The Tennessee farm, on the other hand, had been stormed by reporters and the Secret Service had left her protection in place, even added a few more agents. She only felt a little guilty for escaping and leaving it for Detra and her mother to handle today.
Out here she was alone. Beau Ridge was where she’d always come as a girl, riding Jolie before she’d learned the skills to ride Mephista. Jolie was now a dozen seasons gone and Mephista was showing signs of gray on her muzzle, though she showed no hints of easing down some. More than the house, out here was Anne’s home. The quiet place where there was no one but her and her horse. She couldn’t even see the house from here, though most of the farm was visible. Tall trees and rolling hills masked the buildings.
The air was chill enough that she could see her breath, but there’d been no frost on the ground. Here was her place and she was alone at last.
Except for the stupid Christmas carols.
It was all Darlington land for miles around, one of the grand old southern plantations saved by generations of hard labor. Beyond the eastern side of the property the Smoky Mountains were wrapped in the cool fog that gave them their name. She’d always liked the ride up to Beau Ridge through the cove hardwood forest. It was the most diverse biome anywhere in the country; yellow birch, basswood, sugar maple, and magnolia dominated this section of it. The trail circled low around the back of the ridge, with the sweeping vista as a surprise exit from the woods.
The Christmas carol on the phone changed to one she really didn’t want to hear. It had been sung by the Congressional Hearings acapella group and they’d done a much better job. She should get Zack to pass a law against Muzak; not that she still had any link to him.
Anne was on the verge of hanging up when the operator finally returned to say, “I’ll connect you now.”
A sudden chill shook her enough for Mephista to look up from the grass she’d been cropping. If this was Zack, she’d—
“Bon chance, Anne. We have reached you. That is so very good. I’m sorry, I could not make the New Zealand Ambassador hang up sooner without being rude.”
“Uh. Hello Ms. Matthews.”
“None of that, Anne. It is Genny. You know this. Tell me about the Mont Blanc Massif.”
“I don’t want to—” But Genny hadn’t asked about Courmayeur, or the disaster, or the disaster that she’d made of things with Zack. She should have said goodbye to him, but hadn’t been able to face him to do so. It was her greatest regret, because it had been cruel and cowardly.
“The Massif?”
“Oui! Did you know that just twenty percent of World Heritage sites are natural? The rest we call cultural, man-made. We have so very many applications for more to be named and protected, but I do not understand them well. So, when I work with the UN, I can not do the natural ones justice as they need. Tell me of the Massif, the flora and fauna, whatever you know. I visited Chamonix on the other side of the Mont Blanc Massif, but all I see were skiers and le charmant village.”
“First, if you are in Italy, you must call it the Massiccio del Monte Bianco or they will not speak to you.” Anne found herself sliding easily into the topic. Genny was a very willing audience and they were soon discussing details Anne was only peripherally aware of having learned on her days while Zack was in meetings, as she and Detra had hiked or chatted with the Italians of Courmayeur. Once she’d learned to name it properly, the locals had been only too happy to talk about their region of the Alps.
Anne dismounted and tied Mephista’s reins to a handy tulip tree. Jolie had always grazed placidly wherever you left her, Mephista would wander off just for spite.
“Oh, that is all so very helpful. It will be perfect when you come to Washington.”
“When I—”
“You will teach me and I will teach you. I never knew so much about how the wilderness is affected by the cultural pressures. Well, I know this, but I am not so good as you at putting it into words. And working with the UN ambassadors we have need to put it into words scientifically, but not in a way they won’t understand. You have the knowledge, the family name, and—I am ashamed to say it so bluntly—the class that is necessary to work with them.”
“But—”
Genny’s smooth voice and soothing accent were backing Anne into a corner until it felt as if an avalanche of words was landing upon her.
An avalanche.
One of those in a lifetime was enough.
“I’m sorry, Genny,” Anne broke in. “But I’m not coming back to Washington, DC. Nor to the UN in New York.”
“Oh but of course you are,” Genny didn’t sound the least bit unsure. What would it be like to be a woman without doubts? Anne couldn’t even imagine.
She leaned her forehead against Mephista’s neck. The horse’s fur was coarse and familiar. The horse turned enough to snort at her hair, the mare’s breath a warm wind across the back of Anne’s neck.
“I…” She thought back over their talk, then checked her watch. Most of an hour had gone by and it had happened in an eye blink. “I loved talking to you about this project. It’s fulfilling to use what I studied in school and on the farm to good end. Perhaps I could work with you on something again…” Anne steeled her resolve, “…remotely. Like this. From here. Not in—” She clamped down on her tongue before she sounded completely infantile.
Genny’s laugh was utterly delighted. “I told you that you and I would become such good friends. I can not wait to see you again soon.”
“Didn’t you hear me?” Didn’t anyone hear her? Her mother had told her everything would be fine. Genny was convinced that she would… “I’m not returning to DC. Not while,” she swallowed hard but couldn’t manage his name, “he’s there.”
“But Zachary is not here.”
“Then where is he?” And Anne cursed herself for falling into the trap of wanting to know.
