An Irresistible Bachelor (39 page)

“Oh, my God.” Jack scanned her face and her red hair. He hadn't noticed the resemblance before, but having known the man rather well, he could see it now.

“Grace is my half sister. As far as I'm aware, she and I are the only ones who know the truth. Well, and her fiancé knows, too.” She let out a long breath. “She's all the family I have left, really. I was afraid . . . I don't know. I assumed she'd be upset if I told you, even though you were a friend of hers. It has always been a secret, Jack. My father never wanted anything to be said about me. I only approached Grace after he was gone out of desperation. Loneliness.”

Jack's mind started spinning. He'd known Hall, had respected the man, but all that went out the window as he imagined everything Callie had been through.

“How the
hell
could he do such a thing?”

“I've decided to stop asking that question.”

He reached for her again, drawing her against his body, thinking that he was never, ever going to let her go.

He pictured Hall, swanning around the Congress Club in New York, all smiles with his wife and his daughter. The man had always spoken of his family in such glowing terms, with such conviction. And it had been lies. All of it.

That
bastard.

Jack felt like kicking over the man's gravestone.

Callie spoke against his chest. “Last night, I finally realized that Grace wasn't the only one I was protecting. I decided I was going to tell you everything. But then the announcement came out and I lost sight of . . . everything. Who you really are, what you promised me. I wish I could go back and unlock that door, Jack. I really do.”

“It's okay.”

The forgiveness, he thought, was so easy. So simple. So complete.

“This morning, when I learned you'd kicked out your mother, I suddenly realized I'd read the situation completely wrong. And I spoke with Grace.” She pulled back. “But I want to be clear. I did not ask her permission to tell you. I told her I was going to explain everything to you, because I had to or I was going to lose the man I love. And nothing would be worth that.”

He gently took her face into his hands. As their lips met, he would have done anything to avenge her if he could have, but that time had long passed. Now he could only protect her. And that meant his candidacy was off.

She was absolutely right. A reporter would find out about Hall somehow and blow the story up into an exposé that would rob Callie of the privacy she held so dear.

She took a deep breath. “And I can't get Anne out of my mind.”

Jack frowned. “Anne?”

“Last night I found a letter from General Rowe to Nathaniel. We were right. It was Anne in the mirror. And her father would have supported a marriage between the two of them after all.” She shook her head. “Anne lost her last chance to see the man she loved. Last night, I was determined not to have that happen to us, but then I thought everything had changed. I thought we were over.”

As he bent his head down to her shoulder, he thought they were lucky. Lucky to have found each other. Lucky to get past the obstacles even if it hurt.

We cut it so close, he thought, and then laughed.

“Your timing is good,” he said. “I was about to formally announce my candidacy, but obviously I'm not—”

“No. Don't call it off!”

He pulled back and shook his head. “Good God, how can I run now?”

“I'm not going to hide anymore. I'm not going to protect him and neither will Grace. If you don't think I'll hurt your chances too much, I want to stand beside you when you run. I don't want you or me or Grace sacrificing anything for that man. He didn't deserve it when he was alive. And now—I just refuse to believe it matters anymore.”

“Callie, are you sure you want to do this? It's not going to be easy.”

“There isn't anything I wouldn't do for you. I just wish I wasn't such a liability.”

Jack stared into her eyes with disbelief. “You are
not
a liability to me. And besides, the voters have to choose me because they believe in my vision for the state. God knows, I have enough scandals of my own. If my platform, my convictions, aren't enough to override my own past, it's not going to matter what your father did or who he was.”

There was a pause and she smiled softly at him. “So you're going to run? Because I think you would make a fantastic governor.”

Jack couldn't believe the way she was looking at him. She was so steady, so certain, even though he had the sense she knew what she was in for.

“Okay. I'll run.”

 

Out in the hall, Gray Bennett looked over as the DA for Suffolk County tapped him on the shoulder.

“Listen, Bennett, I'm due at my kid's soccer game this afternoon and we're wasting time out in this hall. How much longer do you think he's going to be in there?”

Gray opened the door to the conference room a crack. He took one look at Jack and Callie kissing and shut it with a smile.

“I think it might be a while. Why don't I give you a call?”

The man smiled slowly and then nodded with a knowing grin. “Sounds good. Hell, if that redhead wanted to see me, I'd give her the time, too.”

“
MC
allie, look at the time.” Gerard Beauvais's voice broke through the silence of the conservation lab. “You will be late!”

Callie glanced at her watch and leapt from her chair. “Oh, not again. I totally lost track of—”

She began frantically screwing on lids and putting brushes away.

“No, I will do that,” Gerard said, shooing her away. “You must go.”

She grabbed her coat and her backpack. On the way to the door, she was talking to Gerard over her shoulder. “About the Tintoretto. We need to—”

“We will talk of it tomorrow! Go!”

She ran for the stairs and burst out through the back entrance of the MFA. Breaking into a jog, she fumbled for her keys as she went over to a silver Volvo station wagon.

When she was speeding down Huntington Avenue, she flipped on the radio.

She turned the thing off, unable to bear the tension. Heading into town, and running a couple of yellow lights along the way, she tried to pay proper attention to the road. She didn't want to smash up the first and only car she'd ever bought for herself on a night like this.

Eight minutes later, she pulled up in front of an office building just on the edge of Chinatown. She went once around the block looking for a space and then parked the Volvo up on the curb next to a Dumpster in the back, hoping she didn't get towed.

