In the Weeds Read online

  The White House loomed. Ivy had been here dozens of times working with the White House Military Office as part of her training, but she’d never stood on the South Lawn before. She’d also never arrived by helicopter, but it was still the same White House. It was still the same WHMO.

  Except it completely wasn’t.

  It was as if she’d teleported down onto another planet and was caught in one of those Star Trek back-in-time episodes.

  Here she was, walking across the South Lawn. The long arms of the East and West Wings wholly overshadowed by the towering white facade of the Residence. Fifty meters wide and twenty high, it looked as if the mass of sandstone was going to tumble down the gentle slope and crush her.

  Overseas, she’d seen far too much of Libya and plenty of Iraq and Yemen from the air. Her Marine Expeditionary Unit—MEU—had gone on to Syria at the same time her requested transfer to HMX-1 had come through. She still felt bad about that. However, after the recent attack on the Presidential Motorcade, she was feeling less guilty. The President needed the best protection there was. That’s why the Marines were on the job.

  But now she was a sole Marine—without the two thousand other Marines of her MEU—walking toward the most imposing facade in the nation’s capital. Perhaps in the world.

  Walk like you own it!

  Yeah right, Sergeant. It was an act of sheer will to remain upright despite her knees gone to liquid.

  She held the line set by Colby. The South Portico with its twin sweep of stairs was off to her right. And to her left, the Oval Office dominated the South Lawn from its corner. It actually didn’t look like much, a curved wall with a lot of windows and several tactically placed trees that would mask the Oval Office from a distant shooter. But even though the President was at Camp David with the Australian Prime Minister, the Oval Office was there and she could feel the windowed eyes watching her every step.

  Colby had been guiding her toward the Rose Garden. The entrance there led into the hall that ran between the Press Briefing and Cabinet Rooms. Past those lay the main floor of the West Wing, but there was a stairway around the first corner that would allow her to descend into the far less scary ground floor of the West Wing.

  “Does it still spook you every time you walk here?” Ivy whispered her question to Colby as she crossed the paved circular driveway for the South Portico.

  When he didn’t respond, she looked over at him, except he wasn’t there. He was behind her, trotting to catch up. Rex had a happy smile and lolling tongue as he had a chance to move with a springy lope rather than dragging at his leash.

  “What happened to your knees?” His dark slacks were brightly grass-stained along with one of the elbows of his white shirt.

  Colby just glared at her like he was some kind of pissed. About what, who knew? Or cared? Not her.

  Ten minutes. That’s what he’d said. Fine! She was a Marine. She could cover a kilometer wearing a forty-pound rucksack in under ten minutes—she could certainly deal with Colby Thompson for that long. Thank goodness they didn’t have to work together.

  She turned back just in time to plow into a small Shetland Sheepdog that yipped in surprise as a young voice called out, “Zackie!”

  Colby managed to grab Ivy’s arm before she plummeted to the ground. As a result of his grasp, they performed a small whirling dance. He almost had their balance right—except Rex, as he’d been trained to do during the unexpected, firmly braced himself to act as a support if needed.

  Instead of support, the sudden tightening of the leash in his hand tipped Colby’s own balance past recovery. If he’d let go of the leash or Ivy at that moment, she might have been fine. But some part of him hadn’t cooperated and he was dragging her down with him.

  With a sharp twist, he managed to get his back to the lawn and take the brunt of the fall—squarely on his spare: the Glock handgun that he kept at the small of his back. Pain sliced up his back.

  The rigid black brim of Ivy’s hat cracked him sharply enough across the bridge of his nose to bring tears to his eyes. And the impact of her fist, tightly clutched around her tablet computer, nailed him in the solar plexus.

  “What the hell?” Ivy shouted at him from an inch away.

  All he could answer with were small whoop noises as he desperately struggled to take a breath. That Ivy continued to lie full upon him made it even harder to recover.

  He’d only ever let himself think about how goddamn cute Ivy was—and even that little bit only on rare occasions before he caught himself. He’d never thought of what it would be like to actually touch her or…

  Lying full upon him, she didn’t feel like a best friend’s little sister under a no-touch-no-think interdiction. She was no longer the little girl he’d practically helped raise.

