The Kept Woman (17 page)

"Damn, Sammy! You sure you weren't accidentally swapped at birth or something? That looks like it was made for you!"

"It really does look perfect on you," Kara said, then shook her head. "Just not with jeans."

"The dressy casual dilemma again," Monte mumbled, making Sam laugh.

Jack held the phone to his ear as Stuart discussed the finer points of his aquarium speech, but he was unable to take his eyes from Sam. Another of those lurid mental flashes hit him, again featuring Sam in the red lingerie, but this time she was wearing that ruby red choker around her neck, and it was all he could do not to jump up and kiss her until she begged him to stop.

With real disappointment, he watched Sam remove the choker and return it to the jewelry box. Suddenly her eyes lit up with wonder.

"Wow. This is so pretty." Sam's slender left hand emerged from the black velvet chest. She held her hand out in front of her, fingers spread wide, to the admiration of Kara and Monte. He couldn't see what she'd selected, only a thin gold band that circled the back of her finger.

"Whoa," Monte said. "That's nice and big, but not Lil' Kim big."

"That ring is gorgeous," Kara said, holding up Sam's hand for closer inspection. "It looks Victorian." She twisted Sam's hand a bit so Jack could see.

He nodded his approval, still listening to Stuart ramble on about the pros and cons of linking Jack's campaign too closely to Allen Ditto's record.
Very pretty
, Jack mouthed to Sam, studying a diamond and emerald ring he was fairly sure he'd never seen before.
Perfect
.

Jack watched Sam smile at the ring, wiggle her fingers, and laugh. For some reason, it truly pleased him to see Sam with a ring on her finger. It pleased him down to his bones.

He abruptly ended the call with Stuart and joined the women on the other side of the desk. "May I interrupt for a moment?" He pushed his way in between Kara and Sam and slipped the ring off Sam's finger.

"Shortest engagement in history," Monte said, with a shake of her head.

"I just want to do this right." Jack stood in front of Sam, who looked up at him with her blue eyes narrowed in curiosity. He slipped the ring back on her finger, saying, "Samantha Monroe, will you pretend that you plan to marry me?

"Yes, Jack." Sam smiled. "I would love to pretend that I plan to marry you."

"How romantic," Kara said.

"Hey," Sam said with a laugh. "This is way more romantic than my first time around, trust me."

"That's sad," Jack said.

"It was. I shoved the EPT stick under Mitch's nose, we both stared at its two big, fat blue lines, and poof! We were engaged."

"
Hell-ro?
"

Jack whipped around at the sound of the voice, only to see little Dakota Benjamin standing in the opened pocket doors of the office, Jack's cell phone pressed to his ear.

"Hell-ro? Lady, are you there?" The kid scrunched up his face in concentration, listening to whoever might be on the other end.

Jack moved toward the child and held out his hand. "I'll take it, thank you, Ben."

"Mr. Jack gave me his phone number last night before he took the shower; did I tell you that?" The toddler smiled wide as he continued to talk into the phone. "By, lady." He shoved the phone at Jack.

With trepidation, Jack put the phone to his ear. "This is Jack Tolliver."

"And this is your mother. Have we been incommunicado for so long that you have sired children in the interim?"

Wonderful
. "Not that I am aware."

"Who was that child? He or she sounded like a preschooler. Where in the world are you?"

"At the Sunset Lane house." A pang of horror shot through Jack—MDT could be calling for a ride from the Indianapolis airport, for all he knew! "Where are you, Marguerite?"

"Naples."

Jack could breathe again.

"But not for long."

So much for breathing. "I see. What are your holiday plans, then?"

"That depends entirely on you. I thought I would spend a few days at the house to celebrate with you before you gear up for the primary. You are declaring, aren't you? Kara told me you'd obtained the required signatures from the voting districts and that your focus group results were good. So you do plan to declare, is that correct?"

"That's the plan." His eyes shot to Kara, who hissed out a few select curses.

His mother continued. "I hate to revisit this issue, but I don't believe we established why a preschooler is at Sunset Lane, answering your cell phone."

