Rocky And The Senator's Daughter

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Or a cream cheese sandwich.

Finding her had been easy enough. He was not, after all, without investigative skills. According to the ex-senator’s yard man, she had not been to the Wye River place in nearly a year. None of her former friends had offered a clue—of course, they might have been in protective mode. Taking the next logical step, he had checked out public records. Wills, taxes, tax maps.

Bingo. If he could do it, it was a sure bet he wouldn’t be the only one. Sleazy exposés were a dime a dozen. They seldom changed the course of history, but they could generate a few column inches in the tabloids and make life miserable for the victims before they were bumped off the lists by the next contender.

Discounting their one brief encounter, Rocky really didn’t know Sarah Mariah Jones Sullivan at all. By now she might even welcome the attention. But if she was anywhere as vulnerable as she’d looked during the hearings—as she’d struck him that day over twenty years ago when she’d watched her father use her and discard her as casually as he would a soiled tissue—then maybe she could use a friend.

And if he happened to have guessed wrong about which way she’d jumped—if she was kicking up her heels in some fancy resort instead of hibernating in corn country—no problem. He’d needed an excuse to get out. Needed to start getting involved again.

Slowing down, he took the Snowden turnoff, rounded a blind curve on a narrow blacktop, crossed over a railroad track and began looking for a dirt road that led off to the right. The only sign of life was a big buck deer and a flock of gulls following a tractor, reminding him that they were only a mile or so from Currituck Sound.

He spotted the dirt road and turned off, driving slowly. Tax maps didn’t reveal a whole lot of detail, but there was supposed to be another road of some sort.

And there it was. Two leaning posts, one supporting a newspaper box, the other a mailbox. The name on the mailbox said Gilbert, which, if memory served, was the name of the relative whose house Sarah had inherited. Rocky pulled off the road and parked behind a dusty red compact. After a moment’s hesitation he set the brake, locked his eight-year-old SUV and set out on foot down the winding, rutted lane. He’d gone barely a dozen yards when he spotted a guy armed with a videocam jogging toward the house.

Evidently his suspicions had been justified. The lady was about to find herself in the crosshairs again. “Yo! You with the camera!”

The guy glanced over his shoulder, but instead of stopping, he picked up speed. It occurred to Rocky that he could be an innocent nature photographer—maybe a stringer for some hunting-fishing rag. He didn’t think so, though. There was something a little too furtive about the way he kept checking his six.

One thing he’d learned during a career that spanned more than two decades was that while photos could easily lie—and people often did, intentionally or not—the subconscious mind was the closest thing to a truth detector any man possessed. If he knew how to use it.

The other fellow had the advantage of youth and a head start. Halfway down the lane, Rocky planted his feet and used his fingers to issue a shrill whistle. Occasionally the unexpected trumped any advantage.

At the sound, the photographer came to a dead halt. Roland “Rocky” Waters stood in the middle of a country lane and wondered, Okay, what now, Rambo?

Three

Damn blasted board. It should have been replaced years ago, just as the gutters should have been repaired or replaced. Aunt Emma had been in her eighties, for heaven’s sake. Sarah should have come down here and seen to all the repairs, herself. At least she could have hired someone.

But she hadn’t. Too wrapped up in her own woes. And now everything needed fixing. Whether she sold the house, which would break her heart, and moved back to the city to find work, or turned the place into a bed and breakfast catering to people looking for a place in the slow lane—in this case, the very slow lane—things needed doing. She tackled them one after another.

Yesterday it had been the grapevines, which she still hadn’t finished. Today it was the board she stubbed her toe on every time she walked down to this end of the porch. Clutching the hammer just behind the head, she glanced up at the sound of a car out on the road. It was so quiet she could hear for miles…not that there was much to hear. Crows. Farm equipment. Now and then a barking dog.

Between cornfields that had been leased out to the same farmer for years, the overgrown shrubbery and the tall, longleaf pines that shed all over the roof, clogging the gutters, she couldn’t see as far as the dirt road, much less the blacktop. Later on, during hunting season, she might see half a dozen hunters, even though her land was posted.

The man jogging toward her house didn’t look like a hunter. Nor did he look lost. In fact, she thought uneasily as she sat back on her heels, scowling against the sun’s glare, with that big camera thing he was carrying, he looked suspiciously like one of the flock of vultures that had once made her life such a living hell.

What on earth could have happened to bring the press down on her head this time? Surely the Poughs hadn’t gone public, not after all this time. That would be killing the golden goose. She hadn’t missed a single payment, and while it wasn’t much, it was the best she could do.

