by Mary McBride
Taking her hand off the wheel long enough to snag back a hank of hair, she gave him another little sideways glance in the process. Still smiling. Like an idiot. Like some kind of pervert. If that was because he thought he was going to jump her bones tonight or anytime in the near future, he had another think coming.
“You're looking really good, Angela,” he said as if on cue.
That was it, then. He was thinking about sex. The jerk. He looked really good, too, but that didn't mean she was considering resuming relations. They were separated, for heaven's sake. Well, sort of. Not legally, of course, but they hadn't been this close in nearly a year.
“Don't even think about it, Bobby,” she muttered. The light changed, and she turned the wheel to the right, stepped on the gas. “How far south on Twenty-nine now? Does this take us all the way to Hassenfeld?”
“All the way,” he said, shifting in the seat so he was looking directly at her. “You just look good, Ange. That's all.”
“Thank you. You look good, too. Do you think maybe we should start planning what two good-looking people are doing out in the middle of nowhere, working as domestic help?”
“Okay.” He crossed his arms and settled back, one shoulder slanted against the door. “We're here doing research on a book?”
“On what? Scut work in the Midwest? I don't think so.”
He shrugged. “It was just an idea. The speed limit's fifty-five along here, Ange.”
“I know that.” Her gaze dropped to the speedometer, where the needle registered a healthy sixty-seven. She eased her foot off the gas as imperceptibly as possible. “How about saying we got burned out on big-city life and we're doing this as a kind of transition, until we find something else?”
“Sounds good,” he said without much enthusiasm.
“We should probably agree on what we did before we opted out of the rat race.”
“How about if I was a brain surgeon and you were my nurse?”
She rolled her eyes. He could be such a knee-jerk chauvinist sometimes. “How about if I was a brain surgeon and you were my patient, but the operation was a total disaster? Or I was a brain surgeon, and you were the studly hospital maintenance man who stole my heart in spite of our vast educational and socioeconomic differences?”
“Studly?” He was grinning again.
“Forget it.” She sighed. “If Mrs. Riordan even asks, we'll say we used to be in advertising, all right?”
“Fine.” He was quiet a moment, fiddling with a button on the sleeve of his jacket, pulling a loose thread on the cuff. “How's your dad, Ange?”
“He's fine.” Pop thinks I'm a coward for running away from my marriage, even though he hasn't said it in so many words. I can hear the disappointment in his voice.
“And your mom?”
She thinks whatever Pop thinks. They're a team. The way I always thought we'd be. “She's fine, too.” Angela answered a bit more crisply this time, hoping he'd drop the personal stuff. But he didn't. He took it up a notch.
“I was thinking about Mr. Whiskers this morning,” he said. “Remember him?”
Angela felt the knots tighten in her shoulders and neck. Did she remember? If it hadn't been for Mr. Whiskers, the little ingrate, she and Bobby probably would never have exchanged more than an occasional handshake at meetings and a few professional words in corridors here and there. But then came that horribly cold day, when he volunteered to take that mangy stray back to his place, when he shrugged out of his suit coat to keep the poor thing warm while they trudged five long blocks against an icy wind, through knee-deep snow and driving sleet to the lot where their cars, as it turned out, were parked side by side.
Big, solid, stone-faced Bobby Holland. He seemed bigger than life that afternoon, carrying a balled-up gray jacket while a little marmalade cat face kept poking out through sleeves and bunched lapels. By the time they reached the parking lot, Angela was already half in love with Bobby Holland. Dammit. She was still in love with him. Not half, but wholly. But that wasn't the point, was it?
“Bobby. Please. I'd rather not talk about us. Really. I don't even want to be here. And I don't want to start fighting and have this whole assignment blow up right in our faces. You heard what Doug said.”
He was quiet again, then said, “Want to talk about Billy?”
Angela's breath stalled in her throat. That's all she'd ever wanted him to talk about these past eighteen months. His brother. How he loved him. How he missed him. How guilty he felt. How Billy's death had affected him to the core of his being. She'd begged him and begged him to discuss it, and finally she'd left him behind that big brick wall he put up.
