Page 24 of Make Me Love You

Tomorrow they would be changing locations to Colby County Community College. It was fifteen minutes closer, and far enough from Asheville that they might avoid traffic. Usually a college campus would be a safe bet for making sales. However, it was also summer, which meant the campus wouldn’t be as populated as it was in fall and spring. It was a gamble, but maybe it would pay off.

Right now, she was so tired she didn’t want to think about it anymore. She didn’t want to think about the streetlights, either, and how she was going to get them sanded and painted when all her daylight hours were devoted to burritos. She didn’t want to think about how Kate and Suzie had probably had a great time at happy hour without her. She didn’t want to think about why Eli’s face was on a gigantic poster with Vote for Law and Order in big black letters.

Wait, what?

She hit the brakes and came to a stop there in the middle of the street, not bothering to pull over. She stared out the window, rubbed her eyes, then looked again. No, she wasn’t hallucinating. Vote for Law and Order, then his serious, unsmiling face, followed by Vote Eli Carter for Mayor.

What. The. Hell.

***

“Oh, so we’re doing this again,” Suzie said, looking down at Emma. “Well, I’m not getting down there with you this time. I’ve gained a thousand pounds since yesterday, all in my stomach.”

Emma kept her eyes on the ceiling fan’s slow, lazy circles. “I didn’t ask you to.”

The floorboards vibrated beneath her as her friends plopped themselves down on the couch. “I take it she heard the news?” Kate asked.

“We saw the posters driving back into town,” Cesar said. “She screamed a bit, and now here we are.”

“Emma, honey, this isn’t the end of the world,” Kate cajoled. “Maybe it’s even a good thing. You don’t want to be mayor, right? Now you won’t have to be. Obviously we hate him, so that’s a factor to consider, but he might...maybe he would do a good job. And you would be off the hook. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

“Theoretically, yes,” Emma said.

But in reality? In reality it would suck.

Emma was not a practical, even-keeled sort of person. She didn’t make decisions based on logic and reason. She was driven by emotion. Rationally, she knew that Eli was a decent human being who cared about Hart’s Ridge, and their painful history didn’t change that. As mayor, he wasn’t going to go outlawing food trucks or raising taxes on small businesses. Her life would continue on the same as it always was.

But emotionally. Emotionally, she knew that everything would change. Hart’s Ridge wouldn’t feel like home anymore. It would be his town. He would preside over all her favorite events, like the Christmas tree lighting and the Fourth of July fireworks. His infuriatingly handsome face would be everywhere.

It would be intolerable. Absolutely intolerable.

She would have to leave. This town was only big enough for the both of them when she could pretend he didn’t exist. There would be no more pretending if Eli were mayor.

It had never occurred to Emma to leave Hart’s Ridge. Then again, it had never occurred to her not to. Leaving had never been an option, not with her dad in the Asheville prison. She needed to stay close to him while he was there, and to be a soft place to land when he got out.

Every decision she had made had been focused on immediate survival, not the future or ambition. Had she wanted to run a food truck? Not particularly. But that was the opportunity that had presented itself when she needed a job. Fortunately, it turned out she did enjoy cooking—or at least she didn’t hate it—but it wasn’t her passion the way it was for Delmy Garcia, who put her heart and soul into Dreamer’s Café.

What was her passion? She had no idea. Did passion even matter, so long as bills got paid? It had always seemed to her that passion was a luxury, and quite frankly, she couldn’t afford it.

Staying in Hart’s Ridge, that was just happenstance, too. Her father would have sold the house if she had asked him to, but she couldn’t have asked it of him. He needed something stable waiting for him when he got out. And she loved the house, truly. Anyway, she had flunked out of community college, so where would she go? What would she do for money? It wasn’t like she had talent to fall back on, either.

No, she had never considered leaving, but she had never chosen to stay.

Now...now she was considering what it would be like to actually leave. And goddammit, she was staying. Hart’s Ridge was hers. She loved it. Loved the mountains. Loved the people. Loved the buildings. Loved the freaking lamp posts she had sacrificed her muscles to scrub free of rust. Maybe she wasn’t passionate about cooking burritos, but she was passionate about this. About Hart’s Ridge.

She couldn’t let Eli take it from her. She wouldn’t.

But how was she going to stop him? Who was stupid enough to go up against Eli Carter, beloved officer of Hart’s Ridge and all around hottie?

She was.

Lord help her.

“Emma.” Suzie nudged her none too gently with a swollen foot. “You okay? You’ve been quiet for a really long time.”

“Just thinking.” The fan kept spinning, and Emma kept watching. It soothed her. “You know why small towns survive? The same reason big cities do. They either make something people want, or they’re a place people want to go. Like, L.A. makes movies and New York makes...I don’t know, stocks or whatever.”

“I don’t think they make stocks,” Kate murmured.

---