"The preschooler?" Jack looked to Sam, who mouthed,
I'm sorry
. He gave her a shrug—there was nothing to do now. It was his fault for leaving the phone in the butler's pantry unattended. The kid didn't do anything wrong by answering it. "His name is Benjamin Monroe—"

"His last name is Bergen," Sam promptly corrected him.

"I mean Benjamin Bergen," Jack said, noting Sam's deepening scowl. "OK, actually, it's
Dakota
Benjamin Bergen, but I thought calling him by his middle name might increase the chances of him getting potty trained before he grows a mustache."

MDT paused for a moment, then sked, "Exactly to whom does this Dakota person belong?"

"He's Samantha Monroe's youngest."

A blessed silence graced his ear, and for once Jack prayed his cell reception had tanked without warning. That or the earth had just opened up and swallowed him whole. He'd take either one.

"The waitress with whom you've been photographed?"

"She's a hairstylist on sabbatical, Marguerite."

"An unemployed hairstylist who doesn't have the same last name as her youngest child? How many children are there? How many last names, Jack? This is the woman you've chosen to display around town on the eve of your campaign?"

Jack shook his head in amazement. He'd long known that his mother had earned her black belt from the Marie Antoinette School of Public Policy, but her snootiness never ceased to amaze him.

"All three of Sam's children have her ex-husband's last name."

"I see. An unemployed, divorced mother of three."

"That's not entirely—"

"Is Kara aware of this?"

Jack laughed. "That's an excellent question. Let me check." Without putting his hand over the tiny receiver, he yelled to Kara, "Sam Monroe has three children? Gadzooks! Were you aware of this fact?"

"What in the name of God is going on up there, Jack?" MDT had ceased pretending to be calm. "I demand you tell me the truth, and I demand you tell me now."

Jack was nearly bursting with the warm fuzzy feeling he usually got mid-conversation with his mother. "All right, Marguerite. The truth is, we've hired Sam Monroe to pretend to be my fiancee through the primary. And the two of us are cavorting around town on purpose so that when I declare next month it won't surprise anyone that Sam and her kids are at my side." Jack ignored the openmouthed stares offered by Monte, Sam, and Kara and charged right ahead. "Basically, Mother, we're betting that their presence will soften my reputation for being a pretentious, self-centered, misogynistic jerk, not that those personality traits have ever been incompatible with the U.S. Senate, or any elected office for that matter."

The blissful silence returned. Unfortunately, it was brief.

"You are joking," Marguerite said.

"I am not."

"Expect me in four days." She hung up.

She'd
found
him. That's all Christy could think as she scurried down the tiled hallways in the bowels of the Channel 10 TV studios, clipboard in hand. She'd done what the prosecutor's office and their team of investigators had failed to do for three long years—she'd found one Mitchell J. Bergen, former husband of the slut elf. She'd found him in about two hours. A quick bit of background research on Bergen revealed that the
Star
had done a feature story on him six years earlier, complete with photos of the man and a whole array of bizarre pea-pod-shaped glass sculptures. She then went to eBay and tracked sales of three similarly strange pea-pod creations, tracing them back to a shop in Wetumpka, Alabama, of all places, run by a glassblower by the name of Michael Bouvier. She called the phone number listed and asked to speak to Mitchell Bergen, and
voila
! One deadbeat dad on a stick!

Of course, Bergen insisted she had the wrong number and hung up, but Christy had talked to enough unwilling sources over the years to recognize the heavy breathing of a trapped animal when she heard it. Now all she had to do was figure out a way to coax the vermin out of hiding and lure him back to Indianapolis, somehow making it worth his while.

If she could guarantee the prosecutor's office wouldn't scoop him up off the street, she knew she could bait him with his kids. There wasn't a man on earth so coldhearted that he wouldn't want to see his kids after a three-year separation. Bergen had to be filled with remorse about what he did. How could he not be?

"Five minutes, Christy."