  Colby inhaled through his nose to force his breathing to slow down. It was the fastest way to recover from a solar plexus hit. But it also filled his senses with her scent. She smelled of glory and gunmetal, of spring grass and not even a little bit of the teenage girl running down the beach in a hormone-busting sleek one-piece. As she struggled to free herself, she nearly cut off his nose with one of her collar-point insignias. She felt so light, except against his diaphragm, which was registering a weight somewhere between elephant and lying under one of the wheels of Air Force One. Whoop. Whoop.

  “Let. Go. Of. Me.” Ivy ground out the syllables like a military command.

  It took him a moment to identify that his hands were still firmly clenched about her upper arms. Serious biceps and triceps there for a woman. Rex was sitting off to the side holding his own leash, which Colby had finally dropped, between his teeth.

  It took Colby several moments more to unclench his grasp without setting off more spasms in his chest.

  In seconds, Ivy’s weight was gone. She now stood, brushing at her immaculate uniform. No grass stain would dare impinge on her perfection.

  Perfection. That was Ivy Hanson’s specialty. That’s why he’d tagged her as Saint Ives when she was all of five. The nickname had worked on several other levels as well—particularly in that it had always irritated her.

  Saint Ives lived to be in hot pursuit of the absolute perfect. Nothing less, in herself or others, was ever tolerated. As a kid he’d first thought it was ridiculous. Then later, a little terrifying.

  By the time she’d hit high school and was entering state-wide martial arts competitions, he’d wondered what he’d been missing by not trying harder to achieve something—anything. He was smart enough that he’d been able to loaf through high school without much effort. With Ivy jarring his attitude, he managed to kick a little ass in college with solid grades and a state swimming championship.

  He’d always been a good swimmer. The Thompsons and the Hansons had side-by-side cabins near Ocean City on the Maryland barrier islands. They’d all been swimming through the breakers since the time they could walk. College had simply honed that natural ability until it felt as if he owned that skill.

  By the time he made the Secret Service, it felt as if he was in control of his life. Dog handler at the White House totally rocked.

  Then Saint Ives shows up. She’d driven him to become who he was, even if she didn’t know anything about that. But instead of living up to that standard, suddenly he was in high school not-living-up-to-his-potential mode again. It wasn’t fair.

  He sat up once his gut muscles could tolerate a sit-up. A sit-up square into a giant face lick by Zackie.

  “Dilya! Get your dog off me!” But he smiled and scrubbed the Sheltie on the head, making her wag her tail happily, to show there were no hard feelings. It wasn’t the First Dog’s fault that it was so excessively cheerful; just part of the breed.

  “She’s not my dog.”

  “As good as.”

  He looked up at Dilya. The teen was the First Dog’s handler as well as the on-site babysitter for the former-President-turned-Secretary-of-State’s child. And now with the First and Second ladies both pregnant, she was soon
going to have her hands full. It was a good thing she was finishing high school a year ahead next month.

  “You hear from the schools yet?”

  “Georgetown. Political science and international affairs double major. So, I still get to play part-time nanny and dog sitter here.”

  “Wow! You go, girl. Too bad you weren’t born in the US. I’d vote for you for President.” Dilya was seventeen, brilliant, and—he had to blink a few times—fast becoming a gorgeous young woman. Her Uzbekistani medium-dark skin and long black ruffled hair were offset by brilliant green eyes. She was taller than Ivy, but gawky-teen slender rather than Ivy’s ever-so-nice, hyper-fit, Marine Corps trim. The guys were definitely going to be hounding her heels.

  Though Dilya also mysteriously seemed to be at the center of everything that happened around the White House.

  “President is too visible. Maybe I’ll run the CIA instead. Or maybe the Secret Service, then you could work for me.” Then she bit her lower lip, clearly something she hadn’t meant to say.

  Dilya had that same driven enthusiasm that had always made Ivy such a standout.

