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"You got any more skeletons rattling around in your closet?"

Tate spun around and confronted his brother with more anger than Avery had ever seen him exhibit for anyone in his family. His hands were balled into fists at his sides. "Shut up, Jack."

"Don't tell him to shut up," Dorothy Rae cried, slamming the vodka decanter back onto the cabinet. "It's not his fault your wife's a slut."

"Dorothy Rae!"

"Well, isn't she, Jack? She got rid of a baby on purpose, while mine. . .mine. . ." Tears welled up in her eyes. She turned her back to the room.

Jack blew out his breath, lowered his head, and mumbled, "Sorry, Tate."

He went to his weeping wife, placed his arm around her waist, and led her from the room. For all the aversion she felt toward Jack, Avery was touched by this kind gesture. So was Dorothy Rae. She gazed up at him with gratitude and love.

Dirk and Ralph, impervious to the family drama, had been talking between themselves. "You'll sit this trip out," Dirk told Avery peremptorily.

"I second that," Eddy said.

"That's up to Tate," she said.

His face was cold and impassive. "You stay."

Tears were imminent, and she'd be damned before she cried in front of Dirk, his sidekick, and the indomitable iceman, Eddy Paschal. "Excuse me."

Proudly, but quickly, she walked out. Tate followed her from the room. He caught up with her in the hallway and brought her around to face him. "There's just no limit to your deceit, is there, Carole?"

"I know it looks bad, Tate, but—"

"Bad?"Bitter and incredulous, he shook his head. "If you'd already done it, why didn't you just own up to it? Why tell me there'd never been a child?"

"Because I could see how much it was hurting you."

"Bullshit. You saw how much it was hurting you!"

"No," she said miserably.

"Call her bluff. No corroborating witness. Falsified records," he said, quoting her previous suggestions. "If you got caught, you had your escape route all thought out, didn't you? How many other tricks have you got up your sleeve?"

"I made those suggestions so you'd be protected. You, Tate."

"Sure you did." His lips curled with cynicism. "If you'd wanted to do something for me you wouldn't have had an abortion. Better yet, you wouldn't have gotten pregnant in the first place. Or did you think a baby would be your ticket to Washington?"

He released her suddenly, flinging off his hands as though he couldn't bear to touch her. "Stay out of my way. I can't stand the sight of you."

He returned to the living room, where his advisers were waiting for him. Avery slumped against the wall and covered her mouth with her hands to hold back the sobs.

In another attempt to atone for Carole's sins, she had only driven Tate farther away.

The following morning, Avery woke up feeling groggy. Her head was muzzy, and her eyes were swollen and stinging from crying herself to sleep. Pulling on a light robe, she stumbled toward the bathroom.

As soon as she cleared the door, she flattened herself against the wall and, with horror, read the message that had been written on the mirror with her own lipstick.

Stupid slut. You almost ruined everything.

Fear held her paralyzed for several moments, then galvanized her. She ran to the closet and dressed hastily. Pausing only long enough to wipe the message off the mirror, she fled the room as through chased by demons.

It took only a few minutes in the stable for her to saddle a horse. She streaked across the open pasture at a full gallop, putting distance between her and the lovely house that harbored such treachery. Even though the sun's first rays warmed her skin, goose bumps broke out on Avery's arms when she thought of someone sneaking into her bedroom while she slept.

Perhaps Irish and Van were right. She was certifiably insane to continue with this charade. She might pay with her life for another woman's manipulations. Was any story worth that? It was foolish not to leave before she was discovered.

She could disappear, go someplace else, assume a new identity. She was smart and resourceful, She was interested in many things. Journalism wasn't the only worthwhile field of endeavor.

But those were options generated by panic and fear. Avery knew she would never act upon them. She couldn't withstand another professional failure, especially one of this magnitude. And what if Tate's life were lost as a consequence? He and Mandy were now worth more to her than any acclaim. She must stay. With the election only several weeks away, the end was in sight.

As attested to by the message on her mirror, Carole's recent unpredictability had made Tate's enemy angry and nervous. Nervous people made mistakes. She would have to be watchful for giveaways, and at the same time guard against giving herself away.

