Just One of Those Things, page 23
Because this was Harmony Springs. This was a small town. Every single person in the room knew that Matt and Emily were an item. They’d all laughed at the shenanigans at the Christmas Fête. The women had gossiped at Yoga Night. Even Mona and Gio had given their respective blessings at their restaurants.
Once again, Megan saved the day. “I’m sorry, Matt. Only dues-paying members of the Central Business District are eligible to vote or nominate.”
Matt nodded. “I assume I can pay my dues by check?”
Megan looked annoyed. “You have to own or manage a store within the confines of the Central Business District.”
“I assume Presley’s Hardware will do?”
The sliver of ice turned into a dagger, sharp and double-edged, slicing through Emily’s windpipe and lodging in her lungs. Matt shifted his gaze to her as he pulled a sheaf of papers from the inside pocket of his jacket. “Here’s the deed, signed by Jacob Presley this afternoon in front of a notary public.”
The bastard was stealing the property that was supposed to become her mother’s art gallery.
Matt had sat with her family on Christmas Day. He’d joined in the banter, shared in their food. He’d listened to her mother’s excitement, to the opportunity of a lifetime—showing in Gabriella’s new art gallery on Main Street.
And then he’d wormed his way into Jake Presley’s plans—offered him money or a speedy negotiation or more.
The worst part was, Matt had told her exactly what he was going to. He’d warned her not to trust him, not to share too much. Word for word, he’d cautioned her. What had he said? It was just one of those things.
And she’d even been smart enough to heed his warning once, to turn his own competitiveness against him at the Fête.
But now, when it was really important, she’d let down her defenses. Now her mother was going to suffer. Her mother was going to lose out on a gallery in the old Presley space because Emily had lied to herself, because Emily had chosen to believe that Matt cared more for her, more than he did about his business plan, about his damned American Discount store.
Megan looked over Matt’s papers, but everything was in order, as Emily had been certain it would be. Matt was too shrewd a competitor to screw up the small stuff. His I’s were dotted; his T’s were crossed. “All right,” Megan said. “Matt Dawson is also running for president. Do we have any other nominations from the floor?”
Of course there weren’t any. But the spell was broken now, and everyone was talking. Some of the comments were made as whispers, too faint for Emily to parse. But she heard her name on others’ lips, her name and Matt’s. She heard the undercurrent of excitement, the thrill that something was happening, that life was stirred up in the otherwise boring little town of Harmony Springs.
Megan gave instructions, telling people they could write in Matt’s name at the bottom of their ballots. Emily marked her own form, making a perfect X on each blank beside a typed name. Caden collected the ballots and totaled them too, offering them to the lawyer to double-check his work. Megan nodded and took the lectern.
“We have thirty-seven unanimous votes for Kitty Moran, Joe Henderson, and Tammy Yeager.” Emily caught her breath. “We have twenty-four votes for Emily. Thirteen for Matt.”
Applause again, and now it irritated Emily, because they were trying to conduct business here, not hold a pep rally. But she stepped back to the rostrum. She instructed her fellow officers to take a bow. She announced that the meeting was adjourned, that they’d meet again the second Thursday in February.
And then she marched down the aisle, pausing barely long enough to hiss at Matt. “Outside. Now.”
She didn’t wait to see if he’d follow her out of the room.
~~~
Matt closed the door behind him as he joined Emily in the children’s reading room. The glass walls were intended to keep the noise of shrieking kids away from people using the library as a quiet place to study. Right now, though, the walls felt like giant magnifying glasses, putting him on display in front of all the people leaving the SOS meeting, all the people pretending they weren’t straining their ears for a whisper of the knock-down, drag-out fight that was about to begin.
Right on cue, Emily said, “Who’s next?”
The question caught him off guard. He’d been expecting an attack. “What do you mean?” he asked warily.
“You broke Caden’s heart on Monday. You gutted me tonight. Who are you going to crap on next?”
“I told you not to give me business secrets.”
“I didn’t! You stole that store from my mother.”
He was almost glad to hear the emotion shaking her voice. Emotion made an opponent throw wild. Emotion led to mistakes.
He kept his own voice perfectly toneless, the same way he had when Don Armstrong had raked him over the coals in Raleigh. Matt had a purpose here. He was going to save Harmony Springs. He was going to keep Main Street going. He was going to help every single resident in town, people like his mother.
He had to be right. He had to win. Otherwise, his entire career would add up to nothing.
“‘Steal’ is a loaded word,” he said. “Jake Presley was a willing participant in our negotiations.”
“You bought him!”
Emotion twitched deep in his belly, a flash of irritation he couldn’t afford. “We negotiated at arm’s length. He needed money to pay off the mortgage on his home. He can retire now. Do whatever he wants for the rest of his life.” And that was something else he’d given back to Harmony Springs. Another way he could make things right, one person at a time.
“At what cost, Matt? What about every other merchant in that room?”
“You mean the thirteen who voted for me?”
Strike one. She clearly hadn’t let herself think about that yet. And because the truth was a weapon, a way for him to shut down this fight once and for all, he said, “You thought you had them all. But this isn’t Yoga Night with the girls. It’s business. And thirteen people in that room didn’t think you’re the right person to grow Harmony Springs business.”
