DUTCH AND GINA: A SCANDAL IS BORN (19 page)

And then he stopped, literally in the middle of the street, cars honking their horns, one slamming on brakes, and made up his mind.
 
Dutch just destroyed him, he reasoned.
 
He had to destroy him back.
 

Or die trying, he decided, as he staggered on across the street.

Whereas Gina was elated it had gone so well, Caroline and her aunt were deflated.
 
Roman was grinning and clapping his hands.
 
Liz was pleased that Max finally got his.
 

And Crader and LaLa were laughing and hugging.

“That’s the way you do it!” Crader was saying.
 
“Give it back the way they give it to you!”

“Did you see the anger on the chairman’s face? He couldn’t believe it.
 
He thought Dutch was going to come in there and be all nice and polite and answer every ridiculous question they threw his way.
 
Man was that man wrong!”
 

And they continued to laugh, talk and hug.
 
Until the laughter died and the talking ceased, but they found themselves still embracing.
 

Crader could feel her breasts against his chest.
 
He looked down, at her exposed cleavage, at the swelling of her mounds.
 
And back up, at her lips.
 
And before she could get where he already was, he started kissing her on those lips.

LaLa recoiled at first, as she was still caught up in the euphoria of this day her best friend had dreaded to face, but as soon as his lips pressed deeply into hers, and she realized the sensual nature of Crader’s move, she was with him.
 
She opened her mouth, and allowed his tongue passage in, and they kissed and kissed in a circular grind that caused both of them to moan.

And Crader moved, from her mouth to those lovely mounds he couldn’t wait to taste.
 
And he tasted them.
 
The cleavage first and then, slinging down her blouse and bra, to expose them fully, he took them all in.
 
Nipples and mound.
 
Sucking and biting and kissing.
  

It had been so long for LaLa that she thought she was going to explode with passion.
 
Especially when he removed her shorts and panties, dropped to his knees, and opened her legs.
 
He kissed and licked and wiggled his tongue between her folds, causing her to haunch in an almost teenage delight.
 
Causing her to realize with slight horror at how long it had been since she felt this way.

And when he stood up, still staring at her, and quickly unbuckled and removed his pants and boxer’s, unable to go to the bedroom because they both knew they wouldn’t make it, she knew her dream of mating with this man was about to come true.
 
She, LaLa King, the girl no man had ever loved enough to ask to marry, or even to not mistreat, was about to mate with a man who at this moment could be mating with any woman of his choice.
 

Yet he, to her delight, had chosen her.

And yet again, she knew she had to keep it together.
 
A man wanting to fuck her was hardly the same as a man wanting to love her.
 
But she felt something so powerful for Crader, felt it the first time she laid eyes on him, and she had to take this chance.
 
He could hurt her too, she knew it better than anyone, but he was the one she wanted and the only one with whom she was willing to take a chance.

He pulled a condom from his jeans and slipped it on, his penis already engorged, and then he placed one knee between her legs and entered her.
 

He was gentle on entry, as he watched her close her eyes and enjoy the feel.
 
He studied her face, a face very few would consider drop dead gorgeous.
 
But he saw so much more in her.
 
He saw decency in her face, and integrity, and a kind of sweetness and light he never saw in any of the other women he’d had before.
 

As he slowly slid in and out of her, as he felt the wonderment of being inside of her, he knew she was nothing like the others.
 
He was not going to be able to hit and run on her as easily as he often did.
 
Not with her.

And as he leaned down, pulling her into his arms as he made love to her, he began to realize that he didn’t particularly want to hit and run on her.
 
He was getting older now, and tired of running.
 
He was even tired of the kind of women he often ran from.
 
LaLa, he thought, as he gently kissed her as he gently fucked her, may just be that one woman he ran to for a change.

“Oh,
baby
,” he said as her walls constricted around his penis, as her juices slushed around those walls, and he drained deep into her.

And just like that, to his own amazement, Dutch and that hearing, Gina and those ludicrous allegations, the Speaker of the House and that battle over immigration, all had to take a back seat to LaLa.
 
Because this wasn’t just a fuck for Crader McKenzie.
 
This wasn’t just another bang to tie him over.
 
He couldn’t say affirmatively what it was, or what it was likely to ever become, but it was a long way from that.

FOURTEEN

Crader McKenzie did something he had never done before: he invited people to his home on Ruth Island, a quiet, bedroom community along the Florida coast.

Marine One landed on the back of the estate and Dutch, with Little Walt in his arms and Gina by his side, along with LaLa, Christian, and Nurse Riley, stepped out of the helicopter and made the trek to the entrance of the beautiful, peaceful home.
 
