Read Unfinished Business Online
Authors: Karyn Langhorne
Unfinished Business (2 page)
The problem was, he knew it. In addition to being wrong on every issue from air pollution to Afghanistan, he was so damned full of himself, Erica was pretty sure there wasn't room for a single new idea inside him.
You're not that cute
, she thought, staring back at him with her most serious expression.
Youâareânotâcuteâ
Yes, I am.
Newman grinned back at her.
Oh yes, I am. And you want me, you know you want meâ¦every woman wants meâ¦
And sure enough, a moment later, the warmth of his grin deteriorated into the smug, self-satisfied smirk she'd seen on his face in a dozen television interviews. Erica kept scowling at him and just like that, the spotlight of his attention moved away from her and focused itself on the politics at hand.
“Hold up!” He interrupted the witness, making every head in the room swivel toward him. “Say that again!”
His words were lightly dipped and Southern fried, with just a bit of a drawl, refined so that the word “again” was pronounced as two separate ones, “a” and “gain.” He sounded less like a backwater bumpkin than a courtly gentleman of another time.
His tone, on the other hand, was another matter.
Authoritative, self-assured, commanding. It was the voice of a man who had grown a little too used to having people listen to what he said and do what he wanted.
“Wow,” Angelique muttered. “He's very⦔
“Bossy,” Erica concluded. “See, that's the trouble with these politicians,” she continued in a voice low enough for Angelique's ear only as she stared up at Senator Newman's smirking, bossy, commandingly good-looking self. “They start out as average peopleâ¦but give them a little money and power, and in no time they need to be backed down in a major way.”
“And I suppose that's why you're here?” Angelique sounded doubtful.
“Exactly,” Erica asserted, nodding. “Now be quiet. I want to hear this.”
The undersecretary for Elementary School Programs was a smoothly coiffed, paper-bag-skinned woman who looked up from her reading and focused her attention on the man's cool, blue eyes.
“Which part, Senator?” she practically purred into the microphone.
There were a few snickers around the room: Apparently the deference in the woman's tone wasn't lost on the press corps.
“The part about the budget allocations for the Urban School Lunch Program,” Newman barked, rifling
through the thick binder. “I can't find the section justifying the allocation.”
“It's on page forty-five of my remarks, Senator, “Madam Undersecretary murmured, and Erica thought the older woman fluttered her eyelashes a little as she spoke.
Senator Newman fluttered a few more sheets in the thick binder in front of him before coming to rest on the appropriate page. Erica leaned toward the long-legged blonde in the seat beside her, who was flipping the pages of her own binder and, reading sideways on the page, saw a table, its columns filled with numbers ranging from the low millions to double-digit billions.
Newman read the numbers quickly, and then those cerulean eyes pinioned the undersecretary again.
“I notice that the increases in the Urban Lunch Program seem to have come directly out of the Rural Schoolchildren's Initiative,” he snapped, running his fingers along the columns of his report.
There was a long pause, and when Erica glanced in her direction, Madam Undersecretary looked a little nervous.
“Well, yes, Senator. That's true.”
Those piercing blue eyes seemed to slice the woman into tiny bite-sized bits. The room grew quiet. Erica could almost hear the concentration, as if everyone present were measuring the man against some kind of leadership standard. Erica felt it herself. He had a certain power, an irresistible self-assuranceâ¦even if he was as wrong as pearl earrings on a potbellied pig.
“Why?” he demanded.
The single-word question sliced the air, hard and razor sharp.
“Wâwe had a mandate,” the woman replied after
a long silence in which the expression she fixed on Newman's face shifted from adoration to fear. “Under the Maxwell-Chortley Act, to trim our budget by ten percent for fiscalâ”
Newman waved the explanation away.
“I know all about the requirements of Maxwell-Chortley. I was one of the original cosponsors,” he said. “That's not what I asked you. I asked why money was taken from the rural program and added to the urban program.”
“There's higher need in the urban program, Senator.”
“That's not what my constituents report to me.” Newman thrust aside the binder to consult his own notepad. “In fact, my figures show that the rural program was used extensively in my state.”
“Yes, Senator, but over all the states, the rural program was substantially overfunded.”
“That may be true,” Senator Newman interrupted with a nasty edge in his voice, “but does that mean that the rural children in my state go hungry?”
