SIXTEEN
"I thought she would be in bed by now."
Tate spoke from the doorway of Mandy's bathroom. Avery was kneeling beside the tub, where Mandy was worming her fingers through a mound of bubbles.
"She probably should be, but we went a little overboard with the bubble bath."
"So I see."
Tate came in and sat down on the lid of the commode. Mandy smiled up at him.
"Do your trick for Daddy," Avery told her.
Obediently, the child cupped a handful of suds and blew on them hard, sending clumps of white foam flying in all directions. Several landed on Tate's knee. He made a bigdeal of it. "Whoa, there, Mandy, girl! You're taking the bath, not me."
She giggled and scooped up another handful. This time a dollop of suds landed on Avery's nose. To Mandy's delight, she sneezed. "I'd better put a stop to this before it gets out of hand." She bent over the tub, slid her hands into Mandy's armpits, and lifted her out.
"Here, give her to me." Tate was waiting to wrap up his daughter in a towel.
"Careful. Slippery when wet."
Mandy, bundled in soft pink terry cloth, was carried into her adjoining bedroom and set down beside her bed. Her chubby little feet sank into the thick rug. Its luxuriant nap swallowed all ten toes. Tate sat down on the edge of her bed and began drying her with experienced hands.
" Nightie?" he asked, looking up at Avery expectantly.
"Oh, yes. Coming right up." There was a tall, six-drawer chest and a wide, three-drawer bureau. Where would the nighties be kept? She moved toward the bureau and opened the top drawer. Socks and panties.
"Carole? Second drawer."
Avery responded with aplomb. "She'll need underwear, too, won't she?" He unwound the towel from around Mandy and helped her step into her underwear, then pulled the nightgown over her head while Avery turned down her bed. He lifted Mandy into it.
Avery brought a hairbrush from the bureau, sat down beside Tate on the edge of the bed, and began brushing Mandy's hair. "You smell so clean," she whispered, bending down to kiss her rosy cheek once she'd finished with her hair. "Want some powder on?"
"Like yours?" Mandy asked.
"Hmm, like mine." Avery went back to the bureau for the small music box of dusting powder she'd spotted there earlier. Returning to the bed, she opened the lid. A Tchaikovsky tune began to play. She dipped the plush puff into the powder, then applied it to Mandy's chest, tummy, and arms. Mandy tilted her head back. Avery stroked her exposed throat with the powder puff. Giggling, Mandy hunched her shoulders and dug her fists into her lap.
"That tickles, Mommy."
The form of address startled Avery and brought tears to her eyes. She pulled the child into a tight hug. It was a moment before she could speak. "Now you really smell good, doesn't she, Daddy?"
"She sure does. 'Night, Mandy." He kissed her, eased her back onto the pillows, and tucked the summer-weight covers around her.
"Good night." Avery leaned down to softly peck her cheek, but Mandy flung her arms around Avery's neck and gave her mouth a smacking, moist kiss. She then turned onto her side, pulled a well-loved Pooh Bear against her, and closed her eyes.
Somewhat dazed by Mandy's spontaneous show of affection, Avery replaced the music box, turned out the light, and preceded Tate through the doorway and down the hall toward her own room.
"For our first day—"
She got no further before he grabbed her upper arm and shoved her inside her bedroom and against the nearest wall. Keeping one hand firmly around her biceps, he closed the door so they wouldn't be overheard and flattened his other palm against the wall near her head.
"What's the matter with you?" she demanded.
"Shut up and listen to me." He moved in closer, his face taut with anger. "I don't know what game you're playing with me. What's more, I don't give a shit. But if you start messing with Mandy, I'll kick you out so fast your head will spin, understand?"
"No. I don't understand."
"The hell you don't," he snarled. "This sweetness and light act is a bunch of crap."
"Act?"
"I'm an adult."
"You're a bully. Let go of my arm."
"I recognize your act for what it is. But Mandy is a child. To her it's real, and she'll respond to it." He inclined his body even closer. "Then, when you go back to being your old self, you'll leave her irreparably damaged."
"I—"
"I can't let that happen to her I won't."
"You give me very little credit, Tate."
