Unfinished Business (28 page)

“I knew you'd do it.” Mark grinned like there was no tomorrow, and when her face turned down into that I-hate-that-you've-won look, he grinned that much harder. Victories—even the smallest ones—were always sweet with this woman. And a victory like this one was enough to send him into a diabetic coma.

“It's only to find out who's poisoning you,” she declared, but he noticed that instead of sitting on the chair beside the bed, she settled herself on the edge of the bed beside him. “I'm not going to actually marry you or anything stupid like that.”

“No, no, of course not.” He chuckled. “Why on earth would you do that? Even though you can't keep yourself away from me, even though you love every second you spend in my presence, you wouldn't want to marry me or do anything foolish like that, now, would you?”

She rolled her eyes. “No, I wouldn't. And since you're going to act like that”—she scooted her luscious behind away from him and off the bed—“I only sat next to you because I thought it would make you feel better. You know, a little physical therapy?
But this booty doesn't need to be anywhere near your smug-ass self. So take that,” she said, and before he could stop her, she had not only taken the chair, but also slid it a few feet away so that she was now officially out of his reach.

Damn
, Mark thought, his smile flipping to a frown in less than a second.
Me and my big mouth!

“And McAfee and the local police agreed?”

She nodded. “You've got a full security detail. Allegedly, I have what they call a ‘discreet undercover' detail, too, but they must be very, very discreet, because I haven't seen 'em.”

“If McAfee says you have it, you have it. He knows his job.” He took a moment to stare at her: The wild curls were restrained by another colorful head wrap and she wore a light cotton skirt in a summery shade of blue with a plain tank, covered by what looked like a man's shirt, knotted at her waist. By her standards, her attire was downright conservative, and he knew she'd worn it to present the right look for the press. He appreciated the effort, but not the dark circles under her eyes or the tight lines of strain around her lips.

“All this is beginning to get to you, huh?” he asked.

“I'm fine,” she lied, and he knew it from the way her eyes dropped from his face. It was a tell: When she was telling him the truth, those eyes always flashed fire right into his face.

He was a second from calling her on it, but something stopped him. A bit of inner wisdom? Either that, or he was finally beginning to understand the woman a little, he decided. He chose another tactic.

“Thanks.”

And for this simple word, he got the eyes, brown and deep and lovely, liquid with unshed tears.

“What else could I do?” she asked, blinking a little fast. “I thought it through. This will probably work. And—and—you may be a Republican, but I don't want you to die or anything.”

He bit back the quip and nodded. “I know. That's how you are. You don't like to see anyone suffer, no matter what. It's one of the many things I've come to admire about you.”

She blinked a few times, pushing back those tears quivering on her eyelids, and Mark longed to reach over and brush them away. But he hesitated, trusting something deeper than his mind this time. Something with a timing all its own.

“You? Admire me?” she barked out a laugh that was as fake as Pete Malloy's brown hair. “Hello? Have we met? I know you're not actually saying something nice about me.”

He had to fight with the impulse to give her the wry quirk of a smile, fight down a clever comment. It was always easy to toss off glib one-liners, always easier to turn the thing into one big sparring match. A verbal war. But he was beginning to understand he'd never win this woman that way. And he was beginning to realize how much it mattered to win this woman, even if the election was lost.

So instead of smart-mouthing back, he focused on keeping his face straight and his words honest.

“There are many, many things I admire about you, Erica Johnson,” he said softly, and from the way his heart squeezed tight in his chest he knew it was the absolute truth. “I admire your passion, I admire your intelligence. I admire your compassion—the way you can put your own beliefs aside for the good of what another person needs. I admire your beautiful voice, and your sense of your own style. I love the way you hear your own drum and you march to it and you
never, ever compromise.” He paused a moment. “I even love that you're a Democrat. I love the way you keep me on my toes. Keep me honest. Prepared. I just…love you.”

That made those tears quivering on her dark lashes fall at last. He stretched his hand out for hers, but instead of rushing into his arms as he had hoped, she turned away from him.

