Free Up in Smoke by Charlene Weir Page B

said.
    â€œLives are at stake. People are at risk and they aren’t confident their government can protect them. Most politicians think it’s naïve to tell the truth. I think that’s really what people want.”
    In the silvery moonlight, the lines in his face were smoothed away and the gray in his hair didn’t show. His voice had the same passionate intensity she remembered. It could have been twenty years ago, the two of them together, talking way into the night, discussing, arguing, solving unsolvable problems, clinging to each other with sweaty promises. He had gone off to fight a fire and never returned to her. She never knew why.
    â€œTell the truth,” he said. “Create a policy that’s sound and build a platform with the best interests of the people at heart, promise to do the best we can and then—” He shrugged and his voice went from oration to embarrassed. “Sorry. Did I sound like I was giving a speech? There’s a lot of that going around.”
    â€œI can’t help you,” she said.
    â€œYou’ve been there, Cass. For nine months you were in the Middle East. Lived with them, talked with them.”
    â€œTaught them.” When she’d been released from the loony bin, she’d fled to the most dangerous place she could think of, the granite mountains on the front lines of the war against terrorism, a place of severe poverty, where most people were illiterate and babies died before they reached their second birthday.
    â€œI know.”
    â€œI went there because—” Because a drunk driver wiped out Ted and Laura and I should have died, too, because I wanted to die and thought I might as well do something with my miserable life until it happened. I thought someone would kill me and save me the trouble.
    â€œGirls,” she said, “Women. They had nothing and—” And so with no training and no credentials, I taught. And waited to die. They had no schools and no teachers, no books and no supplies. Nothing. With Ted’s insurance money, she’d built a school. Sixty-three girls came to her to learn to read and write. Little Amoli, the first girl in her village to learn to read, wanted to be a teacher just like Cass. Cass had given her the money for training. It all came to an end when Aunt Jean’s stroke landed her in the hospital and Cass had to come home.
    â€œThey talked to you, these girls, these women. They told you what the thinking was and who the players were and what was happening. I need you, Cass. You can speak out about the harsh realities of the situation and bring a little sanity into campaign rhetoric.”
    The wind was cold. It swept across her face and reached inside to tickle her lungs. She shivered and clamped her teeth to keep them from chattering. Work for Jack? She didn’t love him, that had died years ago. And she had no anger—that, too, had faded into the shadowy mists of the past. She did have some pitiful sad lingering strains of long ago love, but, in truth, she’d lived through far more disfiguring, destructive scars than any Jackson Garrett had inflicted.
    He reached down and took her hands from her pockets, held them in his. “Will you jump on this—it’s more a hay wagon than a bandwagon—and join Garrett For America?”
    â€œI don’t think so.” I won’t be around long enough to do you any good. She pulled her hands away and dredged up a smile. “Hey.” She tried for a light tone so he wouldn’t think she was just petulant. “What’s in it for me?”
    He grinned, same old grin. “Anything you want. Secretary of State?”
    Her return smile was involuntary. She took a step back, standing this close made her nervous. It was like standing beside a generator and feeling the hum of energy.
    â€œLet’s get inside,” he said. “It’s freezing.”
    The troopers followed at a discreet