Her Secret Service Agent

“Sir,” Joe began.

The two men in front of the president stepped aside, and Joe noticed how much older Alan Bennett looked today than he had just three days ago. As if he’d aged three years instead.

“Please, sir. If you could tell me how she is. Anything. I’m going crazy waiting for some kind of news.”

The look of contempt on the president’s face might have made another man back off, but Joe wasn’t going anywhere.

Yes, he knew he deserved the older man’s rage. Joe had given a full report to the president immediately after Vivian had been taken. He had claimed total responsibility for allowing her to leave his line of sight voluntarily. He hadn’t told the full truth, of course. He would never go there. Certainly not with her father.

He’d said only that they had argued and exchanged harsh words. Vivian had been upset and Joe had thought she needed a moment to gather her composure.

Carl, his backup, had been monitoring the back of the house. It had taken Harold McGraw only minutes to knock her out and put her in his van. Drunken college students watched it happen like it was some kind of fraternity prank. So damn easy.

“I’ve given notice to your superior. You’re not on suspension. You’re terminated. Effective immediately. Now leave my sight.”

Joe dropped his head. “Understood, sir. But if I could just see her...”

That was when he heard it. A shrill scream from behind the door the president had just exited.

“Joe! I need Joe!”

“If I could see her... I might help to calm her panic attacks.”

“Jooooe! Joe! Where is he?”

“Good question, Joe. Where were you?” The president didn’t wait for an answer and instead closed his eyes. His pain was a tangible presence in the hallway. When he opened them, Joe knew for certain he was never going to see Vivian Bennett again.

“I...failed her. I know. But I can help her now.”

“I think you’ve done enough.”

Joe nodded. This man wasn’t going to let him pass. “Please, if you just tell me... McGraw, did he...? I mean the rape kit...was it...?”

He couldn’t even get the words out, but in what must have been a moment of empathy, the president said, “He didn’t rape her.”

The breath left Joe’s body then, and he thought he actually might pass out. She’d been beaten, psychologically abused, but not sexually assaulted. Her first time wasn’t that. It was small comfort, but he had to know.

“Thank you. For that. Now you have to promise me you’ll take care of her,” Joe begged. “I know you’re the president, but you have to be her father now.”

“Where’s Joe! I want Joe!”

Joe closed his eyes against the anguish in her voice. “You have to promise me. Please... I can’t leave her unless I know that.”

President Bennett got up in his face. “If you don’t leave now, my men will assume you are a credible threat to myself and my family and have you arrested.”

Joe dropped his head. He had no choice. He turned and walked down the hallway as fast as he could without running. Not because he was afraid of being arrested but because if he had to listen to the sound of Vivian screaming for him for another second he was pretty sure he was going to lose his mind.

CHAPTER TWO

Present Day

JOE HANDED THE woman in front of him a tissue from a box he kept on his desk at all times for just such an occasion.

“I’m very sorry, Karin. Unfortunately the evidence is pretty conclusive. Your husband is having an affair with his coworker.”

He thought it helped for him to say the words out loud. As a private investigator who had shown a number of spouses evidence of adultery, he knew his clients often didn’t believe him until he had spoken the words.

Maybe there is a reason you have a photo of him removing her blouse.

Maybe there is a reason his car was parked at a remote area and she was facedown in his lap.

Maybe there is a reason why her tennis appointment every Wednesday is conducted at a small hotel downtown and neither she nor her instructor is ever seen holding rackets.

Joe had heard it all. Which was why he said the words out loud. Only, having to say them to a seven-months-pregnant woman left a more bitter taste in his mouth than usual.

“What do I do?”

“You need to decide that for yourself, but I strongly suggest talking to him first. Be honest. Give him a chance to be honest in return.”

Another part of the script. What Joe was really thinking was that she should throw the jerk out on his ass, take half his money, and find someone who would be decent and faithful to her.

He heard voices in the hallway outside his office, and through the beveled glass he could see two tall figures in suits standing just outside. Joe’s office was a single room, so when he was meeting with a client, he kept the door locked to prevent interruption.

