Karen Templeton - The Marriage Campaign

“You know this for a fact.”

The ache in his voice, the fear … her heart cracked. “That it will happen? No, of course not. That it could? Absolutely.”

Their gazes tangled for a long moment. “Speaking from personal experience?”

“Partly,” she said after a moment. “And that’s all I’m going to say about that. I also have no intention of giving you advice, but from what I’ve seen … I thought you should know.”

“And you think I don’t?” Wes lobbed back, his voice low but his eyes screaming with guilt, with ambivalence. “That I’m so engrossed in this job I’m oblivious to my son’s pain?”

“No, Wes, of course not. But—”

“But, what?”

Her hand covered his before she even realized she was doing it. “Redoing his room won’t make up for your not being there.”

“And maybe that’s all I have.” He pushed out a rough breath, then seemed to realize they were touching. Slipping his hand out from under hers, he said, “I know this is far from ideal. Especially since this wasn’t how things were supposed to pan out. The plan was, if I won, that Jack’s mother would be there for him when I couldn’t be. The plan did not include some texting teenager slamming into her and Deanna on a wet road three weeks before an election I didn’t actually think I’d win.”

Then he schooled his features in that way men did when they didn’t want you to see the torture behind them. Too late , Blythe thought as Wes continued. “But I did win. And I’d made promises to those people who put me in office. Not to mention to my wife, who’d been my staunchest supporter through that campaign from hell. Promises I feel very strongly about, that …”

Breathing hard, he shook his head. “I’m between a rock and a hard place, Blythe. And I’m trying my damnedest to find a balance. Jack’s hardly fending for himself, with my parents living in the house. And when I’m in Washington I call him every morning to wake him up, Skype every evening before he goes to bed, if I can—”

Wes signaled to the waitress for the check, waving off Blythe’s noises about paying for her own breakfast. Check in hand, he stood and called to Jack, who was clearly reluctant to leave Quinn, then faced Blythe again.

“I’m making the best of an impossible situation, even though I know … I know it’s not enough.” He dug his wallet out of an inside pocket in his coat, tossed some bills on the table before punching his arms through the sleeves. “But what else can I do—?”

“Dad?” Jack came up behind him, his forehead crunched. “You okay?”

Wes turned to smile for his son. “I’m fine. But we need to get going, I’ve got a ton of reading to get through before I go back tonight.”

After they left, Blythe dumped her wadded up napkin on her plate and lowered her head to her hands, feeling her cousins’ puzzled gazes boring into her skull.

Yeah. The ride back to St. Mary’s should be really interesting.

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