Major Nanny

Chapter Three

The governor stayed on the phone for most of the very early flight home from Austin the next morning, giving Stacy time to decompress from the past twenty-four hours. Staying busy arranging for the governor’s entourage to stay in Austin overnight had helped fill her afternoon, and the temporary drama of learning about Frank Dorian’s jailhouse death had occupied most of the early evening, as Bailey Lockhart’s fiancé, Parker McKenna, and his colleague Harlan McClain had stayed in constant touch with their counterparts at the Corps Security and Investigations office in Freedom, relaying information as it trickled in.

All evidence pointed to suicide-Dorian had fashioned a noose from his jail-issued shirt and hung himself from the bars of his cell-but Bart Bellows had selected the men who worked at CSI because they were thorough and resourceful. Stacy had tried not to eavesdrop on their conversations, but she’d gleaned enough to know that one of the CSI agents had a contact at the Freedom Police Department who was keeping them apprised of the department’s investigation. If there was anything strange about Dorian’s death, the agents of CSI were determined to figure out what it was and what, if anything, it had to do with the attack on the governor.

Stacy had found herself growing more and more impressed with the two CSI agents as the evening went on. She knew from Bailey that Corps Security and Investigations was made up of former military men. Parker had been an Army Captain, and it showed. He’d been a huge help in keeping everyone in the governor’s entourage calm and focused.

She wasn’t sure what branch of the military Harlan McClain had been part of. He wore his sandy brown hair short, but so did most of the other former military men she knew. He was hard-muscled, as she’d learned when she’d practically collapsed in his arms after tripping on their way out of the debris field. Clearly he’d kept himself in shape since parting company with whatever military branch he’d served in.

He smelled good, too, she thought, even when sweating out a bomb scare. He didn’t wear cologne like a lot of men, including her ex-husband, did. He smelled of good old soap and water, a light, clean scent that probably wouldn’t have smelled masculine on anyone else.

Harlan McClain was masculine to the core. It had showed in how he’d dealt with the aftermath of the bombing-taking charge, keeping things moving. He’d tended to the dead and wounded, delegated authority to others as needed, and jumped right in to help Stacy when they found the governor buried under the rubble.

Very different from her ex-husband, Anthony, who’d never met a problem he couldn’t analyze to death.

“Looking forward to seeing Zachary?” Lila murmured, drawing Stacy’s attention back to the cabin of the small jet.

“Yes,” she answered, even if there was a small part of her that was dreading seeing her son after the unexpected night away from home. Zachary hated changes to his routine, so he’d probably given poor Charlotte a hard time last night. Stacy almost envied Charlotte-at least a tantrum was a response. When Zachary was immersed in his own little world-a frequent event-he barely acknowledged Stacy’s presence.

They arrived in Freedom a little after 7:00 a.m. Stacy stayed with the governor for a few minutes, going over the changes to Lila’s schedule arranged in response to the events in Austin and planning ahead for a couple of television interviews to let the people of Texas see that the governor was ready to finish out her term with her usual sass and vigor.

Finally, Lila told her to take the rest of the morning off, but to come back to the ranch house for lunch. “I have something else I need to discuss with you.”

With curiosity niggling at the back of her brain, Stacy walked to the ranch guesthouse she shared with her son. She found Charlotte Manning in the middle of helping Zachary find a pair of socks to wear to school.

Charlotte looked surprised to see her. “How’d the governor get the hospital to let her go so early?”

“You know how the governor is. What doctor was going to say no?” Stacy smiled at Zachary, who looked up at her for a second, then looked away, showing no sign of interest.

He went back to his search, sorting through the socks to find the blue pair. Tuesday meant the blue socks. Always.

A cold ache settled in her chest. After a year and a half of trying to come to terms with Zachary’s condition, she now realized she wasn’t ever going to get used to it. She’d spent every available hour researching Asperger’s syndrome, reading books, blogs, dry medical journal articles and heartfelt newspaper stories from parents of aspies, as people with Asperger’s syndrome referred to themselves. She’d come across a blog by a young college student who had Asperger’s and found some comfort in how grounded the young woman seemed to be, despite her different way of experiencing life, but ultimately, she’d had to accept that life with her beautiful son would be a series of never-ending challenges.

