Perimeter patrol. It felt good to be outdoors for a change.

Even if it was snowing. She was in such a good mood that the light snowfall looked pretty. If it persisted through the day and the temperature didn’t rise, she’d probably be less enamored by this afternoon. For now, it was pleasant. Each cool snowflake that landed on her face and melted seemed to freeze and wash clean an old memory leaving only the fresh and new ones behind.

Linda also appreciated having a tall fence between her and the White House for a change. Between her and Clive.

She’d pay for the lack of sleep later, though the Rangers had taught her to go two or three days without when needed. But she’d never felt more awake rather than less with the passage of time.

Clive had slipped past her guard. She wasn’t used to guys spending the night. In all fairness, she’d been in his apartment, so it would have been up to her to leave. But she hadn’t even thought about it. Two a.m. had slipped by just as pleasantly as their predawn tussle in the sheets. She was comfortable in his arms like no other’s before. Which was unnerving enough to confuse the crap out of her.

Then this morning he’d given her a pair of gloves that he’d knit for his mother, but she’d died before he’d finished them.

“They were to be our cribbage gloves.”

She’d inspected them carefully. Rows and rows of tiny beer glasses, some amber, some stout brown, and each with a white foam cap. “They look like drinking gloves.”

“We used to go to a pub together to have a beer and play cribbage.” Then he’d folded down the thumb. Sure enough, on the inside face of it was a tiny cribbage board.

Even now she felt the kiss on each palm before he’d slipped the gloves on her hands.

Clive hadn’t just slipped past her guard—he’d blown by it as if it wasn’t even there.

This morning, an officer named Claremont was following her along the fence line, but far enough back that she didn’t have to interact with him. His job was two-fold: to act as backup if Thor found anything and to answer questions about Thor so that they could keep moving and do their job. She could hear him behind her.

“Yes, he’s really a Secret Service dog.”

“No, you can’t pet him. Sorry.”

“Yes, he may look silly, but his nose is one of the top ones in the business.”

“His breed, ma’am? Pure mutt.”

“Yes, he’s the one who caught the bomber yesterday.”

“No. He’s at work right now, so he can’t stop for pictures, sir.”

He was repeating the last two so often that it was making Linda crazy. Thor had become an overnight celebrity. The Secret Service was generally very careful to keep quiet just how many lunatics they quietly nabbed at the fence line carrying explosives.

But the diplomat, by dropping his briefcase in the center of Lafayette Square, had turned it into a front page spectacle—below the fold, but still front page. With a big close-up of Thor. The hero dog had drawn crowds of his own to the White House fence.

Well, the public weren’t the only ones who now knew who she was. The other dog handlers circling the fence offered her a nod of greeting, even the ones she’d never seen before. Outside the line, she and another floppy-eared were on opposite rotations, so they passed one another each half-rotation around the White House grounds. Even from inside the fence line, the handlers with the Malinois ERTs—Emergency Response Team dogs—nodded a greeting.

She missed the prestige of handling a Malinois war dog. They were fierce and fiercely loyal. They could also be utterly charming, but they were always impressive. Yet Thor, the least impressive dog on the entire team, had a sweetness that went all the way to his core.

And they were finding a place for themselves. She’d burned out in the Rangers. Witnessing so much death and suffering had taken its toll. But Linda had stayed an extra two-year tour just because she had no idea where she could possibly belong outside of the Army. But maybe, just maybe, she was finding it.

“You’re famous,” a voice whispered close beside her.

Linda prepared herself to actually deal with a tourist when she recognized the voice. “Good morning, Dilya.”

The girl was dressed in a massive parka of neon blue that almost reached her knees. She wore a knit hat of blue with gold stripes with a tail so long that she had the end tied around her throat as a scarf. She existed only from her brilliant green eyes to her lower lip.

“Is that hat-scarf thing Clive’s doing? Gute Hund,” she told Thor so that he could take a moment to greet Dilya and pee on a handy lamppost.

Dilya nodded.

“Where’s Zackie?”

“I didn’t want to distract Thor. Besides, I’m not supposed to take her off the grounds. It’s weird how many people want to kidnap the First Dog.”

It was weird, but she’d seen the statistics on threats against White House pets. More than one tour guest had tried to smuggle a First Cat out under their coats. “Good choice. We’ve got to get back to work, but you’re welcome to walk with us. Thor, Such.” And once more he was back on the job, sniffing the air as he moved through the crowds gawking at the White House. Whenever someone stepped too far aside, as if perhaps shifting to avoid being smelled by Thor, she’d twitch his leash ever so slightly and he’d shift over to check them.

