proportionate to her character. He'd so often worried and wondered about the process, how a person might be corrupted. He'd feared the overt methods, deciding that a cause or a mission was so vital that you might lose perspective on the important things, like the value of a single human life, even the life of an enemy. He hadn't lost that, not ever, and knew that he never would. It was the subtler things that were wearing at him. He was turning into a functionary, worrying about credit and status and influence.
He closed his eyes to remind himself of what he already had: a wife, two kids, financial independence, accomplishments that no one could ever take away.
You are turning into one of them…
He'd fought — he had killed — to defend his family. Maybe Elliot was offended by that, but in quiet moments like this, Jack remembered the times with a thin, grim smile. Not two hundred yards from where he now sat, he'd drilled three rounds into a terrorist's chest, coldly and efficiently — steel on target! — validating all the things they'd taught him at Quantico. That his heart had been beating a thousand times per second, that he'd come close to wetting his pants, that he'd had to swallow back his vomit, were small things. He'd done what he had to do, and because of that his wife and children were alive. He was a man who'd proven his manhood in every possible way — winning and marrying a wonderful girl, fathering two God-sent children, defending all of them with skill and courage. Every time fate had presented its challenge, Jack had met it and gotten the job done.
Yeah, he told himself, smiling at the TV. Screw Liz Elliot. That was a humorous thought. Who, he asked himself, would want to? That cold, skinny bitch, with her arrogance and… what else? Ryan's mind paused, seeking the answer to the question. What else? She was weak, wasn't she? Weak and timid. Beneath all the bluster and the hardness, what was really in there? Probably not much. He'd seen that sort of National Security Advisor before. Cutter, unwilling to face the music. Liz Elliot. Who'd want to screw her? Not very smart, and nothing in there to back up what smarts she did have. Good thing for her that the President had Bunker and Talbot to fall back on.
You're better than all of them. It was a satisfying thought to accompany the end of this glass of wine. Why not have another? This stuff really isn't all that bad, is it?
When Ryan returned, he saw Cathy was back also, going over her patient notes in the high-backed chair she liked.
“Want a glass of wine, honey?”
Dr. Caroline Ryan shook her head. “I have two procedures tomorrow.”
Jack came around to take his place in the other chair, almost not glancing at his wife, but he caught her out the corner of his eye.
“Wow.”
Cathy looked up from her paperwork to grin at him. Her face was nicely made-up. Jack wondered how she'd managed not to mess her hair up in the shower.
“Where did you get that?”
“Out of a catalog.”
“Whose, Fredericks?”
Dr. Caroline Muller Ryan, M.D., F.A.C.S., was dressed in a black peignoir that was a masterpiece of revelation and concealment. He couldn't tell what held the robe portion in place. Underneath was something filmy and… very nice. The color was odd, though, Cathy's nighties were all white. He'd never forgotten the wonderful white one she'd worn on their wedding night. Not that she'd been a virgin at the time, but somehow that white silk had made her so… that, too, was a memory that would never go away, Jack told himself. She'd never worn it since, saying that like her wedding dress, it was something only to be used once. What have I done to earn this wonderful girl? Jack asked himself.
“To what do I owe this honor?” Jack asked.
“I've been thinking.”
“About what?”
“Well, Little Jack is seven. Sally is ten. I want another one.”
“Another what?” Jack set his glass down.
“Another baby, you dope!”
“Why?” her husband asked.
“Because I can, and because I want one. I'm sorry,” she went on with a soft smile, “if that bothers you. The exercise, I mean.”
“I think I can handle that.”
“I have to get up at four-thirty,” Cathy said next. “My first procedure is before seven.”
“So?”
“So.” She rose and walked over to her husband. Cathy bent down to kiss him on the cheek. “See me upstairs.”
Ryan sat still for a minute or two, gunning down the rest of his drink, switching off the TV, and smiling to himself. He checked to make sure the house was locked and the security system armed. He stopped off in the bathroom to brush his teeth. A surreptitious check on her vanity drawer revealed a thermometer and a little index card with dates and temperatures on it. So. She wasn't kidding. She'd been thinking about this and, typically, keeping it to herself. Well, that was okay, wasn't it? Yeah.
Jack entered the bedroom and paused to hang up his clothes, donning a bathrobe before joining his wife at the bedside. She rose to wrap her arms around his neck, and he kissed her.
“You sure about this, babe?”
“Does it bother you?”
“Cathy, to please you — anything you want that I can get or give, honey. Anything.”
I wish you'd cut back on the drinking, Cathy didn't say. It wasn't the time. She felt his hands through the peignoir. Jack had strong but gentle hands that now traced her figure through the outfit. It was cheap and tarty, but every woman was entitled to look cheap and tarty once in a while, even an associate professor of ophthalmic surgery at the Wilmer Eye Institute of the Johns Hopkins Hospital. Jack's mouth tasted like toothpaste and cheap white wine, but the rest of him smelled like a man, the man who'd made her life into a dream — mostly a dream. He was working too hard, drinking too much, not sleeping enough. But underneath all that was her man. And they didn't come any better, weaknesses, absences, and all.
Cathy made the proper noises when Jack's hands found the buttons. He got the message, but his fingers were clumsy. Annoying, the buttons were small and in those damned little fabric loops, but behind the buttons and the fabric were her breasts, and that fact ensured that he would not stop. Cathy took in a deep breath and smelled her favorite dusting powder. She didn't like perfume. A woman generated all the smells a man needed, she thought. There. Now his hands found her bare, smooth and still young skin. Thirty-six was not old, not too old for one more child. One more was all she craved, one more time to feel a new life growing within her. She'd accept the stomach upsets, the compressed bladder, the odd discomfort that merely gave detail to the wonder and the miracle of new life. The pain of birth — it was not fun, not at all, but to be able to do it, to have Jack at her side as he'd been with Sally and Little Jack, it was the most profound act of love that she had ever known. It was what being a woman meant, to be able to bring life to the world, to give a man the only kind of immortality there was, as he gave it to her.
And besides, she thought with a suppressed giggle, getting pregnant beat the hell out of jogging as a form of exercise.
Jack's hands removed her garment completely and eased her onto the bed. He was good at this, always had been, from their first nervous time, and at that moment she'd known that he would ask for her hand… after he'd sampled the other parts. Another giggle of past and present, as his hands slid over skin that was now both hot and cold to the touch. And when he'd asked, when he'd worked up the courage, she'd seen the fear in his eyes, the terror at the possibility of rejection, when she was the one who had worried — even cried once — for a week that he might not ask, might change his mind, might find someone else. From before their first lovemaking, Cathy had known. This was the one. Jack was the man with whom she would share her life, whose children she would bear, whom she would love to the grave, maybe beyond, if the priests were right. It wasn't his size or his strength, not even the bravery he'd had to show twice in her sight — and, she suspected, more than that in other places she'd never know about — it was his goodness, his gentleness, and a strength that only the perceptive knew about. Her husband was in some ways ordinary, in others unique, but in all ways a man, with all the strengths and few of the weaknesses…
