“But the fact is I’m not somebody’s mom. I don’t think I ought to try to look like something I’m not.” Ronnie’s chin came up, and she returned his thoughtful regard unflinchingly. She’d been down this road before, with other consultants. They all wanted to change her, to improve her. She was tired of it; what was so wrong with her the way she was?
Both Quinlan and his mother seemed to be studying her. Their eyes were the same, Ronnie discovered, glancing from one to the other. Like Tom, his mother had been blessed with deep gray-blue irises surrounded by a ring of smoky charcoal, set beneath thick, dark-brown brows and lashes. Beautiful eyes, she thought. Then, weighing eyes.
“Projecting an image is what politics is all about. All I’m asking is that you try to project the kind of image that will help your husband get reelected.” Quinlan’s voice was patient. He leaned forward, his arms folding on the tabletop. His plate had been pushed to one side.
“What exactly do you have in mind?” Ronnie asked warily.
Quinlan looked her over again, slowly. Ronnie got the impression that every aspect of her appearance was being analyzed, with much found wanting.
“Do you dye your hair?”
“What?” Surprise at the question made Ronnie’s voice go up an octave.
“Do you dye your hair?” He repeated it as though it were the most reasonable question in the world.
“That’s not something you should ask a lady,” his mother protested mildly, while Ronnie responded with an indignant “No!”
“I can’t believe that dark red color is natural,” Quinlan said, staring at it intently. “It’s too—red.”
“Well, I do beg your pardon, believe me,” Ronnie replied, affronted. “Not that the color of my hair is any of your business. You work for me, not the other way around.”
“Tommy …,” his mother began, only to be silenced by a shake of her son’s head. He focused on Ronnie, his gaze intent.
“Listen up, Miz Honneker: I was hired to make the good citizens of Mississippi want to vote for your husband come the next election. He’s well liked in the state, well thought of, highly electable. His biggest negative is—you. You are what we’ve got to make more acceptable to the voters. You know they don’t like you. You had ample proof of it today. You think they don’t like you because they believe you stole the Senator from his first wife. That’s a fair enough assessment. But the way you look is not helping. It’s like rubbing salt in the wound. You look like the kind of woman who could—and would—steal another woman’s husband. You just look too damned young, and too damned—sexy, for a politician’s wife. At least a winning, sixty-year-old politician.”
“Oh, dear,” Mrs. McGuire murmured, glancing from Ronnie’s angrily flushing face to her son’s determined one as they locked glances across the table. “I think I better leave you two to hash this out alone. Tommy, dear, mind your manners. Please.”
Mrs. McGuire rose, picked up her plate and glass, and left the table. Depositing her dishes in the sink, she walked out of the room.
When she was gone, Ronnie held Quinlan’s unyielding gaze for a moment longer, the light of battle in her eyes.
“This isn’t going to work,” she said with precision. “It’s obvious that you have a problem with my being so much younger than Lewis. Well, I have a problem with your having a problem with that and with the fact that you have such close connections to Lewis’s children. I just don’t feel comfortable working with you. Although I’m very grateful for all your assistance today, I’m afraid I’m going to have to terminate our association. I’m sorry.” She pushed back her chair and stood up, reaching for her dishes.
Quinlan remained seated, watching her. “Are you trying to tell me I’m fired?” He didn’t sound, or look, particularly perturbed by the idea.
“My, you do catch on quickly, don’t you?” Ronnie gave him a quick, glittering smile, and turned away to carry her dishes to the sink.
His voice followed her, faintly amused and dripping honey. “Miz Honneker, darlin’, I was hired by the Committee to Reelect the Senator. Not by you. They’re the only ones who can terminate my employment.”
Ronnie turned back from the sink, rigid with temper. “I won’t work with you. I don’t trust you. And if I say you’re fired, you’re fired. Believe me, Lewis will back me up.”
Quinlan’s brows snapped together and his lips parted as he started to reply. Obviously thinking better of what he had been about to say, he grimaced and stood up, leaving his dishes behind. His gaze met hers as his brow cleared.
“No need to go off half-cocked,” he said with wry humor, walking toward her. “I guess that red hair must be natural, because you do have the temper to match. Politics is a game, and to win the game sometimes we have to do things we don’t want to do. I know you don’t want His Honor to lose the election because of you. I can help you become an asset to him instead of a liability. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
Ignoring her fierce frown, he took her elbow and steered her toward the back door, which opened off a closet-sized mud room piled with boots, backpacks, and miscellaneous jackets.
“You want to help him win the election, don’t you?” he coaxed, opening the back door. He ushered her across a small concrete stoop, down two shallow steps, and over a too-crisp patch of dandelion-infested lawn.
“Yes,” she said unwillingly, allowing him to steer her toward an old-fashioned wooden porch swing hanging in the shadow of a tall oak. “But …”
“Then let’s talk this out.”
They reached shade and swing and Ronnie sat, not entirely of her own accord. The swing swayed beneath her. A sudden breeze was pleasantly cool as it touched her face. A huge bumblebee buzzed past. Tobacco growing in a nearby field rustled as the breeze turned into a gust of wind. The swing swayed again, and Ronnie looked up to discover Quinlan’s hand wrapped around the chain.
