“It doesn’t matter,” he said, but there was a hint of anger in his voice.
“Of course it matters. This town would rather dwell on the past than deal with the present. Or the future.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want this to happen.”
“Me, either. Now that it has, we’ll deal with it.”
“No, we won’t. I’m leaving. You can’t win with me here, and you deserve to win.” She couldn’t keep the note of wistfulness out of her voice, and she hoped James didn’t notice it. For the first time in her life, Mara didn’t want to leave Slippery Rock.
The sabbatical she’d asked for from her bosses had been her first step in staying. She’d intended to use the time to set up a home office and come up with a plan to convince them to let her write security programs from here. Someone else could learn to install the systems. There would still be a few times she would have to travel, but for the most part, she thought she could make telecommuting work.
Not at James’s expense, though. His dream was to be sheriff. His destiny.
“If I can’t win because I’m seeing you, because we’re a family, then I’ll deal with that—”
“We aren’t a family. We’re friends who had an affair and a kid.”
“We’re more than that, and you know it.”
“This was never going to work. I travel for a living. You run a small-town sheriff’s department. You can’t come with me on jobs, and I can’t do the work from here,” she said, putting as much sincerity into the lie as she could. Because if he knew how badly she wanted to stay, how badly she wanted to be a family with James and Zeke, she would never get him off her grandmother’s porch.
She would have everything she wanted.
He would give up the only thing he’d ever wanted.
“People make long distance work all the time, Mar. People live in California but work in New York or Paris. We’ll figure out how to do it.”
“And, what, you’ll give up your dream of being sheriff? Sooner or later, you would hate me for costing you that position. I don’t want you to hate me, so I’m leaving. We’ll negotiate visitation agreements and the rest of it. I’m not going to keep you away from Zeke. He loves you.”
Mara loved him. She wanted to press her fist against her chest to loosen the knot growing there, but she couldn’t. James couldn’t know how hard this was for her.
“I love you, Mara. The job is important, but it isn’t as important as you are. You and Zeke, you’re the world for me, and I’m not going to let you walk out of it. Not again.”
She took his hand and squeezed it. “I’m not walking out, just walking away. I...” Mara had to move. Sitting here with James was torture. She couldn’t say what she had to say while parts of her body touched his.
“It isn’t fair to you,” she said.
“It isn’t fair to you,” he said, following her to the porch rail. “You made mistakes when you were a kid. Who didn’t? No permanent damage was done, not by you, anyway,” he said, smirking a little. “You can’t keep using your past to hide from what you want.”
“I’m not using the past. That—that trooper is using my past. CarlaAnn is using my past. Your father has been very nice to Zeke and me, but even he, I’m sure, has used my past to convince you to...to...”
“To not love you? News flash, Mar. I love who I love. No one orders me around on that front.”
“You know what I mean.”
“What do you want?”
Mara shook her head. What did she want? It didn’t matter what she wanted. It mattered what James wanted, what he deserved.
“I want Zeke to have a good relationship with you, and with my family.”
James waited a moment, but Mara kept her lips pressed together. “What do you want?” he asked again.
“I want to keep writing security programs. I want to see Paris and Moscow and the Australian Outback.”
“And?”
Mara sighed. He was going to keep asking her until he got the answer he wanted, so why not give it to him now and get it over with? She would still leave.
“I love you,” she said, sighing. “I love you and I want to stay here with my family. With you. As corny as it is, I want Zeke to grow up here. To be bored here. To raise hell here, just like the six of us did when we were kids.” She put her hands on the porch railing. “I love this place. I never thought I would, but I do. Every gossipy, boring inch of it.”
“Then stay.”
“James.” She shook her head.
James put his index finger beneath her chin and pushed up until their gazes met. “Stay. We’ll figure it all out. I can be a deputy. I can get a different job altogether. I can be sheriff. None of it matters, not without you. So stay and we’ll figure it out together.”
She wanted to. God, did she want to. James pressed his mouth to hers.
“Stay,” he said against her lips.
Mara knew it was a mistake. He couldn’t really love her, not enough to give up what he’d wanted forever. But maybe, just for a little while longer, it would be nice to live in the fantasy. She was a strong woman. She’d walked away from him before and survived. If worse came to worst, she could walk away again and be okay.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
MARA MADE HER way to the middle of the big conference room in the city hall building. It had been just over a week since James had outed himself as her baby daddy, and there had been no major explosions. No snarky write-ups in the local paper, no comments from CarlaAnn when Mara went into Mallard’s to pick up the groceries for Gran and no more talk about her past from Trooper Whitaker.
Of course, Whitaker hadn’t withdrawn from the race, either, and had called tonight’s debate between him and James. The man made her nervous.
Almost as nervous as James did; she’d told him she loved him. He’d told her he loved her. They were more or less living together at this point, although many of her things were still at the orchard. She and Zeke had been spending most of their nights at James’s little house by the beach.
