Danielle Steel: Journey

They didn't talk much on the way home, and he reminded her that he was going to Camp David for lunch with the President the next morning. “I'll meet you at the plane at two-thirty,” he said, looking distracted. They went to Virginia every weekend. Jack had bought a farm there the year before he met Maddy, and it was a place he loved, and she had gotten used to. It had a rambling, comfortable house, and miles of land around it. He kept stables, and some Thoroughbreds. But in spite of the pleasant scenery, Maddy was always bored there.

“Do you want to just stay in town this weekend?” she asked hopefully, as she followed him into the house after Charles dropped them off.

“We can't. I invited Senator McCutchins and his wife for the weekend.” He hadn't told her that either.

“Was that a secret too?” Maddy asked, looking irritated. She hated it when he didn't ask her about things like that, or at least warn her.

“I'm sorry, Maddy, I've been busy. I have a lot on my mind this week. There's some complicated stuff going on at the office.” She suspected he was distracted by the meeting at Camp David. But he still could have told her about the McCutchinses coming for the weekend. He smiled at her gently as he said it. “That was thoughtless of me. I'm sorry, baby.” It was hard to stay angry at him when he said it like that. He had an endearing way about him, and just as she started getting angry at him, she always found she couldn't.

“It's okay. I just would have liked to know.” She didn't bother telling him that she couldn't stand Paul McCutchins. Jack knew it. He was fat, overbearing, and arrogant, and his wife always looked terrified of him. She was too nervous to say more than two words whenever Maddy saw her, and she looked as though she were scared of her own shadow. Even their kids looked nervous. “Are they bringing their kids?” They had three pale, whiny children, whose company Maddy never enjoyed, although she generally liked children. Just not the McCutchinses'.

“I told them they couldn't,” Jack said with a grin. “I know you can't stand them, and I don't blame you. Besides, they scare the horses.”

“That's something at least,” Maddy said as they went inside. It had been a long week for both of them, and she was tired. She fell asleep in Jack's arms that night, and she didn't even hear him get up the next morning. He was up and dressed and reading the paper by the time she came down for breakfast.

Jack gave her a quick kiss and a few minutes later, he left for the White House, where he was meeting the Presidential helicopter to take him to Camp David.

“Have fun,” she smiled at him, as she poured herself a cup of coffee. He looked as though he were in high spirits. Nothing excited Jack more than power. It was addictive.

And when she saw him at the airport that afternoon, he was positively glowing. He looked as though he'd had a great time with Jim Armstrong.

“So, did you solve all the problems in the Middle East, or plan a small war somewhere?” she asked with a look of mischief. Just looking at him in the June sunshine, she fell in love with him all over again. He was so damn attractive, and so handsome.

“Something like that,” he smiled mysteriously, as he followed her onto the plane he had bought that winter. It was a Gulfstream and he was happy with it. They used it every weekend, and he used it for business.

“Can you tell me about it?” She was dying of curiosity, but he shook his head and laughed at her. He loved teasing her with something he knew and she didn't.

“Not yet. Soon though.”

There were two pilots and they took off twenty minutes later, as Jack and Maddy chatted in the comfortable chairs at the back of the plane, and they headed south to their farm in Virginia. And much to Maddy's chagrin, the McCutchinses were already waiting for them when they got there. They had driven down from Washington that morning.

Predictably, Paul McCutchins slapped Jack resoundingly on the back, and squeezed Maddy far too close when he embraced her, and his wife Janet said nothing. Her eyes only met Maddy's for an instant. It was as though she were afraid Maddy would see some dark secret in her, if she allowed her to look into her eyes for any longer. Something about Janet had always made Maddy uncomfortable, although she had never known what it was, and didn't care enough to think about it.

But Jack wanted some time to talk to Paul about a bill he was endorsing. It had to do with gun control, an ever-sensitive issue, and eternally newsworthy.

The two men wandered off to the stables almost as soon as Jack and Maddy arrived, which left Maddy stuck with Janet. She suggested they go inside, and offered her fresh lemonade and cookies, the cook at the farm had made them. She was a wonderful Italian woman who had worked for them for years. Jack had actually hired her before he married Maddy. The farm always seemed more his than theirs, and he enjoyed it far more than she did. It was remote, and isolated, and Maddy had never been crazy about horses. Jack used it often to entertain people he needed to see for business, like Paul McCutchins.

Maddy asked about Janet's kids as they sat down in the living room, and when they finished the lemonade, she suggested they go for a walk in the garden. It seemed like an eternity waiting for Jack and Paul to come back from the stables. And Maddy chatted meaninglessly about the weather, the farm, its history, and the new rosebushes the gardener had planted. And she was startled when she glanced at Janet, and saw that she was crying. She wasn't an attractive woman, she was overweight, pale, and there was something infinitely sad about her. Now more than ever. As the tears coursed down her cheeks uncontrollably, she looked totally pathetic.

“Are you all right?” Maddy asked uncomfortably. But obviously, Janet wasn't. “Is there anything I can do?” Janet McCutchins shook her head and only cried harder.

“I'm sorry” was all she could manage.

“Don't be,” Maddy said soothingly, stopping at a garden chair, so the woman could sit down and regain her composure. “Would you like a glass of water?” Janet shook her head, as Maddy tried not to stare at her, and she blew her nose, and looked at Maddy. There was suddenly something very compelling about her, as their eyes met.

“I don't know what to do,” she said in a quavering voice, which actually touched Maddy.

“Can I help in some way?” She wondered if the woman was ill, or if something was wrong with one of her children, she seemed so distraught, and so profoundly unhappy. Maddy couldn't even imagine what it could be.

“There's nothing anyone can do.” She sounded desperate and hopeless. “I don't know what to do,” she repeated. “It's Paul. He hates me.”

“Of course he doesn't, I'm sure he doesn't,” Maddy said, feeling stupid, with no knowledge whatsoever of the situation. For all she knew, he did hate her. “Why would he?”

“He has for years. He tortures me. He had to marry me because I got pregnant.”

“In this day and age, he wouldn't still be there if he didn't want to be.” Their oldest child was twelve, and they'd had two children since then. Although Maddy had to admit she had never seen Paul be pleasant to her. It was one of the things she disliked about him.

“We can't afford to get a divorce, and Paul says it would hurt him politically.” It was a possibility, certainly, but other politicians had survived it. And then, Janet took her breath away with her next statement. “He beats me.” Something in Maddy's blood ran cold as she heard the other woman say it. And with that, Janet gingerly pulled up her sleeve, and Maddy could see ugly bruises. She had heard unpleasant stories about his violent temper and arrogant attitude over the years, and now this confirmed it to her.