Within Reach (48 page)

“He feels helpless. He was furious that he didn’t think of this sooner. You only have a month before the trial begins, but if this helps pass the time, then you’ll be doing
both
of you a favor.…You do look beautiful, Danica. How are you feeling?”

“Great! Well, better, at least.” She glanced toward the plastic separating them from the cabbie and lowered her voice. “I’ll be through the third month in another two weeks. I think things are settling down.”

“I feel for you. I was so sick carrying Michael and Cilla.” She paused. “Any chance it might be two?”

“I asked the doctor that, but he doubts it. Twins usually skip a generation. Our children may be the lucky ones. It’s still too early to tell with me, but I’ll be happy with a single healthy baby.”

Gena squeezed her arm. “We
all
will.” She shivered and grinned. “I think I’m nearly as excited as Michael and you. It won’t be my first grandchild, but, well, Michael and I have always been like souls. And you’ll be so
close
!”

Danica felt gratified, then grew hesitant. “You do understand why I’m doing what I am now?”

“I love you all the more for it. Loyalty is a very fine quality. I know that there are times when you’ve felt it was a thorn in your side—”

“Michael told you about that?”

“He’s told me most everything now and I’m glad he has. The way I see it, the only problem in your life is that your allegiances have been thrust on you. Now that you’ve chosen the direction of your own future, loyalty and responsibility will be positive forces. I know I’ve said this before, but it stands repeating. I couldn’t have wished for a better woman for my son.”

Choking up, Danica hugged her again. “I’ll be lucky having a mother-in-law like you,” she whispered. “Thank you—for coming today, for being Michael’s mother, for making him the kind of person he is.”

“Don’t thank me,” Gena chided softly. “Loving is what makes life worthwhile.”

Much later, after they had eaten, Danica thought of Gena’s words again. Smiling, she pulled the tag from the tea bag that lay damp and drained on her saucer. “‘True love is the renaissance of life,’” she read. Then she slipped the tag into her purse while Gena smiled knowingly.

The work Michael had assigned her was a godsend and Danica told him that. “I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have something to divert my mind. It’s been really bad here. Jason and Ray are over every night working with Blake. They want him to take the stand.”

“It makes sense. He gives an impressive appearance and he’s articulate. He’ll come across looking and sounding like an honest, respectable businessman who was conned by one of his employees.”

“That’s what they’re hoping, but they want to make sure he’s prepared. They go over and over his testimony, coaching him on exactly what words to use. Then they turn around and play the prosecution, trying to put him on the spot or get him to contradict himself or somehow punch a hole in his credibility. I’m usually asleep by the time they leave, but Blake is always a zombie in the morning. I try to cheer him up, but there’s really nothing I can say.”

“He’s still not thinking about the future?”

“Not about mine. He referred once to returning to the Department when all this is done, but he grew stony after that. I assume he was thinking about the alternative. Even if he
is
acquitted, the President may ask him to resign.”

“That would be illegal. Given our system of justice, a man is innocent until proven guilty, and if Blake is acquitted by a jury…”

“But we both know that little phrase ‘beyond a reasonable doubt,’ and we both know that, realistically, Blake is probably washed up here. Even if he
is
acquitted, he’ll always carry a certain stigma. It’s not right, but I think it’s one of the things that worries him.”

“And politics is politics,” Michael mused. “Suing the President of the United States would be tantamount to political suicide. Blake may seethe inside, but he’ll have to step down graciously and pray that his expertise will be called on at some time in the future.”

“You’ve got it.” Her thoughts moved on. “Whether Blake will want to return to Eastbridge is questionable. He founded it and built it from scratch into a large corporation, but he pretty much divorced himself from it when he got his appointment. Even if Blake is acquitted, the company will probably be hit with a stiff penalty for making that shipment. I doubt they’d want him back, even if he
did
want to go. It’s strange, Michael. Eastbridge was his heart and soul for so long, yet he was able to turn completely off when he left for Washington—just as he turned completely off his own family when he went away to college.”

