You cannot spend days on end around someone, endless hours bleeding into each other, and not get to know them on some level. Even the most stone-faced Secret Service agent gives off little clues, signals about who he is. We all do. It’s unavoidable. You would have to be a robot to be able to keep every nonverbal tip about yourself completely secured, safely compartmentalized, hidden from the world.

Silas doesn’t even come close.

His humanity radiates out from his pores, his face showing emotion even if it’s just in little flashes that give me insight. Some personal issue is distracting him. Not in the sense that he’s not protecting me, but more on an internal level.

People have lives that connect them to others. It’s one of the fundamental tenets of being human. We don’t necessarily define ourselves in terms of others–though some people do–but we are defined by connections of some type.

Which is why losing my links to other people, one by one, is so damaging.

We’re social animals by nature. All of us, even the most introverted person you know. On some level, we need to engage in circles of communication. We check in with others to see where the boundaries lie, to make sure we’re functioning and contributing, to be nurtured and to nurture right back.

I have none of that.

And the empty silence as the SUV takes us to Alice’s home heightens my sense of isolation.

Being teased about the shower situation would be a relief. Humiliation, even, would be welcome. It was funny. Truly.

Not joking about it makes me feel less human.

While I can’t go around being naked and needing help all the time to break the ice, my stupid predicament in the bathroom seemed to crack the layer between us. It’s back up, that thick barrier demarcating our space. As we drive down endless highways, marked off by cattle fencing and oil fields, I feel like we’re moving faster and faster away from any real connection.

Back to client and bodyguard.

Self and other.

The SUV slows, so much dust kicked up that it’s hard to see as we turn sharply at a corner. No other traffic can be seen for miles. I’ve never been to Alice’s home before. She lived near the campus when I was in college, though I knew she kept the family ranch here in Texas.

It’s an honor to be invited.

It’s also got me on edge.

Alice is a character. And that makes her unpredictable. When the invitation came through, I jumped at it. Now that we’re driving down a tree-lined driveway in the middle of a flatland oasis, I’m starting to get nervous.

Because Alice is a very demanding woman.

What, exactly, will she demand of me today?

The tires start to make a loud crunching sound, the SUV slowing as the unpaved road becomes rockier. A large, sprawling white mansion greets my eyes, though it’s hard to see through the dust-caked windows.

At first glance, the house is almost colonial, a white peak in the middle, black shutters, rectangles for windows all spaced evenly. Your standard clapboard New England-style home.

But then there are the wings. To the right, a single-story wing stretches out, as long as the main house. To the left, a double-storied section has a huge open-air-but-covered porch on the second floor, a solarium beneath it. Large trees, willowy yet full in a strange contradiction, reside in a crooked line along the entire front of the house, some close, some far away.

I can imagine Alice climbing out of a bedroom window onto a tree branch, her youthful indiscretions legendary for her time in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s.

I expected perfectly manicured, lush, rolling grass, the kind of lawn that is out of place where water needs to be conserved but wealthy people insist on having anyway. Instead the house is surrounded by blinding-white rock gardens, the trees surrounded by rocks, too. Small succulents dot the edge, carefully planted to look accidental.

Silas isn’t looking outside, his attention all for his phone. As we pull up to the front and stop, I’m slightly irritated. Aren’t bodyguards supposed to be constantly aware of their client’s surroundings?

And then I see all the Secret Service agents.

Ah. That’s right. This is the daughter of a vice president. She needs to be protected.

“Wait,” I mumble. “That’s not right. She wouldn’t get a Secret Service detail, would she?”

“Huh?” Silas’s acknowledgment that I’ve spoken is progress.

“Why are Secret Service here?”

“First, I can’t confirm or deny that those are Secret Service agents, Jane, but if they are, it’s because you’re here.”

“I don’t need a Secret Service detail. You know as well as I do they don’t protect private citizens.”

He shrugs. “Someone, somewhere, decided to send these guys. I don’t write the orders. I just execute them.”

“Is that why you’re ignoring the environment? Because you know it’s all safe and covered?”

“Ignoring?” He’s distracted, looking at his phone.

“Never mind.” I open my door and start to climb out. Before my first foot is on the ground, an agent is holding the handle, hand extended to help me out.

“Thank you,” I say to a pair of dark sunglass lenses with a human wall behind them.

He just nods.

Silas sighs behind me, then gets out on his side, immediately huddling with another agent, their conversations clearly an exchange of details necessary for protection. Emotionless faces attached to moving mouths lob words back and forth. I watch Silas, how he moves his hands carefully, the gestures precise and efficient. A curt nod from him, then one from the other agent, and Silas breaks away, walking toward me with a determined gait that is suddenly so commanding, I have to look away.

My throat tightens and my ankle feels like he’s stroking it again.

“Hot,” I gasp as he walks up to me.

