"Morgan, I'm glad you could make it," Ben Worthington
said, standing up from behind his large cherry desk and
thrusting his square hand out toward him.
"Ben, it's been awhile since we saw one another," Morgan
replied. Grasping the secretary of the Navy's hand firmly,
he saw Ben's blue eyes narrow with concern, and wondered
once again what had prompted his old friend's sudden
invitation.
"Have a seat," Ben invited. "Becky," he called to his
assistant, who sat in the outer office, is the coffee on
the way?"
Morgan took a seat in the leather wing chair at the corner
of Worthington's desk and looked around the spacious
Pentagon office. All kinds of Navy memorabilia —
paintings, photos, diplomas — were affixed to the walls.
Ben had been a Navy pilot on the carrier Enterprise during
the Vietnam War. Ben's desk looked just as cluttered and
busy as his own, Morgan thought. Through the venetian
blinds Morgan could see a patch of blue sky and fluffy
white clouds. It was spring in Washington, D.C., and
hundreds of cherry trees with white perfumed blossoms
surrounded the Capitol and nearby monuments.
As Worthington's prim and brisk secretary entered the
office, silver tray in hand, Morgan gave her a nod. She
smiled and handed him a white china cup decorated in gold
trim.
"If I remember right, Mr. Trayhern, you like your coffee
straight?"
Grinning, Morgan took the proffered cup and
saucer. "Indeed I do, Becky. You've got a long memory."
She smiled broadly and gave her boss his coffee. "Details
are important around here, as you know, sir." She set the
tray on a cherry coffee table that sat off to one side,
near the cream-colored, buttery-soft leather sofa. "And in
case either of you wants a midmorning snack, there's a
delicious coffee cake drizzled with caramel just begging
to be eaten."
Groaning, Morgan thanked the tall, graceful secretary,
whose red hair had become peppered with silver since he'd
last seen her. In her midfifties, Becky had been working
for Ben Worthington for a long time, and she was more than
just an assistant, she was his right hand.
"I need that coffee cake like I need a hole in my head,"
Morgan confided to Ben as Becky quietly closed the door to
the office to leave them in complete privacy.
Ben raised his thick, sandy-colored brows as he sipped his
coffee. "Makes two of us. I don't get out and exercise
like I used to." He looked around the office. "Maybe it's
this place."
"Or the pressures and crises that keep popping up to throw
you off your scheduled maintenance," Morgan said, his
mouth twisted wryly.
"I see you know that one, too."
"My middle name is crisis," Morgan agreed with a chuckle.
He eyed the coffee cake. "I shouldn't, but I'm going
to...." Rising to his full height, he unbuttoned his dark
blue pinstripe jacket and moved over to the coffee table.
Twisting to look over his shoulder at Ben, he asked, "Want
to join me in collusion?"
Laughing, Ben patted his girth. "I'm twenty pounds over
right now, Morgan. I don't dare."
"I just thought I'd have some company so I wouldn't feel
so guilty about cutting such a huge piece for myself," he
murmured as he sliced off a healthy portion and placed it
on a china plate. Picking up the plate along with one of
the forks and white linen napkins Becky had thoughtfully
left behind, Morgan moved back to the wing chair and sat
down.
"What's on your mind, Ben?"
Scowling, Ben put his coffee aside and picked up one of
several gold-framed photographs on one side of his massive
desk. "How long have we known one another?"
Morgan sat back and chewed on the sweet, mouth-melting
coffee cake. "Almost as long as Perseus has been in
existence," he replied, referring to the covert government
organization he headed.
Moving his hands over one small photo, Ben studied
it. "That was ten years ago. Arianna was only fourteen
years old when you formed Perseus." He looked up. "She's
my youngest of three children." Turning the photo around,
he placed it so that Morgan could get a good look at her.
"Pretty young lady," Morgan commented. The photograph
showed a woman of perhaps twenty-four or -five sitting
among a number of potted plants in a greenhouse. She was
delicate looking, with short, blond hair and her father's
sky blue eyes in an oval face. She was dressed in a pair
of jeans, a pink tank top and tennis shoes. The expression
on her face was one of pure joy.