"I give you none."
She sucked in a quick, harsh breath.
He looked her over rudely. "Okay, so this morning you dazzled the press on my behalf. Thank you. You took my hand during the press conference. Sweet. We're wearing matching wedding bands. How romantic," he sneered
"You've even got members of my family, who should know better, speculating that you had some kind of conversion experience in the hospital—found Jesus or something."
He lowered his head to within inches of hers. "I know you too well, Carole. I know that you are at your sweetest and kindest just before you go in for the kill." Increasing the pressure on her arm, he added, "I know that for a fact, remember?"
Distressed, Avery said fervently, "I have changed I am different."
"Like hell You've just changed tactics, that's all But I don't care how well you play the part of the perfect candidate's wife, you're out. What I told you before the crash still stands. After the election, no matter the outcome, you're gone, baby."
His threat of dispossession didn't frighten her. Avery Daniels had been dispossessed of everything already—even her identity. What stunned Avery was that Tate Rutledge, on whose integrity she would have staked her life, was a phony after all.
"You would manipulate the public that way?" she hissed. "You'd go through this campaign with me playing your devoted wife, standing at your side, waving and smiling and delivering silly speeches that are composed for me, only as a means of getting more votes?" Her voice had risen a full octave. "Because a happily married candidate has a better chance of winning than one caught up in a divorce procedure. Isn't that right?"
His eyes turned as hard as flint. "Good try, Carole. Shift the blame to me if it makes you feel better about your own manipulations. You know damn good and well why I didn't kick you out a long time ago. I want this election for myself and for the following I've cultivated. I won't let those voters down. I can't do anything that might prevent me from winning, even if it means pretending to live in wedded bliss with you."
Once again he subjected her to a contemptuous once-over. "Your surgery made the packaging look fresher, but you're still rotten on the inside."
Avery was having a difficult time keeping the aspersions he was casting on Carole separate from herself. She took each insult to heart, as though it were aimed at her and not his late wife. She wanted to defend herself against his criticism, to fight back with a woman's weapons. Because, while his fierce temperament was intimidating, it was also arousing.
His anger only intensified his sexiness. It emanated from him as potently as the scent of his after-shave. His mouth looked hard and cruel. It became Avery's goal to soften it.
She raised her head, defying his resentful glare. "Are you sure I'm the same?"
"Damn sure."
Sliding her arms over his shoulders, she clasped her hands behind his neck. "Are you sure, Tate?" Coming up on tiptoes, she brushed her parted lips across his. "Absolutely sure?"
"Don't do this. It only makes you more of a whore." "I'm not!"
The insult smarted. In a way, she was prostituting herself with another woman's husband for the sake of a story. But that wasn't motivating her as much as a growing sexual need more powerful than any she had ever experienced. With or without her story, she had a genuine desire to give Tate the tenderness and love that had been missing from his marriage to Carole.
"I'm not the woman I was before. I swear to you I'm not."
She tilted her head to one side and aligned her lips with his. Her hands cupped the back of his head, her fingers curling through his hair and drawing him down. If he really wanted to, he could resist, Avery assured herself.
But he allowed his head to be drawn closer to hers. Encouraged, she daintily used the moist tip of her tongue to probe at his lips. His muscles tensed, but it was a sign of weakness, not endurance.
"Tate?" She gently nipped his lower lip with her teeth.
"Christ."
The hand bracing him against the wall fell away. Avery was propelled backward when she absorbed the weight of his body, becoming sandwiched between him and the wall. One arm curled hard and tight around her waist. His other hand captured her jaw, almost crushing it between his strong fingers. It held her head in place while he kissed her ravenously. He sealed her open mouth to his with gentle suction, then burrowed his tongue into the silky wet cavity.
Leaving her gasping for breath, he angled his head the opposite way and tormented her with quick, deft flicks of his tongue across her lips and barely inside them. Her hands moved to his cheeks. She laid her palms against them and ran her fingertips across his cheekbones as she gave herself totally to his kiss.
He fumbled with her clothing, thrusting his hand beneath her skirt, into her underpants, and filling it with soft woman flesh. She moaned pleasurably when he tilted her middle up against his swollen pelvis and ground it against her cleft.
