Roy's Independence Day

by M. L. Buchman

  “You?”

  “There was a carefully underreported incident where it came down to Beat and I, the President and the future First Lady under heavy fire in a foreign country. You’ll be too busy to be terrified or worry; that’s when your instincts will kick into gear.” Then he offered a wry smile, “The shakes will come later though, that I can promise.” Then he straightened up. “Now get the hell out of my office. I’ve got work to do.”

  Roy stood at his own desk out in the main area and decided Adams was right, to hell with the books. Now it was time to start thinking about his own detail.

  He considered for a long minute, then messaged the Paris office. He’d pick up two stringers and a pair of vehicles from the office there for his team. Then he prepped a pair of flight cases. In the first one he packed his sidearm, his backup, and a Glock 43 for Sienna if there was an emergency. He signed out five extra magazines for each, because if that didn’t do it, they’d be done for anyway.

  In the second case he put the new CSASS rifle. It wasn’t even in distribution yet, but he’d been part of the team to test the Compact Semi-Automatic Sniper System and he completely agreed with the selection of Heckler & Kock’s modified G28 as the new weapon of choice. And at the moment he appreciated it all the more because it folded down neatly to two-and-a-half feet long rather than the typical four to five feet for a top sniper rifle. He made sure that he had the clearance paperwork for all four weapons. He almost tossed in the National Security Advisor: Protection Requirements and Methodology manual as well, but decided that Adams probably knew what he was talking about.

  Then he laughed. Of course Adams knew. He’d asked Roy plenty of questions this morning that weren’t in the manuals. As much as he’d been testing Roy, he’d also been teaching, making sure Roy knew what he needed most. He dumped the damn manual back on the desk, tapped the laminated contacts card tucked in his shirt pocket, and strode out of the office, giving Adams a cocky wave.

  Then he’d slunk back in for his own suitcase and jacket.

  # # #

  “I’m sorry, Roy,” Sienna greeted him as soon as they met out at Andrews Field. She lugged one of those square black cases that lawyers and airline pilots always carried. He took it from her and almost dropped it.

  “Thing weighs a ton.”

  “All of the prep materials I need for France but haven’t had time to look at. I’m going to have to work the whole flight. I’d sort of hoped—”

  “Not much privacy,” he pointed at the plane waiting for them on the tarmac. The National Security Advisor was rated as a mid-level protectee. The high-levels included: the First and Second Families, Presidential candidates who’d won a few primaries, visiting world leaders, and occasional high-risk individuals.

  Mid-levels like the White House Chief of Staff, the NSA, and the majority and minority leaders of the Congress almost always had an agent driver and someone watching their home. Roy had been aware of the agent who had discreetly followed them back to his house the three nights that he and Sienna had managed together. If Sienna had noticed, she gave no sign.

  Low-levels were on the lists and watched, but not constantly monitored. Dilya was a low-level when she was at school, but a high-level when she was traveling with the First Daughter.

  When a mid-level picked up an overseas assignment, their team size increased two-to ten-fold depending on a wide variety of factors. One thing it earned them was a private jet. In the NSA’s case, it was a ten-seater Gulfstream G450—a small, sleek aircraft that would punch across the Atlantic in just six hours.

  But a G450 offered no privacy for what he wouldn’t have minded spending the ocean crossing concentrating on.

  “I,” Sienna sounded a bit indignant, “do not have a one-track gutter mind.”

  “But you make it such a nice one-track gutter to contemplate.”

  “Hey.”

  “What?”

  “Look at me.”

  He hadn’t realized that he wasn’t. He’d been inspecting the security. Outer layer guards. An immaculate cleanliness to the hangar and the base that made it much harder to hide things that didn’t belong. The behemoths of this part of the airfield, the four jets of the Air Force One and Air Force Two fleet had a standing honor guard. The Gulfstream 450 presently boasted a guard herself in addition to two pilots and a mechanic going over their preflight checks.

  “Sorry. Habit. I’m just checking security.”

  “Now I’m the one who is sorry. Go back to doing that.”

  “But pay attention to you while I’m doing it?”

  “Of course.”

  “The problem with looking at you, Goddess Sienna Aphrodite, it makes it hard for me to concentrate on anything else.” He offered her a leer which earned him a laugh, then he turned to inspect where he would set up if he was a sniper aiming at the NSA or her plane. He was pleased to see that the most likely hides were all inside the base’s security perimeter.

  “What I was saying before some rude, crude gentleman interrupted me—”

  “Never have been accused of being a gentleman before.” They headed across the tarmac between the hangar and the airplane which opened up new ranges of fire that were not inside the Joint Base Andrews’ perimeter. A peek-a-boo view of a low office building to the east would be his first choice. Even though it would be a lousy and difficult shot, he slowed a half step to keep between it and Sienna.

  “I had been hoping that we could talk a bit during the flight, as I was fully aware that we wouldn’t have the privacy for what I really want to do. See, women sometimes have one-track minds as well.”

