First Lady by Susan Elizabeth Phillips Read Free Book Online

And she was heavily pregnant.
    A Grand Am slowed down on the highway for the hitchhiker, only to shoot off as soon as the driver got a closer look. The hitchhiker flipped him the bird.
    Mat glanced at the woman again as she walked past him. Something about her seemed familiar. She had fragile, finely carved features, a long, slender neck, and striking blue eyes. There was almost a patrician quality about the way she carried herself that was at odds with her bargain-basement clothes. She reached the door of the restaurant just ahead of Lucy and held it open for her. Lucy didn’t acknowledge the courtesy. She was too busy tossing him a dirty look.
    Something caught his eye on the seat of the Corsica. He leaned down and saw an ugly ceramic frog. He’d always wondered what kind of people bought things like that. Then he noticed the set of keys dangling from the ignition. He thought about going after her to say something, but figured anybody stupid enough to buy that frog deserved what she got.
    The interior of the truck stop was arranged in a large L. He selected a small table in the back corner where he had room to stretch his legs and ordered coffee. As he waited for it to arrive, he considered the fact that it was going to take him at least two days to reach Iowa. Maybe longer, if that ominous pinging coming from the engine got any worse. How was he going to tolerate those girls for another two days? The irony of letting himself be saddled with exactly what he’d worked his whole life to get away from didn’t escape him.
    He should have left them both to foster care.
     
    Nealy swabbed a thick, greasy french fry in catsup and watched the three people seated on the other side of the truck stop dining room. At first the man had been there by himself. She’d noticed him right away—his physical size would have made it hard not to. But it wasn’t just his size that had caught her attention. It was everything about him.
    He had that hard-muscled look of a working man, and it didn’t take much imagination to picture him suntanned and shirtless, nailing shingles to a roof or wearing a battered hard hat over that crisp dark hair as he wielded a jackhammer in the middle of a city street. He was also drop-dead handsome, although not in that too-pretty way of a male model. Instead, his face looked lived in.
    Unfortunately, he was glowering at the young girl who’d wedged herself in next to him, the baby propped in her lap. Nealy pegged him as one of those fathers who regarded his children as inconveniences, her least favorite kind of man.
    His daughter was the girl she’d held the door open for earlier. Although she was overly made-up and had a maroon stripe in her hair, her delicate features gave her the potential of great beauty. The baby was adorable. One of those healthy, blond-haired, mischievous cherubs that Nealy avoided as much as she could.
    The people-watching had been enjoyable, but she was anxious to get back on the road, so she forced her eyes away from the man and gathered up her trash as she’d seen others do. A middle-aged couple at an adjoining table smiled at her and she smiled back. People smiled a lot, she’d noticed, at a pregnant woman.
    Her smile changed into a self-satisfied grin. Last night, before she’d gone to bed at the motel, she’d cut the long blond hair her father and husband had cherished and dyed it light brown, which was really her natural color, although it was so long since she’d seen it that she’d had to guess at the exact shade. She loved the shorter, tousled style. Not only did it make her look younger, but it was much too casual for an elegant First Lady.
    Although maintaining her disguise as an elderly lady had been her first idea, she hadn’t wanted the encumbrance of a wig and all that clothing. The fake pregnancy padding had been the perfect solution. Even if people noticed a pregnant woman’s resemblance to Cornelia Case, they’d regard it as nothing more than a