“All right.” Dev considered the possibilities, then gave voice to the most logical one. “My parents’ place? Mom was coming out here next week anyway. You could go there instead.”
Lauren’s eyes lit up at the thought. It was so peaceful there. “God, that would be wonderful. Do you think they’d mind.”
“Don’t be silly. They’ll be thrilled. They love you.” Devlyn grasped her hand and threaded their fingers together. She took a deep breath, knowing what she had to do and already shuffling through mental contingency plans. There had to be another way. “Okay. I’ll make arrangements to cancel my trip and—”
“Don’t.”
Startled and hurt, Dev scrambled for something to say. “I’ll still give you some time alone. I meant that,” she clarified quickly, not wanting to Lauren to think she was smothering her. “I just thought—”
“I’m going to be fine,” Lauren soothed, “and your trip is too important to miss.” She smiled encouragingly. “Go, Devlyn. Save the world and all that. I’ll be here when you get back.”
Dev pulled her into a rough embrace again, her eyes fluttering closed. Lauren did understand. “It’s not saving the world… but I do…” She exhaled slowly. “You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.” Lauren reached up and tugged a lock of blowing hair behind Dev’s ear. She’d had enough of the difficult stuff for one evening. “Now, how long do we have before the army comes marching through this park?”
“Has it been 10 minutes yet?”
Lauren’s eyes went round. “Yes!”
“Then we’re fine because they gave me 20.”
Lauren let out an explosive breath. “Funny.”
“But,” Dev leaned forward a little, taking Lauren with her, “we should be going.”
They stood, each a little wobbly from the emotional strain of the day. The President wrapped a long arm around Lauren’s shoulders as they walked, Gremlin trailing lazily behind them.
“You need to apologize to David,” Lauren reminded Devlyn gently. And so do I.
“I will.”
Lauren glanced up at Dev as they walked, concern etched over her tired features. “Do you think you’ll get him back?”
“Huh?”
Blonde brows pulled together. “You said you fired him. Do you think you can get him back? I can talk to Beth and we can—”
Devlyn waved her off. “David isn’t going anywhere, Lauren. He knows I can’t run the damn country without him. He’s going to make me beg and plead and apologize, of course. All of which I owe him. But after that, he’ll be back.” A wry smile touched her lips. “I fired him four times in the month after Samantha died and once when I didn’t make it to the hospital on time to see Chris be born.”
“Was that his fault?” Lauren asked, guiding them down a small set of wooden steps. “About Chris?”
“Nah. We were both working on a last minute piece of legislation and had turned off our pagers so we wouldn’t be disturbed. Chris came two weeks early and Samantha’s labor was so short… I should have…” She shook her head a little. “Well, I just wasn’t thinking is all. David and I made up though, we always do. He’s a gracious man and I’m good at groveling.” Dev smiled at Lauren’s muffled snort. “He’s quit a few times too over the years. So the situation has been reversed. We started in politics together about,” she let out a low whistle, “about a million years ago. I… I don’t know that I’d want to do this without him.”
“You’re lucky he’s your best friend.”
Dev stopped walking and gently grasped Lauren’s chin, lifting it a little to force eye contact. “He’s my right hand and I love him, but you’re my best friend,” she corrected, her eyes showing her devotion.
Lauren leaned her head against Dev’s shoulder. She sighed happily, her heart greedily absorbing the words. “You’re mine, too, Devlyn.” And I need to trust you all the way. Or this will never work. And, God, how I want it to work.
“Then I guess I am lucky.”
They walked for another moment or two until they came to a clearing that was dotted with picnic tables.
“‘Some enchanted evening!’” a man sang freely, his voice loud and proud. His clothes were in tatters but his sparse, black hair was slicked back neatly, befitting the importance of his courting. “‘When you find your true love.’”
“‘When you hear her call you, across a crowded room,’” Lauren crooned along, causing the man to turn and Devlyn to burst out laughing. “‘An' somehow you know, you know even then, that somewhere you'll see her again and again!’”
