Flustered, she cleared her throat, smoothing back flyaway strands of hair. His fingers itched to do it for her, and that sealed it—he was going to hell. He could not keep thinking of another man’s fiancée this way. His mind refused to forget the feel of her in his arms, and none of that was helping calm down the physical reaction still unfolding.
“You’re okay,” he muttered to her. Which made one of them. “You can go ahead.”
“Thanks,” she said under her breath. “That was almost a disaster.”
No almost about it. It had been a disaster of the highest order, now that his brain had come unplugged. How was he supposed to make a campaign speech when all he could think about was how much he wished he could continue that embrace someplace more private?
“Hi, everyone,” she began, her voice clear because obviously she wasn’t affected by a small thing like a man she didn’t like very much keeping her off the ground. That was all there was to it, after all. He should keep that in mind.
“You all know Caleb Hardy is an American hero,” she continued. “A Navy veteran to whom we owe a great deal of gratitude. And you see he’s not afraid to lend a helping hand, even to his opponent.”
All of that sounded suspiciously complimentary. What was she doing? She wasn’t supposed to be talking him up. But since he could easily segue her comments into his master plan anyway, he was all over that. “Just taking a lesson from Ms. Nixon here. At our first meeting, she jumped into a major fracas to help me with no thought to her own personal safety. That’s someone you want in your corner when push comes to shove.”
Now he’d gotten her good and confused, judging by the way her smile slipped. She glanced at him and then back at the crowd, all of whom were watching this show with rapt fascination. And why wouldn’t they? Not only was it the first mayor’s race in Superstition Springs’ history, it had already jumped straight past conventional into… something else.
“Um, you’re welcome,” she said, but the last syllable rose at the end like it was almost a question instead of a statement. “Anyone would do the same.”
“But you genuinely cared about reaching out to assist a stranger. You have a heart for helping people. That’s why you’ll make a good mayor.”
“Right. I would,” she said faintly. “You would too. Probably.”
“No. That’s where we have to disagree,” he cut in with a sage nod at the crowd. “I’m a newcomer. I couldn’t possibly make the right decisions for a town I didn’t grow up in. You have family here. History.”
His throat got a little tight as he spoke. Every word was true. He didn’t really belong here, not yet. All he wanted was a chance to earn his place, to be able to say that about himself one day—that he had family here, roots, history.
She stared at him for a long moment, clearly speechless, so he shrugged away the sudden bout of melancholy and went for broke. Nothing like a clear, hard sell. “You’ll look out for everyone as well as you did for me when I faced adversity.”
“It was a pig,” Havana mumbled and lifted her hair from her shoulders, then put it back in exactly the same place as if she couldn’t figure out what to do with her hands.
Serenity had grown increasingly agitated the longer this went on, shifting back and forth from one foot to the other until she’d finally had enough, apparently. Jumping onto the small stage, she cut them both off with a nervous laugh.
“So, I have it on good authority that Caleb cares about this town’s history too,” Serenity told everyone.
“Yeah,” Lennie Ford tossed in before Caleb could say a word. “I like what I heard about keeping the buildings and trying to get more folks to open shops in the original town. Talk more about that.”
This was not going as planned. He should have had a talk with Serenity, obviously. Havana wasn’t her enemy, and frankly, he was a little cross that her own aunt had taken sides against her.
“I, um…” It wasn’t his turn, but Havana nodded graciously, lifting a hand in his direction to indicate he should go ahead. Dang it if she didn’t have more class than all the women he’d known in California. “It seems to me that all of you bring something unique to the table. We should honor that. Just like Havana brings unique skills to the table that I don’t have. We can all work together instead of being at odds.”
“You may not have grown up here, but neither did I,” Mavis J called out, earning nods and murmurs from some of the other old-timers. “I came here in the eighties because I wanted to find like-minded people. Folks who cared about the same things I did, who had music and art in their veins. This place speaks to the soul. You feel it too, or you wouldn’t have been talking about embracing our culture. You are one of us.”
That caught him in the gut sideways. The sharp ache mellowed almost instantly into the kind of longing he’d always suppressed well enough to ignore. Not this time. It all surged to the forefront. Superstition Springs wasn’t where he’d expected to end up, nor had any of these people invited him, but he’d found something special nonetheless. And he wanted to embrace it.
Eleven
After that catastrophe of a campaign speech, Havana wanted to crawl in bed. But Damian walked her back to the hotel and for some reason didn’t dash off like he usually did. Instead, he followed her inside, his expression unreadable.
He probably felt sorry for her and wanted to be sure she wasn’t going to fall apart after essentially being told Caleb belonged here and she didn’t. It was fine. Old news. Definitely nothing to cry over. At least not in front of anyone.
“Well, I’m sure you have calls or something,” she said with false brightness, pausing inside the door. When she turned to say goodbye, he was a lot closer than she’d anticipated, and her arms brushed his chest. “Oh, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Damian murmured. “Are you okay? Do you need anything?”
He was such a sweet man, more concerned about her than the shopping center that slipped further and further away the longer she couldn’t get her act together. She smiled up at him and shook her head. “I’ll figure something out. Don’t give up on me.”
“I won’t.” His gaze roved over her face, and that’s when she caught a glint in his eyes that she’d never seen before. “I have to admit, I think you’re really brave, taking on the entire town in the name of this project. You were pretty great.”
“Oh.” Rattled, she shook her head and took a step back from his earnest praise. “No, I was a flop.”