Dutch didn’t even know Crader had a home on Ruth Island when the offer came, but he knew one thing was for certain: it was a good idea to take a break and get his family out of DC.
 

Crader greeted them as they crossed the colonnade.
 
LaLa’s heart soared when she saw him again.
 
He had left town on business shortly after their mating and she hadn’t heard from him at all.
 
When Gina told her that he had suggested that she and the president come to his estate in Florida, she felt even more deflated.

Until Gina added that he had asked that she come too.

LaLa stared at her.
 
“For real?”

“For real.”

“You didn’t like
suggest
it to him, G, did you?”

Gina smiled.
 
She fully understood her friend’s anxiety.
 
“No, La, I didn’t suggest it, I wasn’t even thinking about you.”
 
LaLa laughed.
 
“He told Dutch to bring you along.”

LaLa was pleased.
 
But then again . . . “He could have asked me himself,” she said.

“Oh, LaLa!
 
He asked the president since it was the president he was inviting.
 
And besides, let’s keep this thing in perspective. The fact that a man like Crader McKenzie would want you there at all is huge.
 
From what Dutch tells me he isn’t exactly the type who likes encores, know what I’m saying?”

LaLa had already worked that out herself too.
 
“I know.”
 
Then she looked at Gina.
 
“Please tell me you didn’t tell the president that I slept with him?”

Gina slapped her playfully on the arm.
 
“What do you take me for?”

“A woman who tells her man everything.”

“Well, I didn’t tell him.
 
How’s that?”

LaLa sighed relief.
 
Dutch seemed to respect her to the hilt and she didn’t want anything to change that fact.

She, in fact, found herself looking at Dutch as he greeted Crader on the backside of the colonnade.
 
Although he had literally told that do-nothing Congress what they could do with their hearings and investigations, and was a hero to many Americans for doing so, he seemed drained to LaLa.
 
The poor man had just been through too much.
 
And it wasn’t like
 
he was getting any younger, either.

“Come on in, come on in,” Crader said joyously and stepped aside as they all entered his stylishly appointed home.
 

LaLa was the last to enter and Crader seemed pleased to see her again.
 
He smiled, placed his hand on the small of her back, and gave her a kiss on the lips.

“Hey,” he said to her, staring into her eyes with an odd mix of invitation and hesitation.

“Hey, yourself,” she said, unsure how to take that mixture.

“You’ve been all right?
 
Been taking care of yourself?”

LaLa found that odd too, since all he had to do was pick up a phone and ask her how she was doing.
 
But she got it.
 
Just because they slept together doesn’t mean he was promising her a commitment.
 
It meant that she was promising him one, however, given her moral compass.
 
But therein was her dilemma: she was lending her heart to a man who might not want to do anything more than borrow it.

 
“I’ve been good,” she said.

“Good,” Crader said, looking her over as if he wanted to prove it himself.

Gina saw him assessing LaLa, she even saw the kiss, but by the time she and Dutch had made it on the second floor wing of the home, the wing Crader had reserved exclusively for the First Family, LaLa’s love affair, in truth, was the last thing on her their mind.
 

Dutch left their sleeping child with Nurse Riley in the room reserved as the Nursery, and took Gina by the hand and walked her out of the front door.
 

Of course the home was well-fortified with agents of the Secret Service, many of whom arrived well in advance of the First Family to do their sweep of the property, set up surveillance, coordinate with local police, and bring in the fleet of SUVs always on hand wherever the president roamed.
 

But even with such a heavy security presence, Dutch wanted to do something he rarely got the chance to do: take his wife for a walk in air that wasn’t contaminated with inside the Beltway craziness.

“It’s so peaceful out here,” Gina commented as they walked slowly across the expansive property, enjoying the gardens and the bird bath and the Florida Palm trees that bristled in the wind.
 

“The air is certainly thinner,” Dutch replied.
 
“Take a look at that.”

They stopped and looked at the waterfall near the southwest corner of the property, watched it careen up in a wide sweep and then cascade down in a sparkling drop.
 
Gina smiled.
 
“Beautiful,” she said.

Dutch squeezed her hand.
 
“I owe you an apology,” he said.

She looked at him, her eyes narrowed with that sincere, assessing look he knew so well.
 
“An apology for what?”

“For not letting you fight your own battle.
 
For making you stay at home while I played the big man on Capitol Hill.”

“I understood why you wouldn’t let me testify, Dutch,” Gina said, reassuringly.
 
