She could neither protect him from assassination or do a story on the attempt if he continued to keep her at a safe distance. Her future, as well as his, hinged on her becoming as actively involved in his campaign as all the suspects.

"I feel like I should be helping you in some way."

He barked a short laugh. "Who do you think you're kidding?"

"I'm your wife!"

"Only for the time being!"

His sharp put-down silenced her. Tate, seeing her wounded expression, swore beneath his breath. "Okay, if you want to do something for me, continue being a decent mother to Mandy. She's opening up a little, I think."

"She's opening up a lot. And I intend for her to improve further every day."

She braced her hands on his desk and leaned over it, as she had when she had appealed to Irish for permission to pursue a story that met with his disapproval. "Even Mandy and her problems don't consume enough time. I can't be with her constantly. She goes to nursery school three mornings a week."

"You agreed with the psychologist that she should."

"Istill do. Interaction with other children is extremely beneficial to her. She needs to develop social skills. But while she's at school, I wander through the house, killing time until it's time to pick her up. Every afternoon she takes a long nap." She leaned farther forward. "Please, Tate. I'm withering on the vine."

He held her stare for a long moment. Eventually, his eyes ventured down into the gaping vee of her silk shirt, but he quickly raised them and looked annoyed with himself for even that merest slip of his control.

He cleared his throat and asked crossly, "Okay, what do you suggest?"

Her tension eased somewhat. At least he was open to discussing it. She straightened up. "Let me work at headquarters."

"Nix."

"Then let me accompany you on that campaign trip next week."

"No," he said with taut finality. "Please."

"I said no." Angrily he swung his feet to the floor, stood up, and rounded the desk.

"Why not?"

"Because you're not a trouper, Carole, and I won't put up with the disharmony you create."

"Like what?"

"Like what?" he demanded, incredulous that her memory didn't serve her. "When you went before, you complained about the rooms, the banquet food, everything. You ran consistently late when you knew how tightly Eddy wanted to keep to schedule. You made wisecracks to the press, which you considered cute and everybody else thought were tasteless and unbecoming. And that was only a three-day trip to test the waters before I had made my final decision to run."

"It won't be like that this time."

"I won't have any time to entertain you. When I'm not making a speech, I'll be writing one. Hours into the trip, you'd be whining that I was ignoring you and that you had nothing to do."

"I'll find things to do. I can make coffee, order sandwiches, sharpen pencils, take calls, return calls, run errands."

aMenial labor. We've got gofers and hangers-on who do all that."

"I can dosomething."She had been following closely on his heels as he moved around the office. When he stopped abruptly, she collided with him from behind.

He turned. "The novelty would wear off after the first day, and you'd be tired of it, complaining, wanting to come home."

"No, I won't."

"Why do you want to become involved all of a sudden?"

"Because," she said with rising ire, "you're running for a Senate seat, and it's my responsibility as your wife to help you win."

"Bullshit!"

There were three sharp raps on the door. Seconds later it was opened to admit Eddy and Jack. "Excuse us," the former said, "but we heard all the shouting when we came in and thought you might need us to referee."

"What's going on?" Jack closed the door behind them. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to see my husband," Avery retorted. "If that's all right with you, Jack." She pushed her bangs off her forehead, a belligerent gesture that dared him to make something of it.

"Calm down, for crissake . I was just asking." Jack sat down on the short sofa against the wall.

Eddy shoved his hands into his pants pockets and stared at the Oriental rug between his gleaming shoes. Tate returned to his desk and sat down. Avery was too keyed up to sit, so she crossed to the credenza and backed against it, supporting herself on her hips.

"Carole wants to go on the campaign trip with us next week," Tate said.

Jack said, "Jesus, not again."

Avery cried, "Well, why not?"

Eddy said, "Let's discuss it."

Tate took them in turn. "You don't like the idea, Jack?"

Jack glared at her, then shrugged and swore beneath his breath. "She's your wife."

Tate's attention moved to Avery. "You already know my objections."

"Some of them are justified," she said in a conciliatory tone, admiring him for not criticizing his wife in front of other men. "I'll do better this time, now that I know what to expect and what is expected of me."

"Eddy?"

Eddy's contemplation of the rug ended when Tate spoke his name. He raised his head. "There's no doubt that a handsome couple is an easier package to sell than a handsome man alone."

"Why?"

"Image, mainly. A couple represents all the things America stands forahearth and home, the American dream. Marriage signifies that once you get to Washington you aren't going to squander taxpayers' money on bimbo secretaries who can't type."

"At least in theory," Jack said with a guffaw.

Eddy smiled crookedly and conceded, "At least in theory. Women voters will respect you for being a faithful husband and conscientious father. Men will like that you aren't either gay or on the make.

"For all our modern sophistication, voters might feel uneasy about voting a suspected homosexual into office. A good-looking candidate is inherently resented by male voters. Having a wife by your side makes you one of the guys."

"In other words, misery loves company," Avery said snidely.

Eddy gave a helpless lift of his shoulders and apologetically replied, "I didn't make up the rules, Carole."

She divided her disgusted look among the three of them. "So, what's the verdict?"

"I have a suggestion."

"You have the floor, Eddy." As before, Tate's feet were resting on the corner of his desk, and he was reclining in the tall leather chair. Avery was tempted to sweep his boots off the desk just to unbalance his posture and his insouciance.

