Zachary's Christmas Page 4

  Almost without thinking, she followed the sound with Zachary close beside her. Zachary. Some part of her had let go of “Mr. Vice President” and she’d have to be careful that it didn’t escape out into the world. That would be too disrespectful. But internally she decided that she liked Zachary Thomas very much.

  Silent Night led them down corridors thick with red, green, and white poinsettias, then through a passageway beneath an arch of massively blooming purple bougainvillea. The soprano was joined by a larger group of voices as Good King Wenceslas accompanied them past a miniature Jefferson Memorial, the Washington Monument, and a gorgeous model of the Conservatory complete with tiny plants and bonsai trees visible through the miniature greenhouse roofs. And now that she was looking for them in their tour, the constant hum of trains was everywhere as they clattered around tree trunks and ducked out of sight under banana leaves bigger than the length of whole trains.

  Zachary Thomas playing with trains in the basement. It was easy to imagine him so, despite his lofty office. Even easier to imagine him with a child or two to join him.

  They reached the main Garden Court where they’d first entered, looking almost sparse now after touring through the jungle’s lush growth. A small stage had been backed against the main entrance. The aisles had sprouted folding chairs in every nook and cranny. There were perhaps a hundred of them, mostly filled.

  On the small stage a dozen men and women crowded close together. Three of the women wore sparkling red gowns, the other three an elegant green. The men, typically, had it easy and all wore very sharp-looking black tuxedos. At first she thought they were a choir, but spotted no violin or percussion though she could hear them clearly. Acapella. One of the men was beat-boxing a drum kit with his voice and a woman trilled like a fine set of strings to accompany the other voices. The effect was magical.

  Zachary guided her to a pair of seats at the very back, close by an exit. The Secret Service agents arranged themselves in doorways and stood against the back wall, only Harvey remaining close by—clearly ready to throw himself in front of the Vice President in case there was mad caroler in the crowd.

  She could see the effects of the Vice President’s presence propagate slowly forward through the crowd. One head turned, then another. In moments the back half of the audience was glancing their direction, barely watching the concert.

  “Zachar—Mr. Vice President?” she asked him softly. All of the attention was unnerving her.

  “It’s okay, Anne.”

  She’d almost used his name. A heat rose to her cheeks that was partly from the crowd’s attention but partly from her own presumption.

  “They’ll get used to it in a moment.”

  She didn’t like being looked at so much. But after a few whispered comments between companions, most turned away. Some waved. The Vice President waved back pleasantly, but quickly returned his attention to the concert. More than one of them snapped a photograph.

  A photo of the Vice President.

  No, of the Vice President and…

  “We have to go,” she whispered fiercely and started to rise.

  “Why?” he kept her in place by wrapping his other hand over where hers was still tucked inside his elbow.

  “They’re taking pictures.”

  “They always do,” the Vice President remained perfectly calm, keeping his voice soft enough to not disturb anyone on the other side of the two-seat buffer that the Secret Service was maintaining to all sides.

  “They’re taking pictures of us. Don’t you get that?”

  “My dear Ms. Darlington, they’ve been doing that since the moment we stepped into the Conservatory.”

  “They have? But the media…” How had she not noticed that? Was she so oblivious?

  “You mean the social media—ten times faster I assure you, though curiously it is generally kinder. I am single. I have been known to escort beautiful women before, though none quite as startling as you. It will give them something to talk about.”

  “The only thing startling about me is how out of my depth I am.”

  On the farm she’d have noticed someone pulling out a camera. Visitors to the farm always wanted a photo with one of the Darlingtons, but it was done with a Southern politeness and they almost always asked first. Here there must have been a thousand surreptitious snaps with camera phones. It would be all over DC already. Picked up by the national media by tomorrow and…

  “I’m so not ready for this.”

  # # #

  Zack felt contrite, but not very. This sort of attention was mild compared to when he took someone to a restaurant or other public venue. He considered leaving as Anne had suggested, but he didn’t want to. He was enjoying the music; the group was very good, though their current early Baroque Christmas ballad was less to his taste. And he was very much enjoying her company. She had used his name rather than his title with an easy familiarity that few women achieved and never on a first date; well, almost had.

  Date?

  Yes. It felt like a first date. And a good one if he was any judge. Her hand still remained lightly trapped between his own and his elbow. He liked that as well.

  She wasn’t one of the typical DC women he was used to—who were very focused, very goal-oriented. Over the last five years he’d briefly dated a State Department senior analyst, a Judicial Branch mediator, and a serving Air Force captain from the Pentagon’s Southeast Asia division. Everyone was driven by a force that the Coloradan in him found exhausting. There was never a down moment. There was never only one thing on the table. And all of that was backed by the directness of a DC insider that left room for little else.

  When Anne had concentrated on the plants, she’d looked at nothing else. She had no agenda, hidden or otherwise. Her questions when they spoke weren’t about politics. In his world, he had to watch every word he said because it could be used by his date later to make a cutting point or to feed the media. Instead of speaking with infinite caution, he’d told Anne Darlington about the train set.

