A Vote of Confidence Read Online Free PDF

worthless fool, the way some men of his acquaintance had. He could have, if not for
     his mother.
    Danielle Hubert McKinley had come from the finest of New York families — the Huberts, able to trace their ancestry back to
     English and European royalty. But Danielle’s heart, filled with the love of God, had yearned to leave the world a better place
     for having been there.
    Before her husband died and her own health began to fail, she’d taken her son — and later, his younger sister — with her on
     visits to poorhouses, jails, and hospitals. Many a time, Morgan had sat on a chair on the top floor of a noisy tenement house,
     the scent of rotting garbage rising from the street below. He’d watched his mother ladle soup into a sick woman’s mouth and
     seen the tender way she spoke to those with dirty faces, ragged clothes, and rotten teeth. Never had he seen her act as if she were someone’s
     better. Not even once.
    Later, when chronic pain became her companion and she’d relied on others to tend to her needs, his mother seldom complained.
     Instead she encouraged her caregivers and thanked them for all they did on her behalf.
    And to everyone — those for whom she cared and those who cared for her — she shared the hope she had in Christ. Pauper or
     prince, it made little difference to Danielle McKinley.
    It was in the latter years of his mother’s life, as Morgan took her to spas in England and Europe looking for some way to
     ease her pain, that the idea for the New Hope Health Spa was born. He’d seen the relief she’d found in the warm mineral waters,
     but had also seen that those places had room only for the wealthy.
    “The poor need this too, Morgan,” his mother had said. “Oh, that there would be such a place — one that welcomed everyone,
     rich and poor. And one where God was invited to move and to heal. Make it happen, son.”
    All of this went through Morgan’s mind as he stood in the front parlor of the house he owned in Bethlehem Springs.
    While the room was small in comparison to the ballrooms and halls of his boyhood homes, it was large enough for entertaining
     members of this town’s elite society. And if he, the outsider, wanted to win the election for mayor, then he
must
entertain. He had only six weeks to become a fixture in the minds of the town’s citizens. From now until the election, he
     must spend more time in Bethlehem Springs than he spent at the resort. It was as simple as that.
    Fagan had informed him that his opponent, one Hiram Tattersall, was not particularly well liked. That was good news. Still,
     Morgan surmised Harrison Carter would not be glad to know he was running for office. If the chairman of the county commissioners gave his support to Tattersall, the election might not
     be easily won, despite Morgan’s best efforts.
    He left the parlor and went into what he planned to use as his study. A large table filled the center of the room, its surface
     covered with plans and drawings and account sheets he’d brought with him from the building site. After glancing at the papers,
     he moved them to one end, clearing the space he needed to begin strategizing his campaign.
    An hour later, he had filled four sheets of paper with the chicken scratches he called writing when a knock sounded on his
     front door. He wished he could pretend he wasn’t home, but he couldn’t. His automobile was parked in plain sight. However,
     his visitor — in addition to interrupting his train of thought — had served to remind him of one more thing to add to his
     list.
    Hire household staff
, he scrawled before rising from his chair and walking toward the front of the house. He opened the door to find Kenneth Barker,
     the minister of the Methodist church, standing on the porch.
    Several times over the past year, Kenneth Barker had visited the resort site. On his third visit, he’d invited Morgan to join
     him at the Methodist church some Sunday.
    “I would, Reverend Barker,