He’d have trouble making friends. He might never fall in love and have a life partner. He might find a job he loved but he just as easily might not. She’d fight with everything inside her to help him reach his full potential, but it was impossible to tell what that potential might be right now, when he was barely old enough to tie his shoes on his own.

“The Arabian horse has a concave nose,” Zachary announced, still looking at the sock drawer. He reached in and extracted the blue socks, showing no sense of triumph as he pulled the blue socks onto his small feet. “The Morgan horse is the first American breed of horse to survive to this day.”

“He’s been reading his horse book again?” Stacy asked Charlotte.

Charlotte nodded, her shaggy red hair bouncing with the movement. “He was pretty insistent about reading it to me at bedtime. His reading is getting to be downright amazing.”

“I know he must have been disappointed not to take a riding lesson yesterday.” Stacy had been taking him for lessons every Monday and Thursday for a few weeks now. Lindsay Kemp at the Long K Ranch had started giving riding lessons to disabled children a few years ago. While Zachary’s problems were more developmental than physical, riding at the Long K had turned out to be good therapy for him. He loved horses enough to make the effort to interact with Lindsay in order to learn better how to deal with the horses.

Maybe she could sneak him down to the governor’s stables later this week. One of the groomsmen there, Trevor Lewis, had let Zachary ride one of the governor’s gentler horses a few times before. He seemed to know a little about Asperger’s syndrome-something about a cousin who had it-and he accepted Zachary’s idiosyncrasies without making a big deal about it.

“Charlotte, I’ll finish up getting him ready for school. You go ahead-I know you need to get there earlier than the children do.”

Charlotte taught Zachary and a small number of other students with learning challenges. One of the draws for Stacy when she was considering taking the job with the governor was the Cradle to Crayons day care. The reputation of its special education curriculum was excellent. Everyone Stacy had asked about the school had concurred-Zachary couldn’t ask for a better learning environment.

These days, Zachary was her reason for everything she did.

Charlotte had been a godsend. Once she’d learned about Zachary’s Asperger’s syndrome, she’d gone to work studying up on the condition and how best to work around his lack of social skills to make sure he was prepared for elementary school when the time came.

Stacy wasn’t sure she was ready to think that far ahead.

“He’s had breakfast, but he hasn’t brushed his teeth,” Charlotte warned. “His lunch is packed already-”

Stacy gave her an impulsive hug. “I don’t know how to thank you for this. Just tell me what I owe you.”

“Work in a couple of hours volunteering at the school over the next few weeks and we’ll call it even,” Charlotte said. “It was good for me to do this. It gave me a better understanding of how to deal with Zachary during school hours. It’s like on-the-job training.”

Stacy walked Charlotte to the door. “I’ll work out a volunteer schedule as soon as I get the governor settled back into some sort of routine.”

“I imagine that’ll take some doing,” Charlotte said with a wry grin as she headed out the door.

You have no idea, Stacy thought, closing the door behind Charlotte.

“WHAT DO YOU THINK?” Harlan leaned over Vince Russo’s shoulder, growing impatient with his fellow agent’s continuing silence. Vince was Corps Security and Investigation’s go-to guy when it came to explosives. If anyone could tell them anything interesting about the undetonated bomb Stacy had found in the debris, it was Vince.

“It’s basically an Iraqi-style IED,” Vince answered flatly.

Harlan released a long, slow breath. He’d thought so as well, at first glance, though his experience with explosives hadn’t been as hands-on as Vince’s had been. A former navy SEAL, Vince had set-and defused-his share of explosive devices during his time in Iraq.

“Can you tell anything else about it?”

“It’s a common make of phone-something you could find in just about any store in America. The cops will be able to see if the phone can be traced to anyone.” Vince looked up at Harlan. “It’s not likely. The device is fairly cobbled together, but whoever made it knew what he was doing. It’s a miracle he didn’t set it off before the bomb squad got there to disarm it.”

“I was wondering about that myself-” The door to the agents’ bull pen opened and Parker McKenna wheeled Bart Bellows through the door in a manual wheelchair.

