Bishop (Political Royalty Book 3) (14 page)

That was a hard walk back for any campaign but for the guy who’d stoked the family values fires, it was damned near impossible. The press was waiting for a statement from the Estevan campaign, but they’d already started sounding its death knell.

“The crazy bastard will have to get out now. Thank fuck,” said Travis, hurrying through the door and dropping into the chair beside her, his gaze fixed on the television screen. His arrival meant Walker couldn’t be far behind. He and Travis had been shaking down the party’s faithful, filling the coffers before they went back out on the trail.

Walker’s personal wealth put them in a better position than many other campaigns, but they still had to be strategic about how the resources were allocated. She had a clear plan of how the next four weeks needed to go, but she wanted to run it past the senior staff and make sure there wasn’t anything she’d missed. With Justin and Abby on the road with Becca, that left the guy sitting next to her and the candidate himself. As fond as she was of Travis, she’d trade him for Abby in a heartbeat when it came to scheduling issues.
That woman had a calendar running on a loop in her head
, Haven thought, turning back to the talking heads already starting the postmortem of Estevan’s
not dead yet
campaign.

“They all think they can get away with it,” said Travis, shaking his head. “That no one’s going to find out. Remember Edwards? He hid that crazy woman from his wife and even managed to convince one of his staffers to claim her.”

He shifted in his chair to face her, and she swallowed against the tightening in her throat. Estevan was a caricature. If it weren’t for the fight with Collins, he’d never have lasted this long, but that didn’t make Travis’s words any less true. Campaign staffers lived in a state of constant vigilance, waiting for the first whiff of a scandal that could pull their candidate out of the running. But the candidates themselves always seemed to assume they were immune, that their indiscretions wouldn’t matter. They counted on their staff to be looking out for them. So what happened when the indiscretion happened with one of the staffers? Who kept an eye on things then?

“Have you seen this? It came up in the meeting today.” Travis handed her a tablet opened to an article on the senator’s position on ethanol subsidies.

Haven pushed back her nerves and turned her attention to the article. For a couple of hours after Walker’s speech, it seemed like the story was going to die without making more than a ripple through the big money present in the room. But by evening, an adventurous reporter at the
Post
picked up the story and started digging, not just into what Walker said but into the broader consequences of corn ethanol. It had taken a day or so, but the story moved from a single byline buried on page two to a group of stories at the top of the search engine. With every paper that picked it up, Walker’s reputation grew.

She knew Travis still hated having to try to smooth things over with the donors, but the story had grown legs. Contrasted to Collins’s straight party line, Walker was making inroads with the voters on an issue Haven thought would never be more than a pain in the ass. It was a bonus she’d happily take. She’d already planned a small ad buy using a clip of Walker speaking in front of the Energy Summit. With Jenson already out of the race and Estevan moments away from his walk of shame, that left Collins. It helped to have clear, easy-to-understand differences to show the voters and surprisingly the subsidy issue ended up being one of them.

It also made her heart swell irrationally every time she thought of it. He’d gone against his self-interest to tell the truth and do the right thing. It shouldn’t be such a rare thing in a public servant, but it was. She didn’t have to spin his responses or craft damage control while he tried to dance the line between primary voters and the general electorate. All she had to do was find a clear way to show voters the man. Once they saw him—really saw him—they’d fall in love with him the way she had. And then someone would get careless and they’d get caught and it would all fall apart.
Fuck.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” said Walker, pulling up a chair next to her.

She glanced up at him and he met her gaze with a smile meant just for her. She’d gotten good at telling at a glance the difference between the performance smiles and the one that touched his heart. He gave them to her like a gift every morning, his expression touching her in a way his body couldn’t, not while they were still in South Carolina. Hell, in the wake of the Estevan thing, maybe not ever. Watching a campaign implode on television and take everyone who was part of it down with the candidate made it impossible to justify the risk.

