Emily looked at the crowd that had assembled for the first Save Our Stores meeting of the year. The library conference room was overflowing. No one had the excuse of tending their stores. Business had been moribund throughout Harmony Springs after the Christmas rush.
She glanced at Megan Sartain, who sat in the front row, and the lawyer gave her an encouraging smile. Megan had worked overtime for SOS, representing the group on a pro bono basis. Thank God she knew what she was doing. Emily could never have made sense out of the reporting forms that secured tax-exempt status, the articles of incorporation, the bylaws.
Now, nodding at Megan’s encouraging smile, Emily stepped up to the lectern. “Folks!” she said. “We have a lot of business to get through tonight. Let’s get started.”
As people took their seats, Emily gave an encouraging nod to Caden. It was a school night, and he should have been doing his homework. But Anne had convinced her that Civics was every bit as important as his American Lit reading, and this meeting was a perfect opportunity to see small-town government in action.
Besides, Caden had had time to do his homework directly after school. It wasn’t like he had to get to work at American Discount.
The boy was subdued as he passed out paperwork, courteous as always, but with a puzzled little sadness that still broke Emily’s heart. He’d been that way for a week, ever since Matt had fired him.
Just as Caden reached the back row, the door opened. Matt slipped in, glancing at the clock as if he were surprised to find the meeting already called to order. Emily’s heart lurched as she saw him. They hadn’t spoken since Monday night, since their desperate conversation in the too-small confines of her kitchen. He’d been gone when she’d awakened Tuesday morning. He’d left without a word, without a note, although he had set up her coffeemaker, filling the basket with her favorite Kona grounds.
She’d called him Tuesday night, but he hadn’t picked up. She’d texted him, too, leaving half a dozen messages, until it started to feel like she was pushing too hard. She’d shoved down memories of that day with Jon, that day under the apple tree when she’d thought her world would end if she didn’t get a response to her texts.
She’d spent Wednesday telling herself everything was fine, that they both were just busy. Tired. Worn out by the holidays, by the emotional anniversaries of Jon’s death, of his birthday. By Mr. Dawson’s departure. By Caden’s dismissal.
But she hadn’t believed herself, not a word of it.
Tonight, Matt’s hair was combed and he wore a suit. She realized she’d never seen him dressed like a businessman, like the millionaire she knew he was. He looked as tired as she felt, though. His face was drawn, and his eyes seemed bleary under the unkind fluorescent lights. With a sickening twist in her gut, she realized he wouldn’t meet her gaze.
But she couldn’t fix things between them now. Not here. She had to put Save Our Stores first, because all these people depended on her. She had led them to this point, and she couldn’t abandon them now.
“Thank you, Caden,” she said, and she might have imagined that Matt flinched at the boy’s name. She spoke to everyone. “As you’ll see, Megan Sartain has outdone herself. We’ve sent papers to the Secretary of State’s office in Richmond. It’ll take several months for everything to be finalized, but Save Our Stores is well on its way to being an official non-profit corporation under the laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia.”
She was gratified by the round of applause.
“Now that the groundwork is done, it’s time to elect our first officers. We’ll need a president and a vice president, a secretary, and a treasurer. We need to elect a board as well, a group of people who will do the heavy lifting on a day to day basis. I’ve spoken with many of you over the past week, getting an idea of who you want to represent you as we go forward.”
The words all made sense. She just couldn’t get over the feeling that she was back in high school, that this was Student Government. But there was a hell of a lot more at stake than whether they’d be allowed to have candy bars in the cafeteria vending machines.
“I’m pleased to report that I didn’t actually break anyone’s arm when I twisted them to run for office. Kitty Moran is running for secretary.” At Emily’s gesture, the florist stood and took a little bow. “And Joe Henderson has agreed to run for treasurer.” Joe half-rose, nodding to his left and right. “Tammy Yeager said she’ll stand for vice president, on condition that no one ever asks her to run for president.” The hair stylist beamed a beatific smile as everyone laughed. “And I seem to have been drafted to serve as president.”
More applause. Emily flashed a grin at the group.
“The vote has to be on paper, so you’ll each find a ballot in the materials Caden handed out. If you could take out that page now—”
“Actually,” Megan interrupted. “We have to open the meeting for nominations from the floor.”
Emily laughed. “See? This is why Megan gets to sit in the front row. Okay. Before we actually vote, are there any nominations from the floor?” She barely took time to draw a breath before she continued. It had taken her the better part of the past two weeks to pull together the slate she had. “So now—”
“I have a nomination.” Matt stood.
As everyone turned to look at him, a sliver of ice lodged in Emily’s throat.