It occurred to her that it had been weeks since she’d spoken to her father. If something had happened to him, surely someone would have called her. She didn’t like the man, certainly didn’t trust him and wouldn’t particularly care if she didn’t have to see him for the next few years, but she supposed she still loved him. Daughters were supposed to love their fathers, and if nothing else, she’d been trained to be a dutiful daughter.

By now she had a pretty clear view of her visitor. He was no one she’d ever seen before, of that she was certain. He certainly didn’t look like anyone her father would have sent after her.

Still on her hands and knees, Sarah tried to make up her mind what to do. She had learned the hard way to avoid confrontation whenever possible, but to stand her ground when escape was not an option. She was still trying to make up her mind when a shrill whistle split the air.

A whistle? What in God’s name was going on?

And then a second man came into sight around the curve in her rutted, overgrown lane. Clutching the hammer, she almost forgot to breathe. Something must have happened—something awful. Maybe someone was in trouble. Maybe there’d been an accident out on the highway. Maybe someone needed her help—or at least, her telephone.

“Miz Sullivan?” The first man was panting, clearly out of shape. At closer range, he appeared younger than the man following him. The second man, taller, darker, slightly older, sprinted forward, grabbed his arm and swung him around.

Sarah scrambled to her feet. “Just what is going on?” she demanded at the same time the older man began to speak.

“Didn’t you see the signs? This is private property,” she heard him say. Well built, he was wearing jeans and a khaki shirt—standard wear for the locals. Did she know him? Was he a neighbor she hadn’t yet met?

“Both of you, stop right there!” She lifted the hammer as a warning. “My land is posted and you’re trespassing.”

“You heard what the lady said.” The dark-haired stranger was still holding on to the younger man’s camera arm. At closer range, he didn’t look particularly dangerous. All the same, she’d learned to be wary.

Oddly enough, it was his eyes she noticed most as the two men came closer. They reminded her of the icy fjords she had seen on her one and only trip to Scandinavia.

“Hey, get off my back, man, I was here first! Miz Sullivan, what do you think about the book—”

“The lady has no comment.” By that time both men had reached the gate at the foot of her front walk.

The younger man wore a headband and a ponytail. Attempting to elbow his pursuer away, he whined, “Hey, butt out, old man, this is my story.”

“There’s no story here. The lady says you’re trespassing. You want a story? Try the county courthouse. Oldest one in the state. Fascinating history.”

By now they were halfway up the walk, almost at her front steps. Sarah Mariah had had enough. “I’m calling the sheriff,” she warned, and turned to go inside. That’s when her foot caught the board she’d been repairing. She flung out her hands to catch herself, and the hammer flew across the porch and landed at the feet of the man with the ponytail.

“Jeeze, lady, you don’t have to get physical, I can take a hint.” He backed away, muttering under his breath.

Sarah was hurting too much to care what was being said. She hadn’t actually seen stars, but close enough. Rubbing her forehead where she’d struck the edge of the screen door, she tried to assess the damage. The very last thing she needed when she was in klutz mode was a pair of witnesses.

The younger man was halfway down the lane. He was shaking his head. The older man came up onto the porch. “Are you all right? That was a pretty serious crack you took.”

Up close, he was even better looking. She had learned the hard way not to trust men who were too good-looking. This one wore the shadow of a beard, which might or might not be a fashion statement. There was a certain watchful quality about him, as if he weren’t quite sure of his welcome.

Smart man. “Who are you? What do you want?”

“You’ve forgotten already? It’s only been, what—twenty years?”

“Have we met?” She tried to ignore the pain, but both her eyes were beginning to water. Even so, if she had ever met this man before, she would have remembered. His was not the kind of face a woman could ever forget.

Although on closer examination, there was something about him. Something about his eyes…pale gray, set off by thick black lashes and eyebrows. Where had she seen such eyes before?

He seemed almost to be waiting for her to recognize him, but at the moment her head hurt too much to think. “Twenty years?” she repeated. “I’m sorry, but—”

“More like twenty-two, I guess. Rocky Waters, Mrs. Sullivan. And you were Miss Anonymous Jones. The king was having a bad hair day, remember?”

Rocky Waters, Rocky Waters, Rocky…

Oh, blast and tarnation. “The tea and cream cheese.”

“Managed to salvage my shoes, but you know what? You’re going to have a beauty of a shiner. Maybe if you put something on it before the swelling starts?”

