Tread softly Read online

  She greeted the ecstatic Doberman who raced around the house to greet her, Trock at his heels.

  “Everything straightened out, Mrs. Densmore?” Trock watched her, his face expressionless.

  “The senator is handling it, but I think he has a fight on his hands.” She rubbed the silken ears of the dog as they turned toward the rose garden in unspoken agreement. Cady’s nostrils distended as she inhaled the sweetness around her. The roses were dying back now but had taken on a new luster because of the cool overnight rain. The mild Virginia weather would sometimes let them bloom until November.

  “He’ll beat ‘em as soon as he has you riding shotgun for him, Mrs. D.,” Trock said, his sandpaper voice sounding strained after disgorging so many words.

  Startled, Cady turned to look at the man, wondering if the taciturn Trock was being sarcastic.

  “You’re his good right arm, Mrs. D. Didn’t you know that?”

  Cady shook her head, unable to accept what he was saying.

  “Believe it, Mrs. D.” Trock coughed as though his throat was so out of condition for talking that he had to keep clearing the debris of words. “He’s got nobody else but you… ” He looked down at the dog, who was leaning against Cady’s legs. “And of course Graf here… and me.”

  Cady smiled at the laconic man facing her across a huge Peace rosebush that had the circumference of a good size dining room table. “Trock, the senator has a large family here in Virginia. He has cousins in Texas and Florida. He’s very close to his brothers and sisters.”

  “He’s close to them, true, but they aren’t close to him.” He breathed hard. “I saw plenty at the nursing home, Mrs. D. You came to see him every day. Not the rest of them, though; they didn’t come so regularly. Oh, I know they told you at the desk they came, but Mr. Emmett and Mr. Trabold actually came about once a week, a little more sometimes. The twins came a couple times a week, the sisters maybe twice a month. Then they’d sit there and spill their guts about all their troubles.”

  Cady stared at him, aware that her mouth was agape. “You’re saying that all those times when I hurried to leave so that Rafe could spend some time with family members… ? You mean they didn’t visit according to the schedule? That it was all a sham? That I could have stayed as long as I wanted to?”

  “Most days, yes, ma’am, I’d say that. I wanted to say something, but I thought maybe you had set up the schedule yourself.”

  “I didn’t. Bruno Trabold insisted that Emmett and the family wanted to have their own time with Rafe, so I agreed to a schedule.” Cady felt her voice choke. “You mean that many times he spent all those hours alone with no one to visit him?”

  “Yes, ma’am. That’s when I got into the habit of playing chess with him. He would blink once for yes and twice for no when I moved the pieces. He was a smart cuss, even strapped to that bed.”

  “Oh, Lord,” Cady moaned. “I would have spent every moment with him.” She bit her lip, fighting back tears. “Thank you, Trock, for not abandoning him, but oh, I wish I’d known.”

  “No sense looking back.” He harumphed again. “That’s why when I heard you talking to the senator about having the operation, I knew it was the right thing to do. I knew he wanted it.”

  “Yes,” Cady whispered.

  “Then you must know how much he’ll need your help with this environmental thing he was talking about. Right?” Trock persisted, just about through with talking for the day.

  Cady stared at the stocky attendant, knowing that his medium build was deceptive, that he was strong and muscular. She let her glance rove from the steel-gray crew cut to the masklike face and down the dungaree clad body. Had he read her mind? Did he suspect that she wanted to leave and go home? Did Rafe really need her as much as Trock said he did?

  “I don’t know what the bills are all about… but I know he needs your help.” Trock inhaled deeply.

  “I think you mean the environmental bill that Harold Long, another senator, is cosponsoring. That’s the legislation that Greeley’s men are fighting.”

  Trock nodded. “I guess that’s it,” he said. “Listen, Mrs. D., are you and the senator dining in tonight?”

  “What? Dining in? Oh, yes, I feel it’s better not to have activities back to back for the senator. That way he doesn’t tire as much… ” Cady’s voice faltered, her mind jumbled and going in all directions.

