SNAPSHOT OPPORTUNITY number one: Ma standing over a counter full of quilts, pointing to one with pink and red as the primary colors. Bailey, her hand on the carriage where Angel slept, rocking it back and forth, shaking her head. Looking through the lens, Aidan smiled. He knew what would happen here. Bailey wouldn’t be satisfied with any of the quilts and Ma would end up making her one for little Patrick.
Snapshot opportunity number two: Rory, Mikey and Pa in a small boat out on the pond, near which the Penn Yan Summer Fair had been set up. All three held fishing poles. The two boys wore hats like Pa’s. Rory’s face was animated, then shocked when he got a bite. Aidan snapped and snapped. Pa talking to Rory, Rory concentrating just like Bailey, reeling something in. Aidan got a great shot of Rory holding up a decent-size fish. He yelled something to the occupants of the boat just a few feet away. In it, C.J. sat with Gorman, and both women clapped.
The sun glistened on C.J.’s hair and reflected off her dark glasses. He zoomed in, could see she was laughing. “Ah,” he said, speaking to the camera. “Isn’t that about the most beautiful thing we’ve ever seen?” He took photo after photo of her, happy and grinning for a change.
Snapshot opportunity number three: Angel awake now, pink-faced and pretty in a summer dress made of white eyelet. She sat on Bailey’s lap, clapping her hands as the small train circled around the tracks. Aidan grinned and took shots of Mitch and Grayson, stuffed into tiny seats in front of and behind them on the train.
Snapshot opportunity number four: He couldn’t resist. Knowing this was probably the last opportunity he’d get to photograph her, he caught C.J. in several stills: eating a hotdog with Rory and wiping mustard off her face; squatting down and talking to Mikey, and the little guy looking glum. Something C.J. said made him smile. C.J. climbing into the roller coaster with Rory. He’d heard her say she had a cast-iron stomach and loved to go on the rides.
Through the lens, he saw his whole family unite, flanked by agents. Ma and Pa headed to a table the agents had held for them, and Bailey and the kids walked toward the small Ferris wheel, which rose up about forty feet in height. Bailey got into a car with Mitch. Damn, should she go on that thing while she was pregnant? He took a shot of Rory, jumping up and down, pointing to the ride. Mikey sidled into C.J. and clung to her legs. C.J. said something into her radio, probably to Mitch. Then Gorman got in a car with Rory. People slipped in between them. Four seats later, C.J. led Mikey into one with her. She looked around when she was settled and her gaze seemed to zero in on Aidan, standing off to the side, chronicling this day—and her.
He lowered the camera and headed to the nearest booth. He’d take more pictures in a few minutes, but right now, she was just too hard to watch.
o0o
MIKEY MOVED in closer to C.J. as the Ferris wheel bumped and started. “This gonna be okay, C.J.?” he asked.
“Sure is, buddy.”
“You’re supposed to watch Rory.”
“He’s only a few cars away. And Gorman’s with him.” Mitch was close by in the seat with Bailey.
“ ’Kay.” He gripped the bar. “Mom used to take me on the rides. She said Daddy’s a chicken.”
Her heart went out to the little boy. She hugged him to her, while she surveyed the grounds. Nothing out of the ordinary, unless you could spot the myriad plain clothes agents infiltrating the crowds. She said into her wrist unit, “Things look normal, Mitch.”
“Yeah, to me too.” Mitch glanced up and over his shoulder and waved to her. Bailey caught the action and followed suit.
“Gorman, things all right?” Mitch asked into the radio.
“Bruiser’s fine. Me, I hate these things.”
C.J. sat back and tried to enjoy the ride. At first, it didn’t move too fast as the attendant was still letting people on. One bump up and she could see Aidan, standing by a booth, shooting basketballs. When the ride began to move in earnest, it picked up speed. They went full circle twice, and she saw him walking away from the booth carrying a white teddy bear with a pink ribbon around its neck. Before her mind spun a fantasy about him giving the bear to his girl—her—C.J. averted her gaze. On the next several rotations, she purposely didn’t look for him.
The grounds were getting crowded. Lines were forming at the Ferris wheel. On the last cycle C.J. noted there were too many people packed together to feel secure. It was time to go back to the cottage.
“Crowds,” she said into her unit.
“Yeah, I see.” Mitch and she were usually in sync on these things. “We’ll leave as soon as we’re done here.”
The Ferris wheel slowed then stopped for people to exit their cars. C.J. zeroed in on Bailey’s. It reached the bottom, and Mitch helped her out. She was smiling, turned and waved to Rory, who was still in the air. He rocked the car, and she heard Gorman say, “Be still, Rory. My stomach’s had all it can take.”
Bailey waved to Mikey, who was even further up; he waved back and rocked their car. C.J. laughed.
