The Seduction of Goody Two-Shoes

Chapter 2

Outside the cantina, McCall paused to light a cigarette while he checked things out, caution being, in that part of town, always the better part of valor.

A soft breeze-a subtle reminder from Tropical Storm Paulette, like a blown kiss-was whisking away with it the heat of the day and the odors of poverty and inviting in the cool green smell of the sea, and he was savoring that along with his tobacco when the sound of voices drifted to him, carried on the wind. Male voices first, slurred and guttural, speaking Spanish…answered by a lighter one, low and scratchy but definitely female.

And becoming all too familiar.

Following the sound of the voices, McCall was finally able to make out three shapes a little farther down the narrow sandy street, in the shadows just beyond the yellow patch of light from the cantina’s open window. He exhaled, tossed his match into the dirt and started reluctantly toward them.

He was still several yards away when he heard a man’s laughter abruptly interrupted by a sound rather like, “Oof.” At the same time, one of the bulkier shapes suddenly and mysteriously doubled over on itself.

A moment later, the taller of the two remaining shapes began to perform a sort of hopping, stumbling dance, like a broken marionette.

Sharp, staccato Spanish rent the velvet night. Cuss words, if McCall was not mistaken. Very angry cuss words.

Seizing the moment, he lunged forward, pushed between the two would-be assailants and their intended victim, grasped her firmly by her upper arms and hustled her rapidly away from the scene of the intended crime.

Naturally, she resisted-silently except for some heavy breathing-until he growled, “Cut it out, you idiot-can’t you see I’m trying to help you?”

He felt her body go taut and her face jerk toward him, but she still didn’t say anything, not until they’d turned a corner and were out of sight of the cantina and well out of range of the two disgruntled thugs. There McCall halted and let go of her arms.

She stepped away from him then and said breathlessly as she set herself to rights with little brushing, tugging motions, “You’re the artist. The American. From the plaza this morning.”

McCall snorted. He could see her face, a pale blur in the darkness.

“I didn’t need help.” She sniffed-a disdainful sound. “Not to handle those two.”

McCall made a disgusted sound of his own. “Lady, you don’t need help, you need a nanny. All you did was tick them off. What were you going to do when they decided to come after you?”

“Outrun them,” she answered promptly, with an arrogant little toss of her head. “I came prepared this time-see?” And she lifted one foot to show him a tidy white running shoe.

“Lord help us,” he breathed, exhaling smoke. But in spite of his very best efforts to squelch it, he felt the beginnings of admiration-just a tiny burr of amazement in the center of his chest. Fearing that in another breath he might even laugh out loud, he said instead, “You’re way off the tourist path, lady. What the hell were you doing in a dive like that anyway? Much less alone.”

“That’s none of your business,” she said in a surprised and huffy tone.

“Sister, you got that right,” McCall shot back. He was thinking dark and sour thoughts about sticking to his motto from now on, no matter what. Live and let live. No doubt about it, that was the way to go.

So what were his feet doing, carrying him along with the foolish turista, walking him right beside her as she started off down the now-deserted street? She didn’t want his help, she’d told him so. And besides, she was none of his business-she’d told him that, too, and on that subject at least, they were in complete agreement.

“You sure you’re headed in the right direction?” he inquired sarcastically after a while, keeping his lips firmly clamped on the filter of his cigarette.

She ignored him and strode confidently on, finding her way as he did, by the light of a rising three-quarter moon and the occasional splashes of pale yellow from an open window or doorway. Voices-snatches of conversations, bits of laughter, a crying baby-made little sparks, tiny explosions of sound in the quiet. Far away McCall could hear the shushing of waves on the playa, keeping up a quirky rhythm to their own crunching footsteps.

He said in a pleasant tone, “What’d you do, leave a trail of bread crumbs?”

She threw him a look but didn’t reply, and a moment later jerked impatiently, like a balky child, when he took her arm. “The playa’s this way, ma’am,” he said with exaggerated politeness as he steered her oh, so gently in the right direction. “So’s the launch that will take you back to your ship. I assume that’s where you wanted to go?” He figured with this woman, you never knew.

