Tread Softly (10 page)

She
nodded her head at her image, accepting the nebulous comfort of her arguments.
Then she stood surveying herself in the long mirror. The velvet corduroy suit
in palest orchid with a weskit instead of a jacket and with a deeper orchid
long-sleeve blouse should have had a spring look, but instead it had the
purplish haze of the autumn color of upstate New York after the leaves have
fallen. Her shoes were a champagne suede with a matching shoulder bag. She
left her long hair down, swinging on her shoulders.

"Well,
well. Is this what the well-dressed interim senator usually wears?" Rafe
drawled from the doorway, both hands at his hips, pushing his suit jacket back
from his body.

"Do
you like it?" Cady tried to keep the breathiness from her voice, but
Rafe's blue eyes made her dizzy.

"Very
much. It's the sexiest utilitarian garment I've ever seen, and it makes your
eyes look purple," he observed, reaching for her arm to lead her down the
stairs.

"Isn't
it unusual to call a gathering of senators on the Hill on Sunday?" Cady
stopped in the doorway leading out to the patio, where a light lunch was
waiting for them.

"It's not
senators." Rafe smiled at her. "Some lobbyists representing chemical
firms and the nuclear power people want me to pull in my horns about clean
water and air." His lips curled. "I imagine they don't want much...
just that I keep my mouth shut and not support those bills that my wife fought
so hard to keep alive for me." He looked down at her and his face turned
grim for a moment, a hard, faraway look coming into his eyes. "The
lobbyists have enlisted Bruno Trabold's help in bringing me to heel."

"All
against the environment, of course," Cady observed, recalling the
pressures that had come to bear against her when she had decided that the very
life and

breath
of the planet were being endangered. What had once been an interest became an
absorption when she discovered how careless many were about the atmosphere when
they pursued the dollar.

"Yes,"
Rafe said, leaning toward her. "You know, Cady, my hearing was never
impaired in the accident, and I listened when you talked about what was being
done to our country in the name of progress. I remember how appalled you were
about the goings-on in our state. I learned a great deal from you, wife."

She could feel
her face go pink with pleasure at the earnestness in his voice. How lovely to
hear him praise her, to know that he had paid so much attention to what she
said. She thought she might even enjoy this meeting on Capitol Hill.

 
CHAPTER FOUR

The
Capitol was bathed in sunlight, its concrete facade having a pinkish hue that
looked welcoming on the crisp autumn day. As usual, tourists lined the steps of
the many buildings along Constitution Avenue. The sight never failed to delight
Cady. As though Rafe could read her mind, he ordered their driver to slow the vehicle
on the wide, park like avenue.

When Rafe
noticed people looking at the car with curiosity, he waved to some children,
who waved back. When their parents bent to them and whispered, then pointed to
the car, Rafe asked the chauffeur to stop the limousine.

Cady knew Rafe
was sincerely interested in people, especially children. She felt a wrench as
she thought of the decision they had made long ago not to have children right
away because they wanted more time with each other. Cady often speculated that she
might have conceived more easily at eighteen, and perhaps if they had had
children at once they might have been able to avert

the
rift that had developed between them. She wondered now if they would ever have
offspring, and if not, would it be her fault? She sighed and put the thought
from her mind, smiling at the youngsters who had run up to the car.

Rafe seemed to have limitless patience as he answered their
questions and told them that he thought that Kansas, their state, was quite
beautiful and that he was fond of sunflowers.

They left the children and were driven to the entrance at
the back. They took the elevator to Rafe's office, which had been Cady's office
for many months. She could hear Bruno's voice before Rafe pushed open the door.

"Rafe."
Bruno's croak reached them just ahead of his outstretched hand. He leaned
toward Rafe, whispering, "You'll have to back down some. These boys mean a
lot of blocks in the voting booths." His eyes shifted to Cady, but he
didn't speak to her. She shivered and stepped closer to Rafe.

Rafe waded into the group, talking and smiling. For an
instant Cady felt her faith in him waver. Would he be coerced by his father's
political cronies into defeating the latest environmental bill? Then she heard
the man called Greeley whine, "Listen, Rafe, you'd better back down. If I
tell my people you ain't comin' across"—he shrugged, wiping one hand down
his overstuffed jacket— "you'll lose enough votes to put you out of a
job."

The others
muttered loudly, nodding. "I'm not backing down," Rafe announced,
pulling a pencil-slim cigar from a flat case. "I'm just not contributing
to the health problems of my constituents because you want a cheap way to dump
chemicals. Forget it. My wife made an in-depth study of chemical dumping, and
I'm against the method you're lobbying for."

"Then
the men I've got will bury you, Rafe," Greeley growled.

Cady stepped forward to her husband's side. "And the
women in the Coalition to Protect Our Children will hear about you, Mr.
Greeley. We'll stump the state and tell every mother and father we can that you
wish to kill their children in a very protracted and painful way." She
lifted her chin. "I wouldn't be surprised if the women lynched you, sir.
We're through letting people like you destroy our state. If you try to cross my
husband, you'll find that we hit back, too... and hard." Cady could feel
her knees quaking, and she laced her moist hands together to conceal their
tremors.

"Feisty
broad, aren't ya? Emmett told me you were a troublemaker." Greeley wet his
thick lips with his tongue.

Rafe leaned
forward, putting his index finger into the middle of Greeley's corpulent belly.
"If you ever call my wife a broad again, Greeley, I'm going to put my fist
where this finger is," he announced conversationally, his smile widening
when the man retreated a step. "I don't think I have to repeat what Cady
just said. If you want a fight, you'll get one." Rafe stepped away from
his desk. "Get out of here. You're ruining my Sunday."