He frowns as I struggle to cover for my weird lapse. “It’s Texas. Comes with the territory. You want hot, try Afghanistan in the summer.” His smirk isn’t unkind. Pointing, he guides me around the left side of the house, along a flagstone path that doesn’t have a single weed or blade of grass poking between the stones.

He’s a gentleman, walking behind me. “To the right, under the pergola,” he directs. I make a turn and see where we’re headed.

“A separate house?”

“It’s her studio. This is mostly where she lives, too. She comes to the main house maybe once a week, mostly to look at old photographs or entertain.”

“Good for her,” I reply. “Alice deserves to live by her own rules. When I’m ninety-two I hope I can do that, too.”

Silas mumbles something that gets caught in a short blast of wind. I stop, his hand brushing against my hip as he continues walking, not seeing I’ve halted. While he doesn’t plow into me, those reflexes of his aren’t quite sharp enough to stop without touching me.

“What did you say?” I ask, pretty sure I heard him but wondering why he said it. I turn around fully and look up at him, inches away, his sunglasses blocking his eyes.

That strong mouth tightens, his chin jutting and head tilting slightly. “I said, ‘Let’s hope you live that long.’”

“Is that a commentary on my current situation? You think I’m in so much danger, I’ll die young?”

He lifts the sunglasses and props them on his head, brow turning down over those bright blue eyes that are like mirrors of the sky. His dark hair contrasts and makes it very hard not to watch him.

“You’re being followed 24/7 by a bodyguard who isn’t permitted to have you out of his sight, bathroom excluded.” A smirk lifts one corner of his mouth. “And even then, you manage to get yourself into a serious scrape.”

I feel my face flush. My skin ripples with heat, none of it from the weather.

“And?” It’s all I can think to say.

“And you wouldn’t have a security team assigned to you if your life weren’t in grave danger.” Concern mixed with a fierce protectiveness floods his face. “Do you really not understand that?”

“I understand that I don’t have control over anything in my life anymore.”

He makes a sound, low and quiet, like he’s suddenly getting the point at the same time he doesn’t like what he’s hearing.

“You’re here, aren’t you? You stuck to your guns for this one.” Sweeping his hand toward Alice’s studio, he cocks one eyebrow, his whole demeanor more congenial.

I just stand there and blink.

“You think I made the wrong choice?”

“I think you needed to be given a choice, Jane.”

“What?”

“You said you’ve had everything stripped from you. Dignity. Respect. The benefit of the doubt.” He pauses, then adds, “Your mother. And you’re being told what to do and where to go, so it makes sense that you need to be given some choices. Humans are wired for free will. Not being able to exercise it creates a kind of madness.”

I gape at him.

“Why are you suddenly being so nice?”

“I’m not. I’m just stating the facts.”

“You are.”

“I am.”

“And you’re being nice.”

“Your bar is very, very low if this meets your definition of nice.”

“Yes. It is.”

He jolts, my words hitting a nerve.

Before he can reply, a commotion near the front door of Alice’s studio makes us both turn.

A man in a black jacket and jeans is running away from Alice’s studio, his long legs fast, dust puffing up in little clouds as each footstep stirs up the dirt. He’s holding some kind of black electronic thing in his hands. As Silas takes off after him, I start to follow, my skirt wrapping around my shins enough to bother me.

I bunch the fabric in my fists and run.

Silas turns around and shouts, “Stay back! Get behind something!”

Oh, I’m behind something, all right.

Him.

No way am I going to be the good little obedient client who does whatever the big bad bodyguard says. Alice has some creep who has just run away from where she is. I need to help her.

Silas has taken off to the left after the guy, and as I sprint to the front door of Alice’s place, I reach the small paved path before her porch steps and halt.

Alice has a rifle in her hands and it’s pointed right at the running man, who now has about eight agents in hot pursuit, all shouting, all with handguns drawn.

One eye is closed as Alice sets the sight level and–

CRACK!

She shoots.

She misses.

The guy cries out as two agents tackle him. I am watching Alice with a morbid fascination. Her hair is loose, flowing halfway down her back, a shock of white against a patterned silk jacket that looks more like a warlock’s robe than anything else. Her eyes are narrowed, mouth pursed, and I swear she’s ready to–

Another gunshot.

“HALT!” Alice shouts, the voice confident, almost serene. I guess when you’re holding a gun in Texas on your own property, you can use that voice.

And then I look to see Silas holding his gun, aimed straight for Alice Mogrett’s head.

“Oh my GOD!” I scream. “Put down the gun!”

“I’ll lower my weapon when she does,” he barks, hands steady, gun pointed right at her face, full on.

“Then you’d better have a strong arm, young man, because I’ll lower mine when I’m dead,” Alice retorts, her hands a little shakier than Silas’s, but not much.

