by MJ Fredrick
“I see that.” She inspected the figures, which were lower than she expected. Had Brianna somehow talked these people into a deal?
Brianna was already turning the tab to decorations. “If we go with any of those places, we’re going to really have to work hard to make them look pretty. These are some of the ideas I got off the Internet, and I priced how we can make them ourselves.”
“In our free time,” Gracie muttered, sliding Liz’s warmed plate in front of her before sitting herself.
Brianna bared her teeth at her sister. “You got to have your party.”
“Because Abuela paid for it,” Gracie said. “I’m sorry she’s not around to give you yours. But I have enough on my plate getting ready to go to school without making stuff for your party.”
“Girls,” Sophia chided. “We will do what we can, but we have to make sure we can afford it.”
“I still have my dress,” Gracie said.
Sophia perked up at that but Brianna screeched in disgust.
“That frothy white thing? No. No. A hundred times, no.”
“Maybe Mom can alter it into something you might like better,” Liz offered, looking at her mother, who was already shaking her head.
“I wish I could, but I’m not that good. I’m sorry.”
“Maybe I could sell it and use the money to buy my dress.”
Gracie made a face. “Let me think about it. I mean, Abuela took me to San Antonio to buy that dress, just her and me. I don’t know if I can let go of that.”
Liz admired her sister’s sentimentality, but she herself leaned toward the practical. “What else do you have here?” Liz asked, turning back to the book.
“Music. I can do that. Between me, Joyce and Sarah, we should have enough music. Invitations. Again, I can do that. Some online sites have good sales, and I don’t have that many people to invite.”
Liz turned to the tab marked “dream dresses,” and took a deep breath. “Wow. These are stunning.” And way too sexy for an almost-fifteen-year-old. “Not traditional.”
Brianna set her jaw. “It’s the style.”
Liz turned the binder toward Gracie, who widened her eyes.
“Brianna, you don’t have the boobs to hold that up,” Gracie said.
Sophia grabbed the binder and turned it toward herself. “Mija! I don’t think so.”
“But Mom. I’d look so pretty. And I’d wear Abuela’s pretty necklace. Liz can put my hair up, with tendrils hanging down.” She lifted her hands to frame her face and trail down her neck.
Liz had to say, her sister’s slim form would be stunning in one of the strapless column dresses. Liz could already imagine how she’d style her hair.
“I think we should at least go into San Antonio and see if we can try some of these on.”
Brianna raised bright eyes to her sister. “Are you serious?”
Liz nodded, swallowing her fear that her baby sister was growing up too fast. “Since school’s almost out, we’ll go Monday.”
Brianna vaulted out of her chair and hugged Liz tightly, then dropped back into her chair and pulled the binder back in front of her.
*****
“That was a nice thing you did for your sister,” Sophia said, leaning against the doorjamb of Liz’s room and folding her arms.
“Yeah, well, she really wants this. I know what that’s like.” More often lately.
“Are you sure we can afford it?”
Liz hated that her mother still felt like they needed to worry about money, and knew it was her own fault. They were doing all right, but Liz found she liked having a cushion of money in the bank, especially since she had rent to pay at the salon. “I’ll put off some of the things I was going to add to the salon. And I’ve been asked to do the hair for Victoria’s wedding party.”
“In all your free time?”
Liz blew out a breath and closed the lid of her laptop, and rubbed her fingertips between her eyebrows. “Speaking of time. I can’t go to San Marcos on Sunday.”
“No? Work related?”
“Um, well. No.” She wasn’t sure how to broach this subject with her mother, who had suffered through the worst of Liz’s behavior. “I have a date.”
Sophia straightened, her arms dropping to her sides. “A date.”
Her tone was flat. Liz turned her chair to face her mother. “A date, with Killian Dawson.”
Sophia’s eyes popped. “The mayor? I thought I saw something going on between the two of you last night, but, well, I don’t see you around men all that often. I didn’t know if that how you usually act.”
“Mother.” She knew her mother knew her reputation, but they’d never talked about it.
“So an honest-to-God date? That’s not a, what, code word or something?”
“A real date. We’re going to the river.”
“When did this all happen?”
“Just the past couple of days.”
“The mayor.” Sophia blew out a sigh. “I never would have thought the two of you… Are you sure that’s a good match?”
Terrific. Nothing like hearing one’s mother voice one’s own doubts. “I don’t know, Mom. That’s why we’re going on a date.”
*****
Liz took a deep breath and inspected her reflection in the mirror, then rolled the cut-off edges of her jeans into cuffs, which made them a little shorter than usual, but disguised the fact that Liz hadn’t gone shopping for summer clothes in a long time. At least her bathing suit still fit.
She’d wanted to meet Killian downtown, but he insisted on coming to the house, which meant her sisters would have questions. She’d deal with that later.
She was pretty sure he wouldn’t just honk the horn, either. He’d come to the door and want to talk. Because that’s what mayors did, right? They talked.
God, the mayor. What was she thinking here?
As she was tucking sunscreen into her bag, she heard the crunch of gravel outside. She glanced out the window and saw Killian’s convertible. She hurried to the living room to get to the door, but Brianna beat her to it, swinging the door wide open and looking pointedly from Killian—in board shorts and an Aggie t-shirt—to Liz in her cut-offs and tank.
