Chapter 4

She pulled on her pantyhose and took her dress out of the plastic dry cleaning bag, still ignoring the fluttering in her stomach that started around the time she got out of bed that morning. She'd already double and triple checked the decorations, the sound system, and the seating chart and had checked in again with the caterer and the string quintet, as well as the hotel manager. Everything was fine, was perfect, actually. The fundraiser, fingers-crossed, would go even better than the one inSouth Carolina had almost a month earlier.

Yet still, she'd felt all day like she might be ill, and she thought that probably wouldn't have gone over too well in front of Josh and the others. She took another deep breath as she pulled the dress, the last nice dress she had, up and over her hips, zipping it as far as she could reach. Another one of these things and she'd have to resort to her six year-old pink taffeta prom dress, which she was fairly certain wouldn't be appropriate.

There was a knock on the door and the fluttering intensified itself almost to the point of being un-ignorable. She took a deep breath and checked her hair and make-up one last time before walking to the door and opening it with a smile. He was on the phone and walked in without a hello or even looking at her, continuing his discussion and crushing the fluttering altogether.

She watched him for several seconds as he walked over to the window and opened the heavy drapes to the not so stunning view of the parking lot below. Shaking her head, she gathered up as much pride as she could muster and walked into the bathroom, touching up her make-up and hair as the conversation faded into the background.

Suddenly she was tired. She'd been up since five o'clock that morning after having gone to bed at two. She was only moderately successful at sleeping on the bus, usually choosing to stay awake and listen to conversations he had with Sam and Toby, and on the best of days, Leo and the governor. But not sleeping on the bus meant grabbing a few fitful hours when they reached their destination, which in the current case, happened to be Chicago.

She looked at her face in the mirror and smiled, trying to erase the look of disappointment on it. The smile looked fake, however, the glow and excitement from earlier gone completely. There would come a time, she knew, that she wouldn't be able to continue denying it to herself; the real reason for the stomach fluttering, the real reason for staying up in busses to listen to conversations, the real reason she was glad Mandy had gone back to DC three days earlier and wouldn't be there that night drinking champagne and dancing with him in front of her. Eventually she'd have to come clean with herself, but she refused to do it then, a half hour before the second fundraiser she'd been put in charge of overseeing. And she certainly wouldn't do it while he stood in the next room on the phone not noticing her.

"You uh… didn't get all zipped up there."

Her eyes quickly caught his in the mirror and she wished they weren't so soft. Brown eyes had always been just that in the past, brown, but somehow his were different. "I couldn't reach it," she said with a dry mouth.

He smiled at her through the mirror and walked up behind her, one hand landing on the zipper and the other on her bare shoulder. Never breaking eye contact, he zipped it slowly. "You look stunning, by the way," he said quietly.

The flutter came back instantaneously and she nearly winced at the feeling while mentally scolding herself for being one of those girls. Still, a large and definitely not fake smile appeared on her face along with the faint heat of a blush. "Thank you."

Their eyes locked and for the briefest of seconds she could almost convince herself that she wasn't the only one affected; then he looked away, something she herself could never quite do, and she looked quickly down at the mascara in her hand.

"So," he said, walking back out into the bedroom. "That was Congressman Davidson, claiming that something came up and he wouldn't be able to make it tonight."

"But you talked him into it anyway, right?" she asked, applying a bit more mascara, her excuse to take a moment and get her breathing and stomach fluttering under control.

"I did. How did you know that?"

She smiled and put the cap back on the mascara. "I have complete faith in you."

"You do," he said softly, causing her to look up in the mirror again, their eyes locking once more and the temptation to believe he felt this electricity too almost becoming too much. "You about ready?"

Closing her eyes briefly, she nodded and opened them again. "Your bowtie…" she said, turning around and walking into the bedroom, faint at the full view of him in a tux with his bowtie hanging loosely around his neck.

"Yeah," he said, looking into the mirror on the dresser. "I hate these things."

She smiled. "You're going to whine now?"

"Hey, you don't know how bad they are. You don't have to wear them. They choke you and move around and..."

"You're comparing a bowtie to the three inch heels I'm about to put on?" she asked with a smile, cutting him off and walking up to him, pulling on the ends of the bowtie and starting to tie it.

He looked down at her as she tied the bowtie, neither of them saying anything, and she could feel her cheeks turning warm again as her fingers grazed his neck and Adam's apple. She didn't dare look up at him until she was completely done and had taken a step back, and when she did, he smiled the dimpled smile she was quickly becoming addicted to and turned back to the mirror to adjust it. "Well," he said, taking a step back and nodding at himself, "we're adding that to your job description."

She chuckled at him and stepped around him to put on her shoes. He walked to the door and held it open for her, placing his hand securely on her back as they walked down the hall towards the elevator. Another thing she was becoming addicted to.

