Scotland For Christmas Part 16

"I'm Donna, Eddie's wife. This is Alden. He's almost four months old, and he's pretty mellow. Would you like to hold him?"

Taking Isabel's smile for a yes, Donna handed the bundled-up Alden to Isabel, and then marched off to hunt down a c.o.c.ktail server.

Nervous, Isabel eyed the drooling but warm and sweet-smelling cutie, his oversize head tucked inside her elbow. He smiled toothlessly at her, and she felt her nerves dissolving into wonder.

Donna was taking an awfully long time, but Alden entertained her with his baby charm. He gurgled and winked, and she tentatively rubbed her knuckle along his cheek. Such soft skin...

"Careful, there," said a familiar deep voice at her side. "You can't take him home with you."

Jacob. He'd obviously just walked in from outside. His wool jacket smelled like a cool late-fall night. His hair was damp and he seemed fresh from a shower.

He also looked rather good in a pair of jeans and a green jumper-sweater-that complemented the blue of his eyes.

No, don't look there. She put her attention back on baby Alden and smoothly pa.s.sed him to Jacob. "Maybe you should hold him."

"Very funny, Isabel," Jacob said. But he looked down at the baby and made a silly face at him.

"Do you know what his name is?" she asked.

"Of course. This is Alden." Jacob smiled at him and s.h.i.+fted him to a more comfortable position against his chest.

Isabel's heart seemed to flutter. Well, Jacob had pa.s.sed that small test. A man who was kind to children was a positive start.

"Have you talked with Philip and Courtney lately, your journalist roommates?" Jacob asked.

"Why?" she said, not knowing where he was going with this.

He shrugged. "No reason."

Donna returned, wagging a finger at Jacob. "You. Go over there with your friends and leave us alone with Isabel. We want to talk with her."

"Yes, Jacob," Isabel agreed, "let me talk with the women."

Jacob rolled his eyes, but he didn't argue. "Fine. I'll take Alden over with the men."

He promptly strolled over to Eddie, the baby still against his chest.

Donna hooked Isabel's arm and brought her to a table in the corner, crowded with seven or eight other women. Then she flagged down a c.o.c.ktail server, a young guy dressed all in black. He walked over, looking harried.

"One good thing about not being pregnant anymore is that I can have a c.o.c.ktail," Donna said. "You first, Isabel. What'll you have?"

Isabel glanced at what the other women were drinking. Wine. Cosmopolitans. One or two mixed drinks.

"I'll take a gin and tonic, please. What kind of gin do you carry?"

In a bored tone, the server mentioned a brand that Isabel hadn't heard of. "Is that okay? It's all we have upstairs."

"That's fine," she said. "What kind of tonic water do you have?"

The server shrugged and glanced at the busy table beside them.

"Well," Isabel said, knowing she was being rushed. "May I please have the bottle on the side? I prefer to mix my own drink."

He stared at her.

"The tonic water comes from the gun," Donna explained to Isabel. "The bartender mixes it with the liquor for you. I think that's a rule or something."

"Very well." Isabel smiled at the server, who was already turning away. Yet again, she'd subtly misunderstood the customs. This wasn't how they did it at home.

Across the room, a bartender was setting down a beer bottle at Jacob's place before the bar. She smiled as he sipped his beer and contentedly bounced Alden on his lap.

"I'll be d.a.m.ned," Donna mused. "That has to be the first time I've ever seen Jake Ross go near a baby, never mind hold one."

"Is that so?"

"Are you kidding? Usually he acts like he's allergic to Alden."

And yet, Jacob was quietly smiling at the little one. Surely that couldn't be just to prove a point to her?

She felt an itch to join him but restrained herself.

She wished she could stop the diplomacy act for once and just blurt out to Donna, Tell me everything I need to know about Jacob, but that wouldn't be wise.

Instead, she followed Donna and took a place with her at the table.

"So, how did you meet Jacob?" Donna asked. "That's what we've all been dying to know. We've been trying to fix him up with our girlfriends for ages."

"Er..." Isabel paused. She hadn't expected to be the one being quizzed. "Well, my boyfriend...my long-term boyfriend broke up with me unexpectedly...and I was upset...and Jacob was there, and he helped me."

"The damsel-in-distress thing." Donna shook her head. "Darn. I should have tried that."

Isabel's relations.h.i.+p to Jacob had nothing to do with that dynamic, but she kept that information to herself. To her mind, her attraction to him was private.

"Jacob works too much," the woman on the other side of her said, and Isabel turned to her. "They all work too much."

Isabel nodded politely. Is Jacob trustworthy at work? she needed to know. Do his bosses like him?

The waiter set their drinks before them. Isabel took a sip of her gin and tonic, quite different from what she was used to, and tried to think of another way to phrase her question. "Is there a reason, you suppose, that Jacob didn't get the transfer to Was.h.i.+ngton that he wanted?"

Donna ate a piece of sus.h.i.+ from a pa.s.sing plate. "My guess?" she said, wiping her lips with a napkin. "Politics-because Jacob doesn't play them. Mind you, I'm not saying that Eddie does."

