turned upside down once again. She’d believed him when he said nothing that mattered would change. Their marriage was solid, and they were a formidable team.
But this…
She glanced in the mirror at him in the shower, seeing the tension in his shoulders that no one else would notice. But she saw it. She saw him, and as the dizzying array of implications settled on her, the weight of it threatened to crush her.
Yes, they’d known this was possible when Nick became vice president, but David Nelson had been a healthy man in his late sixties with decades left to live, or so they’d thought. She flattened her hands on the marble vanity and hung her head, trying to relieve the tension in her neck.
Nick had said nothing that mattered would change, but they both knew everything would.
The scrutiny, the security, the criticism, the insanity… Panic bubbled up inside her. What would she do? They’d make her leave her job a police officer, the job that had defined her adult life. That realization filled her with a pervasive sadness that only compounded the sadness she’d been living with since she lost her beloved dad just over a month ago. What she wouldn’t give to be able to talk this through with Skip Holland.
He’d tell her to toughen up and do for Nick what he’d always done for her—support her one thousand percent. He deserved nothing less from her, and would get everything she had to give him, no matter what she had to sacrifice.
And then he was there, with his hands on her shoulders, kneading the tension from her muscles. He kissed her neck and made her shiver. “Whatever you’re thinking, just stop. It’s you and me all the way, babe.”
Sam turned into his embrace and breathed in the fresh, clean scent of home, taking comfort in the familiar when everything had become uncertain in the span of a one-minute phone call.
“We really have to go,” he said.
“I know.” Sam gave herself another second to cling to life as she knew it before she reluctantly let him go, donned a robe and went across the hall to get dressed in the closet he’d built for her. Thinking of photos that would last forever and in deference to the death of President Nelson, she chose a demure black dress, slid on her diamond engagement ring and the diamond key necklace Nick had bought her as a wedding gift.
Taking a quick look in the full-length mirror on the back of the door, she decided she was presentable enough to be in photos that would be studied for generations to come. She stepped into the black Louboutins with the distinctive red soles that Nick had bought her for Christmas last year, ran damp hands over her skirt to smooth the lines and tried not to think too far ahead of the next couple of hours.
She took a deep breath and released it slowly, determined to be there for him the way he always was for her. So much of their life together had been about her—her job, her family, her needs. This was about him, and she was determined to support him in every possible way as he took on the role that would define his life—and hers, whether she wanted that or not.
“You can do this,” she told her reflection. “You can do it for him. You will do it for him.”
A soft knock on the door sounded.
Sam opened the door to him dressed in a navy-blue suit with faint pinstripes, a white dress shirt, a navy-blue-and-red-striped tie and an American flag pinned to his lapel. He looked handsome, sexy, competent and slightly petrified. The rest of the world would see the calm, cool, competent man he was under pressure. Only she would know how he really felt.
“You look beautiful,” he said softly, aware of ears all around as the Secret Service hovered nearby.
“Funny, I was just thinking the same about you.” Flattening her hands on his lapels, she looked up at him. “Is Scotty ready?”
He nodded.
“Are you?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
She slid her hands down his arms and took hold of his hands, giving a gentle squeeze. “Then let’s get going.”
“Before we go, I just want say… You certainly didn’t sign on for this.”
She went up on tiptoes to kiss him. “I signed on for you, come what may.”
“But this…”
“This will turn out to be our greatest adventure yet.” She wasn’t sure she believed that herself, but she needed him to