by Paula Graves
“You bypassed the security checkpoint. Deliberately. I’d like to know why.”
She pressed her lips into a flat line, growing angry. “Is this how it’s going to be from now on? One step outside your rules and it’s the third degree?” She knew some of her anger was fueled by her dismay at being caught breaking the rules, but not all of it. The Harlan McClain standing in front of her seemed a completely different man than the Southern gentleman who’d treated her with such kind concern the day of the bombing. His eyes had been warm and comforting then, not hard and cold like stone as they were now.
He shifted so that he blocked out the afternoon sun, plunging his face into shadow until she could no longer see his expression. But the tense set of his muscles as he towered over her was enough to convey his hostile attitude. “Someone tried to kill your boss two days ago. I would think you of all people would understand why I asked y’all to keep to the security protocols. So you mind telling me why you didn’t?”
She couldn’t stand not being able to read his expression, so she took a couple of steps to the side, trying to force him to turn so the glare of the sun no longer backlit his face.
His hand snaked out and snagged her arm, making her gasp. He loosened his grip at the sound but didn’t let go. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“Mommy, you’re late.”
She whipped her head around to find her son standing a few feet away, looking up at her with a disapproving gleam in his blue eyes.
“I know, baby. I’m sorry. I had a meeting and I couldn’t get away as early as I’d hoped.”
“Couldn’t you tell them you had to come here?” Zachary asked.
Stacy shot a quick look at Harlan. He looked confused.
“Who are you?” Zachary asked bluntly, his gaze following Stacy’s to settle on Harlan McClain.
Harlan cleared his throat and dropped Stacy’s arm. “I’m Harlan McClain. Who are you?”
“Zachary Giordano,” he answered formally, as he was prone to do. It had taken Stacy a while to get used to his way of speaking. It was another symptom of his Asperger’s syndrome, one that could be deceiving to people who didn’t know his situation. Because he conversed so much more maturely than his peers, and was such a sponge when it came to learning the new things he wanted to learn, people often assumed he was just a very precocious child. Which he was, in many ways.
It was the ways in which he differed from other children that would keep his life from ever being considered normal.
“Zachary’s my son.”
Harlan nodded. “I guessed as much.”
“He loves to ride,” she added, “but we missed his Tuesday lesson because of…what happened in Austin.”
“I see. So you thought you’d make it up to him?” Harlan glanced at Zachary, who was gazing up at him with an almost comical look of interest.
Seeing the signs of trouble on the horizon, Stacy quickly stepped between Harlan and Zachary. “Zachary, it’s time to go back home now. I’ve got to get you cleaned up and ready for dinner.” She turned to look at Harlan. “I’m sorry I broke protocol. I didn’t want the governor to think I can’t handle motherhood and the job at the same time.”
Harlan’s eyes narrowed. “You didn’t want to sign the check-in list.”
“Yes.”
“Mommy, can Harlan come to dinner?”
“Mr. McClain,” she corrected automatically, before she registered what he’d asked.
“Can Mr. McClain come to dinner?”
She looked at Harlan, warning him with her eyes to make a quick excuse. Zachary might have all the socialization difficulties that came with Asperger’s, but that didn’t mean he didn’t form attachments to people. On the contrary, her son was prone to crushes on people. He latched on to friends at school, had a huge preference for one-but not both-of Lindsay Kemp’s twin daughters, and just last week, he’d fallen instantly in love with the courier who dropped by the governor’s office to leave some legal papers.
Once he was smitten, Zachary could be a full-bore pest, unable to read the signals people gave him that he was coming on entirely too strong. And right now, Zachary was showing all the signs of an impending crush. “Zachary, I’m sure Mr. McClain has something else to do-”
“Actually, dinner sounds good,” Harlan interjected. “What time should I be there?”
She stared at him, disbelieving. Talk about not reading people’s silent cues… “I really don’t have anything in the house to cook.”
“You have bread and cheese? A grilled cheese sandwich sounds fine.”
