Page 9 of State of Grace (First Family 2)

“That’s awesome. I’m so glad you’re sticking it to Thorn. The stuff about your sofa fitting in his living room was a nice touch.”

“I’m glad you thought so, even though you know I’d never live in a place like that. Nick and I would get lost trying to find each other.”

“If you can find each other in the White House, you can find each other in there.”

“I guess that’s true. Lately, our biggest challenge is chasing Skippy. That dog keeps escaping from the residence.”

“She’s so cute. The whole country is following her Instagram account. She has, like, twenty million followers already.”

“That’s all Scotty’s doing. Do you know she gets more than five hundred letters a week at the White House, and we only just got her!”

“That’s crazy.”

“We’re working on a form letter from Skippy to send to the people who write to her. Scotty thinks the whole thing is awesome, and he loves having her, but we’re training him to keep better tabs on her. They found her eating daisies in the floral shop in the basement last week.”

Freddie rocked with laughter. “She’s going to be on the front page of the papers at this rate.”

“Only we could end up with the wildest puppy in the pound.” When they reached their cars, she said, “Thanks for driving all the way out here to have my back on a personal matter. I’ve learned the hard way not to go into any house by myself.” She shuddered, thinking of the day former lieutenant Stahl had taken her hostage in the Springer house.

“Don’t think about that,” Freddie said, tuned into her as always. “He’s in prison where he belongs.”

“Thank goodness for that. Let’s get back to HQ and dive into Stahl’s files to figure out what other cases of his got the shaft.”

“I’m a little afraid of what we’re going to find in those files.”

“Me, too.” As Sam drove back to headquarters in heavy traffic, she juggled the secure BlackBerry. Nick picked up on the second ring. “I can never believe you actually take my calls when you’re presiding over the fate of the free world.”

“The fate of the free world has nothing on my lovely wife,” he said, sounding amused. “What’s going on?”

“I found out who leaked the photos from the birthday party and paid him a little visit.”

“Not by yourself, I hope.” He was forever concerned about her safety, and with good reason after the crazy shit that regularly happened to her on the job.

“Of course not. I had Freddie with me. The guy lives in a McMansion in Spring Valley with thirty-foot ceilings and a doorbell that sounds like the Boston Pops on the Fourth of July. I put him on notice that we’ll be fully enforcing the NDA and filing a big fat lawsuit against him.”

“What’d he say to that?”

“He denies it was him, but he’s lying. He broke out in a sweat when I told him I knew it was him.”

“That’s my love. Making men sweat on a daily basis.”

“It’s one of my superpowers. Anyway, I wanted to tell you I’m going to call Andy and ask him to file a lawsuit against him ASAP.”

“Go for it.”

“It’s apt to make the news.” She hated to worry about such things, but she didn’t want to cause any more grief for him than he already had to deal with as president. His opponents had been relentless, calling him the “reluctant president” because of his announcement that he wouldn’t be running for the Democratic nomination in the next election—days before President Nelson’s untimely death elevated Nick to the top job.

“I hope it does so other people we cross paths with in the next three years will know we take our privacy and that of our family quite seriously.”

“It’s very sexy when you go into protector mode.”

“I’d say the same about you, and by the way, we’re probably giving the people at the NSA something to talk about.”

“Wait! Are they listening to us?”

He laughed so hard, he went silent.

“Nick! This isn’t funny!”