The
men filed out, still muttering.

Bruno
stood to one side of the open door. "You're making a mistake getting their
backs up like that, Rafe. Emmett won't like it, and you'll weaken your own position
in the party."

"Cut
the crap, Bruno." Rafe's face was as harsh as his voice. "No matter what
you or my father thinks, my political leverage has never depended on men like
Greeley. I've never underestimated him, but I'm not afraid of him,
either."

"Damn
it, Rafe, you used to be smarter than this!" Bruno all but shouted.
"Greeley knows a lot about you— your early days in the House. Remember
those parties he arranged? Remember the trouble you had... ?" Bruno
flicked a hard look at Cady, then shrugged.

Cady
could feel Rafe standing rigidly at her side. She flashed a quick glance at him,
seeing the red staining his neck and crawling up his cheeks. His face looked
hewn from granite. She cleared her throat. "If you're referring to the
party at Durra when the highway patrol were called and it was discovered that
the youngest congressman from the state of New York was hosting a party of call
girls and other congressmen—if you're referring to the write up in The Tattler
with pictures of said congressman frolicking in his father's pool with a
cheesecake blonde and that both were nude—if that's what you mean, Bruno, then
speak up and don't worry about me. I know most of the details." Cady
sensed that Rafe had kept his eyes on her profile from the moment she began to
speak. She knew he didn't see Bruno bare his teeth at her in rage.

"All
right, Cady, so you know what can be done to defeat Rafe's reelection,"
Bruno growled softly. "Are you going to let some bleeding hearts destroy
your husband's future when with just a little cooperation, he could win?"

"Shut
up, Bruno, and don't try to coerce Cady. I won't allow it. If Greeley tries to
heat up those old ashes, I'll leak to the press that it was Greeley himself and
his boys who hired those women to descend on Durra. What do you think people
will think of that sort of thing? I'll tell the world that this is the way Mr.
Greeley does business. Do you think it will do Emmett's name any good to be
linked to a gigantic call girl ring, with his friend Mr. Greeley as
procurer?"

"You
don't know what you're taking about," Bruno snarled at the same time that
Rafe moved from Cady's side toward his father's aide.

"Don't I?" Rafe looked from Bruno to Cady, the
flicker deep in those blue eyes telling her how painful this was for him. He
grabbed Bruno's shirt front. Then, like a flash, he looked back at Cady.
"How the hell do you know so much about this?"

Cady thought her smile must make her look as if she'd
sucked a lemon. "There were more than enough people on the Hill willing to
tell me all about my rakish husband and his high-flying days after his first
election. Most of them put it down to your being just another one of those wild
Densmores—bright, but wild," Cady finished, her throat feeling tight.

"Cady, for God's sake..." Rafe began, turning his
back on Bruno.

"And"—Cady
lifted her left hand palm outward as though to forestall his words—"I also
was made very aware that it was one of those parties you were heading toward
when the plane crashed on the way to Durra. I can't tell you how many kind
people came forward to inform me what a real good-time Charlie I had
married," she concluded, sarcasm in her voice as she fought to keep the
searing pain from showing.

"Cady, I
swear to you—" Rafe began hoarsely.

"For
goodness sake, don't perjure yourself, Rafe," Cady said, gulping.

"Cady,
listen to me—" he barked.

Bruno's
laugh bellowed into the room. "I guess you can't fool the missus,
Rafe."

Rafe
turned and swung at the same time, his right fist catching Bruno on the point
of his jaw, the crunch of bone against bone a sickening sound.

Bruno
was strong and thickset, but he reeled back against the filing cabinet, his
head snapping back. "Why, you..." he rasped, putting his hands up
like a street fighter, ready to come at Rafe.

"Come
on, Bruno. Do it. There's nothing I want more than to pull you apart,"
Rafe vowed thickly, his body curving in menace, obviously with no regard for
his physical welfare.

"Stay and
fight, but let me out of here," Cady said, her voice shrill as she pushed
at Rafe in an effort to get past him. "And.. .and don't you dare have a
relapse from fighting," she choked.

"Cady,
don't. Wait for me. We have to talk," Rafe insisted, his attention
focusing on her again.

"No, I'm
leaving. Stay away from me." Cady didn't look at Bruno again as she
stumbled from the room.

She heard the low
voices and knew Rafe was saying something to Bruno, but she was too busy
running to care. An elevator was standing open and she jumped into it, punching
the button for the lobby.

When
she ran down the steps of the office building, a taxi was just discharging a
passenger. She hailed it and told the cabbie to drive to Virginia.

She
leaned back against the upholstery of the taxi cab, pressing her fingertips
into her eyes. Why had she said all that? Her mouth had let go like a ruptured
dam, spilling all the bitter truths that she had hugged to herself for so long.
Rafe had never known that she was aware of the details of the scandal at Durra,
his father's palatial estate in the horse country of Maryland. She sighed as
she remembered the atomic row they had had in the early days of their marriage
when she told Rafe that she wouldn't accompany him to a lawn party his father
was hosting at Durra. She had been young and too hurt by the freshness of the
disclosure that Stacy Lande, then a secretary in Bruno's office, had made
during a benefit to aid battered children that they were attending.

"But Cady,
honey, you're so naive," Stacy had said uneasily. "I was just kidding
about old news. I wasn't trying to hurt you. Many big guns politico-wise were
there." Stacy had become increasingly uncomfortable. It isn't so bad for
you, really. You didn't even know Rafe then. Honey, I wish you wouldn't look
like that. It's all water over the dam. Honestly, Cady, I never meant to hurt
you."