  He’d never told anyone about that, not even childhood friends who would have gone nuts if they’d seen the elaborate setup in the Thomas’ basement. It had been his and his father’s alone. Zack had spent endless hours building miniature landscapes, shaping two-percent grades, and forming tunnels through tiny mountains. They’d used the smallest train gauge—the tiny Z, where a seventy-foot engine was reduced to a mere four inches long—allowing for the maximum complexity in the space they had—a twenty-story building scaled to just under a foot high in the Z-gauge world. Whenever General Thomas had come home, Zack had barely been able to contain himself until after that first night’s dinner when just the two of them would go down and inspect the results of Zack’s efforts.

  His father might spend half an hour inspecting all the changes if he’d been away for a long time. He’d run trains over any new sections and they’d both check for performance and realism. The general’s highest form of praise would be when he rolled up his sleeves and say, “Looks as if we’re ready to start the next section.”

  Zack came to the Conservatory each year not for the concerts, or even the models of DC landmarks, but instead for the trains. They were mostly the bigger O-gauge, whose eighteen-inch long engines always felt clunky to him, but still they were very well done. It made him both nostalgic and a bit sad; which were the two emotions he most associated with Christmas.

  His father was presently stationed at the Eglin Air Force Base in Florida but was often in DC. Their few dinners together were awkward, quiet, and now very infrequent. That his own son might someday be the next Commander-in-Chief had raised another wall of formality, as if there hadn’t already been enough since the day Zachary Thomas had entered the academy and become a very junior officer who saluted every time his father appeared.

  Yet he’d told Anne Darlington about the trains. She was smart, beautiful, and funny�
��the last something he definitely wasn’t used to. She also offered a genuine warmth that made her stand out even more from his prior experiences.

  The Congressional Hearings’ rendition of I Saw Mama Kissing Santa Claus had him looking over at Anne. She was singing along silently, again simply in the moment. He almost leaned down to...but they were in public and he had no wish to embarrass her further. Never before had he needed to think about keeping any physicality carefully out of sight behind closed doors. Anne made him think again.

  All he’d expected was a pleasant evening spent cheering her up. Instead, he was on a first date and wondering like an overeager teen if he might get a kiss at the end of the evening. The group broke into a racy rendition of All I Want for Christmas Is You.

  She happened to glance up at him and immediately started laughing. Her merry tone loud enough to make several of the nearer concert goers turn to look.

  “What?”

  Anne patted his arm in a friendly fashion, “It’s all over your face, Mr. Vice President.”

  He considered doing his best to fix that. Then he thought better of it and rubbed his hand all over his face as if trying to erase any expression. When he finished, he made a goofy face with a sloppy grin.

  “Is this any better?”

  “Much!” And her continued merriment verified that as true.

  He did school his expression after he heard the ka-shick sound of several cell phones.

  Chapter 3

  “Of course they chose that picture.”

  Anne was not going to give her brother the satisfaction of appearing put out by the newspaper he was waving around. His wife Alice was paying very careful attention to her bowl of fruit and yogurt.

  They were sitting on stools in the Residence’s third floor kitchen around the large maple cutting block island. She’d always liked this kitchen, it was elegant but cozy—dark-stained oak cabinets with brass hardware. If she ever had a house of her own, it would have a kitchen like this one. Alice wore jeans, a turtleneck, and a knit sweater in Christmas red with a complex white snowflake worked into the back. Daniel wore his inevitable three-piece suit. This President was more informal than most, often found in no more than a shirt and tie with his suit pants, but not his Chief of Staff.

  “I think it’s cute,” Anne just couldn’t leave it alone: Zachary’s face distorted like a circus clown’s, her own head back in the moment of the laugh she’d been unable to repress.

  “VP Fools Around With…double-entendre intended…Unidentified Blond,” Daniel read the headline aloud for the fifth time, each time with the same notation. Her brother always was a little predictable.

  Alice didn’t speak but pointed her spoon toward the small television on the counter tuned to CNN, but with the sound off. Anne’s own picture, not a bad one thank god, was on the screen. Large white letters on a red background read, White House Chief of Staff’s Sister.

  “No longer unidentified. Don’t I even get my own name?”

  “Not in this city,” Alice smiled at her. “Even if I hadn’t taken Daniel’s last name, it wouldn’t have mattered. At the CIA I’m typically referred to as the W-H-C-o-S wife. That’s pronounced whickos, like whackos. You learn to roll with it.”

  “Why did you take my brother’s name anyway? I always meant to ask.”

  “I just love him that much,” she smiled sweetly at Daniel.

  Anne made a gagging sound.

  “I also wanted to anchor firmly in his subconscious that this is permanent. I only give my heart once.”

  “Don’t have to worry about that. My brother is more loyal than a herd of lemmings.”

  “He is. So are you, which is a very sweet family trait. So, when are you going to tell your brother what kind of a kisser the Vice President is?”

  “Why would I tell him about tha—” And Anne knew that she’d walked right into Alice’s trap. She had to remember that Alice Darlington III was a top analyst and nothing slipped by her despite the impression given by her casual attire and cheerfully unruly mop of russet-colored hair that often hid one or other eye from view.

