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They melted the switchboard with irate calls.

"My credibility was shot to hell. The station's as well. The newsroom suffered the scorn of our competitors. And just in case somebody missed it, the TV critics in the local newspapers used it as fodder for days. Daily was taken to the woodshed and thrashed by the station's management for hiring me. It's a wonder he kept his job. He fired me in a heartbeat. The only one who benefitted was Judge Green, who is now a Supreme Court justice."

"An unpopular one."

"Which is another point in my loss column. More than one pundit editorialized that if not for the sympathy Judge Green garnered as a result of my fiasco, his nomination would never have been approved. The American people have me to thank for sticking them with an ineffectual EXCLUSIVE 257

Supreme Court justice. Daily holds to that theory, by the way."

"With all that between you, how'd you get to be friends?"

"A few years ago I heard through the press corps grapevine that he'd been forced to retire because of his emphysema. I felt duty-bound to pay him a courtesy call." She gave a small Mona Lisa smile, and Gray asked what the secret was.

"Daily admitted that he'd been unusually hard on me because what I lacked wasn't talent, but maturity and common sense. He was willing to help me if I'd shut up and listen. He's been my best friend ever since."

"Why do you keep your friendship a secret?"

"Mainly because it's personal, and I've always been a stickler for keeping my personal and professional lives separate. Second, because . . ."

"Because if it got around that you'd kissed and made up with your former enemy, you'd lose the respect of your colleagues."

"Very perceptive, Mr. Bondurant. When you burn a bridge in broadcasting, it's usually a conflagration, and usually for keeps. If anyone knew I was friends with Daily now, I'd be regarded as softie trying to hack it in a cutthroat career."

Her smile was so ingenuous, he hated to be the one to ruin it. "Your secret's out, Barrie. I've been following them following you. They know where you're staying." At her anguished groan, he added quickly, "I don't think they'll bother Daily. But we should advise him first thing tomorrow."

"Why are they following me?"

"Most of the Secret Service agents assigned to David, Vanessa, and the White House are Spence's men. They went

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through the recruitment program and met all the standards, but they're his."

"How can they flout the regulations?"

"That's the beauty of it. They don't flout them. They maneuver with the adaptability of quicksilver. If anyone questions them, they can say that you fall into the category of an emotionally disturbed person who merits watching."

"To say the least," she muttered.

"Try and get some sleep."

He got up and turned off the lamp, then returned to the window and peeked through the blinds. For five minutes he watched the parking lot for any suspicious cars or movement.

Satisfied that they had eluded the surveillance, he glanced at the bed and was disconcerted to find Barrie watching him. "I thought you'd gone to sleep."

Again, she was lying on her side, but now her hands were stacked palm to palm beneath her cheek. "Who are you, Gray Bondurant?"

"Me? I'm nobody."

"Not true," she said sleepily. "You're somebody."

"Go to sleep."

"You need rest too. The bed is wide enough for both of us."

No way in hell could he crawl in with her and not partake of that skin, that voice. "I'm going to sit up for a while."

"What for?"

"So I can think."

"About what?"

"Go to sleep, Barrie."

"One more question?"

"Okay," he sighed.

"That morning at your house, that was no-stringsattached sex, right?"

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"Right."

She lowered her eyes for several seconds, then looked up at him again.

"Pretty terrific sex, though."

He smiled in the darkness. "Pretty terrific."

"But you didn't kiss me. Not on the lips. What have you got against mouth-to-mouth kissing?"

"That's two questions. Good night."

"George?"

His wife's voice seemed to come to him from a distant shore across an ocean of scotch. Dr. Allan raised his head ,:-id saw Amanda silhouetted in the open doorway of his home office. She looked lovely, desirable, and strong. He couldn't stand the sight of her. Her strength accentuated his weakness.

She came into the room. When she reached the desk, she picked up the liquor bottle and checked the amount remaining in the bottom of it. Even in his inebriated state, the silent rebuke didn't escape him.

