Page 32 of The Last Love Song
“Weird how two council members resigned their seats at midterm.” She raised an auburn eyebrow at him. “Are you scaring people away, Mayor?”
“Consider how terrified I am to attend the McCords’ ribbon-cutting ceremony by myself and you’ll realize how ludicrous that sounds.” He leaned so their shoulders brushed, tilting his head to confide the secret. Also to feel the brush of all that red silky hair against his cheek.
“Right. I forgot how easily intimidated you are by accomplished women.” She edged forward to look him in the eye, still playful, but there was an element of awareness, too. A hint of breathlessness in her words.
His heart slugged harder in his chest and he wished things were different between them. Wished…so much.
“Don’t try to distract me.” He stroked the inside of her palm, saw the way her breath caught as he did. “Tell me about Megan Bryer.”
“She hasn’t been herself lately. Stressed about school and college and money. Except there’s got to be more to it than that.” She frowned and stared at the phone on her lap. “I’m not sure exactly. But I do know she’s falling behind in some schoolwork, because she mentioned wanting to interview you for a paper.”
“No doubt she heard I won the seat in a landslide vote.” He continued to stroke Heather’s hand, wondering what she’d needed to research about him.
He didn’t like revisiting the BS from his father’s crimes. And he sure as hell hoped no one had discovered anything about Ellie’s problems. He and Sam had worked hard to make certainshe stayed relatively hidden, her identity adjusted just enough to keep her off her old stalker’s radar.
“Megan said you manage a website.” She flipped the phone around so he could see the page she’d loaded—his sister’s victim support group.
Not that anyone else would make that connection.
“True enough.” His name must be on one of the pages he’d uploaded for Ellie. Or else Megan had found him in the WHOIS search for ownership of the site. Zach hadn’t wanted Ellie’s contact information on there.
“You are a man of many talents, it seems.” She set the phone back on the swing. The wooden slats creaked as she moved, the only sound except for the chirp of night bugs.
“Do you think my advanced tech skills make up for my lack of fishing expertise?” He wanted to change the subject. Still, he needed to tell her about the soon-to-be investigation into the town’s missing money.
But he was curious how the hell Megan Bryer had found that link.
“Possibly. The website sounds like it will offer valuable tools to victims of cyberbullying.” Her eyes were full of questions he wasn’t ready to answer. He sure couldn’t tell her about his sister’s connection to the site.
“I try to choose a few gratis projects during the year.” That was true enough. “This group needed some help and their mission lines up well with the goals of my digital-security company.”
Before she could ask him any more, he gestured toward the car.
“I’ll tell you about it on the way back to my place,” he offered, tugging her to her feet as he stood.
An hour later, they were putting the finishing touches on the fish in his kitchen. The sun had long set, but the pendant lightsover the breakfast bar glowed with warm light. Heather sautéed the filets and he chopped the mushrooms for a sauce she’d come up with based on the ingredients in his refrigerator. The trout would be served over angel-hair pasta with a light cream sauce. His kitchen smelled amazing.
“So I think I get it.” She switched the flame off beneath the skillet and moved the fish off the burner. “The site will offer tools to help victims of cyberbullying track incidents of harassment, which ties into your company’s interests. But this has your name on it instead of your company’s name, Fortress Nine.”
Because it was personal. Because his sister was nearly raped by a stranger in a nylon mask who’d stalked her and hunted her down when he thought she was alone. But Sam Reyes had made sure that didn’t happen, a protector to the core, even before his days as a small-town sheriff.
Too bad that story was never told, not even to his mother.
Sam had beaten the guy until he was scared he’d killed him. But after a car drove past the lonely stretch of road where it had happened, Sam had hid. After the car disappeared, the stalker—what Sam had thought had been a lifeless body—was gone. Zach and Sam had many reasons to keep the incident quiet, even if Zach had wanted police help. The cops had never done a damn thing to help Ellie before, and Sam was old enough he could have been tried as an adult if someone thought he was guilty of assault. But most important, his traumatized sister had begged for time to think about what she wanted to do.
Two weeks later, she’d tried to kill herself.
Zach ground his teeth. Forced himself to breathe normally. He wasn’t sharing that part. But he needed to tell her a piece of it. Just enough so she’d understand his personal investment in Ellie’s efforts.
“Not many people know this, but my sister had a stalker in school.”
“Gabriella?” Heather pulled down the plates from the stainless-steel open shelving while he drained the pasta. “Wasn’t she in my sister Amy’s grade?”
“I think so.” He found a bottle of wine and sought her approval.
“Thanks, but I’d better not.” She passed him a water glass. “I’ll have water.”
“Me, too.” He slid the wine back into the temperature-controlled drawer and took care of the drinks.
