The Governor's Lady Read Online Free PDF

herself. Not brilliant, but all right. Just enough, not too much .
    She remembered her father’s first swearing-in, all the men in swallow-tailed coats, women wearing hats. Nobody wore hats anymore, and Pickett had banished the swallow-tailed coats. Everybody in dark blue, just like ordinary folks, only cuter. Pickett Lanier, man of the people. He had asked her to wear dark blue today. They argued, compromised. The maroon suit, yes, but a dark blue topcoat.
    She wondered what had been going through Cleve Spainhour’s mind as he stood there years ago with one hand on the massive old state Bible and recited the oath. Triumph, satisfaction, sure. But was there, back where it didn’t show, a hint of doubt, trepidation? Probably.The state was in bad shape then—potholes in the roads, schools ranked near the bottom, money changing hands among politicians and people who needed something from them. Not that she had been aware of it at the time. She was thirteen, and she remembered her trepidation in moving from the familiar, the upstate, the only home she had known, a measure of anonymity, to this. Could she fit in, make new friends, protect herself? She had, but it wasn’t easy. Not easy for Cleve either. She knew how he struggled to make things better, lost many fights, won a few. But what she remembered most about her father, all these years later, was his sense of himself. He liked being Cleve Spainhour, and the rest didn’t much bother him. She had seen and felt that, and decided she would be as much like him as possible. He was a gentleman, but he didn’t back down. She determined to be a lady cut from the same fabric, with the same backbone. Sure, she felt some trepidation of her own today, but she had sought this and won this, and whatever else happened, she liked being Cooper Lanier. All the rest, she would deal with. After all, she had the bloodline.
    When she looked at her watch, it read eleven-fifteen. Where in the hell was …?
    Carter stuck his head in the door. “Allison’s here.” He made a face. “She’s in her room. I told her I didn’t think blue jeans would do. Just kidding, but she got pissed. She’s changing.”
    Allison’s door was closed. Cooper rapped, opened it, peered in.
    Allison sat, shoulders slumped, on the side of the bed, looking at the unopened duffel bag at her feet. She turned to Cooper. “I hate this place.”
    Cooper sat beside her on the bed, gently tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, then reached for Allison’s hand. She flinched but let Cooper take it.
    “I know that, honey. It’s okay. You don’t ever have to live here again if you don’t want to.”
    “I don’t.”
    Allison was quiet, shy, inward, intensely private. From the time they moved in eight years ago, when Allison was fifteen, she had recoiled from the noise and bustle of living in the state’s most public home. She was suspicious to the point of paranoia. Was the house staff poking in her closet? Why was the door of the medicine cabinet in her bathroom ajar? What were all the strange noises? Cooper did what she could to shield her but knew she often failed. Allison had a perpetually wounded look and hunkered inside it, trying to keep the world at bay, just as she hunkered over whatever sketch pad or easel she was working on, hunkered over her food at the table. “Sit up, Allison,” Pickett would say at the rare meals when he was home. “I am sitting up,” Allison would reply, and slump her shoulders even more.
    “I’m glad you came,” Cooper said after a moment. Pickett had wanted to send a state plane to pick her up in Atlanta, but Allison insisted on driving. Cooper glanced again at her watch. They would have to leave for the Capitol in fifteen minutes.
    Allison looked up, saw the glance. “Don’t worry, I won’t make you late. And don’t worry about me misbehaving and screwing things up.”
    Cooper stood, went to the closet, opened it. It was full—dresses, coats, shoes. Allison had left