After Her Flower Petals: A Second Chance Romantic Comedy (The Svensson Brothers Book 7)

by Alina Jacobs

  “The alligators?” Art was incensed. “You can’t be listening to those urban myths. Conspiracy theorists are ruining this town. Was it Mr. Boyde?” Art demanded. “He’s been after those imaginary gators for years. He’s constantly throwing food down the storm drains. He’s going to make everyone sick. All he’s doing is feeding the rats. Did I tell you I saw a rat as big as a cat the other day? Huge fat thing crawled out from under Dottie’s car.”

  “Are you sure it wasn’t a possum?” I asked wearily.

  “It was Mrs. Mantigo’s cat,” Meg said, walking past us with a plate. She had secured her lunch on time. Now there was a line around the bistro.

  “Now, Deputy Mayor,” Art began. I used the opportunity to scoot past him. Meg could have her time taken up.

  “If you want my vote, I have a list of grievances…”

  “And I helped you make bail when you were arrested for stealing zucchini out of Mrs. Levenston’s garden,” Meg countered.

  “She had so many dang zucchini,” Art insisted. “She wasn’t doing anything with them, just overwatering them. They were as big as a grown man, just saturated with water. She’s losing her marbles, I tell ya. People who overwater their plants…” He wandered out of the restaurant.

  “How did you get rid of him that quickly?” I asked Meg in shock.

  She shrugged. “Redirection and a firm tone.” She smiled. “All part of the job as a public servant.”

  The further I got along in the election, the less I actually wanted the job. Oh, I wanted to win. I hated losing, but I could not sit through another public meeting.

  Meg sat down and took a bite of her sandwich. I reached out to steal the other half. She batted at my hand. “You should have arrived here on time.”

  “I was here early before the lunch rush,” I insisted, “but Art—”

  “Sounds like bad planning,” she retorted, taking a bite of the sandwich.

  There was commotion at the door. Several people pushed in and rushed to Meg.

  “There’s a man here!” Dottie practically squealed to Meg. “And he’s here asking for you.”

  “He’s so handsome!” Bettina swooned. “If only I were twenty years younger.”

  “You don’t look a day over forty,” I assured Bettina.

  “Oh, you flirt!” She giggled. “If my hip replacement wasn’t acting up…”

  “I told you, you needed to do some yoga,” Ida said, striding in with Walter fucking Holbrook.

  I stood up abruptly. “Get out of my town.”

  “Oooh!” the senior citizen brigade said.

  “Are you kidding me?” Meg shoved me aside. “Hi, Walter, you’re more than welcome to come to Harrogate. Don’t mind Hunter.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” he said.

  I did not like the way he was looking at Meg. And I certainly did not like the way she was looking at him.

  “Next time, we’ll make a whole day of it. I did want to take the excuse to see you and drop off your things.”

  “You found my purse!” Meg said happily.

  “I didn’t think you wanted the bag,” Walter said. “It seemed to be ruined, so I took the liberty of buying you a new one. I also had your phone professionally cleaned and had your makeup replaced. The exact brands.”

  “But that lip gloss had been discontinued,” she said, astounded.

  I didn’t like it.

  “There is nothing I can’t do, Meghan,” Walter said smoothly.

  “Except stay away where you’re not wanted,” I cut in. “And not be a complete piece of shit.”

  “You should talk,” Walter said, narrowing his gaze at me. “I know how you operate.”

  I shot a glance at Meg. She was looking at Walter like how she used to look at me.

  25

  Meghan

  Rose and Minnie oohed and ahhed as they carefully unboxed the Birkin bag Walter had given me.

  “It’s beautiful!” Rose exclaimed.

  “I think you should definitely date Walter, not Hunter,” Minnie said, carefully folding the tissue paper.

  I reached for the bag, but my sister slapped my hand away.

  “Your hands aren’t clean. You’ll get it dirty.”

  “Honestly, what am I going to do with a bright-blue bag?” I asked, staring at the expensive purse.

