“Do you have people checking on me?” she demanded, regarding him with exaggerated indignation.
“Nope, but this is Trinity Harbor. Reports just keep rolling in. The contractors think you’re amazing, and the workers are all in love with you. I’m beginning to think I’d better start hanging around down there to protect my interests.”
“Professional or personal?”
“Personal, of course. The professional interests seem to be under control.”
“Then drop by anytime. I’ll show you around.” She grinned as he pulled up in front of her house. “I imagine you’ll look incredibly sexy in a hard hat.”
“You go for that type, do you?”
“Come on by and we’ll find out for sure.”
“Best invitation I’ve had in years. Any of those buildings have locks yet?”
She laughed. “They don’t even have doors.”
“That could certainly add to the excitement.”
It was definitely an image that could keep his hormones stirred up all night long. He gave her a long, lingering kiss and resigned himself to yet another sleepless night.
Jenna half expected to find Bobby waiting for her when she arrived at the site the next morning, but there was no sign of him. Nor was he there the next day or the day after that. She refused to admit just how disappointed she was.
Fortunately, there were a million and one details to see to now that the construction was in full swing. She’d had a temporary shed erected at the site and turned it into a makeshift office that was so cramped it could barely contain her desk, a phone, a file cabinet and one visitor at a time. If she needed to have a meeting with all the subcontractors at once over some crisis or another, they brought folding chairs outside. And it seemed as if there were a crisis every day. Today it was over the requirements of the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act.
People were hurling regulations at her so fast and furiously, her head was spinning. In the thick of it was one of the mayor’s henchmen, as she’d come to regard the town’s building and zoning official.
“We’re building precisely to the regulations,” she told Donald Turner. “We’re exceeding the setback requirements.”
“But you intend to put paved parking in back of the buildings, correct?”
She nodded slowly, beginning to guess where he was heading with this. “You’re about to tell me we’re not leaving enough ground surface, correct?”
The Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act was implemented to improve water quality not only in the bay, but in its tributaries. The Potomac River was one of those. Structures and pavement could cover only a certain percentage of the ground near the waterways. The rest had to remain porous to reduce runoff into the rivers.
“That’s exactly right,” Turner said triumphantly. “You’re not in compliance.”
“Then we’ll use gravel in the parking lots, not asphalt.”
“Won’t do,” he argued. “You could come along later and decide to pour concrete over the gravel.”
“Then you could fine me and make me take it up.”
“Waste of time and money when I can stop you right now,” he said.
“Come on, Donald. Work with me on this.”
“You could buy that plot of land out by the road that’s vacant. Add it into the project, and you’d have enough green space,” he suggested, his expression oddly sly.
Jenna considered the possibility. That land had puzzled her all along. It was the one piece Bobby didn’t own. She should have asked him about that at the outset. She’d had a feeling all along that this day might come. She’d known she was squeaking by the requirements as written in the act.
“I’ll speak to Bobby,” she promised.
“That’s fine. Meantime, though, I’ve got to shut you down.”
She stared at him, incredulous. “You can’t do that.”
“Of course I can. The mayor told me to. If need be, I’ll get Tucker over here to enforce it.”
“But I’m not in violation of anything until I try to do something with that parking lot.”
“It’s on the plans,” he said, tapping the papers in front of him. “That’s enough for me.”
Her gaze narrowed suspiciously. “Who owns that land, Donald?”
He seemed startled by the question.
“Come on,” she said. “That’s not a tough one. Who does it belong to? I know you know.”
“I believe it belongs to the mayor.”
Well, hellfire and damnation, Jenna thought. She should have guessed.
“I’m not shutting anything down,” she told the building inspector. “And unless you’ve got the whole blasted sheriff’s department behind you, I suggest you not try to do it behind my back. I’ll get back to you by tomorrow morning.”
“But I—”
“Tomorrow, Donald. Same time. Until then, the work continues.”
He sighed. “I’ll be here with the sheriff.”
“Bring the mayor while you’re at it,” she suggested. “I’m counting on it being the town’s first boardwalk fireworks display.”
23
Bobby had been expecting something like this. When Jenna told him about the mayor’s sneak attack on the boardwalk development, using Donald as his pawn, he was furious enough to march down to Town Hall and knock a few heads together. Instead, Jenna had a far more devious suggestion. He truly loved the way this woman’s mind worked.
“I’ll make all the arrangements,” he promised her. “Work’s not going to be delayed for one single minute. Trust me, Jenna. You might want to be sure that Richard is there with his camera. This picture is one he’s going to want on the front page of this week’s paper.”
She grinned at him. “I’m on my way. Anything else you’d like me to do?”
“Nope. I’ve got the rest covered.”
By midafternoon, Bobby had all the pieces in place. Rumors were flying, fueled by a few subtly dropped hints at Earlene’s. There was going to be quite a crowd on the boardwalk the next morning, all primed for a big announcement from the mayor. The only one still in the dark, however, was the mayor himself.
The gossip apparently reached Harvey about six o’clock. He stormed into the marina restaurant demanding to see Bobby. Maggie was trying to fend him off when Bobby emerged from the kitchen.
