Tread Softly (11 page)

"It's
all right," Cady had lied. "I'm not a bit hurt. Of course, I knew
that Rafe was quite a lady's man." She had smiled and buried the pain.

She realized,
now that she was older, that if she had faced Rafe then with what she had
discovered and they had talked about it, it might not have mushroomed in her
mind. Instead she found herself looking at Rafe when he wasn't watching her,
wondering what he was like with other women when she wasn't there. Then she
would berate herself, telling herself that she knew Rafe had seen other women
before he met her, but also that she had no reason to believe that he had ever
been unfaithful to her.

For
a long time things seemed to go back on even keel between them, but then Rafe
was gone for long periods of time and bitter arguments had ensued. Cady smiled
ruefully when she remembered that it hadn't been other women that had sparked
the tiffs but angry confrontations when Rafe listened to his father and Bruno
about not supporting nuclear regulatory legislation and enviromental protection
bills. More often than not Cady found herself at odds with both Bruno and her
father-in-law. Rafe resented it when she accused his father of callousness
vis-a-vis the good of the state and being interested only in his own markets
and those of his friends.

Great gulfs were
gouged between them. Eventually, Cady remembered, there had seemed to be no
safe topic they could discuss without beginning to argue hotly. There were long
periods of silence between them. Soon they began to see different cliques of
people. Cady threw herself into volunteer work while still keeping abreast of
the newest methods in archaeology, the life's work she would have chosen had
she continued into the master's program. She grinned wryly as she remembered
how, after they were married, she had enrolled at Georgetown in her original
major of physics, and how Professor Feinbloom had channeled her enthusiasm
toward his own field of archaeology. She had fully intended to get her master's
and had begun the courses for the three years it would take her at the pace she
had set herself. She had been careful to take an underload so that nothing
would interfere with her duties as a senator's wife.

After the
accident, when she had taken over the duties of Rafe's office, it had been
archaeology that had drawn her to Rob Ardmore, when she discovered that he had
dabbled in the field himself while at the university.

Cady looked out
the window of the cab and wondered what her life with Rafe would have been like
if only she had been mature enough to go to him when she was troubled. Would he
have been so resentful of her attitude toward his father if he had realized how
obstructive Emmett was with her? Would he have believed her if she had told
him when she first discovered that Bruno and Emmett manipulated him for their
own political reasons?

She
smiled humorlessly as the cab turned into the long, curving drive that led to
her house. How ironic, she thought, that the only time she ever fully communicated
with Rafe was when he was lying helpless in a tilted bed, unable to respond!

She
paid the cab and looked up at the facade of the Mount Vernon type house. She
had always liked this house because of its spacious airiness, but all at once
she longed for the quiet anonymity of their home in upstate New York. She
wanted to see her father again. She wanted to feel the balm of his wisdom, his
soft humor. In that moment she made up her mind. She was going home.

With
sudden intuition she knew that Rafe would try to stop her. He wouldn't like her
going. He never liked that. He could go off on fact finding tours throughout
the state or the world and he expected Cady to accept that, but he hated it
when she left him to visit her father. The one time she had accompanied a
friend to New York City to see a new musical that everyone had raved about, he
had muttered into his soup for days afterward.

She
greeted the ecstatic Doberman who raced around the house to greet her, Trock at
his heels.

"Everything
straightened out, Mrs. Densmore?" Trock watched her, his face
expressionless.

"The
senator is handling it, but I think he has a fight on his hands." She
rubbed the silken ears of the dog as they turned toward the rose garden in
unspoken agreement. Cady's nostrils distended as she inhaled the sweetness
around her. The roses were dying back now but had taken on a new luster because
of the cool overnight rain. The mild Virginia weather would sometimes let them
bloom until November.

"He'll beat
'em as soon as he has you riding shotgun for him, Mrs. D.," Trock said,
his sandpaper voice sounding strained after disgorging so many words.

Startled, Cady
turned to look at the man, wondering if the taciturn Trock was being sarcastic.

"You're his
good right arm, Mrs. D. Didn't you know that?"

Cady
shook her head, unable to accept what he was saying.

"Believe
it, Mrs. D." Trock coughed as though his throat was so out of condition
for talking that he had to keep clearing the debris of words. "He's got
nobody else but you..." He looked down at the dog, who was leaning against
Cady's legs. "And of course Graf here.. .and me."

Cady
smiled at the laconic man facing her across a huge Peace rosebush that had the
circumference of a good size dining room table. "Trock, the senator has a
large family here in Virginia. He has cousins in Texas and Florida. He's very
close to his brothers and sisters."

"He's
close to them, true, but they aren't close to him." He breathed hard.
"I saw plenty at the nursing home, Mrs. D. You came to see him every day.
Not the rest of them, though; they didn't come so regularly. Oh, I know they
told you at the desk they came, but Mr. Emmett and Mr. Trabold actually came
about once a week, a little more sometimes. The twins came a couple times a
week, the sisters maybe twice a month. Then they'd sit there and spill their
guts about all their troubles."

Cady stared at
him, aware that her mouth was agape. "You're saying that all those times
when I hurried to leave so that Rafe could spend some time with family
members... ? You mean they didn't visit according to the schedule? That it was
all a sham? That I could have stayed as long as I wanted to?"

"Most
days, yes, ma'am, I'd say that. I wanted to say something, but I thought maybe
you had set up the schedule yourself."

"I
didn't. Bruno Trabold insisted that Emmett and the family wanted to have their
own time with Rafe, so I agreed to a schedule." Cady felt her voice choke.
"You mean that many times he spent all those hours alone with no one to
visit him?"

