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"Can't park here, mister."

"I'm —

"You gotta move your car. You're in a fire lane."

"But I'm—"

"There's a parking lot across the street, but because of the crowd, it might already be full." He shifted his wad of tobacco from one jaw to the other. "Anyhow, you can't leave it here."

"I'm Tate Rutledge."

"Buck Burdine . Pleased to meet ya . But you still can't park here."

Buck obviously had no interest in politics. Tate glanced at Avery. Diplomatically, she was studying her hands where they lay folded in her lap and biting her lip to keep from laughing.

Tate tried again. "I'm running for senator."

"Look, mister, are you gonna move your car, or am I gonna have to kick ass?"

"I guess I'm gonna move my car."

A few minutes later, he parked in an alley several blocks away, between a boot repair shop and a tortilla factory. As soon as he cut the engine, he looked across the interior of the car at Avery. She glanced at him sideways. Simultaneously, they burst out laughing. It lasted for several minutes.

"Aw, Jesus," he said, squeezing the bridge of his nose, "I'm tired. It feels good to laugh. Guess I have Buck Burdine to thank."

Rain was coming down in torrents and sheeting against the windows of the car. The streets were virtually deserted on this rainy weeknight. The businesses that sandwiched them were closed, but their neon signs projected wavering stripes of pink and blue into the car.

"Has it been horrible, Tate?"

"Yeah. Horrible." Mindlessly, he traced the stitching around the padded leather steering wheel. "I'm losing ground every day, not gaining it. My campaign's on the wane here in the final weeks, when it should be picking up momentum by the hour. It looks like Dekker is going to pull it off again." He thumped the steering wheel with his fist.

Avery shut out everything except him. She gave him her undivided attention, knowing that he needed a sounding board that didn't talk back. He hadn't had to tell her that he was tired. Lines of weariness and worry were etched at the sides of his mouth and around his eyes.

"I've never once doubted that it was my destiny to serve this state in the U.S. Senate." He turned his head and looked at her. She nodded in agreement but said nothing, uncertain how she should respond. He wouldn't tolerate banalities and platitudes.

"I even skipped running for state representative and went after what I ultimately wanted. But now, I'm beginning to wonder if I've been listening to people who only told me what I wanted to hear. Have I got delusions of grandeur?"

"Undoubtedly." She smiled when he registered surprise over her candor. "But name one politician who doesn't. It takes someone with enormous self-confidence to assume the responsibility for thousands of people's lives, Tate."

"We're all egomaniacs, then?"

"You have a healthy self-esteem. That's nothing to be ashamed of or apologize for. The ability to lead is a gift, like being musically inclined or having a genius for numbers."

"But no one accuses a mathematical wizard of exploitation."

"Your integrity wouldn't allow you to exploit anyone, Tate. The ideals you espouse aren't just campaign slogans. You believe in them. You're not another Rory Dekker. He's all wind. He's got no substance. In time, the voters are going to realize that."

"You still think I'm going to win?"

"Absolutely."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

It became very close and still within the car while the rain continued to beat against the roof and lash at the windows. He reached across the car and laid his hand flat on her chest, his thumb and little finger stretching from collarbone to collarbone.

Avery's eyes closed. She made a slight swaying motion toward him as though being tugged by an invisible string. When she opened her eyes again, he was much nearer. He had moved to the center of the bench seat and his eyes were busily scanning her face.

His hand slid up her throat and curled around the back of her neck. When his lips touched hers, spontaneous combustion consumed them. They kissed madly while their hands battled to gain ground. His smoothed down her chest, over the tailored suit jacket, then up again to knead her breasts through the quality cloth.

Avery caressed his hair, his cheeks, the back of his neck, and his shoulders, then drew him against her as she fell back into the corner of the seat.

He unbuttoned the two buttons on her left shoulder and wrestled with the row of hooks running down that side of her torso. When he shoved open the jacket, the gold locket now containing his and Mandy's pictures slipped into the valley between her breasts. The neon lights made a nighttime rainbow of her skin. Streams of rainwater cast fluid shadows across her breasts which were swelling out of her bra.