He wanted to talk about Billy now? Now, while they were on duty? Now, going fifty-five miles an hour on State Route Twenty-nine between Springfield and Horse-feathers, Illinois? Now, when it was too damned late? My God. Angela bit her lip, but even so, she thought she might just scream. The top of her head felt as if it were going to explode. She swerved onto the shoulder of the road.
After an almost involuntary shout of “What the hell are you doing, Angela?” when his wife unexpectedly veered off the pavement into the weeds at the side of the road, Bobby just sat there. For a man who had the instant reflexes of a mountain cat, he felt strangely dull and unresponsive. He felt stupid, too, not knowing what to say or do while Angela sat white-knuckled at the wheel with her lips compressed and her gaze aimed straight ahead.
What had he done, for chrissake, to upset her so? What had he said? The thing about Billy? Billy was all she ever wanted him to talk about. Now he'd finally volunteered, and Angela was suddenly all bent out of shape.
“Honey,” he said, reaching to touch her arm.
“Just leave me alone.” She batted away his hand. “I don't want to talk about anyone or anything. Don't you understand?”
No, he didn't understand. Bobby didn't understand at all. “Jesus Christ, Ange.” He ripped his fingers through his hair, then clenched his fists to keep from reaching out for her again. He couldn't stand not touching her. “What do you want from me?”
“I don't want anything from you, Bobby. Not anymore.” She swiped at a tear that had broken loose from the corner of her eye. “My God, we can't even be together twenty minutes without fighting. Doesn't that tell you something?”
If it did, he couldn't name it, other than his wife's stubborn refusal to give him a chance, to simply listen to him, to even look him in the eye for more than a fleeting second. Why was that?
“Angela,” he began, only to be cut off by a brusque wave of her hand.
“We better get back on the road.” She reached to turn the key, forgetting she hadn't cut the motor in the first place. When the ignition screeched in protest, Angela jerked back her hand, swore fiercely, then just sat there with her eyes closed.
“Move over.” Bobby got out of the car and slammed the door, then stalked around the rear and wrenched open the driver's door. “Come on. I'm driving.”
He stood back, giving her just enough room to get out of the car, intentionally menacing her with his height and his weight and the sheer heat he was generating.
“Give me the map,” she demanded, holding out her hand while her chin jutted up into his face.
“You don't need it. I know how to get there.”
“God damn you, Bobby.” Tears started to cascade, leapfrogging each other down her cheeks. “I hate you. I really do.”
His arms were already moving around her, pulling her in, never wanting to let go. “I know, babe. I know.”
As much as he longed to kiss her, Bobby simply held her. And as much as he yearned to speak, to make right all the things that had gone wrong between them, he kept silent.
Ah, God, it was good to have his wife back in his arms, even if she was crying, even if she truly hated him at the moment. At least she felt something for him. It was a start.
Twenty minutes later, after Bobby took the wheel and maintained the speed limit along with a blessed silence, they pass
ed through beautiful downtown Hassenfeld, which Angela grudgingly admitted was fairly quaint.
Its wide main street was cobbled and lined with buildings that sported awnings and bore names like Nellie's Notions, Whodunit—A Mystery Bookstore and Magic Shoppe, and Your Grandmother's Attic. There was a little restaurant, Chez Moi, that almost reminded her of New York with its tiny sidewalk cafe's where people were actually sitting, sipping from white china mugs and perusing crisp copies of USA Today.
In the heart of the charming village sat a shaded square with a Victorian bandstand and a big Civil War monument. Just at the edge of Main Street was a small cinderblock building bearing the sign “Village Constable.” An American flag flapped gently over its shingled roof.
“This is nice,” she said a bit wistfully, thinking of the leisurely weekends she and Bobby had spent in similar towns while ransacking Maryland and Virginia for antiques, newlyweds happily furnishing their nest. Those weekends seemed like a thousand years ago.
