President's Girlfriend 06 - The Sins of the Fathers (9 page)

But Dutch
still had a soft spot for Sam.
 
She
raised their daughter alone, being threatened by Dutch’s powerful mother to get
rid of the child.
 
Sam didn’t get rid of
the unborn child, but she told Dutch that she had had an abortion.
 
When he found out the truth some twenty-three
years after that lie was told to him, he never recovered from it.
 
He didn’t blame Sam.
 
She was fighting for her life against forces
she was rightly fearful of.
 
He blamed
his now deceased mother.
 
And, it seemed
to Gina, he felt as responsible for Sam as he did for Jade.

Gina began
putting on her clothes.
 
Sam
Redding.
 
She was worrisome to her on
many levels.
 
And it had nothing to do
with her gorgeousness, although she was drop-dead gorgeous.
 
But she mainly worried Gina
because,
of all the other women Dutch had ever had in his
life, only Sam, like Gina, shared that bond of procreation with him.
 
Only Sam, like Gina, could carry that special
mantle of being Dutch Harber’s baby mama.

CHAPTER FOUR

Christian,
Jade, and Marcus were in the living room by the time the dark SUV pulled into
the home’s garage and Dutch and Gina, under full Secret Service protection,
stepped out.
 
The door leading into the
home from the garage was designated as the Secret Service entrance and was
never to be locked, was opened by an agent and Dutch and Gina entered the mud
room that led into the home’s living area.

As soon as
they entered the living area, Jade broke away from the two men and ran to her
father.
 
Dutch pulled her into his
arms.
 

“Thanks so
much for coming,” she said to him.

“You okay?”
he asked her, rubbing her hair.

Jade nodded
her head.
 
“I’m better now that you’re
here,” she said.
 
She glanced at Gina,
who, like her father, was dressed in jeans and a jersey.
 
“Oh, hello,” she said to Gina, putting on a
smile.
 
“I didn’t think you’d come
too.”
 
Jade, in fact, was counting on
Gina
not
coming.

Gina figured
as much by her reaction.
 
“Yes, I came,”
Gina said, refusing to play any games with anyone this time of morning.

Dutch had
his arm around Jade’s waist, but he was extending his hand.
 
“Hello, Chris, Marcus,” he said as the two
men approached and they shook his hand.

Marcus and Dutch
didn’t get along, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at them.
 
They themselves never so much as mentioned
it, and were always cordial toward the other.
 
But Dutch had taken the measure of the man after he helped to get him
released from that Texas prison.
 
And he
didn’t like what he saw.
 
Gina was angry
with him, but he made it clear that Marcus could not stay at the White House
with his wife and son.
 

Marcus, of
course, insisted that Dutch was prejudiced against him.
 
He believed that it was because of his
background as a reformed drug dealer and the fact that he had been in prison
for murder, even though he was wrongfully accused, that had Dutch so put-off by
him.
 
He was reformed, and had cleaned up
his act years ago, but Dutch seemed unconvinced.

But for
Dutch it went far deeper than that.
 
He
believed in redemption as well as any man.
 
It wasn’t a question of that.
 
But
he was taking no chances with his wife and young son.
 
Gina didn’t know Marcus Rance to be offering
up any character assurances.
 
She’d only
seen him a few times in her entire life by the time he was released from
prison.
 
No way was Dutch allowing this
virtual stranger, a stranger who may or may not be reformed, to stay under the
same roof as his wife and child.
 
Especially as often as he was out of town.
 
He even protested Marcus staying with Jade
and Christian.
 
But they were grown and
they insisted.
  
They, in fact, moved him
right into their DC home despite Dutch’s verbalized misgivings.
 
And now, against Dutch’s advice, they had Sam
with them, too.

“Hello,
sir,” Christian said.
 
“Hello, Mrs.
Harber.”

“Hi,
Christian,” Gina said with a smile.
 
“Hey, Mark.”

“What’s up?”
Marcus said.
 
Although he faulted both of
them for kicking him out of the White House and making him feel like tossed-out
garbage, he knew he had to stay on good terms with his sister.
 
When it all came down to where the rubber
meets the road, Gina, even he understood, was all he had.

“Where’s
Samantha?” Dutch asked.

“In the
bedroom,” Jade said.
 
“It was scary, Daddy.”

“She’s still
in a state?” he asked.
 
Christian knew
she was never really in any state to begin with, but he didn’t know how to say
it without setting Jade off.

“It was so
scary,” Jade said again.

Dutch kissed
her on the forehead.
 
“I’ll be back,” he said
as he headed down the hall.
 
Jade
immediately moved to follow him, but Christian grabbed her arm.
 
“Let your Dad handle it,” he said.

“It’s my
mother, Christian,” Jade snapped, snatching her arm away from him.
 
“What are you talking about?”

“Jade,” Marcus
said in that deep, cool delivery of his.
 
Jade looked at him.
 
He shook his
head, his attractive face revealing nothing.
 
But it revealed enough, because Jade backed off.
 
Christian looked at Gina, to see if somebody
else saw the influence Marcus was beginning to have on Jade.
 
Apparently she did because Gina, he noticed,
was staring at Marcus.

Dutch walked
down the hall to the second of the two small guest rooms.
 
As soon as he entered the open door, he saw
Sam.
 
