DUTCH AND GINA: AFTER THE FALL (2 page)

And I thought my old man walked on water. So I figured that’s what strong men did. I wasn’t going to be married doing that, I couldn’t hurt another woman the way I knew my father hurt my mother. But it’s in me.

Deep down. My father was a whore. I’m a whore. And every one of my brothers chase tail. None of us have ever been one-woman men. How do you overcome that kind of baggage, Dutch?”

“You don’t overcome it,” Dutch said, remembering his own father’s philandering. “You just do the right thing. You think about what you really want in this life and decide to be faithful to it. I want Gina. I’ve decided, with all I have within me, to be faithful to her.”

“And you’ve never come close to falling off the wagon? You’ve never had that one moment of weakness?”

Dutch hesitated, as a painful memory flashed through his mind, and then decided not to answer the question. He, instead, tossed his water bo le in the waste basket and leaned back against the wall. And waited.

And as he waited he suddenly realized just how And as he waited he suddenly realized just how badly he wanted Gina. He wanted to shower and lay naked in bed with her. He wanted to get her on her back and ram his penis so deep inside of her that he made her scream. He wanted to have her beneath him as his mouth found her womanhood, and have her wiggling with intensity as he ate her. He wanted Gina.

But first he had to deal with Liz, to see what would bring her all this way to speak with him. Crader could say whatever he pleased about her, but Dutch knew Liz Sinclair. And he knew she wouldn’t come back to Florida, a er resigning her posi on on the First Lady’s staff, just for the hell of it. It was urgent. Liz didn’t play those kind of games.

For reasons Dutch s ll couldn’t reconcile, however, it bothered him when he discovered that she had had that sexual encounter with Crader. Not because he blamed her for the pain it caused LaLa. Liz had no way of knowing that LaLa had her sights on Crader, and even if she had known it s ll wouldn’t have ma ered.

Liz didn’t owe any allegiance to LaLa, she barely knew the woman. It was Crader’s responsibility to say no.

He was the one supposedly trying to build a rela onship with LaLa. From Liz’s perspec ve, Crader was a free man, was ready, willing and able to get down, and was therefore fair game.

But what disturbed Dutch migh ly was his own reac on to that encounter. There was a part of him that loved Liz and always would. When he first met her, long before he even knew Gina existed, he just knew he was going to fuck her brains out every chance he got. He just knew it.

But as he got to know her, his feelings didn’t develop that way. She became his friend. Somebody he could talk to with ease. And for some reason, he couldn’t pull himself to take her to bed. It helped that she never asked him to do her, which was highly unusual for a hot-blooded female like Liz. Yet it was as if neither one of them wanted to lose the bond they had.

But when he found out that she had given it up to Crader, his disturbance felt less about a friend being disappointed in a friend, but more like a betrayal, as if she had betrayed him by sleeping with Crader. And that concerned him.

It s ll concerned him as Liz, escorted by Chris an, entered the gym looking as both Dutch and Crader expected her to look: stunning.

She wore a short, lavender dress that fit her perfect curves as if it had been s tched on, s le o heels, and carried a matching Dolce-Gabbana handbag and briefcase. Her skin was a lighter-toned brown, her long hair draped down her back in loose waves, and her big hazel eyes stared out at the two men as if she was sizing them up.

They were certainly sizing her up.

For Crader he was sizing her up with a look of disgust on his face, as she now represented what may turn out to be the biggest mistake of his life. It was his fault, he knew he should have told her to kiss his ass when she stood there naked and took him in her mouth. But resis ng a woman that gorgeous was like resisting a chance to breathe. He didn’t have it in him.

Now, however, if she were to sit naked on his face, he wouldn’t fuck her. He’d try to bite the shit out of her.

Dutch, however, could never hate the sight of Liz Sinclair. Not because she was gorgeous, which she was, but because he knew her beyond that facade of heartlessness and recklessness. He saw the heart of the woman. He didn’t approve of the fact that she slept around. But Crader slept around too. Was he to forgive Crader simply because Crader was a man, and forgive Crader simply because Crader was a man, and excoriate Liz because she wasn’t? When they both, in truth, were cut from the same cloth? Both needed to get their acts together in that department, as far as Dutch was concerned.