“As soon as you arrived in that hearing room and the very first question was an indictment of my character, I knew you were right to make me stay.
 
It would have been a barrage and a nightmare if I had to face all of that.
 
You were looking out for me.
 
You don’t have anything to apologize for.”

Dutch rubbed his hand across his eyes.
 
The fact that she was so quick to understand, so quick to be so forgiving of him no matter what he did, made him feel even more inadequate.
 

Although Gina had no clue he was feeling that way, she did notice how tired he’d been looking lately.
 
“Honey, what’s wrong?” she asked him.

He looked at her, at her big browns, as he affectionately called them, at this wonderful, unique woman who deserved far better than she got.
  
And he felt ashamed that he didn’t give her a better life.
 
He looked away from her, at the peaceful yet, given the lift and drop, tumultuous waterfall.
 

“Sometimes I feel as if I’ve done it all wrong,” he said, unable at this moment to even look her in the eye.
 
“I wonder what kind of man would allow his wife and child to be subjected to what my wife and child has been subjected to.”

“You’re the President of the United States, Dutch.
 
That automatically makes it different.”

“I should have waited.”

Gina stared at him.
 
“Waited to do what?”

“To marry you.
 
To allow us to bring a child in this world under these circumstances.”

“Oh, Dutch, don’t be ridiculous.
 
You married me because I agreed to marry you.
 
It wasn’t as if you put a gun to my head.
 
And as for our child, you talk as if we planned to get pregnant.
 
We didn’t, but it happened, and now we have a wonderful son.”

Dutch nodded.
 
“I know, but. . .” He looked at her.
 
“You’ve been through so much, and every second of it had everything to do with me.
 
All of your pain has been because of me.”

Gina shook her head.
 
“No, it hasn’t.”

“Yes, it has, Gina.
 
Yes, it has.
 
And I should have seen it coming, but I didn’t.”
 

Dutch ran his hand through his hair, ruffling it in a wild rub that suggested to her he was out of Washington and now felt free to let his hair down.
 
Or, in his case, let strands of hair be as out of place as they cared to be. But what Gina also saw was a man on the edge.

“Come on, Dutch,” she said, taking him by the hand this time and leading him to one of the benches in front of the waterfall.
 

He leaned back, his legs spread wide.
 
She turned sideways toward him, and crossed hers.
 

“We’ve gone through a lot since I’ve been your wife,” she said, “I’m not going to even lie.
 
It’s been an adventure.”
 
Dutch actually managed to smile.
 
“But all of that is behind us now.
 
Don’t you see it?
 
We’ve weathered the storm.
 
It didn’t kill us, it made us stronger.
 
So all of this talk about what you should or shouldn’t have done is of no consequence anymore.
 
Because Walter Dutch Harber,” she said, causing him to turn his head and look at her, “no other man on the face of this earth could have done better by me.”
 
Dutch’s heart soared with love.
 
Tears came to his eyes.
 

“You’ve made my dreams come true,” Gina went on.
 
“I’ve married the man I love above any other man.
 
I’ve birth the child I want above any other child.
 
And with these two people by my side, I’ve lived a life that’s been challenging, disappointing, exhilarating, and sometimes bitter as bitter can get, but I’ve never had a dull moment.
 
Now how many women can honestly say that?”

Dutch pulled Gina into his arms, his tears flowing freely now.
 
“Oh, Gina,” he said, holding her, “I love you so much!”

Gina held onto him too, tears in her eyes.
 
“Stop worrying
 
you big lug,” she said as they embraced.
 
“You done well.
 
We’ve weathered the storm.
 
Nothing can stop us now.”

And Dutch felt she was right.
 
Somehow he could feel it.
 
But somehow, somewhere deeper within him, far deeper than he could even verbalize or say with certainty even existed, he also felt that she was wrong; that her smooth-sailing assessment of what their life really would be from here on out was about as wrong as it could possibly be.

And as he held onto her, as he clung to the only human being he believed had ever truly loved him unconditionally, Nurse Riley, in the second floor Nursery, looked down at the First Couple as they embraced.
 
Her cell phone was to her ear.

“I’m looking at them right now,” she said into the phone.
 

“And?”

“And do you think now is the time?”

“In broad daylight?” Caroline asked in a snappish tone.
 
“Are you joking?
 
Of course the time isn’t now!
 
As soon as they notified you that you would be going with them to the McKenzie estate on Ruth Island, we got in place.
 
Even before Air Force One landed and their helicopter touched down at the estate.
 
It’s all in place.
 
But we’ve got to do this at exactly the absolute right time.”