by Mary McBride
“Christ,” Bobby muttered. “You don't know if anybody told her happily or not, do you, boss?”
“Let's make it happily, Agent Holland, shall we? The less we upset the old lady, the easier this duty will be, and the better we'll be able to protect her.”
“Yes, sir.”
While Doug clarified some routine protective duty ops for Mike, Bobby slumped down in his seat again, wondering if he even remembered what it felt like to be happily married. He and Angela had only had a brief six months of happiness before his brother, Billy, was killed while standing post for the visiting president of Uzbekistan. The asshole assassin might just as well have fired point-blank into Bobby's marriage because it probably flat-lined then, too, a whole hard year before Angela finally walked out.
Now, nearly a whole hard year after her exit, Bobby was going to get her back. Maybe he'd been paralyzed before. Maybe he'd been too proud to beg her to come back, or too pissed that she'd walked out on him in the first place. But a little over a week ago, when somebody from the L.A. field office had let it slip that Angela was more than casually involved with Mr. Movie Star Candy Ass Pretty Boy Bishop, Bobby had found himself in the men's room ten minutes later, vomiting on his shoes.
The following day he'd made an appointment to see the department shrink, as Angela had begged him to do. Basically, the woman had told him he was a mess, but a redeemable one, provided he made the effort.
Effort? Hell, he'd worked his whole life. He'd raised his little brother single-handedly when their father wouldn't even acknowledge them and their derelict of a mother opted out. He'd fought his way into West Point, then fought his way to fifth in his class, dragging Billy up behind him—one year, one class, always one rank behind—until finally they were both special agents on the elite protective detail.
Effort? He was thirty-six years old, and he could still finish a marathon in close to three hours, bench-press almost twice his weight, and put a neat cluster of holes in a target at 250 yards. He knew all about effort, for chrissake.
“You need to talk about your brother's death,” the shrink had said. “With me, if you'd like, but especially with your wife.”
That was what he hadn't been able to do.
But, by God, he was determined to try. And maybe, just maybe, by the time he made it out to L.A.—after four, maybe five weeks in Hellhole, Illinois—he'd figure out how to talk about Billy's death. Sweet Jesus. He had to figure it out.
For now, though, Bobby didn't even want to think about it. He tipped his head back against the seat, closed his eyes, and programmed himself to sleep.
Ducking his head, Bobby exited the Lear Jet into a bright midwestern morning. Apparently it was still summer out here in the heartland. Even this early the tarmac shimmered with heat. He put his shades on, along with an expression that said he was here to do a job, but by God he didn't have to like it.
Doug motioned him to join the little knot of agents who'd been awaiting their arrival. “This is Bobby Holland. He'll be on the inside with the female agent. Is she here yet?”
One of the guys gestured toward a nearby hangar. “Got here a few minutes ago. She was about an hour late. Said there was trouble with some drunk on the flight to Chicago, and she had to wait for the locals to take him off her hands at O'Hare.”
Oh, good. A hotshot, Bobby thought as he finished the round of handshaking. This deal was getting worse by the minute. The local agents all looked either headed out to pasture or fresh out of college. The older guys seemed miffed that their cupcake duty had turned serious, while the younger ones were making a distinct effort to hide their grins and tamp down on the testosterone.
One of the geezers, an agent by the name of McCray, pointed to a blue Taurus station wagon with a bent antenna and a crimped front fender. “That vehicle is for you and your partner, Holland. We thought it hit the right note.”
“Yeah.” A young turk snickered. “Dull and domestic.”
“We put new steel-belted radials on it,” the older agent continued, “and had the engine souped up a little. It should be fine.”
“Great. Thanks,” Bobby said. “I don't suppose anybody has a sketch of the layout of the house.”
All of them, old and young, shook their heads.
“Never been inside,” McCray said.
“Crazy Daisy hardly ever goes out,” said one of the kids. “Some sort of recluse, I guess you'd say.”
Doug intervened with a quiet, “Uh. Let's call her Mrs. Riordan, shall we, fellas?”
