She was sitting upright in bed, rereading a paragraph from the current issue of Food Health. Finally, unable to advance past that page, she set the magazine aside and returned her attention to the eleven o’clock news, which was reporting on the latest developments in the Kings Ridge tragedy. Details of the crime and of Dr. John Meacham’s life were continuing to emerge, but there was still no clear explanation for what the man had done. A physician murdering patients and staff in his office. People remained in shock and desperate for answers.

She clicked off the television, picked up her magazine again, and had just finished the page when the bedroom door swung open. The President of the United States slipped inside, threw his jacket and power red tie over a chair, bent down, and kissed her on the forehead.

One look at his tired eyes, gaunt face, and graying temples, and she felt compassion and the stirrings of forgiveness for the man she had vowed to love until death. Martin had been a rodeo jock in college, and it was his piercing blue eyes, powerfully set jaw, and cowboy good looks that had first attracted her to him. Then she came to know his droll wit, tenderness, and the bottomless compassion for the causes he believed in. From that admiration came a profound and deepening love.

If there was any aspect of his personality she had to work to accept, it was the power of his ambition.

“Sorry I’m late getting up here. I had to give a statement about the killings in Kings Ridge.”

“How terrible that is. Everyone seems shaken. I saw you commenting on the news a little while ago. You did an excellent job. Very honest and from the heart.”

“Thanks, princess. The whole thing is just awful. Right out of the blue, the guy goes postal.”

“I don’t think that’s a phrase you want to use in public.”

Martin chuckled. “No, I suppose not. Especially since the union endorsed me. You got anything on under there?”

“Nothing that can’t be taken off with the flick of a finger in, say, a nanosecond.”

He slowly lowered the sheet. His eyes sparked. “You are just the best thing I’ve seen all day,” he said in a worn voice.

Darlene had promised Russ Evans she would at least speak to Martin on behalf of his legislation. But the way Martin looked to her now—haggard, creases like canyons cutting across his forehead—she felt herself having second thoughts. The old saw about carrying the weight of the world wasn’t completely true for many, but it was for him. She lowered him to his belly and kneaded his shoulders.

“You could have seen me earlier,” she said in a soft voice.

There was a passing instant when she wished she had kept her feelings about the dedication to herself, but she had strong beliefs that a marriage without communication was doomed to turn toxic.

Martin swung around, pressed a warm hand to the side of her face, and gently caressed her cheek. “I’ll make it up to you,” he said before giving her a quick kiss on the lips. “I know that I disappointed you today, and I’m sorry. Really and truly sorry.”