“Why he is there,” Genny said with absolute confidence. “You must look around, my good friend Anne. There is a whole world waiting for you.”
“What do you mean he’s here?” Then she raised her head and peeked over Mephista’s dark withers. “Oh shit!” Then she clamped a hand over her mouth to block any other foul language.
Somewhere in a distant corner of her mind, Genny’s laugh was a merry ringing of bells.
In the foreground, not even a hundred yards away, Zack Thomas was riding up the trail with Harvey and two other agents in tow. Zack rode as naturally as he did everything else. Harvey managed; the other two would be lost at the first low tree branch.
If she were mounted, she’d run. No one could catch her in these hills if she rode Mephista.
Except maybe Zack, who rode his saddle far more magnificently than she skied, even though he did hold the English bridle western style. No hat or gloves, he wore a sheepskin jacket that he hadn’t bothered to button over his sweater. The man was part polar bear. He should go to the North Pole with Santa and the elves and leave her alone. But he was here.
He was here!
No one knew about this place, not her mother, not anyone.
Oh.
They’d traced her phone while she spoke to the First Lady about the Mont Blanc Massif and UNESCO World Heritage, the first intriguing idea for Anne’s future that she’d ever come across.
She ducked her head back down behind Mephista’s neck and spoke into the phone.
“Friend or not, I’ll get you for setting me up like this, Genny.”
“Good. I am looking forward to it, because you must come to Washington to do this to me. Au revoir!” And the phone went dead.
She peeked back over Mephista’s neck. Zack was still there, looking even better than he had a moment before.
# # #
Zack knew he shouldn’t be grinning; he was facing the woman who had told him no. But after he dismounted and walked up to the other side of
the beautiful red mare and looked at Anne across the horse’s withers, he couldn’t help himself.
“God, but it’s good to see you, Anne.”
She ducked her face out of sight again so that all he could see was the top of her head as her face rested against the bay’s black mane.
He moved in so that he’d be right there when she popped back up again, but Anne’s horse had other ideas. He saw the horse try to swing her hindquarters into position for a kick, but he knew the motion and shifted toward her head. The mare was smart enough to anticipate, perhaps even have planned on that, as she swung her head to nip at him. Only good reflexes saved him from the sharp click of her teeth inches from his arm. Then she gave a snorting horse laugh. Yes, she’d known exactly what she was doing.
“I don’t think your horse likes me very much.”
Anne looked over the withers again, only her eyes and the top of her head showing. “Mephista is a very smart horse.”
Mephista. Devil horse. Of course Anne Darlington would ride such an animal. “Is there any chance of us speaking without an ornery horse between us?”
“No!” She said it sharply enough that the horse turned a worried look in Anne’s direction. “And she’s not ornery, she’s…lost.” The last word was a bare whisper.
Zack tied his own horse’s reins to the same tree as Anne’s, then circled around the tree until he was on the same side of the red mare as Anne. The agents all dismounted with a look of relief and moved off to set up a perimeter, which wasn’t necessary, and to give him and Anne a little space, which he didn’t know what to do with.
He rested his hands on her shoulders and slowly turned her to face him. He didn’t expect what he saw when he did; he’d never seen Anne cry before and it undid him. At a loss for what else to do, he pulled her into his arms and she didn’t fight him. She lay her head against his shoulder for a long while, not sobbing but merely sniffling from time to time.
When he stroked her hair she moved back and then another step until she bumped into her horse. She wiped at her eyes with gloved fingers, then looked up at him. It was clear that she wasn’t going to speak first and this was up to him. He wished Genny was here—she’d rounded on both him and her husband about what idiots they were. Maybe that was the place to start.
“Genny says that I’m an idiot.”
Anne didn’t leap to his defense as some part of him had hoped, instead she eyed him as speculatively as her horse had.
“She did a good job of making her point.”
Anne nodded, “She does that. Why are you an idiot?”
Okay. Definitely not leaping to his defense. “It’s not completely clear. She had many, many points. I think the main one is that I’m a crappy listener.”
Anne squinted at him in thought. By the tip of her head he’d say that she didn’t agree, but wasn’t sure enough to argue the point either.
“You came to Washington looking for what you wanted to do.”
“I did,” her surprise told him that that fact had been lost for her as well.
“You swept me off my feet from the first moment I saw you, Anne, and I let that be enough for me,” he was feeling his way along here.
Her insatiable joy and humor had overshadowed every memory, but there had also been her expression as she’d sat behind her brother’s desk: an expedition leader overwhelmed by the vast wilderness in every direction. That brief glimpse of sadness as she’d sat alone in the Music Room before he invited her out to the Conservatory concert.
“But that wasn’t enough for you. I can see that now, but I didn’t before. Or maybe I did but chose to ignore it. So, talk to me, Anne Darlington, and I promise to listen.”
“I—” she looked away and brushed her hand on Mephista’s muzzle. “I don’t know what to talk about. It’s…I don’t even know what it is.”
Zack didn’t either. But he knew a question that must lay near the core of the matter and it had an answer he definitely wanted to change. It was a Hail Mary play. When the quarterback had no hope of saving the game and no time, he risked everything. Heave the ball high and long, let it loft through the air forever in a clean spiral that seemed to defy gravity, and pray that there was someone able to catch it far down in the endzone.