There was a general chorus of coughing and throat-clearing as Bobby gazed up at the sun, then glanced at his watch. He wrenched it off and set the time back an hour, hardly appreciative of having an additional sixty minutes tacked on to his day, not to mention his whole miserable stay here.
When he looked up again, a door swung open in the nearby hangar to reveal a shapely backside and long legs clad in crisp black slacks. She, presumably his partner, Agent Hotshot, was wrestling a huge suitcase through the narrow doorway. He had to stifle the urge to walk over and help. They only resented it, these female agents. Everybody just stood there and watched, obviously enjoying the view.
“Here comes our agent now,” he said just as she tugged the suitcase through and turned toward them with a pretty swing of her long blond hair.
Holy Mother of—
Doug, beside him, made a kind of gulping sound, swore, then said, “I didn't know, Bobby. I swear to God I didn't know.”
3
Angela was so tired she had almost dozed off while she changed clothes in the deserted hangar. The flight from L.A. had been a nightmare in which she and two flight attendants had spent the final half hour of the flight actually having to sit on the drunk and disorderly passenger. Once they'd landed in Chicago, the guy had sobered up sufficiently to charm the stripes off the pants of airport security. Angela, still in the black jersey she'd worn to the premiere, had to flash her badge half a dozen times before anybody would even give her the time of day. Which happened to be dawn. Dammit.
And then the short hop from Chicago to Springfield had been bumpy as hell for some reason, even though the skies were clear and bright. It might have been because the plane was propeller driven and about the size of a giant mosquito. Man, she hated flying. The good news, though, was that she'd gotten her wish. She hadn't had a moment to think about anything in the past five or six hours, much less anyone.
After she maneuvered her heavy suitcase through the hangar's door, Angela turned, a stoic smile on her face, intending to wave to the waiting agents. Her gaze seemed to gravitate naturally to Doug Coulter's familiar, silvery buzz cut. And then she saw who was standing at Doug's side.
Oh, no. Nuh-uh. No way.
She dropped her suitcase and reached into her handbag for her cell phone. Across the tarmac, she swore she saw Bobby flinch, as if he thought she were going for her gun. Which wasn't such a bad idea, come to think of it. She stabbed in the number for the L.A. office, then glared at the clump of agents, who were shrugging their shoulders and scratching their heads and staring at her stupidly.
All except one. The one she'd last seen when she walked out his door. The one currently wearing the shades and the big, shit-eating grin.
They picked up in L.A. “This is Agent Holland. I need to speak with Bannerman. Now.”
She let her focus glaze in order not to see the muscular contours of Bobby's gray suit, the solid length of his legs, the challenge of his stance, or the way his tie wafted over his shoulder in the warm morning breeze. God. She could practically smell him.
“What do you mean, Bannerman's not in? Put me through to him in the field, then. This is an emergency.”
Doug Coulter was ambling toward her now, shaking his crew-cut head as if to say, “Well, don't this just beat all?”
Out in L.A., the operator from hell refused to put her through. “When will he be back in the office?” Angela demanded. “What do you mean, he didn't say?”
“Hello ther
e, Angela,” Doug drawled. “Looks like you're even more surprised than I am.”
She snapped the phone closed. “I'm not staying, Doug. You're just going to have to find somebody else. Really. Today. Right now. I won't do this.”
“Well, now.” Doug crossed his arms, sucked in his lower lip, and stared heavenward for a long, probably prayerful moment. “I appreciate the predicament you find yourself in here. I really do. But the fact of the matter is you have to do this, Agent Holland. Today. Now. If you want to try and work out some alternative arrangement once we're set up, you be my guest. I doubt it'll happen, but you're sure welcome to try.”
It was Angela's turn to stare at the sky, less for divine guidance than a stray lightning bolt to put an immediate, sizzling, blessed end to her distress.
“You know we're separated, Doug.”
“Not now, you're not.”