She glanced around the room. The reporters had all come to attention, following this exchange with interest. Apparently Newman's criticisms had put some life into some otherwise dull proceedings.
“We've been asked to make cuts according to Chortley-Maxwell,” Madam Undersecretary persisted. “In order to satisfy our federal mandate, something's got to goâ”
Erica popped out of her seat, ripping at the buttons of her oxford blouse and revealing the words on her T-shirt:
A
NN JR
+
MNS ANLAR
!
“The war is what has to go!” she shouted at the top of her lungs. “If we weren't spending billions in Iraq, we wouldn't have to debate on cuts that take food from the mouths of our schoolchildren!”
The room stirred a little, and Erica heard the sounds
of cameras popping, felt the television lights swinging in her direction. This was the kind of disturbance, the kind of action the cameras lived for.
“Miss, you're out of order!” Erica heard one of the older senators shout as a gavel sounded. Erica had watched enough C-SPAN to know what would happen next. She took a quick glance around the room and saw she was right: the Capitol police were already moving in her direction.
“I'm a teacher!” she shouted quickly toward the panel, finding Senator Newman's eyes with her own. “I teach in an urban school here in the District of Columbia. Every day I spend my own money on food for kids too hungry to learn, too hungry to think. Urban programs desperately need more money for the food-service programs, it's true. Children can't learn if they're hungryâwhether they come from city tenements or rural farms. It's time to stop putting taxpayer money into bullets and munitions and center it on our children.”
“Order!” The old senator barked again. “Order!”
“Senators,” Erica continued, speaking as fast and as loudly as she could. “Why do we kill people to teach people that killing is wrong? How can I explain to my fourth graders that it's wrong to fight when our policies support fighting all over the world? Why do we spend more money to fight wars than to feed our own kids, gentlemen? Whyâ
Yowch
!”
Two Capitol police officers appeared at either side, yanking her arms so hard behind her back they felt like they were being pulled out of their sockets. She reeled a bit with the shock of the pain.
Then, as suddenly as the sensation began, it ceased. The officers released her and Erica rubbed at one shoulder, nursing a spot that throbbed like it had
been touched by a match. An angry voice crested the others in the room.
“This absolutely unnecessary and unacceptable use of forceâ”
Erica looked up in time to see Mark Newman rise slowly from his chair. And now she could see it: the cane curled in his left hand, supporting his leg and reminding everyone in the room that the man was 100 percent American hero.
“This is still America,” he was saying in the voice of a teacher's tirade against a particularly unruly crop of students, “and dissent is not punished with manhandlin'.”
“This forum has rules, Mr. Newman,” interrupted the Committee's chairman. “And as you are well aware, without order, this deliberative bodyâ”
“I understand all that,” Newman snapped, dismissing the corrective influence of the older man with a wave of his fingers. “But as much as I disagree with our young disrupter's sentiments on the war”âand here his eyes shot toward Erica and pinioned her with a gaze that went through her like a laserâ“I respect her right to say it without being harmed. Even here. In spite of our rules,” he added pointedly.
He paused for a second, holding Erica's eyes with his own. Erica was on the verge of letting out a breathy little “thank you” like some kind of damsel in distress; but before the words could come out, Newman's lips curved upward again, into that knowing, self-satisfied you-want-me smirk. One look at his face and instead of gratitude, a wave of fury swept through Erica, erasing every positive feeling she'd had toward the man in an instant.
He's waiting for me to thank him! He wants the reporters to write about how gallant and wonderful he was, even when interrupted by some disruptive protesterâ
“Thank you, Senator,” Erica hissed in a voice that shook with indignation. “But the chairman is right.”
Newman blinked at her in surprise. “Butâ”
“In schoolsâboth urban and ruralâwe try to teach students about personal responsibility, Senator Newman. I understood the penalties of breaking the rules when I came here and it's important for all of us to accept the consequence of our actions. After all, I don't want to live in a society without any rules, any more than you do. So if you're done with
your
civil liberties lesson”âshe put her hands behind her back and assumed the position for arrestâ“I'll continue with
mine
. These officers have a job to do.”
A moment later, she was snapped into handcuffs and led from the room. She paused to give the senator a final glance: He was still standing up, leaning hard on the cane and staring after her. She didn't have to be an expert on the man's moods to read that he was angryâangry as he could be without screaming or hollering and completely blowing his cool in front of a few dozen reporters. But it was pretty evident that if his face got any redder, he'd have to explode.