“Yes. Of course. Thank you.” He could hear the prissiness of chagrin in her voice, and feel the stiffness of wounded pride in her arm just before he let go of it.

She didn’t say another word, though, not even when they were back on the main tourist drag, safe among oblivious honeymooners strolling beneath strings of lights looped between palm trees, where music swirled and wove through soft voices and bright laughter and white-coated waiters bearing trays of margaritas glided among rattan tables. Instead she kept throwing him questioning, half-puzzled looks.

They were within sight of the pier when she finally said dryly, “I think I can find my way from here, don’t you?”

He had no answer for her and his thoughts were too dark and bitter to share, so he just kept on walking beside her in glowering silence, all the way to the pier gate. There they both halted.

McCall jerked his head toward the far end of the long narrow pier where the cruise ship’s pristine white launch bobbed on Tropical Storm Paulette’s gentle swells, and said, again rather sarcastically, “There you go.”

The pier was brightly lit. He could see the brief flash of a gold stud in her earlobe, then the sprinkle of freckles on her cheeks and across the bridge of her nose when she turned her face to him. From somewhere out in the harbor came the sudden thump-thump-thump of a helicopter’s rotors. He listened to it fade rapidly into the distance while he watched the reflections of the pier lamps in her golden eyes.

They searched his for a long moment, those eyes, and then he heard the soft intake of her breath, as if she was on the brink of saying something.

Still she hesitated, and he wondered if, in different light, he might have seen her blush. Then, as if she’d come to some sort of decision, she held out her hand. “I’m Ellie. Thank you.” She said it on the breath’s delayed exhalation, in that scratchy voice he was beginning to get used to…even find sort of sexy. And impatiently, as if she thought he might not believe her, “I mean that sincerely, Mr.-”

“Just McCall. And you’re welcome-sincerely.” But he made a lie of that as he sardonically tipped the brim of an imaginary hat.

She gave him one long level look that made him feel vaguely ashamed he’d mocked her before she nodded, then turned and walked away down the long pier.

“And I sincerely hope I never set eyes on you again… Mrs. Whatever,” McCall muttered grumpily to himself as he jammed his hands into the pockets of his paint-stained dungarees and headed for the friendlier bustle of the plaza. Damned shame the best-looking and most interesting woman he’d run into in a long time turned out to be married, but…what the hell. Just as well. Live and let live.

He was wading into the swirl of tourists’ laughter and party music before it came to him-the reason for that nagging little sense of disappointment: he’d been waiting…hoping, one last time, to see her smile.

By the time the launch had delivered Ellie back to the cruise ship, both the adrenaline rush that had sustained her through the incident outside José’s Cantina and its embarrassingly trembly aftermath had faded to a hazy memory. What was left was the Alice-in-Wonderland feeling, that sense of sheer disbelief that such events could be happening to her.

Had she, Rose Ellen Lanagan, really struck a man in the…um…in such an effective place? Had she really managed to disable two large-admittedly clumsy-male attackers? It didn’t seem possible. She’d always been such a nonviolent person, gentle and sunny-natured to a fault. Even in her animal-rights activist days her protests had been limited to peaceful demonstrations, sit-ins, parades and picket lines. Even though, true to Ken Burnside’s promise, the government had seen to it that she was well trained in the necessary law-enforcement skills, including the use of firearms and basic martial arts techniques, it had never really occurred to her that she might one day be called upon to use that training. At heart she was still a nice Iowa farm girl who happened to have a doctorate in biology-and a badge.

A badge! Lord above-as Great-aunt Gwen might have said-if anyone had even suggested, back in her teenaged years and college days, that she, Ellie Lanagan, would one day be a special agent working undercover for the United States government, she would have fallen down and rolled on the floor with laughter. How had such a thing happened?