“Have you seen the paper?” she reached over and grabbed the thing from a little tray that still held the remains of his breakfast. “The polls say your lead has diminished from double digits to within the margin of error.”

There was a scratch at the door and then it swung wide. Mark glanced over and saw the broad face of his long-time friend, Dickey Joe, and his daughter Mary. Mary held some kind of green thing—a potted plant with a big bow around it—in her hand.

Reluctantly, Mark let his hand fall back on the crisp white sheet.

“Hey buddy! We're not interrupting nothing, are we?” Dickey Joe bellowed as if he could cover his embarrassment by the sheer force of sound.

Mark immediately noticed two things.

When the door swung wide he saw the dark blue shadows of uniformed officers blocking the entrance to his room like a human gate. On a stool beside one of them he thought he saw what looked like a six-pack of beer in longneck bottles, with one of those longnecks gone AWOL. Mark frowned. What kind of security detail drank on the job? Didn't sound like the kind of thing Sergeant McAfee would have allowed on his worst day—

And Mary's lipstick.

A deep persimmon color that didn't exactly jibe with her fair skin and blonde hair. Mark knew he'd
seen that color before…but his memory failed him and he couldn't be certain where or on whom.

“Hell yeah, you're interrupting,” Mark grumbled, not bothering to be gracious about it.

Mark watched his old friend's eyes flicker from Mark to Erica and back to Mark with an expression of jovial interest.

“Well,” he drawled in his usual, unfazed, good-ol-boy style. “From what I hear, you got the rest of your lives to make goo-goo eyes and kissy face at each other.” He leaned forward to thrust out a thick-veined hand, “Congratulations, buddy! And as for you”—he scooped Erica into a sudden bear hug—“Good luck, honey. You're gonna need it.”

Erica's face got that reddish bloom Mark knew to be a deep flush of embarrassment.

“We're not really…” she began.

“We're not really sure how this announcement is gonna affect the election,” Mark finished, overriding her. He reached for her again, seized a few fingers and pulled her onto the bed beside him, sending her warnings with his eyes. “But as I was just saying to my future bride here, there's nothing a like a brush with the Reaper to make you rethink your priorities.”

“Yep, I know that's right.” Dickey Joe took the plant from his daughter and set it on a counter across the room, already loaded with flowers, fruit baskets and cards—most from members of Congress who had heard about his sudden collapse. “Just a little something. I told Mary all you probably wanted was some beer, but she insisted on a little green. Said it would brighten a drab, old hospital room. Looks like she wasn't the only one with that idea.”

Mark quirked a smile at both the man and his shy daughter. “Still a good idea, though. Thank you, Mary.”

She blushed a little, raised her eyes just enough to nod at him and looked away again.

“Definitely a good idea,” Dickey Joe agreed. “If it hadn't been for that plant, we'd be here empty-handed. The cops out there”—he jerked his head toward the door—“took your beer. Mary told me not to bring none, said you probably couldn't have it just yet, anyway. But I told her, Mark Newman's a creature of habits, and he's had two beers every evening he could get 'em since I been knowing him. And I don't believe any hospital stay is going to change that.”

“They won't let him have any outside food or drink until they know where the poison came from,” Mary offered the carpet, not raising her eyes.

“You're right,” Erica said. Her eyes included them all, but he knew that her words were for Mary's ears and encouragement alone. “And I don't think it helps that everyone knows Mark's habits. It probably made it easier for whoever did this. Half the world knows about the eating schedule and the two beers, nine glasses of water, fish on Thursday and God know what else! So you were right to discourage your dad from bringing the beer today.”

“Well, all I can say is if I'da wanted that joker right there dead, he'd been a goner a long time ago. How long have you been drinking my home brew? Ten years? Twelve?”

Mark nodded. “Something like that.”

“Well, I told them cops that, but they took it, anyway. In fact,” he said, chuckling a bit. “I think we're a couple of suspects now.”

“You look very tired, Ms. Johnson.”