She looked at him with narrowed eyes, not buying it. For one thing, a man his size would never be fine with a grilled cheese sandwich unless it was wrapped around a steak. And for another, she could tell he was still suspicious of her decision to bypass the checkpoint, despite her explanation. “Mr. McClain-”
“I think we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot here, Ms. Giordano, and considering we have to work together for the next little while, we probably shouldn’t let that continue. Don’t you agree?” His voice softened, his drawl coming out to play a little more. “I’m not going to tell the governor about this. I reckon you’ve got to do whatever you can to keep all those balls you’re juggling in the air.”
Relief rippled through her. “Thank you.”
“I do need to go over a few things with you-get a copy of the guest list you’re working up so we can vet everyone. I’ll also need to know your plans for the physical layout-what rooms you’re going to use, where we can set up security.”
“Of course.”
“I’d just as soon get that started tonight rather than waiting for later-we shouldn’t have taken today off.”
She hadn’t taken the day off, but she wasn’t about to point out that fact to him. “So you’re serious about dinner?”
“Yeah, but I was sort of lying about grilled cheese being okay. Why don’t I pick up something at Talk of the Town? I work with the owner’s fiancé-maybe I can get a deal.” He grinned.
“Mr. McClain, did you know that quarter horses are called that because they were bred for running quarter-mile races?” Zachary asked.
“I did,” Harlan answered, turning to smile at Zachary.
Zachary grinned back, making Stacy’s heart contract. “I knew you would.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because you’re wearing a horse.”
Harlan looked down at the logo on the left breast of his golf shirt. “Well, what do you know. I am.”
“Did you know that quarter horses were first called quarter-mile horses?” Zachary asked.
“Now, that I didn’t know.”
“I have a book. You can borrow it.” Zachary moved closer, gazing up at Harlan with a look Stacy was coming to recognize as trouble waiting to happen. He was definitely developing a crush on Harlan McClain.
And that was bound to be nothing but trouble for Stacy.
“Thanks, Zachary. I might take you up on that.” Harlan turned to Stacy. “Is seven okay for dinner?”
Now was her chance to back out, she thought. But he’d more or less suggested the dinner would be a business meeting, too, so she could hardly say no, could she?
She swallowed a sigh, overwhelmed with the growing certainty that she was racing headlong into one big mess. “Sure. Seven is fine.”
She grabbed Zachary’s hand and started walking down the road toward the checkpoint. Harlan caught up with them. “I’ll get you through the checkpoint without having to sign out.”
She flashed a grateful smile, but inside, her stomach was turning flips, especially when his hand brushed her back as he guided her toward the checkpoint.
Maybe Zachary wasn’t the only one forming a crush.
Chapter Six
“He really likes horses, huh?” Harlan asked Stacy, watching Zachary pretend to feed pieces of apple to the toy horses sitting next to him at the kitchen table.
“He’s single-minded about subjects that inte
rest him.” She spoke carefully when discussing her son, Harlan noticed. That caution probably explained her stealth this afternoon at the stables. Though she was clearly a good mom-Zachary was as smart as a whip and relatively well-behaved-she seemed determined to act, on the job at least, as if she weren’t a mother at all.
He had served with women in Iraq, mothers who’d been forced to leave their kids home with family or their husbands while they served their country in a war zone, never sure they’d make it back alive. He understood the pressures women were under when the demands of their jobs clashed with the interests of their families. Nobody really won in that kind of situation.
“I’ve made just about all the calls I needed to make, and I’m going to ask the ad agency to do a rush job on getting the invitations to our donor list set up and ready to go by Friday,” Stacy said to fill the silence that had fallen between them. “They’ll drop Friday and most should be in home by Wednesday or Thursday, which means they’ll have a little over a week to get back to us with their RSVPs.”
“That sounds good.” He wasn’t really worried about the vagaries of direct mail. He was more interested in whether or not she agreed with his solidifying belief that the bomb at the capitol was an inside job. “Stacy, has the governor hired anyone new in the last few weeks?”
