Page 113 of That Kind of Guy

“Hi, sweetheart.” He pulled me under his arm.

I gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, inhaling his warm, masculine scent. “Hi, honey.”

Miri clapped once. “Avery, good, you’re here.” She gestured at turtle rehab employee rolling out a cart with a black cloth covering the contents. “You can hand Sarabeth to Mr. Mayor here when I give you the signal.”

Emmett’s grin dropped. “Who’s Sarabeth?” His throat worked, and I tried not to laugh. “Miri. We talked about this. Who is Sarabeth.”

Miri gave him a look likeduh. “One of our newest guests. We need to make her feel welcome.” She pulled up the black cloth to reveal a googley-eyed turtle with its face pressed up against the glass.

Emmett gagged, his torso heaving. “Miri, no.”

“Hi, folks, sorry I’m late.” Don, the Queen’s Cove Daily blogger, appeared at our side with his camera strung around his neck.

“Oh god, not again.” Emmett pinched the bridge of his nose.

I rubbed his back. “It’ll be okay, honey.”

Miri’s attention was caught by something and her face lit up. “Oh, perfect. And here’s Carter.”

I saw where she was looking and nearly choked.

Carter, the early-twenties stoner who lived in the basement of my old place, wandered up wearing a full turtle mascot costume, carrying the giant turtle head in his arms.

“Laser! Didn’t know you’d be here. Hey, bro.” His eyes widened when he caught Emmett’s glare. “You don’t look so good. Are you seasick or something?”

At least Emmett didn’t look like he was going to puke, anymore. He glowered at Carter and I felt him tense up beside me. I squeezed his waist a bit tighter to distract him.

He glanced down at me. “I don’t like this part of being mayor,” he muttered while Miri, Don, and Carter were in conversation about which way Carter would walk across the stage.

“It can’t all be fixing the electrical grid and filing criminal charges against the last guy.”

“Shhh.” He looked around to make sure I wasn’t heard before shooting me a grin. “You’re not supposed to know about that.”

Soon after Emmett was elected mayor by a landslide, Isaac relocated his family to Vancouver, and Chuck put his business up for sale. Emmett was looking for infrastructure development records and found some disappearing paper trails. Complaints against Chuck’s business seemed to disappear once they were filed. The town infrastructure budget was used up every year by charges that didn’t make sense. And there were a lot of expenses filed twice that somehow made it past the accounting department. Emmett suspected that someone who had an interest in keeping the town’s electric grid in the dark ages had been slipping Isaac cash under the table. A generator company or repair person, perhaps.

But I wasn’t supposed to know any of this, because Emmett and the town council were still dealing with lawyers, and nothing had been formally filed yet.

Miri gestured at Emmett that they were ready to start and he leaned down to give me a quick kiss. His lips brushed mine and I felt that zip of electricity down to my toes.

“Love you, honey.” His voice was low in my ear.

“Love you, too.” I smiled and him.

“I hope you know I’m going to make you wear that thing later.” He made sure no one was looking before giving me a quick smack on the ass. I laughed and he stepped on stage and up to the microphone.

“Good afternoon, Queen’s Cove!” He beamed and the small crowd applauded and cheered. “Welcome to the grand opening of the new location of Miri’s House of Turtle Horrors.”

The crowd was silent and Miri’s mouth fell open. Emmett’s eyes went wide when he realized what he said. I covered my mouth with my hand to hide my laughter.

“I mean, Miri’s Turtle Heaven.” He coughed. “Let’s give Miri a big round of applause!”

The crowd applauded as Miri stepped on stage, gesturing for Carter to join her. The second he stepped up with his turtle costume, the crowd went nuts. He was wearing the turtle head so I couldn’t see his expression but based on the way he was doing the robot and moonwalking around the stage, I knew he had a huge grin on his face. He danced over to Emmett and put his arm around Emmett’s shoulders.

“Get off me,” Emmett said, and I snorted. “Miri’s organization has a long history of rescuing and rehabilitation turtles in the area.”

Beside me, the employee unlatched the tank holding the turtles. Emmett’s professional smile faltered and his eyes darted to the tank.

“And, um—” His throat worked. “And with the new facility, they’ll be able to accept nearly twice the guests.”

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