“My daughters mean the world to me. And everything you know about me because of my friendship with your father is off limits, got it?”
Hot as sin and a great dad. How much more perfect can he be?
“Don’t you want to get re-elected, Jeremiah? We need to distract the media from the shitstorm and showing that you’re a good family man does exactly that.”
Jeremiah’s eyes fell. He stared down at my desk, at nothing in particular. He didn’t answer me. I gave him a good two minutes, and he didn’t say a word.
Finally, he growled, “Please respect my wishes, Elle.” He straightened himself and turned on his heels.
My eyes fell to his ass even though I knew I should behave myself.
Yep, still as tight as ever.
The years hadn’t taken any sort of a negative toll on that man’s body.
He didn’t say anything more to me, just punctuated his point with a slamming of my office door. I stood at my desk for a moment, staring at the door. His scent lingered in the room, surrounding me like a familiar blanket.
I closed my eyes again, and this time, the memories came flooding through me.
“Come on, Elle. You’re making words up now,” Jeremiah barked. “Whizbang? Carl, get over here. Your daughter’s cheating again.”
I giggled. “Whizbang is a word! Look it up on that fancy smartphone of yours.”
The year was 2007, and the first iPhone had just come out. Jeremiah had never been excited about the latest gadgets, but he was the owner of a big, fancy construction company. His contractors and insisted the phone would replace his laptop for work. He didn’t even use the damn thing; it stayed in his pocket most of the time.
He nodded and pulled it out. “Alright, I’ll do that.”
“For the record, it’s an adjective that means lively or sensational. It was also used during World War II. A small caliber, high velocity shell.”
I watched as his eyes nearly popped from his skull. “How did you know that?”
I shrugged and took a sip from my lemonade and gave him a flirtatious blink. I was sixteen years old, still in high school, and I loved educating the older man. Especially since Jeremiah was smart - super smart. He had an engineering background, so math and science were more his forte.
Still, I loved impressing him with my vocabulary, and often learned new words just so I could have moments like this.
If only I had the words to articulate how I felt about him.
A knock on the door pulled me from the reverie.
“Yes?” I muttered, secretly hoping it was Jeremiah. I wanted nothing more than for him to come back into my office and tell me how happy he was to see me back in Liberty. To tell me he missed me and was so grateful for what I’d done.
But it wasn’t Jeremiah. My assistant editor, Lucy, stood in the open doorway. “Is everything okay in here?”
“Yeah, everything’s fine.” I sat down at my desk, my gaze falling on the paper Jeremiah had left behind.
My pride and joy, my entire life’s work, was wrapped up in that paper. As the owner and editor of theLiberty Leader, it was my responsibility to bring the news to the people. It has always been my dream - maybe not so much in Liberty, but I aged, I felt compelled to return to my roots.
This was where I was happiest in life and I wanted to return to that.
Especially after losing my dad.
Lucy took a seat across from me and saw the paper. Her face scrunched up as she read the headline and the first few lines. “What was he upset about? I don’t get it.”
A sigh escaped my lips. “It’s a long story, Lucy. A very long story.”
This newspaper was everything I had worked for. My dream. I should be happy; I had everything I needed. Yet something was still missing.
“Well, if it’s any consolation, my mama always said that if someone doesn’t like what people say about them, maybe they should be a better person.”