Rory’s car reached the bottom. He climbed out. C.J. was about twenty-five feet up as she watched him and got a closer look at Gorman. She scowled. “Gorman,” she said into her radio. “You’re a little green.”
“I’m fine,” the other woman snapped.
Mitch had gone through the exit gate to the left and followed Bailey over to the picnic table with Ma, Pa, Angel and four uniforms.
The crowds obscured anyone’s view of Rory except for hers and Gorman’s. Rory raced ahead of Gorman, who suddenly stopped and darted off to the side.
“What the hell, Gorman?”
“Sick,” she said.
Her senses heightened, C.J. said into the shoulder unit, “Mitch. We got a problem,” as Rory turned left toward the exit gate. He was still in the area about midway between the outer fence and the Ferris wheel, but he was by himself. “Bruiser’s alone, headed for the exit gate.” Around cupped hands, she yelled down, “Stay right there, Rory.”
He stopped and looked up at her; she kept her eyes trained on him as her car moved down again to twenty feet above the ground.
From the crowd waiting to enter the ride, two boys hopped the fence and converged on Rory. They grabbed Rory’s hands and headed for the gate. Rory started to scream and one of them, in the guise of a hug, clapped a hand over his mouth and pulled him close. He squirmed but they held on.
“Ferris wheel exit,” C.J. yelled into the radio. “Bruiser’s in trouble. An AOP. Everybody go. AOP.”
She saw the uniforms with the O’Neils bolt up to stand in front of Angel and Bailey, their bodies blocking the family. As required, they all stayed with her.
Mitch raced to the fence. Into his radio he shouted, “All agents, to the Ferris wheel.”
But the agents couldn’t penetrate the crowd waiting to get inside the fence fast enough. The two boys were dragging Rory away and came just beneath her car, about ten feet out from the ride.
C.J. didn’t wait. She said to Mike, “Hold on, honey. Grip the bar tight. I have to help Rory.”
She was already up on the seat when he said, “I will.”
Taking in a deep breath, C.J. leapt from the car, down twenty feet and landed right next to the three of them. Her ankle crunched, and pain shot through her leg, but she managed to grab Rory, throw him to the ground and cover him with her body.
Shouts. Yelling everywhere.
Agent voices...a touch on her face.
Then the world dimmed.
o0o
“SHE’S COMING around,” someone said out of the darkness.
C.J. stirred, then moaned as the movement set off jackhammers in her head. She lay still; when the pain abated, she opened her eyes. Fuzzy images. She blinked. Clearer. Mitch was standing over her. Bailey and her father were behind him.
Then she remembered. “Rory?”
“Is safe with several agents behind locked doors in the cottage.”
Her lips burned. She licked them. “Thirsty.” She tried to sit up, moaned, sank into the cushions.
Bailey came around Mitch, holding a cup. “Here, have a drink.”
Once again, when she moved her head, pain splintered through her. She fought it. The water felt cool on her parched lips and throat. “Did you catch them?”
“No,” Mitch said. “We didn’t even know who we were looking for. The agents who managed to get through circled you and Rory and ignored everything else.”
SOP. Standard operating procedure. The Secret Service’s job was not to catch perpetrators, but to safeguard the protectee. Afterward, the whole matter would be turned over to the FBI.
“Rory told us what happened on the ground.” Mitch’s voice was gruff. “What you must have seen from above.”
“I could tell what was happening. Two boys...” She coughed and took some more water.
Mitch finished for her, “Approached Rory. Grabbed his hands. He couldn’t get to his panic button and tried to scream, but they covered his mouth. Then you jumped out of the sky.”
“I didn’t know what else to do.” Oh, God. “Is Mikey okay?”
“He did what you told him.” Mitch grinned. “They’re calling you Superwoman.”
“No.”
“You are to me.” Bailey took C.J.’s hand. “You saved my son from kidnapping.”
“Just doing my job.” But she squeezed Bailey’s fingers. “What happened with Gorman?”
“She stepped off to the side to toss her cookies. No blame there. What else could she do?”
C.J. asked for help to sit up. Once she was braced against a mound of pillows, she frowned. “Mitch, was it my fault for going on the ride with Mikey?”
“No. He was with another special agent. The operatives right outside the fence were trying to get to the exit gate and got trapped in the crowd. I should have had them stationed inside, I guess, but I didn’t want to draw any more attention to who was on the ride.”
“I won’t listen to this,” Bailey told them. “You’ve protected us as well as anyone could.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Mitch said dryly.
A little more calmly, but there was anger there, she finished, “Nobody’s to blame but the two boys who went after Rory. Young boys? Why?”
“The FBI will find out.” Mitch touched Bailey’s arm. “I promise.”