The only answer Ellie could come up with was that it had seemed like a good idea at the time. She’d been so sickened by the carnage the traffickers in endangered species were inflicting on some of the earth’s rarest and most beautiful creatures…so enraged by their callous disregard for living things… Okay, Ken had gotten to her in a weak moment, maybe, but she’d certainly had plenty of opportunities to change her mind since. The fact was, she’d truly believed in what she was doing. She still did.

But what was all this physical stuff? She was supposed to be the brains of this operation-the technical advisor, the wildlife expert. Ken Burnside, former cop and FBI agent, was supposed to provide the muscle-not that they’d expected to need much. Their purpose, after all, was simply to make contact with the smugglers, a band so elusive and cunning they’d managed for years to elude every attempt on the parts of both American and Mexican authorities to put an end to their operation. One reason for that, it was believed, was that the smugglers seemed to have no permanent camp, and always managed, like guerilla fighters, to slip away into the jungle one step ahead of a raid. It was hoped that Ellie and Ken, posing as eager American buyers with more money than sense, might manage to gain the confidence of the smugglers enough to work their way into their camp. If they were successful, their job was to record evidence and plant a tracking device that would enable government forces to locate them and put them out of commission once and for all. Their mission was nonviolent; the weapon of choice would be American dollars, not bullets. And so far, things had been moving slowly, but according to plan.

How was it, then, that in her first day on Mexican soil she’d already been involved in not one, but two incidents involving physical violence? And both times, if it hadn’t been for that American artist stepping in when he had…

Both times. She’d thought about that on the way back to the pier, thought about it as she walked beside the man-a stranger-through dark and empty streets, her adrenaline-charged brain worrying the notion like a starving wolf attacking a bone.

What is he doing there? Coming to my rescue-again? Can this be coincidence? Could he be one of them? Could he be the contact? If so, why doesn’t he say so? Why hasn’t he identified himself, or at least slipped me something with the meeting information on it?

All the way back to the pier, on the alert and aware of his body so close beside hers, remembering the wiry strength in his hands when they’d gripped her arms, she’d waited for him to make his move. He hadn’t. In the end she’d felt foolish, out of her depth, questioning her own judgment. Of course he wasn’t involved. He was exactly what he appeared to be-an American artist and social dropout trying to make a living hustling tourists. His being there to rescue her twice in one day was just coincidence. Those things happened.

Besides, according to all the information so far, the smugglers were Mexican-back-country Mexican, as Ken put it. Old-fashioned Macho Mexican Males who wouldn’t lower themselves to deal with a woman.

That was fine. But people in law enforcement are taught to distrust coincidence as a matter of principle. And there were those paintings. Parrots. Macaws. Tropical birds of all kinds, many of them the very same ones that so often turned up dead in customs inspections. Gaudy and Godawful Mr. McCall’s paintings might be, but there was no denying he had the details right.

Still the question remained: If the American was a member of the smuggling ring, why hadn’t he established contact with her?

She was still pondering those questions as she stood before the door to her stateroom, key in hand, frowning and gnawing on her lip as was her habit when deep in thought. Consequently she didn’t notice the white-uniformed ship’s steward hurrying toward her down the long passageway, not until he spoke to her with alarming and breathless urgency.

“Mrs. Burnside-Mrs. Burnside, thank God you’re back. We’ve been trying to reach you…”

A few tense and worried minutes later she was shown into a small cluttered office where two men were already engaged in grave consultation. They both straightened at Ellie’s entrance to murmur, “Come in, Mrs. Burnside.” One, a dark-skinned, salt-and-pepper-haired man with kind, liquid eyes, shook her hand and identified himself as the ship’s physician, Dr. Singh; the other, judging by his frown and the resplendence of his uniform, she took to be the captain.

The fear that had clutched Ellie’s stomach with the steward’s first breathless words outside her stateroom squeezed even tighter. Even though Burnside wasn’t really her husband, and there were times, in fact, when he annoyed her beyond bearing, he was still her partner, mentor and even, in an odd sort of way, a friend.

