The First Gardener Read Online Free PDF Page B

He failed at times. He knew he did. Weariness alone could do that to anybody. But he did his very best to make a real difference to the people of his state. He would never trade his precious family time for anything less.
    He stacked the newspapers on the edge of the kitchen island—the Tennessean , the Knoxville News Sentinel , the Chattanooga Times Free Press , and Memphis’s Daily News . He had already consumed the New York Times and the Washington Post during his run on the treadmill. And he’d used his time lifting weights to focus his heart, unclutter his mind, and talk with a Creator far more capable of taking care of Tennessee than he was.
    The lawsuit was front-page news for each paper. The response from the governor’s office was sixth-page news. “Hello, Monday.” Gray rubbed his hands together and placed his elbows on the island. “Rosa, today I think I’ll have Belgian waffles with Devonshire cream, sugared blueberries, and warm maple syrup.”
    Rosa shook her head. “ Absolutamente , Señor London.”
    He took a long sip of orange juice, the pulp thick as it went down. Rosa set his plate down before his glass made it back to its place. In front of him was a spinach, mushroom, tomato, and bell pepper omelet.
    He studied the plate, then looked at Rosa. Her black eyes didn’t budge from his stare until that wide grin fell across his face. “Perfecto.”
    She smacked him with a damp towel that she had laid across her shoulder. Yesterday the request had been chocolate-chip pancakes with chocolate drizzle, and he had gotten it. But in order to stay as fit as he could for the office of governor and for chasing after a five-year-old, he gave himself grace for ridiculously unhealthy food only on the weekends. So Rosa knew that, no matter what he asked for Monday through Friday, he always got an omelet.
    Before he left, he gave Rosa a peck on the cheek, reddening her olive complexion, and took his second glass of orange juice and the papers down the hall to the office he kept in the residence. He could put in almost two hours there before Mack’s eyes even opened.
    The office was rich and warm, with paneled walls and floor-to-ceiling bookcases that housed most of his books from his previous life as a lawyer, plus the autobiographies he loved to consume. He sank into the cool leather of his chair and leaned back, setting his glass of juice on the coaster in front of him. It was one Mack had given him at Christmas, decorated with a family picture.
    Compared to most governors he was pretty young. He had been sworn into office at age thirty-nine and now, at forty-two, plans for his reelection were already well under way. But being governor hadn’t been a lifelong plan. Far from it. Even now, there were moments when he shook his head over the direction his life had taken.
    There had actually been a brief time in college when he wondered if he should go into ministry. He had been president of his Fellowship of Christian Athletes chapter at the University of Tennessee, where he had enjoyed a pretty good run as quarterback. But he was no Peyton Manning, so professional ball had not been on his radar. Nor had politics, just people. Gray London had always loved people. And he had finally settled on law as a good way of serving them.
    Then came a trial where an obviously innocent man went to jail because of a questionable judge and horrible antics by both prosecution and defense. Gray saw it all firsthand, from the trenches, and he believed his state was getting a disservice. He had become a lawyer to defend people, to protect them—to provide a voice for people who didn’t even know they had one or who couldn’t afford one. But maybe that wasn’t enough. Maybe he needed to work to change the system. That’s when he started on the political path that had led to the governor’s mansion.
    But politics could be brutal, as he’d quickly learned. And there were a lot of complicating factors, such as the need for