President's Girlfriend 06 - The Sins of the Fathers Read Free Page A

bounds, little fellar.”
    “Where’s
La?” Gina asked.
    “Right this
way, madam First Lady,” Crader said as he escorted Gina and carried Walt into
the residence.
    Seated in
the Eisenhower Room, looking pretty in pink, was Gina’s best and oldest friend,
Loretta “LaLa” King-McKenzie.   And she
had her newborn daughter in her arms.
    “Baby!” Walt said excitedly as he pointed and smiled when they entered the room.
    “Yes,” Gina
said, even more excitedly.   “That’s little
Nicole.   Hello, baby girl,” she added as
she sat beside La.
    “Oh, so I
don’t exist anymore?” LaLa said with a smile.   “It’s all about the baby now?”
    “All about
her, girl,” Gina said.   “Get used to it.”
    LaLa and
Crader laughed.   He took a seat, with
Walt on his lap, in the flanking chair.  
    “Baby doll,”
Walt said, staring at Nicole.
    “Yes, she
is,” Crader said.    “She’s my baby
doll.”   Then he thought about it.   “What a great nickname for her, La.   Baby doll.   Let’s call her Doll.”
    LaLa shook
her head.   This had to be the tenth
“nickname” Crader had suggested.   “We’ll
see, dear,” she said.
    “But
really,” he said as the double doors to the sitting room opened, “I think it’s
a great nickname.   And we can always give
Little Walt credit for being the one to come up with it.   It’ll be marvelous conversation piece when he
and Nicole are playmates together.”
    LaLa
laughed.    Crader and
this baby.   There couldn’t
possibly be a more attentive father.   “We’ll see,” she said again.
    Jeffrey, the
usher, complete with white gloves, stepped inside.    “Excuse me, Mr. Vice President, but you have
a visitor, sir.”
    “A visitor?   Who?”
    “The
President’s chief of staff wishes to see you.”
    “Allison
Shearer?” LaLa asked.   “She could have
come to the parlor.   I haven’t had a
chance to congratulate her on her promotion anyway.   Bring her here, Jeffrey.”
    “It was
suggested, madam,” Jeffrey said, “but she prefers his office.   It’s a matter, she says, of some privacy.”
    Crader
really didn’t want to leave his wife and son.   Not even for a second.   But duty
called.   “I’d better see what she wants,”
he said as he stood up and then sat Walt in the chair.   “You hold it down for me, big man,” he said
to the little boy.
    Walt
frowned, unable to make out exactly what Crader meant.   How do you hold down a chair?   He wasn’t quite sure.   But he began pressing his body down into that chair just the same.
    When Crader
and Jeffrey left the room, Gina looked at LaLa.   “He looks so nervous, La,” she said with a smile.
    “He is.   The baby was two months premature, I had eclampsia
during the delivery, he’s still haunted by all of
that.   I think he’s still a little
traumatized.”
    “ My oh my.   He is going
to spoil you and that baby rotten.”
    LaLa
smiled.   “He’s doing that already.   He rarely goes over to his office at the White
House anymore.   I can’t get rid of him.”
    Gina
laughed.   “I never would have thought in
a million years that Crader McKenzie would ever settle down and become husband
and father the way he has.”  
    “Yes,” LaLa
agreed.   Then a look came over her.   It was subtle, but Gina caught it.  
    “What’s
wrong, La?”
    LaLa
hesitated.   “It’s probably nothing.”
    “What is
it?”
    She
hesitated again.   “He still. . . He still
has it in him.”   She said this and looked
at Gina, to see if she understood.
    Gina
understood.   She had married a world
renowned playboy herself.   “And how do
you know this?” she asked her best friend.
    “I see the
way he looks at those attractive women on his staff.   And I don’t mean a casual glance,
either.   Sometimes he looks as if he’s
undressing those women with his eyes, G.”
    “Knowing
Crader, he probably is.”
    “Gina!”   LaLa said.   “How can you say that?