Karin apparently had heard enough. He handed her a few more tissues, told her he would send his final bill and then walked her out the door.

He wasn’t at all surprised to see who was waiting for him. It had only been a matter of time.

“Hi, Joe,” the older man said as he offered his hand.

“Hey, Carl. Long time no see.”

Carl nodded grimly. “This is Special Agent Mark Thompson. If you have a few minutes, we would like to talk to you.”

Special Agent Thompson was a young fresh-faced man who reminded Joe of himself at that age. The man pulled out and showed his badge to Joe.

“Yeah,” Joe said. “I know what they look like.”

“Sir, we’re here in an official capacity. We think it best to stick to the formalities.”

Joe looked at Carl. “Official capacity. Well, this sounds important.”

Even as he opened the door and let the two men in, he could feel his heart pounding in his chest.

He sat behind his desk while they took the guest chairs in front of him.

“I don’t know if you heard that Ms. Bennett is back in DC. She’s opened a new store in town and was recently featured in a local newscast.”

Joe nodded once. Of course he knew she was back.

“In the past few months, she’s been receiving anonymous notes.” Carl took out a laminated piece of paper and set it on his desk. “Does anything about this letter look familiar to you?”

I’m coming for you, Sugarplum.

Block letters, from different print mediums. “No, the letter is not familiar.”

His brain was reeling. Someone was threatening Vivian. Someone was calling her Sugarplum. He knew that name. He knew the last time she’d heard it. It had been right before he’d shot Harold McGraw.

Joe’s jaw clenched as it finally dawned on him why two members of the Secret Service were here in his office.

“What the hell is this, Carl?”

“Sir, we’re looking into anyone who might have been involved in the Bennett kidnapping,” Agent Thompson answered. “As a person of interest.”

Joe nearly growled. “Carl, you have five seconds to shut this little puppy’s mouth and tell me what the hell is going on.”

“Sir—” the kid began.

“Thompson. Shut it,” Carl snapped. “Sorry, Joe. Direct orders. Vivian told her father about the letters and he asked us to look into it. She’s not under SS protection unlike her father. Although currently he only requires a detail when he’s out of the country.”

“The former president is in China. Shouldn’t you be with him?”

Carl frowned. “Never made it onto his detail team.”

Right, Joe thought. Because while Carl had for the most part been blameless in “the Bennett kidnapping,” as the puppy referred to it, it had still happened on his watch. The president wouldn’t have forgotten that. One more thing Joe could claim responsibility for destroying. Carl’s career potential.

“So you’re investigating the source of these letters.”

“She reported the letters to the MPD, but they haven’t been able to provide much information. She told her father and...”

“And the federal government is now involved. I get it,” Joe said, and he did. Alan Bennett was a commander of men. If he asked for something, he got it. Always. “But seriously, Carl? You have to know I would never...”

“I do. But here is the thing. According to Vivian, she only told one other person McGraw referred to her as Sugarplum.”

“Me?”

“No, her therapist.”

Joe tried to keep his expression blank, but it wasn’t easy. Not when the world knew what McGraw had done to her.

“But it occurred to me that you were there with her in the cabin,” Thompson said. “You might have heard McGraw use the name, as well. I communicated that to President Bennett, and he agreed you should be checked out, as well.”

Joe almost laughed. Bennett knew damn well Joe had nothing to do with terrorizing Vivian. This visit was just his way of telling Joe to stay clear of her. Which was why Joe hadn’t been all that surprised by their arrival. He’d almost expected it since learning she was back in DC.

Ten years was a long time. But not long enough to forget. At least not for President Bennett.

“I can’t help you,” Joe said finally.

He stood and shook hands with Carl. He ignored the puppy.

Then he decided he’d had a hell of day and needed a drink.

* * *

THE DOOR TO the bar opened, and a ray of bright light poured in. For a moment the place seemed to glow, then once more it sank back into its familiar gloominess. Joe could hear someone walking toward him on high-heeled shoes, delicately clicking against the floor. And he knew. He knew it before he turned his head.

“Hi, Joe.”

