His Comfort and Joy

But what Joy saw was a real zinger anyway.

Nate was standing behind Frankie and had pulled her back against his body. He was whispering something in her ear as she bent over the cream puffs. His face was tight with hunger and Frankie had a half-smile on her face as if she liked what he was saying to her. Joy looked away quickly.

“They sure are happy,” Tom said.

Of course, they were. Because what they had was real, not some childish, one-sided fantasy.

Joy thought back to the nights she’d stayed up imagining different ways she’d run into Gray. There were so many. Maybe they’d meet in town, just passing by on the sidewalk. He’d stop and tell her it was hot out and ask her if she wanted something cool to drink. Or maybe she was on an island out on the lake and he’d go by in one of his boats. He’d catch sight of her and pull into the dock and they’d lie in the sun. The scenarios were like little plays she directed and the outcome always ended with them kissing.

Daydreams, she thought. Fantasies. With all of it, down to the clothes he wore and the way he looked at her, existing only in her mind.

As she thought about the way Nate stared at Frankie, she couldn’t bear her pathetic hallucinations.

“Tom, would you like to go out to dinner with me?” she blurted.

The cook’s mouth actually fell open as he stopped slicing and glanced up. He looked as though someone had just offered him a free Mercedes-Benz. “Well, yeah.”

“Tomorrow night. Pick me up at seven?”

“Sure. I mean, I’d love to.”

Joy nodded and went back to work. “Good.”

Chapter Three

By the end of the evening, as the guests were either heading home to their own houses or retiring to the bedrooms upstairs, Gray categorically considered the party a success. His father had a glow on his face that had been missing for months. The food had been sublime. People had had a great time.

But he was just as happy to have it over. He’d wanted to escape for the last hour although it wasn’t because he’d been overwhelmed by the guests. Fifty people was a good-size party, but nothing like the four- or five-hundred-head social endurance tests he did regularly in D.C.

No, the problem was Joy.

He’d given himself whiplash searching the crowd for her. Every time he saw a flash of black and white, his head flipped around, but rarely had it been the woman he’d wanted to see. Over the course of the evening, he’d only caught a couple glimpses of her passing hors d’oeuvres or picking up empty glasses. She seemed to stay far away from him, as if on purpose.

Hell, that uniform was a knockout on her, so he should probably be grateful.

Gray went into his study and tore off his jacket, tossing the thing onto the back of a Chesterfield sofa. He removed his cuff links, put them in his pocket and rolled up his sleeves.

He was fixing himself a bourbon when the U.S. Senate Majority Leader walked into the room.

Gray nodded over his shoulder. “Hey, Becks. You want to join me?”

“Just add plenty of rocks,” John Beckin said with his trademark glossy smile. The expression lightened his air of masculine distinction. With his silver hair combed back from a strong face and horn-rimmed glasses perched on his straight nose, the man’s aura was one of intelligence and discretion, and it wasn’t all image. He’d clerked for Gray’s father straight out of law school in the seventies and had been smart as a whip even then. The two were still close.

Gray handed over a squat crystal glass with two inches of liquor and three cubes of ice in it.

“Thanks. Listen, I wanted to catch you alone,” John said, shutting the door. “How’s Walter really doing?”

As a career politician, and a very successful one, Becks knew how to project sympathy and understanding. In this case, Gray thought the emotions were probably real.

“Better every day.” He poured a glass for himself, neat. “But this is the first time you’ve seen him in person, right?”

“I have to tell you, it was a shock. His e-mails sounded so positive, but it’s obviously hard for him to get around. And his speech…” John shook his head. “But hell, Gray, I don’t mean to be negative. He looked happy tonight. Especially when you were toasting him. That man couldn’t be more proud of you.”

“Thanks.”

“Has Belinda been by?”

Gray tossed back the bourbon, draining the glass in two swallows. The liquor burned his gut. Or maybe that was just his anger at his mother. “No, she hasn’t.”

And she knew better than to try if he was around.

John put a hand in his pocket and went over to a window. “You know, since my Mary died, I’ve been reminiscing a lot more than I used to. These last two years have been hard for me, and I was thinking, as I saw you with your father, that he’d be so alone without you. Children are a blessing. I’m sorry that Mary and I never had any.”

Gray kept his mouth shut. As children were not in his future, he didn’t feel qualified to comment on them.

There was a silence and then John seemed to shake himself out of the mood he’d sunk into. When he turned, his face was intense.

“So, I must tell you something I’ve heard.”

Gray cocked an eyebrow. “You know how I like your news flashes.”

“Well, this one I’m not happy about. You recall those stories in the paper about certain internal disputes in the Senate? Written by the acerbic and nosy Ms. Anna Shaw?”

“I’ve read them. Sounds like you boys have a leak.”

“We do. And I know who it is.” John finished his drink, the ice tinkling musically against the crystal. “I’m afraid one of my fellow senators is having an affair with Shaw.”

Gray poured himself another shot of bourbon. “And you know this because?”

“The lovely Anna was seen coming out of the man’s hotel room. During the Democratic National Convention.”

“How does that equate with an affair? Maybe he was giving her an interview.”

“It was 4:00 a.m. She was wearing a raincoat with nothing under it. And it wasn’t the first time.”

“Well, that was stupid. On both their parts.” He brought his drink up to his lips.

“It was Senator Adams.”

Gray froze, looking over the rim of his glass. “Excuse me?”

“Roger Adams.”

As in Allison’s husband? “You sure?”

“You think I’d make up something like this?”

“Son of a bitch.” Gray put the bourbon down. Allison and Roger Adams were hardly frontrunners for marital problems. Not by a long shot.