“Are you looking for me?” he asked.
“What the devil do you have up your sleeve?” Harvey demanded. “Everyone in town is talking about some big announcement being made tomorrow morning on the boardwalk.” His gaze narrowed. “You pulling out?”
“You wish,” Bobby said. “Nope, but I imagine you’ll want to be there since it does involve you.”
“Me? What kind of announcement are you making that involves me? I’ll sue you, dammit.”
“For?”
“I’ll think of something. Slander for starters.”
Bobby regarded him blandly. “You might want to wait till you hear it before you get all riled up.”
“You’re up to no good. I can see it in your eyes.”
“Harvey, that’s the first truly intelligent thing I’ve ever heard you say.”
He left the mayor sputtering and went back into the kitchen to report to Jenna.
“Bobby, this could backfire,” she said worriedly. “And you’re the one who’ll be caught in the middle. Maybe I should handle it. It was my idea, after all. Your father…”
“Will be sitting front and center in the morning, cheering us on,” he assured her.
“I hope so.”
“I know so,” he said. Even if he had to hogtie him and drag him there himself. King’s presence would lend this little end-run of theirs a certain legitimacy.
Despite Bobby’s reassurances, Jenna looked out over the gathering crowd at the construction site the next morning and felt her stomach twist into knots. She’d been so sure this was a fabulous idea when she’d gone to see Bobby. Now she wasn’t so certain.
“Butterflies?” Anna-Louise a
sked, slipping up beside her.
Jenna regarded her with surprise. “You’re here. I wasn’t expecting you.”
Anna-Louise grinned. “Was that wishful thinking, Jenna? Are you about to do something sneaky and underhanded that you think I’ll disapprove of?”
“Pretty much,” Jenna said.
“For the good of the town?”
Jenna nodded. “I believe that. I truly do.”
“Then don’t worry about my opinion. Besides, it’s not the one that really counts anyway. I’m not in the judgment business. My boss is.”
Jenna regarded her ruefully. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
Just then Bobby appeared at her side. “Ready?”
“I suppose so.”
“Then let’s do it.” He pulled her up onto a makeshift stage, which was little more than a wooden pallet. “Ladies and gentlemen, it’s nice to see so many of you out here at the crack of dawn for this impromptu event.” He surveyed the crowd. “Mr. Mayor, will you come on up here?”
Harvey looked from Bobby to Jenna and seemed about to bolt, but the applause of his constituents finally forced him to join them. “Mitch Cummings has turned up some interesting news during his investigation. Lonnie filled him in about that son you’ve never acknowledged,” he muttered to Bobby. “Consider yourself warned.”
Bobby looked as if he might slug the man. Jenna stepped between them. “Indeed, we have been warned,” Jenna retorted, then regarded him pointedly. “And threatened with blackmail.”
The mayor’s eyes widened with shock. “I never—”
“Oh?” she pressed, cutting him off. “Yesterday you had Donald do it. Just now you did it yourself. It’s beginning to annoy me.” She smiled at the crowd and beamed at him, then added in an undertone, “We can talk about that, or we can talk about the generous contribution you are about to make to Trinity Harbor’s future.”
The mayor turned pale. “Contribution? What the devil are you talking about?”
“Why, the Harvey Needham Park, of course,” Bobby said smoothly, his temper evidently under control again. “It’s just exactly what this waterfront development needs, several acres of green space.”
Harvey’s face flushed. “Are you two crazy? That land is worth a fortune.”
“Only to me,” Bobby said. “And I’ll pay you market value for it, which is a helluva lot more than you deserve after what you tried to do here yesterday.”
“So, Mr. Mayor, what’s it going to be?” Jenna asked, as the crowd turned restless.
There was very little question of the outcome. Harvey could decline and see his chances for reelection go up in smoke, or he could go along with them and be the town hero. Expediency was Harvey’s middle name.
“It’s a deal,” he said sourly.
Jenna felt a huge weight lift off her chest as Bobby made the announcement that the last parcel needed for the waterfront development was being sold to them today by the mayor. In his honor, it would become open space for town events.
As soon as the cheers went up, the mayor came alive. Without a second glance at either Bobby or Jenna, he stepped off the platform and began shaking hands. King was the first in line. He shot a broad wink in Bobby’s direction.
“We just launched the mayor’s next campaign,” Jenna said with some regret.
“It’s worth it,” Bobby said. “Otherwise, he could have tied us up for months. Besides, despite his paranoia, nobody in town wants the mayor’s job more than he does. He’d have been running unopposed anyway.”
Richard and Anna-Louise came up to them then, their expressions mystified.
“What did you do to Harvey?” Richard asked. “Cast a spell over him?”
“Not exactly,” Jenna said.
“Let’s just leave it that he made a generous contribution to the town’s future,” Jenna said.
“For which I am deeply and profoundly grateful,” Bobby intoned solemnly.
Richard regarded them both with disappointment. “That’s it?”
“That’s our story and we’re sticking to it,” Bobby told him.