Eddy said, "On Carole's behalf, I declined her invitation to attend that dinner coming up this Friday night."

"The southern governors' thing in Austin?"

"Right. I excused her from going by saying that for all the progress she's made, she wasn't quite up to a black tie evening."

He turned toward her. "I could call them back and accept. It's a bipartisan group, so there'll be no active campaigning, just a chance to glad-hand, see, and be seen. We'll see how that evening goes and make a decision about the trip based on that."

"An audition, in other words," Avery said.

"If that's how you want to see it," Eddy returned calmly. He looked toward Jack and Tate. "She did a pretty good job at that press conference when she left the hospital."

Eddy's opinion mattered a great deal to Tate, but final decisions were always left to him. He glanced at his olderbrother, who had remained irascibly silent. "What do you think, Jack?"

"I guess it'd be okay," he said, glancing at her resentfully. "I know Mom and Dad would rather the two of you present a unified front."

"Thank you both for your advice."

They took the subtle hint. Jack left the office without saying another word. Eddy nodded an unspoken good-bye to Avery and closed the door behind himself.

Tate held her stare for several moments. "All right," he said grudgingly. "You've won a chance to convince me that you'd be more of an asset than a liability when we begin campaigning in earnest."

"You won't be disappointed, Tate. I promise."

He frowned doubtfully. "Friday night. We'll leave the house at seven sharp. Be ready."

EIGHTEEN.

"I'll get it."

The front doorbell had rung twice. Avery was the first to reach it. She grabbed the knob and pulled it open. Van Lovejoy stood between the pots of geraniums.

Avery froze. Her expectant, welcoming smile turned to stone, her knees to water. Her stomach tightened.

Van reacted with similar disquiet. His slumped posture was instantly corrected. A cigarette fell from between his fingers. He blinked numerous times.

Avery, hoping that his pupils had been dilated by marijuana and not shock, mustered as much composure as she could. "Hello."

"Hi, uh. . ."He closed his eyes for a moment and shook his head of stringy hair. "Uh, Mrs. Rutledge?"

"Yes?"

He covered his heart with a bony hand. "Jesus, for a minute there, you looked just likea"

"Come in, please." She didn't want to hear him speak her name. She had barely curbed her impulse to joyously cry out his. It had been nearly impossible to keep from hugging him fiercely and telling him that she was onto the hottest story of her career.

From the beginning, however, she had been in this alone. Telling Van would place him in danger, too. As comforting as it would be to have an ally, she couldn't afford the luxury. Besides, she didn't want to risk blowing the opportunity by confiding in him. Van wasn't all that trustworthy.

She stepped aside and he joined her in the entry. It would have been natural for him to gaze around at the unfamiliar and impressive surroundings, but instead, he stared into her face. Avery pitied him his confusion. "You are. . .?"

"Oh, sorry." He rubbed his palms self-consciously on the seat of his jeans, then extended his right hand. She shook it quickly. "Van Lovejoy."

"I'm Carole Rudedge ."

"I know. I was there the day you left the clinic. I work for KTEX."

"I see."

Even though he was making an attempt at normal conversation, his eyes hadn't left her. It was agony to be this close to a friend and not be able to behave normally. She had a million and one questions to ask him, but settled for the one that Carole would logically ask next.

"If you're here representing the television station, shouldn't you have cleared it first with Mr. Paschal, my husband's campaign manager?"

"He knows I'm coming. The production company sent me over."

"Production company?"

"I'm shooting a TV commercial here next Wednesday. I came today to scout my locations. Didn't anybody tell you I was coming?"

"Carole?"

Nelson moved into the hallway, subjecting Van to a glare of stern disapproval. Nelson was always military neat. He never had a wrinkle in his clothing or a single gray hair out of place.

Van was the antithesis. His dingy T-shirt had come from a Cajun restaurant that specialized in oysters on the half shell. The lewdly suggestive slogan on the shirt read, "Shuck me, suck me, eat me raw." His jeans had gone beyond being fashionably ragged to downright threadbare. There were no laces in his scuffed jogging shoes. Avery doubted he owned a pair of socks because he always went without.

He looked unhealthy and underfed to the point of emaciation. Sharp shoulder blades poked against the T-shirt. If he had stood up straight, each rib would have been delineated. As it was, his back bowed over a concave torso.

Avery knew that those nicotine-stained hands with the chipped and dirty fingernails were gifted in handling a video camera. His vacuous eyes were capable of incredible artistic insight. All Nelson could see, however, was an eternal hippie, a wasted life. Van's talent was as well disguised as her real identity.

"Nelson, this is Mr. Lovejoy. Mr. Lovejoy, Colonel Rutledge." Nelson seemed reluctant to shake hands with Van and made short business of it. "He's here to look over the house in preparation for the television commercial they're taping next week."

"You work for MB Productions?" Nelson asked stiffly.

"I freelance for them sometimes. When they want the best."

"Hmm. They said somebody would be out today." Apparently, Van wasn't what Nelson had expected. "I'll show you around. What do you want to seeaindoors or out?"

"Both. Any place that Rutledge, his wife, and his kid might spend an average day. Folksy is what they said they wanted. Sentimental crap."