His leather furniture was now accessorized with Zeke’s plush animals. James’s back deck was littered with building blocks. He’d added a deck box a couple of days ago that held a toddler life jacket and sand toys. He’d made room in his life for them.
It was all going so well, and she didn’t want to jinx it with bad thoughts, but something had to give.
Bud sat beside her. “Good to see you here tonight. Wasn’t sure you’d come.”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
Bud pointed toward Whitaker. “He doesn’t seem to like you.”
“If his whole campaign rests on his irrational dislike of me,” she said, echoing what James kept telling her, “it’s a weak campaign. We’ve never even spoken to one another.”
“I’m just saying,” Bud said, shrugging.
Yeah, so was she. No one was listening, though, especially not James. Well, he might have convinced himself that her past didn’t matter, but there were other people who didn’t agree, and their ringleader was CarlaAnn.
The grocery store checker sat in the front row. She wore a pair of dark-wash jeans, fancy cowboy boots and a flowing tunic that skimmed her slim hips. She’d left her hair down. CarlaAnn turned to look at Mara, a smug expression on her face.
The woman really needed to get a grip on reality. Sure, locking CarlaAnn out of the grocery store once the new system had been installed and running was petty, but CarlaAnn had been so ridiculously petty while Mara was designing and testing the system that the action had seemed justified at the time.
“Can I ask you something, Bud?”
“Shoot, kiddo.” The older man folded his arms across his chest and crossed his sneakered feet at the ankles. He wore old basketball shorts and a baseball jersey. The combination shou
ld have looked silly, but it fit Bud.
“Does it bother you that I was a little bit of a...” Mara searched for the right word. Troublemaker seemed wrong. She’d never been after trouble. Criminal was wrong—no charges had ever been filed. Reckless fit what other people thought, but Mara had planned all their pranks very carefully.
“Rebel?”
She nodded. “Thanks. Does it bother you that I was a bit of a rebel when I was a kid?”
“What kid doesn’t have a little rebel in them? You never meant any harm, and really, none of those pranks did any significant damage.”
“There was the bus incident.”
Bud raised an eyebrow. “Two buses out of a fleet of twelve were damaged, there was a full insurance payout, and...” He paused. “It’s my understanding that some anonymous donor has made several endowments to the transportation department over the last few years.”
“Still, the damage was...significant.” And not just to the buses. That had been the first time Mara had run away from a problem. She’d done it to save James, but still. Maybe if she hadn’t run then, she wouldn’t have run in Nashville.
Maybe she wouldn’t still be contemplating running now.
“It was a long time ago. I’m sure the statute of limitations has run out on that one.”
“But if it hadn’t?” she pressed the issue.
Bud shrugged. “Between the insurance money and the anonymous donors, what harm was done that hasn’t already been undone? I’d say the debt has been paid.”
Amanda slid into the seat beside Mara. Gran had stayed at the orchard to watch Zeke. “Did I miss anything?”
“Are you even registered to vote?”
“I registered to vote the first day I was eligible this spring, thank you very much,” Amanda said, straightening her shoulders and crinkling her brow. “And since I’ll turn eighteen the day before the election, I fully intend to exercise my civic duty. I am a responsible citizen.”
“Who paints on sidewalks and yarn-bombs unsuspecting residents,” Mara whispered. She and Amanda still had a ways to go in their relationship, but things were better between the two of them.
Amanda elbowed Mara. “They’re getting ready.”
Thom Hall made his way to the podium at the front of the conference room. He introduced both James and Whitaker, running through their education and experience before introducing Jonathan Calhoun.
James’s father limped to the podium. “I want to thank everyone for coming out tonight, and I want to say what a pleasure it has been to serve you for the past twenty years as your sheriff. As most of you know, my son, James, has been a deputy with Wall County for several years. Trooper Whitaker has been a member of the state patrol for as many years. Both are qualified, and I am confident either one will serve this office well. Let’s hear from the candidates.”
The audience members clapped, and Trooper Whitaker stepped to the microphone. He talked about his years with the state patrol and his responsibilities. Mara tuned him out, focusing instead on James. He hadn’t worn his department uniform, but Whitaker had.
He should have worn the uniform.
James sat calmly to the side, feet flat on the floor, hands clasped loosely in his lap as he listened to Whitaker talk about drug task forces and investigations and working with the lawmakers in Jefferson City.
“Blah, blah, blah,” Amanda said.
Mara elbowed her. “Be respectful.”
Amanda pretended her hand was a mouth, making a face as she pressed her fingertips to her thumb. Mara bit back a grin.
Finally he finished his speech, and James stepped up to the podium. He didn’t immediately go into the speech he’d used on Founder’s Weekend.
“It has been my pleasure to serve you all for the past eight years. I was a part-time campus security officer through college and after I received my degree and completed my police academy training, I began working full time at the Wall County Sheriff’s Office.” He pointed in his father’s direction. “I’ve learned from the best, and I hope you’ll allow me to keep working within the department that has been like a second family to me for years.”