“And Senator?” she called back at him. “I'm issuing you an invitation. Come to my school. Explain your policiesâyour warâto my kids. Erica Johnson's fourth-grade classroom. Any time you want. Door's open.” Erica tossed her curls.
Take that, Mr. Know-it-all
, she thought, and then allowed herself to be removed from the room, Angelique following demurely behind them with the all-important bail money.
God only knows why Peter Malloy, an upstart state congressman with a very small following and an even smaller budget, has challenged veteran Mark Newman for his Senate seat. Newman, a war hero and successful attorney, is as beloved in his home state as any public figure could ever hope to be. Indeed, the only thing that can stop Newman's reelection might be Newman himself, with his sometimes abrasive personality. Otherwise, his seat in the Senate is as sure a thing as the flag, love of country and Mom's homemade apple pie.
â
Conservative Nation
“She made an ass out of me!”
Mark Newman stumped around the perimeter of his massive desk, tossing today's papers onto yesterday's, adding to the ever-growing pile that covered its surface.
“It wasn't that bad.” Chase Alexander, Mark's oldest friend and his chief of staff, eased himself into a chair across from him and loosened his tie. “In fact, I thought you handled it well.”
“And thanks to her, you made the evening news,” Bitsi Barr added, clicking into the room in those high-heeled loafers she always wore. Her title was media director, but Mark sometimes felt like she was the reincarnation of his mother, from the way she hovered over his every sniffle and fretted over his every move. “Now, sit down before you fall down,” she admonished, moving into the space between Mark and his desk to brush against him. “You've spent too much time on that leg already today.”
“I've been on my butt all day, Bitsi,” Mark reminded her. “I need to move around a bit.”
“Save it for therapy tonight. Sit.”
“In a minute,” Mark muttered, limping away from her to pace between his desk and the window. “I knew she was up to something as soon as she came into the hearing room.” The image of the protester, her black hair brushing wild in her face surfaced in his mind again. “Something about the look on her face⦔
“But you made the evening news,” Chase repeated in an easy drawl. Like that was supposed to erase the woman's outrageous T-shirt and even more outrageous remarks. “That's good.”
“Good? For whom? The media?” Mark grumbled. “âMan puts head up own ass' is a terrific headline. Did you see her T-shirt?
Books not bombs
. I bet CNN got a good shot of
that
.” He sighed, raked his fingers through his hair and grimaced. “It was my own damned fault. I had to open my big mouth when the Capitol police stepped in to do their job. It's justâ¦she looked so⦔
Smallâ¦helplessâ¦determinedâ¦beautifulâ¦
the words rotated in his mind, but his lips couldn't choose one. Or at least not one he wanted to say aloud. Erica Johnson's image surged to the front of his mind again. Even in that outrageous getup, with that militant scowl on her face, there was something about her. From the second she'd walked into the room he'd noticed it: something as wild and untamed as the mossy wildernesses of his home state, something uncharted and vast as the dark expanse of a night sky. He'd stared her down and she'd stared back and he could almost read her, cussing him out in her mind.
A worthy adversary
, he remembered thinking. And so when she let out that screech of pain, he knew he had to say something, had to do something. After all, even in war, an honorable soldier treats his opponent with dignity.
“Mark? You listening?”
Mark snapped himself back into the moment. “No,” he admitted. “Say again?”
“I saidâ” Chase began.
“Sit down!” Bitsi chided, taking him by the arm and practically shoving him into the expansive leather of his chair. She pried his cane from his fingers and hung it over the back of the credenza, poured him a glass a water, set it within easy reach and perched on the edge of his desk. “Drink. I can tell you're dehydrated. Drink!” And then she waited, clearly planning to supervise every drop of the water's consumption.
“I'm not dehydrated, Bitsi. I had about a gallon of water during the hearing. If I have any more I'll float away,” Mark insisted, suppressing his exasperation. “Now stop fussing and let me hear what Chase has to say.”