Ben leaned back in his chair, his hands folded across his
belly. "Arianna was only eight when her mother died of
leukemia. She was the youngest and it was very hard on
her. She was too young to understand...and her mother's
death changed her forever.... I tried to help, but I was
hurting so much myself that I'm afraid I didn't do a very
good job of being a parent at that time...."
Morgan lost some of his joviality as Ben turned another
framed photograph around for him to look at. It showed Ben
and his wife, Ellen. "I'm sorry for your loss," he
murmured sincerely. In some respects, Ellen reminded him
of his own wife, Laura, who also had blond hair. "Arianna
really takes after your wife, doesn't she?"
"In every respect," Ben muttered. "Which is why I asked
you to drop by and see me." Ben waved his hand. "I know
you have other appointments today, equally important, and
I'm grateful you could squeeze this impromptu visit into
your schedule."
Morgan finished the tasty coffee cake. He blotted his lips
with the napkin and picked up the cup of coffee. "I'm glad
I could do it. I gather this involves something personal
instead of professional?"
Ben sat for a moment, his square face stern, his jowls
set, his gaze pinned on his daughter's photograph. Rousing
himself, he nodded. "Yes...it concerns Arianna. And what
she thinks she's about to do."
Morgan heard the pain in the man's somber voice and
sympathized, though he had a feeling he knew what was
bothering him. Ben was a hard-hitting Type A personality —
a born leader, who liked to control every nuance of his
life. As secretary of the Navy, his commanding leadership
was a good thing. But Morgan wondered how Ben's
controlling personality might have impacted his family.
He'd seen too many military men who were far too rigid
with their wife and children. "Fill me in on how I can
help you," Morgan said.
Ben sighed and picked up the picture of his daughter,
holding it as he spoke. "Arianna is so much like her
mother that since she's grown up, I sometimes forget and
think Ellen's in the town house whenever Arianna comes
over. Arianna's twenty-five now, and has just graduated
from Georgetown University with a degree in business and a
minor in Spanish."
"Impressive," Morgan murmured. He thought of his own
children, who were growing up quickly. Jason was ten now,
and little Katy wasn't far behind. And the fraternal
twins, Peter and Kelly, were a year old. "I've got a
college fund already established for my four kids. I'm
hoping they'll see the benefits of a college education
like your daughter, Arianna, has."
Worthington's mouth tightened slightly. "I forced her into
getting a degree in business. Maybe it was wrong of me,
but I wanted Ari to have a solid foundation, so she could
earn money and control her own life instead of having it
controlled by others. She's a very intelligent girl, if
she'd just settle down."
Touching the frame, Ben continued unhappily, "She's a
dreamer, not a hard-core business type, Morgan. My wife
was a dreamer, too. Lord, she had so many dreams. Ellen
loved to travel. She wanted to go around the world. She
loved orchids, and I had a small greenhouse built for her.
Ellen and Arianna spent hours out in that little steamy
box where she grew all those orchids. In fact, the year
before Ellen died, she made a concerted effort to be with
Arianna. They spent a couple hours every day, up until the
last two weeks before her death, out in that greenhouse."
Touched, Morgan murmured, "It was a parting gift of love
that Ellen gave to her then."
Ben's normally hard face softened somewhat. "Yes...Ari was
all she had left. Our son, Kirk, was at the Naval Academy
at the time." He gave Morgan a pained look. "I think you
already know our middle daughter, Janis, died at age
thirteen. She took a stupid dare from a boy at a riding
stable. He bet that the horse she was riding couldn't jump
a four-foot fence. It didn't, and she fell off and broke
her neck, dying instantly. It was a blow to all of us, but
especially Ellen." Rubbing his neck, Ben muttered, "I
sometimes think that the shock of her death — the trauma
of our loss — triggered Ellen's leukemia. She contracted
the disease six months after Janis died. It's too
coincidental, in my book."
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