“I'm this close to filing for divorce.” She measured an inch in the air with her thumb and index finger, then closed the distance to half an inch.
“Nothing says you can't go on and do that,” he said calmly, “after you've done your job here.”
“This is nuts.”
“Probably.”
“Bobby's over there grinning like a fool.”
“I see that.”
“Did he know?”
Doug shook his head. “Nope. Neither did I. I don't know what idiot is responsible for this, Angela. But I do know this.” He lowered his voice ominously. “If you walk, you're going to find yourself stationed in Buttfuck, Alaska, for the rest of your career.”
Angela knew that, too. Oh, boy, did she know it. The Secret Service wasn't the army, by any means, but the agency didn't cut anyone a lot of slack when it came to refusing assignments. You were either on the team or you were shipped off to a one-room office in a strip mall someplace that was a thousand degrees in the summer and a thousand below in the winter, spending your time attending Career Day at the local high schools and watching your former colleagues on the evening news. Shit.
She hadn't worked as hard as she had all these years only to wind up looking for funny money in Alaska, not to mention that it would put her a thousand miles away from Rod. As if he mattered at the moment. As if anything mattered but her job, the only thing she had now that she didn't have Bobby.
“Okay,” she said through clenched teeth, reaching down for her suitcase. “Oh, God. I hate this. I really, really hate this.”
“I can tell. Want me to give you a hand with that bag?” Doug asked.
“No,” she said. “With a free hand right now, I'd be way too tempted to draw my weapon.”
Bobby had been ready to dive for cover when Angela whipped out her cell phone, but now he was biting the inside of his cheek to keep from grinning while he watched his wife's magnificent fury a couple hundred yards away. Lord, she looked good. California obviously agreed with her. Or something did.
He wasn't the only one who thought so, judging from the comments of his colleagues, which ranged from McCray's appreciative “Mm-mm” to the more sexually explicit observations of the young turks. Bobby just let it all wash over him. He was too damned happy. And, what the hell, they were right. She was a beautiful woman. And she was his. Oh, yeah.
His heart was pumping so hard that he had to fold his arms to keep it from bursting right out of his chest while he watched her. Angela never did like surprises, did she? Of course, neither did he, but this was different. This was more along the lines of an answered prayer. So, on the off chance that it truly was, Bobby prayed again. Dear God, please don't let me screw this up.
As he had earlier, Doug oversaw the round of introductions, ending with a slant of his head toward Bobby and a murmured, “I think you already know this gentleman.”
“Ange,” Bobby said softly, when what he really wanted to do was leap on her, wagging his tail and licking her pretty face like a jubilant hound.
“Hello, Bobby.” Her voice was neutral enough, although her green eyes were giving off little topaz sparks in the sunlight and she wrenched a hank of hair behind her ear, always a sign of agitation.
“Well, now that everybody's here, let's get this hootenanny on the road,” Doug said. “Angela, Bobby, let's get your luggage in the car, and then I want a couple words with you. The rest of you might as well get started. We don't want to look like a goddamn parade coming into town.”
“See you later, Bobby,” Mike Burns said. “Sorry about what I said before. Well, you know.”
“Yeah. I'll see you, kid. Good luck.”
Bobby reached for Angela's bag.
“I've got that,” she said, snatching the handle and turning to follow Doug to the blue Taurus wagon.
Still wearing his shades, Bobby allowed himself an exaggerated roll of his eyes and a silent sigh before he collected his own gear and followed in her wake, fully appreciating the flare of her hips and the nice nip of her waist. She must be wearing an ankle holster, he decided. She hated those. No wonder she was such a pisser.
After he tossed his stuff in the back of the wagon, Bobby said, “Don't look so worried, Doug. We can handle this.”
“Speak for yourself,” Angela muttered.
“You better handle it, the both of you, or you'll be working third watch for Eagle Eye Security Service.” The special agent in charge glared from one to the other. “You get my meaning?”
“Yes, sir,” they answered in unison.