Vince and Harlan both rose to greet their boss, hurrying to shake his hand.

“Aren’t you still supposed to be in the hospital?” Harlan asked, worried about how pale the older man looked.

“Hell, if Lila can talk her way out of a hospital bed, I’ll be damned if I’m going to laze about in Austin all day.” Bart directed his sharp blue-eyed gaze at Harlan, nodding his head toward the corner. “Let’s talk, McClain.”

Harlan wheeled Bart with him to the corner, away from the other agents. “What’s up?”

“The governor asked me to get you to her ranch for lunch.”

“Why?”

“I reckon she might want to thank you again in person.”

Harlan shook his head. “I didn’t do much of anything. She should thank her aide. She’s the one who crawled into that maze and got things done.”

He’d found it hard to get Stacy Giordano off his mind over the past few hours. Her gritty courage had impressed the hell out of him, but it was the pale, troubled expression on her face when he’d left her there at the hospital to start the long drive home to Freedom that had stuck with him through the intervening hours. He knew next to nothing about her, really, but he had a gut-level sense that she was a woman under an enormous amount of pressure beyond her demanding job.

Stop it. She’s not your problem. You have all the problems you need.

“Well, be that as it may, she asked for you to be there, and you’re going. Because that woman may well be the next president of the United States, and you don’t say no to someone who might wield that sort of power someday.”

“Fine. I’m up for a free lunch.” It would be a real pleasure to eat something that didn’t come straight out of a can or a microwave plate.

Bart gave a satisfied nod and started wheeling himself back to where the other men had gathered around Vince’s computer, looking at the bomb.

Harlan joined them, catching the tail end of what Vince was telling Parker. “The setup is pretty typical of what the al Antqam were using a few years back.”

“Al Antqam?” Bart asked.

“Loosely translated, it means Sons of Vengeance,” Harlan answered, not looking away from the computer screen. “They were a particularly vicious sect working out of the Anbar Province. Gave us a whole lot of trouble for a while.”

“I know that.” Bart’s voice sounded hoarse.

Harlan looked up and saw that the old man had gone as pale as milk. “Bart, are you okay?”

Bart’s eyes darted up to meet Harlan’s. “I’m fine.” He wheeled his chair toward the door. “I’ll be here around eleven-thirty to drive you to the governor’s ranch,” he called over his shoulder to Harlan. Parker hurried to open the door for him and went with him to the elevator.

“What was that about?” Vince asked Harlan.

Harlan shook his head. “No idea.” He didn’t know much about Bart beyond the basics-he was a Vietnam vet who’d later joined the CIA and eventually became a defense contractor before he sold out for billions. But that was the sort of stuff he could have found out by going on the internet.

Parker returned a few minutes later, looking troubled. “I’m not sure Bart should have left the hospital. His hands were shaking like crazy.”

“What do you know about Bart’s history?” Harlan asked.

Parker shrugged. “Just what he told me when he hired me. Which wasn’t much.”

“Same here,” Vince agreed.

“I don’t think he’s sick,” Harlan said. “I think what we were talking about disturbed him.”

“What were we talking about-the bomb?” Vince asked.

“We were talking about al Antqam,” Harlan said, remembering the tone of Bart’s voice when he’d echoed Harlan’s words. Before he’d looked up to see Bart’s ashen face, he’d thought Bart had simply been asking a question.

Now he wondered if it was more than that.

“Well, you’re about to rub elbows with the old man during lunch,” Vince said with a shrug. “Why don’t you ask him?”

Harlan planned to do just that. But when Bart’s long black Cadillac arrived in front of the CSI headquarters shortly after eleven, the old man wasn’t inside.

“Where’s Bart?” Harlan asked the driver as he slid into the front passenger seat.

“He went on ahead earlier to talk to the governor.” The driver, a grizzled old former cowboy named Dalton Hicks, waited for Harlan to buckle his seat belt before he entered the light traffic. “Said he’d see you there.”

Harlan knew from listening to Bailey Lockhart talk that Twin Harts Ranch was still a working cattle ranch, but he had to admit, if he hadn’t known that already, he’d never have guessed it by looking at the imposing two-story white villa that served as the governor’s home. Sugar-white columns flanked the portico, and a long outside corridor, shaded by another portico with columns, extended nearly the length of the house.

