Choices (A Woman's Life) Read online

This wasn’t what Doreen wanted to hear. Her tone was steely. “To when?”

  Shanna shook her head. “Not when, where. Let’s take them to the shelter.”

  “That’s damn depressing.” But the woman wasn’t really protesting the idea. Possibilities were beginning to formulate in her mind. Yes, this could work out very well. Even better than she had initially arranged. Shanna Brady, the candidate with a heart. Good press was always welcome.

  “So is being homeless.” Shanna got her second wind. She knew it was important to impress the right people to get elected, but she couldn’t do it at the sacrifice of her beliefs. It would mean blunting the point of her platform. “Do it. Maybe if some footage gets on the local news, somebody’ll be moved to donate time, money, a job, something. Anything. Every scrap helps. The public keeps thinking this is someone else’s problem. It’s not. It’s everyone’s problem. Because it can happen to anyone. Those people didn’t start out being homeless. They started out with hopes and dreams.”

  Reid applauded. “Very good for a woman who’s too exhausted to even stand up.”

  Doreen was furiously scribbling memos in her book. “I like that line.” She made a note of the key people she had to call to rearrange things. “The one about it being everyone’s problem.” The book made a muffled thump as she closed it. “Be sure to use it at the press conference today.”

  Shanna looked at her sharply. She had no intention of coming off like a cheap politician, playing angles and saying things she knew people wanted to hear. She didn’t want to play Jordan’s game. She rose. “It’s not a line, Doreen. I mean it.”

  Doreen patted Shanna’s cheek on her way out. “That’s why I’m here, sugar. That’s why I’m here. I only work for the real McCoy.” There was a smile on her face. The serious look was in her eyes. She turned to Reid. “Take care of her. I’ll go see what I can do with our friends from the fourth estate.” She closed the door behind her. Reid flipped the lock.

  When Reid turned around, he saw Shanna had crossed to the window. He walked up behind her and slipped his arms around her waist. Shanna leaned into him. She projected determination. To those who didn’t know better, she was a pillar of strength. But beneath it all, he knew she was still vulnerable, still in need of being protected. Maybe now more than ever because she had never put herself on the line before. All he could do for her was give her the support, real and emotional, that she needed. “Get you anything?”

  It felt good to be held. It would be so nice if things were simple. If there wasn’t this overwhelming drive within her to prove something, to do something. If she could just relax and let herself be loved. And just be. But she had things to accomplish and she’d seen what happened when she let herself fall in love. Her life became a shambles. Still, it was comforting to have him here. She placed her hands on his. “A little peace and quiet would be nice.”

  “That’s not on the agenda for the next few years, I’m afraid.”

  She heard the regret in his voice. She had had an idea what she was in for, but she had never been at the center of the whirlwind before. The pace was incredibly grueling. It was a lot harder, she realized, when the product you were selling was yourself.

  She sighed and turned to face him. He kept his arms around her. “Do you have any idea what I did with that speech I used at the Elks Club?”

  He wanted some time alone with her, some time to be just a man and a woman, still at the threshold of discovering one another. He almost regretted having urged her to try for the nomination. But then, he knew she had to prove something to herself. They wouldn’t be happy with one another until she did this.

  He nodded. “It’s on the desk.” Most of the final input had been his, but the ideas were hers. “Just soften it a bit and it’ll work.”

  Shanna frowned as she recalled the speech. “No.”

  “No what? You don’t like the speech? I thought you did a pretty good job delivering it.” He had to be getting back to Washington on the midnight flight. It was a little late for him to do a rewrite now, but it could still be managed.

  “No, the speech was fine. But I won’t soften it. My platform is my platform. I plan to stick by it no matter who it displeases.”

  He studied her for a moment, reflecting on his feelings as he ran his hands slowly along her arms. “Who would have ever thought I was going to fall for Joan of Arc? Okay, do it your way, but if they start getting a bonfire going, I’m coming in to get you.”

  She laughed. “My hero.”