She gasped out, before anyone else could say a word, “Ken-my husband-is he all right? What’s happened? Is he-he’s not-”

The doctor’s tone was stern, even though his voice was limpid with the accent of his native India. “It is very fortunate that he called us when he did, Mrs. Burnside. If he had waited even one more hour… You should have come to us when his symptoms first occurred. As it is-”

“He had an upset stomach,” Ellie cried, defensive in the face of the two men’s unspoken disapproval, though she wasn’t quite sure what she was supposed to be guilty of. “He said-he insisted it was just a twenty-four-hour bug!” She carefully made no mention of food poisoning; apparently her stock with ship’s personnel was plummeting as it was. “I asked him-” She paused to draw a shaky breath, one hand pressed to her forehead. After a moment she said testily, fighting for calm, “So-what’s wrong with him? Where is he? I want to see him.”

“He has acute appendicitis,” the doctor said gravely. After a polite pause for Ellie’s horrified gasp, he continued, “At this moment he is on his way by helicoptor to the airport at Cozumel. From there he will be flown to Miami for immediate surgery.”

Ellie was groping for a chair. The captain unfolded his arms from across his chest long enough to guide her to one. “We will, of course, make arrangements for you to join him as soon as possible,” he said politely as she sank into the chair, limp with shock. Oh, what she would have given for a Hershey’s Kiss just then.

The censure in the captain’s voice and expression seemed to have softened somewhat at this evidence of appropriate wifely concern, but his opinion was no longer of any concern at all to Ellie. Having been reassured that her partner was alive and in good hands, what concerned her now was the fate of their undercover operation. This, after all, was the mission, the goal, the crusade she’d dedicated her life to for over a year-dedicated being the operative word and one people often used to describe Ellie Lanagan…although members of her immediate family would probably have been more inclined to say pig-headed, or stubborn as a mule. This also was no concern of Ellie’s; it was just the way she was, the way she’d always been. When Ellie got involved in something she tended to develop tunnel vision, or what Ken referred to as a “pit-bull mentality.”

Now, thinking hard and once again frowning and chewing on her lip, she muttered, “No…no…I can’t. I can’t leave now-”

Well, tough, was her annoyed thought when she saw the captain’s face freeze up again. Even the doctor looked slightly taken aback. But Ellie’s mind was starting to function, although still in the crazily spinning, drunken wobble of an out-of-balance top.

“You don’t understand,” she went on. “We-my husband and I-had some business here. It was very important.” The wobble had sneaked into her voice now, and for once to her advantage. She cast an appealing look from one disapproving face to the other and back again. “That’s why he didn’t want to believe there was anything seriously wrong. He was convinced it was just an upset stomach. He convinced me…” She gulped a breath and pushed resolutely to her feet. “I know he’d want me to stay and try to take care of…our business…for him. I don’t know if I can, by myself, but…I have to try. And,” she added with a touch of asperity, “there’s not really anything I can do for him there, is there? In Miami I mean? Except wait?”

She looked at Dr. Singh, who was looking slightly dazed. He nodded and murmured, “Of course. I understand…”

The captain cleared his throat and finally growled an ambiguous, “Well.” He coughed, then continued, “As you know, we’ll be staying in port for several days to allow our passengers an opportunity to explore the Mayan ruins, visit the biosphere reserve, or dive the reefs, if that’s their preference. You have until day after tomorrow, seventeen hundred hours, to let us know whether or not you’ll be continuing on with us.” He paused with one hand on the door. “Or, whether you wish us to make arrangements for you to join your husband.” He opened the door and waited for Ellie to precede him. “It’s up to you.”

“Thank you.” She was looking past the captain’s out-stretched arm at the doctor. “You’ll let me know…how-”

“Yes, of course, Mrs. Burnside,” said Dr. Singh with a slight bow. “As soon as I know anything I will contact you immediately.”

Ellie nodded and turned to go, then, spotting the steward hovering just outside the door, halted once more to ask whether there had been any messages for her, or rather, for her “husband.”