The stable was still deserted when she returned her mount to his stall. She unsaddled him, gave him a bucket of feed, and rubbed him down.

"I've been looking for you."

Alarmed, she dropped the currycomb and spun around. "Tate!" She splayed a hand across her thudding heart. "I didn't hear you come in. You startled me."

He was standing at the opening of the stall. Shep sat obediently at his feet, tongue lolling.

"Mandy's demanding your French toast for breakfast. I told her I'd come find you."

"I went riding," she said, stating the obvious.

"What happened to the fancy britches?"

"Pardon?"

"Those. . ."He gestured along the outside of his thighs.

"Jodhpurs?" Her jeans and boots weren't fancy, by any means. The shirttail of her simple cotton shirt was hanging loosely over her hips. "I feel silly in them now."

"Oh." He turned to go.

"Tate?" When he came back around, she nervously moistened her lips. "I know everyone is furious with me, but your opinion is the only one that matters. Do you hate me?"

Sheplay down on the cool cement floor of the stable and propped his head on his front paws, looking up at her with woeful eyes.

"I'd better get back to Mandy," Tate said. "Coming?" "Yes, I'll be right there."

Yet neither made a move to leave the stable. They just stood there, staring at each other. Except for the occasional stamping of a shod hoof against the floor or the snuffling of a horse, the stable was silent. Dust motes danced in the stripes of sunlight coming through the windows. The air was still and thick with the pleasing smells of hay and horseflesh and leather. And lust.

Avery's clothes suddenly seemed constricting. Her hair felt too heavy for her head, her skin too small to contain her teeming body. She ached to go to Tate and place her arms around his waist. She wanted to rest her cheek on his chest and feel the beating of his heart as it had pulsed when he was inside her. She wanted him to reach for her with need and passion again, even if short-term gratification was all he wanted from her.

The desire swirling within her was coupled with despair. The combination was unbearable. She looked away from him and idly reached out to stroke the gelding's velvet muzzle. He turned away from his oats to affectionately bump her shoulder. "I don't get it."

Her eyes swung back to Tate. "What?"

"He used to breathe fire if you came anywhere near him. You wanted us to sell him to the glue factory. Now you nuzzle each other. What happened?"

She met Tate's gray eyes directly and said softly, "He learned to trust me."

He got the message. There was no mistaking that. He held her stare for a long time, then nudged the large dog with the toe of his boot. "Come on, Shep ." Over his retreating shoulder he reminded her, "Mandy's waiting."

THIRTY-SIX

"Be a sweet girl for Daddy." Tate knelt in front of his daughter and gave her a tight hug. "I'll be back before you know it and bring you a present."

Ordinarily, Mandy's grin would have caused Avery to smile, but she found that impossible to do this morning, the day of Tate's departure. He stood up. "Call me if she has any breakthroughs."

"Of course."

"Or any regressions."

"Yes."

"The entire staff's been put on notice that if a call comes in concerning Mandy, I'm to be summoned immediately, no matter what."

"If anything happens, I promise to call right away."

Jack tooted the car horn. He was waiting impatiently behind the steering wheel. Eddy was already sitting in the passenger seat, speaking into the cellular phone that had recently been installed.

"About that other," Tate said, keeping his tone confidential. "Eddy did as you suggested and asked the nurse for irrefutable proof that you'd had an abortion. He grilled her good, gave her a taste of what she would be up against if she went to the press or to Dekker's people with her story.

"He also did some investigating. As you guessed, she was fired from her job and wanted to embarrass the doctor even more than us. Eddy used that as leverage, too, and threatened all kinds of litigation. For the time being, she's cowed."

"Oh, I'm so glad, Tate. I would have hated to have that darken your campaign."

He gave a short laugh. "It couldn't look much darker than it already does."

"Don't get discouraged," she said, laying her hand on his sleeve. "The polls aren't gospel. Besides, they can be reversed at any time."

"They'd better be damn quick about it," he said grimly. "November's going to be here before we know it."

