as she started to walk on, a darting movement caught her peripheral vision. Someone was there! A shadowy form had scurried around the corner.
Was it someone hurrying to return to work or an unseen stalker? She rubbed her fingertips across her temple, as if somehow, she could summon the truth.
Lost in her confused thoughts, Mary stood for several minutes on the deserted sidewalk until the roar of a delivery truck broke her concentration. She glanced at her watch, and realized that her dawdling would make her late for her luncheon date. With a growl of vexation, she hurried toward the Pepper Tree.
Walking briskly, Mary tried to ignore that heavy curtain of apprehension that pressed in on her with each step. She forced herself not to look back, yet with every step, she half expected a hand to grab her. Once, unaccustomed to the high heels she wore, she stumbled on a crack in the sidewalk. Flailing her arms wildly in an effort to maintain her balance, she almost screamed as her hand encountered something solid.
A lamppost.
Mary hung on to the iron post for a moment until her wobbly knees stopped shaking. She was being ridiculous, working herself into a panic like that. She had to learn to ignore these sudden, eerie feelings that overtook her lately. Obviously, her intuition wasn’t working and she was only scaring herself.
Taking deep, calming breaths as she walked toward her destination, she managed to release the fear and even regain a feeling of ease before she arrived at the Pepper Tree.
Inside the restaurant, Jonathan and his friends, Senator and Camille Castnor, were already seated. When the maître d’ showed Mary to the table, she kissed Jonathan lightly on the cheek and slid into her chair. “Hi, everybody. Sorry I’m late.”
Jonathan patted her hand. “No problem, dear. What happened? Did your taxi get snarled in traffic?”
A light flush crept up her cheeks. Jonathan had been bedeviling her for weeks about walking alone in the city. Mary was willing to make some changes in her life to please her fiancé, but she wasn’t about to give up walking. Instead of answering directly, she took a drink of water and murmured, “The time just got away from me. Sorry.”
In an effort to change the subject, she turned and teased the rotund senator seated across the table. “So, Brad, what’s new with you? Have you voted yourself any new pay raises lately?”
“Mary!” Jonathan blurted out in consternation. “Really, dear, your sense of humor—”
“Oh, leave her alone, Regent. She’s probably the only straight-talking person left inside the Beltway.” Brad Castnor leaned back in his chair and roared with unabashed delight. “Voted myself any pay raises, that’s rich! Wait till I tell that one up on Capitol Hill this afternoon.”
Camille Castnor, the senator’s wife, took a tiny sip from her glass of chardonnay and gave Mary a wan smile. “I hope I’m not speaking out of turn, Mary, dear, but after you and Jonathan are married, you will have to watch your...little witticisms. Someone might overhear and misunderstand.”
It was on the tip of Mary’s tongue to remind Camille that her husband’s voting history was a matter of public record, and he had, in fact, been one of the ringleaders involved in the latest senate pay hike. She was saved from her own candor by the waiter who approached their table, glistening white cloth draped over his arm.
“May I bring ma’mselle a cocktail before her meal?”
“No, thank you. Water will be fine,” Mary said, and picked up the menu.
After they ordered, the mood became more festive when Brad proposed a toast to celebrate the announcement of Jonathan and Mary’s engagement.
“Ah, yes,” Camille said, holding her glass for her husband to fill. “I saw the happy couple made the cover of Newsweek. I’m impressed.” Her tone implied she was anything but impressed.
“Is that so?” Brad boomed. “Hope you saved it for me.”
Camille smiled sweetly. “I cut the article out for my scrapbook, but you can read it. Let’s have the toast now. To Jonathan and Mary, an unusual but adorable couple.”
“So when’s the big date?” Brad asked after the foursome had clinked glasses.
“We haven’t set a date yet,” Jonathan answered. “Probably sometime in the early fall. I was willing to wait until we could book the cathedral, but Mary said she’d rather have a small, more intimate ceremony.”
Camille raised an eyebrow. “A small wedding means some important people will be left out. That could come back to haunt you at election time, Jonathan.”
He shrugged. “Perhaps. But this was Mary’s decision.”
Mary set down her salad fork and took a deep, calming breath. “That’s not fair, Jonathan. We discussed this and I thought we’d agreed.”
He reached across the snowy linen cloth to take her hand in his. “Why so prickly? I was just having a bit of fun with you, dear. Your feathers are ruffling awfully easily today. Are you sure you’re all right? I mean, you seem a bit... edgy.”
He’d hit the nail squarely on the head, Mary conceded to herself. She was tense. That incident on Wisconsin Avenue was bothering her more than she wanted to admit. She hated to bring up the subject in front of the Castnors but felt she should at least explain her sudden moodiness.
Mary ran a fingertip around the rim of her water goblet, trying to find the right place to begin. “Do you remember last week when I told you that I had the oddest impression that someone was watching me?”
“Certainly.” Jonathan smiled. “And I told you that I didn’t want to let you out of my sight, so I was having my imagination follow you around.”
Camille rolled her eyes. “Oh, God, that’s just too, too sweet for words.”
Ignoring Camille’s sarcasm, Mary continued. “Anyway, I’ve had that feeling several more times since then. When I was walking here today, suddenly I just knew someone was behind me.”
“Good heavens, Mary, I thought we discussed your walking around the city by yourself.”
Mary raised her chin and stared into Jonathan’s pale gray eyes, now dark with irritation. “Yes, Jonathan, we discussed it, but the day was so beautiful I decided to walk.”
“But you see what happens? There probably was a mugger trailing you, just waiting for the right moment to snatch your purse. I wish you’d listen to me, Mary. I know this city.”
“Jonathan, whether or not I should walk around Washington on my own isn’t the issue here. Besides, you’ve said all along that this...this feeling is nothing more than premarital jitters.”
The senator hooted. “I wonder what Freud would say about the symbolism—she’s engaged to one man and fantasizing about being pursued by another!”
“That’s not funny,” Jonathan snapped.
“Sorry. It was meant to be.”
Mary stifled a grin. She rather enjoyed the senator’s sense of humor. People in politics tended
