by Mary McBride
“Oh, sure.” The last time they'd run had been in a 5K toward the end of their training. Tricia had beaten her by a solid ten seconds. But only because her legs were about a mile longer than Angela's. “That would be fun,” she said. Almost as much as swimming in a vat of boiling oil.
“Great. See you later, then.”
“See you.”
Angela didn't miss the quick little sneer her colleague aimed at the broccoli on the countertop before she turned to leave.
The president's mother had a bee of indiscernible origin up her behind. Bobby, at any rate, didn't have a clue why the woman was in such a foul mood, insisting that not only was she not going downstairs for dinner, but that she might never set foot outside of her bedroom ever again.
When he took her dinner up at six o'clock, she had the venetian blinds battened down so tight that he could hardly see where to put her tray.
“How ‘bout a little light on the subject?” he asked, quite affably, he thought, and Crazy Daisy nearly bit his head off with her abrupt “Get out.”
“Yes, ma'am.” He was at the door, leaving, when he heard a vehicle pull into the drive.
“Now who the devil is that?” she snapped. “Robert, take a look out the window and tell me who it is.”
“Yes, ma'am.” Bobby lifted a slat and peered out in time to see two of his colleagues descend upon the unwitting young driver of a floral delivery truck. One of those colleagues, Tricia Yates, he couldn't help but notice, was wearing a very short skirt that added about half a mile to each of her shapely legs.
“Well? Who is it?” Mrs. Riordan demanded.
“Flowers.”
“Flowers! What fool would send me flowers at this time of night?”
Bobby kept looking out the window at Agent Yates's legs. “Well, first off, Mrs. Riordan, it's not exactly night,” he drawled, “and how do you know they're for you?”
She gave a nasty little cluck with her tongue. “I suppose the poor delivery person is being put through the third degree by a squad of Secret Service people.”
“Looks like it.” He was thinking there was some history between Angela and this Tricia Yates. Whatever it was, he couldn't recall, but he knew his wife always snorted whenever the woman's name came up. Those legs, and the agent's willingness to show them off, undoubtedly had a lot to do with it, he decided.
“Well, you might as well go down and get them,” Mrs. Riordan said, her irritability obviously giving way to curiosity.
By the time Bobby trotted down the stairs, the delivery boy was pressing on the doorbell. Bobby handed the kid two bucks, made a mental note to enter it in his expense book, and carried the big paper-wrapped package up to Mrs. Riordan's room. It didn't escape his notice that she had switched on a few lamps, the better to see the flowers she wasn't at all interested in.
It suddenly occurred to him that they just might not be for Mrs. Riordan. Christ. What if they were for Angela from Harry Hollywood? He was ripping off the little envelope stapled to the paper wrapper just as Mrs. Riordan said, “Well, go ahead. Read it. What fool are they from?”
Bobby pulled out the card and breathed a sigh of relief. They weren't from Rod Bishop. “It says, ‘Thank you for a lovely afternoon, Margaret,’ and it's signed G. G.”
“Oh.”
He didn't think he'd ever heard surprise, annoyance, and pleasure all combined in such a short little word before. He nearly laughed while he tore off the paper cone to reveal the huge bouquet. Man, if Angela thought he had a problem expressing his finer emotions, it didn't hold a candle to Crazy Daisy's reticence.
“Any place in particular you want me to put these?” he asked her.
“Yes,” she said. “Downstairs.”
“You sure?” he asked.
“Quite.”
“Your dinner's keeping warm in the oven,” Angela said when he came back into the kitchen. “Who was at the front door?”
“Not who,” he said, putting the huge bouquet on the table in front of her. “What.” He watched her face light up.
“Oh, aren't they beautiful?” She leaned forward over her plate, burying her nose in the blooms. “Let me guess. They're from Gerald Gerrard.”
“Yep.”
“Doesn't Mrs. Riordan want them in her room?”
“Nope. At least not tonight.” He folded a dish towel to take his plate out of the oven, then took a seat at the table across from Angela, pushing the pretty flowers aside so he could see her even prettier face.
