DUTCH AND GINA: AFTER THE FALL (19 page)

He opened her legs and gently began wiping her with the cloth, which was also a new experience for her. When Henry finished his business he was done with her. Cleaning up was always left to her.

“Did I hurt you?” Chris an asked as he wiped her, his blue eyes nervously anxious for her answer.

“No,” she said. “Just the opposite.”

Chris an looked at her, and was pleasantly surprised to see a smile on her face.

She nodded her head. “Chris an got game,” she jokingly said.

He was thrilled beyond measure, but worked not to show it. “Put on your clothes,” he ordered. “We’d better get back.”

And they dressed quickly, realizing that their li le tryst had taken up a considerable amount of me. It was s ll early State Dinner me, and they were certain to make it back to the White House before the president and First Lady were back in the Residence, but they took no chances.

Chris an drove back within a reasonable speed, but he was deliberate about it, determined to hustle back before any hell could break loose. It was bad enough that he had just made love to the president’s daughter, and that he had done it so empha cally that the condom didn’t hold. The last thing he needed was to have Dutch Harber find out, and hate him for it.

He glanced over at the passenger seat as he drove.

Jade seemed just the opposite. She, in fact, seemed almost serene. He didn’t get it. “Isn’t your boyfriend coming to DC next week?”

The reminder of Henry knocked any serenity off of her face. “He said if he can get away, yeah. Why?” Chris an swallowed hard. “If you feel you ought to tell him, so there won’t be any secrets between you, I’ll understand.”

Jade stared at Chris an. “Are you for real? Tell Henry? If I told Henry what we’d just done, I’d be sleeping in my grave shortly thereafter.” Chris an smiled, certain she was joking. But Jade looked away, certain she wasn’t.

Then suddenly, instantaneously almost, she heard a screech, loud and explosive, and then saw Chris an, li ed halfway out of his seat, slinging the steering wheel to swerve the SUV, his eyes glued to the road and as big as a plate. By the me she turned to look too, the big Ford Explorer SUV was crashing head-on into what appeared to be a Van, making the loudest crash she’d ever heard, the Van slinging one way and the SUV the other. And then the SUV was nearly sideways, gliding on two wheels, and then on none.

sideways, gliding on two wheels, and then on none.

Jade held on, and Chris an tried to hold onto her too, as the SUV went airborne and sailed like a tank of a plane, like mangled metal through the air, and then landed, in a final crash, broadside in a ditch.

TWELVE

Crader McKenzie stood at the window inside the Nursery as LaLa changed Li le Walt and put him back to bed. He was s ll in his tuxedo, a er leaving the State Dinner early. When LaLa walked over to the window and stood beside him, she wondered why he had left so early.

“Bored to tears,” he said. “ Those people are insufferable. I don’t know how Dutch and Gina does it, but they do it and they do it magnificently.”

“I know. Being president and First Lady is not for the weak at heart.”

Crader considered her. “So what’s the deal? You’re going to be the permanent nanny?”

“No, not permanent, but I will be un ll they can find somebody they can trust and is extremely experienced and, again, that they can trust. I’m glad to do it.” Crader smiled. “You’ll make a very good mother someday,” he said.

LaLa, however, said nothing.

“What’s the matter?” he asked her. “Don’t you want to be a mother?”

“I want to be one, yes.”

Crader decided to try it. “Don’t you want to be the mother of my child?”

LaLa hesitated, but was firm. “No,” she finally said.

Crader’s heart dropped. He stared at her. “Why not?”

“Let’s not get into that right now, Cray.”

“Why not?” he asked her again.

She exhaled. “Because I know it wouldn’t work.”

“What are you saying? How do you know that?”

“I saw the way you looked at Jade.”

Crader hesitated. “Looked at Jade? She’s just a kid, La, come on.”

“I saw the way you looked at her,” LaLa con nued, refusing to back down. “I want and deserve a man who will look at me that way.”

“La, I’m trying to be that man.”

“No you aren’t. Because if you truly loved me it wouldn’t be a ba le for you. And, let’s face it, it’s a ba le for you. I can’t live my life wondering if the next pre y face that comes along will be the one you just can’t resist. I can’t live like that. I
won’t
live like that.” can’t resist. I can’t live like that. I
won’t
live like that.” Crader was crushed. “I want to make it work, La.”