While the captain took his leave with poorly concealed impatience, the steward promised to check for messages as soon as he’d seen her back to her stateroom.

That turned out not to be necessary. When Ellie unlocked her stateroom door she found an envelope lying on the carpet, where it had apparently been slipped under the door.

“Well, there you are,” the steward said, showing friendly white teeth. “Must have just come in.” He hovered while Ellie tore open the envelope and read the brief handwritten message inside. “Is that the message you were expecting, Miss, uh…ma’am?”

“Mmm…” she murmured absently. “Yes…I think so. Thank you…” For a moment longer the steward hovered, then shrugged and went out, closing the door behind him. Belatedly, the word tip flashed into Ellie’s mind. But only fleetingly; she had more important things on her mind.

Mañana-twelve o’clock noon. Take a taxi from the plaza. Give driver this following instruction…

Noon. Tomorrow.

Ellie’s knees suddenly went weak, and she sank onto her smooth undisturbed bed, reaching automatically for the bag of Kisses. A few feet away, tumbled sheets dragged half onto the floor bore mute testimony to the disaster that had befallen her-or more accurately, her partner.

Her partner. Wait a minute. Ken was the one with appendicitis. There was nothing whatsoever wrong with her.

Heart thumping, even chocolate momentarily forgotten, she stared down at the piece of paper in her hands. Tomorrow noon. Okay. This was it. The meeting they’d been working toward, hoping for, for months. Okay, so Ken was out of the picture, but she was still here. There was nothing wrong with her. Why couldn’t she still go through with it? Why shouldn’t she?

Okay, Ellie, think about this logically.

On the downside, according to Ken these smugglers were a backward lot, with some annoyingly primitive ideas about women. He’d said they probably wouldn’t even do business with a woman alone. Probably.

All right, so what? At the worst they wouldn’t do business with her-a little humiliating, maybe, but she could handle that. And at least she would have a chance to explain what had happened, perhaps try to postpone the meeting until Ken was back in action.

But what if that wasn’t the worst?

Memories of the evening’s incident at José’s Cantina crowded fresh and vivid into her mind, complete with the residuals of sour breath and hot, unwashed bodies. Reluctantly, she thought about the number one rule in law enforcement: never go into anything without backup.

Tonight she’d had backup-unplanned, but backup nonetheless. She forced herself to consider what would have happened if that artist hadn’t arrived when he had. Probably nothing-she really did believe she could have handled those two drunks without any help. But that was just it-the men who’d accosted her had been a couple of relatively harmless neighborhood punks, and drunk to boot. The smugglers, she was certain, would be a different breed entirely.

But if she didn’t keep the rendezvous, what then? How many months would it take to win back the smugglers’ trust and set up another meeting? And in the meantime, how many hundreds, even thousands, of rare and beautiful animals would die in horrible, cruel ways? As always, that thought made Ellie’s stomach clench and her skin go clammy.

She jumped up and began to pace-to the extent such an activity was possible in the cramped stateroom.

I should at least contact General Reyes, she thought, nibbling furiously at her lip. General Cristobal Reyes was the head of the Mexican government agency that had been working in close partnership with the USFWS and the man in charge of the Mexican phase of the operation. Though she’d never actually met him, he was, in effect, at this juncture, anyway, her boss. He would have to be told about this latest development. Of course he would.

And the general would call off the operation, or at least postpone it until Ken was back in action. He would tell her in no uncertain terms not to go to this meeting alone. Of course he would.

What shall I do? Think, Ellie, think! Use your wits…

It was the word wits that made her stop pacing and begin instead to smile. Keep your wits about you. It had always been one of her mother’s favorite sayings, and Ellie could hear Lucy’s stern and scratchy voice as clearly as if she’d been standing there beside her. Keep your wits about you, Rose Ellen Lanagan.

A sweet and childish longing swept over her as she sank onto the bed, popped a Kiss into her mouth and reached for the telephone.