She’d have to content herself with platonic breakfasts and the few stolen moments they could squirrel away. That morning it had been over omelets at a greasy diner on Magnolia. They’d talked about movies they hadn’t had time to see and held hands on the short drive to the office. If there had been anyone she could have told about it, she knew it would sound pathetic, but she felt more just sitting and talking to him than she ever had before. Looking forward to the first hour of her day and the brush of his fingertips at dawn was something she’d miss once they got back into the bus and out on the trail.

“This won’t take long,” she said, pulling herself back to the present. “I know you have to get back out for the meeting with the party heads. We leave for Colorado day after tomorrow and I wanted to run over the schedule through Indiana. Broad brushstrokes—the specifics will inevitably change.”

“Y’all don’t need me for this, do you?” Travis gave her a look that said he’d rather shop for feminine hygiene products than go over schedule logistics. “Just tell me how much it’s all going to cost and I’ll figure out a way to pay for it.”

She glanced at Walker and he tipped his head, deferring to her. “Go,” she said, catching herself before she rolled her eyes. “Go, make yourself useful.”

“Always.” Travis shot her a grin and was out the door before she changed her mind.

“We don’t really have to talk about the schedule, do we?” Walker spun his chair to face her and she had to lean back in her seat to keep from reaching for his hand. It was just the two of them behind a closed door, but there was nowhere in the offices alone enough for them to touch each other.

“Not you too,” she said, but her smile took the sting out of the words. “No, I can handle it myself. I may send it to Abby. She’s the only one of us who remembers everything that’s going on anyway. The stuff with Estevan is going to change things anyway.” She motioned to the screen, where the reporters were still actively engaged in dissecting the publisher’s campaign and love life with equal ferocity.

“Here he comes.” Walker nodded to the screen where a very sober-looking Estevan was taking his place behind the podium.

“Some people say it takes a big man to admit he’s wrong. I’m here today to be that man.” Estevan scanned the crowd, taking his time.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” said Haven, unable to hold back her disbelief.

“Big man is an interesting spin.”

“I’ve let down my supporters, but most importantly, I’ve let down my family.” He paused long enough to convey remorse, but his expression said sorry-not-sorry.

Mrs. Estevan stood behind her husband, and the pain on her face looked real. Real enough to tighten something deep in Haven’s chest. It wasn’t an apples-to-apples kind of situation, but it was close enough for her to imagine Justin hiding in the wings with her while Walker stood with Sandra at his side. She tried to picture him without his wife—simply walking away from it all, but she couldn’t. And as much as she loved him, she couldn’t imagine being happy without the presidency to fight for.

“It happened so fast.” In the space of a couple of hours, the Estevan campaign was finished.

“It’s not the same thing,” said Walker, reaching for the arm of her chair, turning her to face him. “It’s not, Haven. What we have is not the same thing.”

“The fallout would look the same.”

For a moment, he just held her gaze, letting his dark, kind eyes show her his feelings and soften her hard edges.

“I want you,” he said, and she sucked in a breath, incapable of not responding to him. “I want you all the damn time—so much it makes it hard to think sometimes. I don’t think I will ever stop wanting you.”

“I...” She opened her mouth to protest or agree—she wasn’t sure which—but he held up his hand to stop her.

“But that’s not what’s between us. It’s never been just about having your gorgeous body.”

Desire flared hot inside her. If he was making the case for not touching each other, it was having the opposite effect.

“I love you, Haven, and I will continue to love you even if I can’t make love to you. I couldn’t stop it if I wanted to.”

“I love you, too.” She blinked at the tears filling her eyes, desperate to hold it together.

Shifting his chair so it blocked the view from the door if someone entered, he reached for her hand. She let him because even faced with the disaster playing out on the television, she couldn’t deny him. His hands cradling hers were warm and strong and for a moment, it was easy to believe he was strong enough to protect them both. That they were strong enough together.

“I’m suspending my campaign to spend time repairing the damage I’ve done to my family,” said Estevan. “Thank you all for your support.”

The camera cut back to the talking heads and Walker took another chance, bringing their joined hands to his lips and brushing a quick kiss over her knuckles.