Vivian Abigail Eleanor Bennett. The last time he saw her, her eyes were swollen shut and her lips were parched and split. But now the angry red gash on her forehead had healed. The ugly purple bruises on her face and collarbone had vanished. Although he noticed she had dark circles under her eyes.

She was stunning. As a young woman she had been pretty, made even more so by how little she realized it. Ten years later and she was drop-dead gorgeous. Same blue eyes and long blond hair, but the ten years had only added to her looks.

Her mother had been a Southern Belle Beauty Queen champion, so it was no surprise where her looks came from. Still, it jolted him.

“May I sit?”

He nodded, unable to find the words after all these years. It was a tie between I’m so sorry I let you go and You ruined my life.

He couldn’t imagine it would be much different for her. Something along the lines of I shouldn’t have kissed you and You bastard, how could you let that monster hurt me?

The bartender approached her and hiked his chin as a signal he was ready for her order. Dom’s wasn’t a really formal place.

“I’ll have what he’s having.” She smiled.

“I’m having a shot of Jack and a Guinness chaser.”

“I’ll have a Chardonnay,” she said and then placed a bill on the bar, which Dom traded for the glass of wine.

Joe shook his head. It was surreal. He could turn his head and look at her. Talk to her. When for so long she’d been nothing but an image on a screen. For weeks after he’d been fired, he’d watched every second of media coverage he could find, replaying it over and over again so he could see for himself how she was healing. If the bruises were fading. If she was still favoring her right side.

Then, of course, came the interview. The one that was supposed to settle the incident and repair the American psyche. After all, if the president’s daughter could be abducted and abused by a monster, then no one in this country was safe.

Then the other incident happened. Joe hadn’t stuck around to watch that.

Now she was sitting next to him drinking a glass of wine he could tell was foul by the way she winced after every sip.

“What the hell are you doing here, Viv?”

She set the glass aside and turned to face him. Again he was struck by how beautiful she’d become. Or maybe he’d forgotten how pretty she’d been back then because he had always shut down those thoughts.

Mostly.

“I’m sorry about what happened today. I had no idea that Carl would...”

“Question me? Interrogate me? Suspect me?”

She gulped. “Any of those things, I suppose.”

Joe shrugged. “Hey, just another day getting my life turned upside down by the Bennetts. Not like that hasn’t happened before.”

Vivian nodded. “I guess I deserved that.”

She didn’t deserve any of it, he thought. Yet she deserved all of it, too.

“You ruined my life,” he said and laughed. Because she would hear one thing, but he knew it to mean something else entirely.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. Then she laughed, too. “Wow, that felt good. For so long I’ve thought about how to tell you that. At one point I thought maybe skywriting it over an Orioles’ home game. ‘Joe. Hunt. I’m. Sorry.’ Big block letters so I would know you would see them. It actually feels strange to finally say it.”

It would have been easy enough to say she had nothing to be sorry for. It would be easy for him to ask forgiveness for screwing up and letting her get hurt. But they’d both be lying if they forgave each other.

“I did try to fix it. I didn’t know you had been fired. I thought you had resigned. Cindy, remember her?”

The agent who should have been on point detail that night instead of him. “Yeah. I remember her.”

“She told me what really happened. I went to Daddy, but he didn’t want to listen...then I sent a letter to your superior at the time and I explained to him what happened. You deserved your job back.”

“That was you,” Joe said, remembering the odd call he’d gotten from Tom, his old boss, a few years ago. It had been right after Bennett left office after his second term. Tom determined that Joe hadn’t been given a fair hearing. Tom wanted to know if Joe would consider reinstatement under suspension, on condition of a formal review of the incident.

Joe had been too far removed from his old life to think about going back. No, he had his freedom, his business, the life he’d built after his spectacular failure. It wasn’t great, but he owned it. Grasping at the past didn’t feel like a solution because nothing could be undone.

Things could only begin again.

“I thought you would go back,” she said.

“I didn’t want it.”

“I thought maybe the Colonel...”

