by Alina Jacobs
He nodded. “I’m still trying to make up my mind on who to vote for,” he said, putting the brakes on his walker that morphed into a seat and then plopping down on it. “I want to know what your plans are about all the alligators in the sewers.”
I blinked. “Excuse me, Mr.…”
“Boyde,” he said. “My grandpa used to work for the municipal water plant. Said there were alligators down there. I’ve brought this up numerous times to Mayor Barry and Meg. Now, you have my vote if you promise to do something about those dang alligators.”
“Sir, we are too far north for them to survive.”
“That’s not true!” Mr. Boyde insisted. “I had a lady friend over the other day, and she went to use the facilities and said there was an alligator in there. She screamed and flushed the toilet before I could catch it. Now I want to know what you’re gonna do about it!”
I wracked my brain. One kid came over hauling a large bag of fried pork skins.
“That’s not on the list,” I told him. “Put those back where you found it.”
“But it’s for an art project!” my little brother whined.
“We will not have an industrial-sized bag of pork skins in the house.”
He sighed loudly and stomped off.
“Sir.” I turned back to the elderly man. “I’ll ban the owning of alligators.”
“What? You can’t do that. This is a free country! A man should be allowed to have an alligator if he wants to!” Mr. Boyde thundered.
“No, Nate,” I told another brother who was walking past, rolling a large drum of marshmallow cream in front of him.
“It’s for a recipe.”
“No it’s not; put that back.”
“I just don’t want them dumping the alligators in the sewer,” Mr. Boyde continued.
“Fine.” I blew out a breath. “I’ll make the dumping illegal.”
“But what are you gonna do about the ones already down there!” he demanded.
“Davy, no, put all that cat food back. We don’t have a cat.”
“I’m gonna feed it to the alligators!” my little brother explained.
“Did you see them, boy?” Mr. Boyde demanded, peering at Davy.
Davy nodded. “I thought it was a dinosaur, but Remy said it was one of the alligators that lived in the sewers!”
“You’re not dumping cat food down the storm drains,” I warned him.
“But you said I could have anything!” he cried.
I felt a headache coming on. I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Fine,” I said, “you want cat food? Go for it.”
“You watch out for those alligators, young man,” Mr. Boyde said as I helped haul him to his feet. “Even the little ones can bite off your finger.”
I checked the time. Was Meg out right now with Walter? I needed to know. But I had three carts of groceries to pay for.
“I’m hungry!” one of the kids complained, which started the rest of them off.
I tried to relax my shoulders. “You can all go buy food from the cafeteria,” I told them.
Remy wandered into Costco as the cashier was scanning the cat food.
“Is that for the alligators, or are you adopting a feral cat?” he asked me.
“How is this a thing? Why are people talking about alligators all of a sudden?”
“If you’re going to be mayor,” Remy chided, “you need to know what’s going on. I bet Meg knows about the alligators. Or she’s getting very intimate with the snake in Walter’s pants.” He grinned.
“Do you know something?” I growled.
Remy laughed at me. “Relax. Meg is totally going to go for you and the cat food over Walter and his yacht and billions.”
“Walter has a boat?”
Remy showed me an article on his phone. “A big one.”
“Fuck. Maybe I need to buy a boat.”
“I think you’d better focus a little closer to home.”
Davy held out a hot dog to me and a slice of pizza. He was covered from head to toe in mustard.
“He’s just getting ready for the wurst festival next week,” Remy said with a laugh.
21
Meghan
“Did you dress up like Catwoman to steal a car?” I hissed at Kate.
“We’re not stealing,” she countered. “It’s your car. The bank can’t just lay claim to everything in the house.”
“Technically, they can if you leave it there past the eviction-notice date. They sell it to recoup some of their losses.”
“Boo,” Kate said. Then she struck a pose under the streetlamp. “I still look pretty hot, right?”
She did.
“Being a billionaire’s wife agrees with you,” I told her, dragging her back into the shadows.
“Ooh!” she exclaimed. “If you take Walter up on his offer, you could be a billionaire’s wife too!”
I made a face as we snuck alongside the side of my childhood home to the backyard. “He’s your father-in-law,” I reminded Kate. “Wouldn’t that be weird? Wouldn’t his kids, including your husband, think it’s weird if their father was dating someone their age?”
“Honestly, Walter has done so many crackpot things and dated so many shitty women, they would probably welcome someone who wasn’t a gold digger.”
“But that’s what people would see me as,” I argued. “The Holbrooks are old Connecticut money. Wait, what am I saying? There’s no way I’m even considering dating him. All the stress is getting to me.”
“Once we steal the car,” Kate promised, “we’ll go to that place with the deep-fried, cheesy mashed potato balls you were telling me about. They have alcohol, too, right?”
“Yeah,” I said with a grunt as I struggled with the lock on the shed.
When I was in high school, I had saved and scrimped for a car of my own. After working after school and during summers, all I had been able to afford was a beige station wagon from the seventies with the fake wood paneling and the vinyl seats that smelled like plastic. I had hated driving the car. It was built like a tank, got about five miles to the gallon, and couldn’t go over forty-five miles an hour. But I needed wheels.
