Another Notch in the Beltway Read online

  “I don’t want a divorce, Corrine, but I won’t be celibate because my wife won’t participate in the act. I’d much prefer my wife, but she keeps her legs crossed and denies me access.”

  “Your wife is the one with money. You’re paid well to keep your pants zipped,” Corrine raged.

  From her tone, she made it clear that she’d cut him off if he weren’t careful. But he played her; she was still young and innocent.

  “Let me love you,” he pleaded. “We don’t need to have children. I won’t allow you to get pregnant unless it’s what you want. You’re a beautiful, compelling woman. I ache with need for you.” He’d taken her face in his hands and kissed her until she gave in.

  Things settled down, and Corrine decided she wanted to get pregnant again. Once she did, she cut him off totally, even though the doctor told them having sex had nothing to do with her other miscarriages.

  Maxwell found solace with other women. He told himself it was only until Corrine delivered and she let him back into her bed. The pregnancy was difficult and when Carter was born, he tore her from her vagina to rectum, even with an episiotomy. Looking back, he should have intervened and insisted she have a caesarean section. Corrine was a tiny woman with the hips of a twelve-year-old.

  As he got up to go to the wet bar, his phone rang, ending his thoughts.

  Chapter Nine

  Several days later, Lenore sat at her butcher-block kitchen table drinking coffee and reading the Philadelphia Inquirer. She was enjoying the warmth of the sun streaming through her sliding doors when a national news blip caught her eye.

  “Four-term Senator Byron Maxwell of Virginia confirmed rumors that his twenty-year-old son, Jack, was diagnosed with stage four multiple myeloma. Maxwell’s older son, Carter, was killed in 2009 when the car he was driving skidded off the road and crashed head-on into a tree. Carter was not wearing a seat belt, and drugs and alcohol were found in his blood.”

  She let out a long sigh and continued to read the rest of the paper with only half her usual focus and a second cup of coffee. A while later, she decided toast would keep the caffeine from eating a hole through her already churning stomach. But she knew the coffee had nothing to do with the storm that was not only brewing in her stomach but in her mind.

  Pacing in front of the counter while her bread toasted, she looked out the window and said a silent prayer for Jack, the boy who was her son’s half-brother and also said a prayer of thanks that her own son was happy and healthy. While she was at it, she tossed in a job that she loved and friends she could count on. She also added a prayer for MP and his lost loved ones. The anxiety did not leave her, prayers or not.

  Lenore took her dry toast with her to the office, started her computer and brought up the partial manuscript of Moon Over the Garden. Addy was off today, and Michael Patrick wouldn’t be there for an hour, so she thought she’d get some work done on her own book.

  She sat for a moment reading the last ten pages she’d completed. But she was distracted. Lenore had a strong feeling she knew why Gerald Morris was calling her after all these years. She Googled Jack Maxwell, multiple myeloma, and hit Enter.

  There were ten articles about Jack and literally thousands about Byron. Over the years, she’d made an effort to block his existence out as much as possible. He’d made the decision to shut Nathan and her out without a thought, so she felt it was only fair that she do the same. At first it was painful, but over the years her feelings toward him had moved to ambivalence. She had never wished him or his family any ill will. He’d given her a precious gift. Though he chose not to share Nate with her, Byron had lived up to his end of the bargain. They both had, very civilized, actually, and very unusual.

  The article said Jack had been fighting the cancer since shortly before his brother’s death. He’d been undergoing chemotherapy and radiation. He would need a bone marrow transplant from a donor as his own bone marrow was too badly damaged by the treatments to be effective in an autologous one. All the articles said that the closest match was a sibling or parent, but siblings of the same parents were usually the best.

