Man With A Mission

Angry color filled her cheeks. “I do run this city hall.” Her voice was breathless in her apparent attempt to keep the volume down. “And if you get in my way, I can get your bid ignored so fast you won’t know what happened. And I can also see that no other city business comes your way ever!”

It was almost comfortable to fight with her again. This was familiar ground. “You’re sounding just like the mayor you and my sister helped replace. The one who got too full of his own importance and eventually stole hundreds of thousands from the city and held the two of you at gunpoint? You remember? The one who’s still doing time.”

She sighed and rolled her eyes. “You don’t see me holding anyone at gunpoint, do you? And I don’t need anyone else’s money.”

“You just threatened to arbitrarily deprive me of my livelihood. I’m sure Haley, as the city’s watchdog, would have to look into such behavior.”

She didn’t seem worried. “Your sister is my best friend. I doubt very much that she’d come out on your side.”

“She’s a reporter before she’s a friend, and I am her brother.”

Her voice rose to a shout despite all her efforts. “Then keep your distance and don’t give me any excuse to get rid of you!”

“You got rid of me,” he reminded her, “seventeen years ago.”

“Who left whom?” she demanded.

“We were supposed to leave together.”

For an instant, emotion flashed in her eyes. He tried hard to read it but he was out of practice. Had it been…regret?

“Something unexpected…” she began, and for some reason those words blew the lid off his temper. Probably because they reminded him of what she’d begun to say the night he’d left—alone. Hank, on second thought, it might be better if you went alone, and I…

He hadn’t let her finish. He remembered that he’d been so sure all along that such a thing would happen, that Jackie Fortin was never going to be his. He was sure she’d find that his father had been right all along and Hank was worthless.

“Yeah, you tried to tell me that then, too,” he barked at her. “You expected me to fail, didn’t you? And you didn’t want to leave all your crowns and tiaras behind to take a chance with me.”

IT WOULD BE SO SATISFYING to kick him in the shin, Jackie thought. But Parker and Addy had wandered out into the hallway at the sound of raised voices and now stood a short distance away, looking on worriedly. When Jackie finally did take her revenge on Hank, she didn’t want witnesses.

Besides, much as she hated to admit it, even to herself, it hadn’t been all his fault. She should have tried to make him listen, insisted that he understand, but she’d been frightened and hurt, too. And broken-hearted.

She was very tired suddenly and her back felt as though sandbags hung from it. “I think you have me confused with your father,” she said softly, so that Addy wouldn’t hear. “You wouldn’t listen to my explanation then, so I doubt you’d want to hear it now. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll get out of your way.”

But she couldn’t climb the stairs until he moved.

He considered her a moment, his anger seeming to thin, then caught her arm and drew her up on the step beside him. “Come on,” he said. “I’ll walk you upstairs.”

She wanted to tell him that she walked up and down stairs all day long. That was the price of occupying a building that had been constructed before elevators. But he looked as tired of their argument as she felt, so she kept quiet.

With his large hand wrapped around her upper arm, he led the way upstairs. The space was a little tight, but she did her best to ignore him. She didn’t realize until they were almost at the top that she wasn’t breathing. The baby, apparently convinced he was being strangled, gave her a swift kick in the ribs.

“Aah!” she gasped, stopping to give herself a moment to recover. This baby had Van Damme’s skill at Savate.

“What?” Hank asked worriedly.

“Just a kick,” she said breathlessly, rubbing where she’d felt it.

“Why don’t you sit for a minute?” Without waiting for her compliance, he pushed her gently until she was sitting on the stair above them. “Are you sure you should be working in this condition?”

“It’s pregnancy,” she replied, a little unsettled by what appeared to be genuine, if grudging, concern, “not infirmity. I’m fine.”

“You’re pale.”

“I can’t help that,” she retorted. “You’re very annoying. Preventing myself from punching you is taking its toll.”

A reluctant smile crossed his face as he studied hers. “It would be a lot for a woman who wasn’t pregnant to run a hotel and a city while raising two children.”

He used to do that when they were going together and she remembered that it made her feel very protected. In the middle of a dance or a drive or a game of tennis he would stop to look at her, and always gave her the impression that if he saw something wrong, he would remedy it.

Considering her embattled position as mayor, her ten-year-old having trouble in school, her six-year-old turning into a sometimes fun, but often worrisome wild-child, Jackie enjoyed the momentary fantasy of someone wanting to solve her problems, or at least being willing to help shoulder them.

She saw him note the brief lowering of her defenses and quickly raised them again. She caught the bannister and pulled herself up—or tried to. The baby provided ballast that sometimes refused to move when she did.

Hank took her elbow in one hand and wrapped his other arm around her waist—or where her waist would have been if she’d had one.

“Steady,” he cautioned. She felt the muscles of his arm stiffen and was brought to her feet on the step. “Careful until you get turned around.”

He held her securely until she faced the right direction, and kept his hold the rest of the way.

At the top of the stairs in a small hallway off the home’s original kitchen, which was now the small but comfortable employee lounge, a tall man blocked the doorway and reached a hand down to help Jackie up the last step. He wore jeans and a blue down vest over a red sweatshirt. She’d never seen him before.

“Hi, Hank,” he said as he nodded courteously to Jackie, then freed her hand. “I was just coming down to help you with the desk.”

“Just in time.” Hank cleared the stop of the stairs, and Jackie found herself sandwiched between the two men. “Jackie, I’d like you to meet Cameron Trent,” he said. “The newest addition to my staff. He’s a plumber. Cam, this is Her Honor, Mayor Bourgeois.”

Cameron offered his hand and Jackie took it, liking his direct hazel gaze and his charming confusion. “What do I call you, ma’am?” he asked. “Your Honor? Mrs. Mayor?”

“Ms. Mayor seems to be the preferred greeting in the building. But Jackie will be fine outside. Are you new to Maple Hill?”

“I’m from San Francisco,” he replied. “I came here to get my master’s at Amherst and to see a little snow.”

She laughed lightly. There’d been snow on the ground in Maple Hill since early December. “Are you tired of it yet?”

“No, I’m loving it.”

“Good. Well, good luck with your degree.” She turned her attention to Hank, unsettled by their meeting and the knowledge that she could run into him at any moment from now on. “Hank,” she said, unsure what to add to that. “Welcome to the building.”

There was a wry twist to his mouth, as though he suspected she didn’t mean that at all. “Thank you, Ms. Mayor. I’ll see you around while trying very hard not to get in your way.”

She gave him a brief glare, smiled at Cameron Trent, then turned and walked away.

“PRETTY LADY,” Cameron said as he followed Hank down the stairs. “Shame about her husband.”

When Hank turned at the bottom of the stairs, surprised that a newcomer knew about Ricky Bourgeois, Cameron nodded. “I came in July to find a place to live, and his death was in the paper with a story about how his family helped establish Maple Hill.”

Hank remembered Haley sending him the clipping. She’d been discreet about how he’d died, just said that he’d been away on a business trip when he’d suffered a heart attack. He hadn’t found out the truth until he’d moved back home.

“You’d think,” Cameron went on, “that a man would value a classy lady like that.”