“Nice, huh?” Hicks drawled as he pulled up in front of the entrance. “Wait till you see the inside.”

Harlan unfolded himself from the Cadillac and walked to the door. Beneath his feet, the narrow walkway was polished marble, making him wish he could take off his dusty boots to keep from marring the shiny surface.

He didn’t see a doorbell, so he rapped the heavy brass knocker against the white door. A pair of glass insets reflected his own face back to him, preventing him from seeing inside. But he heard movement, the flurry of footsteps, and the door swung open wide.

It was the governor herself who answered the door, to his surprise. “Welcome, Mr. McClain. So nice to see you again.”

“Should you be answering the door yourself?” he couldn’t help asking as he followed her through a large, ornate foyer into a hallway that was only slightly narrower. “Someone just tried to kill you.”

She glanced over her shoulder at him. “I saw who was there. And the glass in the door is bullet-resistant.” Her lips curved. “Besides, the Texas State Troopers in my security detail have been tracking your arrival since you drove onto Twin Harts land ten minutes ago.”

He should have known. He supposed a woman of Lila Lockhart’s power and controversial outspokenness couldn’t thrive this long in a volatile political climate without knowing how to take a few precautions to protect herself.

The governor led him into a cozy sitting room filled with large, dark-wood furniture and colorful woven rugs. Paneling darkened the walls and gave the place a rustic feeling at odds with the European refinement of the ranch house’s exterior.

A woman of many contradictions, Harlan thought as the occupants of the study turned to look at the newcomers.

Bart Bellows was there, his chair parked in front of the large river stone hearth, where golden flames licked lazily at a slab of hickory firewood. He grinned at Harlan as if he were keeping a juicy secret. Next to Bart, a sandy-haired man wearing a neat business suit watched Harlan’s approach with an oddly speculative gleam in his blue eyes.

And in an armchair adjacent to the stranger, Stacy Giordano sat quietly, her gaze watchful and wary.

“Stacy, I’m sure you remember Mr. McClain,” the governor said, waving for Harlan to sit on the small sofa across from Stacy. Stacy flashed him a quick smile as he sat, briefly transforming her features as if a beam of sunlight had fallen across her face. The smile faded quickly, her gaze returning to Lila’s face as the governor sat beside Harlan on the sofa.

“And this is Greg Merritt,” the governor added, waving toward the stranger. “He’s going to be my campaign manager. Greg, this is the man I was telling you about, Harlan McClain.”

Merritt rose and extended his hand to Harlan. He spoke with a mild Texas twang. “Happy to meet you, Mr. McClain. The governor tells me you were instrumental in saving her life yesterday. We’re all very grateful.”

“Just call me Harlan,” he said, uncomfortable with the praise considering how little he’d done compared to Stacy. But before he could protest, the governor cut in.

“I am deeply grateful to you, Mr.- Harlan.” The governor smiled, then turned to look at Stacy. Her smile grew warmer. “And to you, darlin’. I won’t forget what you did for me. But that’s not really why I asked the two of you here for lunch.” She took a deep breath, as if bracing for what she would say next.

Stacy’s gaze briefly connected with Harlan’s. He saw a hint of surprise and, unexpectedly, a flicker of dread.

“In two weeks, I intend to hold my first official fundraiser for my presidential campaign. Right here at Twin Harts. I’m going to ask that lovely girl Carrie Rivers to entertain us again.” The governor smiled brightly. “It’s going to be a party just about as big as Texas. Of course, Stacy will be in charge of bringing the party together. Nobody can get things done for me better than she can.”

The dread in Stacy’s eyes turned into full-blown panic.

“And you, Harlan, will be in charge of security.”

Harlan glanced at Stacy again. Babysitting the governor and her entourage of fans and followers wouldn’t normally be at the top of his list of desirable assignments, though he had to admit the recent attempt on Lila Lockhart’s life added a little zing of excitement to the prospect.

But working day in and day out with the governor’s enigmatic-and intriguing-aide?

Now, that might turn out to be a real challenge.