  She hurried on, “I was just walking Zackie when I spotted the helo. She wanted to say hi to Rex.”

  Colby rose to his feet and gave Dilya the same treatment he’d just given the First Dog: a big head rub to mess up her hair. Though he wouldn’t be trying that on Major Ivy Hanson.

  “Hey!”

  “You heard the helo, knew the First Family wasn’t due back yet, and were in too much of a hurry to grab Zackie’s leash as you used her as an excuse to rush and see what was going on.”

  Dilya just grinned at him and held out her empty palms.

  “I shouldn’t even introduce you.”

  “Oh, she’s Major Ivy Hanson, the new HMX-1 liaison to the WHMO,” Dilya did know everything. “Hi, I’m Dilya. Sorry about Zackie.”

  Ivy scowled at him rather than the dog.

  “Are you okay, Ives?”

  “Little slow with that question, Colby. This is your idea of a welcoming committee?”

  “No, Rex and I typically reserve this particular type of greeting for visiting heads of state. The Pope and I had a nice roll around the fountain one particularly sunny afternoon.” He pointed to where the big fountain splashed cheerfully farther down the South Lawn. With the helo gone, it was the loudest sound there was. The traffic on Constitution Ave beyond the Ellipse was muted by comparison.

  “I’m thinking that my brother wouldn’t hold it against me if I killed you right now.”

  “He still owes me fifty bucks from poker the other night, so he might offer to hold me down. Just saying, in case you need to take up a posthumous collection for my funeral expenses. Of course, then you’d have to put up with Rex. He’d whine pitifully if something happened to me.”

  Ivy looked down at his German shepherd. “You sure about that?”

  Rex sent him a questioning look, like: What are we standing around for? Or perhaps it was a doubtful look, like: Miss you? Maybe yes, maybe no.

  Could she have found any less dignified approach to her first day? Thank God there hadn’t been a Press Corps photographer around. Ivy brushed at her uniform again, but couldn’t find any grass stains.

  Rex didn’t look like a whiner. More like a furry, four-footed Zulu Cobra attack helo—lean and lethal.

  She really needed to have a long talk with Reggie about his choice in best friends. Colby Thompson was definitely a lower life form, the kind a woman scraped off her boot after stepping in it accidentally. He’d always been a lazy, arrogant jerk wholly convinced of his own self-worth with little to no justification.

  Then he leaned down to pet his dog and take the leash from the dog’s mouth.

  But he didn’t look useless. Nor had he moved like some bumbler. Her martial arts training let her understand the move he’d done to take the hit of the fall himself. It wasn’t something he’d thought about, then done; there wasn’t time. It had been an instinctively trained act, trained to the point of reflex, to protect those around him. The fact that it was also a decent and selfless act must be strictly a coincidence.

  And lying on him, he hadn’t felt useless. Instead he’d…

  As he turned to chat with the teen, she could see the grass stains on his white Uniformed Division shirt: both elbows, one shoulder that must have dug in hard to get so green, and a clear imprint of the backup piece at the small of his back that had to really hurt to land on. But no complaints. Instead he’d asked if she was okay. This wasn’t any version of Colby Thompson that she recognized. This wasn’t the boy who’d taught her to read one moment and started a food fight that she’d been the one to get in all the trouble for the next moment.

  Watching his back, she could appreciate other changes in him. He was no longer the whip thin Colby she’d grown up next door to. Somewhere along the way he’d earned himself seriously broad swimmer’s shoulders. The rest of his body showed that he made his living on his feet: powerful legs, trim waist, tight—

  She was not looking at Colby Thompson’s glutes.

  But she could still feel the strength of his arms as he wrapped them around her to protect her from the fall.

  She was a Marine Corps major. She didn’t need anyone to protect her. Her aircraft had often been the tip of the spear—first on the ground delivering forward teams beneath the watchful eye of the leading gunships. The only protection she needed was provided by the Corps.

  Colby and Dilya appeared ready to chat all through the sunny morning. Zackie and Rex had sat close beside their handlers and were holding a tongue-lolling contest.

