BARING ARMS
St. Martin’s Minotaur, Thomas Dunne Books
ISBN 13: 978-0-312-36541
ISBN 10: 0-312-36541-1
November 2008

Chapter One

Locking lips with a man who trips my heat index off the charts is a treat I rarely savor. Well, let’s get honest here and reveal all.  I haven’t kissed a man in almost five years.  Haven’t wanted to.  Haven’t felt motivated.

Now, I’m no nun.  Celibacy is not my chosen condition, nor my profession, and no, my hormones are not in the dumpster.  Okay, so I am forty-two, but judging by tonight’s events, I can still get wildly interested in getting busy.

Truth is, I think a lot about hooking up.  And with this man whom I’m about to smooch, too.  So my main reason for the dry spell is more a lack of time than interest.  My work fills my days, almost 24/7.  And my name recognition combines with my high-profile job to make trading saliva with a man a potential front page affair.

And affairs are what a lady in my hot seat can never have.  Why?  Because I’m Carly Wagner, five-time elected Congresswoman from the 23rd District of Texas, a divorcee with one child, a Washington staff of seven and a district staff of six, a political party that hates to love my politics, my humor, my sass and—yes, my face and figure.  So you see, who I’m kissing is always a story someone wants to tell.

And this is also true for the man whose lips I currently contemplate sampling.  Because he’s the junior senator from Mississippi with the charisma of Jack Kennedy, the brains of Einstein and the rhetorical skills of a Bible-bangin’ preacher.

The fact that it’s taken Sam Lyman over two years to get up the gumption to ask me out reflects his careful way of doing things.  Including the way he set up tonight’s scrumptious little dinner at a teeny table for two in a dimly lit Georgetown restaurant.

I like his attention to detail.  Scrupulous.

I like his style.  Meticulous.

I like his hair.  Blond with golden highlights that no beautician streaks.

His jaw.  Square as a board.

His eyes.  Kind of oh-baby, baby, baby blue. 

And his freckles.  Very Redford.

Plus his chuckle.

And yes, I love his rich, full, un-Botoxed, lips.

We’re up against the inside of my front door.  Me, with my back against the frame.  He, with his front against me.  His fingers wrap around my wrists, my hands drop to his waist.  His breath mingles with mine.  His smells of the port he had with his crème brulee.  Mine must reek from the garlic that spiked my bouillabaisse. Neither one of us is breaking for a mint.

“Alone at last,” he’s crooning in a molasses baritone that melts most women’s socks every time he opens his mouth.

“We could have been here sooner,” I chide him in a voice I note is husky with come-and-get-me-big-boy umph.  “But you had to have dessert.”

He rubs his nose against mine.  “Just a pinch of sugar before the main event.”

I chuckle.  “Why, Senator,” I whisper to the man whose southern drawl crawls right up my libido, “how you do compliment a lady.”

He grins, lop-sided like a kid.  “I’ve been waiting a long time to do this.”

Really?  Who’d have known? “Took you forever to rustle up the nerve to ask me for a date.”  Because I’m a real Texas lady who waits for the gentleman to do the courtin’.

“Well, shucks, ma’am.” He’s doing his Old Miss shy-boy routine while using my official title, courtesy of Miss Manner’s Washington rules of address. “I had to be sure you wanted to dine with me.”

I arch a brow.  “You’ve either been working too much, Senator—or you just decided you had to test drive the party’s keynote speaker.”  Ever since he called last week to ask me out, I ponder if his sudden motivation is sparked by our leaders’ recent announcement that they’ve chosen little ol’ me to kick off this summer’s presidential convention.   I don’t know Sam well enough to vouch that he’s above stealing my limelight.

“Maybe,” he laughs as he nuzzles my ear, “they’ve sent me to seduce you into more of a knee-jerk politico—and less of a maverick.”

Ha!  “That’ll take more than one kiss.”

Chuckling, he trails his warm lips down my throat to the hollow of my collarbone.  “So, maybe you could shut up then and let me see how far I can get.”

Unh-hunh.  I am trying not to moan as he blows on my skin in a sultry invitation to racier acts.  “Dunno how far that is, but I do like where you’re headed.”