“And then there were two,” he said.

––––––––

W
ALKER SCANNED THE crowd stretched out in front of him, feeling the rush he got every time he spoke to a group of people about the direction he wanted to take the country. By the time he got to the end of his stump speech, he’d painted an image so vivid he could see it himself. He never felt more optimistic or more on fire than he did in that moment.

Standing against the backdrop of the Rockies, under the clear blue Colorado sky, he couldn’t have ordered a better setting. And fresh off his win in Wisconsin, the crowds kept growing. He had no illusions about crowd size equaling delegate count in the Centennial state. Those numbers would be decided by the state’s GOP convention and not primary voters. The party wasn’t even holding a primary this year. Why waste the money if the votes didn’t count. He’d leave negotiating for delegates to Haven and her team, but he couldn’t help but feel the wave of forward momentum when thousands of people turned out to hear his vision for America.

They even hung with him through the wonky policy stuff. He’d like to think he’d gotten better at the delivery, but he thought more of it had to do with the way people seemed to resonate with the message. The average American—whatever that meant—liked the idea of being the best in the world at something. It was like being part of the ultimate team. And they liked the idea of taking care of things here at home, including their neighbors. Finding a way to help them do both packed a hell of a punch. There was an untapped altruism there, looking for a voice and a cause.

“My granddaddy’s generation was called the greatest generation because they went to war and saved the world. We have a chance to make the same kind of difference.” He paused, giving the crowd a chance to anticipate his next words. “We can be the generation that ends hunger, leaves the world a better place than we found it for our children, and lives up to our reputation as a superpower. Instead of fighting to save the world, we have a chance to feed it, and by doing so make a difference that extends to our children’s future and their children’s future. We’re Americans. Making our country and the world a better place is what we do.”

The crowd erupted in applause, waving a sea of
Moving America Forward
signs, and he felt a sense of purpose wash over him. He was exactly where he was supposed to be, doing exactly what he was supposed to be doing. He glanced off to the side and saw Haven, watching him, the pride evident on her face. Her faith in him arrowed straight to his heart. He wanted to be the country’s next president—to move the nation forward so everyone could prosper. And he wanted to be the man he saw reflected in Haven’s eyes.

It was funny. He’d spent his whole life exceeding expectations. Unlike his brother, he’d never doubted for a moment if his parents were proud of him. They had been at every turn, regardless of what he’d done. They saw the perfect oldest son—their projection of who he was—and for the most part, he’d matched it. Career, wife, family: he’d made the reality meet everyone’s expectations for him. He’d always taken their approval for granted. It was an even and up until recently an easy exchange for expectations met.

Everything was different with Haven. She saw him, the real man, and she was still proud of him. He’d watched as her opinion of him shifted from entitled misogynist to the man she loved, and that made her opinion a thousand times more precious. He wanted to do better, to be better, so he could be the man she knew him to be.

The applause started to die down and the state’s senior senator stepped out from the wings.

“I don’t know about you all,” said the older man. “But that’s a vision for America I can get behind. That’s exactly the kind of leadership Colorado and this great country of ours needs.” The crowd cheered and the older man ate it up, pausing for a minute to bask before raising his hands for quiet. “The senator has time for just a few questions.”

Walker waited as the first person stepped to the microphone. Questions were always a mixed bag. Sometimes he felt the enthusiasm of the crowd all over again, or got a deeper understanding of what someone was thinking and feeling by the questions they asked. Other times he realized he still had illusions about humanity, because he got them squashed. A young man, somewhere in his mid-twenties, wearing faded jeans and a Confederate flag T-shirt stepped up to the microphone and Walker had a feeling this was going to be one of those times.

“Our way of life is being snuffed out by political correctness and people coming here and trying to change everything. Trying to make it more homogenous.” He said the last word very carefully and Shep wondered if it was his first time taking it out for a test drive. “As president, what would you do to ensure our American way of life stays strong for our kids?”