Her eyebrows lifted at the question. “Not in the office staff. I’m not sure about the ranch hands-they come and go more regularly than the political staff do, and I don’t have anything to do with the hiring, so I wouldn’t know.”
“The ranch staff wouldn’t know much about the governor’s comings and goings, would they?”
“Not day to day, no.”
“But they know about some of the comings and goings?”
“Well, sure,” she said. “If the governor’s having people to visit, they’ll know. If she’s going to be away from the ranch overnight, some of them, at least, would know.”
“Harlan, will you go riding with me?” Zachary asked, looking up at Harlan with curious blue eyes.
Stacy glanced at Harlan. “Mr. McClain,” she gently corrected. “And Mr. McClain is going to be really busy for a while. In fact, I’m going to be busy, too. But I promise we’ll make up the riding lessons if we miss any. Okay?”
Zachary’s dark brows met in the middle. “We can’t miss any riding lessons, Mommy. The horses depend on seeing me.”
She laughed softly, though she darted another quick look at Harlan. “I’m sure they will have plenty of people to keep them entertained until you can get back to them. But in the meantime, I have a job I have to do, and I need you to be a big boy and help me out. Can you do that?”
“Help you out how?”
“Just by being a sweet boy and understanding that sometimes, you’ll have to play by yourself while I’m working.”
Zachary fell silent again.
“Must be hard keeping up with him and your job at the same time,” Harlan murmured.
Stacy’s dark eyebrows met in a V, as Zachary’s had. “I manage,” she said shortly.
Great. He’d said the wrong thing again.
Zachary broke the tense silence. “Can you get me another book about horses, Mommy? I’ve read the one I have five times.”
Stacy released a soft breath. “I can get you another book on horses, Zachary. But maybe you should try reading one of the other books I bought you for your birthday first. How about the book about trains?”
“But I want to read about horses.”
The kid was single-minded, Harlan thought. “Locomotive trains were once called iron horses,” he told the little boy. “Did you know that?”
Zachary looked skeptical. “Trains don’t eat apples. And they don’t have manes. And horses don’t have engines.”
“I think it’s because trains took the place of horses for travel back in the days before cars and trucks and airplanes.” Stacy smiled, but Harlan saw a hint of sadness behind the smile, as if the conversation was causing her pain. “And since locomotives were made of iron, they called them iron horses.”
“Why didn’t they just call them trains?” Zachary asked.
“I’m sure they did that, too,” Harlan interjected. “It was like a nickname. You know what a nickname is, don’t you?”
“Miss Charlotte at school calls the girl who sits next to me Patricia, but we all call her Patty. She says it’s her nickname. I think Miss Charlotte should call her Patty, too, if that’s what she wants to be called. Don’t you?”
Harlan looked up at Stacy. “How old is he?”
“Five.” She gave him a look that seemed almost wary before she added, “And a half.”
“He’s very bright. You must spend a lot of time reading to him.” Harlan ventured a smile, a little taken aback at how nervous she seemed with him now. Just a few days earlier, in Austin, she’d seemed confident and strong, nothing like the woman on edge facing him now.
“I can read,” Zachary piped up. “I read the book about horses all by myself.”
Harlan looked at Stacy for confirmation. She gave a slight nod and tried a smile back at him, but it looked forced.
“How’s that hamburger, Zachary?” he asked her son, noticing that the boy had barely touched his food.
“It has mustard,” Zachary said bluntly. “I hate mustard.”
“I’m sorry-he tends to say what he thinks without worrying how it sounds.” Stacy reached across the table for the hamburger. “Zachary, you could have told me it had mustard on it. I would have scraped it off for you.”
“It gets all in the bread. It never stops tasting like mustard,” the boy said flatly. “Can I have a cookie now?”
Stacy frowned. “Let me open you some soup first. You know you have to eat dinner before you eat dessert.”
“I’m sorry,” Harlan asked, feeling like an idiot. “I should have thought to ask what he’d want on it.”