  He took her face in his hands. “And don’t you forget it.” Just as he lowered his head to kiss her, there was another knock on the door. He sighed, dropping his hands. “Is there a camera in this room or something? Why is it people keep knocking every time I’m within an inch of your lips?”

  “Maybe it’s Jane and she forgot her key.” Shanna had insisted on having Jessica and the nurse come with her. She couldn’t put up with long separations from her daughter, not even to win the election.

  Reid ran his thumb along her bottom lip. “To be continued.”

  Shanna sank back into the chair as Reid opened the door. They were both surprised to see Rheena standing in the hall.

  Reid stepped back as he opened the door all the way. “Mrs. Brady.” He glanced down the hallway in both directions. “Is the senator with you?”

  The entrance her mother made seemed just a tad less dramatic than usual to Shanna. Maybe she was getting too used to them, she mused.

  Rheena tossed her silver mink coat on the sofa carelessly. “I don’t need anyone to walk me to see my own daughter. Escorts are for the theater.” She turned to look Reid over appreciatively. This one was a lot better than the last. Loathing filled her when she thought of Jordan. “Reid, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” he responded, amused. She was quite a piece of work, Shanna’s mother. He could see why Shanna would have had trouble finding her own identity with this to contend with.

  “I never forget a good-looking face.” Dismissing Reid, she looked at her daughter. “You, however, look awful.”

  Shanna didn’t even bother to stand up. “You came all the way from Georgetown to build up my confidence, Mother?” She was surprised and rather pleased that there was no deadening within her at her mother’s criticism. Nothing shrank away. She’d either come of age, she decided, or was so tired, nothing mattered.

  “No, I just came to see you.” Rheena saw the surprised expression on Shanna’s face. Didn’t think I really cared, did you? “And Jessica.” She looked around the room for signs of her granddaughter’s presence. “I think it’s a sin to drag her around this way.”

  Shanna had no intention of being influenced by her mother any longer. If anything, she was pulling in the complete opposite direction. “I wouldn’t get to see her otherwise.” She looked at her mother pointedly, recalling the long vacations Rheena had taken away from her. “Or she, me.”

  Rheena looked away. The unfamiliar prick of guilt stung her. “Yes, well, maybe you’re right.”

  There was something in her mother’s tone that had Shanna relenting slightly. “I’m playing it the best I know how.”

  Reid looked at the two women. They were so different, yet far more alike than either could see. Both were strong in their own way. “Would you two like me to go, or should I stay and referee?”

  Rheena smiled. Yes, this one was going to be good for Shanna. She waved toward the door. “You may go.”

  Shanna kissed Reid’s cheek. “I’m a big girl now, Reid.”

  Even big girls got hurt. He gave her hand an encouraging squeeze. “I’ll be down the hall if you need me,” he told her as he closed the door behind him. There were a few things he wanted to see concerning her campaign before he left tonight anyway.

  “So, where is she?” Rheena asked impatiently.

  “Jessica?” Shanna turned to face her mother. “Jane took her to the park. You actually came all the way to see her? I’m touched.” It wasn’t like her mother to go out of her
way like this.

  Rheena didn’t answer for a moment, emotions scrambling within her. She wasn’t an open person by nature. But nature had whimsically changed some of her rules. “No, I actually did come to see you.”

  That was even more unlike her mother. “Why?”

  Rheena turned, defensive. She wasn’t used to being questioned, especially not by Shanna. “Why not? A mother has a right to see her own daughter.”

  An ocean of hurt feelings came flooding back to Shanna. Where was her mother when she had needed her? When she had been afraid of the dark and just the touch of her mother’s hand would have helped? Where was she when her approval had meant the world to her? “You didn’t exercise that right very often, as I recall.”

  Explanations rose and faded. A lifetime of not apologizing for her actions kept Rheena from giving voice to any of them. “You’re giving your father a second chance, why not me?”

  Was her mother serious? Something was wrong. Shanna could feel it. “Is that what you want? A second chance?”