He’s now trailing back up to my cheek, and I’m squeezing my legs together at the playful path he’s making to my mouth.  And then, at the hovering, panting moment before impact, he sighs, “We could go well—” he gives me a peck, “in a lot of places--” he gives me another one, “together.”  And he lets go of my wrists and I lift my arms around his broad shoulders to plunge my fingertips into his thick, soft, curly hair….

And Abe, my daughter’s and my pet chimpanzee, starts to howl like the monkey he is.  The shrill vibes make my date raise his face, gaze into space and ask, “What the hell…?”

I wince.  “Abe Lincoln.” I put a name to our family watchman. “Remember?  I told you about him.  Quiet, Abe!” I instruct firmly from where I stand. “He’s in his cage in the kitchen. I guess he heard you and wants out so that he can meet you.”  Abe has this unexplainable antipathy, though, to men with blond hair—so I have locked him up to ensure I have no problems here tonight.

Sam grins wryly.  “His timing is awful.”

I stand on my toes to get nearer and whisper, “Abe can wait.”

“A few long minutes, I hope.” Sam pulls me closer, and I’m back to where I’m almost purring with interest as he says, “Then we can….”  Sam cocks an ear.

Outside, a car with a horsy muffler groans into park. Doors slam, and two women shriek in delight as they clatter up the sidewalk in high heels and onto my front porch.  From the racket, you’d swear they were two construction workers firing nail guns.

Sam and I are staring at each other.  “Oh, no,” I groan, knowing these two are my soon-to-be full-time Chinese housekeeper, Ming, and her best friend.

“Who is--?” Sam begins to ask when I am shoved flush against him with the force of someone barreling in the door.

“Ugh! Wait just a minute!” I object loudly, and turn to see my young, laughing housekeeper halted in her tracks with her girl friend crashing into her from behind.

“Oh, Taitai Wagna!” Ming exclaims, bug-eyed, her oriental deference for me freezing her into porcelain.  “I so sorry!  Reiko and I did not think you are home!”

“Clearly,” I try to be congenial in my adversity.  But Ming, at five-foot-four and ninety-pounds soaking wet, possesses the exquisite face and form of an ancient goddess.  Getting angry at her is nigh to impossible because she is always so perfect at everything she tries, but yelling at her tonight for bad timing would be really unjust.  Besides, she is a very smart cookie of twenty-two who studies law at Georgetown University.  Two years ago, she started to clean house for me occasionally, and this week she finishes moving in with me and my daughter to help me with cooking and car pools to Jordan’s summer camp.  She and her friend, Reiko Ishimura who is a Japanese exchange student also at Georgetown, are as inseparable as…yes, I will draw the bad analogy, Siamese twins.  “You must be more quiet outside,” I declare the guidelines for living in patrician Georgetown.  “The neighbors are not tolerant of excessive noise.”

Reiko shows her Japanese heritage and bows to me in apology, an act that Ming, as a good Communist, would never offer a Westerner.  “So very sorry, Wag-na-san.”  Reiko repeats, “So sorry.”

“Please remember in the future,” I instruct.

The two young women examine Sam and me, then check each other’s eyes.  What they conclude makes them giggle.  They join hands, and Ming tugs at Reiko, “We go to my room.  Okay, Taitai?” she inclines her head toward the stairs.  “I want to show Reiko.  Then we go back to old apartment, yes?”

“Yes.” I smile, eager to have them disappear.

We watch them climb the staircase, and when we hear a door shut, Sam circles his arm around my waist again.  “So let me try this one more time before they come down.”

I bat my lashes at him like a silent film star. “The sooner we get started…”

He licks his lips. “The sooner we get somewhere.”  He kisses me so softly that I am starving for the full monty.  “How’s that?”  he asks, and I answer by pulling his head down so that our lips melt into each other’s.

And the phone rings.

I freeze.

So does he.

It rings again.

He groans.

I wait while it rings a third time.

“Let it go,” he instructs me and lowers his mouth.

But I open mine to object and he stops short, knowing I am eager to listen.  Will he dub me unromantic at heart…or just plain curious about my caller?

Then the voice mail feature kicks in with the digital android-voiced mechanized message that declares in broken English, “Please.  Leave.  A message.”

“Congresswoman Wagner,” begins a man’s bass so Darth Vader-deep that it sounds as though it rises up from the tunnels of hell.  “I need to talk with you, ma’am.   Pick up.”

“Carly, who is--?” Sam asks, but I’m shushing him to listen.