She gave a pleasant nod to the assistant producer and told him she'd be right there. Today marked the 150th
Capitol Update
show with Christy as host. She felt quite proud of the three years she'd spearheaded such a quality forum for political debate. She felt proud that the show not only was aired live on Sunday but also was taped for release in three additional weekday time slots, on two channels. She remembered the communications professor at Purdue who once told her she was too much of an airhead to make it in broadcast journalism, adding, "And that's saying something." Well, just last year good ole Professor Shit-for-Brains sent her a congratulatory note on her success. She responded with the form letter she sent all her fans, along with an autographed color glossy eight-by-ten.

"Two minutes!"

Christy clipped on her microphone and chatted briefly with her guests for the afternoon—a few regulars plus Brandon Miliewski in his debut appearance. It was the least she could do for him, considering the way he'd been so helpful and the fact that she'd needed a last-minute replacement for Kara DeMarinis, who decided to play coy with Jack's campaign. That was fine with Christy. Besides, she planned to take advantage of Brandon's goofy devotion at some point in the near future, and this would grease the skids. Everything happened for a reason.

Today's topics would include the school-funding crisis, statewide disaster preparedness, and the video poker legislation now stalled in committee. Of course they'd get around to the Senate race scuttlebutt, and that was when she could cast her first doubt on whether Jack's very public tryst was the real deal rather than a political ploy. It was going to be a good show.

Christy crossed her shapely legs and yanked down on the back of her suit jacket, tucking it under her butt so her shoulders formed a straight and tidy line onscreen. Her mind was spinning, pondering just how she'd use Mitchell Bergen to extract the real story from the slut elf and how Brandon Miliewski might come in handy as her man in the field. It would all come together if she let it stew. Some of her most fortuitous flashes of brilliance had come when she simply relaxed and let things happen.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Brandon gazing at her adoringly. She offered him a small smile, noting that even though his eyes bugged out momentarily, he had the wherewithal to recover just as they went live.

That man was really beginning to show promise.

Mitchell peered into the pockmarked mirror in the bathroom of his glass studio, a two-room storefront that doubled as his home. He hardly remembered how he'd ended up in this nowhere southern town or how long he'd been here. The last few years had been a fun-house ride of the highest highs and the lowest lows, and his last low had sent him here, to hide. Again.

Mitch knew in his heart that one day he'd be found, but it had been a shock nonetheless. He didn't even know which agency that woman worked for—she didn't say. Was it the police? The prosecutor's office? A private detective agency? He wondered just how many avenues Sam had used to try to track down his sorry ass and whether she felt any sense of victory now that she had him.

He wished he had money. If he had money, he could go back to Indianapolis with his pride intact, pay the back child support he owed, and beg his kids to forgive him. He wouldn't bother to ask the same of Sam. There was no point.

Mitch rubbed at the dark circles under his eyes and scratched at his scraggly chin and knew there was no way he could go back like this.

He had two options, and neither of them was very appealing—he could turn himself in and go to jail or move again and start over somewhere new. That was it. And the truth was, he was too exhausted to even think about going through the hassle of borrowing somebody's truck and scamming for help moving his ovens and supplies one more time, in search of a smaller town in an even less obvious state, where he could feign to be the eccentric artist who just wanted to be left alone. That was such a lie. He didn't want to be left alone. He wanted to see his kids and he wanted to go home, but he'd made too many mistakes to do either. It was as simple as that.

Mitch lay down on the old single bed at the back of the building and crossed his arms over his eyes. Three years ago, he had been living a lie and it was strangling him. He left Sam to pursue his grand adventure, but he did it all wrong. He hurt a lot of people. And now, five states and six not-so-grand lovers later, he had about seventy bucks to his name, a pay-as-you-go cell phone, access to a public library computer, and nothing to live for. At least the cocaine wasn't an issue anymore—it's amazing how no money and no access can cure a drug habit.

He almost wished the mystery woman with the blocked caller ID would call back. At least he'd know what fate held for him. With a sigh, Mitch figured it wouldn't hurt to stay put and prepare himself for that knock on the door, no matter who, and what, might be waiting on the other side.