Knight (Political Royalty Book 1) (2 page)

The governor made a noise in the back of his throat, and Davidson opened his mouth, presumably to protest.

“I mean it,” said Shep, stopping him before he could speak. “The people of South Carolina elected me to do a job. I can’t do that if I’m campaigning to be president and I’m not going to pretend to try to. If I do this, it’s going to be all or nothing.”

“It only matters if you don’t win, and we all know you’re going to win,” said his father.

Beside him, Abby murmured, “Absolutely.”

“What about Jenson? He came damn close last time. Don’t you think he’ll want another run at it?” Mark Jenson was the governor of Arkansas and a party favorite. He was also a couple of decades older than Shep. If he decided to run for the party’s nomination again, it would be hard not to look like the new kid standing next to him.

“Doubt it. The loss hit him hard, and then he got spanked in the mid-terms. Democrats won both the state house and senate. The man can’t get anything done anymore.” The way his father said it made it sound like locusts had eaten their way through the Arkansas state capitol. Of course, there wasn’t a hell of a lot of difference between a plague of insects and a congress full of Democrats as far as William Walker senior was concerned. “Besides, he’s got half a dozen mistresses tucked away. Still can’t believe that didn’t come out last time.”

The irony wasn’t lost on anyone in the room. For as long as Shep could remember, his father maintained a string of pretty secretaries who did more for him than typing and filing. His mother pretended not to know, and would continue to pretend, Shep assumed, as long as her husband maintained his discretion. There was no worse sin to Katherine Taylor Walker than airing one’s dirty laundry in public. It never made sense to him, but it seemed to work for his parents. He didn’t claim to understand their marriage. Hell, he had enough trouble with his own.

“Leave Jenson to me,” said the governor. “We’ll deal with it if he runs. What else is stopping you?”

In truth, he didn’t have a reason. Jenson hadn’t even been that big a stumbling block. He would be sure to show the older politician respect if he stepped into the race, but him running wasn’t enough to deter Shep. He was younger than most people who ran for president, but he’d been younger than most people for every major step in his life. He’d patented his aquaculture system as a senior in college and started his company before the ink dried on his diploma.

He’d done it because he saw a need and knew he could be the one to fix it. And it worked. Beautifully. The technology he created made it possible to produce high quality food in the heart of urban population centers. Because of his system, they could grow food in places they’d never been able to before. In a world facing population demands that would rapidly exceed the conventional capability of its arable land, it was a big damn deal. The fact it made him a fortune was secondary. He was proud of the work he’d done and the progress he made.

When he’d run for the state congress, it had been partly to appease his father’s ambitions, but as he got into it, he realized he loved it. He loved the town halls and meeting people. He loved hearing about their lives and trying to figure out how to make things easier for them. He even loved the rush of campaigning, of winning votes and ultimately winning elections.

Moving to the US Senate let him do even more. Even as a junior senator, he had the power to make a difference in people’s lives. How much more could he do as president?

“If you want to do this, you need to act fast,” said Davidson. “After what she did to Overstreet in Virginia, everyone considering a run is going to be after her. No one should have been able to win that seat. That old man was going to die at his desk on the Hill.”

He was right. Overstreet had been a fixture in Virginia politics for decades. Many had tried but none had come close to unseating the six-term US Senator until Haven took over the campaign of Mike Anderson. The businessman had never held an elected office before. He beat Overstreet by fourteen points in his first ever election. The pundits made a big deal over voter dissatisfaction with incumbents, but people deep inside the party knew Haven masterminded the win. Which made the beautiful, hazel-eyed Yankee pretty hot shit and an even hotter commodity. Everyone would want her, and she’d be able to take her pick. If he was going to do this thing, then he wanted to be the one who locked her down.

And if she agreed to work with him, she’d have to stop looking at him like he was a waste of skin. He understood the trust-fund baby hesitancy. He’d dealt with it his entire life. It was one of the things that drove him to start his business right out of school. People heard his name and assumed he’d hitched a ride on some long, obscenely rich coattails. They wouldn’t be wrong. The Walker name and fortune opened doors for him, and he wasn’t about to turn his back on it. On the contrary: he planned to leave the family name better than he found it. He was proud to be a Walker. Legacy mattered, but it wasn’t all of him. He’d worked hard to make sure of that.

It shouldn’t bother him that he felt the same kind of judgment from Haven as he had from the dozens of other people who assumed his name bought his success, but it did. For reasons he couldn’t begin to explain, he wanted the woman who was a virtual stranger to see him for himself. That kind of sentimentality had no place in politics.

“I’ll get back to y’all tomorrow with an answer,” he said, letting some of the Southern slip into his normally carefully controlled accent. “Tomorrow,” he repeated when his father started to protest.

Nodding to Abby and Travis, Shep closed the door behind him and made his way the short distance across the courtyard to the boxy white building flanked by Doric columns that held the house staffs’ offices. He hadn’t seen Langston Jones, his father’s long-serving butler, in the main house and he didn’t want to leave without getting a chance to touch base with the older man. In many ways, Jones had been more available to Shep and his brother when they were growing up than the senior Walker. It was Jones who taught him how to fish and snuck him back into the kitchen to cook the crappie he caught. Jones taught him more than an abstract, relative version of right and wrong. He’d been there for all the scrapes and bruises.