CarlaAnn glanced over her shoulder again, her gaze clashing with Mara’s. Mara shook her head, and when James finished speaking, she joined with the rest of the audience to applaud for both candidates. Thom returned to the microphone.
“We’ll open the floor to questions at this time,” he said.
There were questions about parking on Water Street, and one resident brought up Wilson DeVries’s yard, which had still not been cleared of downed trees.
“His yard could really use another yarn bomb,” Amanda whispered.
“Bite your tongue, kid. You’re practically related to the next sheriff, you know.”
“Yeah, whatever.”
CarlaAnn raised her hand and waited for Thom’s assistant to reach her with the microphone. “Hello, I’m CarlaAnn Grainger. Most of you know me from Mallard’s, where I’ve worked for the past twenty-five years.”
“Is she throwing her hat in the ring, too?” Amanda asked. Mara shushed her.
“I’d like to know, from each of you, how you would deal with the problem of this town’s rebellious teenagers. They’ve been running wild for more than ten years, and each year they get worse. What can you do to return our streets to the people?”
Mara closed her eyes and shook her head. Leave it to CarlaAnn to make childhood pranks a criminal endeavor.
“I’m in favor of harsher laws, especially for our youths,” Whitaker spoke, his voice full of authority. “Children need boundaries, and they will respond if we give them those boundaries.”
James looked at the man for a long moment. “This spring all of the seniors drove tractors to school on April Fool’s Day. You’d jail them?”
“Perhaps not jail. But it’s my understanding that there was not adequate parking for the tractors, and that the vehicles caused serious traffic flow issues throughout the day. One of them even became stuck in the drive-through window at the Dairy Barn. I would ticket those drivers.”
“I disagree. While traffic was slowed on the day in question, it was not impeded. I was on duty most of that day,” James countered. “The students allowed people in faster moving cars and trucks to go around them, and in some cases waited through the light signals to allow more traffic to move around them. That kind of behavior doesn’t deserve ticketing.”
“There have been more serious crimes, Deputy Calhoun, don’t you agree?” Whitaker asked.
“Such as?”
“Vandalism to the water tower.”
“A coat of paint reversed the effects of that incident.” James tapped his fingertips against the podium and looked pointedly at the crowd as if daring one of them to ask about the other pranks the six of them had pulled. This was so not okay. They were using her to get to him, just as she had predicted.
“What about the mental anguish of the child who was targeted?” Whitaker persisted in his questioning, clearly trying to undermine James.
“I’m not sure that child experienced mental anguish.”
“Because one of your friends instigated the attack?”
“It wasn’t an attack. It was a prank. Ill-thought out and retaliatory, but still only a prank.”
“And what about vandalizing all the school buses on graduation night? Was that also only ill-thought out?” CarlaAnn asked, still holding the microphone.
James blinked. Mara fisted her hands in her lap. “I would label that prank a mistake. The school district has been reimbursed for any costs related to that incident. At least, that is my understanding.”
“How would you know about reimbursement? Are you on the school board?”
“Ah, no,” James said. He paused. “I heard about—”
“I
told him that I repaid the district,” Mara said. She stood, straightened her shoulders. She couldn’t let him do this. Yes, James had let the air out of the tires, but he was in the bus yard that night only because of her.
CarlaAnn’s head swiveled so she could see Mara, that smug smile still in place. She crossed her arms over her chest and nodded twice before taking her seat once more.
“Hello,” Mara said as the crowd all turned to look at her. Amanda, still sitting in her chair, stared at Mara with her mouth wide open. “I’m Mara Tyler. Most of you know me. You don’t, Trooper Whitaker, but you’ve obviously heard a lot about me.”
“Actually, I—”
Mara didn’t let him finish. “I did a lot of things when I was a teenager that I now regret, and most of them I’ve never apologized for. Principal Monroe, if you’re in here, I’m sorry that I switched your computer cables with Miss Apple’s. I was just learning about programming and networking, and it seemed like a funny thing to do. CarlaAnn, I did paint your daughter’s phone number on the water tower, and I did it because I was mad at her. I never apologized to her.” That was as close to an apology as CarlaAnn would get, Mara decided. Her daughter had been hateful as a teen, and now Mara knew why. It was because of her mother. “And to the town as a whole, I am very sorry about what happened to those buses on graduation night. For the past few years, I’ve been sending anonymous donations to the school transportation fund to pay for the damages.”
She swallowed. “But James Calhoun should not be penalized for my mistakes. That would be unfair and unjust, especially to a man who has always been fair and just to the people of this town. Trooper Whitaker, you may be a great law enforcement officer, but you don’t have the connection to Slippery Rock that Deputy Calhoun has.” She looked around at the people in the room, most of whom she had known all of her life. “Connections are important here. The only connection I had for a long time was my grandparents, and then a sweet boy with shaggy brown hair befriended me on the playground, and as we grew up, we continued to be friends. We each had our first rides in a patrol car together—the night his father found us with paint-covered hands near the water tower.”
Rebel in a Small Town Page 23