“I know you want to, but you aren’t there yet. No where near it. And to be honest with you, given your age, I don’t know if you’ll ever get there.” LaLa’s cell phone began to ring.

“So what you’re saying is that we don’t stand a chance?”

LaLa looked at her Caller ID. Saw that it was Chris an. “ That’s what I’m saying,” she said as she pressed the Talk bu on. “Why couldn’t you just walk to the Nursery, Christian, why are you calling me?”

“ They took her to the hospital,” a hysterical-sounding Christian yelled into the phone.

LaLa frowned. “They took who to the hospital?” Crader looked at LaLa.

“Jade,” Christian said, crying. “They took Jade.”

“Jade?” LaLa said, and Crader quickly snatched the phone.

“Where are you?” Crader yelled into the phone.

“I’m at, it was terrible, Senator McKenzie. That Van was going the wrong way and it just slammed into us.”

“Us?” Crader said, his heart pounding. “Jade was with you?”

“Yes, she was with me.”

“Where is she now? What hospital?”

“I tried to swerve, Senator McKenzie, I tried to--”

“Damn you, child, what hospital!” Crader yelled so loud that his voice seemed to vibrate through the line.

“George Washington,” Chris an said and Crader, tossing the cell phone to LaLa, ran, as if his life depended on it, out of the Nursery.

In the State Dining Room at the White House, Gina sat on one end of the long table entertaining the wives of the Ukrainian dignitaries, while Dutch sat at its head in what she could only describe as a very intense conversa on with President Shevchenko. They were both in white e, Dutch in a beau fully tailored white tux, and Gina in a slim-fi ng white gown with sideswipe overlays of pink diamonds, and both found the other enchan ng. Earlier, during the recep on before the dinner, Dutch couldn’t seem to keep his eyes off of Gina, staring longingly at her from across the room. Now, Gina no ced, she was the one doing the staring.

“He is quite a rac ve,” Mrs. Shevchenko, a woman some twenty years Gina’s senior, leaned toward her and said.

“Pardon?” Gina said with a smile.

“Your husband. Quite the looker.”

Gina looked at the woman, at first surprised, and then, when she saw that twinkle in her eye, she laughed. “Yes,” she said, looking proudly at Dutch. “I would agree.”

She saw Crader out of her peripheral vision, and then she saw him walk over to the president, in a complete disregard of e que e given the magnitude of the func on. But it seemed to Gina that Crader didn’t care. He whispered something seemingly urgent in Dutch’s ear, promp ng Dutch to look at Crader in shock. Crader explained further and then Dutch immediately stood up, causing his chair to crash to the floor, and hurry out of the room. Everybody stood as he walked out and Gina, knowing something terrible would have caused such a reac on, sat her napkin on the table, said “will you excuse me,” to the Ukrainian First Lady, and hurried out of the room also.

“Dutch!” she yelled when she saw that he and Crader were hurrying away. A bevy of secret service agents were also hurrying, with the agent in charge already talking in his earpiece and ordering addi onal already talking in his earpiece and ordering addi onal agents over to GW to pave the way for the president’s arrival.

Dutch turned without stopping his progression. But when he saw that it was Gina, he not only stopped, but went back to her.

“What’s happened?” she asked, terror in her throat.

“ There’s been an accident,” he said, his hands on her arms. “Christian was driving.”

“Dear Lord!”

“Jade was with him.”

Gina was astounded. “
Jade
?”

“She’s been rushed to George Washington, that’s all we know right now. I’ll call you.” Then Dutch, so devastated it broke Gina’s heart, grabbed her into a tight embrace, his eyes tightly shut as he held her.

Then he released her, gave her one of his
please
don’t let it be so
looks, and hurried away.

When the doors of the hospital flew open and Dutch Harber hurried in, the nurses and doctors and medical assistants s ll could not believe their eyes. The path had been cleared by the Secret Service mere minutes in advance of the president’s arrival. The staff knew a heavy hi er was coming. But they had no idea that it would be this heavy.

They all stood to the side, out of the way, as Dutch and Crader entered. Dutch was met by the chief of surgery, a burly man with a long beard and thinning hair. He had, just minutes before, been no fied that the accident vic m at his hospital was, in fact, the president’s daughter. He immediately rushed down to take charge.

