had paid much attention to the fact that she had declined protection. Now everyone was interested, including the Secret Service and Nelson’s team, which had been more involved with and interested in their new vice president—and his wife—in the last twelve hours than in the last six weeks combined.