“I nominate myself to serve as president.”
The only sound in the room was the ticking of the clock, locked behind its steel cage high on the wall. People looked from Emily to Matt and back again. Hands froze with pencils poised over papers.
Because this was Harmony Springs. This was a small town. Every single person in the room knew that Matt and Emily were an item. They’d all laughed at the shenanigans at the Christmas Fête. The women had gossiped at Yoga Night. Even Mona and Gio had given their respective blessings at their restaurants.
Once again, Megan saved the day. “I’m sorry, Matt. Only dues-paying members of the Central Business District are eligible to vote or nominate.”
Matt nodded. “I assume I can pay my dues by check?”
Megan looked annoyed. “You have to own or manage a store within the confines of the Central Business District.”
“I assume Presley’s Hardware will do?”
The sliver of ice turned into a dagger, sharp and double-edged, slicing through Emily’s windpipe and lodging in her lungs. Matt shifted his gaze to her as he pulled a sheaf of papers from the inside pocket of his jacket. “Here’s the deed, signed by Jacob Presley this afternoon in front of a notary public.”
The bastard was stealing the property that was supposed to become her mother’s art gallery.
Matt had sat with her family on Christmas Day. He’d joined in the banter, shared in their food. He’d listened to her mother’s excitement, to the opportunity of a lifetime—showing in Gabriella’s new art gallery on Main Street.
And then he’d wormed his way into Jake Presley’s plans—offered him money or a speedy negotiation or more.
The worst part was, Matt had told her exactly what he was going to. He’d warned her not to trust him, not to share too much. Word for word, he’d cautioned her. What had he said? It was just one of those things.
And she’d even been smart enough to heed his warning once, to turn his own competitiveness against him at the Fête.
But now, when it was really important, she’d let down her defenses. Now her mother was going to suffer. Her mother was going to lose out on a gallery in the old Presley space because Emily had lied to herself, because Emily had chosen to believe that Matt cared more for her, more than he did about his business plan, about his damned American Discount store.
Megan looked over Matt’s papers, but everything was in order, as Emily had been certain it would be. Matt was too shrewd a competitor to screw up the small stuff. His I’s were dotted; his T’s were crossed. “All right,” Megan said. “Matt Dawson is also running for president. Do we have any other nominations from the floor?”
Of course there weren’t any. But the spell was broken now, and everyone was talking. Some of the comments were made as whispers, too faint for Emily to parse. But she heard her name on others’ lips, her name and Matt’s. She heard the undercurrent of excitement, the thrill that something was happening, that life was stirred up in the otherwise boring little town of Harmony Springs.
Megan gave instructions, telling people they could write in Matt’s name at the bottom of their ballots. Emily marked her own form, making a perfect X on each blank beside a typed name. Caden collected the ballots and totaled them too, offering them to the lawyer to double-check his work. Megan nodded and took the lectern.
“We have thirty-seven unanimous votes for Kitty Moran, Joe Henderson, and Tammy Yeager.” Emily caught her breath. “We have twenty-four votes for Emily. Thirteen for Matt.”
Applause again, and now it irritated Emily, because they were trying to conduct business here, not hold a pep rally. But she stepped back to the rostrum. She instructed her fellow officers to take a bow. She announced that the meeting was adjourned, that they’d meet again the second Thursday in February.
And then she marched down the aisle, pausing barely long enough to hiss at Matt. “Outside. Now.”
She didn’t wait to see if he’d follow her out of the room.
~~~
Matt closed the door behind him as he joined Emily in the children’s reading room. The glass walls were intended to keep the noise of shrieking kids away from people using the library as a quiet place to study. Right now, though, the walls felt like giant magnifying glasses, putting him on display in front of all the people leaving the SOS meeting, all the people pretending they weren’t straining their ears for a whisper of the knock-down, drag-out fight that was about to begin.
Right on cue, Emily said, “Who’s next?”
The question caught him off guard. He’d been expecting an attack. “What do you mean?” he asked warily.
“You broke Caden’s heart on Monday. You gutted me tonight. Who are you going to crap on next?”
“I told you not to give me business secrets.”
“I didn’t! You stole that store from my mother.”
He was almost glad to hear the emotion shaking her voice. Emotion made an opponent throw wild. Emotion led to mistakes.
He kept his own voice perfectly toneless, the same way he had when Don Armstrong had raked him over the coals in Raleigh. Matt had a purpose here. He was going to save Harmony Springs. He was going to keep Main Street going. He was going to help every single resident in town, people like his mother.
He had to be right. He had to win. Otherwise, his entire career would add up to nothing.