  Rheena’s eyes held hers. It took a moment for the word to come. It wasn’t easy, asking. “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  There was a stubbornness to her daughter that she had failed to recognize. Had it always been there and she just hadn’t noticed it? Whatever the case, it made this even more difficult.

  “Because I’m your mother,” Rheena said, irritated that she had to explain anything at all. Because she couldn’t completely explain all this to herself.

  Because she had suddenly come face-to-face with her own mortality and it frightened her.

  Shanna watched as her mother roamed the room, restlessly, as if searching for a place to hold her. “Because I wanted to tell you that I was proud of you, because I suddenly realized that I don’t know this person everyone was talking about—and she was my own flesh and blood.” Rheena crossed back to Shanna. “All I really knew was what she looked like and that she had better hands than I did.”

  Her mother was rambling. Shanna suddenly grew concerned. Why wouldn’t she tell her what was wrong instead of meandering like this? “What?”

  “Hands, Shanna, hands.” Rheena moved close and held hers up. “I have hands like a fishwife.” She looked at hers as if she hadn’t seen them before, turning them first palm up, then down. “You can do a lot of surgery on various parts of your body, but hands stay large and ugly looking.” Her gaze shifted to Shanna’s hands. “I’ve always envied you your hands.”

  “You envied me?” How was that possible? Shanna could only stare at her mother. “How could you have envied me, of all people? You were always so beautiful.” She remembered how much she had ached to look like her mother as a child, hoping that if she suddenly woke up pretty, her mother would have time for her. “Like some sort of a distant fairy princess with an ugly duckling for a child.”

  “You were never ugly.” The words were stated emphatically. Rheena cupped Shanna’s chin in her hand and looked at her. She had turned out to be quite pretty at that. “You just insisted on making yourself plain.” A quirky smile played on Rheena’s generous mouth. “I sometimes thought it was your way of exacting revenge. Looking back, I suppose I can’t blame you.”

  It made Shanna think of the only other time they had actually talked. The afternoon in her mother’s room, after Eloise’s funeral. Shanna picked up her speech from the desk and elaborately straightened the pages. “I have two speeches to deliver this afternoon. One of them is at a press conference at a homeless shelter.” Shanna looked at her mother hopefully, suddenly wanting her to be there. “Why not come with me?”

  She had already displayed too much emotion. It embarrassed Rheena to be that weak. “Well, I—“

  Shanna wasn’t about to accept her refusal. Not this time. “You’re coming. And Mother?”

  “Yes?”

  Shanna looked at the garment Rheena had thrown on the sofa. “Ditch the coat.” She came up behind her mother and placed her hands on the older woman’s regal shoulders. “You’re one of the most dedicated charity fund-raisers I know, but where I’m going, you’re going to look like Marie Antoinette slumming.” She hesitated, realizing that this wasn’t going to be any good if her mother really didn’t want to accompany her. “That is, if you want to come.”

  “Yes. Yes, I do.”

  Shanna dropped her hands to her sides. There was an edge in her mother’s voice she didn’t recognize and it worried her. “Mother, you want to tell me what’s wrong?”

  Haughty denial was on the tip of her tongue, but she had come this far. What was the point of lying now? “I found a lump in my breast last week.”

  “Oh, Mother—“ Compassion and horror mixed in Shanna’s eyes.

  Rheena held her hands up, thwarting Shanna’s attempt to take her into her arms. “Don’t get maudlin on me. It’s benign.” She saw the relief in her daughter’s eyes and it touched her more than she had realized was possible. She had thought herself above ties that mattered. She’d been wrong. “All right, get maudlin.” Relenting, Rheena moved toward her daughter and hugged her. “I suppose that’s why I came.”

  “Why did you come?”

  “Because, for one week, I saw the end of the road all too clearly. And I don’t want to go there alone.”

  Shanna linked her fingers with her mother’s. “You’d never be alone, Mother. Not while I’m around.”