“That was sweet of the professor,” she said as a touch of mist glistened in her eyes.
Bobby picked up his knife and began to cut his steak. “You think so? That surprises me, Ange. I never knew you cared all that much for extravagant but meaningless gestures.”
He meant it as a joke really, but Angela didn't laugh. Her expression turned wistful, almost sad.
“Well, then, I guess you don't know me as well as you thought you did, Bobby. Besides—” She gestured toward the bouquet. “This isn't meaningless. It says he cares about her.”
“I guess.” He chewed on the leathery steak a while, wondering how somebody so precise about ordering steak in a restaurant could get it so wrong at home. Then he forked up some broccoli and refrained from his usual anti-vegetable remarks. All he wanted to do was please her, to make her happy. If eating broccoli would accomplish that, then so be it. He swallowed the nasty stuff like a good soldier.
“You never gave me flowers,” she said, her voice soft and sad but still accusing as her gaze floated past his shoulder.
His gut instinct was to blow up, to crash his fist on the table and say that he guessed ol’ Rod probably sent her a dozen goddamned roses a day. To shout that if he'd known she'd wanted flowers, he'd have given her a fucking field full on a daily basis. To roar that when it came to pleasing women, he seemed to do just fine except when it came to his wife.
But Bobby didn't blow up. He just sat there for a long moment, suddenly drained of energy and hope, no longer sure he had enough breath left to speak, much less yell. He pushed his plate away and stood.
“No, I never did give you flowers, Ange. Hell, baby, I gave you me. I always thought that was enough.”
Before she could say anything in response, Bobby walked out of the room.
11
Bobby knocked on the door of the surveillance trailer, then stepped inside to find that the guys who should've gone off duty, back to their budget motel rooms and pay-per-view movies and a couple relaxing beers, hadn't. The reason they were still hanging around was obvious. Agent Tricia Yates.
The brunette was currently ensconced in front of the bank of monitors, scanning their screens, while every other eye in the room was scanning her. There was a time when the sight of such long lithe legs would have had Bobby immediately thinking about them being wrapped in a pretty bow around his neck. Not at the moment, though.
“Is Doug around?” he asked, on the off chance anybody was paying attention to him.
“In the back office,” one of the young turks replied, jerking a thumb toward the rear of the trailer.
He knocked on the door, then opened it to discover his supervisor leaning back in his chair with his boots up on the desk. “Got a minute, Doug?” he asked.
“Hell, I've got all night, son. If you're gonna ask about reassignment, though, I've got to tell you that your wife just beat you to it.” He aimed a dark scowl at the phone on the desktop. “I just this minute hung up.”
Bobby slumped in the chair on the opposite side of the desk and shook his head. Never in his life had he had a problem he hadn't been able to solve, whether it meant using his head or his fists. But this … It was like being in the middle of the ocean, trying to latch on to twigs. Drowning.
“I'll tell you just what I told Angela. I don't like playing baby-sitter to a couple of kindergartners. And I don't like supervising agents who can't put their own personal difficulties aside for as long as it takes to do a job.” Special Agent in Charge Coul
ter let a growl rumble through his throat. “You hear what I'm saying here?”
Bobby nodded.
“I also told Angela that as soon as we arrived here, I anticipated these difficulties, and I put in a request to have the two of you replaced asap. The wheels in Washington are still grinding on that, I'm sorry to say.”
“Okay.”
Doug growled again. “I just hope the two of you don't screw this up in the meantime, and wind up sending your résumés to police departments in cities with populations of less than five thousand because nobody else would be crazy enough to touch you, if you catch my drift.”
The older agent reached into the breast pocket of his shirt for a cigarette, glared at it, then lobbed it into a trash can. With a weary sigh, he angled back farther in his chair. “Look, Bobby, just between you and me, I think Materro jumped the gun on this threat deal. Personally, I don't think it's all that serious. But the director's new, he wants to look good to the president, and what better way than to protect and preserve the man's elderly mother's life.”