Michael already knew the bare outlines of that relationship. “Has he talked with any of them since all this happened?”

“The night the indictments were returned, he called to tell them that he was innocent and that they shouldn’t pay any attention to what they hear on television. To my knowledge, he hasn’t spoken with them since.”

“Nice guy.”

“Maybe it’s mutual. I don’t know them well enough to say. Things will be so different with us.” Then she stopped. “Have you talked to your father at all?”

“Yes, but not about us. Once the trial’s over and we’re together again, I thought we could both go to see him. He’s been surprisingly open-minded when it comes to Blake. Maybe because he heads a large corporation himself, he can see how easily things go amiss.”

“Has he ever had a similar problem?”

“None that involved the law, at least not in a criminal sense. There have been libel suits when he’s had to answer for something one of his newspapers said. He may just identify with Blake.”

“And, of course, you do nothing to encourage that,” she teased, knowing that in spite of everything Michael would never malign Blake in front of John Buchanan.

“I’ve put in a good word here and there. When Dad finally learns the truth, I don’t want him to think that I knowingly kicked Blake when he was down.”

“I’m surprised that he’s not more hostile, given Blake’s relationship to my father.”

“Nah. Dad may be a tyrant at times, but only concerning things he believes in. The differences he’s had with your father have been ideological. Well, maybe there is a little jealousy there. I think he resents the power your father wields, particularly when it’s wielded on the side Dad opposes. He’s never had much of a quarrel with Blake. And I’m
sure
that he’d never hold anything against you.”

“I’m glad. I wouldn’t want to think I’d be coming between you and your father.”

“Sweetheart,
life
came between him and me. As long as we go our own ways, we’re fine.”

She sighed. “With a little luck, maybe my father and I can reach a similar understanding.”

“And that’s another thing for you to worry about. Don’t, Dani. Please? There’s nothing you can do about it now, and you have enough else to handle. Everything will work out. You’ll see.”

Danica wasn’t so sure about whether her father would ever graciously accede, but Michael was right. She had enough to handle, coping with the day to day anticipation of the trial, without worrying about that.

Every morning she worked at the Archives studying old records and maps, homing in on ships that had sunk with suspected bonanzas on board. Some afternoons she stopped on her way home at the local branch of the public library to pore through books and newspapers and microfilms, reading everything she could about shipwrecks and recovery operations. The thrust of his book was going to be the romance of it all. This Danica could identify with. When she worked, she was for all practical purposes back on Joe Camarillo’s boat in Maine, back on Michael’s and hers in the nights. It was a blessed escape.

The trial drew nearer with each day, though, and she couldn’t help but suffer from the anxiety that was palpable in the house in Chevy Chase. Her own fret-fulness was mixed with a growing impatience. Phone calls to Michael were no substitute for the real thing.

On the second of December she flew to Boston for her scheduled doctor’s appointment. Having entered her fourth month of pregnancy, she found that all sickness, even the pervasive fatigue that had plagued her so at first, had vanished. Her doctor declared her in excellent physical shape aside from a slight elevation in her blood pressure, but when he suggested she might take a mild sedative to help her through the trial, she refused. The worst was the waiting, she reasoned. The trial itself couldn’t possibly be as bad.

As he had the month before, Michael met her outside the medical building. This time, though, he brought lunch with him and they ate in his borrowed office at Harvard.

“I wanted privacy,” Michael explained when he’d finished his sandwich and set the papers aside. He drew her from her chair and propped her against the desk. “Real privacy.”

She didn’t need to hear his hoarseness to know what he was thinking because he had been looking at her for the past hour with the very same longing she felt. She slid her arms around his neck as he lowered his head, and ghosted her parted lips against his mouth. Their sighs blended with the exchange of breath, as though one was giving life to the other and it was all they would ever need…but it wasn’t.

When he began to undo the buttons of her light wool dress, she grew cautious. “Michael…here?”