Special Agent Bobby Holland wasn't the world's most enthusiastic shopper. Usually he'd amble along, a pace or two behind her, patient and indulgent, like Prince Philip tagging along after the queen. But there were times when he'd get into the spirit, such as when they discovered their big old brass bed in a back room of an antique shop not too far from Charlottesville.
They'd paid way too much for it, with its massive headboard and footboard, but oh, the lovely times they'd spent in that bed. Sad and lonely times, too. She didn't dare think about them, or she'd lose her hard-won composure again, and Bobby would find another excuse to wrap his arms around her and pretend that everything was okay.
A mile or so beyond the town, Bobby turned the station wagon into a long, tree-lined driveway. “This is it,” he said, as if he'd been here a hundred times before.
The drive swung to the right, around an enormous, two-story red-brick house, then ended at a three-car detached garage. There was a freestanding toolshed adjacent to the garage, and not too far from that a wonderful white gazebo banked by rosebushes, a few of them holding forth with mid-September blooms. Through the trees and shrubs at the back of the property, Angela could just make out the Secret Service's surveillance trailer.
She reached for the rearview mirror, adjusting it in order to check her makeup. Just as she had suspected, there were mascara smudges under both her eyes. She licked her finger and attempted to wipe them away, all the while aware of Bobby's presence and his unyielding gaze.
“That didn't mean anything,” she said, still concentrating on the mirror. “Earlier, I mean. On the road. I don't want you to get the wrong idea, Bobby. About us.”
“Hey.” He held up his hands defensively. “No big deal. I'm used to my partners falling apart and needing a little TLC. Just part of the job, Ange.”
She shot him a watered-down version of a screw-you look, then dug in her handbag for a tube of lipstick.
“You're still wearing your wedding ring,” he said.
“Yeah.” She dragged some waxy pink color across her upper Up. “So? You are, too.”
“I'm still married.”
Angela pressed her lips together, refusing to rise to the bait.
“That's probably why they chose us, you know,” Bobby said. “It makes perfect sense. At least when Crazy Daisy catches on to the fact that we're agents, she won't think we were living in sin right under her nose.”
“I'm not planning on living in sin,” she said, taking a last glance in the mirror before twisting it back. “I'm here to keep some crackpot from hurting the president's mother. And so are you. That's all. We're just doing the job.”
“Right. But part of this job is being married.”
“Acting like we're married,” she corrected. “There's a big difference.”
“Oh, yeah. I forgot.” His mouth twitched in a grin. “With one, you just fight and go to bed. With the other, you fight and then you get to go to bed and make love.”
“That's about the sum of it, pal.” She pulled on the door handle. “And the sooner we get started, the sooner this whole silly charade will end. Let's go.”
Keep your mind on the job, bubba, Bobby warned himself as they walked up the driveway to the front of the house. He'd already made about seven mistakes this morning while keeping his eye on Angela instead of on the ball. Not professional mistakes, but personal ones, not the least of which was getting an erection the size of Baja California when he was holding Angela close against him, warranting one of her “How dare you, you filthy pig” looks.
As he walked, he slid his holster farther back on his belt to prevent Crazy Daisy from catching so much as a glimpse of it, then he tightened the knot of his tie a bit, befitting a brand-new butler or whatever the hell he was supposed to be. He was already screwing up with Angela. No sense screwing up his job, as well.
The place was expensively and incautiously landscaped, with thick shrubbery covering the better part of the first-floor windows. He had to assume that the agents in place had been discouraged in any attempt to cut the bushes back. Discouraged with BBs, no doubt. Okay. So he'd play gardener, too. It was a good place to start. And he'd wash the windows, which would give him an opportunity to check out the condition of the locks.
“Those shrubs have to go,” Angela murmured beside him.
He glanced sideways at her pretty face with its intense expression, her bright green gaze doing a thorough one-eighty sweep as she walked. Sometimes—okay, often—he forgot she was a well-trained, conscientious Secret Service agent. Sometimes—all the time—he shuddered to think that she was as committed as he to taking a bullet for her protectee. Like Billy. He shunted that thought to the back of his brain as quickly as it occurred.
