Betina Krahn (38 page)

He studied her for a moment, his eyes growing more lively as they darted over her.

“Deliver what?”

“A judicial ruling. A little federal muscle. Tammany Hall has kicked Connor out and said he’s off the ballot. They don’t have the legal right to do that—I checked—but they’ll do it, just the same. And we don’t have time for a court battle to get him reinstated. We’ve got to have a decision, right away. If anybody has the clout to get a federal court ruling in less than a week it’s you.”

“Why would I want to help that insolent pup? He walked out on me—”

“He was pushed,” she countered. “You pushed him out with both hands.”

“He chose his bed, let him lie in it,” he grumbled.

“He chose to be a man, instead of a doormat.”

“He threw in with that bunch of Irish crooks at Tammany Hall. He deserves what he gets.”

“He has walked out on those crooks at Tammany Hall … for the very same reason he walked out on you. Because he’s a man.” She straightened and spoke right from the heart. “A good man. A strong and principled man. The kind of man this world needs.”

Hurst scowled, but the deepening furrow in his brow and the subtle slumping of his shoulders said that her words had fallen on fertile ground. Her reading of heavy regret in the old man’s eyes had been right on target. And she hoped one last nudge would bring him kicking and thumping back into the land of the living.

“We’re a lot alike, you and me,” she said, allowing her compassion to rise into her voice and face. “We’ve both spent our lives seeking control of the things and people around us … only to learn that the things worth having are the things you can never really control. Love, in all of its guises, is a gift. You can’t make another person give it to you … you can only offer it to them in hope.” She lowered her voice and tried very hard to keep the Irish
out of it. “I’m making you that offer, Hurst Barrow. And this may be your last chance.”

When the old man turned his stubborn gaze on her, she could have sworn there was moisture in his eyes.

IT WAS LATE
the next night before Connor turned the key in the lock of his front door and let himself in. He had spent a good part of the day walking the streets to avoid both his house and his besieged legal offices. Then, after the reporters had grown tired of waiting and left, he had crept up the fire escape to catch a few winks on the settee in his office. After that, he had a late supper in a small Italian-run café off Broadway and then began the long walk home.

There was a light burning in the parlor, but he quickly discounted the possibility that Bebe would be there again. He’d be damned lucky if she ever spoke to him again after he had walked out on her last night. He had needed the time, the space, to do some serious thinking. He hung up his hat, removed his rumpled coat, and hung them on the coat tree in the hall.

When he entered the parlor to turn out the lamp, he stopped flat … staring at his leathery, age-hardened gnome of a grandfather, who was dozing in one of the wing chairs by the hearth. The old boy had taken the wool lap blanket from the window seat to cover his knees and had made himself completely at home.

His first impulse was to flee, his second was to toss the old boy out, and his third—and most civilized—impulse was to wake him up and see what the devil he was doing here. Besides the obvious.

“Come to gloat, have you?” Connor said in a strong
voice, startling the old fellow awake with a snuffle and a grunt.

“Huh—what?” Hurst came abruptly alert.

“How did you get in here?” Connor demanded.

“Your housekeeper.” The old boy wiped his mouth with a withered hand. “She’s gullible. You ought to fire her.”

“She let
you
in … I probably should.” Connor planted himself in the middle of the room with his hands on his hips. This time
he
was not going to be the one to leave. “What do you want?”

“A new left foot, better hearing, and about ten more years than I probably have left. But, that’s neither here nor there,” Hurst snapped as he tossed the lap blanket aside. “You may as well know: It wasn’t my idea to come. It was that damned infernal female. She made me.”

He could only be talking about Bebe. They didn’t have any other “damned infernal females” in common anymore. Connor scowled.

“Why?” he demanded. Why on earth would Bebe inflict his miserly, combative, crotchet-ridden old grandfather on him at a time like this?

“She’s got some damned fool notion about mountains and Mohammed. Says you and I’ve got some business still to do. Silly romantic nonsense if you ask me.” He huddled irritably. “She’s your bit o’ fluff—you figure it out.”

Connor clung tenaciously to the tenuous equilibrium he had achieved in the last twenty-four hours. It was probably that recovering sense of self-possession that allowed him to actually see the absurdity in the old boy’s grousing. He had called Bebe a bit of fluff. There wasn’t an epithet in the entire English language less suited to her. And
romantic?
Connor couldn’t help the way his mouth quirked up on one side.

Hurst looked up at him with a much-practiced scowl.

“So they tossed you out.”

“I walked out.”

“Figures,” the old man said, looking away in disgust.

“They sat on me. I couldn’t live like that.” He braced, expecting a stinging retort. To his surprise, the old man drew a heavy breath and then gave a snarl of impatience.

“I always said Tammany was full of idiots. A damned convention of idiots.” Then he looked up at Connor with a narrow, assessing gaze. “What are you going to do?”

Was that what this was about? Connor wondered. The old man swooped in to catch him in a weak moment and haul him back into the family lair?

“I have no idea.” It hurt to admit it.

“Well, I do,” the old man said, studying the way Connor tensed. His drooping mouth lifted so that it actually made a straight line. He looked like an expressionless old turtle trying to smile. “You should run for Congress.”

Of all the things the old man might have said to him, that was the least expected. Connor stiffened all over at the impact of it.

“What?”

“Run for Congress. Take the damned seat away from those bog-trotters and show ’em how government should be run.”

Connor stared at him, blinked, and opened his mouth to speak without producing a sound.

“That’s what I said,” came Bebe’s voice from the door behind him. He turned and found her holding a tea tray and leaning against the doorway, watching. “Campaign hard, take the congressional seat from them in a landslide, and make them come to you on bended knee.” She
carried the tray in, set it down on the table, and stood studying it for a minute before looking up. “I can’t guarantee this tea. It’s my first attempt.” She caught Connor’s gaze. “But I can guarantee that you’ll make a better congressman than anybody else they can come up with. And I know you can win.”

