The Politician’s Wife
By
Vanessa Miller
SMASHWORDS EDITION
*****
Published by:
BFP Publishing
The Politician’s Wife
Copyright © 2011 by Vanessa Miller
Smashwords Edition License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.
Other Books by Vanessa Miller
Long Time Coming
A Promise of Forever Love
A Love for Tomorrow
Yesterday’s Promise
Forgiven
Forsaken
Through the Storm
Rain Storm
Latter Rain
Abundant Rain
Former Rain
Anthologies (Editor)
Keeping the Faith
Have A Little Faith
This Far by Faith
EBOOKS
Love Isn’t Enough
A Mighty Love
The Blessed One (Blessed and Highly Favored series)
The Wild One (Blessed and Highly Favored Series)
The Preacher’s Choice (Blessed and Highly Favored Series)
The Politician’s Wife (Blessed and Highly Favored Series)
The Playboy’s Redemption (Blessed and Highly Favored Series)
Prologue
There was never enough vodka in the house. Linda Morrison threw the empty bottle in the trash, then grabbed her purse and keys and stumbled all the way to her silver Lexus. Her daughter, Kivonna was spending the night with friends. And her wonderful husband, Eric was out saving the world, as usual. So, that left Linda home alone, again.
Linda had learned to occupy her time with vodka, popcorn and a movie. However, tonight she figured she’d skip the popcorn… too many calories. She backed out of her driveway and swerved, then righted the car as she continued driving out of her subdivision. She turned on a narrow side street and wondered for the hundredth time, why, with all of the money they paid in city taxes, there weren’t more street lights on some of the back roads. Her husband was the mayor of their city, so Linda decided that she would ask him about that when he finally showed up, sometime later that night.
She suddenly realized that she hadn’t changed out of her ratty jean shorts and her too tight t-shirt in her rush to get more vodka. She reminded herself that since her husband was the mayor, that made her the first lady and she couldn’t come out of the house looking any old kind of way. Though she never asked Eric how she looked anymore. As long as she’d known the man, she’d never heard him tell a lie. So if she didn’t want to hear about her clothes not fitting right, or the extra weight she’d picked up, might as well not even go there with her husband. It was hard living with a man so principled, when she was so flawed. She opened her purse, grabbed her comb and lipstick, and pulled down the sun visor. She looked in the mirror as she combed her hair and then applied lipstick. A car horn honked.
She closed the visor to see who was honking at her. That’s when she realized that she was driving on the wrong side of the street and a car was headed straight toward her. She grabbed hold of the steering wheel with both hands and yanked hard to the right. Her car then took on a mind of its own and began zig zagging at full speed. At one point, Linda thought she was driving on two wheels rather than four.
“Oh God, help me… help me!” she screamed as her car crashed into the only other car traveling on the opposite side of the road.
After the head on impact, Linda’s car swerved and twirled until the passenger side of the car connected with an unyielding pole. The air bag burst forth, stopping Linda’s head from hitting the steering wheel as she passed out.
Chapter 1
Linda felt her head pounding like African drums as she opened her eyes. She was in her bed and had her peach colored pajamas on, but she didn’t remember getting into bed. She pulled the covers off and tried to get up, but her body felt as if she’d been in a train wreck.
She fell back onto her pillows, then put her hand on her head to try to rein in her killer headache. As her hands skimmed her face, Linda’s eyes grew wide. The left side of her face was swollen. What happened to me? She jumped up in bed and screamed, “Eric! Eric!” She glanced around the room, half expecting to see Eric lying on the floor, flat on his stomach in a pool of blood, like in one of those horrid true crime shows where someone breaks in, and beats the husband and wife to death. But she wasn’t dead. And Eric wasn’t on the floor.
“Eric,” she screamed again.
This time the bedroom door burst open and Eric stormed in like a madman… not mad as in crazy, just mad. “What is it?” he barked.
“What happened to me? My face is swollen and my body aches all over.” Oh God, she thought as a look of horror etched across her face. Had Eric come home last night, found her drunk and then beat her? She knew things were bad between them, but had they truly gotten that bad?
“You don’t remember what you did last night?” Eric asked as he inched toward the bed.
Linda couldn’t meet Eric’s eyes, so she lowered her head as she thought. She knew she had been drinking and that Eric would hate knowing that, but she couldn’t remember anything else. She certainly didn’t know what she’d done to get all banged up. “Hand me a mirror.”
“You might want to wait a few days before looking in the mirror,” he said as he lifted the glass that was in his hand. “Here take this.”
He handed her two pain pills and a glass of water. Linda gladly popped the pills into her mouth and drank the water, wishing her husband was Jesus Christ so he could have turned her water into wine. She handed Eric the glass and leaned back against her pillows. Her brows furrowed as she asked, “Did we get into a fight or something?”