Rushing into the building, she heard the noise of an excited crowd out in the lobby and went right for a sign that read JACK WALKER FOR GOVERNOR. She wrenched open the door under it and hit a wall of people.

The room was good-sized and filled to capacity. Down at the far end, she could just make out the stage that had been erected. On it were a huge TV set tuned to the local news and a lectern with a microphone. To one side of the platform, there was a bank of desks with people moving around furiously. She saw Gray with his jacket off and his sleeves rolled up, one ear plugged with a finger while he tried to talk on a cell phone. To his left was Cookie Sanchez, the campaign manager.

At the edge of the action, she saw Nate, Thomas, and Mrs. Walker. They were standing apart from the crowd, Thomas looking a little overwhelmed and Mrs. Walker working her gloves with nervous hands. Nate was smiling, as if he had no doubt as to what the results were going to be.

And then she saw Jack. Her breath caught, as it still did whenever she walked into a room and put her eyes on him. Pride in everything he had done over the past year, in the way he'd presented himself, in what he believed in, in how he had stood by her side when the story about her father had come out, had her chest swelling. It had been a grueling year for him, full of traveling across Massachusetts, meeting thousands of people, refining and redefining his vision for the state. And through it all, she had his full love and support. Even five minutes before the final debate last week, he'd been holding her hand and looking into her eyes as if there was nothing else going on in his life at all.

He was looking around the room when Gray grabbed him, stared him intensely in the eye, and whispered something in his ear. Jack seemed momentarily stunned.

And then the newscaster said, “And it's just now official. Jack Walker has won the governor's seat by a small margin over—”

Callie shouted in happiness as the room exploded. People let out cries and yells of victory as everyone started hugging one another. She lost sight of Jack in the melee but could only imagine what he felt like.

He'd won. He'd really done it.

Blue-and-white balloons began to fall from the ceiling as she collapsed back against a blackboard, grinning so widely her lips hurt. Some kind of music came over the loudspeakers and then Gray and Cookie were pushing Jack up onto the stage. He seemed to be fighting them and craning his neck around as flashbulbs went off everywhere.

The moment he was in plain view, the room fell completely quiet. Everyone wanted to hear what the first words from the governor-elect were going to be.

As he stepped up to the microphone, someone yelled, “What do you say, Governor Walker!”

Jack smiled. “Has anyone seen my wife?”

There was a roar of laughter and people began looking all around.

“She's right here!” a man said next to her, pointing over Callie's head.

The crowd began to part, and just as she started for the stage, Jack leapt off the dais and strode toward her, kicking up a wake of balloons.

They met in the middle of the room and he threw his arms around her, to the crowd's booming approval.

“I couldn't have done this without you,” he said fiercely, in her ear.

“I'm so proud of you. I knew you could do it. And I'm sorry I'm late. I—”

“Forgot to check your watch?” he finished indulgently.

She nodded, trying not to cry, she was so happy for him.

The people were still cheering when he pulled back and kissed her soundly on the lips.

The rest of the night went by in a frenetic blur. There was a huge party immediately following the election results, but Jack and Gray had to spend most of that time talking to the press. It was well past two in the morning by the time Callie and Jack returned to Buona Fortuna.

As they walked into the Red Room to settle in for the night, Jack shook his head.

“I guess everyone's going to have to start calling me Governor now,” he said as if he was still amazed.

Callie walked up to him and his smile was the slightly lopsided one that he reserved for her.

“Well, Governor Walker, I've got another title for you.” She put his hand on her belly. “How's Daddy sound?”

Jack froze and then wobbled in his wing tips. “Callie?”

“Yes.” She laughed softly as he seemed to melt in front of her. Wonderment, love, joy filtered through his hard features.

When he took her face gently into his hands and dipped down for a kiss, she said, “If she's a girl, can we name her Anne?”

by J. R. Ward writing as Jessica Bird

 

Available from Signet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

JOHN SMITH checked his watch and looked around the Plaza Hotel's ballroom.

Things were going well. According to the report that had just come over his earpiece, the ambassador's plane had landed safely at La Guardia and the man would be arriving at the party on time.

Smith's eyes passed over the glittering crowd. It was the same kind of flashy scene that always revolved around $5,000-a-plate dinners. Women in jewels and long gowns, men in tuxedos, the collective net worth of the room up into the stratosphere. In the midst of the shifting throng, deals were being made, affairs were getting started, and social slights were exchanged with smiles. The place was choked with air kisses and hand pumping.

Underneath the chandeliers in the elegant ballroom, the whole lot of them looked as if they had the world by the throat. Smith knew better. He'd been hired by quite a few, had learned their dirty secrets and their hidden vices. He'd even watched as some got their wake-up call to real life.

Being the target of an armed stalker—that was something to worry about. Your kid gets pinched by some madman looking to hose you down for a couple million? That was a problem. Whether or not your mistress's boob job was symmetrical paled in comparison.

Danger, like illness, was the great equalizer, and the rich learned fast what really mattered when tragedy came knocking at their door. Courtesy of the visit, they also picked up a few lessons about their inner depths. Smith had seen hardened businessmen break down, sobbing from fear. He'd also witnessed great reserves of strength appear in a woman who'd only worried about her clothes before.

Being a personal security specialist was a dangerous line of work but it was the only thing he could imagine doing. With his military and intelligence background, and the fact that he didn't take orders well, it was a good fit. An observer, a protector, a killer if he had to be, Smith was at the top of his field and his small firm, Black Watch, Ltd., handled everyone from statesmen to financiers to international figures.