Zachary's Christmas

by M. L. Buchman

  “Ski area,” he’d knelt and mumbled through his first kiss, which was between her breasts. “First to open in Colorado every year. Great place for Arctic training.”

  “Sounds cold,” it would be if the room weren’t so warm because the rest of her clothes had disappeared while she was appreciating the shoulder of the former soldier now kneeling before her.

  “Lodge has hot cocoa and greasy French fries in front of a big fireplace.”

  “I’ve never skied, so I’ll wait for you in the lodge. Greasy fries sound good,” she knelt as well and tipped her head back to give him better access as his lips explored her shoulder. She wasn’t in the mood for waiting for anything. She had thought they’d have a slow, loving experience. But the only reason she didn’t drag him to the floor was that he was now headed there and dragging her down with him. She leaned down over him as he finally lay exposed in a patch of moonlight, seeking the kiss they’d never quite gotten around to.

  He stopped her an inch away, holding her easily aloft with a hand on each shoulder.

  She again tried to close the narrow gap that separated them, but still he resisted.

  “You’ve never skied?”

  “I’ve also never bedded a Vice President of the United States. So let me go if you want to be the first.” She leaned in again, but still he kept them easily separated.

  “You have to have skied.”

  “I’ve also never flown a fighter jet or swum across an ocean. Is that going to make you cast me from your bedroom?” He was working his way toward a sharp nudge in the ribs.

  “We’ll have to fix that you’ve never skied,” the moonlit expression on his face remained serious. “It’s important.”

  “Why? To see how fast I can turn into an icicle?”

  “No,” he brushed one hand down from her shoulder, over her breast and hip sending a shiver of need through her. “Because it is the only thing I can see standing between you and perfection.”

  With the same easy strength that he’d used to keep her at bay, he pulled her in, and she didn’t fight him one tiny little bit. Perfection was about the farthest thing from Anne Darlington, but if this beautiful man wanted to believe otherwise, she’d do her best to convince him that he was right.

  She also had been right the first time. Making love to Vice President Zachary Thomas for the first time was neither a hot nor fast event. It was slow, gentle, and made her feel as if maybe, just maybe, she had discovered a small corner of perfection herself.

  Chapter 4

  “Why are you wearing a tie?”

  “Oh,” Anne brushed her hand down the smooth silvery silk of it. “Isn’t it pretty?”

  Daniel looked at her strangely, blinked twice, and then his face froze and she couldn’t read his expression. That was unusual; she could always read what her brother was thinking. Or rather had been able to.

  He rose from his desk and closed the door to his office before returning. He sat beside her rather than circling back to his own side of the paper mountain.

  “Don’t start, little brother. I’m feeling too good for one of your lectures.”

  “That’s Zack Thomas’ tie.”

  “Vice President Zachary Thomas’,” she corrected and Daniel blanched at his slip into inappropriate familiarity. “He gave it to me and I find myself unwilling to return it yet.”

  “Melanie Anne…”

  “Daniel Drake Darlington the Third…” she could match his threatening tone any day.

  “I don’t care if you’re screwing Vice President Thomas—”

  “You don’t?” That stopped them both for a long moment, but he was the first one to recover.

  “Okay, I do. But that’s not the point. How many people have seen you while wearing that tie? I’m not the only one who would recognize it; that’s one of his favorites.”

  She hadn’t thought about that. She had worn it all through their long night together—wrestling in bed, eating ice cream and watching the football game while curled together on the Library couch at three in the morning. It had been the only clothing either of them had worn through the long night. And when they’d only made it back up to the second landing in the stairs where, with no protection close to hand, they’d had to improvise, she had found a few interesting uses for it. And this morning she’d slipped the neck loop under the fold of her denim collar and snugged it up properly. She’d never worn a man’s tie before but it was far better than nylons on any day of the year.

  “Maybe nobody else noticed?”