“The Colonel was dead by then.” So there was no hope of regaining his father’s approval. Not that Joe would have wanted it. He could be just as stubborn as his old man.

“I know. I just meant I thought you might do it for him.”

Joe looked at her. “How did you know about the Colonel?”

“Your mom,” Vivian said as if it were obvious. “You must know we still keep in touch. We’re friends on Facebook. I get to see all the grandchildren your siblings are producing. Your nephew Mike looks exactly like you. He’s mastered your serious frown.”

She was smiling like it was a shared moment between them, but his mind was blown. No, he didn’t know she was in touch with his mother this entire time. On Facebook? It was inconceivable.

Did his father know that? Vivian Bennett hadn’t been a popular topic in the Hunt household after the kidnapping.

“Why are you here?” he asked again, suddenly irritated. With her, with his mother for not telling him she was talking to Vivian. And that his mother knew how Vivian was doing while he did not. That his mother would have seen pictures of that life on freaking Facebook of all things.

“To apologize for Carl’s visit. It must have surprised you to learn I was back in DC.”

“I knew you were back,” he admitted. “Too many people I know who knew you. They loved telling me, too, like they expected some kind of reaction. You have to love people and their desire to create drama.”

Another lie. He had heard she was back, that was true. What she didn’t know was that he’d gone to her store in Georgetown. Vivian’s Creations. He’d played out a dozen scenarios where he opened the door and walked inside. Said hello.

In the end, he’d left without entering.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to see her. It was more like he didn’t want to be the one who made the first move. Which was ridiculous. It was entirely possible Vivian never wanted to see him again. He thought maybe it would be better if they met in a Starbucks, or the Metro. Some place where they could run into each other casually.

Except Carl and the puppy showed up before any of that happened. Now she had come to him. Yes, this was much better, he decided, letting go of his irritation. Because he was pretty damn sure she hadn’t tracked him down to Dom’s to apologize for a few questions from the Secret Service.

“No, Viv, I mean why are you really here?”

She squirmed on the stool and then reached to fiddle with her diamond earring, something she did when she got nervous. Only they hadn’t been diamonds back in college. Just simple hoops or studs.

It made him wonder how well she was doing with her business that she could afford diamonds. Despite Daddy being loaded, she’d never wanted his money. She used to talk about it all the time, making her own way. Becoming her own woman. Someone who wasn’t always in the shadow of her overbearing father.

Joe had pointed out that having Daddy pick up the college tab was a pretty big helping hand. Joe’s father certainly wouldn’t have paid for any private college. His children had the option of the military or bust.

Still, there was a part of him that couldn’t help feeling proud that she’d earned her success.

“You mean why did I come back to DC?” she asked, and he knew she was playing innocent. He let her have a pass. None of this shit between them was easy.

“Yeah. Why now after all these years?”

“Daddy’s getting older. You wouldn’t know it to look at him, but I realized hiding away on the other side of the country I was missing out on time I could be spending with my father. Suddenly I wasn’t afraid to come back anymore.”

“Did you have a business out there?”

That made her smile. “Still do,” she said, not hiding her pride. “I have some really talented people running it for me, while I get Vivian’s Creations off the ground here. I’m a chain now. Who would have ever have thought I might actually do something productive?”

“Me. I did.”

She met his eyes and then focused on the wineglass instead and nodded. “Yeah, you did. Always giving me pep talks.”

“I knew what it was like to have a father like yours. Always feeling like you never measured up. I felt I needed to offset that.”

“Yes, but my father loves me, too.”

Joe couldn’t say what the Colonel had felt for him. Love? If it was, it was fleeting after Joe had failed the nation.

“Don’t be mad.”

Joe’s lips twitched. Vivian always told him that when she knew whatever she was going to say next would make him mad.

“What?”

“I went to him.”

“Who?”

“The Colonel. I wrote a letter to your mother. I thought it was important that your family know the truth...”

“Hell, Vivian. Are you serious? What the hell did you say?”

“That you weren’t to blame. That we got into a fight and I ran away from you. That it was my fault. I didn’t mention...the other thing.”

