He ate the sandwich and drank half the water then settled in for a wait. With no sleep the night before, he kept nodding off, and would wake with a jerk then look around frantically to see if Jamie had arrived while he was asleep. To keep himself awake he would walk up and down the rows, ducking out of sight when an occasional vehicle went by, reading the inscriptions on the headstones then returning to Abner’s grave until he started nodding off once again and would force himself to take another walk.
At dusk, while he was taking a walk, he realized that someone on foot was walking toward the cemetery. But in the fading light he could not tell if it was someone out for an evening stroll or a woman carrying a baby.
The person was hunched over and walking with a lagging step. He or she was either elderly or very tired. He watched as the walker stumbled and almost fell. When he started walking toward the road, the person stopped and stared in his direction. And lifted a hand.
It was her. It was Jamie!
Joe took off at a dead run. “Jamie,” he called, waving his arms in the air. “Jamie.”
When he reached her she handed him the baby at the same instant her legs collapsed beneath her. He knelt and with his free arm embraced her, saying her name over and over again. She put her face against his shoulder and wept. He kissed her forehead, her cheeks, her cracked lips. “My Jamie, my poor darling Jamie,” he said.
“I was so afraid that I’d never see you again,” she sobbed. “Some men came while I was taking a walk. I was afraid that they would be waiting for you when you got back.”
“They were, but I saw them first,” he said. “I got the RV. It’s parked at the rear of the cemetery.”
“I can’t walk another step,” she said.
He left her sitting on the ground leaning against a fence post. Holding Billy tightly in his arms he raced through the cemetery. Billy began to cry. His lusty cries seemed quite out of place in the silent burial ground.
Once he was in the RV, he put the still unhappy baby in the center of the bed and drove back up the dirt track.
Jamie was sitting where he had left her. He helped her to her feet and into the vehicle. Billy was still crying. She lay down beside him, fumbling with her T-shirt. Joe bent over her and kissed her forehead.
“We’re together,” she said in a hoarse voice. “I’ll be all right now.”
Joe reluctantly returned to the driver’s seat. After a half hour or so, he pulled off onto a dirt road and went back to the bed.
Billy was asleep. Jamie looked like a rag doll. “Would you please take off my shoes?” she asked.
Joe did as she asked. Her feet were filthy, her heels and toes worn raw. He got a pan of water and a bar of soap and gently washed her feet. He prepared a simple meal for her, then helped her to a sitting position, propping pillows behind her. Billy was sleeping peacefully next to her.
She sipped tomato soup from a cup and ate several wedges of apple, then fell back against the pillow and closed her eyes. “We can’t keep living like this.”
Joe left her there.
He continued to head north, winding his way toward Bryan, where he caught 190 and headed northeast. It was dark when Jamie came to the front and stood beside the driver’s seat, her hand on his shoulder. “I’ve ruined your life,” she said.
“Well, you’ve certainly changed it,” he said. “Are you feeling better?”
“I’ll be all right as soon as I’m clean,” she said, caressing his neck and hair. “Does the shower work?”
“Yeah. Billy okay?”
“He’s asleep. Where are we headed?”
“We can talk about it after you have a shower.”
“Joe?”
“Yeah?”
“You are my hero. And you are the only man that I’ve ever loved and ever plan to love.”
“And you are the love of my life. We are going to get through this, Jamie. We have to.”
She stood there caressing his neck. He didn’t want her to stop.
“Are you going to drive all night?” she asked.
“No. I didn’t sleep at all last night and am running out of steam. That little dining area turns into a second bed. I thought we could put Billy there. I’d like to have you to myself back in the big bed.”
“That’s what I have in mind, too. I have never been so exhausted in my life, but I need you, Joe. I need endless kisses and to feel you inside of me.”
Joe reached for her hand and kissed it, then watched in the rearview mirror as she opened the narrow bathroom door.
In the town of Cottonwood, he stopped at a convenience store to buy diapers then parked the RV behind a boarded-up service station. He prepared Billy’s bed while Jamie nursed him.
Once the baby was taken care of, they stood clinging to each other. Joe relished the feel of her wonderful body against his and the scent of her. He couldn’t tell her enough times that he loved her. Could not kiss her deeply enough. He had thought they had reached some sort of pinnacle back at the cabin on the beach, but he realized that there were limitless pinnacles spread out in front of them, enough to last a lifetime. A long lifetime. Not one cut short by evil people who stopped at nothing to get their way.
He backed her toward the bed. Toward heaven. He wished that he were more clever with words, that he could say something more profound to express his feelings than simply “I love you” over and over again. But oh, how he did love her. And she loved him back with the same intensity.
Her body was wonderful. And she gave it so completely.
Billy slept until dawn. Jamie brought him back to the bed and nursed him.
Then the talking began. It continued while Joe drove, a coffee cup in his hand. Jamie read him the article she had clipped out of the newspaper. Joe nodded. Mr. Morgan had found the same information online. Amanda Hartmann would be holding a three-day crusade in Dallas.
For hours they tried to come up with a game plan, debating back and forth, sometimes arguing vehemently and having to take a break, during which they would sulk a bit and calm themselves, then begin anew, knowing full well that whatever scheme they decided upon would either save their lives or end them.
Chapter Thirty-eight
GUS CLIMBED THE freestanding staircase that curved its way gracefully to the second floor. He took the stairs slowly to accommodate the discomfort in his joints that had grown more pronounced with each passing year. For the last decade, his quarters had been located on the first floor. Gus seldom visited the second floor-until recently, when the babies came into his life.
Even though Victory Hill had been his primary residence since childhood, he had never loved it the way that he loved the ranch. But when he began his accession to power, it was necessary for him to be a limousine ride away from the nation’s capital. Now he seldom went into the city; if he needed to see someone, that person came to him. Only when he was extremely displeased did he put himself through the drama of strolling unannounced into the White House.
At the top of the stairs, Gus paused and reached down to rub his aching knees, then made his way down the broad corridor with its many-paned, arched windows that looked out onto rolling green acres. Gus tapped gently on the door to Sonny’s old room then opened it and stepped inside. The two sari-clad women smiled, and the younger one, Randi, called out in her precise English, “Good morning, Mister Gus.”
The babies were lying side by side on a pallet wearing identical blue sailor suits. Randi’s baby was brown-skinned with dark hair, and the other was fair-skinned with a bit of light fuzz on the top of his head.