"Stay close tonight. I might have a few impromptu meetings," he said as they walked into the hotel convention hall a few minutes later.

"Anyone we're looking out for," she asked as she looked around, doing a quick sweep of the room, the centerpieces with real roses, the tasteful silver balloons in the corners of the room, the superbly set tables, and the wait staff walking around with champagne, wine and hors d oeuvres. She smiled to herself at a job well done as Josh handed her a glass of wine off a passing waiter's tray.

"Anyone who wants to give us money," he said, taking a drink of the wine he'd taken for himself.

Sam came up then and told her she looked nice in a way that didn't make her heart flutter before tearing Josh away to meet a potential donor. She watched them leaving and then turned around looking for Margaret, the closest thing to a friend she had on the campaign with the exception of Josh. Not seeing her, she wandered into the kitchen to check with the caterer. Dinner was to be served at 7:30pm, and she wanted to make sure one more time that the wait staff knew where to take the requested vegetarian meals.

She left the kitchen a few minutes later and went to where the string quintet was playing in the back corner of the large room. She stood quietly off to the side listening to the Bach Fugue in G minor, then spoke with one of the violinists about the order for the program after dinner.

She kept an eye out for Josh the entire evening, raising her eyebrows at him when they made contact as if to ask if he needed anything. A few times he motioned for her and she went up to him, taking checks and meeting people, including Congressman Davidson, but mostly he just smiled back at her and turned back to whatever conversation he was in at the moment.

After dinner she mingled and smiled, taking a few minutes to dip into the kitchen and thank the wait staff on behalf of the governor for a job well done. An hour later, she stood twenty feet or so from Josh, barely listening to a conversation she was having with an older married couple and a young lawyer who worked on the mayor's staff. When he asked her to dance, she smiled politely and let him lead her to the dance floor where he talked about the decline in Chicago's crime and unemployment rate and the possibility of the mayor running for the Senate in two years.

"Do you mind if I cut in," she heard from behind her, the fluttering back again.

The man looked hesitantly at Donna before looking back at Josh and nodding. "Of course, Mr. Lyman."

Josh watched the man walk away with a smirk on his face then took her hand in one of his, his other hand holding her at a safe distance around her back. "That guy was hitting on you," he said quietly with a hint of disgust in his voice.

She looked at him and shook her head, nearly his height now that she was wearing heels. "No he wasn't."

"Donna, I know when a man's hitting on a woman. He was hitting on you."

She let the hand on his shoulder travel up and around his neck a bit, knowing she shouldn't but just dying to toy with his curls. "Nah. He was just hoping I could get him a meeting with you."

He pulled her closer, their chests nearly touching and his cologne mixing with her perfume in an intoxicating way. "Well for future reference, men who look at you like that don't get meetings with me."

"Josh…" she scoffed at him, trying to hide the smile on her face.

"What?"

"Nothing," shaking her head lightly. "I'm just trying to decide if that was barbaric or sweet."

He pulled back a bit and looked her in the face with a frown. "Men aren't sweet."

"So it was barbaric?" she asked with raised eyebrows.

"No, it was…"

"Sweet," she said teasingly as they turned and nearly bumped into another couple. He gave her an 'oops' look and spun her the other way as she laughed a little at him.

A moment later, he said, "Chivalrous."

"Chivalrous?" she asked with a hint of sarcasm in her voice.

"Yes," he said, flashing her a dimpled smile that she wished didn't turn her knees to Jell-o. "I'm a prince amongst men."

"I'm gonna be sick," she said chuckling before leaning in and whispering in his ear, "Thank you, by the way."

He pulled her closer again, pulling their entwined hands to the small space between them and resting them on his chest. "Anytime."

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

A week later they were back in Manchester, where they'd spent all of four days since she'd started the campaign more than a month previously. The lingering looks and fluttering stomach had been getting harder to ignore, especially those times that the sparks felt anything but one-sided, but that afternoon Mandy had arrived in town and walked into Josh's office without so much as a nod hello, and since then, he'd been holed up in a room with her, Sam, Toby, and Leo.

The door would open occasionally and she'd hear Mandy screaming, usually at Josh, and each time she'd wonder what exactly it was he saw in her. Mandy was Angie Kortee, she decided, her high school nemesis. Angie was always first chair in band, leaving Donna to sit second, she always had the cutest guys chasing her, and she was, quite simply, always a bitch.

She'd only met Mandy a few times, the first being her third day on the campaign in South Carolina when Mandy had taken one look at her and without so much as a hello, had grabbed Josh by the arm and dragged him off into another room in the hotel suite, screaming at him for five solid minutes, apparently not taking into account that the walls were thin and everyone in the main room could hear her calling Donna his 'latest toy' and the 'stray he'd picked up.' She'd almost quit that day, almost turned and walked out of the hotel suite and to the nearest bus station, the only thing keeping her there her inability to make her feet move. Josh had apologized to her later when her silence had made it obvious that she'd heard, and Mandy had left for DC two days later.

