“You still prefer the fake Vermeer of the girl with the rabbit?” he challenged.
She flashed him a delightfully flirtatious glance. “Why would I confess to such a thing when you will use it as ammunitionagainst me? In your eyes, it will be proof that I value the silly and sentimental over the ponderous lady with the letter.”
That wasexactlywhat he was about to do, for she loved that rabbit painting even though it was a complete and total fraud.
“You can’t imagine how much I’m looking forward to September 15th,” he said, watching her carefully. A tiny tilt of one side of her mouth was the only indication she understood his meaning.
“We are of like mind,” she responded.
It was time to rejoin the others, and they turned to leave the museum, walking with a respectable eighteen inches between them. He’d never felt closer to her.
Caroline found the trip back east less eventful than the first half. There were fewer stops as they traveled through the plains of Wyoming and Nebraska, and by the time they reached the Midwest, Ida’s energy was flagging. The president still made the scheduled stops at stockyards and factories in Illinois, but Ida decided not to leave the train. That meant Caroline needed to remain on the train as well.
It was embarrassing how often she stationed herself by the wide portrait window as the presidential party departed. She always watched Nathaniel, so tall and formal, conferring with local police at each stop. She loved his sober comportment and calm diligence. Other people in the crowd might have open collars and sleeves rolled up due to the heat, but never Nathaniel. He wore his black vest and suitcoat everywhere. Was it to hide his shoulder holster or in simple deference to the president? Either way, she liked his formality. She liked everything about him, including the restraint he showed in keeping his distance from her, even though he chafed against it as much as she did.
They made more stops in densely populated Ohio and Pennsylvania, but Caroline breathed a sigh of relief as theyreached New York, for a special visit had been planned to see Niagara Falls. It was not an official event, rather a private excursion requested by the president. He and Ida had vacationed at Niagara Falls as newlyweds, and he wished to relive the memory.
While a trip to view Niagara Falls was easy for a young army major and his bride, it was quite another to arrange such a trip for the president of the United States and his invalid wife. It required dozens of police officers to clear the woods and secure a section of the park for the private visit. The McKinleys took only Nathaniel and Sullivan with them as they went off to enjoy an afternoon in the woodland along the falls.
Caroline’s only responsibility today was to ensure the three AP journalists did not leave the train. The McKinleys had been adamant about their privacy and had asked Caroline to remain with the journalists in the parlor car to ensure none of them wandered off in hope of scoring an exclusive story. She had to crack open the windows, because the journalists all smoked like fiends as they played cards at a nearby table. At least she no longer felt compelled to join them, for she had at last conquered her cigarette cravings. Perhaps she was finally growing up after all.
She took the gift of a few hours to ponder Luke’s latest letter. Once again he’d included Hebrew passages at the end, but in the English portion he wrote more about Key West.
The Flying Dutchman is using a link in the western key. Find the link and cut it. Trouble is still brewing there.
In his earlier letter Luke had implied trouble came from Key West. Now he told her to cut the link in Key West. What link? And how was she supposed to cut it?
It was almost time for dinner before the McKinleys returned, both in good cheer. Oddly, Nathaniel and Sullivan looked furiouswhen they boarded the train. Caroline didn’t have time to ask why as she followed Ida into her private car to help her dress for dinner.
The frost between Nathaniel and Sullivan stretched throughout dinner. As usual, they dined with Rembrandt, but Nathaniel remained stonily silent, even during the dessert course of deep-dish apple pie, which was his favorite. The moment Rembrandt left for the smoking car, Caroline occupied his vacated seat beside Nathaniel.
“How was the visit to the Falls?” she asked.
Nathaniel’s mouth thinned, and it looked like he didn’t want to talk, but Sullivan was bursting at the seams.
“The president ordered us to hang back the moment we were in the woods,” Sullivan said. “It was against every basic tenet of security, but what were we supposed to do? It was a direct order from the president.”
“Sometimes you don’t follow orders,” Nathaniel said tightly.
“I hate to inform you, but Mr. McKinley outranks us both,” Sullivan said, annoyance darkening his normally cheerful blue eyes. “If the president orders me to go stand on my head and sing ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb,’ I will do so.”
“Did you follow orders?” she asked Nathaniel, who seemed irritated she should even ask.
“I’m not going to let the President of the United States wander off alone into the woods with an invalid woman.Of courseI trailed them. They had no idea I was there.”
“You can’t know that,” Sullivan challenged. “I don’t want to get in trouble over this, and they might have known you were following them.”
“They didn’t know,” Nathaniel bit out.
“How can you be so sure?” Caroline asked.
“Because I got an eyeful,” he snapped.
Understanding dawned, and she tried not to laugh. “An eyeful of what?” she asked innocently. She’d been around theMcKinleys long enough to know they could be embarrassingly affectionate, but it was new and unwelcome to Nathaniel.
She was still thinking about it later that night as she settled into the parlor car with all the others after dinner. She tried to concentrate on the evening’s newspaper, but her thoughts kept straying to Nathaniel and the dwindling days until they could be together. It was September 4th, and they had two more days in Buffalo while the president visited the World’s Fair, but then they would be heading home to Washington.
What would it be like when Nathaniel no longer had this job to distract him? She watched as he bent over tomorrow’s security schedule at the neighboring table. He never did anything halfway. Would he truly begin a whole-hearted courtship, or would he find some other excuse to keep her at arm’s length?
