Page 92 of Marriage (Red, White &) Blues

“Why?” she asked suspiciously, rather than giving the excited ‘Wow! I can’t wait to see you!’ I’d hoped for.

“Pen, I messed up.”

“What do you mean ‘messed up?’ How?”

“I couldn’t get a job and I got lonely without you and Sierra around. Blake was logging a lot of hours for work. I made a friend and stupid me—I told her highly personal things about my life with Blake.”

“Sweety…”

“Hold on, it gets worse. It turns out she was a plant hired to set me up.”

“By his father?”

“No—I don’t know. Robert seemed really surprised when we told him, and the paper trail led back toRaymond Hill.”

“The man who went against Brockton Parker in the primaries?”

“Yes. But he did this well after the primaries. Brock accepted the candidacy the day after my wedding.”

“This doesn’t make sense.”

“So now we have to let his family think we’re playing nice. They ordered me to lay low, which means I lay low until Blake and I can figure out if Robert is involved, and if he’s not, who’s behind this and what’s their endgame?”

“When are you coming back?”

I heaved a heavy,heavysigh. “Probably tomorrow night. I’d much rather take the redeye.”

“Girl, you’re loaded, you could book private and forego the public terminals all together.”

Holy crap! I never thought of that. “Hold on for a sec,” I said to Pen, then covering the receiver so I didn’t blow out her eardrum, I shouted, “Blake!”

He burst into the room. “What’s wrong?”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you but Pen had a really good idea.”

“She on the line now?” he asked and I removed my hand from the receiver as I nodded. Blake bent down to say, “Hey, Pen,” into the phone.

“Just put me on speaker,” she said, so I clicked the speaker button. “I just said that maybe you should see about chartering her a private jet so she doesn’t have to deal with the public.”

“Why didn’t I think of that?” he asked us or no one, it was a toss-up.

“Probably because you’ve always beenParker richbut now, thanks to Grandpa Parker, you could singlehandedly fund a small nation for the next five-hundred years and still live like a king for the rest of your life,” I said. “There’s an adjustment period.”

“Can you and Ant pick her up? We’ll call with the details.”

“Be happy to…Wait—Gloria, why aren’t you protesting? You always protest help. Blake, if you’ve pod-personed my best friend I’ll end you.”

He snickered while shaking his head at me. “I take it she didn’t tell you, then?”

“What now?”

“Glory’s in a wheelchair currently with a severely sprained ankle and a broken collarbone.”

“How in the ever loving?—”

“We were moving furniture and I slipped.”

“Why didn’t you hire a mover?”

---