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wouldn’t be a good idea for me to take you there. If for no other reason than that they’ll be staking out my place too. I meant my mother’s house. She’ll be there.”
    “Your mother’s house?”
    “She lives just outside of De Kalb, which is about thirty miles from here. Nobody will think to look for you there. Give you a place to clean up, and a little breathing space, while we decide how to handle this.”
    “You’re from Mississippi?” Ronnie didn’t know why she felt surprised. That down-home accent should have been indication enough. But political consultants always seemed to come from somewhere else. Theywere constantly on the move, flying from place to place, campaign to campaign, election to election, the ultimate migrant workers. It was hard to imagine one with roots in a place like Mississippi.
    “Yup. Lived here most of my life. Actually I went to Ole Miss with Marsden. We roomed together one year.”
    Marsden was Lewis’s oldest son. By his first wife, the sainted Eleanor. Ronnie’s stepson, although he was eight years her senior.
    “Well, now, that’s certainly a recommendation,” Ronnie said dryly when she recovered from her surprise at the revelation, which gave her sense of trust in him a severe jolt. “Being a friend of Marsden’s is all you need to get a job with me anytime.”
    “Don’t get on with Marsden very well, hmm?” He glanced at her again, humor in his eyes.
    “I’d call that the understatement of the century. Marsden thinks I broke up his parents’ marriage, among other things. He loathes me. And I promise you, the feeling’s mutual.”
    “And did you?”
    “Did I what? Oh, break up Lewis’s marriage? No.” She hesitated. How much should she tell him? The surprising intimacy that had sprung up between them had to be weighed against cold facts: he was a hired political consultant brought in by Lewis’s office to “handle” her, and he had been Marsden’s college roommate.
    As far as inspiring her with confidence, his resume struck out on both counts.
    “Most of Mississippi thinks that, you know.” His tone was faintly apologetic as he delivered that unpalatable truth.
    Ronnie grimaced, glancing down at her ruined dress. “It’s pretty obvious.”
    “That’s what we’re going to change. Stick with me, lady, and in six months you’ll be as popular as corn dogs at a fair, I promise.”
    In spite of herself Ronnie had to laugh. “Does that come with a money-back guarantee?”
    “Absolutely.” He was smiling. “It’s all a matter of spin, you see. Most voters tend to view everyone in the political arena in terms of a stereotype. It makes it easier for them, doesn’t require as much work. The stereotype you fit into right now is ‘the other woman,’ younger and more attractive, who comes along and steals a basically good man from his faithful, loving wife of many years. If you think about it that way, it’s easy to see why they don’t like you.”
    “But it’s not true. Really not true. I didn’t steal Lewis. He was already separated when we started dating.” Ronnie couldn’t help it. She had to be clear on that point at least.
    “Which was?”
    “About six years ago. I had been working in his office for a few years before that, but we didn’t have a personal relationship until I knew that his marriage to Eleanor was, for all intents and purposes, over.”
    “How’d you two meet, anyway?”
    “I was just nineteen, a sophomore at the American University in Washington, and Lewis came and spoke to a class I was taking. I thought what he had to say was interesting, so I asked him a lot of questions. After class he came up to me in the hall and asked me if I would like to apply for a part-time job that had just become available in his office. I did, and was hired. Istarted out doing secretarial-type things for him and worked my way up the office food chain.”
    “So you worked for him.”
    Ronnie nodded, hesitated, and decided that there was