“Don’t test me, ma’am. Lower your weapon. We have the trespasser situation under control.”

“Clearly you don’t, or he’d have never gotten on my land in the first place! You Secret Service men have really gone downhill since the early 1980s. You used to be sharper.”

“I wasn’t even born then, ma’am.”

“See? Proving my point.”

“Ma’am, you’re pointing your weapon at a member of a presidential candidate’s security detail.”

“And you’re pointing your gun at the last remaining living daughter of a famous vice president. We’re even, young man.”

I know Alice. She isn’t kidding, and she isn’t budging.

I don’t know Silas as well, though. I know one thing: he doesn’t care about my opinion.

I have to try anyhow.

“Put down the gun, Silas. Once you do, Alice will drop hers,” I say in a determined voice.

“That’s not how this works, Jane,” he answers, jaw tight, line of sight clear and focused. He has one eye shut, the other on his gun, the sight level. I’ve seen plenty of men holding guns over the last year, and I know the look of someone who is ready to fire.

One step. I move closer to Silas, who glances at me, his eyes barely moving but darting left, then right.

“Jane! Stay put!”

“You love ordering women around, don’t you?” Alice cracks, giving me confidence to move suddenly until I am between them, blocking both of their shots.

“Jesus, Jane!” Silas shouts. “Don’t do this!”

“You’ve given me no choice!” I thunder, nerves bouncing like pennies on a trampoline.

“Well played,” Alice says, lowering hers first with a long sigh. Her grin is electric. “Tea or lemonade this time?”

“Lavender lemonade?” I ask, hopeful.

“With fresh mint?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Silas is lowering his gun, watching us like we are insane.

“You can’t do that!” he shouts, moving in, gun still in hand, safety off.

“Now you want to tell me how to use my own homegrown mint?” Alice objects. “You can pull a gun on me on my own land, young man, but I draw the line at being told how to make refreshments for my guests.”

He’s not playing our harmless little game. “I could have you arrested for what you just did.”

“Try it.” Alice’s wrinkled face rises up as she smiles, her skin moving a half second later than the expression. “Arrest a ninety-two-year-old beloved American icon because you people couldn’t do your job and keep a wacko stalker off my land? Here in Texas you’d be rolled in barbecue sauce and thrown on the grill as a primer for the real beef, sweetums.”

Silas stares her down.

Alice stares back.

“Here’s the difference between us, young man. You still give a fuck. I don’t. Jane, get in here and let’s add some vodka to those lavender mint lemonades you love so much. We have a lot of catching up to do, now that you’re Public Enemy Number One. Who the hell did you piss off so much that you got stuck with him on your security detail?”

She points at Silas as we walk into her house.

“I, uh–”

“I mean, he’s pretty on the eyes and all, but a few cows short of a herd on common sense.”

Silas ignores her and climbs up the stairs, blowing past us, standing in the living room facing Alice, who pats her gun like it is an obedient dog.

“I’m here to protect her,” he said, pointing to me. “You were a presumed threat. Put the rifle away for the duration of our visit.”

“No.” Alice watches him with that professor’s gaze I knew well, the slightly amused twist of her lips below eyes that evaluate him.

“Do it or I’ll tip off the local sheriff and the press that your antique guns aren’t registered.” He cocks an eyebrow as he eyes the rifle. “That’s a beautiful Winchester 94.”

“Thank you. Been in the family for generations.”

“Would be a shame to lose it.”

“The only way I’d lose this gun, young man, is up your ass after shoving it there.”

“Can’t shove what you don’t possess, ma’am. Kindly put the rifle away in a secured gun safe, unloaded, and we can just pretend this never happened.”

“Or, I can keep it with me for protection. Who was that crazy photographer? How did he get on my land? Ask all these Secret Service agents I don’t want in the first place. Make them do their job.”

“I don’t know the answers to your questions, ma’am. I just know Jane is here at your invitation and I cannot let her spend time in a room with someone holding a gun.”

“You’re holding a gun,” I point out.

“I’m your bodyguard,” he says slowly, as if I’m being belligerent.

“And?”

“I need a gun. It’s part of the job.”

“I need my gun,” Alice says with a sniff. “Because people like you aren’t doing your job. That trespasser could have attacked me!”

“He was looking for pictures.”

“Of what? My saggy old ass?”

Silas reddens. “Probably of Jane.”

“Jane’s ass is a much better target for a photographer,” Alice concedes.

“Stop talking about asses!” I interject.

Alice thumbs toward Silas. “Bet his is nice.”

“Alice!” I gasp.

She pulls me in for a hug, her deep, open laugh so strong, it vibrates through my chest as she embraces me. “Oh, Jane. It’s good to see you again.”