“Hello, Crader,” Liz said as soon as she entered the gym, a sweet, cautious smile on her pretty brown face.

“What do you want?” Crader asked in a tone as bitter as hers was sweet.

Liz looked him up and down, her sweetness gone.

“Certainly not you,” she quipped.

“Ah, fuck you,” Crader shot back.

“You wish,” Liz said with a smile.

Crader rose to his feet. “You can sail your ass off of my property, that’s what you can do!”

“Se le down, Cray,” Dutch admonished his friend with a frown on his face and a wave of his hand.

Crader walked off rubbing his forehead. Like some wounded dog, Liz gladly noticed.

Dutch looked at Chris an. “ That’ll be all, Chris,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” Chris an said, glad to get out of that hotbox of emotions. He left.

Liz looked at the president. Glanced down at his massive package that sat glaringly defined in the midsec on of his

ght, Spandex shorts. She

remembered how she cried when she found out he had collapsed, and then praised God when it was determined that his collapse was due to exhaus on, rather than what they all feared.

“Hello, Mr. President,” she said smilingly to Dutch, as if she was saving her best smile for him.

“Hey yourself, Miss Lady. How’s it been?” For a quick second Dutch could see the truth, as Liz flashed one of those
it’s been hell
looks across her face. But then she rallied and smiled again. “It’s been good,” she said, not fooling him at all.

He pa ed the seat beside him. “Come sit,” he said to her.

“Sure you want to be caught next to the Scarlet Lady?” Although she was smiling, a part of her was pained by her own characterization.

Dutch smiled too, which warmed her heart. She sat down beside him.

“I didn’t think you would see me,” she said, placing her handbag and briefcase on the floor beside her.

“Of course I’d see you. And you know you didn’t have to resign.”

“Yes, I did,” Liz said. “ The First Lady was in a state over you and Li le Walt, Lore a was then and probably always will be by her side, so yes, I had to. It would have been too awkward for all of us if I would have stayed.”

When Dutch was back on his feet again and he found out that Liz was gone, he was highly upset. She did nothing, he felt, to be forced out. Especially since it was Crader, not Liz, who had betrayed LaLa. But Gina, this time, overruled him, and the resignation stood.

“I phoned you,” he said. Crader looked up at him, surprised.

Liz nodded. “I know. I just didn’t want you caught in the middle of this.” Then she smiled. “You had enough on your plate already. For real this time.” Dutch smiled weakly himself. He really did like this woman. “So,” he said, “what would bring you all this way to Florida?”

She glanced at Crader. “Could we speak privately, sir?”

“Does this concern a personal ma er involving you?”

“Oh, no, sir. Nothing like that.”

“ Then privacy won’t be necessary. Crader can hear

“ Then privacy won’t be necessary. Crader can hear every word.”

Liz didn’t like it, but it wasn’t her call to make.

“There’s this guy I know,--”

“A man,” Crader snorted. “Figures.”

Liz hesitated, but chose to ignore him. “He works for Jed Brightman, the Speaker of the House of Representatives. He’s a high ranking official inside the Speaker’s office. Since he was in California at the me, he asked if he could come and see me, so we hooked up.”

“Oh, I’ll bet y’all did,” Crader said.

Dutch looked at him. And it was a look that made clear his displeasure.

“Ah, she’s full of it, Dutch!” he protested. “She’s just trying to worm her way back into your good graces with some bullshit no doubt!”

When Dutch con nued to show his displeasure with his friend, Crader exhaled. “I apologize, sir,” he said, although he was inwardly seething. But what could he do? For some crazy reason Dutch had such confidence in the witch, and Crader was quickly realizing that none of his protesta ons was going to change one iota of that very real fact.

Dutch looked back at Liz. Liz, pleased with his confidence, con nued. “So we hooked up. Had dinner together at my place. I thought it was going to be a catching up type deal, you know, since we hadn’t seen each other in quite some me. But it wasn’t anything like that, Dutch. He wanted me to relay a message to you.”

This caught Crader’s a en on. Why would a member of the Speaker’s staff want to get a message to Dutch?

“Who is this person?” Dutch asked her.

“He would prefer to remain anonymous, sir.”

“That wasn’t my question.”

Liz exhaled. “He said I could reveal his name only if you insisted.”

“I’m insisting. Who is he?”