  My sisters gaped at me in shock.

  “You are so spoiled,” Minnie declared, flopping on my bed. “A handsome guy buys you a designer bag, and you complain. No wonder Hunter doesn’t want anything to do with you.”

  Ugh. Teenage girls.

  I washed my hands in the sink. The town hall debate was tonight. Walter was probably going to be there. Since he had given me the bag, I felt obligated to wear it. I slid it on my shoulder, or tried to. It was made for people a little smaller than me.

  “You’re supposed to carry it on your arm or in your hand.” Minnie demonstrated.

  “I look silly,” I said, staring at my reflection in the mirror. “I have papers and notebooks I need to carry.” I set it back on the bed and packed up the canvas tote I typically used to carry my stuff. Then I shooed my sisters out of the apartment.

  The city hall atrium was packed and rowdy.

  “The over-under is three to one, Meg,” Art yelled out as people lined up to place their bets. I pushed through the crowd.

  “Art,” I hissed, “you cannot run a gambling ring in the middle of city hall.”

  “The man can’t make an honest living?” Hunter interjected behind me.

  “This isn’t honest. It’s gambling!” I said, incredulous. “You can’t be mayor, Hunter, if you’re just going to encourage people to act like Harrogate is a Wild West frontier town.”

  “I already put down five hundred dollars,” one woman complained to me. “You can’t go around shutting it down now!”

  I threw up my hands.

  Hunter looked me up and down then smirked. “Where’s your new bag?” he asked, like he already knew the answer.

  “I’m not taking it out among the riffraff,” I said primly, turning to march to the front of the room.

  Hunter huffed out a laugh. “Please. You hate it. Let me guess,” he said, matching his stride to mine as we walked to the front of the room, “Walter bought you a fancy bag in a bright color, and it’s not big enough.”

  I gritted my teeth in irritation. “Did you also stalk him when he bought the bag?” I asked. “Why do you care so much?”

  Hunter grabbed my shoulders, whirling me around to face him. “Walter is no good for you.”

  “You don’t think anyone is good enough for me,” I retorted.

  “That’s not true,” he countered. “I’m good enough for you.”

  “You’re not.” I brushed him off. “You’re a terrible fixture in my life.”

  He chased after me. “You wouldn’t know what to do with yourself without me.”

  “Yes,” I said dryly. “Whatever would I do with all the free time? Hell, maybe I’d be married with a bunch of kids right now if you weren’t around to chase off all my—”

  “Your what?” Hunter scoffed. “The guy with the feral rabbits? Or the cactus guy, or, I know, the one who was trying to poison everyone with water he pilfered out of a stream. You seriously want to settle down with any of them over me?”

  “You’re exhausting,” I said, looking away from him.

  Hunter tilted my chin up. My eyes met his gray ones. “Please. You love the drama, the action, the spontaneity. You’d be miserable with someone like the fish-obsessed guy.”

  I shuddered involuntarily. “When you put it that way…”

  Hunter looked hopeful.

  I smirked. “Walter might not be so bad.”

  Hunter worked his jaw. He was clearly trying to keep it together. “Take it from me, you don’t want someone like him in your life.”

  I tapped my chin. “I don’t know. You two seem pretty similar.” I set my bag down to take my place on the stage. “The hysterics, the
over-the-top gestures, the obsessions with money, image, and reputation.”

  “Reputation is important,” Hunter hissed at me.

  “You’re just mad because you hate to lose,” I whispered back at him as the moderator, Garrett’s girlfriend, Penny, smiled up at us.

  “Thank you for attending this evening,” she announced to the crowd. They kept chattering. Garrett stood up to stare down the people who were still talking. Penny patted him on the head. “As the editor of the Vanity Rag, we are happy to be moderating this town hall. Let’s try to keep tonight civil. This is not an open forum. You do need to have an actual question. And Ernest is up first.”

