She pulled away slightly to face him, her eyes wide. “You’re joking.”
“No. That’s what I meant by quirky. If it hadn’t been for the same kind of mishap that devastated Rochester, we never would’ve known that somebody’d pulled a fast one years back.”
She stepped over to one of the French doors, opening it and ushering him into the house. “That’s incredible. I hadn’t heard a peep in the news. We better get some soup into you. I set it up in the kitchen.”
He followed her as she walked through the living room and dining area without turning on any lights, the stars through the bank of windows bright enough to guide them. “I’m impressed the media missed it,” he said. “Guess they have enough to keep them busy.”
The kitchen, which they reached through a swinging door, was softly lighted, lined in dark wood, and had an island in its midst, adorned with a single place setting, facing a back-equipped barstool.
Hillstrom patted the stool and ordered, “Sit,” before crossing to a yacht-sized stove and removing a simmering pot from the burner. “Nothing fancy,” she warned him. “I hope you like chicken noodle.”
“My favorite as a kid,” he said, settling in. “That and a glass of milk, if you’ve got some.”
She brought him a steaming bowl and a piece of bread, and poured him some milk before sitting catty-corner to him at the counter.
“You’re not having anything?” he asked.
She smiled and got back to her feet. “You talked me into it. A glass of wine.”
She crossed to the gleaming fridge and extracted an open bottle, from which she poured two inches into a glass before rejoining him.
“Don’t overdo it,” he kidded her.
“I rarely do,” she said, and took a small sip.
He, too, sampled his soup, instantly recognizing it as being far from the canned variety he was used to at home. “Delicious.”
“Leftovers,” she said. “You got lucky. One of my daughters was home over the weekend, so I actually cooked. I like putting them into shock every once in a while.”
“Daniel’s not a cook?” he asked.
She watched him spoon another mouthful before answering, almost shyly, “Daniel’s not anything anymore. We were divorced last year.”
“Oh,” he said neutrally.
She smiled sadly at the response. “Yes. Awkward, isn’t it? Do you say you’re sorry? Happy? Nice weather we’re having?”
He reached out and laid a hand on hers, knowing very well that she and Daniel had been having their struggles, largely due to his philandering. “Well, I hope in the end that it’s good news, but it is too bad, what with the kids and all. There’s that sense of a broken dream.”
She nodded. “Too true. I guess I knew it was inevitable, what with his wandering eye. I thought it was over between us back when you and I spent the night together. He’d even moved out. But he seemed so contrite, so eager to set things right. And he succeeded for a time. I’ll give him that.” She lapsed into a brief silence before concluding, “But it just wasn’t in the cards. Too many available temptations for a man of his disposition.”
She squeezed his hand back and then reached for his empty bowl. “More?”
“No, thanks. I’m all set. That was perfect.”
She left the bowl alone and cupped her chin in her hand, watching him. “How about you, Joe? Did you ever find anyone after Lyn died?”
“No. My latest theory is that all that pretty much threw a switch in my head. I lost my wife, Ellen, to cancer, years ago. Gail and I broke up after God knows how many years; then Lyn. I’m not getting any younger, and to be honest, the idea of finding someone and starting that nonsense all over again is kind of exhausting.”
She laughed. “I hear my younger colleagues going on about their love lives, and I couldn’t be happier not to have anything to do with any of it.”
She rose and cleared his place. He helped, and they stood side-by-side at the sink, rinsing everything off and putting it into the washer.
“Still,” she commented, bumping him with her shoulder. “It’s hard to completely deny some of the fringe benefits.”
It was his turn to laugh. “I do get your point,” he agreed.
She rinsed out the sink and stepped back, drying her hands on a towel. “Okay, you look done in. Follow me upstairs and I’ll show you where you’ll probably catch all of four hours of sleep, knowing you.”
She led the way out of the kitchen and preceded him up a broad set of stairs. He couldn’t-and didn’t-deny himself the attractive view of her taking the steps ahead of him, thinking back to their last conversation. He had liked this woman from the first day they met, which was saying something, since he’d thoroughly irritated her at the time. And he’d certainly held stirring memories of their one night together ever since.
She took him down a hallway to a door near the end, and introduced him to a spacious guest room with its own private bath, showed him the towels and where the light switches and alarm clock were, and made it clear that she’d completely understand if he wanted to leave early the next day-and to just use the same door they’d entered by.
After the tour, they came to the room’s door, and she easily and comfortably put her arms around him and gave him a hug. He moved his hands across her back, enjoying the discovery that she was naked under her robe.
Nevertheless, she pulled away with one last smile and another kiss on the cheek, and bade him good night.
He watched her retreat down the hall to her own room, before closing his door reluctantly, mildly rebuking himself for not having at least made an effort to act on his desire. He suspected that she’d been open to encouragement, and he found himself as disappointed in letting her down as in not having benefited himself.
But he was tired, which he finally acknowledged after stripping off his clothes and slipping between her fresh, clean-smelling sheets, enjoying the caress of them on his skin as he snapped off the light and watched the glimmering from the stars slowly take over the darkened room.
It was by this twilight that he then saw his door reopen, and Beverly, still in her robe, enter like a ghost.
He slid up onto his pillow and watched her approach. Standing by his bedside, she smiled down and said in a near whisper. “I don’t want this night to end like that. It’s not why I called you.”
She undid her belt and dropped the robe from her shoulders.
He peeled back his bedcovers and held out his hand in welcome.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Gail Zigman looked up as Robert Perkins, her Chief-of-Staff, entered her office. “Shut the door, Rob.”
Surprised, he did so, before settling into a chair facing her desk. The governor made a big deal about her “door never being closed,” and worked to make the cliché a fact.
“You have a cell phone on you?” she asked, quickly signing a document she’d been reading as he entered.
He pulled it out of his pocket. “Sure.” Of course he had it, he thought. For him, it was like oxygen for a man with emphysema. He was constantly kidded for his dependence on the thing.
“Turn it off. The whole device; not just the ringer.”
“Off?” he asked, the phone in midair. “Like off-off?”
She put down her pen and narrowed her eyes slightly as she focused on him. She didn’t speak.
Embarrassed, he turned the phone off and dropped it back into his pocket.
“It’s a potential listening device,” she explained, “if you believe the latest paranoia, which in this case, I’m inclined to do.”
“Okay,” he said cautiously.
She leaned forward and pressed the intercom button on her phone and said, “Julie? No calls till I buzz you back, okay? And I mean it. No knocks on the door. Nothing.”
“Yes, Governor,” came the disembodied reply.
Gail fixed her attention on Perkins. “I’m about to tell you something that cannot leave this room. It can’t even be whispered to your pet parakeet. Is that very clear?”