I shake my head as we enter the parking lot, my BMW sitting dust-covered at the far end. I take a moment to trigger the remote start so there’s at least a chance the heat will have kicked on by the time we get there. In the distance, I see Gam’s senior community, lit up in the night sky like a reminder of why I’m doing all of this. “I can’t believe I have to time development proposals for when the mayor’s sleep isn’t fucked by the neighbor’s new rooster.”
She snorts. “Welcome to small town politics. Happy to have you back.”
I look at her from the corner of my eye. The cool breeze blows that wavy brown hair over her shoulders, the sun-streaked highlights giving it a more golden hue. Her hands are stuffed into her pockets, her shoulders hunched up against the cold and the brown paper bag that contains her new sweater looped around her wrist. “You certainly seem to have a handle on the politics here.”
She turns to me, raising an eyebrow. “If that was the case, I wouldn’t have had to apply to the historical society.”
I shrug. “Well, assuming small town politics aren’t that different from big city politics, it’s very rarely black and white. You gave them something they wanted with the understanding that when push comes to shove, they’d give you the protection you need. Sounds like you have a very good understanding of small town politics.”
She’s quiet for a second as we reach my car. “I guess it did kind of work out for me. Tonight, at least. It sounded like they were truly concerned about protecting the sunflower farm.”
I unlock the car, eyeing the distance between here and Eve’s bungalow. It’s not far, but it is cold.
“Want a ride up?”
Her eyes follow the line of the dirt road leading to her house.
She shrugs. “Sure. Thanks.”
When we get in, I blast the heat, angling the vents in the middle toward her and breathing a sigh of relief that I hit the remote start when I did. She shivers, holding her hands in the warm air.
“Thanks,” she repeats.
“So you’re not worried about whatever the new plan might be?”
Her brow furrows as she settles into her seat, pulling her seatbelt over her lap. “The new plan? You’re not going to try again with the same one?”
“I mean, Eve, wouldn’t you be pissed off if you were the town mayor and somebody came back with the same exact proposal as if you were dumb enough to not remember?”
She bites her lip as I pull out of my parking space. “Well, I figured maybe you could move it a little bit away from my land and maybe add just a couple more units, you know? It’s not the same proposal, it’s just giving him what he wants.”
“I thought I did.” I pull onto the main driveway, heading slowly for her bungalow in the distance. “There are a lot of notes on that doc. And my guess is that he’s not going to be satisfied with one or two more units.”
She nods, and when I glance over at her, she’s staring at the currently unoccupied plot of land next door. “Do youthink you’re going to have to start over? Make one of those big box apartment buildings instead?”
I raise my eyebrows as I pull up to the front of her house and throw the car in park. “Have we graduated from calling them fugly?”
She turns to shoot me a glare. “I never called them fugly.”
“As good as.”
“Well, if the shoe fits.”
“Oh, so we’re doubling down now?”
“Ryder! I’m trying to be nice.”
I grin at her. “What I sacrifice in looks, I make up for in affordability. However, I understand that you want to look at something with a little more charm. I get it.” And I can’t resist poking the bear. “In Sunflower Hill, we all bow to the Sunflower Queen Eve Harper.”
She rolls her eyes. “I’ll have you know, I was about as far from winning Sunflower Queen as anyone could be.”
I blink. I forgot that was a thing.
“To be fair, the fact that this town doesn’t have a Homecoming Queen but a Sunflower Queen is a little scary, to begin with.”
“Don’t I know it,” Eve says, her gaze running across the farm before landing back on me and leaning forward. “You want to know something juicy though? The girl my year who won Sunflower Queen was Reed’s daughter.”
“Reed has a daughter?”