“And you are?” He knew he’d drawn blood because her voice turned cruel. “You left town the first second you could. You talk a good game, Matt, but you’ve treated Harmony Springs like a toxic waste dump for the past fourteen years of your life.”
He lashed out before he could acknowledge the pain of her body blow. “I made a commitment to the Rockets, and I’ll never regret that. Which you might understand if you’d ever kept a job for longer than two years. If you’d ever managed to make it through a single year of college.”
Strike two. Her emotions marched across her face—shock, rage, a sudden, steely determination. He could read her every thought, her every searing feeling because he’d spent the past six weeks memorizing everything about her.
“You bastard,” she said.
She was reeling. She was trying to step back into the batter’s box, trying to get back into the fight. But he couldn’t let her do that. So he said, “I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know yourself.”
Strike three. That was his last blow, the pitch that put her away. Because he knew how much she questioned herself. How much she feared she’d made the wrong choices, taken the wrong path. He knew, and he was using it against her.
He didn’t have any choice. Harmony Springs needed him. Harmony Springs needed American Discount. And if that reality cost Matt Dawson the only woman he’d ever loved, he’d find a way to live with that.
Because he still had his life. He hadn’t gone to Afghanistan. He wasn’t Jon.
And he’d pay whatever it cost to make up for that one unchangeable fact.
~~~
She blinked.
There was nothing Matt had said that she didn’t already know. She was a failure, in every traditional way that people counted. She hadn’t dared try college. She couldn’t stay with a job. She couldn’t stick with a romantic relationship to save her life.
Still, the Purr tingled at the back of her throat. This wasn’t over yet. She wouldn’t give up. She wouldn’t walk away, not without offering one final blow.
“No wonder Jon was in such a hurry to get out of Harmony Springs. It wasn’t Kaylie and the baby. It wasn’t even me. It was you. A lifetime spent with you and your selfish drive to win, no matter the cost. You skipped town for college, for baseball, and you never looked back. Jon was just doing the same thing. And it got him killed.”
She felt a flash of pride when she saw her words hit home. But Jon wasn’t her best weapon. She had one even better. “And now I understand why your father left, too.”
Pain. Raw, raking pain that made him hiss in a breath through clenched teeth, that folded his fingers into tight fists. She’d done that. She’d hurt him as much as he’d hurt her.
The Purr should have roared, but instead it whimpered. She reminded herself that Matt had given her permission. He’d taught her the words she needed, the day after Thanksgiving. The day after they’d first made love. “You said this isn’t personal, Matt. You said it’s just one of those things. But that’s a lie you tell yourself. That’s a story you create because you don’t want to hurt, because you don’t want to be responsible.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, but I do, Matt. You tell yourself the real world is like a baseball game, win, lose, without a moral dilemma in sight. But Harmony Springs isn’t a game. My mother’s career isn’t a game. And God knows, no matter how I’ve let you mess with my mind, I’m not a game either.” She took a shuddering breath, because she had to get these last words right. They were important. They were true. “The real world isn’t like a baseball game. In the real world, there’s right and wrong. It’s right to help your fellow man. It’s wrong to exploit a weakness.”
“That’s too simple and you know it! Your way isn’t working. You can’t save Harmony Springs with a great idea and a handful of flyers.”
She let her lips curl into a sad smile. “Thanks for that at least. It’s the first time you ever said Save Our Stores was a great idea.” She walked past him, ignoring the heat of his body. “Good luck, Matt. You’re going to need it. Because if Save Our Stores crashes and burns, I’ll still have my family. I’ll always have my friends. But if your American Discount goes belly-up, you’ll be left standing just like this. Alone.”
She shut the door behind her with more force than was necessary. But she kept herself from looking back. She kept herself from seeing the shattered pieces of her heart strewn across the library floor.
CHAPTER 21
Emily pushed away the bowl of chicken soup with homemade noodles. “I’m sorry, Mom.”
“Maybe you’d like something with a little more flavor? I have some tom yum soup in the freezer.”
Emily groaned. “Nothing Thai. I’ll never eat Thai again without thinking about how I brought Matt in here. How I set you up to ruin your career.”
Her mother made a rude noise. “It would take more than one aggressive businessman to ruin my career. Now, if he managed to destroy the entire year’s crop of gourds…”
Emily sighed. “Don’t say that anywhere he can hear. He’ll figure out a way to do it just to spite me.”
Mom shook her head and pushed back from the table. She dug around in the drawer beneath the telephone to find a massive black marking pen. She turned to the over-size calendar on the whiteboard beside the refrigerator and inked a giant X across Friday. She added one to the current day, to Saturday.
“What are those for?” Emily asked.
“I’m counting off the days you get to sulk.”
“Mom!”
“You saw him for what? Six weeks? I’ll give you six days to pout. But then it’s time to get your head on straight and figure out what you’re going to do with the rest of your life.”
“I know what I’m going to do. I’m going to stay at Harmony Skeins and sell yarn.”
Her mother gave her a skeptical look.