  “I just have a quick one,” the farmer said, fidgeting with his overall clips. I smiled at him. He was notoriously shy, and his question must have been important for him to be up here. “I think that we need more programs to get kids interested in staying in Harrogate and be involved in farming.” He backed away from the microphone then took a few steps up, said thank you, then sat back down next to his granddaughter. Amy patted him on the shoulder, and he mopped his forehead.

  “That’s a great question, Ernest! Ida, let’s start with you.” Penny gestured to the older woman.

  “You have to make farming sexy,” Ida said. “That’s why I’m proposing a Make Farming Sexy festival.”

  “You can’t solve this type of issue with a festival,” I interjected.

  “Meg,” Hunter admonished, “festivals are a Harrogate tradition!”

  I shook my head. “During the last five years of my tenure as deputy mayor, I have championed a number of initiatives for job training and will continue to do so that young people know farming is a viable option for their futures.”

  “You did all of that in conjunction with the Rural Trust, which the Svenssons founded,” Hunter shot back. “If you are looking for a track record of people helping farmers in the area, the Rural Trust and the Svenssons are at the top of the list.”

  “Remy and your entire family are not running for mayor,” I exclaimed.

  “It’s a package deal,” Hunter retorted. “Buy one, get a hundred free!” That earned him laughs from the crowd.

  Penny waved up the next townsperson.

  “I’m glad you brought up festivals,” the woman said. “Because I love all the festivals in Harrogate! The only problem is we don’t have enough.”

  “Thirty-seven out of fifty-two weekends every year have a festival scheduled,” I reminded everyone. “They are a big tourist draw and great for community bonding, of course, but we do have a lot.” I hoped I didn’t sound like a person who hated festivals because festivals were sacred in small towns.

  “That’s the problem,” the middle-aged woman insisted. “We have too many people coming into town for the festival. We need to have a secret festival that’s only for residents.”

  “You need to have a question,” I reminded the woman.

  “Don’t listen to her. She’s in a bad mood,” Hunter cut in. “Your statement was fine, and I support festivals in all shapes and sizes. My mayoral administration will be all-inclusive.”

  “You are welcome to join the festival-planning committee anytime as well,” I told the woman. “We love to have volunteers.”

  “I don’t have time to plan anything. I just thought it would be a good idea.”

  “Just buy some booze and head to the town square,” Ida suggested. “Anything can be a festival if you try hard enough.”

  The next townsperson stepped up to ask a question. It was a giggling young woman. She tipped down the microphone. “Um, so I have a question. I feel like there aren’t enough eligible men in Harrogate. Hunter, when are all your college-aged little brothers going to come back?”

  “Some of them will be back over the summer to do internships,” Hunter said, “though I refuse to let them run wild around town, so I’m not sure how much of them you’ll be seeing.”

  “If you do see them,” Ida added, “I sell a wide assortment of condoms in my general store. I also have the rest of my sex toy inventory that the courts haven’t seized yet, but I bet those Svensson brothers don’t need any of that!”

  “Depends on how much they’ve drunk,” I said acerbically.

  “Are you fucking kidding me? You never needed ‘extra help’”—Hunter made air quotes—“when you were with me, and you never will.”

  “I don’t know. You’re getting on in years.”

  “I’m not old!” Hunter practically shouted. “Walter is old. Walter is old enough to be your father, and yet you were on a fancy yacht with him, and you let him buy you a bag. What’s next?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he’ll break into my house, and we’ll have sex?”

  “I didn’t break in.” Hunter scoffed. “You invited me.”

  “Take Hunter back, Meg!” several ladies wearing Meghan The Mayor shirts begged.

  “I’m sorry,” I said over the din. “Are there any policy questions? Also, Penny, were these questions not prescreened?”

  “All questions are valid,” Hunter retorted.

  The next person stepped up.

  “Archer, sit down.”

  “I have a right to ask my question!” he insisted and pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. “I want to be able to own a camel.”

  “No!” Hunter and I both said at once.