  “Shall we find out, big sister?” Daniel almost sounded nasty. It wasn’t really in him to succeed at such an endeavor, but he tried. He picked up a remote control and turned on one of the several televisions he had in his office.

  And there was her picture. It was a long shot, through a major telephoto with all of its blurriness and foreshortening effects. But it was unmistakably her, in her big parka with the front still open because she was still near heat stroke from the thoroughness of Zachary’s parting caresses. And, as the commentator was helpfully indicating with circles and arrows and a scrolling line below, there was the same tie that the Vice President had been wearing the prior day.

  Next were side-by-side photos of Zack yesterday and of her coming in through White House security not twenty minutes ago. Again the same tie.

  Well, the hog was in the waller now. No easy way to get it back out.

  “Top item on the seven a.m. news,” Daniel complained. “Ahead of Russia, ahead of the Japanese yen. Do you have any idea what trouble this is going to cause him? I don’t even know where to begin to—”

  She was trying to cut him off when the door to Daniel’s office swung open and the President strode in already in mid-sentence, “Is that really Zack’s tie on—”

  He stopped. Frozen still when he spotted her.

  Anne flapped the tie at him.

  “Huh,” the President grunted in a way that he’d never have done on national TV. “I guess it is.”

  He inspected her for a long moment, “How are you feeling, Anne?”

  “You mean other than my little brother throwing a Southern-fried hissy fit?”

  “Yes,” he smiled down at her. “Other than that.”

  That’s when she belatedly realized she was still sitting and scrambled to her feet along with Daniel. “My body is, well, Mr. President, rather pleased with the situation. My brain is as confused as—” she re-chose her words in mid-sentence, “—a chicken at a hog-calling contest.”

  Oddly enough that seemed to tickle him immensely as he smiled at some grand joke that only he was in on. “That’s normal, then. Okay.” He considered a moment longer as he inspected her through narrowed eyes, then he clapped his hands together with some clear decision. “You all are having dinner in the Residence tonight. Daniel, would you let Zack and our wives know?” And he was gone.

  Anne looked at the now empty doorway then back to her brother, “I thought I was confused before he walked in. What is he so all fired pleased about?”

  “I don’t know,” Daniel settled slowly back into his seat. “But what it does mean, big sister, is that we’re having dinner with the President and First Lady tonight. Please wear a dress.”

  “I didn’t bring one.” Had never needed one because she’d never had dinner with the President before, nor slept with the Vice President—two firsts in less than twenty-four hours. She was on a roll.

  Daniel narrowed his eyes at her, then called out toward his still open office door, “Janet, I need someone to take my sister out clothes shopping. Then get a message to the Vice President and the First Lady about dinner.”

  Anne was going to offer to tell Zachary; it would also give her a chance to apologize for any trouble this was causing. Then she realized that she had no idea how to get in touch with the Vice President.

  She headed for t
he door.

  “Would you please take that damn tie off?”

  She thought about it, then nodded toward the television. “I think that dog has already slipped the leash, don’t you?”

  # # #

  Zack had been in meetings all day. The peremptory invitation to dine at the White House arrived in the same sixty-second break in which Cornelia filled him in on “Tie Gate.” There were times he hated President Nixon and then there were times he just pitied the man. Every DC disaster for the last forty years had been tied back to his screw-ups at Watergate. Zack wondered if he himself should feel honored that his private life had been added to the legacy.

  As his day progressed, he caught up with more photos of Anne Darlington as she traveled about DC. He had to give the woman points, she’d worn his tie proudly every step of the way. It looked damn good on her.

  However, he was not ready for how it looked when he stepped off the elevator onto the Second Floor of the Residence. He and Harvey followed the sound of laughter from the elevator to the President’s private Living Room.

