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Where the Campaign Ends – Amazon Excerpt

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Excerpt from Where the Campaign Ends

Copyright 2018, J.P. Dalton

“You look lost,” Maggie said mildly.

Ryan cocked his head to the side before shaking it, bringing himself back to life. “I, um,” he started, then regained his rhetorical footing. “I was looking for breakfast, actually.”

“Then you definitely are lost,” she said. “First time in town?”

“Obviously so.” Ryan stepped around the wood railing and sat down in one of the wood chairs on the patio. “Are you staying here?” he asked, gesturing toward the hotel with a tilt of his head.

“No, no,” she said, laughing briefly. “I just borrow the patio from time to time.”

“The owners don’t mind that you’re using the place as a yoga studio?”

“This is not my studio,” she said. “I simply prefer to practice my personal yoga in sight of mother ocean when the universe so allows. The owners have an understanding of her ways, and we have an understanding regarding the patio.”

“Her ways?”

Maggie stepped off her mat and walked to the patio’s edge by the glass. “Where I end up depends entirely on her,” Maggie said patiently. “If the tide allows, I’ll take a spot on the sand. But on days the tide decides to run as high as it does today, I come here.”

Ryan stood up and moved next to her. “Isn’t the tide a function of the moon and gravity?”

“So they say.” Ryan looked at her quizzically, and she couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m fully aware of the science,” she said quickly. “The moon in its orbit determines high tides and low tides. But as for how high or how low any given wave breaks upon the sand, scientific explanation doesn’t do the process justice. It lacks lyricism.”

“I’ll grant you that.” He extended his right hand toward her. “My name is Ryan, incidentally, though I’m not sure if it’s sufficiently lyrical.”

She smiled anew as she took his hand, a dimple creasing her right cheek but not the left. “It will suffice,” she said. “Maggie.”

Ryan turned toward the water, feigning a casualness he didn’t feel. “Where, if I might ask, is your real studio?”

Maggie stared at him for a moment or two, then shook her head. “It is where I need to be shortly lest I disappoint my students,” she said, seeing sadness flash across Ryan’s face at her deflection. “If you’re still feeling hungry, there’s a wonderful place up on Camino del Mar that features crepes.”

“More lyrical than simple eggs and bacon, I suppose?” He turned back in her direction, but she had stepped back across the patio and was rolling up her mat. His gaze lingered. “It was nice meeting you, Maggie,” he said, faking a smile as he started to walk back toward the parking lot. He was between the patio and the lifeguard station when she called out to him.

“How long are you here for, Ryan?”

“To be determined,” he said. “Why?”

She walked to him and touched him lightly on the left elbow. “Enjoy your breakfast,” she said with a smile and walked the opposite direction.

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Where the Campaign Ends, Excerpt Two

One more excerpt from “Where the Campaign Ends,” this one from the very beginning. Want to read the rest? Click over to the “Orders” page and you’ll be all set!

You feeling okay, Boss? You look like hell.”

Riley Evans stood next to her longtime employer Ryan Williams in the wings of the Alys Stephens Performing Arts Center in Birmingham, Alabama. Outside, furious storms rolled through north-central Alabama, and the pair could feel more than hear the muffled thunder rumbling through the building.

Williams had spent the past two decades working as a political consultant, but this night and the months preceding had been well outside his normal experience. He surveyed the scene unfolding around him at the Republican Party’s election results watch party with a mix of dismay and resignation. Across the stage, a jazz band attempted to infuse energy into the cavernous room with a series of old standards. Two big-screen televisions flanked the ballroom, currently showing welcome messages but ready to tune to local television as soon as polls closed and results started to come in. Candidates for offices big and small, from the hopeful future Senator Merrick Comstock to incumbent County Commissioner Gloria Castille, sat with well-wishers in various green rooms throughout the facility. And high above it all, tucked safely in netting in the rafters, red, white and blue balloons were waiting to be released in a deluge when Comstock’s victory had been assured. Dozens of well-dressed men and women mingled throughout the hall, drinking flutes of champagne and snacking on hors d’oeuvres delivered by waiters in faux black-tie attire. Husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, all had gathered together for what they hoped to be a traditional celebration in what had been the most non-traditional of years.

For all the people there, it was the lack of attendance that most caught Ryan’s attention. Only a few hundred people had braved the thunderstorms pummeling Jefferson County to come to the party, rather than the 1,300 the center normally held. At least, Ryan hoped the droves stayed away because of the rain and not the equally stormy campaign the state had endured for the past few months. The air felt heavy from the humidity outside and tasted stale as it was circulated through the building’s heating system.

Ryan let Riley’s question sit and turned toward his assistant, who was more partner than employee after years working together. “We’ve never had anything like this,” he said.

“Rain happens.”

He glanced over his left shoulder and smirked. “I’m not talking about the rain. What in the hell are we doing here?”

Riley’s brows rose in surprise. This was the closest to an admission of error she had heard from the ever-confident Ryan since they’d met. “Are you feeling okay? You’re not really getting introspective on me after all these years, are you?” Riley put a hand on Ryan’s arm and turned him to face her. “You know the rules. Hell, Boss, you wrote the rules. We come in, we do the job. Win or lose, we do the best we can with what we have and that’s that. No emotions, no regrets.”

Ryan smiled thinly. “Did I really make you that cynical?”

“I’m really not, not like you,” she said. “If I was I wouldn’t have Nick waiting for me when this is done.”

“You’re really choosing this moment to harp on me again for not settling down with someone?”

“Not at all. But sometimes having a better half keeps a person from making a stupid decision, like coming across the country to get the wrong candidate elected.”

“That’s what I have you for,” he grunted.

Ryan turned back toward the half-empty auditorium, Riley following suit. “The rain’s going to screw with our numbers.”

“It happens.”

Riley took a look at the man standing beside her. He looked as he always did on Election Night. A tailored black suit accenting his trim 6-foot-2 frame, pinpoint white button-down shirt and, on this evening, a violet paisley tie. Power comes from the man, he always told her, not the tie. Straight brown hair suspended with product and combed up and to the right. Not the slightest hint of a five o’clock shadow appearing on his square jawline.

But, despite his usual outward appearance, something was different. This was the fourth election cycle they had worked together, and it was the first time she had seen Ryan melancholy as they awaited results. Even with defeat certain, he always had been able to draw energy from the end of the campaign, like a high-schooler on the last day of school. As she watched him, a single, unexpected bead of sweat rolled from his forehead, down his nose and dripped onto his tie.

“Ryan.”

He lifted his chin slightly in response.

“Seriously, are you feeling okay?”

“I’m just tired, Riley,” he said. “I’m very, very tired.”

Photo credit: Josh Putnam via Twitter

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