Night Is Mine (28 page)

“You’re welcome.”

That snapped him back.

“So. Why not?”

“Why aren’t you?”

“Nu-uh,” he waved his fork at her. “No sidelining.”

“Even trade then.”

He considered for a moment too long. She slipped a hand toward his dessert plate. He made a stab of defense with his fork. Without thinking, she grabbed his wrist, flipped it into a twist. Mark rolled with it and came up with his fork in his other hand and pressed it against her throat.

They both froze. Then with a rough laugh, she let go and he eased back onto his stool.

“Well, at least our reflexes are still good.”

Mark waved his fork around the room. “This place is enough to drive you right over the edge of insanity. How did you get so fast, anyway?”

“You should have seen my hand-to-hand combat instructor. She was lethal. Literally. Guys would see all five foot two of her and laugh, right up until the first one stepped into the dirt training circle. After that, they didn’t laugh so much.”

Mark nodded, “Now, answer my damned question.”

She fetched a fork, made a plate for herself, and sat down across from him.

***

“Why aren’t you?” Emily asked.

She held up a hand to stop Mark’s protest.

“No. I’m serious. You know you’re incredibly handsome. You’re also a decent man. And don’t give me the line about military-civilian marriages never work, I’ve heard that too many times. And I looked at the photo you always tuck in the corner of the windshield.”

“Don’t miss much, do you?” He speared a strawberry and studied it, clearly thinking about how much he wanted to say. He bit down, the decision made.

“Dad taught me from knee tall that the only thing more important than your family is defending it. If I can be half the man Dad is, I’ll have done well.” He looked sour for a long moment, inspecting her with a half glance that she couldn’t figure out how to read.

“But he sure put Mom through hell every time he left on mission. It was cruel.” He hated himself for saying it, but it was true. “I’ve never told anyone that before. I’ve never even thought that complete thought before.”

Emily reached out to hold his hand. They sat that way for a long time before he looked back at her. When he pulled his hand back, she felt a little lost.

Mark cleared his throat and put on a brighter tone.

“My usual answer is the same as yours, that I haven’t met the right woman, though your desserts may yet convince me that I’m wrong on that account.” He ate another bite and sighed again as he chewed.

“Now you’re trying to make me all mushy.”

“Is it working?” He looked up with interest.

“Dream on.” It was, but there was no way she’d tell him that. How it affected her insides each time his eyes went soft like that.

“So, neither of us believe in military-civilian marriage working.”

“And neither of us has met the right opposite partner.”

Mark didn’t look up. He simply concentrated on eating his tart.

No. He couldn’t imply that he had. She didn’t like the image of Mark with another woman. Then the image shifted. He couldn’t think she was the right person. Being a woman was the one true disaster area in her life. Pilot, soldier, comrade-in-arms, sure. Woman?

“Don’t you want family, Beale? Husband, home, kids?”

“No.” She didn’t. That was her mother’s dream. Not hers. She wanted to fly, not run a Georgetown household with servants and social teas.

Mark stopped eating his tart and focused those eyes on her once again. Studied her as if he no longer knew her. As if she were a stranger he didn’t want to know.

Emily turned to the fridge to get away from the slap of that gaze and snagged a bottle of Katherine’s favorite Chardonnay. She’d have to remember to restock it from the pantry before she went to bed.

Two glasses and a corkscrew later, they were each armed with an overly full glass of the amber wine.

“To the single life.” Mark raised his glass, clearly being ironic.

She raised hers in return, clearly not being ironic.

And took a sip.

Almost took a sip. The scent was wrong. Almond. This Chardonnay wasn’t supposed to have any hint of almond. Maple and oak. A little currant. Not almond. Especially not slap-you-in-the-face bitter almond.

Almond was familiar though. Familiar as—

She slapped Mark’s hand hard enough to send the glass flying from his lips to smash against the floor.

“Spit! Spit, Mark! Don’t swallow! Spit it out! All of it!”

He hesitated a moment and then spit it out all over the counter and dessert.

“Did you swallow any?”

He shook his head. “What the hell, Beale? Are you enjoying beating on me?” He cradled his offended wrist.

“Spit again!” She grabbed a jug of milk from the fridge. “Now. Take a mouthful and rinse your mouth, then spit it out.”

Even as he did, she grabbed the phone, and punched 911. The briefing manual on the plane over the Atlantic had included, “Emergencies, medical, on premises.” Inside the White House, 911 went directly to the emergency response center of the Secret Service, not a distant police dispatcher.

“Medical team to third-floor residence kitchen. Possible poisoning.”

She heard the “on our way” and dropped the phone without hanging it back up.

Mark’s eyes were wider now as she crunched her way over the shattered wineglass to stand in front of him.

He was again cradling his wrist.

“How do you feel? Any numbness or dizziness?”

He shook his head carefully.

“And you didn’t swallow?”

Again the slow shake of his head, but his eyes were wide as the reality of the situation sank in for him.

She threw her arms around his neck and just held him until the med team arrived a few eternities later.

“Nothing to report really,” Emily kept wanting to duck her head. As if someone were continually firing rounds of live ammo just over her head to teach her how to crawl. The Oval Office was really creeping her out. Way too much power came from here and way too much of it radiated to out there. She stood at an uneasy parade rest before the Resolute desk.

Peter rocked back and forth in his chair and fooled with his pen, taking it apart and putting it back together again.

“If I knew why you really wanted me here, it might help, but then again maybe not. All I can report, you already know. Two apparent attacks in the past two weeks.”