  As there were guests, two Secret Service agents flanked the door. Frank Adams was a massive man and the head of the President’s Protection Detail. Beatrice Ann Belfour, commonly known as Beat, was a powerfully curved, much smaller, and supposedly even more dangerous version of her husband—though that was hard to imagine. It was generally agreed that the Presidential couple had the most dangerous team in or out of the military guarding them. Harvey joined them out in the Central Hall and Zack continued into the Living Room.

  He nodded to the President and First Lady; nodded to Daniel and Alice as well before he caught sight of her.

  Zack had expected Anne to still be wearing the silvered tie, which she was with the knot loose down to just above her breasts, but that was about all he recognized. Sometimes a man was lucky. He’d thought that many times since meeting Anne Darlington. And he’d thought it continuously as they’d romped back and forth through his hundred-and-twenty year old home. Still, it hadn’t prepared him for this.

  “Holy cow, Queen Anne. You’re radiant.”

  “They did things to me,” Anne flapped her hands helplessly. “I tried to stop them, but they overpowered me. Who knew that there were gangs of toughs inside dress shops and salons.”

  “Be quiet and just let me look,” he knew she’d ignore his command. Except she did remain quiet. She also blushed and glared at him—both fiercely.

  Her hair, that thick bounty of long hair he’d so enjoyed toying with last night, now shone as it spread over her shoulders. She had bought a dress, the kind that might have killed a lesser man. It wasn’t sheer but it clung in amazing ways. Last night he’d seen the incredible conditioning of a life spent on a farm and riding horses. Tonight, her dress revealed it in whole new ways. He’d always thought himself unreasonably fortunate in the women he’d dated, but Anne Darlington was cut from a whole different cloth—in this case one of sky blue silk that complimented her dark blue eyes.

  She’d retained her cowboy boots, though someone—he was sure it wasn’t her—had thought to polish them to a brilliant mahogany shine. The skirt bloomed just above her knees, like she was ready for a country dance. A silver belt at her slim waist matched the tie, which was tucked under an over-wide starched collar that would have looked wrong on a woman with less strength of shoulder. The dress offered no cleavage, but instead was downright sinful in its accent of her shape.

  “I want a picture of you in that for my shelf.”

  “I want a picture of your jaw hanging open,” but she said it softly and offered him a smile of understanding. It was the same smile she’d offered as they stood before his photograph of the train set; one of deep sympathy and infinite understanding. Of course she’d understood the importance of his statement even if he hadn’t when he’d said it. No one except his family and his trains appeared on that shelf. Yet still he wanted her there.

  He moved over to hold her for just a moment. As he pulled her into his arms, Zack knew for certain that this wasn’t going to be some typical DC affair, here and gone almost as fast as the news cycle. This was a woman he was going to hold onto for as long as possible.

  # # #

  Anne tried several times that evening to shoo Zack away, but wasn’t having much luck with it. And the others weren’t helping.

  In the President’s personal Living Room, she had ended up on one Chesterfield sofa with Zack while the President and First Lady Geneviève Matthews took the one opposite. Both couches were done in liquid brown leather. Daniel and Alice occupied a pair of wing-back armchairs. It was clear that the First Lady had made this room very masculine for her husband’s sake. Anne wondered if he noticed quite how comfortable he was here.

  The hand of the Christmas spirit had touched lightly here even though the family Christmas tree dominated one corner. Presents were already accumulating under the pine branches which were covered in homey ornaments that could only have been gathered over decades of time. The glasses they used for eggnog had a holly pattern and the appetizer plates had that same pattern painted on the white china. But little else existed to mitigate the sheer maleness of the room.

  They’d chatted about world events at a level that Anne was fairly sure she wasn’t cleared for. Every now and then Daniel would start to raise some objection about her clearance level, and the President simply ran right over him. Geneviève, who Anne was still having problems with calling by her first name, didn’t even bat an eye. After the second time, Alice nodded as if the President’s choice made perfect sense. Zack had eyed her a time or two, so it wasn’t just her imagination. Eventually only she and Daniel were twitching at the frankness and details revealed on certain topics. The President was welcoming her to a whole new level. On previous visits, the few times she saw Peter Matthews, conversations had turned instantly mundane in her presence. Not pointless or dumbed down, merely of no great import. Not so tonight.