Liz stared at Dutch. Exhaled again. “Wes Logan,” she said, and it was a name that caused Dutch to sit erect and exchange a glance with Crader. Wes Logan, as they both knew, was no lowly, disgruntled staffer, but was Speaker Brightman’s chief of staff. For a congressional aide, it didn’t get any higher than that.

Although this was ge ng interes ng now, Dutch, however, maintained his cool. “And what message did Wes want you to relay to me?”

Liz, on the other hand, was loaded for bear.

Especially now that she was able to reveal her source and that Crader McKenzie could see she wasn’t coming with “bullshit” as he had put it. “He was very agitated, sir. I’d never seen him in such a state.”

“What was his message?”

“He said for you to watch your back. He said the Speaker and your Vice President are plotting a coup.” Crader frowned. “A coup?”

“His word exactly, Dutch.”

“Wait a minute here,” Crader said, puzzled and agitated himself. “Are you telling Dutch, are you telling the president that his vice president and the Speaker of the House, both Democrats, both members of the president’s own party, both in the line of succession, are plotting to overthrow the government?”

“According to Wes,” Liz said, addressing her comments to Dutch alone, “it’s not the government they want to overthrow. It’s your presidency.”

“Which amounts to the same thing,” Crader said.

But he and Dutch did exchange another worrisome glance.

“I’m not buying it,” Crader said, shaking his head. “I

“I’m not buying it,” Crader said, shaking his head. “I know Shell Pra and I know Jeb Brightman, and neither one of those men would be capable of that level of illegality.”

“They aren’t talking about illegally kicking him out of office,” Liz said to Crader as if that should have gone without saying. She was becoming a li le irritated with his bombastic responses.

Then she looked at Dutch, who never leaped to conclusions. “Wes says they’re talking about crea ng some kind of condi ons, on top of all of the controversy your administra on has already endured, that would lead to a public outcry, all across the country, for your impeachment.”

It was a major blow, especially hearing that the vice president might be involved, but Dutch, to even Liz’s surprise, remained circumspect. “ They’ve been trying to impeach me throughout my en re presidency,” he said. “Usually the Republicans were the culprits, I’ll grant you that. But I’m not sure if this is any different than what it’s always been.”

“Oh, it’s different, sir,” Liz said firmly. “The midterms are coming up and the Dems are really concerned that they could lose control of the House if you, given all of your prior scandals, remain in office.

Many of them want you out, sir, and according to Wes, they will do whatever it takes to get you out. Jed Brightman is the Speaker of the House and he intends to remain Speaker. If he gets rid of you, and put Vice President Pra in your place, he believes they’ll be looking at better odds.”

“Be er odds with the impeachment of a si ng president in their headwinds, and with the VP at the helm?” Crader was astounded. “They must be joking!” Liz disagreed. “ The VP is a non-en ty as far as Brightman is concerned,” she said. “ The VP is viewed as so bland that he won’t be blamed for any of Dutch’s woes, he never has been. That means Brightman will have the real power going forward. Which may be what this is all about.”

“So it’s a power grab,” Dutch said.

“It’s a power grab,” Liz agreed. “At the highest levels of government.”

“Did Wes say exactly what damning informa on they claim to have?”

Liz shook her head. “No, sir. He doesn’t know the full details yet himself, but he’s working on it. He would, however, like to use me as the conduit going forward, as he gets more informa on. If that’s acceptable to you.”

Crader rolled his eyes. “Of course,” Dutch replied.

“Wes also kept saying that you should take this threat seriously. He says with Brightman involved, who hates your guts, it won’t be pretty.”

Dutch ran his hand across his face and leaned his head back. He would have expected this kind of behavior from Speaker Brightman. He and Jed Brightman never did get along. But from his Vice President too? A man, not very long ago, many Democrats wanted Dutch to dump when he was seeking reelec on. But out of loyalty Dutch kept him on the cket. And this, if true, was his payback? A government takeover by lies and innuendo?

Liz looked at Dutch; at his powerful biceps; at how his jersey stuck to his sweaty body and revealed every contour of his muscular chest and ribbed abs; at that big bulge she could only dream about between his thighs; at that face that seemed to become even more a rac ve as he aged. And she remembered his state just a couple weeks ago, when he collapsed from the terror of his son being snatched.