“You're going to have to come up with some kind of story to satisfy the old lady. Mrs. Riordan, I mean. Some bullshit about how you're working as domestics. I don't care what you tell her as long as she believes it. Think you can do that?”
“We'll work it out on the way there,” Bobby said, glancing at Angela for affirmation as well as pure pleasure.
“Right,” she said.
“You can contact us with your handsets or by regular phone. I'd appreciate a report on developments inside the house every couple of hours. And a map of the interior as soon as you can come up with one, Bobby.”
“You got it.”
“I'll do that,” Angela said. “His handwriting's terrible.”
“What do you mean? My handwriting's just fine,” Bobby said.
“No, it's not. It's—”
“People!” Doug raised both hands. “We're here to protect the mother of the president of the United States, not to squabble like a bunch of kindergarteners. You got that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“All right, then. I believe there's a map in the car showing you just how to get to the house in Hassenfeld. I'll expect you to check in with the surveillance trailer as soon as possible after you're situated. Any questions?”
“No, sir.”
“Fine. The keys are in the car. I'll talk to you later.” Doug turned to join the agents who were waiting for him beside a big black SUV.
“I'll drive,” Bobby said, slamming the hatch.
“I'll drive,” she said, opening the driver's door and sliding behind the wheel before he could reply.
It took Angela a few miles to settle in behind the wheel, to keep her eyes on the road rather than sneaking peeks to her right. Her husband looked good. He looked great! Tan and fit and none the worse for her absence this past year. She noticed he hadn't taken off his wedding ring. But, then, neither had she.
She'd started to remove the plain gold band once several months ago, thinking it would be a step in the right direction, figuring if she couldn't bring herself to sever their tie legally, at least she could do it symbolically. But when she'd gotten the ring just past her knuckle, the feelings of finality and loss were so painful, so overwhelming, that she almost couldn't breathe. It was like being caught in a riptide, losing her balance, gasping for air. So, back went the ring, and back came her ability to breathe, along with all her confusion about her marriage.
Actually, she thought she was holding it together reasonably well at the moment, considering the circumstances. Her knuckles weren't white anymore, now that sh
e'd relaxed her grip on the wheel. The tension in her neck had eased. Her breathing was still a bit shallow, but that was mostly because of the cross breeze from Bobby's open window, which carried his scent of sandalwood and musk and just pure Bobby across the car to directly assault her senses. Surely Rod smelled that good, if not better, but Angela couldn't for the life of her summon up a memory of the actor's cologne or aftershave.
In the eleven months they'd been apart, Angela hadn't once anticipated the strength of her physical reaction to the sight of her husband. The shape of his mouth was suddenly the object of intense, albeit sidelong, scrutiny as she remembered his kisses. The sprinkling of dark hairs on the back of his hands made her stomach clench at the thought of his touch. The hard contour of his left thigh beneath the gray gabardine of his trousers was making her insane. His physical presence simply clobbered her. She wondered vaguely if she was drooling down the front of her blouse while she was telling herself she really needed to get her mind and all of her highly attuned senses back on business.
“State Route Twenty-nine?” she asked, glancing toward the passenger seat again. “Is that the road we want up ahead?” Bobby was hogging the map, dribbling out directions a half mile at a time.
“Uh-huh.”
“Let me see the map, Bobby.”
“You're fine. Just take a right at the next intersection.”
In all the time they'd been together, they'd never been actual partners on the job, and Angela was thanking her lucky stars for that at the moment as she snapped on the directional signal and maneuvered into the right-hand lane of traffic.
“When did you turn into such a control freak?” she asked.
“I'm glad to see you, too, sweetheart.”
She gritted her teeth, braking at the light. The funny thing was, he really did seem glad to see her. Bobby, who was usually as stingy with his smiles as he was with the stupid map, had been grinning like a silly Cheshire cat ever since he'd laid eyes on her this morning. If Doug had been telling the truth, that this shared assignment had been as much a surprise to Bobby as it was to her, he seemed awfully pleasantly surprised.