“Ma’am.”  The voice repeats while I hear someone chatting in the background.  A child?  A young girl? “Just a minute,” says the man to the other in a tone of command so absolute and so unforgettable that I’m mesmerized.   And fuming.

“Carly?”  Sam asks again.

Oh, brother. I’m trying to stop the steam from coming out of my ears because if I get torqued in front of Sam, he’ll demand details I shouldn’t ever give him.  Or anyone.  Yes, I know this voice all right.  I recognize it from my recent wish-I-could-forget-it-all past.

“Ma’am,” demands my caller.  “I know you’re in there.  I know your Tahoe is in the garage.”  In the background, I hear a car engine passing.

Outside, I hear one simultaneously going down the street.

Sam pulls away to peer down at me with those incomparable blue eyes that are going from balmy to Polar-cap icy.  “Who is that?”

Oh, I know, I know…and I definitely do not want to.  I bite my lip.

“Ma’am!” insists the voice on the line, “I must talk to you.  Pick up.”

Sam now no longer resembles the hot tamale who was seducing me two minutes ago.  Frowning, he’s more of a cool, pissed-off cucumber.

I know his problem.  Few people talk to him or me with anything other than abject respect—and few order us to do anything—and if they do, it is with a deference that would make an etiquette teacher grin like a fool.

 “Carly,” Sam persists, “Who is that?”

I wince.  I want to curse.  I search for an explanation that sounds plausible.  “An old acquaintance.”  Right, Carly, that’s sure to cure Sam Lyman’s curiosity.

“From where?”

I examine Sam, his ardor gone like the wind at the persistence of this other man.  He’s jealous, which is flattering, but if I reveal how I know my caller, Sam will think I am certifiable or perhaps a woman he should never acknowledge ever again, let alone date.  But I have to give him something or he’s going to walk out thinking I’m also rude.

I offer, “He’s someone I got to know a few months ago.”  A man who helped me solve a crime.  A murder.  A man who saved my curvaceous ass from death.  A man who was a cipher, a nameless entity that no one wanted to claim they knew—and no one wanted to claim they hired to save me.

“Carly,” Sam perseveres, “I’d say from the sound of him, you know him really well.”

“Ms. Wagner, ma’am, I must talk with you personally.  Now.”  The voice on the phone proves Sam right.  “And I will not leave any message.”

Sam steps backward.  “Whoa, what a guy.  Surly as well as demanding.”

“Sad but true,” I affirm.  “Forgive me, Sam, I have to answer this.”

I know I won’t like what my caller has to say.  I never did.  Never would.  He was a smooth-talking sonovagun who had invaded my life two months ago after I discovered a dead man in my office chair.  He’d been hired by someone, a friend, a foe, whoknewwhat, to protect and preserve my reputation.  He’d dubbed himself a bodyguard, a detective, a security expert with orders to defend me from anyone who might harm me.  He was younger than I, yummy to look at and maddening to have to work with.  But he had certainly helped me get the job done when it came to rounding up bad guys and gals.  In the end, because I never quite knew who had hired him—and had no idea who to thank for the gift of his time and effort—I never knew if he was truly friend or foe.  To this day, I still do not know how he came to me and at what cost to my honor and reputation.

And I guard both like a sober virgin co-ed at her first frat party.

I have to.

Because keeping my job depends on it.

And the man on the other end of that line is a professional private investigator with spooky special operations training who takes jobs for the mission and the money—and maybe not in that order.  He’s a hi tech dude who never shares who he works for.  Or why they hired him.

And the very fact he is calling me means one of a few grim possibilities.  One is he’s here to present me with his invoice for the favor.  But chances that the operative would deliver the kind of bill a congresswoman gets for saving her life and rep are slim and none.  The second possibility makes me want to cough up my gourmet dinner.  Mr. Jones has got himself a new load of trouble—and he’s trying to dump some of it on me.

With most of my pistons still firing on the much-anticipated prospect of a hot and heavy hook-up with the hunky junior senator from Mississippi, I’m wondering how do I get Jones off the phone and out of my life?

Wouldn’t I be able to go on with my life if I just drop everything right now, do what good Texas girls do when varmints invade and go get my gun and shoot the bugger?

Also known as fat chance.