He found the older man sitting behind a side table turned makeshift desk in his closet of an office, going over the menus for the week. Shep’s parents shared a house, but not much else. Jones knew what his father liked to eat and he made sure the chef cooked the governor’s favorite dishes. It was Jones who kept the house running and had for as long as he could remember. His dark skin was still mostly unlined, but his salt-and-pepper hair had gone completely white since the last time Shep saw him. He rapped on the door and waited for Jones to look up, his heart warming when the other man saw him and grinned.

“Senator,” he said, hurrying to his feet. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?”

Shep rushed to accept the other man’s hand, giving it a quick squeeze before pulling him in for a hug. The familiar scent of Old Spice took him back to sitting outside his father’s office with Jones, waiting for the then state Senator Walker to get back from some meeting or other.

“Sit down, sit down,” he said, urging the older man back to his seat and taking the only other chair in the room for himself. “It’s good to see you.”

“Your daddy didn’t tell me you were coming. How long you here for?”

“Just for the day. I’m on my way back to DC actually, but I didn’t want to leave without seeing you.”

“I’m glad you did.” Jones had been around Shep’s father long enough to know not to ask too many questions. If he wanted to know what Shep was doing stopping at the Governor’s Mansion for the day, he didn’t let it show. Given the way his father conducted his personal life, he imagined Jones’s discretion had even more value than his ability to make sure mac and cheese and she-crab soup made it onto the governor’s dinner menu with regularity.

“How’s that grandson of yours?”

“Good,” he said after a pause. “He ships out next month.”

“I didn’t know he’d joined the service. Which branch?” He leaned back in his chair, trying to keep the concern out of his expression. The last he’d heard, Jones’s grandson had graduated from high school with honors and was headed to college.

“Navy. He started looking at student loans and figured the GI Bill was a better deal. He’s been stationed in Norfolk since last June, but he’s headed to the Gulf next month.” Jones said it with a mixture of pride and worry and Shep didn’t know how to respond. He’d done too many tours through Moncrief Hospital and seen the broken men and women who’d come back home after serving to ignore the risk. But if the kid was already on his path, there was no way he’d add to the older man’s worry with anything other than positive wishes.

“Sounds like a smart young man. When he gets to school, he’ll hit the ground running and employers love that kind of experience. You must be proud of him,” said Shep, praying he sounded convincing. He spoke the truth, but the risks weren’t insignificant. It could just as easily go horribly wrong.

Jones smiled at him, the worry line in his brow smoothing out. “I am that. How are those beautiful children of yours?”

“Growing like weeds,” he said, reaching into his jacket pocket for his phone.

He opened the most recent picture of his two daughters in their dance recital costumes and handed the phone to the other man. “Claire is going to be nine next month and Sarah just turned seven.” The girls were miniature blonde copies of their momma in everything but temperament. Where Sandra was calculating and obsessed with appearances, the girls were fairy-like free spirits, bubbling over with love.

“Lord,” said Jones. “Those girls are every bit as pretty as their momma.”

Shep adored his children, and if he had any real hesitation about running for president, it was over what it would cost them. He didn’t have to worry about his wife. For Sandra, there wasn’t a better accessory than the title of first lady. She’d jump at the chance to be the closest thing America had to a queen, but his kids were still so young.

Sandra might not give a shit about him, but she’d been a decent mother. Too caught up in appearances, but she came by it honestly. Her family was as old and as well-established as his. She’d been raised on the importance of reputations. Given the spotlight they lived under, it didn’t seem fair to complain. Between the two of them, they should be able to protect their children from the worst of the public scrutiny. Growing up Walkers, it wasn’t like they were going to get to be anonymous anyway. And if he won the presidency, he could nudge his party toward a real food security policy for a change. One that would make it possible to put an actual dent in world hunger instead of kicking the can down the road for his daughters’ generation and their children to have to deal with. Haven Graham could help him win.

“Where’d you go?” asked Jones, his dark eyes shining with concern as he handed the photos back.

Walker shook himself back to the present and met the gaze of the man he’d loved most of his life.

“Don’t tell anyone but the wife until I make it official,” he said, certainty settling over him like a mantle. “I’m running for president.”

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H
AVEN SLIPPED THE DRIVER A handful of bills and bolted through the rain to the front door of Key. With a six-month waiting list for a table, they might at least have a covered entrance. She hated being unprepared, but she’d barely made it on time into the city from Dulles. There’d been no chance to go home and she hadn’t needed an umbrella in sunny South Carolina. A man exiting the restaurant held the door for her and she slipped gratefully inside before the rain turned her into a wet T-shirt contestant.

“Mansfield party,” she told the pretty hostess standing at the small desk, ignoring the few people waiting out the rain in the vestibule. When the younger woman found her name on the tablet in front of her, her expression turned from disinterested to accommodating so fast it was enough to give Haven whiplash.

“One of the other members of your party is already here,” said the hostess, ushering her into the restaurant.

The entryway wrapped in dark mahogany trim stood as an antithesis to the light minimalist restaurants serving sustainably caught seafood and locally sourced greens that had become popular in recent years.
This place would have meat
, thought Haven, wrinkling her nose as she took in the dark cigar bar atmosphere.
Lots of big, thick hunks of meat
. It was a throwback to the excesses of the ’90s and proof that eventually everything old became new again.

“Interesting choice,” she said as the hostess left her at a heavy wooden table set with thick white china.

“It is. I admit. Ethan likes retro and red meat. This has both. And it was a bitch to get into. I had to promise children you don’t even have to get this table,” said Justin, getting to his feet and pulling her in to press a kiss against her damp cheek. “You’re like a drowned rat. What happened?”

“How long have you been here? It’s pouring outside.”