The Belle and the Beard by Kate Canterbary (carter reed TXT) 📗

"I've had this," she said. "I actually found it at a secondhand shop in D.C. a couple of years ago. I bought it as wishful thinking that I'd wear it to the next inauguration ball."

"Get real. A fortieth anniversary party at a country club on the South Coast of Massachusetts beats an inauguration ball any day," I teased.

"It might." She ran a finger down the front of my shirt, saying, "I like this look on you. Not more than your everyday look but I like it. Where do you even hide your Swiss Army knife?"

I patted my side pocket. "Right here."

"Ah. Very good. Never know when we'll need the aid of the Swiss Army."

"Isn't that the truth," I murmured. "And you're sure you don't want to spend the night down there?"

A thoughtful wrinkle in her brow, she glanced up at me. "You said it's only an hour from here?"

"Yeah, about that."

"No, I'd rather come home at the end of the night. I like it here. And I have a few calls in the morning, on the early side. Preston has a list of people he wants to put me in contact with but he wants to prime me on all of them first which is great, really, it is, but I'd be fine with just the list."

I stared at Jasper for a moment, waiting for her to realize she'd called this home. I didn't even care about the ex-husband who couldn't decide between hounding and abandonment. I'd care about that later but right now, I needed her to acknowledge she wasn't staying at my place or Midge's place, she was at home.

"If that's what you want," I said. "To come back home after the party."

She rubbed her thumb over the shiny buttons running down the front of my shirt. They weren't called buttons but that didn't matter. The sun was inside my chest and my grin was too big, much too big, and it was slightly, potentially, completely possible that I loved her. Nothing else mattered. "Yeah, that sounds good. We don't have time to pack up for the night anyway."

"Peach. How many times have I told you that pajamas are unnecessary?"

"They might not be but I'm not interested in walking out of a hotel in the morning wearing a dress from the night before," she said. "I'm finished with the scandal life, you know."

I nodded because I didn't know what else to do. "Then we'll come home."

I spent the next hour listening and murmuring at all the right moments while Jasper told a seven-part story about the people she worked with on the senator's first reelection campaign. She'd spoken to one of them recently and caught up on old times.

Contrary to Jasper's belief that all her allies had deleted her number, there were plenty of people who reached out to her with frequency. It wasn't that she was dismissive of those people but it was that she expected people to walk away from her. The ones who didn't were the anomalies, not the rule.

I didn't follow her story, not all the way, but I noticed how Jasper talked about her work with the senator. It wasn't tinged with bitterness or resentment, or even the wistful fondness I'd picked up on certain occasions. It was remarkably past tense, much in the way people talked about the good old days of high school or college. It was over for her.

And that meant she could stay. Not simply because Midge's cottage was uninhabitable and my house was home but because she didn't have to return to that world. She didn't have to leave. She could stay here and we could—god, I didn't even know what came after that. Anything could come next, anything.

"It was like a family," she said, her words warm with nostalgia. "Some people have theater production families, some people—like Zelda—have summer camp families. I had campaign families."

Had.

"That's really cool," I said as I turned down the country club's driveway. A tight line of excessively pruned hydrangeas gleamed woody and leafless in the headlights and I was reminded of my sister and the partnership she wanted to form with me. Not tonight though. We'd get to that another time.

"Speaking of which." Jasper flipped down the visor and studied her reflection in the tiny mirror. "What are the chances we'll have a repeat of that awkward moment at your parents' house?"

"Which one?"

"You know what I'm talking about," she chided. "When I was that woman from the television."

I swung into a parking spot, saying, "Zero chances. I've handled it."

"What does that mean? You've handled it? What did you handle?"

I studied Jasper out of the corner of my eye. She didn't need to know about the phone call my father received from me the morning after that gathering or the extremely clear boundaries I cemented into place. She definitely didn't need to know I railed at him for at least fifteen minutes about calling her that woman and how I didn't bring guests to the family table for them to meet a firing squad.

"I asked my father to use some discretion," I said. "And make sure his friends do too."

"You didn't have to do that."

"Maybe not. I did it anyway."

She glanced over at me and it was clear she wanted to push back. But then she said, "Thank you."

"Anytime." I pointed at her door. "Now, listen. You don't wait for me to open your door but you're doing it tonight."

"And why would I entertain such a thing?"

"Because you're all dressed up and I'm not going to let you step in a puddle or catch your skirt on the door. Argue all you want but I'll lock you in here if I have to."

She snapped the visor back into place. After a pause that made me wonder whether she'd fling herself out of the truck right now, just to piss me off, she said, "All right. I'll let you help me.