“Going somewhere?” she asked brightly.
“Still want a quinceañera?” Liz countered, stepping past Killian and reaching to close the door behind her.
But Brianna stepped in front of it. “Where are you going?”
“The river.”
“Sounds fun.”
“You’re not invited,” Liz said, grabbing Killian’s arm and turning him toward the convertible.
“I never am.”
“Nice to meet you, Brianna,” Killian said over his shoulder, then to Liz. “You have everything you need?”
“How did you know I’m Brianna?” her sister asked, stepping out on the porch.
Killian flashed a brilliant smile. “The quinceañera.”
“You told him about that?” Brianna asked Liz.
“It may have come up.”
Brianna bounced on her toes. “So since you’re the mayor, maybe you could help me find a place to hold it?”
“Brianna!” Liz exclaimed. “Ignore her,”she said to Killian.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Killian said with a grin that made Liz a little weak in the knees, before he took her elbow and guided her to the passenger side of the Thunderbird.
“You don’t have to, you know,” she said when he climbed in beside her and started the car.
“Have to, what?”
“Find her a place. Or even think about it. She’s just obsessed.”
“She’s goal-driven. It’s a good thing.”
“Sure, if she was goal-driven about what college she wanted to go to, or being the next woman to win a Nobel Prize. Not about a party.”
“I remember you when you were fifteen. You weren’t thinking about Nobel prizes or college, either.”
She blushed, something she hadn’t done in a long
time. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to go out with someone who knew so much about her past. “I guess I should be glad she’s not following in my footsteps.”
“You came out all right,” he said, giving her a sideways look as he drove out of town. “I brought a picnic.”
“A picnic?” For some reason panic fluttered beneath her heart. He’d said it was a date, but she hadn’t really thought of it as one. She had to play it off. She twisted to see an honest-to-goodness picnic basket, a wooden one with two flaps and gingham lining, in the back seat. “What did you bring?”
“Sandwiches, chips, sodas, some water. There’s a cooler for the river, too.”
“Does it get its own tube?”
“You bet.” They drove past the last building in town and out on the open road. “So tell me what’s going on at the salon. Has Mrs. Wachowski started yet?”
By the time they reached the river, she realized she’d been chatting most of the time, that Killian had barely spoken.
“God, you must think I’m self-centered,” she said as she climbed out of the car and reached for the picnic basket. “I didn’t bring anything, and I monopolized the conversation.”
“I’m not worried about it. I like to hear about what goes on in the salon. It’s kind of like an inside look into the female mind.”
She gave a husky laugh. “Believe me. There are some days when a girl can have too much girl talk. I don’t know why people feel they can share information about their sex lives with me. I really don’t want to know.”
His eyes flashed before he took the cooler from her. “Then tell me. I want to know.”
“Maybe you can work it into your campaign somehow,” she laughed, hooking her tote over her shoulder as they headed toward the river.
Again, she let Killian take charge when it came to renting the tubes, then when it came to deciding where to put the tubes in the water. She looked around at the other people floating down the slow-moving river and decided to remove the tank top she wore over her bathing suit. She tucked it in her bag and straightened to see Killian watching her, a different light in his eyes.
He stripped off his shirt, and she almost swallowed her tongue. She’d seen him naked, so maybe that added the jolt of intimacy as she dragged her gaze away from the sprinkling of dark hair down the center of his chest.
She focused on getting in the tube without tipping herself or the cooler over.
Killian was a lot less careful, and flopped into his tube, sending a surge of water toward her, making her squeal. He only grinned, and she wondered how this playful boy had gotten to be mayor. Well, she knew how, because his father had been. But did the job stifle him so that he felt like he could only act himself away from town?
Within moments, they were floating down the river. Killian leaned over to pop open the cooler, and tossed her a soda. She didn’t know why she was surprised it was a soft drink and not a beer, but she took it, shifted her sunglasses over her eyes and leaned her head back to enjoy.
The water was cool beneath her, the tube secure, the birds singing in the trees that hung over the river. The occasional shouts and laughter from the other tubers washed over her and she closed her eyes.
She jolted awake when her soda can tilted forward, spilling cool sticky liquid over her breasts. Killian hooted and helpfully splashed water on her chest to wash it away.
“Some date I am,” she muttered, trying to straighten herself in the tube.
“That’s the reason I didn’t give you a beer,” he said with a grin. “Might be a whole different date.”
She stuck her tongue out at him. “And would you prefer that?”
“Well, not what I had in mind, no. That version of Liz would have already shot-gunned a beer, and would have challenged me to do the same. Then, if she got bored with me, she’d be flirting with those guys over there.” He pointed at a group of boys who couldn’t be out of college yet. Then he angled toward her on his raft. “I always admired your ability to go after what you wanted, no matter what,” he said. “But I have to admit, you scared the hell out of me.”
She laughed. “Not anymore?”
“A little bit.” He grinned.
“You’re the mayor. You shouldn’t be afraid of anything.”
