Micki’s eyes lit up with joy as she looked at him. “I’m so excited to get to know him. We have so much time to make up. I have thirty years of Christmas and birthday gifts for him.” She wiped away tears. “I’m sorry. I’m a mess today.”

“With very good reason.” Nick made Micki sigh when he kissed her cheek. “Enjoy every moment with him and your family.”

He held the door for Sam and followed her out to the hallway where his detail waited for them. Nick put his arm around her to draw her in close to him. “Thanks for asking me to come,” he said in a soft tone that only she could hear. “I’ll never forget that.”

“Sometimes this job doesn’t totally suck.”

“Most of the time it does.”

Sam laughed at his emphatic reply. “Yeah, but today it didn’t suck. Today was a very good day.”

* * *

SAM PRACTICED THE speech at least a hundred times. Maybe two hundred times. Nick had listened to it and coached her on delivery and pausing for impact and other tricks he’d learned on the campaign trail. Scotty listened and offered suggestions. Even Shelby, Skip and Celia had weighed in. Over the last couple of days, if Sam hadn’t been dealing with the paperwork and the press in the wake of the Hamilton case, she’d been practicing her speech.

In the end, it was a good thing she’d done all that practicing because when the big moment came and she stood at the podium with two thousand sets of eyes watching her expectantly, her dyslexia kicked in, making the words on the teleprompter scramble in an unreadable pattern.

As she broke out in a cold sweat, she forced a smile and shook her head at the irony. “I’m here to talk about my infertility challenges and guess what? My dyslexia has decided today would be a great day to rear its ugly head.” A soft wave of nervous laughter greeted the comment. She leaned forward on her elbows, determined not to embarrass herself or Nick, who was in the audience somewhere. She hadn’t wanted to know where, so she wouldn’t lose her concentration.

“Since I can’t read the teleprompter, I guess I’ll have to wing it. It’s my story, and I know it by heart, but my wonderful White House staff wrote a beautiful speech that I’ll make sure is released so you can see what I was supposed to say today.” The audience laughed again, and she relaxed ever so slightly when she realized they were friendly and rooting for her to succeed, not hoping she’d fall flat on her face.