The kiss. A kiss he hadn’t forgotten in ten years.

Joe was still trying to process why she thought the truth exonerated him.

“Your mom asked me to come and talk to him. To try to make him understand. I think she was heartsick about how he’d treated you. Plus, she probably missed having you around. I said everything I could, but he never looked at me once. When I ran out of words, he said thank you and left the room.”

One more thing to be angry with that bastard over, being a jerk to Vivian.

“I could have told you what his reaction would be.”

“Maybe. But you weren’t there.”

The jab hurt, and he looked at her to see if she’d said it intentionally. Reminding him of his many sins. Leaving Vivian at the hospital and never looking back.

Sometimes he could still hear her screaming in that broken voice.

Where is he?

So many sins. How could she possibly forgive them all?

One more time. “Why are you here, Viv?”

“I’m scared,” she admitted. “Not really something new for me, but with these notes...”

It wasn’t the answer he wanted, but at least she wasn’t lying. He could feel her fear in her tight, shallow breaths.

“Carl’s going to handle it. He’ll find whoever did this. Some nutjob who saw you on the news and now wants his fifteen minutes.”

She shook her head. “It’s not enough. I have a lot on my plate starting this new business, rebuilding my life here in DC. I can’t do that looking over my shoulder everywhere I go. I want to feel safe. I need to feel safe. Which is why I’m here. I want to hire you to protect me.”

Now that, Joe thought, was irony. Then he burst out laughing.

CHAPTER THREE

IT WASN’T EXACTLY the reaction she expected. She waited until he had calmed down, but noted that there were actual tears in his eyes. She didn’t think she’d ever seen him laugh so hard.

“It’s not that funny.”

“Yes. It is. You want me, of all people, to protect you?”

Vivian took a deep breath. She’d known coming here wouldn’t be easy, but she’d also known he was her best option and her first choice.

“I’m no longer entitled to Secret Service protection, and I wouldn’t want that anyway. I could hire another investigator, but that person wouldn’t know me and wouldn’t really understand the situation like you do.”

And the last time she had felt truly safe in her life was when Joe had been watching over her. She wanted that again. She was willing to sacrifice her pride to get it. It wasn’t a question that he could have forgiven her. A foolish stunt by a twenty-year-old girl who thought she was madly in love...

You were madly in love.

Regardless, she thought, her feelings had cost him his job, his future and his relationship with his father. Not to mention what that did to the rest of his family. Vivian considered what might happen when she saw him again.

That he might yell, or worse tell her to get lost in that scary soft tone he always used when he was superangry.

Laughing was unexpected.

Then suddenly he stopped. “You do recall what happened the last time you were under my protection?”

Yes, because she’d been stupid. Vivian shrugged. “I’m guessing you won’t make that mistake again. You were the best at what you did, Joe. I know that, even if no one else does.”

He huffed. “You don’t know anything about me anymore.”

Yes, it had been ten years, but back when they had been together, she had known Joe Hunt.

“I hear that Hunt Investigations has a sound reputation and that you come highly recommended. I did some research before I made the decision to find you.”

She couldn’t read his expression. Maybe pride? Then he closed it down. “Yeah, I’m aces at catching cheating spouses in the act. Just ask anyone. No marriage is safe when Joe Hunt is on the trail.”

“Surely you must work other cases.”

He stared at her hard for a moment and then shook his head. “I don’t think this is a good idea. For either of us. Find someone else.”

“There is no one else!” Vivian blurted out. She felt it. She was losing the battle. Losing him. The thought of that, after she’d had to summon all her courage to see him again, was unthinkable. “No one I trust. No one who can take away the constant feeling that I’m being watched...”

Her breathing got shallow, and she could feel the panting begin, the panic escalating.

Not in front of him. Not in front of him.

“Look at me, Viv. Eyes on me.”

Helpless to resist, she met his eyes and felt his hands on her shoulders to hold her steady.

“Deep breath.” He breathed it in with her. “Another one. Again.”

She repeated the effort until her breathing regulated. Her face, though, was flush with humiliation. She’d hated that lack of control.