“Hey!” he protested indignantly, planting himself in front of the oak tree as if to shield his ladylove from the view of unwanted strangers. “There should be a law against interrupting a man’s love song.”
“You’re right,” Lauren called over her shoulder. “Let me see what I can do.” She glanced over at Dev and winked. “I know people.”
* * *
Monday, March 7, 2022
DEV LOOKED AT the itinerary that Liza had handed her before scooting out the door. She was seated in her office behind her massive antique desk, barefoot, her pumps hidden behind it. The President chewed her bottom lip as she read over the schedule of her trip to Scotland for the World Economic Summit. It would be held in Edinburgh this year. Still reading, she pushed to her feet and reluctantly wiggled into her shoes.
She poked her head out of her office and smiled at Liza, whose nose was buried in Dev’s calendar, and Jane, who was sorting through a stack of correspondence.
“Your next appointment is a video conference with Vice President Vincent in four minutes, Madam President.” Liza bit off, “and 30 seconds.” Dev had told her: when in doubt, round down. She disapproved of that plan. Then again, she wasn’t the President.
“Thank you, Liza. Where are my golf clubs?”
Liza’s eyebrows jumped as she scrambled for an answer. “Umm… I didn’t know you played golf, Madam President.”
“She doesn’t,” Jane mumbled. “What was your last game? Fifty-five over par for nine holes?” Dev scowled, but Jane continued undaunted. “You remember, the last game you played before you ordered me to donate your clubs to a charity auction.”
“Oh. Right.” Dev really did detest the sport and only played to placate her father, who was the most avid golfer on the planet. A wry smile curved her lips as she recalled the obscenely expensive golf “clinic” given by Tiger Woods that her father had enrolled her in during the summer of her senior year in college. Meeting Tiger had been a treat. But thousands of dollars later her golf game had still sucked. To this day, Tiger refused to acknowledge she’d been to one of his camps.
She sighed, knowing that her father would love a chance to play at St Andrews and that her attendance at the conference was more for show than substance. Her advisors would be doing the bulk of the work. “Liza, would you please find me a set of clubs? I’m taking my dad to Scotland with me and I’ll be humiliating myself on the golf course so we can spend some time together. If they stop taking my picture for more than five minutes, I’m sure we’ll find the time to play at some point.”
Liza breezed through several screens on her handheld computer. “You won’t have to find time, Madam President. You’re already scheduled for a round of golf with the First Minister MacBheath and his wife on Sunday.”
Wonderful. An audience. Dev scratched her forehead and sighed. “Who scheduled that?”
“Michael Oaks,” Jane said. “He insisted, saying all politicians golfed at least well enough to have their picture taken at the club house. I tried to tell him…” Her voice trailed off.
Dev groaned. There was no way for him to know she couldn’t golf… at all. But still, he should have listened to Jane, the arrogant shit. “Make those a magic set of clubs, Liza. Please.”
“One that can actually hit the ball,” Jane murmured, still not looking up from her work.
“I heard that!” Dev blurted. “I can hit the ball!”
> “Of course you can,” Jane replied automatically, in her normal, placid voice. “I heard you did it once in 2003. Too bad no one took a photograph.”
Dev narrowed her eyes at the older woman.
“I’ll order those clubs, Madam President,” Liza said dutifully, trying hard not to laugh.
Dev took a step closer to her long-time secretary and friend. “Jane?”
“Yes, Tiger… err….” she gulped at the look on Dev’s face, “Madam President?”
Liza didn’t know what to think and her eyes widened a little as she glanced nervously between Jane and the President.
Stony-faced, Jane and Dev glared at each other for several long seconds before neither woman could hold the line and they both burst out laughing.
Liza exhaled in relief then blinked stupidly as she watched the barely veiled and undeniably rude gesture Dev made to Jane before returning to her office, but leaving the door open. “Buh….” Liza scrubbed her face. “Did she just…?”