  “Good idea. The senator is getting stronger every day. He’ll be better than he was before when I get through with him.”

  Cady put her hand on Track’s arm. “I hope for all our sakes you will never consider yourself done with the senator, but whatever you decide, I want you to know you will always have a home with us.”

  Blood chugged into Track’s face, and his mouth and throat worked as though he were trying to digest a two-by-four. He nodded once at Cady, then turned away, striding toward the barnlike building that housed the therapy equipment.

  Graf whined at her side, drawing Cady’s attention.

  “All right, boy.” She patted him in an absent fashion, walking in a tangent toward the open french doors leading from the library. “Let’s go for a swim,” she told the happy dog as he padded next to her up the stairs, the nails on his paws clacking like typewriter keys. It took mere minutes to don her one piece bathing suit, reach for a terry-cloth wrap, and hurry down the stairs again.

  The pool was a regulation twenty-five-yard rectangle that could be fitted with a bubble when the weather turned cold. An avid swimmer, Cady used the pool every day she could.

  Graf had begun jumping in the pool at Rafe’s coaxing when Rafe had come home from the hospital. Now the dog was in the habit of swimming with Cady or Rafe. Cady assumed the dog swam with Trock as well, but she had never seen them in the pool together.

  She was on her thirtieth lap, her goggles a little steamed up, when she felt the roll and splash of the water that told her someone else had entered the pool. She stopped swimming for a moment, treading water easily, and pushing the goggles back on her head to look around her. She felt a feathery touch on her stomach, and before she could react, she was pulled under, Rafe’s grinning face in front of her. Continuing to blow bubbles of air through his nose, he pulled her close to his body and clamped his legs over hers. They surfaced, still kissing.

  Cady leaned back, gasping for air. “Do you have an auxiliary tank built into your lungs?” she gulped at him, frowning.

  He held her easily, suspended in his arms. “Are you angry with me, Cady? I guess I always knew that you would discover the scandal at Durra, but I hoped you wouldn’t.” Rafe released her to let her float on her back, his arm supporting her and her head on his shoulder. “It’s something I deeply regret, and I could never bring myself to speak of it to you. I wanted you to be proud of me.”

  “I was very proud to marry you, Rafe.” Cady’s voice had a tremor in it.

  “But not too proud when you heard about Durra,” he said flatly, his hand tightening under her breasts. “Cady, I won’t try to make excuses for myself… ”

  Cady rolled free of him, splashing them both, then stroked to the side of the pool.

  “Cady, wait. Let’s talk.” His long arms touched the side of the pool at almost the same time as Cady’s.

  “There’s nothing to talk about, Rafe.” Her voice wobbled. “Bruno only hammered home the facts I’ve tried not to admit to myself.” She turned to look at him, locking her jaw to keep her face from crumpling into tears. “You were on your own for a long time before you met me. You traveled around the world and you moved with a very slick crowd. I knew that, but I still foolishly thought that I would be enough for you.”

  “You were, Cady.” Rafe bit off the words. “You still are.”

  Her head swung back and forth like a pendulum. “No, Rafe, don’t you fall into that trap, believing the fairy story of our marriage that you used in your campaign material.”

  “Cady, I have been faithful to you,” he growled, sweeping back his wet hair with one
hand.

  “Have you?” She shivered as much from the chill of the air on her wet body as from the shock of memory. “On the day the plane crashed, you were on your way to Durra. Bruno and Emmett told me while I waited in the hospital corridor for the doctor to come and tell me that you had died.”

  “Did you wish that I had? Died, I mean?” Bitterness laced Rafe’s voice, and his nostrils were pinched white.

  “Damn you!” Cady blazed, raising herself out of the pool, a trembling hand reaching for the terry-cloth robe. “Is that what you think?” She whirled to face him, temper igniting her body like a match to spilled gasoline. “I won’t try to change your mind, but kindly remember that I spent many long hours in office work, in caucus, in meetings, trying to keep your seat… and… then… then I came to visit you… ” Her breath rasped out of her throat in painful jerks. Hot tears that she had buried for too long seemed to well up like a boiling geyser. “And… don’t you think… I’m crying. Because I’m not… and… don’t you come near me… ever again.” She tried to whirl away from him, But Rafe caught her wrist.