The door flew open and Luke stalked to the bed. He seemed controlled on the outside, but C.J. knew from his eyes that he was worried. Bailey stepped back and he took C.J.’s hand. After studying her, he shook his head. “Leaping off tall buildings? Proszè. Didn’t I teach you anything?”
She remembered then. She and the girls had gotten into a superhero phase, capes and all. Luke had tried to control them, without telling their parents. “Good practice, all those years ago for today.”
Leaning over, he kissed her forehead, then searched her face, frowned and turned to Mitch. “What’re the extent of her injuries? You hadn’t seen the doctor when you called me.
“Sprained ankle. Bad blow to the head, probably a concussion. Various scrapes and bruises. That shoulder she landed on has to be sore as hell.”
“Jesus.” He stared down at her. “I hate that you’re in this business.”
“Nie. Not now.” She looked to Mitch. “When can I work?”
“In about two weeks, the doc said.”
“That’s too long. I’ll be—”
Bailey cut her off. “You need to recuperate fully, C.J. You can stay at our town house in New York or go back to your place in D.C. Whatever you want to do. But you’re following doctor’s orders.”
Luke straightened. “She’s coming home with me.”
“To Corning?”
“No, to Queens. You’re gonna recuperate with Matka. I’ll stay for a while. And the girls will be in and out.”
Her heart bumped a bit in her chest thinking about spending time with her family. Then her mood plummeted when she remembered the strain between them. “I don’t know, Lukasz.”
“I know.” He leaned over and kissed her again. “They need you there, baby. So do I.”
Maybe she needed to be there, too. Leaving the detail for a while had the added bonus of getting her away from Aidan.
Surreptitiously, she surveyed the room. Pa was hovering in the background. But Aidan was nowhere in sight. She convinced herself she wasn’t disappointed. “All right, I’ll go home. For a while, maybe not the whole two weeks.”
“We’ll decide once you get there.”
C.J. must have dozed off, because when she awoke, it was dark outside and she was alone. Or at least she thought she was by herself until she saw a figure emerge from the corner. She could see him in the light sneaking in from the hall.
“It’s me, Aidan. Don’t get scared.”
Feeling woozy from medicine they’d given her, she mumbled, “I’m not scared. I’m glad you’re here.” She pushed herself up. Her head was better and her stomach wasn’t roiling anymore. “Can I have a drink of water?”
Coming to the side of the bed, he switched on a small light and dragged over the high patient’s table. On it, along with a pitcher of water, was a bunch of wildflowers, pink this time. As he poured her a drink and got a straw, she nodded to the vase. “I know. They’re not from you.”
“Nope. From Rory. For obvious reasons.”
She grinned at the running joke. While she sipped, he smoothed his hand over her hair. She was too tired, too raw and in too much in pain to stop the caress. The same was true when she finished drinking and he sat down on the mattress and took her hand. “I saw the whole thing.” His voice cracked on the last word.
“Oh. I’m sorry, that must have been hard for you. You and Rory are so close.”
His eyes flared with...anger? “No, I didn’t see what happened to him. Nobody did but you because he was surrounded by the crowd. What I saw was you leaping off that Ferris wheel like some kind of Wonder Woman.”
“I didn’t know what else to do.”
“You were so brave.”
“I was just doing my job, Aidan.”
His expression was tender. And sad. “I know.”
She didn’t want to ask why he hadn’t come earlier, but she couldn’t summon any inner strength right now. “Did you, um, go home with Rory?”
“No, I didn’t come to the hospital, either. I couldn’t. I knew everything I felt for you would be obvious and you wouldn’t want that.” He swallowed hard. “The paramedics said you were all right, so I went home and hiked the grounds until I could barely breathe.”
She squeezed his hand. “I’m sorry. It’s good, though, that this happened.”
His eyes snapped; she could see them even in the dim light. “Tell me how it’s good that you look like you went a few rounds with Mike Tyson.”
“Because now you have firsthand knowledge of what it would be like if we let our feelings go further. Imagine living your life watching me do things like I did today, which are part of my job.”
When she’d first gone to the academy, she’d seen the tape of when Tim McCarthy was shot in the stomach protecting Ronald Reagan. She wondered if McCarthy’s family had witnessed it on live TV.
Aidan kissed her hand then brought it to his cheek. The tenderness of the gesture made her eyes mist.
He swallowed hard. “You’re right. I couldn’t watch you do those things.”
Knowing her face revealed the same bleak sense of loss, she whispered, “I care about you too much to allow that to happen.”
“I’m staying for a while. Just tonight.”
“I want you to.” She felt her eyes close. Heard him drag a chair, probably sit. Then he took her hand again and held it in both of his.
She drifted off, thinking this was the closest they were going to get to sleeping together.