Dilya fell in close beside her. With a neat awareness, she stayed an extra half step to the side so that she wouldn’t be in the way if Linda had to react.

“Did you get any more training done?”

“No, she’s with the First Lady over in the East Wing. They’re usually good together for the morning. After lunch she’s off to New York.”

Meeting at the UN, Linda recalled from the morning briefing. The President was scheduled to be inside all day.

“I’m usually at school in the mornings anyway.”

“Why aren’t you today?”

“Saturday. Duh!”

“Oh,” Linda had completely lost track of the days. She simply checked the duty roster at checkout each evening to see if she was on or off the following day.

“Is that where you caught him?” They were passing Lafayette Square.

“Yes. Close by the Andrew Jackson statue in the center. Though Thor picked up his trail three blocks that way.”

Dilya was looking from the statue to along G Street.

She did it enough times that Linda finally had to ask what she was thinking.

“Well…” she drew it out. “He wasn’t really headed anywhere, was he. Not to Hay-Adams Hotel or he would have crossed the square on the other side of the statue. And not toward Blair House where the Japanese ambassador was meeting with their prime minister or he wouldn’t have come into the square at all.”

An observation that had been brought up at yesterday’s debriefing, but no one knew how to interpret.

“But by walking along G Street, he was almost asking to be found. If you hadn’t caught him, I wonder if he would have kept walking back and forth.”

Linda froze, earning her a puzzled look from Thor. She looked up the street, imagining a map of DC in her mind. Three blocks to the Metro Center subway station. Two blocks and a block left beyond that to the Secret Service Headquarters building. It would be perhaps the most patrolled approach to the White House just for that reason.

Dilya continued her speculation, “I mean, if I was going to smuggle four kilos of explosives into the vicinity of the White House without a dog catching me, that isn’t a route I would have followed. Combine that with a diplomatic pass and something isn’t right.”

“How did you know it was four kilos?” The fact of the diplomatic pass had also been kept out of the papers, yet somehow Dilya knew.

Linda didn’t wait for the girl to answer. She keyed the radio mic clipped to her shoulder. “Sergeant Hamlin for Captain Baxter.”

“Baxter here.”

“What if the bomber wanted to be caught?”

There was a long silence. Then, “Get your ass in here. I’ll send another team out to patrol the line.”

She acknowledged and turned to thank Dilya, but she was gone. Even her neon blue parka and matching hat were nowhere to be seen.

* * *

It took Clive most of the day to perfect the dessert for the State Dinner. Chef Klaus liked it well enough, even if he didn’t understand the higher concept. First Lady Anne Darlington-Thomas understood it the moment she saw it and was then delighted with the taste. She looked absolutely elegant and had a small entourage in tow that crowded his tiny shop badly.

“You’ve outdone yourself, Chef Andrews.” The First Lady began handing around his Pocky-stick treats to the rest of the gathering.

“Thank you, ma’am.”

An assistant stood by her side with a tablet at the ready for notetaking. The White House photographer was maneuvering for a good photo—thankfully the assistant had called ahead and he’d had time to don a fresh apron and set out his creations for the State Dinner in a neat display. Still the photograph was a challenge because the First Lady was even shorter than Linda and didn’t reach his shoulder. Special Agent Detra Willand, a shapely and cheery blonde in charge of the First Lady’s protection detail, smiled brightly at the contrast as she stood guard in the doorway.

Dilya slipped in quietly, leading Zackie, and took one as well.

“Yum!” Dilya broke off part of the bare biscuit and fed it to the dog. “ I one heard someone say that life is uncertain…”

“…so eat dessert first.” Clive and the First Lady spoke in unison. Then the First Lady looked thoughtful.

“Chef Andrews, can you scale these down and serve them as a treat at the predinner reception?”

Clive considered. Yes, he could scale them down now that he had the techniques figured out. But then he’d need a suitable dessert for the dinner. Perhaps Jacques Torres’ chocolate soup might have a place after all. Made of the same dark chocolate, perhaps with a passionfruit-flavored meringue. Each bowl accompanied by a single one of his scaled-up version of a twirled chocolate Pocky stick. For those who had snacked on the smaller ones at the reception, it would bring the concept full circle, emphasizing the unity of the evening.

When he laid out the idea, the First Lady had practically glowed with appreciation.

“You are thinking at a whole new level, Chef Andrews. I like that.”

