“It wasn’t so monumental as all that,” she confessed. “I just had a crush on you.”
She popped a piece of fried okra in her mouth. A fetching side-grin followed, and he had never wanted to taste something more.
And that’s the moment Chase knew the mayor had left the building. The pasture, really. The confession that she had liked him over a decade ago delighted him more than it should, mostly because it meant she had laid down her guard. Sure, she had spent the better part of their meal making list after list inside her notebook—his wild ideas, her fiscally-conservative and snooze-inducing ideas, and ideas upon which they both agreed—but now, as talk of the sesquicentennial wound down and the sun slipped lower on the horizon, confessions seemed to be the order of the evening.
“So how does an Ivy League-bound valedictorian end up mayor of her hometown?” Chase asked.
She shrugged as if she genuinely didn’t know. Gretchen was the smartest person he had ever met. And he already knew she had an aversion to winging it.
“I knew I wanted to do law, and I interned at a bunch of firms—divorce, family, criminal. I guess I grew tired of the cyclical nature of it. Repeat offenders. Parents who hadn’t learned a single lesson. Marriages falling apart for all the same reasons. It was a little like treading in wet sand, never getting anywhere. I wanted to make a real difference, for the greatest number of people. So I set my sights on state attorney general. But first I have to prove that I can lead large numbers of people. Win over an electorate. Respect the office I hold. Turn things around.”
“Most politicians I’ve met are jaded.”
“It’s easy to slip into that mindset. The nature of government, by its sheer size and complexity, defaults to complacency. The path of least resistance. But if I remind myself, every day, that this isn’t a job, it’s a privilege, that people believed in me enough to exercise their inalienable right to vote for me, who wouldn’t feel special?”
“Sounds like a lot of pressure.”
“You must know something about pressure.”
“Not really. If I fail in the arena, no one to blame but me. Can’t even blame the animal. He’s reacting, what comes naturally. I’ve never considered anyone else. Not until this investment came along.”
At the mention of their point of division, the conversation stalled. Chase wanted to bite back his words, but he had already shoved her back into her mayoral role. Desperate times called for desperate measures. He brushed crumbs from his hands and vaulted down from the truck bed. Boots in the dirt, where he felt most stable.
“Time for you to try your hand at being a bull rider.” He pointed at the rusted, coil-spring “bull” inside a cluster of trees, which he had mastered at six. It didn’t have a proper saddle, just a weathered old bull rope.
“Ohhh, no. No-no-no-no.”
“Because that would be winging it.”
“You don’t understand. I’m the least coordinated person in Close Call. Maybe on Earth.”
“You walk on those stilts all day.” He nodded toward the sexy heels she had slipped off when she crawled into his truck bed. Nearly gave him a hard-on just looking at them there.
“I walked into the glass divider inside the library once,” said Gretchen.
“The barrel is completely safe. No broken bones. I promise.”
“I’m not exactly dressed to straddle that—that death trap over there.”
His most immediate, practical solution? Take off the skirt. That was also his second, third, and fourth solution.
“I have a pair of overalls behind the seat.”
“And where do you propose I change into said overalls?”
Chase shrugged. “Tint’s dark. I won’t see a thing.”
“Your tint is likely illegal. As is the decibel level of your muffler.”
“Do you ever stop being mayor?”
“No
.”
“Best stress relief you’ve ever had.”
“Yoga works fine for me.” Her voice was straight party line, convincing until she added, “And the occasional round of darts where I envision Dale Euclid’s nose as the bullseye.”