Unfinished Business (10 page)

Erica's eyes left Mark's face. She surveyed Bitsi for a long, silent moment, and for the first time, Mark noticed the envelope she held tightly in her fingers.

“If I decide not to go,” she said deliberately. “It'll be because
I
decided that was the right decision and not because of anything anyone
else
”—she emphasized the word so strongly that Chase cut a glance of query toward Mark—“said or did. Do you understand me, Ms. Barr?”

Bitsi shot her another nasty little smile.

“Of course,” she said patronizingly. “What other reason could there be?”

What the…?

Mark's gaze swung between the two women. They'd clearly drawn some kind of battle line between them…but when? And over what? He glanced at Chase,
but the man's raised eyebrows indicated a confusion that mirrored his own.

“Thanks, Chase, Bits,” Mark said when the female stare-down continued without any apparent end in sight.

Chase smiled a smile that didn't reach the concern in his eyes. “Don't mind her.” He tossed the words lightly at Erica like they were a joke she was supposed to catch. “We never do.” He clapped Mark hard on the back, took Bitsi firmly by the arm and guided her toward the door. “Come on, Bitsi. We've got work to do.”

As soon as the door closed firmly behind them, Mark opened his mouth.

“What can I do for—”

“Here,” she said, thrusting the envelope toward him. “It came this morning. Early. Did you get anything like it?”

Mark opened the envelope and was surprised to see himself with Erica perched on his knee. More surprising was his expression: even to his own eyes, he looked very comfortable, very content.

“Where'd you get this?” he asked, looking up at her. “I don't remember any photographers.”

“Read the back,” she insisted, practically yanking the photo out of his hands and turning it over. “Read it.”

Mark read, and then his eyes locked on her face.

“Where'd you get this?” he repeated.

“Someone brought it to my door. Dropped it in the mail slot. Early this morning. I thought it was from you. Until I opened it,” she explained in a quick rush of breath. “She wants to scare me.”

Mark stared down at her, watching the lines tightening on her face as she spoke. “Who?”

“That Bitsi woman. I'd bet you my salary she's re
sponsible for this. You heard what she said just now. About my deciding not to go, ‘for some reason.'”

Mark shook his head. “I think I'd know if I saw Bitsi Barr last night at Mama Tia's Pizza. She was nowhere near there. And if she was nowhere near there, there's no way she could have taken that picture.”

“She hired someone!” Erica snapped. “Maybe that guy who came in and left. Only he didn't leave. He must have hung around. Then, when the robbery and everything happened—”

“Okay, here comes the whole Right Wing conspiracy thing, right?”

“Well, it's
possible!”
she snapped.

“No, Erica. It's not.” Mark gently nudged her toward the chair Chase had just vacated and hopped toward the one beside it. “First of all, I don't think that guy had a camera. And even if he did, he could only have gotten a picture this good from
inside
Mama's place. And I'm certain he didn't come back in.”

“You don't think Mama Tia or Papa Tony—”

“Of course not. They're an interracial couple, too, “he began, and it wasn't until the words were out that he realized the implication of what he'd just said. “Or at least,” he backpedaled, “they don't have any reason to keep you from going home with me—I mean,” he corrected again, “home to Billingham with me.”

She was hearing him but not hearing him, for which Mark found himself very grateful. Everything that came out of his mouth seemed to suggest something more than a professional relationship; every move he made seemed to suggest more intimate possibilities.

I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to dance around this
, he thought with sudden panic. He took a breath, focused on the matter at hand, and reached
for the phone. “We should let the authorities handle this,” he said.

Her hand whipped out, covering his and stopping him cold.

“That's it!” she cried, conspiracy dancing in her eyes. “That's what she wants. She wants a lot of press and attention. She wants to stir up enough controversy to keep you in the news for the next two decades.”

Mark stared at her for a long second before bursting into laugher, but burst he did. And once he did, he couldn't stop, even when she frowned at him like she was strongly considering slapping his face. “Forgive me,” he said when the laughter mellowed down to a chuckle. “But if you'd been in this room just two minutes ago, you'd know that comment is, as your students would say, the most whack thing I've ever heard.”

“Why? Because it's Bitsi? She's awful. I can't believe you can stand to have her around.”

“She doesn't like you much, either,” Mark replied, thinking over the “white woman” comment and the daggers the women had just shot at each other. What was it about strong women? Why was it so many of them seemed to hate each other? “Bitsi's got her faults, and she's very protective of me, I admit it. But she'd never do anything like this.”

“But—”

“Never.” Mark shook his head and reached for the phone again. “A threat involving a member of the Senate sounds all kinds of alarms around here.” He pried the letter from her fingers again. “I'll turn that over to the Capitol police and let them handle it. They'll send a security detail back home with us, just to be sure. Until then, I've got nothing to offer you in
terms of protection beyond myself.” He considered that a moment. “Now, I really think we should call in the police.”

“And I really think we should call off the whole thing. I've got a bad feeling now.”

Mark felt the smile curving his lips long before she shot him that irritated glance that let him know she'd seen it, too, and didn't appreciate it.

“What?” she snapped. “
You
didn't get a nasty-gram delivered to your house. I'm telling you, you might call Billingham home, but it's beginning to sound like you've got a state full of closed-minded bigots. And that sounds like my idea of hell.” She squinted down at the photo printout. “Not to mention hazardous to my health.”

“Maybe,” Mark drawled, “but you're still going.”

She glared daggers at him. “Oh, really? And who died and crowned you king?”

“You did,” he replied, watching her eyes flash. She was definitely getting pissed, but he liked the firefight brewing in her eyes much more than the frighten gaze she'd entered the office with. “I can read you like a book, you know that?”