“‘Steal’ is a loaded word,” he said. “Jake Presley was a willing participant in our negotiations.”
“You bought him!”
Emotion twitched deep in his belly, a flash of irritation he couldn’t afford. “We negotiated at arm’s length. He needed money to pay off the mortgage on his home. He can retire now. Do whatever he wants for the rest of his life.” And that was something else he’d given back to Harmony Springs. Another way he could make things right, one person at a time.
“At what cost, Matt? What about every other merchant in that room?”
“You mean the thirteen who voted for me?”
Strike one. She clearly hadn’t let herself think about that yet. And because the truth was a weapon, a way for him to shut down this fight once and for all, he said, “You thought you had them all. But this isn’t Yoga Night with the girls. It’s business. And thirteen people in that room didn’t think you’re the right person to grow Harmony Springs business.”
“And you are?” He knew he’d drawn blood because her voice turned cruel. “You left town the first second you could. You talk a good game, Matt, but you’ve treated Harmony Springs like a toxic waste dump for the past fourteen years of your life.”
He lashed out before he could acknowledge the pain of her body blow. “I made a commitment to the Rockets, and I’ll never regret that. Which you might understand if you’d ever kept a job for longer than two years. If you’d ever managed to make it through a single year of college.”
Strike two. Her emotions marched across her face—shock, rage, a sudden, steely determination. He could read her every thought, her every searing feeling because he’d spent the past six weeks memorizing everything about her.
“You bastard,” she said.
She was reeling. She was trying to step back into the batter’s box, trying to get back into the fight. But he couldn’t let her do that. So he said, “I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know yourself.”
Strike three. That was his last blow, the pitch that put her away. Because he knew how much she questioned herself. How much she feared she’d made the wrong choices, taken the wrong path. He knew, and he was using it against her.
He didn’t have any choice. Harmony Springs needed him. Harmony Springs needed American Discount. And if that reality cost Matt Dawson the only woman he’d ever loved, he’d find a way to live with that.
Because he still had his life. He hadn’t gone to Afghanistan. He wasn’t Jon.
And he’d pay whatever it cost to make up for that one unchangeable fact.
~~~
There was nothing Matt had said that she didn’t already know. She was a failure, in every traditional way that people counted. She hadn’t dared try college. She couldn’t stay with a job. She couldn’t stick with a romantic relationship to save her life.
Still, the Purr tingled at the back of her throat. This wasn’t over yet. She wouldn’t give up. She wouldn’t walk away, not without offering one final blow.
“No wonder Jon was in such a hurry to get out of Harmony Springs. It wasn’t Kaylie and the baby. It wasn’t even me. It was you. A lifetime spent with you and your selfish drive to win, no matter the cost. You skipped town for college, for baseball, and you never looked back. Jon was just doing the same thing. And it got him killed.”
She felt a flash of pride when she saw her words hit home. But Jon wasn’t her best weapon. She had one even better. “And now I understand why your father left, too.”
Pain. Raw, raking pain that made him hiss in a breath through clenched teeth, that folded his fingers into tight fists. She’d done that. She’d hurt him as much as he’d hurt her.
The Purr should have roared, but instead it whimpered. She reminded herself that Matt had given her permission. He’d taught her the words she needed, the day after Thanksgiving. The day after they’d first made love. “You said this isn’t personal, Matt. You said it’s just one of those things. But that’s a lie you tell yourself. That’s a story you create because you don’t want to hurt, because you don’t want to be responsible.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, but I do, Matt. You tell yourself the real world is like a baseball game, win, lose, without a moral dilemma in sight. But Harmony Springs isn’t a game. My mother’s career isn’t a game. And God knows, no matter how I’ve let you mess with my mind, I’m not a game either.” She took a shuddering breath, because she had to get these last words right. They were important. They were true. “The real world isn’t like a baseball game. In the real world, there’s right and wrong. It’s right to help your fellow man. It’s wrong to exploit a weakness.”
“That’s too simple and you know it! Your way isn’t working. You can’t save Harmony Springs with a great idea and a handful of flyers.”
She let her lips curl into a sad smile. “Thanks for that at least. It’s the first time you ever said Save Our Stores was a great idea.” She walked past him, ignoring the heat of his body. “Good luck, Matt. You’re going to need it. Because if Save Our Stores crashes and burns, I’ll still have my family. I’ll always have my friends. But if your American Discount goes belly-up, you’ll be left standing just like this. Alone.”
She shut the door behind her with more force than was necessary. But she kept herself from looking back. She kept herself from seeing the shattered pieces of her heart strewn across the library floor.