“I think I’ve made some headway on that topic.” Brady turned serious.
“On what topic?” My heartbeat was increasing slowly and steadily to a pace that promised to have it bursting through my skin at any moment if the sexy country singer continued to look at my lips as if they were strawberry pie, especially after every sweet thing he’d just done.
“I spoke with William Chan earlier. I’m hoping it shed a different light on the topic of the festival for him.”
I just stared at him.
“What?” he asked.
“You can’t just swoop in and take over everything without even bothering to ask if people want your help,” I said. I wanted to be mad, but it was hard to bring it to the surface after the tenderness I’d just witnessed. The care and attention he’d given others.
He played with the leather at his wrists while taking me in. “You’re right. I just… Elana wasn’t just my teacher. She was more a mom than my mom was on many days, and the thought of William?of anyone?dismantling something that was hers…it just eats at me.”
There was a twist of knife-like pain to his words that made me wonder why he’d needed my grandmother. Why his mother hadn’t been there for him when she seemed very much there for Cassidy. My confusion must have registered on his face because he looked back at Hannah and then at me.
“I need to help…need it like I need air to breathe. I’d never forgive myself for not doing everything in my power to fix this for you. For Elana,” he powered on.
I gulped and then choked out. “I… I want to insist that I don’t require your help. I want to be stubborn and just say I can do it on my own, but I’m not sure it’s true.”
I closed my eyes briefly after letting the admission break free. He moved, leaning so that his arm was over my head on the doorframe, bringing us closer together and making my body tingle with awareness as if it was coming back to life after a long sleep. When I opened my eyes back up, I got sucked into his gaze. He stared for so long I thought maybe we would both turn to dust.
“We all need help sometimes,” he said quietly, huskily.
I couldn’t look away. I was trapped. I felt like my life was one huge wave of need. I owed so many people for so many things. For a lifetime of helping me pick up the pieces. It was all I could do to keep my chin in the air and accept one more round of assistance.
Brady’s phone buzzed, and he was the one to break our trance, a frown causing his eyebrows to burrow together.
“I gotta run, but I’ll definitely see you tonight,” he said, turning back to Hannah. “Don’t be a cheater like me, and I’ll teach you a new song next time.”
Hannah’s face lit up. Pure happiness.
It should have filled me with joy, but instead, it filled me with worry because if she got attached to this man…a new teacher…and then he left her, it would tear more holes into her little soul already filled with them. It would tear holes in both of us.
Brady brandished that roguish smile one more time and left, taking some of the sunshine out of the room with him.
???
The town hall was packed and ringing with feverish talk as we waited for the council meeting to start. The old building with its brick walls and wooden pews had once served as a courtroom before all the town’s cases had been shuffled off to the county. Now, the building served primarily as a meeting room, and I wasn’t sure it had seen this number of people gathered inside its walls in a very long time.
I’d asked for the support of the downtown businesses, and they’d shown up in force. Not only the owners from Main Street, but also the hotels and strip malls that took up the edges of Grand Orchard. Everyone who counted on the revenue the festival normally brought them.
Mayor Regan Sanchez’s dark eyes absorbed the crowd with wariness while William Chan whispered in herear. I wasn’t one to hate very often. There were very few who’d ever made it on my list: an asshole at the Pentagon who’d approved a black op that should never have been approved, and now this man.He was trying to destroy something my grandmother had built, and his reason for doing it was simply money. Greed. The same reason which had caused Petty Officer White to push the mission that had taken my husband’s life.
The other council members, some of whom had been in and out of Grams’ shop and who greeted her with smiles at the bakery or church, were flipping through their agendas. Hardy, Witt, and Castro had all been on the women’s shelter’s board with Grams. I had no idea what they’d been thinking when they’d let the mayor and Chan talk them into denying the permits to begin with, but I was hoping I could sway them my way tonight.
The mayor hammered a gavel onto the wooden U-shaped table at the front of the room where the entire city council sat. The room went silent. She went through the formalities of opening the meeting, motioning to skip the reading of the last minutes, and then announced the first topic on the agenda. “We’ll start with Mrs. Tristan Morgan who requested we revisit the topic of the Apple Jam Music Fest’s permits.”
I stood, trying not to let the shiver of anxiety flying through me show to the room. I’d never in my life been a person who was comfortable in the limelight. When I was in school, I’d hated giving speeches in a classroom with a mere thirty bodies in it. The fact that I needed to talk in front of all of these people made me want to lose the dinner I’d foolishly eaten thinking it would fuel me.
I fought the wave of nausea, reminding myself that this was for Grams.
I steeled my back, stepping toward the podium. I’d changed from my normal, paint-splattered apparel to a green T-shirt dress partnered with a jean jacket. I didn’t have business clothes in my wardrobe. I didn’t have much of anything anymore because I’d barely replaced the necessities in the last four years. I’d concentrated on what Hannah needed and not myself. I looked like the last person anyone should take seriously when it came to talk of economics and business.
At the podium, I took out the notes I’d made from the pocket of my jacket with shaky hands. I smoothed the wrinkles from the paper, adjusted the mic, and then looked up at the men and women who made up the city council.
“Thank you for letting me speak today.” My voice quivered, and even though he didn’t roll his eyes, I knew William Chan was doing it on the inside. I was a ghost of a woman, trying to make a stand against him. Anger and frustration rolled through me again, shoring me up. “I’m grateful to be allowed to speak on the festival's behalf, especially since I wasn’t aware the council had met and ruled on the permits already.”
It was a slight reprimand I couldn’t help but give. I should have been informed. They knew it, too, because some of them had the grace to look down and away. Not William Chan. He almost smirked.