“What? It’s a good job. I can support myself. The apartment is perfect. Theresa will eventually sell me the store.”
“You’re bored to tears. You’ve been ready to move on for months. Don’t chicken out now.”
And that did bring tears to her eyes. It hurt that her mother knew her so well. Knew what made her afraid.
Mom sat back at the table. “I know he hurt you. And I know that terrifies you because you took a risk. But if you give up now, that’s when Matt will truly have destroyed something. I can find another gallery space. Harmony Springs can grapple with a discount store next to the town hall. But if you settle for a job that bores you, if you stay at Harmony Skeins because of an apartment then we’ll all have lost something special.”
Emily waited for the fizz of competition to ignite across the back of her throat, for the familiar Purr to replace the ache she felt beneath her breastbone. But despite her mother’s expectant glance, she came up with nothing.
“Four more days,” Mom said with equanimity.
Emily sniffed and climbed to her feet. “I love you, Mom.”
“Not as much as I love you. You know you’re my favorite.”
Emily laughed. “You say that to all your kids.”
Mom just hummed a little tuneless song. Emily hugged her hard and headed out to her car. Heavy clouds were low in the sky, hinting at snow before the day was over. She was ready to go home, to huddle on the couch with a comforter and a bag of Oreos. But then she saw the craft bag on the seat beside her.
“Damn!” Joyce Horton had phoned the store yesterday, asking if Emily could bring over a skein of tangerine-colored yarn. She’d nearly finished her cabled sweater; she only needed to add cuffs to the sleeves, but she wanted a little something that would make it pop.
It was unfair to make the poor woman wait, just because Emily was depressed. She put the car in gear and made it to Jefferson Manor as the first flakes of snow began to fall.
She found Joyce and Dolores in their customary corner of the sunroom. “There you are!” Joyce exclaimed, as if Emily had just returned from an epic journey. “We’ve missed you so much!”
“She was here last weekend,” Dolores said. Which was accurate, if a little unkind. But Dolores added, “Thank you for coming out in this weather.” Which was about as effusive as Dolores ever got.
“I brought yarn,” Emily said, passing a cake of bright orange to Joyce. “And this one’s for you, Miss Dolores.” Charcoal, so dark it was almost black.
“You wound it, dear!” Joyce exclaimed, as if the thoughtfulness was the best gift she’d ever received.
“Shouldn’t have bothered,” Dolores said. “I’ll only need twenty yards or so, for the cuffs.
Emily had picked up her own project bag as she headed out of her apartment. The first thing she’d grabbed was the qiviut; she was almost through with the warmest scarf she’d ever made. But just touching the yarn had made her think of Matt. She’d never finish the project now. She should frog the entire thing, rip out all the stitches. Find someone who would appreciate the valuable yarn and get it out of her life.
Instead, she’d grabbed her grey heather sweater. It was perfect for her current state of mind. The cables forced her to think about what she was doing, to concentrate just enough that she couldn’t let her mind wander back to the SOS meeting, back to the shouting match that had followed in the children’s reading room.
But in the winter light of the sunroom, Emily began to doubt her choice of yarn. The grey was gorgeous; there was no doubt about it. But it made her own pale hands look sickly. The yarn’s tiny tufts of blue and lavender only heightened the problem, emphasizing the fine veins in her wrists.
She should frog this too.
But what was she going to pick up then? She had over a dozen projects stashed in her closet, all in various stages of completion. Was she going to work her way from bag to bag, ripping out every last stitch she’d ever made?
She might as well stick with the sweater. The same way she’d stick with working at Harmony Skeins. She didn’t need any more disruption in her life. She didn’t want any more stress.
“So, dear,” Joyce said, after Emily had completed an entire row. “It sounds as if you had quite an interesting meeting at the library last week.”
“I heard that baseball player got a fast one over the plate.”
Emily looked at Dolores, surprised.
“What?” the old woman said. “I’ve watched a game or two in my time!”
“Of course you have,” Emily said. “And yes, the meeting was something of a surprise.”
“So what are you going to do, dear?” Joyce was placid as she worked her orange yarn into a stripe of blinding fuchsia.
“Do?” Emily asked, blinking hard to make her eyes focus on her own boring grey.
“You’re the president of your little association,” Dolores snapped. “People are going to expect leadership, not some lollygagging about!”
Emily didn’t bother taking offense. Being offended by Dolores Horton could be a full-time occupation. Instead, she said, “I don’t think anyone’s up for much right now. Sales will stay slow until spring. We’ll piece something together then.”
“Why that’s just poppycock!” Joyce shouted as she threw her knitting into her lap.
Emily was shocked. She’d never heard Joyce raise her voice before, not once in almost thirty years. “E—excuse me?”
“If you say business is slow and you don’t do a single thing to change that, then you’ll prove yourself right. I thought your valedictorian trophy meant you were smarter than that, Miss Emily Barton.”
“I—”
“Certainly you decided not to go to college. But your brains didn’t drip out of your head the day you picked up your high school diploma.”
“Miss Joyce—”
“And don’t you dare tell me no one else is up for a bit of hard work. There were twenty-five people who voted to put you in charge of Save Our Stores.”