Uh-oh, now he looked like a mad and offended black man. His bald head glistened as his dark brown eyes shone with both fire and ice. Linda had always thought her husband was the sexiest man alive. He towered over her at six foot three to her five, seven. His broad shoulders and muscular chest used to make her feel so safe and protected… but that was before.
“How could you even say something like that? What would I look like putting my hands on you?”
“I didn’t mean to upset you, Eric. I just don’t understand why I’m so sore and busted up.”
“You fell down the stairs,” he spat at her. He sat down on the bed next to his wife and sighed. “You almost killed yourself, Linda. How do you think Kivonna and I would have felt if we had come home and found you dead?”
“I-I’m sorry.”
Eric shook his head. “I just don’t understand why you’d rather drink yourself into oblivion than live in the real world with us.”
She put her hand on his beautiful face. “I’m sorry baby; I swear I’ll do better.”
“I need you alert and in the game with me. My campaign for governor begins in just a few months. I have never wanted anything more than I want to win this election.”
And that was the problem. Eric had never wanted her as much as he wanted his political career. When they’d dated, Linda thought that she could handle being with such an ambitious man. She’d thought that she could love him enough for the both of them. But that was before she’d married him and had one child and three miscarriages… before she started drinking to dull the pain and sometimes just to get out of bed�
�� before he stopped loving her.
“I’m staying home today, and I’m going to take care of you. Would you like that?” Eric asked as he stood up.
She nodded. Wow, maybe she’d fall down the stairs once a month or maybe just once every other month, if it would get her that kind of attention.
“Let me go check and see if Maria is finished with your breakfast.”
“Thanks Eric, I appreciate what you’re doing for me,” she said as Eric left the room. She hadn’t bothered to ask what the breakfast menu looked like. Maria had been both cook and housekeeper for the past five years and Linda loved everything the woman cooked. She had even been jealous at times by the fact that Eric also seemed to love Maria’s food. She’d noticed that the moans and smiles that escaped his lips when he ate the maid’s food, were never there when he was forced to eat the food Linda prepared.
“Stop it,” she chided herself. “Stop being such a baby about everything.” Before she and Eric married, Linda had been vibrant and full of life. She’d been a cheerleader in high school and college… prom queen and voted the biggest flirt on campus. Fun had been her middle name. Eric had always been so serious… so strictly business that Linda thought he needed someone like her in his life.
With a father who had several hundred million, bazillion dollars in the bank, a handsome face and a sexy smile, Eric could’ve had any woman he wanted. Linda had been determined to win Eric’s heart and to prove to him that she could be an asset to him. But as it turned out, she’d become an embarrassment to him.
She’d gotten the man she wanted all right; now she had to live with him. Throwing back the covers, Linda scooted to the edge of the bed. The blinds were open, and the sunlight coming through was wreaking havoc on her right eye. She took baby steps over to the window, stopped, took in deep breaths, and then continued her pace to the window. When she finally reached the window and put her hands on the control that would close the blinds, she spotted something in the driveway that caught her attention. She lifted the blinds and pressed her face to the window.
Her bedroom door opened. Her face was stricken as she turned to her husband. He set the breakfast tray on the dresser and ran over to her. “What are you doing out of bed?” He picked her up and laid her back on the bed, then rushed back over to the window and closed the blinds.
Linda sat up in bed as he brought the tray of food over to her. As he sat down on the bed, she grabbed his arm and asked, “What happened to my car?”
Chapter Two
“Did you hear me, Eric? I asked you what happened to my car.”
He just sat there with a dumbfounded expression on his face. Then he finally said, “You really don’t remember anything about last night do you?”
She turned away from her husband. What did he want her to do, admit that she was a falling down drunk who now suffered from blackouts? She couldn’t do that… maybe there was another explanation for her memory loss. She rubbed her forehead, the side that wasn’t throbbing. “Maybe I need to see a doctor. I mean, I’m surprised that a tumble down our carpeted stairs could jack me up this much, and with this memory loss…”
He set the tray of food in front of her. “I think it looks worse than it really is. You just need to eat and get some rest. If you’re not feeling better in a day or two, then I’ll make a doctor’s appointment for you. Okay?”
Grabbing a piece a bacon from her plate she said, “Okay.”
“Now about your car...”
He towered over her as he stood next to her bed. Linda took a few bites of her eggs and then looked up at him. He appeared to hesitate for a moment, but before she could wonder too much about that he opened his mouth again.
“Michael got into an accident last night.”
“Michael who?”
“Michael Underwood, our gardener. You sent him to the store to get something for you.”
Linda had been home alone yesterday, so if she had followed her normal pattern, the only thing she would have wanted would have been something to drink. Would she really have sent Michael after some wine or vodka? “I must have really been messed up last night.”
The anger returned to his eyes as he said, “Yeah, you were.”
Pushing her tray away, Linda said, “I don’t want to argue with you, Eric. I know I messed up. Just let me get some sleep and we can talk about this later.”