“I had someone offer me…” her body and her passion “…some clear insights.”

“Oh, I do so love those kinds of insights.” She breezed out of the kitchen with her entourage hurrying close on her heels. Dilya grinned at him, clearly not missing a thing, then took another stick of chocolate and followed the First Lady as well—Zackie’s claws ticking brightly on the linoleum floor.

He could only gape after her. What was it with women? Did they simply assume that all good bounty flowed directly from them? Even if the First Lady was absolutely right in this case.

All good bounty? Who was he kidding?

He’d known Linda Hamlin for mere days and if she was willing to promise the rest of her life with him, he’d go down on bent knee right here and now in his chocolate shop. How was a sane man ever supposed to get enough of someone like her?

Well, that one he knew how to answer. The only way to get enough was to indeed commit to a lifetime together. That was the only way there would ever be enough time.

The fact that the thought was completely and certifiably insane wasn’t bothering him as much as he’d expect it to. Is this what being in love was?

If love was like a chocolate, what would it be?

He wasn’t sure, but he began pulling out his favorite ingredients. Rather than an ultra-high-end chocolate, he selected a Lindt couverture. It offered a taste of homey familiarity rather than a unique experience for the palate. Apricot liquor. Dried Bing cherries that he’d candy in an apricot nectar simple syrup. A sprinkle of candied ginger on a red chocolate surface. Then—

He looked at it all on the counter and knew it was wrong.

Yes, it would make a nice chocolate. But it would be about him and what he liked. He wanted it to be about Linda. Even better, he wanted it to be about them.

Once more Clive studied the ingredients on the counter. Then the ones in his pantry.

The problem was that he didn’t know enough about her. He knew how she made him feel—like the luckiest chef on the planet. No other woman could ever offer that incredible blend of strength and surety and clarity.

But he couldn’t think of how to make a chocolate out of those words.

And what words would she use?

He didn’t know. Her thoughts were like the hidden center of a treat—unknown except to the baker until they were bitten into. There was no secret code worked into the finishing decoration to tell him what she had contained within.

Clive might not know her, but he couldn’t deny being fascinated.

Fascinated?

Completely gone. He simply knew she was the right woman for him.

Again the thought seemed crazy, but it was as right as that first moment he’d bitten into couverture chocolate and the future had opened up for him.

Linda Hamlin was the one for him.

Now, how to go about finding more about who she actually was and convincing her that he was the one for her.

* * *

“You what?” Linda’s body ignored her shock and kept doing what it had been doing.

She and Clive were right in the middle of another night’s research into just how good it was possible to make each other feel—when he’d mumbled out those three impossible words.

“Tell me. I didn’t just hear. What I just heard.” It took her three gasping breaths to get the sentence out.

Clive offered one of his uncomfortable shrugs. He opened his mouth, but she cut him off.

“And don’t spout anything. About George Washington. Not telling lies!” Her pulse rate was still escalating, just not for the reasons it should be.

He closed his mouth again.

“This isn’t happening.” She straddled over him in his big Barcalounger. It was tipped back just enough that his incredible hands had access to her chest and the wonderful things he’d proven he could do there.

“Sorry,” he whispered.

Release was so close, for both of them. She’d learned to read his gasping breaths and clenching thighs to know just how close.

And then he’d said…

She couldn’t even think it.

But they were so close that even the least movement…

Her body, out of her control, sank down hard one last time and the waves hammered through her, stealing the last of her breath and mind. Moments later, the pulses wracking her own body tipped Clive off the edge as well.

“So good,” was all she could mumble. “So good.” Sex with Clive was better than any prior experience had even hinted was possible.

He held her hips tight against his as they rode it out together. Every shudder, every breath—she could feel every nuance through his physical connection deep inside her where he was plugged directly in her nervous system.

When at last their shared body had quieted, she tipped her forehead against his. “It’s okay, Clive. It’s just something that guys are dumb enough to say during sex. They think that sex equals love and spout things out. Sorry I yelled, I get that.”

But resting brow-to-brow, she could feel him shaking his head.

“Do not repeat it!”

“Okay,” he whispered.

“God damn it, Clive!” Linda pushed back to glare down at him. “There’s no such thing, outside of fairy tales and Hollywood movies. You do know that, right? Who the hell am I kidding? You’re a guy who knits and makes chocolate for a living. You believe in the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and true love.”