  “I think it’s a fine idea,” Ida said. “We could offer camel rides down Main Street. We could have a camel festival! It could happen every third Wednesday.”

  “We cannot have camels running loose on Main Street.” Hunter was irritated.

  “Why?” Archer demanded. “We have the chicken festival. It’s super popular!”

  “I have a question,” Ida said, raising her hand.

  Penny made a face. “You can’t ask a question.”

  But Ida steamrolled ahead. “Meg, if you become mayor, who’s going to be your mayoral consort?”

  “That’s not even a thing,” I said slowly.

  “So it’s going to be Walter.” Ida made a note.

  “Oooh!” the crowd murmured.

  “No,” Hunter said forcefully. “That is not going to happen.”

  26

  Hunter

  “It’s Election Day! It’s Election Day!” my little brothers yelled happily. It was four a.m.

  “Why are they up?” I growled.

  My bedroom door was flung open, and Remy cheerfully bounded in and threw all the covers off of me.

  “This is your big day,” he told me. “The polls open at six a.m. We need to get ready to bus people in.”

  I lay back on the pillow. I hadn’t slept last night. My mind tormented me with visions of a landslide mayoral win for Meg. She would be at the victory party, Walter standing next to her. They would kiss… I could not allow that to happen. Even if I didn’t win, I wanted to at least be standing next to her. But I wasn’t sure if Meg was ever going to take me back. If she hadn’t by now, would she ever? Not to mention, my winning the mayor election would probably nuke any chance of her allowing me back in her life in any meaningful way. But if she did win, there was still the chance that she would just go ahead and settle for Walter.

  Fuck.

  I’ll win the election then worry about winning Meg.

  “Get up!” Remy called, sticking his head back in the bedroom. “This is your big moment! I made breakfast burritos.”

  After riding with Remy to drop my little brothers off at school, we went to our first stop to pick up residents to take to the polls.

  “Shouldn’t we have brought food?” I asked Remy as the school bus trundled down the country road. “Why didn’t Karen provide any catering?”

  “I told her not to bother. The folks at good old Shady Hills Retirement Community don’t like eating food off schedule,” he explained, turning down a long drive. “It gives them the runs.”

  “Holy smokes.”

  “You didn’t think you’d be giving rides to good-looking twentysomethings, did you?”
Remy grinned at me. “We are serving the neediest. And these people cannot drive because the state took away their driver’s licenses on account of all the mailboxes and flower beds they were destroying.”

  There was a line waiting for the bus when we pulled up in front of the three-story building.

  “I’ll lower the wheelchair lift,” Remy said cheerfully, “while you help these young ladies up the stairs.”

  “Oh, you teaser!” a woman with blue hair permed within an inch of its life, large dark sunglasses, and a walker covered in pink said with a laugh as Remy winked at her.

  I offered her my arm.

  “I’m sitting next to you!” she declared as she hobbled up the steps. “I’m the president of your fan club, Hunter.”

  We slowly made our way down the bus aisle as the elderly woman prattled on. “I downloaded some shirtless pictures of you off the internet, and I had my granddaughter upload it to one of those custom-pillow websites. You know, the ones in China that can print anything on a shower curtain, pillow, blanket, you name it. She didn’t want to—gave me a lot of grief—but I told her I’d disown her if she didn’t.”

  “I’m flattered,” I said weakly. I helped her into a seat.

  “I don’t know why Meg doesn’t just waltz right into your campaign office and bend over and give you a mouthful,” another woman said. She was tottering precariously on the top step of the bus. I grabbed her before she fell backwards.

  “Can we still ride this bus if we’re not voting for you?” an ornery older woman with a cane and a shirt that read Team Meg on it asked me.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I assured her. “We are here to take people to the polls, no pressure.”

  “Good,” she said. “Because I’m not voting for you. The way you paraded all those hussies through town—you should have settled down with Meg like you were meant to. She’s a good, small-town girl.”

  “I did try…” I began.