"Yes,
ma'am. That's when I got into the habit of playing chess with him. He would
blink once for yes and twice for no when I moved the pieces. He was a smart
cuss, even strapped to that bed."

"Oh,
Lord," Cady moaned. "I would have spent every moment with him."
She bit her lip, fighting back tears. "Thank you, Trock, for not
abandoning him, but oh, I wish I'd known."

"No
sense looking back." He harumphed again. "That's why when I heard you
talking to the senator about having the operation, I knew it was the right
thing to do. I knew he wanted it."

"Yes,"
Cady whispered.

"Then you
must know how much he'll need your help with this environmental thing he was
talking about. Right?" Trock persisted, just about through with talking
for the day.

Cady
stared at the stocky attendant, knowing that his medium build was deceptive,
that he was strong and muscular. She let her glance rove from the steel-gray
crew cut to the masklike face and down the dungaree clad body. Had he read her
mind? Did he suspect that she wanted to leave and go home? Did Rafe really need
her as much as Trock said he did?

"I
don't know what the bills are all about... but I know he needs your help."
Trock inhaled deeply.

"I think
you mean the environmental bill that Harold Long, another senator, is
cosponsoring. That's the legislation that Greeley's men are fighting."

Trock
nodded. "I guess that's it," he said. "Listen, Mrs. D., are you
and the senator dining in tonight?"

"What?
Dining in? Oh, yes, I feel it's better not to have activities back to back for
the senator. That way he doesn't tire as much..." Cady's voice faltered,
her mind jumbled and going in all directions.

"Good idea.
The senator is getting stronger every day. He'll be better than he was before
when I get through with him."

Cady put her
hand on Track's arm. "I hope for all our sakes you will never consider
yourself done with the senator, but whatever you decide, I want you to know you
will always have a home with us."

Blood
chugged into Track's face, and his mouth and throat worked as though he were
trying to digest a two-by-four. He nodded once at Cady, then turned away, striding
toward the barnlike building that housed the therapy equipment.

Graf whined at
her side, drawing Cady's attention.

"All right,
boy." She patted him in an absent fashion, walking in a tangent toward the
open french doors leading from the library. "Let's go for a swim,"
she told the happy dog as he padded next to her up the stairs, the nails on his
paws clacking like typewriter keys. It took mere minutes to don her one piece
bathing suit, reach for a terry-cloth wrap, and hurry down the stairs again.

The pool was a
regulation twenty-five-yard rectangle that could be fitted with a bubble when
the weather turned cold. An avid swimmer, Cady used the pool every day she
could.

Graf had begun
jumping in the pool at Rafe's coaxing when Rafe had come home from the
hospital. Now the dog was in the habit of swimming with Cady or Rafe. Cady
assumed the dog swam with Trock as well, but she had never seen them in the
pool together.

She was on her
thirtieth lap, her goggles a little steamed up, when she felt the roll and
splash of the water that told her someone else had entered the pool. She
stopped swimming for a moment, treading water easily, and pushing the goggles
back on her head to look around her. She felt a feathery touch on her stomach,
and before she could react, she was pulled under, Rafe's grinning face in front
of her. Continuing to blow bubbles of air through his nose, he pulled her close
to his body and clamped his legs over hers. They surfaced, still kissing.

Cady
leaned back, gasping for air. "Do you have an auxiliary tank built into
your lungs?" she gulped at him, frowning.

He held her
easily, suspended in his arms. "Are you angry with me, Cady? I guess I
always knew that you would discover the scandal at Durra, but I hoped you
wouldn't." Rafe released her to let her float on her back, his arm
supporting her and her head on his shoulder. "It's something I deeply
regret, and I could never bring myself to speak of it to you. I wanted you to
be proud of me."

"I was very
proud to marry you, Rafe." Cady's voice had a tremor in it.

"But
not too proud when you heard about Durra," he said flatly, his hand
tightening under her breasts. "Cady, I won't try to make excuses for
myself..."

Cady
rolled free of him, splashing them both, then stroked to the side of the pool.

"Cady,
wait. Let's talk." His long arms touched the side of the pool at almost
the same time as Cady's.

"There's
nothing to talk about, Rafe." Her voice wobbled. "Bruno only
hammered home the facts I've tried not to admit to myself." She turned to
look at him, locking her jaw to keep her face from crumpling into tears.
"You were on your own for a long time before you met me. You traveled
around the world and you moved with a very slick crowd. I knew that, but I
still foolishly thought that I would be enough for you."

"You were,
Cady." Rafe bit off the words. "You still are."

Her head swung
back and forth like a pendulum. "No, Rafe, don't you fall into that trap,
believing the fairy story of our marriage that you used in your campaign
material."

"Cady,
I have been faithful to you," he growled, sweeping back his wet hair with
one hand.

"Have
you?" She shivered as much from the chill of the air on her wet body as
from the shock of memory. "On the day the plane crashed, you were on your
way to Durra. Bruno and Emmett told me while I waited in the hospital corridor
for the doctor to come and tell me that you had died."

"Did you wish that I had? Died, I mean?"
Bitterness laced Rafe's voice, and his nostrils were pinched white.

"Damn
you!" Cady blazed, raising herself out of the pool, a trembling hand
reaching for the terry-cloth robe. "Is that what you think?" She
whirled to face him, temper igniting her body like a match to spilled gasoline.
"I won't try to change your mind, but kindly remember that I spent many
long hours in office work, in caucus, in meetings, trying to keep your seat...
and... then... then I came to visit you..." Her breath rasped out of her
throat in painful jerks. Hot tears that she had buried for too long seemed to
well up like a boiling geyser. "And ... don't you think... I'm crying.
Because I'm not... and... don't you come near me... ever again." She tried
to whirl away from him, But Rafe caught her wrist.