Page 39 of State of Affairs (First Family 1)

“Good God. On day one.”

“Right? Good times.”

“Are you panicking?”

“Trying not to. That won’t help anything.”

“You can panic with me.”

“Thanks, babe. I was going to stay in the Oval, but they said I should go home and sleep while I could. It’s apt to be a tense few days. I’ll probably miss the twins’ party, and that bums me out big-time.”

“Don’t do that to yourself. They’ll have a wonderful time, and we’ll tell them you got called into work. They'll understand.”

“I want to be with them for their party.”

“They’ll know that, Nick. We’ll make sure of it.”

“Why exactly is it that so many people want this job, anyway?”

“Um, if I had to guess, they get off on the idea of being the most powerful person on earth.”

“I don’t feel very powerful right now with my secretary of State and six Secret Service agents being held hostage by a hostile government.”

“You’re surrounded by the top minds in the world. They’ll tell you what to do.”

“I’m surrounded by Nelson’s people with no idea whether they’re loyal to me, or if they think—like the vast majority of Americans probably do—that they’re stuck with a young, inexperienced president who doesn’t actually want the job.”

“Don’t do that. Don’t anticipate trouble. If you step up and do the job and handle the crises, they’ll see you’re more than capable. You’re just going to have to show them, one day at a time.” She kissed his cheek and got out of bed. “Don’t go anywhere.”

“Where’re you going?”

She went into the bathroom, got a melatonin from his medicine cabinet and returned to bed to give it to him along with the glass of water from her bedside table. Since he had to be back at the White House by seven, she only gave him one. “Take it. You’re going to have to sleep to survive this job.”

He took the pill, downed it with a swallow of water and handed the glass back to her. “Not sure how I’ll ever sleep again.”

“You will. Not every day will feel as crazy as the first one did.”

“It’d better not, or I might flee the country.”

“You’d never do that.”

“No, but I wish I could.”

“If you did, you’d never forgive yourself for running away.”

“I wouldn’t.”

“Come here.” Sam held out her arms to him, and he rested his head on her chest. She ran her fingers through his hair, wishing there was something she could say or do to soothe him. Since there wasn’t anything she or anyone could do to ease his burden, she could only love him as fiercely as she ever had while he made this transition and took on the awesome responsibility that came with his new office.

She caressed his back with her other hand, keeping up both until she felt him start to relax as his breathing deepened. If she had to stay up all night rubbing his back, she’d do it if it meant he got some much-needed sleep.

While she waited to be certain he was asleep, she forced her mind to think of anything other than the secretary of State being detained by the Iranians. It was still surreal that something of that magnitude was her husband’s problem. But it’s not yours, she told herself. In an effort to get her mind off Nick’s problems so she might sleep too, she thought about Gigi and the way Cameron Green had looked when he came into her hospital room earlier.

Cam and Gigi weren’t a pairing she would’ve considered had she not witnessed a spark of something urgent coming from him when he saw Gigi in that hospital bed. What Sam had noticed went far beyond one colleague’s concern for another. She picked through memories of the two of them at work, looking for clues that simply didn’t exist.

If something had happened between them, it had occurred outside of work. Both were consummate professionals, so she wasn’t worried about their ability to handle a romantic entanglement on the job. It was just odd that he and Gigi had been dating other people, and yet, Sam had witnessed his intense reaction to seeing Gigi injured earlier. Was the attraction—or whatever it was—mutual?

Under normal circumstances, Sam wouldn’t give a potential attraction between two of her detectives even ten minutes of her attention until it affected her. Since nothing about her current circumstances could be considered “normal,” she was almost relieved to have something to think about other than Nick being president, the Iranians, the location of the man who’d hurt Gigi and her promise to Lenore Worthington to reopen her son’s case.

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