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Page 29


  “And that oldest girl of his, heard tell she’s a lawyer. In Chicago, they say.” Wilber hooted. “Now doesn’t that just beat all? A girl lawyer.” That called for another coffee, he decided. And maybe skip the coffee. “Ain’t no daughter of mine gonna get much schoolin’, I can tell you that.”

  “That’s her right there,” Imbert said, pointing at the platform. “In the back.”

  Wilber whistled through his teeth. “Hell, she’s a pretty one, ain’t she? Why’d a woman that looks like that want to waste herself in a courtroom?” Loyally, he’d tried to remain uninterested as long as he could. But, shoot, the man was his senator, wasn’t he? “Who’s the old lady next to her?”

  “That’s Sullivan’s mother. And I’d watch calling her old, if I were you,” Imbert said. “She’d likely tan your hide if she heard you.”

  “Sure.” Wilber snorted. “Guess that explains a lot, though.”

  “And that’s his former father-in-law.”

  “Ooo-hee, the rich one,” he said in awe. “I heard o’ him. Heard he owns half of Chicago, then bought out most of Montana, too. You think he bought Sullivan the election?” Though honesty compelled him to admit that Sullivan could probably have bought his own.

  “I don’t believe Senator Sullivan bought the election.” The crowd roared. “Shhh. I want to hear.”

  Then, as the assembly went silent, hanging on every word, some trick of the wind carried his voice to them so that they could suddenly hear as clearly as if the man spoke right beside them.

  “In conclusion,” the senator said in the rich, deep tones of a natural orator, “you see before you a man as proud as a man can be, deeply honored to represent this magnificent state and its fine citizens in the capital of this great nation.”

  He waited patiently for the applause to die down. And then he reached back and drew forward his wife, dressed in a blue suit and red and white striped shirt for the occasion.

  “His wife’s still a fine-looking woman, ain’t she?”

  “Hush,” Imbert said, scowling.

  “Though I have to admit,” Senator Sullivan continued, “that the very proudest day of my life was when this woman agreed to marry me.”

  Grinning, he laid his wife over his arm, bending her back, and kissed her, hard and long, full on the mouth, right in front of everybody. Giggles burst through the crowd. Two women fainted and, despite the temperature, a dozen more took to fanning themselves with their gloved hands.

  “What the hell’s he doing?” Wilber asked.

  “If you don’t know, Wilber, it’s about time you learned.”

  “Just ain’t right for a fellow to be kissing his wife like that,” he complained, as Mrs. Sullivan had to clap her hand on the top of her head to keep from losing her red-feathered hat. “Not after all those years of marriage. Be giving the women ideas,” he said. “It just ain’t right.”

  Applause burst out, swelling and growing until the town rang with it. The senator came up for air, beaming, his wife flushed and flustered at his side.

  “I don’t know about that,” Imbert said. “It looks pretty damn right to me.”

  About the Author

  A former science geek, SUSAN KAY LAW turned to romance writing as a career because it was the perfect excuse to avoid housework and continue spending all her time doing what she really loved: reading and daydreaming. Also because she was really bad at sitting in a swamp at 5 A.M. in forty-degree weather and tracking bird behavior.

  Winner of the Romance Writers of America’s Golden Heart Award and a Waldenbooks Bestseller Award, twice nominated for a Rita Award, she confesses that the biggest surprise of her career was when this smalltown Midwestern preacher’s kid was named to New Woman magazine’s list of “the steamiest writers of women’s fiction.” Her greatest joy, however, is spending her days thoroughly outnumbered by four of the best males on the planet—her husband and three sons. She currently lives in Minnesota, and plans to be a ski bum in her next life. You can visit her website at www.susankaylaw.com.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

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  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  SUSAN KAY LAW. Copyright © 2002 by Susan Kay Law. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  Mobipocket Reader July 2007 ISBN 978-0-06-149672-1

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