“Uh, I’m she.” Lame! “I’m Alice, er, Doctor, uh. Oh crap! Yea, that’s me.”
“Frank Adams, ma’am.” He didn’t even blink at her being a total idiot. “Sorry that I’m a disappointment, but Dr. Darlington was unable to get away. He didn’t want to be late, so he asked if I could come and provide you with transportation.”
“Oh, okay.” Alice had hoped to wow Daniel with her new look, and instead she was suddenly facing one of the President’s personal bodyguards. The shift was jarring.
“May I say ma’am, that if I weren’t married, I’d be even more sorry that I’m a disappointment. You look great.”
“Uh, thanks.” That gave Alice some hope of not appearing like a total frump.
“Though, if I may?”
She shrugged her permission.
With a move that she barely registered despite her S.A.D. training, the massive man suddenly held a short, but nasty looking knife to her wrist. Before she could protest, he gave it a practiced flick and then it disappeared again from view.
With his other hand he offered her the price tag that had been dangling from the coat sleeve.
Chapter 11
Daniel met her at the garlanded North Portico, the very entrance Alice had discovered the day before. Now she knew what lay on both sides of the Doors of Alice. Daniel opened the car door himself and handed her out.
“I thought you said, ‘casual’.” She admired the charcoal gray suit that revealed a breadth of shoulder unusual for an office worker. Of course she knew why. Yesterday, wow, was it just yesterday, she’d woken earlier than Daniel thought and had gone out in hunt of food on the top floor of the White House Residence.
Instead of the kitchen, Alice had stumbled on the small gym where Daniel, clad in only shorts and sneakers, had laid on a bench pumping iron while watching CNN. And she’d thought he was gorgeous clothed.
She’d headed back to her room and waited for her nerves to settle before returning, by which time he was showered, dressed, and eating lunch. She’d had a terrible time meetings his eyes as she ate her yogurt for fear he’d see the truth in her face. The truth of what even being in the same room with Daniel made her feel.
“I had different plans, more casual plans,” Daniel apologized as he led her inside. “There’s a quiet little fish house I was going to take you to, but South Africa happened and we’ve only just wrapped it up. We’ll just have a quiet dinner in the Residence.”
Alice slowed to a halt as the door shushed closed behind her. The broad marble hall of yesterday morning had been transformed into a winter fairyland. Giant paper snowflakes of impossible intricacy dangled down the entire length of the Entrance and Cross Halls on the first floor of the Residence. A spray of glitter and subtle lighting had made them glow; the sole source of light in the hall. Columns of ice, she tapped one, plastic, flowed from floor to ceiling as if they held up the snowflake sky.
In sparkling contrast, a massive Christmas tree shone through the open double-doors ahead of her.
Daniel took her arm and coaxed her forward, “The Blue Room Christmas Tree. The room is just a little bigger than the Oval Office. This is only the second year since Jackie Kennedy that there hasn’t been a First Lady to decorate it.” Last year and this year. Following the death of First Lady Katherine Matthews.
Alice could only stare. It soared magnificently. A thousand ornaments must dangle from its limbs. Industry. It took her a moment, but that was clearly the theme. All of the ornaments had been made from a warm, dusky metal; pewter and bronze. Tiny airplanes, trains, automobiles, ships, and hundreds of other familiar objects had been created with a perfection and grace.
Each ornament lit by a pair of tiny Christmas lights in a vast rainbow of colors. She’d always favored using only white lights, but this tree could convert her to the many-hued camp.
The deep blue walls had been lit like the night sky, tiny sparkles making the room appear boundless. It was breathtaking.
Daniel allowed her to look to her heart’s content before leading her up the Grand Staircase.
She kept her secret agent coat firmly wrapped around her as he led her up to the second story and down the massive central hallway. The decorators had been here as well. A couple of cheery Christmas trees made the long hall homey. Wreaths bedecked the doors and someone with an immense amount of patience had woven overlapping red-and-green ribbons in a spiral about each column. Everything here was designed to make her feel small, but tonight she was simply going to refuse. Somehow.
“This is the President’s personal living room,” he turned for an open doorway.
“I thought you said a quiet dinner in the residence?” Somehow, she’d pictured the two of them back in the cozy brass and cherry wood kitchen on the third floor. Just the two of them.
“Just the President.”
“Do I look like the President?” A female voice sounded from past Daniel’s shoulder where he’d half-turned to speak to her.
Alice didn’t need the reminder of the midnight video conference to identify the first female pilot of SOAR. Major Emily Beale was dressed casually in ACUs, but made it look formal. The Army Combat Uniform had golden oak leaves that shone on the collar points of her blouse. That’s all that was needed to dress her formally. The long, slender, perfectly-formed blonde was so stunning she could probably make rags appear elegant.
Alice, as the queen of frump, didn’t need to be reminded of the fact by having to be in the same room with this woman. Sure thing no one would be paying her any attention tonight. Which normally was fine with her, but tonight it bothered her.
“Major Mark Henderson.” Beale’s husband came into view as Alice fully entered the room. His handshake was solid and friendly. He’d have stood out in any room that didn’t contain his wife. Or Daniel.