  “I admit to liking the one-track. The talking I’m less sure about.”

  She was quiet as they handed off the luggage to the pilot. He handed the paperwork for the two weapons cases to him as well. The pilot read them very carefully, inspected the contents, countersigned that he was aware they were aboard, and stowed them with the baggage. Roy went aboard carrying only a small notebook, his phone, and Sienna’s massive briefcase.

  They settled in their seats.

  “Soda, beer, and wine in the fridge at the rear,” the copilot pointed as he boarded. “Some snacks too. This morning’s inflight movie is Tom Hanks in Castaway and then—”

  “Then,” the pilot came up behind him, “Your choice of Harrison Ford crashing into the ocean in Air Force One or White House Down. Yeah, yeah.” He nudged the copilot forward. “You folks need anything, just let us know, otherwise you can self-serve.” He closed and latched the outside door, then entered the cockpit himself, sliding a privacy curtain half closed. A clear message of: ‘We’ll leave you alone, but you’re welcome to duck your head in.’

  “So, you’re not much of a one for talking?” Sienna teased him.

  Not one for talking? He’d talked more to her than all of the rest of the women in his life…combined. And she made it so damn fun. She didn’t judge him for having less education or worldly experience. Instead she listened to what he said, gave him the space to develop his thoughts.

  It had been a joy to offer her the same. Sienna’s conversations ranged far and wide. She joined together scattered bits and pieces into logical, sensible structures. Then she turned around and tried to tear them back apart. It had become one of his favorite games with her, watching her build those clear towers of thought and then help her poke holes and dig out crevices while she struggled to patch them back together with new ideas.

  “Nope,” he teased back. “Never was much of a talker.”

  “Liar.”

  “Well, not before you. You make me feel…” He wasn’t sure how to finish that sentence and thankfully the plane’s engines winding to life gave him an excuse to leave off.

  Sienna Arnson made him feel so…alive. As if he’d been asleep on his feet for years and was finally coming awake.

  He looked across the table at her
. They’d sat in a pair of comfortable seats that had more in common with armchairs than his usual coach-class airplane seats. He’d taken a backward facing seat, letting her fly forward. There was a matching setup across the aisle and a sofa to the stern, facing across the cabin to a large-screen television.

  Her attention was already drifting down into the first of the thick briefing folders she’d extracted from the case by her feet. Any strands of hair that had slipped loose from the roll at the back of her head, she slipped between her lips. She didn’t chew on it, but simply trapped it between clamped lips as she concentrated.

  They taxied away from the hangar and the pilot announced they were first in line for takeoff so they should “hang onto their stirrups.”

  He’d come to know every curve of her features, even how they changed, like the shape of her cheek when she smiled. The angle of her shoulders when she was exhausted or fresh off a workout. The way her eyes narrowed when she was concentrating, yet her brow remained clear and unfurrowed. He wondered how time would change her. He was a little surprised to realize that he’d like to be around to find out. It was easier to imagine waking beside her every day than not doing so.

  Every day for how long, Beaumont?

  He wasn’t used to such a question. Thinking about his future hadn’t preoccupied him much over the years, as both Kee and Adams had pointed out. They were smart people who he respected immensely, so maybe it was time he started.

  The engines roared to life and the plane bolted down the runway.

  So: every day for how long, Beaumont?

  He couldn’t imagine ever not wanting to be beside her when she woke.

  He could imagine her with…

  “Do you want children?”

  “Do I what?” Sienna shouted back over the takeoff roar, but her look of shock showed that hearing him wasn’t the problem. The folder she’d opened fell to the floor and she didn’t even notice.

  Now that he’d asked the question, he did want to know the answer. He shrugged, at something of a loss to identify where the question came from. Partly Frank and Beat’s choice, partly the mischievous Dilya, and partly the gorgeous First Lady with the cutest kid ever.

  The plane lifted and took to the sky.

  Sienna watched him without speaking until they were well aloft.

  “Do you?” She asked softly once the engine noise had dropped enough to speak normally.

  He wanted to shrug, as if it wasn’t any real difference to him one way or another. But the images from the White House reception were too clear. He’d never really thought about kids, no more than he’d thought about his long-term career. He was a shooter, that’s what he did—until he suddenly became the head of the NSA’s protection detail.

  Kids were part of being a normal family, at least for others—until he imagined Sienna’s children. He could see her with them so easily.

  But not if they were another man’s.

  “Yes,” he finally answered. “Yes, I do want kids. If they’re with you.”

  # # #

  That shot went straight to Sienna’s heart, slamming her back into the plane seat. She tried to see into Roy and discover where the question had come from.

  Well, parts of that were easy. Frank, Beat, Dilya, the First Kid: they all added up to make a man think about children.

  But that wasn’t what he’d said.

  He’d said, If they’re with you.

  She wanted to parse and analyze the words. Break them down for inner meaning and nuance.