  “You…kissed…the…Vice…President?” Daniel finally slumped onto his stool, his power-smoothie still untouched before him.

  “He kissed me.”

  “Details, Sister,” Alice ignored her husband’s sputtering. “I want details.”

  “Okay, maybe I kissed him. But he’s such a gentleman that sometimes the girl has to take the initiative.”

  “Don’t I know it,” Alice sighed and spooned up some more yogurt. “Your brother has the same issue.”

  “I kissed you first.”

  “Yes!” Alice suddenly cried out. “I was exhausted. Out on my feet. He took wholly inappropriate advantage of me. Threw me onto this very counter and ravaged me senseless.”

  “I did no such thing!”

  “Regrettably true,” Alice’s voice returned to absolute normal. “And no matter how he remembers it, I had to kiss him first; though he did get with the program very quickly. Still—me, this counter, wild sex—never happened.”

  Anne only had to look in Alice’s eyes for a moment before they both turned to Daniel and said in unison, “Why not?”

  They both turned away and left Daniel to sputter pointlessly on a new topic.

  To save Alice repeating her question about the kiss, because there was no question she would, Anne continued, “What skills the Vice President might lack in maintaining proper decorum in public,” she tapped the newspaper Daniel had dropped onto the cutting block, “he more than compensates for in the back seat of a Secret Service SUV parked safely out of sight in the EEOB garage.”

  “My own sister kissed the Vice President…” Daniel’s voice was soft and disbelieving.

  “Drink your smoothie, dear,” Alice patted his hand.

  Momentarily quelled, he did just that. Alice really was impressive in how she could handle her brother. He’d always been the polite sibling, but he’d also been stubborn to the edge of monomania whenever he was locked onto a topic.

  Anne still didn’t quite believe that kiss herself. Only one of the agents had actually left the vehicle, stepping out to open her door, when she’d done it. Harvey had remained in the SUV.

  Still seated, she and Zachary had both stumbled over “pleasant evening” words and then relapsed into silence. It wasn’t that he’d been so kind to her that made her decide to kiss him; it was that he simply was so kind. What she wasn’t going to tell her sister-in-law, or her brother for that matter, was that the goodnight kiss had been intended as only a friendly peck of thanks on the cheek. Let them think it had been little more than that.

  But it hadn’t happened that way. As if by some unspoken plan, he’d turned just as she leaned in and in seconds she was lost in a kiss that had her practically crawling into his lap for more. Perhaps she would have if either of them had thought to release their seat belts. Zachary Thomas’ kisses didn’t allow much room for thought; all she’d been able to do was feel. And the feeling had been glorious right down to her toes. Before they came up for air, Harvey also had exited the vehicle—without her even noticing.

  Oh, there was something else she’d almost forgotten.

  Anne winked at Alice, then she turned to face Daniel, “By the way, Brother, I have dinner plans tonight.”

  # # #

  The rap on his front door was in the rhythm that Zack recognized as Harvey’s.

  He continued dictating instructions to Cornelia over his shoulder as he came out into the front foyer. Normally he would just shout that it was open—the ever present Secret Service a better guard than any deadbolt—but he had hopes on who he’d find there. He saw two images through the frosted glass: the tall, square-shouldered head of his Protection Detail and a shorter, lighter image that just had to be Anne. He opened the heavy door himself.

  “Wow
! What a beautiful house. I love the three-story circular turret.” But she wasn’t looking at the interior, she was looking at him, which had his body reheating rapidly with the memory of her kiss last night. Just like Anne herself, there had been nothing tentative about it. No considerations of composure or propriety. She’d apparently wanted to kiss him as much as he wanted to kiss her, so she had. It had been amazing.

  “Thanks,” was all he managed. Her long spill of blond hair was back in a ponytail. Not one of those high-tails that were so in fashion and looked more like a hair extension than it did like hair, but a normal tail that just gathered her hair back from her face. And though she was once again in her voluminous parka, he now knew something of what lay hidden beneath those folds. Still showing jeans and those scuffed high-end cowboy boots below; definitely his kind of girl. She looked—

  “Planning to invite me in or do Harvey and I have to stay out here in the cold until you are through with your military inspection, Captain Vice President sir?” She offered a sloppy salute.

  “If I let you in, I may not let you leave again.”

  “Forewarned is disarmed. If you let me in, I may not want to leave again,” her smile was sassy though she spoke completely matter-of-factly. “Besides, it’s cold out here.”

  “I’ll risk it,” he held the door wide. Anne walked in. Harvey began to turn away. “Come in, Harvey, get warm for a minute. Cornelia’s almost through for the day. Then if you could escort her back out through the gate, I’d appreciate it.”

  “Yes, sir, thank you. As Ms. Darlington may have remarked in much more colorful terms on the way here, it’s cold enough to freeze a sled dog’s behind tonight.”

  Zack shared a look with him.

  Harvey stepped part way in then stopped. The head of his Protection Detail looked over Zack’s shoulder and whispered quietly, “Incoming, sir.” Taking a step backward, he closed the front door with himself on the outside and Zack inside.

  He turned to see what had made a top Secret Service agent go into full retreat.