The lone streetlight shone from down the block near Ruby’s, and the moon hadn’t risen yet, so it was hard to make out her expression. The sincerity in her voice couldn’t be mistaken though.
That hooked him in a place deep inside. She’d lost the election and probably her shopping center, yet she’d sought him out to tell him congratulations. What kind of woman was this?
One he wished he knew better.
Since she seemed a little skittish and unsure about her welcome, he crossed to her so they could at least be within shouting distance. Or even closer than that. The moment he halted, her perfume invaded the space around him, winding up his senses for something far more intimate than shouting.
“Thanks,” he murmured back. “Why are we whispering?”
“Because… I don’t know. It’s dark. And I feel like I’m disturbing you,” she responded at precisely the same low decibel level, forcing him to get even closer to hear her.
Which worked for him on several levels. “You disturb me all right.”
It wasn’t so dark that he couldn’t see the brief lift of her lips. “I get that a lot.”
He would just bet she did. A woman as beautiful as Havana probably went around disturbing men on a visceral level twice a week. The double whammy of the weight of his new title and Havana’s heavy presence threatened to push him to his knees, but he stayed on his feet through sheer will.
“Do we need to talk about the shopping center?”
Good. Subject change. He could keep it together.
She shrugged. “Not much to talk about. You’re going forward with your new age town. That means it’s over and I’ve lost. I still have to talk to Damian about how this is going to go over with his investors. It could mean that we have to pull up stakes permanently and find another spot for the resort.”
Yeah, he’d expected her to say that.
“You know that’s going to greatly affect what the folks do here with this downtown area. Right? If there’s no resort, there’s no captive audience and not much reason to do anything fancy to these buildings. I don’t think we can conceive of anything catchy enough to pull people from Austin otherwise.”
“I disagree.” This time he heard the smile in her voice. “You’ll figure it out. They elected you because they can see greatness in you. You won’t disappoint them.”
He had to laugh at that, though it came out choppy and not very amused. “Their loyalty is misplaced.”
“I don’t think so. You have this ability to influence people. It’s kind of mindboggling to watch, actually. I’m a little jealous.”
Her voice wound through him, more than a little bit affecting for lots of reasons but mostly because her admiration struck something inside. “I don’t do anything special.”
“You don’t have to. It’s part of your charm. You talk and people listen, ready to follow you because they’ve already decided you’re an authority figure. Your friends came with you to Superstition Springs, didn’t they? I don’t think that was an accident.”
It wasn’t. But he didn’t recognize himself at all in her descr
iption. Maybe she’d gotten him confused with a commanding officer or a platoon leader—you followed them no matter what because that was the drill. Caleb wasn’t the hero figure she’d been trying to paint him as. “My guys are tight. They’d have followed any one of us.”
“But they didn’t. They followed you,” she reminded him gently with a light laugh. “Why am I the one giving you the pep talk?”
A smile spread across his face. “I was wondering the same thing. Maybe because you know this is messed up. You should have won.”
“No.” She was so matter-of-fact that he didn’t immediately jump into an argument about it. “This is reality. I don’t have the ability to influence like you do. I have to fight my way through any situation.”
“That’s because you try too hard to control everything,” he said without thinking how that might come across and then shrugged. “In the spirit of this conversation, I’m just being honest. It’s like you immediately expect everyone to do what you want without taking time to step back long enough to figure out how to earn people’s allegiance.”
“Is that what you do?” she asked quietly.
“What? No.”
Well, maybe he did. Maybe that was why he got so choked up when his team rallied around him, because what they’d all been through together mattered. He didn’t trade on that but instead considered their experiences as a cohesive mechanism. He’d certainly never thought of how he interacted with his guys as earning his place at their head.
But if she was right, it was a good way to think about how to lead a town. Instead of having all the answers right away, he’d take a step back. Figure out how to earn the loyalty they’d already shown him.
“I don’t know,” he amended. “Yeah. I guess I do try hard to figure out where people fit best, how to help them hone their skills. Think about the greater good and always do the right thing. Same as anyone would.”