“I’m just checking.”
Ashleigh laughs but doesn’t comment.
“It’sfine, Dec,” Aussie says. “It’s even fine if Aunt Casey comes over and spends the night, too.” The Dom eyebrow stays in place.
I sigh. At least she’s eighteen now, so I don’t feelasweird discussing this with her. Although I still feel a little weird about it. “You understand this is super-secret stuff, right? Especially…that.”
“Absolutely.” She holds out her little finger with a playful grin. “Pinky swear.”
I laugh and hook pinkies with her. “Pinky swear.”
Ashleigh adds hers. “Pinky swears all around.”
“The important thing is Dad’s happy,” Aussie says. She shrugs. “Look, whatever’s going on, as long as all three of you are happy, that’s cool. We’ll do our part to run interference and spread a disinformation campaign, if needed.”
“I appreciate that. Hopefully, that won’t be needed.”
I eat dinner with them, stretch out on the sofa—with Petula—to watch TV, but end up falling asleep.
I guess I needed the nap after the day I had. I feel guilty that I’m not working, but I’m sort of hamstrung without a phone and without my computer.
When George returns that night a little after ten, he has the things the EPU retrieved for me from my Jag. Petula jogs up to the front door with a happy wiggle to greet him, making him smile.
“How’s our other guest?” he asks as he pets her. “Is Petula settling in?”
“So far, so good,” Aussie tells him. “Do we get to keep her for a while?”
“Looks like it,” George says. “Probably several months. Her mom called Casey back. Both their employers have been flooded out, and they don’t know when they’ll be able to go back to work.”
“Cool!” Aussie says. “Notthat they’re flooded out,” she quickly adds. “Cool that we have Petula. The First Dog.” She grins. “We should try to get a reporter to do a story! This would begreatPR.”
Sirliterallyrolls his eyes and looks to me for backup.
I can’t help it—I snicker. “She’s actually not wrong, George. Thatwouldbe a great PR story. A feel-good piece.”
“I mean, think about it, Dad,” Aussie says. “Your brave deputy chief of staff risked his life to save a dog, lost his own home, and now you, the governor, are personally taking care of the dog.”
“Let’snot,” he says. “Because that’ll trigger questions about where Declan’s living.”
She waves that off. “He’s staying with Aunt Casey,” she says. “And he lived there before, in college. He’s like family to her.”
Casey arrives about twenty minutes after George and has a suitcase with all my clothes in it from her house. The detail dropped her off there first, and she drove over in her car.
In total, that gives me two pairs of dress shoes and four full suits, in addition to two pairs of jeans, some shorts and T-shirts and a couple of collared pullovers with the state logo embroidered on them. And my sneakers.
I don’t know what clothes, if any, will be salvageable once the flood waters go down, but that’s okay. It’s just stuff.
The girls tell us good-night and offer to take the dog with them. They head downstairs to the guest room in the basement. Casey and George already ate, so the three of us retire to George’s bedroom.
I’m heading toward the bed when George grabs me, hauls me to him, and kisses me. “You are very lucky, boy.”
I drape my arms around his neck. “I think so, but why, particularly, Sir?”
“Because if it wasn’t for Aussie being home tonight, you’d be getting onehellof spanking for scaring the crap out of me today.”
Casey clears her throat.
“Us,” he amends. “For scaring the crap out ofus.”