He bent his head and kissed the full curve, then the dark center. Through the lace, his tongue flicked roughly, hungrily, lustfully.

"Tate," she moaned, as sensations swirled from her breast throughout the rest of her body. "Tate, I want you."

Clumsily, he freed himself from his trousers and carried her hand down. Her fingers encircled the rigid length of his penis. As she caressed its velvety tip with the ball of her thumb, he buried his face between her breasts and gasped snatches of erotic phrases and promises.

His hands slipped beneath her narrow skirt. She helped him get her underpants off. Their lips met in a frantic, passion-driven kiss while they sought a workable position within the impossible confines of the front seat.

"Damn!" he cursed, his voice sounding dry and raw.

Suddenly he sat up and pulled her over his lap. Holding her bottom between his hands beneath her skirt, he positioned her above his erection. She impaled herself. They gave glad cries which, within seconds, diminished to pleasurable groans.

Their lips sought and found each other while their tongues were rampant and quick. He squeezed the taut flesh of her derriere and stroked her thighs above her hosiery and between the lacy suspenders of her garter belt. She used her knees for elevation that teasingly threatened to release his cock before sinking down onto it until it was fully imbedded again. She rode him, milked him.

"Damn, you can fuck."

Having rasped that, he nuzzled his head against her breast until he had worked it free of her brassiere cup. He laved the raised nipple with his tongue, then took it into his mouth. He slid one of his hands between her damp thighs and entwined his fingers in the soft hair, then slipped them into the cleft and stroked the small protuberance.

Avery's breathing became choppy and loud. She bent her head over his shoulder. Tensing around the hardness within her and grinding against the magic stroking finger without, she had a very long, very wet climax that coincided with Tate's.

They didn't move for a full five minutes. Each was too weak. Finally, Avery eased herself off his lap and retrieved her underpants from the floorboard. Wordlessly, Tate passed her a handkerchief.

Self-consciously, she accepted it and said, "Thank you."

"Are you okay? Did I hurt you?"

"No, why?"

"You. . .you feel so small."

Her eyes were the first to fall away after a long, telling stare.

Once she had tidied herself and straightened her helplessly wrinkled clothing, she flipped down the sun visor and looked with dismay at her reflection in the vanity mirror.

Her hairdo had been ravaged. Clumps of moussed hair surrounded her head like a spiked halo. An earring was missing. Carefully outlined lipstick had been smeared over the entire lower third of her face. "I'm a wreck."

Tate made his body as straight as the accom-modations would allow and tucked in his shirttail. His necktie was askew and his coat was hanging off one shoulder. He fumbled with his pants zipper and cursed it twice before closing it successfully.

"Do the best you can," he said, passing her the earring he'd just sat down on.

"I'll try." With the cosmetics in her purse, she repaired the damages to her makeup and did what she could with her coiffure. "I guess we can blame my hair on the weather."

"What'll we blame the whisker burns on?" Tate touched the corner of her mouth. "Do they sting?"

She gave a small, unrepentant shrug and smiled shyly. He smiled back, then got out and came around for her.

By the time they reached the backstage area where Eddy was pacing and Ralph was jingling change in both pockets, they truly did look the worse for wear—windblown and rain-spattered, but inordinately happy.

"Where the hell have you been?" Eddy was almost too livid to form the words.

Tate answered with admirable composure. "I went to pick up Carole."

"That's what Zee told us when we called the hotel," Ralph said. He was no longer rattling change. "What possessed you to pull such a damn fool stunt? She said you'd left half an hour ago. What took so long?"

"No place to park," Tate said tersely, disliking this cross-examination. "Where are Jack and the others?"

"Our front trying to keep the hounds at bay. Hear that?" Eddy pointed toward the auditorium, where the crowd could be heard stamping in beat to a patriotic march and chanting, "We want Tate! We want Tate!"

"They'll be all the more glad to see me," Tate said calmly.

"Here's your speech." Eddy tried to thrust several sheets of paper at him, but he refused to take them.

He tapped the side of his head instead and said, "Here's my speech."

"Don't pull that disappearing act again," Ralph warned him bossily. "It's stupid not to let at least one of us know where you are at all times."

