Page 32 of Hottie on Her Shelf
After a moment of silence, Hallie dipped her chin. “Fine. Yes. I need a favor. You offered to help me before. Very generously and selflessly, might I add. To learn the ropes of campaigning. I’d like to accept.”
Wasn’t that interesting?
He tapped two fingers on his cheek. Enjoyed the hell out of watching her attempt—poorly—to hide her frustration. “Hmm. I don’t know.”
That got him an eye roll. Definitely frustrated. “Would your answer be different if I’d countered with whatever the next stupid line is in The Godfather?”
“No, but it wouldn’t kill you to watch. The thing’s a cinematic classic.”
“Fitz, if I promise to watch the movie, will you please show me the ropes of running for office?”
“Why?” The front legs of his chair thumped back down. “Don’t say to beat me. Don’t say to ensure our town continues with the perfect blend of progress and reverence for the past. You were dead set on being insulted at my well-meaning, sportsmanlike offer to help. Sloughed it right off. Tell me why the about-face.”
“Does it matter? I’ve already swallowed my pride to come to you, hat in hand. Isn’t that enough?”
“No.” Fitz held up a finger to prevent any possible eruption of temper. “Not to be a dick about it. The opposite, in fact. I don’t want to unintentionally insult you again. Hell, I don’t want to be yelled at again. Can’t move forward until I know why you changed your mind.”
“I was wrong.”
This whole conversation was like a present dropped in his lap. “Again, fun to hear, since that automatically makes me right, but I need more.”
“After my, ah, poor showing at the campaign kickoff, I needed an emotional pick-me-up. An ego-stroking boost. I’m an only child.”
“Aha. The golden child, right? They think you can do no wrong? That you’re the smartest, funniest, nicest, most beautiful woman in all of Maine? If you were arrested with paint can in hand for spray-painting curse words on a church, they’d insist it was all just a misunderstanding?”
Sheepishly, she nodded. “Exactly.”
“Lucky you. I’ve got a sister, Blake. Plenty of times both of us wished for the magical perfection of the life of an only child.”
Hallie pursed her pretty lips. “You don’t get along now that the volatility of puberty has subsided?”
They’d have to talk to each other with actual regularity to get along or not. Even in a town this small, Fitz only saw his sister a dozen times a year. Holidays. Birthdays. Obligatory stuff. They’d drifted apart young as their parents pitted them against each other “to stoke the competitive fires.”
He wished it were different. They’d never had much of a connection, good or bad. Aside from avoiding fights with their parents. Now it felt too late to start. Fitz would have to add that to the list of dreams he didn’t get to pursue.
“My parents were always comparing us. Even with an age gap. Doesn’t matter. You always want what you don’t have, right?”
“I don’t know about that. My best friend, Megan—she’s the one who put my name on the ballot, so we’ll see if we’re still best friends by the time the election’s over—she’s like a sister to me. I never missed out on having one because I had her.” That damned seductive dimple flashed again. “Plus, all the only child perks.”
“Best of both worlds.” Fitz pulled a pen out of his mug to give his laptop an officious tap. “Back to your story. I’m intrigued for you to get to the part where I’m right.”
Temper flared her nostrils. Then Hallie took a long, slow breath, tucked her hands beneath her thighs. “I went home to be soothed, to be told it was just a stumble and I would end up wiping the floor with you. And that I’d be the best mayor who ever mayored.”
“Obviously.” Fitz appreciated that she was talking to him. Not spitting out the story in anger, not rushing through it just to answer him.
Hallie’s answer was conversational—something they weren’t practiced at. Hearing this made him feel like he was getting to know Hallie. Not the librarian. Not his opponent. Digging a layer deeper into the woman who intrigued him.
She scrunched up her nose. “But that’s not what happened. Instead of pumping me up, my parents begged me to drop out.”
“Why?”
“They don’t think I can win. No,” Hallie shook her head, sending her hair tumbling over her shoulders, “they don’t even think I can make a smudge on the final tally. That I won’t simply lose, but I’ll be crushed.”
It didn’t take his two degrees for Fitz to connect the dots. “Because I’m a Montgomery and you’re not. Because Swan Cove’s mayor is always a Montgomery.”
“Yes.”
Good thing he was twiddling with a pen. He would’ve snapped a pencil in half as righteous indignation poured like lava through him. “That’s bullshit.”
