Matt chuckled, shaking his head as he maneuvered onto the Pontchartrain Expressway and headed north. He steered the conversation toward Tamryn and her days of growing up in Charlotte, thinking that the less she talked about her research, the less chance there was of her bringing up something that he wasn’t willing to share abouthispast.
It wasn’t long before Matt realized that getting her to talk about herself had less to do with keeping the spotlight off him. The more she talked, the more he wanted to know about her.
“Do you get back home often?” he asked.
“At least once a year,” she said. “My parents make the drive up the eastern seaboard every fall. They love the changing of the leaves. They come up to Boston, then take the drive with the other million tourists up through Vermont and Maine.”
“I’ve always wanted to do that,” Matt said. “The only seasons we have down here are hot and hotter.”
“Tell me about it,” she said with a laugh. “You should come to Boston. It’s beautiful up there.”
“Well, I know for a fact that there’s at least one beautiful sight in Boston.”
Her cheeks turned that adorable shade of pink again. It was so easy to make her blush. For what had to be the thousandth time, Matt cursed the fact that her lovely, inquisitive mind posed such a huge threat to his future. What he wouldn’t give to have her be just a regular tourist visiting Gauthier because she wanted a taste of small-town life.
But she was here for a specific purpose—a purpose that could shatter everything he held dear. He could not allow himself to lose sight of that.
Matt made the drive back to Gauthier in less than an hour. He pulled up to the white picket fence surrounding Eloise Dubois’s yard. There were a least a half-dozen cars parked along the road leading to the wood-frame house. The setting sun sat just beyond the lush vegetable garden on the side lawn, turning the stalks of corn a brilliant orange.
Tamryn brought her clasped hand to her chest. “Oh my goodness, I love the garden. I swear everything in this town just oozes charm.”
As they walked up the porch steps, raised, agitated voices could be heard from within the house.
“Yeah,” Matt said with a cynical snort. “I can feel the charm oozing out from every nook and cranny.”
They entered the house and a hush fell over the den as a dozen wide-eyed stares traveled back and forth between him and Tamryn. The chatter went from quiet to a fever pitch as the older women bombarded them with questions while trying to stuff both him and Tamryn with homemade sweet potato pie and finger sandwiches.
“We can get the skinny on what’s going on between these two later,” Margery Lambert said. “We’re here to discuss this festival they’re planning in Maplesville. Now, what are you going to do about this, Matt?”
The din of angry voices started up again.
Matt stood in front of the television and raised his hands. “Let’s just calm down,” he said. “What exactly is the problem?”
“From what I hear, it’s the same group who convinced their chamber of commerce to allow the outlet mall to be built. They’re planning some kind of customer appreciation weekend. And they’re trying to use the same carnival company that we were renting rides from for our festival. I want the Tilt-A-Whirl here in Gauthier.”
That set off another round of heated arguments. Matt listened attentively to their grievances, while he simultaneously tried to come up with a way to smooth this over so that constituents in both towns would be satisfied. The fact that he’d been so instrumental ushering in the thing that had driven such a huge wedge between the neighboring communities demanded that he come up with a solution. More and more, Matt wished he’d never heard of the Lakeline Group and their damn outlet mall.
“Ladies, please. Give me a minute to look into this. I’ll call Councilman John Devereaux tomorrow. He just took over as president of the Maplesville City Council. We should be able to come to some sort of compromise. I won’t stop until we do.”
Eloise Dubois walked up to him and patted his cheek. “I knew we could count on you, Matty. Your mother would be so proud.”
Her words caused the guilt eating away at him to mushroom, filling every bit of him with shame. Matt could only imagine the disappointment in his mother’s eyes if she were alive to witness her son turning out to be just like the calculating manipulator she’d been married to.
He left the Dubois house with a promise to contact the civic association as soon as he had an update for them.
As they drove to Belle Maison, Tamryn regaled him with conversations she’d had with several of the women at Eloise’s home. Her voice heavy with amusement, she maintained that he had Gauthier’s entire female population wrapped around his little finger.
Matt listened with only half an ear as his mind toiled over the challenge he faced in trying to keep his part in bringing the outlet mall to Maplesville under wraps. He’d hoped that by now people’s anger would have dissipated, but if the arguments he’d heard tonight were any indication, some in Gauthier were prepared to carry this resentment to their graves.
Not for the first time, Matt wondered what would happen if he just came clean about his role in this debacle. He quickly squashed that idea. Despite how popular Matt was with the people of Gauthier, Patrick Carter was a household name to the citizens in the other areas. If he was going to win this election, Matt needed every single vote he could muster from Gauthier’s residents. If he lost any support at all with the people of his hometown, he could kiss that senate seat goodbye, and along with it, any chance he had of making it up to the people of Gauthier for all the strife he and his family had caused them.
That was the true catalyst for his desire to represent District Twelve. He couldn’t turn back time and stop that outlet mall from being built, but as a state senator he could fight for Gauthier’s residents. He owed it to them.
“Matt? Matt, what’s wrong?” Tamryn called.
He glanced over at her. “What?”
“I asked you about your upcoming debate, but I think you’ve zoned out on me.”