It was Bobby's turn to sigh. “So, I'm here suffering the tortures of the damned for the sake of somebody's political agenda?”
“I'd put money on it.”
Bobby swore.
“That's not to say I won't put your ass in a sling if you don't stick to proper procedures, however. You and Angela both.” He dug another cigarette out of his pocket, and this time reached for a lighter. “Should've had more goddamn sense than to marry another agent, the both of you. I hope that's not a mistake either one of you will make a second time.”
Bobby left the office just as Special Agent Coulter snapped his lighter and succumbed to his need for nicotine.
Only one young turk remained in the outer office, where he sat staring glumly at the monitors while Agent Yates poured herself a cup of coffee.
“Want some?” She gestured toward Bobby with the glass pot in her hand. “Some nights are longer and tougher than others.”
Wasn't that the truth? “No, thanks,” he said.
“I asked Angela to join me if she wants a running partner,” the woman said. “The same goes for you, Bobby.” She cocked her head and let her lips slide into a grin. “I'd give you a pretty good workout.”
“I bet you would, darlin’,” he said, pushing out the door.
Angela was just hanging up the wall phone in the kitchen when Bobby came back in. For the second time in half an hour, she had tried politely to convey Daisy Riordan's less than polite refusal to speak with Professor Gerald Gerrard. The least she could have done, in Angela's opinion, was to thank the poor man for the flowers.
“Poor old guy,” she muttered, hooking the receiver onto its cradle.
“Who's that?” Bobby asked.
“The professor.” She gave a little sigh of disgust. “Mrs. Riordan won't speak to him, and the word no doesn't seem to be in his vocabulary. He's a persistent old codger.”
Bobby pulled a chair out from the table, turned it, and straddled it with his arms braced on the back. He looked tired, she thought. The lines in his face ran deeper than usual, and his mouth seemed weighed down at the corners. Her husband never wore exactly what she'd call a cheerful countenance, but right now he looked seriously depressed.
“Doug's doing his best to find replacements for us,” he said quietly.
“I know. I talked to him right after you left.” Rather than just stand there looking at his woebegone face, she began clearing off the tray she had brought back downstairs. Mrs. Riordan had hardly touched her steak. Neither had Bobby. Good thing this wasn't a real job, she thought dismally as she scraped a plate. She wouldn't last a day.
“Do you want a divorce, Ange?”
She kept scraping the plate, even though there was no longer any food on it. Her insides wound themselves into a series of hard knots, and her throat tightened.
“Angela?”
“I … I don't want to talk about it now.” She fit the plate into the bottom rack of the dishwasher, then turned to face him. “This isn't a good time.”
“There's never going to be a good time,” he said, rising, then shoving his chair back under the table.
For a minute he stood there with his fists clenched and his lips pressed tightly together while Angela prepared herself for another explosion. If he were half as good at expressing grief or sadness as he was at expressing rage, they wouldn't be where they were—on the brink of divorce.
Then his hands relaxed just enough to drag his fingers through his hair. “You don't have an aspirin or something, do you?” he asked. “I've got a real beaut of a headache here.”
“Aw, Bobby.” She grabbed a towel to dry her hands before she went to him, then eased her arms around his waist and tucked her head into his shoulder. “I'm the one who's giving you the headache. I'm so sorry, sweetheart.”
She led him to the bedroom, where she insisted he lie down while she retrieved a couple Tylenol from her cosmetic case in the bathroom. While he took those, she soaked a washcloth in cold water.
In all the years she'd known him, Bobby Holland had never admitted to even a headache. She'd watched him go to work during bouts of flu and colds. Only once did he ever take to bed, and that was when a fever of a hundred and four had him shivering so badly he could hardly speak.
“Ah. That feels good,” he said now when she placed the cold compress on his forehead and over his closed eyes.
“I'll let you sleep.”
“Stay.” He caught her hand before she could turn to leave. “Stay with me, Ange.”