“I can’t be sure, but I think she did!” Jane laughed. “I’m going to tell Janet on her,” she said in a raised voice, smiling triumphantly when she heard Dev’s gasped "Uh oh.”
* * *
Dev was just rising from her chair to head back to her quarters for the day when there was a gentle knock on the door that led from David’s office to her own. “Come in.”
The tall man lifted his hands to forestall Dev before she could even get out a greeting.
Dev felt her heart rate pick up a little. That was always a bad sign. Very bad.
“Don’t kill me,” he warned her seriously. “I had nothing to do with it.”
She licked her lips and braced herself. The kids were in bed, right? Yes, she remembered, Chris and Aaron had phoned her to say goodnight. Ashley was already asleep. But what about Lauren? Where is she? They’d spoken on the phone only an hour ago. She looked fine, but… What if it’s raining or snowing in Ohio? What if…? A knot formed in her stomach. “What?”
“I just heard through the grapevine that your mom has hired Toby Yagasuki to design your wedding dress.”
Dev closed her eyes and let out a ragged breath, a little amazed at how quickly she could get carried away.
“Hey.” David looked concerned. “Are you all right?” He reached out and grabbed Dev’s hand, noticing a chill.
Dev gave him a quick nod and moved quickly to safer ground. “Would the grapevine happen to be named Beth?”
David gave her hand a squeeze, then dropped it. “I refuse to divulge my sources. Operation: Wed Dev is highly sensitive. You don’t have the security clearance,” he teased.
“Why would I care about who Mom—? Oh, God!” Her jaw dropped. “Is Toby Yagasuki that little Japanese queen with big bouncy hair?”
David winced at the blunt, but apt, description.
“He does everything in mint and lime green; I saw him interviewed on television after the last Oscars.” A panicked look crossed her face. “No way!”
“Sorry, Dev. The grapevine never lies, unless it’s about who used the end of the toilet paper last and didn’t put on the new roll.” He loosened his tie as he took a seat in one of the armchairs in front of Dev’s desk, grunting in satisfaction at the comfortable furniture. “The ones in my office aren’t this comfortable.”
“Who cares about chairs? I’m the one who is going to look like a piece of Key Lime pie! Things can be ‘all about you’ when I’m finished with things being ‘all about me.’”
David made a dismissive gesture. “Suck it up and be a man about it.”
Playfully, Dev kicked at David’s shin. “I’m not a man!”
“I know.” He shrugged. “But I couldn’t think of anything else to say.”
Dev leaned against the front of her desk, a bewildered look on her face. First golf and now this? How many humiliations would come to pass in a single day?
David chuckled, not-so-secretly enjoying the nonplussed look on Dev’s face. “If the Secretary of Defense needs a new advisor on surgical strikes, I nominate your mother. She’s vicious.”
Dev whimpered. “It’s going to be a huge circus, isn’t it?”
“Ringling Brothers, and everyone else in the entertainment industry, have already made an offer to provide… entertainment, I guess.”
“My cousins will already be there. That’s my quota of freaks for the day.”
David laughed. “No, no. Not freaks. It was a legitimate offer and one that we’re considering.”
“What is it?” Dev’s voice was wary as she pushed off from the desk and plopped down in the chair next to David’s.
“Releasing 2,000 doves dressed in tiny tuxedos from a fake cake while the national anthem is blaring over the loudspeakers.”
Dev’s eyes bugged out. “What!” David sniggered evilly and Dev realized she was being played. God, I knew I was going to pay for firing him. “Don’t do that to me, damn it. My heart can’t take it. I believed you.”
“The part about the designer was true.”
“Christ.”
“Beth says you should see your mom, Devil. She’s having a ball.”
Dev sighed. “I know. And because of that I’m going to bite my tongue and know someday that I’ll end up in daughter heaven. Samantha and I got married in front of a justice of the peace. I thought Mom was going to have a litter of kittens when we told her.”