Querulously he said, "What is it, Amanda?"

"So you do remember me. I'm glad to know that. Do you by any chance recall that you also have two sons?"

"Is this a riddle?"

"Your older son is withdrawing a little deeper into himself each day. I've begged him to tell me what's troubling him, but he becomes sullen and silent. His teachers at school have had similar experiences lately. He bottles up his problems inside himself, and no one can pry them out. He's so like you, it frightens me.

"I've just come from your younger son's bedside, where I listened to his prayers. He asked God to help Daddy, then he started crying, and I had to hold him until he fell asleep."

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George rubbed his tired, bloodshot eyes. "I'll go in and kiss them good night later."

"You're missing the point. I don't want you to kiss them good night. Not in your present condition. They're not stupid, you know. They know that something is terribly wrong with you, and it goes beyond the drinking."

" `The Drinking'? Like it's a proper noun?"

"It's become one. What's the matter with you?"

"Nothing."

"Oh really? Would you call the last forty-eight hours typical? You came home yesterday morning looking like something out of a fright film. God knows how long it had been since you slept. You didn't offer me a single word of explanation for your lengthy absence or how you looked. You didn't ask after my well-being or the children's. You came straight up to this room and sequestered yourself and haven't come out since."

For emphasis, she slammed the bottle back onto the desk. "You're stinking drunk, and I've heard you crying. The first makes me angry, and the second breaks my heart. George," she said imploringly, "how can I help you if you won't tell me what's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong."

"Dammit, George, when did your definition of marriage change?"

"Whaddaya mean?"

"If you won't confide in me, then we don't have a marriage, not the kind we pledged to each other. But on paper at least I'm still you're wife, and I demand to know what the hell is going on."

"Christ, are you deaf?" he shouted. "Nothing's wrong."

She didn't back away from his mounting anger. Coldly, she said, "Don't lie to me. You're coming apart before my eyes."

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"Leave me alone."

"No, I won't," she said, giving her smooth bob a hard shake. "You're my husband. I love you. I'11 defend you with my dying breath. But first I have to know what has turned you from a fine physician, husband, and father, into a blubbering drunk."

He glared at her, but she didn't back down. Amanda had a merciless stubborn streak. "Your problem has something to do with David, doesn't it?

Don't bother to lie. I know he's at the root of your personal crisis. What brought it about?"

"Drop it, Amanda."

"What did he ask you to do?"

"I said to drop it."

"What kind of control does he have over you?"

"He doesn't!"

"He does!" she shouted right back. "And if you don't break that control, he's going to destroy you."

He lunged to his feet, banging the desktop with his fists. "The woman died, okay?"

"What?"

"There, I've said it. I've confided my problem to you. Are you happy now?

Satisfied?"

"You're talking about the nurse."

"Yeah, the nurse. The one who died in our lake house three days ago.

Sudden cardiac death." He bowed his head and clasped it between his hands.

"I tried to get her back, but I failed. I failed and she died." His shoulders heaved on a sob.

"Were you drunk?"

"I'd taken one Valium, that's all."

"Did you do everything you could?"

He nodded. "I tried for half an hour to resuscitate her. Finally the Secret Service agents pulled me off her and said it was no use, that I was wasting my time."

262 Sandra Brown

Amanda drew a staggering little breath and laid her hand on his shoulder.

"I'm sorry, George," she said gently.

He longed to accept her sympathy. He knew her arms would welcome him in spite of the angry words they'd exchanged. Her breasts would be soft, her voice soothing, her embrace a haven he could crawl into and perhaps hide from his demons for a while.

But he didn't deserve her consolation or her forgiveness. His rank unworthiness caused him to resent her for extending such unconditional love. So he rebuffed it and shrugged off her hand. "What could you have done?" he asked belligerently. "What miracle would you have worked to make the problem disappear?"