“The swelling,” she repeated, sounding almost as dazed as she felt. It was partly the crack on her forehead, partly the fault of the man standing before her.

To think of all the hours she’d wasted after that one brief meeting thinking about him. Daydreaming. Creating wild, adolescent fantasies about someone she’d met only once, and then in the most embarrassing circumstances. Seeing him now, years later and out of context, it had taken a few minutes to connect. He looked more than ever like one of those dark, dangerous Black Ops heroes in her favorite romantic suspense novels.

God knows what she must look like after a day of wrestling grapevines—with one eye rapidly swelling shut.

No point in hoping he hadn’t noticed. Taking her by the arm, he said, “You took a real whack there. Let’s go inside—you’d better sit while I get a towel and some ice. Don’t suppose you have an ice bag, do you?”

“An ice bag?”

“Thought not. You don’t look like the type.”

“What type?” Pain was beginning to radiate from her eye socket all the way down to her jawbone. Momentarily dazed into compliance, she let him lead her inside. “Straight through there,” she said, her voice now little more than a strained whisper. He pulled out a kitchen chair, and she lowered herself carefully, then watched as he removed a tray of ice from the avocado-green refrigerator, a relic of the last time her great-aunt had modernized her kitchen.

“Hangovers. Bet you’ve never had one in your life, have you?”

“No—actually, yes.” There were a lot of things she’d never done and now probably never would, but he didn’t have to know it. “Clean towels are in there.” She pointed at the drawer where she kept kitchen linens. “Why are you doing this? Why are you even here?”

Rocky took the time to crack the ice with a meat tenderizer he found in a drawer along with three emergency candles, a ball of string and a few dozen rubber jar rings.

Why was he here? Good question. He’d set out with honorable intentions—mostly honorable, anyway. Warn the lady of what was in the pipeline. Help her with a preemptive strike, but only if she thought it would help defuse the situation.

As for him, part of the problem was that he’d been unable to motivate himself into getting back to writing after Julie’s death. If the senator’s daughter needed his help, he would give it his best shot.

If not…no problem. He’d warn her of what to expect because he’d seen too many victims blindsided after a tragedy by having a camera and a mike shoved in their face unexpectedly. Warn her, wish her luck and leave.

At the moment, however, he didn’t think she was in any shape to hear what he’d come to say. “Here, hold this against your face.”

She took the ice-filled towel and placed it gingerly against her eye. “You were a lot younger then,” she said. “I seem to remember that our whole conversation was like something out of Alice in Wonderland.”

“Right. We were both younger. So…how’s Toto?”

“Still in Kansas. Wrong story.”

He grinned, managing to look both raffish and kind. “Just wanted to be sure you didn’t have a concussion. Want to count my fingers?” He waggled them in front of her face.

“Not really. Are you here for any particular reason? Nobody just drops in because they happen to be in the neighborhood. There isn’t any neighborhood, in case you failed to notice.”

Sarah wondered if she’d broken the skin. Along with the throbbing, her eyebrow was starting to sting. “You’re hovering,” she grumbled. “I hate it when someone hovers. If you have something to say, then say it and leave. Please.”

“I came to warn you about the book.”

She dropped the towel. It came unfolded, and ice scattered across the linoleum. Ignoring it, she tried to focus on the man with one good eye and one that was rapidly swelling shut.

“The book. Right. Which one are we talking about this time, Oz or Alice? No don’t bother—the joke’s beginning to wear thin.” She wanted him to go so that she could give in to the pain. Curse or cry, or at least wallow in self-pity. All of which were luxuries she could only now afford to indulge.

Instead of leaving, he pulled out a chair and sat, uninvited. Then he proceeded to tell her why he’d gone to the trouble of tracking her down. This time the book wasn’t The Wizard and it wasn’t Wonderland. It was…

“The Senator’s Daughter’s Husband’s Other Women? Tell me you’re making that up.” In stunned disbelief, Sarah heard him out. “She can’t do that…can she?”

But of course she could. Having spent practically her entire life in Washington, Sarah well knew how each major scandal was rehashed in books that hit the stands in record time. The only curious thing was that this one had taken so long.

Dear God, what if the Poughs thought she was somehow benefiting from her late husband’s notoriety and demanded more money? She was already sending as much as she could afford. Even worse, what if, on seeing the Cudahy woman cash in on a rehash of the whole wretched mess, they decided to go public with Kitty’s secret? How much would the tabloids pay for something like that? Pictures of an innocent child under the caption, Disgraced Congressman’s Secret Lovechild.