Free Stonebrook Cottage by Carla Neggers Page B

to figure it out. An affair with Allyson Lourdes Stock-well, lieutenant governor, was difficult enough. Now that she was governor, it was impossible.
    Six months in prison eight years ago for a stupid barroom brawl would end up costing him the woman he loved.
    He hadn't been involved with Allyson then. Madeleine Stockwell had done her job and made sure he knew her son's widow deserved better than a Jericho. She nipped any romantic intentions on his part in the bud. He remembered that bright, cold afternoon when Madeleine stood out on the patio of the only home she'd known since marrying Edward Stockwell and told Pete he had no ambition, no real prospects. "You'll make a living. You're a Jericho. That's what you do. But it's all that you do."
    She knew he had a "crush" on Allyson, a choice of words designed to further diminish him. And if he loved her, he would understand it was in her best interests that he never act on his feelings.
    Furious, humiliated, he hadn't gone home and hit the heavy bag or chopped wood. Instead, he'd headed to O'Reilly's Pub in town and intervened when an idiot he'd known from high school harassed a woman. Words were exchanged. Fists flew. A couple of beer bottles. He ended up with torn knuckles and a broken nose, the idiot a cut on his jaw that required five stitches. Pete figured the score was even. O'Reilly went along. He wasn't looking to see an account of a brawl in his pub in the local papers, and he hated cops and lawyers.
    Walter Harrison thought otherwise. He was an off-duty cop who happened to witness the brawl. He made a wimpish attempt to break it up, then pushed to have Pete arrested on felony assault charges.
    Stories changed. The woman, who was from out of town, said she wasn't really being harassed and begged Pete not to get involved. Not true. The former classmate said Pete threw the first punch and smashed the first beer bottle and was generally out of control. Walter corroborated their versions. O'Reilly stayed out of it. Pete was convinced, then and now, and so was his father, that Madeleine Stockwell had her hand in it. A few greased palms, a little intimidation. A criminal record would make any romantic relationship between him and her daughter-in-law that much more unlikely.
    He knew he was screwed, but Mike Parisi, a man who understood barroom brawls and the ways of Madeleine Stockwell, recommended Kara Galway, said she was a hell of a lawyer. Big Mike spent a lot of time in Bluefield even after Lawrence's death, wooing Allyson into state politics; he'd always gotten along with the Jerichos.
    Recommending Kara hadn't worked out, at least in Pete's estimation. He'd expected her to find a way to bring out the truth. Instead, she suggested he take a plea bargain when it was offered. The odds were against him if he went to trial, she explained. If he was convicted of felonious assault, he could count on spending three years in a nasty state prison. Plead guilty to a misdemeanor, and he was in and out of the local jail in six months.
    Pete took the deal. He didn't like it, but he took it. He supposed it was unfair of him to blame Kara, but he knew he'd lost any hope of having Allyson in his life the minute he heard the jailhouse doors shut behind him. It was as if Madeleine Stockwell had planned it that way.
    Then last fall, he ran into Allyson when he was delivering wood up to the barn she and Lawrence had converted. She was alone, the kids off for the weekend with friends, and it was like two old friends suddenly seeing each other for the first time, that old cliché. Since then, they met each other when they could, content to watch television together when she was at the barn alone on weekends. Pete would sneak through the woods so Madeleine and Hatch wouldn't find out. That was no longer possible now with round-the-clock security.
    And a secret affair wasn't what he wanted. It couldn't last. He didn't want it to. He wanted to tell everyone—the whole world—that he was in