The lock finally squawked open, and I pulled back the doors to the storage shed.
Kate screamed bloody murder, which made me scream too.
“Something touched the back of my neck,” she said, batting at her hair.
“It’s a leaf,” I said, breathing hard. I did not want a bug to crawl on me.
“I need like three cocktails and a shower after this,” Kate said as she gingerly helped me clear off the car.
“This sucks,” I complained. “All of this sucks.”
“I can’t believe Hunter brought up your car at the debate.”
“It was Karen,” I said. “I bet she talked him into it.”
“She’s the one who should be ashamed,” Kate said as we finally moved enough stuff out of the way to open the trunk of the car and clamber in through the back hatch.
“Honestly, has she been waiting for the last five years for her chance at Hunter? It’s pathetic, really. We should pity her.”
I screamed, and Kate screamed and ran. I jerked and banged my head.
“Is it a spider?” she asked from outside the shed.
“I don’t know, but I felt something.”
“Five cocktails,” Kate promised me as I stuffed myself behind the wheel of the car. “Five cocktails, and we’re ordering cheesy fries and those chips that are smothered in chipotle sauce and bacon.”
I said a little prayer to the car gods. The key was in the glove compartment where I had left it right before moving to Manhattan with all my hopes and dreams of an awesome job, a droolworthy apartment, and a rich boyfriend who would buy me huge bouquets of flowers I could bury my face in.
“How far we have fallen,” I said then cranked the key. Nothing happened. “Why can’t I have a win?” I wailed.
“Just put it in neutral,” Kate told me. “I texted Allie. She said if
we stash it somewhere, she’ll come look at it tomorrow.”
I jerked the gear stick, put it in neutral, then helped Kate pull the car out of the storage container with some nylon rope I’d found.
“Girl power!” Kate exclaimed, high-fiving me as we tugged the car out. “Could Karen and her skinny martini ass pull an entire station wagon out of a shed? I think not.”
We leaned against the porch, sucking in air.
“Where are we going to put it?” I asked after we were able to breathe normally.
“Main Street is ever so slightly downhill from here,” Kate said. “We get her going, then we just have to swing down a block, and there’s the campaign office. Come on!” She pulled me up to my feet.
“I’m going to need chili on my cheese fries after this,” I warned her as we heaved the car down the driveway.
Kate was wrong. It was not slightly downhill to Main Street. Rather, it was very downhill. As soon as the car jerked off the driveway, it started rolling backwards down the hill.
“Shit!” we shrieked and raced after it. The station wagon picked up speed. Fortunately, it was built like a battleship and was going in a straight line. I knew from experience that the steering wheel was a bitch to turn. I was thankful for that now as the car picked up speed, narrowly missing a rosebush, and clanked down the hill.
“This is going to ruin my campaign!” I huffed, sprinting after the car. “Maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Maybe I need to move to Boston or Atlanta and give up the politician life.”
“Never. You have to beat Hunter.”
The car hit a dip at the bottom of the hill, bounced in the air, then came to a teetering stop at the intersection.
Kate and I raced down to it and collapsed next to the car, sucking air.
“Maybe we should start going to the gym,” I said, doubling over.
“Yeah, I’m totally going to start working out. This is embarrassing.”
A car rolled down the street, headlights bright. It pulled to a stop in front of us. I peered, my eyes adjusting to the light as the driver’s-side door opened, swinging up like the Batmobile, and Hunter stepped out.
A smile crept over his face. “Did you steal that car?”
“This is my car,” I insisted. “I have the title; it’s in my possession. No one can prove it was in the storage shed to begin with.”
Hunter snorted. We looked at each other for a beat.
“Are you even going to apologize?” Kate demanded.
“Me, apologize?” He snarled. “When Meg was over there flirting with Walter Holbrook?”
I bit back a smile. Hunter was furious!
“He’s twice your age,” Hunter ranted.
“He is,” I drawled, “but you know what? He still looks good. I’ve had a thing lately for dark-haired men.”
Hunter’s nostrils flared. “He is my sworn enemy. He stole my company.”
“Oooh, yes, it does suck when someone lies to you and then screws you over.”
Hunter stepped up to me and grabbed my arms. “I have never.”
“You’re literally trying to steal my job!”
“That isn’t personal, Meg!” he yelled. “There are other forces at work.”
“Funny,” I told him. “Because there are other forces at work for me, too—namely sexual attraction ones.” I threw off his hands. “Guess I am going out with Walter after all.”
Hunter bared his teeth.
“And,” I added, “it’s very personal.”
22
Hunter
“When was the last time you slept?” Greg asked me. He was in Harrogate for a meeting at Svensson PharmaTech.
“Days,” Garrett said, typing on his laptop. “He just prowls around the estate.”
“Everyone is on edge,” Mace added.
Parker nodded. “You know, Hunter, I can give you some of this new horse tranquilizer I’m working on.”
“You need to get it together,” Greg told me. “Meg’s doing this to get in your head so you’ll lose the election.”
“No, she’s not!” I exploded. “She’s doing it because she likes Walter. She was flirting with him at the debate.” I ran a hand through my hair then smoothed it back down.