  “Forgive me, Cady, please. It was a stupid thing to say and I didn’t mean it.” He took a deep breath. “Cady, shall I tell you what I remember, what made me hang on in that living hell?”

  She didn’t turn to look at him or even nod, but she stopped trying to struggle free.

  “There were so many special moments, but the one that still comes back in my dreams was the day you were sitting sprawled in the easy chair. Your eyes were closed and you were limp with fatigue, yet you described the day you had had fighting for the Mead-Sligh reclamation bill that would allow people who had been affected by chemical waste to have recourse to instant financial help. Then you started to mumble about the other things that you were determined not to let slip, other bills that I was interested in that you had listed in order of importance to me.” His hand tightened on her wrist. “You still had your eyes closed, but you were smiling and you said, ‘I’ll tread softly over your dreams, Rafe, I promise. Do you remember that quotation by Yeats, darling?’ Then you fell sound asleep.”

  He tugged gently but insistently on her wrist, turning her to face him. “I remember the quotation, Cady, because as soon as I could use my hands, I looked it up in Bartlett’s. “ “I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams.’ That’s it, isn’t it, Cady?” He was whispering now.

  “Yes, that’s it.” Cady felt as though each word she said were wrenched from her throat.

  “Cady, the dreams I had for our state and for the country are still alive in me. If you can’t believe in me as a husband, will you believe in me as a senator and help those dreams come true? I need you in the coming election.”

  “I know that.” Cady tried to mask the hurt that his words caused. She wanted to yell at him, shake him, force him to want her as a woman—not as the senator’s wife.

  “Will you help me, Cady?”

  “I’ll help you to achieve your aims, because I believe in them, too, but I won’t… ”

  Rafe put his finger to her lips. “Don’t say any more. We’ll just go with what we’ve got.” His lips curved in a twist of a smile. “We’ll give them a hell of a run for their money in this election, won’t we, Cady?”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The campaign swung into high gear almost at the moment of their return to New York. Cady was rather startled to find that she was well known to so many of Rafe’s constituents. Many even called her by name. Even more astonishing to her was that she enjoyed accompanying Rafe and talking to the people. She had never considered herself an extrovert, but her months of working in Rafe’s Senate office had whittled down the rough edges of her shyness. She tried to explain this metamorphosis to her father one evening when Rafe was dining with some of his political strategists in the area. She had taken advantage of the brief respite to visit with the professor.

  “It’s incredible, Father, really!” She smiled at him, taking note of the piercing stare that seemed to see through her. “All those years at school when I would tremble and shake over giving reports and taking oral exams, and now I’m meeting hundreds of people at once and carrying it off. Amazing, isn’t it?”

  “Amazing,” Professor Nesbitt echoed, his tone dry. He tapped his pipe against his left palm, not taking his eyes from her. “We’ve skirted any discussion of you all evening, my darling daughter,” he observed, filling the pipe with slow, measured movements. “And though I’m fully in accord with my son-in-law’s aims—in fact I’m most curious about his new wariness toward the Greeley people he had in his camp—for the moment I would like to hear about you. You have shadows under your eyes, Cady. What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing, Father,” she choked, trying to keep her smile in place. “The campaign is tiring, of course, and I don’t look as sharp as I should… ”

  “It’s not your looks, even though you are too thin. That happened after Rafe’s accident, and I can understand it. It was a very rough time for both of you; but that crisis is past. What’s bothering you now, Cady? I see the hurt etched into your face and I don’t like that. Do you want to talk about it?” Her father’s voice was gentle, as always, but Cady detected a thread of steel in it. “I knew there would be pain for you,” he went on, “marrying a man like Rafe, but you loved him so much.” He shrugged, a bitter lift to his mouth.