“Dr. Alice Thompson,” she managed a decent handshake this time.
“CIA analyst Dr. Alice Thompson?” Major Beale who hadn’t even bothered to shake her hand now inspected her carefully with a full attention so complete that Alice almost stumbled backward.
“You did the report last year on that new arms route they were developing southeast of Asadabad?”
Alice nodded. That had been three months of her life.
“You’ll be glad to know that your information let us wipe the hell out of it. If they even think about trying it again, we’ll own their asses. Well done.”
Major Beale’s simple nod may have been the highest praise Alice had ever received in her life. The woman was clearly a primal force. If she’d thought it was a load of crap, Alice would bet she’d have said as much.
“That is good to know. Thank you.”
“Yep!” Major Henderson wrapped an arm around his wife’s waist and pulled her tight against him. “We cruised up there just last week or so; all part of our full inspection and on-going maintenance service. Whole sections of that pass don’t even exist anymore. Seems that some significant chunks of the road disappeared off the cliff face and wound up in the valley a few thousand feet below. Can’t imagine how that happened.”
Alice could tell just by the immensely self-satisfied tone in Henderson’s voice. A dozen Hellfire missiles here. Call into the Air Force for a bunker-buster bomb there. No more Kunar-Bajaur Link Road. The Taliban had moved a million or more dollars of ammunition across that pass last year alone, wholesale. Nice to know that had stopped.
# # #
Daniel took Alice’s coat and turned to hang it up in the closet.
“Holy shit!” he heard the President’s deep voice.
Daniel spun to see what had caused a President, who didn’t even swear at midnight wakeup calls, to curse.
His eyes quickly passed over the occupants of the room and almost made it to where the President stood stock still at the door to his private bedroom. But Daniel didn’t quite get there. A sight dragged his attent
ion back to the woman whose coat even now slipped from his numb fingers and cascaded about his feet.
Cream skin and russet curls had been offset by a sleeveless green sheath dress so dark and rich that it made one understand what Mother Nature had been striving for when she’d designed the leaves of a holly tree. It draped left over right in a cascade that appeared to flow from one of Alice’s shoulders, the other exquisitely uncovered. Not a curve of her body missed or hidden, but neither overemphasized. It was perhaps the most elegant dress he had ever seen.
Then Alice turned those hazel eyes on him and, though her skin had flushed red, that amazing smile lit her face.
“You appear to have dropped my coat, Dr. Darlington.”
He looked at his feet indeed lost in a puddle of black cashmere, but he couldn’t think of what to do about it. All he could do was look back at the woman.
The President came up and thumped him hard in the center of his back driving what little air remained out of his lungs. “Breathe, man. Breathe before you pass out.”
Daniel gasped and suddenly felt quite lightheaded as his body dragged in desperately needed air.
The President retrieved the coat from about Daniel’s feet. As he rose, he leaned in and offered in a loud whisper that anyone could here. “Speak, man. At least tell her how nice she looks.”
He tried, he really did.
Then he cursed, spun, and strode from the room.
# # #
Alice stood frozen by his abrupt and apparently furious departure. Had he been upset that she’d dressed nicely when he said casual? She fought against tears when Emily hissed in her ear.
“If he’s what you want, go! Move, damn it!”
Alice was out of the room and down the hall before she had time to chicken out.
Alice caught up with Daniel at the far end of the Central Hall where he’d come to a stop against a grand piano. He clutched the edge of the case like a man drowning.
“Do you play?” she did her best to ask, to make it light and funny, but she couldn’t be sure that the words actually escaped past the tension that throttled her throat.
He nodded. Didn’t speak. Didn’t turn. Just a nod.
Alice couldn’t do it. Whatever momentum had carried her this far was gone. She felt drained. Once again she’d proven her mother’s words right, no one would ever want her. No one ever had, except for maybe a quick tumble and an equally quick goodbye. She was always too smart or not pretty enough or who the hell knew. By twenty-seven you think she’d be smart enough to know that men like the White House Chief of Staff would never want her to be anything other than meek and mild. A neatly classifiable object.
Well, she was better than that. She hadn’t spoken to her mother for the last five years the woman had been alive for a reason. Self-preservation. Well, that too was a hard won lesson. Her best option was to go. Now.
Her eyes hot and stinging, she turned to leave. Maybe she could find that Secret Service agent who’d brought her and go home. Or maybe not. The building was as hard to get out of as it was to get into.
“Wait.” His voice, barely a whisper, drifted down the hall.
“Why?” She stood with her back to him, no more than a half dozen steps between them.
“Please?”
So she stood. Stood and started counting to thirty. At thirty, to hell with what he wanted, she would leave anyway.
At twenty-two, she felt a fingertip brush ever so slightly across the bare shoulder. Rather than a shiver, a ring of warmth radiated from that brief contact.
Paralyzed, she couldn’t turn to face him.
Another brush of fingers and he caught some of her tears where they’d run unnoticed down her cheek.
“This is going to sound wrong.”
“It’s got to be better than silence.”