  But Roy was too forthright a speaker. When he meant something, he said it in as many words. Any other man, any decent man who wasn’t trying to make her crazy, would have said, “I don’t know where that question came from. But I’m just kinda curious if you were one of those women who wanted a family or are you some kind of careerist?” Complete with insulting tone as if the two were so mutually exclusive.

  And Roy had said, If they’re with you.

  “But we’ve only known each other for—” She had no idea. She knew him so well, but did she know him at all?

  “Seven days as of 10:17 a.m. tomorrow morning. That’s East Coast time. 15:17 Paris time.”

  “Seven days?”

  “Six days and eleven minutes as of right now,” he tipped his watch in her direction as if to prove his point.

  “Six days and eleven minutes?” She wasn’t making any headway with the concept. She’d once lived with a man for six months, even been talking about becoming engaged, and didn’t begin to know him as well as she knew Roy.

  “Twelve now,” he smiled. “Not that I’m counting.”

  “And you want to know if I want to have children?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “With you?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Did you just propose to me?” Even if he didn’t connect the two, Sienna knew that he wasn’t the sort of man to talk about having children out of wedlock.

  Roy blinked hard. But he didn’t have the decency to look abashed for more than a few moments. “Huh.”

  “Huh?” It had been a very noncommittal sound.

  “Can’t say as that’s what I was asking. Six days and twelve minutes seems a might bit quick for that.”

  “Thank god.”

  “So let’s table that part of it.”

  Sienna sagged, but it wasn’t only with relief. She had to admit that there was just a little disappointment there as well which, as Roy might say, was surprising as all hell.

  “For now, anyway,” as if he was reading her thoughts. “But I would like to know your answer to the first question.”

  “Children? With you?”

  “Just askin’.”

  Never having had a conversation like this one (Ever! Anywhere!), Sienna didn’t have much to go on. There would be no synthesizing a well-researched set of options into an actionable scenario. There was no National Security Advisor report or think-tank modeling she could fall back on.

  Children? With Roy?

  The second part was easier to answer. She’d seen him with the children at the museum. And she’d listened to the lessons of the forest taught by his reticent father, but inhaled by the child right down to his core. Even his treating Dilya as an intelligent grownup rather than dismissing her as some teenaged girl.

  With Roy? No question. It was hard to imagine a man who’d be a better father.

  Actual children? Little Siennas running about the house? That was far trickier.

  She watched out the window as shore gave way to bay, then after a brief splash of green that was Delaware, true ocean. To hold a child who reached up and mussed her hair at a glittering party. To watch her turn into whatever version of Dilya the girl might become. Or a boy cut from the same cloth as Roy Beaumont. There was a truly breathtaking image.

  She looked back at him, waiting patiently. All of his attention focused on her as he waited for her answer. A man who thought her answers were as important as his own. Who had proved time and again that he thought her pleasure was as essential as his own. A man of such integrity that he wouldn’t even steal a kiss when it was offered because of some whimsical challenge.

  “Yes,” the word slipped out on its own, but she felt no desire to take it back. Children with Roy only had one answer, though she repeated it just to try its flavor, “With you? Yes.”

  He nodded carefully, “Good to know.” Then his smile lit up and erased any doubt she might have.

  The insanity of the moment set her to giggling. She wasn’t ready to marry Roy but would have his children without a moment’s further doubt. It was too crazy. Her giggle escalated, she couldn’t tamp it back down.

  Roy finally caught the ludicrous edge of the situation and added his own low laugh to hers.

  “Just be damned glad there’s no privacy, Roy Beaumont. Or I might let you start
trying right on that couch back there.”

  He glanced over his shoulder at the half-closed curtain, then back at her with an eager grin she’d long since learned to recognize.

  “No, Beaumont. Just…no!”

  “Spoilsport,” he muttered though she could tell he wasn’t really serious.

  An eager grin she’d long since learned to recognize.

  Long since.

  Six days and twenty-whatever minutes ago he’d been a total stranger. They had been together for a grand total of three nights. But it didn’t feel like infatuation. It felt like nothing that had come before. There was no thought necessary to know how she felt.

  It was a damn good thing he’d taken back his second, unintended question.

  For now, he’d said. Not really taking it away.

  Three nights together that felt like three months they were so familiar and comfortable. Always at his place for obvious reasons. Her abrupt return to Washington, D.C. at the President’s request had caught her unprepared. Since stepping in as the new NSA, she was living in her parents’ home this past week. She’d meant to find a place of her own, but hadn’t had a moment to think about that yet.

  She retrieved the folder that had slipped out of her fingers at Roy’s question and opened it on the table between them. Then she leaned forward.

  “Roy?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “When we get back…”

  “Yes?”

  “Let’s have dinner and stay at my place.”

  “Sure thing.”

  He knew where she was living, but he wasn’t making the connection quite yet.

  “I think it’s time I brought my boyfriend home to share a meal with my parents.”

  “Uh—Uuuh!” The wind came out of him as if he’d just been punched in the gut.