Conscience (The Bellator Saga Book 2) (8 page)

The Past

Caroline stretched her good arm and sprawled out on the couch in the family room. She was enjoying the space while she could, since they were heading back to Maryland in a few days. It would be nice to go home. Nice to get her cast off. It would be even nicer to go back to work. Getting back in a routine might make her feel like she was a normal person again, though she’d been warned that she was going to have a media spotlight on her for the foreseeable future.

She stared at the gas fireplace. A late August fire. It didn’t give off that much heat, and it was a bit cold in the room anyway. There was something peaceful about gazing into it.

“There you are.” Jack’s voice was at the entryway. “I figured you’d be in the library.”

Nine times out of ten, he found her there. “I was for a while,” she said. “It’s hard reading antique books with only one hand. I don’t want to ruin them.”

Jack had a pair of tweezers he used on some of the older first editions he had. Caroline was certain that several of his books were worth more than her house, though they were pretty to look at. She was almost afraid to touch them.

He sat down on the couch and put his arm around her. “How are you feeling, sweetheart?”

“Today was a good day.” She lifted up her left arm. “I’m ready to get this blasted thing off.”

“Soon enough.” He sounded apprehensive.

“Is everything okay?” Caroline’s recovery had gone relatively smoothly, but she’d lost her temper a few times and Marguerite and Sophie were expending a lot of pent up energy from missing the last few weeks of camp. Maybe it was all becoming too much for Jack.

“It’s fine.” He turned to her and smiled. “More than fine. I have something I want to talk to you about.”

“Okay.”

Jack cleared his throat. “I was hoping, if you weren’t too busy during the next few decades, if you’d maybe like to spend them with me.”

Should she be glib, knowing how nervous he was? She went with a verbal shrug anyway, since it was easier than getting emotional. “Sure.”

He frowned. Her nonchalant reaction must have thrown him off. “Wait, that’s no good. I practiced this in my head a million times and it never came out right. That clearly was the worst one of them all.”

“Want to try again? Maybe the third time’s the charm, if you count our little heart-to-heart at the hospital.”

Jack took a jewelry box out of his pocket and stared down at it. “I love you, Caroline.  It would give me no greater pleasure than to spend the rest of my life with you. To grow old with you. Feel your arms curled around me at night, your breath in my ear, the way you sigh when I hold you. I want to spend hours laughing and talking with you, building a home, raising your children together.”

He got down on one knee on the floor. “I know you’re not much for tradition or for any of that old fashioned junk, but I want to take care of you. I want to walk by your side wherever the path takes us. I want to protect you, to keep you safe from anything or anyone that might harm you. I adore you and your independence, your unwavering spirit and sense of self.”

Jack glanced at the sling and swallowed hard. “And yes, your unquestionable character. I want to be your partner, your friend, your lover. You and your children fill me with a joy I never thought I’d have. And I hope that those are good enough reasons for you to commit yourself to me forever.” He opened up the jewelry box. “Will you marry me, Caroline?”

She ran a hand through his hair. “That was perfect.”

“Is that a yes?”

“I love you, Jack,” she said. “And I do want to marry you. Very much. But-”

“But what?”

“I have one small condition.”

“What would that be?”

He wouldn’t like this. He’d purposely avoided the topic for weeks. “I want to be First Lady of Pennsylvania,” she said.

He got up and sat down on the couch next to her. “That’s going to be hard to do by yourself.”

“I want you to run for Governor.”

“No,” he said resolutely. “That’s not on the table.”

“I talked to Greg Keller.”

The very uptight, sharp as a tack neoconservative who served as Jack’s campaign manager. She clandestinely invited him over to the house one day while her daughters dragged Jack to Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell. It took him a few minutes to loosen up but they had a nice talk nonetheless.

Jack gave her a wary look. “When?”

“Last week, when you and the girls were gone. I made him lunch.”

“You said you were too tired to do anything.”

Caroline blushed. “I might have told a little white lie. And it was mostly sandwiches and some homemade cookies Mo and Feef helped me make. He’s not very demanding.”

“I am shocked and appalled.” Jack shifted on the couch so that there was a little bit of space between them, though he kept his arm stretched out on the headrest behind her. “At the lie, not the lunch. He doesn’t cook so you probably captivated the hell out of him.”

Jack wasn’t sold on the concept, she could tell. Strange how he’d backtracked so much over the course of a few weeks. He’d need much more than a nudge if he was scooting away from her.

“Greg thinks it’s a great idea,” she said. “The party is still waiting on you. They want you to run. Your numbers are strong, even for a relatively green politician.”

“No,” he said. “It’s too much. We can both stay in Congress, enjoy our lives, build upon our relationships in D.C. It’ll be fine.”

May as well damn the torpedoes. “You’re going to run, or I won’t marry you.”

Jack glared at her. “You cannot be serious.”

“I am.”

“Now who’s not being romantic?”

Caroline stroked the stubble on his jawline that always seemed to show up in the late evening. “Jack, I can help you. I want you to do this. You’ve wanted this for so long, much longer than you’re probably willing to admit. I can see it in your eyes. I would never forgive myself if you gave this up for me. We can do this. Side by side. We would make an amazing team. I think it could work, despite our party differences. You can use my newfound…popularity to your advantage. Greg agrees.”

“I won’t let you be exploited in order to win votes.”

“
Exploit
is a harsh word. Maybe utilize, or make the most of it. I’ve been practicing the loving political wife look.”

