Arizona Gold (30 page)
Authors: Patricia Hagan
Her eyes narrowed slightly. “From the Menger Hotel?”
“That will be your ultimate destination, but I think you’ll like the first stop, since it’s at the home of mutual friends of ours. My former supply officer from Cuba and his new bride,” Roosevelt said as Thea finally turned around, a smile lighting up her face and relief flooding her before he even said a name. The President allowed himself-a small sigh. “I’ll never understand why the son of a United States senator decided his aim in life was to found a woman’s specialty store in Texas.”
“But Morgan Browne has made a thriving success out of it,” she countered, “and five months ago he married Admiral Dalton’s daughter, Angela. If my stopover in San Antonio had meant I couldn’t see them, I would have told you to go find someone else for this job. You know what great pals Nela and I are, and I haven’t seen them since their wedding in San Francisco in April. You and Mrs. Roosevelt sent a wonderful telegram and a very handsome gift.”
“Does that tip the scales in our favor?”
“Why me, Mr. President? Why me?” She took a theatrical tone, meaning to be funny, but Theodore Roosevelt took her seriously.
“You’ve shown great discretion and tact in handling the other assignments you’ve had. The people you’ve helped avoid scandal and the ambassadors you’ve dealt with, speak well of you, and Admiral Dalton recommends you highly. I trust Bruce Dalton. His European intelligence reports have proved as invaluable to me as they were to my predecessors, and will no doubt be to my successors, and his past two years in China were fruitful beyond our original expectations.”
“Admiral Dalton and his new son-in-law are Democrats,” Thea reminded him, unable to resist a bit of fun. “So am I, for all the good it does. Do you mind?”
“That is why I trust all of you. You have nothing to kowtow for. My dear, Europe is a time-bomb ticking quietly away, and we need all the information we can get before the explosion occurs. The Kaiser is turning his beady eyes on us, and Panama, now that we’re going ahead with the canal. We’re certain he’d like to cause trouble for us, either in the canal area or along the Mexican-American border. Once you start moving in the Embassy set in Mexico City, any information you can pass on will help us.”
Thea reached behind her and grasped the ledge of the window with her hands, bracing her slim body against it. “I’ll do it,” she said recklessly. “It’s worth a try, and the worst 1 can do is come up empty-handed.”
The President looked at her, outlined against the window, the sun glinting on her hair. He thought for a minute of Saint Joan, ready to do battle, but immediately rejected the idea. This was a modern woman. The woman of 1904. Brave and forthright and ready to shoulder her own responsibility.
Thea moved away from the window, coming into the gloom again, her pale blue linen dress a pencil-slim streak of color. She held out her hand. “Shall we shake on it?”
Theodore Roosevelt took her hand and pumped it enthusiastically. “Bully,” he said heartily, a great smile breaking across his face. “Just bully.”
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B
Cincinnati OH 45249
Arizona Gold
Copyright © 2014 by Maggie James
ISBN: 978-1-61921-848-2
Edited by Heather Osborn
Cover by Kim Killion
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First Publication by Signet Books: August 2000
First
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
electronic publication: May 2014