“Well, I kind of outgrew the Tooth Fairy—she didn’t like me much because I’m a chocolatier. I’m totally in good with the Easter Bunny, though. I’m a big fan. Huge.”

“Clive,” her groan felt like it was made of shards of glass. “We’ve known each other for maybe three days.”

“Six, actually. It’s past midnight.”

“Clive!”

He ran his hands up her bare back and pulled her in.

She resisted. Well, she wanted to resist, but she knew how good it felt to lie against him. And knew just how perfectly he could hold her with those big, wonderful hands of his. Her traitorous body leaned in against him until they were chest to chest and she could rest her head on his shoulder.

“How can you believe in love?”

“How can you not?”

Linda buried her face against his neck and sure enough, his hands sliding up and down his back soothed her. But she didn’t want to be soothed. She didn’t want to fall into some male-engineered trap.

“No,” she pushed back up. “No!” She extricated herself from Clive and his goddamn chair. Because it was tipped partway back, the angles were all wrong, but she finally managed to obtain enough leverage to stand to the side and look down at him. He was so beautiful. So fantastically male.

He was also a dangerous drug. She’d felt less effect from morphine ampoules delivered from field medkits when she’d been injured. The potency of Clive Andrews wasn’t merely a force to be reckoned with. For a moment there, she’d almost fallen under his spell.

But no!

She knew better.

They always said that if you didn’t know what to respond when the other person said those three awful words, then that was the answer.

But she knew exactly what to say.

“Clive. I don’t love you.” Then she couldn’t stop herself. “You’re a really great fuck,” the best she’d ever had. “But that’s all this is.”

And he looked like she’d just rammed her battle knife under his ribcage.

She wanted to reach for him. Take his hand. Console him. But…she’d just forever forfeited that privilege with those four words of her own.

* * *

Clive couldn’t look at her, but he couldn’t look away either. Naked, beautiful, her hair brushing her powerful shoulders. So strong and yet so angry.

He knew he shouldn’t have said that he loved her. He knew it the instant the words had slipped out of his mouth. But they’d been so true. All of the way down to the core. It hadn’t been something tossed out in the throes of passion, it had simply been clarified so perfectly in that instant. He knew its truth as surely as he knew his passion for chocolate.

And it wasn’t merely how she felt, how she smelled, how she tasted. Nothing had prepared him for the way she gave with all of her being. Her open heart and the connections she built so easily with Thor and Dilya—it had taken him months to win Dilya’s trust and Linda had done it in minutes. Picturing Linda with children of her own was the easiest thing in the world. Picturing her with their children…

It had taken his breath away and the words had spilled out.

Saying those words aloud had been a shock to him as well, but they were nothing compared to her answer: I don’t love you. He felt as if he’d been gutted and wished he could somehow curl up and hide rather than lie bonelessly sprawled back in his chair, unable to find the leverage to climb to his feet. Spread out like a corpse whose heart had just been hacked out of his chest, inspected, and found wanting.

Linda began dressing as efficiently as she did everything else and all he could do was watch.

“You’re a wonderful man, Clive.”

Socks and underwear.

“The best time I’ve ever had.” As if he was a carnival ride.

Pants and belt.

“What you don’t understand is that there’s no such thing as love. It’s just a delusion. A mass hallucination cooked up by Hollywood and romance authors.”

She bent down to tie her boots, offering him an incredible view of her naked breasts partly masked by a fall of her luxurious hair.

“No!” He protested as her words sank in. “Wait. That’s wrong. Of course love exists.” He finally found the chair controls and tipped it upright enough for him to really face her.

“No.” Bra, blouse, fleece vest. “It’s a stupid word for a cruel concept that is used only to hurt and manipulate.”

Shoulder holster, sidearm, and taser.

“Linda, you can’t believe—”

“I don’t believe.” USSS jacket. “I know.”

Her face was cold, expressionless. This wasn’t the woman…or even the soldier. She’d gone somewhere far beyond either of those.

“Love is an empty word said by a husband to his wife before he goes off to screw another coed. It the word a mother uses to manipulate and guilt-trip her child: If you loved me, you’d… The song is right. Love isn’t a weapon, it’s a goddamn battlefield.”

A snap of her fingers and Thor trotted to her side.

She pulled out the gloves he given her—his mother’s cribbage gloves. She rubbed a thumb over them for a moment, then set them on the coffee table beside the last of the pizza he’d made for her.

“Goodbye, Clive.”

“Wait! Let’s talk—” But she was gone, with Thor at her heels.

The door swung softly shut.

