President's Girlfriend 06 - The Sins of the Fathers (2 page)

“Oh,
Daddy
,” she said tearfully as she
hurried to him and fell against his body.

Dutch coolly
but firmly took her by the arm and pulled her back, grabbing a towel off of the
rack as he did.
 
“What’s happened?” he
asked anxiously as he wrapped the towel around his well-endowed
midsection.
 
“Gina and
Little Walt all right?”

Jade could
have thrown up when he mentioned Gina’s name.
 
That was all he thought about: Gina, Gina, Gina!
 
“They’re fine, Daddy.
 
It’s not about them.”

Dutch stared
at his daughter.
 
She was turning out to
be a very troubled young lady, and it was beginning to concern him.
 
“Then what is it about?” he asked her.

It took even
more effort, but Jade managed to produce more tears.
 
She had learned the trick when she was a
child: think about something terrible in her life and the tears would
come.
 
Since she had many examples she
could draw upon, the tears always came.
 

“Babe, what
is it?” Dutch asked again.

Jade
hesitated again, but then she spoke.
 
“I
keep thinking about
her
,” she said
softly.

Dutch
remained cool as he watched her.
 
Because
he knew what she meant.
 
He took a second
towel off of the rack and began rubbing it through his hair, to stop the
dripping.
 
Jade looked at his jet-black
hair, at his glassy green eyes, at his superfine body.
 
She was certain there couldn’t possibly be
another man alive better looking than her father.
 
She was proud that she was his.
 

“The doctor
told you, Jade, that it would take significant time,” he ultimately said to
her.

“But it’s
been almost a year now.
 
Why am I still
thinking about her?
 
It wasn’t like she
was a real baby.
 
I had a miscarriage.
 
It wasn’t like I had her and she was growing
up and then she died.
 
I never knew
her.
 
I never even saw her.
 
Shouldn’t I be over it by now?”

“Of course
not,” Dutch said softly, alarmed that she didn’t realize it herself.
 
“You suffered a terrible loss.”

“But it
keeps coming back to me.
 
I keep thinking
about her.
 
Oh,
Daddy
,” Jade said again, summoning the tears again, and fell
against his body again.
 

Dutch placed
his towel around his neck and hugged his daughter, rubbing her long, soft hair,
attempting to comfort her.
 

But his mind
was unsettled.
 
Gina had privately gone
through some therapy sessions last year after the trauma she had endured at the
hands of his one-time friend Robert Rand, and the therapist had been
excellent.
 
Like Jade, Gina didn’t want
to talk to anybody, either, believing she didn’t need it.
 
But Dutch put his foot down.
 
He told her that she was going to meet with
that therapist even if she just sat there and said nothing the entire
time.
 

And that was
indeed what stubborn Gina did for the first few sessions.
 
She just sat there and said absolutely
nothing,
certain Dutch would get the message and tell her
she didn’t have to go anymore.
 
But he
told her she still had to go.
 
And she
still went.
 
By session number three she
was letting it all out.
 
And feeling better for it.
 
But now, as he held his still-distraught daughter in his arms, he was
beginning to wonder if he would have to deploy similar tactics with her.

He pulled
her back and looked at her, his hands on her small arms.
 
“We’ll talk tonight, all right?”

“Ah, Daddy!
 
Don’t tell me you’re going to be in meetings
all day again!”

“That’s why
I’m here, Jade.
 
For
meetings.”

Jade
exhaled.
 
This was her first foreign trip
with her father, but she rarely saw him.

“Why don’t
you and Christian go sightseeing?” Dutch suggested as he began walking out of
the bathroom.
 
“
Do some
fun
stuff.
 
I have every
confidence in the Secret Service.
 
They’ll protect you.”

“I know they
will.
 
It’s not that at all.
 
It’s
just
 
that
. . .” She wanted to tell him how
she felt, how she truly felt, but her true emotions were never welcomed by
anyone.
 
She therefore smiled
instead.
 
“Guess who’s here?”

Dutch looked
back at her.
 
“Here?
 
In Helsinki?”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“Mom’s
here.”

Dutch
frowned and stopped walking.
 
“Sam?
 
What in the world is Sam doing here?”

“She came to
see you!
 
I’ve been telling you since
forever she wanted to talk to you.
 
But
you had all of that craziness going on when the Speaker of the House and then
the Vice President resigned.
 
And then
LaLa and Uncle Crader got married.
 
And
then they promptly had the bad manners to get pregnant, which I think Gina was
happier about than when I got pregnant.
 
But anyway.
 
It was
just a lot on your plate.
 
And you never
made time for Mom.”
 
A
sadness
came into Jade’s eyes.
 
Dutch knew how much she cared about her mother.

But it still
made no sense to him.
 
“Couldn’t it have
waited until I returned stateside?” he wanted to know.
 
“Why would she come all the way here?”

Because Gina wouldn’t be here to get
in between the two of you
, Jade wanted to say.
 
“I thought
it would be good for her to get away from that ridiculous book store of hers
and see the world a little,” she said instead.
 