“That's no good,” Angela said.
“Huh?”
She pointed. “Look up there.”
No bulb in the yard light. Damn. He should have caught that even before she did. “I'll put it on my list,” he said.
“This is weird.” She nudged his arm as they meandered up the herringbone-brick front walk. “I've never worked with you before, or undercover, either, for that matter.”
Bobby let out a surprised little laugh. “I wouldn't exactly call this undercover, Ange.” He hoped he didn't sound too dismissive. His own undercover experience in a Russian mafia counterfeiting ring a few years back had resulted in a pretty tense hostage situation and shoot-out on Long Island. This butler business was a cupcake deal in comparison.
“Still—” She made a little clucking sound with her tongue as they arrived at Mrs. Riordan's doorstep.
Bobby punched the doorbell. “Here we go.”
The woman who opened the door was five feet tall and about a hundred and twelve years old. Her face looked like an apple that had fallen off a tree in the Garden of Eden. Her hair was light orange, short, almost viciously spiked. She was wearing white leggings and a big turquoise shirt, draped with half a ton of multicolored beads. The shirt matched her eye shadow.
Bobby actually gulped. “Uh … Mrs. Riordan?”
“No, no. I'm Bootsie Rand. I'm the dummy, so I got to answer the door.”
Both of them must have given her such blank, befuddled looks that the woman tossed back her head and hooted. “We're playing bridge, children,” she said. “Daisy's right in the middle of a grand slam. Come in. Come in. Are you the new maid and butler?”
“Yes, ma'am.” Bobby nudged Angela across the threshold ahead of him. A human shield.
“Good. Good. Well, now.” Bootsie's turquoise lids dipped, and she began to take Bobby in, slowly, from the shine on his wing tips to the top of his head. “Oh, you're a good one, you are.”
“Thank you, ma'am.” He didn't know what else to say, and Angela, behind her grim facade, was biting the hell out of her lips to keep from laughing.
The woman stepped closer to him, lifted on tiptoe to whisper, “If this gig doesn't work out, sonny, you can come over and buttle for me. I live just down the road.”
“Yes, ma'am.
”
“If those are my new people, Muriel,” someone called from a nearby room, “show them to the kitchen and tell them I'll be there in a moment.”
“Say please,” Bootsie yelled over her shoulder.
For a minute it was quiet enough to hear the hall clock tick. Tick. Tick. Bobby felt a trickle of sweat beneath his sleeve.
“Please,” the voice finally shouted back.
Bootsie's sudden, victorious grin completely rearranged the wrinkles on her face. “Follow me, children. The kitchen's right this way.”
4
Bobby was drumming his fingers on the kitchen table. “What do you think?” he whispered.
“I think we're in the fifth circle of hell, and it's all uphill from here.” Across the table from him, Angela swung one leg over the other, peeked to make certain her ankle holster wasn't visible, and then gazed around the room. “This is really very nice.”
Daisy Riordan's kitchen reminded her of Rod's, with its warm cherry wood cabinets, sleek white appliances, and slick gray granite counters. The only thing lacking was a glorious view of the Pacific. Well … and Rod, of course. She'd never known a man who enjoyed cooking so much, whether it was a simple pasta or a complicated paella with three kinds of clams, two live lobsters, and a small fortune in saffron.
She'd learned a lot about preparing food from Rod in the past few months. Not that her culinary skills were inadequate before she met him, but as the youngest child in a family with four older sisters and a father who made the world's greatest marinara sauce, Angela hadn't spent much time in the kitchen when she was growing up. The mess drove her crazy.
Her mother was a fabulous, intuitive, even cheerful cook who wasn't the least bit fazed by car keys and squirt guns and tennis balls on the counter where she worked, magnetized homework flapping on and falling off the refrigerator door, or half a dozen dog and cat bowls underfoot, not to mention the cats and dogs. Rose Callifano could put together lasagna while she fielded questions about world geography and the location of lost objects, while she laughed at knock-knock jokes, kissed away tears, and slapped bandages on skinned appendages. And her lasagna was the best in the world.