Leaving him to sit naked and alone.

* * *

Linda didn’t take the Metro.

She needed to walk it off.

Hot tracks scored her cold cheeks like the razor slice of flying shrapnel—momentary surprise, and then, after a pause just long enough to think you were lucky and had escaped this time, the slicing pain. She hadn’t cried since…

She remembered the day perfectly while she strode blindly down Wisconsin Avenue. It was a good thing it was two in the morning and there was no traffic. She couldn’t seem to stop herself as she strode through intersection after intersection no matter what the lights were doing.

A young girl. The day before she’d turned eleven. She could still see it with crystalline clarity in her mind’s eye—sharper than the night’s fluttering snow caught in successive streetlamps.

Standing outside her parents’ open bedroom door. Her best friend beside her. Home from school for a play date.

Everyone always talked about how wonderful and kind her parents were. What great hosts. The joy of every party. So helpful.

But that wasn’t what she and Peggy saw.

Her parents. Toe to toe in the bedroom. Screaming at each other as if they were ready to commit murder.

She recalled the images like snapshots: the rumpled bed, her father naked, a blonde college student that Father had said he was tutoring cowered in the corner trying to hide her own nakedness, her mother raging.

The words had tumbled by her, barely recognized, not understood until later: cheating fuck, icy bitch, limp-dicked loser, dried-out hag with nothing but a dusty hole where all joy died…

But worse than the words had been when they’d turned and noticed their audience.

Her father had merely sworn, “There’s the other useless bitch. Why the hell did we ever have a kid?”

Her mother hadn’t corrected him. Hadn’t defended her. Instead she’d stridden to the door in her Armani power pantsuit and whispered harshly, “Neither of you little shits saw or heard a thing!” Then she’d slammed the door in their faces.

Peggy hadn’t been there when Linda had finally recovered. Her pinkie-sworn, best-friend-forever never spoke to her again. Word got around, and not many of their classmates ever had either. Linda’s eleventh birthday party, her last ever, had been attended by her golden retriever. That’s what had driven her out of the social set and into sports, which had ultimately led her to the military. None of the jocks knew of the horror that was her parents. They didn’t know she was now a social pariah. She never once took any of her sports friends to her house.

And that evening at dinner? Everyone just pretended that nothing had happened, including her. Her father still tutored his students at the house, often in the bedroom, sometimes more than one at a time. Her mother rarely came home from Montpelier—except when there were dinners or parties to host, of course. When Linda visited there, her mother was always with a different man—whoever’s political favors she was currying at the time. Linda had spent all of her accumulated allowance to buy top-quality noise-canceling headphones—the only possession she never forgot to take from place to place.

It wasn’t the night of the fight that Linda had last cried. She’d just kept her dry-eyed face buried in Beau’s fur as she and her dog hid together in her bedroom closet.

When the aged golden retriever had died two months later, that was when it all came out. She’d cried so hard that they’d had to call the paramedics and give her a muscle relaxant before she could stop.

That had been her very last time.

Until now.

Dammit!

She wiped at her eyes with chilled fingers, all the colder as they were soaked in salt water.

A lone passerby hesitated as if he might offer to help—then hurried away fast. Smart man.

Wisconsin intersected Massachusetts. Dupont Circle sent her south along Connecticut. Until once more she stood in Lafayette Square with the White House shining like a beacon. A lone dog team patrolled along Pennsylvania. Emergency response dogs would be in their ERT vans—one of them was bound to have spotted her and was keeping an eye on her just in case.

Warning: Crazy bitch in Lafayette Square at three a.m. Alert the QRT!

In her current mood she was half tempted to do something that would get a Quick Response Team to come and put her out of her misery. How could she have done that to Clive? He was the best fuck of her life, but there’d been no reason to say it that way.

She brushed the thin coating of snow off a bench and sat. Thor settled at her feet. Linda cursed herself as she gathered him into her arms.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, buddy. I just made you walk five miles.” She buried her face in his fur as he tried to lick the dried salt from her face. Even without his lead clipped on, he’d stuck with her.

A dog. That was all a woman could trust. Her own self and her dog.

Then she remembered the devastated look on Clive’s face as she carved up his heart and fed it back to him.

She’d sworn that she’d never be cruel like her parents, but now that rule lay shattered with a direct hit. Apparently cruelty wasn’t a choice, it was genetic.

Maybe not so much with trusting herself.

Thor finished cleaning her face and began on his own paws.

Okay. At least she could trust her dog.