Ordinarily Lucy found October’s lull a welcome respite after the busy rush of September and its jam-packed schedule of back-to-school, 4-H meetings, fairs and livestock sales. For a little while, between harvest and the hardships of winter, she could spend time with Mike, or simply relax and enjoy the cool, crisp mornings and bright, golden noontimes-as much as Lucy had it in her nature to relax.

Oh, but she did like the lovely sense of satisfaction that came with having once again, against all the odds man and nature could throw at her, successfully brought in a decent harvest. And though she always felt a small twinge of regret at the first soft furring of frost on the corn stubble, she never failed to feel her spirits lift when she heard the distant honking of migrating geese and paused, shading her eyes against the glare, to watch the fluid arrows dipping and floating through a crystal-clear autumn sky.

Infused with restless energy, she spent those days cleaning the house, raking leaves, or, something she’d always enjoyed much more, working in the barn, piling the stalls full of sweet-smelling straw and declaring all-out war on the summer’s accumulation of spiders.

Her husband Mike, the journalist, attributed all this activity to a primitive, instinctive fear of winter, the same instinct, he said, that prompts squirrels to run about gathering nuts.

Well, of course, Mike was a writer, and Lucy was used to his tendency to over-verbalize-not to mention dramatize. She certainly was not afraid of winter, or anything else, for that matter. Except maybe thunderstorms, which she considered only basic good sense; as far as Lucy was concerned, thunderstorms were violent, dangerous and destructive, and anybody with half a brain ought to be afraid of them. And as far as instinct went, why, it seemed only natural that someone who’d spent her whole life on a farm would be more sensitive than some people to the rhythms of nature…the turn of the seasons…the cycles of life and death.

For everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under Heaven… That had been one of Aunt Gwen’s favorite passages of scripture and she’d quoted it often and taken comfort from it. So had Lucy.

But this year, for some reason, she acknowledged a certain…sadness at the turning of the seasons. Perhaps it was partly because Gwen was no longer here to share them with her, but this year the autumn evenings seemed longer to her than usual, the big old farmhouse emptier, the silence…lonelier.

When the phone rang that particular evening, Lucy was curled up on the couch in what had once been, and what Lucy still considered to be, Aunt Gwen’s parlor.

Earlier she and Mike had eaten supper together off trays while watching the CBS Evening News and Jeopardy. Then, while Lucy clicked irritably through the channels looking for her favorite shows, which seemed to be all out of place since the start of the new TV season, Mike had returned to work on his weekly column for Newsweek magazine.

He’d moved his computer into the parlor after Gwen’s death the previous year, since it was cooler there than any of the spare bedrooms upstairs. In the summer it was a dim and peaceful working place, with dappled shade from the big old oaks that grew on that side of the house. In the fall, afternoon sunlight diffused through autumn’s leaves filled the room with a lovely golden warmth, and in winter, the last of each day’s meager ration of sunshine found its way between the filigree of bare branches. It had always been Lucy’s favorite room, with the upright piano and its collection of family photographs on top, the white-painted mantelpiece covered with still more photos, the shelves full of books. And of course, Gwen’s ancient recliner, empty now this past year, and yet…sometimes Lucy swore she could still feel Gwen in that room, and hear the musical grace note of her laughter.

The telephone’s polite trill made Lucy jump; calls late in the evening weren’t all that common in rural Iowa, and seldom meant good news. As she reached for the cordless that had replaced the old kitchen wall phone a few years back, Mike stopped typing and peered at her expectantly, blind as a mole in his special computer glasses, the dark-rimmed ones that give him a distinctly Harry Potter look.

“Mom?”

Lucy came bolt upright on the couch. “Ellie? Well, for goodness’ sake!” Her mom-radar was lighting up like a Christmas tree. Across the room, Mike took off his Harry Potter glasses. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong, Mom, just called to say hi.”

Lucy was unconvinced. “Your voice sounds funny.”