She lay down on her side of the little bed, closing her eyes, battling a minor headache of her own. At the center of that headache was a dark and nagging doubt. What kind of woman walked out on her husband when he needed her most, while he was suffering under a huge burden of grief? Whether he'd been able to express it or not, grief had colored each of his actions after Billy died, and rather than stay and help him endure it in his own silent way, Angela had taken a powder.
Granted, she'd had her reasons, not the least of which was her own psychological survival, but that didn't alter the fact that she'd walked out on him when he was in pain.
The fact that he'd shut her out hadn't meant he wasn't suffering. The fact that he'd shut her out only meant he was totally alone.
She reached for his hand, adoring its warmth and inherent strength, so grateful that he didn't pull away but gently gathered her fingers in his as if he'd just been waiting for the opportunity. Oh, how she'd missed this. Him. What kind of woman let go when all she wanted was to hold on tight?
When she'd packed her bags those eleven months ago, Angela had been so sure, so absolutely certain, that what she was doing was right. Even the department shrink had agreed. Not only was she fleeing for her own sanity—it had been such a long, lonely time on her side of Bobby's brick wall—but she was fleeing in the hope that her husband would finally, painfully, see the light. Her exit hadn't been heartless. It had been hopeful, instead.
Still, the fact remained that Bobby hadn't walked out on her.
What if she'd done irreparable damage by leaving?
She moved closer, and Bobby's arm curved naturally to let her in, to bring her against his side. It was where she belonged, after all. And that brick wall didn't strike her as quite so daunting at the moment. He'd just admitted to a headache, after all. Maybe, just maybe, he would admit to heartache now.
Easy now.
With his headache diminished to a dull, dark throb at his temples, Bobby felt the rest of him coiling tighter, first at the touch of Angela's hand, and then when she moved so hesitantly against him. Through sheer will, he kept his breathing slow and even and didn't move a muscle except to provide his arm as a pillow for her head.
He pictured himself in a corral—maybe at the Westons’ place just south of Wishbone—ignoring the sharp bite of a horsefly, hardly breathing so as not to spook a skittish dun mare.
Easy.
He imagined himself sitting in
a garden, absolutely still, not breathing at all now while he waited for a butterfly, a painted lady, to light upon his wrist.
He tried to slow his heartbeat, to keep the blood from roaring through his veins, to keep his body gentle, tame, and willing to wait forever for his wife to close the distance between them. Little by little, she did just that, draping her arm across his chest and snugging her leg against his. They used to fall asleep this way, but this wasn't about falling asleep.
Her hand moved softly over the contour of his shoulder, then rested at his neck, where his pulse pounded. When she sighed, he turned his head a fraction to press his lips to her warm hair, willing her to lift her face and offer him her mouth.
She did.
He held back as best he could, just brushing her lips with his, just sampling with his tongue, until she invited him in. And even then he kept it sweet and warm and undemanding. Whatever she wanted, that's what he'd give. No more. No less.
“Bobby,” she whispered. “I love you so much.”
It was no surprise that her eyes were wet, and this time the brine of her tears was sweet as honey. Ah, God. Angela's tears, whether happy or sad, never failed to express just what he was feeling.
“I love you, too, baby.”
Needing to touch her, all of her, he shifted his arm from beneath her head, and in his awkward hurry, slammed the bandaged tattoo against the solid headboard, sending a jolt of pain clear through him. His breath whistled in and came out in a curse.
Angela jerked upright. “What? What's wrong?”
“Nothing,” he said through clenched teeth. “I banged my arm, that's all.” He reached to pull her against him again, but the tension in her body told him the prelude was all, and it was over.
Except for the shouting.
“I want to see your arm,” she said, snapping on the light on her side of the bed. “You've probably got an infection.”
“No, I don't. It's just a little tender.” Tiny, in fact, had told him, “That'll hurt like a son of a bitch for a day or so, then it'll scab over. But in a week, it'll be just fine.”