“She’s fine, sir,” he said as he made haste to keep up with the president’s swi strides. “She’s a very lucky girl.”

“She’s blessed,” Dutch corrected the doctor, but he wasn’t about to be sa sfied un ll he saw her for himself.

He saw her for himself. The Secret Service had her placed in a private room as soon as he received word of who she was. And now she was seated on the edge of the bed, her feet dangling, looking even more bewildered than she usually looked.

“Daddy!” she yelled with outstretched arms as soon as Dutch dawned the door, and he hurried to her and swept her into his own arms. He realized this was the first me she didn’t call him
Mr. President
or some other formality, but he was too caught up in the relief of knowing that she was okay to relish it. His child wasn’t hurt, or dead, and the gra tude to God flowed through him.

For the longest me they held onto each other.

Crader, relieved himself, called LaLa, who said she’d immediately get word to Gina.

“What about Christian?” LaLa asked.

“According to the Secret Service he’s being treated in a different room, but he’s fine too. But we passed by that wreckage, La,” Crader said, shaking his hand. “It was amazing they survived.”

LaLa’s heart thumped. “I’ll let Gina know they’re okay,” she said, and hung up. Crader hesitated, thought again about what might have been had he not messed up, and killed the call altogether.

Dutch contained his fire at the hospital, as his relief overcame his disbelief. And even in the presiden all limousine, as he and Crader sat on one side and Jade and Chris an sat on the other, he remained silent.

Mostly because he was s ll spooked by what could have been, and how mangled that SUV was, and how, just like that, the daughter he just discovered could just like that, the daughter he just discovered could have been taken from him. And Chris an could have been. . . He could hardly deal with it. That was why they looked at him, wai ng for the explosion, inwardly begging for him to tell them something. But he just sat there, staring out of the window, and remained silent.

But once they were back at the White House, in the Residence, he was silent no longer.

Jade and Christian, both with minor scratches, sat on the sofa side by side, with Gina in the flanking chair.

Crader stood over by the lune e window, and Dutch was all over the place, walking back and forward as he talked, looking regally pissed in his gorgeous white tux, and he was ripping apart Jade and Chris.

“I told you repeatedly to never leave this house without secret service protec on,” he said to his daughter. “I told you it was necessary for your own safety and because I didn’t want you caught up in all of that crap they keep spewing, night a er night, about you, as if your sole purpose for being is to feed their ratings.”

He rubbed his forehead. “Once the cha er dies down, once they move on to other disasters and you’re no longer headline news, then you could make your debut in DC and the whole of America if you wanted to. But you can’t make that debut without protec on.

And instead of laying low and tamping down the headlines, you and your partner in crime over there raised them back up! Every cable news outlet all around this country now has your face plastered all over their television screens! And the reports they generate, with all of those vultures talking about my child as if she was some tabloid fodder! The President’s Daughter in near-fatal crash a er partying with White House aide, they all scream.”

“We weren’t partying,” Chris an corrected and Jade’s already big eyes stretched in horror. She knew he was incredibly honest, but was he stupid too? Was he about to tell the president that they weren’t partying, but was fucking? Was he
that
honest?

She wanted to warn him, to tell him that if he wanted to live he had be er not so much as men on what they did, but the president was staring at them now and no way was she going to risk even a glance Christian’s way.

“What did you say?” Dutch asked him.

Chris an swallowed hard. “You said they said we, that me and Jade were partying, but we weren’t.”

“What were you doing then,” Dutch wanted to know,

“that you couldn’t have the secret service with you?” Christian glanced at Jade.

“Well?” Gina asked them. “What kind of joyriding---

”

“Who said anything about joyriding?” Jade asked with a frown on her face. “We weren’t joyriding!” Dutch, amazed, removed his hands from his hips and stared at her. “Who do you think you’re talking to with that tone, young lady?” he asked her.

Jade, realizing it too, had a look of alarm on her face. “I’m sorry, ma’am,” she said to Gina. “I didn’t mean to--”

“It’s okay,” Gina said. “You’ve been through quite an experience.”

“I don’t care what experience you’ve been through, you had better never speak to my wife that way.”