Carla Neggers - Night’s Landing

And herself, she thought. She didn’t have to get everything right, not today.

“I suppose that’s to be expected,” she said, trying to hide how upset she was. “He wasn’t president when I became interested in the Poe House. He wasn’t even the governor of Tennessee. I was in high school. Leola and Violet Poe, the sisters who raised him, were our neighbors and very dear friends.”

“They’re the ones who found Wes Poe on their doorstep?”

Suddenly Sarah could picture them in their rockers as elderly women, reminiscing, wandering from one topic to another and back again as they talked about neighbors, family, friends, people they’d met on the river-and, always, their fight to keep and raise the infant boy they’d found one Sunday morning on their porch overlooking the Cumberland River.

Now he was the president. It was the sort of story Americans loved. Some were already placing it alongside George Washington’s cherry tree and Abe Lincoln’s log cabin.

“He was in an apple basket,” Sarah said. “Dr. Jimmy-Jimmy Hankins, Leola and Violet’s doctor-said he wasn’t more than two days old.”

“Do you have a theory about who his mother was?”

“Theories, rumors and hints are easy to come by.”

She laid on her southern accent, although she wasn’t sure why. To mark her territory to this hard-nosed New Englander? To give weight to her own claim to the topic of the Poe sisters? It had consumed her for so long. But she knew she had to let go. She wasn’t Wes Poe’s biographer-she’d hardly touched on his life. It was the Poe house, the Poe family, the site itself and its development along the river that had excited her. Wes was a neighbor and a friend. He was complicated, driven, ambitious and compassionate. And, now, he was the president-not exactly an “ordinary” person.

Nate seemed, finally, to sense her ambivalence and changed the subject. “Rob said you two grew up in D.C. more than you did in Tennessee.”

“We went to school in Washington. Home is Night’s Landing.”

He smiled. “Do you speak seven languages like your brother does?”

She shook her head, her unexpected tension easing. “French and a little Spanish. Rob’s always had a gift for languages.”

“You and your family weren’t prepared for him to become a marshal, were you?”

“I didn’t even realize marshals were still around.”

His eyes sparked with unexpected humor. “Thought we went out with Bat Masterson and Wyatt Earp?”

“I still don’t know exactly what you all do.”

He swallowed more of his beer. “Some days neither do I. How’s the quesadilla?”

She hadn’t touched another bite. “It’s good. Have some.”

“My family left me with a refrigerator full of food.”

“Parents, brothers, sisters?”

“An uncle, two sisters and two brothers-in-law. No parents. They got killed hiking in a storm on Cold Ridge when I was seven.”

“You’re the oldest?”

“My sisters were five and three.”

“So they don’t really remember, and you do.”

His eyes were distant. “You’re quick, Sarah. Most people don’t get that right away.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean-”

“No need to be sorry.”

She thought he meant it. “Sometimes I can be too impulsive. It’s been known to get me into trouble.”

“You don’t look like a troublemaker.”

She laughed. “That’s why it surprises people when I do something I shouldn’t.” She stared at the rest of her quesadilla, no longer hungry. “My parents are still in Amsterdam. It’s not that easy for my father to travel these days. Flying to New York and back to Amsterdam again would be hard on him. And, no,” she added, “I’m not making excuses for him or my mother. It’s just the reality we all have to deal with.”

“Does he advise the president?”

“As a friend, if asked.”

“He was an assistant secretary of state-”

“For about five minutes for an administration that was not John Wesley Poe’s.”

“They get along?”

“Very much so.” She sat back, studying the man across from her. “Special Agent Collins asked me many of these same questions, you know.”

Nate surprised her again by smiling. “But he was asking them because he’s conducting an investigation. I’m asking because I’m curious.”

“I think you’re looking for distractions.”

“Maybe. I’ve worked with your brother for four months. I didn’t have a clue he was pals with the president. I need a little time to adjust.”

Sarah doubted he’d needed more than a half second to adjust, but she didn’t call him on it.

“Rob visited your folks in Amsterdam a few weeks ago. Were you there?”

She thought of the man in the park and felt her stomach tighten, even as she reminded herself it had to be a case of mistaken identity. “I flew in from Scotland. We don’t get that many opportunities to be together as a family.”

“I’ve never been to Amsterdam.” Nate finished the last of his beer. “What’s it like?”

“Narrow streets, a mix of old and new buildings, crowded, fascinating, more diverse than you might think. Lots of bicycles. The canals are beautiful-we all did a canal tour.”

She didn’t mention the Rijksmuseum, because if she did, her anxiety would show, Nate would see it, and she’d have to tell him about the man in the park and what a nutcase she was for thinking she’d recognized him from the museum. But that had been such a strange day, her, Rob, their parents, playing tourist, trying to be a family in that foreign city because that was where they’d found themselves together.

She couldn’t eat any more and took one last sip of beer, her glass still half-full. She offered Nate money for the tab, but he refused. As he pulled out his wallet, she noticed that he favored his injured arm and saw him wince in pain. She regretted how close she’d come to losing it in the park, to the point that he’d obviously felt he’d had to whisk her off for a beer and something to eat. However bad the past day and a half had been for her, they’d been so much worse for him and her brother.

The evening air had turned chilly, but Sarah felt hot, agitated. Nate was watching her closely-too closely, as if he believed she was trying to hide something from him. Not a pleasant position to be in. But she didn’t consider herself to be hiding anything. She’d been mistaken about the man in the park.

And Nate was recovering from a bullet wound and a shocking attack that could have killed him.

She had no business reading anything into his actions, his questions, the way he looked at her.

“I should get back to the hospital,” she said. “It really was serendipity that you followed me. Thanks.”

He stepped off the curb to flag a cab. “I don’t believe in serendipity.”

She smiled at him. “Of course not.”

When they arrived back at the hospital, Rob was out for the night-and Nate was done for. Sarah could see it in the dark smudges of fatigue under his eyes, the hollow look to his cheeks. “Do you have a car?” she asked him when they returned to the waiting room. “Do you want me to drive you home?”

“That bad, huh?” He grinned at her, a sudden spark in his eyes. “You can drive me home another time, Dr. Dunnemore. When I don’t look and feel like death on a cracker.”

Her mouth snapped shut.

He laughed, and although he sounded exhausted, she felt a tingle of pure sexual awareness dance up her spine.

After he left, Juliet Longstreet put down the magazine she’d been staring at and shook her head. “That man. Total hard-ass, married to the job and absolute hell on women. They all fall for him.”

“Did you?”

“No way.” She grinned. “I go for the southern frat-boy types.”