“I’m on your side,” he told her, standing over her, his expression serious. “Just because I know Marsden and Joanie and Laura doesn’t mean a thing. I’m here to help you. Everything that passes between you and me is confidential. I won’t go bearing tales on you to anyone. Any suggestion of mine that you don’t like, all you have to do is say no. But I get paid to make the suggestions. Now, you think about that, and you decide if you still want to fire me. If you do, I’ll quit. On the other hand, if you think we can work together despite the fact that I know your in-laws and I think your hair’s too red and you’re sexy, I’ll do my best for you. And my best is pretty damned good, if I do say so myself.” He paused. “It’s your call.”
Chapter
8
RONNIE’S TEMPER, always quick to ignite and just as quick to burn itself out, had already cooled. The old saw about someone being able to charm the birds from the trees flitted through her mind as she looked up at him. He smiled at her beguilingly.
“Will you really quit if I want you to?” Unwilling to be won over so easily, Ronnie decided to make him work for it.
“Absolutely.”
“Anytime?”
“All you have to do is say the word.”
“And you won’t get mad if I don’t want to follow your advice? You won’t go running to Lewis or Marsden or any of the campaign people to complain?”
“Nope.”
“If you do, I will fire you.” It was a warning, delivered with appropriate sternness.
“Understood.”
Ronnie surrendered, though with a frown and a glinting look up at him. “Then I guess we can give it a try.”
“Thank you.” He looked down at her for a moment, then asked gravely, “So the pregnancy thing is definitely out?”
Ronnie stiffened. Her eyes narrowed.
“Just kidding,” he said, and grinned. “Okay, that’s out. No pregnancy. And I take it you don’t want to tone down your hair. To mouse brown, or something.”
“No!” The truth was, although her hair was naturally dark auburn, she had her hairdresser enhance the colo
r monthly. But that was something she preferred to keep to herself. Certainly it was not anything he needed to know.
“How about your clothes?”
“What’s wrong with my clothes?” she asked defensively.
“Too …” He hesitated. A humorous gleam appeared in his eyes as he met her gaze.
“Too what?”
Expressive eyebrows said what he did not.
“Go on. Say it,” she dared him.
“Sexy,” he said. “I can’t help it. It’s God’s honest truth.”
“Today I was wearing a dress. A simple shift,” Ronnie protested, outraged. “It was linen, for goodness’ sake! I bought it at Saks in Washington.”
“Then I’d say that’s the problem. It looks like Washington, not Mississippi.”
“That’s ridiculous!”
“Did it look like what the women you met today were wearing?”
Ronnie hesitated. An inescapable vision of Rose in her gaudy dress popped into her mind. “No-o.”
“That’s the point I’m trying to make. In order to vote for you, they have to like you. Voters tend to like people they perceive as being like themselves. The key is for you to dress like the people you meet here in Mississippi. Maybe a little nicer, a little neater, but in the same vein.”
“It was a perfectly appropriate summer dress,” Ronnie protested again.
“Okay, let’s analyze this. What you have to ask yourself is, what kind of reaction will your outfit arouse in voters? What you wore today was a simple summer dress, without a doubt. I’ll even take your word for it that it was linen. No problem there. But it was purple, sleeveless, body-hugging. Short skirt. High style. Seeing you in it, young male voters probably thought, Yo, that’s one hot mama. Older male voters probably thought the same thing—and they might have also thought that their wives don’t look and dress like you. Older women might have remembered Eleanor, made a mental comparison, and turned against you in solidarity with her. And younger women, even women your age who can wear that kind of short sleeveless dress and look good, might think that they couldn’t afford it and resent their perception that the reason you can afford it is because you married a rich older man for his money. So in that outfit you can’t win.”
“So what you’re telling me, basically, is that stylish clothes are out.”
“No, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying short, tight, sexy stylish clothes are out. I want you to look real pretty, real feminine, but also real conservative. Knee-length or longer skirts. Not much skin showing. Nothing that is tight, or clings. Think something a mom would wear to a PTA meeting. Think something a Sunday-school teacher would wear.”
“In other words, think dowdy.” Ronnie’s voice was dry.
“Think winning,” Quinlan corrected. “As in, winning the election.”
“Do you actually think what I wear is going to make that much difference?”
“It’ll help.”
“Fine. I’ll keep it in mind. All right?”
“That’s all I ask.” He glanced down at the watch on his wrist. “We’ve got to start working on getting you home, you know. It’s after five o’clock.”
Ronnie was surprised by how much she didn’t want to return to Sedgely at the moment. Her chest got tight just thinking about it. The memory of what had happened that afternoon came flooding back. Everyone would blame her for this latest public-relations disaster. And there would be reporters lying in wait.
She just didn’t feel up to dealing with it.
“Not yet,” she said, casting about for some valid means of delaying the inevitable. She patted the swing beside her. “Sit down and talk to me. No advice,” she added with a darkling look up at him, “just conversation.”
Quinlan hesitated, then let go of the chain and sat down beside her, keeping the swing in motion with his foot, which was shod in the same dark sock and polished loafer he had worn with his suit.