Chase rubbed the top of his head before opening his mouth. Over the years, Mark had watched the spot pass from thin to balding and proceed onward to bald, though Mark couldn't say with certainty this rubbing habit or the passage of time was the cause. “I was saying that before you get your tighty whities in knots about her getting the better of you, let's just think about this a minute.” Chase flicked his eyes over Bitsi, Mark and the glass of still untasted water before giving the spot another rub. “See, I'm thinking Bitsi might be able to get you a segment on the Sunday politics shows. A little free campaign advertisingâ”
“I think that's a wonderful idea!” Bitsi interjected. She slid off her perch at Mark's elbow and paced the room, talking a mile a minute. “I've been cultivating all of our national media contacts, trying to get you more well-known across the country. And this is the perfect thing to pitch to them. And as for the folks
back home, you have a decisive lead going into the primary next month. But you can never have too much media exposure, so doing the Sunday shows wouldn't hurt.”
“There you go,” Chase continued, feeding off the woman's excitement. “It's a natural platform. You talk about education, budget priorities, the progress of the warâ”
“How not to handle protesters,” Mark added caustically. “Knock it off, you two. Those Sunday show hosts will eat me alive.”
“No, they won't.” Bitsi tossed her sleek, white-blonde hair so that the ends caressed her sharp chin for an instant. The hair was one of her best features: thick and shiny, cut and curled toward her chin so that it softened the hard edges of her face. “They
love
you, and you know it.” She laughed. “The camera loves you. The hosts love you. You're clever and witty and well-informed, too,” she gushed. “What's not to love?” She nodded toward the glass. “You just drink your water. I'll take care of everything.”
Mark sighed. “I told you, Bitsi. I'm not thirsty.”
“Drink it anyway,” she said quickly, and before he could respond, she'd crossed the room and was showing them her too-slim figure, concealed in a pantsuit of dark, conservative fabric. “As for the Sunday shows, I'll get on the phone now.”
“But the woman, the protesterâ” Mark began.
“Don't worry about her.” Chase fluttered his fingers, dismissing the encounter. “You came out smelling like a rose. Defending the rights of children, smaller, more-efficient government and the right to free speech.”
“Couldn't have scripted anything better,” Bitsi chimed in, wetting her lips with her tongue. She always wore the same red, red lipstick shade and a
generous dose of the same dusky perfume to cover the side effects of her cigarette habit. Smoking in this federal building was strictly prohibited, but Mark knew the second Bitsi hit the open air there would be a Light 100 in her hand. He'd seen her chain smoke a whole pack in the course of single hour's debate when she was nervous. Come to think of it, he'd seen Chase eat a foot-long submarine sandwich in about the same amount of time.
His friends. Mark studied them dispassionately. He'd known Chase since childhood and Bitsi since law school and neither of them had changed much. Chase was always so laid back and relaxed it was easy to ignore the razor-sharp brain at work behind his calm exterior. You underestimated him at your peril, Mark knew. And Bitsi could best be described by a single word: intense. Chase liked to say the woman was missing a critical on/off switch. Mark would have liked to see the man alive who could excite Bitsi as much as a discussion about Mark's career.
They were absolutely dedicated to him. Sometimes a little too dedicated.
“You didn't script it, did you?” he asked, pinioning Bitsi with his firmest no-nonsense glare. “Because that would beâ”
“Of course not, Mark!” A hurt look appeared in her blue eyes, as her blonde head bobbled in the negative. “I want you to get as much exposure as you can, I want people to already know who you are when you get ready to make the âbig run.' But I would never
script
anything like that⦔
Mark shook his head, his thoughts snagged for a moment.
The big run.
President.
President Newman.
He had to admit, he liked the sound of it. He liked the idea of it. But it wasn't time to allow it to pervade his every waking thought. Like that woman with her tight “Bomb” T-shirt and her shouted arguments seemed to be doing.
He zeroed in on Bitsi again. The woman was a lawyer, too. She knew the difference a single word could make.
“So you didn't
script
it. But you didn't
hire
her, did you?”
“Who?”
“Erica Johnson.” When the name didn't appear to register in the woman's short-term memory, he added, “âMadam T-shirt.' The black woman who stood up in the hearing. You didn't hire her just to âcraft my image' or anything foolish like that? 'Cause I've told you twoâ”
“No.” Chase shook his round head. “No. Wish we had, though. That was a good exchange. Like Bitsi said, you couldn't write better stuff than that. You two had real chemistry.”
“Chemistry?” Bitsi laughed. “Don't you think that's a littleâ¦strong? You use the word
chemistry
and people start thinking romance or something!”