  “I still do,” Cady choked, wanting to talk with her father but unable to confide to anyone that Rafe didn’t love her and would, perhaps soon, be asking her for a divorce. “I’m not trying to fool you, Father. It’s only that speaking about the problems between Rafe and me makes me so miserable.”

  “Then you admit there are problems.” Her father’s voice was gruff.

  “There are problems in every marriage. You know that.” Cady’s mouth felt like rubber as she tried to smile.

  “All right, child; but promise me you’ll come to me if things get too rough.”

  “I promise, Father.”

  “Now tell me about this Greeley thing. Where did all the bully boys go who used to be on the fringe of Rafe’s camp?” Professor Nesbitt’s eyes sharpened when her lips curved upward.

  “Rafe was a tiger with them. Bruno Trabold made the tactical mistake of trying to back Rafe into a corner on an issue.” Cady kept her eyes on her father’s chin, determined not to give him any details about the Durra scandal, even though she sensed that he knew more about Rafe than he let on. “Bruno underestimated Rafe’s fighting ability and overplayed his hand. When he revealed that Greeley had been trying to manipulate Rafe, Rafe came out of his corner like a pit terrier,” she finished, her lips a straight line.

  “Speaking of pit terriers,” her father said, tamping his pipe, “I understand from the newspapers that my daughter has entered the fray on the side of the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals to protect that great species of canine from being exploited in illegal fighting.”

  Cady leaned forward in her chair, two coin-size spots of red high in her cheeks. “Dad, if you could see what happens to these dogs when they’re thrown into one of those fights, it would make you sick. They are literally torn to pieces.” Her chin thrust forward. “And just as Rafe rid himself of the Greeley faction, I’m going to help sweep that disgusting so-called sport from our state.”

  Professor Nesbitt’s stern face softened, his eyes twinkling. “I would certainly run if you came at me with that martial light in your eye. You’re quite a tiger yourself, Cady.”

  At that moment Rafe strolled into the room, his charcoal pin-strip suit looking as fresh as when he left that morning. Both Cady and her father started—they had been so absorbed in their conversation that they hadn’t heard the click of Rafe’s key in the front door lock.

  “No truer words were ever spoken, Thomas.” Rafe chuckled, pulling his tie free from his neck as he stood in the doorway. “You haven’t seen your daughter in action in the political arena yet. Why don’t you come to the luncheon th
e Monroe County women are hosting for Cady? She’s making a speech that day. The first time I heard her speak, I didn’t even listen to the words. I was too busy watching the way she curled the audience right into her palm. She’s a marvel.” Her husband’s voice brimmed with pride.

  Cady had heard Rafe praise her often during the campaign, but it never failed to stir her, to make the blood rise in her face as it did now. “Rafe, you’ve already invited the world to this rally. I hope I won’t fall on my face.”

  “That’s false modesty and you know it, wife. Even Clem Martin, my campaign manager, said that you are my greatest asset.” He walked across the room to lean down and brush her lips with his. This had become a habit of Rafe’s whenever they greeted each other or parted. Cady knew that it was a mechanical gesture to him, but for her it was a heart-wrenching experience, and she treasured every caress. Still, it became increasingly hard to disguise the effect he had on her, especially since her hands ached to reach for his neck and clutch him to her.

  “I think I will come.” Professor Nesbitt pursed his lips, a faraway look in his eyes. “Yes, I could drive up in the morning.”

  “No, Thomas, I’ll send the plane for you,” Rafe corrected. “It’s a beautiful ride up the lake. Then you could stay with us in the city and fly back the next morning.”

  “Oh, please do it, Father. I’d like it so much.” Cady felt her throat constrict. “It would bolster my confidence.”

  “I thought I was supposed to do that,” Rafe observed, his tone wry.

  Cady gave him a quick glance, noting the opaque look of his eyes. “Of course you do. But I’d like my father to be there, too.”

  “Of course.” He looked past her to the professor. “We should be leaving, Thomas. It’s a fifteen-mile drive to the house and then it’s early to rise tomorrow.”