He rolled onto his stomach on the tube. “You’re mistaking me for the sheriff. I am always afraid of making a mistake. It’s challenging, more now than when my dad was mayor. We’ve got the oilfields, the oil workers, the new businesses, Sage. Now there’s the issue of gaming halls.”
“Gaming halls?”
“These oil guys have more money than they know what to do with, and too much time when they’re at the man camps, when they don’t go home every night. There’ve been some ‘amusement’ rooms popping up, with eight-liner machines.”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“They’re like slot machines, but they don’t—can’t—pay out cash, not in Texas. What they’re doing to get around that is offering prizes, like gift cards and such. The sheriff has shut down a few, but as soon as he shuts down one, another pops up. He’s working on a task force to figure out who’s behind them. What we’re worried is that it’s Mexican mafia.”
She frowned. “I don’t understand the point. Why would they want to run gambling halls here?”
He shook his head. “Another source of income? A foothold into the oilfields? I don’t know.” He flopped onto his back. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have spilled all that on you.”
“No, that’s interesting.”
He grinned. “You’re not the secret owner of the gaming halls, are you?”
“Mm, you found me out. I’ve kept my money hidden pretty well, don’t you think?”
He grabbed the handle of her tube and yanked her closer, spinning her around until he could lean over and kiss her, only their lips touching, playing over each other, and she had to stretch to keep contact. She had the fleeting thought that with another man, she’d let him float beyond her reach, tease him, but not with Killian.
He was too different, too special, and the wrong man for her. She was afraid of something after all. Afraid of falling for him.
*****
Liz was pleasantly hot and sweaty as they trudged back to the convertible. Her muscles were limp as she flopped into the passenger seat. Killian turned on the car and aimed the air conditioning vents at Liz, who dropped her head against the back of the seat and closed her eyes.
“Ready for the picnic?”
“Starving,” she answered.
“Okay, just give me a minute and we’ll head over to the park.”
He opened the glove box and pulled out his phone, checked quickly for messages before tossing it back in.
“No big mayoral emergency?”
“You laugh, but there have been some times when I’ve had to go in on a Sunday for one reason or another. Like that car accident a couple of weeks ago, where the oilfield workers hit that family coming through town? I had to go in for that.”
“Why? What could you do?”
“Not much, as it turns out. I sat with the older daughter while she waited for her mother and brother to be treated. But I just—it felt right to be there.”
She drew her legs up in the seat. “You’ve always been a good man.”
He flashed a grin at her. “I’m not feeling very good right now, because if I’d had a message, I would have ignored it.”
He drove back toward town, which surprised her, then turned off before they reached the city limits, heading out to the reservoir.
“Not too many people are out here,” he said, pulling through the gate leading to the rise overlooking the flooded quarry. “Not like down at the river.”
Her pulse kicked and she looked around. Sure enough, there weren’t people on the shore, though there were a few people out fishing in boats. He parked the convertible on a rise, then hopped out, picking up the basket in a fluid continuation. She thought for a moment that he’d be a good dancer, and maybe she
should go to Sage’s grand opening with him.
He set the basket on the long trunk of the car and sat with his feet on the back seat, holding a hand out to her so she could join him.
“What’ve you got?” she asked, stepping over the seat to join him.
“Ah, well, you know, I’m not a cook, exactly, so I went to the Coyote and got some sandwiches, fruit and chips.”
“And told everyone who you were coming on a picnic with?”
“Yeah, sure. Why not? I don’t know what you’re worried about, Liz. Everyone in town loves you.”
She held up a finger. “They love the work I do. Not me. At least, not when it comes to dating the town’s favorite son.”
“You’re too hard on yourself. And them.” He unwrapped a sandwich from its white butcher paper and passed it to her.
“I know where I live,” she said. “And I know what I’ve done to earn this reputation.”
His jaw tightened just a bit. Okay, at least he was acknowledging her reputation, if not how it affected him.
“Look, Killian.” She folded her legs beneath her on the back of the car. “If we want to fool around, great. I like you, and we have great chemistry.” In fact, just thinking about it made her hot. “But even if I believed in happily-ever-afters, this town is not going to let you get away with that, not with me. They want Allison for you, or Sage. Someone who’s your equal.”
He snatched her sandwich from her hand and tossed it back in the picnic basket. “Damn it, Liz, I don’t want the town to pick out someone for me. I want to be with someone I like, someone who’s fun and sexy and makes me happy. Don’t you get it? That’s you, and that’s my choice. No one else’s.”
She barely had time to blink at his outburst before he lifted her and pulled her into his arms, slanting his mouth over hers.
This, she knew. This, she understood. She wound her arms around his neck and kissed him back, accepting the slide of his tongue into her mouth, the heat of his breath into her body. He stroked his hands up and down her arm, then her back, his fingers tangling briefly in the tie of her bathing suit. She held her breath for a moment, waiting for him to give it a tug, to bare her breasts, but he merely slid his fingers under the strap, stroking her skin before gliding his hand down her waist to rest on her denim-clad hip. Her nipples beaded with anticipation, her core grew damp. Was he going to make love to her out here, out in the open? She hadn’t expected him to be so adventurous.