“About what?”
Ronnie smiled at him, pleased at her success. “About you. If you get to ask me questions, then I get to ask you questions. How long have you been married?”
“I’m not married.” He was gazing out over the swaying tobacco field, so that his face was in profile to her. Ronnie’s gaze wandered down his high forehead, along his straight nose, over his strong chin. He had a nice profile, ascetic yet very masculine.
“But you said …” Ronnie clearly remembered him saying that he and Joanie had each married different people.
“I’m divorced.”
“Oh.” Ronnie thought that over. A possibility made her eyes brighten. “Are you involved with anyone?”
“Why?” He glanced at her, his expression guarded. She thought she detected a faint speculative gleam in his eyes.
“That’s not an answer.”
“That’s the best I’m prepared to do.”
“Thea is single—and looking.”
“Who’s Thea?” His voice went slightly flat.
“My press secretary. You met her today.”
Quinlan thought a moment. “Short black hair, short gray skirt, nice legs?”
“That’s Thea.” Ronnie frowned. “Did you think her skirt was too short?”
“No, not really.”
“Our skirts were the same length!” Ronnie pounced on the inconsistency.
Quinlan shook his head. “So? She’s not the wife of a United States senator running for reelection. The stakes are not the same. It doesn’t matter if her skirt is short. Nobody is judging her.”
“That’s what I hate about politics.” Ronnie subsided with a sigh. “Everyone is always judging me.”
“You should have thought about that before you married His Honor. Why did you, by the way? Is it a great love match?”
Ronnie started to reply, then shook her head. “Oh, no. We’re talking about you now, not me. What about your marriage? Was it a love match?”
“Sure.” He smiled easily. As his cheeks creased and his eyes crinkled with amusement, Ronnie found herself relaxing and smiling with him. He had a wonderful ability to put people at ease, she thought. Or at least to put her at ease. “At the time. I was twenty-one, in my senior year of college. So was she. We were crazy about each other. She got pregnant, we got married. But it didn’t last.”
“How long were you married?”
“Twelve years. Oh, the marriage was really over after about five, but we hung on for the sake of the kid.”
“You have a child?” Ronnie didn’t know why she was taken aback. It was perfectly reasonable that a man his age would have a child, or children. Marsden had two.
“You met him,” Quinlan said, surprised. “Mark.”
“Oh.” Ronnie suddenly saw the exchange she had witnessed between Quinlan and Mark in a whole new light. “I didn’t realize he was your son. How old is he?”
“Almost seventeen. He thinks he’s thirty.” Quinlan’s voice was dry.
“Does he live with you?” Ronnie was frowning. She had gotten the impression that Mark lived here, in the farmhouse, with Mrs. McGuire. Did that mean that Quinlan did, too?
Quinlan shook his head. “Not all the time. Christmas, summers, about every third weekend. It’s flexible. He knows I’m always available.”
“Do you live with your mother, then?”
He shook his head. “I spend a lot of time out here, particularly when Mark’s in town. He and Mom are pretty tight, and I don’t like to leave him alone in my apartment. But most of my things are at the apartment, so I suppose I live there. I travel a lot. Being on the road several months out of the year is an occupational hazard of what I do for a living.”
“Have you been working as a political consultant for long?” Ronnie was suddenly curious as to how such a career happened. As far as she knew, it wasn’t something one could choose to major in at college. He must be well known in the field, because Christine Gwen had recognized him.
He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Wondering if I’m any good? I am. One of the be
st in fact. I’ve been working on political campaigns since I was in high school.”
Ronnie did not doubt that he was telling the truth, but something was off. Political consultants went to the highest bidder, and the best commanded hefty fees, easily six figures a year. But Quinlan struck her as having had to scramble to get this job, as being hard up for work, as hurting for money in fact.
Before she could pursue that line of inquiry further, the screen door opened and Mrs. McGuire stepped out onto the back stoop.
“Tommy?” she called.
“Here,” he answered. Her head turned and she found them on the swing.
“Telephone,” she said. “Kenny.”
Quinlan frowned. “Excuse me.” He stood up and headed for the house. Mrs. McGuire came toward Ronnie as he left. They passed each other on the driveway.
“I believe we’re going to get a storm.” Mrs. McGuire reached the swing and stood beside it for a moment, staring out over the tobacco field. Gathering clouds darkened the northern horizon. The afternoon was still stiflingly hot, but there was an intermittent, cooler breeze that ruffled leaves and hair and whispered of an impending change in the weather.
“I hope so,” Ronnie said. “Anything would be a relief from this heat.”
“I sort of like the heat.” Mrs. McGuire smiled at her. “I guess because it says summer to me. Some of my happiest memories are of this farm in the summer. Tommy’s daddy and I moved here in the summer. He was born the following summer. His brother was born three summers later. And always, when the boys were growing up, in the summer there were ballgames and cookouts and swimming and happy times.”
“It sounds like you have an idyllic life here,” Ronnie said.
“Not idyllic, but good. Until Tommy’s daddy died anyway. After that, things changed.” She sighed. “But that’s the way life is, isn’t it? The one thing you can count on is change.”
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