“She agreed and arrived late last night.
 
So I was hoping that maybe you’ll make a little time for her before you
start your meetings this morning.”

It felt like
the bum-rush to Dutch and he didn’t like it.
 
But he knew Sam well enough to know that she didn’t play games.
 
She was odd as hell, but she didn’t play
games.
 
“I’ve got to conference with my
staff before I attend any of my meetings, so I can’t see her this morning.
 
But bring her to the reception this
afternoon.
 
I should have some free time
then.”

Jade was
displeased by the fact that she and her mother were never a priority to him,
but she pretended as if she was well-pleased.
 
“Oh, thank-you, Daddy!” she said with an exaggerated smile that didn’t
reach her eyes, and she hugged him again.
 

And then she
was gone.
 

In a swirl of cheerfulness.
 

And just
like that, Dutch thought, his teary-eyed daughter went from bereaved mother to
the happy little lamb she often tried to project herself as being.
 
But that ability of hers, to turn her
emotions off and on like a faucet, as if emotions were nothing more than a
tool, disturbed him mightily.

“Where’s
Daddy?” Little Walt asked again as he and his mother hurried out of the South
Portico of the White House, and climbed into the waiting limousine.
 

His mother,
Regina “Gina” Harber, smiled.
 
She knew
exactly how her son felt.
 
She wanted him
back too.
 
“He’s still at what they call
a summit, honey, in a country called Finland.”
 
She said this as she buckled her precocious young son into his car
seat.
 
She wasn’t going to dumb-down the
language for Little Walt.
 
There would be
no baby talk from her.
 
She spoke clearly
and she answered all of his tons of questions.
 
“He’ll be
back
home late tonight.”

“That’s not
home,” Little Walt said as he looked down at the buckle, his shoulder-length,
curly brown hair flopping down and around his handsome face.
 

“What did
you say, Walter?”

He jerked
his head up, revealing stunningly beautiful green eyes.
 
“Daddy’s not home.”

“That is
absolutely correct,” Gina said adoringly as she put on her own seat belt.
 
“You are such a smart little boy.
 
You’re smart just like Daddy.”

Little Walt,
an unusually thoughtful child, scrunched up his face as if he was still trying
to work out the sense of his mother’s comment.
 
“You say I’m smart like Daddy.
 
Daddy says I’m smart like Mommy.”
 
He let out a sigh of great frustration.
 
“I don’t know what to believe.”
 

Gina
smiled.
 
And then
laughed.
 

The drive to
Blair House was a quick one because the residence was a stone’s throw from the
White House.
 
Although it was known as
the president’s guest house, Crader McKenzie, who had already taken up
temporary residence there before his appointment as vice president, decided to
stay until the end of the president’s term.
 
He could have moved his family into the official vice presidential
residence on the grounds of the Naval Observatory, some three miles away from
the White House, but he, instead, stayed put.
 
Which pleased Gina no end.
 
In fact, given the proximity of Blair House
to the White House, Gina had wanted to walk over rather than ride.
 
But before Dutch left town he had ordered the
Secret Service to not allow her to walk anywhere.
 

“Surely he
didn’t mean that to include Blair House,” Gina had tried to reason with the
agent.
 
“It’s right there.
 
It’s not even a block away.”

But the
agent called his boss, his boss called the head of the Secret Service, and the
head of the Secret Service decided to phone the president himself for clarification.
 
Dutch then phoned Gina and told her, in no
uncertain terms, that she wasn’t walking anywhere, and that included Blair
House.
  
She wanted to disagree with him
but she knew, by his tone, that his word was final on the matter.

Besides, he
didn’t say she couldn’t
go
to Blair
House.
 
Just that she couldn’t
walk
there.
 
And she needed to get there.
 
They took the limousine.

Crader
McKenzie, the Vice President, met them at the Blair House entrance with a grand
smile on his handsome face.
 
He was wearing
a blue suit, the color matching his eyes, Gina thought, and she had never seen
him so ramped-up.
 
He kissed her when she
stepped out of the limo, and unbuckled Little Walt himself.

“This is my
man right here,” Crader said as he lifted Walt into his arms.
 
Walt grinned.
 
“You are just growing by leaps and bounds, little fellar.”

“Where’s
La?” Gina asked.

“Right this
way, madam First Lady,” Crader said as he escorted Gina and carried Walt into
the residence.

Seated in
the Eisenhower Room, looking pretty in pink, was Gina’s best and oldest friend,
Loretta “LaLa” King-McKenzie.
 
And she
had her newborn daughter in her arms.

“Baby!”
Walt said excitedly as he pointed and smiled when they entered the room.

“Yes,” Gina
said, even more excitedly.
 
“That’s little
Nicole.
 
Hello, baby girl,” she added as
she sat beside La.

“Oh, so I
don’t exist anymore?” LaLa said with a smile.
 
“It’s all about the baby now?”

“All about
her, girl,” Gina said.
 
“Get used to it.”

LaLa and
Crader laughed.
 
He took a seat, with
Walt on his lap, in the flanking chair.