She could half see him nod in her peripheral vision, but she refused to turn. The silence was killing her.
“I don’t want it to be about the physical.”
“It?” she asked. “You’re so good with words, use them now when it matters.”
Again the peripheral nod.
Alice’s eyes focused down the hall. A pair of Secret Service agents stood outside the room where she could hear the others talking. Twenty paces away, they were clearly trying to not pay attention to the drama unfolding over by the piano.
“Will you sit, please?”
At her nod, he led her a little farther down the hall from the agents to a pair of armchairs placed close in friendly companionship. A small metallic tree dangling with dozens of tiny ball ornaments graced the small table.
She sat carefully, remembering she was wearing a gown and not corduroy slacks. Alice inspected her own hands. Could just see Daniel’s where they were folded together. There was a similarity that she could now identify, why his hands had looked particularly nice to her. They both had pianist’s muscles, a strength that came from the constant practice.
Again that crazy-making silence.
“You were going to define the ‘it’ you were talking about.”
“Right.” He took a deep breath and puffed it back out. “Right.”
She considered pointing out that he was repeating himself rather than making any headway, but she was afraid that would just earn her another “right” and she’d probably scream if he did that.
“I have all of these stupid ideas.”
“What kind of ideas? And don’t say stupid ones. I’ve heard that bit already.”
“Right—”
“Or ‘Right.’ I’ve had enough of that word too.”
Daniel reached out and took her hands. Somehow that forced her to look up into his brilliant blue eyes.
“You, in that dress, are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Thing?” she managed to give her brain a moment to shift gears, but it wasn’t enough. She knew she could pass for cute, but “most beautiful?” Not likely.
“Yes. Yes, for crying out loud! ‘Most beautiful woman,’ while nonetheless true, is far too small a category.”
“Oh.” Her voice was small, even she could barely hear it.
“I always believed that attraction should be built on a mutual respect, two minds that find similar interests. On the rare occasions when I have dated—”
“How rare?” The question popped out of the cataloging side of her mind.
“Rare enough. On those occasions, I’ve always grown to know the woman well before I, before we, before…” He huffed out a breath in exasperation, glanced over toward the two agents down the hall and then lowered his voice and leaned a little closer until she could truly see the amazing purity of blue in his eyes, no hints of brown at all.
“I’m so sorry I kissed you.”
“Why? Why are you sorry, Daniel?” She’d liked it so much.
“Because it was inappropriate. I did it just because I wanted you so much I couldn’t stop myself. It’s a lousy excuse and it won’t happen again, but I have no better—”
She leaned the last few inches and stopped his words with her lips. She ran her fingers up into the soft blond hair and dug them in so that he couldn’t pull back without taking her with him.
Daniel held off for the longest moment, then groaned and leaned in. His hands slipped along her cheeks and gentle thumbs rubbed along her ears. He kissed her so long and deep that she practically felt ravaged. She’d had sex that was less meaningful. Actually, Alice would wager that she’d never had sex that was anywhere near as meaningful as this kiss.
When at last he released her lips, he didn’t move away, but remained forehead-to-forehead, nose tip-to-nose tip.
“If you say you’re sorry, I’m going to smack you.”
“Then,” his whisper matched hers, “I won’t. I’ve dreamed of nothing else but kissing you again since when I kisse
d you goodnight the first time. And maybe before that.”
“Well, if you behave, maybe I’ll let you kiss me goodnight tonight, too.” If her heart could stand it.
He rose from the chair and helped her to her feet, which was good because her knees were distinctly watery and the mid-height heels were proving more precarious than planned. She and Daniel headed back to join the others, the pair of agents studiously inspecting the wall across the hall from the doorway they guarded. It was only as they reentered the room that she realized that Daniel had not released her hand from when he’d helped her to her feet.
Just the moment before anyone noticed their return, she leaned close and whispered quietly in Daniel’s ear.
“I’ve been thinking about a lot more than just kissing you.”
Chapter 12
Daniel sat at his desk the next morning and ignored the piles of paper that had grown significantly overnight.
He couldn’t help smiling at the memory of that moment last night in the President’s living room. For the second time in a dozen minutes, President Matthews had been required to slap Daniel’s back and remind him to breathe. Over cocktails, they divided pretty typically along gender lines, but for atypical reasons.
The men often stopped to join in on the women’s conversation. They appeared to have become instant long lost friends and the energy of it was electrifying. They were long lost friends who were both fascinated with the ebb and flow of global military tactics as they swept back and forth across the planet. Emily and Mark had amazing insights into the variations of localized conflict and the shifting tactics in the actual theater of operations.
Daniel offered country-level insights, and the President posited some fascinating cultural-level aspects in understanding some of the conflicts and their global ramifications that Daniel hadn’t previously considered.
Again, it was Dr. Alice who startled and amazed. She backed up her beauty with a very serious mind. She followed Mark and Emily into actual battlefield tactics that completely eluded Daniel even when they tried to explain them. At the same time, she was able to expand his and the President’s thinking on several subjects. When questioned, she backed up her comments with facts.
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