“What am I supposed to tell Kivonna when she gets home from school and wants to see you?”
“Just tell her that I’m not feeling well. She’ll understand that mommy needs her rest.”
Eric jammed his hands in his pockets. “She’s heard that enough to know exactly what it means.”
“Please, Eric. I really don’t feel good right now.” She lowered her head to the pillow and pointed to the tray on her bed. “Can you just take that back downstairs? Maybe I’ll eat some more later.”
He didn’t respond, just grabbed the tray and left the room.
Wallowing in self-pity, Linda wondered just how long she and Eric could go on like this. They used to dance together and she used to be able to make him laugh. Now she lived in fear of the day that Eric deemed her a liability rather than an asset to his career goals. Eric probably would have divorced her years ago if it weren’t for the fact that voters tend to look unfavorably on divorced candidates, especially when he or she was the one to pull the trigger.
She needed a drink. Linda closed her eyes and tried to will away the thought. All of her problems with Eric began the day she started finding comfort in a bottle. She wanted to change, but she was powerless to stop her lust for the drink. Maybe if she went to sleep, she would wake up with her mind on something other than needing a drink. As she drifted off to sleep, something big and white burst in her face and she dreamed that her face was lying on a cushiony cloud.
She tossed and turned and then finally gave up on the idea of getting any more sleep than she already had. Linda grabbed the remote and turned the television on to the local news channel. The anchor was talking about a murder that had occurred the night before. Linda was about to turn the channel, when a picture of a crumpled car that looked like her silver Lexus came into view.
She turned the volume up. Another car came into view on the screen and it looked as if the Jaws of Life had been used on it. She didn’t envy whoever had been in that car. The television camera flashed to a hospital and a reporter who said, “The city of Cincinnati is collectively holding its breath, praying that Terrell Anderson will pull through surgery and be able to play ball again.”
Terrell Anderson? She knew that name. He was supposed to be the great hope of Ohio. After Lebron James left Cleveland, every pro team in Ohio, whether it be basketball, baseball or football, began looking for the next superstar… someone they could brag on and say, “He’s one of us and proud of it!” Terrell Anderson had been the one.
Terrell was unstoppable on the field. ‘The Touchdown Kid’ is what he’d been dubbed, and he had just been recruited by the Cincinnati Bengals. It wasn’t just the people in Cincinnati who had been happy with the draft pick, but all of Ohio stood up and cheered. It was as if with Terrell agreeing to play for the Bengals, Ohio had reclaimed some of its dignity. And with the economy in the toilet, manufacturing jobs leaving right and left… not to mention Lebron cutting and running, Ohio needed this boost.
But now it appeared as if one car accident had done what a field full of running backs couldn’t. Terrell had been knocked out of the game and one person after the next that the reporter stopped on the street and asked about the tragedy seemed to say the same thing. “Man, he’s got to recover. The game won’t be the same without ‘The Touchdown Kid’”.
Back with the anchor, Linda held her breath as he said, “Mayor Eric Morrison has got to be shaking in his boots this morning. It appears that the car that hit Terrell belonged to his wife, Linda Morrison, but had been driven by the gardener who was out on an errand.”
Linda clasped her hand to her mouth. What had she do
ne? Eric had to be mortified. And poor Michael… Eric would fire the man, even though she had been the one to send him on the errand that caused the accident. She would have to convince Eric to let the man keep his job.
And what about Terrell Anderson? There had to be something that they could do to help the young man. She just prayed that he would pull through surgery all right.
***
“Mr. Morrison, we’ve got trouble,” Michael Underwood said as he came into the kitchen.
“What kind of trouble?”
He pointed towards the window. “So far it looks like Channel 2, 22 and Channel 7 are all outside with camera crews and everything.”
Eric rushed to the window and looked out. Camera crews had been sited at his house a time or two before. Like when some of the city workers went on strike and they wanted the mayor to step in and broker a fair deal for them. Eric had worked from home for two days, trying to avoid the media while he came up with a solution, but the media had found him anyway.
Another time the media had shown up at his doorstep had been when a heinous murder had occurred in the downtown area. Before Eric could get dressed and down to city hall the morning after, the reporters were on his doorstep asking what he was going to do about all the crime in the city. Both of those meetings with the press had been grueling and a challenge to his political career. However, Eric would have rather faced them on either of those issues than the one they were at his house for today. He turned to Michael and said, “Stay inside; let me handle this.”
Eric took a deep breath, opened the door and marched toward his lions den. The sharp fanged creatures were waiting to devour him, but he was determined not to let it happen. He’d worked so hard for this city, year after year of plugging away, making communities safe, bringing more businesses to this city. It was his turn to run for governor now, and he would not let this incident stand in his way, not even if he had to lie, bribe and make underhanded deals to make the situation go away. He put on a bright smile as he came face to face with the press. “Hello everyone, what brings you out to my home this lovely afternoon?”
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