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  A Heart Divided

  By

  Iris Bolling

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, locales is entirely coincidental.

  A Heart Divided

  Copyright©2010 by Iris Bolling

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without the prior written consent of the publisher ore author, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-9801066-3-3

  ISBN-10: 0-9801066-3-X

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2010902844

  Cover and page design by: Judith Wansley

  Siri Austin Entertainment LLC

  www.siriaustin.com

  www.irisbolling.net

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you my heavenly father. Raymond, Chris and Champaine, thank you for your love, support and patience. Judith Wansley, thank you for the ability to “draw a little bit.”

  Linda Gordon, Kathy Six, Monica “Helesi” Simmons, and Cathy Atchison, thank you for your time, knowledge and encouragement. Roz Terry, LaFonde Harris, and Gemma Mejias: the roots to my tree, thanks for always answering the telephone. Valarie Johnson and Tanya Thompson, thank you for keeping it real.

  Wiley “Devin” Franklin, thank you for sharing your knowledge. To the beautiful people, Monica Jackson, Sakeitha Horton, Justin Wansley, Jason Wansley and Stephen Howell, may God’s blessings always be with you.

  To Beverly Jenkins and Gwyneth Bolton, thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience.

  To my mom, Evelyn Lucas, my sister Helen McCant and brother Albert “Turkey” Doles, family is the strength that binds us forever and always.

  To all of my readers, your wait is over. Enjoy book four of The Heart Series as the saga of JD and Tracy’s journey towards the White House continues. The pieces of the puzzle to JD and Tracy’s lives are about to unfold.

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to, Monica Jackson; thank you for always being ready to ride. Love you.

  Books by Iris Bolling

  The Heart Series

  Once You’ve Touched The Heart

  The Heart of Him

  Look Into My Heart

  A Heart Divided

  A Lost Heart

  The Heart

  The Heart Always Wins

  Night of Seduction Series

  Night of Seduction/Heaven’s Gate

  The Pendleton Rule

  Gems and Gents Series

  Teach Me

  The Book of Joshua I – Trust

  The Book of Joshua II – Believe

  A Lassiter’s Christmas

  Ruby…Red Slippers & All

  The Book of Adam – Hypnotic

  The Book of Timothy – Symmetry

  Phire: I’m Just Saying

  Brooks Family Values Series

  Synergy

  Fatal Mistake

  Propensity For Love

  The Dunning Trilogy

  Invested

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Books by Iris

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Epilogue

  Sneek Peek

  More from Iris

  Prologue

  Ten Years Ago

  Walking along the bank of the James River, checking the abandoned buildings, a shiver traveled down the back of Officer James Harrison’s neck. Normally he would credit the cool air to being close to the waterfront—but tonight he knew better. For the last three blocks of his beat, he was being followed. Two men trailed, one a building down, across the street on the right and the other directly behind him. They seem to know the beat he normally walked--building by building. Taking a few steps off his normal path, he looked into the window of an abandoned building he knew was being used by the homeless as sleeping quarters on warm nights, he called out. “Charlie, are you in there?”

  “Hey Mr. H,” the man dressed in a dirty white tee shirt, ripped shorts and a pair of sneakers that were clearly at least one size to small answered. “What you still doing out here? You should be home with that pretty wife of yours.”

  “Charlie, I want you to do something for me.”

  “What you need?” the man eagerly asked.

  James smiled at the man he had come to consider a friend. “I want you to hold on to this.” He pulled off his wedding band and put it in Charlie’s hand through the broken window. “I want you to take this to my house and give it to my wife.”

  A concerned look covered Charlie’s unshaven face as he looked down at his hand. He looked up into the eyes of the man that had tried several times to get him cleaned up and off the street. “What’s going on James? You in some kind of trouble?”

  “Things going to get a little heavy around here and I don’t have time to explain. When I reach the corner, I want you to haul ass out the back. Don’t stop to look around, just keep going.”

  “Man, you need me to call back up or something?

  James thought about that, but his back up was the very man, plotting his death. “I just need you to get out of the area. Now go.”

  James waited before turning. He wanted to make sure Charlie was out of range of danger. The people following him would not want any witnesses. Walking down the street, he wondered if he should have done anything differently. Should he have forsaken the blue code of silence, to tell what he knew? It was too late to think about that now. The one thing he knew for sure was that he was not ready to die. If they were going to take him out tonight, he was going down fighting.

  Using his radio was out of the question, the person pursuing him would be listening to the same channel. He was trapped. Releasing the clip that secured his weapon to his belt, he slowly pulled the weapon out and held it down at his side. At the sound of wheels, screeching around the corner, he raised his weapon and froze as he looked into the eyes of a young boy. It was a second later that he recognized what the child was holding. The first blast hit his left shoulder. He got off a few rounds, but his revolver was no match for the semi-automatic weapon the boy had. The second shot hit his chest--those that followed were a blur.