“Apparent?”

“Helps keep my thinking flexible.” She’d almost attributed it to her father, but some hesitancy made her stop without doing so. She was running a secret operation. She had no idea what it was, but it made her want to keep each secret compartmentalized until she had a handle on it.

Peter rose to his feet and began circling the room.

“If I may ask, sir, why am I really here?”

“Ask that again using my name, and maybe I’ll answer.” He swung past George and headed for Abraham in a slow lap of the room.

Too many unknowns and she was getting sick of them. Washington and its goddamn games.

She stepped to block his way near the grandfather clock.

He came to a halt just a foot away.

“How about you answer the damn question or I pop you one, Sneaker Boy.”

Peter laughed aloud. A good laugh. A friendly one.

“That’s my Em. My, but I’ve missed you. C’mon.” He took her hand and led her toward the couch. With a last-second maneuver she managed to land in the armchair next to the couch. They were still close enough to hold hands, if she hadn’t drawn hers back.

Peter sat back, propped one ankle on the other knee, and finally looked the dignified man of the office she’d expected to meet since her arrival here. The soft light by the sofa made his face friendly and approachable. But she could see that at this moment, he wasn’t Peter; he was President Matthews. Comfortable in this insane office. He’d grown to fit here. In a place she never would.

“One,” he folded his hands and rested them in his lap like a man well content with life. “You are perhaps the smartest person I’ve ever met.”

Emily squeaked. It was meant to be a squawk of protest, but it came out as a squeak.

This tickled Peter no end.

“Don’t try to deny it. Valedictorian at West Point. They had to develop a whole special program for you. You used to run circles around me despite being half a dozen years younger.”

She had. She’d just thought he hadn’t noticed. She’d never made herself dumber around him. He wasn’t like so many men who needed to be the smartest in the room. Peter had always egged her on, though she’d thought it was her own secret that she could do both his math and his English homework as fast as he could, despite the difference in age.

“Two.” He’d clearly taken her silence as having won the argument and hadn’t lost the fact he was making a list. He’d always been partial to lists. For a time she’d enjoyed disrupting them, but he was no dummy either and would come back to them, often hours or days later at the exact point he’d left off.

“You are perhaps the bravest woman— Scratch that. You are the bravest person I’ve ever met.”

She spent much of her time feeling naive and clueless, which was her true state even if he didn’t know it.

“Third, let’s face it,” his voice softened. “I like having you here. More than I expected. I like you, Em.”

Not Squirt. Not Beale. Em. It just sounded right when he said it.

And if Mark had been right about Daniel’s feelings, had he also been right about Peter’s?

Now that was a real problem.

Mark tried not to feel so damn cheerful. After all, he’d just been sprung from a night in the hospital under observation for possible aftereffects of cyanide poisoning. Okay, that didn’t add much to the cheerful side of the balance, other than not waking up dead this morning. But it really wasn’t the key.

The key was, it was a beautiful September morning. The air held that first taste of fall that would wash across D.C. over the next month. And he was walking along the street holding hands with Emily Beale. If he could just remain in this space, in this moment, he’d be content, perhaps for a long time.

However, he knew it wasn’t going to last but two more doors down the street, ending when they arrived at her parents’ house for breakfast.

Balance. All of his thoughts today seemed to be about balance, as if he couldn’t get the payload centered right for safe flight. Who’d have thought that one of his closest brushes with death, out of hundreds, would be in the third-floor kitchen of the White House Residence? He’d had no way to fight back. He’d just had to lean into Emily’s shoulder and try not to shake, try not to show his fear at dying when she was so close or his raging anger that someone had nearly killed his Emily as well.

He couldn’t help thinking of her that way. His Emily. Like that was going to happen. She didn’t want family for one thing. It was impossible. He looked at the strength of his mom and dad’s marriage and couldn’t imagine wanting anything less. And Emily cared so deeply. She did her best to hide it, but he’d seen it in her concern for her crew, for the people they guarded with each flight, and for him the night before.

No wild sexual romp in a hospital bed. Instead, she’d simply arrived beside his bed as the last doctor left and the last nurse turned down the lights. Drooping, shattered with nerves and exhaustion, she collapsed into a chair as if she meant to stay.

He’d simply moved to the side of the bed away from her and raised the sheet on her side. She’d kicked off her sandals and curled up beside him on the narrow mattress. Before he could finish tucking the sheet around her, she’d been asleep against his shoulder. He rested his cheek on her hair, thinking there’d be no way to sleep while he held her.

And he’d woken to sunlight with her still curled in his arms, his cheek still against the golden wonder of her hair. She woke with that same languid, comfortable, lazy motion that she’d had while he’d watched from the far side of her hospital room. His whole body throbbed as he felt the wonder that was the woman in his arms come back to life.

Yet, as soon as she fully woke, a different Emily took her place. As if she tucked one away for storage and let another one out. She hadn’t touched him again until they’d checked out, taken a car to her parents’, and were walking up the block together. Holding hands for show.

Her parents. She knocked on the door and they waited rather than just walking in. Was that what she thought family was? A sideways glance at her impassive face didn’t reveal any clues. Captain Emily Beale stood solid in full control. He tried squeezing her hand as if to reassure her but received no response.

The door opened, and Helen Cartwright Magnuson Beale opened the door. Seven in the morning, and she’d clearly already spent some serious time putting herself together. And a lot of time frosting up on Mark’s behalf.