Page 61 of Whiskey Chase
I wanted to kiss her to thank her for today, for everything since I’d shuffled here in misery a few short weeks ago. I came here not able to imagine a way out of the darkness that had descended on my life. And here I was with a beautiful woman who smelled like sunshine sitting in my lap and smiling at me like I was something special. Not Devlin McCallister the state lawmaker. Not the man who had a path to Washington, D.C. mapped out in the next five years. No, she thought I was special. The broken and battered man who lived next door. I felt a sudden rush of gratitude and pulled her against me, hugging her to my chest.
“Mmm,” she sighed against my skin, somehow understanding that this wasn’t foreplay.
I brushed my lips against her hair. She’d piled it on top of her head and secured it with an elastic band. Even when I looked at her objectively, her appeal was undeniable. It went beyond her sweet smile and those bright, mischievous eyes. Beyond that little, curvy body and that dusting of freckles. It was in her energy, in the happiness that spilled out of her, the ridiculous schemes she plotted up, the way she moved her body on a dance floor as if she were worshipping the music by letting it move through her.
She’d managed to rebuild me, brick by brick, into someone different than I’d been before. She was happiness and fun and sweetness rolled into one tiny package. And right now, she was mine. Somehow, that accomplishment felt bigger and more important than any other success I’d achieved in my old life.
My old life.That’s what Scarlett had called it.When had I started thinking of it that way?
“Tell me about your wife,” she said.
My mellow feelings took a sharp left turn into instant anxiety.
She laughed softly against my chest. “I can feel every muscle in your body tensing.”
“It’s not my favorite subject,” I said dryly.
“Do you mind telling me about her?”
I shrugged. Johanna was a wound that was starting to close, but care still needed to be taken lest it festered again. “What do you want to know?”
“What was she like before all this? How did you meet her?”
I thought back, absently stroking my hands over Scarlett’s back pausing to toy with the strings of her top. “I’m not sure how we actually met.”
It was ironic considering I knew that I’d never forget the moment I met Scarlett. A little brunette mainlining beer in cowboy boots on the tailgate of a pick-up truck. While that image was carved into my mind, Johanna had just always been there in the periphery. “We moved in the same social circles, went to the same events, knew the same people. My parents invited her to dinner one night, and we talked a lot.”
I remembered the meal. The knowledge that it was a fix-up. I wasn’t overly annoyed. Johanna was a beautiful woman, a requisite for a good partner. She was well-spoken, well-bred, appropriately educated. The boxes checked themselves. Her father was a political consultant. She understood the requirements of a politician’s wife.
“Was it love at first sight?” Scarlett asked.
I laughed. “No. Nothing like that. It was more of a mutual respect.”
“That’s not hot.”
I laughed, tracing circles on Scarlett’s hips. “No, but in my world, mutual respect and shared goals are more important than heat and love at first sight.”
Scarlett leaned back to look at me. “Why do you think she cheated?”
I hadn’t said the words aloud to anyone. Hadn’t put voice to them because I was afraid doing so would make them true. But keeping them inside was eating away at me.
“I wasn’t progressing in my career as quickly as I should have,” I confessed.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I found myself frustrated with the whole system. Getting anything done required so many compromises that the end product didn’t resemble the original in any way. It wasn’t about doing good things for our constituents. It was about careers and grandstanding and choosing sides. My whole life I dreamed of making a difference, of working within the framework that our founders established. And when I got there it was nothing like what I thought it would be.”
Scarlett cocked her head but didn’t say anything.
“I started to drag my feet, making fewer appearances. It was a two-year term which is very short, so I found myself campaigning to keep a job I didn’t really like.”
It felt like ripping off a band-aid and letting the wound breathe. No one was here to tell me that was a ridiculous way to feel or that I just needed to be patient and grow my power base to affect change.
“It was supposed to be my calling, and I hated being in session. From January to April, we were on the floor twelve to fourteen hours a day doing nothing productive. Just pushing or fighting agendas. I never said anything to Johanna, but she noticed. When we were first married, our nights and weekends were spent at events. Networking, being seen, showing up for causes. And when I started to pull back...”
“She went looking for someone else,” Scarlett filled in.
I nodded. “She had her own goals. She wanted to be a senator’s wife. I think she hoped for even more than that, and when she saw me backing away from it, she went looking for someone who could get her there.”
