The Rapids Page 25
Rob smiled, but Maggie could sense his dread about what Wes Poe was about to say. “It’s hard for me not to think of him as a head case.”
“He wanted people to think that. It gave him room to maneuver. Agent Spencer?”
“Please call me Maggie.” She’d never talked to a president before, but found Poe easy to be around, more so than she’d expected. “My father and Mr. Raleigh were friends. That gives him an edge in my mind.”
“He says your father was one of the best.”
Even with her security clearances as a DS agent, the details of whatever her father had done as an intelligence operative weren’t for her to know. “I’m sure my father would have said the same about Mr. Raleigh.”
The corners of Poe’s mouth twitched in amusement. “He’ll want you to call him William.”
She smiled back at the president. “Yes. He’s not a Bill, Will or Willie.”
“He says we need people with your talent, your courage, your ethics.” Turning to Rob, Poe continued. “Maggie’s and yours.”
If Rob was taken aback, he didn’t show it. He shook his head. “Everyone knows who I am.”
“Because of me,” Poe said. “Raleigh believes it can be an advantage. He was a bit notorious after the death of Maggie’s father—there were rumors Raleigh had screwed up and dived into a bottle. He looks like a heavy drinker. He used that to his advantage and was able to sneak around after Libby Smith and hook up with Ethan Brooker without anyone realizing he was up to anything.”
Feeling as if the conversation was taking a personal turn and not wanting to intrude, Maggie sat on the dock and dipped her feet in the Cumberland, snakes or no snakes. As Poe had promised, the water was warm.
“Whatever you decide,” the president said, still addressing Rob, “I want you to know you have my blessing.”
“Do I?”
“I’ve known you wouldn’t stay in the Marshals Service. I think all of us have always known.”
Maggie glanced at Rob, who hadn’t shifted his position; he was stiff, unbending, and she realized he’d been down this road before. He’d bucked a man who had become president. But the shooting in the spring—how close Nick Janssen had come to destroying his family—had given Rob pause. He didn’t want to worry them. At the same time, he was who he was—which John Wesley Poe saw now and wanted to encourage.
“Sarah? My parents?” Rob shook his head again. “I won’t have their blessing.”
“You have options, Rob. Consider them all.” Poe himself looked stiff now, as if he expected Rob to throw his support back in his face. “That goes for Maggie as well. Both of you.”
“You’re making assumptions about us—”
Poe smiled then, his eyes twinkling. “I don’t know about that.”
Maggie had to look away. The logistics of her relationship with Rob were difficult enough. If she chose to let Raleigh suck her into another line of work and Rob didn’t want to follow her? Then what?
She kicked her feet in the slow-moving river, feeling the undercurrents of her own life tugging at her.
Rob didn’t respond to Poe’s comment, and the president sighed audibly. “Two years,” he said. “If you and Maggie give us two years, then you can go back to doing whatever you want to do.”
“What if Maggie doesn’t want—”
“She does,” Poe said. “Bremmerton, Raleigh—they insist she does.”
She placed her hands behind her on the old dock and leaned back, looking up at the two men. “Maybe Rob and I need to talk, Mr. President.”
“Of course.” Poe looked at her, then at Rob. “We need you two. I need you.”
He started off the dock, but Rob raked a hand through his hair and gave a small grunt of frustration. “Wes…Jesus. I didn’t expect any of this. Thank you.” When Poe turned back to him, Rob smiled at his old friend. “Thank you for everything.”
Poe nodded without comment, and he left, Secret Service agents falling in around him.
Maggie focused on the murky water. She could hear someone singing, people laughing up on the porch. Rob sat down next to her, handsome—sexy—in his black tux. “Is the tux rented?” she asked. “Because if it is, I won’t throw you in the river. Damn. Why didn’t you tell me Poe was going to be here?”
He shrugged. “It was a given that he was invited.”
“I’m not used to having chitchats with the president, never mind deep conversations.”
But Rob, she realized, was used to staying true to himself, even in the face of great authority. He’d bucked two very different but powerful forces in his life—his own father, a quiet, brilliant man, and Wes Poe, a self-made millionaire, Tennessee governor and now president, to become a marshal.
He took off his shoes and socks and rolled up his pant legs to his knees. “My mother bought me this tux for Wes’s inaugural balls and parties after he was elected president. She thinks all men should own a tux.”
“I ended up with fuchsia shoes because of your sister.”
“You’d never know Sarah’s happiest in her dump-digging clothes and my mother wears sensible shoes.”
“They’re both very smart,” Maggie said.
“That they are.” He dipped his feet into the water and ran his toes along her foot, raising warm goose bumps all over her. “They want to turn us into spooks, Maggie.”
“She angled him a look. “George Bremmerton warned me more or less, before I headed here.”
“He knows everything and everyone, doesn’t he?”
“Except Wes Poe. He says they’ve never met.”
“Not yet, maybe. So this conversation wasn’t a complete surprise for you?”
She gave him a knowing look. “It wasn’t for you, either. You saw this coming.”
He gazed out at the river and its limestone bluffs, the familiar scenes of his childhood. Night’s Landing was home for him in a way no place ever would be for Maggie. Accepting Wes Poe’s offer—his challenge—to serve wasn’t the leap for her that it was for Rob. He patted her thigh. “Maggie, Maggie.”
“I’ve complicated your life, haven’t I? You never thought you’d get mixed up with the slightly repressed DS agent daughter of a murdered spy.”
“Your mother paints flamingos. I never thought I’d fall for a woman whose mother paints flamingos.”
“I gave one to Sarah and Nate for a wedding gift.”
But Rob kissed her forehead and whispered, “Tell me you ever imagined yourself falling for someone who’s practically family to the President of the United States.”
“The Southern frat-boy stuff was weird enough for me.”
He slipped his arm around her and pulled her close. “I want our children to come here and catch snakes and explore the caves, Maggie. I want them to go fishing and cook up fried pies and casseroles with Sarah and drink tea punch on the porch with my parents.”
“That sounds perfect to me.”
“I’m in love with you.” He said it softly, so that only she could hear it. “What they’re asking us to do—I’ll say no if it means losing you.”
“Here we are talking about kids when we haven’t even…Rob, are you asking me to marry you?”
“I am. Two years as a couple of secret agents or whatever it is Wes, Raleigh and Bremmerton have cooked up for us. Then the rest is forever. What do you say?”
Maggie smiled. “I say yes.”
ISBN: 978-1-4268-3347-2
THE RAPIDS
Copyright © 2004 by Carla Neggers.
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, MIRA Books, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the auth
or and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
MIRA and the Star Colophon are trademarks used under license and registered in Australia, New Zealand, Philippines, United States Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries.
www.MIRABooks.com