She was standing at the window, her
back to the door, in a pair of sheer pajamas.
 
Dutch walked to her.

“Hello,
Sam,” he said to avoid scaring her.

But when she
turned her small body toward him, and he saw the confusion, the pain, the
anxiety on her face, his heart plunged.
 
Poor Sam
, he wanted to say, but knew she
would hate him if he did.

“What are
you doing here?” she asked, surprised to see the president standing there.
 

She looked
more like Jade’s sister than her
mother,
it seemed to
him, as she stood there in her skimpy bed wear.
 
“Our daughter gave me a call,” he said.

“I don’t
know why Jade does that,” Sam said.
 
“I
told her I was fine.
 
I just have rough
nights sometimes.
 
I woke up talking to
myself from some dream and she blows it all out of proportion.
 
She knows I have nights
like
this sometimes.”

Dutch was
now standing beside her at the window.
 
He leaned against the frame.
 
“You
weren’t seeing people?” he asked.

Sam turned
slightly sideways, her braless breasts jiggling.
 
Dutch looked back into her face.
 
She smiled.
 
“I was joking with her.
 
I told
her I saw dead people, yes, I told her that.
 
But I also told her that she was going to be one of those dead people I
saw if she didn’t get out of this room and leave me alone.”

Dutch would
have smiled.
 
But he was concerned about
Jade.
 
“And she knew you were joking?”

“Of course
she knew!
 
She knows how disagreeable I
can be when she makes a fuss.
 
I hate
that with a passion.”

That sounded
exactly like Sam.
 
“Understood,” he said.

Then she
turned again slightly, and one of her sizeable breasts almost spilled out over
her top.
 
“And here you come
running.
 
You have really spoiled her,
you know that?”

Dutch looked
slightly alarmed.
 
“Spoiled her?
 
Me?
 
I
wouldn’t think so.”

“You don’t
have to think so.
 
It’s a fact.
 
Jade has you wrapped right around her little
finger.”

Dutch didn’t
know what to say to that.
 

“Anyway,”
Sam said, “how are you?
 
You look tired.”

“I’m okay.”

“That wife
of
yours treating
you right?”

Dutch
remembered just how right Gina had treated him not that long ago.
 
“Yes,” he said.

“Good,” Sam
said.
  
Then she smiled.
 
“You’re a good guy, you know that?”

Dutch stared
at her.
 
He’d had his issues with Sam in
the past, especially the way she seemed so enamored with Jade’s ex-boyfriend,
that asshole Henry Osgood.
 
But he always
had this romantic view of Sam as odd, yes, disagreeably so.
 
But a good woman in the
end.
 
“You’re a good girl,” he
said.

Sam
smiled.
 
“My compliment sounded like a
statement,” she said.
 
“Yours sounded
like a question.”

Dutch
laughed, and then placed his arm around her waist, pulling her to him.
 
He liked her.

Gina walked
down the hall and stood at the door just as he pulled her against him.
 
They seemed to be laughing at some joke.
 
They seemed to be old friends from way back
sharing an innocent joke.

Close
old friends.

Jade walked
gingerly up the hall behind Gina.
 
When
she peered past her into the room and saw her father with his arm around her
mother’s waist, and she saw that Gina saw the affection her parents were
demonstrating, she smiled grandly.
 
This
was what she was talking about, she wanted to shout.

When Gina
turned her way, realizing she was behind
her, that
smile of Jade’s, that grand, conniving smile, was gone.

Later that
same morning, Dutch woke up far later than his usual early rise.
 
He knew it was Gina.
 
She had undoubtedly refused to allow any
wake-up calls given his exhaustion.
 
Which he appreciated.
 
But it was a new day and world events weren’t about to stop churning
because he was tired.
 
He sat on the side
of the bed, completely naked and still heavily sleepy, picked up the phone, and
checked in with Allison.

Overnight
there had been a crisis in Iran, she said, with violent protests erupting there
that may require some covert resistance support by the
U.S..
The Secretary of Defense was requesting an emergency meeting of the principals,
and Dutch agreed.
 
“Within the hour,” he
said, and hung up the phone.

He dragged
himself out of bed, brushed his teeth, showered his body, and shaved his
face.
 
With his groomer’s assistance he
was soon dressed immaculately in a double-breasted suit, and his hair was
freshly cut and styled, not a strand out of place.

He stood in
the mirror and stared at himself.
 
Even
though he was hardly some young stud, he was still being voted, year in and
year out, as the sexiest politician in Washington, with Crader McKenzie always
close behind.
 
But Dutch was beginning to
feel his age, and the burdens of all those years of edge-living behind him.
  
Now he wanted the quiet life, with his wife
and his children.
  
No more lights,
cameras, or action for him.
 

But Gina was
right, he thought with a smile.
 
Don’t
turn on the light, she once told him, and then complain when it gets too
bright.

And just
thinking about Gina, and the way they made love not all that many hours ago,
began to give him yet another hard on.
 
And just like that he wanted to taste her again.
 
Which was amazing.
 
But he craved her whenever she wasn’t in his
sight.
 
Sometimes, late at night, he’d
wake up with his fingers deep inside of her.
 
And more than once Gina jokingly said that her clit was going to frizzle
up into nothingness if he didn’t stop fondling it so much.