David shook his head and leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees as he stretched out his tired back. “I remember. Oh, Lord, do I remember. Do you know she called me and chewed me out for letting you do that.” He snorted. “Like I could have stopped you. I took hell for years over that.” He relaxed back in the comfortable chair and considered stealing it for his office. “What about Lauren?”
“A civil service. Apparently, she didn’t feel comfortable in front of a minister, and Judd is just cheap.”
David laughed.
“Mom is making up for missed opportunities now, isn’t she? You do realize that this would still be a circus, even if I wasn’t President.”
“Just keep telling yourself that this will be your last wedding and you’ll make it through.”
Dev’s jaw worked for a moment, her eyes dropping to the painfully clean carpet. “I want to. God, do I want to. But I can’t,” she admitted quietly. “I said that when I married Sam.”
David mentally kicked himself. “Oh, damn, Dev. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…”
“It’s okay. You know,” she paused, wondering how much she wanted to say, even to David. “I’ve been thinking a lot about Sam lately.”
“It’s only natural.”
“Maybe it’s because I’m older,” Dev speculated out loud. “Or maybe it’s because I never thought there would be someone after Samantha died.” She shook her head slowly and then glanced up at her friend. “Is it wrong for me to feel like I love Lauren more than I loved Sam?”
“I don’t think so.” He smiled reassuringly. “I don’t think you love Lauren more. I just think you love her differently.” She’s more your equal, my friend. She challenges you in ways Samantha couldn’t.
“I do,” Dev agreed, wanting to believe it as much as David apparently did. It’s just different, she told herself. Not more or less. Oh, Sam.
“So,” Dev slapped her knees and forced the maudlin thoughts from her mind. She’d have enough time with them alone in bed tonight. “Do you think Beth and Lauren are having a good time with my mother? I think sending them both down there was a good idea.”
“It was and she is. When did you talk to Lauren last?”
“Hour ago. I heard from her just about the time the little traitors were going to bed.”
David laughed at Dev’s reference to the children who had chosen to accompany Lauren to Ohio rather than going to Scotland with her. They were on a weeklong break from their classes. “Be glad they love Lauren so much.”
A bright smile split Dev’s face. “I am.” She felt a happy warmth fill her belly. “You
have no idea how good it makes me feel to see them with her. They adore her, and she’s so much better with them than she realizes.” Dev shook her head in amusement. “You should have heard her the other day trying to explain the birds and the bees to Aaron. It was priceless.”
David’s rusty-red eyebrows drew together; was he getting that big already? “Why was she doing that?”
“He asked,” Dev said simply. She got up, kicked her shoes against the wall and trudged over to a table holding a carafe of strong coffee. “We were having dinner and out of the blue Aaron asks how many babies Lauren and I will be having after we’re married.”
David’s eyes went a little round.
“Not if, but how many.”
“Oh, boy.” David joined Dev, filling his own cup of steaming brew. Then they both plopped down on the sofa and stretched their feet out in front of them. “And what did you say?” he finally asked, interestedly.
“I didn’t say anything, I was too busy laughing at the look on Lauren’s face. Lauren on the other hand, tried to explain to him that we didn’t know if we would.” Dev took a sip of her coffee, lost in her thoughts for a moment as she wondered if perhaps Lauren had wanted to say no, but didn’t, only because they hadn’t really talked about having more children themselves. “Then Aaron asked why we wouldn’t and it went downhill from there.”
David ran his finger over the rim of his cup, carefully considering his next question. He drew in a deep breath. “Dev?”
“Mmm?”
“Umm, I was wondering.” He shifted uncomfortably, fully aware that this was something they’d consciously avoided talking about over the years. But since the assassination attempt on Dev and her engagement, a day hadn’t passed where he hasn’t thought of it. “When you and Lauren get married, what happens to custody of the kids?”
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