Heart’s Desire
Monica Jackson spins a dark tale of political intrigue that will keep you locked into the pages until the very end. ~ Phoebe Imel
Will drama and desire make her dreams come true?
This is how it goes…
Chapter One
Kara Smith mustered every ounce of will in her body and soul not to sob aloud. She knew the sound would upset her mother. She smoothed her mother’s damp curls and whispered softly, “Mom?”
Her mother’s eyes opened, first filmed over with pain, and then overflowing with love for her daughter. The hospice nurse returned with the pain medicine. Her mother sighed gratefully as the potent painkiller took effect
The pastel colors in her mother’s bedroom dimmed to tones of gray in the darkened room. A faint sickish and antiseptic smell replaced the familiar warm, floral scent of her mother.
The nurse sat in the easy chair across the room. She was grateful for her presence in the wee morning hours. She’d called the hospice panic-stricken when her mother gasped for air, her breathing erratic and weak. She tried to prepare herself for the inevitable, but faced with the reality of her mother’s death, she wasn’t ready—she would never be ready.
It was her mother’s death watch, the last vigil. Her body trembled. How could she bear it? Now, she would be truly alone.
“There is something I want you to know,” her mother said suddenly, in tones stronger than she’d used for weeks.
Startled, she flinched. Her mother’s eyes were lucid and clear.
For a moment, hope coursed through her. Would it not be tonight? Immediately, she felt ashamed of her hope. She was selfish, cruel. A few days more in her beloved mother’s presence meant prolonging her mother’s pain and suffering a few days more. Death was the release her mother prayed for daily.
“It’s about your father.”
My father! Her mother had always said he was dead. When she was younger she’d wondered why there were no pictures of him around the house, no mementos, never any reminder or hint that he once shared her mother’s life. Her mother had become tight-lipped and silent when she’d asked about him as a child.
She stopped asking as she got older. Whatever her mother’s secrets were, they were in the past and best left alone, she decided. Her father was a ghost, buried in the past and long forgotten.
Her mother squeezed her hand with unexpected strength.
“He’s a great man, your father,” she said.
Is a great man? Was her mother going to tell her he was alive? Fear curled within her, warring with her overwhelming grief.
“I want you to know of the blood running through your veins. I want you to know him.” Her mother’s eyes took on a strange intensity. “Tell her to leave,” she whispered, nodding toward the nurse.
She glanced at the nurse who had already stood up to go. When the door shut, her mother relaxed against the pillows and breathed in deep, gasping breaths.
“Mom, this is not necessary—”
“Let me finish,” her mother cut off her words. “I loved him more than life itself. I would have died for him. But what he needed me to do was easier than dying, my love…” she said in a rush of exhaled breath.
She shook her head in protest, not wanting to hear more.
“He was right,” her mother continued. “I wasn’t good enough. I would have held him back. He had a plan and a mission, and he’s achieved all his dreams. I was so dark, so uneducated, poor, and pregnant He never would have achieved his dreams with me. So, I gave him the greatest gift…I gave him what he wanted and needed. We got out of his life.”
Her mother paused, her dry, withered, brown fingers picking at the snowy white sheets. Pain filled her mother’s eyes, but it wasn’t the familiar physical pain.
She choked and gathered her mother’s frail, emaciated body in her arms.
“You’re good enough for anybody and everybody, Mom. You’ve always been there, and you gave and gave, and even when you had nothing left, you would find the strength to give some more. Whoever this man was, if he wasn’t there for you when you needed him, he wasn’t good enough for you.” Kara’s voice was low and fierce. She hated this man—her father.
“But, you don’t understand. You are blessed to have his blood running through your veins. I want you to know him. Promise me you’ll at least learn about him after I’m gone. He’s Congressman…Sidney Eastman.”
Her blood froze when she heard the name. Then it pumped hot, fast, and furious through her heart. Congressman Eastman, politico fat cat, presently the favorite spokes boy of the conservative majority powers. Some people called him a sellout, most people called him worse.
This was the man her mother had protected, mourned, and loved all these years? She was incredulous, then a fury greater than she had ever known shook her.
She looked at her mother lying back exhausted among the pillows, gasping for breath with the effort it had taken to speak those words to her daughter. Tears ran down her mother’s withered cheeks.
She remembered the years of struggle her mother had gone through, alone…always alone. Mom had provided for her, and wanted to give her more when there was never enough. Then, when things had just gotten a little better, her mother had finally gone to the doctor about the pain. It was cancer—and it was too late.
She murmured the words of reassurance and comfort her mother needed to hear, but the man would pay. She vowed it, with all the grief and resolve in her heart welling up to a surge of fierce hatred. She would know him all right! And one day, Congressman Sidney Eastman would be sorry—so very sorry.