  “Maxwell wants Nate to be tested to see if he’s a match for his half brother,” she said to herself in an almost inaudible voice. After never wanting to acknowledge Nate, Byron needed something from him. She didn’t know what to think about the situation. Lenore didn’t know what Nate would make of it either. He wanted to know who his father was, but like this? Using one child to save another. One acknowledged and loved, the other a financial obligation and shunned. Would he publicly acknowledge Nate? She didn’t think so, and if he did, after all these years, the media would be all over her and her son.

  Lenore felt nauseous at the thought. She continued to scroll though the articles. “My God,” she gasped, when she came across a picture of Jack. He looked almost identical to her Nate. The similarities were unmistakable. Both boys had their father’s classic handsome features. Nate did have her hazel eyes, however, and for that she was grateful. She believed that eyes were the windows to the soul, and Lenore had always been secretly pleased that every time she looked into her son’s, they were not those of her former lover. In fact, she’d even forgotten how much he looked like Byron, because in every other way she saw little in Nate that brought to mind his father.

  She got up and hit the iTunes on her computer. Lenore put on some music to keep her and her thoughts company for a few minutes. She cranked the music so it was loud. The speakers on her computer were high quality, and she liked the fact that when random fancy overtook her, she could make the room vibrate. Queen’s “We Will Rock You” did precisely that, followed by a guilty pleasure, Barry Manilow’s “Copa Cabana.” Her taste in music was eclectic and that’s what she got as the shuffle mode continued.

  ****

  MP watched Lenore from the doorway. He’d never seen her dancing and singing like no one was watching. It took his breath away. He’d rung the bell but she hadn’t answered.

  Today was Addy’s day off, and he was looking forward to spending the time alone with Lenore, getting to know her better, mentally and physically. She had up walls so thick he didn’t think anything could penetrate them. He was attracted to her. Yes, she was physically appealing, but she was also smart, witty, and willing to listen to him about his craft, how he wrote. She wanted to know how he constructed his books. While she would generously share her writing experiences with him, she shared little else.

  Lenore turned, looking wide eyed and embarrassed.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you,” MP said, moving toward her and taking her hand. “I rang the bell, but with the music, you didn’t hear me. I tried the door and let myself in. You should lock it, you know,” he finished, pulling her closer.

  MP had never touched her before, not really. He felt some type of current pass through them. Barbra Streisand’s and Bryan Adams’s “I Finally Found Someone” filled the air.

  Lenore started to move away, but he drew her back to him easily. “Dance with me. I enjoyed watching you before, mo chuisle.” He nuzzled her neck and sang the lyrics to her. His lips found hers. They were warm and yielding. MP traced the seam of her mouth with his tongue as if asking for admittance; she granted it. He ran his hands through her hair, he deepened the kiss, swaying with the music, cupping her bottom, and pulling her toward him.

  “I should have known,” a voice boomed from the doorway.

  Lenore and MP jerked back from one another.

  Before them was a nondescript man. He was about five ten, one hundred and sixty pounds with mousy brown hair and dull gray eyes. He was dressed casually in a bluish gray sweater and jeans.

  “You’re right. I should lock the door,” she said, looking at MP. “Can you give me a minute?”

  MP nodded and left but only into the room next door. The man was obviously angry, and he wanted to be close in case she needed him.

  ****

  Lenore turned her attention to the intruder. “John, I’m sorry,” she beg
an, seeing the furious passion on his face. She’d never seen any type of emotion from the man before.

  “You’re sorry? You’re only sorry you got caught. How many other guys are you stringing along?” His hands were on the back of the couch, gripping it until his fingers were white-knuckled.

  She moved slowly, farther away from him, noting that his face was an unpleasant shade of muted red.

  “Love Stinks” began to play. Lenore started reaching for the computer to turn it off.

  “No, leave it,” John Irving spat, then turned and stormed out of the house, slamming the door behind him so hard it rattled the glass sidelights.

  Lenore took a shaky breath and let it out.

  Michael Patrick came to her. “Are you all right, lass? I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were dating anyone.”

  “It’s all right. I stopped dating him weeks ago. I never got around to telling him,” she said almost sheepishly.

