Thirty miles up the Thames, Jasmine sat in a comfortable chair, not watching the cricket match that was on television. The rear doorbell rang, and she got up to answer it.
A look through the peephole revealed Habib standing on the back steps, and she opened the door to him.
He walked into the house wheeling a nylon suitcase behind him. “Your replacement explosive device, madam,” he said.
The president and first lady alit from Marine One at the White House helicopter pad and were escorted by a pair of uniformed Secret Service agents into the building and upstairs to the family residence. Their luggage followed shortly, and a valet unpacked for them.
“Drink?” Kate asked as they entered their living room.
“Have I ever replied in the negative to that question at this time of day?” Will asked.
“No, but a simple ‘yes’ would have gotten you a drink faster.” She poured them both one and took her time about delivering his.
“Point taken,” Will said sheepishly.
“Point scored,” she said, sitting down beside him. “I have a question.”
“Fire away,” he said, taking a gulp of his bourbon.
“May I take your sexual performance over the weekend as a harbinger of things to come during our retirement?”
“You may,” he replied, clinking glasses, then kissing her. “And you may have noticed that my enthusiasm increases when we are in Georgia.”
“I have noticed that,” she said, “which is why I haven’t insisted on a retirement residence in New York or Malibu.”
“Suppose I told you that I believe my enthusiasm in Georgia is due to the distance from Washington, rather than something in the Meriwether County water?”
“Then I would insist on an additional retirement residence.”
“In New York or Malibu?”
“Both.”
Will laughed heartily. “I’m not sure that the income from my memoirs will cover two additional houses.”
“You forget that I will be publishing my memoirs, too.”
“All right,” he said, “tell you what: I’ll buy the New York residence, and you buy Malibu.”
“T’other way ’round,” she replied. “Your memoirs will bring more than mine, and Malibu is more expensive than New York.”
“I don’t know if that’s true,” Will said. “After all, you’ve got your CIA background.”
“Most of which I can’t write about.”
“Oh, all right, I’ll buy the Malibu place.”
“Deal,” she said.
“I’m not sure how the Secret Service is going to take this news,” Will said. “I think they were counting on an easy life in the rural South.”
“I don’t think they’ll have any trouble finding volunteers for Manhattan or Malibu.”
“Good point.”
Kate’s handbag rang. She rummaged around in it for a moment, then, in frustration, emptied it onto the coffee table and found her cell phone moving across the shiny surface, vibrating.
“Yes?” she said, when she had cornered it against her compact.