Leaving Sam Lyman standing by my front door, I walk to my hall table, snatch up the receiver and make a bee-line to my kitchen.  “What are you doing calling me?” I light into the man on the other end.  “I have no business with you.  Shouldn’t.  Correction, won’t.  Hear me?  Will.  Not.  Ever.  Again.”

“Right.  I hear you, Ma’am,” says my caller—and I grind my teeth because I catch a hint of humor in his voice.  “But listen—”

“No.  I won’t.  Whatever you’re calling for, forget it.  We’re done.  I have no patience for cold callers.  Don’t do surveys.  Won’t buy anything.  Do not want to donate.  And I certainly do not want to change my phone company.  Although on second thought, I might change my phone number…”

“Now, Ma’am,” he drawls, sweet talkin’ like a cowboy who’s been shunted off to ride the dumbest horse in the barn, “you know I could learn whatever number you take, so don’t—”

“Listen to me, Jones.”  I forego addressing him with the courtesy of Mister. Seething into my receiver, I lock eyes with Abe Lincoln who does indeed resemble The Great Emancipator when he’s scowling at me like he is now, concerned for my distress. “Whatever you are selling, I don’t want any.”

“Ma’am, you—”

“So long, Jones.  It was great fun…but it was just one of those things.  Go away.”

“Can’t.” He spits back.

“Must.” I do him one better.

“If I go—” He counter-attacks.

“I’d be much obliged.”

“How ‘bout your daughter?”

Jordan.  My daughter.  I halt in front of my kitchen island.  My only child is my prize, my joy, my personal talisman of all that is good in the world. “What about her?”

“I have her.  Here with me. You definitely want to let us in.”

Now I am not only frustrated but scared for the one person whom I love most.  “Just how do you have Jordan with you?”  I realize I must be screeching.   I lower my voice so Sam can’t hear me and Abe won’t go ape-shit at the thought of his favorite little girl in trouble.  “She went to a gaming party with her friends in Rockville.  They are all good children and she—”

“Ma’am, I have her with me by special permission from the Montgomery County Police.  I asked them to let me bring her home.”

I startle, alarmed that Jordan would be in any situation that the local Maryland police would release her to Jones.  Yes, he does have a license he shows to law enforcement.  I have never seen it, but I’ve seen him brandish it.  And whatever it is—a private detective’s license or a security firm’s identification—they do accept it.   Though beats me why they honor a guy who looks, sounds and moves like a ghost through the night, a flesh-and-blood para-military X-man whose favorite color is black.  Black in balaclavas and hi-tech cat suits, black in tees and jeans, Volvos and Hummers, matched with a funny-money, nothing name like Mr. Jones.

“Give me three minutes,” I instruct him, acceding to his demand. Why he has Jordan with him—and how he got her, are stories I have to hear.  “I have a guest.”

“Check.  For certain, you don’t want Senator Lyman to know any of this.”

I inhale.   Jones knows who I have in here?  Maybe Jordan told him.  But if she didn’t, why should I be surprised Jones knows who I let into my home?  The last time he walked into my life—and into this house—he knew I made a mean marinara and that I favor green silk panties.  I shouldn’t be surprised at anything he knows…or can learn.

He intrudes in my reverie to say, “I brought your daughter home on condition that no one knows the Police allowed me to.”

I feel myself nodding, accepting what he’s saying.

And that has me asking myself what could go wrong at Jordan’s computer game party that the Montgomery County Police would be called in?  And why would my daughter need to be extracted?  What could go awry that a dude like Mr. Jones would be involved?  Admitted?  Trusted?  Entrusted with my daughter?

Jones croons through the line, “Ma’am, I can hear your wheels grinding.  I’ll tell you everything I can.  First get rid of Lyman. Ming and her friend, too. Then, let us in.”

Someone’s chattering again in the background at Jones and the voice is one I now recognize.  Jordan.  And she’s grousing at Jones, finishing her monologue with, “Yeah, and hurry up, too.”  I note she doesn’t sound scared, just irritated.

“I hear you,” I tell Jones, wondering how the hell I get Sam out of here with some catfish story he’s sure to smell for the stinker it is.  “I need to tell Sam--”

“Tell him anything, but do not say I have Jordan.  We don’t want my favor from the police spread around town.  And neither do you.”

Jordan mutters something that ends with, “…like I care.”

