Page 95 of Casualties of War
Olivia steeled herself against the pity and empathy trying to form. Her father was a master manipulator. Even lying in a bed attached to monitors and drips and an oxygen line, he was still a powerful operative and she couldn’t affordto forget it.
As he had with the doctors and nurses, he was most likely trying to charm his way behind her defenses. He never failed to have an agenda of some sort.
“When the war is over, we can talk about maybe getting together,” she told him.
Her father sighed. He met her eyes once more. “Tell me about him.”
“Daniel?”
“Yes.”
“Tell you…what?”
“Everything,” her father said.
Olivia hesitated.She had never had the sort of relationship with her father that girls she had gone to school with seemed to have with their fathers. She didn’t get to tell her father her secrets and wishes. She didn’t sit on his knees or get to dance with him at the father-daughter ball.
He had never once disapproved of her boyfriends. Instead, he had ordered the Secret Service to bar a boy he didn’t like fromthe house and block his calls to her cellphone. There had been no discussion and no negotiations.
Telling her father her innermost thoughts and feelings about Daniel was weird and uncomfortable.
Callan Davenport grimaced. “Okay. Tell me how you met. That’s safe enough, isn’t it?”
It was certainly more comfortable. Olivia shifted on the hard plastic chair. “He was a hostage in the Whitesands,like me. Everyone thought he was English. He’s got blue eyes and pale skin for a Vistarian—I guess you’ve seen a picture of him, so you know that already. He speaks idiomatic English, with a British accent when he needs to, so I didn’t question his nationality, either. I thought he was an asshole.”
Her father smiled. “Why?”
She realized she was smiling, too. “Because he was all over any womanwho moved, as long as she was at least ten years younger than him and every woman melted when he got near.”
“Sounds like someone I know,” Callan said gruffly.
“Jerry?” Olivia guessed. “I hadn’t thought of it that way. Seducing women was only how Daniel spent his spare time. At night, he would sneak out of the hotel and onto the grounds. I thought he was doing it to thumb his nose at the guards.It turns out he had an agenda all along.”
“Something in military intelligence, I’m guessing,” her father said, his voice soft. He sounded sleepy.
“Something like that,” Olivia said lightly. Daniel’s profession wasn’t her secret to share, especially not with the Chief of Staff to the President of the United States, even if hewasher father.
“And how did he get past that iron shield of yours?”her father asked.
Olivia sighed. “He didn’t want to. He wasn’t interested.” Softly, she related the tale of how she and Daniel had drawn closer together. It was highly edited and whitewashed.
By the time she got to the hasty wedding Minnie had arranged for her, her father’s eyes had closed. Olivia finished describing the wedding and her dash to Washington with Nick, then paused.
Her fatherdidn’t move. He was asleep.
Quietly, she got to her feet and moved out to the nurses’ station. “Is my father’s doctor still here? I would like to speak to him.”
The nurse in the green scrubs who had hurried in when her father spoke nodded and reached for a phone. “Dr. Martin wanted to speak to you, too.” There was no cheeriness or humor in her voice now.
Olivia’s heart gave a little creak.She waited at the station until Dr. Martin, who had changed into street clothes, came hurrying up to the counter. He shepherded her away with a hand on her back, into a small room with dim lighting and lounge chairs.
Her heart beat even harder. Olivia didn’t sit when Martin told her to. “He’s not recovering at all, is he?” she said.
Dr. Martin sighed. His eyes met her. “No,” he said. “Therewas too much damage to the heart. We’ve done what we can. Now there’s nothing we can do but make him comfortable. I’m so sorry.”
Olivia thought of the wistful note in her father’s voice. “He knows,” she whispered.
“We haven’t told him yet,” Martin said sharply. “That is why I wanted to talk to you. I thought you might want to. Sometimes, family members rather the news come from a loved one.”
