Forbidden Fling (Wildwood 1)

“I’m tired of talkin’. You stew for a while. Nothin’ penetrates that thick skull of yours until it marinates awhile.” Harlan pushed himself to his feet, grimacing. “I’m gonna nap a couple of hours, then get back to work.”

The screen door creaked open and snapped closed, and Ethan’s lungs decompressed in a whoosh.

“Well, hell.” He dropped back against one wide banister and squinted over the fields. “I can’t seem to do anything right no matter how hard I try.”

With Pops’s disappointment echoing in Ethan’s head, his drive back into town seemed to take forever. His mind bounced between wants, needs, obligations, and loyalties until he was dizzy.

By the time he walked into his office, he felt as if a hole had been burned straight through his gut. The thought of Delaney slipping away made him unsettled and edgy.

And when he stepped through the door to his office, Jodi said, “There you are. The phone has been ringing off the hook. Bossman, you know I’m all for slowing the schedule, but you’re killing me with these missed appointments—”

“Yeah, I know. I’m sorry.” He took the pile of messages she handed him. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll call them myself and reschedule. You can go early.”

“Wait—what?” she asked, confused. “Ethan . . .”

“See you tomorrow.” He escaped into his office and shut the door. He leaned back against it and closed his eyes on a sigh.

All he wanted to do was call Delaney. But then what? What would he say? He didn’t even know what he wanted. He was damn sure she didn’t want him anymore, and he didn’t blame her.

But after experiencing the feeling of being wanted by her, needed by her, the knowledge that he’d broken that fragile connection was like a knife in his gut.

“She wouldn’t stay anyway.” No matter what, Delaney was going to hit the road at the earliest opportunity. If her family and her age and her obstacles hadn’t stopped her ten years ago, a fling with him sure as hell wouldn’t stop her now. “My priorities are in the right place.”

He dragged himself to his desk and dropped into his chair, fanned out the messages, opened the schedule on his computer, and forced everything related to Delaney from his mind.

This job was still his fastest route to his own business. This job brought in the money he needed to fund the future. What the hell that future would hold now he had no damn idea. But without hope, he had nothing. So he picked up the phone on his desk and returned his first call.

Ethan was buried in paperwork, popping TUMS, when his name was bellowed through the front office, startling him out of his zone. Outside the night had closed in, and his windows were dark. He sat forward to stand just as his office door was flung open. His father stood in the doorway with a look Ethan had seen way too many times before. A look of self-righteous indignation and fury.

And Ethan didn’t need, want, or deserve this shit from his own father.

He grabbed his keys. “You caught me on my way out.”

“That bitch went over your head,” Jack said, blocking Ethan’s path. “You couldn’t even do you job well enough to control one goddamned woman in a man’s profession. She went to the city manager and demanded they bring in an outside inspector.”

Ethan’s anger started as a low simmer in his belly, but he knew how fast it could come to a boil with his father, so he focused on control. “You’ve underestimated her. She’s not someone who’s going to be scared away.”

Jack took a step closer, anger seething from his pores. “You’d better find a way to change that or I’ll find someone for this job who will.”

“No. You won’t. You don’t manage this position. You have no say over what the planner or the inspector does or doesn’t do. The only reason you’ve had any input is because I’ve bent over backward searching for ways to smooth the rift between us. But the more I do, the more you want and the worse it gets. It’s over, Dad. You need to back off.”

“I’m the mayor. I have say in everything that happens in this city. You work for me. And if I say you’re going to shut her down, you shut her down.”

“You’re delusional. I know you think you’re Lord God King Bufu around here, but there are these things called laws, Dad, and, yes, even you have to obey them.” Ethan was yelling, despite his attempt to hold his temper. “Delaney knows what she’s doing, and she’s beating you at your own goddamned game because she’s playing by all the rules, which gives her all the power. At the end of the day, what you say and what you want mean shit up against real laws. And the laws say she has every right to demand another investigator, because she knows I’m compromised by your influence.”

“The only thing you’re compromised by is your own pathetic weakness.” His father’s sneer had turned from angry to nasty. “Austin told me you’re fucking her. You’re a disgrace. She’s lower than those sluts you screw out of town.”

Ethan lunged for his father. He fisted Jack’s dress shirt and hauled him in, nose to nose. “Don’t ever—ever—talk like that about her again.” His voice was low, scratchy, and menacing, and Ethan was having a hard time finding air in his tight lungs. “Or I will plant my fist in your face until you need jaw surgery.”

He released Jack’s shirt with a hard shove, and his father stumbled back, hitting the office wall hard.

Ethan felt sick. Disgusted. With his father and himself.

He was done. Done with this conflict. Done with this stress. Done with this family.

Just done.

“Go find yourself a new whipping boy, Mayor. I quit.” He stepped toward the door.