  Ivy punched Colby on the shoulder, the unstained one to avoid staining her knuckles. Not hard enough to knock him off balance, but hard enough that she double-checked to see if she’d just punched a brick wall. Again, solid muscle and Colby Thompson, hard to equate the two.

  “Right. Sorry. Later Dilya.” He reached out and messed up the girl’s hair again.

  He tried that on her and she would kill him. Why did guys always think that was so cute? She shared a glance of commiseration with Dilya as the teen struggled to get her hair to lie properly again.

  Ivy punched Colby’s shoulder again—hard—on Dilya’s behalf.

  “Hey, what was that for? We’re going already.” He began leading her once more toward the West Wing.

  Ivy glanced back to see Dilya shove enough hair aside to uncover a wide grin. Ivy found it very easy to smile back before she followed Colby.

  Today was supposed to be about stepping into her new job and confirming relationship roles. She checked her Star Trek wrist watch—its silver face etched with the lines of the top of the NCC-1701 Enterprise’s saucer section was sufficiently elegant and understated to be permissible with her uniform—stated that she still had fifteen minutes before her meeting with Major General Markham, the director of the White House Military Office.

  Yet against all common sense, she had the sudden notion that perhaps she’d just had the most important introduction she’d have today. The President’s dog walker had known who she was, had the run of the grounds even during an HMX-1 landing, and her innocent teenager act didn’t fool Ivy for a second—though Colby appeared to have swallowed it whole.

  Or…Ivy was imagining everything and there was a force field around Colby Thompson that projected mental aberrations on unsuspecting Marine Corps majors. That hypothesis at least had a higher degree of plausibility.

  As they crossed through the Rose Garden, she glanced back once more.

  Dilya had produced a tennis ball from somewhere and was heaving it far out onto the South Lawn. The Sheltie went bounding after it. It could have been any girl playing with her dog. But it wasn’t. This was the White House and everything here had more meaning than it would anywhere else. Just as Ivy was turning away, Dilya’s bright eyes swung to inspect her again. Focused. Thoughtful.

  Yes, the girl was not what she seemed.

  The Rose Garden itself was something of a dis
appointment. In none of her prior visits had she actually been out to see the gardens. The Jackie Kennedy Garden on the far side of the South Portico was a riot of brilliant blooms. The Rose Garden itself was a broad, rectangular expanse of perfectly trimmed lawn. Only the border had trees and flowers. The bright pink of the magnolia tree blossoms were brilliant, but the narrow border of roses and immaculate box hedges didn’t impress her much. It was so formal. A rose garden should be a lush affair that abounded with masses of blooms, not some carefully constrained study in rectangles.

  Hopefully she wouldn’t be disillusioned by trading her chance at being an HMX pilot for the WHMO position.

  Colby led her up the broad steps at the far end of the Rose Garden. Atop the steps they crossed the West Colonnade and Colby held the door open for her into the West Wing.

  Did that have more meaning too? Colby Thompson had never held a door for her once in all the years growing up together. She’d have remembered if he had, just because it would have been so unusual. He’d been far more likely to “accidentally” let one close in her face. And she’d been just as likely to “accidentally” kick him in the shins shortly afterward.

  He had also managed to keep her from disgracing herself and her uniform on her first day. What meaning did that have?

  Facts are all that count. Marine officers love conjecture, but never lose sight of the facts! McKinnon had been mostly right about that one. She’d learned that there were times to ponder an enemy’s intentions, but never to lose sight of the facts.

  Fact: She knew Colby Thompson’s failures as a human being far too well.

  Fact: None of those appeared evident in the man holding the door for her.

  Hypothesis: Maybe he was a pod-person, a secret alien substitute in Colby clothing.

  Conclusion? She was flying deep in a total brownout.

  2

  “You’re a sad case, Thompson.” Captain Baxter’s bullhorn voice echoed through the big Secret Service Ready Room in the West Wing’s ground floor. It made every agent look up, first at Baxter, then invariably following his glare (as clear as a laser on a foggy night) to the green grass stains all over his clothing.