“The door’s locked. No one will bother us.” He had the dress opened to the waist and was reaching inside to release the front catch of her bra. “I want to see you, touch you.”

While she held her breath, he did both of those things, peeling the bra aside first to stare at the fullness of her breasts, then to reverently trace his fingers over the pale blue veins that had newly appeared. She bit her lip and closed her eyes, delighting in the gentleness of his touch and its awe.

When he lowered his head and put his mouth against her, she threaded her fingers through his hair. She moaned again when he took her nipple in his mouth and began to suckle. His thumb rolled its mate, then he reversed the attention. She was instinctively arching her hips to his when he drew back. The moistness he left on her breasts felt cold to the air, making them pucker all the more.

When he reached for his belt, she clutched his arms. “No, Michael. We can’t…”

“We can and we will,” he said forcefully, then softened his tone. But his fingers had the belt undone and were negotiating his fly, which took some doing because he was fully erect. “We have a month’s worth of hell ahead, sweetheart. This will be good.”

He seized her mouth then and thrust his tongue deeply in prelude while he began to bunch up her dress. “Just slip your panties down,” he whispered against her lips. “I need you so.”

All thought of protest was gone because she needed him as badly. Her body was thrumming, her blood surging through heated veins. She stood only long enough to do as he’d asked. Then he had her dress to her hips and was urging her back to the desk. Releasing himself from his pants, he spread her knees, raised them, and pressed forward.

She sighed as he entered her deeply. “I’ve been so empty…” Then she couldn’t say anything more because he began to move slowly in and out and she could hardly breathe, much less return his kiss. Her fingers dug into his shirtfront while he manipulated her hips. Time and place fell by the wayside, the only thing of import being their union, its heat and its glory. It was no time before she cried aloud and burst into a sharp series of gasps. His own cry was deeper. He held himself close as he pulsed into her.

Then they were panting on each other’s shoulders, laughing and wondering what a passerby in the hall would think of the sound effects.

“This has been decadent, Michael, but so…so wonderful!”

He agreed completely. Holding her there, staying inside her as long as he could, he felt that there was a rightness in the world after all. It wasn’t the sex in itself, but the love it expressed, that made what they did so precious. Separated as they’d been by so many miles for so long, he had had to assert his love in this most basic way. Lord knew, there was little else he could do under the circumstances.

Slowly, reluctantly, his thoughts turned toward the future. They dressed more somberly. Both faces were grim by the time Michael dropped her at the airport.

“Take care, sweetheart, and remember that I love you,” he said, memorizing her features with soft, sad eyes.

“I will,” she said through gathering tears. She knew that the joy of the afternoon would linger with her, but she was already missing him. She also knew that there was no escape from what lay ahead. Turning, head down, she walked stoically toward her plane.

nineteen

t
WO DAYS LATER THE TRIAL BEGAN. MICHAEL followed the proceedings on television and in the papers, but the calls Danica made to him every night were what he waited for.

“How do you feel?” he asked on that first night.

“Tired. I hadn’t realized jury selection would be so slow. Two jurors picked out of eighteen interviewed. It could take as much as a week to get the full jury.” Which would make it one week longer before she was free.

“But it’s critical, sweetheart. You don’t want a juror who’s already made up his mind as to Blake’s guilt or innocence. More subtle biases, well, I’m sure Blake’s lawyers are looking for those. They’ll want to stack the jury with professionals, for one thing, people who’ll be able to identify with him.”

“Mmmm. The foreman of a factory would identify with Harlan. A person from a lower socioeconomic bracket may resent Blake’s wealth. On the other hand, the same person may be more awed by Blake’s status, so it could go either way. I don’t envy Jason and Ray. It’s hard.”

“How about the press? Does it bother you?”

“It was bad when we got to the courthouse this morning. They were all waiting, like vultures, ready to dive in for the kill.”

“This is the first trial of the lot,” Michael reasoned, “and since Blake is in such a prominent position…”