The next time they met was on a short trip to Buffalo that Josh had insisted he and Donna go on when he caught her sleeping on the floor of his office. That time, Mandy had taken extra care in putting Donna in her place, asking her to run personal errands and to fetch coffee and other things Josh had never asked her to do, making sure to ask when he wasn't within ear shot. She'd smiled, not quite understanding what this woman's problem with her was, and after two errands had just stuck close to Josh until Mandy was gone the next morning. She hoped her trip this time would be just as short.

"What are you doing?"

Startled, she looked up from the paper she was absently proofing to see him standing in front of her desk watching her. "Huh?" she asked dumbly as she told herself not to stare at his arms. The rolled up sleeves were becoming a problem she hadn't counted on.

He gave her a strange look. "What are you doing with your hand?" he asked, motioning with his head to her left arm which was propped on her desk by the elbow, her hand hanging in mid air.

She looked at her hand. "Oh," she said tiredly. "Finger conducting."

"I'm sorry, what was that?" he asked in a teasing voice.

She put her hand down. "I'm listening to Yo Yo Ma." 'And obsessing about you,' lingered unsaid in her mind.

"And finger conducting," he said as though it made perfect sense.

She sighed as if she had a hundred other things to do when in fact she loved these little moments they stole away from the campaign, also a problem she hadn't counted on. "It's a habit. You'd rather I actually conduct?"

"Do you have a baton?"

"Not here," she said with a pointed look while standing up and glancing around for signs of the wicked witch before walking into his office with some things to file. "But I do at home."

"You have a baton," he said skeptically as he followed her into his office where she started rooting around the boxes on the metal shelves behind his desk.

"I was a drum major in high school," she said matter of factly.

"And you conducted with your fingers?" he asked, standing behind her close enough that she could smell his aftershave and with a voice that let her know he was smirking.

"No… I conducted the traditional way."

"Mmm..."

She turned around and handed him a file, trying to ignore the fact that he was standing so close, yet another problem she hadn't counted on. "Why were you watching me finger conduct anyway?"

He shrugged. "It looked like something my sister used to do," he mumbled.

"You have a sister?" she asked with a smile. "How is it that I've been here for more than four weeks and I didn't know you have a sister?"

"I…" he glanced down at the file she'd given him and then back up at her. "She died in a fire when I was little."

Her eyes widened and she felt tears instantly building behind them as she looked at the pain in his. It was silent for several seconds and he uncomfortably looked back down at the file she'd given him. Wanting to hug him so badly but not sure it was appropriate, she put down the files in her hands and walked around him to the front of his desk, sitting down very straight on the edge of the chair there. "Tell me about her," she said softly.

He looked over at her with what she thought was a surprised look on his face. "She was uh…" he paused for what felt like minutes and continued staring at her. Finally, he took a deep breath and walked around to his chair, sitting down across from her and propping his elbows on his desk. "She was a pianist. She wanted to be a conductor. She used to walk around conducting to her records."

She smiled softly and nodded. "Did she have a baton?"

"Yeah," he said quietly with a faint smile on his face. "Dad bought her one for her tenth birthday."

"What else?"

"She used to pick on me." He stopped and raised his eyebrows at her. "Not unlike you."

"You're very pick-on-able. She was older than you?"

"Yes, and her friends used to pinch my cheeks," he said in an almost whiney voice, making her smile wider.

"Because of the dimples," she said as though she knew.

"Yes."

"Did she look like you?"

He tilted his head a little and thought. "A little, but she was short, like Mom, and she had Mom's dark hair."

"And was she a good piano player?"

He nodded. "She played all the time. You couldn't keep her away from it. If we were home she was in the library practicing." He paused for a second and she waited, watching him. "Mom signed me up for lessons when I was five, but she had to make me practice."

"You could never sit still long enough," she said as fact.

"No," he said, shaking his head and smiling at her. "But Joanie could. She'd sit there all day if you let her. Sometimes she'd sit with me when I practiced and then it wasn't so bad. She liked playing teacher so we made a game of it."

"Do you still play?"

"Nah, I quit after she…"

He stopped and she nodded but didn't say anything for a several moments. "I'm sorry I never had a chance to meet her."

He looked up and quirked one side of his mouth up. "Yeah, me too. She would've liked you."

"Thank you for telling me about her," she said quietly.

He didn't respond, just looked at her, their eyes locked. She was the first to pull away this time, standing up after several seconds and walking to the door before looking back at him one more time. He was still watching her and she smiled softly before turning around and leaving.

She walked slowly past her desk to the restroom, walking inside and letting a small tear fall down her cheek. She was in love with her boss, and he looked at her like a sister.