Between now and then, his life was in danger and she couldn't even warn him of it. During this trip she wouldn't be there watching for a tall, gray-haired man. Maybe she should mention that—just give him that much head start against his enemies.

"Tate—" she began. Jack honked the horn again.

"Got to go." He bent from the waist and kissed Mandy's cheek again. "Good-bye, Carole." She didn't get a kiss, or a hug, or even a backward glance before he got into the car and was driven away.

"Mommy? Mommy?"

Mandy must have addressed her several times. By the time Avery stopped staring at the curve in the road where the car had disappeared from view and looked down at her, her little face was perplexed.

"I'm sorry. What is it, darling?"

"How come you're crying?"

Avery brushed the tears off her cheeks and forced a wide smile. "I'm just sad because Daddy's leaving. But I've got you to keep me company. Will you do that while he's gone?"

Mandy nodded vigorously. Together they went inside. If Tate was temporarily beyond her help, she could at least do the best she could for his daughter.

The days crawled by. She spent most of her time with Mandy, but even the activities she invented for them weren't enough to absorb the endless hours. She hadn't been exaggerating when she had told Tate all those weeks earlier that she needed something constructive to do. She wasn't accustomed to inactivity. On the other hand, she seemed to lack the energy to motivate herself into doing anything more than staring into space and worrying about him.

She watched the evening news every night, anxiously looking for the gray-haired man in the crowd shots. Irish would wonder why she hadn't accompanied Tate on this trip, so she had called him from a public phone booth in Kerrville and explained about the abortion crisis.

"His advisers, starting with Eddy, recommended that I stay behind. I'm a pariah now."

"Even to Rutledge?"

"To an extent, yes. He's as polite as ever, but there's a definite chill there."

"I've heard of political experts like Wakely and Foster. They give a command and Rutledge barks, is that it?"

"They give a command, Tate snarls at them, then barks."

"Hmm, well, I'll notify Van and tell him to keep his eye out for that guy you seem to think is significant."

"Iknowhe's significant. Tell Van to call me the instant he spots him."

"If he does."

Apparently he hadn't, because Van hadn't called. But all the news stories broadcast by KTEX featured at least one crowd shot. Van was sending her a message. Gray Hair wasn't in the crowds surging around Tate.

That did little to relieve Avery's anxiety, however. She wanted to be beside Tate to see for herself that he was in no imminent danger. At night she experienced graphic visions of him dying a bloody death. During the day, when she wasn't involved with Mandy, she wandered restlessly through the rooms of the house. "Still in the dumps?"

Avery raised her head. Nelson had come into the living room without her hearing him. "Does it show?" she asked with a wan smile.

"Plain as day." He lowered himself into one of the easy chairs.

"Admittedly, I haven't been very good company lately."

"Missing Tate?"

The family's subtle snubbing had made the time pass even more slowly. It had been a little over a week since Tate had left. It seemed eons.

"Yes, Nelson, I miss him terribly. I suppose you find that hard to believe. Zee does. She'll barely look at me."

He stared straight into her eyes, hard enough and incisively enough to make her squirm. He said, "That abortion business was hideous."

"I had no intention of anyone ever finding out."

"Except Tate."

"Well, he had to know, didn't he?"

"Did he? Was the baby his?"

She hesitated for only a second. "Yes."

"And you wonder why we aren't feeling too kindly toward you?" he asked. "You destroyed our grandbaby. I find that impossible to forgive, Carole. You know how Zee feels about Tate. Did you expect her to embrace you for what you did?"

"No."

"Being the kind of mother she's been to the boys, she can't imagine doing what you did. Frankly, neither can I."

Avery glanced down at the photo album that was spread open over her lap. The pictures she had been looking at when he had come in were from early years. Zee was very young and very beautiful. Nelson looked dashing and handsome in his air force blues. Jack and Tate were pictured as youngsters in various stages. They typified the all-American family.

"It couldn't have been easy for Zee when you went to Korea."

"No, it wasn't," he said, settling more comfortably into his chair. "I had to leave her alone with Jack, who was just a baby."