Shocked and dismayed at her growing cynicism the past two months, I am now bent on getting her fanny in here so I can chew her up one side and down the other.  Sure, she seems to be ungrateful to Jones for a good deed for which I am now suddenly beholden to him.  But in addition, I am now dying of curiosity.

“Okay.”  I start to say adios, when I realize I need to ask him, “Where are you?”  I had had a house alarm system installed two weeks ago—and though we were still working out the kinks, I had to plug in a code to open any entrance to my home.

“Tsk-tsk,” he scolds.  “Guess.”

Right.   Where else?  “My garden gate.”

“Check.”

I grind my teeth.  “I’ll come open it. Wait.”

“What I do best, Ma’am.  What I do best.”

I push the End key on my phone and tread back toward my living area.  From across the room, I take a gander at Sam and it’s clear from the car keys he’s rustling that he has accepted we are done here for the night.

“You look scary,” he informs me.

I wrinkle my nose.  “I feel scary.”

He examines me with his practiced physician’s eye. He was, until he won his first election eight years ago and gave up his practice, a family doctor.  “Do you really know this man?”

“Yes.  No.  Not well.”  I had known Jones for a few days, worked with him for what added up to only a few crucial hours after he had crawled over my garden wall like a crab, invaded my house, my life, my mind and helped me find a murderer and a group of conspirators and another would-be murderer.

“Carly, if you want my help, I can stay.”

I don’t even consider it, not taking any chances with Jordan’s welfare.  “No, I’m good.”  I replace the phone in its cradle on the hall table.  “Thank you.”

“Well, okay, your call.  But whatever that is about,” Sam says, as he buttons his jacket and shoots his cuffs, “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

I walk forward, grateful, but a mite put out at his men-know-how-to-deal-with-crap routine.  Still, I put a hand up to his cheek and he leans over to kiss me sweetly on the lips.  This time the heat is gone, and expediency—so often a politician‘s companion—has set in.  “Next time we do this,” I vow, “no interruptions.”

He chuckles and kisses me hard and quick.  “For a long, hot time.”

“Wowza,” I laugh and peck him back.  “I will hold you to that.”

He draws me into a bear hug.  “Makes two of us holding each other to bigger and better things.”  I like the sound—and the feel of the living proof of that.

I groan. “You had better get out of here.”

“Mmm-hmm.  Or I won’t go.”

I grimace.  Whatever lies outside my garden gate, I definitely do not want Sam’s help or knowledge of it.  We’re not that close.  Yet.

He reads my body language on that, I guess, because he says, “Okayyyy,” and steps backwards.  “I am, as they say, so gone.”

And like lightning, he is.

I shut the door and call upstairs to the girls.  Within two minutes, they trot out the door and clang-sputter-and-putt down the street in Reiko’s clunky old Toyota.

“Happy Saturday night,” I bid my empty house as I twirl both locks and kick off my shoes.  Hate them anyway.  High heels were made for men who like to view women’s legs in the pointy contraptions.  Besides, my legs don’t need the length.  They already, as my ex-husband used to say, reach my armpits. “Without destroying your C-cup.” Leave it to Len to come to mind when I am trying to deal with his and my daughter.  He’s the one who serves as her role model to act like a royal pain in the keister.  Meanwhile, where is he when I have a challenge with Jordan?

Not here, that’s for sure.  Never was.  That was one reason why years ago I divorced his sorry ass.  Len Underwood does not do children.  And to give you an idea of his graciousness and availability, he has only one.  Jordan.  While he is currently on wife numero quatro.  That’s right, number four.

Reciting this litany of woes against my ex, I march myself into my family room, pause at my French doors and run my palm down the slider switch to dim my garden floodlights.  God forbid, Jones should not have privacy.  I punch in the access numbers in the code box to kill the house alarms, unlock the two doors and pull them wide.  I take the flagstone path to my garden wall, a stark white brick eight-foot-tall expanse mellowed in the June moonlight.  Silhouetted against its bulk are the twining vines and lush flowers of my wild English garden.  When I met my caller the first time, he slithered over my garden wall.  Tonight, he comes this way again.

And this time, he’s got my daughter in tow.  My twelve-year-old daughter.  And she definitely does not take garden walls like a crab.

I lift the barrier bar from its socket, turn the handle on the huge oak gate and haul it open.  Then, I stand aside and in strolls Mr. Jones.

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