“That’s what they tell me. Now are we going to rehearse today, or what?”
“Yeah. Get your horse, cowgirl.”
“Will do.”
Flynn got a late-night text from Jessie saying that she wanted to canvass in four days, which was when her campaign signs were going to be ready. He didn’t care for texting. It seemed a lot of fuss when they could just talk. So he pushed the call button on the phone. When she picked up, she sounded crabby.
“I could’ve called you if I wanted to talk,” she said, and it was way too easy for him to imagine her dressed in one of her low-cut tank tops, leaning indolently against the nearest wall or countertop as she looked at him through hooded eyes.
“I didn’t want to text,” he said. “I think it’s annoying. You want to put signs all around town, huh?”
“I need to. I’m coming into this race behind. And I have ninety days to really get some traction.”
“Yeah. And I assume you want me with you because …”
“Exactly. Optics.”
“What do you know about optics?”
She was the most uncivilized, feral person he had ever known, and she was talking about appearances? It was very nearly hilarious. He paced the length of his bedroom, looked down at the floor. Then into the mirror above his dresser.
It surprised him sometimes that he wasn’t a gangly teenage boy. He still felt like one half the time. Maybe playing games of revenge wasn’t exactly helping him feel like an adult.
Or maybe it’s that she makes you feel like a teenage boy on the edge of control …
“A surprising amount,” she said. “I know you Wilders have strong opinions about our business, but you realize we have to be pretty damned good to keep a niche place like that going.”
“Maybe I am not seeing it clearly,” he said, and he was a little bit chagrined to admit that, because he wasn’t being facetious. It was true that he probably didn’t fully see the Hancock family the way other people did. It galled him to know that in this respect, he andhis family weren’t so different from the people who had given him guff his entire life.
The Wilders judged the Hancocks based on their ancestry. Well, and the way that the Hancocks exploited that ancestry. But Flynn himself had always enjoyed trading on the idea that he was a bit of a bad boy. How was it different really, for the Hancock family to trade on the sensational notion of outlaws, shoot-outs in the street, and other feats of the Wild West?
Maybe not so different.
“All right. So you’re saying that other people like you.”
“Yes,” she said slowly. “You’re the only one who gets scratchy whenever I ask you about taking bets. Honestly, how do you think I do things in this town?”
He felt his perspective had been turned on its head. Couldn’t say that he cared for it, in all honesty.
“Okay,” he said. “So … you’re not worried about all that.”
“It’s going to be interesting.”
“I guess so.” He paused for a moment. “Do people like your family better than they like mine?”
Her laugh was a loud crack of sound against his ear.
“Are you serious right now?”
“Yes,” he said. “I’m serious. I would like to know what people think of us.”
“People who like coming down to The Watering Hole sure enjoy bad boys. But then I think Austin actually has stepped into the realm of respectability. Plus, Carson married Perry, and she has a business on Main Street. So … really, are you even outlaws anymore?”
“What about me? What’s my reputation?”
“You probably don’t want to go there.”
“I do.”