“It’s okay,” Stacy assured him quickly, digging in her cabinet for a can of soup. “If you don’t have children, you don’t know to anticipate things like that.”
“I’ll have to make a Zachary list, then.” Harlan grinned at the boy, who looked back at him with a blank-looking stare. “Likes horses, knows how to read, doesn’t like mustard.”
“I also like cookies,” Zachary added.
“Noted.”
Stacy was in the middle of heating the bowl of soup in the microwave when her cell phone rang. She looked at the display and frowned. “It’s Greg Merritt. I’ll have to get this.”
She moved into the living room, seeking privacy, but the guesthouse was too small to afford her much. From her end of the conversation, it sounded as if the governor’s campaign manager wanted an instant update on the invitation list Stacy had been working on.
The microwave oven beeped, signaling it was finished cooking Zachary’s soup. Neither Stacy nor Zachary seemed to notice.
Harlan got up and retrieved the soup from the microwave oven, snagging the spoon Stacy had left on the counter on the way back to the table. He set the soup in front of Zachary. “Mmm, chicken and noodles. I used to love that when I was a kid.”
Zachary picked up his spoon. “Why don’t you love it now?”
“Well, I suppose I’d still love it now. I just don’t eat a lot of soup anymore.”
“But if you loved it before and you love it now, why don’t you eat it anymore?” Zachary’s forehead furrowed, making him look like a confused cherub.
“I eat other things.”
“Horses eat carrots as well as apples.” Zachary turned his attention back to the toy horse. “Do you have a horse?”
“I live in a small apartment, so I can’t have a horse there. If I lived somewhere else, maybe I would.” His family had been too poor to own horses when he was a kid, but he had learned to ride thanks to a schoolmate whose family owned a stable with several Tennessee walking horses.
Across the room, Stacy’s voice rose. “Greg, I can’t get a whole new group of names added to the list
before tomorrow morning. You’re just going to have to reschedule.”
“Mommy, we don’t live in a small apartment. Can we have a horse?” Zachary slipped down from his chair and crossed to Stacy, tugging at her blouse. “Mommy, we can have a horse because we don’t live in a small apartment.”
Stacy made a shushing sound, stroking her son’s head. “Yes, I know we’re under the gun-”
“Mommy, we can have a horse! Harlan said so!”
Stacy shot Harlan a questioning look.
Harlan hurried over, gently steering Zachary back to the table. “Zachary, let’s go back and eat your soup.”
“You can have it,” Zachary said dismissively, wriggling out of Harlan’s grasp and returning to his mother. “Mommy, can we go get our horse now?”
“Zachary, your mama’s on the phone. Come back and eat your soup,” Harlan said, keeping his voice as low as possible.
Zachary ignored him. “Mommy-”
Stacy put her hand over the phone receiver. “Just a second, Zachary- Yes, Greg, I’m still listening to you-”
Harlan reached down and picked Zachary up, carrying him toward the kitchen. Immediately, he realized he’d done exactly the wrong thing. Zachary started struggling as if Harlan were trying to abduct him, his hands flapping wildly and his head rolling. Stacy shot Harlan a look of sheer disbelief.
Well, hell, Harlan thought, feeling about as stupid as he ever had. But might as well make the most of his screwup. He carried Zachary into the kitchen and planted him on the chair in front of his bowl of soup.
“Mommy!” Zachary wailed. He kept flapping his hands frantically.
Harlan gently caught the boy’s hands to hold them still. “I’m sorry I scared you, but you need to let your mama finish her business. Can’t you wait until she’s done?”
Zachary went silent, staring at Harlan with blue eyes full of accusation. “You touched me.”
Harlan dropped his hands away. “I know. I’m sorry.”
“Mommy says I should never let someone else touch me. Only Mommy. I’m telling.”
Oh, great. Now the kid thought he was some sort of pervert. “I think your mama already knows. And I’m sorry, Zachary. Your mama’s right-you shouldn’t let anybody touch you but her without your permission. But your mama-”
