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crawled down from my perch in the attic and joined the older women as they tended the flowerbeds. Grandmother Faye had smiled, bringing a new brightness to her cornflower blue eyes, and handed me a trowel. Together we planted a rosebush. With its bare roots and thorny, leafless branches, I despaired that the dead stick would ever grow.
    But my grandmother gently encouraged me, guiding my hands while teaching me how to care for the hopeless twig. Come spring, a miracle occurred. First the bright green leaves broke through, softening the bush’s sharp edges.
    Then the flowers arrived.
    Pink. Passionate. Beautiful.
    Seeing those flowers, my heart had started to beat again.
    The gardening lessons that my grandmother and aunts had lovingly taught me—lessons that had been handed down through generations of Calhouns—were what I carried with me all the way to the White House.
    To honor my family and show them in deeds what words could not, I needed to prove myself worthy to tend the President’s gardens. The next test of my mettle was comingup in less than a week with the First Lady’s first vegetable harvest. In this, I would not fail.
    Not even Seth Donahue or Griffon Parker could trip me up.
    With pride and passion for my work fueling my step, I headed down the semicircular North Drive toward the northwest visitors’ gate.
    “This way, Ms. Calhoun.” A well-built member of the Secret Service’s Emergency Response Team, dressed in black military fatigues and lugging a futuristic-looking P90 submachine gun, came up from behind me.
    “Is something wrong?” I had to jog to keep up with his long stride.
    The number of uniformed division Secret Service agents manning the gate had nearly doubled.
    “Potentially, ma’am,” he said. “You need to provide us with advance notice before bringing high-profile guests to the gate.”
    “High profile? I didn’t—” I started to explain, but stopped myself. Shifting the blame wouldn’t change anything. I dug my teeth into my lower lip and pressed on, determined to deal with whoever Francesca had brought and quickly move them to another location.
    “Good evening, Fredrick,” I said as I spotted my favorite guard at the whitewashed clapboard gatehouse. His bright red hair and flushed, round cheeks gave the bulky Secret Service agent a boyish look.
    He smiled as he greeted me. “Your guests are over there,” he said with a tilt of his head toward the front of the gatehouse.
    I saw Francesca Dearing first. I envied her effortless sense of grace. About twenty years older than my almost forty, she reminded me of a glamorous movie starlet from the golden age of Hollywood. She had a timeless taste in clothes, stylishly coiffed brown hair with just a touch of gray, and an apparent knack for always knowing the right thing to say. As a result people wanted to know her and be around her. Including me.
    Dressed in a fashionable pink pantsuit, she hugged the arm of the man standing beside her. His square jaw complemented the muscles bulging in his bare arms. Wavy black hair hung wild about his face. His brown eyes shimmered with laughter. His expression held an arrogant smugness that suggested he thought he was God’s gift to women.
    And, as I’d been told, he was wearing a brightly colored flowered skirt…er…kilt with a black T-shirt. Below his knobby knees he wore a pair of black combat boots very similar to the standard-issue boots used by the military branches of the Secret Service.
    The uniformed division agents manning the gate kept their professional demeanor firmly in place. They were highly trained and prepared for anything. But mischief danced in their eyes as I passed.
    I suspected I’d hear about this again.
    “Casey,” Francesca said, “you don’t have to worry about anything. You said you needed my help with the harvest preparations and here I am. I’m going to make the First Lady’s harvest an unqualified success. Starting with him.”
    A uniformed division