Page 76 of Hottie on Her Shelf
Preston’s face slipped into an identically polite mask. “You’ve no place lambasting his strength, son. Do you realize the courage it took to weave his ship in and out, when literally every other ship on the sea was gunning for him? That’s a man with a spine of steel. A man who won’t back down.”
“He refilled the family coffers, was a good husband to your great-great-great-grandmother, produced three children, and led this town.” Caroline lifted her wineglass in a wordless toast to long-gone Robert.
“So, you’re painting him more as Rhett Butler than as a war criminal?” Hallie smiled over the rim of her water glass. “The way I see it, for all his failings, Rhett was a far better person than Scarlett.”
Fitz wiped his mouth to hide his grin. That was his librarian, always bringing the conversation back to books. And, handily, trying to dispel the growing tension at the table with a subject change.
“Those are fictional characters, Ms. Scott. We’re discussing a real leader of this town.” The cutdown by his mom was swift, and it surprised Fitz. He knew Caroline belonged to a book club, that she always had a stack of books on her nightstand. She wasn’t anti-reading or anything.
Was she anti-Hallie?
Hallie blinked twice, but she didn’t back down. “You can have a spirited discussion using the filter of fiction. It can be much more productive. Makes things less personal.”
“She’s trying to help me, Mom.” Fitz tapped the center of his pale gray tie. “Since I’m clearly not excited by this reveal of family lore.”
“Good or bad, family is what counts. Robert did a lot of good in his day, and he kept the line of Montgomery mayors unbroken.”
Fitz had been raised to believe that was a good thing, a necessary thing. That nobody else had the means or the institutional knowledge or the genuine good intentions to take care of Swan Cove as well as the Montgomery family could and did.
He was no longer swallowing that hook, line, and sinker. “Well, he cheated, especially post-Civil War. It wasn’t what you’d call a liberated time. A man taking his wife’s family name was unheard of.”
“That’s enough.” Preston shook his fork. “You will continue that line, Fitz, so I won’t have you badmouthing it.”
“There’s no guarantee.”
“Of what? You respecting your ancestors? We raised you better than that.”
Were they really that single-minded? Deliberately, Fitz lifted his glass and clinked it against Hallie’s. “There’s no guarantee I’ll win. Ms. Scott here might just surprise you.”
Preston burst into loud, rolling guffaws, loud enough that other tables looked over and smiled at the obvious good times going down. “It would surprise me, indeed. Oh, that’s hilarious.”
“I disagree.” Fitz infused the two words with icy steel.
Hallie set down her fork and lined it up parallel to the knife clinging to the edge of the plate. And then she beamed at him. “No, thank you, Fitz. I can stand up for myself. You shouldn’t be forced to defend my chances of beating you, but it is chivalrous that you’d try. And I’d take a Lancelot type over King Arthur any day.”
His dad’s chuckles barely died down. “Please. We all know this is a stunt, Ms. Scott. I genuinely don’t understand why you’re wasting your time with it, but that’s your choice. Regardless, your attempt at a run against a Montgomery cannot be conceived as anything more serious than a publicity stunt.”
“I’m not seeking notoriety. It’s costing me money, energy, and time. It’s certainly beating down my ego to a microscopic sediment.” Hallie had followed Fitz’s lead, keeping her voice low and calm. The rest of the room wouldn’t have any idea that she was in the most epic showdown he’d ever had the privilege to watch. “So, I assure you this is a serious run, and not a stunt.”
“Then you’re a fool,” Preston spat out, his brows coming together ominously.
“And you’re ill-mannered to speak that way to a dinner guest.”
Wow.
Wow. Fitz didn’t know if he should applaud or run and grab the fire extinguisher to cool these two off. She’d been worked up and worried about this dinner, intimidated at the prospect of meeting the couple who owned the town.
Fitz had pointed out that she had a good relationship with his Aunt Felicia, and an extraordinarily good one with him, so clearly the Montgomerys weren’t as scary as she was making them out to be.
But to say she was holding her own was the understatement of the decade. And his father…wasn’t. His face was the same red as the lobster shells on every plate. His mom’s had blanched to the color of the lobster meat. A vein popped out along Preston’s temple, pulsing and dark.
The thing was, though, Hallie was right. No matter what the circumstance, Preston had overstepped. So now what? If she didn’t want him to run interference, what was Fitz supposed to do as the charged silence dragged on and on?
…
Hallie wasn’t a newbie to being insulted, overtly or discreetly. She’d grown up a nerd, on the wrong side of the tracks of a town that every other town along the coast looked down on. She’d become a librarian. Well aware that she’d been a lifelong easy target, Hallie genuinely didn’t get perturbed by much. Not anything aimed at her, at least. If somebody badmouthed her friends or family, she’d become ferocious, but she took very little personally.
Preston Montgomery didn’t know that about her, though. He’d been an inconsiderate, snobbish jackass. And Hallie knew why. Not because she dared to run against his precious next-in-the-dynasty son. Okay, maybe a little that, but mostly because she was from Crow Harbor and daring to reach for the stars in his wealthy, privileged, better-than-everywhere-else hamlet.