Richard glanced at his wife. “Is that what they told you?”
She grinned at him. “You know better than to ask me that,” she chided. “Confession, confidentiality, it’s all the same to me.”
“A convenient excuse you haul out when it suits you.” Richard studied her intently. “They didn’t tell you a blessed thing, did they?”
Anna-Louise laughed. “Nope, not a thing.”
“You’re as frustrated as I am?” he asked.
“Oh, yeah, but something tells me we’re better off not knowing the details,” the pastor said. “Stop acting like a reporter for once, and act like a citizen of Trinity Harbor. Just be grateful for small blessings.”
Jenna glanced at Bobby. Maybe the outcome had been a blessing, but the underhanded way they’d pulled it off was something she would be wrestling with for a long time to come. No matter how much Harvey deserved his comeuppance, she would never feel entirely right about what had happened here today, even though it had been her idea.
“You’re not feeling guilty, are you?” Bobby leaned down to whisper in her ear.
Jenna nodded.
“Don’t. He’s going to be compensated very handsomely for today’s ‘magnanimous gesture.’ Everybody wins.”
“You honestly believe that?”
He cupped her chin and looked squarely into her eyes. “I know that,” he said emphatically. “Now get to work. You’re two hours behind schedule.”
She laughed. “I think the crew can make it up. Just get all these people out of our way.”
“Done,” he said.
And like the pied piper, he worked his way through the crowd, herding everyone in the direction of Earlene’s. Jenna was left standing on the concrete strip of boardwalk from bygone days all alone. Her workers had already scattered, and soon she heard the buzz of saws and the blast of music from the radios they all insisted on playing at high volume. It was just a taste of the commotion there would be on this site a few months from now. In her head, Jenna could already see it.
The only question was, would she still be here to be a part of it?
The day after the showdown with the mayor, Jenna arrived at the site to find Bobby there ahead of her. For one heart-stopping moment, she was afraid he’d taken yesterday’s event and the incident that had led to it as a sign he was going to have to start hovering if this project was going to come in on time.
“Here to keep a closer eye on your investment?” she asked mildly, joining him on a bench facing the river. The sun was a vibrant splash of neon red against the pale gray of the horizon. It would storm before the end of the day, if the old ditty about red sails in the morning held true.
Bobby glanced at her. “Not the way you mean. I trust you.”
Jenna gazed into his eyes and saw that he meant exactly what he said. There wasn’t so much as a hint of doubt shadowing his gaze. She had a hard time speaking past the lump that suddenly formed in her throat. Time and again, when she’d needed it most, he’d offered his faith in her, something her family had never done. Not even once.
“Then why are you here?” she asked.
“I like to imagine what it’s going to be like when it’s finished, when the air is filled with the sound of kids’ laughter and the scent of cotton candy and corn dogs, when people are sitting on benches like this one eating grape snow cones or ice cream and listening to the announcements for boat rides on the river.”
“And the music of the carousel,” she added, grinning.
“Assuming we ever find that blasted horse,” Bobby said. “Tucker still doesn’t have a single solid lead. It’s as if the thing vanished. And even I’m convinced now that Harvey had nothing to do with it.”
Jenna thought of her own suspicion, formed just recently. One of these days she’d check it out, but not just yet.
“Something tells me it’s going to turn up when the time is right,�
�� she said.
He regarded her suspiciously. “Meaning?”
“Just that.” She moved closer and settled back against his chest. After a shocked intake of breath, he slid his arms around her. “You don’t get to control everything in life, Bobby Spencer.”
“Hey, I’m not the control freak in the family.”
“Couldn’t prove it by me,” she teased. “You’re down here checking on me behind my back, aren’t you? Get out of here. I have work to do.”
“Not before I do this,” he said. “There should be some perks to being the boss.” He settled his mouth over hers in a kiss that scrambled her senses.
Eventually he released her, stood up and started to walk away. After a few feet, he turned back. “Go out with me tonight, Jenna. A real date. Just the two of us. A movie in Fredericksburg. Dinner and dancing. Whatever you want.”
She met his heated gaze and sighed. “I thought you’d never ask.”
Bobby grinned. “Yeah, I was beginning to wonder about that myself.”
After all these months, it was their first formal date, but it felt like they’d been going out for about a million years. And Bobby wanted Jenna as desperately as if he’d been waiting that long to have her, too.
All it took was a glance across the table, the brush of her fingers across his knuckles, and he was primed for action. He hadn’t been this jittery and anxious since his high school prom, when he and Ann-Marie… Well, that was in the past now, except for the consequences, which were very much with him these days. Every time he looked in his son’s eyes, he remembered that night and everything that had happened afterward, everything that had been kept from him.
Since meeting Jenna, though, the memories were no longer accompanied by heartache.
He met her gaze. “You changed my life,” he told her, still surprised by just how drastically she had shifted his thinking and how easily she had mended his heart.
“Me?”
He reached for her hand. “You made me want things again, things I’ve pretty much shoved aside over the years because I didn’t want to risk getting hurt again.”
Ask Anyone Page 28