Mary's voice was soft and clear. Dickey Joe fell silent, and Mark saw the devotion in his face. Mary was lucky. Shy as she was, Dickey Joe had always been her protector, her biggest fan. One look in the man's
eyes and it was clear: He saw no handicap, saw nothing a little unusual, nothing “off.” He simply saw his beautiful baby daughter and acted accordingly.

For the first time in a long time, something paternal stirred in Mark's heart. He imagined a little girl, with skin the color of coffee and cream, sprigs of curls like her mother's dancing like a halo around her head as she ran. “Daddy,” he heard her say and had to stopper the emotion building in his throat. “Daddy.” And in his eyes, she wasn't “mixed” but perfect, and he knew he'd have to do serious damage to anyone who ever made her cry.

Erica moved, pulling away from him and dragging him out of that fanciful daydream and back to the conversation.

“—but the inn is a mob scene,” she was saying. “Almost as bad as the hospital.”

“Surely they can make you a bed around here somewhere?” Dickey Joe asked. “A place where you can lay your head.”

“I bought a new lipstick,” Mary said as though the remark followed from the conversation naturally. “It's not quite the same as yours, but I couldn't find an exact match. What kind was it?”

Lipstick. Mark peered at the girl again. Sure enough, the plum color she wore was very similar to Erica's favored shade. That was where he had seen it before.

“Mary here has decided your fiancée is the epitome of style.” Dickey Joe shook his head, the doleful father doing his best with his daughter's quest. “Why, last week, she had me all around town looking for fabric to make headbands! Turned out, we can just order 'em on the Internet.”

Erica laughed, but Mark couldn't quite get there. He stared at Mary, who, there was no doubt, was un
characteristically animated in Erica's presence. Here she was, looking Erica dead in the face, without the hint of a blush or a stammer, asking questions.

Questions about how to dress like her, look like her…

“There are some really good shops on the Internet for African-inspired clothing, but the very best are in Washington, D.C. When you come to visit me—”

Mary shook her head and now her eyes lowered to the floor tiles again. “I'll never go to Washington again.”

Erica's eyes swung to Mark and then Dickey Joe. “Not even to visit me?” she asked gently.

This time Mary raised her face and looked Mark fully in the eye for a long, calculating second that made the room suddenly seem colder.

“I'm not good with Washington. It's too…fast,” she said slowly. “I'm not…fast.”

“Fast is overrated,” Erica said lightly, and to Mark's dismay, she slid off the bed and away from him altogether. “Tell you what. When all this is over, and Mark is reelected, you'll come to Washington and—”

“No.” Dickey Joe's voice was suddenly hard and flat. The smile slid from Erica's face as though she'd been slapped. “It's just…” Dickey Joe continued, trying hard to bring his voice back to its earlier “‘aw shucks” tone. “I miss you too much when you're gone away from me, Mary,” he said. “We gotta look out for each other, right?”

It could have been his imagination, or did a look pass between father and daughter? A look that seemed part conspiracy, part warning, and part something that Mark neither understood nor could easily guess at.

But when he looked again, whatever he'd thought he'd seen was gone.

This whole thing's got me spooked enough to distrust one of my oldest friends and his shy daughter?
He shook his head, trying to clear the nagging feeling of suspicion.

“Oh,” Erica said, and he knew from her tone she'd picked up a little of what he had. “I only meant to help,” she finished lamely.

“Of course, you did,” Dickey Joe sighed, sounding 100 percent his usual self again. “And I certainly didn't mean to come in here and lay any of our problems on your doorstep. You've been real nice to Mary and I appreciate it. I just don't think she should travel anywhere right now. Especially not D.C. Not after how hard it was for her up there working in Mark's office last summer.”

Mark read the questions in Erica's eyes, and he knew he'd have to tell her the rest of those stories another time. For now, she contented herself with simply saying, “Of course not,” grabbing her purse off the foot of the bed and turning her attention back to the young woman. “I like that lipstick, but I think it's a little strong for you.” She pawed through the bag, searching. “I had a sample, a shade that was just a little too light on me. You can try it. If it works you can have it.”