“Probably because I’m eating chocolate. Plus, I’m on a cell phone. Mom, I’m fine, really.”

“A cell phone!” Lucy was just getting used to cordless. “Well, you sound like you’re a million miles away.”

“Not quite-I’m in Mexico. On a ship. Listen, Mom-”

“Oh Lord. Not that Save the Whales stuff again? I thought you were through with-”

“It’s not that kind of ship. Mom, listen-I need some advice.”

“Advice!” Once again Lucy jerked as if she’d been poked. Across the room, Mike’s eyebrows had shot up. As they both knew, Rose Ellen, being her mother’s daughter, had never been one to take, much less seek, anyone’s advice. “From me? Are you sure you wouldn’t rather ask your dad? He’s right here.”

“Hey-give him a big hug and a kiss for me.” Ellie’s voice sounded odd again-slightly muffled, which Lucy knew meant she probably had her mouth full of chocolate. Which made her radar light up even more; Ellie always turned to chocolate in times of stress.

“Mom-I need to ask you something. I haven’t got a lot of time… There’s something I need to do-at least, it’s something I believe I should do-I think other people would probably tell me I shouldn’t do it-they might even tell me absolutely not to do it, and then I’d have to do it anyway, and probably-”

“Ellie-slow down. You’re not making sense. What is this thing you think you have to do?”

There was a pause, and then, “I can’t really tell you that, Mom.”

“I see. Is it dangerous?” Lucy’s voice cracked on the last word. She cleared her throat while Mike pushed back his chair.

After an even longer pause, Ellie said, in the voice nearly everyone said was very like her mother’s, “I think maybe…it could be, yes.”

Lucy sat very still. Mike came to sit beside her, dipping the cushions so that she had to lean back against him. But she straightened herself and said very quietly, “Rose Ellen, you have a good level head on your shoulders. I know you wouldn’t do anything foolhardy.”

“No, Mama.” Now she sounded like she had as a little girl, angelically, breathlessly protesting her innocence. Ellie never had been able to lie convincingly.

Lucy said, in what Mike always called her rusty-nail voice, “But, I know how you are when you really believe in something. If there’s something you think you have to do…” She felt Mike’s arms come around her and hurriedly cleared her throat as she gripped the phone hard. As if she could somehow force her strength of will and passion through those nonexistent wires. “Listen…honey-you just have to trust yourself. We’ve taught you to use your head and think for yourself, so you use your own judgment-your own good judgment, no one else’s. You do what you have to do, honey. But you keep a level head, now, you hear me? You keep your wits about you.”

“Yes, Mama. Thanks…I love you.” Ellie was laughing…wasn’t she? “Mom-tell Dad I love him, too, okay? Hey, listen, I’m sure it’ll be okay. So don’t worry about me, okay? I’ll call you later and tell you all about it.”

“Ellie, wait-”

“Bye Mom, bye, Dad. Don’t worry.”

“Wait-” But the line had gone dead. Lucy punched the disconnect button and swiped angrily at her cheeks. “Damn,” she rasped, “I didn’t even get to tell her the news about Ethan getting married. You know he was always her favorite cousin.”

Mike cleared his throat as he pulled her back against him. “Probably not a good idea, if she was on a wireless phone.”

Lucy sniffed. “You think?”

“Not unless you want to read all about it in tomorrow’s headlines: President’s Son to Wed Notorious Rock Star!”

Lucy laughed…and sniffed again. Mike’s arms tightened and he kissed the top of her head. “Hey, love, why’re you crying? Ellie’ll be fine-like you said, she’s got a good head on her shoulders.”

Lucy burrowed her face against the chest of the only person in the world who was allowed to see her cry. “Our children are so far away, Mike. Rose Ellen off on some ship, and Lord only knows where Eric is-it’s been months since he’s called.”

“A little delayed empty-nest syndrome, love?” Mike said softly, holding her close. “It’s been quite a few years since our kids flew the coop.”

“Yes,” Lucy gulped, “but I think it just hit me that they’re not coming back.”