  He was a God-fearing family man, who loved his wife, son, and precious daughter. Closing his eyes for a moment, he prayed, Lord if I have sinned against any person please--forgive me. His wife crossed his mind. Please give my wife the support she will need. Make sure she knows each day how much I love her. Watch over my children. Lord, have mercy on my soul.

  Opening his eyes, he saw his partner standing over his now numb body. “The law is not always black and white, James--there are gray areas. You never understood that.”

  Barely audible, even to the man standing over him, “I understood the blue code,” he choked out. “Revenge shall be mine, saith the lord.” The last thought to enter his mind was of his son.

  J.D. Harrison had fallen asleep, lying across his bed in his apartment near campus, studying. He was two weeks away from graduating from law school and one month from taking the bar examination. His father entered his dreams. “Take care of your family, Son. Always—take care of your family,” his father was saying as he had so many times befor
e.

  “I will Dad, don’t worry,” he replied. Only this time his father did not say, if anything happens to me. When JD turned to remind him of the words he missed, a sound jarred him from his sleep.

  Groggy and dazed, JD reached for the telephone on the nightstand next to his bed. “Hello.”

  “JD, this is John Roth. Son you need to come home.”

  Chapter 1

  Present Day

  Jeffrey “JD” Harrison, the Attorney General of Virginia, sat in his office on the tenth floor of the state office building in downtown Richmond. Standing beside him behind the desk was his friend and Chief of Staff, Calvin Johnson. Brian Thompson, another friend and head of his security team, sat in a chair facing the desk, as the sitting Governor, Gavin W. Roberts stood at the far end of the office with his back to them looking out the window. As the men talked JD’s attention wandered to the door of his office just as his wife Tracy appeared at the opening. A pleasing smile creased his lips as he stood to walk over to her with his arms stretched wide as the anticipation of holding her began to build within him. Just then, Al “Turk” Day, his imprisoned brother-in-law appeared behind her. His heart rate began to increase as a frown formed on his forehead. Before he could ascertain why Al was there in his office and not in federal prison, a shadow crept over the two standing in the doorway and a sense of danger grabbed his heart. He raced to gather Tracy into his arms just as an explosion went off.

  JD sprung up in his bed at a sound, bewildered. He ran his hand down his face as remnants of the dream held him captured. The fact that the dream mirrored his life left him a bit disoriented. Looking around at the furniture in the room, it took him a moment to realize he was in his own bed, in his own bedroom, and in his own home. Lying back against the pillow he sighed loudly as he touched his chest to ensure that his heart was still intact and found that his skin was moist. He closed his eyes and exhaled a sound of release as he realized it was just a dream, again. But this time the people in the room had faces and he recognized all except one of the players—the shadowy figure. One of them was Tracy and she was in danger. He reached over for her and found her side of the bed empty. He sat up and looked at the clock on the nightstand beside the bed. It was four-fifteen in the morning. Listening to the quietness to determine where she might be, he glanced at the baby monitors sitting on the night stand on her side of the bed. No sounds were coming from his son JC’s nor from his daughter Jasmine’s bedrooms. That really didn’t mean anything, for Tracy had been known to fall asleep in one of the children’s bedrooms regularly, especially lately. Throwing the comforter and sheets aside, he slide into his slippers and went in search of his wife to put her back where she belonged—in bed beside him.

  He cracked open the door across the hallway and smiled at his two year old son Jon-Christopher, “JC”, sleeping with his thumb in his mouth and the caboose to the train set he’d received for Christmas, in the other hand, hanging off the bed. As quietly as he could, JD walked over, put the caboose on the floor and gently pulled the thumb out of his son’s mouth. He pulled the covers up to his shoulders and lovingly rubbed the back of his head that was neatly braided. Closing the door behind him, he looked towards the room next to the master bedroom, where he found his six-week-old daughter, Jasmine sound asleep on her stomach inside of her crib. It was apparent that she had recently been fed. On a stand next to the crib were an empty bottle and a cotton diaper folded neatly across the arm of the rocking chair. Unable to resist he walked over and kissed the child that look so much like her mother, he fell in love all over again the moment she entered the world. But there was still no sign of Tracy.