She folded her arms over her chest and glared at him. “Okay, Mr. Know-it-all. What makes you think I'm going with you even around the block, let alone out of Washington?”

“Three things,” Mark said, leaning close to her and turning his Southern charm on high even though it was clearly annoying the hell out of her. “First, we're getting national coverage of this visit. You know
exactly
how it will look if you back down now—and I don't believe you want to hand me that victory. In fact, I
know
you don't.” He grabbed the nasty message and danced it under her nose. “Second, you're not the kind of woman to let some ignorant, misguid
ed person stop you from doing anything you're committed to and…” He hesitated. His next words had serious implications, but considering the lecture he was giving the woman on commitment and character, he couldn't very well just sweep it under the rug. “And finally”—he paused, cleared his throat and began again. “Finally, like I told you yesterday…”

No, that wasn't it
. He cleared his throat again and started once more. “This photo eloquently captures…” He rolled his eyes. “What I'm trying to tell you is, we've still got unfinished business, you and me.”

He stopped, hoping she would catch his drift and spare him the necessity of going into confusing and mushy details, but she was staring at him like he'd grown a third eye.

“Unfinished business?” she asked, her brow crimping in confusion. “What do you mean? You mean dinner last night? Because it was just a pizza and—”

“No,” Mark interrupted, annoyed by her refusal to play along. She knew exactly what he was talking about and was going to make him work for every bit of it. “It's more than that, and you know it.”

“I don't know what you mean.”

“I mean,” Mark waved the photo at her. “Look at your face, woman. Look at your face and tell me you don't know what I mean,” he growled. “You like me. You think I'm sexy. Look! It's written all over your face.”

She didn't even glance at the photo.

“And tell me, Senator,” she said in that irritatingly cool voice of hers. “What's written all over yours?”

Mark felt color rising to his cheeks yet again. A few days ago, he couldn't have remembered the last time that happened in his adult life. But since he'd met this woman, it was getting to be an hourly occurrence.

“W—well,” he stammered. “I said we had unfin
ished business, didn't I? I mean”—his brain froze, gave up, shut down, but his lips kept moving, making sounds—“I don't have any trouble with women. Hell, I could have any woman I want—”

“Really?” she said, though for some reason she chose that moment to stand up and give herself a quick tour of his office, turning so he couldn't see her face.

“Really,” he continued, still feeling the fire in his face. “I'm, uh, I'm actually something of a catch—or so they tell me,” he heard himself saying, even while another part of him was hollering
Abandon ship
! like he was taking on water. “Half the women on the Hill are in love with me. You don't know how many interns we've had to send back to school because they were too infatuated with me to do their jobs.”

“Really?” she said again, in the exact same tone of voice as she assessed the walls, taking in the pictures of Mark with this person and that, the books lining the shelves, every little object on the credenza.

“Yes, really,” Mark continued, even though he felt the hole getting deeper and bigger and wider around him. “I could have any woman I want. It's just, well, I—I seem to have some kind of bee in my bonnet about you at the moment, so—”

“What's this?” she asked, bending toward the box containing Dickey Joe's home brew.

“Beer. A friend of mine brews it and bottles it for me. You're welcome to try it,” he said impatiently, rising to limp toward her, putting as little weight on his bad leg as he could without reaching for the crutches to hold him up. To work this right, he'd need both hands free. When he'd made his way painfully across the room to where she stood, he leaned against the bookcase like he was posing—not like a man afraid he'd fall over. “Did you hear what I said?”

She lifted a bottle out of the box, frowned at it with
a deliberation Bitsi would have been proud of, and then placed it back in the box. She lifted her eyes toward him again, and he realized that she was every bit as uncomfortable as he was. “I heard it,” she said flatly. “I just don't know what you mean.”

He inhaled and the smell of her perfume filled his nostrils: something gently floral that reminded him of wild sunflowers bowing under a summer sun. He leaned closer to her and watched her lift her chin and latch her eyes on his face.

Go, go, go!
The Marines in his head urged him and he acted, moving another step closer, close enough to gather her into his arms. “I mean,” he heard himself saying in a voice he didn't quite recognize. “I don't like unfinished business, Erica.”

He read “yes” in her eyes and made his move. He leaned the last inch closer and captured her lips with his own.

Her lips were soft and full, and she tasted of something fruity and spicy at the same time. After that first second of surprise, when her mouth was still against his, Mark felt her leaning into him, kissing him back with a curiosity equal to his own. Mark wished he could let go and pull her closer to him as the desire for something more than a kiss crested inside him. But he if let go he'd fall, and he knew it, so he kept one hand firmly locked on a ledge of the bookcase.

Finally she pulled away, and when he opened his eyes she was staring at him with an annoyingly knowing smile on her face.

“Unfinished business, huh?” she said in a brisk businesslike tone that made him want to grab her and bend her to his will. “Why can't you just admit you like me?”

“Because I'm not sure I do,” Mark quipped back, as his brain went AWOL once again. “For all I know,” he
continued, hoping that he hadn't just blown it again, “this is some kind of fatal attraction or something. I mean, I'm not crazy about the idea of being attracted to someone who's as wrong as you are.”

“And I'm not crazy about walking into a hostile environment,” she shot back.

“Don't let the images of the bad old days of the Civil Rights Movement fool you. That was then. This is fifty years later.” He nodded toward his desk, where the picture with its ugly, red, racist writing lay. “And that's just the babbling of a nutcase.” He positioned himself against the bookcase like he couldn't have cared less one way or the other, even though his heart was thumping loud in his ears. It was the same jittery feeling he remembered from his years in the military, right before an important mission or maneuver. An edgy sense of excitement, shellacked with masculine calm. “So, you goin', or what?”

He tried not to look at her, but when his curiosity got the better of him, he found her staring up at him with that same little smile on her face.