  She had hoped Shanna would say that. She couldn’t have asked it outright, but Rheena was glad Shanna had said what she needed to hear.

  “Let’s get you ready. You have an image to keep up,” Rheena said, nudging her daughter toward the bedroom.

  Chapter 26

  If she had been in the habit of biting her nails, Shanna was positive she would have had none left. They would have been bitten off over an hour ago.

  As it was, she had to stop herself on several occasions from chewing her lower lip as she watched the newscast on the large-screen television monitor in front of her. On the coffee table next to her was a tall glass of diet soda, its ice cubes long since melted, leaving a ring of condensation on the table.

  “Stop worrying. You’re a shoo-in,” Reid assured her.

  He said the words next to her ear in order to be heard above the deafening noise in the hotel suite. The room was filled to overflowing with “Brady for Congress” volunteers. They had all gathered together to wait out the results of the months of hard work they had put in, eager to find out if everything they had worked for had been for nothing, or if their goal was still within sight. Victory now meant more grueling months of canvassing, endless campaigning, and late-night strategy meetings, all with an eye out for a greater victory in November.

  Optimism and hope rode high in the suite. Everyone felt they had backed a winner.

  Everyone but Shanna.

  Her eyes glued to the screen before her, Shanna answered, “In the immortal words of Yogi Berra, ‘It ain’t over till it’s over.’ “ She took Reid’s hand as he sat down next to her on the love seat and squeezed hard, unconsciously searching for reassurance. “Remember the newspaper headline that read ‘Dewey Wins’?”

  Reid leaned in closer. Part of him wished that they were waiting for the results alone, just the two of them, in her room. But she didn’t just belong to him. A piece of her belonged to every person in this room and he knew he had to share her.

  He took a small whiff. She was wearing a new scent, something light and airy and extremely seductive. “Dewey didn’t smell like springtime.”

  She laughed, the tension leaving her just for a moment. “Lucky thing, or Mrs. Dewey would have been severely suspicious.”

  Senator Brady pushed his way through the throng to join them. He shook Reid’s hand, but his eyes were on Shanna. She looked a little drawn. He remembered his first primary. He felt as if he had gone to hell and back twice while waiting for the final results. “So how are you holding up?”

  Shanna rose quickly, abandoning the list of statistics on the screen about
the local election in the first district. “Dad, you came!”

  He hugged her to him, wishing there was something he could do to ease things for her. “Did you think I wouldn’t? What, and miss my daughter’s first primary? Not likely.” He released her, stepping back. He had been listening to the radio on the way over, monitoring the election.

  “Your mother’s even on her way. Don’t worry, you had a good lead in the polls yesterday.”

  Leads weren’t always accurate, or final. “Some of the polls,” she reminded him. “Pete Fellowes is the one to beat,” she pointed out as they flashed the man’s photograph on the screen.

  In the senator’s opinion, the man looked like an aging Boy Scout. He dismissed him readily. “Fellowes is too bland to inspire voters.”

  “He’s bright, he’s tough, and he has a couple of unions behind him.” Shanna had done her homework before she had started to see whom she was up against. There were three other candidates, all lawyers. One was currently teaching in a law school. Two had run before and lost.

  She looked back at the television screen, worrying the corner of her lip.

  “You’ll win,” Brady told her confidently, squeezing her hand. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be right back. I have to see someone.” He merged into the crowd again, leaving them alone in a crowded room.

  Shanna returned to watching the television monitor. She continued chewing her lip. Reid slid his finger there to stop her.

  “Keep that up and your lip’ll be too swollen to give your victory speech to the press.” He grinned, mischief in his eyes. “If it’s going to be swollen, at least let me have a go at it.”

  Part of her longed to take him at his word and just run away from all this. But she knew that was impossible. She wouldn’t do it even if she could. There was too much at stake, too many people involved. And she did want to win. Far more than she had first realized.

  She sank down on the love seat, her body so tense it was almost rigid as another district’s statistics flashed by on the monitor. “Later.”