Silas pries the rifle out of her hands, carefully unloading it, shoving the ammo in his front right pocket. He sets the rifle against the wall next to Alice and wordlessly stands next to us, typing furiously on his phone.

Alice wraps one silk-covered arm around my shoulders. “Come in! Sit. You must be exhausted from the trip.”

“I am.”

She pauses, peering at me. I have seen pictures of Alice when she was younger, with jet-black hair and big piercing eyes. She was a classic beauty back in the 1940s and 1950s, likened to Elizabeth Taylor.

But wild.

“You’re exhausted by much more than your trip, Jane,” she says with kindness, leading me up the stairs to the front door.

“No kidding.” It’s no use trying to lie to Alice, or shave a little something off the truth to keep the peace. She’s a straight talker, no bullshit, and the sooner you just get to the truth with her, the better. In art classes, she was exactly the same. Never be pretentious with Alice, and never lie.

Both end badly for anyone who tries.

The studio is a large, lodge-like building with an enormous high-ceilinged great room, a small kitchen without walls along one side. Paintings are everywhere, on easels large and small, most angled toward the large glass windows in specific locations.

Some painters are more into composition, color, white space–but for Alice, it is all about the light. Sunlight and moonlight, dusk and dawn, the in between that changes faces without movement–that is her tool. It doesn’t matter the subject. If she can play with light, using the different saturations and shadows to explain anew, it is enough.

Alice’s style is a combination of Georgia O’Keeffe and Maxfield Parrish, with a little Warhol thrown in. You never know what her vision will look like, but she paints exclusively women, most as nudes, and they are breathtaking. She sees into your soul and turns it into brushstrokes, deconstructing emotion and flesh, migrating it to canvas.

“Come in! I can’t believe you’ve never been here. I’ve hosted a few students over the years,” she says, turning to the left, where there is an open-plan kitchen with counters covered in old Formica, filled with appliances that look like they are out of a 1980s sitcom. Big spider plants hang from enormous exposed beams, the tendrils of the plants woven like nature planned it all.

“I wasn’t one of your protégés, Alice.”

“You were my best subject, though.”

Silas came into the house uninvited, but is unobtrusive. Alice casts an amused glance his way. “You want some lavender lemonade?”

“Yes, ma’am, as long as there’s no alcohol.”

“You like it virgin, do you?” Her eyes twinkle as she asks him the question.

He doesn’t take the bait. “Can’t drink on the job. Besides, I get the impression I need to keep every wit about me and on standby when I’m around you, Ms. Mogrett.”

“Alice! Call me Alice.”

“Will do, Ms. Mogrett.”

Alice rolls her eyes and says to me, “He’s a fun one, isn’t he?”

“Don’t be too hard on him. He rescued me today in an embarrassing bathroom incident on the plane.”

“Got sick?”

“Got stuck.” Too late, I realize I’ve brought up the awkward moment, my mouth moving faster than my brain. In a way, I can’t help myself, loosening up the longer we’re here, in spite of the gun moment.

“Stuck in a bathroom?” She looks behind me. “Your ass isn’t that big!”

“Now we’re back to asses again?” I joke as she opens the fridge and takes out a pitcher of lemonade. From the freezer she retrieves a bottle of vodka, putting the two on the counter next to each other.

“You can never talk about asses too much, Jane. Get used to it. When you’re my age, all people want to talk about is what comes out of them.”

I’m speechless as Alice laughs, pouring liberal amounts of vodka into two tall iced tea glasses, then adding lemonade. She reaches for a small pile of greens in a little clear glass. As she crushes some leaves between her fingers and tosses them on top, the cool scent of mint tickles my nose.

“Voilà!” she declares, handing me mine. Then she pulls out another glass, fills it with lemonade and mint, and offers it to Silas. He takes it.

“Thank you, Ms. Mogrett.”

“You’re welcome, Mr. Formal.”

He turns away, admiring the paintings, his back to me and Alice.

“See? Asses. Can’t stop, can we?” she says with a laugh.

I watch his face in profile. He’s really paying attention, taking in all the canvases, looking at the exits and entrances, observing.

Silas is an aware person. Nothing gets past him, and while it’s his job, there’s more to it.

He is just this way.

Some people are dull. Boring. Uninteresting. They’re dry and bland because they lack curiosity. You can see it in their faces. Alice talked about that a lot in the art classes I took with her, and at the time I thought she was exaggerating.

Time has shown me she was right.

Silas, though, is someone who is constantly aware, constantly learning, always interested. I get the sense that the job hasn’t made him this way–if anything, maybe the reverse.

He chose a job that requires constantly paying attention because he was already always paying attention.

A ray of sunlight catches a small prism hanging from a hook off one of the main support beams, the blue and green light distracting me. Silas turns, and as he does, we both see the wall to the right of the kitchen. The painting.

Oh, boy.

It’s me.

Naked.