He took her hand and tugged her gently away from her horse. He led her to the edge of the ridge and guided them to a fallen log overlooking the rolling mountains bathed in the morning sun. Hoping to keep the connection, he didn’t release her hand but went for the grand play, the Hail Mary of them all.
“Tell me why you said no.”
And as the morning passed and the sun warmed the day, she did. They spoke of her not wanting to be merely Mrs. Zachary Thomas, not Mrs. Second Lady, not even Mrs. First. For the first time, they spoke of her dreams and his. Of the brilliant, vivacious woman unable to find what she wanted and the lonely boy who, in seeking approval of others might one day lead the nation.
“I’m supposed to give you this,” he fished into his pocket. Genny had said he would know when to hand it to Anne and though she’d refused to say how he’d know, she’d been right. He did.
“It’s a job offer,” Anne read it. “Genny is the UNESCO World Heritage Centre’s ‘Ambassador’ to the General Assembly. She is offering me a job as her special assistant in charge of all natural-site applications.”
“What do you think?” It sounded like Anne Darlington, and he liked that.
His answer came when she cradled the letter to her chest beneath clasped hands.
This time he was the one to brush the hot tears from her cool cheeks.
“What?”
“I would love to do this. I don’t think I knew how much until she and I talked about it for so long…while you were busy tracing my phone call location.” She glared up at him, but it worried him less than it might have a few hours ago.
“I would never do such a thing to the woman I love,” he hooked a thumb toward Harvey. “He did it for me.”
“The woman you love,” she didn’t make it a question which he also found deeply encouraging.
“Yes, Anne Darlington. And I seem to recall that you said the same thing about me.”
“I remember that too,” she read the letter in her hands again, then cradled it back against her chest. She looked out at the horizon for a long time and he let her be.
He too looked out, more than a glance which was all he’d spared the view since they’d arrived. He could see why she loved this spot, had come here seeking answers. Her mother had said that was what Anne did, rode off into the wilds of the estate and always came back so much surer of herself. He could see why.
She belonged here.
He’d like to show her the mountains of Colorado, but he could see them ending up here. His home was no more than a set of trains sprawled across a large basement and memories of a father who was rarely home. Here a family could grow. Here there might be a place for the both of them in some distant future.
“Zachary?” It was the first time she’d used his full name except by accident.
“Yes, Anne?” She still looked out at the land, but he knew that she too was looking far into the future rather than at the rolling forests of the Smoky Mountains.
“When it’s time for you to ask your question again, I’ll have a different answer for you.”
And she was right, it wasn’t time yet to ask. Like Genny Matthews’ job offer, Zack knew that he’d know when the time was right to do so.
They sat hip to hip on the log, his arm around her waist, and watched the sun chase the shadows over the hills.
Chapter 12
Zack’s second trip to the Darlington Farm was as unlike the first as could be. The first time he’d come with fear in his heart and the First Lady’s diatribe on idiot men still ringing in his ears.
This time it was the Darlingtons who had extended
the invitation and they all had come. Not just he and Daniel with his Alice, but the First Family as well. The Secret Service had done their usual job of securing the property, made easier because the party had remained small.
“We agreed years ago,” Mary Annette Darlington had informed him, “that each family who works the estate would have their own Christmas and be with their own families. For Thanksgiving, the Fourth of July and so on, we are all together, but for all of us the Darlington Estate is closed and private for Christmas.”
That didn’t mean they lacked the capacity to set out a grand spread when the occasion arose. They not only fed the Secret Service agents who had to work the Protection Details in two separate shifts of Christmas dinner. Zack and Anne had also made sure that the families of the men and women who had fought the Italian avalanche with him were invited as well.
The main estate itself was a grand set of buildings. Much like the White House, the lower stories of the old plantation house had been converted into the offices, kitchens, and tourist areas. The family ranged very comfortably throughout the top floor. They filled four of the five bedrooms. Any fantasies he’d had picturing Anne skiing were more than allayed by the magnificent series of photos of her with her horses and their trophies that adorned her room. The age progression of a beautiful girl growing into a stunning woman each in high boots, jodhpurs, helmet, and form-fitting black wool blazer was enough to undo him.
Downstairs, the period furniture had been preserved and the simpler period Christmas decorations had been hung. Not so upstairs. Great swags of holly and spruce were draped about the central sky-lit hall. In the very center stood a tree as grand as the White House’s Blue Room Christmas tree. It was decorated with two hundred years of handmade ornaments; some were simple children’s work, others were utterly elegant.
“These were Anne’s work when she was younger,” Mary Annette whispered with obvious pride as she toured him about the tree. Her gesture picked out a cluster of six eggshells. They’d been poked at either end to be emptied and allow a ribbon to be threaded through the middle. The white surfaces had been pen-and-inked with fine geometric patterns in a wide variety of colors. “It’s in the Hungarian tradition, not that we can boast anything so exotic in our heritage. The Darlington’s are very boringly Anglo-Saxon I fear.”
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