Dirk hadn't said a word. His dark face was even darker with fury. It wasn't aimed at Tate, but at Avery. He hadn't taken his beady eyes off her since their breathless arrival. She had withstood his baleful glare with aplomb. When he finally spoke, his voice vibrated with rage. "From now on, Mrs. Rutledge, when you want to be screwed, do it on your time, not ours."

Tate, making a savage, snarling sound, launched himself against the other man. He would have knocked him off his feet if he hadn't flattened him against the nearest wall. His forearm formed a bar as hard as steel against Dirk's throat and his knee plowed high into his crotch. Dirk grunted with surprise and pain.

"Tate, have you gone completely crazy?" Eddy shouted.

He tried to remove Tate's arm from Dirk's throat, but it wouldn't be budged. Tate's nose wasn't even an inch from Dirk's. His face was smooth and blank with the single-mindedness of a man bent on murder. Dirk's face, by contrast, was growing progressively bluer.

"Tate, please," Avery said desperately, laying a hand on his shoulder. "Never mind him. What he says doesn't matter to me."

"For God's sake, Tate." Frantically, Eddy tried to wedge himself between the two men. "Let him go. Now's not the time. Jesus, think!"

"If you ever," Tate said in a slow, throbbing voice, "ever insult my wife like that again, you'll die choking on it. You got that, you son of a bitch?" He dug into Dirk's testicles with his knee. The man, whose small eyes were bugging with fear, bobbed his head as much as Tate's arm beneath his chin would permit.

Gradually, Tate's arm relaxed. Dirk bent from the waist, clutching his balls, coughing and sputtering. Ralph rushed to assist his cohort. Tate smoothed back his hair, turned to Eddy, and said coolly, "Let's go." He reached for Avery.

She took his extended hand and followed him on stage.

THIRTY-EIGHT

Mandy insisted on substituting her nightgown for the T-shirt Tate gave her, even though it was long after midnight and closer to breakfast than bedtime.

"Now you're an honorary Dallas Cowboys cheerleader," he said as he slipped it over her head.

She admired the gaudy silver lettering on the front of her new shirt, then smiled up at him beguilingly. "Thank you, Daddy." Yawning hugely, she retrieved Pooh Bear and dropped back onto her pillow.

"She's learning to be a woman, all right."

"Exactly what does that comment imply?" Avery asked him as they went into their bedroom on the other side of the parlor.

"She took the goods, but didn't come across with a hug or a kiss."

Avery propped her hands on her hips. "Should I warn the female voters that behind your public feminist stand on issues, you're nothing but a rotten chauvinist at heart?"

"Please don't. I need all the votes I can get."

"I thought it went very well tonight."

"Once I got there, you mean."

"And before, too." Her confidential inflection brought his head up. "Thank you for defending my honor, Tate."

"You don't have to thank me for that."

They exchanged a long gaze before Avery turned away and began removing her clothes. She slipped into the bathroom, took a quick shower, put on a negligee, then relinquished the bathroom to Tate.

Lying in bed, Avery listened to the water running as he brushed his teeth. From sharing other hotel suites, she knew that he never replaced the towel on the bar, but always left it wadded in a damp heap beside the sink.

When he emerged from the bathroom, she turned her head, intending to tease him about that bad habit. The words were never voiced.

He was naked. His hand was on the light switch, but he was looking at her. She rose to a sitting position, an unspoken question in her eyes.

"In the past," he said in a hoarse whisper, "I could block you out of my mind. I can't anymore. I don't know why. I don't know what you're doing now that you didn't do before, or what you're not doing that you once did, but I'm unable to ignore you and pretend that you don't exist. I'll never forgive you for that abortion, or for lying to me about it, but things like what happened tonight in the car make it easier to forget.

"Ever since that night in Dallas, I'm like an addict who's discovered a new drug. I want you a lot, and I want you constantly. Fighting it is making me crazy and nearly impossible to live with. The last few weeks haven't been fun for me or for anybody around me.

"So, as long as you're my wife, I'm going to exercise my conjugal rights." He paused momentarily. "Is there anything you have to say about that?"