Avery felt fluid and feverish. Her sex was wet and warm. Her breasts ached. The nipples tingled.
Then she was abruptly deserted.
She blinked her eyes into focus. Her head landed hard against the wall behind her. She flattened her hands against it to keep herself from sliding to the floor.
"I'll grant you that it's a polished act," he said woodenly. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes were dilated. His breathing was rapid and shallow. "You're not as blatant as you used to be, but classier. Different, but just as sexy. Maybe even sexier."
She looked down at the distended fly of his jeans, a look that made words superfluous.
"Okay, I'm hard," he admitted with an angry growl. "But I'll die of it before I'll sleep with you again."
He walked out. He didn't slam the door behind him, but left it standing open, more of an insult than if he had stormed out. Heartsick and wounded, Avery was left alone in Carole's room, with Carole's chintz, Carole's mess.
Everyone in the family had noticed the puzzling inconsistencies in Carole's personality, but her odd behavior was keeping one person in particular awake at night. After hours of prowling the grounds surrounding the house, looking for answers in the darkness, the insomniac posed a question to the moon.
What is the bitch up to?
No radical changes in her could be pinpointed. The differences in her face were subtle, the result of the reconstructive surgery. Shorter hair made her look different, but that was inconsequential. She had lost a few pounds, making her appear slimmer than before, but it was certainly no drastic weight loss. Physically, she was virtually the same as before the crash. It was the nonphysical changes that were noticeable and so damned baffling.
What is the bitch up to?
Judging by her behavior since the crash, one would think her brush with death had given her a conscience. But that couldn't be. She didn't know the meaning of the word. Although for all the goodwill she was dispensing, that's apparently what she wanted everybody to believe.
Could Carole Rutledge have had a change of heart? Could she be seeking her husband's approval? Could she ever be a loving, attentive mother?
Don't make me laugh.
She was stupid to switch tactics now. She'd been doing fine at what she'd been hired to do: destroy Tate Rutledge's soul, so that by the time that bullet exploded in his head, it would almost be a blessing to him.
Carole Navarro had been perfect for the job. Oh, she'd had to be scrubbed down, tidied up, dressed correctly, and taught not to spike her speech with four-letter words. But by the time the overhaul had been completed, she had been a stunning package of wit, intellect, sophistication, and sexiness that Tate hadn't been able to resist.
He hadn't known that her wit had been cleansed of all ribaldry, that her intellect was only refined street smarts, her sophistication acquired, and her sexiness tempered with false morality. Just as planned, he'd fallen for the package, because it had promised everything he had been looking for in a wife.
Carole had perpetuated the myth until after Mandy was born—that had also been according to plan. It had been a relief for her to put phase two into action and start having affairs. The shackles of respectability had been chafing her for a long time. Her patience had worn thin. Once let loose, she performed beautifully.
God, it had been marvelous fun to witness Tate in his misery!
Except for that indiscreet visit in the hospital ICU, there'd been no mention made of their secret alliance since she was introduced to Tate four years ago. Neither by word or deed had they given away the pact they had made when she had been recruited for the job.
But since the crash, she'd been even more evasive than usual. She bore watching—closely. She was doing some strange and unusual things, even for Carole. The whole family was noticing the unfamiliar personality traits.
Maybe she was acting strange for the hell of it. That would be like her. She enjoyed being perverse for perversity's sake alone. That wasn't serious, but it rankled that she had seized the initiative to change the game plan without prior consultation.
Perhaps she hadn't had an opportunity to consult yet. Perhaps she knew something about Tate that no one else was privy to and which needed to be acted upon immediately.
Or perhaps the bitch—and this was the most likely possibility—had decided that being a senator's wife was worth more to her than the payoff she was due to receive the day Tate was laid in a casket. After all, her metamorphosis had coincided with the primary election.
Whatever her motive, this new behavior pattern was as annoying as hell. She'd better watch herself, or she'd be cut out. At this point, it could all go down with or without her participation. Didn't the stupid bitch realize that?
Or had she finally realized that a second bullet was destined for her?