That actually wasn’t a bad idea. When we’d been teenagers, we’d done our fair share of camping out in the woods surrounding the Havens’ property. But that wouldn’t suffice for this trip—not if the goal was to get herawayfrom her family so she could breathe a little.
“Maybe,” I murmured, trying to figure out the details in my mind. A lot of the bulk work at the bakery had already been done, and we’d moved on to the finishing work. It’d been a small remodel, all things considered. Mostly cosmetic—just enough change to make the space feel more like Lilah’s since she was edging to take over more of the duties.
And the work needing to be done at the cabin… Hell, it had been going along fine for ten years while I’d been gone. What was another couple days?
Now the only thing I had to worry about was how I’d convince Kenna. It’d take a hell of a lot to get her to skip out on her duties. And though I hoped the only reason she’d pulled away this week had been because of her overworked status, I couldn’t help but worry it had something to do with the call I’d received.
And the reminder that I wasn’t there to stay.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
MAC
I restedmy head on my daddy’s—er, my—desk and closed my eyes. I could do that because I was acting mayor, and there wasn’t anyone around to tell me I couldn’t.
Iwas acting mayor. Who thought this was a good idea?
Certainly not my daddy. Since I’d taken the seat at his desk on Monday, he’d done nothing but hover, stare over my shoulder, or elbow me out of the way when I wasn’t doing something “correctly.”
Basically, he was being his usual overbearing, pain-in-the-ass self while also not listening to his doctor’s orders to take time off. My momma was havingnoneof it. She’d allowed it for all of two days, and then she’d swung the hammer hard, hiding Daddy’s car keys so he had no way to get to town hall and forbidding anyone from giving him a lift. God bless her, because the in-person pop-ups courtesy of Richard Haven had finally stopped.
Now all I had to contend with were the incessant phone calls. Every fifteen minutes, Daddy called about something or other—none of which were overly important. All of which could wait until the thirty-second of Never. It’d gotten so bad, I couldn’t hear a phone ringing without cringing.
As if that weren’t bad enough, I’d been continually knocked down at every meeting I’d tried to attend on the mayor’s behalf this week. On my daddy’s schedule had been meetings with the sheriff, the council members, and the school board.
I’d dutifully gone to each, complete with a tablet Will had procured me for making notes, but I could’ve left the thing in the office for all the good it’d done me. Hell,Icould’ve just stayed in the office because the “meetings” were a giant waste of time.
This week alone, I’d been told more times than I could count that they didn’t feel comfortable discussing issues with me because I was too young, not to mention a lady. Initially, I’d laughed. Ha.Hilarious.
And then I’d realized they’d been serious. The first time it’d happened, I’d stared, gaping at Sheriff Halsey, my daddy’s best friend and a man who’d been in my life for almost three decades, unable to find my words.
I’d found a hell of a lot of them after I’d gotten home that evening and had washed the day off myself. Iexcelledin make-believe arguments in my shower, and if this week were any indication, I’d be a gold medalist in the shower-arguing Olympics when this was all said and done.
So, yeah, I was exhausted, trying to do a job I didn’t exactly know how to do, just out here floundering by myself. What I really needed was a nap. Maybe I could close my eyes for just a second… No one would?—
A knock sounded at my door before it opened, and I snapped my head up, a piece of paper sticking to my forehead. I reached up and yanked it off my face, hoping whoever had walked in hadn’t seen that.
Hudson leaned against the doorjamb, arms crossed, amusement dancing in his eyes.
So much for the futile hope that he didn’t see anything.
“What’re you doin’ here?” I asked.
His gaze ping-ponged all over my face, reading me, so I sat up a little straighter and hoped I didn’t look as defeated as I felt. “I have a proposition for you.”
“Do you?” I ignored the way my stomach flipped over all the possible propositions he could suggest…most of them dirty. I’d been ignoring a lot of dirty ideas lately. Too bad my dreams made up for it.
He nodded. “I do. I want you to come campin’ with me this weekend.”
Memories flashed through my mind of all the times we’d gone in the past. We’d spent a solid seventy percent of our childhood outdoors, between the lake cabin and my parents’ property, and we’d had so much damn fun fending for ourselves out there in the wilderness.
I was horrified to realize a knot had formed in my throat over thoughts of how things used to be between us. God, I hadn’t thought it’d be this hard to have him home. I hadn’t thought having these memories resurface would feel like I was being cracked right down the middle. Like I was excavating my soul.
And now I had not only my memories of our past, but our present, too. Thoughts of what we’d done in the woods the other day had been on a near-constant loop in my mind, keeping me company at the most inopportune times.
It was hard to force the council members to take me seriously when I spent the majority of our extremely unproductive meeting squirming in my seat.
“I can’t.” I blinked, realizing that croak had been me. I’d truly had no idea what I was going to say to his offer until the words came out of my mouth. But as soon as I said them, I knew it was what I needed to do for my self-preservation. “I, um, have to work. At the bar.”