  A small smile crossed MP’s face. “Glad to be of service then.”

  She laughed a full-bodied sound that he’d heard only a few times before. “Yes, thank you for your help, Michael Patrick. I’m not good with ending relationships. I thought maybe if I kept putting him off, he’d get the hint.” Lenore sobered. “I should have told him. It wasn’t nice, and I wouldn’t like to be treated that way. He isn’t a bad guy, just gray.”

  “Gray? You rate your men with colors, do you, lass?”

  “No, only John Irving for some reason.”

  “If you were to give me a color, what would it be?”

  “Scarlet,” she said without any hesitation.

  “Why?” he asked, amused interest in his voice.

  “You’re dangerous.”

  He laughed. “How so?” He was moving closer to her.

  “As if you didn’t know.” She avoided giving him a direct answer.

  “No, tell me, mo chuisle.” He was inches from her now. Survivor’s “The Search is Over” morphed on.

  He closed the distance between them. “We didn’t finish our last dance if I recall correctly,” he said, pulling her into his arms.

  She smiled, grateful for a reprieve in answering the question.

  MP sang to her, holding her closer, running his hand down her back.

  She looked into his face, lips parted as if in invitation. He took it.

  This time the kiss was hungrier and carried a sizzle of desire. They had all but stopped dancing, lost in the sensation of discovering one another.

  Survivor was now replaced with Journey’s “Open Arms.” Music forgotten now, he slid his hands up the back of her long-sleeved black T. She arched into him. His arms pulled her tighter.

  “Excuse me,” a deep, raging voice all but commanded.

  They jolted apart as if the words were bullets.

  Lenore shrieked, and MP muttered, “Jesus.”

  “Wha… what are you doing here, Byron?” Lenore asked, stunned, yet not, that he was standing in her office.

  Byron Maxwell was a big man. Attractive, almost too pretty, but at sixty-two his hair was now more gray than sable, and his eyes were not the vivid, ice blue they once were. He was beginning to look like a faded rose.

  “I did ring the bell, but with the music and all…” He smirked and let his sentence trail off.

  “Again, Byron, what are you doing here?” she demanded, angry that he had invaded her personal space.

  “Gerald called you and you didn’t return his call.”

  “Sorry, but I’m not in the habit of making campaign contributions to any political party these days. I didn’t know the RNC was going door to door now, or are you a member of the Tea Party, grass roots, and all that?” she asked hotly, anger spilling into her tone.

  “Don’t be a bitch, Lenore.”

  “You haven’t seen bitch.”

  “The lady deserves more respect than that, Byron, and if you can’t behave with a modicum of decorum, I think you should leave,” MP said hotly.

  Maxwell looked MP up and down, as if noticing him for the first time, and then nodding his acknowledgment of MP’s statement, he held out a hand and said, “Byron.”

  “Michael Patrick Finnegan.” MP gave Byron an appraising looking as well.

  “Lenore, I’m sorry. My intrusion was poorly timed, and my behavior thus far uncalled for,” Byron said, shifting his attention back to her.

  About seven snippy comments flashed through her mind, but MP’s hand gliding down her back somehow kept them at bay. So she simply nodded and waved him to the couch. She did not, however, offer refreshments. When they had been seeing one another, he liked to come to her apartment and watch her cook. He loved her food. Mrs. Maxwell didn’t cook.

  “Mo chuisle, I won’t be far if you need me.”

  “Okay.” She looked into his blue eyes; they were filled with concern. “I’ll be all right, Michael Patrick,” she said softly.

  She watched him go, then turned back to Maxwell, her own eyes stormy and her voice cold. “All right, for the fourth time, what do you want?”

  “Jack is sick, he has multiple myeloma and needs a bone marrow transplant.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” she said, meaning it and not breaking eye contact.

  “The best chance of a donor is a sibling. Carter most likely would have been a match, but I’m sure you heard he died several years ago.”

