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He turned to Tag. “Campaigning will have to begin immediately, I’m afraid. We’ve got a lot to do in a very short time. If you agree to commit to this, I’d like you both to fly to Juneau next weekend so we can get the ball rolling. Randall and I have ideas about hiring your staff. My assistant, Maura, is looking at some potential campaign managers. There’s a dinner Friday night that I’d like you to attend—lots of potential donors and numerous important people to introduce you to.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
TAG KNEW HE needed to talk to Ally.
He’d half-expected to hear from her the day after the party. Normally, he took Sundays off—well, off in the sense that he used the day to catch up on his personal to-do list, which usually included household chores, before meeting his parents and siblings at church. And he rarely missed Sunday dinner with his family.
Yesterday, he’d taken the opportunity to announce the new campaign plans to them. Not surprisingly, they’d been enthusiastic and supportive, if slightly concerned about timing and logistics. Tag had a few reservations about those, too, but hopefully the trip to Juneau the following weekend would allay many of them.
No word from Ally all day Monday, either. Not one to leave matters unresolved in any aspect of his life, Tag decided to drop by her cottage that evening after work. He knew the owner, Kenny Bitzle, a retired commercial fisherman who now lived in the lower forty-eight and rented the place out. It was an excellent location, within easy walking distance of the hospital and Rankins’s small cluster of businesses generally referred to as “downtown.”
After meeting his friend and fellow pilot Cricket Blackburn for an early dinner and a game of darts at the Cozy Caribou, he decided to walk to Ally’s.
He tried to ignore the eager hammering of his pulse as he neared the house. Surely they could remain friends after they talked this through. It had just been a kiss. Several, technically, maybe? There had been a lot of lip contact in a short span of time, but regardless, after analyzing the situation, she was probably regretting the whole thing as much as he was.
As he stepped into the street to cross, a car turned the corner. Waving at Mrs. Keller behind the wheel, he waited for her to pass. Back on track, he started to move again but immediately froze because there was a guy standing on Ally’s porch. His back was to Tag, but even from this distance he could see Ally smiling. A burning sensation flared inside him. Was this why she hadn’t called? Was she seeing someone else? Not that she was seeing him, but…
The guy took a few steps backward, and the movement immediately struck him as familiar. Confusion, anger and finally disbelief tumbled through him as he watched his teenaged cousin pivot, basketball in hand, and saunter down the steps in that easy, loose-limbed way Gareth had of moving.
Tag instantly recognized his deep voice calling out, “Thanks, Ally. I’ll see you Thursday.” The thudding sound of a ball bouncing, one, two, three times, rang in the air before Gareth climbed into the vehicle, his mom’s SUV, and drove off down the street.
Tag considered walking away, but Ally had spotted him. Waving, she motioned him over, and he found himself plodding toward her, his legs heavy and weak.
“Tag, hi.” Her voice was cocoa warm and just as sweet, and if she felt awkward about anything it didn’t show.
A sharp pain in his jaw alerted him to the fact that he was clenching his teeth. He tried to relax, but it was difficult with a million questions piercing his brain. Gareth had just turned eighteen, old enough to date a woman in her early twenties. Had she kissed him, too? Was Tag even now being compared to his teenaged cousin? Dating an older woman would be a sign of prestige for Gareth, whereas Tag would be viewed as a walking midlife crisis. But he wasn’t middle-aged yet, was he? It was slightly depressing that he even had to wonder.
“What are you doing? I was just thinking about you.”
Brown eyes shining with what looked like happiness matched her smile, and despite his cartwheeling emotions, his heart climbed into his throat. She always looked so…together and unaffected. Why was that, when he was the older one? Wasn’t that supposed to make him wiser? More evolved? Okay, maybe not that last one, seeing how jealousy was stewing hotly within him at the moment.