He turned his back on her and lurched to the liquor cabinet. Opening another bottle of scotch seemed to require more dexterity than his fingers were capable of, but he managed to get it open and pour himself another drink.

"Oh, no, wait," he said, turning back to Amanda. "You can solve any problem, right? You can do everything you set out to do. Achievement is your middle name. No, make that Excel. Excel is your middle name." He knew that the scathing words hurt her deeply, but he couldn't stop himself from saying them. He wanted somebody to feel as rotten as he did, and Amanda was the only one around. But she refused to be provoked. She maintained her composure.

"I couldn't have solved your problem, George, but I could have sympathized."

"Lot of good that would have done."

"You've lost patients before. Because you're a healer, you naturally take it hard when nothing you do can save a patient. But you've never been this disconsolate."

Tilting her head, she peered into his eyes. He was drunk, but not so far gone that he didn't fear she would read

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more in them than he wanted her to know. He looked away. Not soon enough.

"I'm getting the expurgated version of this story, aren't I?" she said.

"What else happened at the lake house?"

"Who says something else happened?"

She gave him a retiring look. "I know you, George. You're omitting some crucial element of the story."

"The nurse bought it. That's it."

"It concerns Vanessa, doesn't it?"

® ¯

No.

"Then what made this woman's death-"

"What do you want from me?" he bellowed. "You asked what was bothering me, and I told you. Now get the fuck out of here and leave me the fuck alone!"

He'd never used that kind of vituperative language with her. He couldn't believe he had now, although the words seemed to reverberate off the paneled walls, echoing their vulgarity. Had he stooped so tow as to verbally abuse his wife? The thought was like an anchor that dragged him deeper into an abyss of depression and self-disgust. He downed his drink quickly.

Amanda, her own disgust apparent, walked away from him. At the door, she turned around. "Yell and curse at me, George, if it makes you feel any better. I'm tough. 1 can take it.

She raised her left fist so he'd be certain to see her wedding ring.

"David Merritt took an oath of office, but so did I, at the altar on our wedding day. I pledged that nothing short of death would part us, and I meant it. You're my husband, and I love you. I'm not going to surrender you without a fight. I'll do everything within my power to prevent this man from destroying you, even if he happens to be the President of the United States."

"Xot that again," Daily groused.

Barrie had tuned his television to VH-1 and set the volume at a deafening level. "Gray thinks your house is under surveillance."

"Bugged, too?"

"They don't need to bug it to eavesdrop," Gray told him. "The equipment is so sophisticated, they can listen to conversations from blocks away."

" `They'?"

"Spence's men."

"Bastards," Daily muttered. Then he nodded toward Gray and said to Barrie,

"I thought he split."

"So did I. He, uh, surprised me last night."

"I got home from the Bardot film festival late," he said. "You weren't here. I worried all night."

Meekly, she said, "I forgot to call."

Daily indicated that they should take their usual seats on the sofa. "Am I to assume that the story's not over yet? You still think the baby's death was no accident?"

"I think that's a given," Gray replied. "This whole thing EXCLUSIVE 265

started with that, and now it's escalated into something even bigger.

David's trying to keep a cap on it, but he's having a hard time of it.

Spence failed to take me out. Things at George Allan's lake house went awry when the nurse died.

"Her death left Dr. Allan exposed at a time when neither he nor David wanted exposure," he conjectured. "It brought a halt to whatever witch-doctoring he was practicing on Vanessa."

Barrie picked it up from there. "Because the nurse's death would eventually come to light and focus attention on Vanessa's health, he had to . . . revive her, for lack of a better word, and hustle her back to Washington."

"On the morning of the press conference they made her visible to the whole world," Gray said. "To anyone who doesn't know her well, she appeared normal. I think she's still in danger."

"What makes you think so?" Daily asked. "It all seemed very pat to me.

Neely read the First Lady's eulogy to the nurse. The Merritts' thoughts and prayers are with her family. Blah, blah, blah."