  She sat impassive, gaze never wavering.

  “Nate may be a match, even though he and Jack do not share the same mother.”

  Lenore waited him out with barely suppressed anger. Jack was only a month younger than Nate. Maxwell had told her when they first got involved that his marriage was over and he’d not had “intimate relations” with his wife since she became pregnant with his first son. When he told her his wife was pregnant again, she remembered asking him exactly what his definition of intimate relations was. She never did get a sufficient answer from him. It was the last time she’d ever seen him.

  All of their communications after that went through Morris and her attorney. Thank goodness she was not so besotted with him that she didn’t take precautions to protect herself and unborn child. At the time, Lenore told her attorney, “He fucked me once, and he won’t do it again.” She certainly wouldn’t let him fuck her son.

  “Lenore, would you ask Nate to be tested to see if he’s a match?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “I said no. I don’t believe I stuttered. You want him to be tested—you ask him. I’ll be more than happy to be present at the meeting, in fact, I insist on it. You have no idea how many times he’s asked me who his father was. I told him I didn’t know, but he didn’t buy that.”

  “Really, if you carried on the way I found you—”

  Byron Maxwell was suddenly reeling backwards. The full force of her open palm had slammed into the side of his still too pretty, too smug face.

  She was on her feet pointing to the door.

  “Get out of here, you bastard. Yes, that would be you and not my unacknowledged son.”

  Maxwell stared at her, a hand absently stroking the cheek she had so ruthlessly slapped.

  “I said get out of here. Now!”

  MP entered the room. “The lady asked you to leave. I will remove you by force if I need to.”

  “I’m sorry,” Byron said under his breath, turned, and left.

  Chapter Ten

  Michael Patrick followed Byron out and made sure the door was locked this time. When he returned to the office he found Lenore, arms wrapped protectively around her waist, staring out the window.

  He wasn’t sure if he should go to her but figured if she didn’t want or need him, she’d tell him to go.

  MP enveloped her from behind and kissed the side of her face. “You okay?”

  “I think so.”

  “Guy was jealous, that’s why he acted that way,” MP said.

  “I haven’t seen or spoken to him in almost twenty-one years.”

  “He was
still jealous. I know. I’m a man. Maybe he liked to think that you’d never get over him.”

  “It’s not that I haven’t gotten over him, but his treatment of me when I got pregnant pretty much colored my life and my relationships.”

  “Yet you write beautiful romance.”

  “Set in another century, on another continent, with people real or imagined, long dead.”

  He let that be and instead asked, “I take it that was Nate’s father?”

  “Yes.”

  “Want to talk about it? I’m a good listener.”

  “Maybe in a little while. I’ve never talked about it with anyone, so I don’t take it lightly.”

  “Nor do I, mo chuisle, nor do I.”

  “What does it mean? The word you called me; it sounds lovely and Gaelic.”

  He smiled gently at her, “That’s because it is. It means my love or my darling.” Its literal meaning was my breath, but he wasn’t ready to share that yet. It had already been a crazy enough day for her.

  She turned to smile at him, “That’s nice. I like it.”

  He ran his thumb across her bottom lip, “I’m glad. So you’re not expecting any more crazy men, are you? You told me I was scarlet; what color are you?”

  She couldn’t help but laugh. “Usually a shade above pale yellow.”

  “I find that hard to believe. I see you as teal green, I think, rich, warm, and intricate.”

  “See, you are a charmer, Mr. Finnegan, a definite scarlet.”

  “How about we get out of here for a bit? I’ll take you to lunch at that charming inn by the Delaware River.”

  “Maybe another day. How about I cook for us?”

  “Sure, I don’t think I knew you cooked.”

  “Hmm, where do you think all those cookies you devour come from?”

  “You make them, homemade? I always thought they came from the bakery in town. That Addy picked them up.”

  “Nope, it was I.”

  “You make them for me?” he inquired hopefully.