“You’ve caught something … the pair of you. And you’re delirious with fever,” he said, staring at her clear, emerald eyes and seeing in them a polished glint of certainty. He felt a startling rush of warmth flowing over him. She was there. Now. Dirtying up his kitchen and giving him her unguarded, unflinching support.

“I’m off the ballot … or hadn’t you heard?”

“Not necessarily,” Hurst declared, drawing a folded paper from his pocket and waving it. “Once you’re on the ballot … they can’t get rid of you that easily … unless Tammany rigs the printing of the ballot. It may take a bit of work, but we can prevent that. We did a little checking this afternoon.” He looked at Beatrice with a conspiratorial squint. “I’ve got a federal judge willing to rule and guarantee your place on the ballot in two days. It’ll be spread all over the papers and we’ll be watchdogging the election commission. Your name will be there … if you want it to be there.”

Connor was stunned. He looked from his grandfather to Bebe with a dozen questions on his lips. “But I don’t have an election machine … I don’t have posters or venues or ward captains …”

“Connor,” Bebe said, coming to take his hands, squeezing them as if trying to force some fighting spirit into them. “What have you been doing these last six months? Campaigning, right? People have heard your name. They’ve heard you speak and debate. They’ve
shaken your hand. They’ve told you their problems. And they’ve liked what they saw. If your name is still on the ballot, a lot of people will vote for you. You’ve already done the hardest work of the campaign … the ‘grassroots’ things. You have a chance, Connor.” Her eyes began to shine. “Take it.”

“But the mess in the newspapers,” he said, feeling his throat constricting.

“Piss on the newspapers,” Hurst said with an irritable wave of the hand. “How many people read ’em anyway? And how many people
believe
what they read. Use your head, boy.” He tapped his temple. “Tammany may get print, but anybody can get print … for a price. Even us.”

Us?
Connor studied the old man as he pushed up from the chair and shuffled stiffly toward him. Bitter ground was giving way under his feet and it astonished him that a decade’s worth of grudges and pain seemed to be irrelevant just now.

“How bad do you want it, boy?” Hurst asked. “How hard are you willing to work?”

“You believe I can do it?” Connor asked, knowing that he was asking about far more than his political chances.

“I never once doubted your ability, boy.” The old man’s voice grew thick with unaccustomed feeling. “Nor the rightness of your heart. And as I get older, I can’t remember what I thought was so much more important than those two things.” He gave a heavy sigh that spoke volumes. “If you run, you’ll win.”

Connor felt Bebe’s hands on his arm and looked down at the hope and expectation in her face.

“You really think it can be done?” he asked her.

“Me? I’m the one who convinced your grandfather it was possible.”

Connor had a hard time swallowing the lump in his
throat in order to speak. “I must be losing every shred of intelligence I possessed.” He took a deep breath and felt his gut tighten in anticipation. “I’ll do it.”

Bebe grabbed him and hugged him, laughing. When he looked up from kissing her, his grandfather was watching them with a jaundiced eye.

“You won’t get elected doing that kind of nonsense,” Hurst said, shoving the paper containing the court date into Connor’s hands and heading for the front door, grumbling all the way. “I got a campaign to fund.”

Connor saw the old man turn at the doorway for one last glimpse, and thought he saw a quirk of a smile on that withered face. Then the sound of the door closing reached them and he looked down at Bebe. Her cheeks were wet and her lashes glistened.

“You came back,” he said, brushing her hair back along her temple.

“Did you doubt that I would?”

“Well …” He reddened. “I wasn’t exactly—”

“In any frame of mind to hear about possibilities?” she supplied. “I realized that later. Sometimes it takes a little while for your heart to recover enough to begin to hope.” She reached up to cradle his face between her hands. “You’re the most precious thing in the world to me. It broke my heart to think of what those bastards did to you. And when you walked out, I realized that when I saw you again … I had to have something to give you … some course of action, some reason for hope.”

He felt his own eyes burning, and blinked.

“You didn’t have to go to all that trouble. All you had to do was be here … looking at me like that … with love in your eyes. That would have been enough. I love you, Bebe. And I want to give you the world. But right
now, all I have is this house, the promise of a lot of hard work, and a pair of arms that will never get tired of holding you.”

“More than enough.” She raised her lips for a kiss. “You sweet talker, you.”

FOUR DAYS AFTER
Connor’s disastrous meeting with news reporters at Tammany Hall, the newspapers were still full of the story, its aftermath, and implications. Speculation ran wild on who Tammany Hall’s new candidate would be, and the more daring newspapers raised questions about whether or not it was possible to legally place his successor’s name on the ballot at such a late date. Wags commented in cartoons and in prose that Tammany Hall never had trouble with legalities … it simply changed the laws to accommodate whatever it wanted to do.

The bombshell of the week, however, came with the news that Connor might contest his removal from the ballot in the courts. Those rumors were followed quickly by confirmed reports that the federal court had ruled that Connor was indeed a certified candidate and must be included in the voting. Tammany reacted by quickly anointing City Alderman Bert McCloskey as Connor’s successor on the Democratic ticket, and by sending a
pair of beefy new “clerks” to work in the election commission office.

When Connor and Beatrice delivered the court papers ordering that his name must appear on the ballot, the new “clerks” snatched the papers from the commissioner’s hands before Connor and Beatrice made it out the door.

“Just as I figured,” Hurst said when he met them at Connor’s house that evening and they told him what had happened. His ancient turtle smile appeared, but with a crafty twist. “You leave the ballots to me.”