“Get a grip,” Greg spat.
“I cannot allow Meg to fall in love and spend the rest of her life with Walter,” I said, pacing.
“I don’t know,” Garrett drawled, “I bet they’d make great-looking children.”
Crunch. The phone screen in my hand cracked. “I need a drink.”
“It’s ten in the morning, Hunter,” Mace chided.
“And the day is wasting. Did you find anything out about Meg?” I asked Garrett.
He sighed.
“You better have,” Greg said.
“I can’t believe you’re on his side,” Garrett told Greg. “After the amount of grief he’s caused.”
“I will not allow Walter to win again. Even if Hunter deserves it.”
“I don’t deserve it if you don’t deserve it for what you did to Belle,” I snapped at my brother.
He bared his teeth at me. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
I met his gaze. “What happened between Meg and me was a gross misunderstanding. With Belle, however, you were just a fucking dick.”
Garrett gave me a blank look. “You’re lucky the Frost brothers owed me a favor. Because in other instances when Meg has been on dates with men in Harrogate, it has been easy enough to social engineer their plans. Walter Holbrook is another story all together. The Holbrooks keep their information under lock and key. However, I have been informed that Walter is planning on taking Meg out for a, dare I say, quite romantic date.”
I read the itinerary on Garrett’s tablet.
“Okay,” I said, skimming the text. “Who do we know who has a boat?”
“You do know how to plan an evening,” Karen remarked later that evening when the car I had hired to drive her into Manhattan stopped in front of the restaurant. She was wearing a slinky red dress with a low-scoop neck, and her hair had been blown out. “You sent a limousine for me and everything!”
“I had business in the city, or I would have ridden with you,” I lied.
I hadn’t had anything to do in the city. I just hadn’t wanted to spend an hour and a half in the car with Karen. We probably should have used the opportunity to talk about the campaign, but she used any excuse to touch me or run her hands through my hair or down my chest as she pretended like she was adjusting my tie.
The only woman I wanted to touch me was Meg. Unfortunately, I was going to have to up the pressure to make her notice me. The past few years, we had just been circling each other. I hadn’t pursued her as seriously as I should have. Now, though, with the threat of Walter taking the love of my life from me, I wouldn’t stand for it.
“They have our table ready for us,” I said as Karen reached up to pretend to straighten my bow tie. However, it was straight. I knew it was straight. I knew how to tie a bow tie, but she was still touching me.
“We have a private table for you and your girlfriend, Mr. Svensson,” the maître d’ said when Karen and I were in the lobby of the restaurant. “It’s somewhere more private from the table you originally requested.”
“No,” I told him firmly. “I need that specific table.”
He tried to keep the surprise off his face. “Let me see what can be done. We have several private rooms.”
“That table,” I repeated.
We waited in the foyer. I impatiently checked my watch while Karen made acerbic comments about the townspeople at the debate.
“…And there was one man who called and asked me about alligators in the sewer. Honestly, Hunter. I hope when you’re mayor, you’ll bring some culture to those rednecks.”
“They’re good people,” I said.
What was the maître d’ doing? I was going to miss my window. We had to be in place by six forty-five for my plan to work.
“Your table is ready,” the maître d’ said, returning.
Finally.
“Are you sure you want to sit here?” Karen asked, wrinkling her nose when the maître d’ led us to the table. “It’s so out in the open. Can’t we sit in one of the private rooms?”
“No,” I barked.
“I don’t want to sit with the riffraff.”
“It’s Manhattan. You take whatever table you can get,” I said, pulling out her chair. I made it into my seat, leaning back slightly and sipping my drink, two minutes before showtime.
The table had the perfect view through the restaurant. People walked to their seats like they were on a catwalk. At five ’til seven, Walter Holbrook guided Meg through the restaurant. She was wearing a dress I had bought for her on one of my inconclusive attempts to try to win her back. She had told me she had sold it. But she hadn’t, I was happy to see. It looked just as good on her as I’d known it would. The dress scooped down the back and the front, a gold chain the only thing keeping it from completely sliding off. I’d had visions of her with it on, nothing underneath. I would pull the chain, ripping the fabric… Now Walter had his hand too fucking low on the small of her back.
What if he’s the one ripping it off of her… I released my grip on my scotch glass. I needed to be cool and in control to deal with Walter.
It took Meg a moment to see me, but when she did, oh, she was furious!
“Hunter?” she hissed at me. “Are you fucking stalking me?”
I raised an eyebrow and slowly took a sip of my scotch. “Funny, Deputy Mayor, I was about to ask you the same thing. I was here first, after all.”
The flush of anger that had started at her neck had traveled down her chest. I wanted to run my hands along her skin.
Focus.
“I’m just here on a date,” I explained to Meg. She whirled around. Karen gave her a smug little finger wave.
“This is the hot place to eat in Manhattan, I’m told,” I continued. “Obviously, I don’t live here, so I was just going off of recommendations.”
“You… you… you always do this!” Meg cried then lowered her voice when she realized people were watching. “You try to ruin my life. You ruin any shot at happiness I have.”