  Closing that door he walked forward into the upstairs open foyer and listened. He thought he heard a sound downstairs, and was about to descend the steps to investigate when he noticed a light in Tracy’s office. Retracing the two steps he had taken, he walked to the other side of the open foyer and stood in the archway of the room. Tracy was curled up on the sofa with a book. Papers were on the top of the desk as the screensaver on the computer ran a collage of pictures of him, JC and Jasmine across the screen. Moving the mouse to shutdown the system he noticed a document from Next Level Consulting on the monitor marked urgent. Next Level Consulting was a company Tracy and his sister Ashley had started when they were in college. The multi-million dollar grossing company was Tracy’s brain-storm and she loved it as if it were one of her children. Not one to question her affairs, he clicked the save button then the shutdown button and waited for the system to close down. He then turned to his sleeping wife and smiled.

  It was clear that he was highly favored by God. His wife of a little over four years was as beautiful today as she was the first time he’d met her. Nothing or no one but God could have prepared him for the impact that smile, he’d witnessed across the breakfast bar in his condominium five years ago, would have on his life. The once carefree bachelor with everything within his grasp was now the Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Virginia with a wife and two children, on their way to twelve. A wife that he had taken a bullet for, a wife he’d almost lost to a brutal beating and a wife whose eyes were void of that special gleam they once had whenever she looked at him.

  Before they married, he withheld information from her regarding the identity of her biological father from her. Nine months ago, the vengeful Carolyn Roth-Roberts, daughter of the powerful state Senator John Roth, revealed the truth to Tracy. Since that time, Tracy had grown more and more withdrawn. When she told him she was pregnant with their second child, JD was so elated. This was the second chance he needed to show her how much he loved her. For a while things were getting better, but then his job began taking him away from home. To complicate things more, his brother-in-law and campaign manager, James Brooks, was pressing him to run for Governor in the next election.

  For months, it seemed his heart was divided between protecting and serving the citizens of the state of Virginia and keeping his wife happy. Desperately, he wanted the shine and unwavering trust back in her eyes. But more than anything, he wanted to see her smile reach her eyes again. Tracy, even with the discord in their marriage, made his days warm as sunshine just knowing she would be waiting to greet him and his nights hot with her unyielding passion and love.

  His mistake came in wanting to protect her from harm. But it was apparent that his over-protectiveness caused her more harm than good. Now he had to find a way to gain her trust back, for he still loved her beyond reason. If there were any way he could turn back time, he would have handled things differently. With all the power he had within his hands, he could not change the past. Only God and time could heal the wounds he had caused her. For now all he could do was make sure she knows how much he loves her and their children. Without her, he could not and did not want to survive, for she was the core, the soul, and the heart of him.

  Just watching her sleep had his heart racing and stirred his body’s lower regions into action. He walked over and noticed she had been reading a book. That, in itself, was not surprising; he believed Tracy had read every book in every library within a hundred mile radius. Gently sliding the book from her grasp he read the cover, then he turned it over to read the back and realized it was a romance novel. Why is she reading a romance novel? He wondered which of her friends it had come from, his sister Ashley, or could it have been Rosaline. No, more than likely, it was her friend Cynthia trying to corrupt his baby’s mind. “She doesn’t need that.” He placed the book on the table next to the sofa. Bending down he picked her up into his arms and kissed her forehead.

  She sighed as her arms circled his neck, she kissed his throat, “Hi babe.”

  “Hi yourself,” he replied as he carried her to the bedroom and quietly closed the door with his foot. Placing his half sleeping wife in the spot he had awakened from a few moments before, he began to unbutton the top of his pajamas that covered her body. Once that task was complete, he marveled at the smooth, flat, paper bag color skin that was before him. It was hard t
o believe that only six weeks ago his daughter had been there. Unable to resist, he kissed her navel honoring the stomach that had carried his two children and was the future home of more. The feel of her skin beneath his lips caused his manhood to throb with the sensation of needing to touch his wife. Her leg moved beneath him as if knowing he needed access. Sliding his pajama bottom to the floor, he joined her on the bed and began planting kisses on the inside of her thigh, just above her knees, creating a trail up her thigh with his tongue. Her inner scent mixed with the vanilla body gel she used, called out to him to taste her, but he resisted, he want to savor the precious minutes he would have her to himself. Leaving the right thigh he then followed the same path on her left thigh with his tongue until he reached the very core of her. The moment his lips touched her he felt her body awakening, and he could not help but smile at her response. It never failed, whenever, however he touched her, her body would respond as if it was waiting just for him. That simple knowledge always moved him to the core and prompted him to give her all he had to give. Her hand lovingly rubbed the back of his head as her hips moved up bringing the center of her snuggly to his lips. Holding her waist securely, he pulled her body to the edge of the bed to him, planting kisses up her stomach, to the curve of her breast, finally reaching her lips just as the tip of his manhood slid easily inside her. The sound of her moan always surged through him like a rocket, straight down south to where his love for her swelled and cried out for relief.