  The eggnog was spiked, which had gone straight to her head, but she managed not to wobble as they had adjourned to the Dining Room. She congratulated herself on making the transition comfortably as they crossed the Central Hall. Walking beside Alice and chatting about CIA analytical methods and how Alice had applied them to understanding why in the world Daniel had fallen for her, they approached the three agents who had moved down to the West Sitting Hall.

  The Christmas elves had been here as well, with a much heavier hand. Great wreaths the size of a horse blanket hung along the walls. Woven streamers of red and green velvet draped the columns. It was elegant, tasteful, and decidedly merry.

  The agents looked both in and out of place in the fine hall dressed in its Christmas attire. The three of them wore good quality dark suits and sat comfortably in nice period furniture.

  She waved at Harvey who waved back. The other two were inspecting her with a degree of scrutiny that at first felt invasive it was so intense. Then she realized they were probably studying her for characteristic motion, potentially dangerous actions, or who knew what went on within a top agent’s mind. Having finished whatever their inspection was, the huge man waved back in a friendly enough fashion. The woman still watched her carefully.

  Then all three leapt to their feet as the President came into view behind her. Suddenly they looked like some Tom Cruise Mission Impossible team—dressed for a party and armed to kill.

  “Dinner call,” the President said in a friendly fashion. “I’ll make sure trays get out to you.”

  “Thank you, sir. Very kind of you, Mr. President.”

  Anne glanced back as their party entered the Dining Room. The agents remained on alert, inspecting the long and empty hallway carefully before returning to their seats.

  Maybe the transition to whatever inner circle she was being welcomed wasn’t quite so comfortable. They were in the most heavily guarded home in America. They even had guards inside. How far away was the
officer with the nuclear football? The medic in case the President choked or had a stroke? What about…

  “What in blue hills am I doing here?” She whispered to Zack as he held out her chair.

  “Being the first woman I’ve dated who has been invited to the First Family’s table.”

  Anne was overwhelmed by several elements of that statement and went for the least scary one, “We’re dating?” Though why she thought that was the least scary…

  “Haven’t you been watching the news?”

  She sat and he took the chair close beside her. She’d hoped for a little more distance from the emotional power that Zack was wielding over her. But he was right and she’d known that from the moment she’d seen the look in his eyes as he’d arrived tonight. She was in so much trouble. No, she’d known it since they’d stood together in front of that childhood train photo. It was impossible that she somehow knew so much about him so soon, and yet it also felt perfectly right that she did.

  They’d had a wonderful time last night, definitely the best sex she’d ever had. And Zachary Thomas wasn’t only a powerful man, he was an immensely considerate lover. Either his past as an Air Force Captain or his present life as the Vice President gave him a certain tendency toward macho, but it was well balanced by his innate kindness. Her past experiences were with men who had smoother manners and gentler personalities; not Zachary’s raw force of character.

  In a dress—which made her feel exposed rather than beautiful—he’d looked at her as if she was indeed a queen—which made her feel beautiful rather than exposed. But seated side by side at the circular table, with their knees bumping against each other far more often than could be blamed on their relative positions, Zack was completely overloading her senses.

  He was right, they were dating. She, Anne Darlington, was dating the Vice President of— Anne really wished she was a drinking woman.

  The Dining Room also reflected a woman’s touch. Christmas here was knick-knacks on the mantel: candy cane candles, a line of matryoshka wooden nesting dolls but in the form of reindeer, and an old steel frame with three aged brass bells just like the ones on the four-horse team they used to pull the farm’s “sleigh.” In Tennessee it had wheels rather than runners, but the Darlington farm had offered children free hayrides in it since the late-1800s.