Mark blinked.
Romance? Where the hell was that coming from?
“Don't be stupid,” he muttered. “There's nothing romantic about it.”
Romance?
It wasn't even a word in Mark's vocabulary anymore, not since Katharine had died. True, he couldn't deny he'd registered how attractive the protester wasâhe was still a man, after all. He'd noticed her perfect cinnamon-colored skin, those big, dark eyes flashing with passion, the delicate curve of her neck and the feminine swell of skin where the fabric of her tight T-shirt cupped her breasts. He'd taken in
the tight inward curve of her waist and the outward flare of her hips, even concealed as they were by that funny-looking, shapeless skirt. He remembered the black hair, swirled and knotted into a thousand ringlets. He'd even wondered what it might feel like, curling against his fingers.
Yep, she was gorgeousâ¦until she opened her mouth.
Irritation burned in Mark's stomach. She'd totally gotten the better of himâand then had the nerve to insist on being escorted out of the building before he'd had a chance to make his point. The sense of being cheated out of winning an argument rankled in his throat.
“Romance? Don't be stupid,” he repeated.
“Not like
that
,” Chase corrected. “I mean like competitively. Like a couple of racehorses, chomping at the bit. Good stuff.”
“Yeah,” Mark agreed, thinking over the encounter. “I suppose. Where is she now?” he asked.
“Who?” Chase stood, stretching his hands behind his head and twisting his torso. Mark couldn't help but notice his friend's expanding midsection. Too many lunches with lobbyists, too many after-hours receptions and too many late-night dinners at his desk were turning Chase into a paunchy old man.
He needs a woman
, Mark thought.
A good lady to take care of himâwithout nagging the hell out of him.
He kept that thought in his brain and said instead, “The woman from the hearing! Is she still in jail?”
Chase rubbed his bald spot and shrugged. “I don't know. That's usually what these protesters want. To make their noises, get arrested and get some coverage on the evening news.”
Mark felt around the desk for a remote control and a moment later the television on the credenza at the
other end of the room sprang to life. With another click, Mark's preprogrammed channels surfed quickly on their schedule: the local news stations, and then the national ones, and then the C-SPAN networks, and then back again.
“That's going to take some time.” Chase stretched again. “Most of the TV reporters haven't filed their stories yet and it's not exactly breaking news.” He unfolded himself from his chair. “Long day. Let's go get something to eat.”
“How will she get out?” Mark demanded, frowning at the television screen.
“Who?”
Mark rolled his eyes. “Who else? Aren't you listening?”
Chase's eyes zapped onto him, searching. He opened his mouth to voice the query written in them, but was usurped by Bitsi's harsh, “Who cares?”
Both men turned toward her in surprise.
“I mean,” she continued in a somewhat softer tone, “she wanted to go to jail, she went to jail and that's that. Usually those people have a whole organization behind them, ready with the bail money the second the charge is processed. You saw the woman in the suit that left with her? Probably her lawyer. She's probably already home eating tofu or garbanzo-bean salad or whatever the Left Wing is serving these days.” She clapped her hands as though she had fully disposed of the matter. “Mark, you don't have an event, so you should do your therapy and hit the whirlpool tonight. It'll help with the stiffness.”
“For about ten minutes,” Mark retorted.
“Still,” Bitsi insisted, like she knew the details of his knee joint intimately. “And don't forget to take something for pain when it hurts.”
“It always hurts, Bitsi,” Mark snapped, hoping
his tone would tell her how close she was to really making him angry. “I'd be a zombie if I took something every time it hurts. I've told you that. I've told the docs, too. They actually agree with me. The pain meds are for extremes, not for every little twinge, okay?” Mark grumbled. “Sometimes you act like it's
your
leg, not mine.”
“Don't be silly,” she said in that tone that meant she'd decided to ignore him and his annoyance for her own point of view. “You run along with Chase and get some dinner. I'm going to go make some calls, see what's lined up for Sunday already and how we rate for coverage.” She turned toward the door. “AndâI almost forgotâyou've got another one of those packages. From home. That awful little bar you like so much.”
“Dickey Joe's?”
Bitsi grimaced. “The same. I don't understand why you like that place. So dark and dank. No ambiance whatsoever.”
A grin spread across Mark's face. “It's a guy's place. So of course you don't understand,” he teased, winking at Chase.
