Page 19 of Shotgun Spouse
Bunny sipped her tea, savoring the warmth. “Want some?” she asked, tilting the mug toward him.
He wrinkled his nose. “Can’t stand the stuff.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Then why do you have it?”
Teddy shrugged.
Her brow furrowed at the cryptic answer. Before she could press him further, she remembered the satellite phone. She'd ensured the mayor had one after the first big storm when she became communications director. “You said emergency services got in touch with you? Was it over the sat phone?"
"Umm… yes."
"Can I use it?”
“It’s really for emergencies.”
“I would say this qualifies as an emergency.”
Teddy held her gaze for a beat, then sighed, reaching for the phone inside a drawer under the counter. He handed it to her, his fingers brushing hers briefly.
Bunny dialed quickly. She tried first Birdie, then Kitty, but their phones were out of service. Not even voicemail picked up. “Unbelievable,” she muttered, handing the phone back to Teddy. “You should call Emergency Services back. Tell them you’re a priority.”
Teddy shook his head, slipping the phone back into the drawer. “Grant’s in town. He can handle anything that comes up. The safety plan’s working like it should.”
“Grant wants your job, you know.”
Teddy shrugged, unbothered. “Grant’s not a people person. It takes people to vote for a mayor.”
Bunny was a people person. People liked her. They trusted her. And she’d been running things behind the scenes long enough to know she could do Teddy's job.
Her gaze lingered on Teddy, who had turned back to the stove, humming softly as he worked. For the first time, she let herself think the unthinkable: maybe she should run for mayor.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Teddy leaned forward on the couch. His elbows came to rest on his knees as he studied the stack of cards in front of Bunny. She sat across from him, cross-legged, in one of his oversized armchairs. Her dark eyes pinned him in place. Her lips were in a flat, unreadable line. The woman had the best poker face he'd ever seen.
“I’m starting to think you’ve hustled a few bikers in your time,” he said.
“Maybe." Not a flicker of an eyelash. Not a tug of that bitable lip. "Or maybe I just know how to read people.”
They were playing a game called Skulls. It had started decades ago in bars, invented by bikers who used coasters as makeshift cards. One coaster would have a skull scrawled on the back, while the others were left blank. The rules were straightforward: each player placed one card from their hand face-down in a pile, and at any point, someone could start a bid, declaring how many cards they thought they could flip without revealing a skull. The highest bidder would then have to flip that many cards—starting with their own stack—and if they hit a skull, they lost. If they succeeded, they won the round.
But the real challenge—and the fun—was in the bluffing.
“I’ve played this game with actual bikers before in that dive bar on Route 17.” Teddy leaned back, his face a mask as he spoke.
“The one with the neon jukebox and questionable peanuts?” Bunny gave no inflection in her tone. She really was good at this.
“That’s the one. And now the game is mass produced and sold on Amazon, which is great for me because I'm going to get to beat you.”
“Big talk for someone about to lose.”
“We’ll see about that.”
They played in silence for a few moments. The quiet was punctuated by the rustle of cards and the occasional creak of the house settling under the weight of the snowstorm. The baby napped peacefully in the corner, her little breaths soft and even.
“You’re the eldest of your siblings, right?”
Bunny nodded, her focus still on the game. She placed her next card.
