Page 44 of Make Me Love You

“Right,” Bronson said. “We’ll talk later.”

Eli hung up the phone and squinted at it questioningly. Those last words sounded like a threat, but maybe that was because the thought of spending even five minutes in Bronson’s company was unpleasant. He shrugged and tossed the phone aside.

Last night he had had amazing sex, this morning he was going to have amazing quiche, and he wasn’t going to let Bronson ruin any of that. It didn’t matter, anyway.

Not even Jacob Bronson could stop Emma from winning this election.

Chapter Twelve

Emma watched the red wand make its inexorable sweep around the clock face, counting down the seconds to nine a.m., with a growing sense of doom.

Mistakes had been made. She had slept with Eli last night, that was mistake number one. Agreeing to make a regular thing of it this morning, that was mistake number two. Right now it didn’t feel like a mistake, but that was because her body was still humming happily from the orgasms. Once that wore off, she would see the error of her ways. It was always a mistake to sleep with your ex-best-friend who arrested your dad. That was just common sense.

But more relevant to the nauseous feeling in her stomach was mistake number three: Agreeing to be mayor.

It was her first day as official Acting Mayor without Mr. Whittaker right there next to her, making sure she didn’t fuck anything up too badly. Last week she had shadowed him, attending office hours in between serving up burritos, scrubbing the iron lamp posts, and turning her home into a bed and breakfast. It was a lot to take in, and not a lot of time to learn it.

Mostly she had stayed quiet, listening intently as Mr. Whittaker resolved one neighbor dispute after another—and there were a lot. Each time, Mr. Whittaker would grab one of the thick volumes that lined the bookshelf, miraculously open it to the exact page he needed, and proclaim, “The regulation is clear as day.” Boom, problem solved.

But Emma couldn’t solve problems by pointing at a law or regulation—and there was, in fact, a difference, according to Mr. Whittaker—because she didn’t have any idea what the law actually was. Mr. Whittaker had assured her there was a regulation for everything, but that hadn’t made her feel any better about it. In fact, it made her feel worse.

“The solution to every problem is right here,” Mr. Whittaker had said, giving the bookshelf a fond pat like it was an old friend. “Some folks might not be too happy with it, but the law is finite. It’s not personal. Just look to the regulations, Emma. You’ll be all right.”

The growing panic in her stomach had told her she wouldn’t be all right at all. Unlike Mr. Whittaker, Emma didn’t have a decade of experience as mayor, and if being a good mayor meant reading all those books...well, Emma had never met a textbook that didn’t put her to sleep. If her mediocrity at school had taught her one thing, it was that her brain simply refused to process boring words. Hart’s Ridge was screwed.

The minute hand hit the two. It was now 9:10. Emma let out a slow, unsteady breath. Maybe no one would show up? Maybe—

The knock on the door crushed her hopes and sent a spike of anxiety up her spine. “Come in,” she said, hoping she didn’t sound as nervous as she felt.

The door opened, and Emma breathed a sigh of relief at seeing two familiar faces. Mr. McKinley and Mrs. López were neighbors on Applewood Lane, only a block off Main Street, and both had been frequent customers of her Airstream. They had always seemed like perfectly nice and reasonable people, not the kind who would pitch a screaming fit over how frequently a neighbor mowed his lawn, like Mrs. Gracen had last week. Emma’s mouth had dropped open at the sight of a fifty-year-old woman throwing a tantrum like a four-year-old, but Mr. Whittaker had calmly pointed to the ordinance requiring lawns to be less than eight inches in height and sent her on her way.

“Good morning, Emma,” Mrs. López said cheerfully. “Or should I call you Mayor Andrews?”

Emma straightened. If she was going to convince people that she could do the job, she needed to act the part. Eli exuded authority. People believed in him. People needed to believe in her, too, even if she was wearing jeans and a T-shirt instead of a uniform.

“Mayor Andrews is fine,” she said. “What can I do for you?”

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