"Jacob is rather blunt and gruff," Isabel agreed. "If he's mad at you, you certainly know it."

Isabel liked that about him, though. A person always knew where they stood with Jacob.

Not like her uncle John. He tended to be a closed book.

Her father had been closed, too, now that she thought about it. Still, she knew how deeply his circ.u.mstances had bothered him, but that was because she was one of the few people he'd confided in.

Like Jacob. Isabel glanced over at the bar where he sat on a stool, quietly rocking Alden as Eddie relayed to him some expressive story that required the use of both hands.

Jacob was rather s.e.xy.

Suddenly, he turned and stared back at her. She had the feeling he'd been watching her all along.

Isabel quickly turned away.

"My family is from Maryland, on the Eastern Sh.o.r.e." Donna had pulled over a plate of nachos and was talking between bites. "I'm so happy to be moving back to the area. I miss my parents. When I was in high school, I never thought I'd say that. But it's true." She waved a chip as she spoke. "Did you hear about that teenager who's in court trying to divorce her parents but she still wants them to pay for her to go to college?"

"No. That's crazy." Isabel sipped her drink.

"If that ever happened with Alden, Eddie would have a fit. End of story."

"Mmm," Isabel sympathized.

"If you're going to date Jacob, then go into it with your eyes open," the woman on the other side of Isabel warned her. "Because they travel all the time, without warning. I didn't expect that when I signed on for this."

"We're here for you, Sandy," Donna said, pressing her hand. "It will get better."

"No family event is sacred," Sandy said. "It seems like we're always sacrificing."

Donna leaned over the table and gave her a hug.

Then she turned to Isabel. "I hope we're not scaring you away. Don't get the wrong idea."

"Why do you suppose Jacob wants to guard the president of the United States so badly?" Isabel asked.

There was silence at the table.

"He's a protector type like Eddie." Donna shrugged. "It's what they do."

"The PPD is the most elite job in the Secret Service," another woman said. "To make it proves they're the best in their business. They all aspire to guard the president."

"Even though it can trash their personal lives," Sandy said gloomily.

There was more silence.

Donna whispered into Isabel's ear, "Sandy's husband got called out of town this weekend and he's missing their daughter's birthday. It happens a lot in this job. It's why we all stick together so much."

"SHOULDN'T YOU GO over there and intervene?" Eddie asked Jacob. "She's probably getting all the dirt on you."

Jacob rocked Alden in his arms and shrugged. "Doesn't matter. I'm not involved with her. I'm not going to get involved."

"That's not what it looks like from where I'm sitting," Eddie said drily.

Yeah, so? He and Isabel were glancing back and forth at one another, but so what? That was part of the setup. Spy versus spy.

"Don't worry about it," Jacob said, s.h.i.+fting Alden because the baby was frowning as if his neck were uncomfortable. "We're good."

"What happened between you two up in Vermont last weekend?"

Jacob held out his finger for Alden to latch on to. The little bald guy had a major grip. "Not a d.a.m.n thing," he said to Eddie.

"I don't know why I hang out with you," Eddie muttered. "You're no fun."

Jacob hid his smile. Alden was making funny faces in his father's direction. Every time Eddie spoke, the kid gurgled and jerked his body toward him. Kids knew their fathers, that was for sure.

"So," Jacob said as casually as he could, struggling to get his finger back from the little guy, "what did you find out about Isabel? You ran her accounts, right? Phone records? What did they say?"

"Aha!" Eddie reached over and s.n.a.t.c.hed his kid back from Jacob. "I knew it. Something is going on. I knew there had to be a reason Sage invited you to Scotland."

He laid Alden against his shoulder, rubbing his back. "He wants you to find out specific info about her, doesn't he?"

Jacob couldn't fool Eddie. Jacob hated having to ask this, but... "Were there any big lump-sum deposits in Isabel's accounts?"

Eddie danced around a bit, in a bid to help Alden stop squirming. "Not that I noticed."

"Any calls to any of the big newspapers or magazine reporters?"

"Nope. She doesn't call much of anyone, it seems."

"She works too d.a.m.n hard," Jacob muttered. Something about that bothered him. A sweet woman like her, well...

He glanced across the room at her, just in time to see her looking back. Why was she tormenting him?

"I WANT JACOB to come to D.C. with us, too," Donna was saying to Isabel. "Did you know he's G.o.dfather to Alden?"

"I did not know that, no."

"I like you, Isabel. If you two do decide to date, and you get serious, is there any chance of you moving to D.C.?" Donna asked, swaying slightly.

Isabel smiled politely. Not even an inkling of a chance.

"Well, on the bright side," Donna said, "at least he never painted that mural I wanted. We wouldn't have been able to take it with us anyway."

Donna was starting a fresh drink. Isabel wasn't sure what she was talking about. Had she missed something?

"What mural?" Isabel asked.

"I asked Jacob," Donna said loudly, "to paint Alden a mural for the wall over his crib, but Jacob wouldn't do it."

Isabel glanced at Jacob across the room. He was staring at her again. A muscle was ticking in his jaw. "Did he say why?"

"No."