“What are you going to do if I run, and win? Live in Rockville with the girls while I’m in central Pennsylvania? I don’t want that. I want us all to be a family.
Together
.”

His earnest response bordered on adorable. “We would all be together. In Harrisburg.”

“And you would do what?  Commute to Washington every day? See us on the weekends? No way.”

“No. I’ve talked to the girls. They’re on board with us moving there for as long as you’re in office.”

“What about your seat?”

Caroline took a deep breath. It wasn’t fair to hit him with more than one torpedo in the same night, but it had to be done. “I’m not running for re-election.”

“No.” He settled his hands in his lap, his fists clenched. “Under no circumstances will you do that.”

“I don’t have to run again. I don’t want to.”

“Sweetheart-”

“No, I’ve been thinking about this a lot. You know who I am. You know I don’t really belong there. I probably never did.”

“Of course you belong there,” he said, sounding cross. “You have a solid grasp on a good job in which you excel. You can’t give that up.”

His reaction was a little surprising. Caroline thought he’d be more than willing to let her give up her seat, gubernatorial race or not. Maybe she’d sprung too much on him at once. “I can, I will, and I am.”

He shook his head back and forth. “You can’t do that for me. It means too much to you. You’re bright and personable. You’re dynamic enough that people listen to you, and wholly dedicated to doing something meaningful with your life. You can’t throw that away. You dreamt of it your entire life. Don’t give that up. There’s still so much you have left to accomplish.”

All of his arguments were perfectly valid and entirely refutable. “I did think I always wanted the career I have now,” she said. “But it was never what I thought it would be. I never liked those games. I never liked pretending to be someone I wasn’t. When I think of what I’ve done with my professional life, I consider myself a public servant, not a politician. The law is my vocation. Public policy is a natural offshoot of that. But being in Congress seems so secondary when it comes to my ability to do good. The power and prestige that come along with being on Capitol Hill aren’t nearly as important as the people I love.”

“That is precisely the reason why you should stay where you are. You’re the type of person we need in Washington.”

“I don’t want it anymore.”

Jack shook his head back and forth again, as if trying to jiggle her words out of his brain. “Caroline, you can’t do this. That seat is yours, for as long as you want it. Hell, they were talking about making you part of the minority leadership next term.”

The media coverage after the incident at the Capitol remained an unfortunate natural outgrowth of her behavior. Pundits and players suddenly realized that she was the future of the Democratic Party in Congress, and climbed all over themselves to share their observations with the public. Anything for more airtime. Their grandstanding disgusted her.

“Isn’t it funny how being shot and having people say that you’re patriotic and heroic makes you attractive to party insiders?” she said.

“It’s more than that.”

“Don’t kid yourself. I made a good speech last year. And I’ve done a passable job of working across the aisle to get things done. But that doesn’t matter nearly as much to the Democratic Party as their fucking image.”

“Look at you, turning cynical all of a sudden.”

“Come on, Jack. The media and all those public figures made their obligatory flowery statements right after I got hurt, but none of them really give a shit about me. Ellen, Bob, Chrissy, my staff, and a handful of others, they’re the ones who matter to me. They’re the ones I can count on if I’m in a jam. The rest are engaging in their typical transparent games. Their blowhard discussions matter more to them than the kids who were at the Capitol that day, or my well-being, or the actual welfare of the country, or anything other than their precious ratings and their plays for power. You’ll notice all that speculation came from pundits and anonymous Congressional aides, not me or anyone from my office. I’m not interested in any of that crap. And those who know me well know that.”

He wagged a finger at her. “That fire. That passion. That honesty
.
Right there. That’s
you.
That’s why you should
stay
, Caroline. To keep those assholes accountable.”

How could she make him understand? Her words didn’t matter if her heart wasn’t in the job. “I want you to run for governor. I want us to move on, try something new. I want you to live your dreams, too. It’s not fair to just hold on to mine, especially when I don’t want them anymore.”

His expression softened. Perhaps she’d won him over. “You’re serious. You’re going to walk away.”

“Yes. I can do meaningful things in Harrisburg. Maybe more fulfilling than what I’m doing now.”

“What if I lose?”

“I think we’d be okay,” Caroline said. “You can give me a job with your charitable foundation. I’m good at spending other people’s money.”

Jack threw his hands up in frustration, but he was smiling. “The polite thing to do would have been to tell me about this before I got down on one knee and proposed. You caught me a little off guard.”

She stifled a laugh. “I know. But I really hadn’t made a final decision until a couple of days ago. I hadn’t gotten up the guts to tell you. I told Kathleen earlier today and she dropped her phone. At least, she says that’s what happened. It sounded a lot like she threw it across the room.”

“You have a habit of hiring people who are way too much like you.”

“Indeed I do. Are you hurt that I told her first? I only did it to run it past someone who could theoretically be objective.”

“That depends. What did she say?”

“She spent about a minute trying to talk me out of it but discovered she was fighting a losing battle.” Caroline grinned at him. “Katie figured out I was serious a lot quicker than you did.”

“Is she upset?”

Kathleen was hard to read sometimes. Caroline suspected she’d done a lot more than throw her phone once their conversation ended. “Maybe a little. She’s concerned about how Jen will take it, particularly when I tell her that I want her to run in my place.”

Jack looked at her intently. “Are you sure you really want to do this?”

“Yes,” she said. “The Commonwealth needs you, Jack. You have a strong business background, with both private executive and public sector experience. You’re persuasive. You have a strong work ethic. You know how to make hard decisions.” She smiled as he squeezed her hand. “The door is open. You just have to walk in.”